In The Nakba Obsession [click to read] Sol Stern in City Journal presents a clear-headed analysis of the Palestinian problem and why it needs to be better understood.
"There is only one just compensation for the long history of suffering, say the Palestinians and their allies: turning the clock back to 1948. This would entail ending the “Zionist hegemony” and replacing it with a single, secular, democratic state shared by Arabs and Jews. All Palestinian refugees—not just those still alive of the hundreds of thousands who fled in 1948, but their millions of descendants as well—would be allowed to return to Jaffa, Haifa, the Galilee, and all the villages that Palestinian Arabs once occupied.
Such a step would mean suicide for Israel as a Jewish state, which is why Israel would never countenance it. At the very least, then, the Nakba narrative precludes Middle East peace. But it’s also, as it happens, a myth—a radical distortion of history." --Sol Stern
The problem today is that the origins of the problem are ignored in the discussion. The original attack on Israel and the subsequent refugee problem are succinctly stated in Stern's piece. Also noted is the fact that Israel's neighbors, who could have assimilated the refugees, have instead chosen to perpetuate their status. The Left today has run with the Nakba Narrative. Anti-Israel sentiment runs high, often bubbling over in Vitriol of the Worst Sort [click to read], but it was not always so.
The Left, in fact, once viewed Israel as a great triumph. Stern Chronicles journalist I. F. Stone's initial praise of the modern Jewish State and his subsequent conversion to Palestinian apologist. The progressives who once lauded Israel for its... progress... cutting edge agriculture and technology, modern cities and inclusive government later abandoned her as they took up the causes of victimology and redistribution.
The Left's own narrative that those who have achieved prosperity have obviously stolen it from the disadvantaged plays well here. Also ignored in this narrative is the fact that Israel groans under the burden of the many refugees it has brought in, such as the Russian Jews who populate places like Sderot and often bear the brunt of missle attacks from places like Gaza.
Perhaps a better narrative for this part of the world would be one that sees most everyone in the region... Jewish, Coptic or Palestinian as one who has suffered under or fled the forces of oppression.
Let's Hope the World is Right About 'Evil' Israel
Can we trust the world's compass if it is that broken?
Dennis Prager [click to read] in Jewish World Review.
"The reason mankind has to hope that the world, its leaders, its newspapers, its so-called human rights organizations and the United Nations are right about Israel is quite simple: If Israel is the decent party in its war with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas — and nearly all the world's countries, nearly all the world's media and the United Nations are morally wrong — what hope is there for humanity? If the world's moral compass is that broken, are we not sailing into a dark age?"
The Plain Truth about Israel [click to read] by Caroline B. Glick.
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