Wars sicken me, even wars that I support. I support Israel’s offensive in Gaza, but watching it on TV — the images of bombed-out buildings, crying women and, inevitably, the bodies of innocent bystanders — is a painful experience.
I suspect that most American Jews feel the same discomfort that I feel. They support the military offensive too, but they are well aware of the risks that it entails, and they expect Israel to be both politically wise and morally sensitive in how it fights. It is especially important to us that Israel do everything humanly possible to avoid the death of innocents and to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. There is much evidence that Israel has worked hard to limit the carnage, and the credibility of Israel’s leaders in providing assurances on these points is an important factor in assuring the continued support of American Jews — and, indeed, of all Americans — for the Gaza campaign.
Of course, there are those in the Jewish community who champion the Gaza offensive with slogans of crude triumphalism. Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic, wrote on his blog that the message of this operation is “do not f–k with the Jews.” It is interesting to compare the somber statements of Israel’s leaders, who are fighting to protect their children, with the obscene, cowboy-like delight that Peretz seems to take in the damage Israel’s army is able to inflict.
At the same time, if some Jewish hawks are devoid of sympathy for Palestinian suffering, not a few Jewish doves have demonstrated an utter lack of empathy for Israel’s predicament. J Street, a new Washington lobbying group and a major voice of the dovish pro-Israel community, has spoken out sharply against Israel’s actions in Gaza. While it claims to represent the moderate American Jewish majority, in this case it has misread the issues and misjudged the views of American Jews.
It is not easy for me to write these words. I welcomed the founding of J Street and know many of those involved in its leadership. Furthermore, I am a dove myself. I support a two-state solution, believe that military action by Israel should be a last resort and welcome an active American role in promoting peace between Israel and her neighbors. But I know a mistake when I see one, and this time J Street got it very wrong.
J Street’s first statement expressed “understanding” for Israel’s motivations, and called — as I do — for a political rather than a military solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Nonetheless, its conclusion was that Israel made a mistake in attacking Hamas and that the United States and others must press for an immediate cease-fire.
A second J Street statement was worse by far. It could find no moral difference between the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militants, who have launched more than 5,000 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli civilians in the past three years, and the long-delayed response of Israel, which finally lost patience and responded to the pleas of its battered citizens in the south. “Neither Israelis nor Palestinians have a monopoly on right or wrong,” it said, and it suggested that there was no reason and no way to judge between them: “While there is nothing ‘right’ in raining rockets on Israeli families or dispatching suicide bombers, there is nothing ‘right’ in punishing a million and a half already-suffering Gazans for the actions of the extremists among them.”
These words are deeply distressing because they are morally deficient, profoundly out of touch with Jewish sentiment and also appallingly naïve. A cease-fire instituted by Hamas would be welcome, and Israel would be quick to respond. A cease-fire imposed on Israel would allow Hamas to escape the consequences of its actions yet again and would lead in short order to the renewal of its campaign of terror. Hamas, it should be noted, is not a government; it is a terrorist gang. And as long as the thugs of Hamas can act with impunity, no Israeli government of the right or the left will agree to a two-state solution or any other kind of peace. Doves take note: To be a dove of influence, you must be a realist, firm in your principles but shorn of all illusions.
As a reality check for my views, I did what I normally do in these circumstances: I checked with my closest Israeli friends, who are all left of center, haters of war and ferocious opponents of the West Bank settlement movement. In virtually every case, they saw the action in Gaza as tragic but necessary and were astounded by the opposition of American doves. “What did they think,” one of them asked me in bewilderment, “that we would just sit there forever while Hamas fired rockets into our cities?” And they pointed out that most politicians on the left support the offensive, as do more than 80% of all Israelis, according to polling data.
I have not seen any polls on the reactions of American Jews, but my own sense, supported by anecdotal evidence from the Reform movement, is that there is strong backing for Israel’s government. American Jews have a commonsense approach to these matters.
We are aware that American forces have gone halfway around the globe to engage in a war in Afghanistan against terrorists who once carried out an attack on American soil. We know that civilians have frequently died in that war because terrorists make a point of operating in civilian areas. We know too that this war has the support of our liberal president-elect.
So why, we ask, should Israel’s center-left government, after long periods of restraint and desperate efforts to renew the cease-fire, be expected to refrain from fighting terrorists that are regularly attacking from right across the border? And we are certain that if rockets were being launched from Canada into our own homes in Michigan or Maine, we would demand immediate action, and our government would quickly oblige.
American Jews see Israel’s Gaza offensive as a tragic necessity, unwelcome but inevitable, carried out by a reluctant Israeli government doing what it must to end rocket attacks against its citizenry. In short, American Jews are, as usual, sensible and centrist, and supporting Israel in her hour of need.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie is president of the Union for Reform Judaism.
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Rabbi, Israel could have avoided all the killing if it had worked perhaps with Egypt and/or Turkey to extend the ceasefire with Hamas while the ceasefire was going on. Instead, it chose to kill several members of Hamas on Nov. 4, even while it had agreed to a ceasefire at that time. It also chose to tighten up the borders with Gaza, again while the ceasefire was in place. These are facts that are seldom reported in the U.S. and so they never have an opportunity to be examined and discussed. Even now, Israel says it will not open up the borders until Gilad Shalit is released. Must an entire population be punished for the sake of one Israeli? Are Israeli lives really that much more important than Palestinian lives? Israel has no moral high ground to stand on in this issue. Hamas has not very much, but at least it has some.
William -- Would you have counseled nonviolence in response to Hitler and the Nazis? Sometimes, war/violence IS necessary.
If we all start from the premise that killing is wrong, then, if we think about it a bit more, we will realise that we don't stop killing by killing ... The "powers that be" (who are certainly not "on our side" -no matter how they disguise themselves-, and who always finance and control ALL SIDES) thrive on our not being able to come to this simple conslusion, and, therefore, we fight amongst ourselves, and the more they thrive, the more we suffer ... Stop killing (and "legitimising" or "justifying" killing, I would think, is "killing")!
What is there about the JStreet crowd and their sympathizers that make them so morally blind? I'd be willing to bet that there almost no believing Jews among them - it's the old story of Jews who give up their bible for liberalism - and liberalism as a religion just doesn't work.
They say that history repeats itself. What proves it more than the current Israeli repeat of the Nazi liquidation of the the Warsaw Ghetto in Gaza? Ironically, because of pro-Israel positions in the media, we are not reminded for how long Gaza Palestinians had suffered surrounding and blockade by Israeli forces as punishment for DEMOCRATICALLY electing HAMAS as their government in elections that the US insisted upon. And now after two years of economic, food and travel strangulation, as when a Jewish Brigade decided to fight back against the Nazi encirclement and starvation during the Nazi occupation of Poland, the IDF is using minor rocket attacks as an excuse to LIQUIDATE the Gaza Palestinians through vicious air strikes followed by an infantry and armor invasion. History repeats itself indeed. But in WWII, it was condemned by the US; now it is fully funded and media info about Gaza is as controlled as German info about the Warsaw Ghetto Liquidation was by the German Nazi Regime-- except that the US Govt. in no way controls the media. This is private interests and pressure groups deciding what we "dumb goyim" should and should not be told and then lambasting hysterically any critics or questioners of Israeli policies as "anti-Semites." We in America need meaningful dialogue-- just as goes on in Israel-- for we lost far more because of Israel in our Middle East relations. As the sole and total financial supporters of Israel, we should have some say in how our assets are used to turn Gaza into the Warsaw Ghetto with Israel behaving as the Germans did with weapons and ammo "made in the USA."
We must understand that Iran is encouraging Hamas to continue the bombing of Israel and supporting the refusal of the terrorists to agree to a cease fire.
This was a well-stated and balanced response. Thank you for publishing it, and thanks to Rabbi Yoffie for writing it.
Rabbi, It is only natural to think that one's position lies in the political center. However,it has been my experience that most Jews tend to be left of center in their world view. Because of this they espouse pathways that are often at odds with the wellbeing of Jews in general. I am sure that there are many Jews who ardently support the J Street position. This saddens me as these people seem to be living in an alternate reality. All of us must understand that we don't have the luxury of playing nice with a bunch of thugs who have created a terrorist state where every citizen is indoctrinated from birth in the theology of martyrdom for Islam and the destruction of the Jews in particular. To these people kindness and consideration for their basic humanity is a sign of weakness and gets you nowhere.I would like to point your attention to this artilce which I found at the Yid with Lid blog: yidwithlid.blogspot.com The Gaza War: Is it All So Hard to Understand?* Barry Rubin December 31, 2008 http://www.gloriacenter.org/index.asp?pname=submenus/articles/2008/rubin/12_31_12-39.asp But why, more than one reporter from highly reputable publications has asked me, is Israel attacking Gaza now? At first, I was astonished: because Hamas cancelled the ceasefire and started massive rocket firings at Israel. No, they responded, as if I had said something rude. Isn't it the election, or an attempt to stop the tunnels, or this or that reason? Absolutely not, I say, it's like Pearl Harbor, or September 11. If someone announces they are going to go to war with you and then does it, you retaliate and fight. At that point, the reporters seem to lose interest and bring the interview to an end, as if clearly a person who can say such things is not going to provide any rational analysis. Yet if one cannot even understand this most basic fact, what comprehension can there be of this issue or, indeed, of Middle East politics in general. There are reasons, however, for this response. Large elements in the West find it very hard to "get," that is to understand, Hamas or the Palestinians in general--or, for that matter, Islamists in general, or Arabs in general, or Muslims in general--albeit with all the many variations and exceptions. The problem with pragmatism: Today, people ask, why didn't the Jews of Poland understand the Nazis were going to wipe them out, at least in the earlier period when escape or revolt was more possible? According to contemporary and later eyewitness testimony because they didn't think Germans would act in such an unpragmatic manner. After all hundreds of thousands of Jews were involuntarily contributing to the German war effort. They were making clothes, repairing roads, growing food. Why should the Third Reich destroy a highly effective, very cheap, and low-problem labor force, thus crippling itself and helping to ensure that it lost the war? Answer: ideology. A doctrine and belief system will make people act in a way that doesn't fit pragmatic expectations. Why should Hamas start a war against a stronger power? Due to believing itself to be stronger and needs to mobilize mass support. Why should Palestinian leaders reject a state even if it means the end of an increasingly small degree of "occupation"? Due to belief that total victory is inevitable, that compromise is treason, and that their enemies are satanic. The solvency of solutions: The other big question asked is: what is the solution? How can, as some say, peace be attained; how can Israel, others say, eliminate Hamas? The presumption is that the first or the second is easy, or at least possible. Answer: Wrong. This is the Middle East we don't do solutions. Hamas is not going to disappear, nor will it be moderate. Israel, for good reasons, has no interest in occupying the Gaza Strip. Fatah is incapable of retaking control there. This situation will go on and probably most likely end in some new ceasefire. Hamas will break the ceasefire a bit every week, and smash it altogether every six to eighteen months, repeating the current situation. That isn't the ideal outcome but it is by far the most likely one. The unbearable lightness of gratitude: No matter how much diplomatic aid, sympathy, or money the West gives Hamas--and it has saved Hamas and the PLO over and over from their own mistakes--they will not become grateful or pro-Western. Anti-Western and anti-American sentiment is too valuable and too widespread to disappear. The Palestinians--and Iran's regime, and Syria's government, and Hizballah, and other Islamists--need scapegoats. Who else are they going to blame for their problems, themselves? If you save the terrorists today, they will commit more terrorism tomorrow. If you let them escape the consequences of their own extremism, you can guarantee they will stay extremist and take a lot of the masses with them. The reality of reality: In some ways, the most important--or at least second most important--thing to happen in the Middle East this week is that Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah went too far, calling for the overthrow of Egypt's government. Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit responded, "They have actually declared war on Egypt...." And when he says "they" he means Iran, Syria, Hizballah, and Hamas. The Saudis and Gulf Arabs are also drawing lines deeper than ever before. Publicly and loudly, they look at Gaza, and see Arabs and Muslims, and criticize Israel. More softly in public and loudly in private they look at Gaza and see the Iranian axis. This is the Middle East of 2008 and not of 1958, 1968, 1978, 1988, or 1998. The Palestinian issue has little effect on any other issue. The real conflict is Iran-Syria against Egypt-Saudi Arabia. Islamists are seeking to conquer the region from Arab nationalists. Radical groups are not interested in happy homelands but jihad and genocide. And so the issue is not why Israel is attacking Hamas in Gaza now, but why Hamas in Gaza is attacking Israel now. Note: This article was written for Pajamas Media. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-gaza-war-is-it-really-so-hard-to-understand/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). The Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, P.O. Box 167, Herzliya, 46150, Israel Email: info AT gloriacenter.org - Phone: +972-9-960-2736 - Fax: +972-9-960-2736 © 2007 All rights reserved The Gaza War: Is it All So Hard to Understand?* Barry Rubin December 31, 2008 But why, more than one reporter from highly reputable publications has asked me, is Israel attacking Gaza now? At first, I was astonished: because Hamas cancelled the ceasefire and started massive rocket firings at Israel. No, they responded, as if I had said something rude. Isn't it the election, or an attempt to stop the tunnels, or this or that reason? Absolutely not, I say, it's like Pearl Harbor, or September 11. If someone announces they are going to go to war with you and then does it, you retaliate and fight. At that point, the reporters seem to lose interest and bring the interview to an end, as if clearly a person who can say such things is not going to provide any rational analysis. Yet if one cannot even understand this most basic fact, what comprehension can there be of this issue or, indeed, of Middle East politics in general. There are reasons, however, for this response. Large elements in the West find it very hard to "get," that is to understand, Hamas or the Palestinians in general--or, for that matter, Islamists in general, or Arabs in general, or Muslims in general--albeit with all the many variations and exceptions. The problem with pragmatism: Today, people ask, why didn't the Jews of Poland understand the Nazis were going to wipe them out, at least in the earlier period when escape or revolt was more possible? According to contemporary and later eyewitness testimony because they didn't think Germans would act in such an unpragmatic manner. After all hundreds of thousands of Jews were involuntarily contributing to the German war effort. They were making clothes, repairing roads, growing food. Why should the Third Reich destroy a highly effective, very cheap, and low-problem labor force, thus crippling itself and helping to ensure that it lost the war? Answer: ideology. A doctrine and belief system will make people act in a way that doesn't fit pragmatic expectations. Why should Hamas start a war against a stronger power? Due to believing itself to be stronger and needs to mobilize mass support. Why should Palestinian leaders reject a state even if it means the end of an increasingly small degree of "occupation"? Due to belief that total victory is inevitable, that compromise is treason, and that their enemies are satanic. The solvency of solutions: The other big question asked is: what is the solution? How can, as some say, peace be attained; how can Israel, others say, eliminate Hamas? The presumption is that the first or the second is easy, or at least possible. Answer: Wrong. This is the Middle East we don't do solutions. Hamas is not going to disappear, nor will it be moderate. Israel, for good reasons, has no interest in occupying the Gaza Strip. Fatah is incapable of retaking control there. This situation will go on and probably most likely end in some new ceasefire. Hamas will break the ceasefire a bit every week, and smash it altogether every six to eighteen months, repeating the current situation. That isn't the ideal outcome but it is by far the most likely one. The unbearable lightness of gratitude: No matter how much diplomatic aid, sympathy, or money the West gives Hamas--and it has saved Hamas and the PLO over and over from their own mistakes--they will not become grateful or pro-Western. Anti-Western and anti-American sentiment is too valuable and too widespread to disappear. The Palestinians--and Iran's regime, and Syria's government, and Hizballah, and other Islamists--need scapegoats. Who else are they going to blame for their problems, themselves? If you save the terrorists today, they will commit more terrorism tomorrow. If you let them escape the consequences of their own extremism, you can guarantee they will stay extremist and take a lot of the masses with them. The reality of reality: In some ways, the most important--or at least second most important--thing to happen in the Middle East this week is that Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah went too far, calling for the overthrow of Egypt's government. Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit responded, "They have actually declared war on Egypt...." And when he says "they" he means Iran, Syria, Hizballah, and Hamas. The Saudis and Gulf Arabs are also drawing lines deeper than ever before. Publicly and loudly, they look at Gaza, and see Arabs and Muslims, and criticize Israel. More softly in public and loudly in private they look at Gaza and see the Iranian axis. This is the Middle East of 2008 and not of 1958, 1968, 1978, 1988, or 1998. The Palestinian issue has little effect on any other issue. The real conflict is Iran-Syria against Egypt-Saudi Arabia. Islamists are seeking to conquer the region from Arab nationalists. Radical groups are not interested in happy homelands but jihad and genocide. And so the issue is not why Israel is attacking Hamas in Gaza now, but why Hamas in Gaza is attacking Israel now. Note: This article was written for Pajamas Media. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-gaza-war-is-it-really-so-hard-to-understand/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). The Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, P.O. Box 167, Herzliya, 46150, Israel Email: info AT gloriacenter.org - Phone: +972-9-960-2736 - Fax: +972-9-960-2736 © 2007 All rights reserved
I am an Israeli dove and I support the attack on Gaza. The Hamas is making the lives of Israelis in the south impossible. These people cannot have normal life for years. But, do not forget. Shooting at Israelis civilians did not start 8 years ago. I was born under British Mandate and as a child I remmeber Arab shootong at us, in the streets and into the houses for years until the Arab villagers who were shooting us from their village on the hill, ran away after they were defeated by the Jewish Haganah during the begining of the independence war.We were used to sleep on the floor under the window because the Arabs used to shoot into the windows.
Hamas may be a "terrorist gang" but it is also the democratically elected administration in Gaza. It beat Fatah because it was perceived (like Hizbollah in Lebanon) to be uncorrupted, ready to assist the people through welfare programs. The IDF's next target is reportedly the sites from which this welfare is supplied to the 1.5m imprisoned residents of the Gaza Strip. "Hamas and other Palestinian militants, who have launched more than 5,000 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli civilians in the past three years"... which have inflicted exactly how many casualties and how much damage over the past months since the ceasefire collapsed, compared with the UN's estimate of 400 deaths in Gaza, including over a hundred civilians, in the past few days? The liberal dove Rabbi Yoffie, quelling his stomach disturbances, may swallow this equivalence. Most of the rest of mankind, including a lot of American progressives and not a few American Jews, does not. As is usual with his handwringing type, the good "reform" rabbi claims to speak for all American Jews as being gung-ho for the Judenstaat and the cruel necessity of blitzing family homes to take out "militants". He should get out of his temple more. So what's next? Another incursion of densely populated urban blocks, as in Jenin? Another botched ground invasion like summer 2006, with mommas pressurizing the pols to avoid casualties among conscripts? Israel has no clue about how to finish off the resistance, far less settle the problem of Gaza's governance. The morally bankrupt Zionist politicians and their friends and facilitators in Washington cling to the delusion that Arab Palestinians can be cowed and converted into complaisant allies of colonization by "shock 'n' awe"-- despite sixty years of intermittent evidence to the contrary. But the demographics, public opinion worldwide, the increasing introspection of Israel's only big ally and the disaffection from the State of younger, secular American Jews all tell against a continuance of oppression even if, as usual, the Muslim Middle East is cool to Palestine's plight. Bibi and Ehud may posture as saviors of Jewry from the terrible threat of a few desperadoes armed with WW2 missiles, as if they were Moshe Dayan, Ben Gurion and Chaim Weizmann rolled into one. The reality of persecution and enslavement in a ghetto is too uncomfortable, and historically resonant. Most observers won't buy the shtick about "poor little Israel, so misunderstood, she only wants to be friends and benign exporters of civilization and democracy" any more. It's a propaganda war, which political Zionism is losing badly. And the birthrate clock keeps on ticking. www.nkusa.org
For christs sake why do you all whine about those little rockets that have only managed to accidently kill 19 people in 8 years when in 2006 alone Israeli's fired 15,000 missiles, did 550 bombing raids and slaughtered 525 civilians while injuring 1500 more. Why do you support this attack on innocent people is more to the point and what makes you any less cretinous than the others who lead the cheer squad for zion. http://avnery-news.co.il/english/index.html Perhaps you better read this and get back to us.
Let the leaders of Israel follow King David's advice from the Eighteenth Psalm regarding Gaza: "I will chase my enemies and catch up to them and I shall not return until I annihilate them."
As Mj Rosenberg Director of Israel Policy Forum's Washington Policy Centre says 'But one thing is certain--this war is unlikely to bring peace any closer. In fact, I believe that the pictures Arabs and Muslims worldwide are seeing of the attacks on Gaza may push that day so far into the future that none of us will see it.' The terrible conclusion being a nuclear confrontation with Iran. This is not self defence, the attrition rate of 1-100 testifies to that. It is a moral surrender, and Israel is seen as enjoying the suffering. The sheer callousness of its foreign minister have done Israel's image great harm.
If you want to understand what is behind everything going on in Gaza, spend 15 minutes and read the Hamas Charter. It's filled with horrific statements on Jews, the sons of apes and pigs crap.
Hamas was overwhelmingly elected by the Gaza arabs, they captured over 90% of the vote. Every arab understood what Hamas stood for-unrelenting attack against israelis, refusal to recognize Israel and the objective to eliminate the state of Israel. These are your poor 'innocent' civilians who are 'suffering' under the Israeli action. Nonsense! They are one-and-the-same as those who fire the rockets, blow themselves up amidst Israeli civilians shoot or stab or commit shooting and stabbing ataacks against Israeli men, women and children. They fully deserve all that is happening in Gaza at this moment. Long have they cheered every act of violence against Israelis. Now has come their time to suffer the consequences of their stupidity and adherence to the Hamas Nazis whom they placed over them.
Hamas was elected with over 90% of the Gaza arab vote. The local arabs understood perfectly what Hamas stood for and promised-unrelenting attack against Israel with the ultimate aim of destroying Israel and(as stated in the Hamas charter) the promise to 'drive the Jews into the sea.' And this is who they placed in power over them. Innocent civilians? Sure, if we're speaking of the 5-10% who refused to vote for Hamas. As for the rest, they are one-and-the-same as those who fire rockets and have murdered Israeli civilians by homicide bombings, shootings or stabbings. They are one-and-the-same. They are no more innocent than the Germans who elected Hitler and his party into power. They share the same fascist ideology as the Hamas Nazis which in turn is based on traditional Islamic values of intolerance and hate towards all non-muslims. The Jews were tolerated by the arab as long as they remained dhimmis, second-class citizens in their midst. The re-establishing of the historic state of Israel was seen by muslims as an affront and challenge to their belief-system. Here, right smack in the middle of the Dar al Islam, now stood a Jewish state! Add in a series of humiliating defeats by the Jews, and the well-known arab tendency toward paranoia has reached, and remained at, feverish levels for decades now. They who support those who live to spread terror and death, as the Gaza arabs support Hamas, must now suffer the consequences of their support.
Bravo, this is the first time I actually agree with the Rabbi! Here is a video of the Pro Israel Rally in LA. Jews who support the offensive of a constant barrage of rockets. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHYwfMmZCLE
The right to statehood (the right to self-determination) is universal. This was the logic behind the Partition Plan of 1947, and this is the reason that the two-state solution is the only fair plan. The denial of such a right for Jews (by "David H Dilsson") is obviously the result of anti-Jewish bias. Even his terminology is clearly biased. The conflict in the Middle East is simply war. Actually, it is a very low-intensity war in which most people live relatively normal lives on an everyday basis. At times, like the present moment, the conflict flares up - but even such moments don't change the basic truth that the very interesting Arab-Israeli conflict is a low-intensity confrontation. Terms such as "genocide" or "Warsaw Ghetto" that appear in readers' comments on this page are obvious lies - either the result of stupidity (not too likely) or the result of hatred towards Israel and an urge to delegitimize her existence (much more likely). Those who sympathize with the Palestinian struggle could actually do good if they would spend energy encouraging the Palestinians to express some self-criticism and soul-searching (just a mere fraction of the over self-criticism of the Jewish side). The Hamas has provoked a confrontation that seems to be insane. What weak entity would fire random missiles into the cities of a much stronger neighbor, knowing that the result will ultimately be some kind of strong and painful retaliation? The war against Israel is ideological - and the belief of Hamas is that, eventually (in the distant future), they will defeat her. In order to defeat Israel in the long run, the conflict has to be kept alive on an everyday basis. Negotiating for peace or long-term cease-fires, so Hamas fears, are liable to result in Israel's ultimate acceptance. Therefore, despite its weakness and isolation, Hamas insists on war (and has only agreed to a brief cease-fire, "hudna", as in Muhammad's day). Those who wish the Palestinians well should encourage them to accept the legitimacy of others. Only in such a way can a solution be found. Unfortunately, "pro-Palestinian" almost always means "anti-Israel"; i.e. a pro-Palestinian accepts the discriminatory position that self-determination of peoples does not include the Jewish people.
Dear chevra, It gets harder, Shabbat by Shabbat, to say without weeping the words "Shabbat shalom" – a sabbath of peace -- when the present government of Israel has used last week's Shabbat and yesterday's to massively increase the level of its violence as a response to the violence of Hamas. The ground invasion of Gaza that began yesterday/ Shabbat is likely to kill many many Palestinans and Israelis. "Shabbat shalom" could instead have meant seeking such elements of "shalom" as ending the blockade of Gaza and ending the assassination of Hamas leaders in exchange for an end to rocket attacks on Israel. –-- As 10,000 Israelis, marching yesterday in Tel Aviv, were urging. On The Shalom Center's website (lead story at www.shalomctr.org ) is our analysis of alternatives to the present death machine, including our approach to building the politico-religious base in America to make those alternatives real. And at the same time, we need to resist recurrent efforts by some Jews to define what is kosher for other Jews to say and do –-- even when they are urgently trying to protect Israel from attack. In ancient Israel, the word "shibboleth" became a communal password. Since some versions of Hebrew included the "sh" sound whereas others used "s" and some of their speakers could not pronounce the "sh," that word became a way to demonstrate you were a kosher Israelite (specifically, a Gileadite rather than an Ephraimite). If you could not pronounce it but said "ssiboleth" instead, you got killed. (See Judges 12:5-6.) The "shibboleth" of today is the sentence, "Israel has the right to defend itself from attacks." Say it, just like that, and you are a kosher Jew. Add complexities or qualifiers, like "Defend how?" in any form, and you are unkosher. The most important and most disappointing use of this shibboleth is by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, head of the Union of Reform Judaism. Within the URJ are many views about the Sderot-Gaza Crisis. The situation is complex enough that this is hardly surprising. It would be nice for URJ's head to make clear that this is so, though of course he is entitled as well to his own opinion. Though I disagree with Rabbi Yoffie's views about the war, they are certainly worthy of discussion. But I think that Rabbi Yoffie transgressed menschlich discussion by attacking J Street. It is the newish lobby group that has committed itself to the "pro-Israel, pro-peace" task of supporting with money and with information Congressional candidates who can love Israel and love peace as well. J Street has, inevitably, been called the alternative to AIPAC, but its key staffers -- Jeremy Ben-Ami and Isaac Luria – have firmly insisted on defining what they are for, not what they are against. So what was their sssinful violation of the shibboleth? Instantly upon the massive Israeli bombing of Gaza, J Street called for a cease-fire -- an immediate end to the bombings, to rocket attacks by Hamas against Israel, and to the Israeli blockade of food, fuel, and medicines from entering Gaza. Perhaps Rabbi Yoffie might have ignored this, but J Street did something much worse – it actually amassed 14,000 signatures for its one-line call for a cease-fire. Now Rabbi Yoffie says wars "sicken" him, even the wars he supports. So what was wrong with J Street's effort to end this war, including ending Hamas rockets against Israelis? Ahh, they violated the shibboleth. Rabbi Yoffie attacks J Street for saying: "Neither Israelis nor Palestinians have a monopoly on right or wrong. While there is nothing 'right' in raining rockets on Israeli families or dispatching suicide bombers, there is nothing 'right' in punishing a million and a half already-suffering Gazans for the actions of the extremists among them." Rabbi Yoffie explains that "These words are deeply distressing because they are morally deficient, profoundly out of touch with Jewish sentiment and also appallingly naive." Ahhh. To pronounce "shibboleth" right and be a kosher Jew, you must not say that Israel is not doing right, even if you are crystal clear that Israel's enemies are not doing right. What should we do if we think J Street is basically correct in what should happen, morally right-on and politically knowledgeable rather than "naïve," and if we believe that being "in touch with Jewish sentiment" at any given moment in the polltakers' notes is no measure of Jewish wisdom? I urge our readers and members to click to the J Street website and make a contribution of $36 or more. At that URL, you will find a space called "In honor of." I suggest that if your sense of humor leans that way, you fill it in with "In Honor of Rabbi Eric Yoffie." The URL is this: https://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/2747/t/4026/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=2338 (Be sure that what goes in your browser includes the whole thing, all the way to "2338.") Let me send you blessings for both "shalom" and "salaam" ----- for I can pronounce both "sh" and "ss." I hope that makes me a kosher Jew, an unkosher Jew, and something more than either. Together –-- ALL of us together ---- let us serve the God of peace and justice and healing and compassion. -- Rabbi Arthur Waskow --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Fabrangen Shmooze List" group. To post to this group, send email to Fabrangen-Members@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to Fabrangen-Members+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Fabrangen-Members?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Dear Rabbi Yoffie, Jews like myself are horrified at the criminal attack on Gaza, because, unlike you, we do not believe that it was a "long delayed response". In fact, Israel's "withdrawal" from Gaza in 2005 was anything but: it continued controlling all border crossings, airspace, and the coastline, creating what has been described as the largest open air prison in the world, while the world looks the other way. Moreover, since Hamas's victory in the parliamentary, free elections of 2006, Israel has placed Gaza under siege, causing increasing shortages of even the most basic of daily necessities, making life impossible for civilians, and contributing to the failure of the cease-fire and radicalizing the non-Jewish population in Palestine, making them feel that they have little, if anything, to lose. The evidence for this is overwhelming and available to anybody who cares to look for it, and who is concerned with justice. Nor do Jews like myself believe that Israeli leaders are sincerely committed to protecting residents of the Southern towns, or elsewhere for that matter. If it did intend so, it would have at a very minimum complied with UN resolution 244 and ended its illegal occupation a long time ago, and with it the continuing irritant of the present situation. If you support and justify, however reluctantly, the attack on Gaza, for the sake of consistency you should support the bombing of US cities, given that our freely elected representatives have bombed civilians elsewhere. So Americans civilians should pay for this. But of course nobody morally sane would support this. The attack on Gaza is not merely illegal but immoral, and is causing unspeakable suffering to an increasing number of innocent civilians. It makes me feel profoundly ashamed of being Jewish. Israel should not do this in my name, or in the name of many Jews like me who are committed to a non-double standard path to peace in the Middle East. Respectfully.
Rabbi Dr. Michael Ben-Ari, the number four man on the National Union's Knesset list, thinks the leaders of Israel should follow King David's advice from the Eighteenth Psalm regarding Gaza: "I will chase my enemies and catch up to them and I shall not return until I annihilate them." "This should be the slogan of every leader and IDF commander," he said. "The enemy must know that whoever raises his hand against Israel, we will teach him a lesson and annihilate him as well as all his helpers and supporters, and only thus will we take out their will to fire missiles at us." However, he is under no illusions that the present government will do so. Ben-Ari supports the troops fighting in Gaza but says the operation is "like giving aspirin to a patient who is in serious condition." "It is a sedative but it does not address the root of the problem," he said Friday. "Everyone knows this and that is why they were so hesitant to begin this operation. That is why I believe that sooner or later we will return to Gaza and Gush Katif," he added. 'It will end with a ceasefire' "The conflict will be decided on the political level," Ben-Ari predicted. "In the end, the Arabs' pleas for a ceasefire will be heeded before we break the enemy's will to fight, just like our humiliating defeat in the Second Lebanon War and Resolution 1701." "There will probably be an agreement on some kind of ceasefire but the enemy will never agree to lose their ability to rearm. Their entire existence depends on their ability to keep on hurting us," he said. "Their motivation is to one day be able to chase us out and return to Ramle and Lod." "The operation is beginning to teach the public that the statement 'it's either us or them' [which was used by former Knesset Member, the late Rabbi Meir Kahane– ed is not an election slogan but is a very existential one." The solution to the Gaza problem, said Ben-Ari, should be an international one. "The international community needs to find the Arab population in Gaza a spacious area somewhere in which they can live and where they will have something to lose," he explained. As things are, the enemy in Gaza "is dreaming of the nice houses in Ashkelon and Ashdod as it lives in the impossibly crowded and run-down streets of Gaza." We need to understand that "a few bombs or diplomatic talks or 'lulls' will only make the problem worse, not solve it," he explained. The enemy within Ben-Ari is also gravely worried about "the internal enemy" – the Arabs with Israeli citizenship. "The enemy is waking up and getting stronger, and the danger will only become greater unless we have leadership that is not afraid of the Supreme Court, of the United Nations and of the deranged people in the Left, but is only committed to the survival of the Jewish people." "When the enemy raises signs saying 'death to the Jews' in Sakhnin, it brings the catastrophe nearer," he warned. "It reminds me of the Jews' disregard of all the signs that preceded the Holocaust."
He almost had me convinced until he compared Gaza with what the US has done in the Middle East. If the US was right to do that, he says, then Israel is right to bombard Gaza. But any sensible person knows that the US has acted like an international bully, and a stupid one at that. If Yoffie's measure is the justice of US actions at home and abroad, then his argument fails the tests of both morality and pragmatism. Just as surely as the US has failed to deal with international instabiity (and has fostered it by propping up one Middle East dictator after another), I fear Israel will (sadly, once again) fail to achieve its goals by resorting to force over a huge civilian population (with whom I have no sympathy, but who nevertheless have the same rights to life as we do).
J Street put up this response to Yoffie on their website: http://www.jstreet.org/blog/
No sane human being likes War but sometimes they are a necessary step to take against an enemy adamant in his hatred and attacks upon you. There is no moral quandary regarding the IDF move against Gaza. The response was long overdue. Nothing 'sickening' about this or any other action taken against similar fascists, whether they are called Hamas or Nazis. What is 'sickening', however, are people like Waskow who are blind to the Reality of this Human Drama and attempt to draw a veil of 'Moral Equivalency' over events and allotting equal blame to all sides involved. The Left is truly deranged. The current situation highlights that fact more clearly than ever.
Why do you choose to site statements and articles without providing links to them which would allow readers to assess your criticism of them?
As a Jew, sixty-five years old, and a dove, I am astounded and horrified that there remain so many Jews who excuse the most horrifying murder and starvation and imprisonment of a huge population of human beings. J Street certainly has not gone far enough in its recent statements. Jews must condemn in no uncertain terms the violence they continue to excuse. In a blind state of denial, the Israelis and the American Jewish population that supports their right wing warriors, have turned their sons into an occupying force, murderers of human beings who have been imprisoned in camps for decades, and starved and deprived of freedom. They cannot come up with a better solution then that. How dare you ask other Jews to support such inexcusable violence? How dare you destroy the values of humanity with your blind excuses? You are saying in this apology that now you want to define being Jewish as being a murderer. I refuse that definition. You apparently want all of Judaism to support your denial and these horrible war crimes. NO, one hundred times NO.
I suspect that most American Jews feel the same discomfort that I feel. They support the military offensive too... PROPAGANDA MUCH??? First of all, many of us feel far more than "discomfort" upon seeing pictures and video of bloody, unconscious babies. I have broke down and cried hard during both this "war" and during Israel's crimes in Lebanon. A rock under my asss causes me discomfort, the vastly disproportionate and needless killing of innocents makes me hate the killer. And please stop with the "we" crappp. You can't claim the majority of any group other than the right-wing Lukid party of neo-con like animals who run Israel today. We would have a more liberal majority in Israel if the right would stop killing the best Israeli leaders, or stroking out those wingnuts who make the mistake of trying for a settlement.
Yoffie states "A cease-fire instituted by Hamas would be welcome, and Israel would be quick to respond." I have read that in fact Israel refused a cease-fire. I share Rabbi Roffie's concerns and commitments but I am wary of the Israeli passion behind this bombing.
Rabbi Yoffie in his last paragraph suggests that this war is one of necessity, not of choice. I question that. Had Israel been willing to respond to Hamas’s conditions for extending the truce, for example, for lifting its economic blockade on Gaza , would the war have been avoided? We’ll never know because Israel did not respond.
With all respect for Rabbi Yoffe (and I have a great deal of respect for him on many issues), I must side with J Street on this one. It is not about response, but about the imtensity of the response. For over 60 years, Israel's strategy has been one of disproportionate response and, while the names of the militant and terrorizing groups against which she has responded have changed, the threat lives on. If we have learned nothing in the past 60+ years, then many people of multiple faiths, including the Jewish one, have died in vain. Was a response necessary and appropriate? Definitely. The real question is one of degree (especially so soon after the grossly disproportionate debacle in Lebanon). What can Israel hope to gain if, after 60+ years, the Palestinians have proved that, even under far greater travails, they can still more stubborn and intransigent than the Israelis. I'll leave it to the scholars to find a biblical reference, but the commonsense one is "When the continuously beating the ass does not get him to move, perhaps it's time to try a carrot -- if not too late for that. If it is too late, you have reaped what you have sown. Now you will be forced to carry your own burden."
With all respect for Rabbi Yoffe (and I have a great deal of respect for him on many issues), I must side with J Street on this one. It is not about response, but about the imtensity of the response. For over 60 years, Israel's strategy has been one of disproportionate response and, while the names of the militant and terrorizing groups against which she has responded have changed, the threat lives on. If we have learned nothing in the past 60+ years, then many people of multiple faiths, including the Jewish one, have died in vain. Was a response necessary and appropriate? Definitely. The real question is one of degree (especially so soon after the grossly disproportionate debacle in Lebanon). What can Israel hope to gain if, after 60+ years, the Palestinians have proved that, even under far greater travails, they can still more stubborn and intransigent than the Israelis. I'll leave it to the scholars to find a biblical reference, but the commonsense one is "When the continuously beating the ass does not get him to move, perhaps it's time to try a carrot -- if not too late for that. If it is too late, you have reaped what you have sown. Now you will be forced to carry your own burden."
When you come and live in Israel, that comfortable Diaspora fence you have been perched on all those years suddenly disappears. There is no more grey area; you're either for us or against us. It's ironic that such a symbol of security should also be the symbol of indecisiveness. Such is the nature of The Fence. It's easy to criticize Israel from afar, it's easy to be drawn in by the ludicrous political correctness, western liberalism and, in many cases, a sense of extreme embarrassment forced on and often embraced by Jews in the Diaspora. It's easy to shout and scream and criticize, worrying what your non-Jewish neighbors or colleagues may think, becoming the ultimate apologists. It's easy to scream from your comfortable pseudo-Jewish ivory towers. What seems to be harder is for you to muster some sense of loyalty and support for your own people (Jews) and your own country ( Israel). (Just a reminder.) And there aren't enough righteous gentiles to save us all. 'But it's for precisely that reason' you will cry, 'that we are so tough on Israel. We are enlightened, we understand because we live in the West where diplomacy rules. (Bosnia, Hamburg, Dresden, Iraq, Algeria, Congo, Falklands, we love Western diplomacy). Where we know Israeli concessions will bring peace and where we see an oppressed Palestinian people and a ferocious Israeli occupier.' Except of course Israel doesn't occupy Gaza. Let me tell you something about you, you are not readily able to admit. You ignore the fact Israel no longer occupies a square inch of Gaza. You forget who created the infrastructure left there. You have no sense of history, are blind to the blatant anti-Semitic tide that drives most anti-Israel feeling. You probably receive all your skewed information about Israel through the media. You have never once tried to understand the facts from Israel's point of view. You have no idea of the reign of terror Hamas is conducting on its own people. You have no idea of the suffering of Israelis living close to Gaza suffering barrage after barrage of missiles. You conveniently forget all the facts in order to justify your hateful rhetoric against your own people (Jews) and your own country (Israel). Sorry for the reminder. You have never once asked why Hamas needs to attack Israel, when they could live side by side in peace. You have never asked why, if the people are impoverished, Hamas doesn't use its resources for food and education instead of hand-made bombs and more sophisticated weaponry. You will cry that the 'blockade' on Gaza is plunging the people into destitution. What you won't ask is why is there a blockade. Did I mention that Israel relinquished control of Gaza relocating 8,000 of its citizens? Oh and you won't read this blog entry properly. Your identity as a Jew has been stolen. You have turned your back on thousands of years of history siding with the media and Arab propaganda, not really understanding the true facts of the ground. Every other nation has the right to defend itself, show nationalism and expect support. But you deny this for your own people. So now that Israel, after months and months of restraint and in the wake of thousands of rockets, has finally returned to Gaza to deal with Hamas, you say that you are "embarrassed" by Israel's actions? You'll tell me I am insecure in my beliefs, that I am ultra right-wing, and that I am blinded by fanaticism. You'll tell me that you know what the problem is and what should be done. I am not ultra right-wing, just a realist who takes the facts and history into consideration. This is not a simplistic view but a carefully considered opinion. This is not based on a persecution complex but a simple historical formula. They want us out. The President of Iran wants our total destruction. Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, Al Qaida are all vying for the opportunity to drive us into the sea. Many other Arab countries would love to see us gone. That's a fact. There is no room for diplomacy with an organization that wants your total destruction and perpetuates terror for the sake of an anarchic, megalomaniac blood lust. There can be no more sitting on the fence. You need to understand that. Jeremy Cardash Israel Stories blog
Mr Yoffie, While I disagree with the Reform Movement on probably just about everything, I will say that I pleasantly surprised by this article. It makes a great deal of sense and is not driven by emotions as so much we read and see on the news the past few days. Israel has endured thousands of rocket attacks in the past 3 years. Residents in southern Israel have to live their lives making sure they are never more than 15-30 seconds away from a bomb shelter. The Israeli military is trying very hard to minimize civilian casualities. I am tired of liberal Jews comparing Israel to Nazis and claiming that Israel is 'committing genocide'. Thank you for speaking up on behalf of truth. Sincerely, Yehudis, Los Angeles
I appreciate your efforts to see both sides but you've got the extent of Israel's desperation wrong. You forget about the siege that Israel had been imposing on Gaza for almost a year. The numerous warnings of an impending humanitarian disaster, the complete closure that followed the so-called "disengagement", and the regular assassinations of Palestinian leadership. The problem didn't start in December, and attempting to frame it as though Israel has been nothing but nice to the thankless Gazans and has reached the end of its patience is a mis-characterization. Sadly this perception is rampant, and I think that is the source of a lot of the misunderstanding. How are you to solve a problem if you don't understand it? The world needs to stop looking at Palestinians as irrational political actors. That would be a good place to start.
Mr Yoffie, While I disagree with the Reform Movement on probably just about everything, I will say that I pleasantly surprised by this article. It makes a great deal of sense and is not driven by emotions as so much we read and see on the news the past few days. Israel has endured thousands of rocket attacks in the past 3 years. Residents in southern Israel have to live their lives making sure they are never more than 15-30 seconds away from a bomb shelter. The Israeli military is trying very hard to minimize civilian casualities. I am tired of liberal Jews comparing Israel to Nazis and claiming that Israel is 'committing genocide'. Thank you for speaking up on behalf of truth. Sincerely, Yehudis, Los Angeles
I've been watching this conflict for decades and the debates surrounding it. I have come to the realization that one must ignore Israeli statements about its desires and intentions. From what it DOES it is apparent that it wants it all. The most liberal manifestation of this desire is the inability of any Israeli leader to take a step that would preclude Israeli eventually gaining its ancient boundaries. The most aggressive manifestation is ethnic cleansing. A common feature of reconciliation movements is confession. While Israelis persist in denial that they have massively violated the human rights of Palestinians, reconciliation is unlikely to occur. There's no historical precedent. (BTW, see "right of return" in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.) The Israelis do not need to grant the right of return but they do need to acknowledge that it is a legitimate demand.
you sound like a mix of Thomas Friedman and Hindu nationalism. That is not a compliment. That phrase "got it very wrong" is so patronizing and childish, it refers to the utter heart-shredding horror of war as some kind of cold calculation, hardly a stance any historically aware person would want to take. Most peoples suffer genocide at one time or another. The entire human race was nearly annihilated by a volcano 75,000 years ago. We are all just the handful of brothers and sisters who survived. Nothing about that, nor the scriptures, confers the right to perpetrate mass "carnage". Also, the USA cannot remotely afford the political and financial cost of this foolish, bloody-minded course of action. Why should it continue to support such a glaring and harmful violation of the principle of separation of church and state? Have you seen the video of the slaughter of the children on bicycles? Most of the world has by now, and it will be viewed over and over in every Arab country. For decades. There are so very very many better ways to go about this, all of them positive, even fun. Stopping the Israeli assassinations of those Palistinian leaders who try to end suicide bombings would be a great start. Why not follow through by inviting peace-loving Palestinians to dinner? Kill them with kindness. Bombs just make more terrorists, as should be blindingly obvious by now. Oh right, millions of people already reach out to each other and it's tremendously effective. It just doesn't fit the measured macho boy paradigm and doesn't get the sexy press coverage. Please stop dancing about in it. It does not become you. The whole world bleeds with those bloody lumps of dead ragamuffins on shattered bicycles in the dust and agonized howling of the Gaza Ghetto. We very badly want you to stop, and to be fair at long last to those you have wronged.
http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2009/01/is-israel-using-cluster-munitions-on-urban-areas.html
Jeremy, I'm not sure to whom you were responding (I assume not me, since none of the quotes are from my comment), but let me explain something to you. I'm not a "self-loathing Jew" (I've been accused of that elsewhere) and I don't find find great comfort just because I'm safely sequestered in the diaspora (I have friends and relatives who live in Israel and friends here who are Israelis whom I'd hate to see lose their lives or their loved ones). But what I have seen (and this should be relevent to someone who says we need to look at history) is a history of conflict without progress, the history of two peoples who remind me so much of a pair of stubborn children, I want to send both to their rooms for a time out. Once upon a time, Israel was at peril from it's immediate neighbors. But better a wiser men than you forged a lasting piece with two of those neighbors. Old war cries seem to die a lot slower deaths than the basis for those cries. Look..... I know something about leaders crying wolf. My nation's leaders did just that in 2002 in Iraq. And I cried out against it then. Maybe the problem is that those closest to a situation, with a history of promoting the same response time and again, can't step back and see the response doesn't work. It's like the potato blaming the carrot every time my grandmother prepared pot roast.....
Israel was wrong from the beginning, when they occupied the Palestinian territories, stole Palestinian land, and set up settlements, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. As long as they continue to occupy the territories, they are still at fault. After they've pulled out the settlements, then you can complain about Hamas.
Reading the opinion of Rabbi Arthur Waskow ("ending the blockade of Gaza and ending the assassination of Hamas leaders in exchange for an end to rocket attacks on Israel"), brought to mind the poor battered wife. Her husband has just beaten her because she has burnt his meal, and then he beats her yet again because she was talking loudly on the phone when he wanted to listen to his favorite TV program. She takes the blame for her husband's violence, telling all who know her plight that she has to be more attentive and considerate - and then "all will be well" in her marriage. But the problem is not her. He'll always find the excuse to strike at her no matter how careful she may be. The problem is his, and the roots of his violence have absolutely nothing to with her behavior. She, however, can't understand his inner world, so it's much easier to blame herself because of the illusion that "mending her ways" is the sole issue at hand. Rabbi Arthur Waskow - the war of Hamas against Israel is ideological. It is not based on this or that grievance that can be rectified. Any ceasefire with Israel will always be temporary, because ultimately the whole country must be Islamic. You're the battered wife. You think that the rocket attacks (the husband's bad tempers) are because of the siege (the careless wife burnt his meal). Perhaps you can't understand ideological motivation (the battered wife can't understand the emotional history of her husband), so it's easier to find fault in us (the careless wife). It should be noted that the Nazi regime's war on the Jews was also ideological - not provoked by this or that action of the Jewish community. The violence came from within their twisted world. Today, Iran is also threatening to destroy Israel. They, too, have their excuses ("the Jews are lying about the Holocaust...") - but their hostility comes from within their own belief system. There is no behavior of Israel that they will find acceptable. The battered wife has to rise up and declare: "I'm a normal person. I make mistakes just like anyone else, and yet I have the right to live a life without any violence. My husband - he's the one who needs guidance". Israel is a normal society, handling this very complicated conflict just as anyone else would handle it. Maybe even better. Her enemy, seeking her destruction as an ideological-religious principle, is the abnormal phenomenon.
quit clothing yourself in morality,the jews are just as much terrorist as the arabs.your 'HOMELAND"is land you stole from the Palastinians.This is why you have a Palastinian problem.Your second problem is despite past treaties you refuse to give the Palastinians a homeland as promisded for the land you stole.You have tried tostarve them out knowing this would cause retaliation and another war,then you complain when they do the natural thing and retaliate.The Jews are nothing more then barbaric thiefs trying to cloak themselves in morality.You cannot treat people like dogs and expect them to behave like human beings.Instead of cheap moralistic talk get to the barganing table and giv e the Palastians a homeland with gurantees for Israel sovereignty.But the truth is you want all the palastinian lande and won"t do this despite all the cheap talk
The rabbi draws a parallel with rockets from Canada raining down on American cities in Michigan or Maine. But America has not made a prison of Canada, and has not systematically trampled basic rights to travel, commerce, humanitarian aid, and sovereignty as Israel has done with Palestinians. Even so, if rockets were to be launched from Canada towards American cities, I hope we would respond by attacking the terrorists and not by "collective punishment", as the Nazi's did in WWII.
Rabbi Yoffie in his last paragraph suggests that this war is one of necessity, not of choice. I question that. Had Israel been willing to respond to Hamas’s conditions for extending the truce, for example, for lifting its economic blockade on Gaza , would the war have been avoided? We’ll never know because Israel did not respond.
'The rabbi draws a parallel with rockets from Canada raining down on American cities in Michigan or Maine. But America has not made a prison of Canada, and has not systematically trampled basic rights to travel, commerce, humanitarian aid, and sovereignty as Israel has done with Palestinians.' So dumb but the kind of stupidity that is common in many of these posts. Listen, if Canada or Mexico was governed by a party that refused to recognize the existence of the USA and, furthermore, declared that its avowed aim was to destroy the USA and drive its citizens into the sea AND continually fired rockets into the US killing civilians and damaging structures, I can assure you, my incredibly dim friend, that we would not only employ every tactic that the Israelis have with Gaza but would have undoubtedly employed full-scale military force almost immediately instead of the years that the israelis have tried to solve the problem
| So how was your holiday season? Over in Gaza, whether or not they're putting the Christ back in Christmas, they're certainly putting the crucifixion back in Easter. According to the London-based Arabic newspaper al Hayat, on Dec. 23 Hamas legislators voted to introduce Sharia — Islamic law — to the Palestinian territories, including crucifixion. So next time you're visiting what my childhood books still quaintly called "the Holy Land" the re-enactments might be especially lifelike. The following day, Christmas Eve, Samuel Huntington died at his home at Martha's Vineyard. A decade and a half ago, in his most famous book "The Clash Of Civilizations," professor Huntington argued that Western elites' view of man as homo economicus was reductive and misleading — that cultural identity is a more profound behavioral indicator than lazy assumptions about the universal appeal of Western-style economic liberty and the benefits it brings. Very few of us want to believe this thesis. "The great majority of Palestinian people," Condi Rice, the secretary of state, said to commentator Cal Thomas a couple of years back in a report that first appeared on JWR, "they just want a better life. This is an educated population. I mean, they have a kind of culture of education and a culture of civil society. I just don't believe mothers want their children to grow up to be suicide bombers. I think the mothers want their children to grow up to go to university. And if you can create the right conditions, that's what people are going to do." Thomas asked a sharp follow-up: "Do you think this or do you know this?" "Well, I think I know it," said Secretary Rice. "You think you know it?" "I think I know it." I think she knows she doesn't know it. But in the modern world there is no diplomatic vocabulary for the kind of cultural fault line represented by the Israeli/Palestinian dispute, so even a smart thinker like Dr. Rice can only frame it as an issue of economic and educational opportunity. Of course, there are plenty of Palestinians like the ones the secretary of state described: You meet them living as doctors and lawyers in Los Angeles and Montreal and Geneva � but not, on the whole, in Gaza. In Gaza, they don't vote for Hamas because they want access to university education. Or, if they do, it's to get Junior into the Saudi-funded, Hamas-run Islamic University of Gaza, where majoring in rocket science involves making one and firing it at the Zionist Entity. In 2007, as part of their attempt to recover Gaza from Hamas, Fatah seized 1,000 Qassam rockets at the university, as well as seven Iranian military trainers. At a certain unspoken level, we understand that the Huntington thesis is right, and the Rice view is wishful thinking. After all, when French President Sarkozy and other European critics bemoan Israel's "disproportionate" response, what really are they saying? That they expect better from the despised Jews than from Hamas. That they regard Israel as a Western society bound by civilized norms, whereas any old barbarism issuing forth from Gaza is to be excused on grounds of "desperation." Hence, this slightly surreal headline from The New York Times: "Israel Rejects Cease-Fire, But Offers Gaza Aid." For whatever that's worth. Wafa Samir Ibrahim al-Biss, a young Palestinian woman who received considerate and exemplary treatment at an Israeli hospital in Beersheba, returned to that same hospital packed with explosives in order to blow herself up and kill the doctors and nurses who restored her to health. Well, what do you expect? It's "desperation" born of "poverty" and "occupation." If it was, it would be easy to fix. But what if it's not? What if it's about something more primal than land borders and economic aid? A couple of days after Hamas voted to restore crucifixion to the Holy Land, their patron in Tehran (and their primary source of "aid") put in an appearance on British TV. As multicultural "balance" to Her Majesty The Queen's traditional Christmas message, the TV network Channel 4 invited President Ahmadinejad to give an alternative Yuletide address on the grounds that it was a valuable public service to let viewers hear him "speak for himself, which people in the West don't often get the chance to see." In fact, as JWR contributor Caroline Glick pointed out in The Jerusalem Post, the great man "speaks for himself" all the time — when he's at the United Nations, calling on all countries to submit to Islam; when he's presiding over his international conference of Holocaust deniers; when he's calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" — or (in his more "moderate" moments) relocated to a couple of provinces of Germany and Austria. Caroline Glick forbore to mention that, according to President Ahmadinejad's chief adviser, Hassan Abbassi, his geopolitical strategy is based on the premise that "Britain is the mother of all evils" — the evils being America, Australia, Israel, the Gulf states, Canada and New Zealand, all the malign progeny of the British Empire. "We have established a department that will take care of England," Mr. Abbassi said in 2005. "England's demise is on our agenda." So when Britain's Channel 4 says that we don't get the chance to see these fellows speak for themselves, it would be more accurate to say that they speak for themselves incessantly but the louder they speak the more we put our hands over our ears and go "Nya nya, can't hear you." We do this in part because, if you're as invested as most Western elites are in the idea that all anyone wants is to go to university, get a steady job and settle down in a nice house in the suburbs, a statement such as "England's demise is on our agenda" becomes almost literally untranslatable. When President Ahmadinejad threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the map, we deplore him as a genocidal fantasist. But maybe he's a genocidal realist, and we're the fantasists. The civilizational clashes of professor Huntington's book are not inevitable. Culture is not immutable. But changing culture is tough and thankless and something the West no longer has the stomach for. Unfortunately, the Saudis do, and so do the Iranians. And not just in Gaza but elsewhere the trend is away from "moderation" and toward something fiercer and ever more implacable. To be fair to President Ahmadinejad's hosts at Channel 4, the "department that will take care of England" probably doesn't get the lion's share of the funding in Tehran. On the other hand, when Hashemi Rafsanjani describes the Zionist Entity as "the most hideous occurrence in history," which the Muslim world "will vomit out from its midst" with "a single atomic bomb," that sounds rather more specific, if not teetering alarmingly on the "disproportionate." Unlike its international critics in North America and Europe, Israel has no margin for error. By Mark Steyn
is rabbi eric yoffie not a member of j street? very confusing but that is why liberal jews can not make peace in the middle east. aipac and the jewish angency are speaking in one voice and jstreet and all the other dovish organizations compete for peace. the movement in the us for a two state solution should be united and include all organizations like the american task force on palestine, jstreet, end the occupation etc... they are all divided and that is why we fail.
what tragic argument for the genocide in Palestine.
Here you are -- http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/05/george_orwell_tells_us_everything_we_need_to_know/
Hey , If you don't remember six months back , there was a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel . And if you don't remember , it was Israel that started assassinations and disrupted the cease fire and if you don't remember what did the people of gaza get for their one sided ceasefire , their power plant was bombed .All borders were closed and 80 % of the people in gaza were made dependent on aid for staying alive. If you don't know Israel is using white phosphorous bombs on palestinians. Kindly don't feel sorry for the Gazans . Just keep on ethnically cleansing Gaza and then the West Bank . We don't need your tears.
Yashair Koach
In my opinion Israel is making a strategic mistake for the sake of short term political gains. This assault on Gaza is going to be etched in the memories of Muslims worldwide. They are the youngest population of any religion and the future engine of worlds economic growth, even if today they seem to be in a position of weakness. Unless the Israelis truly believe that these people are sub human and incapable of technological and economic advancement, they better start making amends.
To Faisal In my opinion Hamas is making a strategic mistake for the sake of short term political gains. This assault on Sderot and Ashkelon and Beersheva is going to be etched in the memories of Jews worldwide. They are the youngest population of any religion and the current engine of worlds economic growth, even if today they seem to be in a position of weakness. Unless the Muslims truly believe that these people are sub human (dogs, pigs, apes) and incapable of technological and economic advancement, they better start making amends.A Muslim equivalent of Vatican II, where Jews are not apes, pigs, and dogs, and stones do not cry out to kill the Jews behind them is needed
To Claudia Chaufan: Israel is not conducting a war in your name. She is at war in order to end the shooting of missiles at her cities and villages. The indiscriminate shooting of missiles with the intention of hurting anyone (any Israeli citizen is a legitimate target in the eyes of Hamas) is illegal. It is also an act of war, and hence we are indeed at war. It's really amazing that you would think that this is about you. To be quite frank, it would be quite weird if the government of Israel would refrain from protecting its citizens because Claudia somewhere in the Diaspora is feeling bad about her Jewish identity. You say that you are "profoundly ashamed of being Jewish". Maybe this is so, but it's not because of this war - it's because of you. Let's take the typical American identity as an example. I've met thousands of Americans, Jews and non-Jews, throughout the years. They are very proud and happy to be American. Yes, they know that the American identity was created at the cost of the shattering of the native Indian civilizations and the conquest of their land. They even remember slavery in America and racial discrimination, including some discrimination against Jews. Many of them protested the war in Vietnam, as they protest the present day American wars with all their much, much higher level of destruction than any war Israel has ever fought. Americans know that they used atomic weapons against Japanese civilian population, something no other country has ever done. And yet, despite all this nasty baggage, they remain proud of their American identity. Why? Because pride does not depend on politics. There is a cultural creativity and a society that creates this culture that one identifies with. Obviously, your "shame" in being Jewish because of the Arab-Israel conflict is absolute nonsense. People proudly identify with their own culture and heritage - AND with their own people - despite political disagreement and intense criticism. Your feelings about being Jewish were not shaped by the Middle East crisis, rather they were shaped by the "quality" of your Jewish roots and upbringing.
All defenders of Hamas defend the Hamas ideology listed below. This includes Claudia Chaufan, Daivd Nilsson, Marilyn, Mr Waskow, Mr Kapustar, Norman, dalia, etc. Please have the courage on this forum that Hamas has TO UNDERSTAND the causes of the Gaza conflict, it is essential to understand the Hamas ideology. Hamas presents itself as an Islamic supremacist movement. Its charter opens with a quote from the Quran: "You [Islamic nation] are the best nation that hath been raised up unto mankind." [3: 110] However, whereas many religions and cultures believe that their own traditions represent messages of truth, Hamas believes that this supremacy of Islam obligates them to commit genocide, literally to exterminate millions of people who have different beliefs, including the Jews. The following are some recent examples of Hamas defining this ideology of genocide, as it applies to Jews: 1- Quran condemns Jews to extermination "The Meccan [Quran] chapter entitled 'Jews' or 'Children of Israel' is remarkable... It's about today's Jews, those of our century, and speaks only of extermination and digging graves... This chapter sentences the Jews to extermination before a single Jew existed on earth... Palestine's blessing is linked to destruction of the center of global corruption [Jews of Israel], the snake's head. When the snake's head of [global] corruption is cut off, here in Palestine, and when the octopus's [Jew's] tentacles are cut off around the world, the real blessing will come with the destruction of the Jews, here in Palestine, and it is one of the splendid real blessings in Palestine." [Palestinian cleric ,Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), July 13, 2008] 2- Jews to face yet another Holocaust Headline: "Suffering by Fire is Jews' destiny in this world and next." "... you will taste the punishment of Scorching Fire." [Quran 3:181] "This [Quran] verse threatens the Jews with the punishment of Fire... the reason for the punishment of Fire is it is fitting retribution for what they have done... but the urgent question is, is it possible that they will have the punishment of Fire in this world, before the great punishment [of Fire in Hell] ... many of the [Islamic] religious leaders believe that the [Jews'] punishment of Fire is in this world, before the next world... therefore we are sure that the Holocaust is still to come upon the Jews." [Sheikh Yunus Al-Astal, Hamas MP, in his regular column in Al-Rissala, (Hamas weekly) March 13, 2008] It is important to note that the Hamas MP switched words in the last sentence, from the word he used throughout, "harik", which means "fire", to "mahraka" a word from the same root, that is used by Arabic speakers to mean "holocaust." 3 - Muhammad's promise: Jews will be killed "Regarding the Jews, our business with them is only through bombs and guns... the prophet [Muhammad] promised that we will fight you, with Allah's help, until the tree and stone say: "Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." [Nizar Rayan, Hamas religious and military leader, Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Jan. 1, 2009. Note: Rayan was killed on Jan. 2, 2009] 4 - Extermination of Jews - good for humanity In an article promoting the continued use of suicide terror in the official Hamas newspaper: "We find more than one condemnation and denunciation of the resistance operations and bombings [suicide attacks], carried out by Hamas and the Palestinian resistance branches... [Eventually] everyone will know that we did this only because our Lord commanded so: 'I did it not of my own accord' [Quran] and so that people will know that the extermination of Jews is good for the inhabitants of the worlds." [Al-Rissala, (Hamas weekly) April 23, 2007] 5- Kill a Jew go to Heaven A poster that Hamas posted on its old web site taught that killing a Jew is enough to grant the rewards of Heaven. Text on Hamas poster: "I will knock on Heaven's doors with the skulls of Jews." Axe is crashing through the word: "Jews." [URL on poster, Hamas terror wing: "Ezz Din Al Kassam"] 6- Resurrection dependent on Muslims killing Jews (1) Hamas goes even further in its religious packaging of genocide. Hamas teaches that the redemption of all of humanity, the anticipated Islamic "Hour" of Resurrection, will happen only when Muslims are killing Jews and the remaining Jews will be exposed by the trees and stones. Hamas write in Article 7 of the Hamas Charter: "Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah's promise whatever time it might take. The prophet [Muhammad] said: 'The time (of Resurrection) will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: 0 Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him!'" [Sahih Muslim, Book 041, Number 6985]
Claudia Chaufan represents the typical. secular Liberal-Left 'Jew'. Brainwashed by decades of Liberal-Left ideology with its heavy emphasis on moral equivalency in ALL matters relating to culture and conflict, she(they) they are incapable of understanding the nature of Evil which Hamas emobies. Who cares what they think! They are already outside the fold of the Jewish people and their seed will vanish into the Tide of Assimilation which has already washed away a large percentage of the Jewish population. Let her and them think what they will. The future of the Jewish race lies with those who have not lost their sanity and understand the dimension of the problem Israel faces from the arab/moslem world.
American Jews see Israel’s Gaza offensive as a tragic necessity... This is bull[word deleted]. Organized Jewry as represented by the Rabbinate, AIPAC, et al see it as a necessity but ordinary secular Jews like myself view the IDF as murderers.
Rabbi Yoffe must be deeply embarrassed by the organization he helped to establish. J Street clearly demonstrated their political immaturity and lack of moral judgment with their recent statements about Gaza operation. I also find it sad that the good rabbi does not have any friends on the center or (G-d forbid) right of the political spectrum. This obviously limits his understanding of many issues.
Being a Jew in an American newsroom right now is a little tricky. I never quite know what my majority Christian colleagues know about Hamas and its death to Israel ideology. They don't follow the issues like many of us Jews do. So then when the death toll mounts in Gaza and actual civilians are killed, there is the expected revulsion to the news. I also suspect they see the Gazans/Palestians as the underdog (and don't differentiate them from Hamas, as the target) versus the favorite in the fight with the heavier firepower wielded by Israel. America afterall leans her sympathy to the perceived underdog. My suggestion? Make friends with members of the news media wherever you live. Avoid losing emotional control, or you'll get tuned out. Use calm reason, as in, what would this country do if it knew it had a hostile neighbor bent on its destruction, lobbing missiles, what would the USA do? Remind them of Hamas's mission to dismiss Israel as legitimate and destroy her, if possible show pictures of Pro-Palestinian street rallies where banners call for "Palestine, from the River to the Sea". Spell that one out if they're unsure of the geography. Remember, the war for public opinion is crucial. Write those letters to your editor and e-mail news stations. Good luck!
trans fats: "The anti-Israel Jews on this website are hypocrites (Dalia, Proyect, Waskow, etc). If they had real convictions they would go to Gaza and serve as human shields." Does that mean that the antiwar protesters during the Vietnam War had no convictions since they didn't go to Vietnam and fight with the Viet Cong? And by your logic, all of the "pro-Israel" Jews who don't go to Israel to fight or help in some other way are hypocrites.
Nobody has written more clearly than Prof. Emmanuelle Ottolenghi on the Self-hating, anti-Israel Jew: '...it may seem surprising that the most vociferous critics of Israel are Jewish. The most vicious anti-Israel articles are penned by Jews. The most extreme agitators against Israel are Jewish. In short, while those who evoke the bogeyman of the Jewish lobby and the Jewish conspiracy accuse Jews of being tribal in their “uncritical” defense of Israel, there is no shortage of Jews taking the most extremely negative views of Israel and of their fellow Jews. A rich literature has flourished in the six years of the current Palestinian intifada: Books with such titles as Prophets Outcast, Wrestling with Zion, and The Other Israel abound, offering a collection of Jewish voices ready to “break ranks” and denounce Israel. They have much in common: They denounce Israel as evil; they accuse Israel and Zionism of having betrayed Judaism’s authentic voice; they embrace a narrative of victimization, where the authors present themselves as victims of a Jewish establishment that tries to silence them; and, in describing Israel and its policies, they frequently use vocabulary, imagery, and stereotypes that are dangerously close to the old repertoire of classical anti-Semitism. The language of current anti-Semitism is deeply indebted to these Jewish voices and in fact needs them to make its case. Their eagerness to denounce Israel in the most virulent terms and to call for its destruction offers a powerful alibi to the anti-Semites. Anti-Semites rely on Jews to confirm their prejudice: If Jews recur to such language and advocate such policies, how can anyone be accused of anti-Semitism for making the same arguments? As for anti-Israel and anti-Jewish Jews, their rhetoric is coated in a self-image of heroism. They present themselves as dissenters. They purport to be “critical Jews” who reclaim the authentic tradition of the Prophets of Israel: Their role as critics of state power and dissenting voices in society makes them not rebels but authentic interpreters of Jewish morality, whistleblowers on a Jewish community that has lost, in its support for Israel, its moral compass. The phenomenon of self-hatred among Jews is not new. Neither is the virulence of Jewish anti-Zionist rhetoric, before and after Israel’s establishment. But the close nexus between Jewish enemies of Israel and anti-Semitism is a subject that has not been explored much. Despite all the clamor about Jewish lobbies’ silencing of critics of Israel, and about the difficulties faced by true Jewish heroes who break ranks to “tell the truth,” most Jewish detractors of Israel are well-established figures — from MIT professor Noam Chomsky to New York University historian Tony Judt, from Oxford don Avi Shlaim to New Yorker star reporter Seymour Hersh, from Stanford University Talmudic scholar Daniel Boyarin to a plethora of tenured Israeli radicals. These commentators tend to have easy access to publishing houses and to the op-ed sections of prestigious and influential newspapers and magazines. In the literary landscape of op-eds, pamphlets, and academic works, it is the pro-Israel voice that is constantly struggling to be heard."
Rabbi Yoffie is pained by the sight of Palestinian suffering, is he? Well, that's a credit to his morality. The French commander in Algiers during the 1957 general strike and ensuing oppression, was saddened at the "need" to execute Algerian freedom fighter Mohammed Larbi Ben M'hidi. He killed Ben M'hidi anyway. Shedding a tear at murdering your enemies speaks to some amount of moral strength, but does it absolve you of murder? "Hamas, it should be noted, is not a government; it is a terrorist gang." By who's definition? By the Palestinian definition, I suspect that the Israeli government is not a government; it is a terrorist gang. So far, I have seen nothing to prove them wrong, either. "'What did they think,' one of them asked me in bewilderment, 'that we would just sit there forever while Hamas fired rockets into our cities?'" Ah, the good old disjunctive fallacy? Is the zebra black or white, answer yes or no only. Since the Jews obviously needed to take SOME action in response to attacks by Hamas, that of course meant an invasion into Gaza and an increase of Palestinian oppression. It's not as if there could POSSIBLY have been any other, more peaceful options such as, I don't know, cutting down on Palestinian oppression? "We are aware that American forces have gone halfway around the globe to engage in a war in Afghanistan against terrorists who once carried out an attack on American soil." That's what they thought they were doing, anyway. In reality, they were going out there to advance the interests of American imperialism, American government, and American corporations. As always. William: very well said, all of it. Martin K: maybe William wouldn't have, but I would. The assertion that war/violence is sometimes necessary has never been proven. Many people have suggested ways in which nonviolent direct action (satyagraha if you prefer) could have defeated Hitler and the Nazis. Whether they would have we will never know, but the fact that they didn't =/= definitive proof that they couldn't have. AS: "a bunch of thugs who have created a terrorist state where every citizen is indoctrinated from birth in the theology of martyrdom for Islam and the destruction of the Jews in particular. To these people kindness and consideration for their basic humanity is a sign of weakness and gets you nowhere." What about the bunch of thugs who invaded an innocent country in the middle east, and created a terrorist state where every citizen in indoctrinated from birth in the theology of the essential rightness of Judaism and the essential villainy of Islamic Palestinians because to them, "kindness and consideration for their basic humanity is a sign of weakness and gets you nowhere."? That's question number 1. Question number 2 is: does the inherent hypocrisy of naive, nationalist hate-mongering get any more blatant than this? Barry Rubin's article is more of the same. Nazi ideology called for the extermination of the Jews, because it posited that the Jews were agitating for the extermination of the Aryan race. Most Germans who supported the Nazis were not fundamentally bad people, but they did fall victim to the Nazis fear-mongering about Jews and other people who were "not like us." If the Jewish people were more powerful and coordinated in the 1930s, no doubt some reactionary idiot like Barry Rubin would've pointed to Nazi ideology and said "they want to exterminate us. Our only hope for survival is to exterminate them, first." And the Germans would have taken THAT kind of rhetoric as proof positive that they were right all along, and the Jews really were out to exterminate them. So of course, exterminating the Jews would become a matter of self-defense. The cycle perpetuates. In equating the Palestinians with the Nazis, Rubin also blithely overlooks the Jewish invasion and subsequent occupation of Palestine. I won't go into a question of whether the colonized Palestinians are right or wrong in the actions they take to fight Israeli colonization, but I can't blame them for resenting colonialism. But then, anti-Islamic and anti-Palestinian sentiment is too valuable and too widespread to disappear. The Israelis--and the United States, and US corporations, and other imperialist Western powers--need scapegoats. Who else are they going to blame for their problems, themselves? Rivka Shpak Lissak: Your story touches me. Such horror should not happen to anyone. Not Israelis ... and not Palestinians. Arabs shooting Israelis has gone on for a long time? Well, so has Israelis shooting and oppressing Arabs. Palestinians go through what you have gone through. And because of that, Palestinian doves support Hamas air strikes for the same reason you support the Gaza invasion. As long as both sides continue to support violence, the violence will never end. Well said, David L Nilsson. "The morally bankrupt Zionist politicians and their friends and facilitators in Washington cling to the delusion that Arab Palestinians can be cowed and converted into complaisant allies of colonization by 'shock 'n' awe'-- despite sixty years of intermittent evidence to the contrary." Just like Iraq and Afghanistan really. Well, except for it only being 5 and 6 years, respectively. Hope it doesn't take US 60+ years to get the hint. Paul and Roni: As I understand it, what the Palestinians objected to was the Jews unilateral turning their state into a Jewish state, and turning the Arabs in that state into second class citizens. (Back in the late 40s/early 50s Ralph Bunche of the United Nations negotiated a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. The Israelis then broke that agreement and then declared all of Palestine to be under Israeli control.) Given that, and the 60 years of apartheid oppression that followed, you dare revile the Palestinians for supporting an organization that has promised to end Jewish oppression? Obviously, Israeli civilians are one-and-the-same as those who fire missiles and have murdered and degraded Palestinian civilians by invasion, shootings, segregation, rape, bullying, etc. They who support those who live to spread terror and death, as the American and Israeli Jews support the Israeli government, must now suffer the consequences of their support. Yehuda: In a word: bull[word deleted]. Apartheid in Palestine is no more "low-key" than apartheid in South Africa. I do encourage self-criticism in Palestine, (which I cannot judge the extent of, and I suspect neither can you), but I'm not discussing that just now. And no matter how much self-criticism there is on the Jewish side, it still hasn't ended occupation or apartheid. The Israeli government and Jewish hawks (even the "but only in this instance" kind) portray Israeli and the Jews as bending over backward to make peace with the Palestinians, when the fact of the matter is that Israel, not Palestine, is the colonial power, and it is they who are oppressing the Palestinians, not the other way around. It is the Israelis who are denying self-governance to the Palestinians. Thank you, Rabbi Arthur Waskow. It is people like you who will help construct a better, more peaceful world, for Israelis, for Palestinians, and for God/Jehovah/Yaweh/Allah/what-have-you's children. "shalom," "salaam," and may peace go with you, always. Roee, it's charming how naive Mr. Ben-Ari can be. Or would be charming, if it weren't so alarming. Is he seriously talking about an enforced emigration of the Palestinian people? We in the United States have had a history of that. Ever heard of the "Trail of Tears?" It sounds to me like his motivation is to one day be able to chase them [the Palestinians out] and return to Judaism. Ben-Ari is alarmed by Arabs with signs saying "Death to the Jews." What about signs saying "Kill all the Muslims"? No one side has a monopoly on hate-mongering extremists. Mickey Davis, "any sensible person knows that the US has acted like an international bully, and a stupid one at that." I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss people who don't see the stupid, bullying nature of US policy as not sensible. But I agree. I, personally, have tremendous sympathy for Palestinian and Israeli civilians. In war, as in everything else, it's those who are worst off who suffer most. I commend your support of their rights as human beings, even though you have no sympathy for them. George,"No sane human being likes War but sometimes they are a necessary step to take against an enemy adamant in his hatred and attacks upon you." By that, do you mean the Israelis who are adamant in their hatred and attacks upon the Palestinians or vice versa? sandra yolles and Tim Welsh: thank you both very much for describing so perfectly the horror with which ordinary people view the horrific violence in Palestine. However, Tim, I do not think you are going to win many points for peace by hurling insults and rhetoric at hawks, be they Jewish or Islamic (no matter how cathartic you may find it). Well put, Michael Rosenberg. Jeremy: I, personally, am barely a Jew. I celebrate a few holidays, and that's about it. I am not on the fence, but neither do I submit to your narrow-sighted, saber-rattling disjunctive fallacy: "It's either us or them." You're right. I can only imagine what it's like for the relatively blameless Israeli civilians ... and Palestinian civilians, living under such horrible conditions. Which is precisely why I criticize the Israeli government for perpetuating the violence which harms so many Jews and Arabs. No, I do not agree that any State, not Israel, not the US, not anyone has the right to defend itself if it means the suffering of others. The 9/11 attacks were defense from the point of view of the bombers, and look where that went. US diplomacy is indeed a sick joke, which is why I criticize it as much as I do anyone else (if not moreso). "There is no room for diplomacy with an organization that wants your total destruction and perpetuates terror for the sake of an anarchic, megalomaniac blood lust." So then your answer is the total destruction of Islam and perpetuating terror in Palestine? And as for Jewishness? You would have religion and nationality supersede species? You believe that serving the interests of your own group is a higher calling than serving the interests of the human race as a whole? To think that I should live to see a Jew adopting rhetoric indistinguishable from that of a fascist propagandist. Thank you, Cassandra. Yehuda: You could make the same EXACT comparison by switching Palestine for the wife and Israel for the husband. So far, I have seen no proof that Israel is equivalent to a normal, flawed person while Palestine is an overbearing, abusive neurotic. Especially since it was ISRAEL that invaded Palestine, and has occupied that territory for 60+ years. Except that unlike in human relationships, no government has a monopoly on violence. If Hamas ever rules Palestine, it will probably be just as bad as the government of India after the British pulled out, maybe worse. However, does that mean the Indians were wrong to want the British to end their colonial rule? Alan: first, you ignore the point about Palestine being a colonized state. Second ... no, actually, I wouldn't employ the tactics Israel is using or any other type of military efforts. Do you know why? Because I know that it leads to exactly the kind of endless barbarity and violence that has gripped Palestine for 60 years. No, I wouldn't not retaliate against the blameless Canadian people if their government attacked my country. Instead, I would go to them, and tell them of the needless suffering of the American people. Some would not listen, most would. And without stories of American atrocities against Canadians for this hypothetical Canadian government to trick its people into continued support for attacks against the United States, the people of Canada would soon turn against their government and either overthrow it, or at least force it to end the violence. In this way, I would have minimized the suffering of both Americans and Canadians, averted animosity between the peoples, and made peace between them. Peace is not "only" the most moral solution: it's the most effective solution. Abe, I'm going to assume you're quoting Mark Steyn here, and interesting that you are. Mr. Steyn criticizes Condoleeza Rice for claiming to "know" what the majority of Palestinians are like--and then make statements which clearly indicate his own surety that HE "know" what they're like. His (and presumably your) underlying assumption appears to be that his cause is right, ergo, anyone who is against him must be wrong. Undoubtedly, the EXACT SAME basic assumption behind President Ahmadinejad's thinking. If Mr. Steyn is upset and frightened by President Ahmadinejad's language? No reason he shouldn't be. But, I strongly invite him to rewatch the October 7th Presidential debate. If he listens critically to Mr. Obama's and Mr. McCain's rhetoric about dealing with the (ill-defined) terrorists and then compare it to President Ahmadinejad's concerning Israel and the West, he will find that the only real difference between the two is that President Ahmadinejad has the decency to be upfront about his goals, instead of couching it in sanitized doubletalk. He, at least, is open about "killing civilians," and doesn't feel the need to call it "collateral damage." However, just because the United States doesn't SAY they want to make Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, and the Middle East in general submit to Christianity an neoliberalism, and Israel doesn't openly tell the Palestinians they need to submit to Judaism, their actions speak eloquently for them. Remind me why Israel and the West are right in their attempts to "fix" Islamic culture and when they commit atrocities which are at least equally senseless and monstrous as Wafa Samir Ibrahim al-Biss', but the Muslims are evil? Oh, right, because Israel and the West are "us" and the Muslims are "them." Sorry, I forgot there, for a moment. shamir: what an interesting suggestion. Also, possibly one of the only truly constructive comments on this article. Dallas S: "The world needs to stop looking at Palestinians as irrational political actors." THANK you. Claudia Chaufan: "If you support and justify, however reluctantly, the attack on Gaza, for the sake of consistency you should support the bombing of US cities, given that our freely elected representatives have bombed civilians elsewhere." Exactly. Herbert Kaine: Precisely. Now, there are two ways the Jews can influence the Muslims to stop thinking of them as subhuman (dogs, pigs, apes) and entice them to start making amends. One of these ways is to invade and occupy their homeland, forcing them out of their homes, taking most of their water away to give to Jews, restricting their freedom of movement (and every other freedom) and basically treating them like dirt. Oh, and then claiming its all the Muslims fault when they respond to this sort of colonial violence in kind. The other option is to stop acting like apes, dogs and pigs and incidentally stop treating the Muslims as if they were subhuman and incapable of technological and economic advancement. Hmm, the first way hasn't come through yet, and we've been trying that one for 60 years. Shall we try another 60, just to make sure? Yehuda: Palestine is at war in order to end the shooting of civilians in her cities and villages. The indiscriminate shooting of firearms with the intention of hurting anyone (any Palestinian citizen is a legitimate target in the eyes of Israel) is illegal. Hmm, it doesn't seem to be working very well either way, does it? As to American identities; interesting you should mention all that. The sense I get (and admittedly, it's mostly from media, that great toady of Establishment revisionism) of the bulk of my fellow Americans have some vague knowledge of the atrocities in our history, but they are unwilling to take responsibility for them. They might agree that the atom bombs were tragic but (rather like the good Rabbi Yoffie) they would probably argue that the bombings were necessary. (Even if Japan hadn't been in the process of surrendering, can somebody please explain to me why the hell the US couldn't have detonated the bombs offshore instead of in the middle of two civilian populaces?) Some days, I am ashamed to live in a country and culture that claims to revile bigotry, violence and genocide, while simultaneously downplaying and/or excusing its own history of genocidal destruction and hatred and furthermore looks resolutely through all evidence of its continued sexism, racism (including anti-Semitism), imperialism and other forms of oppression and genocide. Such double standards are nothing to be proud of. Ithamar Marcus: first of all, next time, do your readers the kindness of taking an extra minute or two to get your formatting in order Second, all that being the case, what do you do about Hamas? Does their anti-Jewish jihad obligate you to commit genocide, literally to exterminate millions of Muslims before they can exterminate the Jews? Or should you end the Jewish violence, show ordinary Muslims that you aren't the monsters Hamas paints you as (and you have, in turn, painted them as), and convince them to withdraw their support for violence against Jews? The ideology of extremists can hold true against the most overwhelming contrary evidence, but disproving that ideology will be enough to convince the vast bulk of people, leaving the extremists to sulk in a corner. The downside is that in order to do that, you have to stop treating the Muslims they way you say they are committed to treating you. *sigh*, Jacob? Exactly how is your hatemongering xenophobia any less naive than Claudia and the rest of us doves? Brainwashed by decades of militaristic ideology with its heavy emphasis on Jewish supremacy in ALL matters relating to culture and conflict, you are incapable of understanding the nature of Evil which Israel embodies. (Well, it's a government that isn't a participatory democracy. What do you expect?) You know what, who cares what you think? The future of the Jewish race, the human race, lies with those who have not lost their sanity and understand the dimension of the problems Arabs/Muslims face in Israel and Israelis face in the Middle East and understand that trying to wipe out one group or another ultimately solves nothing. The real heroes of this conflict are people like the Shministim, Israeli conscientious objectors who would rather go to jail than serve in an occupation army: http://december18th.org/. They're people like the women of Zeitouna, six American Jewish women and six Palestinian-Americans who have come together for the good of both peoples: http://www.refusingtobeenemies.org/. People like them understand that this conflict will never be resolved by increased Palestinian violence or increased Israeli violence, but by both sides working together. May whatever gods who might exist out there bless them, for it is people like them who will truly make this world a better place for ALL.
Oh, and an answer to David Pinksfeld and this myth of the self-hating, anti-Israel Jew. Oppressive governments and their sycophants routinely respond to their critics by impugning the patriotism of people who dare to critique said government for its own monstrous hypocrisies. In the past and present, the American Establishment and its dupes meet the well-reasoned arguments of communists, pacifists, labor agitators, civil rights agitators and other radical progressives with the epithet "anti-American." Radical progressives are not anti-American and they do not hate their country. The rightly point out that it is the Establishment in its corruption and oppression that is anti-American. No doubt, the Poles of the Solidarity movement in the 1980s were called "anti-Polish" or as good as by the Stalinist government. Where they? I'm no Christian, but the Bible does have some good advice here and there. Such as this: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (Matthew 7:3-5)" Following that advice is neither self-hating nor anti-Jewish. As to the specifics, Professor Ottolenghi says of the pro-peace Jews "they embrace a narrative of victimization." Interestingly enough, this is EXACTLY the narrative spouted by most of the pro-Israel, pro-war commenters on this very thread, with their constant yapping about how "Hamas and Islam want to exterminate Israel and the Jews." So we should question the pro-peace Jews' victimization, but take the pro-war groups' arguments on faith? "They purport to be “critical Jews” who reclaim the authentic tradition of the Prophets of Israel: Their role as critics of state power and dissenting voices in society makes them not rebels but authentic interpreters of Jewish morality, whistleblowers on a Jewish community that has lost, in its support for Israel, its moral compass." And incredibly enough ... they're right. Heh, heh, and of course, the media is against the pro-Israel (read: pro-war pro-Israel) movement. Which is exactly the opposite of what the pro-peace people will tell you. Similarly, conservatives will complain about the media's liberal bias, while the liberals will point out that the media is heavily conservative. Whoever you are it seems, the media is against you (whoever and whatever you may be). The truth, I suspect, is that the media is biased towards the Establishment, the status quo, and the uber-rich, which is against the best interests everybody else. So, in a way, practically everybody who complains that the media is against them is probably right.
Although he can write very long comments, still, Humanist doesn't know the abc's of the Middle East conflict. He writes: "...what the Palestinians objected to was the Jews' unilateral turning their [the Palestinians'] state into a Jewish state..." There was no local statehood in the country since antiquity, and the local population (under foreign rule) included Arabs and Jews (and other ethnicities). The United Nations had decided to partition the territory of the British Mandate for Palestine into two states: one Arab state and one Jewish state. So while the actual ceremony of declarating Jewish statehood was a unilateral act, it was done on the basis of the two-state solution of the international community. Unfortunately, the Arab side rejected the solution, preferring to go to war. Humanist's strange claim that "the Israelis then broke that agreement [the UN two-state solution - i.e. the Partition Plan] and then declared all of Palestine to be under Israeli control" is simply false. First of all, there was never an "agreement". The Arab side did NOT agree to anything. The Arab side always rejected the right of Jews to found a state in any part of Palestine, so they did not agree to the Partition Plan. They went to "a war of extermination", and lucky for me they were defeated. It's amazing that Humanist has imagined another "historic" reality. However, he also doesn't understand other basic terms such as apartheid or colonialism. Apartheid is a regime that separates groups of people based on race. There is no issue of race in the Middle East; rather there is an armed struggle between conflicting nationalities and ethnicities. Colonialism is a economic project of one country in a foreign land. Virginia was an English colony in North America. So was Georgia. Today, both places are English-speaking, and its population sees England as the "mother country", the source of civilization. Where does our Hebrew language come from? Does anyone need to be reminded that the Bible - the most important creativity of this ancient land - was written in Hebrew? Needless to say, there is no mother country far away. Israel is our home. Once the Arab side accepts that, there can be an agreed two-state solution. Our side accepted partition long ago - and still accepts it today.
It takes chutzpah to call yourself a "dove" then advocate blindly for one side, conveniently ignoring the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rabbi Yoffi criticizes J Street and pompously assumes his moral high ground by claiming the righteousness of Israeli politicians' actions based on "protecting its children", using a fatuous metaphor of Canada attacking the US. He conveniently ignores the fact that the terrorist Hamas rocket attacks have not killed or maimed hundreds of Israelis while ignoring the state terrorist tactics of Israel (e.g. use of white phosphorous) killing and maiming hundreds of Palestinians in one of the most densely populated areas of the world. Terrorist tactics by one side cannot justify in any true moral sense similar tactics by those claiming moral superiority. To do so is simply sophistry. What seems clear is that the Rabbi's position reflects once again the essential tribalism and self-justifying emotions which have aggravated and distorted this complex, multi-faceted conflict. The blind, imbalanced role played by the US in the past twenty- plus years continues to be fueled by the usual political ambition of "leaders" here and in that region. Can one overlook, for example, the role upcoming Israeli elections and the new American administration have played in the timing of this war? The Rabbi's posture in presuming to speak on behalf of "most American Jews" is self-serving and hopefully inaccurate, but if there is to be any hope for peace to emerge, that posture has to change Sadly, that hope seems to be dimming with each day.
What is the chutzpah of being a dove and advocating for Israel at the same time, Robert? It's very normal. I learned in another comment (by Henry Goldberg) that Americans lean towards the underdog. How silly. America is surely the stronger side in many conflicts, yet the American public wouldn't identify with her weaker enemies and wish them well. It's true that Hamas is much weaker than Israel. If they were stronger than Israel, there wouldn't be any chance of a ceasefire or for a future peace. They would fight until Israel's utter destruction. Another strange term that Robert uses is "tribalism". I understand from the context that this is "bad", but I don't know why. If, by tribalism, Robert means that Rabbi Yoffie has a natural affinity and identification with other Jews (Israel), then he should know that "tribalism" is universal. The Arabs seem to identify with their people, just as all other peoples (including Americans) have a sense of solidarity with their own. What you are saying, Robert, is that Jewish solidarity is improper (an Arab supporting his own wouldn't catch your attention as worthy of comment). I don't know what it takes to achieve peace. I'm not totally pessimistic since peace has been reached with some of Israel's neighbors. However, it might be that, in our generation, it can't be achieved. The struggle of Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran and others is not based on typical grievances that can be addressed. It's not a border dispute that could be resolved through a compromise. It's entirely ideological. Hamas is a religious movement, and its war is a religious war. All Israel can do at the present is to deter her enemies through a show of force. Robert belittles the effectiveness of the Qassam missile attacks on Israel. True, these are poor weapons. But the real question is, then, why are they shooting such weapons that can't really defeat their enemy. Why provoke a stronger adversary? The answer is that the weapons terrorize the Israeli public. You don't know where it will land, and so you cannot live a normal life. Moreover, the message is that the struggle against Israel must continue. There can never be a moment of normalcy for fear that normalcy grants legitimacy to Israel. How would someone else handle our conflict? It is a unique conflict in the world. It's the only conflict in which one side (Israel) is regarded as illegitimate by her enemies (and also by a large public of the outside world). It's also a unique situation in which another state (Iran) can declare that Israel should be "wiped off the map" (just as Nasser declared in 1967 that "the Jews will be thrown into the sea"), and yet these genocidal threats do not justify calling back ambassadors "for consultations". The unusual hostility towards Israel is a type of international normalcy. So, all these anti-Israel Jews who have left comments on this site should actually see themselves as very lucky people. People who do not face life-and-death choices, and people who do not have to decide what to do under impossible conditions don't ever make poor decisions. As I learned from Robert, even Jewish solidarity is a dirty word for them. Well, those who do have to navigate in a hostile sea don't have such luxuries. They have to make decisions and reap the fruits (or bear the consequences) of their actions.
Robert, I'm amazed at the stupidity which passes for your 'thought'. The issue isn't how many Israelis have been killed by Hamas rockets. This is a terror organization which is in the process of upgrading, with Iran's help, its weapons of mass destruction. No one in their right mind can doubt that Hamas will utilize any and all weaponry it acquires to murder and maim Israeli civilians. In the Real World, which you and others seem not to inhabit, if you try to kill me with a club and succeed in killing my friends/family with a club, I am not restricted in my choice of weapon to remove you and the threat you pose from my vicinity. Try meditating on that for a while and hopefully the fog may lift from 'powers' of deduction.
FROM THE HAMAS CHARTER 'The principles of the Hamas are stated in their Covenant or Charter, given in full below. Following are highlights. "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." "The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. " "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors." "After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying." Now, what part of the previous is too difficult to understand for the Liberal/Left/Compassionate/Humanist/Appeaser et al. segment of Jewish and World 'opinion' ?
Humanist condensed All the problems are due to the Jews. If the Jews behaved/ceased existing, all of the problems would be solved. Hutus wouldnt kill Tutsis, Pakistanis wouldnt kill Indians, Chinese wouldnt oppress Tibetans, white and black Sudanese wouldnt fight over Darfur, al Qaeda would turn its attention to gambling addiction. Yawn. The only way Humanist can be a real humanist is if Jews arent really human
Yehuda: "It's the only conflict in which one side (Israel) is regarded as illegitimate by her enemies (and also by a large public of the outside world)." That's not true--the IRA didn't regard Northern Ireland as legitimate either.
Thanks, Lee, for that comment. However, the IRA did not regard Great Britain as an illegitimate entity that will be replaced by another entity. The conflict was over British rule of Northern Ireland (and its incorporation into the United Kingdom). So, it was a very normal conflict over territory and sovereignty. The position of Hamas (or Iran) vis-a-vis Israel can only be defined as an abnormal conflict. Indeed, there is no other similar conflict in the world.
January 7, 2009 Dear Rabbi Yoffie, I read with anguish and dismay your December 28th statement on behalf of the Reform Movement that Israel's assault on Gaza is justified. I am a member of Temple Israel of New Rochelle and I am writing to you 12 days after Israel's assault. To say the least, I am horrified, deeply pained and anguished (not least about the future of Israel and the Jewish people) by the horrific bombing of 1.5 million human beings who are trapped with no way to escape the prison hell created by Israel that is Gaza. I would have expected that Jewish, humanitarian, Holocaust-sensitive Israel would open the prison gates that they control and let the Palestinians in as refugees. I find it difficult to believe that you can stand up and declare in just one day and in our name no less, that such an assault is justified. Why would you not consider your statement a rush to judgment especially in light of what you have witnessed over the past week? I have annotated your statement with my understanding of events, past and present, which I present below. I respectfully request that you read this in hope that you may realize that a different statement by you, as representative of Reform Jews, can literally save both Israeli and Palestinians lives. I hope and pray that in an alternative statement, we as Reform Jews will join the chorus of voices calling for an immediate end to violence. The children of Gaza and Israel deserve at least this much. Reform Jewish Movement Responds to Gaza Violence Rabbi Yoffie: December 28, 2008 -- In response to recent military and terrorist activity in Gaza and Israel, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, issued the following statement: For the past three weeks, Israel has lived under an increasing barrage of rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. More than 80 missiles landed on a single day. Israel’s first responsibility, like that of any nation, is to protect her citizens. The military action that Israel launched Saturday morning was clearly intended to do just that. Response: Is there something in particular that makes it clear to you that Israel launched its assault to protect her citizens? Or is it just because Israel says so? If it has been 8 years and 8,000 rockets later, why just now? Did it have something to do with internal Israel politics or even perhaps the change of regime in Washington? In any case, I don't think it is quite that clear, certainly not that clear just 24 hours into the battle. Rabbi Yoffie: Israel’s action is as tragic as it is necessary and predictable. While we mourn the loss of life, no democratic nation in the world would permit a hostile force on its border to target its civilian centers with constant missile attacks. Israel has demonstrated extraordinary restraint as nearly 8000 rockets have been launched at Israel’s cities in the last 8 years. When Israel withdrew every civilian and soldier from Gaza in 2005, the attacks did not stop for a single day. We believe that military action must always be the last resort. But more and more Israeli cities are now in range of Hamas’ rocket-firing army of terror, and we know that the traumatized children of Sderot and neighboring towns can no longer be expected to live in constant fear. Response: You must know that a Jew can never again say "we didn't know--we didn’t know that the people who live under occupation—the Palestinians—are the ones who ‘live in constant fear.’” They are abused daily at home, at work and in transit. They live in fear of nighttime raids, in fear of pogroms perpetrated by Jewish settlers, in fear of check points, in fear of losing their land and fields to settler outposts or to the "security wall." Have you visited the West Bank and Gaza in the past few years to do some fact finding of your own? Or have you wandered the pleasant streets of Tel-Aviv trembling in constant fear? Rabbi Yoffie: Hamas chose to end the existing cease-fire. Hamas has cynically chosen to use Palestinian civilians as cover for its military operations. Hamas openly declares its commitment to destroy Israel. Hamas, therefore, must bear responsibility for the bloodshed. Hamas, and only Hamas, can make the decision to move beyond this bloody conflict by stopping, once and for all, all attacks on Israel from the territory it controls. Response: Please, Rabbi Yoffie, let’s at least get our facts straight. Please go back and peruse the November issues of the major Israeli daily newspapers including Ha’Aretz and Yediot Ahronot—and also the New York Times -- to learn that it was Israel that broke the ceasefire by a military incursion into Gaza against Hamas back in November. This, in addition to constantly tightening the blockade and siege of Gaza in violation of the ceasefire. Over the past 6 months to a year Hamas has actually done a very effective job of enforcing the ceasefire. Please check your Israel sources on this. Perhaps settling into peace with Hamas and exchanging justice for peace with the Palestinians causes more fear among Israel’s policymakers than occasional ineffective rocket fire. Further, Ehud Barak's empty promise to avoid civilian casualties (you cite below) runs up against a contradiction which, as a Jewish scholar, intellectual and religious teacher, I am sure you will appreciate. How does the claim that every effort will be made to limit casualties among the civilian population of Gaza jive with the horribly Orwellian Jewish and Israeli claim that "Hamas is responsible for the death of the children because they have cynically chosen to use Palestinian civilians as cover for its military operations?" If the latter were true, then the Israelis must have deliberately targeted those sites even though they knew they would cause horrendous civilian casualties. If they knew in advance the location of those sites in order to target them, then they knew that innocents (even how many) would be slaughtered. Do members of the Reform movement you claim to speak for know, as I am sure you do, that 1.5 million Gazans live in the most densely populated piece of land in the world and that bombing such a place can result in nothing but slaughter? Do we not think that the result could be more horrendous than any miserable suicide bomber on a street in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem could possibly wreak? I am absolutely certain that you would not blame Israel for the rockets and for the 17 Israeli deaths in 8 years because Israel chose to imprison the people of Gaza behind barbed wire and a wall, and then blockade it from land and sea with the result being so-called militants lobbing some 8,000 rockets over 8 years and managing to kill 17 Israelis. What is the logic or moral thinking in saying Hamas is responsible for the killing of civilian Palestinians? The fact is that Israel unleashed the terror of the most lethal weapons and bombs known on the defenseless people of Gaza. Do you look at the pictures of dead children in Gaza and then "blame Hamas"? We know from history that the victimizers always blame the victim as justification for horrendous acts of violence—including the Germans when they destroyed the Warsaw Ghetto (surrounded by walls and barbed wire with no way for the people within to escape). Rabbi Yoffie: We welcome the words of Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak that every effort will be made to limit casualties among the civilian population of Gaza. We welcome as well the words of the Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who emphasized in her statement that “while confronting Hamas, Israel continues to believe in the two-state solution and remains committed to negotiations with the legitimate Palestinian Authority in the context of the peace process, launched at Annapolis.” Response: Do you have anything more to say now that over 600 Palestinians are dead and more than 2000 wounded and that most are —civilians—babies, children, women and men? Since the year 2,000 in 8 years a total of 17 Israelis have tragically lost their lives; the death toll in Gaza is over 640 to date. Certainly, now you must realize that Ehud Barak’s promise has little credibility or value. Rabbi Yoffie: We note, with sadness, the predictable chorus of those in the international community who call for Israeli “restraint.” These critics offer no solution to the suffering of Israel’s citizens, and in the face of rockets terrorizing their own children, would not be talking of restraint and proportionality. They would be demanding that their governments put an end to the attacks. Response: Do you mean to tell a fellow Jew or anyone else for that matter that we should not join the chorus of those who call of Israeli restraint even if (or even because) in your words, "Israel’s action is as tragic as it is necessary and predictable"? Didn't you say "...we mourn the loss of life"? Who else on earth should call for Israeli restraint, if not the Jews? Maybe, just maybe Israel will listen to us. In fact, it is only a plea of restraint that can stop the Israeli's. Israel does not face any significant military force. How do we stop the killing unless we at least ask for—demand —restraint? Rabbi Yoffie, I have to ask you. Do you support AIPAC's efforts to get a resolution passed in the Congress that affirms "Israel right to self-defense," or do you support Brit Tzedek V'Shalom's efforts to have a resolution passed that calls "for an immediate cease fire on all sides"? Rabbi Yoffie: We share concerns expressed by our government and by others that food, medicine and other humanitarian assistance be allowed to reach Gaza. We note that Israel has permitted humanitarian aid to pass through the Gaza crossings, and we call upon Israel, western governments, and international aid groups to do everything possible to avoid a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We thank the Government of the United States, which has been a voice of reason in responding to Israel’s actions. We hope that the Palestinian leadership will demand an end to missile fire and a return to the path of peace and the negotiations begun in Annapolis. And we pray that the Palestinian people will strengthen the hand of all who are prepared to make peace a reality. Response: What voice of reason are you thanking our government for? Are you referring to some kind of positive influence a great power such as our government could have? Or, are you referring to unflinching support of Israel no matter what? If so then your use of the term "voice of reason" is nothing but euphemism. Where is the voice of reason other than blind support for Israeli policies, no matter what those might be? Could it be Rabbi Yoffie, that you have been taken in by Israel's public relations machine in support of this war? Where do you think the vacuous term "Israel's right to self-defense" and the Orwellian notion that Hamas is responsible for the killing of innocent Palestinians" come from? Could you at least examine where you might be miming Israeli propaganda instead of applying independent, critical thought? A little less self-righteousness and a little more self-examination could literally save lives at this point. Domestically, the reform movement in Judaism lives by the canon of the separation of church and state. Judaism is too enmeshed in the state apparatus that is Israel. Our integrity as Jews is compromised when we don’t have a separation of “church” (Jewish) and state (Israel). Don’t you think Israel would benefit from applying the Reform movements ethical, humanitarian and critical perspective on affairs of state to Israel? It’s not about Hamas because if it’s about Hamas then Hamas automatically wins. It’s about us, and what we do to bring justice to the people of Palestine, Israel and the world. Sincerely, Howard Horowitz New Rochelle, NY. 10804
Yehuda, "The conflict was over British rule of Northern Ireland (and its incorporation into the United Kingdom). So, it was a very normal conflict over territory and sovereignty." Not really. The chief opponents of the IRA weren't actually the British as a whole, they were the Ulster Protestants of Northern Ireland, and the Protestant paramilitary groups that existed (and still do exist) in Northern Ireland: the UDA, UFF, etc. They regarded Northern Ireland the same way you regard Israel; that the land should be British (just like the land comprising Israel should be a Jewish state) and that, since the IRA didn't recognize Northern Ireland's right to exist, there was no way to resolve the dispute. For most of them, packing up and going to England, Scotland or Wales wasn't an acceptable option. If it was, they wouldn't have fought so hard to keep Northern Ireland part of Britain in the first place. If the British government in London had said, "Okay, we're giving Northern Ireland back to the Irish Republic, it's no longer part of the UK" they would have considered that a complete defeat, just as most Israelis would see it if Israel was defeated military and ceased to exist, or if it stopped being a specifically "Jewish" state. Yes, it's true that the Protestants could theoretically have left for somewhere else in Britain. But by that logic, the Jews in Israel could, if they wanted, live in the U.S. or somewhere else too. And it should be noted that Northern Ireland wasn't just created so Britain could have additional real estate. It was created specifically for the Protestants of the region, just like Israel was created for the Jewish population of Palestine. So, yes, I think there are clear parallels between "The Troubles" and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Howard Horowitz is the Board Chair of the Far Leftist organization WESPAC, Westchester Peoples Action Coalition Foundation. Obviously another deranged, Self-Hating 'Jew' who is a source of joy and comfort to the Jew-haters worldwide.
Howard Horowitz claims in his letter that the Gaza area is a "prison hell". Interestingly, I saw on the breaking news on the home page of the Forward that an official of the Vatican described Gaza as a "concentration camp". Elsewhere, you read other anti-Israel statements comparing the Gaza area to the Warsaw Ghetto. The intention is to create hatred for Israel, and the truth can be sacrificed or manipulated in such a goal. Obviously, Mr Horowitz hasn't been to Gaza, and neither has the silly Vatican official. While indeed Gaza is a small area, it is still more than double the size of Washington, D.C. It is 360 sq. km. in size, having about a million and a half residents. Manhattan is only 60 sq. km in size with a much larger population. The Gaza Strip has a number of towns, it has a rural area with farm land and it has a wonderful 40 km long beach. It should be added, however, that Gaza is an hostile entity from the point of view of Israel, hence a fence was built. Lebanon is also hostile, so a fence was built there as well. Actually, building a fence is quite a normal precedure between enemy entities. However, if you detest Israel, then normalcy (building a fence along a hostile front) is presented as an evil. Another expression of anomosity is Mr Horowitz's suggestion that Israel allow the Gazans into Israel as refugees. Now, no government protecting the lives of its people would allow the influx of a large hostile population into the country. It's insanity. However, anti-Israel people don't accept the fact that Israel has the right to assert its own best interests. That is the position of the Hamas as well, because an illegitimate entity ("the Zionist enemy") cannot have legitimate interests. I'm at a loss as to why Mr Horowitz brings up the topic of "church and state" in the midst of a debate about the war. It's strange. Does he mean that the involvement of religion in Israeli society is behind this war? Well, he just doesn't know a thing about Israel either. Moreover, he is being very hypocritical. Religion is behind the outbreak of hostilities from the point of view of Hamas. It is an Islamic party in control of a state-like entity. If he has a problem of "church and state", he could have expressed some reservations about Hamas policy. However, with anti-Israel people there is an interesting phenomenon. Their sense of criticism towards Israel is very keen and developed, and they will be willing to accept the most absurd accusations (anything is credible). On the other hand, an anti-Israel person is suddenly very uncritical, very non-intellectual, when it comes to Israel's foes.
Fathi Hamad was proud to announce on Al Aqsa TV: Palestinians have created a human shield of women, children the elderly and the jihad fighters as if to say to the Zionist enemy: "We desire death as you desire life." I fully admire the bravery of hamas
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/08/AR2009010804118.html?hpid=topnews You have permitted Jewish sons to do this, for what? So that Jews have become that which they taught me was evil. I believed the early lessons, that to treat human beings in this way was beyond understanding. And now you are raising your sons to kill in this senseless and cruel way. Where is the morality, Rabbi? You want to condemn those of us who criticize your actions. The blood is on your hands, is it not? Call off this bloodbath. Jews must do better than this, or have they lost all sense of our humanity?
Yehuda, I find it intriguing that you have divined my gender, though I never gave it, but no matter. It's true that I am no expert on Palestinian history, and therefore many of the details may be in error. You are correct that the history of the conflict is more complicated than I had perceived it. I was using the word "colonial" loosely to describe the effect on the population, not to illustrate the geopolitical reality. If you prefer, you could compare the situation to South Africa under apartheid, or the old Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. I believe that you, Yehuda, as a good person, advocate for a peaceful, two-state solution. I can believe that most Jews do, as well. Yet I am not doubting your honesty or motives: I doubt the honesty and motives of the Israeli government. The history of governments in general is a history of self-service, of manipulating and propagandizing the people into working in its best interests instead of their own. This is as true for Western powers as it is for Eastern. Doubtless, it will be true of any Palestinian government that one day comes to power. It is certainly true of the Israeli government. As william pointed out in the very first comment "The 'powers that be' (who are certainly not 'on our side'-no matter how they disguise themselves-and who always finance and control ALL SIDES) thrive on our not being able to come to this simple conclusion, and, therefore, we fight amongst ourselves, and the more they thrive, the more we suffer ..." As for Robert's comment about "tribalism," I think he was referring to what I would characterize as "fanatic nationalism," sometimes also called simply "patriotism" by critics. As George Bernard Shaw put it "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." Replace "country" with "ethnic group" and you have a perfect description of the Gaza conflict ... on both sides. michael, if you want to talk about weapons of mass destruction, then what about the illegal nuclear warheads Israel ADMITS to owning? Also "if you try to kill me with a club and succeed in killing my friends/family with a club, I am not restricted in my choice of weapon to remove you and the threat you pose from my vicinity." Um ... yes, you are. From an enlightened perspective, you are restricted to the least damaging weapon possible (which I would argue is nonviolent direct action, or satyagraha if you prefer). The weapon which is least likely to result in more harm, which then provokes the victim's relatives to retaliate, which provokes a retaliatory retaliation etc. From a less enlightened but equally pragmatic perspective, if they attack you with a club, and you could respond with a handgrenade which kills your attacker and twenty innocent people who happen to be close by, are you saying you are not restricted from using that handgrenade? Ian, so what's your solution then? Wipe them out before they wipe you out? How about showing the ordinary people who are just trying to get by that Jews are not monsters like Hamas claims, and get them to support a less reactionary group. Hamas has power so long as they can convince the Palestinian people that Israelis are the enemy, which it can do as long as Israel uses violence against the Palestinians in its attempt to wipe out Hamas. (Incidentally, you can apply the same logic to al-Qaida.) Dalia X: bull[expletive], absolute bull[expletive]. I have never contended that any human group (except possibly governments and corporations) are to blame for humanity's problems. I regard Jews, Muslims, and every other group as about equally to blame or equally blameless. True, I regard Israel (the government, not the Jews) as largely guilty for the terrible destruction in Gaza, which has taken a terrible toll on Israelis AND Palestinians. I mourn both equally. Since this is a conversation from a Jewish perspective, and since I'm an American and the US government wholeheartedly back Israel, I naturally focus on my criticism for the Israeli side of the conflict. It's much easier (and more enlightened) to say "This is what I'M doing wrong, this is how I'm going to change my behavior" than it is to say "This is what YOU'RE doing wrong, this is how I'm going to make you change YOUR behavior." If harshly criticizing the Israeli government (as I do all others), Israeli warmongering and Israeli hatemongering were indeed = anti-Semitism, then you would be right that "Jews aren't really human." However, I have never and will never make any such claim. Mickey Feingold: I find it intriguing that you contemptuously dismiss Howard Horowitz's organization as "Far Left" and Mr. Horowitz himself as a "self-hating Jew," without saying a word about his actual argument. This is a conversation tactic we call Ad Hominem, which means basically attacking the individual, and not their argument. I personally, would not automatically dismiss anyone's argument, be they religious fundamentalist, Stalinist Big Government Communist, anti-Semitic fascist, or what have you. Because it's more constructive to address people's words rather than what they are. Besides, as hard as it may be to believe, even religious fundamentalists and fascist have something to teach us, if we're only willing to listen. On that note, Yehuda, I congratulate you on having the decency to speak to Mr. Horowitz's words rather than his character. However, you do not seem to be according him the benefit of the doubt concerning his feelings about Israel and Palestine. He sees what's going on and comes to a different interpretation than you do, and your assumption is that he's obviously anti-Jewish. One of the things I've noticed on this thread is the tendency of hawks and Israeli nationalists to attack doves and critics of Israeli policy (including myself) as anti-Jewish, just as Mickey Feingold did. On the other hand, I don't think I've ever seen any of my fellow doves and critics attack the religious, ethnic or another integrity (with the possible exception of moral) of any of the hawks or nationalists. In other words, we are not attacking any of you personally in our attempts to persuade you of our point of view, and I kindly request that you afford us the same courtesy, in the interests of effective persuasion dialogue and good manners. Now, getting back to your argument, Yehuda, it could indeed be that the Israeli government is doing all this just to protect itself. It could also be that the reasons you cite are simply Israeli propaganda used to trick the people of Israel into supporting a move which in fact is designed to continue the Palestinian oppression. The latter case has precedent in the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and "War on Terror" propaganda of the Bush Administration, and indeed, in the Nazi party's "Jewish conspiracy" propaganda. They, too, made sense ... to those gullible enough to buy into it. (And all human beings can be extremely gullible for the right kind of arguments.) The fact that Mr. Horowitz, myself, and others see reason to believe the latter explanation does not automatically make us anti-Jew. Coward Corowitz (ha-ha): Maybe that's how Hamas spins it. To me, that looks like it could be an application of nonviolent resistance. Not "We desire death as you desire life" but "we are willing not only willing to die for a cause we believe, we are willing to die without killing others in the process." Rather like the nonviolent members of the civil rights movement. Of course, I could be wrong, but you'd have to give me more information on the specific context to tell for sure. Finally, here are some excerpts from a recent op-ed a friend directed me to, and from the testimonials of the Shministim (those Israeli conscience objectors I mentioned previously). Would anybody care to furnish counter-arguments based on reason and evidence to these reports? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/opinion/08khalidi.html "Most of the people living in Gaza are not there by choice. The majority of the 1.5 million people crammed into the roughly 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip belong to families that came from towns and villages outside Gaza like Ashkelon and Beersheba. They were driven to Gaza by the Israeli Army in 1948." And: "Israel is still widely considered to be an occupying power, even though it removed its troops and settlers from the strip in 2005. Israel still controls access to the area, imports and exports, and the movement of people in and out. Israel has control over Gaza’s air space and sea coast, and its forces enter the area at will." And: "Israel’s blockade of the strip, with the support of the United States and the European Union, has grown increasingly stringent since Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006 ... The blockade has subjected many to unemployment, penury and malnutrition. This amounts to the collective punishment ... of a civilian population for exercising its democratic rights." There's more, but if I continue I might as well paste the whole thing. I encourage you to read it, it's not long and it's very good. Now for the Shministim. http://december18th.org/category/testimonials/. From Udi Nir: " I consider it immoral to deny millions of people of the right to free movement. It is immoral to “liquidate” people and to kill men, women and children who happened to be at the same place and time. It is immoral to keep people intolerably long hour at checkpoints in inhuman conditions. It is immoral to collectively punish many for the crimes of few." "The claim has often been made that sometimes one has to injure innocent people on the other side to save the lives of people on your own. But is such an approach wise? For even if you have stopped one person who endangers you for any innocent person you have injured along the way - you have created a thousand new enemies to endanger you tomorrow because of their growing frustration and desire for revenge or liberation." Sahar Vardi: "I first set eyes on the occupation as a 12 year old girl. It was in a small Palestinian village south-west of Jerusalem inhabited by some 25 families" "The fact that the road to the village from Jerusalem was blocked by the IDF, the fact that a fence separated the village from its neighboring village and the deferent IDs – all of these came to separate me from “them” and to prove beyond a doubt that we are not equal." "Since I have visited the occupied territories countless times, and as much as I tried to convince myself that the soldier in the checkpoint is not to be blamed for the suppressing policy of Israel, I could not strip that soldier from his responsibly for his own actions." "I can not stand in a checkpoint and separate one race from another, one ID from another, and I can not bombard cities filled with men women and children even if it is done as a part of a war, and I can not punish millions if innocents for the crimes of few." "is if it is possible to prevent suffering by implementing it? Does it not stand in contradiction of itself? Did the use of violence and “counter-violence” by the human race throughout history end violence?" One more, Omer Goldman, whose father was at one time, deputy head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. From the website: "Omer, without her father’s permission visited a Palestinian town in the West Bank and at a check-point, alongside Palestinians, her supposed enemies, was fired upon by Israeli soldiers, 'We were sitting by the roadside talking and soldiers came along and after a few seconds they received an order and fired gas grenades and rubber bullets at us. Then it struck me, to my astonishment, that the soldiers were following an order without thinking. For the first time in my life, an Israeli soldier raised his weapon and fired at me.'"
You need to address the REASON that Hamas fires rockets, or they will continue to do so.
'h keck said: You need to address the REASON that Hamas fires rockets, or they will continue to do so.' Did you just arrive on planet earth in the past 24 hours? They fire rockets because they are pure, true moslems reacting to a non-moslem nation which has re-established itself in its historic homeland. They learn from an early age that the Dar al islam was given to moslems by their allah and to allow a Jewish state to once more exist is to deny the 'truth' of their religion. And that is why, pay attention, their charter explicitly refuses to recognize Israel and calls for its destruction. And why non-moslem minorities throughout the moslem world are regularly attacked, killed and their houses of worship destroyed.
Yossi: well thank goodness we have access to your omniscient wisdom, then. Guess there's no need to investigate the reasoning behind the situation in Palestine any further, now that you have all enlightened us and directed our attention to the single, lone explanation for all the suffering of Jews and Palestinians and others in Palestine. To wit: the Moslems are anti-Semitic bastards who want to kill everyone who's not like them. Or, to summarize the summary of the summary: Moslems are evil. (If that's NOT what your argument boils down to, please illustrate how and why.) The problem I have with this argument is that it conveniently shifts all the blame onto the other party. If I am right, then it's a clear case of the "blame the victim" game perpetrated by all victimizers in history (and a lot more prevalent than the victim blaming themselves, especially on a national scale). The Nazis used that logic to "justify" a "preemptive strike" against European Jews ... and we all know what that led to. Now, if you disagree, please show me how my analogy is incorrect, don't just tell me I'm wrong and incidentally anti-Semitic.
Rabbi Yoffie, I applaud the views you expressed and agree completely. Again and again, those who claim to be friends of Israel but are critical of Israel's response to years of attack never offer a solution that will stop Hamas. Somewhere along the way they must believe Hamas when they claim Israel must no longer be allowed to exist. Am Yisroel Chai!
I congratulate Rabbi Yoffie for taking on his leftist fellow travelers. In the past, I have found his positions to be reprehensible (e.g., very publicly prohibiting youth trips to Israel in its time of greatest need during the Intifada instead of letting families make up their own minds). However, this time he nailed it. The hand-wringers of J Street are an irritating, sanctimonious bunch who are happy to shoot spit balls at Israel from the safety of their their perches 10,000 miles from danger. Let them live within rocket range for a week and let's see how concerned they are with the wholly-self-inflicted plight of the "innocent" Palestinian Arabs who voted Hamas into office and seemingly support it still.
But, Eric, there should, it seems to me, to have been an intermediate approach: bomb the tunnels, give warnings earlier and pledge to accelerate in a stepwise manner if Hamas doesn't stop the missiles, etc. It cannot possibly be right to destroy so much for the guilt of so few.
Humanist - I praise you for having the courage to admit that you do not know the complicated details of the conflict ("You are correct that the history of the conflict is more complicated than I had perceived it"). It's a rarity in debates for such candor. However, you still go on to build a world view despite it all. Similarly, you admit that you use the word colonial "loosely". This is more than an admission of ignorance. This is already evil. There is a campaign out there to delegitimicize the State of Israel. In this campaign, any term that instills hatred is thrown at Israel. Among the popular false accusations are "colonialism", "apartheid" and "genocide". Now I hear that "Gaza equals Warsaw Ghetto". It turns out, so I learn from you, that such evil words can be used "loosely" - they can have an alternative meaning in order to make a point one of your arguments. How lowly. But other people are listening to you, and they understand these words as any educated person understands them by checking a dictionary or an encyclopedia. You are deliberately misleading them, cooperating in hate-propaganda. The Palestinian position has alway been that the founding of Israel was illegitimate, and the passage of time does not change this basic characteristic. Essentially, this is the conflict. Now, the Palestinian are conducting a propaganda campaign as well in order to gain world support in their struggle. They use terms that are meant to arouse strong emotions. Those who sympathize with the Palestinians, however, are not obligated to echo the Palestinian claims. You can still continue being a product of your own culture and language. Hence, since the conflict in the region is not racial (it is ethnic-national), "apartheid" is irrelevant. Since the Jews are a part of the ethnic diversity of the Middle East (Hebrew and Arabic are related languages), "colonialism" is likewise an absurd term. Moreover, the war here is not in any shape or form intensive - nothing at all that compares to any aspect of the World War. The adoption of this hate terminology by those who think that they are sympathizing with the Palestinians is actually detrimental to their cause. What the Palestinians need is help in finding moderation. One can make peace with "cousins" and "neighbors". Making peace with "foreign invaders" or "colonialists" is impossible. By accepting the Palestinian position, echoing their unreasonable terminology, you will not bring the conflict any closer to a solution. The message to the Palestinians from those who claim to sympathize with them should be: The right to self-determination is universal. It includes both the Palestinians and the Jews. The realization of Palestinian aspirations means the acceptance of Jewish legitimacy.
This was written before the ground offensive,which has made Israel's actions seem much more offensive . . . .accused of firing on or killing Red Cross workers, etc., etc. If there is another side to these stories, Israel should get them out, quickly! We are losing in the court of world opinion!
Faye Rose,you appear to lack even the most basic knowledge of the tactics Hamas and Hizbollah have used in previous confrontations: they use Red Cross and Red Crescent ambulances to attack Israeli soldiers and to move fighters and weapons in battle zones. The amazing cluelessness that you exhibit is shared by most of the media who are always too eager to assume the worst when it involves Israel. On a similiar note, it was revealed just this past week that the leading foreign doctor who has been all over CNN and the rest of the TV media on the 'situation' in Gaza was a Radical Leftist who has been involved in aiding the Palestinians for 30 years and when interviewed after 9/11, said that America was getting what it deserved.
Yehuda, I in turn praise you and thank you for your civility, and your willingness to engage in critical discussion. Indeed, I am not an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and thus apt to be mistaken when it comes to details. I do not have an exact understanding of the problem, but then I doubt anyone, even an Israeli or Palestinian, understands it completely. Yet like the rest of my fellow commenters, I do have some understanding, and from that, an opinion. I acknowledge your points about my use of language, even if I do not necessarily accept them. When I say I use a term "loosely," I mean that I use a word that (in my view), aptly describes the condition of the subjugated peoples, though it may not describe the precise geopolitical situation as it relates to other political entities. In this view I might still use the terms "colonialism" or "apartheid." Whatever the dictionary definition of the latter word, I see it as being generally understood to mean segregation by group, not necessarily racial group. However, it was not my intention to foster hatred towards Israelis or the State of Israel (well, no more than the concept of a nation-state in general), merely to criticize their failings, as I see them. You are right that it is in no one's best interests, least of all the Palestinians', to spread such hatred. Therefore, I will be sure to pick my language with a bit more care. "Segregation," perhaps, "separate but equal." Though again, the details do not match up exactly. "Jewish Ascendancy," maybe. I myself have not used the term "Warsaw Ghetto," nor would I--unless, perhaps, I thought one of the more violently anti-Muslim (or, at least, anti-Hamas) commenters on this thread were in charge of Israeli policy in Gaza. As I have pointed out numerous times, some of the rants I have read here put me in mind of fascist propaganda concerning Jews, and so I should see no reason why, if a sufficient number of people were to believe in it, they would not use that propaganda to visit upon Palestinians and other Arabs similar unspeakable horrors as those which were visited upon European Jews under Hitler. Happily, other than some of the rhetoric, I agree that the situation in Palestine/Israel is not nearly so bad as it was during the second European war. I wonder, though, exactly what you mean when you say that the conflict in Palestine/Israel is not "intensive." And compared to what? Keep in mind that even if the Palestinian-Israeli violence is not "intensive" that does not necessarily mean their suffering isn't. There's relatively little direct poor-rich violence in the U.S. but that does not mean the poor do not suffer. Please enlighten me. Oh, and by the by, the South African people of color DID make peace with the former apartheid occupiers, after all. "The Palestinian position has always been that the founding of Israel was illegitimate, and the passage of time does not change this basic characteristic. Essentially, this is the conflict." In my experience, conflicts of this scope are never so easily encapsulated into a single sentence. While what you say may be an aspect of the truth, it is undoubtedly an oversimplification. At best, it has the truth value of say "we want their oil" to the question: "why did the US invade Iraq." I notice that this explanation of the essential nature of the conflict conveniently puts all responsibility for the violence on the Palestinians. It is they who need to "accept Jewish legitimacy." There is no acknowledgment that the position of some Palestinians might be that their segregated, second-class citizenship is illegitimate, or that violence on the part of the Israeli government in response to their attempts to end their segregation. Like your earlier appalling metaphor of the the abusive husband, it reads exactly like an attempt to pin the blame squarely on the Palestinians, while avoiding attaching any blame to all things Israeli. Is that not what your argument is doing? "What the Palestinians need is help in finding moderation." While this may be true, it is AT LEAST equally true for the Israelis. The message to the Jews should be: "The right to self-determination is universal. It includes both the Jews and the Palestinians." If you want the Palestinians to stop hating Israel, then shouldn't Israel stop attacking them, segregating them, and subjugating them? Mustn't you repudiate the words of ex-Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff Moshe Yaalon form 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people”? (source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/opinion/08khalidi.html?_r=1) What about that?
Guess what, they are a defeated people. Defeated in their initial attempt and subsequent attempts to deny the Jews their own state, defeated by their cultural and religious codes and lastly, defeated by their own leaders who chose not to lead but to follow in the same failed confrontational path.
THANK YOU FOR A CLEAR, ANALYTICAL STATEMENT THAT HELPS TO CLARIFY A CENTRIST POSITION. I THINK MANY AMERICAN JEWS RECOGNIZE THE NECESSITY OF ISRAEL'S REPONSE TO THE MONTHS OF ROCKETS BEING FIRED INTO THEIR CITIES; I ALSO THINK THAT THE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION IN GAZA DISTURBS THE HUMANITARIAN INSTINCTS OF MANY AMERICAN JEWS--THE SERIOUS QUESTION THAT MANY HOLD IS "WHAT WILL B E ACCOMPLISHED BY THIS LATEST ROUND OF FIGHTING?" IS PEACE POSSIBLE? HAS HISTORY NOW PASSED BY AND ELIMINATED THE OPPORTUNITY FOR THE 2 STATE SOLUTION?
Yehuda: You're right, I must be confused. I know "officially" the Israeli government supports a two-state plan, but does it also claim that said plan has already been implemented? That it officially recognizes Palestine as a separate state? I hadn't realized. Of course, if it has, that still leaves it an occupied country. And your point about life in Israel being at a high standard for all its citizens becomes meaningless, as Israeli brutality is focused on the people in Palestine. If I could, I absolutely would visit Israel/Palestine to learn more about the situation first hand--not that I necessarily agree that that is the only way to learn anything about a place. I'm certainly at least as open to having my mind changes as you are--perhaps moreso (oh, but of course, when I have an opinion it's my opinion, when you have an opinion it's "facts" which could confuse me). Perhaps if you provided more solid evidence of Israel's blamelessness and less rhetoric. I admit most of my information is impossible or next to impossible to convey in an internet conversation, but what evidence I can provide, I have. For instance, I have the testimonials from the Shministim, which I will repost if it's too hard for you to go back to earlier comments to read them. I have yet to see your counter-evidence to explain why the situation in Palestine really isn't like that. Would you care to supply such evidence now? Ezekiel: Don't hate who they are, hate only what they do. The Israeli nationalists on this thread are living proof that Israeli oppressors are not evil--just horribly misguided. And Efreekiel, sure Israel's a terrorist state. So's Iraq. So's Iran. So's the United States. So would a Palestinian government be, if they ever get one. It's in the nature of nation-states, which is one of the big reasons we need a new societal unit. That says nothing about the people of any of those countries mind you, just the government.
I am an American Jew who does not support the carnage Israel is carrying out in Gaza as I write this. I visited a Reform Temple in Bloomington, IN tonight where the the Rabbi asked for prayers for the people of Israel in this country and the people in the country of Israel and the children of Gaza. The people of the country of Israel have oppressed the Palestinians for too long for the concern to be over rockets. Far too much American money and support has been offered to the country of Israel for far too long under the pretense that the Jews were the only ones suffering or threatened, Palestinians are God's children too. As for the comparison with Canada launching rockets into the US, last time I looked our troops were not keeping the Canadians in refugee camps nor were Americans staking out settlements and bulldozing houses there. The whole Middle East is in an hour of need, not just Israel.
Humanist - You see the conflict as one in which the Palestinians are fighting against "their segregated, second-class citizenship". Well, really you don't have a picture at all of our conflict. Actually, you are very, very confused. The Palestinians of Gaza fighting Israel are NOT citizens of Israel, NOR are they asking to be citizens of our state. They are citizens of the Palestine Authority. The Hamas, for example, ruling the Gaza area, opposes the existence of the State of Israel. It has no grievance that the Gazans are not equal citizens within that state that shouldn't exist.
It is quite interesting, Humanist, that you use the word segregation. It, too, is a reflection of a total misreading of the conflict. It would seem that you think that this is a similar story to the American civil rights movement. That's why you complained of "second-class citizenship" as well. In your mind, it's as if someone is fighting for the right to vote or the right to sit in the front of a bus in Selma. However, the present war that we are discussing is between the State of Israel and the Hamas state-like entity of Gaza. We are not the citizens of the same nation (as in Alabama of the 1960's), but rather we are enemy nations. Segregation between enemies - a barbed-wired fence along the frontier, for example - is the way of the world. There is even a fence between the USA and Mexico without an armed conflict. Did the term "segregation" come to mind? Of course not. It's a border between two entities. Is the two-state solution finished, asks Elaine Lipschutz. A solution means mutual agreement. For the time being, we don't agree, so there is no solution. The Jewish side agreed to the two-state UN Partition Plan of Nov 29, 1947. Even today, we agree to the principle of partition. The war of 1947-9 was fought because the Arab side rejected partition. The result was that the Jews successfully established the State of Israel, but the Arab side (rejecting the principle of partition) never set up their Palestian state. It's not too late to do so. However, the principle of partition means that both states are legitimate and permanent. For the time being, unfortunately, Palestinians do not see Israel as legitimate and permanent. Many people in the world don't differentiate between cause of conflict and result of conflict. Humanist is a good example. Out of ignorance of history, he (she) thinks that Israel's battles against her enemy are the starting point of hatred. In reality, the animosity (hatred) pre-dates all the battles. First there was a conflict (a grievance), and only then were there attacks and counter-attacks, conquests and withdrawals, etc. A one-state solution is on the same footing as the two-state solution. It can only happen if both sides agree to live together in one state. For the time being, that is impossible. The question of Jewish legitimacy is not merely the issue of Jewish statehood. The very Yishuv - the Hebrew speaking public in the Land of Israel - is still regarded by Arabs as illegitimate just as in the days of the Mandate. In the framework of one state, therefore, the conflict would continue. What is the being accomplished by this latest round of fighting, Elaine? For Hamas, the struggle against Israel is a matter of principle. There can be no permanent ceasefire, so they declared just this morning, as long as there is an "occupation" (i.e. the State of Israel - they never call Israel by her name so as to avoid giving her legitimacy, only "the Zionist enemy" or "the occupation"). Their goal is to prevent normalcy. Israel wishes to force upon Hamas a ceasefire.
With all due respect, stopping rockets and wars would not be by committing genocides and wiping out the other. True peace making requires a strive for JUSTICE respect for the other and and intent to live in harmony with the other. It is not a justifiable necessity to have more than 800 people killed (mostly civilians, families and children!)at the other end.
One correction, Yehuda. Israel wishes to force a ceasefire on Hamas by means of closing off its sources of supply. Israel does not agree to a ceasefire if the smuggling of weaponry from Sinai will continue unabated. Hamas, on the other hand, wishes to strike at Israel no matter how ineffective. The purpose of Hamas, as you pointed out, is to prevent any semblance of normalcy. Hence Hamas doesn't accept a ceasefire (and always shot at least a few missiles at Israel during the last ceasefire). Sam Itani's call for justice and living in harmony is touching, but it is totally undefined. Such terms, as beautiful as they may be, as not universally understood. "Justice" for Hamas means the destuction of Israel. "Harmony" for them means that all live under the supremacy of Islam. Such an end to Israel's existence and the establishment of Islamic statehood in its place would be defined by Hamas as peace. Is that what Sam Itani means, too? I hope not. I would suggest, also, not to deflate terminology. An example of "wiping out the other" would be perhaps the atomic explosion over Hiroshima. There, in one second, more people lost their lives than in the entire one hundred years of the Arab-Israeli conflict. As sad as any loss of life is, still the fighting today in the Middle East is clearly in the realm of normal warfare.
I am pleased by this article, and hope it is widely disseminated. We should have no tolerance for the far-left ersatz-"Jewish" anti-Semites, or the far-left faux-Jews who pretend to care for the Jewish State of Israel, but in fact are a fifth column. Likewise, there are "liberal" and "progressive" American "Rabbis", who sanctimoniously announce that they care as much for the vile arab enemies of the Jewish people as they allegedly do for their brethren in Israel; they “hold all the people who died in our hearts" (terrorist and Jew alike). Like J Street, these "Rabbis" urge appeasement, claiming that "Escalating violence is never a solution to an ongoing conflict." If their congregations are indeed centrist, or at least sane, they should confront these faux-Rabbis and cast them out, and the Jewish community should denounce them. As for the anti-Semitic far-left Jews among us, they should be castigated and shunned by American Jews. We need to recognize them for what they are. They are enemy combatants in the propaganda war raging against Israel in the media, in the lobbying war in government, and in the Jewish community itself.
I see that the Forward has separately reported on the anti-Israel far-left ersatz "Jews", a fifth column which has declared war on Israel in its lobbying of Congress: "J Street, Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom and the Israel Policy Forum".
Yehuda: Yes, I know the partition was a UN decision--I didn't mean to imply that the Jews were the ones who came up with it. And you can argue that the Jews had a right, on self-determination grounds, to establish a state even without Arab consent. After all, the American patriots didn't need the consent of the Tories to establish the United States. But to the Arabs, the fact that the partition did not have their consent made it illegitimate. In fact, they believed that it was actually illegal for this reason. Your remarks about "Jewish self-determination" go to the heart of the conflict. From the Jewish perspective, the Arab rejection of partition was indeed a negation of the Jews' right to self-determination. But from the Arab perspective, the UN decision and the creation of Israel were a violation of the Arab right to self-determination--and, in their view, the self-determination of the people of Palestine as a whole, since the Arabs formed the majority of the population. This is the fundamental conundrum. You are correct that deciding to go to war is a huge responsibility. But so is deciding to create a new nation, particularly when such a nation is being created in the midst of people hostile to it. Nation building usually involves much bloodshed and injustice, indeed, it usually is accompanied by full scale war. And I don't think it is your place (or my place, for that matter) to tell the Arabs that their decision to go to war was "obviously a tremendous mistake." Different people and groups have different priorities and viewpoints. I don't think someone who supports Israel can objectively evaluate what was in the best interest of the Arabs, any more than an Arab supporter can decide what the Jews' best interests were.
Lee - Yes, it's true that the Arab side regarded (and regards) the Partition Plan to be illegal. Actually, when I read their websites, they generally refer to the founding of Israel as a "unilateral act". In other words, it was done without their consent. However, the founding of states unilaterally is quite a common thing, so this particular grievance is not really too convincing. Obviously, I can't be objective when judging the wisdom of the Arab decision to go to war in 1947-9. I'm a Jew, and I naturally see the world from our perspective. True, "different people and groups have different priorities and viewpoints", as you noted - and the Arabs have the right (just like all other peoples) to resort to war in their conducting of foreign affairs. However, they didn't prepare for war! The two communities had opposite policies. The Jews prepared for war, but were always ready to accept a compromise solution. The Arabs rejected all plans, insisting on war as the only solution, but were not in the least ready for it. That was reckless - and one can judge their behavior as a mistake. The Jewish decision to re-establish an independent state in the ancient Land of Israel, despite the hostility of the surrounding Arab world, is a "huge responsibility", as you write. Since the Hebrew state has risen as the largest of all Jewish communities in the world, it would seem that the Jews as a collective identity have decided to shoulder this burden.
Yehuda: A good (if obviously imperfect) analogy might be to the American Revolutionary War. Remember that about as many Americans fought for the British as fought for independence. The patriots could say they had a right to fight for a new country regardless of what the loyalists wanted. But by the same token, if the loyalists refused to accept the outcome, regrouped in Canada after the war, and invaded the U.S. to overthrow the government, the patriots would not have a right to condemn them for doing so.
Yehuda: In the second paragraph of your reply to my latest comment, you admit that the former state of Palestine is now under one "official" national rule: the nation of Israel. But in your first paragraph, you talk of war between the nations of Palestine and Israel, suggesting the two-state plan had already been implemented. What you fail to address in your first paragraph is that both "nations" who are at "war" are under Israeli jurisdiction. Officially, they are both part of Israel at this point, and so the terms "segregation" and "second-class citizenship" would be accurate. And if they WERE two separate states, then the term "colonialism" would again be appropriate. Either way, the point is that Israeli policy toward Palestinians is to restrict their movement, enter their homes without warrant, and occasionally shoot them down in the street. Whether you call that colonialism, apartheid, segregation or simply oppression, the point remains that the Israeli government policy is generally to treat Palestinians as nonpersons, and it isn't right. No, I'm sure the conflict didn't start with the founding of the Israeli nation, and I'm sure neither side is at all blameless for continuing the conflict. (You, on the other hand, seem consistently to try to shift the blame solely on the Arabs who rejected the UN's two-state solution and now act like an "abusive husband" towards poor, helpless, not-oppressing-the-Palestinians-at-all-really Israel.) Since its founding though, Israel has imposed inhuman conditions on the Palestinians living in Israel. Lifting those conditions might not end the conflict, but it'd make for a good start, especially since it's something the Israelis can do to further peace rather something the Israelis can make the Palestinians do to further peace. As Heather so accurately pointed out: "This type of violence is a cycle that requires two parties to escalate and perpetuate it, but it only takes ONE to break it." Speaking of which, very well said, Heather. Ditto Lee: "From the Jewish perspective, the Arab rejection of partition was indeed a negation of the Jews' right to self-determination. But from the Arab perspective, the UN decision and the creation of Israel were a violation of the Arab right to self-determination" and "If the side that has their proposal rejected goes ahead and implements it anyway, it is they who are viewed as the aggressor, not the side who rejected the proposal." Well said indeed. And thanks for the quote, Cecily Bastedo. Peace, all.
Really, Humanist, you are very confused. Even if a territory is captured during war and occupied - it does not mean that the residents of the occupied territory are now citizens of the occupying power. It's still a conflict situation between two hostile peoples waiting for a solution. There are, indeed, Palestinian Arabs who are Israeli citizens since 1948. I would suggest to you that you actually set foot in Israel and see our reality. Perhaps this is asking for too much, because you've already made up your mind about life in Israel (and you probably wouldn't want to be be "confused by the facts"). Life in Israel is at a high standard for ALL its citizens. Sorry for disappointing you.
Perhaps it should be added, Lee, that the same irresponsible thinking of 1947 (an Arab rejection of partition or of any other compromise while not being ready for war either) seems to be the method of today's Hamas leadership as well. Their policy towards Israel is clear: The state is illegitimate and it must be replaced by an Islamic state. Moreover, it is their position, both in declarations and in writing (the Hamas Charter), that "Palestine will be the graveyard of the Jewish people". They insist on what is called in Arabic "al-kifah al-musallah" - the armed struggle. They have chosen war as the only tool in dealing with us. They call themselves "Hamas" - an acronym for the "Islamic Resistance Movement" (called in short "muqawama" - resistance). So, why are they unprepared for war? Why have they placed their people in such danger? It's really quite unbelievable. Even today, after a terrible defeat, they insist that any possible ceasefire will only be temporary, and victory will yet be achieved. It's an ideology that outweighs any practical consideration. I find your examples from American history to be interesting. They are, however, unrelated to the reality of the conflict in the Middle East. English settlers in North America, whether seeking political independence or wishing to continue the rule of the British crown, shared a common narrative and culture.
Israel lost the media war on the first day. 20th century tactics like embargoing foreign journalists are completely unsuited for the age of cellphone video. There is no hiding what the IDF is doing. The world is watching, and they are sickened by the slaughter of women, children, and men too. We will not soon forget what we have seen. I have no sympathy for Israel - they are terrorists.
Israel lost the media war on the first day. We all know Israel is a Jewish state and that is so 20th century. In the 21st century, we dont believe in nation states, particularly Jewish ones. The Jews must pave the way for humanity by giving up their selfish desire to have a state. Tactics like embargoing foreign activists are completely unsuited for the age of cellphone video. There is no hiding what the IDF is doing. Self defence is so atavistic. The world is watching, and they are sickened by the slaughter of women, children, and men too, as long as it occurs in occupied Palestine. We dont object to slaughter of civilians in other areas, because it is culturally sanctioned. We will not soon forget what we have seen. I have no sympathy for Jews - they are terrorists.
I find this article disturbing, but not at all surprising. Since I read another's comment here, bringing up the need for violent force used against Nazi Germany, then I'll consider that door open for discussion in regards to Gaza. What absolutely blows my mind is that a people that should know better than any other on earth, what it is to be treated as second class citizens at best, and at worst killed for it, would better understand what is happening to the people of Gaza - and condemn it with utter disgust. The blockades preventing civilians from having access to food, medical supplies, fuel & water, for more than a year and a half straight, had caused mass starvation and severe illness - a literal crime against humanity. It had driven them to desperate and despicable means of resistance, there is no doubt about it nor excuse for it. But I would think that there would be more understanding about what desperate people do in devastating situations, especially from such a strong religious community. As long as this battle has gone on, I'd also think that we could come to a reasonable agreement that brute force, killing, and contempt/hatred for the way others live, to the point of dehumanization, DOES NOT WORK. It really only creates more of the same, and history has proven time and again it to be true. Nor is it serving anybody to rehash endlessly who is to blame for what either. This type of violence is a cycle that requires two parties to escalate and perpetuate it, but it only takes ONE to break it. So who will it be that finally chooses to live the truth of "Thou shalt not kill" without adding, "except when..." onto the end of it? I suspect that movement will be led by those doves you criticize.
Heather - The blockade of Gaza is an attempt to prevent the arming of Hamas, a regime of declared hostile intentions. Food supplies, building materials, medicine, etc enter the area from Israel - even now during the war. Israel also provides the source of electricity, water, phone service. "Mass starvation" is simply anti-Israel propaganda. Moreover, very serious medical problems are regularly sent to Israeli hospitals. You think that there should more understanding for "desperate people". Wouldn't one imagine that desperate people would have a policy of getting along with others? Hamas has a clear ideology: Israel must be destroyed. That is an aggressive war ideology which has a price tag. Waging war means the worsening of economic conditions, and it means suffering. You have turned around the order of events. You see desperation as the source of motivation to go to war against Israel, but the truth is that the motivation to fight Israel has led to difficulties of life in Gaza. The desire to destroy a neighboring state is an unacceptable ideology, and the focus of this crisis should be on exactly such an unusual, in fact scandalous, policy.
Yehuda, "The war of 1947-9 was fought because the Arab side rejected partition." You act like the Arabs had a moral obligation to accept partition. Why did they? They lived in Palestine just like the Jews did, didn't they have the right to a say in whether the territory would be partitioned? Normally, if one side in a dispute proposes something, the other side has a right to reject it (that's why it's called a "proposal" in the first place). If the side that has their proposal rejected goes ahead and implements it anyway, it is they who are viewed as the aggressor, not the side who rejected the proposal. But regarding the Israeli-Arab conflict, the Arabs are somehow viewed as being at fault for not accepting the partition. This makes no sense unless one already believes in Zionism to being with.
Lee - Partition was not the Jewish proposal, as you seem to remember history. It was the decision of the United Nations, ratified on Nov 29, 1947. This UN decision called upon the sides to take all the steps necessary for its implementation. The founding of Israel was, therefore, an act of self-determination (the universal right of all peoples) - AND it was based on a decision of the international community. Your view of events as "aggression" is in essence an adoption of the Arab perspective: the Jews don't have the right to self-determination. Indeed, the whole conflict boils down to this very question of legitimacy. The Arab decision to reject partition and to go to war to prevent its realization is not a question of "fault". It is a question of sound judgment. Going to war is an option in international relations, and the Arabs are no different than other peoples in arriving at such a fateful and historic decision. However, it is a decision that carries heavy responsibility, and one must be willing to bear the consequences thereof. It was obviously a tremendous mistake.
"People think of their own actions as the consequences of what came before. They think of other people's actions as the causes of what came later." Daniel Gilbert, "He Who Cast the First Stone Probably Didn't," New York Times, July 24, 2006.
A LETTER TO THE PALESTINIANS FROM NEW ZEALAND SPEAKING THE TRUTH TO THE POWERLESS. Greetings to any Palestinian who may be reading this. My name is David White. I am a citizen of New Zealand , a small, Western, nominally Christian country in the South Pacific Ocean . I am not Jewish, or Christian, I guess I'm vaguely agnostic. Writing this letter is a good way for me to discuss the horrible mess in the Middle East, spell out as many relevant points as possible concerning the state of the Palestinian people, and to see what can be made of them. I don't speak Arabic, so I can only communicate with English-speaking Palestinians. There aren't many here in NZ, though, and I haven't yet met any. I don't know how many will ever see these words, but, here's hoping someone does. I have a post-graduate university education, and I suppose I could be called an intellectual. Unfortunately, many such people have supported abhorrent ideologies such as Nazism, and continue to support Communism, so I refuse to describe myself in this way. I don't want to be considered as another "trendy leftie" academic, as we would say in NZ. So, unlike many university-educated types, I am anti-totalitarian, pro-peace up to a point, pro-democracy, pro-capitalism, (except the capitalists running Enron), and skeptical about the "cult of victimhood." I'm quite safe here in New Zealand , and no-one I know has been killed by a Palestinian. My perspective of Palestinians is something like this - you're Arabs (of course), mostly Muslim, but with a Christian minority. Many of you live outside Gaza/West Bank, mostly in Jordan and other Muslim countries, with some groups living in Western countries as well. You feel that you have been wronged by Israel and are fighting to destroy them. As for my perspective on Israel , I see them like this: They are a mainly Jewish, small, free-market democracy with a large Arab minority surrounded by hostile Arab dictatorships. They have an ancestral claim to Israel , their state was created as a refuge from persecution, they have a right to exist, and, having survived a holocaust in Europe , they should not have to sit still and wait for another one in the Middle East . A DOWN UNDER OVERVIEW Over the last few months, the conflict in the disputed territories of Gaza and the West Bank has turned into a war between the Palestinian people and Israel . (I will not apologize for using the term "disputed", as I believe it reflects a rather complicated situation more accurately than "occupied"). Your interpretation, as far as I can tell, seems to be something like this: You have no state of your own, and you are fighting a war against those you call "Zionist oppressors" and "colonial imperialists", in order to create a Palestinian state. Accusations of massacre and human rights violations by the Israeli Army are being tossed around like confetti. Your late leader, Yasser Arafat used to brag that he would "martyr" himself rather than "surrender", and that bungling and incompetent organization, the United Nations (again, no apologies for venting personal opinions), is trying to do what it is constitutionally incapable of doing, i.e. "saving future generations from the scourge of war". The Israelis see things differently, of course. For them, it's a simple battle for survival. They offered you a state, and you attacked them instead. They have occupied Palestinian towns, have fought it out with various armed groups, and desperate attempts are being made by the US , other Arab countries and the UN to break the so-called "cycle of violence". As a result, the Palestinian situation at the moment generally, can be explained by putting it into New Zealand idiom, put bluntly, the Palestinian people are buggered. Munted. Stuffed. Rooted (American equivalent=screwed. British equivalent: done over). It's like this: Yasser Arafat had turned down the Israeli offer of a Palestinian homeland in Gaza and the West Bank . You want, or Arafat claims that you wanted, a Palestine "from the river to the sea;" in other words, "all or nothing". There is one insuperable obstacle to this- Israel . No matter how eloquent your arguments or numerous your martyrs, no matter how many European diplomats are angered by, or UN resolutions are passed against, Israel , the Israelis are not going to pack up and leave. The only way you will get the Palestinian state you want is by destroying Israel . This is what you have been trying to do since 1948, and the current "intifada" launched in 2000 is your latest effort. However, the Israelis are not standing there and letting you kill them. They are fighting back, and if they have to choose between their own survival and yours, guess which choice they'll make. A vast wringing of hands, a great fluttering of Diplomats. That has been the overall response to the disaster you have created for yourselves. You, the Palestinian Arabs, are obviously hoping for some kind of international intervention to save you. As we in New Zealand would say, "Get Real!". The European Union and the UN have demonstrated on numerous occasions in the past their incompetence and total incapacity to take any sort of firm action without American leadership. Ask your Muslim brothers of Bosnia-Herzegovina, about how effective the EU and the UN were in protecting them without American intervention. In spite of the impression that American diplomatic efforts have created, the US will not take sides against Israel , and will eventually abandon its futile attempts at evenhandedness. If they do join forces militarily with Israel in their war against terrorism, your fighters will be snuffed out like candle flames. As for your "beloved Arab brothers" in the Middle East , they make a great deal of noise about your "liberation struggle", and have sent money and arms, but have not sent a single tank to save you. Their diplomatic proposals are ones that could have been offered at any time, and are aimed at benefiting them, not Palestinians. The Egyptians themselves will not declare war on Israel unless they receive $100 billion to cover their costs. Do you really believe that the rest of your Arab Muslim brothers think you are worth that much? Do you really believe they will put your interests ahead of their own? Although your friends and Arabs in Europe are passing sanctions and burning synagogues in your support, not a single EU warship has sailed to your aid, and not a single NATO aircraft has dropped a single bomb on your "Zionist oppressors". I have noted that large numbers of people, including university educated intellectuals support the Palestinian cause. Don't be misled by this. No matter how many western intellectuals, news media and international organizations may support the Palestinian struggle, none of this matters, because America stands by Israel . THE UNBEARABLE BURDEN OF LIFE How did you get into such a mess? As you yourselves would say and have indeed said on many occasions, it isn't your fault. It's always the "Great Satan" America , and it's "Lesser Satan", Israel , that you blame for all your woes. Everything that you do, such as your "martyrdom operations", are described as the products of your"rage" at being "dispossessed of your land", and of your "helplessness" in the face of "Zionist" might. There are only 300 million Arabs against over 5 million Jews! How unfair! How unjust, that so many can do so little against so few! A number of Western commentators have put Arab failures down to numerous cultural factors, not the least being Islam. Your religious beliefs in martyrdom and jihad, coupled with a total inability to accept any blame for your own predicament, have combined to do you great and lasting damage. Look closely at why Western countries such as Israel have succeeded, and Muslim countries have not. Western countries are free-market democracies. Muslim countries (other than Turkey ) aren't. Surely that should tell you something. WHY I STAND? As I said, I do not, and I will not, support the Palestinian cause. Why not? I have a number of reasons, and here they ar e: 1. You have made it clear beyond any shadow of doubt that you intend to destroy Israel and kill or drive out its Jewish population. This is genocide, pure and simple. You justify this by saying that Israel has committed many crimes against your people, and that you seek "justice". I say this in response- NOTHING WHATSOEVER is an acceptable justification for genocide. Loss of land, humiliation at being militarily defeated - others have suffered these and moved on to create new nations and opportunities for themselves. Examples abound- the Germans thrown out of East Prussia in Europe , 1945, the Nationalist Chinese who fled to Taiwan in 1949, to name but two. Germans and Taiwanese have coped with military defeat and the loss of land. They haven't warred with their neighbors, nor have they launched terrorist attacks upon them. Both countries have more wealth than any Arab nation. Why can't Palestinians cope? Are Germans and Chinese better able to deal with adversity than Arabs? 2. You have accused the Israelis of "genocide" against you. Here's a question for you: Israel has atomic bombs and powerful military forces. If they really, truly wanted you all dead, they could easily do it. Why haven't they? If the Israelis went all-out, you would be, as we say in New Zealand , "dog tucker". Why did they spend so much time negotiating with your leaders? Because Israel wants peace and secure borders. You refuse to give them even those. You plan genocide and accuse Israel of the same crime. Prove it! 3. The use of terrorism. Killing people for being Jewish is despicable. Terrorist attacks on innocent civilians are also despicable. (At this point, I'd like to pause and get a question of nomenclature cleared up, regarding those Palestinians who kill themselves and others with explosives strapped to their bodies. You call them "martyrs". Western media sources and academics debate the precise term to use in describing them. Others, including the Israelis, call them terrorists. I have a better, more appropriate term. I prefer to use the word "kamikazes". The original kamikazes appeared in 1944, in the war in the Pacific. They were Japanese Navy and Army pilots, organized into "Special Attack Units" with orders to crash their planes into American warships, in the hope of destroying them - "one plane, one ship". Their initial impact was similar to that of the Al-Qaeda attacks on New York Twin Towers and the Pentagon-shock and horror. (I noted that many Palestinians appeared on Western TV celebrating the September attacks). Not e: The American response, in both cases was not the one hoped for. Once the shock had worn off, the US set out to destroy the kamikazes, and terrible destruction was rained down on Japan , ending only with 2 atomic bombs. You know what is happening right now in Afghanistan to the Al-Qaeda group. 4. Using children as suicide bombers. Anyone who teaches children to kill themselves in suicide attacks is not worth supporting under any circumstances. For you to do this to your children is an abomination. A commentator on a Web magazine said that if the Palestinians laid down their arms, they would get peace and land. If the Israelis laid down their arms they would be killed. You know that is true, even if most of Europe doesn't. Your cause is evil, because it seeks destruction at any price. Genocide is not justice. Sacrificing your own children for the sake of your leader's personal ambitions is wicked. THAT'S WHY I CANNOT SUPPORT YOU.THAT'S WHY I STAND WITH ISRAEL . PALESTINIAN PAST AND FUTURE? The Second World War in Europe ended with Hitler's suicide. He was replaced by Admiral Doenitz who quickly made peace with the Allies. Japan 's leader, Emperor Hirohito, decided on surrender rather than see his nation destroyed. If Arafat had chosen surrender, though, will the rest of the Palestinians go along with it? He died. Did the war end? If the answer to both of these questions is No, then the Palestinian people are doomed. Do you really prefer death as a people? Do you fully comprehend what you are doing? If you are indeed aware that the path you have embarked upon leads to destruction, and if you have freely chosen to walk in that direction, then as a people you are truly beyond hope. Are Palestinians really going to be a "Kamikaze Nation"? Are you really going to give Israel no other option except your destruction? If they must choose, then as Israeli historian Martin Van Creveld said, "better a terrible end than terror without end". Do not think that kamikaze tactics can get you what you want. The Israelis can tell you all about Masada , if you ask them. Remember what happened to the Japanese at places like Okinawa and Iwo Jima . Palestinians deserve better than the current mess you are in now - but before you can be given anything, you must offer a sincere peace, you must stop teaching your children to hate, you must stop believing that "victimhood" justifies everything and - above all other things - GIVE UP ISRAEL ! Accept that you will never go there again except perhaps as workers or tourists. Accept that Jews are human beings too. Accept the verdict of 1948 and learn to live with it. Invest in banks, not bombs. Build computer chips, not Kalashnikovs. Teach science and mathematics, not hate. Look to the future, not the past. Stop blaming Americans and Jews for all your problems, and take responsibility for your own actions. Read those parts in the Quran about living with the "peoples of the Book". Golda Meir, the former Israeli Prime minister, is quoted as saying" there will be peace in the Middle East only when the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel ". Every time I see pictures of Palestinian children waving guns and wearing dummy explosives, then I can only say she is right. The alternative to peace is not victory but death. Think about it- before it's too late. From an Infidel to Those Who Submit, and are living in the Holy Land - May God grant you steadfastness in the face of things that cannot be changed, the capacity to cope with those that can be changed, and the wisdom and the ability to tell the difference.
Benjamin Pollock: Wholly self-inflicted? What nonsense. Even if you were right, if I hit you, and you hit me back, that's not the same as me hitting myself, even if it does mean I "had it coming." (An odious concept.) But you imply that the trouble in Palestine began with the election of Hamas. It has gone on for some time, and if it had only been on the Palestinian side, either the Jews in Israel would have been entirely wiped out or (more likely) the majority of Palestinians, horrified by their own side's brutality, would've ended the strife long ago. Did you ever stop to ask WHY so many Palestinians voted for Hamas? Is it possible that it's because Hamas has promised to end the (US-backed) Israeli imperialist rule which has oppressed the Palestinian Arabs for 60 years? Just possibly?
Okay. So now we have an Israeli cease fire and total military withdrawal from Gaza. Shall we see how long it takes for the rockets to start flying back into Israel? Of course, now there will be some other "excuse" for this (e.g., "blockades" by the "Zionist entity", "occupation of the Palestinian homeland", or any one of hundreds of others that you can choose from). After all, weren't we promised peace "if only the Zionists would withdraw from Gaza" way back when when Israeli soldiers dragged other Israelis out of the settlements? So where was the peace -- carried on the missiles that immediately began to fly into Israel from Gaza? How does one "negotiate" with someone whose STATED GOAL is the destruction -- no, MASSACRE -- of the other? Hard as it may be to imagine, I have always placed myself in the dove camp. But the unbelievably biased reporting on Israel's behavior has finally soured me. Where were the mainstream media reports about the -- literally hundreds -- of wounded Gazans who were brought to Israel for treatment in her hospitals? Give me ONE other example of a time when -- in the midst of war -- the "aggressor" has gone out of its way to SAVE those injured on the other side?!! And, oh yes, far from being an "escalation", the decision by Israel to launch a ground incursion was made knowing that the risk to Israeli soldiers would be far greater by such a move. Yet , perhaps, the military objectives could be achieved while minimizing the loss of Palestinian lives. Perhaps the critics would have preferred saturation bombing of Gaza? After all, this is the way in which the US brought Germany to her knees (which, IMHO was unfortunately necessary and more than justified). [Perhaps we should have "negotiated" with Hitler! Umm -- I think that was tried and, as I recall, the result was further agression by the Third Reich. If we were now living (of course Jews would NOT be living) under Nazi rule, the freedom of speech by liberals -- if any were left -- would be severely curtailed. But, perhaps even then they would suggest continued negotiations!] Very few Israeli lives would have been lost by sending bombers over Gaza to just "blow it off the face of the earth." But no, Israel's ground incursion was actually undertaken as a more humanitatian option. Of course, the "liberal" response will be that Israel should have retreated completely. And do what? Wait for Hamas to continue its stated objective of obliterating all Jews from the face of the earth? It is noteworthy, BTW, that Israel withdrew DESPITE the fact that even Egypt refused to participate in blocking the re-arming of Hamas from her side! How much more can they be asked to give before they simply surrender their lives and those of the Jewish people?
If your perspective was that of an Afghanistani or an Iraqi, America is no less of a "terrorist gang". The Principles for a New American Century laid the groundwork to invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq. The "false flag" operation of 9-11 gave them the galvanization of the American people to carry out their goals. The world is finally turning on Israel and you wonder why? In fact, Israel is turning on itself...as you will see in the weeks and months to come. Israel attempted to engage Hezbollah and in turn get a reaction out of Iran, so that the U.S. would step in and come to their aid before "W" left office. The Israeli army & air force wiped whole villages off the map in this last attack on Gaza. the-osterley-times.blogspot.com Watch the video if you have the stomach for it, or if you are really interested in the truth. They say, "it will set you free". The Israeli Navy has blockaded the coast and will not allow the Palestinian fishing vessels out or humanitarian relief in. Israel is earning the contempt of the civilized world much the same way America is earning it. They are displaying their outward aggression and terrorist inclinations on the World stage and the World is seeing Israel for the terrorists they are. Israel & Jews everywhere are afraid of their own shadows and will never achieve the goal of "security" until all Arab Muslims are eradicated. A Jewish school in Florida will not let their children out onto the playground for "fear" of attacks. Isn't that about the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? They are raising their Jewish children in the U.S. to be afraid, for the love of Mike, move to Israel if you insist on perpetuating that "fear" factor. What of the Arab Israelis? The Christian Israelis? When will the time come that this theocracy wants to cleanse all non-Jews from Israel? Where will they stop? The answer is, they will never stop!!!
Liz: Well, according to some people, Hamas IS willing to talk, and in fact some of its members are pushing for a two-state solution. See for instance: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5802#comment. (It's nice to hear from somebody who cares for the human race, and not just whoever's on "my side.") Wouldn't surprise me if all Israeli and Western media hears is the saber-rattling side to Hamas. It wouldn't even necessarily be due to malice: media thrives on controversy, and there's not much conflict in "we want peace, the same as you (claim to)." I'm not denying that Israel has done some good things, by the way, such as treating Palestinian wounded in its hospitals. That still doesn't make up for oppressing the hell out of them for sixty years. As for sending in ground troops: or maybe the Israeli government doesn't care if Israeli people die too. If it did, it wouldn't be oppressing the Palestinians and furthering the cycle of violence. If Israelis die, Jews will howl for further Palestinian oppression, and Israeli imperialism has the legitimation it needs at home to continue its bloody empire-building. Just a thought. And of course, once negotiation has failed, the only other POSSIBLE option is to go in guns blazing and bombing an innocent populace indiscriminately (talking about Nazi Germany now). It's not as if there were any other military (and for that matter, non-military) solutions that might just POSSIBLY have worked as well. Nope, in the real world, it's always either negotiate with your enemy or beat the hell out of them. Every single time. If I were living under Nazi rule, I would advocate what the Danes did, and what the German wives of Jewish husbands in Berlin did, what Gandhi did in India and the civil rights movement in the segregated South, and the Chileans did under Pinochet, etc., etc. Did they negotiate with the enemy? No. Did they kill them indiscriminately (or discriminately for that matter)? Hell no. Did they win? You bet they did. Until people learn to stop seeing violence as a viable answer under ANY circumstances, the human race will never be free of oppression. K8: "If your perspective was that of an Afghanistani or an Iraqi, America is no less of a 'terrorist gang'" Exactly. What you say is very good, although personally, I disagree that it will never stop. There are Jews and Israelis out there like Noam Chomsky, like the members of Zeitouna, like the Shministim, busily working away to create a better Israel and a better world, one free of violence and oppression of ANYBODY. I think they can do it.
Whereas, J Street roundly condemned Rabbi Yoffie's Outrage, I agree with the Rabbi. It truly is of the utmost importance for a Nation-State to defend its citizens from terror. Personaly, I believe that Hamas has no use for the residents of Gaza. Hamas's use of "human shields" heightens the world's anger at Israel and the rest of the Jews.
Joel Waldbott, of course Israel has the right to defend itself: by ending the Occupation. That's what the Palestinians want, that's what they've been struggling for these past 60 years.
Israeli policy towards the Palestinian people in Israel and the Occupied territories has been described--with some justification--as ethnic cleansing. The Israeli government wants them out, and has wanted them since the inseption of Zionism ("A land without a people" indeed). Stop the ethnic cleansing policies, and most of the counterviolence goes away. Israeli citizens are defended from terror.
Also, what exactly constitutes "human shields"? Storing weapons in hospitals and schools? Well, where else are they supposed to put them? The Israel "Defense" headquarters is right there in Tel Aviv, just as the Pentagon is in the middle of Washington. Is that using "human shields" too?
And if so, is that any justification for attacking the hospital, or the school, or Tel Aviv, or Washington to get at those military supplies?
Dear Humanist:
You really can't think of any place better to store weapons than in schools and hospitals? How ridiculous. I'm no military expert, but I somehow doubt that there are large weapons caches in either the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv or in the Pentagon in Washington. I would think that both countries would store their weapons in more remote, less populated areas.
I also wonder about your suggestion that "most" of the counterviolence goes away. How many rockets would you tolerate falling on your cities? I can't say I would want you to be in charge of defending my country's citizens from terror.
Also, it seems to me that every time Israel tries to pull back, the "counterviolence" actually increases. Israel withdraws from Gaza and Hamas seizes control and begins to build up arms. Border restrictions are relaxed and Hamas responds by blowing up supply trucks or killing border guards. What in Heaven's name would you have Israel do under these circumstances?
The situation is so complex. I am so frustrated by people who know it all. It's one thing to say that you disagree with Israel's policies, but how could you possibly insist that your alternative policies would result in a better outcome? When, after all, you do not live in Israel and you cannot possibly have a grasp on all of the factors that go into each policy decision. Perhaps you should go live in Israel for a year, as I did last year, so that you might get a better sense of the massive loss of life your suggestions could result in.
Mary Lee, You're way off base. You're faulting Israel for a Nov. 4 take-out of a Hamas leader, breaking the cease-fire? To quote CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/19/israel.gaza.ceasefire/index.html), "The truce held well for the first four months but began to fall apart in October, when there was a marked increase in the number of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel -- estimated at 200. Israel resumed airstrikes in Gaza as a result." Yes, Mary Lee, "as a result"! For not approaching Turkey & Egypt to broker a new cease fire? Have you forgotten the Hamas taunts that Israel won't attack because they're "too weak"? Could they afford to run to (an increasingly hostile) Turkey to help, leaving the "too weak" label hanging in the air? In that part of the world, seeming weak is suicidal. In the elegant wording of Mr. Peretz, they had to send a clear signal: Don't f*** with Israel! Faulting Israel for strengthening the embargo? Again, see the CNN quote above, and recall how many ships filled with arms they turned around, and how many ships of food (if they weren't carrying rabble-rousing radicals) they allowed through. For leaving their borders closed? Normal shipments always get through, even if held up a few days. As far as opening the border for workers to go to their jobs in Israel: Where are the Palestinian economy jobs, so that Palestinian workers - and the occasional homicide bomber - don't have to come in to work in mean old Israel? The radicals and the corrupt have diverted those billions that were to build the Palestinian economy; not Israel. A government's job is to protect its people, not worry about neighboring populations, so Israel SHOULD prioritize Gilad Shalit over Palestinian civilians. (Let those Palestinian 'civilians' show the slightest amount of gumption in confronting Hamas, in refusing to hide that band of murderers, and then Israel would need to concern itself with their needs, as the word 'innocent' might begin to apply to them.)
Lastly, any time you can use words like "moral high ground" regarding a group that professes - and regularly attempts - mass murder, that shutters tightly the window of peace, that dances after the murder of children, you become as perverse as they. No, Mary Lee, when the Hamas Charter promises to drive the Jews into the sea, they don't mean to have the Jews live in Atlantis!
Mary Lee, You're way off base. You're faulting Israel for a Nov. 4 take-out of a Hamas leader, breaking the cease-fire? To quote CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/19/israel.gaza.ceasefire/index.html), "The truce held well for the first four months but began to fall apart in October, when there was a marked increase in the number of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel -- estimated at 200. Israel resumed airstrikes in Gaza as a result." Yes, Mary Lee, "as a result"! For not approaching Turkey & Egypt to broker a new cease fire? Have you forgotten the Hamas taunts that Israel won't attack because they're "too weak"? Could they afford to run to (an increasingly hostile) Turkey to help, leaving the "too weak" label hanging in the air? In that part of the world, seeming weak is suicidal. In the elegant wording of Mr. Peretz, they had to send a clear signal: Don't f*** with Israel! Faulting Israel for strengthening the embargo? Again, see the CNN quote above, and recall how many ships filled with arms they turned around, and how many ships of food (if they weren't carrying rabble-rousing radicals) they allowed through. For leaving their borders closed? Normal shipments always get through, even if held up a few days. As far as opening the border for workers to go to their jobs in Israel: Where are the Palestinian economy jobs, so that Palestinian workers - and the occasional homicide bomber - don't have to come in to work in mean old Israel? The radicals and the corrupt have diverted those billions that were to build the Palestinian economy; not Israel. A government's job is to protect its people, not worry about neighboring populations, so Israel SHOULD prioritize Gilad Shalit over Palestinian civilians. (Let those Palestinian 'civilians' show the slightest amount of gumption in confronting Hamas, in refusing to hide that band of murderers, and then Israel would need to concern itself with their needs, as the word 'innocent' might begin to apply to them.)
Lastly, any time you can use words like "moral high ground" regarding a group that professes - and regularly attempts - mass murder, that shutters tightly the window of peace, that dances after the murder of children, you become as perverse as they. No, Mary Lee, when the Hamas Charter promises to drive the Jews into the sea, they don't mean to have the Jews live in Atlantis!
T. Shore: I'll get to the rest of your argument in a minute. The point is, though, that hiding weapons in hospitals and delivery trucks is NO excuse for blowing them up.
And no, I can't guarantee that if Israel pulls all its settlers out of the West Bank and retreats behind the green line and closes its Israelis-only roads and give the Palestinians back Eastern Jerusalem--I can't guarantee that every single Palestinian will lay down their arms and refrain from attacking Israelis. Neither can I guarantee that if Hamas swears off violence and the Palestinians stop attacking Israelis that Israel will end its oppression of the Palestinians (such as in the ways mentioned above). In fact, it seems far less likely. There's too much bad blood on both sides to say that a two-state solution which actually is a solution for both sides will end all the violence in Israel and Palestine.
However, I can guarantee that until Israel ends its oppression of the Palestinians, there will be neither justice nor peace for Israelis nor Palestinians.
You're partially right that because I am removed from Israel and the Occupied Territories my knowledge of the situation is badly limited. However, that doesn't mean that I know nothing of relevance. Nor would just living in the country necessarily mean that I would understand the situation in that way. There's a lot goes on in our own back yard we know nothing about.
I will take up your offer to live a year in Israel though, if you will then agree to live with me for a year in Gaza. If I am incapable of judging the "right course of action" Israel must take without living there, then you must be incapable of judging the Palestinian situation (and thus, how to respond to it) without living in it. Don't worry, I'll make it clear to the Palestinians that if they want to kill or harm you, they'll have to do the same to me, their ally, as well.
Oh, and until we've lived in Palestine and we understand their situation, we'll refrain from judging their choice to hide weapons in hospitals and schools and other public centers, does that sound like a fair deal to you?
Izzy: The problem with CNN is that, like most of US mainstream media, carries a heavy Israeli bias. (If you believe the myth that there's no ideological bias in media, I invite you to watch a day or two of Fox News and MSNBC.) This is understandable: the Zionist Israeli lobby is one of the most powerful in the country, and they're quick to jump on anybody who doesn't present the truth as they see it, which is not necessarily the factual history (nobody sees factual history all of the time).
I've heard that Hamas broke the cease-fire by firing rockets. I've also heard that Hamas only started firing rockets again after Israel broke the cease-fire by sending in a land invasion on some bogus pretext (somewhere in November I think that was). Given what I know of the history of the conflict, I'm inclined to believe the latter, but really, there's been more than enough senseless violence committed by both sides over the years.
As for those rockets that you and T. Shore and all the other Anti-Palestinians on this thread are so obsessed over: how many people have they actually killed in Israel? Fifteen in the last two, three, maybe six years? Admittedly, that's fifteen too many, but when compared to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have died in Israeli attacks and invasions (let alone those suffering under the occupation), the Israeli reaction seems a bit disproportionate.
"Have you forgotten the Hamas taunts that Israel won't attack because they're 'too weak'? Could they afford to run to (an increasingly hostile) Turkey to help, leaving the 'too weak' label hanging in the air? In that part of the world, seeming weak is suicidal. In the elegant wording of Mr. Peretz, they had to send a clear signal: Don't f*** with Israel!" *tsk tsk* those dirty Arabs, eh? Just like Negroes, really "The only message they understand is violence. It's the only way to keep them in their place and keep the world safe for whites."
And naturally, strength=employs gratuitous amounts of violence. There's only one method of problem solving for a Real Man: beat it into submission.
Can't really speak to your embargo argument. It sounds like more Zionist half-truths and propaganda, but I don't know the facts well enough to make a case one way or the other.
I can speak to your point about jobs in Israel, though. It is true that there is a dearth not only of jobs but of job opportunities in Gaza and the West Bank. This may be partially due to "mismanaged funds" (I'll get back to that in a second) but it may also be due to the massive restrictions in terms of resources and opportunities which are a product of the Israeli Occupation.
As for that billion dollars. Its true that Palestinians are just as vulnerable to corruption as Israelis, Americans, or any other national demographic. However, there is also the possibility that the politicians of the Palestinian government WERE working towards the best interests of their people, as they see it. (Admittedly, for being the primary excuse for the existence of government, providing for their citizens is something no national government in history has a very good track record for.)
These politicians recognize that one of the things necessary for the well being of the Palestinians is to end their oppression by the Israeli government. We can criticize the tactics they chose (I don't think much of them, but then I come from a privileged background and I need to be careful not to let that dictate the tactics of people in wildly different situations), but the idea of getting settler violence, resource theft (e.g. water), checkpoint humiliation, armed invasion, apartheid roads, exclusion from even the 22 percent of their historic homeland behind the greenline off their backs, yeah, I think that's a good idea.
As for civilians. What about confronting the Israeli government, refusing to support that band of murderers, and then Hamas would need to concern itself with the needs of Israeli civilians, as the word "innocent" might even begin to apply to them? Hmm?
So the group which (often) does not profess but does regularly practice mass murder (such as the Israeli government) does have the "moral high ground"? I'm not going to argue that. To me, the question of "moral high ground" is a side issue. The real issue is who can end the violence? The Palestinians can end the rockets, but they can't directly end Israeli oppression. Only the Israeli government can do that. (Although since the Israeli government is pretty much directly funded by the US government, the US could convince Israel to knock it off and shape up by threatening to withhold their allowance and offer them sweets if they play nice with Palestine.)
As I told T. Shore, this won't end all the violence on either side, but it is a necessary first stop to true peace in the region.
Jews are naive. Instead of simply defending themselves, they should be taking the aggressive and justifiable stance that the exchange of populations should be completed.
Such exchanges in the past - between India and Pakistan, and between Turkey and Greece - are the only way to resolve long-standing violenc eetween entwined ethnicities. The Greco-Turkish exchange not only worked to resolve a century of conflict, it had the approval of the Treaty of Lausanne.
Israel's leaders should demand the completion of the populatione xchange, resettling all Palestinians in Egypt and Jordan, and turing Gaza and the West Bank over to Israel.