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by Peter A. Belmont / 2011-02-14
© 2011 Peter Belmont
Israel was once a small country surrounded by enemies (of its own making, of course, but enemies nonetheless).
Then it became a very large nation without enemies—Jews living in the small sector officially called “Israel” but the nation in fact comprising much additional territory: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UK, USA, Canada, Australia—that is, all the territory effectively controlled by the pro-Israel international agreement in restriction of democracy or freedom for Arabs and especially for Palestinians. And, as an American, I would say—by the international agreement in restriction of democracy for Americans.
Turkey was once an ally of Israel and the USA. But no more.
Egypt was once caught in this web.
Today, it seems that Israel is on its way to becoming small again, and surrounded by countries with the power to be independent, even to be enemies, again. As is right and proper. Some Arabs (not yet the Palestinians) are to have democracy. This is wonderful. And it is high time.
I know this disappoints and frightens those Israelis who feel they cannot be happy unless their neighbors suffer in chains (recalling the old Communist slogan—arise proletarians of all countries, you have nothing to lose but your chains).
Well I am sorry for those who feel that way. Like the guards at Auschwitz, they probably feel they have no future if the prison is demolished. But if I am sorry for them, the sorrow is small, very small. And my sorrow at 60 years of suffering by Arabs (and especially by Palestinians) at Israel’s hands is very large.
My advice? There is no future in being a nation of prison guards. USA and Israel, listen up! Find a new career! Get a life!
Lest anyone forget, things didn’t have to be this way. Israel chose to become the enemy of its neighbors when it chose in 1948 to complete the task it had set its heart on many years before, that is, creation of a Jewish majority state in a territory richly settled by another people. (Had the territory of Israel not been richly settled by the Palestinian people in 1947, there would have been no reason for Israel to expel 85% of them, would there? And the 15% who remained would not have become 20% of the population of Israel, either. By these numbers it appears that the number of Palestinians expelled was roughly the same as the number of Jews who replaced them.)
It is time for Israel to begin the process, new to it, of discovering the modalities of peaceful co-existence. In the sense that the revolution in Egypt sets that process of discovery in motion, that revolution will later be seen to have been very good for the Jews. But as to the “discovery process”, let us hope that Israel’s Jews find a way to make it result in more “discovery” than the so-called “peace process” resulted in “peace”.
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