On Israel's Right to Exist

[ttraub]

(Revised December 21, 2002)

I heard it said on a chatboard the other day that "Israel has no legitimate claim to any part of Palestine, and should *never* have existed in the first place."

This is utter nonsense. There have been Jews living in Palestine since biblical times. Zionism was a 19th century movement for a homeland by people who were fed up after thousands of years of oppression, and they started moving to Palestine over 100 years ago, but there are Jews who have been there all along, living under oppressive Arab and Turkish governments for centuries. Why is it therefore wrong for Jews, be they immigrants or locals, to carve out a country of their own?

In the early years they tried to befriend and cooperate with the local Arabs but they were met with fear, hatred and violence. After Hitler they had a flood of refugees. They have done well for a group so oppressed and opposed by so many in the world. Israel was a useless wasteland until the Jews turned it into a fruitful land. If Jews have no right to be in Israel then NO refugees have the right to be here in the USA--it belongs to the Native Americans, so let's see those who disagree with Israel's right to exist live by their convictions and get their sorry asses back to whatever hellhole their ancestors came from. The Jews have a more legitimate claim to their land than any American not of native descent.

As for the Arabs in the refugee camps, if the Arab countries had not attacked the new Jewish state and moved the Arab civilians into "temporary" camps, they'd likely all be citizens of Israel at this point. Now they're too radicalized and violent to join with the Jews; it's no wonder the Israelis would not want them back. Israel is here to stay even if some of the Arab states may cease to exist. Israel is furthermore the only democracy and the ONLY true friend of the U.S. in the entire Middle East even when the U.S. treats them like crap.

As for the Arab countries themselves, most of them didn't even exist before the 1920s, including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. All of these lands were formerly part of the Turkish empire and were acquired variously by the French and English who ultimately carved out separate countries according to arrangements with local tribes.

There are hundreds of groups, tribes, and nation states in the world who stole land from others. A notable example in modern times is China, which annexed Tibet in the 1950s, killed thousands of Tibetan monks, destroyed hundreds of temples, and drove the Dalai Lama into exile. To this very day, the Chinese pursue a policy of brutal occupation of this ancient land, repopulating it with Han people to displace the native Tibetans, jailing dissenters, and adamantly refusing to even meet with the present Dalai Lama, who has never seen his homeland. Why does no one express outrage at this vast injustice wrought by a nuclear power? It would seem that the Left has traditionally ignored Communist China's transgressions and would rather focus their hatred on an easier target.

Remarkably, the American and European left who bitterly criticize Israel's every move have very little to say on the subject of Arab atrocities, e.g. Saddam Hussein's genocidal gassing and bombing attacks on Kurdish tribe. Then there is Syrian dictator Assad's suppression of an Islamic extremist uprising in Hama in which thousands of Syrians were killed. Not that Islamic extremists are such nice, enlightened people, but did they deserve what happened? There's also the little matter of the oppression of women, non-Muslim minorities, political dissenters, writers and film makers and so forth. Well, we can just ignore a few little imperfections on the part of our authoritarian friends in the Arab world, can't we? After all, their claim to their own lands is "legitimate", unlike that of the Israelis.

These same intellectuals who ignore the repression and barbarism of the Arab world also see the Palestinian Arabs through rose tinted glasses. These poor misguided souls get moral support from the U.N. and the liberal press for their cause, which is the destruction of Israel and the death or expulsion of its citizens, according to Hamas and other groups. Had they (the intellectuals or the Palestinians, take your pick) a modicum of common sense, they would negotiate a compromise with the Israelis, who would be glad to finally have some peace in their ancestral land.

I will go so far as to say that were the Arabs to adopt values of democracy and tolerance, the Israelis would even accept majority Arab rule some day. Of course, this is merely an idealistic pipe dream that could only come true several generations from now when all the violence and bitterness have (one hopes) been put behind them.

However it is astonishing how many observers in the West have seriously proposed that this very solution be imposed on the Israelis today, as though this plan has any shred of a chance of working in the current climate. One would expect fringe lunatics like Noam Chomsky to advocate this sort of thing, but he is not at all alone. Such a reconciliation can only occur organically and naturally and cannot be imposed from the outside upon warring parties. A similar situation exists with China and Taiwan. Were China to become democratic and free, qualities which it most definitely lacks today, Taiwan would likely join them in a loose confederation if not a repatriation. But no amount of wishful thinking by the U.S. State Department or other naive observers is going to make this happen before its time.

Let the Arabs adopt a more tolerant attitude toward other religions, much as Israel has with its large Muslim and Christian minorities who are free to practice their faiths and to participate completely in Israeli democracy. Let them renounce violence as a solution to the "Middle East crisis" as the American press is so tiresomely fond of calling it. How is it a crisis that Israel insists on being strong and free and intolerant of murderers in its midst and cruel invaders at its borders? I call that an island of sanity in a barbaric part of the world.

Last updated Oct 6 2005.