Reply #47: Wait a second. THE WAR was a terrible injustice to every- [View All]

[Colorado Blue]

body involved. The creation of Israel wasn't an injustice! I don't know why that in and of itself is seen as unjust. Nobody gave Israel a chance! They were right away, convinced that it was evil and tried to wipe it off the map. Wasn't THAT unjust?

What was unjust and IS unjust, is the fact that people were dragged into a violent, brutal war. The UN partition called for the creation of an Arab state as well as Israel. What happened to it? I'll tell you what happened: it was absorbed by Jordan, which in fact IS the eastern 78% of the Palestine Mandate. No "Palestine" was ever created and when the chance was once again looking very strong for peace and for the Palestinian state, Arafat turned it down and a war, the intifada - which reputable journalists say was planned - broke out instead.

I do believe that solutions can be found but they must involve many parties and that especially includes the immediate neighbors of Israel, already home to 4.5 million people, descendants of the original refugees, who are a stone's throw from Israel, yet can't call those places home, and who haven't been allowed to make new lives for themselves.

Creating millions of new victims by trying to get rid of Israel, is unjust. It won't undo past tragedies.

I believe that constantly informing the world that the creation of Israel was unjust or a mistake, is wrong. It is fueling a conflict that diplomacy and the language of forgiveness and reconciliation, could heal. And, it's demonizing an already tiny minority - 0.02% of the world's population - and threatening once again to overwhelm us in a tsunami of antisemitism, to borrow the term from the British rabbi.

If you think that isn't a fact, think again. If you think THAT isn't unjust - think again.

Make no mistake - I empathise with the Palestinian people more than you might know. I am a Jew. My people have been expelled from their homes, victimized, scorned and persecuted for thousands of years. The situation of the Palestinian refugees has upset me since I was a child.

Most recently, 8,000 Jews lost their homes in the cause of peace. They were forced from their homes in Gaza. Before that, people lost their homes in the Sinai, when that was returned to Egypt. Before that, people lost their homes on the West Bank and throughout the Middle East, after the war of 1948.

Many of the Gaza evictees aren't doing so well. They are suffering from depression, from a loss of their livelihoods, from farms and greenhouses and businesses they'd created. Do you think we don't understand the Palestinians? We do.

What I don't understand are "progressives" who think creating new victims is a just solution to former injustices, or who believe that no injustices were committed by Palestinians, or who don't see the ethnic cleansing of the entire Middle East when they speak of the Palestinian catastrophe.

In this regard I most especially speak of people who blindly insist that Israel's borders, in 2006, should reflect those that existed, several wars ago, in 1949. This also includes the "right of return". 4.5 million people can't FIT into a state that is smaller than Lake Erie and has no natural resources, and is already suffering from its problems with poverty as it tries to maximize its very poor land - more than half of which is the moonscape of the Negev. And, that would of course nullify the existence of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.

Insisting on THIS solution is reactionary, it is anything but progressive, and once again it will lead to more victims and more violence.

I do believe, though, that a combination of Jordanian and West Bank resources, with some sort of link to Gaza, could well work as a viable Palestinian state, though it would probably make more sense to federate with Jordan itself. Jordan is 70% Palestinian as it is. A solution can be worked out in Jerusalem, but only in an atmostphere of security and peace.

In regard to Gaza, many Gazans have relatives, family, in Egypt. Why can't they be given the option to become Egyptian? I think it makes perfect sense, yet it is considered sacreligious to suggest such a thing. The Egyptian government limits immigration of Palestinians in order to "preserve the Palestinian identity". Yet, no borders, no modern states as we see them today, existed in the not so distant days of the Ottoman Empire.

Is insisting on this national identity more important that seeing Palestinians lead peaceful, safe and productive lives? After all I am a member of "Israel" in the sense of Israel the people, but am a proud citizen of America. What about the policy of maintaining the Palestinian identity while making the Palestinians miserable, is progressive or even makes a smidgeon of sense? Can you answer me?

In any case it is absolutely critical to compensate the people who are still living in camps and get them on their feet. It is critical that the Jews who lost their homes and livelihoods after 1948 also be compensated and THEIR losses recognized and respected as well. That is more important than trying to return to the world that existed before 1948, or to endlessly punish Israel for existing.

I have NEVER called people who defend the rights of Palestinians "loony". I do believe many who attack Israel are antisemitic and am unapologetic about that. Endless attacks on a tiny state, the only homeland in the world of a tiny and obviously threatened minority, are defacto biased against that state and those people. I don't see how a thoughtful person can deny that.

In the end, progressive politics must evolve, they cannot be imposed, and they can only emanate from a concensus, from a center. They can't be enforced from the wings or from radical points of view or with bombs.

And I absolutely will reiterate what I've stated above, in my previous post, and add a final note: the world needs people who can fight the really enormous battles that threaten entire continents. The world needs people who can look the AIDS epidemic the eye, who can confront the horrors in Uganda and Sudan, who aren't afraid to think about famine, environmental catastrophe and economic disaster, about nuclear war, and fight to create sane and balanced policies to combat those horrors before they spread.

Will you join me?