There was an interesting intellectual dust up at The Atlantic where Andrew Sullivan published a link to an article from pro-Palestinian writer Juan Cole who published a map that showed how much land the Israelis have pulled in over the past 70 years. It was rather striking. And it proved to me what I have felt these past few years, namely, that Netanyahu and Bennett see no two state solution and are constantly wanting to stoke war and terror in order to keep building settlements, and win against the Palestinians. It is a mirror image in many respects to the extreme elements in the Palestinian side. Jeffrey Goldberg, a neo-con of the first order, was upset at the map because there was no Palestine for Palestinians in 1946 and Cole conveniently forgets that the Israelis accepted the 1947 UN Partition and the Arabs didnt (MJF note: the Palestinians were mostly voiceless then as the first Palestinian nationalist/terror group began in 1955, with the PLO forming out of multiple groups in 1964). But the point of the maps is that Israel has really taken advantage of the failure of peace talks to make facts on the ground. There is a cynicism in Israeli leadership that gets lost in the moral outrage from those of us who generally support Israel and know we would want revenge against terrorist rocket attacks. It is this Israeli cynicism and Netanyahu/Bennetts one state solution that compels me to refuse to support Israels attacks on Gaza. There is another way, as David Grossman and others in Israel have written. Too bad those sorts of folks are not in power. As I say, it is worth studying the set of maps. theatlantic/daily-dish/archive/2010/03/goldblog-splutters/189381/
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 14:40:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015