I AM A JEW (PART VIII - Hamas & Likud)

As the title shows this is the eighth part (actually the ninth, 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 the titles: "I AM A JEW (Part I)," "I AM A JEW (Part II)," "I AM A JEW (Part III)," "I AM A JEW (Special Bulletin)," "I AM A JEW (Part IV - The Torah & The Talmud)," "I AM A JEW (Part V - Gaza Is A Huge Prison)," "I AM A JEW (PART VI - The Palestinians)" and "I AM A JEW (PART VII - A Defense of Israel’s Policies and a Rebuttal)"

In my previous postings, and particularly in I AM A Jew (Part II) I pointed out that the party of Prime Minister Netanyahu, Likud, is the successor to terrorists, i.e.Irgun, and has in its charter, which it has never revoked, an absolute rejection of a two state solution: I quote once more from the charter:

The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting….

The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan River. (emphasis added)

So that its posturing about negotiating with the PLO about recognizing a Palestinian State is just that, posturing, as is their denouncing Hamas for mot being willing to recognize Israel’s right to exist, a demand that they (Israel) be granted that which they will not grant in reciprocity.

And Likud today has become a “moderate” party compared to its coalition partner, headed by Avigdor Lieberman, a member of the even more radical party, Yisrael Beiteinu, which takes a strong line towards the peace process and the integration of Israeli Arabs, characterized by its 2009 election slogan "No loyalty, no citizenship." (Loyalty oaths –shades of Joe McCarthy)

This led to a clash with Ariel Sharon, no great liberal himself, who condemned Lieberman's statements, that only those Arab Israelis who migrated from the area to within Israel's new borders and pledged loyalty to Israel would be allowed to remain Israeli citizens. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon condemned Lieberman's statements, stating "We regard Israeli Arabs as part of the State of Israel. See here.

But allow me for the purpose of this post to go back to 1948 when the Likud Party was in its infancy and Menachim Begin, later associated with the peace treaty with Egypt, but nevertheless, a man who represented and still represents the essence of Likud and its history, which I don’t think we can afford to lose sight of.

I set forth in full a letter to the New York Times signed by such leading intellectuals as Albert Einstein, Sidney Hook and Hannah Arendt:

TO THE EDITORS OF NEW YORK TIMES:

Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the "Freedom Party" (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.

The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin's political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.

Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin's behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement.

The public avowals of Begin's party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.





Attack on Arab Village



A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants (240 men, women, and children) and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin.

The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the Freedom Party.

Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model.

During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute.

The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in Fascist compatriots.





Discrepancies Seen



The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a "Leader State" is the goal.

In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin's efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin.





The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism.





ISIDORE ABRAMOWITZ,

HANNAH ARENDT,

ABRAHAM BRICK,

RABBI JESSURUN CARDOZO,

ALBERT EINSTEIN,

HERMAN EISEN, M.D.,

HAYIM FINEMAN, M. GALLEN, M.D.,

H.H. HARRIS,

ZELIG S. HARRIS,

SIDNEY HOOK,

FRED KARUSH,

BRURIA KAUFMAN,

IRMA L. LINDHEIM,

NACHMAN MAISEL,

SEYMOUR MELMAN,

MYER D. MENDELSON, M.D.,

HARRY M. OSLINSKY,

SAMUEL PITLICK,

FRITZ ROHRLICH,

LOUIS P. ROCKER,

RUTH SAGIS,

ITZHAK SANKOWSKY,

I.J. SHOENBERG,

SAMUEL SHUMAN,

M. SINGER,

IRMA WOLFE,

STEFAN WOLFE.

New York, Dec. 2, 1948



This does not leave the successors to this group in much of a position to complain of terrorism.

At the same time we find that the claim that Hamas refuses to recognize a Jewish state is no longer valid.

The British newspaper The Global Mail reported days ago:

Hamas is endorsing Mr. Abbas’s plan for establishing a state within the so-called “1967 borders” that delineated the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In effect, Hamas now accepts Israel’s existence and the previous agreements arrived at between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel. See here.

I do not condemn the present Israeli government coalition as not being worthy of being a partner to honest negotiations toward the establishment of a Palestinian state, which would encompass Gaza and most of the West Bank. I cite these items of history only to illustrate that this government is in a poor position to denounce as terrorists other necessary parties to successful negotiations. Hamas is not the problem! It is, and must be part of the solution.

Furthermore the collective punishment of the Palestinian people for the perceived sins of their leaders, is not to be tolerated. The killing of untold innocent civilians is not to be tolerated. In its most recent count, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that 2,104 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, including 1,462 civilians, among them 495 children and 253 women. Those U.N. numbers would mean that 69 percent of the total killed were civilians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that Israeli forces­ had killed “approximately 1,000 terrorists,” See here. To believe that, one would have to suspend disbelieve.

Let us look at the figures. A little over 2,000 were killed. Of those 495 were children and 253 were women. That equals roughly 750., leaving roughly 1,250 many of whom may very well have been elderly.  So that among the men, according to Netanyahu, all but 250 of the men killed were terrorists. And that defines all Palestinian combatants as terrorists, rather than combatants. Is this credible? Hardly!!!

But it is a convenient way to define all opposition to the Israeli blockade, the Israeli pass laws and the Israeli policy of keeping Gaza a prison. Gazans have a right to resist.

And in the meantime the unrelenting expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem continues, constantly shrinking the areas open to negotiation. From the Jerusalem Post of October 2, 2014: See here.

The United States expressed concern on Wednesday about reports that Israel had moved forward plans for settlements in east Jerusalem, warning the move would call into question Israel's commitment to peace with the Palestinians.

Furthermore, after announcing the end of the destruction of the homes of families of suspected malefactors as long ago as February 18, 2005, which I referred to in my post "I AM A JEW (Part IV - The Torah & The Talmud)" Israel appears to have resumed this barbaric practice.

Yahoo News reports: 

Hebron, occupied West Bank - Sobbing, Ghada Qawasmeh stares at her destroyed home, a two-story stone villa the family built over the course of nine years. The mother of seven is inconsolable, thinking of her husband, Hussam, who is now in an Israeli prison. "This is collective punishment," she says. "What did I or my children do?"

Before dawn on Monday, Israeli troops destroyed the Qawasmeh family's house in Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Israeli officials said the demolition was carried out as punishment for Hussam Qawasmeh's alleged involvement in the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli settler teens in June, and came after Israel's supreme court gave its approval.

How much longer will American Jews of conscience, tolerate these nationalistic, jingoistic, intolerant and inhumane polices of the Israeli government? Was Hussam Qawasmeh even tried or convicted before his family’s home was destroyed. Is this the behavior of a land of law and justice?

We would never tolerate such behavior from our own government.

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

I AM A JEW (Part II)

Comments about Part I:

At the end of my last post entitled "I AM A JEW (Part I)" I concluded with “Please hold your comments, if any, until the end of this exposition, unless you feel that you have something to add to a particular portion, rather than to the whole.”

This prompted some comments, which did, to a large extend, address the first part.

George Garver of Fort Lee, NJ, objected to my taking pride in my ethnicity, writing:

Pride comes from a sense of accomplishment and not happenstance. You had no choice regarding your unchosen heritage. 


To which I responded:

Your point is well taken, at least in theory. But the fact is that all (or at least most) people take pride in their heritage. That is why so many people spend countless amounts of money tracing their ancestors. And our heritage has a lot to do with who we are. 

I am proud to be an American is a common refrain.  

When an American landed on the moon, we all felt proud. That is the way things work in the real world. 

We take pride even in our adopted associations. I am proud to be a Yankee fan. I am glad “my team” won, even though I had nothing to with it. 

Our heritage is a large part of what and who we are, and what we are, if it is positive, is a perfectly natural reason for pride. 

Ideally, maybe it should be as you say, but that isn’t the real world. People take pride in who their father was. The Kennedy clan takes pride in being Kennedys and the public accepts that.

Robert Malchman of Brooklyn, NY, called to my attention an error that I made:

Not to nit-pick, but as Jews, should we not be referring to Jesus as "Christ," which implies that he was the Messiah?   

I'll be interested to see where this is going.  I think there is plenty of blame to go around.

My response recognized my error. Accordingly I wrote:

Your point is well taken.

I should not have referred to Christ, I should have referred to Jesus.

Hal Wolkoff of Montclair, NJ, expressed this view:

I look forward to your further comments.  I am a Jew, probably very similar in my beliefs and political views to you. I strongly support Israel but have a great deal of sympathy for the Palestinian people. When it comes to who is responsible for the continuous violence and deaths of innocents there is no doubt in my mind. The blame belongs entirely to the Palestinian/Arab leadership who continue to reject Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State.

To which I did not respond since it goes to the heart of the issue and my posts are the only way that I know how to respond.

I AM A Jew (Part II)

The early Jewish settlers to Palestine came from Europe. They were the true refugees for whom the state was founded. They are known as Ashkenazi. Many of them, possibly most were, what is known in Europe as Social Democrats. In the terminology of the US they were something akin to New Dealers. They formed the many Kibbutzim, using modern irrigation, to “make the desert bloom” and their organization was strictly socialist, with all sharing equally in the produce of the settlement. 

They were strong supporters of the Labor Party.

But the founding of Israel, while it had a profound impact on Jews fleeing Nazi persecution and even after when the survivors needed to escape from the scenes of the horrors, it had a negative effect on Jews who had lived in peace and prosperity for generations in Arab lands. They suddenly faced anti-Semitism and persecution from their host nations, and as a result they fled in large numbers to Israel, greatly embittered against the Arabs. They flocked to what had until then been a minority party, i.e. Likud. The final wave of immigrants were the Russian, who having lived under an oppressive socialist dictatorship, found themselves with little sympathy for Socialist, or even Social Democratic ideas. They too flocked to Likud.

But even at a very early stage of the founding of Israel, there were three factions, One organized the Haganah, which later became the Labor party, the second was Irgun, which later became Herut under the leadership of Menachim Begin, who later became Prime Minister, and eventually became Likud and a very small group known as the Stern gang. What followed was a series of terrorist attacks. That included in 1948 the assassination of Count Bernadotte, a Swedish mediator, but also included a whole series of terrorist attacks by the Irgun and Stern gangs, which included the famous bombing of the King David Hotel, but many others as well. See here. Relations between Irgun and the Haganah became so bad that there was an armed stand off between the two Jewish armed organizations, which came to be known as the Atelena affair. 

There has long been a debate about whether Arabs left Israel out of their own free will, at the urgings of their leaders or were driven out by Israeli forces conducting ethnic cleansing. After extensive research I have concluded that both are true. 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.

Around 107 villagers were killed during and after the battle for the village, including women and children—some were shot, while others died when hand grenades were thrown into their homes. Several villagers were taken prisoner and may have been killed after being paraded through the streets of West Jerusalem, though accounts vary. Four of the attackers died, with around 35 injured. The killings were condemned by the leadership of the Haganah—the Jewish community's main paramilitary force—and by the area's two chief rabbis. The Jewish Agency for Israel sent Jordan's King Abdullah a letter of apology, which he rebuffed.

The deaths became a pivotal event in the Arab–Israeli conflict for their demographic and military consequences. The narrative was embellished and used by various parties to attack each other—by the Palestinians against Israel; by the Haganah to play down their own role in the affair; and by the Israeli Left to accuse the Irgun and Lehi of violating the Jewish principle of purity of arms, thus blackening Israel's name around the world. News of the killings 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 don’t want to quote more, but it gets worse. Those who are interested can read the rest of the entry.

All this might be dismissed as ancient history, but it is relevant for two reasons. It shows that terrorism is the inevitable method for the weak who feel they cannot succeed without resort to it (The Irish Republican Army, which many Americans sympathized with is another example) and it is relevant because the ruling party of Israel, Likud, is the successor to these terrorists. It’s founding rejects the very idea of a Palestinian state. I quote from the document.

The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting…. The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan River.

And so we find the frequent criticism of Hamas in so far its founding charter reads,

Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors.

But is that so different from Likud’s claim to all of Palestine including the whole West Bank and Gaza. To expect Hamas to drop this demand can only be the end result of negotiations, not a pre-condition.

The PLO used to have a similar provision in its charter. It provided under Article 17:

The Partitioning of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of Israel are illegal and false regardless of the loss of time, because they were contrary to the wish of the Palestine people and its natural right to its homeland, and in violation of the basic principles embodied in the charter of the United Nations, foremost among which is the right to self-determination.

But as long ago as 1988 it accepted Israel’s right to exist. 

After a two-day meeting with five prominent American Jews here, a P.L.O. delegation led by Mr. Arafat said in a joint statement that the Palestinian parliament in exile last month had ''accepted the existence of Israel as a state in the region'' and ''declared its rejection and condemnation of terrorism in all its forms.''

Where did it get them? Has Israel reciprocated by recognizing the right of a Palestinian Sate? Did this prompt the cessation of Israel’s endless encroachment of Palestinian territory? Has it stopped the creeping annexation of the West Bank? Or for that matter the military occupation of the whole West Bank? To all intents and purposes the P.L.O. has been turned into the Vichy government of the West Bank, and then the Likud government of Israel claims the PLO is too weak to be a negotiating partner.