I always find it odd when I read about how “aggressive” the state of Israel is. Let’s see: Israel is a country that is barely the size of New Jersey, surrounded by much larger nations who constantly condemn it and have as their stated policy its obliteration (As a clear example, perhaps the interested reader should pick up some of Nassar’s speeches from the 1950’s and 1960’s). So obviously Israel is aggressive if it dares to react when invaded by these countries. And a country in such a situation is going to want to fight wars with its larger, and at least on paper, better armed neighbors? It stretches credulity, I’m afraid.

The Palestinian authorities claim to desire peace, yet make inflammatory speeches (rarely reported in the English language presses), teach Antisemitism in their schools, on their television programs, and on their radios and do nothing to prevent terrorist incidents. Mein Kampf is a perennial bestseller and every conspiracy theory denegrating Jews is believed and propogated. Odd sort of peace, where one side keeps on shooting, keeps on hating, and then cries foul if the other side dares to react.

In this country, if we were to limit where a specific ethnic group was allowed to buy or build houses, we’d call it discriminatory. But in Israel, it is a threat to peace if a Jew decides to live next door to a Palestinian? Guess letting those sorts into the neighborhood really lowers the property values…

If the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by Israel is so evil and the cause of all the problems in the Middle East, then why was the occupation of those same territories by Egypt and Jordan for thirty years (1948-1967) not a similar evil? And if the PLO (the Palestinian Liberation Organization) were really interested in creating a “Palestinian state” in those regions, then why, when it was founded in 1964 (3 years before Israel won the West Bank, Gaza and Sinai in a war begun by its Arab neighbors), did it only direct its attacks against Jewish targets rather than the Egyptian and Jordanian occupiers? I also don’t recall any UN pronouncements against Jordan or Egypt for their “illegal” and “oppressive” occupation in those years 1948=1967, either.

If Israel didn’t want peace, why was it so happy to give back the Sinai peninsula to Egypt in exchange for a peace treaty and normalized diplomatic relations — especially when one considers that the only oil wells Israel had access to were in that peninsula?

I’m puzzled when I see otherwise reasonable people buying into the propaganda of a group responsible for terrorist acts. Personally, I tend to be very skeptical of the pronouncements of those who have no moral qualms about killing innocent civilians.

Send to Kindle