Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Israelis-Palestinians Every group of People, Jews and Palestinians included, has factions that are looking for peace and factions that are aggresive. The aggressive factions will often use lofty rhetoric to justify an agenda of aquisition or complete victory. On the Palestinian side, there are many who even, though they think their people got a raw deal, would like to come to some accomodation with Israel so they could get on with positive constructive lives. Sadly, there are many who will never accomodate themselves to the existance of the State of Israel. That belief is expressed by the Palestinian leadership which continues to preach complete victory over Israel in Arabic to Palestinian audiences while speaking moderation to any American or European interlocutors. The terrorists don't bother talking. They just attack. The leadership seems to have gotten stuck in their role as fighters for their cause and cannot bring themselves to come to an accomodation. Further they cannot being themselves to police the combative extremists. When the U.N. declared partition in 1948, the head of the Arab contingent walked out saying something like "our response will be a sea of fire and blood." There was never going to be an acceptance of the U.N. decision to allow Jews sovereignty in the land they called Palestine and the Jews called Israel. By defeating the combined Arab armies the Jews gained the respect of the non-arab world. The Palestinians were treated terribly by the whole world which ignored their plight as a displaced people. The Arab nations bear that guilt as well. They turned a blind eye until they realized the Palestinians could be turned into a force against Israel. If the Palestinians ever get their own state and calm down, they have a major issue against their Arab brothers. Terrorist acts started almost immediately after the 1948 war. The Israeli command made the decision that their response to provocations would be overwhelming. They wanted to send the message that the price of terrorism would be far greater than the price extracted by the original act. (And the world doesn't trust Jews because we are supposed to be smart.) Yes, there has always been a faction of the Jews in Israel who want more territory than came with the original partition. IMO in the beginning there was no possibility of that happening. American supporters, more critical to the existance of Israel in the early days than even now, would not have stood for it. However, the ceaseless attacks, culminating with the '67 war gave the expansionists political cover for their ambitions. The original settlements were supposedly a provocation to a political settlement. "If you don't accomodate our existance as a state you are going to see us expand." "This is our justified under the priciple of self-defense".(The kind of thing that was said, not a direct quote) This was of course rhetoric and nothing more. It was a land grab. It was made possible by Arab and Palestinian aggression. But Israeli expansion and the policy of overwhelming retaliation makes politically possible Palestinian terror attacks. The Palestinians have a real issue in that many were displaced. The expansion of Israel into the West Bank and Gaza stimulated a violent response which in turn provoked overwhelmingly violent military responses from Israel under the cover of self-defense. Clearly there is a dream among the Palestiians of eliminating Israel completely. There is a real fear among Israelis that the Arab nations will combine to wipe them out and that the Palestinians will never be satisfied with any accomodation. Both sides have a genuine claim to the territory. The U.N. decision for partition without accomodation from the Palestinians was utterly irresponsible. The result is that both sides have tried violence for decades and have made no progress towards a victory over the other. Both sides still believe they must continue the violence. Now they are so locked in rage neither side is any longer rational, regardless of how reasonable their spokesmen may sound on television. Certainly Israel has greater firepower, but I don't really see much difference if a suicide bomber manages to kill 5 children and the Israeli missile response manages to destroy five houses and 25 adults and children. They are both moral atrocities and crimes against humanity, worse because they have no impact on the political situation and are utterly useless and unjustified except by the emotions of the combatants. I am a Jew and I am begging everyone to drop their agenda and to stop supporting one side or the other. These two peoples, so much alike and so creative in many ways are in a tragic death embrace. They have literally become one people locked in a suicide pact. They are helpless to change anything and can only be separated by outside forces. Anyone who says that it is up to the parties to settle their differences is just denying any moral responsibility to help. Anyone who spends time counting who killed more or whose attack was more heinous is wasting his or her energy. Somehow the world will have to find a way to embrace these two people and eliminate their fears. Their fears are what allows their radicals to keep fighting and to have such radicals in positions of power. Mel 12:18:18 PM    comment []