I AM A JEW (PART XXI - Voices in Defense of Israel)

As the title shows this is the 21st part (actually the 22^nd, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts, I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on Part I and then scrolling upwards or by accessing the label I Am A Jew.

I have not been publishing any comments received from readers because as I said at the end of each my blogs: “I welcome comments, but will not publish any, unless they have a unique relevance to the segment under discussion, until this series is complete. “

The series is not complete, but I think it is time to publish some of the comments I have received, and to analyze them.

Leonard Levenson, a criminal defense attorney, living and having his office in Manhattan, NY wrote:

I have been following your series very closely. I am very impressed by the thoroughness of your research and the apparent logic of your arguments. However, though I find your facts are correct, the conclusions you draw from them are not. I have been waiting for you to complete your series before responding in depth. At the outset however, I believe that all of the atrocities committed by Israel stem from the overhanging threat to their existence. The massacre at Deir Yassin for example occurred during a fight for Israel's very survival. The source of danger was, of course Arab hostility. The assassination of Count Bernadotte was the perception that he posed a threat to the survival of Israel. The reaction was extreme and unwise but it stemmed from Arab hostility.

 Israel, on the other hand was willing to cooperate with regard to the development of the Middle East economically and developmentally. Beneficial proposals for the irrigation of dry land in Palestine by diverting the Litani River would have greatly increased the productivity of the land but was rejected by Palestinian and Arab leaders. Other economic and developmental projects such as joint desalination proposals were put forth and likewise rejected.

 The terrorist acts by Israel were essentially misguided defensive acts designed to protect the Israeli state and population. The terrorist acts of the Arabs were misguided offensive acts designed to destroy Israel. I have not yet completed my research into the specifics of my comments. I doubt that it will be as thorough as yours. However, when completed I will communicate further.

This is a perfect example of what I see as a kind of “kneejerk” reaction in defense of actions by Israel that purport to be based on researched facts, but that upon examination are anything but that.

Levenson writes: “The massacre at Deir Yassin for example occurred during a fight for Israel's very survival.”

Even if that were true, would it justify the slaughter of innocent men, women and children? But it isn’t even true!

If Levenson had bothered to read my post "I AM A JEW (Part II)" carefully he would not have made this blanket statement for I wrote, and I quote in part:

“What has come to be known as the Deir Yassin massacre is instructive. I quote from Wikipedia:

“The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 120 fighters from the Irgun Zevai Leumi and Lohamei Herut Israel Zionist paramilitary groups attacked Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, a Palestinian Arab village of roughly 600 people. The assault occurred as Jewish militia sought to relieve the blockade of Jerusalem by Palestinian forces during the civil war that preceded the end of British rule in Palestine…. sparked terror within the Palestinian community, encouraging them to flee from their towns and villages in the face of Jewish troop advances, and it strengthened the resolve of Arab governments to intervene, which they did five weeks later. (Emphasis added)”

I call Levenson’s attention to the fact that at this point Israel was not “fighting for its life.” Arab armies entered the fray five weeks later and to a large extent because of this event. If Levenson, or for that matter other readers, want to know more of the details of Deir Yassin, I urge them to read the post here.

But Deir Yassin - or for that matter the bombing of the King David hotel - would not be a blot on Israel but for events that followed, about which the Jerusalem Post recently wrote:

On July 22, 1946, three phone calls were placed to the King David Hotel, an adjacent building and to The Jerusalem Post (then The Palestine Post), warning of an imminent bombing. Minutes later, a blast ripped through the historic hotel and then-headquarters of the British Mandate for Palestine’s civilian and military authorities, killing 91 people and injuring nearly 50.

These acts were not done by the Israeli Defense Forces, “The Haganah” but by the terrorist organizations known as the Stern Gang, later the Irgun and violated the ethics of The Haganah, which believed in “Purity of Arms.” In fact the differences between these groups was so fierce that it led to an actual clash of arms between them in the not to be forgotten “sinking of the ‘Altalena.’” 

So as long as the forces of decency reigned in Israel, it would have been wrong to even mention these horrendous deeds. But the Israel of its founders, the Israel of Ben-Gurion, is no more. The enemies of the Haganah, the enemies of Ben-Gurion, the very people who called Yitzhak Rabin a Nazi, and whose denunciations of him were directly responsible for his assassination, are now running the Israeli government.

They know no “Purity of Arms”! They are the philosophic descendants of terrorists, and they bear the blot of Deir Yassin and the King David Hotel and the Atelena.

As for Levenson’s comment:

Israel, on the other hand was willing to cooperate with regard to the development of the Middle East economically and developmentally. Beneficial proposals for the irrigation of dry land in Palestine by diverting the Litani River would have greatly increased the productivity of the land but was rejected by Palestinian and Arab leaders.

It is totally inaccurate, even though I wish it were true.

According to Wikipedia under the heading: “Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan” it states:

1955 US ambassador Eric Johnston negotiated the Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan… Jordan undertook to abide by their allocations under the plan. The plan was initially un-ratified by Israel, but after the US linked the Johnston plan to aid, also agreed to accept the allocation provisions.

In that same post, under the heading: “Subsequent developments” it relates:

1988 The Syrian/Jordanian agreement on development of the Yarmouk is blocked when Israel as a riparian right holder refuses to ratify the plan and the World Bank withholds funding. Israel's augments its Johnson plan allocation of 25,000,000 m³/yr by a further 45,000,000–75,000,000 m³/yr.

That doesn’t quite sound like the Levenson rendition.

There are many American Jews who are deeply concerned that the Israel that true Zionists like my father and I, and untold survivors of the Holocaust, and their children, is no more. We want an Israel that returns to the ideals of its founders, to the people, like Levenson, who went to Israel to work on a kibbutz, but that Israel is no more.

It is proud Jews, not self-hating ones, who decry what has happened and is happening in Israel. Who paid for advertisements in the New York Times like the one that appeared in the Times on September 16^th 2014 entitled “An Open letter to President Obama.” 

True Zionists seek the ideals on which Israel was founded!! Not the one of Netanyahu and Lieberman. Not the one that is described here:

I rode a bus in Jerusalem on January 22, that in and of itself is not unusual. What made this 90 minute journey unique was that it had been arranged by Anat Hoffman, director of the Israel Religious Action Centre (IRAC) for myself and Judith Sudilovsky, a free-lance journalist on assignment for Na’amat magazine. Our task was to observe and record gender segregation on bus line 56. On this bus line and others both in Jerusalem and between Jerusalem and other cities Haredim insist that women sit in the back of the bus, and when possible only enter through the back door.

Or the one described in an e-mail from “The Pluralist” an Israeli women’s organization:

The controversial nation state bill that passed its initial vote…(asserts) that only the Hebrew calendar will be the official state calendar… (or) that Arabic, the native tongue of 21% of Israel's population, will no longer be an official language on par with Hebrew.

But neither Levenson, nor most Americans, instinctive Israeli defenders of Israel, know what is going on. They believe what they want to believe, not what the reality is.

People in Israel are beginning to see the crisis that Israel has brought on itself. Thus a former director general of the Mossad, Shabtai Shavit writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz - see here or here - tells us:

I am truly concerned about the future of the Zionist project… the government’s blindness and political and strategic paralysis on the other. Although the State of Israel is dependent upon the United States, the relationship between the two countries has reached an unprecedented low point. Europe, our biggest market, has grown tired of us and is heading toward imposing sanctions on us. For China, Israel is an attractive high-tech project, and we are selling them our national assets for the sake of profit. Russia is gradually turning against us and supporting and assisting our enemies.

 I am concerned that large segments of the nation of Israel have forgotten, or put aside, the original vision of Zionism: to establish a Jewish and democratic state for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. No borders were defined in that vision, and the current defiant policy is working against it.

What can and ought to be done? We need to create an Archimedean lever that will stop the current deterioration and reverse today’s reality at once. I propose creating that lever by using the Arab League’s proposal from 2002, which was partly created by Saudi Arabia. The government must make a decision that the proposal will be the basis of talks with the moderate Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

True American supporters of Israel, of whatever faith, must stop blindly labeling resistance to oppression terrorism, and not excuse the inexcusable, defend the indefensible, rationalize the irrational, or justify the unjustifiable.

I welcome comments, but will not publish any, unless they have a unique relevance to the segment under discussion, until this series is complete.

Israel and the Palestinians (A Summing Up)

As I come to my final commentary on this subject, I find myself quite sad because for the most part the people who disagreed with me never engaged in a real discussion.

With some notable exceptions all they offered was hate and endless war. Do they really think that this is in the interests of Israel or Jews throughout the world? Thus Frank Friedman of Johannesburg, South Africa, wrote, “Anti-Semitism is here to stay. Jew bashing is a very popular sport. The Arabs only want the country is not negotiable! Their aims are war until they achieve what they want. What ever Israel does is wrong. I personally would send rockets back all day until they are all wetting their pants as the Israelis do!"

That is insulting to the Israeli’s, as brave and courageous a people as live anywhere. Israeli’s are not wetting in their pants.
And the implication that my criticizing Israeli government policies are anti-Semitic is a slander on me, and all those in Israel who agree with me, as shown in the many articles I cited in Haaretz written by Israelis.

I wonder whether Mr. Friedman has even tasted the lash of anti-Semitism as I have. Did he escape from Hitler’s Holocaust? Jew bashing indeed.

But why engage in rational debate which might actually further the possibility for Israel to live in peace and prosperity. Like so many Arabs, the spewing of hate comes easier than actually furthering the interest of Israel or Jewry throughout the world.

Why have my critics totally ignored what Ben Gurion said, “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”

This quote is important because it shows that Ben Gurion recognized that the Arabs had a legitimate grievance, not something that today’s hate mongers will ever concede. But it is important to recognize such factors if they are ever to be dealt with.

But more importantly we have to answer the other question, Ben Gurion raised, “Why would they accept that?” Why indeed? And the answer is reality! Arabs are not good at facing reality, but even they come to grips with it after suffering defeat after defeat.

My critics act like nothing has changed since 1948 or even 1967. So very much has changed, but my critics sit in their bunker mentality and pretend nothing has changed. Today Israel is the most powerful country in the Middle East, with the IDF by far the most powerful military, and Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has atomic bombs. Its existence isn’t threatened. Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties and have recognized the state of Israel.

The threat to Israel comes from within. It comes from the fanatical settler movement which is determined to drive Arabs from all the lands of Palestine and which is exercising an ever-greater power within Israel where the constant need for coalition government gives an outsize power to minor parties.

We outside Israel, Jews who understand persecution from first hand experience, and the US government need to be a counterweight to these fanatics. Peace is not possible as long as they choose to expropriate more and more Arab lands. As Herb Reiner wrote, “As things are now, life is a nightmare for many Palestinians. Lands not yet confiscated are becoming increasingly inaccessible as they are broken by walled barriers. Palestinians are often required to pass through multiple checkpoints to get from their homes to their jobs or fields. New highways are for the exclusive use of settlers or Israelis."

How does such continuing encroachment aid the peace process, or for that matter Israeli security?

Bill Mainzer of Portola Valley, California asks, "Would you simply sit still and allow your neighbors to shell you?" But he doesn’t ask, "Would you simply sit still and allow your neighbor to blockade you, denying you the basics of life including food and electricity?" Would you simply sit still and allow your neighbor to keep encroaching on your lands, and take your homes to build homes for themselves? I asked, "Are Arabs not allowed to defend themselves?" and the response is a deafening silence.

Bill Mainzer says possibly, when both sides are ready to sit down and negotiate a proper peace settlement this can come to a stop. But before that, both Hamas and their supporters, Iran, will need to accept the right for Israel to exist. Of course, but that comes at the end of negotiations, not as a precondition.

But then in that same message, Bill Mainzer adds, "Maybe another Arab state like Syria could absorb the Palestinian people that they too, do not want!" indicating the very mindset that makes peace all but impossible. Palestinians do not want to live in Syria and Syria doesn’t want to have the Palestinian’s, but what this implies is Bill favors ethnic cleansing, which appears to be gaining ground. It is what the settler movement wants. If that is the objective, or even if the Palestinians think it is, then there can be no peace.

But what I find most disturbing is the mentality that the whole world is arrayed against the Jews. First of all nothing could be further from the truth. Germany and a number of other countries have actually made it a crime to deny the Holocaust, and when the Pope stupidly removed the excommunication of a Holocaust denier, Germany and the world at large were up in arms.
It was the world at large, through the UN that gave sanction to the creation of Israel.

Barry Grant of Millford, NJ writes:

"As for the blockade of Gaza, I am sure you are aware that the Egyptians are also blockading Gaza. There is very little complaint about their actions, but then again the Egyptians are not Jewish. I have great sympathy for the innocent Palestinians who have been killed and injured. Just as I had sympathy for them in 1970 when King Hussein of Jordan (the good Arab) bombed the Palestinian refugee camps on the West Bank killing more than the Israeli's have killed in all these decades. No one mentions this (maybe because King Hussein was not Jewish) I could go on and on mentioning the response of the world and the media to Darfur, Bosnia, Rwanda, etc. Where is the outrage when a thousand times as many innocent persons are killed? I find it appalling"

This is simply not true. The Egyptians are blockading Gaza at the request of Israel. Since Hamas has not responded by attacking Egypt, (probably because they are smuggling their supplies and arms from there) there is little focus there. It has nothing to do with being Jewish. As for Darfur, Bosnia, Rwanda the outrage is resounding. The number of news articles I have read and seen on this subject and the number of appeals for help I have received by e-mail and snail mail is legion.

Even now the World Tennis Federation is ready to apply sanctions to Dubai for barring a Jewish Israeli player.

The mindset, "Woe is me, I am Jewish" is a relic from another time. I am glad to say that Jews all over the world are respected and have enormous influence in the US and throughout the Western world. AIPAC holds sway over American foreign policy to a degree that few foreign lobbyist organizations have. It was the only foreign lobby that I know of, to which Obama felt it necessary to appeal to.

Barry says, "I found your comments unbalanced and one-sided, although not as one sided as W's 8 years of benign neglect of the problems." But that benign neglect was to lend unswerving support to Israeli policies, which it seems to me is exactly what Barry seems to advocate. If Obama is to be successful in furthering the peace process he will have to build some credibility with Arabs, and the first thing he will have to do is convince Israel to stop expanding settlements and lift the blockade.

Finally, many have argued that Israel gave Arafat a great peace offer and Arafat turned it down. How they arrive at that conclusion is puzzling. How much was offered in the way of dismantling settlements, none of us know. I have read with care Dennis Ross’ "The Missing Peace" and I never found any details of what the offer was. To be sure Arafat had a strange way of negotiating, never making counter proposals and just listening and saying, "No" but it is a poor excuse to say well we tried - they turned it down, and so there is no point in trying again.

If we as Jews in the US want to be true friends of Israel we will support the forces of tolerance and peace.

Toward that end I recommend support of J Street, the Jewish lobby that is the true friend of Israel by supporting the peace movement.

I recommend signing up so as to keep apprised of developments. I also recommend listening to the analysis by a leading Israeli journalist of the recent Israeli election and the peace process, available on that site.

Putting The Israeli/Arab "Conflict" In Context.

An issue as complicated as the Israeli conflict with the Palestinians can hardly be given adequate coverage in one essay. Accordingly I plan to devote more time and effort to this very important issue. In this article I plan to discuss the genesis of the conflict because I believe the comments received as well as the articles cited in those comments ignore the fundamental problems of the conflict, which can only be found in its history.

Jews inhabited Palestine in Biblical times but were driven out by wave after wave of invaders, from Romans in 135 A.D. to the 7th century when Muslim Arab armies moved north from Arabia to conquer most of the Middle East, including Palestine. The rulers allowed Christians and Jews to keep their religions. However, most of the local population gradually accepted Islam and the Arab-Islamic culture of their rulers. Thus while some Jews remained in Palestine they were a very small community with most Jews having become part of the great Jewish Diaspora.

Jews had never stopped coming to "the Holy land" or Palestine in small numbers throughout the exile. Palestine also remained the center of Jewish worship and a part of Jewish culture. However, the Jewish connection with the land was mostly abstract and connected with dreams of messianic redemption.

See here, from which some of the above is quoted and for a complete history.

It was not until the 19th century that the birth of Zionism made a return to Palestine a matter of Jewish policy, at least for some, and Jews started returning and buy land there. However, the Arabs were a feudal society and so the land being bought was purchased from absentee landlords and the “serfs’ who toiled on the land had no say in their expropriation. As far as they were concerned it was the Jews who threw them off their land. Most Zionists were not concerned about the Arab population, which they ignored, or thought would agree to voluntary transfer to other Arab countries. In any case, they envisioned the population of Palestine by millions of European Jews who would soon form a decisive majority in the land. At the same time, Palestine's Arab population grew rapidly. By 1914, the total population of Palestine stood at about 700,000. About 615,000 were Arabs, and 85,000 to 100,000 were Jews.

The history becomes ever more complicated and those who might want more details should go to the web site indicated above but one thing was consistent. Arabs always considered Jewish settlers to be an alien force, which they did not welcome.

With the rise of Hitler many Jews desperately wanted to emigrate from Germany and Austria. None of the Western countries were willing to open their borders to receive them. How many might have been saved from the Nazi “Final Solution” is hard to estimate but it would not be unreasonable to suppose that it would have been in the millions. Many tried to flee to Palestine but the British blocked their path and turned them back.

On Nov. 29, 1947 The UN General Assembly voted in favor of Palestine being divided into an Arab state and a Jewish state with Jerusalem to be put under international administration.

As can be seen the land assigned to the new Jewish state was extremely small with Jerusalem being deep in Arab territory and the border between what was called Trans-Jordan and Israel far west of the Jordan river. Nevertheless The Jews accepted the UN decision, but the Arabs rejected it, and upon Israel declaring its statehood war commenced, which Israel won handily.



Why is it important to focus on this history? It bears on the rights of Jews in Palestine. It shows beyond doubt that the Arabs were always an occupied people, exploited by the Imperialist powers and by their own land-owning class.

We need to ask ourselves if the UN had decided to give a piece of territory for a Jewish state to be carved out of the US, or out of Mexico, or out of Africa what would the reaction of the indigenous population have been? It is safe to say it would have been hostile. So the hostility of the Arabs should not be a surprise nor can it be condemned as evil.

That is why David Ben-Gurion the founding leader of Israel said, “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”

Why indeed would they accept that? The answer is reality. Their armies have been defeated again and again. As a result Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with Israel. In desperation they have turned to the only weapon available to the weak, terrorism. Does that make them evil? I don’t think so! Since the dawn of time terrorism has been a weapon used. Even in Biblical times Samson brought down the temple on the heads of the civilian population when he was shorn of his strength. The Jews in striving for a homeland in Palestine used terrorism. On 6 November 1944, Lord Moyne (Walter Guinness), the British Minister Resident in Egypt, was assassinated in Cairo. On 22 July 1946 the King David Hotel was bombed by the Irgun, father to the Likud Party, killing 91 people and injuring 46. The Catholics in Ireland resorted to terrorism with the support of many Americans. And let us not forget the Sabra and Shatila massacres! What was the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but terrorism? It is a weapon that we would prefer not to see employed but it has a long and storied history. It does not make those who employ it evil by definition.

But even terrorism hasn’t worked. We have ended up with the worst possible situation for all. Israeli’s continue to live without the security that is every people’s desire, and the Arabs continue to live in the squalor of displaced persons camps, which have now become multi-generational and gives them even less security than the Israelis have.

Let’s give Peace a Chance!!!

But peace cannot happen in the face of an expansionist Israel.

As can be seen from the map above, Israel started and accepted a small piece of territory. As a result of subsequent wars Israel grew. It is now accepted that Israel is entitled to all the territory as shown on the map below. Its border with Egypt has now been straightened. Its lands in the north now encompass all the territory to the border with Lebanon. And in the west it has expanded to the Jordan River and the area up to and around Jerusalem. Yet Israel has not been content with its conquered territories. It has built and continues to build settlements on occupied territory in the West Bank despite protests from every American Administration except for the Bush Administration. While it claims to have stopped building new settlements it insists on its right to expand existing ones and in the process continues to seize Arab lands and to destroy Arab homes.



According to Thomas L. Friedman, writing in the NY Times of February 4, 2009:

“The West Bank is so chopped up and divided now by roads, checkpoints and fences to separate Israel’s crazy settlements from Palestinian villages that a Palestinian could fly from Jerusalem to Paris quicker than he or she could drive from Jenin, here in the northern West Bank, to Hebron in the south.”

This is an intolerable situation. What Israel and the Israeli lobby demands is that the Palestinians quietly accept their oppression, accept their ever-diminishing lands, accept their lack of rights, and never fight back. No people would allow such oppression without resistance.

Israel is armed to the teeth. Yet any attempt for its adversaries to arm is treated as an outrage. Where is the balance?

Palestinians are human beings.

And every resistance, whether it is the "intifada", which consists of the throwing of stones against Israeli guns is treated as an outrage instead of the desperation which it represents.

Even the treatment of Palestinian weak claims of “The Right of Return” is treated as an outrage. To be sure Israel could never allow the refugees to return, for that would mean the end of the Jewish state, something that cannot be contemplated. But that does not mean that one should not acknowledge that this “right of return” has been recognized by the International Committee of the Red Cross which holds that persons displaced during armed conflict must be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased even though the language of the Fourth Geneva Convention is not nearly as clear as some would contend. Israel has never, as it should, offered as an alternative the resettlement of Arabs in the West Bank, in permanent communities so they can stop being refugees in their own lands. Israel contends that this is something that the Arab nations need to do, but it is, and must be Israel’s responsibility. With American help, this along with adequate compensation must be the framework for negotiations.

Removing many of the settlements will not be easy, but the problem keeps being compounded by their expansion and by continued illegal (even under Israeli law) settlement activity, which is not being prevented by the Israeli authorities. The increasing support for an ethnic cleansing of Arabs from the West Bank by fanatical orthodox Jews must be denounced and the areas need to be referred to by Israeli authorities as the “occupied territories” or the “West Bank” and “Gaza” and not as “Samaria” and “Judea.”