Home -
Israel -
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict
There is a political case on both sides
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Both sides do have grievances that need to be addressed.
It is very hard though
to sympathise with the Palestinians
because of: (a) their absurd and immoral goals
(destroying Israel,
setting up an Islamic state),
and: (b) their immoral conduct of the war
(deliberately killing civilians).
A few points in defence of the existence of Israel:
- When Israel was set up in 1947, the area designated was a clear
majority Jewish area
(538,000 Jews and 397,000 Arabs).
See here
(or via here).
- This Jewish majority had developed peacefully (not through warfare)
over the previous 70 years.
- Setting this area up as a state was reasonable because:
(a) the Jews (the majority in the area) wanted it,
and:
(b) the state would be a free democracy,
whereas the alternative was
dhimmi status
within some standard Arab Muslim tyranny.
- Setting up this area as a state
does not need to be justified by "making up" for the crimes
of the Holocaust
(with the Palestinians paying for European crimes).
It was nothing to do with the Holocaust at all.
The area was majority-Jewish already, and had become so peacefully over the previous 70 years,
with no Palestinians evicted by force.
This area in 1947 had a right to self-determination,
totally independent of the Holocaust.
- I see nothing wrong with setting up the majority-Jewish area
as Israel in 1947, therefore.
Whether it was sensible for Jews fleeing persecution to go to the Middle East
in the first place, however
- as opposed, say, to America -
is another question.
Apparently
(though I'd like to see a bit
more context),
Lord Curzon,
British Foreign Secretary 1919-24,
said about the idea of the Jews going to live in the Middle East:
"I cannot think of a worse fate for an advanced and intellectual community".
- Still, once brave, embattled democrats are in the Middle East,
it is our duty to support them against non-democrats.
- The Arabs rejected this state purely because it was Jewish.
Had it been just another Muslim group,
a separate state would have been accepted without controversy.
But it was intolerable to allow the
dhimmis
to set up a state.
Even worse, one in which dhimmis would rule over some Muslims.
This problem - and nothing else - is the root cause of the conflict.
Hence for the future:
- No solution that allows the existence
of a Jewish (or any non-Muslim) state
in any form
can possibly end the conflict.
- The only thing that will end the conflict
is a change of mind by the Arabs,
such that they will tolerate the existence of a non-Muslim state,
and non-Muslims in general.
The root cause of the conflict is, and always has been, Muslim bigotry.
Palestinian refugees (1948), Jewish refugees (1948) and German refugees (1945)
Immediately after the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948,
a combined Arab army of
Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian, and Lebanese forces invaded
to try to destroy the dhimmi state and
exterminate the Jews.
Israel - because it is based on
western principles of freedom
rather than pre-scientific tribalism
- managed not only to beat the combined Arab armies
but in fact expanded its territory.
- 1948 Arab-Israeli War
(and here)
-
Many Palestinians were expelled, others fled voluntarily,
during the 1948 war that established Israel.
Clearly there has been Palestinian suffering.
Though much of it
is self-inflicted.
Had the Arabs never tried to destroy Israel,
the Palestinians would never have been displaced.
They would now live either within Israel
(and therefore would be free and prosperous),
or would be next door, as peaceful trading neighbours
(and quite likely a thriving Arab democracy due to Israel's example).
Maybe they shouldn't have tried to destroy Israel?
- But even if many Palestinians were wronged,
Israel exists and it's not going away.
Many huge
displacements of populations have taken place in
the last century,
e.g.
the expulsion of German populations after WW2,
or the
Greeks in Turkey,
or, most notably,
the Jews expelled from the Arab countries. (*)
All of these were crimes,
but after a certain number of years
it becomes impossible to go back.
The Palestinians
can never go back,
nor should they ever be encouraged to.
They must give up the
dream of
destroying Israel.
- (*) It is usually forgotten that Israel is home to
over 1 million descendants of Jews
expelled from the Arab countries around the Middle East.
Who on the Palestinian side cares about their rights?
Who in the western left cares about them?
- Was it wrong for Israel to expand its territory in the 1948 war?
No, not necessarily.
There is a long-standing principle that
those who start an aggressive war
should lose territory.
The Arab states have started repeated aggressive wars,
and should suffer for it.
It is almost impossible to define where any country's borders should be anyway,
so there is some rough justice in this.
Certainly, any Arab who finds himself within Israel's borders is lucky,
since they have the chance to live in freedom and with full human rights,
which they won't get in any Arab country.
- In general,
since Israel is the only free country in the region,
I would broadly support expanding its borders
and reducing those of neighbouring countries,
in order to maximise the space of freedom in the Middle East.
For example, I think Israel should permanently acquire part of the
West Bank.
Reference
"The notion that the Palestinians want to rule themselves, that they could do it successfully, that they really accept a two-state solution is one of the most grotesque deceptions ever foisted on the West. Alas, the entire conflict centers around the Palestinian/Arab/Muslim need to restore their lost honor by destroying that which has humiliated them, the autonomous Jewish state in the heart of Dar al Islam."
- Richard Landes
sums up the right-wing view of the Israel conflict,
which contrasts dramatically with the left-wing view that the Palestinians
are rational actors with rational grievances.
I used to unthinkingly believe the left-wing view.
Now I know it is a misunderstanding of the situation.
Terrorism works: The Palestinians try to kill civilians - and the world loves them.
Incredibly, the Islamist way of war
does not bring universal condemnation.
Incredibly, the more brutal the Palestinians are,
the more popular they are.
The more indiscriminately
they kill utterly innocent Israeli women and children,
the more they are supported on western campuses, in demos
and in the western media.
It is very mysterious, and indicates the truth of
my bleak view of human nature.
-
There are hundreds of
more deserving causes
in the world.
And yet this is the no.1 international cause
- a bunch of racist,
mass-murdering Islamist religious fundamentalists
who want to set up an Islamist state in which there will be
no democracy and no human rights.
-
Anti-Semitism and Ethnicity in Europe
by John Rosenthal,
on the mystery of left-wing support for the killing of civilians
- "while the escalation of the suicide
bombings should have led to increased solidarity with the largely Jewish victims
and a taking of distance from the
organizers of the attacks, on the left exactly the opposite transpired:
the more indiscriminately Palestinian commandos
killed Israeli civilians, the more frenetically was the intifada covered
with "anti-imperialist" applause."
- There is a naive and popular idea
that Israel's response to terror
(such as the post-Munich assassinations in the 1970s)
may have led to more terror.
In other words, that attacking your terrorist enemies makes them stronger.
There is very little evidence for this theory,
to say the least.
-
There is a lot more evidence for the opposite view
- that appeasement of international Palestinian terror in the 1970s and 1980s
led inevitably to Al Qaeda and 9/11.
Arafat
hijacked airplanes and slaughtered civilians -
and instead of being hanged,
he got invited to address the UN.
-
Why Terrorism Works,
Alan M. Dershowitz, 2002,
makes the point:
- The "oppression" and "injustices" the Palestinians have suffered
are rather mild
- and hardly worth even noticing - by historical
and world standards.
There are dozens of
really oppressed peoples
in the world - peoples that are being killed by the thousands
or even by the millions - such as in
North Korea
and the Sudan.
-
The Palestinians are not the most oppressed people
in the world (far from it).
Rather they are the most violent people in the world.
This is why everyone loves them.
- The modern left's support for Islamic fascism
- The modern left's support for Palestinian Islamofascism
- The Irish left's support for Palestinian Islamofascism
Many
of the haters of western freedom
claim they represent the "impoverished"
of the earth,
and their killers represent an attack on the "rich" of the west,
who, in this bizarre world view, apparently
"exploit" them.
The black reality, of course, is that the leaders
of the killers are often immensely rich,
while their people are poor and unfree
not because of the west
but because of
their own leaders.
- Forbes'
World's Richest People 2003
estimates various figures' wealth:
- The
King of
Saudi Arabia
- $20 billion.
His country has no human rights, and
his Islamofascist citizens,
allegedly representing the "impoverished"
of the earth,
bombed New York, killing thousands.
- The
Sultan of
Brunei
- $11 billion.
Incredible wealth, and yet he runs
a country without human rights.
- Saddam Hussein of
2003 Iraq
- $2 billion (before the liberation of Iraq).
His people were poor and unfree, allegedly
due to UN sanctions (rather than due, say, to his rule).
- Yasir Arafat of
2003 Palestine
- $300 million (before his death).
Leader of Islamofascist killers
who also allegedly represent the "impoverished"
of the earth.
His people are poor and unfree, allegedly
due to Israel (rather than due, say,
to his rule).
- Fidel Castro of
Cuba
- $110 million.
His people are poor and unfree, allegedly
due to America (rather than due, say, to his rule).
- Osama bin Laden of
Saudi Arabia
- $100 million (before Sept 11th).
This disgusting playboy,
instead of doing something decent with
his inherited wealth, used it
to murder thousands of innocent people
for no reason.
- For comparison, consider the estimated wealth
of the "rich" leaders, who, of course,
tend not to hold power for anywhere near as long
as the above
rulers either:
-
Bush
of the
USA
-
$17 million.
(Also here.)
Runs a free society, in which thousands of ordinary citizens
are richer than him.
Saddam Hussein had 100 times the wealth of Bush.
-
Blair
of the
UK
-
upper middle class,
perhaps $2 or 3 million.
Runs a free society, in which thousands of ordinary citizens
are richer than him.
-
Olmert
of
Israel
-
middle class,
perhaps less than $1 million.
Runs a free society, in which thousands of ordinary citizens
are richer than him.
- Forbes'
Fortunes of Kings, Queens and Dictators, 2006
lists:
- The dictator of Saudi Arabia - $21 b.
- The dictator of Brunei - $20 b.
- The dictator of
United Arab Emirates
(Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan)
- $19 b.
- The dictator of
Dubai (in United Arab Emirates)
(Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum)
- $14 b.
- The dictator of Cuba (Fidel Castro) - $900 m.
- The dictator of Equatorial Guinea - $600 m.
Summary - Why do people support the Palestinians?
Let's draw all this together.
If it is clear to me that every liberal believer
in democracy and human rights
should broadly support Israel -
and be broadly hostile to the Palestinians -
why does the world not see it that way?
Why does the world support racist, mass-murdering Islamist religious fascists
who are fighting
to set up an Islamist state in which there will be no democracy and no human rights?
It seems the Palestinians have hit all the right buttons:
- They are (allegedly)
the "third world" fighting "imperialists"
- a cause many people will support no matter what kind of
"imperialism" is being attacked,
and with no thought to what kind of state the "third world" rebels
are fighting to establish.
- They are (allegedly)
"non-whites" fighting "whites".
The modern left, which is
still in the racist world,
cares primarily about crimes by "whites" or "people like us".
It cares little about crimes by "non-whites".
As I have argued
elsewhere, this looks like anti-white racism,
but is in fact just another form of anti-non-white racism,
treating non-whites as if they are not adults responsible
for their actions.
Not criticising Palestinians or other "third world" or "non-white" peoples
does not show how enlightened you are.
It shows how racist you are.
Of course, to think of this conflict as
"non-whites" versus "whites"
is actually nonsense.
Israelis comes from all over the world,
including all over the Middle East
(from which they were expelled),
and including places like Ethiopia.
But for racists the world over
(which includes
most of the western left),
all Israelis are honorary "whites".
- They are (allegedly) the "poor"
fighting the "rich".
The fact that
it is their own fault that they are poor,
and the fact that the Israelis deserve all of their wealth
because they have worked hard to create it,
is neither here nor there.
- They are fighting
against Jews
- always a popular target
throughout history.
The world has not changed that much.
Prejudices don't die overnight.
After Auschwitz, the world should have changed forever.
But it didn't.
If a second Holocaust ever happened, the world's reaction
would be similar to the first one.
If its Islamic enemies ever defeated Israel,
and the Jews were being rounded up
to be gassed in concentration camps,
the entire Muslim world would cheer.
The western left would explain how the Jews were responsible,
for having generated such hatred.
The EU and UN would hem and haw and do nothing.
Only America and Britain and a few others would try to stop it.
How can anyone doubt the above would be the case.
- They are Muslim, giving them a sympathetic constituency of 1 billion people.
Muslims tend to sympathise
with Muslims engaged in conflict
with non-Muslims worldwide.
Christians aren't like this.
For example,
the genocide of Christians in the Sudan
is generally
a matter of indifference to western Christians,
who are interested in other issues.
See the silence of the
Archbishop of Canterbury
on the topic of the persecution of third world Christians.
If the Palestinians were Christian,
nobody would support them.
Certainly the Islamic world wouldn't.
And if they were fundamentalist Christian, the western left would despise them -
and probably even support the Israelis.
But, for some reason, fundamentalist Islam is alright
with the western left.
- They are incredibly violent and barbaric,
with savage attacks against the most defenceless of civilians,
such as children.
Due to the strange nature of humans,
this gets them more support, not less.
If they engaged in peaceful protest, nobody in the world
would pay them much attention.
But no one can ignore young people who suicide bomb restaurants
and shoot toddlers.
The Palestinians are
not the most oppressed people on the planet.
Far from it.
There are dozens of far more oppressed peoples
and hundreds of more worthwhile causes in the world.
What is special about the Palestinians is that
they are
the most violent and barbaric
of all (allegedly) "oppressed" peoples
on the planet.
Hence - due to the strange nature of humans
- they get more attention
and more support worldwide.
- They are fighting a
democracy. A democracy gives open access to journalists
and is a nice comfortable place for them to report from
(good hotels, shops, restaurants, Internet access, etc.).
Also, the journalist can
attack the democracy in print as much as he likes
without fear.
By contrast,
non-democracies allow little or no access,
facilities are primitive and unpleasant,
and journalists live in fear of arrest or even death.
Hence, lots of journalists in Israel.
Hardly any in the Sudan or North Korea.
Hence,
a war against a democracy will be covered in a lot more detail
than a war against a non-democracy.
Hence,
the democracy will be criticised for its (minor) crimes
a lot more
than non-democracies committing really serious crimes.
Israel gets more criticism
than even countries that commit large-scale genocide.
- They are fighting a
democracy.
A non-democracy would simply exterminate
or ethnically cleanse them,
and the conflict would soon come to an end
and be forgotten
by everyone except historians.
Who in the world talks about
the Armenians now?
Or even Bangladesh
or Biafra?
Most young people have never even heard of these
- just as Rwanda
will soon be forgotten.
But a democracy like Israel cannot simply exterminate its enemy
and end the conflict.
It has to be far more restrained,
and so the conflict goes on and on for years.
This list of reasons explains
- if you accept
my bleak view of human nature
- why the world supports the Palestinians,
of all peoples,
when there are hundreds of more worthwhile causes
in the world.
-
Richard Landes
also tries to construct such a list of reasons.
(Jump to:
"There are a wide range of answers to this question")
"In a region that is supposed to have been held back by colonialism,
hampered by prejudice and crippled by years of exploitation, the single most
successful nation is the one least favoured by nature.
Israel's economic output, rate of growth, levels of employment,
educational achievements, infant mortality and standard of public health care
comprehensively outstrip all its neighbours.
Israel has no oil or gas.
But it is the only state [in the region]
where governments change as a result of democratic elections, the Press is free,
the courts fair, the officials uncorrupt, contracts open and enforceable,
and political opposition integral to the culture.
For all those whose narrative of the last 60 years places the West in the dock,
finds capitalism and imperialism guilty of the greatest global crimes of our time,
and lays the woes of the developing world at the door of the developed,
the condition of Israel is a living refutation of all they stand for.
For the leaders of all Israel's neighbours,
Israel's success is a daily reminder of how they have failed their peoples."
- Michael Gove,
Celsius 7/7.
"This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre
which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the crusades"
- Azzam Pasha,
the first Secretary General
of the Arab League,
launching
the war by the non-democracies of
Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq against
the infant democracy of Israel, 1948.
See
other references.
-
This genocidal thug
expresses well how the Israel-haters in the
Islamic world
are the heirs to the Nazis,
with the same goals
but (thank heavens) not the power to implement them.
-
Israel, thank heavens, won in 1948
and prevented the Arabs carrying out their genocide.
But Israel cannot afford to lose even once,
or Holocaust II will happen under the eyes
of an indifferent world.
-
There will not be peace until the
Islamic world
reforms.
It must
forget about Israel,
abandon anti-semitism,
and embrace democracy, free speech,
freedom of religion,
a secular state
and free markets.
Iraq
may be the first hopeful step along that road.
It is the
Islamic world
that must change, not Israel.
"Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel."
- Egyptian thug Nasser
in May 1967.
"We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants,
and as for the survivors - if there are any - the boats are ready to deport them."
-
PLO head Ahmed Shuqayri
at the start of the Six-Day War
in June 1967,
when the Arab world tried yet again to finish the Holocaust.
"Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters.
Oh Allah, vanquish the Americans and their supporters.
Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one."
- Sheik Ahmad Bahr,
Acting Speaker of the
Palestinian Legislative Council
and top Hamas official, Apr 2007 (just in case anyone thought the situation was any different today).
Return to Israel page.
