Palestine

An Israeli Myth

I.F Stone, publisher and primary investigative reporter for the highly regarded Stone's Weekly (which probably reached its height of influence in the mid-1960s when, among other things, Stone was the only American journalist to challenge Lyndon Johnson concerning the alleged Gulf of Tonkin incident), was a supporter of Zionist aspirations early in his life even as he also was a proponent of a two-state solution with respect to the Palestinian-Israeli issue. Later in his life he became more sympathetic to the cause of Palestinians.

For example, a favorite slogan of the Zionist movement suggested that Palestine was 'a land without a people', while Jews were 'a people without a land', and, therefore, the match between Palestine and the Jewish people seemed to be a match made in Heaven. At one point, I.F. Stone had the temerity to state that the slogan was not accurate because Palestine had never been a land without a people, but much like the American-French deal concerning the Louisiana Purchase and the American-Russia deal involving Alaska, no one seemed to want to reflect on the fact that the lands beings sold and confiscated were inhabited by people who might object to the nature of such transactions.

Hypocrisy

While the Jewish people are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they are not entitled to deny these same rights to the Palestinian people. The Jewish people are entitled to water, but they are not entitled to deny Palestinians access to that same resource. The Jewish people are entitled to shelter, but they are not entitled to build illegal settlements on Palestinian land. The Jewish people are entitled to freedom of movement, but they are not entitled to prevent this same sort of freedom to the Palestinians. The Jewish people are entitled to food and to pursue agricultural self-sufficiency, but they are not entitled to destroy the crops and means of livelihood of the Palestinians. The Jewish people are entitled to fish and enjoy the waters off their coast, but they are not entitled to stop Palestinians from the same right to fish and enjoy the waters off their own coast. The Jewish people are entitled to sovereignty, but they are not entitled to prevent the same sort of sovereignty to the Palestinian people. The Jewish people are entitled to make laws to govern themselves, but they are not entitled to establish a completely different and unfair set of laws to govern the Palestinian people. The Jewish people are entitled to security, but they are not entitled to torture Palestinians or impose Nazi-like collective punishment on the Palestinian people for the acts of individuals, nor are they entitled to build massive illegal walls which disrupt and undermine Palestinian life. The Jewish people are entitled to protect themselves, but they are not entitled to carpet-bomb Palestinians or arbitrarily invade and occupy the territories of the Palestinians. If Jewish people are entitled to a right of return to ancestral lands, then, so too, are Palestinian people entitled to the same kind of right of return, but in neither case does such a right (if it exists at all) entail being able to take and occupy whatever land and property one likes if and when one does return. The Jewish people are entitled to the protection of the international community, but they are not entitled to thumb their noses at international law when it suits their purposes ... such as in the case of U.N. Resolution 242 which indicates that no country -- including Israel -- has the right to acquire territory through war, as the Israelis did during the 1967 Six-Day War. The Jewish people have a right to be concerned about the intentions of Iran with respect to its nuclear program, and the rest of the world has the right to demand that Israel open up its own nuclear program to international inspection. In many ways, Israel is an amazing society, culture, and experiment in democracy, but Israel also has a very dark underbelly which, for more than half a century, has sought to place many obstacles and hardships in the way of Palestinians becoming a similarly amazing society, culture, and experiment in democracy.

The first plane hijacking was perpetrated by Israelis. The first terrorist attacks in the Middle East were committed by Jewish groups such as the Irgun and the Stern Gang (Lehi). The first bombings of innocent people were committed by members of the Jewish community in relation to the King David Hotel, Alhambra Cinema, Damascus Gate, Jaffa Gate, and the Haifa market.

None of the foregoing justifies 'suicide bombings' by the Palestinians, but there is considerable innocent blood on Israeli hands, and, consequently, it is time for the duplicitous, self-serving, hypocritical Israeli dance of death, destruction, and tyranny to come to an end.

The United States gives approximately two-three billion dollars a year to Israel and has been doing this for over fifty years. Much of this aid is in the form of military weapons and assistance which means that the United States government is both directly and indirectly responsible for the oppression of the Palestinian people.

Such aid is granted despite the fact that in addition to the scandals that have been uncovered involving the state of Israel spying on, and stealing (or attempting to) classified information from, America (for example, Jonathan Pollard, Ben-Ami Kadish), Israel also made an unprovoked attack on the U.S.S. Liberty in 1967 and killed 34 crew members, while wounding an additional 171 other crew members despite the fact that the Liberty was in international waters at the time of the attack. Both the Israeli and American government conducted inquiries into the matter and concluded that the matter was a tragic mistake, but the people who were on the Liberty and who actually experienced what took place have no doubt that the Israelis attackers knew the identity of the ship which they bombed and strafed ... and did so for hours. Then, of course, there was the incident in which Mossad agents were discovered cheering and dancing on the roof of their van as they watched the Twin Towers burning on September 1st, 2001. Moreover, after being released by American authorities, the agents went home to brag and joke about the whole affair on Israeli television.

The United States is quite willing to impose onerous economic and financial sanctions upon Iran for a nuclear program whose actual status is quite unclear, and, yet, the Americans looked the other way when the Israelis produced some 400-600 nuclear weapons, thereby enabling the situation to evolve into a much more dangerous and destabilizing set of circumstances which threatens everyone because there is no such thing as a precision nuclear weapon -- toxic radioactivity travels everywhere and adversely affects everyone. As such, the state of Israel has joined an 'elite' group of nations (which includes: America, Russia, China, France, Britain, India, and Pakistan) who constitute nuclear menaces in the world -- countries that act out of paranoia, fear, myths, and a desire to control the world through tactics of intimidation and force because they don't have the competency or the inclination to solve problems in a non-violent way.

I'm not in favor of Iran acquiring nuclear weapon capability. Nonetheless, I also am not in favor of Israel actually having such weapons. But the beat of hypocrisy continues on in so many, many different ways when it comes to the state of Israel.

Recognizing the human rights of Jewish people does not require one to approve of, or agree with, Israeli policies concerning its continued oppression of the Palestian people. In fact, one cannot possibly recognize the human rights of Jewish individuals -- while simultaneously failing to extend equal recognition with respect to the rights of Palestinian people -- without becoming entangled in indefensible nonsense. Engaging in such double-talk is a clinic in Orwellian Newspeak that is uncivilized, distasteful, shameful, and constitutes, as well, an egregious violation of international law.

Miko Peled

Relatively recently Miko Peled wrote the book: The General's Son. He comes from a very distinguished Israeli family. For example, his grandfather, Dr. Avraham Katsnelson, was one of the signers of the Israel Declaration of Independence, while his father, Matti Peled, was an officer in the 1948 Israeli-Palestinian War, as well as a general during the Six-Day War of 1967. However, when Miko Peled's niece was killed during a suicide bombing in 1997, Miko Peled went on a quest for truth concerning the Palestinian issue. He emerged from that journey (which entailed many painful realizations) as a proponent of Palestinian sovereignty as well as a critic of Israeli policy concerning Palestine and Palestinians. The following video is a 110-minute talk which he gave in England. I believe there is much in his talk that needs to be heard by all sides concerning this problem (Depending on your internet connection, the following videos might take a little time to buffer before they begin.)

The Testimony of an Israeli Soldier

The following interview with Avner Gvaryahu, who served in the Israeli Defense Force for several years, is quite revealing. Mr. Gvaryahu was interviewed in Australia while on a tour promoting the book: Our Harsh Logic: Israeli Soldiers' Testimonies From the Occupied Territories -- 2000-2010, and the interview not only outlines the destructive character of 'occupation', but indicates that one cannot be moral in an immoral situation.