Posted on 02/24/2009 8:25:15 AM PST by NYC GOP Chick
The day after the UN created the State of Israel, the country's first president, Chaim Weizmann, found time to work on his memoir, "Trial and Error." In it, he issued a warning to the Israeli leaders of today: "I am certain that the world will judge the Jewish state by what it will do with the Arabs." It was Nov. 30, 1947.
Weizmann was an astonishingly accomplished man - chemist, diplomat, statesman - but maybe his most uncanny talent was that of seer. Peering into the future, he glimpsed the ugly turn Israeli politics has recently taken and how it is now acceptable to talk in repulsive ways about the country's 1.3 million Arabs. "There must not be one law for the Jew and another for the Arabs," he wrote.
Weizmann's admonition may not be known to Avigdor Lieberman, an immigrant from the former Soviet Republic of Moldova and now one of Israel's most important political leaders. Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu Party placed third in the recent election, meaning he will almost certainly be part of the next government. Lieberman is often called a "nationalist." Maybe so, but he is also an anti-Arab demagogue.
The Arabs of Lieberman's antipathy are not Israel's traditional enemies - either in Gaza, the West Bank or elsewhere in the Middle East. He is referring instead to the Arabs of Israel proper, about 20% of the population. They are his fellow citizens, some of them of dubious loyalty, it is true, and most of them with genuine grievances, it is also true. In essence, Lieberman wants to swap them for Jewish settlers now living provocatively on the occupied West Bank. It's half a good idea.
But it is the other half - the one that would rid Israel of its Arabs - that has propelled Lieberman to the front rank of Israeli politicians. The Israeli electorate, feeling besieged, has moved to the right. The centrist Kadima Party narrowly won the election, but it is the right that gained strength overall, and now Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, not Kadima's Tzipi Livni, is trying to form a government. Lieberman ought not to be part of it.
The issue of Israel's Arabs is complicated. They are not Jews, yet they are expected to be loyal to a Jewish state. They are Arabs, yet they are expected to stand by while their fellow Arabs are pounded - as in Gaza - by Israeli guns.
Yet, in an odd way, Israel's Arabs ought to represent the best of Israel. They can vote. They hold seats in parliament. They have more civil rights in Israel than they would in any Arab nation. They ought to be a point of pride. Their civil liberties, their standard of living, their political participation ought to show the world what sort of country Israel is. That's what Weizmann wanted.
Weizmann was no dreamer. His century - the 20th - was fast becoming the bloodiest in history. The world was just completing an orgy of genocide, a decades-long brawl culminating in the Holocaust and followed by the expulsion of millions of ethnic Germans from all over Eastern Europe. Pakistan and India were created in a similar manner - a population swap of many millions of people. This was the way things were once done.
Israel, too, engaged some in ethnic cleansing - or why else all those Palestinian refugees? But the attempt was both chaotic and, as we can see, not wholly successful. More important, the concept was anathema to important members of the Zionist establishment such as Weizmann. The way of the world - eliminating ethnic minorities - would not be practiced by the very ethnic minority that had suffered the most.
Lieberman's rhetoric has excited some concern in the American Jewish community, but as usual, most of the leaders are mum. They ought to open their Weizmann, page 461 to be precise, and see what Israel's Founding Fathers had in mind. Israel can swap land for peace, but not Arab for Jew. That would leave an empty space - not only where the Arabs once were, but where Israel once kept its values.
What a moron. Or is he denying that the surrounding countries told the Arabs to flee and that after they murdered all the Jews, they could not only return, but also take whatever belonged to the Jews?
Thought you might be interested in this one.
Richard Cohen lives in the same Echo chamber as E.J. Dionne.
I don't ever recall Cohen bitching about the rest of the Middle East being essentially Judenrein.
They are Arabs, yet they are expected to stand by while their fellow Arabs are pounded - as in Gaza - by Israeli guns.
This idiot seems to forget all those rockets that were being fired into Israel proper from Gaza -- some of which could have hit Israeli Arabs.
Worse, because Cohen is Jewish, and his ignorant trashing of Israel gives aid and comfort to the Jew-haters.
How are Saudi Arabia's Jewish citizens doing? Oh, that's right... the Saudis don't even allow Jews into their country.
My suggestion for peace in the Middle East is that whatever the American Leftist Media insists Israel do must also be done by all her Muslim Arab neighbors. We could call it "The Fairness Doctrine". What do you think, Mr. Cohen? Isn't that eminently fair?
Well, I guess he was wrong, wasn't he?
ML/NJ
They are only "expected" to do these things if they stay there, and they are free to GTHO.
Not only do Jews in Israel have more freedoms than they do in any Arab country,
But ARABS in Israel have more freedoms than they do in any Arab country.
In that acclaimed case people had to move, in the Lieberman proposal - not. Lieberman's critics are of that type who say NO to a reasonable solution until situation deteriorates to untenable and no good solutions exist anymore.
If you'd like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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First, American Jews shouldn't be concerned, they don't live there.
As I understand it, Lieberman's proposal is for an exchange of territory, which makes complete sense. It wouldn't strip Arab citizens of their citizenship, though it would require moving if they live in one of the exchanged areas. They have a choice, they can move. And if they're in one of the unexchanged area, they're not impacted.
The attention should be on Jews in the West Bank who are in a different situation. Israel, the United States, and the Euros will be creating a state harsher than the Reich in the 1930s. As in Gaza, Jews will be required to leave. Or they'll be killed, the government of the new apartheid state being unwilling to protect them. Christians can stay, and look forward to the same future as Christians in Gaza.
A land swap makes perfect sense, though it would be unnecessary were we actually supporting the creation of a modern, humane, democratic state, in which case Jews could simply stay where they are.
Bibi is right that economic development is the key, mix in political development, and that it will be years, imo decades, before a state is really viable. Which won't prevent anyone for pressing for it earlier.
aren’t they mostly refugee’s from Jordan??
Exactly right!
Ain’t that the truth!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Speaking of the Jewish Left, it's no wonder that this garbage appeared in the New York Daily News, which is owned by one of its stalwarts, Morton Zuckerman.
The paper is fairly liberal on social & domestic issues, but pretty consistently on the right side of things when it comes to the wars, national defense, calling Islamofascism what it is, etc.
They also publish Charles Krauthammer's columns on a regular basis (weekly, I think), as well as a variety of views from both left and right.
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