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but Reagan and the U.S. Government continued to treat Israel as an ally. For me, it was all too much. Israel was making enemies not only for itself, but for us. Posted on 04/15/2002 10:52:54 PM PDT by Decentralize
In June 1967 I became a passionate partisan of Israel just when it seemed likely that the Jewish state would be wiped off the map forever. Taking all my impressions from the American news media, I saw it as a valiant little outpost of civilization besieged by hordes of savage Arabs. Its victory in the Six-Day War seemed miraculous.
For me, as for countless others, the noble soul of Israel seemed to be embodied in one man: its UN representative, Abba Eban. Eloquent and mellifluous, exquisitely diplomatic yet very tough, Eban projected the image of Israel as civilized, heroic, and urbane. He spoke our language better than we did, and in the bitter debates with Arab UN representatives he made us feel that Israel’s struggle was our own struggle.
In the ensuing years, even when his Labor Party fell from power, Eban remained America’s favorite Israeli spokesman. The world had been shocked in 1976 when Israel elected the former terrorist Menachem Begin as its prime minister, and it wanted reassurance that Eban still spoke for the Israel we admired.
Today Eban seems an ancient memory. So does the Israel he so seductively described.
Israel’s image changed for good in 1982, when Begin and General Ariel Sharon mounted a murderous invasion of Lebanon. Aerial bombing of Beirut, one of the world’s most beautiful cities, killed thousands of innocent civilians. Thousands more were slaughtered in a pair of refugee camps, with the apparent connivance of Sharon.
Many Israelis protested the war. Israel lost sympathy abroad and was even likened to Nazi Germany. More than a few Diaspora Jews who had loyally supported it now repudiated it. Begin had lied brazenly to President Ronald Reagan about his intentions, but Reagan and the U.S. Government continued to treat Israel as an ally. For me, it was all too much. Israel was making enemies not only for itself, but for us.
Today Sharon is Israel’s prime minister and, more than ever, Israel is America’s problem child. Few in government and the media will admit this, of course. Eric Alterman of The Nation has listed more than 60 pundits in the major media who “reflexively” and “without qualification” support Israel, while he can name only a handful who are critical.
In an interview with William Safire of the New York Times, Sharon inadvertently put his finger on the nub of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Scoffing at the new Saudi peace plan, Sharon said, “And do you imagine, for one minute, we could accept what the Palestinians call the right of return? It would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish democratic state.”
This was a reference to the Saudi proposal that Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to their homes. Sharon reckons that they would shift the demographic balance and outvote the Jews. The result might be a democratic state, but not a Jewish democratic state.
Under Israeli law, Jews around the world, most of whom have never even lived in the Middle East, have a right of “return.” But Palestinians in exile do not — and must not — have the right to go back to the very houses they once owned and inhabited. Thus is the Jewish majority maintained in Israel.
Sharon is really admitting that Israel is based not on universal principles of justice, but on the right of Jews to drive the natives of the land from their homes and to banish them forever. At the same time, he wants to keep the occupied territories, but not to let their Arab residents vote. Too many Arab voters would threaten the Jewish democratic state.
Let’s be clear. We aren’t merely talking about Jewish jurisdiction over historic Palestine; the Palestinians have long lived under alien rule and they could endure it while it left daily life pretty much intact. But the Israeli Jews claim outright ownership of the land, including Arab homes. Sharon evidently reserves the right to expel all Arabs from Israel and the territories, and by exasperating the Arabs he hopes to drive the country toward a crisis that will enable him to do this.
As always, Sharon blames the whole conflict on the Arabs. He insists that Yasser Arafat, confined to a dark candle-lit room with only a cell phone, could instantly stop the suicide bombings if he wanted to.
We can thank Ariel Sharon for one thing: he has revealed things about Israel that Abba Eban never told us.
Joseph Sobran
It's not like Arafat disagrees.
He says he won't ask his forces to halt the violence until the Israelis withdraw totally.
Disappointment, dashed illusions and sorrow do not an "anti-Semite" make. His are considered criticisms ... often made with a heavy heart, I suspect.
I feel the same way often. Largely thanks to this place. Grew up as kid enamoured and admiring of many who -- as it turns out -- were not at all the men I thought they were.
"Yeah," she said, "she's from Sweden, she's from Italy and I'm from Jew-land."
I guess, being born here and all ... like her parents and her parents' parents, she wasn't keen on being "foreign" for her Jewishness.
Well, with the exception of some Aryan Nation-types, the anti-immigration Right doesn't advocate ethnic cleansing. The Israelis forcibly removed folks and occupied lands that rightfully do not belong to them. Illegal Mexicans have no correlating "right of return" to Southern Cali as the Palestines have to their homes in Israel.
Oh!...I forgot. Some centuries ago the Arabs invaded Palestine, killing thousands and confiscating the property and wealth of the land. And then forcing an alien language and religion on the people.
This is a scenario that they repeated across northern Africa all the way to the south of France. And in the other direction all the way to India and beyond. And north all the way to Vienna.
Perhaps it is time for the Muslim world to begin to shrink, if only a little bit.
1. Actually the Mexicans claim they do. Remember that the US took the land in war. (Texad Independence and then Mexican-American War).
2. The Arabs ethnically cleansed first. Ask the Jews of the West Bank communities that existed for 2500 years until the 1920's. For that matter, check out the Judenrein country of Jordan which is made up of 3/4 of Palestine.
3. Israel has Arab citizens. They constitute 18% of the Population and have full rights.
4. 2/3 of "Palestinains" are actually decended from immigrants from other Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon who rented land. (only 9% of the land was owned by Arabs, and that number would be less had the Arabs no started assasinating Arabs who sold land to Jews.)
5. The Us has a right to ask illegal Mexicans to leave. Why not Israel?
Would that be the 2/3 of Arabs living in Palestine in 1946 who were from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq? I find it sad that these Arab countries would not take them back, but used them as weapons.
You forget the fact that more Arabs immigrated to the British mandate from 1890-1946 due to British policies and Jewish development of the land.
Writing for a Holocaust revisionist org like IHR does.
I'm quite certain the suicide bombers aren't motivated by money.
BS! Mexicans have no right of return because we won that territory from Mexico in a war. Same with the territories Isreal occupied. Isreal would be justified in simply annexing those territories, but instead has offered generous terms for the so-called Palestinian people to form their own nation -- no takers, because the 'Palestinians' want all of Isreal. Anyone who uses the term 'Palestinians' as denoting anything unique has their facts muddles to begin with. They are from Jordan, Egypt, SA, from all over the map. The simple fact is that Isreal is willing to co-exist with Moslem states on three sides, if they were willing to do the same. On the other hand, the PLO/PLA and allied terrorists make insincere statements about peace and co-existence for the world's comsumption while continuously and brazenly calling for Isreal's eradication in their own language, and have never altered their charter's call for the same. They live, breathe and practice intolerance and genocide against Jews. If you believe Joe Sobran, you believe the Palestinians want peace and democracy so much they are wiling to target innocent children, teenagers, old folks, etc. in order to get it. What a bunch of total suckers exist in this world that Isreal gets condemned daily around the world for doing what any country has the legitimate right to do when attacked, while the rabid hatred of her enemies is never remarked upon by the Sobranites. The USA and her Allies inflicted much greater civilian casualties during WWII. If we were held to the phoney standards expected of Isreal, we would all be speaking German right about now. Isreal-bashers can all go hang!
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