Tuesday Aug 28, 2012
I have elicited a response from Jeffrey Goldberg
(who interviewed my previously but I didn't make it into to his
"settler" profile) to my remarks on the charge of a “two-tiered” system
he accuses Israel of promoting.
Goldberg proceeds to disassemble my arguments, well, he thinks so, and it is my pleasure to return the favor.
First, he attacks my argument that since "Arabs living in Judea and
Samaria are not citizens of Israel, they can't vote" and maintains that
is equivalent to someone justifying South African Blacks being denied
the right to vote.
But Goldberg avoids the real issue, which stated: Arabs cannot vote
in Israel not because of their skin color, religion or some other
characteristic but because there is not peace treaty. He knows this is
true in writing “Their leaders haven't helped the situation, but the
Israelis have not helped much either”. But I would assert that Israel
has done too much to assuage some fake and artificial nationalist
sentiment and that if Arabs in Judea and Samaria want political rights,
as much as possible within the confines of a century of conflict, there
is autonomy or return of Jordanian citizenship or condominium or
others. As we all know, well, those of us who have followed the history,
there are many resolutions that can be tried rather than allowing a
bunch of terrorists to further conduct terror.
Goldberg then makes an untrue charge, that, tautologically, this is
my position: "Israel will not enfranchise Arabs living in Judea and
Samaria. Therefore, they are disenfranchised." In a book published
almost 30 years ago, A Stranger in My House,
Chapter 4, I make the exact opposite proposal, the Techiyah Party
platform statement on citizenship. Goldberg, perhaps, is ignorant.
Goldberg also ignores that for all intents and purposes, Arabs are
citizens within a political entity called the Palestinian
Authority. They basically have a government for which they voted (but
are being denied by their own government). Maybe Goldberg should join
the “Let’s Have PA Elections Movement”. Or the “Free Gaza From Hamas
Domination Campaign”. They do exist, don’t they? No?
His next attempted takedown is that my claim that "Just like an
Israeli living in the United States but who is not a citizen cannot
vote" is not “a deep thought among the intellectual leaders of the
settlement movement.” There is a difference: while the Israeli
voluntarily moved to America, “the Arab on the West Bank is from
the West Bank. He didn't move to Israel, Israel moved to him.” While
true, the purpose of Arabs in that area between 1949-1967, whether as a
fedayeen or a member of Fatah, all prior to 1967, or a supporter of the
same, was to kill as many Jews as possible and eradicate the state of
Israel, when Israel assumed the administration of the area, which was
originally to be part of the Jewish national home wherein Jews were to
legally enter and settle, none of what the Arabs desired to happen to
the Jews happened to them.
In that circumstance of desired politicide, why should Israel allow
the Arabs to out-vote the Jews, although they can’t and demography is
another issue, in the name of “rights”? Why reward them to achieve
nonviolently what they tried, multiple times, in a military and terror
fashion – and still do?
Goldberg’s claim, that the Arabs “are native to the West Bank”,
should equally apply to the East Bank after almost 50 years. Since we
know that the amount of Arabs residing in Judea and Samaria in 1947 was
comprised of recent immigrants in no small number, why should a similar
period of time pass and those Arabs resident in Jordan not be considered
citizens? Moreover, as Goldberg knows, Transjordan is part of
Palestine, no matter the recent immigrant family from Saudi Arabia, the
Hashemites, claim.
He concludes in a “dispiriting” mood. There is, he perceives, an
inability of both sides to see that their enemy also has legitimate
claims to the territory in dispute. To that, I agree.
But whereas the worse I suggest is that until there is peace, no
Arab of Judea and Samaria becomes a citizen of Israel – and the subterfuge effort,
thankfully, has been halted – despite the semblance of peace
arrangements with Arabs they persist in their animosity, their hate and
their rejection. I am trying to seek a framework for coexistence with
people who actually believe that Jews are chemically fragmenting the
Temple Mount, who prepare Matzot with blood, who are pigs, moths and
monkeys (check MEMRI and PMW).
That Jews cannot now, by law, purchase property in Judea and Samaria
and the new “Palestine” state will not tolerate Jews as residents? Is
there no limit to what Goldberg will tolerate on the Arab side and yet,
the Jewish/Israeli side will be blamed and castigated and denounced?
Who are the true apartheidists? And who are their supporters?
That is his own double-standard problem, the point of my article.
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