COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
Netanyahu is well known for despising the Oslo Accords from
the beginning.
And now his long series of dark and hostile acts has pretty
well succeeded in destroying them.
But that's only a small part of what he has done. Mass
killing in Gaza. Attempt to starve the people out with blockade (they actually
counted the calories for minimum sustenance in the early stages). Piracy on the
high seas. Horrible bombing in Lebanon. Assassinations. Threats and insults in
every direction. Imprisoning without proper trial. Sending armed men more than
once into holy places. Stealing homes in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
And Netanyahu has always made outrageous demands before even
talking - for example, the demand that Israel (defined by what borders?) be
first recognized as the land of the Jewish people (even though the overwhelming
majority of the Jewish people do not live there - this is also a demand which
directly threatens the lives of the million or so Palestinians who hold Israel
citizenship through the accident of being trapped in horrors of 1948).
It couldn't be clearer - although our press won't say so -
that Netanyahu is dedicated to creating Greater Israel, taking the land Israel
illegally controls minus its unfortunate residents. It is slow-motion
ethnic-cleansing, and nothing less.
What would you say and do if you were a Palestinian?
These people – five million or so in the occupied
territories and East Jerusalem - live with no votes, no rights of any kind, almost
no ability to travel, daily abuse, a good deal of danger and contempt, not even
secure home ownership, and, to cap it all, the people responsible for all the
oppression broadcast to the world a steady stream of public relations
announcements about being a democratic country.
Netanyahu - whose acts and words literally scream a narcissistic
if not psychopathic personality - is one of the most dangerous men on the
planet, and an Israel under his leadership or under the leadership of anyone
like him, such as the late Ariel Sharon, will never seriously consider peace
and the fundamental compromises so clearly needed to secure it.
I am most afraid it will all end in tragedy.
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Response to a reader
comment:
First, the Ashkenazim of today's Israel have no relationship
to the ancient Hebrews beyond sharing their religion. They are people largely of
European origin, a fact which is established by their history, language (Yiddish-Taitsh),
and even DNA testing.
But even if one somehow imagines the Ashkenazim as the
descendants of the ancient Hebrews, how do they have a claim over land they would
have left 2,000 years ago and others long have inhabited?
They don't of course. It is an absurd proposition.
If you believe that is somehow proper way of doing things,
then the Greeks should control Turkey (the Trojan War), Italians should control
France (Gaul), Mongolia should control much of Europe (Genghis Khan), and
indeed most of the planet should be completely re-ordered.
In many cases, there would be multiple claims to particular
places, and, indeed, this is very much the case for Israel/Palestine. The
Egyptians and the Phoenicians (Lebanon) ruled there for a long time before the
Hebrews. Greece, Italy, and others would also have claims.
The notion of a Biblical foundation for modern Israel is so
preposterous that it makes one's head spin. But more than that, it was so
clearly a violent and dangerous idea from the start. If someone with weapons
and threats chased you from your home, claiming ownership in the name of vague
and uncertain ancestors, and murdered many of your neighbors, is there any way
to look at that as promoting peace or security or a bright future? It promotes
feuds and hatred on all sides.
Apologists for Israel just remain blind to these basic
principles.
Now, I am someone who regards the foundation of modern
Israel as a geopolitical mistake because it was certain to create strife and
bloodshed for countless years, but I am also one who believes that now that the
mistake has been made, we have to try making it work. That can only happen if
Israel ends its occupation, returns to its 1967 borders, and starts cooperating
with, instead of attacking and oppressing, its neighbors. It must also give up
imperial ambitions of growth at the expense of neighbors and working to
dominate all of West Asia, and that is absolutely an accurate description of
what motivates a tyrant mind like Netanyahu’s, and it is guaranteed to create
endless strife and horrors.
The Palestinians were not responsible for the Holocaust, an
event which happened in another land on another continent in another time. Why
must they pay so terrible a price? And the cowardly American and European
politicians who refused to help migrating Jews three-quarters of a century ago
eased their guilt by supporting the creation of Israel, making innocent people
pay the price for their own misdeeds.
No settlement or resolution which does not recognize these
glaring realities and injustices can possibly succeed in the long term.
I do think Israel - at least the Israel of terrifying leaders
like Netanyahu - is its own worst enemy. Refusing to deal with burning
injustices means Israel ultimately is likely to go the way of the Soviet Union.
After all, Israel today much resembles the old Soviet state with its huge military-intelligence-security
establishment, its poorly functioning general economy only sustained by subsidies,
and its ruthless hold over millions of captives who do not want to be held.
