Only a month ago, I hardly paid attention to events in the Middle East, the conflict between Israel and the Hamas. It always seemed the same: Hamas attacked, Israel retaliated in a heavy-handed way, Israel was accused of brutalities and then things returned to a new quiet for a while. Had I had to choose sides then, I probably would have sided with Israel (for no other reason than the fact that Jews are closer to our civilization, the 'Judeo-Christian Tradition', than the Arabs) but I truly felt no reason to choose sides.
All this changed since October 7 and I have now become a full supporter of the pro-Israel side. Not because of the assumption that we Austrians owed it to the Jews to unequivocally support them but, instead, because the Hamas-defenders triggered rage on my part, a rage which I presume will increase as time goes on and Hamas continues to win the propaganda war. The impression is being nurtured that the Jews had stolen the home of the Palestinians from them, that they had occupied their home, expelled them from their home, persecuted them, etc. In fact, many accused the Jews of behaving like the Nazis had. The famous arbiter of world affairs, Yanis Varoufakis, made international headlines with an article where he wrote: "I refuse to condemn Hamas but insist that we, Europeans & Americans, are the culprits for the atrocities in Israel-Palestine.“ Applause from many sides was assured.
And now the Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, said the following in a speech at the UN:
"The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing."
This is, in my view, a distortion of history which not only justifies the terrorism of Hamas but even encourages it further.
The term "Palestine" was coined by the Romans. The term "Palestinians" was invented maybe 100 years ago. There were never Palestinians in Palestine. There were Arabs and Jews (as a relatively small minority) for nearly 2000 years and they lived more or less peacefully side by side. "Palestinians" are Arabs; Jews are Jews.
That the Jews populated this area roughly 2000 years before Mohammed is historically proven (even though there are still Arabs who deny this). The Romans de facto expelled the Jews in 70 AD and, since then, they had lived in the diaspora, praying and dreaming that one day they would return to their original homeland. This dream was energized in 1896 when Theodor Herzl coined the term "Zionism". Until then, the Jews represented 5-10% of the Palestine population. Zionism became a movement and Jews from all over the world started immigrating to Palestine. By the end of WW2, their share of the population had grown to almost 50% even though during this time the Arab population also increased.
There has never been a state in the territory of Palestine. Since 3000 years ago, many great powers had occupied the Palestine (the most important ones: the Greeks, the Romans, other Arab neighbors, the Ottomans and, finally, the British under their mandate). Notwithstanding that, none of these powers ever considered the creation of a separate state.
The immigrating Jews did NOT steal anything from the Arabs and they did not expel anyone. They purchased land from the Ottomans and later from the British and, of course, from the Arabs themselves. And they also turned unpopulated, barren desert land into arable land and made it habitable.
Along with the expansion of Zionism, the Jews developed a strong lobbying structure which lead to the fact that the British allowed themselves to be enticed to issue the "Balfour Declaration" in 1917.
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
Note the part about the 'non-Jewish communities'!
Between 1917 and 1945, the Arab-Jewish conflict intensified with violent actions from both sides reaching dangerous levels. After WW2 and the holocaust, the British threw the towel and handed the responsibility to the UN. The UN recognized that the conflict could not continue and, in 1947, approved with a large majority the Partition Plan for the Palestine: two separate states (Arab and Jewish) bound together by an economic union and Jerusalem stand-alone under international responsibility. The Jewish state was geographically a bit larger than the Arab state but it included a large portion of non-arable and uninhabited desert.
The Jews immediately accepted the plan; the Arabs immediately rejected it. They did not even want to negotiate it. Their goal was to "drive the Jews into the sea."
Many argue that the UN deprived the Palestinians of their home and that to this day, they do not have a new home and are forced to live in refugee camps. Well, the home which they could have had they rejected in 1947 (and repeatedly thereafter) and the fact that they have lived in refugee camps for 70 years has other causes. Every war produces 'displaced people'. After WW2, millions of Europeans were displaced: the Finns from Russia, over 12 million Germans from the East, the Italians from Dalmatia, the Romanians from Bulgaria, and more. But there were NEVER long-term refugee camps. Their 'countries of origin' accepted their displaced brethren and assisted them in building up a new existence. The Arabs have done exactly nothing for their Palestinian brethren. On the contrary, they opposed every possible peace plan and continued to nurture hate against the Jews.
Had the Arabs accepted the 1947 partition plan of the UN, their Palestinian brethren would have an immeasurably better life since then than they have today. Peace would de facto have been assured by the international community and there could not have been unilateral action in Jerusalem.
On May 14-15, 1948, Israel issued its Declaration of Independence which included a peace proposal:
"In the midst of wanton aggression, we yet call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to return to the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State, with full and equal citizenship and due representation in its bodies and institutions -- provisional or permanent. We offer peace and unity to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all.“
The next day Arab troops invaded the just established State of Israel with the goal of "driving the Jews into the sea." To the surprise of most, the Israeli won the war. They expelled not only Arab soldiers but also Palestinian civilians and they expanded their land through 'occupied territories'. This was repeated in 1967 and 1973: attacks by the Arabs, victory of Israel and expansion of occupied territories. In the process, Israel expanded its territory massively relative to the 1947 UN Partition Plan.
The issue of 'occupied territories' and Israeli expansion of settlements therein (accompanied by the expulsion of Palestinians) is obviously not a kosher thing. On one hand, given the history of continued attacks from the Arabs, it is understandable that Israel felt vulnerable to attacks from the Golan Heights and the West Bank and, therefore, wanted to control these areas. On the other hand, the new settlements certainly caused bad blood on the Arab side and served as a justification for their continued terrorism.
Now, I will not argue that Israel was always the 'good guys' and the Arabs were always the 'bad guys' but one has to recognize that in the culture of Arabs (and perhaps also Jews), a compromise is always seen as a sign of weakness and that even the Bible referred to "an-eye-for-an-eye". The intensity of Israel's 'self defense' increased with the increase in Arab aggressiveness. Undoubtedly, Israel could have conducted itself in a more restrained way. But please - the responsibility for killed Arab civilians and even children rests overwhelmingly with Hamas because they use civilians and even children as human shields. Because of that, the law makes Hamas the perpetrators and not Israel. And by the way, who is a civilian when Hamas soldiers do not wear uniforms?
Since 1948, Israel has made at least 5 peace offers for a separate Palestinian state. It almost succeeded with Yasser Arafat but then the man died. Since then, the Palestinians do not have a strong, legitimate leadership. The PLO has become more or less sidelined and the terrorists have gained the upper hand. Incidentally, in 2007, Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert entered into peace negotiations with the Arab Peace Initiative. He allegedly offered to give the Palestinians about 95% of the West Bank. He allegedly told the Arabs that "an offer like this you will never receive again in the next 50 years!" Regrettably, the Arabs were not interested in peace because the fanatics still wanted to "drive the Jews into the sea" (which is the official policy of Hamas to this day).
To summarize: I do not defend Israel because of any suspected guilt feelings about Austria's anti-semitism (not only) during the Nazi years. And even less do I defend Israel because I might feel that they have never made mistakes or are completely innocent. Both sides have legitimate claims and reasonable people would have to reach a compromise.
The UN had attempted to satisfy the demands of both sides. The Jews had accepted that and the Arabs had not. That was the original sin from which everything else followed.
I have become pro-Israel because public opinion seems to shift and view Hamas as the liberators and Israel as the Nazis. That is a brutal violation of every value which the Judeo-Christian Tradition has instilled in me.
Post Scriptum
There are 2 sides to every issue and there are obviously also 2 sides to the Arab-Israel issue. I have discussed this issue with my former college roommate, an American who is a highly intelligent lawyer in the US with bachelor and law degrees from Harvard. I sent him the pro-Hamas statement which over 30 Harvard student organizations had published and asked him for his opinion. In the interest of objectivity, I reproduce his message below.
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That’s an interesting list of organizations.
I’m surprised some of them are allowed to exist given the Harvard “never criticize Israel” approach.
Remember Larry Summers – a Jew – saying that anyone who supported the boycott of Israel was an antisemite?
The Guardian put current events in context:
Palestinians have endured decades of occupation, the erasure of a viable future state by settlements, and growing violence by settlers, emboldened by impunity. The decade-and-a-half long blockade has destroyed Gaza’s economy and left half the population in poverty. A modest recent economic uplift is no fix for the political crisis begat by a moribund Palestinian leadership which lacks both power and legitimacy – and, above all, by Mr Netanyahu, who has overseen massive settlement expansion, handed extreme nationalists and overt racists not only a veneer of respectability but key positions, and promised annexation.
You put folks in an open air prison for 16 years, take over all of the West Bank by settlements, and tolerate heinous attacks by settlers and day-time raids that kill so many innocents, and people will respond in whatever way they can.
Remember, in 1908 Jews were 8% of the population of Palestine and owned 3% of the land.
Think of Poland. Germans moved into Poland to get Lebensraum:
Duiker and Spielvogel note that up to two million Germans had been settled in pre-war Poland by 1942. Eberhardt gives a total of two million Germans present in the area of all pre-war Poland by the end of the war, 1.3 million of whom moved in during the war, adding to a pre-war population of 700,000.
Sometimes the Polish resistance murdered these settlers. Were the resistance members who did so terrorists, or were the settlers fair game. At the time, many, if not most, Poles would say they were fair game.
It will be interesting to watch. Israel normally kills 30 Gazans for each Jew killed:
In June 2014 three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped; Israel conducted a massive crackdown in the West Bank and increased air strikes in the Gaza Strip, prompting retaliatory rocket fire from Hamas. As fighting continued to escalate, Israel launched a 50-day offensive into the Gaza Strip on July 8. Some 2,100 Palestinians and more than 70 Israelis were killed in the ensuing conflict, with about 5,000 targets hit in the Gaza Strip.
With 900 Jews killed, that would mean the Jews will kill 27,000 Palestinians. My bet is the Netanyahu will kill many more than 27,000, and lay waste to Gaza – again.
What the Jews don’t understand that folks just refuse to be quiert and accept their fate – as Jews demonstrated in the Warsaw uprising.
We’ll just observe.
The irony is that because of this we’ll get a new Speaker of the House. All American politicians want to show their obeisance to Israel and will want to give it billions more and weapons that should go to Ukraine, which Israel lets twist in the wind. But to do so there has to be a new speaker. So the mere spectre of paralysis and shutdown of the government is no reason for the Republicans to elect a speaker, making the Jews angry is.
I agree with much if not all of Yanis Varoufakis' analysis. He’s entirely correct that the only solution is a single state with equal rights for all and non-discrimination laws.
We may get one state when Abbas dies and the PLO just disintegrates. It will, however, be an apartheid, police state.
I think that the Jews will kill 60,000 to 100,000 Palestinians in the next thirty days and maim another 200,000.
Jews are 2.5% of the U.S. population and have 100% control of Congress When Israel calls for members of Congress to kowtow, the U.S. Congress complies – out of the 535 representatives and senators, there’s never more than a dozen who fail who to abase themselves. There are 500,000 Jews in France, 1% of the population. That’s enough to control France. England has 330,000 – not enough for absolute control, but enough to make the politicians jump – witness the Balfour Declaration.
This means that nothing will change. Witness Macros outlawing demonstrations by Palestinians. And with Biden declaring himself a Zionist, Netanyahu has a carte blanche to commit genocide.
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