But it isn’t actually the Palestinian path. It’s the path chosen by the “Arabs and Palestinians”. Because everybody that speaks more or less the same language is culpable for the bad choices made by the other people that speak the same language.
Not.
Postwar European Jews never had to resort to the path of Palestinians in exile. After 1945, for Jews reaching Israel was often difficult but never impossible.
Exiled Palestinians, as i understand it, find it very, very difficult to return to their original home.
Really, Will?
How easy would it have been for European Jews to “return to their original home” (in the context of this article)?
Think about it.
When you’re sounding like Helen Thomas, you really, really need to think about it.
The Arab countries that kicked out their Jews would surely let them back in and give them their property back, rebuild their places of worship, and give them the same rights as other citizens.
The article and the discussion here presumes that the 1948 Israeli war of independence is the source of Israel’s current problem with the Palestinians. It is not. The issue of Israel’s existence hasn’t been in question since the Yom Kippor War in 1973. The source of Israel’s current problem is the occupation of the West Bank, which made sense in 1967 but was never properly dealt with and now it is a festering sore yielding: democracy, jewish state, greater Israel; pick any two. Right of return is a bargaining chip (or window dressing, as I called in a different comment at this blog), it is not a serious issue.
And just to forestall the inevitable comment: yes, some Palestinians want every inch of Israel gone. So what? That’s true of some Syrians and Iranians too. The answer to that problem is well known: military deterrence, and if that fails, military suppression. The Israelis are in the position of being able to choose how restrained they want to be (in order to spare innocent life) at the expense of their own getting killed. Not terrific, but there are textbook solutions for military problems. The answer to the problem of the West Bank occupation is not known, which is why Israel allows settlement without annexing it, and pursues various other apparently schizophrenic policies (which make a bit more sense if you consider that the policy-makers are usually just politicians looking for short-term advantages while building coalitions in parliament.)
Rand:
The postwar Jewish displaced persons problem was resolved by:
A) About 2/3 of them moving to what is now Israel
B) Most of the rest moving to the US in numbers far above normal immigration quotas, allowed by special legislation
That would seem to be the Palestinian version of the path followed by European Jews (or more strictly, the ones that didn’t want to go back to Eastern Europe, for understandable reasons).
Except that Israel won’t let them do A and the US shows no inclination to do B.
But it isn’t actually the Palestinian path. It’s the path chosen by the “Arabs and Palestinians”. Because everybody that speaks more or less the same language is culpable for the bad choices made by the other people that speak the same language.
Not.
Postwar European Jews never had to resort to the path of Palestinians in exile. After 1945, for Jews reaching Israel was often difficult but never impossible.
Exiled Palestinians, as i understand it, find it very, very difficult to return to their original home.
Really, Will?
How easy would it have been for European Jews to “return to their original home” (in the context of this article)?
Think about it.
When you’re sounding like Helen Thomas, you really, really need to think about it.
The Arab countries that kicked out their Jews would surely let them back in and give them their property back, rebuild their places of worship, and give them the same rights as other citizens.
The article and the discussion here presumes that the 1948 Israeli war of independence is the source of Israel’s current problem with the Palestinians. It is not. The issue of Israel’s existence hasn’t been in question since the Yom Kippor War in 1973. The source of Israel’s current problem is the occupation of the West Bank, which made sense in 1967 but was never properly dealt with and now it is a festering sore yielding: democracy, jewish state, greater Israel; pick any two. Right of return is a bargaining chip (or window dressing, as I called in a different comment at this blog), it is not a serious issue.
And just to forestall the inevitable comment: yes, some Palestinians want every inch of Israel gone. So what? That’s true of some Syrians and Iranians too. The answer to that problem is well known: military deterrence, and if that fails, military suppression. The Israelis are in the position of being able to choose how restrained they want to be (in order to spare innocent life) at the expense of their own getting killed. Not terrific, but there are textbook solutions for military problems. The answer to the problem of the West Bank occupation is not known, which is why Israel allows settlement without annexing it, and pursues various other apparently schizophrenic policies (which make a bit more sense if you consider that the policy-makers are usually just politicians looking for short-term advantages while building coalitions in parliament.)
Rand:
The postwar Jewish displaced persons problem was resolved by:
A) About 2/3 of them moving to what is now Israel
B) Most of the rest moving to the US in numbers far above normal immigration quotas, allowed by special legislation
That would seem to be the Palestinian version of the path followed by European Jews (or more strictly, the ones that didn’t want to go back to Eastern Europe, for understandable reasons).
Except that Israel won’t let them do A and the US shows no inclination to do B.