I am a Jew and a long time opponent of the Israel occupation of the West Bank, Israeli settlements there, and the blockage of Gaza. I believe in the right of Israel to exist, but I also believe in democracy and that Palestinian lives matter. I can wear both a yarmulke and a “Free Palestine” t-shirt.
I am not an anti-Zionist. I support a two-state solution, but I also recognize that a series of Israeli governments have used “negotiations” for the last fifty-years to delay a settlement while they expand control over Palestinian territories and the region’s scarce water resources. In 1980, Ariel Sharon, an Israeli general and Prime Minister, explained this strategy as “irreversible facts on the ground.” Other Israeli politicians have been less forthcoming about what Israel has been doing, but I view it as a consistent policy.
Israel has repeatedly claimed its primary goal is defensible borders. But as it has permitted new settlements on the West Bank that make defensible borders impossible, this claim has proven to be untrue.
The United States has basically endorsed Israeli use of negotiation as a delaying tactics since the 1978 Camp David Accord brokered by President Jimmy Carter and the 1993 Oslo Accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization that was signed in Washington DC. Meanwhile the United States has supported Israeli intransigence with billions of dollars in annual military funding. The planes that bombed Gaza cities were American F-16s and many of the high-tech missiles were American made.
Since the most recent outbreak of war, firing rockets and bombing citizens is not just hostility, there has been an increased number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States and Europe, with attacks on individuals perceived to be Jewish and vandalism at Jewish schools and synagogues. This kind of behavior is totally unacceptable and should be condemned, whether it is directed at Jews or Asians, Moslems, or any other group.
I am concerned that some officials, including representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, have drawn a false equivalence both blaming rightwing and leftwing extremists groups for the surge in violence in the United States, including the anti-Semitic incidents. No one has produced any evidence of leftwing extremists involved in attacks on American Jews. Where perpetrators of anti-Semitic incidents have been identified, they tend to be angry young people with no ideological basis. Calling them leftwing extremists is used to delegitimize any opposition to Israel policy by dismissing it as anti-Semitic extremism.
A letter from four Congressional Representatives to President Biden called on him to appoint a United States Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. It made no equivalent demand that the United States intervene to protect the rights of Palestinians. The letter also criticized members of Congress who identified Israeli policy towards Palestinians as apartheid and accused them of contributing to anti-Semitic violence. Criticisms of Israel are labeled “antisemitic at their core.” If anything, uncritical support for Israeli atrocities in Gaza bears greater responsibility for anti-Semitic acts than any statements by Israel’s critics in Congress.
My proposal is a return to Israel’s 1967 boundaries, the immediate formation of a Palestinian state encompassing the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, and the internationalization of Jerusalem as both the capital of Israel and the capital of Palestine. Israelis living in the newly created Palestine would have the option of receiving a financial settlement to relocate or they can petition for Palestinian citizenship and pursue claims for confiscated property in Palestinian courts. Palestinians displaced by Al Nakba, the catastrophic outcome of the 1948 war, or whose families lost their homes, would have a similar option. They can accept a financial settlement for lost property or pursue claims in Israeli courts. The United States, which pours billions of dollars into Israel and the broader Mid-East would have to broker the arrangement working with international agencies and other interested governments. If either Israel or Palestine refuse the deal or break the agreement they would sacrifice all international financial support.
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Media Watch with Hosts Robert Anthony, Raymond Peterson and Eric V Tait, Jr. and guest Alan Singer look at the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.