I think political Zionism was a both a movement that provided refuge to Jews in distress, an experience of national liberation AND a movement with clear settler-colonial features. The early Zionists themselves often used the term colonial to denote what they saw as a movement that brought Western civilization to the Middle East. (Said's The Question of Palestine is good on this). And Zionism, like other settler-colonial movements, dispossessed the native population. (Yes, Jews have a profound connection to the land of Israel but European Jews are native in a radically different way than Palestinians whose families have lived there continuously for centuries). Does that mean I want Israeli Jews to suffer harm? Of course not. I oppose Palestinian violence but also recognize that it will not end until the massive violence that Israel inflicts upon Palestinians ends.
Palestinian families who have lived there for centuries…once again you oversimplify based on your agenda; many “Palestinians” migrated to this land over the last 200-300 years as did Jews. In fact during the British Mandate the number of Arab migrants was substantial. Did you know Edward Said’s mother was half Lebanese. This is just one of many examples. In more modern times Ahmed Tibi admits his grandparents migrated from Syria. Additionally, most “Palestinians “ in Hebron and Nablus are converted Samaritan Jews. You talk about Israel’s “ occupation” which arose due to Arab aggression and that there was no Palestine before 1967 in the “occupied territories.” You have ambivalence because you try to view the situation from a western prism and don’t understand that your approach is a form of intellectual colonialism. You talk about Palestinian “ expulsion” and infer the “ Naqba” was colonial-again who accepted partition and who rejected it. What happened to our Mizrachi brothers and sisters? Where is their redress and compensation. Most disturbingly you mention that the exercise of democratic and non violent protest regarding “judicial reform” should expand to equal rights for Arabs…you would hijack pluralism to commit national and ideological suicide. Professor start demanding that Palestinians take responsibility for their communal lot including their history and accept reconciliation and two nations for two peoples. Please stop feeling guilty for defending yourself and playing by a different set of rules than Palestinians play by. Palestinians and their popular rejectionism have caused the vast growth in right wing Israeli nationalism. When will you demand that the PA hold elections their people yearn for, when will you demand that Abu Mazen stop speaking out of two sides of his mouth? Your ambivalence is mostly based on being disappointed that Israel is not what you desire it to be-a multicultural liberal democracy for all-Professor when will you realize that you cannot tell the Palestinians how to live and convince them to give up their dream to send you on a one way ticket out?
"I oppose Palestinian violence but also recognize that it will not end until the massive violence that Israel inflicts upon Palestinians ends."
We have a chicken and an egg situation, then, Peter, because Israeli violence will not end until Palestinian violence ends. Because Israeli violence is motivated by self-defense while Palestinian violence is motivated by Arab supremacism and the belief that Israel needs to be destroyed, a belief you encourage with your writings.
Only if one ignores the sheer power imbalance between the two parties to the conflict and adopts a very expansive definition of “self-defense” that, of course, only one side is allowed to claim.
Like when the IDF slipped a precise kill-shot in the few inches above the Kevlar vest marked “Press” and just below the rear rim of Shireen Abu Akleh’s bullet-proof helmet at 200 yds far from the direction of any engagement with armed militants. Then attempted to kill her colleague who went to check on her suddenly lifeless corpse. Then lied about it all in the aftermath with zero accountability or consequences. Witnesses and bystanders could do little but helplessly seethe with rage knowing that if it can happen to a world-famous journalist with an American passport, it can easily happen to them or those they love at any instant.
That’s the kind of luxury of state-backed violence and impunity that power imbalance accords only one of the side in the conflict, despite the veneer of transparent horsepuckery often invoked to justify it all.
There’s an expression in American football when coaches make excuses: “ultimately, you are who your record says you are”
I don't see what the power imbalance has to do with what I said. The IDF operates with the main goal of stopping Palestinian terrorism and murder. Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, Lion's Den, and the rest operate with the main goal of destroying Israel and creating an Arab supremacist state from the river to the sea. Until those groups stop trying to complete that goal, the IDF will continue to operate as it has been.
The Jews aren't going to turn their backs and let Palestine stick a knife in it. And no reasonable person should expect them to.
If the power balance is so insurmountable, how about Palestine gives up their Arab supremacist goal to wipe out Israel and JUST FREAKING MAKES PEACE ALREADY?
A lopsided power dynamic favoring those who want to prevent murderers from killing children over the murderers themselves is generally considered a good thing.
It's also worth noting that two sides fighting at equal power levels will make peace harder, as both sides would rightly believe they are capable of triumphing over the other by force. The fact that Palestine is so much weaker than Israel makes peace more likely, so long as none of their leaders are delusional enough to believe they can get what they want (destroying Israel) that way.
To your first point, I would direct you to my quote above about “ultimately you are who your record says you are.” The record on which side has killed more children on the other is pretty clear. Not very constructive dialogue though.
Power imbalance is key. And everyone legitimately wants “peace” —Vladimir Putin wants peace. The real question is on what terms with the other side would they accept or offer a peace agreement. Everyone knows the importance of negotiating from a position of strength. The stronger party gets more leverage to dictate the terms while the weaker party has fewer alternative options. Yet offering prospects of some meager settlement that you can be sure the other side can’t accept is no offer of peace at all.
Look at Netanyahu’s floating of a kind of non-sovereign “transportational continuity”—-basically breaking of the West Bank into an archipelago of Gazastans and a kind of occupation “light”. Anything that would not result in a politically and economically viable Palestinian state is a farce and should be ignored as unserious by any objective observer. That’s another example of why the 2SS is dead.
Those proposals would have been laughed out the room 30-40 years ago. However the Israelis feel like the facts on the ground have changed so much in their favor over the years since Camp David, that they can say them with a straight face as showing their commitment to “extending the hand of peace to the Palestinians”, or whatever nonsense President Herzog said to Congress yesterday on that topic.
Yes, and the record of which side seeks to kill children and which does not is also very clear, as is Palestines record of using children as soldiers and human shields. My point that Israel having more power is a good thing for everyone stands, and I think you know it’s true.
As for your second point I’m having trouble finding an actual position beneath all the rhetoric, but for now I’ll say even the most elementary of history students knows the vast majority of conflicts end with one side surrendering and the other dictating terms to it. If you do not wish this to happen to Palestine that is your opinion, but that doesn’t change the fact that Palestine will not become magically less intransigent should it gain more power. The idea is laughable.
I have mostly given up trying to correct people on this site when they are factually wrong but you are the host. The following statement is false: “like other settler-colonial movements, dispossessed the native population”. First, Jews did not come as a “settler colonial” movement. Unlike all other “settler-colonial” movements all of which were sponsored by a colonial power, the Jews were not! That is simply an incontrovertible fact.
At no time when the Jewish “colonists” came to Palestine were Palestinians dispossessed. unless you are referring to 1948 war. Settlements were built on the coastal plain. Almost all Arab settlements were abandoned in the coastal plain or Jezreel valley, the reason for this was they could not be defended from marauding Beduins who would routinely attack them and plunder. Most Palestinians (and they were not known by that name at the time) lived in the hilly country (the West Bank and the Galilee) because they were much easier to defend against the marauding Beduins, who were a scourge to all.
As for the Palestinians “whose families have lived there continuously for centuries” that too is mostly not true. Certainly, some people lived there and were no doubt descendants of Jews, Greeks and Arabs who remained after Judea’s destruction and were converted to Islam when the Arabs swept through the Middle East. But a significant likely many people there came and went with the seasons, pandemics, earthquakes and wars that were constantly fought on this land, after all the land was situated between Asia, Europe and Africa and was a gateway to Armies.
As the Ottoman empire shrank in the 19th century the area saw a huge influx of people from elsewhere: Algeria, Bosnia, Crimea the Balkans. As Christian powers took over former Ottoman colonies many Moslems sought refuge and Turkey settled them in the Middle East Palestine was one such place. In fact, Its population doubled overnight as a result.
One of the leaders of Hamas complained on Egyptian TV about the lack of support he said “Half the people are from Egypt and the other half from Arabia” he too was exaggerating for affect. It is simply untrue that Palestine was peopled by a stable ongoing population that has been there for centuries. It was not a land of milk and honey. It was a land of constant strife and deprivation. In fact, more than 50% of the early Jewish “colonists” who went there returned or moved on to the Americas. Life was tough for Jew and Arab.
This is Israel. Different and unequal rights according to? Ethnicity. "Arab", "Jewish"; 60+ laws that discriminate against Palestinians -who are lucky enough to have citizenship. That is blatant de jure segregation. In the OT Palestinians have zero rights. They are shot down in the streets on the whim of the lowest soldier- with complete impunity- except like Azaria - when it's too embarrassing. Then a slap on the wrist. Israeli courts judging Palestinians in Hebrew with a 99% conviction rate. Mississippi Jim Crow.
The mythical 2 state lie was from both the left and right power structure in the US and Israel. Never ending "peace" negotiations were no more than a smoke screen for never ending annexation and ethnic cleansing by stealth! Deciding a fair way to divide a pizza while one person is eating it would be considered absurd by even a 5 year old!
I disagree John. By that logic, white Americans, Australians, Canadians, South Africans should do the same, along with Protestants in Northern Ireland, people of European descent in Latin America and many others. The answer to dispossession is not more dispossession. It's legal equality and historical justice as a basic for genuine reconciliation.
One should not dispossess thieves of their booty, but leave the dispossessed as paupers? I could not agree to dispossessing and expelling anyone born in a colony so your analogy with the above countries is not strictly relevent.. But those who have colonised Palestinian land in the last few decades should be made to leave.
Thank you for the best articulation of the painful and profound emotional divide that I live with every day. I think that there are many of us—certainly we are growing in number—and we are just beginning to find the words to put to it. (And I'm a generation younger than you.) I don't think any society was changed by prophets alone, or by a surplus of prophets. A prophet is a singular person, as you write. They spur us to action—and also, paradoxically, to inaction, because a prophet is, quite literally, holier-than-thou, a receiver of the word of God, and, as you write about Thoreau, it's hard to think of a more annoying type. Society is changed when a bunch of normal people can no longer stand the conditions that they live under, whether practically or morally. And as you say, we are a long way from there yet.
It is this tit for tat kind of thinking that keeps everyone in a hostage situation.
As has been said “ an eye for an eye” thinking will eventually result in everyone being blind.
Yes, the Palestinians should not be teaching their children that all Jews are evil and should be killed. That, of course is unacceptable. But so is an uncontrolled mob of settlers allowed to pillage and burn and slake their murderous rage on an entire village of innocent people because someone from their ethnic group has killed an Israeli.
So, that poses the question that much as residents of certain towns in Yugoslavia who were murdered by the Serbs, are now being asked to live next to some of those murderers. Much as in some towns, Hutus and Tutsis are now being asked to coexist with former murderers,. Much as the Irish Protestants and Catholics have for the most part laid down their arms and made peace with one another, the question is:
Can the “chosen people”. Those people to whom I belong. Those people that have a 5,000 year history of struggling with GOD. Can those people due what the Irish, the Bosnians, Croatians, Montenegrins and Serbs, and the Hutus and Tutsis, and the South Africans have done. Namely to say…BASTA. Enough is enough. We cannot keep doing this to our children and the children of many innocent ( non terrorist) Palestinians which simply serves to create more and more and more monsters who want nothing more than to kill one another?????
"Yes, the Palestinians should not be teaching their children that all Jews are evil and should be killed. That, of course is unacceptable."
While I agree with most of your comments, the one above needs clarification.
I don't say that you are wrong with that statement, Su, but here is another side of the coin from 'The Forward.'
"We’re told that Palestinian maps in schools often show a unified Palestine between the river and the sea — “how awful!” — yet Israeli maps, more often than Palestinian ones in fact, don’t show the Green Line, and Jews don’t really seem to care.
We’re told that Palestinians are taught in school that the Jewish historical claims to the land, particularly the Temple Mount, don’t really exist — “how awful!” — yet in a similar tone, many Israeli children learn that “Palestinians” were only recently invented, and Jews don’t really seem to care.
We’re told that Palestinian textbooks distort history — “how awful!” — yet a recent State Department study found that many Israeli textbooks do too, and Jews don’t really seem to care.
And now, we have yet another confirmation that Israeli children also learn to glorify and aspire toward violence, and — surprise, surprise — no one really seems to care."
You mean, people in one tribe hold another tribe to a different standard than members of their own tribe? Identical to how Palestinians freak out when Israelis make them walk through checkpoints but throw a party when their fellow Palestinians run over schoolchildren? Stop the presses! Breaking news!
I agree with you. I grow up in the Israeli school system for the full 12 years, and I can tell you the Israeli books make sure who are the bad guys. We all got the message that a good Arab is a d... one. the Israeli education system is not an innocent one.
Thank you for this addition. Let's hope (and work to ensure) we are not "a long way from there." That work does not require us to be a prophet, as you outlined.
yes, in my experience, AIPAC-style trips may make one foray into Ramallah to meet PA officials but there's no real engagement with the reality of Palestinian life under occupation
Great column Beinart. I'm looking forward to the next one, after you get on a plane to Kyiv and share how you stood around wringing your hands about how terrible it is that Ukraine is built on the suffering of the poor Russians currently being killed in the war and the oppression of the millions of ethnic Russians who live as second-class citizens under the Ukrainian ethnocracy.
Oh sorry, I forgot, you think ethnic Ukrainian nationalism is a noble cause worth killing, fighting, and dying for while Jewish nationalism isn't, for some inexplicable reason that definitely has nothing to do with your own insecurities, hangups and feelings toward your own community.
It's worth pointing out that Beinart lives on the stolen island of Manhattan, and doesn't apparently have a voice in his head constantly reminding him that New York City was "all built on the degradation and humiliation and brutal oppression of other people." Maybe because Native Americans are far away from his comfortable office and don't murder his children over things that happened a long time ago? Or maybe because he isn't Native American, and therefore can't make any money off of calling his fellows racists and lovers of apartheid?
As for the column itself, when Beinart actually moves to Israel and puts his own life on the line in service of his Good Idea Fairy style ideals, maybe then he'll actually be taken seriously. Until then, he deserves nothing more than to be laughed out of the room.
Irrelevant comparison / allusion. You cannot claim that it is wrong to condemn Israeli ethnic cleansing and the creation of illegal, Zionist-only colonies because some other situation in another time or place have not been addressed in a way you would like
I recommend you read the column and then my comment again more closely. I am not responding to any "condemnations" of any "ethnic cleansing" or "colonies," but rather the attacks made by Beinart on the founding ideology of a state that does not meet his entire arbitrary ethnic-based standards.
You don't think that he is entitled to his opinions on "the founding Ideology"? and I don't understand the term "arbitrary ethnic-based standards", (whose "ethnicity?)?
Of course he is entitled to his opinions, but then he opens himself up to criticism. Surely you agree that no one is exempt from legitimate criticism, right?
I'm sure you don't understand. Let me put it more simply: Beinart has spoken out in favor of Ukrainians using violence to defend their state against Russian incursions, even though Ukraine is not a state for all its citizens but rather an ethnic-based nation-state in which ethnic Ukrainians dominate all others, especially the millions of ethnic Russians who live as second-class citizens there.
Beinart has also been...let's say *hesistant,* to criticize Palestine's desire to create an ethnic-based nation state for Arab Muslim Palestinians, and of course to use extreme illegal violence to accomplish that goal.
So given he has provided no other explanation for why he holds Israel to such a different standard as Ukraine and Palestine, not to mention all the other nation states in the world today, I have no choice but to conclude his standards are arbitrary and based on ethnicity. Any other questions, Mr. Hall?
I’m an ethnic Russian from Ukraine. Explain to me again why we’re considered second-class citizens? Because this isnt my experience nor the experience of many Russians who grew up speaking Russian (but also Ukrainian.) None of this was an issue until Russia got involved. So please dont instrumentalize our struggle in Ukraine to fit your misinformed narrative
Simple: you live in a Ukrainian state and you are not Ukrainian. Your states' existence is codified in Ukrainian ethnic supremacy rather than a state for all of its citizens.
Therefore, by the logic of Beinart and those who oppose a Jewish state, you are a second-class citizen by definition. Any questions?
Another Peter post ignoring the elephant in the room, same as last week, which is still the absolute refusal of Palestine to accept Israel's existence at any level and in any form and the Israelis as their fellow human beings. Unlike Peter, who is literally a tourist, Israelis live with the reality of what they call "the Situation" every. single. day. They're the ones who have their friends and families blown up by terror attacks. They're the ones who have rockets flying at their hands. They're the ones who are called the descendents of apes and pigs by Hamas and Fatah. They're the one who literally live their lives in the crosshairs of genocidal terrorists. Not Peter.
So when Peter sneers that these Israelis who he looks down upon from his ivory tower are "living their lives without being concerned, or maybe being actively supportive, of just these horrors that are taking place not far away," he fails to grant them the compassion and understanding he is so willing to bestow on Palestinians. Israelis know better than Peter what's going on in the West Bank. Does he honestly think he is more informed than they are, with his readings of 972mag and Ha'aretz? The arrogance is extreme, even for him.
Israelis look at the same Situation as Peter does, and unlike him, they're forced by where they live to face reality. They hear what Palestinian leaders say on a daily basis. They see the Palestinian children being indoctrinated to kill in summer camps and schools. They know that Palestine is coming to kill them and their children and will not stop any time soon. They don't see the occupation as "apartheid" because it's not, it's a necessary evil to stop murderous terror attacks that have been going on for decades. Most of them are not going to stick their necks out to help people who would spit on them if they were lying on the ground bleeding (which is literally what happened to a woman who was stabbed in Jerusalem in 2015, look it up).
Of course Israelis are not happy that the Palestinians are suffering the consequences of their own actions, and as Peter acknowledges, many Israelis are trying to resolve the situation peacefully in any way they can. But the Israelis also are not able to ignore the reality as Peter does. They don't have a luxury of hopping in a plane and flying thousands of miles away from the terrorists trying to murder them.
Until you and the rest are actually able to acknowledge the elephant in the room, no one is going to listen to you. If you want to convince anyone of anything, you need to acknowledge the reality of the situation. When do you intend to start?
You make your perspective known weekly, so I'm not here to 'persuade' you of anything. What I would like to do is make a very narrow point that I think should be centered any time one discusses the security fears or discomfort of Israeli Jews who came from the US under the Law of Return, whether they are living in the occupied territories or anywhere in the State of Israel; you put yourself in this Situation. You put yourself and, even more disturbingly, your children in the position of being at risk for personal harm and obliged to become the beneficiaries of an unjust system as well as the violent enforcers of that system. You chose this, for yourself and your descendants. Critically, unlike previous Jewish immigrants or those from many other countries, you did so for either religious, ideological, or comfort reasons, not for safety. That is settler-colonialism, not seeking refuge, and it is indefensible.
I've read some deranged stuff on this talkback section, including naked anti-Semitism, but this comment is a new low for this sewer.
Anywhere in Israel? So if someone moves to Tel Aviv, which was never owned by a Palestinian, never part of a Palestinian state, and is not claimed by Palestine now, that's "settler colonialism" and "deserving of personal harm"? Madness.
And why just US Jews? So if a Jew moves from the UK to Tel Aviv, it isn't settler colonialism? Why not?
What's your actual point Mike? That if a Jew chooses to move from the colonized stolen land of the US to Israel, it's okay to kill him and his entire family? Because FYI, since you know so much, you must certainly be aware that Palestinian terrorists don't discriminate and will kill anyone in Israel, Jewish or not, American born or not. It's not like they stop to check where the Jewish person is from before they slit their throat.
It is you who do not see the reality. And also have a short memory of the conflict. You have selected interpretation of history like most people. I lived in I Israel in 1967 and see different reality and have different reflection. It is the winner and the stronger that need to want peace and the Israelis did not wanted it.
How expected, a series of platitudes with no actual argument behind it. "The Israelis" have made peace with everyone who wants peace with them, the Abraham Accords have shown that if the decades long peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan weren't enough. Meanwhile, Palestine has made it quite clear how it feels about peace, by giving the middle finger to every. single. peace. offer. made by Israeli governments left, right, and center. Yes, Jacob, I'm sure you do see a different reality. One that has little resemblance to facts.
If you can't tell the truth, make up a lie and spend time demolishing it! (The refusal of "Palestine") Talk of Jews that way would make you a raving anti-semite!
Typical Beinart commentator. You can call Israelis ethnic cleansers, racists, apartheid, genocidal, etc. and everything's fine. Point out that Palestine doesn't want peace, and you're called a racist.
Stick around, Johnny. It's not going to be long before you hear far worse about Jews. We'll see if we can top last week's, in which United States of War called for European and American Jews to all be expelled from Palestine and spread Holocaust denial, and the week before that, when Michael Ingber said that Jews instrumentalize being the eternal victim in order to justify oppressing others.
Why is saying that Palestine doesn't want peace "purely racist" but saying that Israel is an apartheid genocidal Nazi state A-OK? Fascinating the way the mind of a Palestine apologist "functions."
This is a beautiful and heartfelt reflection, something many of us feel when coming back to a 'mother country' where our unspoken values and attachments do not need to be explained. I appreciate your honesty and your understanding of what Palestinians feel about not being able to 'come home'. Like the prophets, we are called to find a way when all can come together, with divine mercy and inclusion. Even in their own times, many called the ancient poets/prophets 'mad' for thinking such things. But their words come to us in each generation, along with a demand to bear witness in compassionate embrace of those who suffer!
Your “guilt” is the result of being trapped in a Socialist Ghetto mentality…Apartheid? How intellectually and historically dishonest and pandering of you…White Europeans were never native to Southern Africa or did you forget that your relatives in Southern Africa were a prime example of assimilated/Europeanized colonialists in South Africa…are you anti Apartheid now to make amends for your own family’s sins? Your revisionism and pandering fool no one except other liberal Upper West siders who are largely over educated and suffer from neurosis
A few years ago I was questioned for a while at Ben Gurion airport. But it was still nothing compared to what Palestinians endure routinely. And on my last two trips there have been no issues. I don't honestly know why.
It's true that God often punishes the Jewish people in the Hebrew Bible. But in Judaism we are instructed to try to imitate God's compassion and mercy (not God's wrath)--and I think that's better expressed in fighting for justice and decency than in asking for God punish anyone.
I don't think the analogy between Jews and whites holds here. Yes, Israel is based on Jewish supremacy. But Judaism is also a distinct civilization, which has lasted for thousands of years. Whiteness (as opposed to Irishness, Italianness etc) is really just the negation of Blackness.
I am sorry, Israel is based on Jewish supremacy? Gee I must have missed that class as as a youth. Where is the Jewish Supremacy principle coded. Please show me.
Beinart, do you agree with Michael Loeb that any Jew who immigrates to Israel from the United States is engaging in 'settler colonialism' and deserves the blame for any harm that befalls them or their family?
This is common sense. Why would an American or westerner relocate their family to a congested and disputed land? The size of New Jersey? To make room for these settlers always leads to displacement of the natives?
The native is bound to fight back. See what the Ukrainians are doing? Why would an American Jew expect different? What would they expecting from the Palestinians? Flowers?
Yes, by moving your family Palestine, you are putting it in harms way. Stay put.
Yes, stay in America, where it's safe. Ignore things like the rise of white supremacism, the Tree of Life shooting, Republican right wing extremism. Nothing to worry about there...
You can go on enumerating the cases in America. This has nothing to do with Palestine and its people. Never had.
Palestinians been saddled with the mistakes of westerners. If someone does not feel safe in their neighbourhood or state, they move to another area. Is that not how it works?
Is it better to be under the Iron dome, surrounded by "terrorists", or live in NYC, or even Pittsburgh? Life's all about choices.
Can't remember what you just said, eh? You told Americans and Westerners to stay put. But I'm telling you that America and the West isn't always safe for Jews. You might not want to recognize that, but Jews do. Peter's other favorite topic is the rise of right wing fascism and extremism in the US. Ask him to tell you all about it, if you're willing to listen.
"If someone does not feel safe in their neighbourhood or state, they move to another area. Is that not how it works?" If that's how it works, you should encourage Palestinians to move if they don't feel safe where they are. But maybe there's a different standard for Palestinians than there is for Jews. Just like there always is.
Vivek's right. America's a "Nation of Victims." Jews dont feel safe, neither do the blacks, nor the Asians... No one's safe. No one's content.
Let me remind you that Zionism came about because of antisemitism. European Christians wanted to seclude the Jews from the Christians. The evangelicals want the Jews to move to Israel so Jesus returns and they all convert to Christianity or another Holocaust will befall them. So does Zionism, decrease or increase antisemitism?
Stay put: If you're in the West stay there. Palestinians are home. Jews (western) stole their land.
Places like Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Beersheba are not disputed, not in Palestine, nor would anyone be displaced by anyone moving there. Still think children who move there should be murdered?
Thank you Lorraine. I should have acknowledged that this sense of homecoming, however imaginary in some sense, is something many diaspora groups experience
I think political Zionism was a both a movement that provided refuge to Jews in distress, an experience of national liberation AND a movement with clear settler-colonial features. The early Zionists themselves often used the term colonial to denote what they saw as a movement that brought Western civilization to the Middle East. (Said's The Question of Palestine is good on this). And Zionism, like other settler-colonial movements, dispossessed the native population. (Yes, Jews have a profound connection to the land of Israel but European Jews are native in a radically different way than Palestinians whose families have lived there continuously for centuries). Does that mean I want Israeli Jews to suffer harm? Of course not. I oppose Palestinian violence but also recognize that it will not end until the massive violence that Israel inflicts upon Palestinians ends.
Palestinian families who have lived there for centuries…once again you oversimplify based on your agenda; many “Palestinians” migrated to this land over the last 200-300 years as did Jews. In fact during the British Mandate the number of Arab migrants was substantial. Did you know Edward Said’s mother was half Lebanese. This is just one of many examples. In more modern times Ahmed Tibi admits his grandparents migrated from Syria. Additionally, most “Palestinians “ in Hebron and Nablus are converted Samaritan Jews. You talk about Israel’s “ occupation” which arose due to Arab aggression and that there was no Palestine before 1967 in the “occupied territories.” You have ambivalence because you try to view the situation from a western prism and don’t understand that your approach is a form of intellectual colonialism. You talk about Palestinian “ expulsion” and infer the “ Naqba” was colonial-again who accepted partition and who rejected it. What happened to our Mizrachi brothers and sisters? Where is their redress and compensation. Most disturbingly you mention that the exercise of democratic and non violent protest regarding “judicial reform” should expand to equal rights for Arabs…you would hijack pluralism to commit national and ideological suicide. Professor start demanding that Palestinians take responsibility for their communal lot including their history and accept reconciliation and two nations for two peoples. Please stop feeling guilty for defending yourself and playing by a different set of rules than Palestinians play by. Palestinians and their popular rejectionism have caused the vast growth in right wing Israeli nationalism. When will you demand that the PA hold elections their people yearn for, when will you demand that Abu Mazen stop speaking out of two sides of his mouth? Your ambivalence is mostly based on being disappointed that Israel is not what you desire it to be-a multicultural liberal democracy for all-Professor when will you realize that you cannot tell the Palestinians how to live and convince them to give up their dream to send you on a one way ticket out?
"I oppose Palestinian violence but also recognize that it will not end until the massive violence that Israel inflicts upon Palestinians ends."
We have a chicken and an egg situation, then, Peter, because Israeli violence will not end until Palestinian violence ends. Because Israeli violence is motivated by self-defense while Palestinian violence is motivated by Arab supremacism and the belief that Israel needs to be destroyed, a belief you encourage with your writings.
Only if one ignores the sheer power imbalance between the two parties to the conflict and adopts a very expansive definition of “self-defense” that, of course, only one side is allowed to claim.
Like when the IDF slipped a precise kill-shot in the few inches above the Kevlar vest marked “Press” and just below the rear rim of Shireen Abu Akleh’s bullet-proof helmet at 200 yds far from the direction of any engagement with armed militants. Then attempted to kill her colleague who went to check on her suddenly lifeless corpse. Then lied about it all in the aftermath with zero accountability or consequences. Witnesses and bystanders could do little but helplessly seethe with rage knowing that if it can happen to a world-famous journalist with an American passport, it can easily happen to them or those they love at any instant.
That’s the kind of luxury of state-backed violence and impunity that power imbalance accords only one of the side in the conflict, despite the veneer of transparent horsepuckery often invoked to justify it all.
There’s an expression in American football when coaches make excuses: “ultimately, you are who your record says you are”
I don't see what the power imbalance has to do with what I said. The IDF operates with the main goal of stopping Palestinian terrorism and murder. Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, Lion's Den, and the rest operate with the main goal of destroying Israel and creating an Arab supremacist state from the river to the sea. Until those groups stop trying to complete that goal, the IDF will continue to operate as it has been.
The Jews aren't going to turn their backs and let Palestine stick a knife in it. And no reasonable person should expect them to.
If the power balance is so insurmountable, how about Palestine gives up their Arab supremacist goal to wipe out Israel and JUST FREAKING MAKES PEACE ALREADY?
A lopsided power dynamic favoring those who want to prevent murderers from killing children over the murderers themselves is generally considered a good thing.
It's also worth noting that two sides fighting at equal power levels will make peace harder, as both sides would rightly believe they are capable of triumphing over the other by force. The fact that Palestine is so much weaker than Israel makes peace more likely, so long as none of their leaders are delusional enough to believe they can get what they want (destroying Israel) that way.
To your first point, I would direct you to my quote above about “ultimately you are who your record says you are.” The record on which side has killed more children on the other is pretty clear. Not very constructive dialogue though.
Power imbalance is key. And everyone legitimately wants “peace” —Vladimir Putin wants peace. The real question is on what terms with the other side would they accept or offer a peace agreement. Everyone knows the importance of negotiating from a position of strength. The stronger party gets more leverage to dictate the terms while the weaker party has fewer alternative options. Yet offering prospects of some meager settlement that you can be sure the other side can’t accept is no offer of peace at all.
Look at Netanyahu’s floating of a kind of non-sovereign “transportational continuity”—-basically breaking of the West Bank into an archipelago of Gazastans and a kind of occupation “light”. Anything that would not result in a politically and economically viable Palestinian state is a farce and should be ignored as unserious by any objective observer. That’s another example of why the 2SS is dead.
Those proposals would have been laughed out the room 30-40 years ago. However the Israelis feel like the facts on the ground have changed so much in their favor over the years since Camp David, that they can say them with a straight face as showing their commitment to “extending the hand of peace to the Palestinians”, or whatever nonsense President Herzog said to Congress yesterday on that topic.
Yes, and the record of which side seeks to kill children and which does not is also very clear, as is Palestines record of using children as soldiers and human shields. My point that Israel having more power is a good thing for everyone stands, and I think you know it’s true.
As for your second point I’m having trouble finding an actual position beneath all the rhetoric, but for now I’ll say even the most elementary of history students knows the vast majority of conflicts end with one side surrendering and the other dictating terms to it. If you do not wish this to happen to Palestine that is your opinion, but that doesn’t change the fact that Palestine will not become magically less intransigent should it gain more power. The idea is laughable.
“I’m having trouble finding an actual position beneath…”
Yeah, not my best work. Even I’m bored with my commenting on this site…
I have mostly given up trying to correct people on this site when they are factually wrong but you are the host. The following statement is false: “like other settler-colonial movements, dispossessed the native population”. First, Jews did not come as a “settler colonial” movement. Unlike all other “settler-colonial” movements all of which were sponsored by a colonial power, the Jews were not! That is simply an incontrovertible fact.
At no time when the Jewish “colonists” came to Palestine were Palestinians dispossessed. unless you are referring to 1948 war. Settlements were built on the coastal plain. Almost all Arab settlements were abandoned in the coastal plain or Jezreel valley, the reason for this was they could not be defended from marauding Beduins who would routinely attack them and plunder. Most Palestinians (and they were not known by that name at the time) lived in the hilly country (the West Bank and the Galilee) because they were much easier to defend against the marauding Beduins, who were a scourge to all.
As for the Palestinians “whose families have lived there continuously for centuries” that too is mostly not true. Certainly, some people lived there and were no doubt descendants of Jews, Greeks and Arabs who remained after Judea’s destruction and were converted to Islam when the Arabs swept through the Middle East. But a significant likely many people there came and went with the seasons, pandemics, earthquakes and wars that were constantly fought on this land, after all the land was situated between Asia, Europe and Africa and was a gateway to Armies.
As the Ottoman empire shrank in the 19th century the area saw a huge influx of people from elsewhere: Algeria, Bosnia, Crimea the Balkans. As Christian powers took over former Ottoman colonies many Moslems sought refuge and Turkey settled them in the Middle East Palestine was one such place. In fact, Its population doubled overnight as a result.
One of the leaders of Hamas complained on Egyptian TV about the lack of support he said “Half the people are from Egypt and the other half from Arabia” he too was exaggerating for affect. It is simply untrue that Palestine was peopled by a stable ongoing population that has been there for centuries. It was not a land of milk and honey. It was a land of constant strife and deprivation. In fact, more than 50% of the early Jewish “colonists” who went there returned or moved on to the Americas. Life was tough for Jew and Arab.
This is Israel. Different and unequal rights according to? Ethnicity. "Arab", "Jewish"; 60+ laws that discriminate against Palestinians -who are lucky enough to have citizenship. That is blatant de jure segregation. In the OT Palestinians have zero rights. They are shot down in the streets on the whim of the lowest soldier- with complete impunity- except like Azaria - when it's too embarrassing. Then a slap on the wrist. Israeli courts judging Palestinians in Hebrew with a 99% conviction rate. Mississippi Jim Crow.
Sounds pretty bad. Maybe Palestinians should make peace.
The mythical 2 state lie was from both the left and right power structure in the US and Israel. Never ending "peace" negotiations were no more than a smoke screen for never ending annexation and ethnic cleansing by stealth! Deciding a fair way to divide a pizza while one person is eating it would be considered absurd by even a 5 year old!
I disagree John. By that logic, white Americans, Australians, Canadians, South Africans should do the same, along with Protestants in Northern Ireland, people of European descent in Latin America and many others. The answer to dispossession is not more dispossession. It's legal equality and historical justice as a basic for genuine reconciliation.
Peter, if there are 23 Arab states, 50 Muslim states, and zero Jewish states, is that equality?
Things don't work like that!
Why not, Johnny boy? Arabs and Muslims just better than Jews? Ever count how many Christian states, there are, by the way?
One should not dispossess thieves of their booty, but leave the dispossessed as paupers? I could not agree to dispossessing and expelling anyone born in a colony so your analogy with the above countries is not strictly relevent.. But those who have colonised Palestinian land in the last few decades should be made to leave.
Thank you for the best articulation of the painful and profound emotional divide that I live with every day. I think that there are many of us—certainly we are growing in number—and we are just beginning to find the words to put to it. (And I'm a generation younger than you.) I don't think any society was changed by prophets alone, or by a surplus of prophets. A prophet is a singular person, as you write. They spur us to action—and also, paradoxically, to inaction, because a prophet is, quite literally, holier-than-thou, a receiver of the word of God, and, as you write about Thoreau, it's hard to think of a more annoying type. Society is changed when a bunch of normal people can no longer stand the conditions that they live under, whether practically or morally. And as you say, we are a long way from there yet.
It is this tit for tat kind of thinking that keeps everyone in a hostage situation.
As has been said “ an eye for an eye” thinking will eventually result in everyone being blind.
Yes, the Palestinians should not be teaching their children that all Jews are evil and should be killed. That, of course is unacceptable. But so is an uncontrolled mob of settlers allowed to pillage and burn and slake their murderous rage on an entire village of innocent people because someone from their ethnic group has killed an Israeli.
So, that poses the question that much as residents of certain towns in Yugoslavia who were murdered by the Serbs, are now being asked to live next to some of those murderers. Much as in some towns, Hutus and Tutsis are now being asked to coexist with former murderers,. Much as the Irish Protestants and Catholics have for the most part laid down their arms and made peace with one another, the question is:
Can the “chosen people”. Those people to whom I belong. Those people that have a 5,000 year history of struggling with GOD. Can those people due what the Irish, the Bosnians, Croatians, Montenegrins and Serbs, and the Hutus and Tutsis, and the South Africans have done. Namely to say…BASTA. Enough is enough. We cannot keep doing this to our children and the children of many innocent ( non terrorist) Palestinians which simply serves to create more and more and more monsters who want nothing more than to kill one another?????
"Yes, the Palestinians should not be teaching their children that all Jews are evil and should be killed. That, of course is unacceptable."
While I agree with most of your comments, the one above needs clarification.
I don't say that you are wrong with that statement, Su, but here is another side of the coin from 'The Forward.'
"We’re told that Palestinian maps in schools often show a unified Palestine between the river and the sea — “how awful!” — yet Israeli maps, more often than Palestinian ones in fact, don’t show the Green Line, and Jews don’t really seem to care.
We’re told that Palestinians are taught in school that the Jewish historical claims to the land, particularly the Temple Mount, don’t really exist — “how awful!” — yet in a similar tone, many Israeli children learn that “Palestinians” were only recently invented, and Jews don’t really seem to care.
We’re told that Palestinian textbooks distort history — “how awful!” — yet a recent State Department study found that many Israeli textbooks do too, and Jews don’t really seem to care.
And now, we have yet another confirmation that Israeli children also learn to glorify and aspire toward violence, and — surprise, surprise — no one really seems to care."
https://forward.com/opinion/197866/when-israelis-teach-their-kids-to-hate/
You mean, people in one tribe hold another tribe to a different standard than members of their own tribe? Identical to how Palestinians freak out when Israelis make them walk through checkpoints but throw a party when their fellow Palestinians run over schoolchildren? Stop the presses! Breaking news!
I agree with you. I grow up in the Israeli school system for the full 12 years, and I can tell you the Israeli books make sure who are the bad guys. We all got the message that a good Arab is a d... one. the Israeli education system is not an innocent one.
Thank you for this addition. Let's hope (and work to ensure) we are not "a long way from there." That work does not require us to be a prophet, as you outlined.
yes, in my experience, AIPAC-style trips may make one foray into Ramallah to meet PA officials but there's no real engagement with the reality of Palestinian life under occupation
Great column Beinart. I'm looking forward to the next one, after you get on a plane to Kyiv and share how you stood around wringing your hands about how terrible it is that Ukraine is built on the suffering of the poor Russians currently being killed in the war and the oppression of the millions of ethnic Russians who live as second-class citizens under the Ukrainian ethnocracy.
Oh sorry, I forgot, you think ethnic Ukrainian nationalism is a noble cause worth killing, fighting, and dying for while Jewish nationalism isn't, for some inexplicable reason that definitely has nothing to do with your own insecurities, hangups and feelings toward your own community.
It's worth pointing out that Beinart lives on the stolen island of Manhattan, and doesn't apparently have a voice in his head constantly reminding him that New York City was "all built on the degradation and humiliation and brutal oppression of other people." Maybe because Native Americans are far away from his comfortable office and don't murder his children over things that happened a long time ago? Or maybe because he isn't Native American, and therefore can't make any money off of calling his fellows racists and lovers of apartheid?
As for the column itself, when Beinart actually moves to Israel and puts his own life on the line in service of his Good Idea Fairy style ideals, maybe then he'll actually be taken seriously. Until then, he deserves nothing more than to be laughed out of the room.
Irrelevant comparison / allusion. You cannot claim that it is wrong to condemn Israeli ethnic cleansing and the creation of illegal, Zionist-only colonies because some other situation in another time or place have not been addressed in a way you would like
I recommend you read the column and then my comment again more closely. I am not responding to any "condemnations" of any "ethnic cleansing" or "colonies," but rather the attacks made by Beinart on the founding ideology of a state that does not meet his entire arbitrary ethnic-based standards.
You don't think that he is entitled to his opinions on "the founding Ideology"? and I don't understand the term "arbitrary ethnic-based standards", (whose "ethnicity?)?
Of course he is entitled to his opinions, but then he opens himself up to criticism. Surely you agree that no one is exempt from legitimate criticism, right?
I'm sure you don't understand. Let me put it more simply: Beinart has spoken out in favor of Ukrainians using violence to defend their state against Russian incursions, even though Ukraine is not a state for all its citizens but rather an ethnic-based nation-state in which ethnic Ukrainians dominate all others, especially the millions of ethnic Russians who live as second-class citizens there.
Beinart has also been...let's say *hesistant,* to criticize Palestine's desire to create an ethnic-based nation state for Arab Muslim Palestinians, and of course to use extreme illegal violence to accomplish that goal.
So given he has provided no other explanation for why he holds Israel to such a different standard as Ukraine and Palestine, not to mention all the other nation states in the world today, I have no choice but to conclude his standards are arbitrary and based on ethnicity. Any other questions, Mr. Hall?
I’m an ethnic Russian from Ukraine. Explain to me again why we’re considered second-class citizens? Because this isnt my experience nor the experience of many Russians who grew up speaking Russian (but also Ukrainian.) None of this was an issue until Russia got involved. So please dont instrumentalize our struggle in Ukraine to fit your misinformed narrative
Simple: you live in a Ukrainian state and you are not Ukrainian. Your states' existence is codified in Ukrainian ethnic supremacy rather than a state for all of its citizens.
Therefore, by the logic of Beinart and those who oppose a Jewish state, you are a second-class citizen by definition. Any questions?
BECAUSE Israel is an apartheid state, sits on land stolen from poor people, stolen by a purportedly godly people.
Zionism must be from the depths of hell.
Is Beinart saying that, or are the anti-Semites in his amen corner saying that?
"Palestine's desire"? You are joking?
Another Peter post ignoring the elephant in the room, same as last week, which is still the absolute refusal of Palestine to accept Israel's existence at any level and in any form and the Israelis as their fellow human beings. Unlike Peter, who is literally a tourist, Israelis live with the reality of what they call "the Situation" every. single. day. They're the ones who have their friends and families blown up by terror attacks. They're the ones who have rockets flying at their hands. They're the ones who are called the descendents of apes and pigs by Hamas and Fatah. They're the one who literally live their lives in the crosshairs of genocidal terrorists. Not Peter.
So when Peter sneers that these Israelis who he looks down upon from his ivory tower are "living their lives without being concerned, or maybe being actively supportive, of just these horrors that are taking place not far away," he fails to grant them the compassion and understanding he is so willing to bestow on Palestinians. Israelis know better than Peter what's going on in the West Bank. Does he honestly think he is more informed than they are, with his readings of 972mag and Ha'aretz? The arrogance is extreme, even for him.
Israelis look at the same Situation as Peter does, and unlike him, they're forced by where they live to face reality. They hear what Palestinian leaders say on a daily basis. They see the Palestinian children being indoctrinated to kill in summer camps and schools. They know that Palestine is coming to kill them and their children and will not stop any time soon. They don't see the occupation as "apartheid" because it's not, it's a necessary evil to stop murderous terror attacks that have been going on for decades. Most of them are not going to stick their necks out to help people who would spit on them if they were lying on the ground bleeding (which is literally what happened to a woman who was stabbed in Jerusalem in 2015, look it up).
Of course Israelis are not happy that the Palestinians are suffering the consequences of their own actions, and as Peter acknowledges, many Israelis are trying to resolve the situation peacefully in any way they can. But the Israelis also are not able to ignore the reality as Peter does. They don't have a luxury of hopping in a plane and flying thousands of miles away from the terrorists trying to murder them.
Until you and the rest are actually able to acknowledge the elephant in the room, no one is going to listen to you. If you want to convince anyone of anything, you need to acknowledge the reality of the situation. When do you intend to start?
You make your perspective known weekly, so I'm not here to 'persuade' you of anything. What I would like to do is make a very narrow point that I think should be centered any time one discusses the security fears or discomfort of Israeli Jews who came from the US under the Law of Return, whether they are living in the occupied territories or anywhere in the State of Israel; you put yourself in this Situation. You put yourself and, even more disturbingly, your children in the position of being at risk for personal harm and obliged to become the beneficiaries of an unjust system as well as the violent enforcers of that system. You chose this, for yourself and your descendants. Critically, unlike previous Jewish immigrants or those from many other countries, you did so for either religious, ideological, or comfort reasons, not for safety. That is settler-colonialism, not seeking refuge, and it is indefensible.
I've read some deranged stuff on this talkback section, including naked anti-Semitism, but this comment is a new low for this sewer.
Anywhere in Israel? So if someone moves to Tel Aviv, which was never owned by a Palestinian, never part of a Palestinian state, and is not claimed by Palestine now, that's "settler colonialism" and "deserving of personal harm"? Madness.
And why just US Jews? So if a Jew moves from the UK to Tel Aviv, it isn't settler colonialism? Why not?
What's your actual point Mike? That if a Jew chooses to move from the colonized stolen land of the US to Israel, it's okay to kill him and his entire family? Because FYI, since you know so much, you must certainly be aware that Palestinian terrorists don't discriminate and will kill anyone in Israel, Jewish or not, American born or not. It's not like they stop to check where the Jewish person is from before they slit their throat.
It is you who do not see the reality. And also have a short memory of the conflict. You have selected interpretation of history like most people. I lived in I Israel in 1967 and see different reality and have different reflection. It is the winner and the stronger that need to want peace and the Israelis did not wanted it.
How expected, a series of platitudes with no actual argument behind it. "The Israelis" have made peace with everyone who wants peace with them, the Abraham Accords have shown that if the decades long peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan weren't enough. Meanwhile, Palestine has made it quite clear how it feels about peace, by giving the middle finger to every. single. peace. offer. made by Israeli governments left, right, and center. Yes, Jacob, I'm sure you do see a different reality. One that has little resemblance to facts.
I did not mean to have any discussion with you just to voice my view. People like you are not worth the effort and the energy to talk to.
Your "view" was extremely unconvincing, which is no doubt the reason you do not wish to discuss it further. Too bad, you might have learned something.
"The Conflict"? You mean the ongoing Nabka or ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from swathes of Palestine to create illegal, Zionist-only colonies?
History is made of mostly acts of wars and injustice. The question is who is looking for a better future and willing to work for it.
The question is: when are the dispossessed going to get their property back and Israel to stop interfering in Palestinians' affairs?
If you can't tell the truth, make up a lie and spend time demolishing it! (The refusal of "Palestine") Talk of Jews that way would make you a raving anti-semite!
Typical Beinart commentator. You can call Israelis ethnic cleansers, racists, apartheid, genocidal, etc. and everything's fine. Point out that Palestine doesn't want peace, and you're called a racist.
Stick around, Johnny. It's not going to be long before you hear far worse about Jews. We'll see if we can top last week's, in which United States of War called for European and American Jews to all be expelled from Palestine and spread Holocaust denial, and the week before that, when Michael Ingber said that Jews instrumentalize being the eternal victim in order to justify oppressing others.
Point out "Palestine" doesn't want peace is a purely racist, lumping together all who live there, (presumably excluding illegal Zionist colonists)
Why is saying that Palestine doesn't want peace "purely racist" but saying that Israel is an apartheid genocidal Nazi state A-OK? Fascinating the way the mind of a Palestine apologist "functions."
This is a beautiful and heartfelt reflection, something many of us feel when coming back to a 'mother country' where our unspoken values and attachments do not need to be explained. I appreciate your honesty and your understanding of what Palestinians feel about not being able to 'come home'. Like the prophets, we are called to find a way when all can come together, with divine mercy and inclusion. Even in their own times, many called the ancient poets/prophets 'mad' for thinking such things. But their words come to us in each generation, along with a demand to bear witness in compassionate embrace of those who suffer!
Beinart knows better but his western prism and academic approach is ill equipped to deal with realities on the ground
Your “guilt” is the result of being trapped in a Socialist Ghetto mentality…Apartheid? How intellectually and historically dishonest and pandering of you…White Europeans were never native to Southern Africa or did you forget that your relatives in Southern Africa were a prime example of assimilated/Europeanized colonialists in South Africa…are you anti Apartheid now to make amends for your own family’s sins? Your revisionism and pandering fool no one except other liberal Upper West siders who are largely over educated and suffer from neurosis
A few years ago I was questioned for a while at Ben Gurion airport. But it was still nothing compared to what Palestinians endure routinely. And on my last two trips there have been no issues. I don't honestly know why.
It's true that God often punishes the Jewish people in the Hebrew Bible. But in Judaism we are instructed to try to imitate God's compassion and mercy (not God's wrath)--and I think that's better expressed in fighting for justice and decency than in asking for God punish anyone.
I don't think the analogy between Jews and whites holds here. Yes, Israel is based on Jewish supremacy. But Judaism is also a distinct civilization, which has lasted for thousands of years. Whiteness (as opposed to Irishness, Italianness etc) is really just the negation of Blackness.
I am sorry, Israel is based on Jewish supremacy? Gee I must have missed that class as as a youth. Where is the Jewish Supremacy principle coded. Please show me.
thank you, elise
Appreciate you extending the metaphor!
Beinart, do you agree with Michael Loeb that any Jew who immigrates to Israel from the United States is engaging in 'settler colonialism' and deserves the blame for any harm that befalls them or their family?
This is common sense. Why would an American or westerner relocate their family to a congested and disputed land? The size of New Jersey? To make room for these settlers always leads to displacement of the natives?
The native is bound to fight back. See what the Ukrainians are doing? Why would an American Jew expect different? What would they expecting from the Palestinians? Flowers?
Yes, by moving your family Palestine, you are putting it in harms way. Stay put.
Yes, stay in America, where it's safe. Ignore things like the rise of white supremacism, the Tree of Life shooting, Republican right wing extremism. Nothing to worry about there...
You can go on enumerating the cases in America. This has nothing to do with Palestine and its people. Never had.
Palestinians been saddled with the mistakes of westerners. If someone does not feel safe in their neighbourhood or state, they move to another area. Is that not how it works?
Is it better to be under the Iron dome, surrounded by "terrorists", or live in NYC, or even Pittsburgh? Life's all about choices.
Can't remember what you just said, eh? You told Americans and Westerners to stay put. But I'm telling you that America and the West isn't always safe for Jews. You might not want to recognize that, but Jews do. Peter's other favorite topic is the rise of right wing fascism and extremism in the US. Ask him to tell you all about it, if you're willing to listen.
"If someone does not feel safe in their neighbourhood or state, they move to another area. Is that not how it works?" If that's how it works, you should encourage Palestinians to move if they don't feel safe where they are. But maybe there's a different standard for Palestinians than there is for Jews. Just like there always is.
Vivek's right. America's a "Nation of Victims." Jews dont feel safe, neither do the blacks, nor the Asians... No one's safe. No one's content.
Let me remind you that Zionism came about because of antisemitism. European Christians wanted to seclude the Jews from the Christians. The evangelicals want the Jews to move to Israel so Jesus returns and they all convert to Christianity or another Holocaust will befall them. So does Zionism, decrease or increase antisemitism?
Stay put: If you're in the West stay there. Palestinians are home. Jews (western) stole their land.
Places like Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Beersheba are not disputed, not in Palestine, nor would anyone be displaced by anyone moving there. Still think children who move there should be murdered?
Murdered?
They say Israel's land small. You think you have room for more western Jews?
No one should be murdered children or not.
Thank you Lorraine. I should have acknowledged that this sense of homecoming, however imaginary in some sense, is something many diaspora groups experience
Thank you