I AM A JEW (PART XXVIII - Discussion 4)

As the title shows this is the 28th part (actually the 29^th, 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.

At this point I depart from my debate with Albert Nekimken to give other voices space.

Joel Wiener, of Falls Church, Virginia, reacted with this, after reading "I AM A JEW (PART XXV - Discussion)":

I am a bit overwhelmed by your essays and of course, I admire your search for the facts.  I'd like to comment on one of your replies: 

  "While I am very critical of Israel’s blatantly racist policies, I have always, and continue to support the concept of a Jewish state. Without, at this point, going into great detail, I think that the Nazi era, once and for all, showed that the world needs one state where Jews will always be welcome."

 But does modern Israel fulfill that promise, or does it rather create an opportunity for the world to see what it is like when Jews are in charge of such a state, and to conclude that they are fundamentally a racist and bullying people, and are therefore to be despised?   This troubles me, and the recent resurgence in overt anti-Semitism seems, in my mind, to correlate with the rise in power of the Israeli government and the rise in the use of military might by the Israelis against the Palestinians.    

 It seems to me that Jews have, for thousands of years, lived as a nomadic people who remain physically apart, but are bound together by their cultures and ethnicities, and yet many choose, to a certain extent, to assimilate.   In Israel, there seems to be less incentive to assimilate, so there has been a more dramatic rise in sects and polarization.   I suppose that Israel has not been in existence long enough, or I have not read enough to correct or adjust my perceptions, but you have and I'd like to hear your views about whether Israeli actions foment anti-Semitism.

To which I responded:

The short answer to “whether Israeli actions foment anti-Semitism” is yes, yet your questions raise some interesting and disturbing question that should not be disposed of so simplistically.

Much of what you say is true. But like all, or at least most things in life, there is a balancing act.

Let me break your questions into their component parts.

But does modern Israel fulfill that promise?

When it comes to the primary purpose for which it was formed, i.e. to be a haven for Jews fleeing oppression, the answer is a resounding, yes!

While it has attracted many American Jews, who were not fleeing persecution, “Aliyah”, particularly religious ones, it has been a haven for far more who were fleeing persecution, e.g. from the Arab states, though perversely, to a large extent their need to emigrate was caused by the creation of the State of Israel, since that creation made the Jews of the Arab/Muslim world, pariahs.

Even before Israel became a Nation, and despite attempts to prevent their entry into Palestine, many Jewish refugees succeeded in finding a haven there.

Many Jews who had come out of Nazi concentration camps, and who felt they could no longer live in the nations that were the hosts of their persecution, and who like the persecuted Jews before them, had no other place to go, found a haven in Israel.

The Russian Jews, persecuted by Stalin and his successors, too found a haven in Israel.

So the primary purpose for the founding of Israel was accomplished, and even more important if such persecutions arise again, e.g. in the US, Israel would be an essential haven.

or does it rather create an opportunity for the world to see what it is like when Jews are in charge of such a state, and to conclude that they are fundamentally a racist and bullying people, and are therefore to be despised?  

That is not a fair way to phrase the question! The Jewish State is in many ways better than innumerable states throughout the world, for they are legion. Many of them are Arab and/or Muslim.

But the standard for the Jewish state is different. From my point of view, I expect that state to live up to my ideals, because as a Jew I have a special connection to it, and as an American I don’t want my country to spend untold billions to support policies that I find abhorrent.

A charge has been made that because the world holds Israel to a higher standard than other countries with far worse policies, that this reflects the inherent historic and ingrained anti-Semitism of the world. In one sense the demand that a Jewish should have higher standards is a compliment rather than hostility.

But more important, what is infuriating much of the world, is that while other countries are criticized, ostracized, sanctioned for their behavior, e.g. Russia, Myanmar, South Africa, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and Iran, to mention a few, Israel is given a free pass, and is the recipient, by far, of more American aid then any other country. I believe that it is resentment for this free pass that has started the BDS movement.

Furthermore, Israeli and their apologists’ propaganda has tried to demonize all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic, and when it comes from Jews, as “Self Hating Jews” It is because of the latter that I headed my series as “I AM A JEW” and led into my presentation by demonstrating that I am a proud Jew. I think that demonization has backfired, and the world has accepted the notion that criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism go hand in hand, but instead of deterring criticism of Israel, the world has accepted the Israeli concept that Israel and Jews are one and the same. Of course if Israel and Jews are one and the same, then anger at Israel will lead, inevitably to anti-Semitism.

There are times when it appears that Israel welcomes anti-Semitism, because it wants all Jews to emigrate to Israel, and what better way to drive them to it, than anti-Semitism. It is interesting to note that Israel’s reaction to the attack on the Jewish supermarket in Paris, is to urge France’s Jews to emigrate to Israel

I don’t accept your premise that Jews are fundamentally a racist and bullying people, and I don’t think the world actually sees them that way, because as I have said, Israeli policies are not really worse than most countries, the difference being that unlike other countries Israel has consistently been given a free pass.

I now invite any comments, questions, or corrections from readers. However, in the coming posts I plan to take a break from my focus on Israel, and to address other issues that are at least as important.

I will, in due course, return to the subject of Israel and give Albert Nekimken a full opportunity to air his disagreement, together, of course, with my rebuttals, always interspersed.

I AM A JEW (PART XXVII - Discussion 3)

As the title shows this is the 27rd part (actually the 28^th, 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.

As I said In my previous post: “My colleague, Albert Nekimken, of Vienna, Virginian, a staunch defender of Israeli policies, has agreed to present the Israeli viewpoint chapter by chapter, and I will share his comments with you together with my rebuttals.

In my previous post I shared with the reader his comments on my post "I AM A JEW (PART I)" and offered my rebuttals. Now I come to "I AM A JEW (Part II)," in which I started the post by publishing some comments from readers. Nekimken first addresses those.

He addresses George Garver’s criticism of me for taking pride in my ethnicity and writes:

In my opinion, there is no need for you to defend either your sense of pride in the achievements of Jews, or your sense of despair when they fail to fulfill your moral expectations. Both are quite understandable.

Hal Wolkoff of Montclair, NJ, expressed some views which space will not allow me to replicate (See the post) to which Nekimken expresses substantial agreement saying:

Hal’s point here is well taken. I can find no reason why having a profound sympathy for, and understanding of, the situation of the Palestinian people should require us to blame Zionism and Israel wholesale for their suffering. Even a cursory reading of history of the conflict since the early 20^th century reveals Palestinian Arabs to have been the victims of duplicitous, inept and corrupt leaders who wasted no opportunity to promote their own interests at the expense of “the people” whom they professed to represent.

 Hal rightly identifies Palestinian rejection of the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state because to do so would undermine a primary reason for opposing Israel, i.e., its “alien” nature. PM Netanyahu has been criticized as obstructionist for insisting on this point in peace negotiations with the PA. Yet, without it Israel would have no way to defend the essence, the raison d’être of Zionism itself and no way to reject peace plans that put it in jeopardy.

 Liberal Western Jews who complain that states identified by a religion are an anachronism in the modern world only need to look at the neighborhood: virtually ALL Arab states (and Iran) today describe themselves as some version of an “Islamic republic.” (ISIS in Syria and Iraq has even dropped the fig leaf of “republic” in its aspirations for a restored Caliphate.)

Having already responded to Hal Wolkoff, I will confine my remarks to Nekimken’s assertion. Let me start with Nekimken’s last paragraph first. He appears to be denying that “that states identified by a religion are an anachronism” by pointing out that most states in the Middle East  “describe themselves as some version of an “Islamic Republic”. Here he sets up a straw man, for I never made such an assertion and secondly I would be the first to recognized that not only are states defined by religion and even religious laws in the Middle East, but many states in the Far East are.

That is hardly an argument for Israel being one. But I have made clear that I believe Israel should be a Jewish State, in so far as it follows policies that would keep a Jewish majority by its immigration policies, and by denying the Right of Return to Israel proper. I do, however, strongly object to it being a theocracy, regardless what other states in the region, or in the rest of world are.

---------------------------------

Nekimken then address the substantive part of my post, which I urge the reader to read or re-read since without a point of reference it is difficult to follow the train of thought.

Nekimken writes:

Here you omit the not-so-unimportant fact that Israel’s declaration of independence was followed immediately by the expulsion of Jews from all Arab countries where they had been living for millennia. Together with the in-gathering of Jews from Ethiopia, Iran and elsewhere, over a period of a few decades,

I don’t think it is relevant, except as a way to sow hatred. In any case the Palestinians had no part in it.

Israel’s demography shifted from Western-oriented Ashkenazi to Sephardic. The Sephardic Jews (and later, the Russian immigrants) had no experience with Social Democrat politics and eventually they formed their own parties, which resulted in the Likud coalition today, as you describe. Subsequently, support for the Labor Party plummeted.

Absolutely true and a tragedy! They had no experience with any kind of Democracy, and they brought only Right Wing philosophy and hatred. It transformed Israel.

Your reference to Jews who were living in “peace and prosperity for generations in Arab lands” represents a gross distortion of the truth. Whatever “peace and prosperity” they were able to enjoy was temporary and subject to tragic deterioration from day to day.

Suffice it to say, they were better off than in most Christian lands. That is why they chose to live there. But it is not really relevant to our dilemma today.

Curiously, you cite “three factions,” but only name two: the Haganah and the Irgun. In fact, Haganah was not a political “faction,“

I disagree! It was the backbone of the group that formed the initial government and early subsequent governments. It was the foundation of the Labor party!

but rather the institutional militia organized overtly by the Zionist leadership. The third defensive element was the Palmach, which was an informal (at times covert) village defense organization that was merged with Haganah to form the Israel Defense Forces after independence. Its defense of Jewish settlements was critically important. Your decision to follow your description of clashes between the Haganah and the Irgun with the so-called Deir Yassin “massacre” and reference to “ethnic cleansing” was not “instructive” in the way that you intended. Here you use it as prima facie evidence for Zionist crimes.

No, that is the point! It was not Zionist crimes! It was the crimes of a faction, which unfortunately has now become the dominant faction in Israeli politics.

While no one denies the incident, it has been used egregiously by anti-Zionists and Arab propagandists. An entire chapter was devoted to the incident in Ari Shavitz’ recent book, “My Promised Land”. The chapter was republished in a recent issue of The New Yorker magazine. See here and for a critique see here. Suffice to say that your summary account here fuels a series of unwarranted interpretations. Whatever happened, and without minimizing the gravity of the tragedy,

A massacre is a tragedy, but not every tragedy is a massacre. Nekimken’s use of the term “tragedy” tries to deflect blame. And we have not even begun to discuss other massacres such as Lydda.

the incident was NOT an example of “ethnic cleansing,”

Many, if not most, would disagree! It resulted not only in the expulsion, and to a large extent the murder of its citizens, but more important caused a panic among the Palestinian population causing many of them to flee. The fact that many remained does not change this fact. The horror of the act is exemplified by the fact that the Haganah apologized for it.

Villagers were relocated a few miles away. These Arab deaths in no way reflected a Zionist

Nekimken talks about Zionist, as though it was a united group. The atrocities were committed by a faction, which, unfortunately, is now the ruling faction.

desire to eradicate Arabs from the land entirely, merely—as you indicate—the need to secure a pivotal defensive position under conditions of war. Twenty per cent of Israel’s population comprises Arabs who remained in place. Despite some wild talk recently, there has never been any effort to expel Arab citizens and “cleanse” the Jewish state of Muslims or Christians.

Absolutely true!! But as I have indicated the Arab population, like the American descendants of slaves, are discriminated against as a group, and have neither real political power, nor are their towns given the same resources as Jewish towns.

Although the idea never took hold for a variety of reasons, during earlier periods it remained an open question why Jordan should not be considered the much-discussed “Palestinian state.” The majority of its population is commonly identified as “Palestinian” in distinction from the Bedouin communities that form the anchor of the Hashemite monarchy that rules Jordan. Yasir Arafat did his people no favor when he attempted to overthrow the monarchy and was defeated in the Black September 1970 coup attempt.

This may, or may not, be true, but its relevance escapes me.

As described earlier, Britain created Jordan precisely as a remedy to the perceived unfairness of the Balfour Declaration that had awarded ALL of the Palestine Mandate to the Zionists. Why that effort failed became part and parcel of the over-arching Arab effort to eliminate Israel entirely.

 Of course there is a difference, as suggested above. Likud’s claim on the West Bank and Gaza was based on historical precedent: the Balfour Declaration and the subsequent establishment of the Palestine Mandate. The British negotiated with a Zionist leadership that more or less democratically represented the global Jewish community.

The characterization here of the establishment of Israel as illegal because it was “contrary to the wish of the Palestine people” etc. and violated their right to self-determination is nonsense.

Some of these comments amaze me! Where did I ever assert, allege, or suggest, that the establishment of Israel was illegal?

In 1947 there was no “Palestinian people” and Israel’s independence was validated by the UN.

Of course, there were Palestinian people. People who live or lived in Palestine, by definition are Palestinian people. This constant repetition of this offensive nonsense, is just that – offensive. As for Israel’s independence being validated by the UN, simply cries out for the validation by the UN of a Palestinian state. Israel was not created out of negotiations with its Arab neighbors. Why must a Palestinian State come about only out of negotiation with Israel? Why is Israel entitled to a veto?

The British creation of Jordan was precisely intended to provide a location for a new Arab “homeland” similar to the creation of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

True, but it overlooked that the Palestinians, west of the Jordan river, did not want to be ruled by the monarch chosen by the colonial powers.

Arafat’s statement referenced here after a meeting with “five prominent Jews” was never more than a tactic intended to further the continuing effort to eradicate Israel. Acts of terrorism never abated.
 Hamas was created by the Muslim Brotherhood explicitly as a terrorist organization for the purpose of destroying Israel and ejecting all Jews from the region. In what sense can it be a partner for negotiation?

One doesn’t negotiate with friends. One negotiates with enemies. Israel has never offered to recognize a Palestinian State, with the characteristics of sovereignty, contiguous, including a link to Gaza, with East Jerusalem (the Part that was never part of Jerusalem and is inhabited by Palestinians) as its capital and with the Right of Return to the new Palestinian State. Instead it has shown bad faith in all negotiations, by annexing Palestinian territory, as it ostensibly negotiates. Sincere negotiations require that the status quo (if not the status quo ante) be maintained during negotiations.

Your claim that the PLO accepted Israel’s right to exist never materialized during negotiations and was, in any case, superseded by Hamas, which made no such concession.

Since it wasn’t included in the negotiations, why would it make, or offer, any concessions. What concessions were offered to it?

Your reference to “self-determination” conveniently omits the right of the Jewish people to the same goal. 

These constant straw men become tiresome! Who is denying the Jewish people self-determination?

The reference to “Israel’s endless encroachment on Palestinian territory” includes the implied assumption that some kind of Palestinian Arab political entity existed whose land Israel was “annexing” and “encroaching.” Yet, at no point in history has there ever been any such entity.

Another straw man! What has a political entity to do with it? People live in a part of Palestine who do not wish to live under Israeli rule. The attempt to impose such rule on them in the territory in which they live is annexing their land. What can be plainer! Israel’s de jure right is actually only what the UN granted them, the 1948 border. The 1967 border can only be claimed by right of conquest, a poor reed to lean upon.

The military ceasefire lines after the war resulting from Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948 never demarcated any political border. Recall that it was Jordan that annexed the West Bank in 1950 and, during the period from 1948 to 1967—when there were no Israeli settlements or presence of any kind—there was no attempt whatsoever to establish a Palestinian state. Nor was there any effort under the Egyptian occupation of Gaza during the same period to establish any kind of “Palestinian” entity there. An argument could easily be made that Jordan’s annexation was illegal and, after 1967, the West Bank merely returned to Israel as part of the state declared in 1948.

A rather strange assertion, since “the state declared in 1948” had the 1948 borders.

Apart from Jordan, Arab governments everywhere kept Palestinian “refugees” in wretched camps without passports and supported at great expense by UNRWA.

Exactly! Showing that Nekimken’s claim of a “larger pan-Arab, Muslim “umma” is nonsense. Arabs in their own countries have no allegiance to Arabs who are of another tribe or another ethnicity.

During the same period, Israel successfully absorbed more than 700,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries,

Yes, that was the raison d'être for the creation of Israel.

a number roughly equal to the Arabs who left the new state of Israel.

A strong indication that they were too terrified to stay.

As for Israel turning the P.L.O. into a “Vichy government”, the claim is ludicrous since it was, in fact, Israel that facilitated the PLO’s return to the West Bank from Tunis (after it was chased out of Lebanon) in order to set up the Palestinian Authority as envisioned by the U.S.-brokered Oslo, peace negotiations. Had Israel not agreed to do this, the comparison with Vichy France might have some relevance. 

It is precisely because Israel agreed to do this that shows they were creating an entity to keep order on its behalf and if they don’t behave Israel punishes then, as they are now doing, by withholding taxes collected from Palestinians, ostensibly on behalf of the P.L.O.

Regarding the P.L.O or PA being characterized by Israel as “too weak” to be a partner in peace, we see today that the recent, much applauded “unity” government announced a short time ago between the PA and Hamas is already unraveling. Hamas only agreed to the deal because Egypt had closed the Gaza border and it was unable to pay either civil servant or “freedom fighter” salaries; it needed financial relief. The rocket attacks and publicity that followed presumably attracted new funds and made the PA deal superfluous.

Hamas is popular because it represents resistance to Israeli oppression, or as one Palestinian resident of Gaza was recently quoted as saying: “I would rather die quickly than to be slowly strangled by Israel.”

As to negotiations - The view of both Israel and Hamas is that there is nothing to negotiate. Each side wants to eliminate the other. Primarily American and European Liberals continue to believe in negotiations.

Since Nekimken has for many years described himself as a liberal, I would think he would be part of that group. As I have said, since the assassination of Rabin, and certainly since the advent of Netanyahu, all of Israel’s pretense at negotiations, has been just that – pretense.

The American political climate makes the right solution difficult, if not impossible. Peace will not come by negotiations, because Israel is intent on conquering the whole West Bank and has no interest in negotiations.

The U.S. has the capacity, if it had the political will, to impose a solution. It is in the interests of the U.S., of Israel, and of the Palestinians for it to do so. Mediation must end! Arbitration must begin! Further settlement activity must stop immediately, or sanctions must be imposed.

I regret the length of this post, but an adequate airing of Nekimken’s views and my rebuttals necessitated that.

I will not entertain comments at this time, since Nekimken has more to say, and I have to respond.

I AM A JEW (PART XXVI - Discussion 2)

As the title shows this is the 26rd part (actually the 27^th, 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.

My colleague, Albert Nekimken, of Vienna, Virginia, a staunch defender of Israeli policies, has agreed to present the Israeli viewpoint chapter by chapter, and I will share his comments with you together with my rebuttals.

Please read or reread my post "I AM A JEW (PART I)." Nekimken’s counter-views follow in italics together with my rebuttals paragraph by paragraph.

While valuable as a way to personalize our dialogue with readers, being a Jew is quite irrelevant to our understanding of the subject. Men can be feminists and Christians or Hindus can be Zionists, especially when there are non-Zionist or anti-Zionist Jews (some informed, some not).

While I share your inability to embrace fully Judaism as a religion, we should be honest and admit that “cultural” Jews will not ensure the survival either of the Jewish people or Israel. We must depend on traditional religious Jews for both goals.

Here I must immediately disagree! In my personal experience, (and I know of no meaningful study of the subject) it is precisely “cultural Jews” who assure the survival of the Jewish people as an entity. In my own family, my wife was born Christian and never converted. It was religious Jews who tried to deny my daughter’s Jewish identity on the ground that her mother was not of the faith. Yet she married a culturally Jewish man, they observe a Kosher home as a matter of tradition, and even light candles to usher in the Sabbath, all as a matter of tradition.

It used to be argued that inter-marriage was the greatest threat facing the existence of Jews as a people and as a religion. It has proven itself to be wrong.

Pages, possibly books, could be written on this subject, and probably have been, but this is not the place for it.

The background that you outline here strikes me as having minimal relevance to the topic at hand. It is more important to note that Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Koran and, in Muslim tradition, it holds third place in importance after Mecca and Medina. In contrast, for Jews Jerusalem in particular and Zion in general have always had paramount importance, especially after Jews were dispersed from their homeland. The Torah is replete with references to Jerusalem.

True, but irrelevant! Almost all agree that the religious sites in Jerusalem must be respected.

I assume these background anecdotes are intended to preview your sense of personal moral outrage at the failings (as you perceived them) of Zionism and of recent Israeli governments—just as you take pride in their accomplishments. This is quite understandable. Here you preface your central viewpoint that Israel has become an “oppressor” and, as a result, has forfeited your respect as a Jew and as an American. This, too, is quite understandable. Yet, defining that term, “oppressor,” and using it accurately are more difficult.

In this context you might have mentioned FDR’s odious decision to turn away boatloads of Jewish refugees from American ports.

This is one of the many misunderstandings of history, and a defamation of the memory of F.D.R. At the time there was a very clear immigration law in existence. It had no provision for asylum for refugees. F.D.R. did not have the power to let people without visas enter the country. The proposal of Secretary of Labor Perkins would have helped, but unbeknownst to F.D.R. the State Department had a strong antipathy to Jews. See here. But this really has no bearing on our discussion here.

Here, I feel compelled to point out that you, like every historian who creates a narrative, are obligated to select your “facts.” It’s never possible to include everything (historicism) and any attempt to do so would lead to utter confusion. You have scrupulously defended your attention to “facts,” but you ignore the implicit values that guide your selection of which facts to include.

Probably true, but obviously unavoidable! That is why I invite comments and disagreements.

For example, here you assume that, in 1947, Arab residents of the British Palestine Mandate thought of themselves as a “people” with its own territory. Many other facts document that, on the contrary, Arabs (both resident in the Mandate and non-resident) conceived themselves as part of a larger pan-Arab, Muslim “umma.” Arab leaders at the time, such as newly installed Hashemite King Abdullah of Transjordan, wanted desperately to annex Palestine to their holdings. The epitome of this trend came with Gamel Abdel Nasser’s ill-fated Pan-Arabism of the 1960s.

The fallacy of the above lies in the fact that Gamel Abdel Nasser’s Pan-Arabism was ill fated. But more important, this argument is rather offensive, for it attempts to rob the Arab people living in Palestine of their humanity. The only relevant fact is that at the time of the 1948 partition, and to this day, there are Arabs living in Palestine. By any definition, people who live in Palestine are Palestinians. Many of those who lived in Palestine in 1948 were driven from their homes, and have ended up in a diaspora, being victims of the Jewish, understandable, desire to end their own diaspora.

At no time in recorded history has there ever been a “Palestinian people” or state.

This is a very frequently stated, but a totally irrelevant fact. None of the states that emerged from colonialism existed. The Jewish Virtual Library (See here.) sets forth the facts and I don’t think they are cherry picking them: ”Jordan did not exist until 1921 when Winston Churchill invented it.”

In fact the whole Middle East used to be part of the Ottoman Empire and most of the states in the Middle East were created after World War I.

From the "History of the Middle East" page on Wikipedia: Syria became a French protectorate thinly disguised as a League of Nations mandate. The Christian coastal areas were split off to become Lebanon, another French protectorate. Iraq and Palestine became British mandated territories. Iraq became the "Kingdom of Iraq" and one of Sharif Hussein's sons, Faisal, was installed as the King of Iraq. Iraq incorporated large populations of Kurds, Assyrians and Turkmens, many of whom had been promised independent states of their own. See here.

But whatever the history of the region is, the modern Arab states as well as Israel are a creation of the Imperial powers and what existed and when is largely irrelevant.

When a people live in a given territory they take the name of that territory. People who live in Palestine are Palestinians and if they are not what are they? Jordanians? But Jordan has disclaimed all sovereignty over the area. Israelis too are Palestinians, but since the two people have little in common, only partition, which has always been assumed to be the optimum solution, remains. The new drive in Israel for Israeli sovereignty over the whole area is nothing more than a plan to deny a minority population their right of self-determination, and possibly, even a means of ghettoizing them.

Yasir Arafat created a distinct Arab “Palestinian” identity after 1967 as part of a strategy to destroy Israel.

This is a bold-faced statement, but Nekimken gives no source or support. As a matter of fact he doesn’t give references for any of his assertions, as I do. 

It was based on the story of the shared “catastrophe” of the Nakhba in May 1948, which had been preceded by 30 years of planned, anti-Jewish uprisings.  

You presume here that Arabs accepted the Western idea of the nation state in opposition to colonialism. However, Arab nationalism developed only slowly among elites and, according to the Salafist view that underpinned the anti-Jewish resistance, the concept of the “nation state” itself was rejected as a Western (“alien”) import.

This is certainly true of the Isis or Isil movement in Syria and Iraq, but I see no support for this assertion, for any of the other modern Arab states.

Your use of the term “alien non-Arab entity” deserves particular attention. You appear to assume that only Arabs “deserve” to live in the Middle East when, in fact, the region is a mosaic of peoples and cultures (albeit often at each other’s throats).

This is a strange assertion, since I have not used the term “alien non-Arab entity” anywhere.

It’s difficult to understand how Jews can be considered “alien” when their kingdoms in the region preceded the migration of Arabs out of the Arabian peninsula and took form some 5,000 years ago.

But so did the Roman Empire. Are we to resurrect it? The claim to a Jewish homeland cannot be based on ancient history. Its claim, and this claim is legitimate, is its crucial need for a homeland where in times of persecution Jews would always be welcome, and this was the basis for Herzl’s advocacy of Zionism. To be sure other minorities, whether Christians, Druze, or Kurds, have lived there for centuries, but they have always been there as minorities in an overwhelming Arab Muslim population. The expectation that Arabs would have a natural animosity to Jewish settlement, was recognized by the Godfather of the present Israeli government Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky, who wrote, as I point out in "Part XX.":

“Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized…That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of ‘Palestine’ into the 'Land of Israel.”

Your lamentable observation that Jews living in Arab countries did not “agitate for independence” is best forgotten. In truth, Jews lived in Muslim territories as second-class citizens (dhimmis) who were accepted, tolerated or oppressed at various times. Before the advent of Zionism, they couldn’t afford the luxury of expressing political views.

I made no such observation! That Jews were second class citizens in Arab countries is undoubtedly true, but has little, if any bearing on our discussion, particularly, since Jews for centuries, fled from Christian countries to Muslim ones, because they could have a better life there.

Inter alia, the millions of Kurds resident in the Middle East over millennia have never had their own independent territory.

True! But its relevance escapes me. I think they should have.

More important, you appear to have forgotten that anti-Jewish hatred has been the primary motivating factor in the conflict between Zionists and Arabs over the past hundred years. There were numerous times when territorial compromises could have been negotiated. Yet, at every point, Arabs refused to accept any Jewish presence on any lands perceived as belonging to them, except as a tolerated (and powerless) minority. Land, per se, was never the paramount issue.

I disagree “that anti-Jewish hatred has been the primary motivating factor.” But this raises the question of what came first – the chicken or the egg – we can argue this ad infinitum.

Inexplicably, you neglect to mention that early Zionists accepted every territorial concession presented to them that offered peace—first a British decision to cede the land east of the Jordan River to Arabs to create a new, “Palestinian” state of Transjordan, then the 1947 partition plan which you describe here. After the June 1967 war came the famous September Khartoum Declaration of “No peace, No recognition, No negotiation with Israel” which ended Israeli delusions about any “new understanding” that could lead to peace.

I refer the reader back to Jabotinsky. This was to be expected. As long as they felt that they could win, they were not ready to compromise. Now that they know they can’t win, they want to compromise. And that represents the opportunity we have been looking for.

Nevertheless, Israel subsequently and unilaterally returned a portion of Golan territory to Syria and the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.

Not unilaterally! As part of negotiations leading to a cessation of hostilities.

Later, Israel withdrew unilaterally from the Gaza Strip.

This was not done out of generosity. It was a military decision that continuing occupation was costing Israel too much, and that withdrawal, with a blockade, would aid Israel in claiming all of the West Bank.

(In contrast, when Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri [who was later assassinated by Hezbullah] was asked why he couldn’t accept Israeli presence on a small parcel of borderland called Sheba Farms, he replied trenchantly, “Why should I?”)

This is hardly unusual. Nations are very jealous about their territorial integrity, and all nations are reluctant to give up “one inch” of what they consider to be part of their nation.

As indicated earlier, historians select their “facts” based on covert or overt values. It isn’t possible to assess “rights” or “wrongs” without identifying these values.

This is an unfortunate comment for it relegates all history, and all facts, as being subjective, and therefor implies that we should not be bothered by facts or by history. But then what is left. This assertion suggests, or implies, that facts and history are on my side of the debate, and therefor we should ignore them.

I now welcome comments readers care to make, but it may be difficult to post them, while this discussion with Nekimken is in progress. 

I AM A JEW (PART XXV - Discussion)

Happy New Year to one and all! May the New Year bring peace to all mankind and end the suffering that afflicts so many!

As the title shows this is the 25rd part (actually the 26^th, 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.

In my last commentary entitled "I AM A JEW (PART XXIV - Dershowitz Again)" that I posted before the holidays, on December 15, 2014, I quoted a very short excerpt from a May 2013 article by Alan Dershowitz written in May of 2013. Since most do not read the articles that are linked, allow me to quote a little more from it, for it expresses my views precisely:

There are a small number of extremely vocal right-wing Jews who believe that retaining the entire West Bank is more important than trying to make peace with the Palestinians. Some of them believe that God gave the Jewish people the West Bank and it is a sin to give any of it up. It was that kind of thinking that led to the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin when he tried to exchange land for peace with the Palestinians. There are others who believe that because Jews lived in Judea and Samaria thousands of years ago, Israel has no right to end any current Jewish settlement on the West Bank. There are still others who believe that it is foolish even to try to trade land for peace with the Palestinians, since the Palestinian leadership has no real interest in arriving at a peaceful solution. 

This noisy clack boos disrespectfully when they hear the name of President Obama, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or anyone else who favors a two-state solution that does not compromise Israel's security. I have now joined this distinguished company of people who get booed for advocating territorial compromise in the interest of peace. I was booed and jeered at the Jerusalem Post Conference on April 28, 2013 when I proposed an idea for restarting peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

I can only say amen!!!! Unfortunately, Dershowitz has now decided he will no longer take positions that are likely to produce boos.

Now let me share with you some of the comments I have received, and discussions I have had.

One person whose comment I had quoted earlier is Leonard Levenson of Manhattan, N.Y. and my previous exchange with him can be found at: "I AM A JEW (PART XXI - Voices in Defense of Israel."

Since he had raised the issue of the sharing of water rights, I could not resist sending him an article that I ran across in the Times of Israel dated February 19, 2014 with the title: “In Rawabi, the brand-new Palestinian city, both sides win” and the subheading: “Projects like this bring our peoples closer together, says Bashar Al-Masri, the entrepreneur behind an unprecedented construction project that is changing the West Bank landscape.”

When I first read the article I thought to myself, now that is the way to build peace and security.

Alas, six months later an article appeared in the New York Times dated August 26, 2014 with the heading: “Palestinian Town Awaits Israel’s Approval for Water.” 

That promising gesture by Israel toward a promising and peaceful Palestinian town had come to naught. Israel had refused to allow water to be connected.

As I said above I couldn’t resist sending the two articles to Levenson. Now what was his response? I quote:

I have read the articles and my first reaction is "infuriating bureaucracy". I suspect that you and many Palestinians suspect something more sinister at work.  I am not a big fan of Netanyahu and his party.  He reminds me of the right wing of the Republican Party.  Neither is given to compromise but in times of crisis, their mindset is needed.   

Levenson is right about one thing: I believe that something more sinister is at work. Isn’t it obvious that this is war by other means!

Terry Steichen of Fairfax, Virginia contributed this:

You say:

 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.

 Amen.

 You also say:

 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. .. True Zionists seek the ideals on which Israel was founded!! Not the one of Netanyahu and Lieberman.

 Amen in spades.  I've admired the culture of the Jews.  But have come to realize that the longer that Jews "link arms" with real (but perhaps not "true") Zionists, they will split from that culture.  The current regime in Israel is destroying Jewish values.  I'm disheartened that many of my Jewish friends don't see their own self-immolation.

 More:

 People in Israel are beginning to see the crisis that Israel has brought on itself... 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.

 We can only hope - for Judaism's sake.  And real world peace.

Herb Reiner of Cedar Grove, NJ added this:

I think it's relevant to point out that what is now Israel was occupied and inhabited by many different powers and people throughout history. One justification for a Jewish state is a popular misconception that the Jews were the first there -- when in fact, they were preceded by the Canaanites - and who knows how many other tribes preceded the Canaanites. The Jews may have executed one of history's earliest recorded ethnic cleansings in Canaan because God commanded, "whoever sacrifices to any god but the Lord shall be utterly annihilated.” (Exodus 22:20) -- so I wouldn't say the Jewish kingdom was not exactly founded in a blaze of glory -- (although, unfortunately, some would). Joshua and his underlings did the job.

  The concept of a Jewish State, an Islamic, a Christian nation or a state dedicated any religion seems contrary to democratic principles. This is especially provocative in Israel where a substantial minority is not Jewish.

 Your blog on the Israel-Palestine conflict is a breath of fresh air. We hear almost exclusively about the considerable misdeeds on the other side. But most of the American Jewish community refuses to see the moat in our own eye. This is true of Congress and the media as well. Obama was soundly berated when he dared suggest that Israel halt the settlements. It's considered almost un-American to criticize Israel.

To which I responded:

“I must say that I disagree with you on this point. While I am very critical of Israel’s blatantly racist policies, I have always, and continue to support the concept of a Jewish state. Without, at this point, going into great detail, I think that the Nazi era, once and for all, showed that the world needs one state where Jews will always be welcome.

“There are many countries that are Christian or Muslim or Hindu, etc. states, so I don’t see why there cannot be a Jewish state. It need not effect any of its policies except on immigration.

“I understand that this means that there can be no right of return to Israel, but if we force the creation of a viable Palestinian state, the Palestinian diaspora, can find good homes in a country of their own, but I reject the concept of an Arab Palestininan State being denied the right to arms, or any limitations on its sovereignty.

“I don’t give any credence to a Jewish right based on the Bible, or on who was there first, only the need for a haven for a historically persecuted people.”

Finally, Pearl Duncan of Manhattan, NY raised an interesting question when she wrote:

Are you working on a book? You can collect your political commentary in a book.

Ms. Duncan, who is herself getting ready to publish a book, hit the nail on the head. That is indeed my hope.

I hope that my readers enjoyed the holidays, whether that was Chanukah, Christmas, and/or Kwanza, and that all are looking forward to a happy and prosperous New Year, with the many dark clouds lifting throughout the world.

I now welcome any comments readers care to make and will publish same, with or without attribution, as the contributor wishes.