Have you ever noticed that when Cohen writes about any country other than Israel, he writes from that country? Not so concerning Israel. I can't even remember when Cohen was last in Israel. I think I know why Cohen is loath to visit Israel, but no need to engage in ad hominem attacks. Let's just look at several of the many items which Cohen failed to mention in his op-ed:
- No mention of the fact that former Israeli prime ministers Barak and Olmert offered the West Bank back to Arafat and Abbas, respectively, in exchange for peace. Both Arafat and Abbas refused.
- The Hamas charter is more than just "vile", as Cohen dutifully informs us. It calls for the murder of all Jews and rejects any compromise with Israel.
- No mention by Cohen of the 700,000 Sephardic Jews (a number larger than the number of Palestinian refugees), who were evicted from their homes in neighboring Arab countries and stripped of all their belongings in 1948 and made their way to Israel without any means of sustenance.
- No mention of the fact that many of those Jewish "settlers" consist of persons now living in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, which was conquered by the Jordanian Arab Legion in 1948. When conquered, the Jordanian commander declared: "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible." The Jordanians subsequently destroyed all but one of the Jewish Quarter's 53 synagogues, and Jews could no longer worship at the Western ("Wailing") Wall, which became a garbage dump.
- No mention that many more of the Jewish "settlers" consist of persons living around the bottleneck at the western entranceway to Jerusalem, which could easily be transformed into a sniper's haven. Even in recent years, Palestinians have shot into the city from the surrounding environs, and yes, if and when Palestinians agree to Israel's right to exist, there will be land swaps as part of a peace deal.
- No mention by Cohen of the some 50,000 rockets being aimed by Hezbollah at Israeli cities.
- No mention of Syrian Scuds which can be fired with deadly accuracy at any target in Israel.
- No mention by Cohen that there is already another country, once forming part of Palestine, where Palestinians comprise the majority of the population: Jordan.
I believe in a two-state solution along the lines of the 1967 border with land swaps as necessary. I would welcome a democratic, prosperous Palestine (a pity that Cohen cannot bring himself to witness the resurgent Palestinian economy in the West Bank). But Palestine will also need to recognize Israel's right to exist, it will need to put an end to suicide bombings, and it will need to prevent the firing of rockets into Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Netanya (Israel is only 9 miles wide at its waist).
I would only note in passing how convenient it must be for Cohen to write about Israel, notwithstanding the brutal events in Iran yesterday and in prior weeks. Surely there are those who still remember Cohen's recent repeated attempts to indoctrinate New York Times readers with the watchwords: "Iran is not totalitarian."
Friday, February 12, 2010
Roger Cohen: "Flaccid Mideast Falsehoods"
In today's New York Times, Roger Cohen again lashes out at Israel in an op-ed entitled "Hard Mideast Truths". My online response, if The Times chooses to post it:
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Part 1:
ReplyDeleteI read your comment on NYT. On that same page Arik Elman writes: "Bottom line - what I and the vast majority of Israeli Jews want is to get rid (ominous words) of as many Palestinians as possible at the price of the least possible land concessions."
That said, I wanted to respond to few of your own points:
1- Neither Barak nor Olmert, by all accounts, offered Palestinians anything resembling full sovereignty over Palestine. What both offered was an entity that we can call a state (Israeli couldn't care less what we call it) but has restrictions on sovereignty that no country would accept for itself. And this is not surprising: No nation has ever gained its freedom because of the good-will of the occupier.
2- I'm from Ramallah and I confess I have never seen the Hamas charter (and I honestly don't know anybody else who has). By all accounts of what is written *about* the charter though, Cohen is right, it's vile.
3- The 700,000 Sephardic Jews (the UN puts the number of Palestinian refugees at 740,000 in 1948). You seem to believe (as most Israelis do) that there is such a thing as an "Arab nation", so you blame Palestinians for crimes by non-Palestinian Arabic-speaking regimes. Sorry but this is rubbish. I fully support the compensation or repatriation or whatever needs to be done (even bombing) to right the wrong of Jewish expulsions from Arabic-speaking lands. But I do *not* accept Palestinian responsibility or linkage to this. That is like tying the Palestinian refugee problem (caused by the establishment of Israel) to the pogroms against Jews in Eastern Europe. Again, I know how much this notion of "Arab brethren" must be imbedded in the national Israeli psyche, but it doesn't exist. As a Palestinian, we have been victims of Arab regimes almost to the same extent as Jews in those countries have.
4- What the Jordanian government led by King Hussein did in Jerusalem. Again, see #3 above.
5- Syria or Hizbullah (a Lebanese organization that was founded as a consequence of Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982) aiming rockets as Israel. The opposite is also true. Also, see #3 above.
Part 2:
ReplyDelete6- Jordan as part of "Palestine": This is a very ultra-right-wing position and also ridiculous. It was the British who names the area as "British Mandate of Palestine" but then (as ignored by most right-wing Israelis) quickly established the Eastern part as a separate entity of Transjordan. A) I'm from Ramallah, so how is Jordan my country? B) The same people, the British, during the same era, referred to India as the British "jewel in the crown". Please help me inform my Indian friends how to obtain British citizenship immediately. Bottom line: I am not a Jordanian citizen (nor would I want to be, for the same reason you probably wouldn't want to be), our ancestral lands and villages and towns are not east of the River, and lastly, what a former occupying power (Britain) called the land doesn't have any bearing on how I regard the land. If the USSR had decided to name Uzbekistan "Israel", would you accept my argument that that's your country and you ought to go live there?
7- The Palestinian economy: The current over-rated surge, by Fayyad's own admission, is simply unsustainable as long as we have cages and checkpoints around us. Not to mention that our only exit/entry point into occupied Palestine is the awful Hashemite entity next door.
8- The brutality of Israeli occupation cannot be ignored simply because there are more brutal occurrences elsewhere in the world, be it Iran or Darfur. Each and every situation is important to point out on its own merits.
I don't expect you to buy everything I've written, especially since it probably goes against long-indoctrinated beliefs held by Israelis (and I know quite a few Israelis). What most Israelis have never understood is simply this: You, as an occupying power, cannot expect that Palestinians must accept for ourselves conditions that you would never accept for yourselves. If you do, that's just the definition of racism!!
Hi, Jeffrey! I am very glad your post was published. It is very well written.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting text by Jareer. It is written in an intelligent language.
Yet, as I understand, he does not recognize a right of Israel to exist an any borders, as long as it is in the Middle East. Then everything else is irrelevant: as long as Palestinians fight against existence of Israel and presence of Jews, they will have the same conditions, they have now. They do not let Israel to exist peacefully under any conditions, they choose war. So, war is like war. Do they expect Israel just pack their belonging and march to the see? He believes, right to live for Jews is "long -indoctrinated belief", and he would teach us to forget it.
It is curious that he admits that Palestinians suffered from Arabs "almost" as much as from Israel. So, where is their fight against Arab nations? Where is Goldstone, when Palestinians need him?
I think, the comment he cites (Israeli want to get rid of Palestinians) is made up, may be by NYTimes. There is nothing like this in JPost comments, for example.
Marina, a few points:
ReplyDeleteMy post is written in English. Whether English is an "intelligent language" or not is up to each individual to decide.
You write: "Yet, as I understand, he does not recognize a right of Israel to exist an any borders, as long as it is in the Middle East. ". Please point out where I wrote this.
You write "as long as Palestinians fight against existence of Israel and presence of Jews, they will have the same conditions, they have now." I ask you: Do you believe there is a different between fighting Israeli occupation on one hand, and fighting "Israel's existence" on the other? I do. Furthermore, I challenge you to look at all the facts on the ground, including all what the Palestinians are subjected to under Israeli rule, and tell me (or just tell yourself) who is fighting against the existence of who? It is clear to me, as a Palestinian, that Israel is fighting to eradicate Palestinian national identity and our right to self determination.
Lastly, you write "He believes, right to live for Jews is "long -indoctrinated belief", and he would teach us to forget it. " As you well know, this bears no relationship to what I actually wrote at all, I was referring to a belief in the myth of "Arab brethren". Your conspiratory claim that the NYT invented a comment by an Israeli is proof enough to me that you are blinded by ideological hate rather than a desire for constructive dialogue. You cannot bear to reason with an "intelligently written" post by an "Arab", so you reinvented my entire post into claims that have nothing to do with what I actually wrote but are rather in line with your "Arab"-hating ideology. That's a pity, and I really hope I'm wrong.
I ignore your personal attacks. By the way, my compliment to your language is sincere, I appreciate deficiency of my own English as a second language.
ReplyDeleteYou write:
" I ask you: Do you believe there is a different between fighting Israeli occupation on one hand, and fighting "Israel's existence" on the other?"
This is absolutely the critical question. Yes, I believe there is difference. There should be independent and Israel an Palestine next to each other. Israel should be Jewish state. They should live in peace. Jeffrey writes the same.
Do you believe Israel has right to exist? Do you believe Jews have right for self -determination in Israel?
I read your text: in many words, you never admit that we have right to live. And this is kind of important for us.
And you never admit that I have the right to drink orange juice, even though I love orange juice. But I don't accuse you of denying me the right to drink orange juice just because you failed to mention it.
ReplyDeleteBut since you asked (and this wasn't the topic of my previous post), I'll answer your question. Yes, you have the right to live. Yes, I believe Israeli Jews are *home* in the land of Palestine / Eretz Yisrael / whatever you want to call it.
As for self determination, this is my answer (and most Palestinians would agree): I believe that you have the right to self determination in this land as much as we do. Meaning: Jews have the right of self-determination as long as it doesn't infringe of our right to self-determination. I recognize Israeli Jews' right to self determination in this land as long as Israeli Jews recognize my exactly equal right to the same, in this land. Fair enough? Both sides are equally guilty of denying the other this right, Palestinians only through slogans and written charters, Israelis through brutal actions on the ground.
Lastly, you ask if "Israel has the right to exist". For me as a Palestinian, this is different than recognizing Israel's actual existence. So I'm not going to BS you. Yes, we recognize Israel exists. But does it have the *right* to exist? I'm being totally honest here (and I assume you are Israeli): For a Palestinian to say that Israel has the *right* to exist means that we accept Israel was *right* to banish over 740,000 non-Jews from their homes after 1948. We can argue over why they left, but you can't argue that Israel denied them the right to come back to their homes. So as you can see, it's not as simple. The Palestinian displacement from our homes and lands is our national tragedy. Every nation has its tragedy, some more horrible than others, but the "Naqba" is ours. It is impossible to ask us that we recognize that our national catastrophe was "right" to occur. Such reconciliation will only come through negotiations and real acknowledgments of the suffering each side has caused on the other. It absolutely cannot happen before that. It's like Turkey demanding that Armenia recognize that the Armenian genocide was *right* to happen in the early 20th century. Does this make sense? Only through reconciliation can this stubborn insistence of recognizing the "right" of each other to exist take place. It's not something Israelis want to hear, but at the same time, they ought to understand it.
I wrote: "I recognize Israeli Jews' right to self determination in this land as long as Israeli Jews recognize my exactly equal right to the same, in this land."
ReplyDeleteSadly, you interpreted this to mean that "From your point of view, there is no land for Israel as Jewish state." My intention was simply that we have to find a way to share the land, but you are insisting on making me to be the "evil Arab" that you appear to have been indoctrinated to believe that Palestinians are. In your posts above, you have employed "straw-man arguments" towards me, which makes it very difficult to have a constructive discussion.
You never told me, by the way, whether YOU recognize my right to self-determination in this land. But you don't have to tell me, because it appears that, while you are a Jew, you are not an Israeli citizen. So while you identify with Israel (as is your right), you don't actually live this conflict. My trouble is not with you, but with those who actually carry guns and control me in my land while denying my basic human rights and my rights to self-determination.
Lastly, I find your statement "Palestinians made victimhood their main business. If you want to be a victim, it is hard to help you" extremely racist. You actually believe that Palestinians like to be victims? Spend 1 week living as a Palestinian and tell me how any of us would "want" to be victims. And what about those soldiers who points guns at me and my kids every time I want to go from Ramallah to Bethlehem, and who don't allow me to go to Jerusalem because I'm the wrong religion (I'm a non-Jew)... is this all in my imagination? Life is much more than making ourselves victims like you write, but if you honestly believe that (and too many Israel supporters abroad do believe that), this is shameful arrogance and dehumanization. I'm afraid to write more because you might misinterpret my words and turn me into an "Arab monster" in your mind. It appears I'm already too late.
Jareer and Marina, thank you very much for your comments.
ReplyDeleteJareer, you write: "It is clear to me, as a Palestinian, that Israel is fighting to eradicate Palestinian national identity and our right to self determination." Obviously, I can't speak on behalf of all Israelis; I can only speak on behalf of myself and many of my friends, who hope to see an independent, prosperous, democratic Palestine within the 1967 borders, with negotiated land swaps as necessary, where Palestinians can take pride in their national identity.
You also write, "Both sides are equally guilty of denying the other this right [to the land], Palestinians only through slogans and written charters, Israelis through brutal actions on the ground," and complain about "soldiers who points guns at me and my kids every time I want to go from Ramallah to Bethlehem". I would observe that I can drive 15 minutes in almost any direction from my home and arrive at a place where a Palestinian suicide bomber killed Israeli women and children. I also have children, whose wellbeing means more to me than anything else in this world.
You've never seen the Hamas charter? It takes no more than a minute to find it on the Internet. I realize, of course, that the ascension of Hamas in Gaza was largely the result of corruption within Fatah, and that Palestinians have also suffered from Hamas brutality within Gaza.
Having said all that, how do we go forward? If you were president of the Palestinian Authority, what would be your first step to achieve a lasting peace? What if you were to begin by renouncing violence? What if you were to accept the proposal of Barak, which included Palestinian rule over East Jerusalem? What if this were to be viewed as a first, trust-building step toward the achievement of "full Palestinian sovereignty"? What if both Palestinians and Israelis were to recognize each other's "Naqbas" and together seek peaceful, equitable means of restitution?
Legitimate Israeli concerns? Many: Another Park Hotel Passover massacre, an attempt to bring down an El Al passenger plane with a shoulder-launched missile, a barrage of rockets on Tel Aviv. Which is perhaps why any peace will require a series of trust-building steps, all of which cannot be achieved overnight.
I hope someday, in the not too distant future, I will be able to invite you and your family to my home for coffee and cake.
Thank you for the beautiful conclusion, Jeffrey!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your response Jeffrey. I appreciate your sentiments. Instead of another long piece of text, I'll just link to two articles (both written by Israelis, although left wingers) that nevertheless summarize pretty well what I would say in response to some of your questions:
ReplyDelete1) If Palestinians accepted Israeli offers.
http://gershonbaskinenglish.gershonbaskin.org/issues/160/
Again, no occupier has granted the people it occupies absolute freedom because of its good-will. But Palestinian leadership, such as it is, has its plethora of problems too, and Arafat (back then) acted like an "entitled" Arab autocrat by not offering a counter-offer but balking instead (even though what he was offered was humiliating indeed).
2) Our mutual grievances: This article talks about settlements but the phrase that caught me was:
"We're neighbors, but they live under us, we don't live under them. We and the Palestinians kill each other, but in between killings, we're free and independent, they're not. We see to that."
http://www.newsgab.com/forum/current-events/75312-rattling-cage-imagine-palestinian-settlers-israel.html
I hope you can appreciate our perspective on many of the issues you brought up. In any case, I too hope one day to meet with our families for coffee and cake. Shabbat Shalom.