The Case Against Israel by a Leftist Commie Jew

No one is saying "drive Jews into the sea" (except maybe some marginal Islamic extremists). What people, including Palestinians, are saying is give the Palestinians equal rights. And either allow those expelled to return or compensate them FAIRLY for their losses (including Lebanon which suffered tens of billions in destruction and at least 20,000 dead in Israel's invasion in 1982).

Also, I think it is disingenuous to say don't look back. History is important because it is the story of how we got to where we are here in the present. Without knowing what happened (or worse, believing you know what happened when what you actually know is fabrication), it is impossible to know how to proceed in terms of justice and peace.

Also, the order of events are important, for example, you say:
--"...Arabs that didn't run - as soon as their so-called 'brothers' in the rest of the Arab countries, declared war on the new state of Israel - were not all that welcome in Israel for obvious reasons..."

Noam Chomsky:
"Civil strife broke out immediately after the partition recommendation, with terror and violence on both sides. As usual, it is the record of Arab violence that remains in popular consciousness, but it is far from the whole story. For example, on Dec. 18, the Palmach [a Jewish paramilitary group]...carried out a 'retaliation' operation against the village of Khissas, killing 10 Arabs, including one woman and four children."
-Noam Chomsky
Fateful Triangle
Historical Background

In 1948, Zionists started massacring the Palestinians in April in order to drive them out. Arab armies only came in to defend the Palestinians from being massacred over a month later the following May.

Noam Chomsky:
"The armies of the Arab states entered the war immediately after the State of Israel was founded in May. Fighting continued, almost all of it within the territory assigned to the Palestinian state...About 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled in the 1948 conflict."
-Noam Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."
http://www.cactus48.com/statehood.html

The Zionist massacre at Deir Yassin happened on April 9, 1948 ( http://www.sobran.com/columns/020917.shtml ) -- a full month before the Arabs came to defend their Palestinian neighbors. And it was not only Deir Yassin that had almost its entire civilian population massacred but several dozen other towns and villages as well and they hid the evidence as they went -- as Israeli historians have recently revealed.

"By 1948, the Jew was not only able to 'defend himself' but to commit massive atrocities as well. Indeed, according to the former director of the Israeli army archives, 'in almost every village occupied by us during the War of Independence, acts were committed which are defined as war crimes, such as murders, massacres, and rapes'...Uri Milstein, the authoritative Israeli military historian of the 1948 war, goes one step further, maintaining that 'every skirmish ended in a massacre of Arabs.'"
-Norman Finkelstein
"Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict"
http://www.cactus48.com/partition.html

Also see Ilan Pappe's description of what happened:
"We have yet to be told the most horrific stories of 1948, although so many of us have been working as professional historians on that. We haven't talked about the rape. We haven't talked about the more than 30 or 40 massacres which popular historiography mentions. We haven't yet decided how to define the systematic killing of several individuals that took place in each and every village in order to create the panic that should produce the exodus. Is this a massacre or not when it is systematically repeated in every village? It is quite possible that some chapters will never be revealed, and many of them do not depend on archives, but rather on the memory of people whom we are loosing each day as vital witnesses. There were not specific orders written, only an atmosphere that has to be reconstructed. A glimpse into that atmosphere can be found on the bookshelves of almost every house in Israel - in the official books that glorify the Israeli army in its activity in 1948. If you know how to read them, you can see how the Palestinians were de-humanized to such a degree that you could rely on the troops, and that they would know what to do."
-Ilan Pappe, Israeli historian
http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/en/021020_pappe.html

Peace is important but how to get there from where we are now is dependent upon knowing the real history of what has occurred there. And real peace is not too late. It is up to Israel. The Arabs have given Israel an out-stretched hand for peace as late as last March 2002 (in the latest Arab League summit) and Ariel Sharon responded by calling it "the destruction of Israel."

"Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia – he of the 'peace plan' so warmly embraced by the United States and Tom Friedman of The New York Times – spoke briefly and with some honour. 'I tell the Israeli people,' he said, 'that if their government gives up the policy of force and suppression and accepts genuine peace, we will not hesitate in accepting the Israeli people's right to live in security with the rest of the people in the region.' "
-Robert Fisk
http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles50.htm
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"After a few wise words about Israel's 'interest' in the plan, Sharon told us that a right of return of refugees and a return to 1967 borders meant 'the destruction of the state of Israel.' "
-Robert Fisk
http://www.mafhoum.com/press3/92P32.htm
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It is crucial for anyone serious about peace to take their blinders off and see the reality for themselves. It is Israel that is dragging it's feet for peace not the Arabs as everyone seems to believe. The most important thing now is to call for justice for the Palestinians who are the party that has been so egregiously wronged here. Compensate those expelled or allow them a right of return just as Jews who never set foot there currently have. And importantly, give all Palestinians equal rights not just second-class citizenship.

"No one is saying "drive Jews into the sea" (except maybe some marginal Islamic extremists). What people, including Palestinians, are saying is give the Palestinians equal rights."

Would you call Hamas or Islamic Jihad marginal? Neither one recognizes Israel's right to exist.
Here's what Hamas has to say about Jews:
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This Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), clarifies its picture, reveals its identity, outlines its stand, explains its aims, speaks about its hopes, and calls for its support, adoption and joining its ranks. Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps. The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah's victory is realised.
***********************
The PLO has recently recognized the right of Israel to exist in the Middle East, albeit reluctantly. They were not always so cozy with the idea of a Jewish presence in the Middle East. Their founding Covenant declared:
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Article 22
.... Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement...Since the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian people look for the support of all the progressive and peaceful forces and urge them all, irrespective of their affiliations and beliefs, to offer the Palestinian people all aid and support in their just struggle for the liberation of their homeland.
********************
Now I don't know about you but this seems pretty straight-forward to me. It seems to me like they are saying "Israel is an instrument of Zionism and Zionism is evil. Therefore Israel is evil." Am I wrong?

You may feel this is justifiable given Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and territory seized during the 1967 war. But this document was drafted and adopted in 1964 before Israel secured control of the West Bank and Gaza.

Another secular organization, the PFLP holds similar attitudes. An excerpt from “The Military Thinking of the Front,” while dated, bears some similarity to the common arguments at indymedia:
*********************************
The great, global confrontation today is being played out by the exploitative imperialist camp and the Third World and Socialist camp. Only through an alliance with the liberation movements of Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, Asia, Africa, and Latin America can the Palestinian and Arab national liberation movements resist the imperialist camp... As well as these fundamental, revolutionary alliances, we must strive... to unite all liberation forces in Europe, America and the world. On the basis of this international strategy, we shall be able to encircle Israel, Zionism and Imperialism, and recruit all global revolutionary forces to support us in the battle.
*******************************
And before people start calling me a "zionist," or "zionazi" or "right wing troll" or "spook" or "cointelpro"cutting and pasting a bunch of instances where Israel has done ill shit, believe me, I know. I agree that they have. Of course I am aware of the settlements, the occupation. But I agree with Leslie. The two sides need to come together and accept that they need to live in peace with each other. The fact that small religious parties control so much of the debate in Israel is part of the problem. Same with the Islamic countries. But religion is only part of it. People are struggling over an incredibly small piece of land, the Jews are not going anywhere and neither are the Palestinians. Both sides need to get used to it and move on!

end of rant...

Hanan Ashrawi on what Palestinians want.

This is a very interesting talk.

VIDEO:

http://www.indybay.org/uploads/amp_ashrawi_cu.ram

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Fadia Rafeedie is a Palestinian-American who was the year 2000 recipient of the Berkeley's prestigious University Medal, and gave the student address at the University's commencement ceremony in May, 2000. She was scheduled to speak first in a convocation lineup that also included US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. After a last-minute schedule change placed Albright first and moved Rafeedie to the end of the program, Rafeedie decided to lay aside her prepared talk, and instead use her time to give an impromptu response to Albright's speech and to the protests that had been voiced from the audience while Albright was on stage.

She gave Madeleine "ThePriceIsWorthIt" Albright a piece of her mind during her convocation speech. You can just imagine what she said. If you want to read it, here it is:
Upstaged but Not Silenced

The speech below, however, is what I find truly inspirational. She shows the spirit of the Palestinian people in the face of Israeli atrocities.

VIDEO:

Forward to 29 minutes into this to hear Fadia's speech to 70,000 demonstrators gathered in DC last April
http://www.freespeech.org/fsitv/ramfiles/DN042202_vid.ram

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Two States or One?
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 21 November 2002

When the PLO formally recognized Israel within its internationally recognized borders and agreed to a two-state solution in 1993, like most Palestinians, I swallowed hard but accepted it. We believed that this unprecedented historic compromise, though bitter, was necessary to bring about peace. Those who completely rejected the creation of a state limited to the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- a mere twenty two percent of the country in which Palestinians were an overwhelming majority just fifty years ago -- were relegated to the margins of the Palestinian movement, both on the left and the Islamist right.

Israel gave everyone the impression that it would agree to a Palestinian state, and that it was only a matter of working out the technical formalities. But almost 10 years later, Israel has still never recognized the Palestinian right to statehood, much less agreed to the creation of such a state. On the contrary, in practice it has done everything to make the emergence of such a state impossible by continuing to furiously build colonies all over the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. The settler population in the West Bank has more than doubled since 1993, and not a day goes by without further colonization.

Because this policy has succeeded in solidifying Israeli control, and has, as intended, rendered a rational partition of the country virtually impossible, an increasing number of Palestinians, including some representatives of the Palestinian Authority, have started to talk once again about bi-nationalism -- the creation of a single democratic state for Israelis and Palestinians -- as the only viable solution to the conflict.

This idea is horrifying to many Israelis, who view it as a plot to "destroy Israel" since the vastly higher birth rate among Palestinians will soon make them a majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, just as they were until 1948.

None are more horrified by this prospect than Israel's traditional "peace camp," represented by the Labor and Meretz parties. And yet, because of its liberal values, the "peace camp" is unable to embrace formal apartheid or ethnic cleansing to "solve the demographic problem" as do Israel's right wing parties. The liberals want both the benefits of Jewish privilege that comes from living in a "Jewish state" while at the same time being faithful to their democratic values. They have shown themselves to be entirely bankrupt morally, intellectually and politically, and to have no serious ideas whatsoever for resolving the conundrum of their hypocrisy. They embrace Palestinian statehood warmly in theory but miss no opportunity to undermine and sabotage it in practice and to present proposals for meaningless and nominal statehood within a greater Israel.

I am one of those who accepted the two-state solution (although I opposed the Oslo Accords because I believed they could not lead to that goal) not enthusiastically, but because it offers Palestinians and Israelis a chance at normalcy from which they could one day -- like the European Union -- build a future of peace and prosperity from the ashes of war and hatred. Moreover, an international legal framework already exists for the transition from the current situation to Palestinian statehood, at least in theory making the path easier than to any other solution.

For Palestinians, giving up the seventy-eight percent of Palestine that became Israel in 1948 is giving up a part of themselves. It is gut-wrenchingly hard, and for some impossible. I respect that. For millions of Palestinians this is the land from which they, their parents or grandparents were expelled, in which homes and farms, shops and factories, churches and mosques, an entire society, was uprooted in exchange for decades of dispossession, misery in refugee camps, and demonization by Israel and its apologists. But, like millions of others, I was prepared to accept it for the sake of peace.

Although I recognize that the two-state solution will soon become impracticable, if it is not already, due Israel's relentless settlement construction, I believe it may still have a last chance if Israel is willing to embrace the following principles:

1) Israel must recognize that the Palestinians have already made an historic compromise by accepting a state in only twenty-two percent of their homeland, and that no further concessions can justly be asked of them. Israel must declare that by conquering seventy eight percent of Palestine in 1948, far more than was allotted to it in the 1947 UN partition plan, it has completely fulfilled its territorial ambitions and will not seek any more expansion.

2) Israel must immediately cease all construction in the occupied territories, including "natural growth" and all the other devices that are used to disguise ongoing settlement building. Israel must immediately stop confiscating Palestinian land either for building settlements or settler roads.

3) Israel must agree that the goal of any further negotiations is a complete end to the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem within a fixed, early period, and agree to withdraw under neutral international supervision and guarantees.

4) Israel must recognize an independent, sovereign Palestinian state whose borders are those of June 4, 1967, with minor, agreed-upon modifications to rectify anomalies, such as divided villages and bisected roads. Any land ceded on one side of the line must be compensated with land of equal size, value and utility on the other side, as close as possible to the exchanged land.

5) Israel must agree to evacuate all settlements in the occupied territories, without exception, including settlements in and around occupied East Jerusalem.

6) Jerusalem, as an open city, would be the capital of two states. A formula for sharing power fairly between Palestinians and Israelis, with guaranteed access to holy places for peoples of all faiths, would replace the illegal Israeli occupation "municipality" imposed on the city since 1967. This could be accomplished by various formulas. If the Palestinians agree to allow any settlements to remain in and around Jerusalem, Israel must compensate both the State of Palestine and the private land owners for the land, and the settlers must agree to live either as Palestinian citizens or permanent residents under Palestinian laws. If Palestinians agree that some Israeli settlers can remain in East Jerusalem then Israel must agree to allow Palestinians to return to the homes from which they were expelled in West Jerusalem in 1947-48.

7) The most difficult issue is the right of return of Palestinian refugees and compensation and restitution for their property and suffering. The right to return is an individual legal right and is not negated by the two-state solution. At the same time, recognition of Israel as a sovereign state means acknowledging a political reality and interest that will have to be factored into any formula to implement the right of return. It is not difficult to imagine solutions which fall between the maximalist positions of both sides and which simultaneously take into account Israel's concerns, and provide Palestinian refugees with real choices, including return to their original homes, as mandated by UN Resolution 194. Palestinians could, for example, agree among themselves to a system of priority where those with the greatest need to return get to choose first (among the choices Palestinian refugees whose original homes no longer exist might be offered is a home in an evacuated Israeli settlement). Israel will not be able to get away with a merely symbolic recognition of Palestinian refugee rights, but nor would millions of refugees suddenly flood back as in the Israeli "nightmare" scenario. There is ground in between that can be reached through negotiations and international mediation.

Palestinian private property remains inviolate and all property seized by Israel, even of those who choose not to return, must be returned to its owners or paid for at the fair market price, including use and interest. Clinton Administration Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat set out some sensible principles for dealing with property confiscated from European Jews and others by Nazi Germany, which could be adopted here. The same principles should apply to any Jews who were forced to leave Arab states as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

These conditions represent an enormous historic compromise. They call for two states, a Jewish Israel on seventy eight percent of the territory of historic Palestine and a State of Palestine on just twenty two percent. They call for full recognition of Israel within secure and recognized borders, the implementation of UN resolutions, sharing of Jerusalem and a just resolution to the refugee problem that respects refugee rights as well as Israel's needs.

From this basis, Israelis, Palestinians and later perhaps Jordanians, Egyptians, Lebanese and Syrians, might after a couple of generations feel they can join together in something like the European Union. That would be a choice freely made among sovereign peoples. I could live with this, and, though I do not speak for anyone but myself, I believe that other Palestinians could too -- indeed this is basically what millions of them thought they were endorsing when they elected Yasir Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority.

The problem is that there is not one major Israeli party or leader who is willing to put such a vision to the Israeli people. Even the most "dovish" want to keep most of the settlers where they are, annex large chunks of the West Bank, keep control of most of Jerusalem, and reject categorically any discussion of the right of return. No allowance is made for the massive compromises already made by the Palestinians, and more still are demanded. Israeli sociologist Jeff Halper argues that it is already too late and Israel's "matrix of control" in the occupied territories cannot, in effect, be dismantled. If Halper is right, then nothing any Israeli leader says will save the two-state solution. But if he is wrong and it can be saved, time is very short and we must hear a commitment to completely end the occupation from the Israelis now. After all, they are the principal beneficiaries of this solution.

The whole world is waiting, not least the Arab world which again held out its hand to Israel last March when the Arab League unanimously reaffirmed its commitment to a two-state solution.

Sadly, though, the political field in Israel looks unlikely produce anyone who will seize this golden opportunity. I believe, therefore, that Israel will likely miss the boat on the two-state solution, and we will have to think about what it will be like to live together in one state, and more importantly how to get there peacefully because no road map exists. For me, that is not a bad thing. I have no problem with the idea of living with Israelis, as long as we are equal before the law and in practice. I do not see the births or immigration of Jews as a "demographic time bomb" to be regarded with horror, nor am I frightened of having next door neighbors who speak a different language or worship in different ways. I embrace human and cultural diversity, no less in the land where my parents were born, than I do here in the United States.

I am prepared to accept two states as a practical solution to the conflict and do everything in my power to make it work. However, the mere trappings of nationalism -- flags, anthems, stately buildings, and passports -- mean absolutely nothing to me in themselves and I would just as soon do away with them. What matters is the content: does the flag represent true independence and sovereignty? Does the anthem represent common humanist values? Do the buildings enclose genuinely democratic institutions that do justice? Does a passport give its holder the freedom to travel the world and live securely in his homeland? These are the questions that matter.

Palestine/Israel could be two countries with a border between them that may one day lose its significance, just as the border between France and Germany has lost its power to divide people. Or, it could be one country for two peoples. I do not really care as long as we choose one path quickly and stick to it, and that, in the end, Israelis and Palestinians enjoy peace, democracy and human rights together, not at each other's expense.

True peace, whatever way we choose to achieve it, has a price. The powerful must give up some of their power and share it with the weak, or conflict is inevitable. Both a genuine two-state solution, as well as a single democratic state, would require that Israelis relinquish their monopoly on power in a manner they have never seriously considered thus far. Peace only came to South Africa when whites realized this and gave up their monopoly on power. Israel is far from that point and still seems to be looking for a way to avoid the choice. That means discussion about how to live together will remain only academic, while conflict and bloodshed rage on.

http://www.electronicintifada.net/v2/article896.shtml

A State for All Its Citizens—One Palestinian’s Dream of Peace

By Samah Jabr

For the past two years I have longed to be able to spend a Sunday in New York’s Central Park. I remember it as a place where people of every color, race and creed enjoy the blossom of pink spring flowers. The park’s wonderful configuration of elm trees provided shade for a diversity of people: Chinese giving backrubs; Africans selling their crafts on the sidewalks; a gorgeous black model in a flimsy dress sitting next to a young white man; an Eastern-looking scholar with a long beard and a short cloak leaning on the grass and enjoying his privacy; young boys with kippas playing competitively on their skateboards; sporty women in every possible outfit and hairstyle, looking after little kids, jogging or walking their dogs along the green grass. It is a diversity in which I revel.

South Africa, too, is a rainbow nation. After the defeat of constitutional prejudice and the barriers of apartheid, South Africa is on the right path for peace. Freedom was the first step—now the battle for advancement, and against crime and disease goes on.

I yearn for these places precisely because, just as the walls have come down in South Africa, they are being raised in my homeland. The most infamous of these is the huge wall being established on the illusory Green Line separating Israeli-inhabited areas from Palestinians and their homes. Those of us who live here know that walls do not reduce violence or stop Israeli tanks or Palestinian bombers. They do, however, separate those of us who are willing to meet each other. Walls emphasize stereotypes and deepen the sectarian hatred and animosity on both sides. Walls are being built here to shatter into pieces our dream of peace.

You may be surprised to know that I am speaking here not of a physical structure, but of the “two-state solution.” These days my ears are full of the region’s cries of war that grow ever louder with time. But the “peace” that the world and the Israeli left wish upon us is based on walls: a two-state proposal that is misleadingly or mistakenly being called a “solution.”

This “solution” will only maintain the exclusivity of occupation and propagate Zionism’s profound inequality in land proportion and resources, water, economy, advancement and—most importantly—military, between the two states. This is a “solution” that will reward the foreign occupiers by awarding them legal status and normal relationships in the Middle East, while giving us Palestinians bits and pieces of our homeland, cantons that are separated from each other by Jewish-only settlements and their safe roads.

This two-state “solution” advocates a demilitarized “Palestinian state” that has no direct borders with any of its Arab neighbors but instead is surrounded by the Middle East’s only nuclear power. A “transient state,” says the American administration, that will be bestowed on one condition: that we Palestinians behave and “elect” a “reformed” and “democratic” authority (by “Israeli-American” standards)—and that only after another three more years of occupation.

And so, while Israel continues bringing its 2,000-year “refugees” to this land, and extolling its war criminals as national heroes and electing them prime minister, we Palestinians are expected to give up the right of return to over 60 percent of the Palestinian nation, to abandon our political prisoners and to condemn our freedom fighters. Instead of the single infamous Jericho Casino, the new Palestinian Authority might build a dozen, and we’ll continue having no factories, no infrastructure and no basic elements of independence.

The two-state “solution” does not meet any minimal ambition of peace, freedom and a dignified future for Palestinians. It jeopardizes our basic human and national rights of self-sovereignty. Except for municipal matters like collecting our own garbage, our nation will be totally dependent on the state of Israel. And we will be expected to do something in return, like collecting the garbage of the “neighbors,” washing their dishes and continuing to provide cheap labor to our tormentors and oppressors.

For these reasons, the two-state “solution” has a very poor prognosis. Yes, it can impose a truce and temporary stability—but not a real peace. The profound inequality on which it is based will bring recurrent flare-ups of violence in the not-too-distant future.

Its poor chance of success is not the only reason to oppose it, however. I oppose it because it has no appeal to the average Palestinian. We all know that it is simply a less ugly mask of occupation that will make the Israelis look more beautiful to the world, while continuing to oppress us—to the world’s silence. This “solution” has been introduced as a means of making Palestinians bow to the inevitable.

The Palestinians are a cosmopolitan nation, however. We are the descendants of a mixture of cultures and civilizations that have lived in this land since the Stone Age. We have Canaanite, Semite, Aramaic, Arab, Turkish, African and European blood in our veins. Here we were born, and here our forefathers have lived. A common history, a common passion for the one homeland and the same bleeding wound unite us.

We are not xenophobic or exclusive. We are Muslims, Christians, indigenous Jews, Baha’is and Druze. Over the centuries our doors were open to foreigners. The Armenians fleeing genocide found shelter among Palestinians, Africans came to Palestine as pilgrims, were caught by the magic of Jerusalem and have stayed here ever since. The early Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution were accepted within the Palestinian community, worked with Palestinians, lived in their towns, and intermarried with them. According to the Palestinian National Charter, the document that lays out our national principles, Jews who immigrated to Palestine before the1948 Nakba are still considered Palestinians.

Unlike the Armenian refugees, however, the European Zionist Jews brought with them their guns and a vile colonialist agenda. They came to claim Palestinian land as their territory and to shove the Palestinians away to create room for more and more occupiers. The international community shamelessly supported the occupation to rid itself of their own “Jewish problem” at home.

Our rejection of the Zionist project is based on the rejection of foreign occupation, the unjust partition plan and the theft of our homeland and resources—not to mention the human crimes that have been committed to realize the Jewish dream of an exclusive state.

Although any nation would demand that foreign occupiers take their guns and luggage and go home, I do acknowledge that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is very complex. The emergence of two generations of Israelis born in the land their forefathers occupied makes thing infinitely more confused. It means that this conflict will not be solved until we recognize the presence and the humanity of the other, rectify the wounds of the past, acknowledge the wrong that has been done to Palestinians and then undo those wrongs as best we can.

As the human crisis in occupied Palestine haunts me, and a humanistic, just solution to it puzzles me, I recall the joy of diversity and peace in Central Park and South Africa. Hope for me lies in a multi-national, multi-ethnic pluralistic democratic state of historic Palestine for all its citizens. Palestinians who were born in Palestine, the descendants of those dispossessed and expelled by military force, those Israelis born in the land, and the Jews who arrived here before the Israeli occupation, rather than the immigrant occupiers, all have the moral right to live in a free, democratic Palestine as equal citizens; in which one person equals one vote.

Zionists and their friends will say that what I am proposing means their extermination. “You are asking us to commit mass suicide,” one Israeli “peacemaker” told me. In fact, I’m calling for their moral and ethical liberation from the sin of occupation, for their freedom from pathological fear and the neurosis of security, all the while restoring their human rights as equal citizens in a free country.

Fundamental Palestinian Demands

The right of return should be restored to our refugees—it is up to them whether they exercise it or not. Freedom to all our political prisoners is a cardinal pillar to peace in the region. War criminals should be tried and punished for their actions. As for the occupiers and their collaborators in the Palestinian community, a workable solution based on respect for human rights and international law should be negotiated.

While this is not an easy solution, it is the closest there is to earthly justice. It must be implemented slowly but surely (as opposed to just slowly), to prepare the Palestinians to accept their oppressors as equal citizens, and to prepare the Israelis for shedding their privileges that rest on exploitation in order to earn their acceptance as equal citizens.

This is not my fantasy of peace—it is my hope of peace. The undoing of colonization has been achieved throughout history. South Africa is a living example of the triumph of hope and reconciliation over oppression and prejudice. Palestine can be the latest such inspiration.

I’m not every Palestinian, but neither am I alone among Palestinians. I’m a voice of hope willing to speak out when other voices are caught up in fear and despair. My call is a call of humanity and freedom that has not been silenced through intimidation or temptation, and never will be. Even when I am denied many of my very basic human rights, I choose to exercise the right to hope for and dream of a better future for a home and a people I so dearly love.

Samah Jabr is a medical intern in her native city of Jerusalem.

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/sept-oct02/0209010.html

Statements have been made on both sides. Here are some from Israeli leaders and supporters:

David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff.
From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978:

"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population."


Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department.
From Israel: an Apartheid State by Uri Davis, p.5:

"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours... Everything we don't grab will go to them."


Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine, "Complete Diaries," June 12, 1895 entry.:

"Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."


In 1923, radical Zionist Ze'ev Jabotinsky-- spiritual father of not only of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin but of Brooklyn Rabbi Meir Kahane-- wrote:

the "sole way" for Jews to deal with Arabs in Palestine was through "total avoidance of all attempts to arrive at a settlement"-which Jabotinsky euphemistically termed the "iron wall" approach. Not coincidentally, a picture of Jabotinsky graces Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's desk. Source: The Village Voice, "Death Wish in the Holy Land," Dec. 12, 2001.


The influential Israeli Rabbi Ovadia Yosef exclaimed during a sermon preceding the 2001 Passover holiday, :

"May the Holy Name visit retribution on the
Arab heads, and cause their seed to be lost, and annihilate them." He added: "It is forbidden to have pity on them. We must give them missiles with relish, annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones."
-Source: Ha'aretz April 12, 2001.


Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969:

"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, ‘What is to be done with the Palestinian population?’ Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!'"


David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1978, p. 99:

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."


Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, 'Begin and the "Beasts"', New Statesman, 25 June 1982:

"We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return."


Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979. Rabin's description of the conquest of Lydda, after the completion of Plan Dalet:

"We shall reduce the Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters."


David Goldman wrote:

"We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours."


Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir's infamous quote:

"There is no such thing as a Palestinian."


Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998:

"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."

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At the present (and since 1981 when both Saudi Arabia and the PLO started making moves towards a political settlement), Israel has been the key obstacle towards peace preferring the Occupation and the land grabs inherent in it to peace. They believe peace to be an abstract concept to the real world gains of territorial acquisition.

As an example:
In 1981, both the Saudis and the PLO started making peace offers to Israel. Israel responded by attacking Lebanon in 1982 killing 20,000 people in order to put an end to any possible peace settlement.

The reaction to the peace offer was a "frightened, almost hysterical response of the Israeli government to the Saudi plan."
Israeli correspondent,
quoted by Noam Chomsky
The Fateful Triangle,
Chapter 3, part 3
"The Continuing Threat of Peace."

"From early 1981, Israel launched unprovoked attacks which finally elicited a response in July, leading to an exchange in which six Israelis and several hundred Palestinians and Lebanese were killed in Israeli bombing of densely populated civilian targets. Of these incidents, all that remains in the collective memory of the media is the tragic fate of the inhabitants of the northern Galilee, driven from their homes by katyusha rockets. After a cease-fire was arranged under U.S. auspices, Israel continued its attacks. The Israeli concern, according to Yaniv, was that the PLO would observe the cease-fire agreement and continue its efforts to achieve a diplomatic two-state settlement...Israel attempted with increasing desperation to evoke some PLO response that could be used as a pretext for the planned invasion of Lebanon, designed to destroy the PLO as a political force, establish Israeli control over the occupied territories, and -- in its broadest vision -- to establish Ariel Sharon's 'New Order' in Lebanon and perhaps beyond. These efforts failed to elicit a PLO response. The media reacted by urging 'respect for Israel's anguish' rather than 'sermons to Israel' as Israel bombed targets in Lebanon with many civilian casualties...the actual reasons and background for them [Israel's attacks] are completely foreign to the media, which assure us that the U.S.-Israeli search for peace has been thwarted by PLO terror. After the Israeli invasion, with perhaps 20,000 or more civilian casualties, Israeli terrorist actions in Lebanon continued, as they do today, though these are no part of 'the evil scourge of terrorism.' We may occasionally read that Lebanese farmers 'working in fields near Ain Khilwe were killed when the Israeli planes dropped incendiary bombs,' but nothing is suggested by this casual observation in the final sentence of a brief article on the shelling of the refugee camp at Rashidiye by Israeli gunboats, the day after forty-one people were killed and seventy wounded in the bombing of the refugee camp at Ain Khilwe."
-Noam Chomsky
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-c10-s05.html

The solution is clear. Compensate those Palestinians who lost their land or give them a right to return as Jews currently enjoy and IMPORTANTLY, give the Palestinians equal not just second-class citizenship.

What is so complicated about this formula which nearly everyone in the world supports including Palestinians?

" What is so complicated about this formula which nearly everyone in the world supports including Palestinians?"

Don't you know it is an anti-semitic thing to claim equal rights for jews and non-jews?

I had no comments earlier and now have 5.

I would love to answer each in detail. But I have only time to read (very quickly) one - "We must demand justice for the Palestinians who are the victims here
by "... Sunday February 23, 2003 at 06:52 PM

I THINK SOME OF YOU READ THIS WRONG AND TOO LITERALLY.

The title "The Case Against Israel by a Leftist Commie Jew" is quite "tongue in cheek" and the gist of the article is totally different than the words themselves convey. I hoped to get some right wing pro-war people to read it by wring it that way then bring them to my message at the end.

For one thing I am certainly NOT a “Leftist Commie Jew.” I am a Jew by birth, am an agnostic by philosophical conviction, and was never a “Commie.”

And yes sir, I am only learning now how brutal the conditions for Palestinians were in and after 1948. I would like to learn more about it and will read more on it.

But I do believe that a lot of people are being slammed with "hate Israel propaganda" such as comes from KPFA radio, a station I used to support.

I would still support them if their tone was "Hate the regimes and especially the Sharon government in Israel" but KPFA has got on its soapbox and is starting to look like the other side of Bush Inc. KPFA (and others like them) do nothing to help quell the fires that are being stoked. That is the REAL issue.

Two wrongs don't make a right - you know.

I also believe plenty of Arabs WOULD like to see their Israeli problem " removed." - as in "annihilated." (Just like a lot of Jews want the Palestinians to just go away - or better still keep being a servile workforce.)* But before all this started - on both sides - that was a minority and that most of all - Palestinans and Israelis alike shared the dream of a peaceful future.

In fact all this was not such a big problem before Arafat and Sharon finally got their way. (I blame them both equally for the trouble we are now in*).

Remember, before the Intifada Jews casually went to Ramallah for pleasant weekends and were welcome by their Palestinian neighbors.

What happened is very complicated, and is being made 1000x worse by the policies of the current American administration.

To end here, because I must, please understand - all of you - that my article, - to sum it up is just the old plea for peace - which is surely what we all want - but with a twist. I tend to say things "sideways" and you must read between the lines.

As for my reference to Sodom and Gomorrah, and "don't look back," I certainly did not mean - don't look at history and learn from it, as we are then only certain to repeat it. What I meant was "now that we know about our "sins" (whichever and whose ever we are talking about), we MUST look past that, and indeed learn from it.

I abhor the grandstanders who keep arguing about who did what and why we have to get even now, or to put it another way (like my Zionist cousin put it from the Jewish right) - "those people only understand force." - (“God” help him).

I am sorry I cannot address all of your fine responses - I just skimmed all of them. I will try to as you have taken this time to be so kind as to respond – to do it within the week.

To sum it up:
My message was simply that we must stop this fighting at any cost. Sodom and Gomorrah seemed very appropriate since as a physics major in school, the prophetic tone of the old biblical story takes on a very contemporary meaning with just a single change in what we understand as fire and brimstone.

Which sums up what I wanted to say.

Thank you and I will try to respond more to the other writers.

* Forgive me for simplifying all the issues surronding these statements. Just add an "if" and what I say has to be wrong from one or another very valid viewpoint.


L.H. Spaiser
Concord, CA USA

HELLO AGAIN

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For any of you checking back, I have read just about every word of all the comments and I now see that most of you are in support of my position. I also think the article which probably not placed in the best forum on Indymedia. (It is really just another anti-war item, not a racism article.)

I think most of you, particularly the people of an Arab nationality (all of you?) wished to strengthen your case over the same issue I used AS A PIVOT for my argument, which in fact, was not the point of it at all. (But, by the way, something I know to be true in a very personal way and which I will relate to you at the end.)

So I have learned a lot from all of you and I thank you for level headed well written responses reinforcing that issue I raised.

Of course my point was not really the issue of Israeli attitudes and actions against the Palestinians, but as I said before, it is that Americans (in particular) who are now ranting and raving about those attitudes and actions should look in the mirror over their shoulders and check for the ghosts of their “American Patriot” forefathers. Those men who then decided this was their land and who sent out their generals and their armies to get rid of those pesky natives. In my mind this is almost a perfect parallel.

I hope those of you, especially the Arab people among you; understand that I was neither making a case for or against Israel’s behavior now or since 1948.

So I will not repeat it but just re-iterate that my message had nothing to do with those issues.

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Now I will tell you this tid-bit which I referred to earlier as my personal experience with anti-Arab racism. I personally witnessed this in the home of the family member I referred to earlier as a right-wing Jewish hawk who “sometimes” lives in Jerusalem and is a cousin of mine.

In fact this person is not a Sabra, but a transplant from the USA who made “alyiah” as it is called for a Jew to permanently move to Israel. Although I did not often visit my cousin and his family, this day I just happened to be traveling directly by their home – so I dropped in - unannounced. It was the week they were packing to leave for Israel. As you can imagine the place was a mess with stuff all over that would not normally be out. At the time the family also consisted of two quite young children, perhaps 4 and 6 years old.

I found a place to sit down and noticed a very strange looking comic book on a pile near me. I had never seen anything like these before even though I had stayed with them and spent time alone in the house and especially in that same room. Naturally I was curious to see what these “not at all normal looking” comic books were about.

What I saw is something most of you Arabs probably know all about, racist images denigrating, Arabs as lowlife – insipiently stupid ugly and dirty people. These were comic books for kids – their kids. I was (quietly) appalled and said nothing.

The truth obviously was that their father was preparing his children to be well seasoned racists before they even set foot on Middle Eastern soil. I was instantly reminded of the very same kind of slander used against the black people of this country not so long ago to keep them down and enslaved.

It totally changed my mind about the possible noble religious purpose this (as I said earlier) very intelligent and would-be learned man had in going to Israel. And while he remains those things – on the surface, I see in those comics (that I am sure were not for my eyes), what must be the real person behind this mask of religious righteousness. This is a sickness of the soul, and as I know in this case from personal observation, a violent over-reaction from that sickness.

I am embarrassed for him and apologize to those of you who have been hurt so badly by the likes of him among Jews. Of course we are not alone nor is any national or religious group alone in having its share of such types. These are minds perhaps like those of your own (Arab) extremists, who have no room for humanity outside of themselves or their immediate interests (and I assure you this individual is about as self centered a person I have met.)

Just remember, he and his kind are the crazies. This one has gained credibility and thus a good deal of self-righteousness from a successful profession, and the establishment of his family, which I truly wish were not part of my own. They were born hating or got twisted somehow and now find identity and salvation in it. Till now we could just pity them, except that they now threaten our very existence (and thus the reason I felt I had to write the original article.)

Finally to the contrary - although I have never been to Israel - I believe that (before the Intifata was rekindled) for every one of these kind, JEW OR ARAB, there were 10 or maybe 100 good people who just wanted to live every day in peace and good faith with their neighbors. We can only fight the haters of freedom and peace by using all of the tools at our disposal. Let’s hope the word is indeed, mightier, in the end, than the sword.

I leave you with this personal story and wish you all Shalom and Salaam from the state of California in the USA and from the bottom of my heart.


L.H. Spaiser