To: Americans for Middle East Understanding.
From: Allan C.Brownfeld, Editor of ISSUES, the quarterly journal of the
If
anything is clear as a result of the horrible terrorist attack upon
civilians in Israel by Hamas—-including the beheading of babies, a truly
barbaric act—-and the Israeli response, largely against civilians in
Gaza, it is the need for a Palestinian state. Israel has occupied the
West Bank in violation of international law for more than fifty years
and the Netanyahu government now speaks of annexing it and expelling as
many Palestinians as possible. Israel calls itself a democracy yet
millions of Palestinians have no right to vote or civil rights.
Sadly,
Israel is a theocracy with no religious freedom for non-Orthodox Jews.
Reform and Conservative rabbis cannot perform weddings, conduct
funerals or have their conversions recognized. Beyond this, Zionism
itself has a long history of terrorism. At the time of Israel’s
creation, massacres of Palestinians were conducted in many Palestinian
villages such as Deir Yassin, Lydda and Tantura to cause Palestinians to
flee. Privately, Zionist leaders admitted that they were engaging in a
form of ethnic cleansing. David Ben-Gurion told Nahum Goldmann, the
Zionist leader, “Why would the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab
leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural. We had
taken their country….We come from Israel, it’s true, but two thousand
years ago, but what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, the
Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one
thing: We have come here and stolen their country. Why should they
accept that?”
Jewish
moral and ethical values have been rejected by those who wield power in
Israel at the present time. Those Jewish voices who warned the world
about where Zionism would lead—-Judah Magnes, Albert Einstein, Hannah
Arendt and a host of others—-are now seen as prophetic. What is needed
now is the creation of a Palestinian state which can live peacefully
with the state of Israel. Unfortunately, Hamas and those who support it
is a form of terrorism reminiscent of the early Zionists. Its goal is
not democracy and religious freedom for all, but something far
different, as we can see by viewing developments in Iran, which supports
and finances Hamas.