A Defense of Israel
I can't call myself a defender of Israel per se because they have done a number of illiberal things in their country that tick me off. However, I can say that for all the problems they may have, their response to a neighboring country dropping rockets on its citizens is FAR more restrained than would be the response of, say, the US. If Mexico were dropping rockets into El Paso, Mexico would be a smoking hole in the ground. We still maintain a stricter economic embargo on Cuba, which has never done a thing to us, than Israel does on Gaza.
I pay attention to the Amherst College community since my son enrolled there. I thought this was a pretty powerful article by an Amherst student who has taken a leave of absence to join the IDF. Given my understanding of how Eastern liberal arts faculty think about Israel and Palestine, one should think of this as a voice in the wilderness.
BGThree:
It's not really a fair comparison because the U.S. did not take Mexican land by force and then build a wall around them to ghettoize the ethnic Mexican population (we took the land by force and built a wall, but we didn't force them into a ghetto, and we don't shoot people who try to cross the wall).
In any case, what is the final solution to Israel's Palestinian problem? Walling them inside the Gaza ghetto has been ineffective at eliminating the Palestinian threat to the Israeli people, and the Israeli people will certainly never abide by allowing the Palestinian population to intermingle with them in Israeli cities. It's pretty obvious the low-level exchange of rockets and bombs will not solve anything. This won't end until one side wipes out the other, so get it over with.
November 29, 2012, 11:09 amskhpcola:
You are obviously uninformed about the "intermingling" of Palestinians in Israel. And Warren apparently doesn't realize that Cuba gets about half of its food from the United States.
November 29, 2012, 11:14 amAugust:
They are restrained because the constant threat against citizens functions as a handy tool for political manipulation. The Israeli elite are not at risk. Both the Israelis and Palestinians have the same problem- likely a global one after the Kelo case; we need governments who respect and help maintain our private property rights. The leadership of both sides make a nice parasitic living via collectivizing those rights along ethnic lines. They are thus able to exploit their people while simultaneously keeping a large amount of them voting for their own exploitation out of fear of the other side. Israel lost me when they remove Jews from Gaza. It made no sense from a military standpoint, certainly didn't make any sense from a zionist, and violated their property rights- especially annoying since they had intensively improved the land. So, eventually the narrative unraveled for me and I began to notice the recent history there has been socialist all along.
November 29, 2012, 11:42 amRuss Armstrong:
I doubt very much that Mexico would be "a smoking hole in the ground" if it dropped rockets on El Paso. Not under this administration.
November 29, 2012, 1:57 pmDaniel Hill:
The "what would America do" analysis cuts both ways.
November 29, 2012, 2:33 pmImagine a bunch of people turned up in Florida tomorrow and said at the point of a gun, "god gave us the land 3,000 years ago so it's ours," then passed a bunch of laws which made the existing residents second class citizens. You don't think Floridians would resist with whatever means were at their disposal? Would you call it terror? Why not?
nehemiah:
Palestine is the name of a geographical region, not a nation or state. Never was a nation or state. Palestinians were those peoples who lived in the region and always included Jews as well as Arabs. The Philistines, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Turks and then the British have all ruled that region. Britain issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917 establishing a national homeland for Jews in Palestine. That's right, a homeland before the UN action following the WW2. In 1922 Britain allocated 80% of Palestine to Jordan. Thus Jordan covered the majority of the land of Palestine and included the majority of the Arabs who lived there.
Today so called Palestinians who reside in Israel are freer and more prosperous then the Palestinians who reside in Jordan. Israel stands in the way of an Islamic Caliphate and the Palestinians are being used as pawns on the geopolitical chessboard. Feel empathy for them, but don't blame Israel.
November 29, 2012, 3:14 pmmesaeconoguy:
There is nothing an Israeli tank commander cannot handle.
November 30, 2012, 1:19 ammesaeconoguy:
Nice theory.
Wrong
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo
November 30, 2012, 1:48 ammesaeconoguy:
Palestinians have been kicked out of every major arab host nation, to date, for a reason: they are illiterate, belligerent assholes.
November 30, 2012, 1:54 amNormD:
This seems like a highly simplistic biased view of what happened in Israel/Palestine in 1948. And I am not a huge fan of Israel.
November 30, 2012, 2:12 pmMisterDamage:
I'm thinking the current administration would have to get religion pdq if Mexico dropped rockets on El Paso.
November 30, 2012, 7:39 pmDanimal15:
Great response, Nehemiah. Couldn't have said it better myself, other than to add that most of what is now Israel was acquired legally by Jews in land sales from Arabs prior to 1948.
December 4, 2012, 10:39 amdanimal15:
What utter BS! If you think Obama is easy on our enemies, why don't you go ask Bin Laden what he thinks.
December 4, 2012, 10:40 amnehemiah:
Thanks and one final point. When the UN created the nation of Israel, it also mandated the creation of Palestine. That was rejected, not by Israel, but by the surrounding Arab nations whose hatred for the Jews and the new Jewish state caused them to turn down statehood for the Palestinians.
December 5, 2012, 7:44 amnehemiah:
Bring your facts, leave your bias. Where was the capital of Palestine in 1947? What did their national flag look like? Who was the Palestinian President, King, Premier, or whatever in 1947?
December 5, 2012, 7:49 amNormD:
Ummmm. I was replying to Daniel Hill not you.
December 5, 2012, 11:11 am