The Holocaust and The Occupation
Yesterday Israelis commemorated Yom Ha'Shoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Next week is Israel's 60th Independence Day. That Independence Day immediately follows Yom Ha'Shoah is appropriate. Together these two days encapsulate the message: Never Again.
The existence of Israel is in no way compensation for the eradication of Europe's Jewish communities. The Nazis killed six million Jews and destroyed some of the world's most vibrant centers of Jewish life. The existence of Israel does not bring any of that back but, at the same time, it is a guarantee that there will be no second Holocaust. All kinds of bad things can happen to Jews but one thing cannot. Jews will never again be in a position in which they lack the ability to fight back with at least as much force as those attacking them.
The 6 million Jews killed between 1939 and 1945 could not defend themselves, could not protect their children, and could find no refuge.
Today we tend to look back at those doomed Jewish communities as predestined for destruction. But that isn't true.
On a visit to Poland a few years ago, I purchased a book of photographs of Polish Jews taken just prior to the Nazi invasion called "I Can Still See Their Faces."
One looks at these photographs of people studying, relaxing, courting, dancing, at the beach, and playing soccer and one can't help but see foreboding in their eyes. Of course, it isn't really there. We know that they died, and how they died, and we imagine that they knew too. But they didn't. They went to school, married, raised kids, always believing that the future was in front of them.
It is important to understand that. Don't think of the Six Million. Think of the 23 year old woman in Budapest in 1941 trying to decide whether to go to medical school. Or the young man in Prague in 1938 wondering whether to propose to his girlfriend. Or the young couple in Krakow overjoyed that, after a few years of failure, they had conceived a child. Or the child surrounded by love.
Then multiply these examples many, many times.
I've been to Poland several times. Warsaw, more than Berlin or any other place I've visited, has the effect of making World War II feel like it took place yesterday.
It's a large old city but with hardly any old buildings. That is because it was destroyed by the Germans during the war. The Poles paid a terrible price for their decision to fight the invading Germans rather than yielding. Because they threw in the towel quickly, the French saved Paris. Because they fought the invaders in 1939, and again during the 1944 national uprising, the Poles saw their capital destroyed. There are little plaques affixed to walls everywhere explaining that on such and such date the following Poles were executed by the Nazis. Fresh flowers adorn these sites, of which there are thousands.
They all carry a word - unique to Polish - which also appears on Jewish memorials: hitlerowcy. It is an adjective describing the most common cause of death during the six year Nazi occupation of Poland. Three million Jews; two million Christians.
During my first trip to Poland, and on my first night in Warsaw, I went out looking for the site of the Warsaw Ghetto. The Nazis leveled it after the ghetto uprising (as they would, one year later, raze the rest of the city after the general Warsaw Uprising).
I walked in the direction of the ghetto, not seeing anything that seemed "right," until I came across a street sign that read: "Moredchaj Anielewicz Street." That was the name of the 24 year old commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a hero of mine since childhood.
I wanted to find 18 Mila Street, the bunker headquarters of Anielewicz and his fellow young fighters. An old Pole passed and stopped. He didn't know English but when I said the word "zhidow" (Jew in Polish) and "ghetto," he led me toward an open space.
He crossed himself as we arrived at the bunker site--now just a seven or eight foot high mound of rubble. I looked around at the dark emptiness surrounding me. These streets once bustled with Jews. All kinds. Zionist and anti-Zionists. Religious and atheist. Communists. Socialists. Assimilationists. "Good" Jews and "bad."
Now nothing but silence--and the knowledge that the bunker in which Jewish heroes died - in which their bones still lay--was beneath my feet.
Suddenly the silence was broken. It was foggy and I could not see who was coming, but the teenage voices were loud and rowdy. Then they appeared. Hebrew filled the air as a mob of Israeli adolescents tried, unsuccessfully, to behave reverently. They couldn't. And they didn't have to. The dead warriors under my feet would, I'm sure, be delighted by these rowdy kids.
A few hours later, I bumped into the same crowd of Israeli kids at the McDonald's on Marszalkowska Street. They were singing Israeli folk songs and making a general ruckus, to the amusement of the locals, while eating their Big Macs and fries. These Jews were afraid of nothing. Singing in Hebrew in Warsaw, they embodied the triumph of Zionism.
I think of those teenagers whenever I read about an Israeli soldier being killed while on patrol in the West Bank. Mordechai Anilewicz's spiritual descendants should not have to do this. Nor should Palestinian kids have no choice but to view these Israeli youngsters as their oppressors.
The occupation is antithetical to the spirit of the ghetto fighters like Anilewicz. If they were here today they would be both amazed and thrilled that the Jews had actually pulled off the creation of a state in the ancient homeland. Just 65 years after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a Jewish state of 7 million is the fourth strongest military power in the world. Any Jew who wants it can have instant Israeli citizenship. Its capital is Jerusalem, where King David reigned.
But what would these fighters of 1943 think if they knew that this magnificent enterprise is threatened not only by outside enemies but by Jews who behave as if they believe that a Jewish state without Nablus, Hebron, Jericho, and the rest of the overwhelmingly Arab West Bank is worthless? Or that they are supported by a supposedly pro-Israel community in the United States that seems to prefer a greater Israel to a secure Israel? Or that the Holocaust is invoked to defend an occupation?
They would be appalled, as anyone who cares about Israel must be. There is only one way to honor the memories of all those Jews lost in the 20th century. It is to preserve a strong and democratic Jewish state, one that will always be there for those who need it. That means negotiating an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one that guarantees both Israel's security and the Palestinian right to statehood. Trifling with the future of Israel over West Bank settlements or the right of Palestinians to control Arab sites in Jerusalem is simply obscene.
Without peace, the magnificent Zionist dream is only half-realized. The hardest part has already been accomplished. It is time to complete the mission.
He is playful,right? he is a hot member of the celeb dating club marrymillionaire.com.he has dated several hot girls on that club.
May 2, 2008 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Never again.
May 2, 2008 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely -- NEVER AGAIN!
M.J. writes:
I must wonder what, besides the First Amendment, earns you the right to speak on behalf of these fallen heroes. After all, these people died before Israel came to be, and well before you and I were born.
Please promise me that you didn't conduct a seance with Mordechai Anilewicz. And if you did, please reassure me that you found worthier things to discuss with him than his opinion re: the ME peace process.
May 3, 2008 12:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is Israel really the 4th most powerful military?
France, Russia, China, and the US all have more nukes.
And the UK has about a dozen fewer nukes than Israel, but without looking up any stats, I'd wager that her navy, ground, and air forces outstrip Israel's.
May 2, 2008 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
SPQR writes:
No, of course it isn't - far from it. Israel's outsized air force is very capable and can act offensively. The ground forces are well equipped but not large, certainly insufficient for large-scale offensives meant to conquer and hold large chunks of enemy's territory. Finally, Israel's navy is miniscule and defensive in nature.
This makes Israel a strong regional power, but certainly not the largest - both Turkey's and Egypt's military's are larger - and one that is unlikely to prevail in a head-on conventional confrontation with either of the two. Israel's only strategic deterrence is its non-conventional capabilities.
Deliberate exaggeration of Israel's military might is a common technique. Israel's detractors and enemies use it to gain sympathy by painting the ME conflict in "David vs Goliath" terms.
The Peace Now movement uses exactly the same technique to argue to ordinary Israelis that the country's military superiority is a sufficient guarantor of their safety and security, even within pre-1967 borders. Over the last 15 years, proponents of such an argument have steadily lost ground.
May 2, 2008 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please tell Hillary to stop pandering to the Jewish right wing. Americans are not informed about the loyal peace movement in Israel.
May 2, 2008 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, and I suppose you believe that Sen. Obama who told AIPAC;s National Meeting last year exactly the same things that Hilary did as to making sure Israel will be strong and secure on his watch, and who will do so again this year, is not pandering. Glad to hear it. I wondered about his sincerity, but if you don't think he's pandering then that's reassuring.
By the way, except for Byrd, every single Democratic liberal in the United States Senate from Dick Durbin to Sheldon Whitehouse (whom my friends helped elect over that idiot Chafee)to Ron Wyden to Barbara Mikulski to Debbie Stabenow says exactly what Hilary says--are they pandering to the right wing too?
May 3, 2008 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not to be argumentative, but I think many knowledgeable people would say that the answer is "yes, they all pretty much pander to the right wing."
It's one of the biggest problems we have in terms of making any progress in the middle east. The politics here in America are skewed so far to the right we can't even discuss anything regarding peace between Israel and the Palestinians that isn't a reflection of the right wing view of the situation.
Anyone who departs from that viewpoint is almost automatically tarred and feathered as anti-semitic whether or not that is true. It's a pretty sad situation in my opinion and doesn't help Israel in the long run, in fact it has and will continue to hurt Israel.
May 4, 2008 11:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Rosenberg, it is time you and I face facts. The right wing, Likudniks and Netanyahuists in Israel and Pipes'ts and Peretz'ists here seem to have hijacked our religion and our culture and welded it to the New American Century (fascist version). You and I are pariahs in our own culture. And if we do not make obeisance to the new reality we are excommunicated as anti-Semites. They have the money, they have the press. Those are the facts. Maybe it is time to call the Jewish fascists, well, Jewish fascists.
May 2, 2008 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Though I believe your message to be essentially sarcastic, VLaszlo, allow me to humor it at face value. If for no better reason than to get it off my chest.
Just because the machers, those celebrity screaming heads that show up in dank TV and radio studios with Chris Matthews, Dennis Praeger, Wolf Blitzer or Sean Hannity with the facade of leadership and insisting upon their own final wisdom, it will not change the reality that none of these grayser kinyockers have any substantial choir at whom to preach. "Chevel chevelim," all is vanity with these characters you mention. To hear the machers of Beyt Podhoretz tell it, one would think that Israelis and Zionists call for endless war "in one voice," and that Jewish American voters do not traditionally turn out 3-1 Democratic at election time. They say the things that the Powers-That-Be want said, and it penetrates very little beyond the microphones and donation pledges that they can never righeously earn.
May 2, 2008 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was not being sarcastic. I was expressing deep irritation and frustration at the scum, Podhoretz, Krauthammer, Dershowitz and the like, who have seized the podium, and the agenda, and constantly smear and label anyone who disagrees with their "Israel uber alles" politics. It is clear they want no peace; negotiating with Abbas and the Palestine Authority will, to quote them, never work because the Palestine Authority will not enforce security agreements; negotiating with Hamas is not possible since officially Hamas does not renounce the calls for the destruction of Israel. So full speed ahead to the occupation, to the blockade of Gaza, to increased settlements, to violations of basic human rights, to 100 years of war.
May 3, 2008 8:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fair enough. But the likes of us are certainly not the pariahs in our culture.
May 3, 2008 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
The best favor this country could do Israel is encourage it to sit down and talk with its enemies. Not bomb them, not threaten them and not encourage us to do so. No preconditions – leave everything open to discussion. Some things will be worked out, some things won’t. At least, as long as there’s conversation and negotiation, there’ll always be a “next time.” And no excuses – nothing about “unyielding” or “intractable” enemies or issues. And even if the other side breaks the truce and bombs and threatens, don’t respond in kind unless there is no other option. And this is important: No more collective punishment. There’s a key problem with collective punishment: There is NO justice in it. None.
For almost 45 years this country and the Soviet Union avoided mutually assured destruction by talking and bargaining. By staying in touch. By reminding each other that there were humans on the other side, and that conditions were much less tense if that great divide separating us was, if only intermittently, only as wide as a table.
The Lincoln quote is cornball, but true: “The surest way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.” Without at least the promise of reconciliation, there is no chance for peace. No peace, no hope. No hope… no life worth living. That’s as true for Israel as it is for the rest of us.
May 2, 2008 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
San Fernando Curt writes:
SF Curt is absolutely right. And Israel will gratefully reciprocate -- by encouraging the U.S. to sit down and talk to al Qaeda and to Osama bin Laden. Israel could even contribute some meatless grub (falafels!) for the vegetarian Bin Laden... Kumbaya!
Yup, that's a great analogy. Of course, it has helped greatly that both the U.S. and the former Soviet Union always maintained a healthy and respectful geographical separation...
So, what can we do? Maybe put in something like a Bering Strait between Israel and Palestine? I know, it's not that wide -- only 60 miles or so, but it'd be a very good start.
May 3, 2008 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your personal impressions.
Mine is of coming back from a week at Dachau at a US Army school. One foggy cold day I visited the
small museum and was the only one.
Not sure what it says about me but what stuck in my mind was a memo from a higher level in the SS to the camp commander explaining how the captives should be leased out for work on the local farms at, say, one RM a day and the budget for food should be kept to fifty pfennigs. When a captive was rejected by the farmer as not worth an RM, cut the price to 60pf. And move him to an area where the food budget is 30pf.USW.
When I returned to Giessen the weather had changed and it was a nice early spring day. With a german friend I drove to Wiesbaden where we
had coffee and pastries at a tennis club while watching healthy young germans play.
On the drive back Eric said, out of the blue.
"So you've been to Dachau". "Oh yeah".
"
May 2, 2008 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Continuing
May 2, 2008 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
This should finish.
"I suppose you believe what they tell you there"
"Eric , nobody told me anything. I could see what I saw"
"You don't know what THEY were like".
May 2, 2008 8:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Europe massacred six million Jews and Palestinians were made to pay for it. Today Palestinians are despondent, they have no life or a chance for a reasonable existence.
President Bush gave Ariel Sharon the green light to destroy the Palestinians by calling them terrorists while talking about a two state formula at the same time. He never intended creation of a Palestinian state. His term of office is coming to an end and he has made no serious efforts in this regard. Hawkish Israelis don't want to give up occupied lands and that could be Israel's undoing. If Palestinians are denied a state and a civilised existence, they will only breed more extremists who will be hell bent on ausing trouble for Israel.
I agree with your comment whole heartedly that Israel must come to peace and take steps for creation of a Palestinian state so both Israel and Palestine can exist side by side in harmony.
May 2, 2008 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ajazhaque
Europe massacred six million Jews and Palestinians were made to pay for it.
That's just spin. Zionism pre-dated the slaughter of the 6 million and was powerful in Israel even before WWI. Further Muslims in general and Arabs in particular had many chances for peaceful co-existance. They refused all of them. The land was all theirs, the Jews were dhimmis, and that was that.
@notthere
After 60 years there is no question of Israel going away.
Oh? How do you know? God told you? The Soviet Union was gone in 70 years, the Nazis in 12, the British Empire in about 150. Poland, Hungary and much of eastern Europe had no independent existance for nearly 400 years. On and on like that.
Equally, they will not find peace until they treat others with the respect for survival they so desperately seek themsleves.
The others will give the Israelis what they want if only the Jews are nice to them? Are you some kind of idiot mama's boy?
In the US it's not discussable.
No? Isn't TPMCafe in the U.S.? Aren't you discussing it? What you mean is that no matter how many times you and your stupid friends present your arguments you don't get your way. Waaaaa....
May 3, 2008 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's very unfortunate to think of the area of Israel as only a Jew's homeland. Of course it was someone's before they came and the same and others when their majority was driven off. When they returned they purchased land, then drove people from theirs. Ethnic cleansing was a policy of the 1948 war. Many official Israeli policies embrace illegal actions as an occupying power including wide-ranging and capricious general punishment, disproportionate actions, destruction and removal of property without legal process, lax investigation of civilian deaths, and, of course huge land expropriation even of land beyond the 1968 borders.
That is the unfortunate truth.
In this world, the story of many tribes and races is migration. Defeating, even enslaving others, being conquered, being driven on. There's not much unique about the Jews except that their claim on this land is enshrined in their religion and in texts written by themselves.
Of course the survival of the Jewish people should be secured and their is no reason for them to rely on others given their history. After 60 years there is no question of Israel going away.
Equally, they will not find peace until they treat others with the respect for survival they so desperately seek themsleves.
If Israel would like the world to look in the mirror of history to remember Judaism's trials, Israel should certainly inspect closely their own actions under the same light.
This seems obvious to a large number of Israelis. In the US it's not discussable.
May 2, 2008 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
M.J.Rosenberg uses Yom Hashoa to exploit Holocaust and give a platform for Israel hatred.
Israel did it in 2000. You have a short memory.BTW, How do you propose to " guarantee Israel's security" ?
May 2, 2008 10:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Israel hatred" = "Not absolutely agreeing with whatever the Jewish right-wing in America say".
Never mind that most Israelis don't agree with most of AIPAC's positions. For some reason, that doesn't seem relevant.
May 3, 2008 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bearpaw writes:
That's right! The Israelis, less than 5 percent of whom vote for the hard Left/Peace Now crowd, strongly reject the Peace Now philosophy - when it's presented to them in their native Hebrew.
However, as soon as this glorious Mishnah is translated into English and is attached to such illustrious names as M.J. Rosenberg, J Street, et al., the Israelis immediately embrace it.
Bearpaw, stop reading opinion polls from Haaretz. It is well known that, unlike in the U.S., in Israel facts have a distinct right-wing bias.
May 3, 2008 7:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
May 2, 2008 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
tnathan writes:
It was not the first time. The Pals rejected an even better offer by the UN in 1947. And in 1967 Israel offered to return all the territories it conquered in the Six Day war and to negotiate peace with its neighbors. The Arabs responded with the famous "Three No's" of Khartoum.
Thus the late Abba Eban's famous saying: "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss and opportunity"
May 3, 2008 12:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well said. I'd go a step forward and say the ideal, a stand against the senseless hatred that fueld the Holocaust and other genocides, would be a joint Israeli-Palestinian, Jewish-Muslim state--a shared democracy between two ethnicities, two religions, overcoming the hatred to work together for a better tomorrow.
Not that it will ever happen, the way the nations of the world, the US first and foremost, keep fanning the fire. But we can hope.
May 2, 2008 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why not first to have an Arab democracy somewhere first? Do they really need Jews to have a democracy anywhere in Arab or Muslim world?
May 2, 2008 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ethan Jennings writes:
Riiiight, ... because it worked out so well between the Christians and Muslims in Lebanon; or between the Sunni and Shia in Iraq; or between the different religious and ethnic groups in the Balkans; or between the Greeks and Turks in Cyprus; or ... should I go on?
BTW, not all of these were fanned by the U.S. - not by a long shot.
I know it sounds dispiriting, but growing up means accepting the significant gap between one's ideals and the real world.
May 3, 2008 12:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm afraid I agree.
May 3, 2008 6:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree as well, although I find myself somewhat uncomfortable to be agreeing with iaf. There are so many hurdles to jump on the way to achieving a two state solution that pushing for a one state solution becomes very much a case of allowing the perfect to become the enemy of the good. Perhaps the idea could be revisited someday after peace is achieved, if the two peoples agree upon it...
MJ: Bravo! A deeply moving article.
May 3, 2008 8:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wordie writes:
That's alright, Wordie. Remember the title of Al Gore's book and movie: An Inconvenient Truth. Same here, although in a different context.
May 3, 2008 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
laf.
Don't even go there comparing the Christians and Muslims of Lebanon with anywhere else, as you show abysmal ignorance of the place by doing so.
Lebanon is a unique situation with shifting alliances between all the groups and Shiite Hezbollah is allied with Christians allied with Michel Aoun. Shiites and Christians have both been allies of Israel in the past as are some of the diverse supporters of Harrari Inc at present who are also allied with the US, the French, Berlusconi's Italy and fer chrissakes, the Saudis. Then there are the Palestinian refugees who find common cause with salafist jihadi types associated with al-Qaeda.
Thanks to US et al idiocy, former presidential slamdunk head of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) General Suleiman is now alllied with Assad of Syria and has bluntly declared he will actively fight Israel if they are so stupid to as to bring another war to Lebanon.
Throw all simple assumptions about Lebanon out the damn door as the fluid reality of the place defies temporal categorizations.
Unless, of course, you are uninterested in the dynamic of the situation on Israel's northern border. Most American supporters of Israel do prefer their precious ideological thinking when it comes Israel's security challenges.
Thery're the very best loyal customers of Hasbara Inc.
Hands down.
May 3, 2008 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, lally, you're absolutely right: Lebanon has always been a paragon of political stability.
And it would still be one today, was in not for the evil Israelis and Americans who in 1976 simply forced the Lebanese to start a bloody civil war. Then, the same McNasties - Israel and the U.S. - twisted Syria's arm to occupy Lebanon, and to stay there for the next 30 years.
Pinhead!
P.S. FYI, the name of the slain former Prime Minister of Lebanon is Rafiq Hariri, not Harrari.
May 3, 2008 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your littleboy namecalling doesn't mitigate your ignorance laf. Evidently you missed the whole point of my post which was that Lebanon's current instability is directly tied to foreign interference.
BTW, Israel's history of working the Lebanese refs began in the 50s. Our own involvement is of a more recent vintage but we are making up for our lapses as Bush has been sold the fable that Lebanon is his last chance to claim a victory for his brand of "democracy".
The Lebanese people are hardly blameless in their bloody civil war and it's their memories of those horrors that are keeping another round at bay for now. You can bet that the destabilization of the place is the post stupid summer war of '06 policy of the same fools who thought the armed and trained Fatah forces under the thug Dahlan could crush Hamas.
That worked out well, didn't it?
"Birth pangs" for the ME, indeed.
May 3, 2008 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ethan Jennings misses a basic point concerning Israel. It's existence as the one locale where Jews can be in control of their political fates is the fundament of the Zionist dream. The reason that Abbas and Olmert both discuss "two-state" solutions is because the Israeli Jews cannot accept life in a state where their identity as Jews has no meaning. Those who say that the Arab birthrates far exceed Jewish ones are doomsayers, but in a secular "Israeli/Palestinian" state they presume, with reason, that the "Israeli" will eventually vanish. Such a sstate could no longer be a home to any Jew in the world who feels oppressed in his country of origin.
Yes, the Israelis and Palestinians must learn to live with each other. If, however, "good fences make good neighbors" then the fences must be retained.
May 3, 2008 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think more should be said about the Palestinian
diaspora. In discussing Iraq's future it's usually acknowledged that its refugees must
be returned, that refugee camps apart from anything else are a breeding ground for violent young men who will cause trouble somewhere.
I think any settlement-even Taba which doesn't deal with the Palestinian refugees will fair. This is not a suggestion that they be returned to Israel , just that that we deal with this problem .
My solution which has appeared here too often
is money.
Offer $10,000 to each family that agrees to leave those camps and $5000 to the country that
accepts them- anywhere in the world from Albania to Zimbabwe. On the back of an envelope $20 billion would do it. A month of Iraq.
There'll be no permanent peace until they are permanently settled.
May 3, 2008 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
flavius writes:
Well, it must be "money + resettlement", preferably at locations distant enough from the current theater of events, where the "perpetual refugee victimhood" mentality, which was systematically and deliberately indoctrinated for three generations, hopefully can abate.
Well, we are talking of a poorly educated, often problematic population, so the above amounts should be tripled or quadrupled. However, the problem goes well beyond money and economics: there are also serious cultural and religious concerns, i.e. the choices are limited.
Majority black underpopulated African countries e.g. Zimbabwe or Namibia could reject the Pals, seeing how several other mixed Arab-Black countries on the continent (Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, etc.) are torn apart by ethnic-religious infighting.
I doubt the Europeans, or U.S./Canada/Australia would be eager to absorb tens of thousands of Arab muslim immigrants. (Don't you wonder, why after WWII the U.S. absorbed hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans, and after 1972 - hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese, yet in the last 5 years only a handful of Iraqi refugees were granted admission in the U.S.?)
By far the most natural place for large numbers of Pal. refugees are the underpopulated, oil-rich Arab countries such as: Libya (pop. 6 million, on 680,000 square miles), Saudi Arabia (pop. 27 million, on 830,000 square miles), and Algeria (pop. 33 million, on 920,000 square miles.) Dunno about you, but I'm not holding my breath for this to happen.
P.S. Just to remind everyone:
- Israel (1967 borders): pop. 7 million, on 8,000 square miles;
- Pal. State (1967 borders, Gaza + West Bank): pop. 4 million, on 2,300 square miles.
- Pal. refugees + descendants: 5 million.
May 3, 2008 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice post. I wonder if anyone caught this little nugget on Holocaust Remembrance day.
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Although Holocaust denial has long been a common theme among Palestinians, Hamas has added a 'sinister twist,' claiming that the Jews themselves devised the Holocaust to exterminate the disabled and handicapped among them so they wouldn't be a burden to the future State of Israel.
The documentary, which aired on Hamas Al-Aksa television on April 18 - two weeks before Israel marks Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday -- was translated by the Palestinian Media Watch and can be found on YouTube.
Over archival footage of the first Israeli leaders, a Holocaust death camp and Nazi Germany, a narrator "quotes" Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion as saying that the "disabled and handicapped" represent a "heavy burden" to the state.
"The Satanic Jews thought up an evil plot [the Holocaust] to be rid of the burden of the disabled and handicapped, in twisted criminal ways," the narrator says.
"While they accuse the Nazis or others so that Jews would seem persecuted and try to benefit from international sympathy, they were the first to invent the methods of evil and oppression," the narrator says.
As part of the documentary, Amin Dabur, head of the Palestinian Center for Strategic Research, called the Holocaust "a joke" and said it was "part of the perfect show that Ben Gurion put on."
"[He] focused on strong and energetic youth [for Israel], while the rest - the disabled, the handicapped, and the people with special needs were sent [to die]," Dabur charged. "They were sent [to die] so there would be a holocaust, so Israel could 'play' it for the world sympathy," he said.
The narrator says the "alleged numbers" of Jews killed in the Holocaust was exaggerated for propaganda purposes.
May 3, 2008 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Armchair Guerilla.
Here is a direct link to the article.
May 3, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
And here are the direct links to the Palestinian Media Watch bulletin, as well as to the clip on YouTube.
Please bookmark these links and revisit them each time you experience an urge to counsel Israel to negotiate with Hamas.
May 3, 2008 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
The reason for my previous post is to highlight my despair that a reasonable solution will ever be found to this problem. Yes, I agree that the settlement enterprise is illegal, immoral, and most of all, a tremendous barrier to peace. I would even go so far as to agree that the Israelis have never offered the full package that nearly everyone recognizes as the outline for peace: an autonomous Palestine on the West Bank and Gaza (linked somehow) free from Israeli settlers, with a capital in some portion of Jerusalem and some form of compensation short of return for refugees displaced in 1948. But Israel has come fairly close to that and has a clear majority who favor some sort of compromise. The militant right wingers and religious settlers are a minority with outsize political power that would dissipate were an agreement to be reached. Unfortunately, I can not say the same on the Palestinian side. It's not just their rejection of the concededly inadequate Camp David offer (though it was certainly enough to form the basis for a more just one). It is the embrace of the culture of the suicide bomber. The virulence of the hatred of Jews spewing out from their media every day. The seeming insistence on everything or nothing. Their inability to compromise on any issue, most importantly the right of return. While I am disturbed by the suffering of the Palestinian people and the hardening of Israeli society, it seems obvious to me that their suffering is prolonged by their deeply embedded intransigence.
May 3, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Armchair Guerilla writes:
Please don't forget all the good folks in the West who, by attributing most of the blame to Israel and by applying political pressure exclusively on Israel (and by extension, on the United States), only exacerbate the problem and prolong everyone's suffering.
Indeed, these very vocal and media-savvy folks, primarily Israeli and U.S. peaceniks (like TPM's M.J., Daniel Levy and the JStreet crowd), as well as prominent Pal. intellectuals in the West e.g. Rashid Khalidi or the late Edward Said, by virtue of their non-stop Israel-bashing and constant calls for more concessions, signal to the Pal. leadership that they - the Pals - need not compromise.
All the Pals need to do is suffer just a little bit longer. Sooner rather than later, the weary, exhausted, softened by Qassams Israelis will cave in and give them everything they demand - voluntarily, or forced by the Quartet. Personally, I don't believe this will work, but if it does - God forbid! The consequences will be dire.
And here lies the paradox. A strong, domestically popular Israeli leadership (Rabin, Sharon) has little incentive to compromise. But it certainly can make bold, risky moves, and it did - twice: first in Oslo, then with the unilateral disengagement from Gaza. Both proved to be colossal bungles, as far as the Israeli public is concerned.
OTOH, a domestically weak Israeli leadership (Olmert, Netanyahu, Barak) lacks the popular support for any bold initiatives, whereas the Palestinian leadership is either "weak by design" (Abbas), which makes it automatically immune to any expectations of boldness or decisiveness, or is led by Hamas, which means extreme intransigence.
Sorry, my friends - this stuff is totally unsuitable for American audiences. We like our dramas to be resolved in two hours, and have easily identifiable "good guys" and villains, lots of special effects, a happy ending, and plenty of popcorn.
May 3, 2008 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Armchair Guerilla,
And this is why a coordinated foreign policy approach is required by the US and other interested third parties, including allies among Arab League member nations, along the model of the Quartet. If these governments really wish to be taken seriously on the world economic stage, they can no longer expect to remain on the sidelines of an internationally coordinated peace process as if they had nothing to do with establishing the circumstances of the current situation.
May 4, 2008 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr.Rosenberg--
Herewith a modest proposal for you and your J Street cohorts: let's together press the Congress and Administration to appropriate funding in the next three months for a second corps of Palestinian security to be trained and equipped by U.S. troops with the same mission as the one to be deployed shortly in Jenin, namely stop the thugs and jihadists from wrecking any chance of Annapolis succeeding by homicide bombings. Get J Streeet to proclaim this as a goal and I personally will ask AIPAC leadership to support it too
May 3, 2008 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
My own recollection of Israel is seeing Jewish soldiers run rough shod over their Palestinian neighbors, seeing the well-kept areas of the Jewish Quarter compared to the run-down Christian and Arab areas. The occupation and settlements is a continuing cancer on the state of Israel, just as is its apartheid treatment of Palestinian residents within it's original 1948 borders. It seems too often that the whole discussion becomes one of 'chicken or egg first' and misses the reality that both share some of the same land and need to make peace. I think the U.S. has the means, opportunity, and duty to create peace. First, cut off further aid, incrementally if more palatable, until Israel evacuates all occupied lands outside of its 1948 border. Then, you have two remaining challenges, establishing the State of Palestine with its capital in East Jerusalem and for Israel, it needs to come to grips with how to recognize and become a democracy that respects and enjoys the equal participation of all of its citizens, including especially those who are not Jewish.
Remembering the Holocaust is a sobering moment each year that should give Israel pause to realize that they have become, short the genocide, what they want everyone to hate and never allow again: the oppression and disenfranchisement of a population based on their ethnicity and religion.
May 3, 2008 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Weaver, try to live in the real world: no President will be elected for the forseeable future who will propose to cut aid to "our stalwart ally",in Barack Obama's words, and if one was stupid enough to actually propose that, there would not be even 75 Members of the House of Representatives and no more than 25 Members in the Senate to support that.
May 3, 2008 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
apacmember writes:
Well, President Ron Paul sure didn't make it very far.
May 3, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmm, come to think of it, a recent President whose Administration advocated cutting aid to Israel, was unelected. I believe his first name was George Herbert Walker, and his last name rhymed with Tush.
May 3, 2008 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are probably right but I'd like to think that the times are changing. Today it is much easier to discuss Israel and even question or criticize it than it was even recent years ago. In a way, I think Israel's free ride from America is waning. Furthermore, Bush and the Republicans are getting the U.S. so far into debt that billions of dollars of annual handouts to Israel will gain scrutiny when we are increasingly faced with cutting back domestic programs. Besides, aside from perceived guilt and being told by politicians that we must support Israel, what benefit is there for us? For most Americans, the answer is a resounding None. It is not a great ally, it often does not even abide by agreements with the U.S., plus they repeated spy on the U.S. I think Americans will eventually demand accountability for the handouts and even demand they stop. Ron Paul may be the first candidate to call for an end to aid to Israel, but he won't be the last.
May 3, 2008 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Matthew Weaver,
Before Ron Paul, there was Lyndon Larouche. But anyway, foreign aid to Israel is part of the same package as foreign aid to Egypt, a commitment from the 1978 Camp David Accords. If the US cut off one, shall it cut off aid for both? Or is Ron Paul Nation good with US aid to Egypt? If so, why? If not, why not?
Generally speaking, shouldn't the US government assume some responsiblity to support normalization efforts in the region, especially as US dealers and manufacturers have all but cornering the arms market across the region (the UK is up there as well)? I know Ron Paul Nation opposes gun control as a domestic issue, but should it extend to its foreign policy platform as well?
May 4, 2008 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Flavius' comment, from "Eric": that "You don't know what THEY were like," prompts me to relate the following:
I once worked with a Bosnian Muslim woman who had a deep and, despite her best efforts (given the fact that my grandmother was Jewish), thinly veiled animus toward Jews. From time to time we would debate the various Middle East issues covered by the news, both local and international. And I would watch her eyes as she declared (always, always) that Jews were the cause of their own misery, that in the case of the Holocaust, that sure it was terrible BUT they deserved what they got (even as she cited international banking and the like) and, beyond that, they weren't really Jews to begin with (they were, rather, European Khazars). She showed no willingness to see a Jew as an actual human.
This is a particular, singular experience of mine and, of course, it doesn't address the issue of a two-state solution, negotiating with Hamas, or anything else. But I offer it because it's seared into my mind. There remains among us those who seek the deaths of a particular group, this group, because of who they are.
Holocaust rememberance is a reminder--a punch in the face--of a perception that remains as strong today as it was then.
May 3, 2008 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
"If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?"
David Ben Gurion
May 3, 2008 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
@seth edenbaum
Yes, that's what Ben Gurion said, and Ze'ev Jabotinsky as well...but they were clever guys and you are not.
They understood that land - all land and any land - belongs to those who can take it and hold it against all challangers, that no tribe or society has gotten or holds its land in any other way. Thus they followed the statement you quoted with the idea that the Arabs will keep fighting until they conclude the fight is hopeless.
Now you can adopt the attitude that everything which has happened was foreordained, that the Arabs never had the possibility of compromising, of realistically assessing their powers vis-a-vis the Jews. But then why expect the Jews to behave differently?
May 3, 2008 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did I really say suffering twice in the same sentence? And looking back, it appears I used reason and reasonable also. Oh well, I was in a hurry.
As to the substance of your post, I don't disagree with applying pressure to Israel and don't believe the pressure has been one sided. After all, Arafat was lauded when he took steps to reconcile with Israel and ostracized completely when he backed off. I also don't subscribe to the view that Oslo was a disaster. To the contrary, the parties enjoyed a prolonged lull in the violence and a taste of co-existence before lack of political will on both sides sank them even deeper into the morass in which they find themselves.
Still, while I believe Israel must reach out to the "moderate" Palestinians in an effort to find peace, I am deeply skeptical that the moderates have any real power to deliver, even if they wanted to. Whether this is a temporary phenomenon or is deeply ingrained in the national consciousness remains to be seen.
May 3, 2008 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Armchair Guerilla writes:
Sir, if you wish to be taken seriously, please do some homework before you post and refrain from making statements that are heavy on wishful thinking but lacking in the facts department.
Here is the Summary of Terrorist Attacks in Israel. It clearly demonstrates that between 1993 and 1997 - right after the Oslo accords were signed and Arafat was allowed back into Pal. territories - the number of terrorist attacks and casualties within Israel went up significantly.
The number of attacks didn't decline until early 1997, right after Netanyahu had become PM and implemented harsh, but highly effective counter-terrorism measures.
FYI, Arafat received his Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. In that year, 122 Israelis lost their lives and 449 were injured in terrorist attacks.
May 3, 2008 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
"In late August 1948, during a United Nations-sanctioned truce, Israeli soldiers conducting what they called Mivtza Nikayon — Operation Cleaning — encountered some Palestinian refugees just north of the Egyptian lines. The Palestinians had returned to their village, now in Israeli hands, because their animals were there, and because there were crops to harvest and because they were hungry. But to the Israelis, they were potential fighters, or fifth columnists in the brand new Jewish state. The Israelis killed them, then burned their homes."
May 3, 2008 11:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
IAF: Your post illustrates the unfortunate reality that it is impossible to discuss the Israeli Palestinian situation without descending into invective - even where there is apparent agreement.
You accuse me of ignorance of the facts and wishful thinking. Please be aware that my wife (and inlaws) as well as dozens of my friends are Israeli. I visit there annually. I regularly read Israeli newspapers as well as just about anything I can get my hands on in the American press. Of course, this does not make me an expert. But I am confident that even as Oslo has become something of a dirty word, most Israelis (and I would hazard, Palestinians as well) would concede that relations with the Palestinians were far better during that time than either the period preceding or following. Israelis traveled freely in the territories (almost inconceivable today). Tensions were lower. Violence was lower. (Lest I be attacked from both sides, I should point out that Palestinian efforts to crack down on terrorism were halfhearted and Israeli settlement activity continued unabated, indeed, increased).
The numbers in the chart you link to - while informative - do not tell the whole story and can not be divorced from political events. Let's not forget that Oslo followed the first intifada. Surely you would not suggest that to be a preferable state of affairs? Yes, as the numbers tell, the number of Israelis killed in terror attacks rose in 1993 - that was the time when suicide bombing became a favorite tactic of Hamas and Islamic Jihad who used it as a means of derailing the peace process. Let's not forget that Rabin was assassinated in 1995. Let's not forget that another uptick in suicide bombings coincided with the Israeli elections in 1996 and helped Netanyahu ascend to Prime Minister. It's true the numbers went down in 1997 and 1998 under Netanyahu, but the peace process foundered. In 2001, the year Barak became Prime Minister, 8 Israelis were killed. The Camp David talks broke down in July 2000 and the second intifada began in September 2000 after Sharon's provocative visit to the Temple Mount. Sharon became Prime Minister in February 2001. You will notice that the number of Israelis killed in terrorist attacks that year spiked to 202, with 1386 injured, dwarfing anything seen during the Oslo period. In 2002, those numbers rose again to 430 and 2100. In 2003, 209 and 859. Compare those to 1994 (122 killed), 1995 (55) and 1996 (76).
So, IAF, I stand by my assertion that Oslo - admittedly imperfect and never realized - still marked a lull in violence and raised the possibility of relatively peaceful coexistence. And yes, I do wish to be taken seriously.
May 4, 2008 1:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
FYI, from the fall of '97 until the fall of '00, a few months after the Camp David summit collapse, a total of six Israelis were killed in suicide bombings inside Israel. In the post-Oslo years, the # hit 1000.
The 3 years of Oslo, during which Israel and the PLO worked together on security measures, were, the safest years in Israel's history.
Ask any Israeli what 1999 felt like. I remember hose traffic jams as Israelis left Israel on the weekends to shop in the West Bank Arab towns.
Jewish fanatics, Arab fanatics are all the same.
I would recommend not engaging the ethnic purists here. For them, race and blood is everything.
Trying to explain to these guys that Palestinians have rights is like trying to explain to Pat Robertson that gays should be allowed to marry. Or, for you New Yorkers, explaining that Israel will not survive if it keeps the settlements etc is, as Woody Allen said, "like explaining alternate side of the street parking to a cranberry."
May 4, 2008 7:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
So what happened after the Camp David summit collapse?
Trying to explain to tpmcafeers and other progressives that a Jewish state of Israel has right to exist is like trying to explain to Pat Robertson that gays should be allowed to marry.
Trying to explain to M.J. Rosenberg that it's a bad idea to use straw man argument is like trying to explain to Pat Robertson that gays should be allowed to marry.
Trying to explain to M.J. Rosenberg that Jewish fanatics, Arab fanatics are NOT all the same is like trying to explain to Pat Robertson that gays should be allowed to marry.
May 4, 2008 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
M.J. Rosenberg writes:
See, that's exactly the problem. There is no shortage of advocates on behalf of the Palestinians, and sometimes it seems that there are as many Jews engaged in it as there are non-Jews.
As a Jew, I confine my advocacy to the issues concerning Israel and its rights/needs. I promise to diversify into advocacy on behalf of the Palestinians as soon as at least a few Arabs/Muslims/Palestinians are found who are willing to reciprocate by seriously undertaking the task of advocacy on behalf of the Jews and Israel - in their own communities and in Arabic. I.e. accept Israel's existence as a Jewish state, and confront/fight anti-Semitism that's become de rigueur in Arab society.
Sadly, for now peace advocacy is very much a one-way street. I'm for rapprochement, but against surrender.
I've been hearing this argument since at least 1982 (the first war in Lebanon) - 26 years ago. I have yet to understand how the settlements endanger Israel's existence. My view is that this is a straw man. First, Israel has removed settlements in the past, and will likely do so in the future, if/when an agreement is achieved.
Moreover, a territorial compromise isn't impossible: certain settlement clusters will remain Israeli, with appropriate land swaps - to compensate the Pals. In this, Bill Clinton's guidelines should be used: what's Jewish - goes to Israel, what's Arab - to Palestine. Certain Israeli Arab townships may be included in this, if it's their own free choice.
The really thorny issues are: (a) the Palestinian Right of Return, (b) Jerusalem, and (c) how to prevent the future Pal. state from becoming a Hamastan - a failed state controlled by a belligerent terrorist/guerilla govt. a la Taliban. These have little to do with the settlements.
May 4, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would also point out that the number killed in terrorist attacks in Israel in 2007 and 2008 has been relatively low. Meanwhile, rockets rain down on the southern cities and soldiers engaged in "defensive" maneuvers are regularly killed. Would you, IAF, still say that Israelis are safer now than they were during the Oslo period? Numbers can be misleading.
Another question: What's your alternative?
May 4, 2008 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Armchair asks:
Well, it depends. Clearly, the citizens of Sderot, Ashkelon and the villages around the Gaza Strip are not. As for the rest of the country, they've had a pretty safe couple of years - not counting the 2nd War in Lebanon, which wreaked havoc of Israel's north.
The relative safety of the last two years must be attributed to both the fact that IDF now controls the West Bank, as well as to the security fence.
As to Oslo, let me put it in Kerry'esque terms: I was for it before I was against it, shopping trips to Nablus notwithstanding.
I wish I had one. However, I do not share in the urgency often expressed by M.J.: Israel is not about to collapse, and it's not going away.
History has its own pace, and in the ME change is hard, slower than what we're accustomed to in the West. Let's face it: some Middle Easterners have yet to come to terms with the Crusades, and are vividly reliving each triumph and defeat, each slight or grievance - whether real or perceived, as though they'd experienced it in person.
Others are completely entranced by the 7th century. Check out the Holy Koran to grasp the historical meaning of terms like "Hudna" and "Tahadiya", used by Hamas in its indirect attempts to achieve a temporary truce with Israel.
IOW, Israel faces enemies for whom 60 years are a brief episode, a fleeting moment in history. In such a framework, being impatient and willing to compromise in order to achieve peace quickly is counter-productive, a signal of weakness. And in the ME, the weak do not survive, unless of course they're Palestinians...
May 4, 2008 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Statistics 29.9.2000-31.3.2008
Palestinian dead- 4720
Israeli dead - 1045
Palestinian minors killed- 917
Israeli minors killed- 123
"Trying to explain to tpmcafeers and other progressives that a Jewish state of Israel has right to exist..."
Joshua Marshall has called the founding of Israel a "necessary crime."
And as usual, is there even one actual A-rab commenting on this site? It's still white people talking about negroes and the negro problem.
go here
and here
And here's a a nice quaker lady too
May 4, 2008 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
seth edenbaum writes:
So what's your point? Not enough dead Israelis to satisfy your sense of justice?
Go compare the number of dead Iraqis and Afghanis vs the number of dead Americans, or the dead Vietnamese vs dead Americans - including minors!, before you dare lecturing Israelis on the immorality of combat.
Well, if he did say that, it puts him in the Jeremiah Wright category.
May 4, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
iaf,
necessary |ˈnesəˌserē|
adjective
1 required to be done, achieved, or present; needed; essential : members are admitted only after they have gained the necessary experience | it's not necessary for you to be here.
2 determined, existing, or happening by natural laws or predestination; inevitable : a necessary consequence.
---
I doubt Jeremiah Wright would agree.
May 4, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm somewhat doubtful of your claim that "Joshua Marshall has called the founding of Israel a "necessary crime." Can you provide a link?
May 4, 2008 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
oops!
here ya go
May 4, 2008 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I notice that at TPM Mideast doves outnumber hawks by about 95-5% but it's the opposite at Lucianne and Free Republic.
I think it's best for the Dems to simply kiss the Likudniks goodbye, let them vote for McCain (as they will), and raise our campaign funding from the net and from liberals.
We don't need the Likudniks. Their heart is with the Republicans, and even more with Netanyahu. Inevitably, their votes and their money will be as well.
Bye bye.
May 4, 2008 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's sadly true.
I notice that at TPM Mideast people who can't stand an idea of a state where Jewish are in majority outnumber people who accept Jewish state of Israel by about 95-5. What does it say about TMP?
I notice that at TPM Mideast people who share Reverend Wright's views that conflicts in the Middle East is rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel outnumber people who agree with Obama that the conflicts in the Middle East is emanated from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam by about 95-5.
May 4, 2008 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear MJ,
Thank you for a beautiful and moving article, and for having the courage to set it out for the partisans of right-wing Zionism to attempt tear it down. I especially appreciated your comments on the young Israelis in modern Poland, it helps me understand the positive side of Zionism.
I'm not going to get into chewing over rhetorical bones with creatures, but I had to laugh at the attempt of the Likudists to poor-mouth Israel's military might back near the top of the thread. Sure, Israel may not be the fourth-strongest military power on the globe, but it is up there somewhere, probably contending for number 7 or 8 against the likes of Pakistan and India. The idea that Israel would probably be defeated by either Egypt or Turkey (or was it supposed to be an Egyptian-Turkish combination?) simply isn't serious. Maybe an Egyptian-Turkish coalition could make it less than a crushing victory for Israel, but get real, Turkey simply isn't obsessed with Israel (as Arab ethnic states are, because of the perceived offense to their Palestinian cousins in Arab-ness) and indeed for most of the recent decade Turkey has had an informal arrangement with Turkey, on the enemy-of-my-enemy principle in relation to Syria. And are you really comparing the prowess of the Turkish air force with the Israeli air force? Now maybe Israel's clandestine support of the Iraqi Kurds who are killing Turkish soldiers is straining this arrangement, but a full-out Israeli-Turkish is simply one of the least likely conflicts/disasters that the Middle East faces.
However, the right-wing Zionist did then have the honesty to mention "Israel's unconventional military capabilities," so he or she is to be congratulated on that unusual candor. Which is the exactly the point that puts the lie to all the right-wing Zionist war-mongering against Iran, and the whining about the idea that Iran's putative future nuclear capability poses some sort of "existential threat" to Israel.
Israel has at least two hundred nukes right now, at least two hundred and probably more, and Israel's capability in delivery systems is certainly an "order of magnitude" more developed than whatever missiles, planes, submarines, etc. Iran can muster. There is no possible way this lead can be shrunk by any efforts the Iranians can make in the next two decades.
The idea that any rational person anywhere can look at the facts of relative Israeli and Iranian power, and conclude that Iran represents ANY KIND of threat that Israel cannot overwhelm -- even if Israel didn't have the implied backing, oil supplies and guaranteed re-supply of the USA, the world's # 1 military power -- is simply ludicrous.
It's only because the highly twisted and one-sided coverage in the American media has created, for right-wing partisans such myths about Israeli vulnerability and Iranian agression, and such ignorance among disinterested masses, that such an argument can be maintained with a straight face. Israel has very little to fear from the Iranian military today, and there is very little that Iran can do on its own to close that military gap.
The war-mongering against Iran that so strongly threatens our American freedom and prosperity here in 2008 is just not based on any kind of factual threat to Israel. Making the whole mess, of course, all the more tragic to all the globe's 7 billion humans.
May 4, 2008 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Featherfamily: While I count myself among the 95% "dove" community here (although I would qualify that number as it would seem to include 30% or so who have been schooled in hard left antagonism to the very idea of Israel), I take issue with several of your points.
First, why would we be discussing Turkey? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Turkey have relatively amicable relations with Israel and isn't it in fact one of the few (the only?) muslim nations with diplomatic relations? If I'm wrong about that, please let me know, but I don't know where you're going with that.
Second, Israel does indeed have much to fear from Iran, both subjectively and objectively. Subjectively, you must take into account that we are talking about a tiny nation (eight miles wide at it narrowest) of 7 million people (5.5 million jews), whose roots lie in a genocide of unspeakable proportion, surrounded by a sea of Arabs unremittingly hostile to its existence which has been in a state of near constant war since its inception. Can you not appreciate that a populous nation sitting on top of a sea of oil, ruled by a fanatical theocracy and President who regularly calls for their destruction might not subjectively cause Israelis to feel vulnerable and believe Iran represents a very real and worrisome threat? Concern over Iran's nuclear ambitions is not mere "right-wing Zionist war-mongering" and "whining;" a nuclear armed (read undeterrable) Iran is in fact an "existential threat" to Israel. Neither Israeli nukes nor American support (which is not guaranteed to last forever) ensure its survival. In a country its size, there is no margin for error.
May 4, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was purposely not going back to the source, it was iaf or another of our self-styled "pro-Israeli" commenters in one of the earliest comments at the top of the thread who raised the image of the Israeli military unable to prevail in a contest against Turkey.
But now you've confused me. Leaving aside the mixed evidence on the Iranian President's "calls for destruction" and his actual power in the Iranian scheme -- which could indeed be threating to some Israelis but how is Teheran supposed to feel about similar warlike rhetoric coming towards them from Jerusalem and Washington? -- how does an Iran with a half-dozen nukes and second-rate means of delivery become "undeterrable" by Israel's hundreds of nukes and superior air, missile and submarine forces? I'm not a close reader of Mideast military forces these days (though I was in the 70's and 80's) but I do try to keep up my credentials as a historian. So I am walking out on the plank of assumption here and maybe things have changed, but I just can't imagine that a close examination of Israel's and Iran's air and missile forces would leave Israel at the disadvantage.
My reading of history, and the majority of conventional commentary, is that states coming into possession of nukes generally become _more_ deterrable, not less.
May 4, 2008 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
60th Anniversary
I yawn like the oven
Making a list in my head
Of who gets shoved in
And who gets sent to bed
May 4, 2008 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
The estimate of 6 million Jews killed in the Nazi holocaust dates from the 1940s -- but research in the intervening decades has shown that the true number is upwards of 7 1/2 million (going in the OPPOSITE direction from the much better-publicized Nazi apologists of recent years).
But experts in the area will rarely give even an estimate of a range of POSSIBILITY of the figure being less than 7 1/2 million, while higher figures can be found in numerous estimates.
One might check out Goldhagen and sources cited in his book HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS as at least a starting point.
As for the MidEast, how come ALL the countries that profess sympathy with the plight of the Palestinians NEVER seem to get together to put together a program (whose costs are modest compared to "small" wars like Kosovo, let alone the debacles of Iraq and Vietnam) that would create strong foundations for a sustainable economy in Palestine, including the Gaza Strip? This could start with solar/wind generating projects producing not only electricity for use directly, but also fueling massive desalination projects supplying fresh water.
You hear SO MANY voices protesting concern about the Palestinians, but little done by those with the power to actually change the situation in positive and peaceful ways. I know Israel bears primary responsibility for the areas it has occupied since 1967 (no matter what success they may garner at least diplomatically in palming off that responsibility), but after all these years, what about the MANY parties OTHER THAN Israel with similar capacity?
May 6, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
The holocaust killed many more than the 6 million Jews originally estimated back in the 1940s, with estimates in intervening decades now agreeing that the number was AT LEAST upwards of 7 1/2 million. The truth, in short, is going in the opposite direction from the well-publicized Nazi sympathizers who we hear so much about, as recognized by scholars in the field.
(The number of casualties suffered by the Soviet Union were also larger by a similar or higher proportion than the usually accepted estimates in the popular media).
---------------------------------
May 6, 2008 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was told there was a "submission error" and my comment disappeared. Oh well
A function that allows one to EDIT their own comments is common on many sites, and would be helpful here. (I also believe that the original format of TPM cafe when it was first started was the best).
May 6, 2008 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink