The poverty and the death and the despair among the Palestinians in Gaza moves me to tears. How can it not? Who can see pictures of children in a war zone or a slum street and not be angry and bewildered and driven to protest? And what is so appalling is that it is so unnecessary. For there can be peace and prosperity at the smallest of prices. The Palestinians need only say that they will allow Israel to exist in peace. They need only say this tiny thing, and mean it, and there is pretty much nothing they cannot have.
Yet they will not say it. And they will not mean it. For they do not want the Jews. Again and again - again and again - the Palestinians have been offered a nation state in a divided Palestine. And again and again they have turned the offer down, for it has always been more important to drive out the Jews than to have a Palestinian state. It is difficult sometimes to avoid the feeling that Hamas and Hezbollah don't want to kill Jews because they hate Israel. They hate Israel because they want to kill Jews.
There cannot be peace until this changes. For Israel will not rely on airy guarantees and international gestures to defend it. At its very core, it will not. It will lay down its arms when the Jews are safe, but it will not do it until they are.
And if you reflect on it, doesn't recent experience bear this out? Just as Herzl was borne out? A year or so back I met a teacher while I was on holiday and fell to talking with him about Israel. He was a nice man and all he wanted was for fighting to stop and to end the suffering of children. And he had a question for me.
Why, he asked, doesn't Israel offer to give back the West Bank and Gaza? Why doesn't it just let the Palestinians have a state there? If the Palestinians turned it down, he said, then at least liberal opinion would be on Israel's side and would rally to its assistance.
So I patiently explained to this kind, good man that Israel had, at Camp David in 2000, made precisely this offer and that it had been rejected out of hand by Yassir Arafat, not even used as the basis for negotiation. I told him that Israel was no longer in Gaza, having withdrawn unilaterally and taken the settlers with it. The Palestinians had greeted this movement with suicide bombs and rockets. Yet the teacher, with all his compassion, wasn't even aware of all this. And liberal opinion? Sad to relate, my new friend's faith in it was misplaced. It has turned strongly against Israel.
Israel has made many mistakes. It has acted too aggressively on some occasions, has been too defensive on others. The country hasn't always respected the human rights of its enemies as it should have done. What nation under such a threat would have avoided all errors?
But you know what? As Iran gets a nuclear weapon and so the potential for another Holocaust against the Jews and world opinion does nothing, I am not so sure that the errors of world opinion are so much to be preferred to the errors of Israel.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Finkelstein on Israel
Danny Finkelstein has written a truly wonderful article on the Israel issue. Do read it. Even if you're on the other side of the issue from him, it's a very enlightening read. Here's an extract...
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12 comments:
Yes it is a good piece, but it is difficult for anybody in this country to really understand what is going on out there. I don't generally listen to the BBC, but I caught a news report the other day and they kind of made out that Hamas was some kind of charitable organisation that was under attack from some monstrous regime.
When will the lie die that Israel offered the whole of the west bank to Arafat in 2000. Its just not true. What he was offered was a piece of land sliced up by settlements and settlers roads.
I suspect Finkelstein knows this -which is worrying.
I am sorry Iain but the Palstinians were not offered the West bank - they never were and they never will be.
lets deal with facts here.
"Why, he asked, doesn't Israel offer to give back the West Bank and Gaza? Why doesn't it just let the Palestinians have a state there? If the Palestinians turned it down, he said, then at least liberal opinion would be on Israel's side and would rally to its assistance."
I suspect Finkelstein is right to treat this with scepticism...
"I wonder if it would make the lefties less likely to condemn if there families and themselves were forced to be relocate to the areas where the rockets land?"
They never do suffer the consequences of the things they support and whine for - just look at Billy Bragg, preaching the benefits of multiculturalism and immigration from mono-cultural Dorset.
@mac.comWe love to blame the victims don't we, just as our Victorian forebears used to blame the "undeserving poor" for all the ils of our society.
Cynical realpolitik may demand that we identify with Israel's interests but let's not kid ourselves that we are the nice guys for supporting invasion, occupation, subjugation and oppression.
What is the 'potential' for another Holocaust? How is that term defined? Finkelstein is an entertaining writer, but I do question his partiality and breadth of understanding. You see, despite the ravings of some Iranians etc, there appears to be little real appetite on the part of any nation to indulge in the sort of armed and massive invasion that would be necessary to do this. Indeed it is doubtful if any of Israel's neighbours has such a capacity.
The other cardinal aspect is this: The Holocaust - a planned, industrial and systematic destruction - was inflicted upon the German Jews by their own government. It's true, of course, that this was not a democratically legitimate governance, nonetheless the Holocaust was not brought upon the Jews (in Germany at least) by an external invader. In fairness, it's also true that after their invasion of Poland etc the Germans (in conjunction with the local populations) extended the Holocaust to Jews of other nations.
So I think Finkelstein needs to consider what he means by the word 'Holocaust'.
If anything, the current conflict bears more of a resemblance to the Crusades. But the real questions have to be - why are the Jews so detested by some and how has this come about? That is not a Palestinian vs Jew debate, it is a global matter.
Yes, this certainly sums up the true situation. It has been Israeli policy for some time to withdraw from those two areas and they did so.
It's the attitude of the militants which has caused all the trouble, the desire to kill Jews. There might be ceasefire but how that attitude will ever be remedied is beyond most of us.
Iain, I notice that your extracts excluded Finkelstein's lengthy opening remark that the Israelis have to attcak because nobody else defends the Jews and invoking the memory of Anne Frank. Well, nobody defends the Brits, we just have to make friends with the world around us and I thought the reference to Anne Frank was tawdry in the extreme (although I am always moved by reading the story and find it hard to watch the TV programmes) in the light of recent deaths of children in Gaza.
Nevertheless, the reference to Anne Frank did remind me of the frequent calls for restitution from survivors of the Holocaust or victims of Nazi looting, and the obvious comparison with the lack of restitution granted to Arab Palestinians who were driven off their lands before and after the establishment of the state of Israel. That is the crux of the grievance against Israel and is the root cause behind those who call for the destruction of the state of Israel. Address that issue satisfactorily and the support for Hamas will fall away.
Pants Iain. the Palestinians have been screwed over and over again. the deal has got worse and worse. more land has been nicked. More promises have been broken. And worst of all through all this robust activity the people of Israel have been pu into more and more jeopardy.
The latest action following the death of one Israeli citizen by rocket (vs six Gazaans on 4 Nov and various other Palestinians by rifle shot) has increased Israeli deaths by a factor of 10 in just a couple of weeks.
The sort of death toll that Hamas' pathetic "rockets" and "missiles" would take five years to have brought about. And, oh yes, 700 Palestinians have been slaughtered, around a third of them children.
Bloody brilliant. Well done you!
Hamas militants can be wrong without making Israel right.
Finkelstein's normally a decent writer. This piece however is utter bilge.
"Who can see pictures of children in a war zone or a slum street and not be angry and bewildered and driven to protest?"
If he wants an answer to that he should come on here.
I take it you're now calling the Red Cross an appeasing useful idiot Iain?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7817926.stm
Iain, please read this article written by an Israeli journalist who originally fought for the creation of Israel in 1948 and now is a peace activist. He explains extremely well the folly of Israel's actions:
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=117935&d=8&m=1&y=2009
By the way the Palestinians were not offered the whole of the West Bank and the majority have accepted the Arab Peace Plan endorsed by all the Arab governments. This is full recognition and relations with Israel in return for going back to the 1967 borders and a fair deal for the Palestinian refugees.
The only alternative is the one state solution where everyone there has the same rights but then it would not be a Jewish state. Similar arguments about South Africa and the Afrikaners.
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