The superstition and messianic belief, that Israel was founded on in 1948, has helped to establish an apartheid esque society. Now I do not deny the existence of Israel, of course not. Many nations have been founded on injustices but Israel’s demagogic lie has done enormous damage. The schism, which can be summarised by the phrase “A land without a people for a people without a land” suggested that the people in Palestine did not really exist or were a coherent genuine people. Refusal to acknowledge the Palestinian ethnic group has been a problematic area for Israel, especially since numerous governments demand the Palestinians to recognise Israel as a exclusive Jewish state.
And this is the current insult: Israel will stop settlement buildings if Palestinians acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state – including Israel’s Arab population will have to take an oath declaring it. Provocative, yes. But the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is either nonchalant or ambivalent on the prospect of a two state solution, after allowing his ultra orthodox coalition partner to control the Ministry of Housing. A party, that believes in Greater Israel, is extremely pragmatic in the settlement program and fuelling the religious extremists who believe the Messiah will return once Israel expands her boarders to that of King David’s Kingdom. With that superstition encouraging and influencing a section of the Israel government, how can we ever envisage a potential two state solution?
The West bank resume its battle against colonalisation and destruction of East Jerusalem. Gaza is, effectively, an open prison camp. United Nations is useless due to the United States vetoing and restricting all attempts to criticise or hold Israel responsible for its violations of international law.
Majority of Israelis, on the other hand, are critical of their governments neglect and treatment of the Palestinians – the Israeli Supreme Court is the most vocal of the opposition at times. But alas, while the settlement movement is financed by sponsors in the United States, the persecution continues.
According to the (PCBS) Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, over 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails (as of 2010), of them 264 under detention without trial. Comparisons with South Africa, during the vile apartheid regime, is an association the Israeli’s fear. But, without cooperating with the international community and refusal to treatment the Palestinian population with some dignity then the apartheid labelled needs to attributed. Including the sanctions and boycotts that were placed on South Africa.
No more polite negotiating and nonchalant attitudes. We must achieve a State of Palestine, with open borders and freedom to move – without blockades and restriction of movement from Israel. The injustice and the tragic story of the Palestinian homeland needs its hopes, dreams and aspiration to be defended and promoted by those of us who desire for their liberation. And for those who criticise my stance or accuse me of anti-Semitism, how am I discriminating against the Jewish people? For far too long we’ve allowed superstition and Messianic beliefs to dominate the Middle East and, now, it is time to focus on this physical reality and address the scale of our problems. Do we really believe a section of the human race should be denied the right of statehood, dignity, human rights and the ability to raise their children without the fear of occupation?
The suffering has been continuing, with bloodshed and isolation, for over 60 years. The occupation must end and a nation called Palestine needs to be born. And it is in the interest of Israel to encourage it and not prevent the inevitable.
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13 Comments
Hear hear!
Hear hear!
A prison camp in Gaza. Apartheid, re-inforced by a huge barrier, on the West Bank. Eviction from homes in Jersualem. Refugee camps outside the Israeli border. This has to stop. Trade sanctions on Israel are long overdue. What are the coalition’s proposals?
Thoroughly agree that a Palestinian state is vital and necessary. Israel should never have come into existence in the first place. I understand why most of the Jewish diaspora wanted to ‘return’ to their ‘homeland’, and why the West thought it the best solution to the then Arab-Jewish problem in ’48, but taking Palestine, a nation that was already suffering the indignity of being a British mandate, wasn’t the right choice. Ultimately, the Israeli state will need to do something uncomfortable to redress this historical injustice.
But the small question of what to do with Jerusalem needs to be resolved. Palestinians will never accept a state that doesn’t include Jerusalem, and neither will Israel. The only solution is an East/West Berlin type deal.
Another thing: the rest of the World will have to do more about those states that are actively trying to wipe Israel off the map. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and we cannot allow Iran, Syria, etc, to mount terrorist operations against the innocent citizens of Israel. The international community must act to stop terrorism against Israel, as well as terrorism by Israel.
I really cannot see why Israel is any more ‘unnatural’ or ‘should never have come into existence’ than, say, India and Pakistan, or Nigeria, or Zimbabwe, or Canada, or Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Or, for that matter, “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.” Aren’t they all artificial states with arbitrary borders and a bizarre mixture of peoples, some of whom are dominant and others dominated? Isn’t that pretty much what a state *is*? I don’t see how you rectify all of these ‘historical injustices’ without dissolving the entire concept of ‘state’.
@mpg
“…those states that are actively trying to wipe Israel off the map.”
I haven’t seen any evidence Iran and Syria are trying “to wipe Israel off the map.” I’ve lots of commentators from USA say it. I’ve heard Israeli government spokesman say it. But where and what are these actions designed to wipe Israel off the map?
Good for Daniel Furr, for the things said that need saying!
But how there can possibly be a two state solution, with a Palestinian State separated into the two parts of Gaza and the West Bank?
No one expected that South African Apartheid would end without a blood bath, but it did. Let us hope that the same will happen to Israeli Apartheid in Arab Israeli Palestine.
If people talk of wiping Israel off the map, presumably they mean it in the same way as people would talk of wiping Apartheid South Africa off the map.
End Israeli Apartheid! We should be bycotting Israel’s products until there is a one state, apartheid-free, Arab Israeli Palestine.
‘the Israeli Supreme Court is the most vocal of the opposition at times’
is there a single Arab country of which the rule of law applies and where you could writie a similar sentence?
Finally I read an article on this site which describes the reality of the Israeli/Palestine schism. I had begun to think that no one other than myself cared. Daniel Furr’s piece just about sums it up.
For those who don’t understand the origins of the conflict ,I suggest they should read Ilan Pappe’s book, ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.’ He is an eminent Israeli historian, so he knows what he is writing about.
Thank you for the replies.
Brazil and Argentina are have recently just declared Palestine a state, which I think will be a common practice across the world. With the Obama administration reluctant, or politically weak, to push hard for settlement freezing it is clear some countries might unilaterally recongise Palestine.
The key, in my opinion, is to deal with the issue on reality and not religion. We need to take “God” out of the equation and if Israel continues to build settlements on occupied land, then the EU and UN needs to consider sanctions.
@David wrote: “I really cannot see why Israel is any more ‘unnatural’ or ‘should never have come into existence’ than, say, India and Pakistan, or Nigeria, or Zimbabwe, or Canada, or Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Or, for that matter, “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.” Aren’t they all artificial states with arbitrary borders and a bizarre mixture of peoples, some of whom are dominant and others dominated?”
1. I never said Israel was unnatural.
2. I am not arguing that the ‘artificiality’ of Israel, or how it came into existence in some general sense, is the reason that the state never should have existed. My belief is that the key defence of Zionism, as articulated by the leading Zionist thinkers in the 19th and 20th centuries, that the Jewish people had an ancestral claim to a homeland in Palestine, is a bogus one. Couple this with the fact that the League of Nations considered the best solution to the brewing difficulties in what was soon to be the ex-British mandate of Palestine, was to carve the country up, I think history has proven this solution, which has led to a decades, and what could be centuries, long conflict, to have been wholly wrong. This is merely conjecture on my part, but I don’t think Woodrow Wilson thought that the recognition of Israel would have led to such turmoil in the Middle East, and for so long.
David wrote: “I don’t see how you rectify all of these ‘historical injustices’ without dissolving the entire concept of ‘state’.”
1. Not sure what your point is.
2. I am saying that Israel, in order to overcome what is a legitimate grievance of the Palestinian people, will have to compromise on something that they really, really would rather not. I suggest that compromise is Jerusalem. Its been done before. I don’t see why this would dissolve the entire concept of ‘state’. Don’t agree with you at all on this.
RichardSM wrote: “I haven’t seen any evidence Iran and Syria are trying “to wipe Israel off the map.” I’ve lots of commentators from USA say it. I’ve heard Israeli government spokesman say it. But where and what are these actions designed to wipe Israel off the map?”
The terrorist campaigns of Fatah and Hezbollah, all the wars of the Arab-Israeli conflict from 1948-2000, all suggest that states like Iran and Syria and their clients want to destroy Israel. If you think they don’t, well…
@mpg
“all the wars of the Arab-Israeli conflict from 1948-2000, all suggest that states like Iran and Syria and their clients want to destroy Israel.”
No, it doesn’t. Iran didn’ take part in any of those wars.