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Hey–I realize that you’ve been at loggerheads for more than 60 years, and it’s more than just a conflict over land. It’s clear that religious and cultural differences, too, have also been at the forefront of your decades-old conflict.
Israel: I know it’s been a tough road for you to hoe-you’ve had a hard time just surviving and have absolutely had to fight and prevail for your very survival due to the fact that, for the longest time, the countries surrounding you would not accept you, a Jewish-majority, western-style nation-state, in their midst. Had you not fought back, you wouldn’t have survived. That’s very true, and, for a great long time, you commanded the respect of the international community because of that.
However, Israel, you’ve often overstepped your boundaries terribly. While I understand that you were threatened, even back in 1967, and you launched a pre-emptive strike in self-defense when threatened by three hostile Arab armies that were positioned on your borders ready to attack you, the time for you to make peace with your neighbors and cede West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem over to the Palestinians is long, long overdue. Moreover, the building of settlements on their land on your part, Israel, is not only ethically wrong, but it’s illegal, under international law, to boot.
The West Bank, Gaza Strip and East jerusalem do not belong to you, Israel. You have absolutely no right to build settlements on those lands, to demolish Palestinian families’ homes, subject the Palestinian population to humiliating checkpoints and collective punishments, separate Palestinian civilians from friends and loved ones by your settlements, or to deprive the Palestinian civilians of food, water, electricity and medical care, education and/or their livelihoods. Those are gross human rights violations! Israel–you cannot possibly keep an angry foreign population under martial law like this and survive, either.
All this being said, Israel, it’s important that you exist as a Jewish-majority State, and we know you came into existence for legitimate reasons. In order for you to survive and preserve your Jewish majority population/character, you absolutely must withdraw your troops and evacuate your settlers from West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem now, and stop the daily incursions into those territories. Collective punishment on innocent Palestinian men, women and children doesn’t help you, Israel, anymore than it helps the Palestinians.
Maiming and killing innocent Palestinian civilians is wrong. While I understand the reason for your building the wall–suicide bombers, you should only build the wall along the Green Line!!. Don’t make the wall go into Palestian territory! That is wrong!!. Please cease and desist at once!! Thanks. The Palestinians need and want their own state alongside you. I also think that running over the late Ms. Rachel Corrie with a bulldozer and killing her was wrong, as naive as she may have acted.
Israel: while I know that suicide bombers, as well as the the firing of rockets by Palestinians affiliated with the group Hamas into towns and cities on your southern borders and putting civilians at risk is a problem for you, your excessive, full-scale assaults on Lebanon back in 1982 and again in 2006, and, more recently, on the Gaza Strip, have proved counter-productive, resulting in the maiming/killling of many innocent civilian Palestinian men, women and children. Moreover, depriving Gazans of food, fuel, electricity, potable water, and medical care, as well as many other things has made already-bad situations worse. Israel–there needs to be a ceasefire, and a commencement of a real movement towards the just and necessary two-state solution for both you and the Palestinians alike.
Palestinians: I know that you also have a point, and that you, too have a right to some land, and to have an independent, sovereign Palestinian nation-state of your very own, but it has to be alongside Israel, and not in place of Israel, the way tons of people want. Palestinians, the best you can hope for is a mini-sized, independent, sovereign nation-state of your own, alongside the Jewish-majority state of Israel, which would be comprised of West Bank and Gaza Strip, with Arab East Jerusalem as its capitol. However, do not think for one minute that Israel, as harsh as her occupation of West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, which are rightfully yours has been, is the only one who is to blame here.
The Arab countries, too, have to bear a great deal of responsibility for your predicament of oppression and statelessness, as they refused to accept Israel’s existence, deliberately and knowingly kept you in squalid refugee camps, and led you, the Palestinians on, with all kinds of honeyed promises about how the then newly-formed State of Israel back in 1947-1948 would be destroyed by the Arab world’s victory and that you would once again be able go back to the land where you once lived. That did not happen, because Israel fought back and prevailed.
The Arab countries, for at least the first 40 years of Israel’s existence, constantly made war on the then newly-formed, fledgling State of Israel, beginning back in 1948, and constantly exploited you, the Palestinians, as a political football for that purpose, instead of letting you have your own independent, sovereign nation state alongside Israel in Gaza, West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
Unfortunately, Palestinians, you also did not help matters any either, since many of you committed nasty acts of your own against the State of Israel, ranging from cross border raids on Israel from West Bank and Gaza, which you used as launching pads for these raids, even before Israel’s military occupied you, to hijacking Israeli El-Al aircraft and taking Israeli Jewish passengers hostage, to the storming of Israeli schools that resulted in the killing/wounding of Israeli schoolchildren, to acts of terror such as the 1972 Munich Olympics incident where your leaders sent some of you to Munich to slaughter 11 Israeli athletes, and your attempt at something similiar at Entebbe, Uganda, which Israeli commandoes successfully foiled.
More recently, sending suicide bombers into Israel to blow up and kill innocent Israeli civilians on buses, as well as in discoteques, wedding halls, cafeterials, etc., and your more recent firing of rockets into Israeli cities and towns on Israel’s southern borders, thereby putting innocent Israeli civilians at risk, have also failed to advance your cause, and, along with other afore-mentioned acts over the years, have also contributed greatly to your present predicament–statelessness and oppression.
Palestinians– Had you and the rest of the Arab world accepted the two-state solution from the start, you and Israel would be living in separate, independent states side by side today, with Jerusalem as a shared capitol of both the states of Palestine and Israel.
Israelis and Palestinians–I’m sorry to say that both your leaders have sold you out disgracefully, due to their persistant refusal to face up to their accountability in this decades-old conflict. This is unfortunate, and that’s why there’s no peace today. The United States, the European community, and other institutions who should be helping to get you both out of this deadlock and to implement the necessary two-state solution haven’t been doing their jobs, which is also unfortunate.
Everybody should get to work–damnit!!
Israel– like most people who criticize and condemn what you’re doing, I care about you and want you to exist as a Jewish state, even though I’m secular.
I’m criticizing you because I want you to continue to exist.
Israelis and Palestinians–you have both done many unspeakable things to each other over the years in the name of your religions and in the name of humanity. It must stop…now. However, there is yet another equally big, important obstacle to peace between you: the persistent refusal of both of you to come out and face up to your accountability and culpability in this decades-long conflict openly and squarely. This seemingly small step would be an important step in the right direction, which would invariably help facilitate the road to peace.
13 Comments
I realize what you are trying to do here, but there is no equivalency, one nation is captive and oppressed and the other is doing it. You have drudged up things that are 60 years old to hold against palestinians and you don’t do that to Israel. Some of the things you are holding against Palestinians are inaccurate versions of history.
Also, what place would a Buddhist have living in Vatican City? Do you think that a muslim would or a non jew can live in a place where they aren’t allowed to buy property, or recognition of the Nakba is illegal?
Dalet Plan and the creation of the State of Israel.[PDF] Walid Khalidi
A list of Israeli terrorism – not inclusive.
Encyclopedia of the Palestinian Problem – Scholarly site with original british document transcripts
The Iron Wall
Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir
Frog kisser:
You are correct about the asymmetry. Israel has always been a drop in the sea of Arabs who, for the most part, remain committed to its demise. History is important, so let’s review:
Israel was attacked by all of its neighbors on the day it was created. The Jewish communities in all of the Arab or Muslim states in the area were expelled, and most found a home in Israel.
The West Bank was occupied by Jordan from 1948-67, and it changed its name from Trans-Jordan to reflect this fact. During all this time, there was no effort to create a Palestinian state or to integrate the Palestinians into Jordan.
Ditto for Gaza. Just substitute Egypt for Jordan.
There could have been a Palestinian state at any time during this period, or since, except that the “friends” of the Palestinians (and the PLO) insisted on the destruction of Israel as a precondition. They chose to exploit the Palestinians for their own political purposes and financial gain.
Israel made a terrible mistake by occupying the West Bank and Jordan, since that made it impossible to be both a Jewish state and a democracy. The Israeli raid into Gaza was a disaster for all concerned, but now that they have withdrawn, the lethal rocket attacks have resumed.
mplo’s plan is sensible and has been proposed before by several parties, but it remains hopelessly optimistic. I would also say that East Jerusalem must remain in Israeli hands. All faiths can now worship on Temple Mount, but Jews were barred from their holiest site during the Arab occupation
Thanks, cobernicus. I agree with just about everything you say here, but I beg to differ in at least two respects:
A) I do think that East Jerusalem will have to be ceded to the Palestinians, as will the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. If Israel has to pull their rightwing settlers (as well as their troops) out of East Jerusalem, Gaza and West Bank kicking, screaming and howling, so be it.
B) I believe that the two-state solution is the safest, sanest and most sensible solution to this decades-old conflict, and that a tad of optomism doesn’t hurt.
aftherthought: I enjoyed reading your post, cobernicus. Thanks.
You go read some of those links I posted before your start telling me what about what .
I won’t discourse with someone that wants to spout hasbara platitudes.
shekissesfrogs:
The purpose of this diary was to point out the fact that the past, unfortunately, does have a certain amount of bearing on the present, and that both Israeli Jews and Palestinians, by their actions, have not only contributed to each others’ suffering, but have victimized their own people, as well. Both Israeli Jews and Palestinians are now reaping what they’ve sown here; The Israeli Jews, particularly the soldiers who’ve been assigned to carry out their government’s unpleasant and horrific policies of occupation of West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, are paying for it through the loss of their humanity, frequent post-traumatic stress syndrome disorders, and the demoralization of Israel as a society and as a people. The Israeli military is also being sapped of its strength by the occupation of the above-mentioned Palestinian territories. Most Israeli soldiers and civilians alike, abhor the occupation, and agree that it’s too high a price to pay for the compromising of their national security, and its humanity.
The Palestinian leadership, and many Palestinians themselves, through their past and not so distant past actions and behaviors, also helped, in no small ways, to put the Palestinians into the present predicament that they’re in; persistent lack of sovereignity, statelessness and oppression. Moreover, the corruption, cronyism and patronage on the part of the Palestinian Authority, as well as their frequent expropriation of money that was designated to go into the infrastructure for an independent, sovereign Palestinian nation-state, have also kept the Palestinians from achieving their much-needed and desired independence, sovereignity and nation-statehood.
‘All told, shekissesfrogs, if you read my diary thoroughly, you’ll find that I’m excoriating Israel, as well the Arab countries, and Palestinian leaders for their culpability in this conflict.
Sorry mplo, this post is far too inflammatory for me to post here, so I wont be back in the thread. I appreciate your intentions.
Cobernicus, I disagree with your characterization that Israel was attacked on the day that they decided to declare statehood. It didn’t start there. please read the PDF.
I am happy to discuss this further, Frog Kisser, and swap links, but I guess you prefer to hit and run. Your Plan Dalet link makes a good case that the Israelis were forcing Arabs out of certain areas prior to independence. I take no issue with that conclusion. Remember that the Arabs had been doing the same to the Jews in Palestine for 1300 years, and also created as many refugees from the other Arab states as all the Palestinian refugees.
The point is that every territorial change involves relocation of residents, and under the patchwork UN plan such moves were inevitable. The Palestinians certainly have a right to their own state, and could have had one many times over by now, if not for the ulterior motives of their leaders and “allies.”
None of this excuses the excesses and stupidity of the Israeli governments over time in response to the continual attacks from their neighbors.
Hi, cobernicus. Thanks for your insight on the I/P conflict. This kind of displacing of old, original inhabitants of various lands has been going on since the beginning of time, and the displacement of a lot of the Palestinians when the State of Israel was created and became independent in the late 1940′s was certainly no exception. It’s agreed that the Palestians, too, have the right to self-determination in the form of their own independent, sovereign nation-state, and that, for a long time, Jordan and Egypt ruled over the Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza Strip, refusing to relent and allow an independent, sovereign Palestinian nation- State to emerge.
This:
is something that I also agree wholeheartedly with, cobernicus. Thanks very much again for your insight.
Well, shekissesfrogs; Sorry if you found my post inflammatory, but, I believe that, if a true Democracy is desired, people, including myself, will reserve the right to post what they want (within reason, of course), even though it may be inflammatory to some people. More free speech, rather than less, is the way to go.
I’m afraid you’ll have to endure my making more remarks indicating appreciation, mplo.
very nice post.
Thanks, macaquerman. :)
All land on Earth my friends is held by force, it’s just reality. Is it right is it wrong who cares. It’s a fact. We in the U.S. created this State by TAKING the Ameri-Indians and big chunks of Mexico’s land and we are not going to GIVE it back anymore then Israel is going to hand itself over to Hamas. I know all the Pals / Arab fans in here will not accept anything less then just that but its all of them that need to realize Israel isn’t So. Africa no matter what they might think or say about it.
Good points, seaglass. Thanks.