A very important essay from The Guardian by Moustafa Bayoumi
Some excerpts:
What is it about Israel that enables it to get away with murder? The United States has long shielded Israel from international criticism and supported it militarily. The reasons offered for that support usually range from the âunbreakableâ bond shared between the two countries to the power of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) in Washington. One could reasonably argue that the only thing different about this current war is the scale.
But itâs not just Washington. Israel and the question of Palestine produce incredibly fraught divisions throughout much of the western world. Denmark recently banned children gearing up to vote in a nationwide youth election from debating Palestinian sovereignty. Why?
In a conversation with the New York Timesâ Ezra Klein, professor of international human rights law AslÄą Bâli offered one explanation for whatâs different about Palestine. In 1948, she notes, Palestine was âthe only territory that had been slated to be decolonized at the creation of the United Nations ⌠that has [still] not been decolonizedâ.
South Africa was once in that category. For decades, Palestine and South Africa were âunderstood as ongoing examples of incomplete decolonization that continued long after the rest of the world had been fully decolonizedâ. Today, Palestine is the last exception to that historical process â a holdover plainly clear to the people who were once subject to colonization, but that the western world refuses to acknowledge as an aberration.
In other words, for many in the US and much of the western world, the creation of the state of Israel is understood as the fulfillment of Jewish national aspirations. For the rest of the world, the same fulfillment of Jewish national aspirations has rendered the decolonization of Palestine incomplete.
In 2003, the historian Tony Judt wrote that the âproblem with Israel [is] ⌠that it arrived too late. It has imported a characteristically late-19th-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law. The very idea of a âJewish stateâ â a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded â is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism.â
some random thoughts:
i) why is the west bank not in flames? either by palestinian protests or bombing by Israel.
ii) when you have a neighbour who has a ‘ written policy’ ( or constitution) for destruction of your state, how do you deal with them? does one hold them to their constitution?
iii) the gain of lands by jews before and between the wars they fought should be explained clearly. many of these lands were marshes sold by absentee ottoman landlords.
iv) the civil rights given to arabs in israel and exercised by them is far greater that what is given and exercised by minorities in the surrounding arab and muslim world.
v) why are bedoins and druze not bombing themselves to death?
vi)how long is one entitled for ‘refugee hood’? hindus who came from west punjab and east pakistan have assimilated into the population. germans who came from pre war extended germany have assimilated. muhajars in sindh and biharis in dakha are still the ‘others’, why? is this a problem in the islamic world?
vii) sadly no one in the arab world want palestinians in their country.
Hamas has accepted that Israel will continue to exist. Most Palestinians only argue for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem (or alternatively a single binational state). No one is going to “throw the Jews into the sea” and everyone knows that. So this “written policy” of destruction is a red herring.
What you call “Arabs in Israel” prefer to call themselves Palestinian Citizens of Israel. Israel calls itself a “Jewish state”, that is inherently discriminatory to the 20% of the population that is not Jewish. I know you will counter that Pakistan is an “Islamic Republic”. I will openly admit that that is inherently discriminatory to the 3% of the population that is non-Muslim.
Hindus who came from West Punjab have assimilated because they have a country. It’s called India. Muslims who came from East Punjab are Pakistani citizens. The Palestinians are a stateless people.
At least half of Karachi’s population is Muhajir. I don’t know where you get this idea that they are still the “other”.