Dear Karl,
With great interest I read the essay of Alan Dershowitz and I agree with many things in it and disagreed with some of it. The source of the article is if I am not mistaken the liberal American news and opinion website and blog
HuffPost (
Huffington Post). I know
Alan Dershowitz as long as I watch investigative TV journalistic documentaries, Internet and subjects related to Israel, the USA, the Jewish lobby in the USA and academical debate in the USA. The video's I posted over here of
Dershowitz in debate with his fellow Americans
Noam Chomsky,
Norman Finkelstein and
Meir Kahane I saw maybe 5 years or 10 years back.
The video presentations I provided were a one side, critical approach to
Israël of critical, non-zionist Israeli's who see the Palestinian narrative and support the Palestinian narrative, while in the same time they are jewish and Israeli. I have to say that they are a minoroty in
Israel, where you have a Zionist far right, zionist, right, zionist center and a zionist left, next to a non-zionist Jewish-Arab (mixed) far left of Marxist (Communist), anarchist, Feminist (Jewish and Arab Israeli women and Palestinian women) and Israeli Arab political parties and movements, and the critical Israeli Human rights organisation B'tselem (
www.btselem.org/ ),
Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (
www.adalah.org/en ),
Gisha, an Israeli human rights organization, founded in 2005, whose goal is to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especially Gaza residents (
gisha.org/ ),
Kav LaOved (
www.kavlaoved.org.il/en/areasofactivity/palestinian-workers/ ),
Yesh Din: Volunteers for Human Rights, an Israeli organization working in Israel and in the West Bank (
www.yesh-din.org/en/ ),
Bat Shalom (
www.batshalom.org/ ),
Rabbis for Human Rights (
rhr.org.il/eng/ ), and
Breaking the Silence (
www.breakingthesilence.org.il/ ). Karl, you are right that we as out siders have our personal opinion and view point of the state of
Israel,
Zionism, Israeli policies inside
Israel and in the occupied West-Bank and at the Gaza border (in coordination with Egypt by the way). I agree with you that
Israel is not leaving at the present or fore seeable future. The Palestinians will leave neither, because they have lived their for a long time too and their great-great grandparents, great-grandparents, grandparents and parents lived their just like themselves.
Palestine, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, is an area of the eastern Mediterranean region, comprising parts of modern Israel and the Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip (along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea) and the West Bank (the area west of the Jordan River).
The term Palestine has been associated variously and sometimes controversially with this small region, which some have asserted also includes Jordan. Both the geographic area designated by the name and the political status of it have changed over the course of some three millennia. The region (or at least a part of it) is also known as the Holy Land and is held sacred among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Since the 20th century it has been the object of conflicting claims of Jewish and Arab national movements, and the conflict has led to prolonged violence and, in several instances, open warfare.
The word Palestine derives from Philistia, the name given by Greek writers to the land of the Philistines, who in the 12th century bce occupied a small pocket of land on the southern coast, between modern Tel Aviv–Yafo and Gaza. The name was revived by the Romans in the 2nd century ce in “Syria Palaestina,” designating the southern portion of the province of Syria, and made its way thence into Arabic, where it has been used to describe the region at least since the early Islamic era. After Roman times the name had no official status until after World War I and the end of rule by the Ottoman Empire, when it was adopted for one of the regions mandated to Great Britain; in addition to an area roughly comprising present-day Israel and the West Bank, the mandate included the territory east of the Jordan River now constituting the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan, which Britain placed under an administration separate from that of Palestine immediately after receiving the mandate for the territory.
The name Palestine has long been in popular use as a general term to denote a traditional region, but this usage does not imply precise boundaries. The perception of what constitutes Palestine’s eastern boundary has been especially fluid, although the boundary frequently has been perceived as lying east of the Jordan River, extending at times to the edge of the Arabian Desert. In contemporary understanding, however, Palestine is generally defined as a region bounded on the east by the Jordan River, on the north by the border between modern Israel and Lebanon, on the west by the Mediterranean Sea (including the coast of Gaza), and on the south by the Negev, with its southernmost extension reaching the Gulf of Aqaba.
The strategic importance of the area is immense: through it pass the main roads from Egypt to Syria and from the Mediterranean to the hills beyond the Jordan River.
Settlement depends closely on water, which is almost never abundant. Precipitation, which arrives in the cool half of the year, decreases in amount in general from north to south and from the coast inland. Perennial rivers are few, and the shortage of water is aggravated by the porous nature of the limestone rocks over much of the country.
So two peoples are stuck their on that tiny peace of land what was once the place where two Jewish Kingdoms existed next to each other, Judea and Israël (Judea and Samaria is what we now call the Westbank), in the area of Judea/Israel/Palestine the Roman province Syria Palaestina existed, and after that the Byzantine Palaestina Prima, and the Islamic provincial district of Jund Filastin. Historically, it has been known as the southern portion of wider regional designations such as Canaan, Syria, ash-Sham, and the Levant.
Situated at a strategic location between Egypt, Syria and Arabia, and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, the region has a long and tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. The region has been controlled by numerous peoples, including Ancient Egyptians, Canaanites, Israelites and Judeans, Assyrians, Babylonians, Achaemenids, ancient Greeks, the Jewish Hasmonean Kingdom, Romans, Parthians, Sasanians, Byzantines, the Arab Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Mongols, Ottomans, the British, and modern Israelis, Jordanians, Egyptians and Palestinians.
Today the effects of Byzantian, Arab, Ottoman (Turkish) and British conquest and colonialism are still present in the state of Israël and the territories of the Palestinian Authority (PLO/Fatah) in the Westbank (Judea and Samaria) and Hamas (Gaza). Turkish, British, Egyptian and Jordanian rulers left their mark on Israël, the Westbank and Gaza. I read somewhere that in Israel, parts of the legislation of Ottoman Palestine is still present in today's Israeli legal system.
Wikipedia writes: "Foreign and historical influences on modern-day Israeli law are varied and include the Mecelle (Hebrew: מג'לה; the civil code of the Ottoman Empire) and German civil law, religious law (Jewish Halakha and Muslim Sharia; mostly pertaining in the area of family law), and British common law. The Israeli courts have been influenced in recent years by American Law and Canadian Law and to a lesser extent by Continental Law (mostly from Germany)."
Now I will react on Alan Dershowitz's essay and opinions and statements in it;
I agree with Dershowitz that the United Nations is not a good entity or organisation to grant the Palestinians the status of a “state,” because many member states are no democracies, have no good human rights record and to many states are simply anti-Israel. On the other hand the USA, and other allies of Israel have great influence and Veto power in that United Nations. But large and smaller powers and states have ignored and refused to accept UN proposals, UN decisions and UN advices. So how much authority, legitimacy and how much legal grounds have UN decisions or votes? Israel ignores the UN, Syria ignores the UN, North-Korea ignored the UN, the UN didn't stop the genocide in Rwanda, nor the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegowina and Sudan. What worth does that organisation has?
The question what kind of a state Palestine will be is a hard one? Unfortunately both the Palestinian Authority lead by Fatah (PLO) and Hamas are authoritarian, corrupt, nepotist and harsh dictatorial regimes, whom both oppress and harass openents in their territories. Hamas terrorises Fatah clans, families and supporters in Gaza and Fatah oppresses Hamas in the Westbank. And next to Fatah and Hamas you have the violent Islamist Islamic Jihad and the leftwing nationalist and Marxist-Leninist PFLP (peoples fron of the liberation of Palestine), some Salafist/Wahabist groups and maybe some Palestinians with links to the Lebanese Hezbollah organisation. The moderate, secular, democratic, liberal, Social-democratic and conservative Palestinians have limited power and influence. Palestine will not become another regular “secular democratic state” like Lebanon or Jordan. Palestinians are different than other Arabs, because many of them live in Refugee camps in Gaza, the Westbank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. In a Palestinian state next to Israel, many Syrian Palestinians, Lebanese Palestinians and maybe Jordanian Palestinians will return to that Palestinian state. A Palestinian state today would be impossible today due to the political rivalry between different Palestinian parties and fractions. Who would be a good Palestinian leader?
Mohammed Dahlan, also known by the kunya or nom de guerre Abu Fadi (Arabic: أبو فادي), who was the former leader of Fatah in Gaza. Or Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian political figure convicted and imprisoned for murder by an Israeli court. He is regarded as a leader of the First and Second Intifadas. Barghouti still exerts great influence in Fatah from within prison. With popularity reaching further than that, there has been some speculation whether he could be a unifying candidate in a bid to succeed Mahmud Abbas.
Mohammed DahlanMarwan BarghoutiAnother Palestinian politician is Marwan Barghouti's distant cousin Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian physician, activist, and politician who serves as General Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative (PNI), also known as al Mubadara. He has been a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006 and is also a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Central Council. In 2007, Barghouti was Minister of Information in the Palestinian unity government.
Mustafa BarghoutiOther possible Palestinian leaders who could follow up president Mahmoud Abbas are member of the Fatah Central Committee and former governor of the Palestinian Authority's Nablus governorate in the Central Highlands of the West Bank, Mahmoud Aloul, PLO/Fatah veteran and Secretary General of the Fatah Central Committee Jibril Rajoub.
Mahmoud AloulJibril RajoubThe draft constitution for the new state of Palestine contrasts with the image the PLO, Fatah and other Palestinian fractions wanted to show the world. Because they always said Palestine is a state of Palestinian Muslims, Palestinian jews and Palestinian christians. If Islam is the only official religion in Palestine there will be limited space for Palestinian christians and for jews who live and work in the territory of Palestine. Where will these millions of jews have to go to? Back to Europe, the USA, the Arab countries, Turkey, North-Africa, Iran, Ethiopia and Southern-America? I know for sure that Europe with it's large migrant populations will not be happy with a wave of Israeli migrants.
It is indeed ironic and cynical that the same Palestinian leadership which supports these concepts for Palestine refuses to acknowledge that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people.
The new Palestinian state would not only prohibit any Jews from being citizens, from owning land or from even living in the Muslim state of Palestine. It will also be a harsh place for Christian Palestinians, secular Palestinians and atheïst Palestinians and other minority groups like the Samaritans.
If a large numbers of Jews will not be welcome to remain in Islamic Palestine as equal citizens, that will have consequences for the Israeli arabs inside Israel. The more than 1 million Arab citizens of Israel, most of whom are Muslims, might be pressured to move to the new Palestinian state.
The “
law of return” in the new Palestine will be similar to that of Israel. In Israel, all jews, no matter where they live and regardless of whether they have ever set foot in Israel, will be welcome to the new state, while a Palestina whose family has lived in
Acre for generations will be excluded.
The new Palestinian state will probably be a apartheid state. It will practice religious and ethnic discrimination, Islam will be the only official religion if Hamas and other Islamic forces gain power. In Palestine tribal tensions and political rivalry between political fractions and movements will continue to destabalize the new young nation.
From an Israeli security, military analysis and thus strategic and tactical point of view the borders of 1967 will not make Israel safer, because the Israeli's look at the several wars they had with Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq. These 5 Arab states were supported by Algeria, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan, the PLO (Fatah), Sudan and Tunisia.
A new Palestinian state at the borders of 1967 would be difficult for Israel for sure. The Israeli's would with the signs of a new joined Arab attack or attempt to cross the Israeli borders, re-occupy the Gaza and the Westbank immediately.
With the rest of the text of
Alan Dershowitz I simply agree:
It is contemplated, of course, that Israel would regain these areas as part of a land swap with the Palestinians. But there is no certainty that the Palestinians would agree to a reasonable land swap. Palestinian leaders have already said that they would hold these important and sacred sites hostage to unreasonable demands. For example, the Western Wall covers only a few acres, but the Palestinian leadership has indicated that these acres are among the most valuable in the world, and in order for Israel to regain them, they would have to surrender thousands of acres. The same might be true of the access road to Hebrew University and the Jewish Quarter.
When Jordan controlled these areas, the Jordanian government made them Judenrein — Jews could not pray at the Western Wall, visit the Jewish Quarter, or have access to Hebrew University. There is no reason to believe that a Palestinian state would treat Jews any differently if they were to maintain control over these areas.
An Apartheid, Islamic, Judenrein Palestine on the 1967 borders is a prescription for disaster. That is why a reasonable Palestinian state must be the outcome of negotiations with Israel, and not the result of a thoughtless vote by the United Nations.
The Palestinians and Israeli leaders are now in New York. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered to sit down and negotiate, with no preconditions, a realistic peace based on a two-state solution. President Abbas should accept that offer, which will actually get the Palestinians a viable state rather than a cheap paper victory that will raise expectations but lower the prospects for real peace.
Cheers,
Pieter