Trump and Goliath Israel

Image: IndianCatholicMatters


Trump and Goliath Israel

Yes, Rosemary; there are such things as conspiracies. 

Israel's never going to be a happy place if there's any truth at all to the adage "what goes around comes around". I know I've said this before, but the whole horrendous issue of Israel/Palestine is David and Goliath played backwards!

MiamiHerald: The Latest: Chief: UN committed to Israel-Palestinian peace 

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Washington Sunday night vowing to "make history" at a planned meeting with President Donald Trump for the unveiling of the U.S. administration's much-anticipated plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Even Israeli Liberals are leery of the Trump plan and are "coming out vocally against [it] and calls by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex West Bank land".

Where does the Trudeau government stand on Israel/Palestine?  Uhhhhh... well ... uh...
(NatPost Dec./19)

But this NYTimes opinion piece is somewhat less equivocal:

NewYorkTimes: Every Time Palestinians Say "No" They Lose

• Things rarely go well for those who try to live history backward.
• The purpose of a Palestinian state ought to be to deliver dramatically better prospects for the Palestinian people, not tokens of self-importance for their kleptocratic and repressive leaders.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, those pesky, ignorant Palestinians. I kind of prefer the following sane and compassionate comment to the opinion piece:

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Mr. Stephens, you are one of my favorite columnists. But I have strong misgivings about your latest article. You are probably right about the course of history. But I could not find the word 'Justice' anywhere in your column. Instead you glorify the principle 'Might makes Right'.

By this maxim the annexation of the Crimea by Putin is perfectly correct and in 20 years it will be generally accepted. The same with the territorial aggression by China in Tibet and in the South China Sea.

If there were a Jewish community of some 3 million people anywhere in the world subjugated in a similar manner there would be a worldwide outcry. With the Palestinians not so much. The Jewish people have suffered immensely during their long history. But they have not learned compassion.

Wilhelm Evertz, Jan. 30

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What I find extremely empty-headed is the declaration by the NY Times opiner:

• Things rarely go well for those who try to live history backward.

As if the Jewish people did not expect to relive their own ancient (Biblical) history!  And not necessarily their own, because the history of so many of them is that they are converts to Judaism. 

For many Israelis, living history backward has so far turned out to be rather successful, even if it isn't necessarily their own history.

The commenter is right: "they have not learned compassion".

Another commenter asks:

• Can someone explain why Israel should not exist as a Jewish state, while there are 22 Arabic states?

It's not a numbers game!  And who is saying Israel should not exist as a Jewish state? They already do; it's an accepted fact; the best the Palestinians can hope for at this point is some sort of quasi state, chopped up into pieces, surrounded by a people that drove them out of their homes and refuses to allow them to return. 

It has to be remembered that the Israelis successfully stole whole villages from the Palestinian people and got away with it. The history of Israeli atrocities against the indigenous Palestinians, and even against the British, is long and brutal.
 
It's mind-boggling how the Israelis feel justified simply by the retort: "nothing we do to you can possibly be as bad as what Hitler did to us".

But who is "us"?

It's not Jews doing this; it's Israelis doing this, and it's highly probable that many of them do not have Hebrew ancestry.

Some Israelis are orthodox who believe God wills them a homeland in Palestine (though for some reason God didn't simply hand it to them, they had to literally push their way in, displacing long-time residents). Some of them are atheists who have "hardened their necks" (a term often used in the Bible). 

Some of them are murderous fanatics who went to Israel from the US for the sole purpose of creating illegal settlements and who would slaughter a Palestinian as soon as look at him:

Imemc: Israel’s Haaretz: 256 Cases of Israeli Settlers’ Violence Towards Palestinians

• Israeli security services expressed their concerns regarding the increased level of settler violence, and the audacity of Israeli officials for destroying property and spraying racist slogans on the walls (activities known as “paying the price tag”).

It's a sad (although hopeful) commentary when some Jews living in the West are left to agonize over what Israel has done/is doing to Palestinian families:

Jewish Voice for Peace: What is the struggle between Israel and the Palestinians About?

• The violence between Israelis and Palestinians is often falsely presented as a conflict between two equal sides with irreconcilable claims to one piece of land.
• In reality, this is a conflict over territory between a nation-state, Israel, with one of the world’s most powerful and well-funded militaries, and an indigenous population of Palestinians that has been occupied, displaced, and exiled for decades.

So what if, as the NYTimes writer opines, the Palestinians have poor leadership and therefore should take whatever pittance Israel offers? Israel itself, at the moment, has an indicted criminal for a leader, and an impeached US president as a (so-called Christian) mentor.

Two highly respectable Israelis, among others, have told some serious truths:
Ilan Pappé:"The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine"; Miko Peled: "The General's Son"

ImageBelow: MiamiHerald: Mahmoud Illean AP Photo
Palestinian hold a poster showing U.S. President Donald Trump as they protest the American peace plan in Bethlehem, Monday, Jan. 27, 2020.