50 Comments so far

1. kittyladyoregon March 11th, 2007 4:18 pm

   Ssure makes sense to me. I have never been able to understand how Israel can ignore all the UN declarations and the US never bombed or invaded the place. The US decided that Saddam Hussein violated UN statements and declarations, and went ahead and bombed the whole country sending it into total chaos.
   The US treats Israel like a special state and part of the US. Why?? More money is spent on Israel by the US than any other of the 50 states.
   It is time to get sensible about the Palestiniaan people.

2. TigerDon March 11th, 2007 5:22 pm

   Excellent!

3. Zeke T March 11th, 2007 5:43 pm

   About time someone quetionsd the logic of Israel. Perhaps it should have been a UN colony instead of a church state!

4. namvet67 March 11th, 2007 5:48 pm

   Our Congress is Israeli occupied territory so you won’t get much sympathy for fair play and justice or respect for international law or even basic human rights, but you will get a lot of effort into copyright laws. The NYTimes is just the vehicle used to deliver credibility to what the White House wants the world to believe about Israel’s right to exist.
   Hoa Binh

5. weebler March 11th, 2007 5:53 pm

   Either Israel is too paranoid from having to plant itself by force into the Middle East, and cares little for those outside its borders, or its driven by a fierce ethnocentric/monotheistic chosen people world view, and cares little for those outside its borders–or a combination of both.
   The only hope is some sort of boycott to force it to change–which may not even be enough given its paranoid self-obsessions and inability to recognize that non-jews suffer too. The alternative is to wait for the US and Europe to abandon Israel, or for the arabs to achieve enough military technology to inflict severe damage on Israel–which cannot use nuclear weapons inside its vicinity. The weakness of Israel’s allegedly all powerful military against Hezbollah supports this theory.

6. Gail March 11th, 2007 6:15 pm

   “Endlessly repeating the mantra that the Palestinians don’t recognize Israel helps paint Israel as an innocent victim, politely asking to be recognized but being rebuffed by its cruel enemies.”

   Victims? Cruel enemies?

   I’m in the process of reading a wonderful book by David Shipler, Pulitzer Prize winner for nonfiction. He wrote the book in 1987 and revised it in 2002. Nothing, in terms of human conflict has changed. The book is called, ARAB & JEW: Wounded Spirits In The Promised Land.

   If you are interested in the Israeli/Palestinian issue and the terms “feelings and culture” still resonate with you, this is one book that deserves your attention.

   There still is a “glimmer of hope”! Once we lose that, there’s nothing left.

7. fpal March 11th, 2007 6:33 pm

   Excellent article! It is ONLY through this type of dialog, this type of free speech, this type of political discourse will there ever be a hope of an equitable resolution to the Israel and Palestine problem.

   Thank-you Professor Makdisi.

8. solon March 11th, 2007 9:49 pm

   I agree that Israel’s behavior has been awful at times. But no “right to exist”? The Palestinian leaders have consistently denied Israel’s right to exist, and at least sound as if they are determined to exterminate them or drive them all from Palestine. there should be mutual recognition, but the recognition has to start somewhere. If the Palestinians would do that, the UN could exert more pressure on Israel to make concessions. Somebody has to take the first step. Solon

9. truthteller March 11th, 2007 11:09 pm

   No, Israel doesn’t have a right to exist. They stole the land and they have no right to benefit from the fruits of an illegal act. This is not anti-Semitic, this is only fair. But, you watch, I’ll be called a horrible anti-Semite for saying this, even though I have said nothing against the Jewish religion, and the fact that Palestinians are also a Semitic people.

   If the Palestinians choose to negotiate away their right to the land that was stolen from them in exchange for peace, that is their right. But no outside country, especially our imperialistic one, has a right to impose a settlement on them.

   I think that we U. S. taxpayers should insist on the one thing that would help end Israel’s genocidal ways. We should insist that our government end ALL financial and military aid to Israel ASAP. Let them face their neighbors alone and then they will be forced to be more resonable.

10. Shane March 12th, 2007 12:12 am

    truthteller, saying “they stole the land” is not correct. Who is “they”? They was the UN. The winners of WWII were feeling guilty about not lifting a finger to stop the holocaust. The holocaust displaced a huge number of Jews who were not really wanted back. So what better, than to give them their own land? Well, the story is even more complicated than that, but the reality is that Israel now exists, and should humble its self by working with the displaced Palestinians. But for some reason the Israelis have this sense of entitlement which gave birth to the New World Order. Shame. It is a beautiful part of the world, inhabited by fascinating cultures.

11. rob.price March 12th, 2007 12:30 am

    Why limit your criticism to the Times when all of the top tier democratic candidates adopt the very same language? The Times is guilty of regurgitating the status quo; isn’t this what is expected today from media (even the “Times”)- reinforce stereotypes? Why not level your sights on presidential candidates like Clinton, and Edwards, and Obama!

    Go for the gusto, Makdisi! Pin the tail on those donkeys!

12. lpenek March 12th, 2007 3:11 am

    Shane,
    “They” was Harry Truman, period. George Marshall, his secretary of state, could easily soothsay the future and told him:

    “If you (recognize the state of Israel) and if I were to vote in the election, I would vote against you.”

    No doubt he could clearly see the tempest to follow, while the dolt Truman couldn’t.

    I have great sympathy for the plight of Jews after WWII, but I also have sympathy for Palestinians displaced by the creation of Israel. You’ve got to wonder why Jews agreed to relocate while knowing they would create chaos for others. The only thing I can come up with is that it was due to trauma from the war, some kind of mass post traumatic stress syndrome.
    These days Israel is led by US acolytes engorged on subsidy dollars. They know that if they continue their rightist games the dollars will continue to flow, as if down from mount Sinai. (They follow different commandments, these days…) They also know, like a belligerent neighbor, that if they plant a fence into adjoining property that someday, eventually…the land will really be theirs. How many generations will it take? Time is only on their side.

    That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

13. lpenek March 12th, 2007 3:25 am

    The Ten Commandments of Modern Israel

    1. Thou shalt not interrupt US subsidy dollars.

    2. Thou shalt not disclose information about your nuclear arsenal.

    3. Thou shalt not allow adjoining Arab nations to harness the atom.

    4. Thou shalt not shrink in size.

    … etc.

14. WmC March 12th, 2007 8:05 am

    The US should make all future aid contingent upon both Israel and the Palestinians accepting a binding arbitration process; an international tribunal to which both sides would submit claims.

    Then if they continue to fight, at least it won’t be the US taxpayer that’s underwriting or funding it.

15. maggie50 March 12th, 2007 9:44 am

    To Gail March,

    “a glimmer of hope” the Palestinians have no hope. After 100 years of Europeans and Americans claiming rights to the land they have lived on for thousands of years, they have also lost their water, homes, olive trees, roads, army, airports, police force, jobs, elected officials, taxes and their basic civil liberties. 90,000 of them are in jail for being Palestinian. They get 4 arbitraiy hours of electricity a day. They have curfews inflicted on them by any 20 year old IDF member at will. They can’t travel 5 miles with out going through “check points” where they are also harrased. And after all this they must recognize their agressors “right to exist”. Is the world crazy?

16. thaicoffee March 12th, 2007 10:30 am

    Brilliantly stated! Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am overjoyed that someone publicly recognizes our shared absurdity. As an American, I don’t want to participate in the whole Israel exercise anymore, and I will slap the first person who calls me anti-Semetic for it.

17. buzznack March 12th, 2007 11:34 am

    If you contend that Israel is an “illegal entity” that has “no right to exist,” then, presumably, you will view any action it takes to defend itself and its citizens as indefensible. At the same time, you would presumably accept or even salute some of the very same actions on the part of a nation whose “right to exist” you support. In your view, Israel’s fundamental illegality infects everything it does.

    Therefore, your denunciation of Israeli actions that truly deserve criticism or even condemnation (and that catalog certainly is long) loses substantially all persuasive or moral force. It is obviously premised, not on the merits of the particular actions themselves, but on the presumed fundamental invalidity of the one undertaking them.

    At the same time, the Israeli government and many in the top levels of our government seem to view the Palestinians in the Territories in exactly the same light – as a people who have no “right to exist” as a distinct nation or even as a distinct community. I think it is this attitude, more than any other, that has convinced Israel it has the license to treat the Palestinians like dogs, while our own government has cheered it on.

    That attitude also deprives Israel’s condemnation of Palestinian attacks on its own people of substantially all persuasive or moral force, just as your attitude vitiates your own arguments. It has also made the future far more dangerous for both Israel and the United States than it was 40 years ago.

    I agree that the Palestinians have a right to join the family of nations as a viable, independent, sovereign nation. However, I also believe the Jewish people have the same right to create a nation of their own that all other peoples enjoy. I believe they have the right to establish their nation in their ancient homeland, from which the Romans drove them out nearly 2000 years ago, but which they never forgot. I believed that when I was growing up, before the 1967 War, and nothing that has happened in the last 40 years has given me any reason to change that view.

    What, incidentally, do you propose should be the fate of the Jewish people who are now living in Israel proper?

18. DC Eagle March 12th, 2007 12:05 pm

    Good point Buzznack

    Israel has acted reprehensibly through its short existence, but its existence should be celebrated. Israel through the legal purchase of much of the land inside Israel and through the act of defending itself against hostile enemies, they took a desert wasteland and transformed it into a thriving democratic society. Israel allows full access to all of its holy sites to all peoples.

    Israel does take measures to defend itself. If the Mexican or Candians began crossing the borders and blowing themselves up in mall and pizza parlors, the people on this board would be howling for action to be taken and borders to be enforced.

    In 1948, Israel stood ready to accept the borders agreed upon by the United Nations. The Arab world did not. In 1967, it took land to defend itself. Throughout the years each time Israel has made concessions its is rewarded by more attacks.

    When Israel left Gaza, the first actions taken were to destroy greenhouses that could have provided income to these people. Days after evacuation, bombs were launched from Gaza into Israel.

    There needs to be a two-state solution, perhaps the palestinians need to stop whining and start acting as a people worthy of a nation.

19. truthteller March 12th, 2007 12:20 pm

    What to do with the Israelis? I don’t know for sure. Certainly they could now move back to their ancestrial homes if they came from Western Europe, or the U. S. Many people who went to the region to live were not forced to by political circumstances.

    Those who came from areas with a history of pogroms against Jews, like the former Soviet Union, should be allowed to emmigrate to places like the U. S. We helped to create the problem, we should be part of the solution. I have jokingly said that maybe we should just give them Queens or W. Palm Beach, since there are large communities of them already there.

    The idea that an ethnic or religious group is entitled to displace the current inhabitants of an area because of a “God’s” promise of over 2,000 years ago is just rediculous on it’s face. That is not a all a rational basis for public policy.

    President Truman was in part pressured into his decision to support the founding of Israel by a former business partner. I think many of Truman’s policies and decisions based on his “gut” were right – like the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift – but on things like the steel industry seizure case, and the creation of Israel, he was dead wrong.

20. Vern March 12th, 2007 12:29 pm

    “Israel has acted reprehensibly through its short existence, but its existence should be celebrated”

    That takes the cake.
    Indoctrinated zionism as Jewish nationalism is racism. Israel, the receipient of more US foreign aid is still clamoring for more US taxpayer dollars to construct walls, build its massive military machine and buy US politicians while it consistantly violates UN resolutions and perpetrates stinking lies upon lies upon lies. Don’t peddle your stinking lies here–complaining of Palestinians “whining”–there are no greater exploiters of victimization than Israel–which is like the US complaining about the threat of Cuba…
    “… start acting as a people worthy of a nation.” Like you got room to talk. No, don’t peddle your lies and propaganda here. We know, and much of the world knows and more of the US knows every day.

21. jackf March 12th, 2007 12:31 pm

    Buznack. I don’t think he is simply saying Israel does not have a right to exist. I think he is talking about the need for reciprocity. I see the article as steering the debate in terms of mutual recognition of the other’s right to exist. The caveat is that if Israel wants to continue its flagrant breaches of international law and not recognise Palestine then those on the other side can logically and legitimately raise those arguments contained in his article.

    I think this is an excellent article and I ask the author’s permission to copy it and disseminate it (with full acknowledgements).

    Cheers,

    Jack

22. iammyself March 12th, 2007 12:31 pm

    DC Eagle,

    You’re a jerk. Worse than that, you have no right to say what you say, do what you do, go where you go. If you try to do any of the above, I will smack you down, or worse, shoot you. If you complain, I will smack you down. You have oppressed me by your existence here and threaten my very existence by your words, therefore, anything you say to defend yourself will be distorted and used against you. I am already placed in high places of your government and if you resist, I will write laws to strangle your attempts to do so. You have no rights, not even the right to say that you have no rights.

    Oh, by the way, due to my diaspora, I will be at your house later today to confiscate it in the name of my people (I am Native American and my people were here before yours). Where you go, I care not, but just go! Don’t even think of writing to the press, I control it. If you even respond to this post, my minions will call you anti-Aboriginal and accuse you of whining.

    (Please note: This is not to be taken literally – I wish you no harm, DC Eagle…but, how did it make you feel? Want to swing back at me? Do you see, now?)

23. DC Eagle March 12th, 2007 12:46 pm

    Dear iammyself: I dont want to swing back. Your point is well taken. But perhaps a lesson can be learned from the Native Americans. Casinos in Gaza.

24. MarkMarshall March 12th, 2007 2:47 pm

    Israel has just as much right to exist as does any other state, no more and no less. Most importantly, Israel has just as much right to exist as does the State of Palestine – no more and no less. But the State of Palestine does not exist, because Israel and the USA refuse to recognize Palestine’s right to exist. We should not complicate matters by needlessly waxing philosophical about all the various ways the term “right to exist” could be interpreted. When we speak of a state’s “right to exist” we mean that its sovereignty must be respected. We mean that it has the right to control its borders, its territorial waters and its airspace. We mean that no state, organization or person has the right to invade it or otherwise violate its borders or to bomb it from the air or to blockade or mine its ports. Israel has those rights and so does every other state. Those rights are the foundation on which the United Nations is built. What makes the Palestinian-Israeli conflict particularly intractable and destabilizing and dangerous for US-Americans and citizens of states that are closely allied to the USA is the fact that the USA has chosen to take sides in the conflict. There is absolutely no reason for the USA not to be neutral in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel has a large nuclear deterrent which guarentees its survival. Israel needs no guarantee from the USA. The US alliance with Israel does nothing but complicate the USA’s relations with the oil-producing countries of the Middle East and provoke terrorism against innocent US-Americans. Most US-Americans know this, but are afraid to say it becaue they do not want to hurt the feelings of their Jewish friends. Time to get over that timidity. You are not doing your Jewish friends any favours by censoring yourselves. On the contrary, this self-censorship produces resentment which eventually will build up to a widespread resurgence in anti-Semitism.

    Mark Marshall
    Toronto

25. iammyself March 12th, 2007 3:08 pm

    “Most US-Americans know this, but are afraid to say it becaue they do not want to hurt the feelings of their Jewish friends.”

    Mark,

    It goes even deeper than not wanting to hurt the feelings of Jewish friends. The neocons in Israel are allied with the neocons in the US, and in fact, some are one and the same. Look at some of the most powerful think-tanks in the US and you will see Israeli operatives there. Hell, look at the US government and you will find Israeli operatives there (including Congress). These people have dual allegiances, which, in my mind is a severe conflict of interest at it’s best, treason, at it’s worst!

    You’re right about a resurgence of anti-Semitism. I don’t want to see this for several reasons, primarily because once again, it will entangle the US in conflict, and secondarily, because some of my own family is Jewish (my bar-mitzvah was in 1968).

    Anti-Semitism is ugly for whatever reason, but inviting it, as Israeli policy has been doing, is reprehensible.

26. pbdenison March 12th, 2007 4:47 pm

    I am shocked at the idea that Israel has no right to exist. Israel and the Palestinians have to co-exist! It was probably a mistake to create Israel after WWII, but that is almost 60 yrs ago. The people living there now were not responsible for that mistake any more than I am responsible for my ancestors’ treatment of the Indians. You can’t reverse history.
    Truthteller wants to remove all the Idsraelis. That can’t be done peacefullly. (It may even be impossible to close down the settlements on the West Bank without bloodshed.) We all have to work for a PEACEFUL solution to the problem. AIPAC unfortunately is as hard line as they come. There seem to be more voices for reason inside Israel than in the USA.

27. buzznack March 12th, 2007 5:00 pm

    “Israel has just as much right to exist as does any other state, no more and no less. Most importantly, Israel has just as much right to exist as does the State of Palestine – no more and no less. But the State of Palestine does not exist, because Israel and the USA refuse to recognize Palestine’s right to exist.”

    Mark – I agree completely that the Palestinian people have the same right to their own sovereign nation as the Israelis. I also agree that the US has to be even-handed in this matter. That is not the same as being neutral. US policy has always, and I believe rightfully, been premised on the right of the people of Israel to maintain a Jewish nation within safe, secure borders.

    The US has to be equally firm in its commitment to the establishment of a sovereign, viable Palestinian nation. So must Israel. In this, both of them have failed atrociously. Israel will achieve neither peace, nor safety nor security as long as it treats its Palestinian neighbors so wretchedly.

    I do not see US “neutrality” as being at all helpful, if you mean the US should adopt a complete “hands off” policy in the region. If we did that, I would expect all parties there to gear up for war, as happened in 1967 and 1973. Is that really what anybody wants?

28. SaucyWench March 12th, 2007 7:18 pm

    In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that humankind’s possession of certain unalienable rights was “self-evident” and that it is to secure these rights that “Governments are instituted among [people], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”.

    This, it seems to me, articulates the view that no government can possess a “right to exist”, and certainly not the Israeli government, which sounds like exactly the kind of government it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish.

    What I think most people mean when they make an issue of the existence of a state is that all people have a right to self determination, which is how the principle is expressed most often in international law. Israel is paradigmatic of the kind of state that obstructs such self-determination, as, indeed, is the United States, always protesting that it is to “spread democracy” that it overturns or undermines popularly elected governments.

29. roxio March 12th, 2007 9:59 pm

    If there is any country which stands fit to be bombed out of its stubborn refusals to comply with UN resolutions and for its continued state sponsored targeted killings,its Israel.
    And yet that country continues to be rewarded for its killings and its refusals to comply with UN resolutions and for its aparthaied treatment of hapless Palestinians.It has been rewared not only by US but also by UN and Europe,this is justice in today’s world.Just as Serbia has been declared innocent of all its crimes against Bosnian Muslims.Just how much more can justice be denied to the victims,its hard to know.
    Yet the world is silent on Israel’s crimes against Palestinians which go on unabated and unchecked.Not a day passes when a Israeli helicopter targets a house,a car or even a pedastrian.As if the ‘war on terror’ which effectively has turned into a war of terrorisation has given a free license to anyone anywhere to pick and choose muslims and kill them on spot,all in the name of this farce.

30. truthteller March 13th, 2007 5:17 am

    There was just a story on local DC news this am about an event so sensitive and risky that participants have to be taken to and from the DC convention center in police escorted buses, running with full lights and sirens. What sort of high level government conference is this? Nothing of the sort. It is the annual AIPAC conference, that runs through this afternoon. Obviously, the organization knows the depth of the enmity that runs through the World towards them, or they wouldn’t have to resort to quasi-military escorts for participants to get to the event. They have a lot of nerve taking up valuable Metro Police resources to protect their members at this event. This organization is one of the biggest reasons that the U. S. is so widely hated in the Mid-East and other parts of the World. They have most of Congress, and certainly, the entire administration under their control. They should be one of the targets of any attempt to wrest control of our republic back into the hands of the People.

31. DC Eagle March 13th, 2007 10:30 am

    Makdisi muddies the issue of “recognition” in legalistic jargon while failing to acknowledge that the issue goes deeper than this in practical terms, as Hamas not only refuses to recognize Israel but actually advocates its destruction. Like Hamas, Makdisi evidently wishes the Palestinian people to move backwards in diplomatic terms.

    Makdisi asks:

    which Israel, precisely, are the Palestinians being asked to “recognize?” Israel has stubbornly refused to declare its own borders. So, territorially speaking, “Israel” is an open-ended concept. Are the Palestinians to recognize the Israel that ends at the lines proposed by the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan? Or the one that extends to the 1949 Armistice Line (the de facto border that resulted from the 1948 war)? Or does Israel include the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which it has occupied in violation of international law for 40 years – and which maps in its school textbooks show as part of “Israel”?

    Israel’s borders don’t need to be defined as a precondition for recognition. Israel and the Palestinians recognized each other by signing the Oslo Accords and final borders could be negotiated as part of an overall settlement.

    Makdisi claims that “A just peace will require Israelis and Palestinians to reconcile and recognize each other’s rights.” Israel has consistently demonstrated its wish for peace and a recognition of Palestinian rights going back to Oslo all the way to its withdrawal from Gaza and the election of a Kadima government on the platform of bringing a two-state solution into being. Makdisi, on the other hand, espouses the language of rejectionism.

    As the Palestinian leadership becomes ever more desperate to water down the demands of the international community, is this op-ed part of a broader media strategy to call into doubt the need for the Palestinians to recognize Israel? Not only does this excuse the Palestinians from moving forward on the diplomatic track but it also excuses the genocidal ideology of Hamas, which is committed to Israel’s destruction.

32. Vern March 13th, 2007 11:16 am

    More stinking lies.

    It is like continually wailing about the precarious security of Israel while bulldozing Palestinian homes, farms, ancient olivegroves, constantly stretching that frontier, constructing more and more settlements,Jew-only roads, monopolizing water resources, intimidating and imposing punitive measures, illegally targeting and assasinating, closures and curfews, terrorizing a captive population with no defense of their own with one of the major militaries in the world–including a nuclear arsenol while grandstanding about poor Israel who is always extending the olive branch with “Baraks generous offer”. The last thing Israel wants or is willing to recognize is any Palestinian recognition of Israel on any level. That would mean they couldn’t pull that old complaint out anymore. So, it doesn’t matter how many times the Palestinians or any surrounding Country “accepts Israel”. Israel pretends it was never said.
    More stinking lies.
    Makes me sick.

33. Essie March 13th, 2007 11:25 am

    The Israeli-Palestinian issue will not be resolved as long as Zionists and their friends, including most of the US congress, hold power. This is how it works: The US helps Israel with the US taxpayers’ money to the tune of $3,000,000,000 to $5,000,000,000 annually. About half of that amount goes to Israel in the form of arms; the other half is in cash. A large amount of that cash routes back to various Jewish organizations in the US such as the influential lobby called the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC). This lobby spends the US taxpayers’ money during elections to influence election outcomes by contributing campaign funds only to those individuals who are, or who promise to act as, friends of Israel. In other words, they will be in the pocket of Israel. Have you not heard what these people say when they are running for office? I have heard this so many times that it makes me wonder. This is what they invariably say: My first priority is the security of Israel. Wait a minute! Are they running for office in Israel, or running here to protect the security and the interests of the American people? Under these circumstances how can anyone expect a just and peaceful solution to Israeli-Palestinian issue? In the upcoming annual AIPAC meeting to which, among others, Cheney and Palosi are invited, just watch and see how your so-called elected officials sing like a canary.

34. DC Eagle March 13th, 2007 12:24 pm

    FROM TODAY’s BOSTON GLOBE
    The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas yesterday rejected criticism by Al Qaeda’s second-in-command and said it was still committed to Israel’s destruction despite a power-sharing deal with the Fatah faction.

    “We will not betray promises we made to God to continue the path of jihad and resistance until the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine,” Hamas said in a statement, in a clear reference to Israel as well as to the occupied West Bank.

    Doesn’t sound like acceptance. Whose lying?

35. bernhold March 13th, 2007 12:37 pm

    Buzznack asserts that Israel has a right to exist because it’s an ancient homeland.
    BY that reasoning, the entire mediterrean basin belongs to Italy because the Romans once had it.

36. maggie50 March 13th, 2007 3:19 pm

    To DC Eagel,

    Because the Boston Globe says Hamas rejects something doen’t make it true. Your going to believe that Israel is good country just merly defending itself, dspite the fact that all evidence proves other wise.

    The Priminister of Palestine (from Hamas) rejected stating Israel has the right to exist, becuase Israel was not also required to state that Palestine has a right to exist. The latter part of his the quote is always left out.

    Now for what this quote means if you are an Arab.

    “We will not betray promises we made to God to continue the path of jihad and resistance until the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine,”

    We will continue our promise we made to God to continue our struggle and resistance until the Liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine,”

    Only people in the west (for reasons of their own) think that jihad only means violence.

    Israel is a violent state, it was founded on violence, it continues violence. Just like the good ol’ USA. So they have no right to preach.

    Now DC, name 5 things Israel has done in the last 5 years to deserve such devotion.

37. DC Eagle March 13th, 2007 4:00 pm

    Lets start with one- reported today:

    Close to 20,000 jobs have been created in the Gaza Strip over the last four months thanks to coordination between the IDF and Palestinian agricultural unions, according to Col. Nir Press, commander of the IDF Coordination and Liaison Administration.

    Out of the 19,100 Gazans who found jobs in the past four months, 10,500 were in agriculture, he said. The increase was spurred by an IDF decision to allow Palestinians to work fields in the northern Strip, particularly in the Beit Lahiya area, that had been off limits since they are used to fire Kassam rockets.

    While Israel does not talk with officials from the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government, Press said, he has held a series of meetings with farmers and union leaders, and coordinated the transfer of raw materials into Gaza and the export of agricultural produce to Israel and on to Europe.

    How many jobs have the FATAH, HAMAS, or any other Arab nations created?

38. DC Eagle March 13th, 2007 4:09 pm

    One other point Maggie50

    Although I respect the belief of the many well intentioned Arabs to whom Jihad means something spiritual as opposed to violent, there are many others who use the term as an excuse to strap on explosive vests full of nails and ball bearings in order to take the lives of innocent civilians. Israel is taking steps first and foremost to protect against the latter, because noone else will.

39. buzznack March 13th, 2007 7:09 pm

    To truthteller, Vern, Zeke T, roxio, Maggie50:

    1. Is there any other nation on Earth besides Israeli that you believe has no “right to exist”?

    2. As for the suggestion that the Israeli people have forfeited their “right to exist” as a nation because their government, in your view, has committed “crimes against Palestinians,” does that apply to Germans, Japanese, Russians, Chinese, Serbs, Americans, etc., etc., whose governments have all waged aggressive war in recent years?

    3. Finally, in response to bernhold, if the claim of Jewish people to a right to establish a nation in their ancient homeland is too remote, what is the cutoff point? Evidently 1948 is recent enough for you, since that was when Israel, in truthteller’s words “stole the Palestinians’ land.” What about 1939, when the Soviet Union seized the eastern half of Poland in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Is Poland entitled to take that territory back and boot out the Belarusians, who are in there now?

40. solon March 13th, 2007 7:14 pm

    roxio speaks angrily of all the crimes committed by Israel, but ignores the crimes of he Palestinians. Many Palestinian leaders say they are committed to the destruction of Israel. Yes, they could probably drop that commitment if Israel really made a good two-state offer and lived up to it. ut you can’t blame the Israelis for taking the threat literally. They have to bet their lives! Itg is also true that a number of Orthodos Jews want all the Palestinians out because the Bible promised the land to Israel, but they are a minority.
    Rather than assigning blame, the question now is: how can we resolve the issues so they can both live in peace? Thiis takes give on both sides, and for the US to act as an honest broker, not ;a standin for AIPAC. Will it happen? I personally have lost hope. The whole thing will blow up and precipitate a war that will make the two Woreld Wars look llike Sunday school picnics. I hope I’m wrong.

41. roxio March 13th, 2007 10:17 pm

    Apart from the historic record of Israel to kill Arabs at will — after all who can forget the massacres of Sabra and Shatila and the almost daily target killings by the Israelis of Palestinians — the efforts by Israel and its defenders to rationalise last summer’s onslaught against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians had absolutely no legal or moral justification.
    A state cannot be allowed to massacre civilians at will in response to the actions of a non-state actor. As for the notion of ‘collective punishment’ — if that is to become part of international state behaviour, then there will be total anarchy in the world. Already the US, with its unilateralism and notion of ‘coalitions of the willing’ is reducing the international system into an anarchic one making existing international law and norms of inter-state behaviour almost irrelevant. If the Israeli notion of collective punishment is accepted then even more chaotic scenarios can result.

    If Israel continues to get the indulgence it is getting from the US and its European allies — one really wonders how much more sufferings the Palestinians will have to endure in order to pay for Europe’s Nazi guilt.

    The AIPAC indeed holds the Congress,the Senate and much of US media hostage to make them tilt towards Israel all the time.The moment a Congressman or a Senator dares speak a word against Israel he risks losing his next election since AIPAC will make sure he loses the next election.This is how it works in this ‘free’country.

    For 60 years Israel has been using and abusing the term ‘holocaust’for its own advantage.It has used it to squeeze hundreds of millions of dollars from Europe and ofcourse billions of dollars from US,masquerading as a ‘victimised’ nation while its own terror against Palestinian civilians continues unabated as if it has a free license to do that at will.

42. lpenek March 14th, 2007 3:46 am

    Trying to figure out what’s right and wrong re Israel is like trying to parse a feverish dream while still asleep. It just keeps going ’round and ’round — holocaust… reparations…ancient land…displacement…holocaust. Shit, can’t we just wake up? In the end what they say is true: you can’t erase history. But since when were geo-political decisions based on 2000 year-old hocus-pocus? “God” never promised anyone anything ’cause there IS no God. In 1948 a group of people invaded another group of people and took their land. Whatever justification there was in that was in the minds of the “takers”.

43. massud March 27th, 2007 2:02 pm

    Recognizing Israel’s right to exist is nothing more, really, than assuring they aren’t conceding at their own peril. Think about it, though. If there was no threat that some entity was trying to destroy Israel, or tear up its economy with suicide bombers to coerce it into letting millions of people with allegiance to another flag to come in and be numerically dominant inside Israel it would be SOOOO much easier to pressure Israel into accordance. The ambiguity, in my view, holds me back from truly denouncing Israel because it IS very possibly fighting for its life. When the arab/muslim side accepts a jewish homeland there, EVERYONE could pressure Israel like any country and NOT be accussed of anti-semitism b/c such protest wouldn’t be pressuring Israel into danger or long term de-legitimacy.

44. lateatnight June 13th, 2007 8:17 pm

    Why Does The Times Recognize Israel’s ‘Right to Exist’?

    The answer to this question is simple. The Times is owned by Jewish people.

45. bntytuvupyti December 12th, 2007 9:08 am

    titrovynizipo…

    excacixyzece…

46. bnsosepapewo January 1st, 2008 6:06 am

    titnyperexeka…

    exsinozypyhy…

47. JusticeTruthandtheAmericanWay April 28th, 2008 7:44 am

    The only thing I find more troubling than the many misstatements in this article is the obvious antisemitism of many of the commentators. The Arabs have done an amazing propaganda job. They claim all of “Judaea” as well as all of “Arabia” while insisting that all Jews be thrown into the sea and they get people who call themselves progressives to agree with their Holocaust.

    It’s a shame so many on the Left are unaware of history. When Israel asks to be recognized, it only asks that the Jews be allowed one place on earth — their homeland — where they can control their own destiny and not be massacred or live at the mercy of others.

    This isn’t about borders or UN resolutions. If you know history — and so few on the Left do that this professor has put one over on so many of you — you know that when the entire territory was controlled by the Ottomans and there was no Jewish or Arab State — Jews and Arabs worked together to get states in their respective homelands. Feisal and Weizmann agreed: the Jews would get Judaea (what is today Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan) and the Arabs would get the far vaster land of Arabia and North Africa (with abundant oil).

    This agreement was enshrined in international law. The Balfour Declaration was put in place by the League of Nations.

    But the Arabs broke the deal and began massacring the native Jewish inhabitants of Palestine. Hebron — a Jewish community of 4000 years — became judenrein 10 years before Europeans joined in the fun of trying to murder every last Jewish man, woman, and child on their continent.

    The Jews — struggling to survive — and I defy you to name any people that has had 1/3 of its members worldwide murdered in the last century — offered to take ever less and less until the Peel plan basically gave them one city, Haifa. But the Arabs refused to give them even this small piece of land in which they were the overwhelming majority and continued the massacres.

    If the Arabs had recognized one Jewish State in 1917 or in 1936 or in 1947 without trying to “throw the Jews into the sea,” there would be no conflict today.

    Sadly, this author is trying to trick all of you at commondreams who, he knows, are unaware of this basic history. He talks of a “Palestinian People,” when “Palestinian” didn’t mean “Arab” until the 1960’s.

    And what is the “international law” and “UN resolutions” this is Israel is supposed to have violated? The author cleverly doesn’t say. He assumes you think he knows what he’s talking about. He surely doesn’t mean binding Security Council resolutions. Perhaps he is referring to the non-binding General Assembly resolution (later rescinded) declaring Jewish nationalism, alone among nationalisms, to be racism?

    Ah, see, if the Jews would only hate themselves as much as an oil-hungry antisemtic world hates them, they would be so much better off. If only the gas chambers took a few more…

    One thing the author has right, though. Israel will continue to “exist” whether or not the Arabs recognize its existence. The world no longer cries for the German Volksdeutsch who left their homes by the millions as Poland and France took over formerly German territories. They don’t decry this violation of international law, because they understand that Germany’s aggressive actions in World War II led to its loss of territory.

    No one decries the transfer of tens of millions of people in India and Pakistan nor denies recognition of Hindu or Muslim states. Most people aren’t aware that this even happened.

    Similarly, Leftists NEVER complain about the 800,000 Jews expelled from Arab countries whose descendants form the majority of the Israeli population, nor do they ever demand reparations or a “right of return” to the Arab Jewish population that is larger than any Arabs that left the new Israeli State in 1948.

    Why? Because professors like this one never teach history. They throw a few false phrases around like “illegal” and expect the naturally antisemitic Left to jump like the trained seals that too many of you are.

    When did the Left become apologists for Saudi Arabia? When did the Left start to support a Nazi agenda?

    The fundamental question for all of you is WHERE DO THE SIX MILLION ISRAELIS GO? 55% are from the Middle East (including Judaea, where Jews have lived — and got their name –for more than 4000 years and Arabs have only lived for a mere 1300 years). Would you send them home? And the other 45% back to Europe? Where do you propose they live? Would you undo the French and Polish occupation of Germany? And for that matter the US occupation of our native peoples?

    All Jews ask for is the right to live, free and secure, in their native land. The issue of boundaries could be negotiated. A 24th Arab state could even be created (but please, let’s not pretend that the “Western Palestinians” are a people separate and distinct from the “Eastern Palestinians” in Jordan, or, for that matter, from the many Sunni Arabs in the Middle East.

    That’s what “recognition” is all about. I suspect the good professor knows everything I just spoke of. But you readers don’t. And he has successfully put one over on you.

    Shame on him for that.

    And PLEASE study history before commenting on it or, in effect, supporting a second Holocaust.

48. JusticeTruthandtheAmericanWay April 28th, 2008 8:09 am

    Truthteller, if you claim Israel “stole the land” or commits “genocide” than you ARE antisemtic…or just badly badly informed.

    Israel stole nothing. Jews have lived there for 4000 years. The Zionists who returned purchased large swaths of land from absent “effendi” landlords. The Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations set up Palestine (Israel, Jordan, West Bank, Gaza, and Golan) as a homeland for the Jewish People under international law. This was the first intertional law-making body in world history by the way. And King Faisal on behalf of the Arabs orginally accepted the deal.

    Since then, trouble. The Arab leaders like Husseini joined with the Nazis in an attempt to massacre the Palestinian Jews. The Arabs reneged on the deal. Even the British violated international law and reneged on the deal. All this happened conveniently while the entire world participated directly or indirectly in the mass murder of Jewish men, women, and children. Even the United States — like every other country — refused to accept refugees or bomb the gas chambers.

    Do you know where “Jew” comes from? The term is older than “Judaism.” It comes from Judaea, or the land of Israel, from the tribe of Judah. Do you know where “Arab” comes from? It comes from “Arabia.” I’m not saying Arabs can’t live in Judaea. I’m not saying Jews can’t live in Arabia.

    I’m asking why do People of the Left — who supposedly believe in fairness — believe that Arabia should be judenrein, never complain about the expulsion of the Jewish inhabitants of the Middle East outside Israel who lived there for 4000 years, and yet believe every Jewish settlement on empty land in Judaea is somehow evil?

    Live and let live. The Arab minority in Israel has full and equal rights. The few Jews who remain outside Israel in the Middle East should have full and equal rights too, as should the few remaining Jews in Europe that were not massacred by Europeans.

    Israel has never committed genocide. Europeans have. And Arabs have tried. To call the victim the perpetrator is classic Nazi ideology.

    So yes, truthteller, you ARE an antisemite. It doesn’t matter that you don’t consider yourself one. Many Southern slaveowners did not consider themselves racist either, but they were.

    And your idea truthteller that a Jewish State be created in the United States is, as you know, a joke. This is the antisemite’s Final Solution to the Jewish Problem. Make up an impossible solution and then throw their hands up when Jews can’t achieve it and suggest gas chambers instead. Or roxio supports another more modern form of genocide.

    Is there any other country other than Israel upon which people, who consider themselves reasonable and progressive want to be bombed? Is there any people other than the Jews who the Left wants to massacre? When did the Left become in league with the Nazis?

    The homeland for Jews is Judaea. It’s where Jews come from. Why not put Arabs in Tahiti? Because Arabs come from Arabia? Why not put the French in Mongolia? Because the French people are tied to France. Why is it that all other people deserve a home but not the Jews? That, my friends, is the very definition of antisemitism.

    PLEASE LEARN YOUR HISTORY BEFORE COMMENTING ON THINGS YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT!

    And I ask this with respect.

49. JusticeTruthandtheAmericanWay April 28th, 2008 8:17 am

    Reading more comments:

    Thank you, DC Eagle and buzznack, for your wise comments.

    As for Vern, if the Arabs in the territories are suffering so much, why don’t they STOP TRYING TO MURDER THE JEWS AND ACCEPT THE PALESTINIAN ARAB STATE THAT HAS BEEN REPEATEDLY OFFERED TO THEM IN MORE THAN 90% OF THE WEST BANK AND ALL OF GAZA?

    Truly, the Left would do better in encouraging Arabs to take the 90-95% offered to them than encouraging them to continue to try to commit genocide.

    And roxio, I used to think you were just an ignorant antisemite. But now I know you are purposely trying to confuse people. Are you a Saudi agent?

    Surely roxio, you know that at Sabra and Shatila Lebanese Christians killed Arab Muslims as part of revenge for other killings the Muslims had made. It was an awful brutal massacre and one-sixth of the Israeli population marched in the streets to condemn it. Israeli military leaders who negligently allowed these two populations who hate each other (and kill each other today) to be in proximity to each other were removed from power, including Sharon.

    Now how was this “the historic record of Israel to kill Arabs at will”?

    Do you really think you’re fooling anyone with this nonsense? Do you really think everyone on this board is that stupid?

    Do you really think that Israel — alone among the nations — is not allowed to have the international right of self-defense?

    Do you really think that Jews, once again, will walk to your gas chambers without fighting back?

50. JusticeTruthandtheAmericanWay April 28th, 2008 8:28 am

    If only those of you who support yet another Arab state in the region — and I have no problem with that as long as it’s peaceful and recognizes Israel’s right to exist — would see that the best way to help Gaza and West Bank Arabs is to teach them the dictates of Martin Luther King and Gandh! If they would try non-violence, they would have had a state long ago and could have one today in a nanosecond.

    When did the Left become the supporters of genocide as a first opposition and non-violence as a last resort? This is not the progressive movement I used to know and love.

    Ipenek, who says “In 1948 a group of people invaded another group of people and took their land” obviously knows nothing about history. Who took whose land? Are you aware that every Jewish settlement prior to 1948 and afterward consisted of bought land or empty land or already Jewish-owned land?

    As for 1948, if the Arabs had accepted partition, there would be an Arab and Jewish state today in the borders of Mandatory Palestine. But they didn’t. And in 1948-1952, 590,000 Arabs left the incipient Jewish State while 800,000 Jews left Arab states. Most Arabs were not forced out. Most Jews were. But no matter, the populations switched sides, as millions did in India and Pakistan around the same time. Why is no one calling for a Muslim homeland in India or a Hindu homeland in Pakistan or a Jewish homeland in Arabia? All anyone calls for is an Arab homeland in Judaea. Why?

    To uniquely ask Jews to sacrifice — and no other people — IS the definition of antisemitism, is it not?

    I believe every distinct human culture should have a right to its own home where it can live free from attempts to massacre its inhabitants. That includes Jews, Arabs, French, Germans, Native Americans, Basques, and Kurds.

    And given that so many in history have tried to murder all the Jews and so many on this board appear to want to join in the genocide (with truthteller leading the way!), Jews seem to need a homeland more than most.

    But I think that Arabs should also live in peace and freedom in secure boundaries in a democratic state where all rights, including women’s rights, are respected. Imagine if the Gaza Arabs, after Israel withdrew, had turned their attention to creating and building a peaceful state there! Is there any question most of the West Bank would be next?

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