COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
'The creation of the
state of Israel was fundamentally wrong'
I know The Independent
is trying to be quite provocative here, but the truth is, there is nothing
wrong with Livingstone's statement. It is not hateful, it is painfully
accurate.
Many, many thoughtful people have said more or less the same
thing.
It has absolutely nothing to do with anti-Semitism.
It is simply a reflection of all the misery and turmoil
Israel, as a state, has generated since 1948.
Albert Einstein himself - often called a Zionist - had a
highly qualified view of Israel. He liked the idea of displaced Jews finding
homes in the Holy Land, but wrote very forcefully against the kind of state we
have seen emerge, one governed only for the benefit of Jews and with a powerful
army. He was strongly against that happening.
One of the leading early Zionists, Ze'ev Jabotinsky,
established a terrible principle called "the iron wall" which was
completely adopted by re-created Israel. The principle is that Jews should show
only an iron wall to their neighbors in the Middle East.
How can anything good come of that? Well, it cannot, and it
hasn't.
Had Israel been founded along lines Einstein advocated, the
whole story might well have been different, but it did not. It adopted “the
iron wall” and has treated its neighbors pretty much with contempt, and nearly
endless aggression, since 1948.
The Six Day War, we know from various historical sources
including blunt observations from de Gaulle, was deliberately created by
Israel. It had calculated and knew that it could win handily against divided
and poorly-led Arab states enticed into war. There were a whole series of
provocations laid out, and Israel got just what it wanted in terms of land, and
the Arabs were left looking like failed aggressors against poor little David.
It was a military and propaganda triumph.
The results are what we see today: millions living as
prisoners with no rights or future, slow-motion depopulation of the captured
territories in favor of new owners, the outright theft of people’s homes and
farms week-in and week-out, the disruption of ancient life patterns through
walls (built on other people’s land) and countless barriers, the theft of many
other resources such as oil from Syria’s Golan Heights or gas from a seabed
which should belong to Gaza, theft of precious water supplies through many
diversions and projects, and a very great deal more.
How can that kind of state behavior ever produce peace or
anything else good? Of course it cannot. It is not meant to do so.
The truth is Israel is not even a very good place for many
Jews in which to live. It is an awfully inefficient economy, always heavily
subsidized. Prices are terribly high. It is difficult to afford a home. Good
jobs are not plentiful. You must see your children in the army, and enforcing
the ugliness of the occupation. And you must accept all the noise and ugly
violence that goes on. The wealthy class in Israel, many or most of whom are
dual-citizens, do very well and are safe in the idea they can easily migrate if
required or desired.
Israel has attacked every neighbor that it has, some
numerous times. It is always making threats, as against Iran, and the threats
are unwarranted because Iran has attacked no one in its modern history and does
not threaten Israel. Various modern leaders have demanded American attack every
place from Iraq to Iran, and they very much got their way in Iraq, Libya, and
Syria. Likely a million have died, and for what?
Well, in the end, re-created Israel is a fact, even if a
mistake, and the world can accept it if only it can play by the rules, return
to the Green Line, and live in peace with its neighbors. This is the view of
people like Uri Avnery whom I support. But voices like his are extremely rare
in Israel. So what hope is there ever to see peace and progress with dark
figures like Netanyahu or Sharon? None.
