Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.
(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Key To The Conflict

In a must-read article here Jonathan Marks writes of "the depravity of the anti-Israeli left" and of its "nihilism":
"....To stand with the anti-Israeli left is instead to hope for an open conflict that will result in the end of Israel. It is not just friends of Israel who should be disgusted with academics who hope to foment such a conflict, knowing, unless they are complete fools, that in making a poorly thought out, long-odds bet on a one-state solution, they gamble with the lives of Palestinians and Israelis."
"Depravity" and "nihilism" are apt words to describe the mindset of the Israeli NGO Zochrot, which later this month will hold an ominous conference, "Truth and Redress," in, of all places, the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv.  The conference, explains Zochrot:
"....will discuss the key question of whether there is a single path to realizing Return.

The hundreds of thousands of Palestinians deported or otherwise forced out of their homeland ever since 1947 have become refugees as a direct or indirect result of violence perpetrated by Zionist organizations followed by the State of Israel against civilian populations. From as early as 1948, the Israeli government has made it its official policy to prevent the Return of these refugees.
Now that sixty-five years have gone by since the Nakba and the establishment of the State of Israel, it is all the more urgent to promote the Jewish-Israeli public's acknowledgement and accountability for its part in the injustices of the ongoing Nakba, and to realize the Return of Palestinian refugees as the necessary redress of the Nakba and a chance for better life for all people living in this country....
The objective of this conference is not to argue whether the Palestinian refugees have a right to return, but to see how this right can be realized...."  (See also here)
As the excellent Lyn Julius writes regarding the conference:
"To most right-thinking Israelis, the ‘right of return’ of millions of Arab ‘refugees’ is a euphemism for the demise of Israel by demographic means. ...
"The speakers are a roll-call of the most hard-core of hard-core pro-Palestinian activists from Britain, the US and Israel itself. They are lawyers, human rights activists and academics in the forefront of the BDS (boycott) and Israel Apartheid movements. One speaker, Dr Salman Abu Sitta, is a founder of the Palestine Return Centre – a Hamas front [see him in 2011 here, on the eve of another conference - D.A.].
It is no accident that the organisers, the Israeli NGO Zochrot, have deliberately chosen to hold their conference in Ramat Aviv: the supposed site of “Al-Shaykh Muwannis” (Sheikh Munis), an Arab village abandoned by its 2,000 inhabitants in 1948. To drive home the delicious irony, Zochrot chose as the conference venue the Eretz Israel Museum. What could be more provocative than a Nakba conference calling for the demise of Israel, at its Zionist heart ?...."  (Read her entire article, which notes Zochrot's eloquent disregard of the "Jewish Nakba," here)
This excellent video, uploaded to YouTube last month, gives the lie to the assumption of Israeli and non-Israeli leftists that if Israel evacuated the West Bank all would be sweetness and light.  And let's not forget the lesson that Palestinian children imbibe at this UNRWA-run  school:

2 comments:

  1. The Pilgrim Fathers were more or less driven out of England in the 17th Century. Does that give 300 million US citizens a right of return?

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Arab "right of return" to Israel is the greatest lie in all of history. You can search the books as long as you like for a more cynical expression of contempt for others' human and sovereign rights and you will fail. No one has ever made such an absurd and obscene claim against another people. No one has ever had the gall.

    We are talking about a lie so big and gross that it would be worthy of Goebbels.

    ReplyDelete

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