Reading for extra credit UPDATE
The last few dotCommonweal posts on the Middle East, specifically the rain of missiles from and to Gaza and Israel, have underlined the degree to which many Americans support Israel and have little or no sympathy for the Palestinians in Gaza. Media coverage has fostered this view, unbalanced some would say. Thus, among the more interesting media commentary following the recent truce are pieces that break with that unbalanced treatment. Here are some of them:
Stephen Walt: “Why Americans Don’t Understand the Middle East.”
The Ombudsman of the Washington Post: “Photo of dead baby in Gaza holds part of the ‘truth.’”
The London Review of Books: “Why Israel Didn’t Win.”
Monday, 8:40 AM: This just in: Support Palestinian Statehood by Yossi Beilin, an architect of the Oslo Accords, who has served as Israel’s deputy foreign minister and minister of justice.
The comments are turned off to encourage reading of these articles; perhaps in a day or two I will turn it on.
Update: As hinted, comments on.
Margaret: You seem to think that if pro-Israel people would only take their anti-Israel medicine, we would be cured of our pro-Israel malady. But maybe its the other way around. Maybe if you would take more into account all the facts that speak for Israel and against the Palestinians, you would come around to a more favorable view of Israel.
Stephen Walt and you complain of a pro-Israel bias in the media, but bias is in the eye of the beholder, I guess, because there is a pro-Israel site, Camera, whose mission is to expose and confront the anti-Israel bias in the media. Stephen Walt complains of the New York Times, but here are recent headlines in Camera that complain of the Times’ coverage of the Gaza conflict: “The New York Times Still Spinning the News” (11/17); “The New York Times Evades the Facts to Blame Israel” (11/15); and “Netanyahu Derangement Syndrome in the Media” (11/20). You can see for yourself at http://www.camera.org.
The article in the Washington Post invokes again the disproportionate number of Gazan casualties, a topic that we covered exhuastively in your comment, “In Case You’re Confused.” You’ve admited that Israel was not targeting civilians. You’ve not disputed that Hamas stores its rockets in built-up civilian areas and fires its rockets from there, all the while hiding in tunnels beneath the city so that the civilian population and not the Hamas soldiers are exposed to Israeli return fire. And you have not denied that Hamas’ actions are war crimes. I have been explicit in saying that Israel is justified in defending itself notwithstanding the inevitable civilian casualties and I have stated that it sounds to me as though you believe that 1,000,000 Israelis in southern Israel should just learn to live with all the rocket fire if fighting back results in disproportionate civilian casualties. And you did not deny that my supposition was accurate. But since you keep raising this issue, I would appreciate it if you would just be explicit about your position whatever it is.
The London Review of Books has an extreme anti-Israel stance. In the article to which you linked the last sentence of the first paragraph, referring to the ceasefire, reads: “None of the core issues of the Israel-Palestine conflict – the Occupation, borders, water rights, repatriation and compensation of refugees – is addressed by this agreement.” I hope you noticed something peculiar about this formulation of the core issues. It is a Palestinian wish list that deliberately omits all the issues that are core to Israel!!! Isn’t Arab recognition of Israel a core issue? How about normalization of relations with Israel? How about security arrangements going forward so that a peace treaty is not just a piece of paper that gives Israel no real peace and no real secuirty? How about compensation for all the Jewish refugees from
Arab countires?
This is symptomatic of the London Review of Books and its ilk for whom Israel does not even exist (which I believe is its fondest wish) except as a grotesque caricature of utter evil. I couldn’t make it past the first paragraph.
Jeff,
Thank you for the http://www.camera.org link, a refreshing counterpoint to the thread’s reading list.
I find Near Eastern scholar Bernard Lewis gets to the core issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially his question: “What is the conflict about?” There are basically two possibilities: that it is about the size of Israel, or about its existence…
PLO and other Palestinian spokesmen have, from time to time, given formal indications of recognition of Israel in their diplomatic discourse in foreign languages. But that’s not the message delivered at home in Arabic, in everything from primary school textbooks to political speeches and religious sermons.
Here the terms used in Arabic denote, not the end of hostilities, but an armistice or truce, until such time that the war against Israel can be resumed with better prospects for success. Without genuine acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State, as the more than 20 members of the Arab League exist as Arab States, or the much larger number of members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference exist as Islamic states, peace cannot be negotiated.
A good example of how this problem affects negotiation is the much-discussed refugee question. During the fighting in 1947-1948, about three-fourths of a million Arabs fled or were driven (both are true in different places) from Israel and found refuge in the neighboring Arab countries. In the same period and after, a slightly greater number of Jews fled or were driven from Arab countries, first from the Arab-controlled part of mandatory Palestine (where not a single Jew was permitted to remain), then from the Arab countries where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries, or in some places for millennia. Most Jewish refugees found their way to Israel.”
I believe it is Palestinians who have simply not ever truly accepted Israel’s right to exist. Very effective PR trades on the miseries of their countrymen (terrorists hide in tunnels, use civilians as cover) while promoting the victim stance to maximum effect.
Israel must vacate Gaza, as in 2007; then things will improve. Instead rocket fire becomes the norm, and Israel is supposed to do what? Just accept it? Iran is the eminence grise in the background, supplying Hamas with rockets, fomenting proxy wars to its benefit of gaining power in the region and in Syria.
From what I see in the online news, there seems to be an anti-Israeli bias, especially in the news sources from the UK and Europe.
Crysal Watson is undoubtedly correct when she says that coverage is particularly bad in the UK and Europe.
And I want to emphasize a point made by Carolyn Disco in her comment. Palestinians and their supporters say that the issues are the settlements and the occupation. If those ended, there would be peace. Yet, when they do end in Gaza just the opposite happens.
What I don’t understand is why, if these and not the existence of Israel, are the issues, Gaza didn’t say to itself upon the removal of settlements and the end of occupation something like this, “All right, Israel has done the two biggest things we demanded of it. It did so without getting what it has always demanded in return — recognition and peace. Gaza is now going to show Israel that it will get a more peaceful neighbor when it ends occupation and settlements. For the next year, we are going to live in peace with Israel. Then we will ask Israel to do more things that we want of it, and if it does, Israel will get even more peace and more normalization of relations.”
And what makes Israelis and those who support it very angry is that those who tend to support the Palestinians don’t hold Gaza accountable for becoming more warlike instead of more peaceful. Its as though nothing is expected of them and their feet are never held to the fire. Why is this?
My question has always been about the establishment of Israel as a state. Is its claim purely Biblical or does its claim to that land, or at least some of it, pre-date the modern establishment of what we now call “Israel”?
I must confess that I am prejudiced somewhat in favor of the Palestinians. When in grad school one of my room-mates invited a young Palestinian to dinner and he talked for hours about how the problem was not the relationship between the native Palestinians and native Jews, but between the English Zionists an the Palestinians. He sounded convincing about that, but I’m sure his presentation to us was only part of the story. Yet he didn’t sound like a rabid young politician, much less a potential terrorist.
So where was the first injustice?
Ann Olivier: Leaving aside any religious or Biblical claim to Israel, as a matter of historical fact, Israel is the ancestoral home of the Jews. Jews always maintained a presence there, even after the Romans expelled us some 2000 years ago. Through 2000 years of travails mainly in Europe and the Middle East, there always remained in the hearts of the Jewish people the hope and the yearning that one day we would be able to return. This is attested to in our literature, our liturgy and many other sources.
Zionism is the modern name given to the national aspiration of the Jews to return to their ancestral home and reestablish there the nation that was once ours. The modern Zionist movement began in the late 1800s in response to the increasing anti-Semitism in Europe. Zionists proposed that Jews should immigrate to Palestine, purchase land and farm it with the eventual aim that our numbers would be such that we could establish our nation anew.
In a comment in another post, I tried to make the case that the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948 was not a wrong done to the Palestinians. Perhaps the simplest thing would be for me to reproduce it here. Of necessity, it omits much detail, but it covers the essentials. If you have additional questions after reading it, please ask them. I will be happy to try and answer them and Ms. Steinfels and others may wish to respond as well. Here it is, with a few additions to improve the clarity:
It must be admitted, because it is true, that although Jews always maintained a presence in Palestine, as of 1880, they were a small percentage of the population. The modern wave of Zionist immigration began in the 1880s when Russian Jews began trekking to Palestine to escape czarist discrimination and persecution. Right up until the founding of Israel in 1948, the Jews who settled in Israel did not obtain the land they lived and worked on through theft or murder or other improper means. Instead, they obtained it the old fashioned way. They bought it from willing sellers in arms length transactions for prices that were at least fair and often exorbitant. They would have acquired even more land had they had the money. There was no lack of willing sellers.
Even so, there were only 125,000 Jews in Israel as of 1930. During the next seven years, 250,000 additional Jews immigrated to Palestine. We all know why this flood of immigrants occurred. Jews were trying to get out of Europe. Then, in 1937, at Arab insistence, Great Britain banned almost all additonal Jewish emigration. With the closing of this door to Palestine, the last refuge of escape from Europe disappeared. I need not dwell on the fate of those who were doomed to remain, but the leader of the Palestinians, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, spent the war years in Berlin, urging Hitler to kill the Jews even faster than he was.
After WWI and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (of which Palestine was a part), the League of Nations (the predecessor to the U.N.) gave Great Britain the mandate for the governance of Palestine. In 1937, Great Britain’s Peel commission recommended a two state solution to the issue of Jewish and Arab claims on the land. In it, the majority of the land was to go to the Arabs and the Jews were to get canton-like enclaves. Jerusalem was to become an international city. The Jews agreed to sit down with the Arabs and try to negotiate a solution. The Arabs refused, taking the position that there would never be any Jewish state of any extent in Palestine.
On November 29, 1947, the U.N. voted by a two-thirds majority to recommend a two state solution. The Jews were to get more land than the Peel Commission recommended because Jewish numbers had increased greatly with Holocaust survivors and, admittedly, there was great sympathy for the Jews because of the Holocaust. Even so, if the Negev is excluded, the Arabs got somewhat more land than the Jews (or so it seems to me, eyeballing the map of the proposed division). Jerusalem was to remain under British mandate. The Jews accepted the U.N.’s recommendation and the Arabs rejected it, again taking the position that there would never be any Jewish state established in any part of Palestine. The War for Independence began the day after the U.N. vote, when Arab snipers began killing Jewish civilians on buses outside Tel Aviv.
Pursuant to Great Britain’s request, the U.N. relieved it of the mandate effective at midnight of May 14, 1948. The war between the Jews and the Palestinians raged even as the mandate wound down. Mainly, but not entirely, the British stood aside as the war was waged. On the day the mandate was to end, May 14, 1948, the provisional government of Israel proclaimed the founding of the state of Israel. The next day, Arab armies from surrounding countries invaded to kill the baby in her crib. Thus, the Jews battled both the native Palestinians and the armies of these Arab countries to survive. And Israel did survive. The Arabs agreed to a truce in 1949 and the armistice lines became the borders of Israel. As of the truce, two areas of Palestine were under Arab control, Gaza and the West Bank. Egypt incorporated Gaza into Egypt and Jordan incorporated the West Bank into Jordan. All this changed in a subsequent war in 1967, but I won’t go into all that now.
Although Israel was established primarily by European Jews, it was founded to be a haven for any Jew in trouble. And as soon as Israel finished with the job of rescuing Holocaust survivors, it turned toward those Jews next most endangered – the Jews of the Arab world and of Iran. Over 1,000 Jews in Arab countries were murdered in the late 1940s and the entire Jewish population, over 800,000 people, was at risk. Over the next 20 years, Israel rescued the Jewish population from these countries. There are probably not 25,000 Jews left in the Arab world today. Many of these Jews lost everything they had because they were not permitted to sell their homes or valuables or to take anything with them. The price of exit was forfeiture. And no permanent U.N. commission was set up to pay them hundreds of millions of dollars each year, as was done with respect to Palestinian refugees. They had to make it on their own. And they did, too.
But this is not the whole story. For a thousand years and more, these Jewish populations lived in the apartheid world of the Arabs. At most times and in most places they were officially second-class citizens, living under specific legal disabilities, having to pay special taxes and having to make the personal obeisances that accompany inferior status. Against this background of apartheid, there were times of relative leniency when the Jewish community could flourish, but these alternated with periods of real repression, including outbreaks of mass murder, forced conversion, expropriation of property and more. And when things went south, the Jews were powerless to prevent it. During Ottoman rule, things were better, but even here the record was very spotty. And the Arabs deeply resented any attempt by the Ottomans to elevate the Jews to equal status. As Ottoman power declined, the old ways began to reassert themselves. The 1800s and 1900s were not periods when things were getting better and better, but instead they were getting worse. You can find exceptions, but this was the general trend.
It is not generally known, but these Middle Eastern Jews (or their children or grandchildren) constitute a large percentage of Israel’s Jewish population. I would estimate somewhere between 40-50 percent. For these Jews, and objectively, Israel is a liberation movement from Arab-on-Jew apartheid and prejudice.
And these Jews, after all, were returning to their ancestral homeland. Where is it written that the only just solution to this conflict is for the Arabs to have 100% of the land in the Middle East and that for the Jews to have one-half of one percent of the land is a crime against the Arabs?
Jwff said:
And what makes Israelis and those who support it very angry is that those who tend to support the Palestinians don’t hold Gaza accountable for becoming more warlike instead of more peaceful. Its as though nothing is expected of them and their feet are never held to the fire. Why is this?
and
On November 29, 1947, the U.N. voted by a two-thirds majority to recommend a two state solution. The Jews were to get more land than the Peel Commission recommended because Jewish numbers had increased greatly with Holocaust survivors and, admittedly, there was great sympathy for the Jews because of the Holocaust. Even so, if the Negev is excluded, the Arabs got somewhat more land than the Jews (or so it seems to me, eyeballing the map of the proposed division). Jerusalem was to remain under British mandate. The Jews accepted the U.N.’s recommendation and the Arabs rejected it, again taking the position that there would never be any Jewish state established in any part of Palestine
Jeff, I want to tell you how grateful I (for one) am for your kind and true words about Israel. I have never understood the cloistered antipathy expressed by commonweal Catholics. The only theory I can come up with is that, in general, the Left can usually always be counted on to take the Palestinian side, no matter what. And commonweal is committed to the Left.
I’m a Lefty and on practically all issues can be counted on to support the liberal pov. A few years ago I knew very little about the Middle East and the situation there and I was by default on the side of the Palestinians as they seemed so outmatched.
Then I began reading a series of novels picked up at the library by chance about an Israeli art restorer/agent. For the first time I got a glimpse of things from the other point of view and that led me to read non-fiction on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict too. That, combined with what I already knew of the treatment of the Jews in the middle ages and in WWII, pretty much flipped my way of looking at things. What also helped was becoming acquainted with a fellow blogger, an Israeli, and learning more about the region from the posts (all non-political).
So not all those on the Left feel the same on this or really any issue.
Jeff, how does your theory account for the continued Israeli expropriation of land on the West Bank in the form of illegal settlements?
Bob Schwarz: I agree with your analysis. Those on the left would tend to regard Israel as a first-world country in conflict with the third-world Palestinians and in such a conflict, the first world would be the evildoer and the third world the victim. They would regard Israel as a Western civilization (which it is) and in a conflict between the West and the rest, the West would be the imperialist aggressor. And so on.
Every conflict must be judged on its own merit, but being a person whose politics are liberal to left, I certainly understand the Left’s default sympathies. But the situation of Israel and the Jews is sui generis. In first-world Europe, we were third-world people. We were never accepted. Always discriminated against. Frequently persecuted. Occasionally murdered. And finally annihilated. And most Jews were from eastern Europe, especially Poland and Russia. And most of them were peasants.
And in the third-world Middle East, the Jews were fifth-world people, the victims of a thousand years of apartheid and worse. So, the normal categorizations just don’t work for the Jews, or at least it seems that way to me. But I have my own biases and people will have to judge for themselves.
unagidon: Almost all of the continued building is in the “settlement bloc,” which is a term of art for a group of heavily populated towns that hug the green line (the pre-1967 lines, which are the 1949 armistice lines). These are expected to be ceded to Israel in final negotiations in exchange for Israeli land ceded to the Palestinians. These are living, breathing towns that require, as all towns do, new construction. And there are genuine, not feigned, security reasons for these towns to remain Israeli. And I remind you that Israel came to occupy the West Bank in defending itself in the second of three wars of aggression waged against it by the Arab world.
As for the “settlement outposts,” another term of art for the frontier outposts that are deeper into the West Bank, I wish they had never been built and I am in favor of tearing them down now. I remind you that before his stroke, Ariel Sharon said that it was his intention to remove these settlements. There was a lot of scepticism about this, but he did what he said he was going to do in Gaza and I bet he would have kept his word in the West Bank, too.
As for East Jerusalem, I am on record on this web site favoring ceding East Jerusalem to the Palestinians in final negotiations. See my comment of 9/24/2012, with respect to Ms Steinfels earlier comment, “Our Closest Ally.”
I do not claim that Israel is faultless when it comes to the settlements or deny that there is ongoing wrongdoing. But it is one fact among many and I would ask you to take into account all of the facts in apportioning blame between the parties.
I distinguish between the issue of settlements and occupation. Again, the territory was occupied in a war in which Israel was defending itself in an Arab-initiated war whose war aims were to destroy Israel, kill Israelis and steal their land. And the Arabs refused to make peace and, instead, met in Khartoum later in 1967 after the war’s conclusion, and issued the infamous doctrine of the three noes: no negotiations, no peace, no Israel. This continued to be the position of the PLO until the 1990s and is still the position of Gaza.
There is now no occupation of Gaza. And the occupation of the West Bank is governed by the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Pursuant to those accords, there are areas of the West Bank where there is no occupation and others where it is permitted.
In light of what happened in Gaza when Israel unilaterally ended the occupation, I am not in favor of ending the occupation in the West Bank except as a part of a final settlement and peace treaty. The Judean Hills and other highlands in the West Bank overlook all of Israel, the north, the central plains and the south. They overlook Jeruslaem and Tel Aviv and Israel’s international airport. They are a perfect place from which to launch rockets. Another Gaza in the West Bank would be deadly to Israel.
Jeff –
@ 11:42 p.m.
Thank you for your reply. However, I don’t see how the ancient and continued presence of the Jews in Israel would alone constitute a right to displace Palestinians today. Or is this what you are arguing? Are you also arguing that their numbers there have increased from a minority to a majority,and that is what constitutes their right to dictate who should live where in the land at issue?
As to the Jews needing a haven, I agree that that was so. However, the behavior of the Nazis does not, it seems to me, give the Jews a right to extra parts of Palestine. As I’ve said here before, a just solution to the Nazi injustice would have been to give the Jews a part of Germany.
It seems to me that on the surface, at any rate, the most basic issue for the Israelis (or at least the Netanyahu government) is whether Israel has a right to exist in the form which it has today — as a predominantly Jewish state that may displace Palestinians within the state as it sees fit. It seems that for many of the Palestinians (and other Muslims) the most basic issue is whether or not Israel has any right to exist whatsoever. The two problems are not the same.
Ann Olivier: You raise legitimate issues. I will respond to them, but I can’t at the moment. It will be later in the day, or perhaps tomorrow. Until then . . .
I tend to agree Ann Olivier. It seems as if that is what Jeff is arguing. Palestinian Christian author Edward Said offered another perspective. He claimed that the Jewish claim to the land of Israel is one claim among many, and the claim is minimal at that. Jews occupied the land of Israel for 60 years. Arabs occupied the land for over 1000. Jeff also brings up the fact that a small minority of Jews never left Palestine. Israeli historian Tom Segev discusses this subject in his book “One Palestine Complete”. What Jeff fails to mention is that the native Jewish population in Palestine was weary of the influx of “foreigners” during the 20′s and 30′s just as was the rest of the native population. I would also contend Jeff’s statement that Jewish immigration ceased after 1937 when the British attempted to curtail it. It’s been a while since I read Segev, but if I remember correctly Jewish immigration continued illegally after the British regulations, and it did not even slow down. I may need to double check that one though. Anyhow, Jeff seems claim that the British worked against the Zionists. I would contend that the creation of Israel heavily depended on support from the British. Lead Zionist Chaim Weizmann had considerable support from numerous British officials during the mandate including Lloyd George.
I don’t know if Jeff is arguing that the current Jewish majority is what gives them a right to dictate who should live where, but attempting to gain and retain this majority so as to give the appearance of self-determination and democracy has been the goal of Zionists all along. That is why any Jew anywhere in the world has the right to “return” to Israel, even if he has never laid foot there. It is also why Israel refuses to recognize the UN human rights declaration granting Palestinian refugees the right to return. It would upset the artificial majority. I can’t see the settlement building as anything other than a continuation of this policy in an effort to expand Israeli borders. The goal is to create majority populations beyond internationally recognized borders to increase their claim to these lands in future negotiations based on the idea of self-determination. In addition to these policies, there are the issues of water rationing, collective punishment, destruction of property, the massacres and others that make it hard for me to feel sorry for Israel in the current situation. Of course, I feel sorry for the innocent victims of rocket attacks, but it is hard not to expect them.
Jeff Keller –
I’m afraid I have to agree with your post. It looks like the group that started the troubles were the European Zionists, especially the English ones. As I see it, that does give the Palestinians at least some sympathy that isn’t due to the immigrant Israelis.
It seems that the most basic problem of all is which system of law should obtain: the laws of Palestine before the Zionists interfered? The laws of the League of Nations/Britain? The law sof Palestine after the Zionist immigrant Jews made the Jews a majority? The law after the influx of refugee from Germany and other European countries after the Nazis took hold? The agreements between the Jews and Palestinians? Which agreements?
There is no meta-law to settle the issue of which law should rule. So where can any solution be found?
I don’t mean to go too far afield but the idea of whether a country has the right to occupy land is really pretty messy. The Brits are still in Northern Ireland and also won’t give back the Falkland Islands (a href = “http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2012/feb/02/who-first-owned-falkland-islands”>Who first owned the Falkland Islands?). We took this country from the original inhabitants and most of them still live in “reservations”. Later we ripped Hawaii out from under the original rulers. I’m not saying taking land away from others is ok – I don’t think it is – but it’s not like we have a lot of high moral ground to stand on. A page with some more info …. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths3/MFroots.html
Sorry – the Falkland Islands link … http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2012/feb/02/who-first-owned-falkland-islands
Ann Olivier: I do not claim that the moral right of the Jews to establish a state consists alone in the fact that this was the Jews ancient homeland and that they maintained a continuous presence there. But surely this is an important consideration. I also asked you to consider other things. For example, the fact that a large percentage of the Jewish population consists of Jewish refugees from Arab countries escaping apartheid regimes. It is not as though Palestine was an Arab island of liberalism and civil liberties in a sea of apartheid. It was part and parcel of the same system. I asked you to consider that Israel is a liberation movement from Arab apartheid, which is certainly a moral justification for its establishment over and against the Arabs, including the Palestinians. I also asked you to consider the historical record in which the Jews were willing to compromise, but the Palestinians refused any compromise and were adamant that no Jewish state of any extent would be created. It was after all the Palestinians and not the Jews who insisted that the issue would be resolved by war and not compromise. But the multiple wars waged by the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab countries did not turn out the way they thought they would. And I do fault the Arabs for not making room for the Jews in their hour of need. I would ask you to consider all these factors and the others I mentioned in my previous post to you.
There are approximately 6,000,000 Jews and 1,650,000 Arabs who are citizens of Israel. These Arabs have the same right to live in Israel as do the Jews, and are not subject to Jewish dictate on this issue.
Jeff Keller: Perhaps in an alternate universe the Jews had only “minimal” contact with Israel and were there for only 60 years, but in the real world, it was the homeland of the Jewish people for approximately 1,000 years and Jews have continually had a presence there for approximately 3,000 years. Frankly, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let’s clear this issue up first. Please explain yourself, Mr. Keller.
Ok. I never said that the contact was minimal. I said that their claim to the land was minimal in comparison to Arab claims because they are recognized as being the primary inhabitants of the land for a much longer time period. I will apologize for saying 60 years. I reread the article I was quoting and it said said 260 years. I honestly think this point is trivial to the overall discussion and do not wish to argue it. Besides, we are talking about a period of history in which the value of self-determination of nations did not exist. It was merely conquer or be conquered. I would gladly accept your claim that the Israel was the Jewish homeland for 1000 years. I also believe that you would concede that this was much earlier in history than the Arab occupation of that same territory for at least an equal to greater amount of time. I am also currently typing from my smartphone which is why I need to cut this short. If you wish to discuss any thing else I said I am more than open to discussion. Sorry for the mix up.
I also made it clear that I am aware that there was continuous Jewish occupation of Palestine. I will grant 3000 years. I also made it clear that these native Jews to Palestine were unhappy with the arrival of the many European Jews in the early 1900′s. I base this claim on Israeli historian Tom Segev’s book ” One Palestine Complete”. So, we are in agreement that there was continuous Jewish occupation of Palestine throughout history, though they were an acute minority.
** “… this was the Jews ancient homeland and that they maintained a continuous presence there.”
Jeff –
It was equally a Palestinian homeland. Why should the Jews be allowed to dictate what the future would look like when the Palestinians objected?
** “…the fact that a large percentage of the Jewish population consists of Jewish refugees from Arab countries escaping apartheid regimes.. . . [Palestine} was part and parcel of the same system. ”
But was there “system” of Arab states? I thought there were simply many that shared many cultural values, not one system of government. Why should the Palestinians have to solve the problems (Jewish apartheid) of other Arab countries? I don’t deny that the Jews were bady treated. I do deny that the Palestinians should pay for other people’s sins, whether German or Arab.
** “…consider the historical record in which the Jews were willing to compromise, but the Palestinians refused any compromise and were adamant that no Jewish state of any extent would be created.”
But the issue is: do the Jews have a right to demand compromise? Yes, this does ultimately resolve into the question: does Israel have a right to exist? And the Palestinians have a right to ask it. I know that for many people this is an unthinkable question. But I think it has to be asked and an answer must be given with justification for that answer.
** ‘And I do fault the Arabs for not making room for the Jews in their hour of need.”
But why? It was the Germans who should have given up land to the Jews and the other Arabs and the Iranians who should have been fair to the Jews.
ISTM that given the de facto history of the area, a compromise is in order for the sake of the children of both sides — they bear no guilt of any sort. But it is simply impossible to go back and right all the wrongs on both sides. And whatever the compromise might be, I don’t think we will be able to say that it was a *just* solution. It will only be an expedient one for the sake of the innocent ones. That is all that is possible at this point.
Crystal
I agree. It is messy. I would support the Argentinians, the Irish, and we definitely owe the Native Americans much more.
Jeff
I see that you like to use the term apartheid to describe the state of Middle Eastern countries. I would agree that Jews were abused throughout the MidEast, especially after the creation of Israel. Yet, more people are beginning to use the term apartheid to describe the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. They are hardly the island of civil liberties you claim. Former president Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, and Archbishop Tutu are a few of the world leading figures who have decried apartheid in the Palestinian Territories.
Ann,
Re: “It was equally a Palestinian homeland. Why should the Jews be allowed to dictate what the future would look like when the Palestinians objected?”
I am confused by your understanding of the history of the area. No one is or was talking about the Jews dictating anything, far as I know. The modern Middle East was set following the fall of the Ottoman Empire after WW I by Britain, France and the Allied victors.
The Ottomans had ruled roughly 600 years over the territories we are discussing. Having sided with Germany, they were the losers and the empire, long disintegrating, was being reshaped by the victorious powers. The mandate system was set up by Europeans to reorder the area which was adrift, almost a mishmash.
Three provinces of the old Ottoman empire were designated almost at random for modern Iraq under British authority, with little rationale for the move. The Kurds wanted an independent Kurdistan but didn’t get it, and as a result the Kurdish population is now divided problematically among Iraq, Turkey and Iran.
Hussein from the Hejaz, the western part of what is now Saudi Arabia, including the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, made himself a king there with British support. That was in recognition of his assist to the Allies in fomenting an Arab revolt against the Turks.
The British turned the land “beyond the Jordan River” into the state of Transjordan, later Jordan and installed Hussein’s son Abdullah as king. His son Faisal was made king of Iraq. Neither king was from the area he ruled.
Meanwhile ibn Saud united Arabia and named it after himself, leaving Hussein evicted from the Hejaz.
The French got Syria and Lebanon as mandates.
Turkey was established with its borders.
Why in this reorganization should not Israel put in its bid for a Jewish state, given the pogroms and anti-semitic history of Europe over centuries? Lots of Arab states were being carved out and I believe a Jewish state had every right to plead for consideration of part of their ancient homeland. Palestinians did the same and a plan for two separate states was put forth and approved in the UN.
Former Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban commented later, “Time and again these governments have rejected proposals today – and longed for them tomorrow.”
The Palestinians could have had their state but refused any compromise and five nations went to war with Israel the day it was declared. Repeated wars against Israel and an unrelenting terrorist campaign have been the agenda since.
Tidbit: I was a lowly secretary at the Lebanese UN delegation and almost 50 years ago was sending coded cables late at night to Beirut due to another PLO terrorist attack against Israel. The drumbeat started early and continues today.
Nothing was “dictated” by the Jews. It was all negotiated by a UN commission. Palestinians obstructed their progress to their own detriment and others. They could have had their own state the last 60 years and chose not to. Hatred for the Jews superseded all.
Jeff,
Verbal gymnastics and distorted moral equivalence are standard aspects of political discourse. I believe Carter, Mandela and Tutu are wrong in their assessment.
When Hamas et al say clearly they want to eliminate the state of Israel by whatever violent means necessary, I think of Maya Angelou’s statement (paraphrased) “When someone tells you who they are, believe them.
To quote Eban again: “It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say. “
Carolyn
You provide the details of the events leading to and following WWI accurately. You speak of the carving of the middle east and the bids for statehood. You then lump the UN commission that carved up Palestine in 1947 with the rest of the negotiations that occurred at Paris 1919. They were two very different times. The Jews could have put a bid for statehood in Paris, but by any understanding of self-determination and what it means to be a nation their bid should’ve been denied. In 47 the situation was much different. And yes, you are correct in saying that the Kurds should’ve been given a nation and were denied.
Carolyn
Verbal gymnastics and distorted moral equivalence?
Some South Africans have claimed that the situation in the Palestinian Territories is worse than their experience in So Africa. Israel’s expansion through settlements and refusal to respect the UN granted right of refugees to return are major moral problems. Let’s add to that the water rationing, the obstruction of transportation between territories (including medical personnel), the massacres, the disruption of farming, the assassinations, collective punishment, and the wall built deep in Palestinian territory. Need I go on?
I’ll offer a tid-bit on myself. I married a Palestinian Christian. My mother-in-law fled Jerusalem to America after the 67 war in which Israeli soldiers looted her family’s home and murdered some of her friends. Of course, she has no right to return.
Carolyn
While I would agree that Arab insistence to fight for what they felt is truly theirs is what prevented them from statehood 60 years ago, do you still believe they are what blocks progress today? Peace talks failed to begin because Netanyahu refuses to halt illegal settlement construction, which I find indefensible under any circumstance.
Jeff Keller: You did not believe your comment was trivial when you made it. It was your first claim in your comment. That’s why I tackled it first. It was a false claim, as you now concede. And the Jews were certainly not “an acute minority,” as you put it, in Israel throughout their history. They were no “acute minority” (or any other sort of minority) during the thousand years it was their homeland. And even the extent of the Jewish community since the Arabs conquered the land varied over the centuries and varied from place to place. As of 1880, for example, Jews were in the majority in Jerusalem. On this general subject, the link provided by Crystal Watson in her post at 8:22 pm on 11/28 will be instructive.
I never claimed, as you assert, that the occupied territories were “an island of civil liberties,” or said anything remotely like that. You have now made another false assertion. It seems the more you speak, the more you subtract from your credibility. If you continue to believe that I did claim it, I must insist that you quote my words to me.
Now, let’s move to the next claim you made in your original comment. I don’t have Segev’s book and can’t comment on it. But I am confident that what the “native” Jews were really “weary” of was being the object of the native Arabs’ persecution. I am sure, for example, that the “native” Jews of Hebron were much more than “wearied” by the unprovoked murder of more than 60 of their number in their homes in a single night in 1929, and of having unspeakable things done to their bodies so as to terrify the rest of the Jewish community and induce it to flee, which it did. Within a day or two, a centuries’ old Jewish community in Hebron was ethnically cleansed and existed no more. I can’t imagine that the “native” Jews were so “weary” of the new “foreign” Jews that they would prefer to remain in the good old days of 1929, rather than join the new “foreign” Jews in propelling their people to freedom and blessed relief from persecution. In fact, they did join them. Perhaps the term “trivial” could truly be applied to this, your second claim, in your original post.
What say you, Mr. Keller?
Ann Olivier: When I spoke of Palestine being “part and parcel of the same system” I meant part of the generalized mistreatment of the Jews in the Arab Mideast. They were second-class citizens there as elsewhere and there was a history of oppression there as elsewhere. In an earlier post to Mr. Keller, for example, I noted the 1929 murder and ethnic cleansing of the Jewish community in Hebron. This Jewish community had existed for centuries. If a mistreated people in an area of the world chose their ancestral home in that area as the place to throw off the yoke of oppression and begin to control their own destiny, I would think that they should be admired, rather than condemned, for it. That’s why I called it a liberation movement. In my opinion, that’s what it was.
And who are the local Arabs (the Palestinians) to dictate to the Jews that they shall remain in a form of bondage?
The fact that European Jews led the rescue effort does not detract from the effort’s merits. The local Jews were part of the effort. And the fact that within 20 years or so, the Jews from across the Arab Mideast were rescued demonstrates that freeing them from apartheid and oppression was in fact a primary goal of the establishment of the state of Israel.
It seems, however, that I have failed to convince you of the legitimacy of my point of view. Nevertheless, I appreciate that you have read and considered what I have written. Go thee well.
Jeff Keller,
War is hell is no mere saying, with more than enough tragedies the result. Which makes finding a livable resolution all the more urgent.
I believe your analysis is lacking, and have found Jeff’s responses to your assertions highly effective in terms of factual background and interpretation of the particulars. You and I disagree obviously.
The provocations behind the 1967 war are worth consideration, a huge miscalculation on the part of the Arabs/Palestinians involved. The consequences were severe and avoidable.
That wall was a last resort to stop terrorist attacks; the statistics on the number of attacks on Israelis before and after are compelling. It is a huge burden but I understand why it was built.
The settlements are highly problematic. But even when they are forcibly removed by Israeli police action against their co-religionists and occupation ends, the Gaza experience shows it yields only more missile attacks.
As for right of return, I find this analysis offers perspective, even if not an exact parallel in al cases: (first graph a repeat, sorry)
“During the fighting in 1947-1948, about three-fourths of a million Arabs fled or were driven (both are true in different places) from Israel and found refuge in the neighboring Arab countries. In the same period and after, a slightly greater number of Jews fled or were driven from Arab countries, first from the Arab-controlled part of mandatory Palestine (where not a single Jew was permitted to remain), then from the Arab countries where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries, or in some places for millennia. Most Jewish refugees found their way to Israel.
What happened was thus, in effect, an exchange of populations not unlike that which took place in the Indian subcontinent in the previous year, when British India was split into India and Pakistan. Millions of refugees fled or were driven both ways — Hindus and others from Pakistan to India, Muslims from India to Pakistan.
Another example was Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, when the Soviets annexed a large piece of eastern Poland and compensated the Poles with a slice of eastern Germany. This too led to a massive refugee movement — Poles fled or were driven from the Soviet Union into Poland, Germans fled or were driven from Poland into Germany.
The Poles and the Germans, the Hindus and the Muslims, the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, all were resettled in their new homes and accorded the normal rights of citizenship. More remarkably, this was done without international aid. The one exception was the Palestinian Arabs in neighboring Arab countries.
The government of Jordan granted Palestinian Arabs a form of citizenship, but kept them in refugee camps. In the other Arab countries, they were and remained stateless aliens without rights or opportunities, maintained by U.N. funding. Paradoxically, if a Palestinian fled to Britain or America, he was eligible for naturalization after five years, and his locally-born children were citizens by birth. If he went to Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, he and his descendants remained stateless, now entering the fourth or fifth generation.
The reason for this has been stated by various Arab spokesmen. It is the need to preserve the Palestinians as a separate entity until the time when they will return and reclaim the whole of Palestine; that is to say, all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. The demand for the “return” of the refugees, in other words, means the destruction of Israel. This is highly unlikely to be approved by any Israeli government.” Bernard Lewis
I doubt Arab nations would offer a right of return to over 750,000 Jews and their descendants forced to flee, even if they wanted to return to danger.
Maybe enough Arabs/Palestinians believe they can achieve the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state by terrorism, wearing it down, promising PR, etc. But I believe proceeding on an unacknowledged but genuine assumption that Israel does not have a right to exist as a Jewish state is guaranteed to end badly for all.
Jeff
I admittedly misquoted an article that was still very far off from your numbers. The subject of how long Jews occupied Israel is obviously debatable. I also quoted Columbia University professor Edward Said when I said Arabs occupied Israel for a much longer period. I consider him an expert on the Israeli-Palestine conflict, but I have no desire to debate with you about the ancient demographics of the region. I accepted your claim about the length of Jewish occupation of Israel for the sake of discussing issues of substance, much more like the discussion I am having with Carolyn Disco.
Here is an excerpt from your comments. I cut and pasted.
“For example, the fact that a large percentage of the Jewish population consists of Jewish refugees from Arab countries escaping apartheid regimes. It is not as though Palestine was an Arab island of liberalism and civil liberties in a sea of apartheid. It was part and parcel of the same system. I asked you to consider that Israel is a liberation movement from Arab apartheid, which is certainly a moral justification for its establishment over and against the Arabs, including the Palestinians.”
You said that Palestine was not a sea of civil liberties in a sea of apartheid, but that Israel is liberating it from such a state. I would contend that this is far from the case. You may differentiate between the situation in Israel and the occupied territories, but Israel is directly responsible for the conditions present in the occupied territories.
We can go on and compare atrocities committed by both sides during the British mandate, but I don’t think that will get us anywhere. It is true that the Jews native to Palestine did eventually cooperate with the immigrants, but that was not my original point. The point was that the Jews native to Palestine saw the influx of Jewish immigrants as foreigners and did not immediately join ranks with them. I do not believe this to be trivial in our discussion because it points to the problems within Zionism itself in that the shared religion of Judaism did not create an immediate bond between the native Jews and the foreigners. I do not see how any group of people could expect to emigrate to a foreign populated land with aspirations for statehood and expect peace. There is no way the task can be completed without systematically displacing, disenfranchising, and destroying the native population. The Zionist vision, though it may have had decent intentions, was morally problematic from the beginning. I do not believe that to destroy Israel now would be a just, or even preferable alternative. However, I strongly disagree with your efforts to legitimize, or even romanticize Zionism. It is the root cause of one of history’s greatest problems. It is a problem that lacks any true “just” solution.
Jeff
Also, I believe I was fair in referring to Jews as an acute minority in Palestine. From the early Zionist period in 1880 all the way until the waves of immigrants flowed in the 1930′s Jews never comprised more than 15% of the population. At some points they comprised less than 10%.
http://palestineisraelpopulation.blogspot.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Palestine
I am sorry to see Jeff Keller base his views about Jewish claims to the land of Israel on the work of Palestinian Christian author Edward Said (1935-2003).
Said was a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, held in high regard among American and European academics and intellectuals. His most famous book is Orientalism, published in 1978. Its “bold thesis (is) that the Western study of Islam (and by extension other cultures) is itself a form of “colonialism.”
He styled himself the prototypical displaced Palestinian refugee and even made a film that aired around the world and on PBS about his family’s supposed trauma. But the lies were legion.
Claim: “I was born in Jerusalem and spent most of my formative years there (to 12 years old) and, after 1948, when my entire family became refugees, in Egypt.” ["Between Worlds: Edward Said Makes Sense of His Life," London Review of Books, May 7, 1998]
Claim: His first 12 years in Jerusalem held memories of “rooms where as a boy he read Sherlock Holmes and Tarzan, and where he and his mother read Shakespeare to each other.”
Fact: He was indeed born in Jerusalem, but away from his home in Cairo, while his parents were visiting his uncle, aunt and cousins. The birth certificate gives a permanent address in Cairo; the local address space is blank; there was no residence in Palestine for Said’s parents, nor for him. Those emotional scenes in front of his alleged former home were dishonest in the extreme.
His formative years were in Cairo and he was not a refugee who had to flee Jerusalem in panicked exile since neither he nor his family were there during the final months of the British Mandate.
“He (Said) himself grew up not in Jerusalem but in Cairo, where his father, an American citizen, had moved as an economic expatriate approximately nine years before Edward’s birth and had become the owner of a thriving business; and there, until his own departure for the United States as a teenager in 1951, the young Edward Said resided in luxurious apartments, attended private English schools, and played tennis at the exclusive Gezira Sporting Club as the child of one of its few Arab members.”
Quotes from Justin Reid Weiner’s “My Beautiful Old House” and Other Fabrications by Edward Said, Commentary, September, 1999. Weiner finds it curious that after 30 years of lying about his past, Said published a memoir released shortly after his research appeared.
“Why Said should have chosen this particular moment to release a revised standard version must remain a matter of speculation. For myself, I cannot rule out the possibility that the 85 interviews conducted over the course of my own three-year investigation, including many with persons known to him, may have alerted him to the urgency of retrieving from amnesia this amazingly full reconstruction of his Cairo childhood.”
Said “defined his own intellectual vocation as one of “tell[ing] the truth against extremely difficult odds”[24]–he has sweepingly declared that the duty of the intellectual is “to speak the truth, as plainly, directly, and as honestly as possible”[25]
–it turns out that, in retailing the facts of his own personal biography over the years, he has spoken anything but the plain, direct, or honest truth. Instead, he has served up, and consciously encouraged others to serve up, a wildly distorted version of the truth, made up in equal parts of outright deception and of artful obfuscations carefully tailored to strengthen his wider ideological agenda…”
Jeff Keller: Within the space of about 24 hours you have taken three different positions on the Jews’ connection with the land. First, it was minimal with a mere 60 years as a homeland. Then, it was 1,000 years as a homeland and 3,000 years of continuous presence. Now, its some indeterminate period somewhere between the other two. I wish you had stopped at the second position, which is the correct one. And if you’re wondering why I’m being so hard nosed about it, its because your initial comment sought by a falsehood to minimize the connection of the Jews to the land.
The quote of mine that you have included in your comment has absolutely nothing at all to do with the occupation, which began in 1967. It is about the situation that existed before Israel was even founded and no amount of “explanation” and rationalization can turn it into something its not. You just aren’t forthright enough to admit that I never said what you claimed I did. And if you’re wondering why I’m being so hard nosed about it, its because I don’t like someone putting words in my mouth that I never said.
I don’t know whether or not the Jews who were already living in Palestine in 1880 “did not immediately join ranks with” or “create an immediate bond” with the Jews who immigrated after that date, as you claim, but it does seem trivial to me, and I’m content to just let people decide for themselves.
Your initial comment accused the Jews of unspecified “massacres,” but when I point out a 1929 massacre of the Jews by the Palestinians, you decide its not productive to talk about such things.
You said that “there was continuous Jewish occupation of Palestine throughout history, though they were an acute minority.” This is inaccurate as well. They were certainly not an acute minority during the thousand years it was their homeland. And I wouldn’t regard 15% as an “acute minority” either.
You sneer at my use of the word “apartheid,” but enforced social and legal inferiority is exactly what apartheid is, and exactly what the Arabs of the Middle East (including those in Palestine) subjected the Jews to for centuries. That is, when they weren’t killing them or stealing their property or forcing them to convert to Islam or forcing them to live behind walled ghettos or the like.
Zionism is nothing more or less than the national aspiration of the Jews. The Middle East is littered with Islamic states, but for there to be one Jewish state in the whole world causes some people to rend their garments and call out to God about the injustice of it all.
Zionism is not the problem in Palestine, it is the solution. If you asked people in the abstract whether oppressing a people was the wrongful act or whether it was throwing off the yoke of oppression, we both know what the answer would be. I know that you don’t want to talk about the Arab mistreatment of the Jews for many centuries, but by any standard I know of, it is highly relevant to whether the Jews were justified in creating a state of their own in their ancient homeland so that they would no longer have to be subject to European anti-Semitism and Arab-on-Jew apartheid or other mistreatment, but instead could control their own destiny free of the prejudices of those who regarded and treated them as an inferior and subject people. This is not to “romanticize” Zionism, as you call it, it is simply to tell the truth.
But “truth” is exactly what the haters of Israel (and of Jews in general) can’t handle.
And yet it is now Israel that has created an apartheid system and is trying to deny the right of Palestinians to call themselves (and be) a nation.
unagidon: With respect, it is not Israel that has created the current situation, but the Arab decision from 1947 and forward that the issue would be decided by war rather than compromise. Its just that the wars they waged didn’t turn out the way they expected them to.
The Arabs in Israel are full citizens and not the victims of apartheid.
There is no occupation of Gaza. And no settlements. And it is Gaza that continues to reject the right of Israel to exist.
Your case is strongest, of course, when it comes to the West Bank. I have stated what I believe about that situation in my earlier comment to you on 11/28/12 and would just be repeating myself if I further addressed it here. Although I would add something I’ve said in many other comments that I don’t believe I mentioned there. There is plenty of evidence since the disgraceful performance of the Palestinians at Camp David in 2000 and going forward that it is the Palestinians who continue to be rejectionist and refuse to do what is necessary for there to be peace. Although I can’t know for sure, and have been frank in acknowledging the doubts I also have about Netanyahu, I believe the Palestinians governed by Abbas seek statehood outside the peace process so that they will not have to make peace with Israel and normalize their relationship with it.
And just to keep things in context, I hope you would acknowledge that Jew hatred among the Palestinians and throughout the rest of the Islamic world has reached levels not seen since Nazi Germany.
unagidon,
“And yet it is now Israel that has created an apartheid system and is trying to deny the right of Palestinians to call themselves (and be) a nation.”
No, Israel accepted the creation of a Palestinian state in 1967, did not oppose it then and does not today. The problem is the refusal of Palestinians to accept the reality of Israel as a Jewish state, then and now.
From the earliest days, an incessant campaign of terrorist attacks against Israel exists. When after years of provocation, Israel does anything other than simply accept the attacks, it becomes an international pariah. It’s not suicide bombers, it’s homicide bombers.
Somehow that does not penetrate in people’s minds. When Israel signs the Oslo accords, Arafat responds with the intifada; when Israel destroys Jewish settlements in Gaza and ends the occupation in order to promote peace, still the rockets come.
When Palestinians use civilians as cover, with munitions around schools, there is silence. Provoke response, then evoke sympathy.
Make demands like right of return that they know will destroy Israel as a Jewish state, and continue terrorist attacks that the world seems to ignore as acceptable background noise, then the rewards internationally are considerable. But offer no right of return, even theoretically, to Jews from Arab countries that were driven out. Just entertaining that idea should display the unreality of what they demand from Israel.
Arab countries also used Palestinian refugees in fetid camps for their own political purposes. Their lives have been miserable, their leaders abysmal, their policies self-destructive, to their great detriment.
Come the day Palestinians finally conclude that there is no choice beyond accepting Israel as a Jewish state, stop their terrorist attacks permanently, stop publishing maps without Israel on them, and renounce the call in their charters for its complete destruction, then there is a chance for peace.
Instead, public pronouncements in English, French and German about accepting Israel’s right to exist do not match the Arabic, which “denote, not the end of hostilities, but an armistice or truce, until such time that the war against Israel can be resumed with better prospects for success” (as quoted above at 11/27 1:47).
So far, the current strategy of isolating Israel, setting a narrative of innocent victimhood against loathsome aggressors, continued terrorist activity and doing everything possible to de-legitimize Israel’s history is working too well.
Here is what you said about the West Bank:
First, your natural spreading of towns argument doesn’t work unless it works for, say, Tijuana spreading into the US in the same way. These are Israeli settlements spreading into Palestinian land. Second, you say that it is expected that these lands will be exchanged for Israeli lands. Who expects this? So Israel gets to take lands that they want and exchange them for land that they don’t want? Third, can you produce a map that shows that settlements not on the original boundaries of Israel are not a major land grab? You should be able to. And regarding the Six Day War; didn’t Israel start it?
What your arguments claim is that the Israelis have the right to define themselves as a state and the right to choose where that state will be located. The Palestinians seem to have neither in your view, being lumped in with all the other Arabs. This belief on your part seems to be the crux of your confusion.
Carolyn, Israel simply does not get to claim to be a victim while they illegally annex land that they themselves know they took from Palestine and that would be part of a two state solution they themselves claim to support. It’s not hard to understand.
Under international law, what is the status of Gaza at this point? And the West Bank?
unagiden: You claim that the crux of the problem is that Israel believes that it is able to proclaim itself a state and define its extent while denying the Palestinians that right. But the facts don’t bear you out. Israel accepted the Palestinian state in 1947, but the Palestinians and surrounding Arab countries rejected the Israeli state and went to war to destroy it. Israel came into existence not by the easy task of proclaiming itself but by sacrificing one-percent of her sons and daughters defending herself against aggressors. And Israel didn’t define its extent either. Its extent was what it was able to hold onto in that war. It lost the old city of Jerusalem and for the next nineteen years watched its temples in the Jewish quarter of the old city being destroyed and desecrated and watched only from afar its holy site, the Western Wall, because it was denied access to it. It didn’t get a lot of what it wanted, but it did survive. And it wasn’t Israel that annexed the West Bank. It was Jordan.
Yet, Israel lived with that situation until 1967 when the Arabs blew it all up again and Israel had to fight for its life again. And its not the Israelis who met in Khartoum later that year and proclaimed that they would never negotiate with the other side, never make peace with it and never rest until it was destroyed. Its the Arabs, including the Palestinians, who did that to Israel. And the PLO maintained that position until the 1990s and the Gazans maintain it to this day. And its not the Israelis who were the rejectionists at Camp David in 2000. It was Arafat. And its not Netanyahu who refuses to enter into negotiations with Abbas. Its the other way around. So, I have a very different view about what the crux of the problem is.
You ask me if it isn’t true that Israel started the 1967 war. My answer is an emphatic no. Israel fired the first shot, but according to both the spirit and the letter of international law, it didn’t start the war. That dubious honor goes to Egypt and Syria and Jordan. After all, its not Israel that surrounded those countries with armies with the declared intent of invading and destroying them. It was the other way around. Its not Israel that kicked the U.N. peacekeepers out of the Sinai so that its armies would have unimpeded access to Egypt. Egypt did that to Israel. It was not the Israeli public that was on fire with the lust to destroy Egypt and Syria and Jordan. It was the whole Arab world that was electrified by the prospect of the coming destruction of Israel. And it was not Israel that blockaded any Arab ports. It was Egypt that blockaded the Israeli port of Eilat, Israel’s only outlet to the Indian and Pacific oceans. Under international law, that blockade was an act of war.
So, by any reasonable standard, and the applicable specific, legal standard, it was the Arabs who violated the 1949 armistice truce lines. They didn’t merely seek to change the truce lines, they sought to finish what they started in 1948 – the destruction of Israel. It was in defending itself in the 1967 war that Israel came into possession of the the West Bank, Gaza and the Sinai. It subsequently returned the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for peace. And ended the occupation in Gaza in exchange for nothing, and got more war and less peace.
A little pre-1967 background might be helpful here. The Palestinians and Arabs (but not the Jews) rejected the U.N.’s recommendation in 1947 of a two-state solution and its proposed borders for the two states. Instead, they went to war to destroy Israel, but failed in their endeavor. The war concluded with the Armistice Agreements of 1949, which were entered into between Israel, on the one hand, and Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, on the other. “Palestine” was not a party to the agreements. There was no “Palestine.” There had never been a “Palestine.” Before the British mandate, the land called Palestine had been part of the Syrian district within the Ottoman Empire, and before that it had been part of this or that caliphate or other larger grouping.
Pursuant to the Armistice, truce lines were established between Israel and the other countries. These truce lines were not the borders that had been recommended by the U.N. I presume they were drawn pursuant to which side controlled what land at the time of the cease fire. At Arab insistence, no borders were set. The Arab countries refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist, so they refused to acknowledge that it had any borders. Instead, mere truce lines were established. The West Bank was annexed by Jordan, and I believe that Gaza was annexed by Egypt. If not annexed, it certainly was governed by Egypt. Sometime after the 1967 war (I’ve forgotten exactly when) Jordan renounced its claims to the West Bank and I presume Egypt at some point formally renounced its claim to Gaza.
Israel didn’t become a member state of the U.N. pursuant to the U.N. General Assembly vote recommending a two-state solution. Only the Security Council can do that. When Israel was founded on May 14, 1948, by declaration of the provisional government of Israel, other nations either did or did not recognize it. The United States was the first country in the world to recognize it. But the Security Council waited before it acted. Most countries did not expect Israel to survive the coming war. It was only in 1949, after it was clear Israel was going to survive, that the Security Council voted to admit it to the U.N.
Although no borders were set, the Armistice agreements did say that changes in the truce lines were to be made by agreement of the parties, but all that went out the window with the 1967 war.
Your example of Tijuana is inapposite. The border between Mexico (and Canada) and the United States is set by treaty, as I presume they are in most (all?) countries. Tijuana can’t spread into the United States because there is a treaty between the United States and Mexico that says it can’t. Hopefully one day there will be such a treaty between Israel and the Palestinians, but none exists now.
But there obviously are ethical and practical restraints on Israel. In my earlier response to you of 11/28, I set forth what I thought Israel was justified in doing and what I thought it was doing that was wrong, and my reasons for my views. I stand by them.
Who expects the “settlement block” to go to Israel in exchange for land to be decided by the parties (not unwanted land to be dictated by Israel, but land negotiated by the parties)? Almost everyone. Just like almost everyone knows that Israel must cede East Jerusalem.
I’ve responded in good faith to many questions that you have posed to me in your previous comments. In my previous comment to you of this date at 11:03 a.m., I asked for your opinion on one thing, but you never responded. In response to your charge that Israel was engaging in apartheid, I explained why I disagreed with you, and I said: “And just to keep things in context, I hope you would acknowledge that Jew hatred among the Palestinians and throughout the rest of the Islamic world has reached levels not seen since Nazi Germany.” Perhaps you will show me the same courtesy I have shown you and respond now and if you disagree with me, explain why.
Ann-
I don’t think we know for sure. Can the U.N. General Assembly create a country? I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure what the response of the United States would be if it tried to give Montana to the American Indians. Or what the response of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria would be if it tried to create Kurdistan out of territory in those countries. Can it define the borders of a country such that it is binding on its neighbors? I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure what the response of the United States would be if the U.N. General Assembly tried to define its borders.
The powers of the Security Council are more substantial, but we’re getting into areas in which I have no knowledge or expertise.
And its all complicated by the fact that there is already an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority — the Oslo Accords — pursuant to which these things are supposed to be decided by negotiations between the parties.
Jeff,
Thank you greatly for your review of the history of the 1967 war.
I recall it well: Egypt kicking the UN peacekeepers out of Sinai, the better to have military access for an attack on Israel. I also recall Egypt blockading the Israeli port of Eilat, which was an act of war.
The tension and danger to vastly outnumbered Israeli forces was severe. Eager, opposing combatants included forces from Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, the PLO, Kuwait, Sudan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia. Israel battled on all sides of its territory.
Yet, the popular narrative is the war was Israel’s fault.
The Khartoum conference’s pledge never to negotiate a peace agreement and seek to destroy the state of Israel speaks for itself. Foreign Minister Eban again: “I think that this is the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and the vanquished called for unconditional surrender.”
I also remember when Israelis got access to their holy sites in Jerusalem for the first time in 19 years, during which the Western Wall area was left to disintegrate significantly. It is curious that between 1948 and 1967 when Jordan held Jerusalem, Islamic Friday prayers were never broadcast from the noted Al-Aqsa mosque there, but from a small site in Amman. Arab leaders ignored worshiping in Jerusalem and the PLO founding charter never mentions the holy city. That’s a story for another time: how Jerusalem acquires vital importance to Arabs/Palestinians only when Israel enters the picture.
It is a fascinating detail that the Islamic Dome of the Rock was spared total destruction in 1917 due to a Jewish Austrian artillery captain who disobeyed his Turkish commander’s order to “blow Jerusalem to hell” should the British occupy the city. Instead, he disabled his artillery and surrendered to the British.
Many thanks to Jeff and Jeff Keller and Carolyn and all for the history lessons. I still don’t have it all straight in my mind. What is emerging in my mind seems to be more questions — about how *any* dispute between nations ought to be settled.
Unfortunately, there are disputes where there is no law which clearly obtains, and in those cases we seem to be reduced to war or vigilante action. Maybe the U. N. and/or the theologians should develop some moral principles to govern vigilante action.
Jeff
I am beginning to wonder if civil discourse is possible between us. Instead of accepting my apology for an error, you make bizarre claims about the number of positions I have taken. You then resort to accusations of character when I directly quote you for something you claim to have never said. Why not simpy provide further explanation if you believe someone misunderstands, or misinterprets, a statement you make. I wouldn’t think it would be difficult to accept my offer to use your number of 1000 years as a basis for discussion.
The “point” I intended to make when I initially made that statement was that Arabs have a greater connection to the land, not that Jews had minimal connection. I was content to see if we would agree that Arabs had at least an equal, if not greater claim to the land. I believed we would agree. I am not sure about that anymore. You say I provide inaccuracies about the percentage of Jews in Israel. Maybe I should’ve further clarified. I would agree that Jews were not an acute minority in Israel when it was their homeland. It is the period of 2000 years that it was not their homeland when they remained an acute minority. I provided links to the demographics.
I don’t believe I “sneer” at your use of the word apartheid. I am aware that conditions of social injustice exist throughout many Mid-East countries. I admitted that in my comment. Call it apartheid. I won’t try to argue. I believe it is you who find it offensive that people accuse Israel of apartheid. I included “unspecified massacres” in my list of conditions and crimes of Israel when I accused it of apartheid. I can specify them if you wish, but I assume you are already aware of them.
So there is a west bank, but it has no borders, because there isn’t a treaty, so Israel can build where it wants, but there is a west bank, because Israel is pursuing a two state solution that includes it, but there isn’t a west bank etc. etc.
Everybody knows where the border is, even you.
It must seem odd to you, who have explained away any serious reason for anyone to be mad at Israel, that people are still mad at Israel. And if Israel has done nothing to deserve this anger, then this anger can’t be from things Israel is doing but because people just hate Israel. So their anger isn’t a result of anything. It must be the cause of everything. You want me to admit that anger with Israel is at a long time high, but you want me to agree with you that Israel has done nothing to deserve it, so that I will agree with you that irrational hatred is the problem. Sorry, I won’t. Anger with Israel is at an all time high. But Israel deserves it. If they want people to stop being angry, they are going to have to stop making them angry.
It doesn’t seem to occur to people that the people called “the Palestinians” may be the descendants of the original Israelis just as the people in Palestine called the Jews are. And that they have somehow lost the right to live in Palestine because their ancestors converted to Christianity or Islam.
Carolyn
I am aware of the concerted efforts many people took to discredit Edward Said. In America, he was Palestine’s strongest and most well-respected voice. He was a target. In one of his visits to Palestine, he threw a rock across the border in a symbolic act of protest. No person was the intended target of this rock, yet pro-Israeli students in America accused him of violence and urged for his dismissal from Columbia.
I understand that some accused Said of distorting his childhood. I also understand that he further clarified his childhood in the book “Out of Place”. I never read it, nor have I read “Orientalism”. I read “From Oslo to Iraq and the Roadmap”. A very good read for anyone interested in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
I am sad that you do not recognize the UN granted right to return of refugees. It is common for proponents of Israel to point to other nations when critics demand that Israel abide by this UN resolution. Proponents of Israel enjoy pointing to the UN resolution granting Israel statehood. I believe that was a mistake, but one that we must live by. I hardly find any of the situations you listed as parallel. The biggest difference is probably that none of those scenarios involved nations in which the majority of the population was non-native to the land. Do you find it morally acceptable for a group of people to emigrate, displace the native population, and refuse to let them back. The UN didn’. The Palestinians might be willing to compromise this right in negotiations, but Israel should not require this of them.
unagiden: I have looked at your posts in this thread and haven’t seen a single instance of your admitting that the Palestinians or other Arabs have ever done anything wrong or have contributed substantially to this current bloody mess. Its as though if a fact exists that bespeaks wrongdoing on their part, then for you it doesn’t exist. I have set forth in some detail the facts that evidence Palestinian and other Arab wrongdoing (and they are many), but for you they don’t exist. You don’t admit them, you don’t deny them, you don’t address them. You ignore them. For you, its all Israeli evil all the time.
Any fair reading of our respective posts would show that I deal with the facts, those that speak for Israel and those that speak against it, much more forthrightly than you do. Yet, you accuse me of being one-sided. If that’s true, then how much more harshly you must judge yourself.
I know where the truce lines were drawn. And I know why they were truce lines and not borders. And I know how they got to be drawn where they were. And I know who were parties and who were not parties to the agreements that embodied them. And I know who blew even the truce lines up in 1967. And I know where as a practical matter the borders, if they ever get drawn by a treaty between the belligerents, are going to be drawn. I addressed all this in my previous post to you. You do not deny the facts. You do not admit the facts. You do not address the facts. You ignore the facts. Its an old lawyer’s trick when the law is against you to claim that it is a mere technicality.
Its not mere anger on the part of the Arabs. And its not just anti-Israel anger. Its anti-Semitism. The really bad stuff. This point, my point, you ignore. You don’t admit it. You don’t deny it. You don’t address it. You ignore it.
The Palestinians have done many things wrong. It does not follow that Israel has the right to annex their land. You seem to feel that the Palestinians will somehow be compensated for this land, so the Israeli land grab is all right. I will argue that the Israelis have a certain feeling or emotion or attachment to Israel that they will not grant to the Palestinians. Taking land in one place and saying that via “negotiations” they will replace it with land from some place else is expropriation.
And if there is no border, then the Palestinians should be allowed to build settlements in Israel, don’t you think? There definitely is a border with Israel on one side and Palestine on the other. This is something you won’t admit.
I won’t address “anti-Semitism” for two reasons. First, it is Israel that wants to cast the whole situation as Jews against everyone else. While there is anti-Semitism in the world, when Israel decided to be a country, it took on the responsibilities of a country. It has to recognize international law. It can’t go talking about “the Arabs” as though there is such a unified thing. There are countries where most of the people are Muslims, but they are countries nonetheless, each with its own personality, dialects, culture, etc. and Israel is required as a country to deal with these countries as a countries. They don’t get to complain about “Arabs” as though there is a big “Arab” country and a little Jewish one and as though the Palestinians are actually some kind of Arab problem and if only the Arabs will take them in (since they are not Palestinians but just Arabs anyway), then Israel’s problem would be solved. You have no reason not to think that the Palestinians have been on that land as long as the Jews; that in fact Palestinians come from the same people and that they therefore have the same rights to the land. Unless you think (as you seem to) that only Jews can claim the rights of habitation of that land and any Jews that converted to Islam or Christianity are out of luck.
Which brings me to my second point. You won’t talk about the exitence of Jewish anti-Semitism and prejudice against Arabs. It’s all one sided with you. Jewish anti-Semitism is somehow a product of how “Arabs” have treated Israel while Arab (and other) anti-Semitism somehow springs fully formed and without context, because, as you have continuously argued, IN THE IMPORTANT THINGS Israel is always the victim.
Jeff Keller,
I am sad that your post indicates only that you understand that some accused Said of distorting his childhood for political purposes. It ignores the evidence and solid documentation that proves Said lied for 30 years, all the while expounding on his vocation as one of telling the truth in difficult circumstances. My original comment still holds.
Interestingly, the researcher himself raises the key point:
“Whatever we do finally make of all this, there can be no denying that the parable itself is a lie. An artful lie; a skillful lie; above all, a very useful and by now widely accepted lie–but a lie.
As he (Said) continues the process of silently “spinning” this lie, a process now auspiciously launched in “Out of Place,” it will be especially interesting to see who among his legions of admirers, or among the friends of the Palestinian people, will notice or care. That is a question with reverberations far, far beyond the shifts and dodges and brazen misrepresentations of one prevaricating intellectual.”
Yes, the UN voted a right of return. I believe that was a mistake. You and I agree and disagree over different UN votes and the reasons behind them. I believe your framing of the issue ignores essential parts of the truth about the troubled history of the conflict and does not express the full reality that faces us.
I believe the purpose of right of return is to destroy Israel as a Jewish state, basically eliminating it from the map, a different means than war to achieve the same purpose; and I further believe the Palestinians know it. The practical implications are incomprehensible, and I find little reason to think that terrorist attacks against Jews would remarkably just stop, instead of relentlessly continue as they have, no matter what.
Now for the Arab countries, from where over 750,000 Jews were driven midst murders and massacres when Israel was created…
unagidon: It won’t do, sir. You say that “[t]he Palestinians have done many things wrong,” and then spend the rest of your time trying to make the case that any talk of these things is just an excuse to avoid talking about what interests you: Israeli wrongdoing. As I say, all anti-Israel all the time. Do you think I’m going to accept a framework for discussion like that? We’re either going to talk about wrongdoing on both sides or we are not going to talk at all.
I’m on the record all over this thread and others I’ve participated in on this site about both sides of this conflict. I’m on record about the settlements and occupation. I haven’t refused to talk about it. You’re hardly on the record at all. So, lets begin to get you on the record.
Lets begin here: In the first two paragraphs of my response to you at 11:00 pm on November 30, I set forth a series of factual assertions of Palestinian and other Arab wrongdoing from the beginning to the present that have created the current bloody mess, or at least substantially contributed to it. Please take each one of them and tell me whether its true or false, and if you believe its false please make your case as to why its false. Just a straightforward, forthright factual analysis. No tirade or bombast or telling me why you won’t talk about. I’m on the record a lot. Let’s get you on the record a little bit. And if you do it in good faith, you’ll get a good faith response from me.
Then in the third and fourth paragraph, I make very specific factual assertions about the 1967 war. This was in response to an issue raised by you. You asked me whether it wasn’t true that Israel started the war. With respect to my factual assertions, please state whether they are true or false, and if you believe they are false please make your case as to why. Just a straightforward, forthright factual analysis. Please don’t tell me why you won’t talk about it. I’m on the record a lot. Let’s get you on the record a little bit.
If you’re willing to talk about both sides of this conflict, you’ll find me a willing participant. Otherwise, we really don’t have anything to talk about.
There is no Palestinian suicide bombing; no invasion by Egypt, Syria, or Jordan; no rocket attack from Gaza or Lebanon; no massacre of Jewish settlers in the 1920′s; no kidnapping of Israeli soldiers; no assassination of Israeli athletes; etc. that gives Israel any right to annex any land unilaterally in the West Bank, whatever technical arguments you can come up with that say that the annexations are because of the 1967 War, or the “natural growth” of cities, or the supposed lack of agreed upon boundaries. The continued annexation of the land while “suppporting” a two-state solution is the crux of the problem; the Israeli government is lying.
So I can agree with every historical fact that you can lay out (and even some that you haven’t) and it still doesn’t make Israel right in the annexation of land, whether through construction their wall on Palestinian territory, “outpost settlements”, or suburbs in border towns.
unagidon: You say you could agree to them, but you didn’t say whether you did or not. Do you think I wouldn’t notice the difference? Its a straightforward question. Do you agree with what I said in the first four paragraphs of my post of 11:00 pm on November 30 or not. If not, why not.
Perhaps you were trying to say that you do agree, but I couldn’t tell from the way you said it. Please clear this up and we can move on. And I don’t see what there is to get so angry about. Its only a question. Compare your tone in your first question about settlements directed to me on 11/28 at 6:53am, which was very polite (and which I answered politely, respectfully and in some detail on the same date at 9:17 am) and your tone in your most recent posts.
Okay, so far so good. Except that Israel didn’t exist before 1947.
Well, perhaps if you show us a picture of what the Israelis offered Arafat in 2000, we might get some idea of why reacted the way he did. Are you willing to do that?
Okay.
This STILL does not mean that Israel has the right to annex the land that it conquered in 1967, which is what it is doing. Especially if it is talking about a “two-state solution”. Why do you think this is not the case? You talk like Israel can’t help itself; that its neighbors made them annex the land (and continue to annex the land).
unagidon: Thank you for your comment, which I appreciate. I want to respond further, but I can’t at the moment. Hope to get back to you today. Certainly by tomorrow.
Carolyn
“I believe the purpose of right of return is to destroy Israel as a Jewish state, basically eliminating it from the map, a different means than war to achieve the same purpose; and I further believe the Palestinians know it.”
Interesting for you to say, because every Arab nation in the UN at the time voted against this resolution. They realized that by voting for the right to return implied recognition of Israel, and they preferred non-recognition. What reason would anyone have to believe that the majority of non-Arab nations in the world would vote to create Israel, and then vote for a resolution with the intent to destroy Israel shortly thereafter? Why wouldn’t one believe that the majority in the UN were attempting to find a just resolution to the problems there?
It is true that if Israel complied with the UN resolution granting refugees the right to return, Israel may have a difficult time continuing to present itself as both Jewish and a democracy. Any shift in demographics favorable to Palestinians in Israel could lead to election results unfavorable to Israel’s status as a “Jewish” state. If they were allowed to return without citizen status (voting rights), Israel would have a hard time preserving its image as a democracy. Israel wishes to preserve this appearance, which is why I stated earlier that it allows any Jew anywhere in the world the right to “return” to Israel, even if that person has never laid foot there. It is also why Israel refuses to recognize the UN resolution granting Palestinians who fled their homes in terror the right to return. Many have argued that it is also why Israel makes living conditions for Palestinians difficult. It would prefer to see them leave.
unagidon
“This STILL does not mean that Israel has the right to annex the land that it conquered in 1967, which is what it is doing. Especially if it is talking about a “two-state solution”. Why do you think this is not the case? You talk like Israel can’t help itself; that its neighbors made them annex the land (and continue to annex the land).”
I agree. Exactly my point when I said the settlement activity is indefensible under any circumstances.
Jeff Keller:
A plausible primer for destroying Israel as a Jewish state by means other than war, though terrorism helps too. Perfect.
I suspect Jews know a very great deal through history about fleeing in terror and may be unlikely to do so again — including the 40 to 50% of the Israeli population whose earlier generations were driven from Arab countries in 1948.
The end.
unagidon: Israel was founded on May 14, 1948, the day the British mandate expired. [The following day it was invaded by armies of surrounding Arab countries]. It was the provisional government of Israel (which became the government of Israel upon its founding) that agreed to the U.N. partition plan. The Arabs rejected it.
My understanding of the course of negotiations at Camp David and in the months that followed is that Arafat said no to everything that was presented to him, refused to make any counteroffers and with respect to issues concerning the Western Wall claimed that the Second Temple in Jerusalem was a Zionist fabrication. According to Dennis Ross, the Chief U.S. Negotiator at the talks, “Did Prime Minister Barak make mistakes in his tactics, his negotiating priorities, and his treatment of Arafat? Absolutely. Did the American side make mistakes in its packaging and presentation of ideas? Absolutely. Are Prime Minister Barak and President Clinton responsible for the failure to conclude a deal? Absolutely not. Both Barak and Clinton were prepared to do what was necessary to reach agreement. Both were up to the challenge. Neither shied away from the risks inherent in confronting history and mythology. Can one say the same about Arafat? Unfortunately, not … Consider Arafat’s performance at Camp David. It is not just that he had, in the words of President Clinton, “been here fourteen days and said no to everything.” It is that all he did at Camp David was to repeat old mythologies and invent new ones, like, for example, that the Temple was not in Jerusalem but in Nablus. Denying the core of the other side’s faith is not the act of someone preparing himself to end a conflict…,.Consider that near the end of September, when we had just concluded three days of quiet talks with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators and Arafat knew we were on the verge of presenting ideas that would have been close to those the President presented in December, he allowed the violence to erupt and did nothing to prevent it or contain it. This, despite a phone call from Secretary Albright asking him to act and reminding him of what we were about to do.The President’s ideas went well beyond those raised at Camp David. When Arafat proved unable to accept these ideas, he convinced the Israeli public that he could not accept any ideas for solving the conflict.” You can find Ross’ full statement in my comment of 11/20 at 5:54 pm in the post of Ms. Steinfels entitled “In case you’re confused… even more….”
You can find more about the details of the negotiations in this interview with Ross (you won’t like the source, Fox News, but its Ross I’m asking you to pay attention to, not Brit Hume): http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,50830,00.html
I appreciate that you have acknowledged forthrightly the truth of what I set forth in the first four paragraphs of my post of 11/30 at 11:00 pm (except for reserving judgment on Camp David 2000). Referring to your last paragraph of your post of 12/1 at 2:56 pm, I have never asked you to admit that the recitation of Arab-on-Jew wrongdoing entitles Israel to “annex” whatever Israel wants. As you know, I don’t hold that position myself. But the Palestinians have paid and are paying a price for all their wrongdoing.
In my first post to you, in response to your very first question of me, I addressed the issues of occupation and settlement. I assume that where I said Israel was wrong, you would agree with me, and where I said Israel was justified, you would disagree with me. If you want to ask me some questions based on what I said there or just take issue with what I said there, I will be happy to respond. I don’t know what more I can say. But the issue of settlements and occupation is just one issue among many in this conflict, and there’s nothing unfair in insisting that we put them all on the table.
And with respect to boundaries, what I set forth beginning with paragraph 5 of my 11/30, 11:00 pm comment is also the truth: there never were borders, but only truce lines, these truce lines were just based on who held what territory at the time of the cease fire, “Palestine” was not even a party to the agreements establishing the truce lines, and Egypt, Syria and Jordan blew up even those truce lines. The truth, like it or not, is that this is something of a frontier situation. You ask me whether if that’s true wouldn’t the Palestinians be building settlements in Israel. Yes, they would, if they only had the power to. When they thought they had the power, they didn’t merely try to make incursions into Israel, they sought to destroy it altogether. Its just that things didn’t turn out the way they thought they would, and they (and/or other Arab countries) got licked three times in a row on the field of battle in the space of 25 years. Perhaps in the future, they will finally win a war (one is all it takes for them) and Israel will be no more. Time will tell.
But its also true that as a practical matter borders are going to be based on the 1949 truce lines with agreed upon land swaps. That’s the consensus of most of the world. Its the consensus of the the U.N, the U.S, the E.U. and Russia (the “Quartet’). If the land swap is fair, would that really be so awful a result? And if Israel is in the stronger negotiating position, it acquired that superior position in defending itself in the wars waged against it.