Well...here goes nothing! It took me a few days to work up the courage to write a response to this article as I feared alienating the Black Sheep community and with all the recent turmoil surrounding the ceasefire deal, I had a sort of crisis of faith surrounding whether an Israeli-Palestinian Peace Accords and the two-state solution can…
Well...here goes nothing! It took me a few days to work up the courage to write a response to this article as I feared alienating the Black Sheep community and with all the recent turmoil surrounding the ceasefire deal, I had a sort of crisis of faith surrounding whether an Israeli-Palestinian Peace Accords and the two-state solution can ever be possible. Now that the first hostages have come home and that I feel better about peace in the region, I'm ready to write my response. Putting aside whether I agree or not, I wanted to say that this is a tremendous article, and I think Jake makes a compelling argument. Okay so for the first part of my response will be my areas of disagreement with Jake. Then in the second part I'll talk about areas of agreement I have with Jake. To start off, I would disagree with Jake's central thesis that (most of) his former colleagues and anti-identity politics activists are hypocrites. However, I can definitely understand why he feels that way given the indoctrination and lies he was told during his upbringing and his internal questioning of them. I would disagree with Jake's assertion that Zionism's selection of Palestine was motivated purely due to religious attachment. The Jewish people are the indigenous people of the land of Israel and have had a consistent presence in the land of Eretz-Israel for over three millennia. Furthermore, no other solution for Jewish liberation would've been realistic nor would've garnered enough support from within the movement to ever be implemented. Also, Palestine was the Jewish people's home until an economic recession and Roman repression caused the vast majority of the population to flee and immigrate to the more tolerate Sassanid Empire. Long before the state of Israel existed and the first Arab stepped foot in the holy land, the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea had long been established. As to the phrase "A land without a people, for a people without a land." We need to remember that many Jews had never actually been to the Middle East and were surprised when they arrived to find there was already another people living there. I would also point out prior to the arrival of the Zionist settlers there were indeed Arabs living there and it is not my intention to deny their indigeneity or right to live there too. But the land was sparsely populated and an undeveloped backwater. This is because the Ottomans considered the land unimportant and not worth doing anything with. As for the Arab peasantry and poor, they were oppressed and had no control over what was done with the land as it was owned by the Ottoman and Arab upper classes. Israel Zangwill was wrong, what he said was not the case. In the beginning according to historian Benny Morris, the Jews intended for the Arab population to stay and be equal citizens in the newborn Jewish state. But the Arabs from the jump were not willing to share even a speck of the land with the Jews and didn't recognize that this had once been their country and they had a rightful claim to it just as they did. The Zionist Movement only started to consider transfer after the bloody First and Second Arab Revolts. But even then, it was only privately discussed among the Zionist Movement but was never official Zionist policy and never came to pass. Furthermore, the Jews agreed to numerous partition plans to live in peace with the Arabs, but the Arabs refused every time. This is NOT to say everyone in the Zionist Movement accepted all the partitions, but mainstream Zionist leadership agreed because they were pragmatists who'd accept a state no matter how small. Also, the idea of transfer created moral qualms within the movement, and it was preferably to be done peacefully through persuasion and the local Arabs being paid compensation. I for one am glad it never came to that. Also, it was the Arab countries who caused the Nakba by invading Israel. Had the Palestinian leadership and the surrounding Arab nations simply accepted the existence of Israel, there would be a Palestinian state, the Nakba never would've happened and none of those people ever would've had to flee their homes. The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence was neither binding nor was it sincere. The British may have promised the Palestinian Arabs a state on the land, but they didn't mean it and had no intention of following through on it and they ultimately reneged on it. It was a promise made during wartime they made to get the Arabs on their side and was driven purely by national self-interest. I also think it's important to remember that past partition plans included population exchanges not ethnic cleansing, because of Arab violence against Jewish communities. Also, in any future Jewish state the founding fathers of Zionism including even Vladimir Jabotinsky, intended for the Arabs who remained behind in the Jewish state would have full equal rights. Upon Israel's founding, Israeli Arabs received citizenship, voting rights and representation in the Knesset. But Jake is indeed correct Israeli Arabs were at least at first, second-class citizens. They lived in their own segregated area under martial law and were subject to travel permits, curfews and administrative detentions. But this would all change in 1966 (just a slight correction) when the Israeli government gave their Arab citizens full equality with Jews and lifted martial law. As to the Nakba, it had multiple causes. To be sure one of them was due to the Haganah forcibly expelling the inhabitants or due to fear created by the Irgun and Lehi's atrocities at Dier Yassin. But it was also caused by Palestinian Arabs fleeing to get out of the crossfire and protect their families and because of a media campaign by Arab leaders and being told to do so by Arab commanders. Furthermore, expelling Arabs was never the official policy of the Jewish Agency, it was the decision of individual Haganah commanders, and it was done because the local inhabitants had given aid to the Arab armies, and they didn't want the Arab armies gaining a foothold in these communities which they could use as a launching pad from which to attack surrounding Jewish communities. The UN resolution passed demanding the return of the refugees was unrealistic and wrong. Israel did not allow the 700,000 Palestinians who'd fled to return for demographic and national security reasons. On the first point, in order to have a state where Jews would not be persecuted that state would have to have a Jewish majority. If those refugees had returned the Jewish population definitely would've been oppressed and been in danger. On the second point, the newborn state would've had a massive hostile populace within its borders. None of this is to say I don't have sympathy for the Palestinian refugees and I'm sorry the situation with the war came to that, but that was simply the way it had to be. The Arab countries should've absorbed and integrated those refugees. But they abandoned them and said they were the UN's problem. To this day, these folks are stuck in dirty, overcrowded and poverty-stricken refugee camps and are treated as second-class citizens by Arab countries. As to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel offered citizenship to the folks who lived there but most generally turned it down. Also, life greatly improved in Gaza (not to say it was perfect) under Israeli rule. Gazans could work in Israel, make higher wages and had better living standards and could travel. The West Bank occupation to be sure has many flaws but overall is done as humanely as possible from what research I've done on the topic. Also, it is incorrect to call the occupied West Bank an apartheid state. Palestinians can work in Israel for four times the wages they could earn at home, are protected from harm during wartime (not to say this always works), can receive free medical treatment from the IDF, can become Israeli citizens, can marry Israelis if they so choose, and have a degree of self-government. People of color never had such rights under white minority rule in South Africa.
Well...here goes nothing! It took me a few days to work up the courage to write a response to this article as I feared alienating the Black Sheep community and with all the recent turmoil surrounding the ceasefire deal, I had a sort of crisis of faith surrounding whether an Israeli-Palestinian Peace Accords and the two-state solution can ever be possible. Now that the first hostages have come home and that I feel better about peace in the region, I'm ready to write my response. Putting aside whether I agree or not, I wanted to say that this is a tremendous article, and I think Jake makes a compelling argument. Okay so for the first part of my response will be my areas of disagreement with Jake. Then in the second part I'll talk about areas of agreement I have with Jake. To start off, I would disagree with Jake's central thesis that (most of) his former colleagues and anti-identity politics activists are hypocrites. However, I can definitely understand why he feels that way given the indoctrination and lies he was told during his upbringing and his internal questioning of them. I would disagree with Jake's assertion that Zionism's selection of Palestine was motivated purely due to religious attachment. The Jewish people are the indigenous people of the land of Israel and have had a consistent presence in the land of Eretz-Israel for over three millennia. Furthermore, no other solution for Jewish liberation would've been realistic nor would've garnered enough support from within the movement to ever be implemented. Also, Palestine was the Jewish people's home until an economic recession and Roman repression caused the vast majority of the population to flee and immigrate to the more tolerate Sassanid Empire. Long before the state of Israel existed and the first Arab stepped foot in the holy land, the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea had long been established. As to the phrase "A land without a people, for a people without a land." We need to remember that many Jews had never actually been to the Middle East and were surprised when they arrived to find there was already another people living there. I would also point out prior to the arrival of the Zionist settlers there were indeed Arabs living there and it is not my intention to deny their indigeneity or right to live there too. But the land was sparsely populated and an undeveloped backwater. This is because the Ottomans considered the land unimportant and not worth doing anything with. As for the Arab peasantry and poor, they were oppressed and had no control over what was done with the land as it was owned by the Ottoman and Arab upper classes. Israel Zangwill was wrong, what he said was not the case. In the beginning according to historian Benny Morris, the Jews intended for the Arab population to stay and be equal citizens in the newborn Jewish state. But the Arabs from the jump were not willing to share even a speck of the land with the Jews and didn't recognize that this had once been their country and they had a rightful claim to it just as they did. The Zionist Movement only started to consider transfer after the bloody First and Second Arab Revolts. But even then, it was only privately discussed among the Zionist Movement but was never official Zionist policy and never came to pass. Furthermore, the Jews agreed to numerous partition plans to live in peace with the Arabs, but the Arabs refused every time. This is NOT to say everyone in the Zionist Movement accepted all the partitions, but mainstream Zionist leadership agreed because they were pragmatists who'd accept a state no matter how small. Also, the idea of transfer created moral qualms within the movement, and it was preferably to be done peacefully through persuasion and the local Arabs being paid compensation. I for one am glad it never came to that. Also, it was the Arab countries who caused the Nakba by invading Israel. Had the Palestinian leadership and the surrounding Arab nations simply accepted the existence of Israel, there would be a Palestinian state, the Nakba never would've happened and none of those people ever would've had to flee their homes. The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence was neither binding nor was it sincere. The British may have promised the Palestinian Arabs a state on the land, but they didn't mean it and had no intention of following through on it and they ultimately reneged on it. It was a promise made during wartime they made to get the Arabs on their side and was driven purely by national self-interest. I also think it's important to remember that past partition plans included population exchanges not ethnic cleansing, because of Arab violence against Jewish communities. Also, in any future Jewish state the founding fathers of Zionism including even Vladimir Jabotinsky, intended for the Arabs who remained behind in the Jewish state would have full equal rights. Upon Israel's founding, Israeli Arabs received citizenship, voting rights and representation in the Knesset. But Jake is indeed correct Israeli Arabs were at least at first, second-class citizens. They lived in their own segregated area under martial law and were subject to travel permits, curfews and administrative detentions. But this would all change in 1966 (just a slight correction) when the Israeli government gave their Arab citizens full equality with Jews and lifted martial law. As to the Nakba, it had multiple causes. To be sure one of them was due to the Haganah forcibly expelling the inhabitants or due to fear created by the Irgun and Lehi's atrocities at Dier Yassin. But it was also caused by Palestinian Arabs fleeing to get out of the crossfire and protect their families and because of a media campaign by Arab leaders and being told to do so by Arab commanders. Furthermore, expelling Arabs was never the official policy of the Jewish Agency, it was the decision of individual Haganah commanders, and it was done because the local inhabitants had given aid to the Arab armies, and they didn't want the Arab armies gaining a foothold in these communities which they could use as a launching pad from which to attack surrounding Jewish communities. The UN resolution passed demanding the return of the refugees was unrealistic and wrong. Israel did not allow the 700,000 Palestinians who'd fled to return for demographic and national security reasons. On the first point, in order to have a state where Jews would not be persecuted that state would have to have a Jewish majority. If those refugees had returned the Jewish population definitely would've been oppressed and been in danger. On the second point, the newborn state would've had a massive hostile populace within its borders. None of this is to say I don't have sympathy for the Palestinian refugees and I'm sorry the situation with the war came to that, but that was simply the way it had to be. The Arab countries should've absorbed and integrated those refugees. But they abandoned them and said they were the UN's problem. To this day, these folks are stuck in dirty, overcrowded and poverty-stricken refugee camps and are treated as second-class citizens by Arab countries. As to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel offered citizenship to the folks who lived there but most generally turned it down. Also, life greatly improved in Gaza (not to say it was perfect) under Israeli rule. Gazans could work in Israel, make higher wages and had better living standards and could travel. The West Bank occupation to be sure has many flaws but overall is done as humanely as possible from what research I've done on the topic. Also, it is incorrect to call the occupied West Bank an apartheid state. Palestinians can work in Israel for four times the wages they could earn at home, are protected from harm during wartime (not to say this always works), can receive free medical treatment from the IDF, can become Israeli citizens, can marry Israelis if they so choose, and have a degree of self-government. People of color never had such rights under white minority rule in South Africa.