Dear Ms.
Continho,
First, I must
apologize to you, Ms. Continho, for not recognizing that you belonged to the
better gender. I should have noticed this from your language, sorry about that…
To the point:
the majority of Palestinians elected Hamas (in the Gaza Strip only!), not
because the majority of Palestinians have become so fanatically religious or
anti-peace (although the Israeli government is giving them all the reasons to
be so), but – because Hamas, in addition to being a terrorist organization, is
also a welfare organization and jobs provider. This is much like the Shas party
of Israel, which is an ultra-orthodox, anti-democratic political party (they don’t
allow women in their roster; they are being led by an orthodox Rabbi strictly according
to the Jewish Halachic rules – or so they say, I wish that it was even partially
true; etc.); their supporters are not necessarily religious at all (they are
what we call “traditionalists”), but they still elected this party, for
providing long education days with hot meals to their children, and jobs to the
parents.
In short,
electing Hamas doesn’t make the Palestinian public any less innocent, compared
to the Israeli public which elected this evil and dishonest government.
As to your
point, that Hamas are using innocent people as “human shields”: this is much
like the Jewish settlers, who put their women and children’s lives at risk, by
living in towns and villages provocatively built inside and far out in
Palestinian territory. Not to mention, that the IDF (the Israeli military) is
“cowardly using” (as you said about Hamas) local residents, uninvolved in combat,
as human shields during search missions. This procedure was eventually banned by
Israeli Supreme Court, but has been used nonetheless occasionally.
As for your
(own) interpretation to the Declaration
of San Remo: well it is, in my humble opinion, completely wrong. Here’s
why: the November 2, 1917 declaration (known as “the Balfour Declaration”),
upon which San Remo’s was based, called for “a national home for the Jewish people”, and as you rightly mentioned, must
not “prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish
communities”. If you are so meticulous in reading the civil and religious
rights as not pertaining to “national aspirations”, then you must be just as meticulous
as to acknowledge, that a “national home” does not necessarily mean an independent
state! Because, although the Israeli government has long ago acknowledged the
right of the Palestinian minority for self-government, it has always done its
best to deprive them form giving this a political implementation, but rather
fulfil this be some kind of “autonomy”, whatever that means. Don’t get me
wrong, I am all for a Jewish State in the land of Israel; I have fought for it,
and I brought my boys up to do the same. But if the 1917 declaration does not
imply a state for the Palestinians, then honesty obliges that it does not imply
a Jewish state, just as well. Not to mention, that the end goal, “to protect
the civil and religious rights” as you said, has never been fully achieved –
as an official government committee (the Or Committee, 2000) has clearly
stated.
Fast forwarding to 1947: the UN resolution, taught in Jewish
school as “calling for the establishment of a Jewish State”, actually called
for establishing two states, Jewish and Palestinian, the last part
omitted from the curriculum for some reason.
But I will
give you that (something that the Right-wingers fail to do to us on the Left),
that there could be an interpretation to the legal issue, which is different
than mine. My point it simple: the legal situation is not what really matters
(and this is what I meant by saying “irrelevant” in my post). Because, even if
the Palestinians do not have the right for their own state, from the international
law point of view – then what do we do with them? If we don’t give them full
civil rights (which you actually agreed to do, and that includes the right to
vote – which would lead to a Muslim Prime Minister pretty soon, and, in many people’s
view – the end of the Zionist project) – if we don’t give them that and hold
them as second-class residents, then Israel cannot be truly regarded as a
democratic state. We can’t expel them, we can’t hold them occupied – so what do
we do? The only answers I have heard so far from fellows in the Right are –
Israel Trust in God almighty, or that we should just wait for them to learn to
accept us and the wonderful life we generously give them here, or that they
will just go away.
Regarding Apartheid:
No, Ms. Continho, about 2 million Palestinians are NOT allowed to vote for the
Israeli government. Can’t you see that you defeat your own argument? – You
claim that the Palestinians do not deserve their own state, yet at the same
time you exclude them from the Israeli public, when you claim that in Israel, everybody
has the right to vote! So it’s either you are against a Palestinian State,
which renders all Palestinians under Israeli control lack the basic right to
control their own fate, or – you claim that voting is free for all in Israel, by
which the occupied territories are excluded from Israel.
And regarding
sexual relations – it is not illegal to have inter-race relationship; but almost
anybody who will try to date somebody from the different religion will soon
find out that it’s nearly impossible. For this, by the way, I blame both sides
and not only the Jews.
For your
knowledge, I do acknowledge “the
fact that the Palestinians murder civilians”, and I don’t “refuse to criticize
them for that poor approach”. In fact, in most Arab countries, thousands of people
have been murdered and abused by their own people, and I attribute this to the
poor moral standards in effect in those countries, especially in Syria but also
some in Palestine. This by the way has nothing to do with Islam, but with the nasty
and cruel regimes in those countries in modern times. In short, those who did
it are primitive criminals, justifying their crimes by a distorted and inhuman
interpretation of the Islam, a phenomenon which, I must say, is very common in
the modern era in many Muslim societies. But this can’t justify killing civilians
by individual Jews (like Dr. Baruch Goldstein, who is considered a martyr by a
great part of the fundamental Jewish right wing), but also by the Israeli military!
I don’t know how you came to put this thought in my head and
words in my keyboard, that I did not criticize the Arab side. This is either a
remarkable demonstration of mind-reading (albeit totally wrong), or – a demagogic
argument, very typical, I must say, to the right wing rhetoric.
To claim that “the international law says that this disputed
piece of land belongs to the Jewish People, period” is nothing more than reducing
the argument to a level that nobody can argue, because you, the knows-all, have
put a period at the end of your sentence. If you had enough intellectual
honesty, you would admit that this is just your own interpretation, which I do
respect, but is just as good as the opposite one.
If you conclude by your interpretation to Ismail Haniah, that
“the Palestinians do not want peace and they will never recognize the Jewish
State” then you show another remarkable ability of predicting the future; and
in seriousness – a not-so-remarkable manner by which you comprehend the
situation, if you think that Haniah represents the majority of Palestinians.
With all due respect,
Avner Efendowicz
