I've been reading the Magnes Zionist blog, written by the pseudonymous Jewish professor of philosophy "Jerry Haber," for a while now. I don't think everything he says can be taken at face value by a long shot, but he does provide a strong and informed counter-opinion to the dominant pro-Israeli narrative in American media. His latest post is particularly interesting, I think. Some excerpts:
To be fair, my fellow-congregants have also been raised with a lot of that American liberalism. When one said to me, "Don't you think Israel has the right to defend itself against rocket attacks." I said, "Not only a right, but an obligation." But when I countered, "Don't Palestinians have the right to defend themselves from Israeli attacks, including cross-border incursions and naval blockades?" I was met with a blank stare. If this had been Israel, my interlocutor would have said, "No, they don't." But for an American Jewish liberal, what I had said had completely thrown him off, at least for a few seconds.
It doesn't occur to most American Jews I know, or for that matter, most people I know, that the Palestinians are the primary victims of the Zionist movement, that they were dispossessed by superior force, and that they are struggling for decades to enjoy the same life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in their land that the Israelis have enjoyed. Whether they are second-class citizens, or under occupation, or in the Palestinian diaspora, they refuse to admit total defeat, and they will never relinquish their claims. They are among the longest suffering peoples since World War I, and their suffering is compounded because some of those who supplanted them suffered terribly during World War II.
...
What Israelis and Palestinians have learnt is that they achieve goals through violence and diplomacy. Given the imbalance of power, the Israelis will have the upper hand, for the foreseeable future. The world will not intervene. But memories of the Holocaust will fade, Islam will grow as a world religion, and increasingly, Israel will be identified in this country with the forces of colonialism and reaction.
Ultimately it is up to the Palestinians to persist in their resistance, to endure, to show up. Some will choose to shed their Palestinian identity, as many Jews have chosen to shed theirs. But I have confidence that steadfastedness, sumud, will persevere. I won't see a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in my lifetime. But that doesn't mean that I can make peace with injustice.
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder