 | By telegramsam
October 15, 2010 | Share |
So says Israeli academic Gadi Taub at Dissent magazine
His reasoning?
But what is worse is that eventually this encroachment on the future Palestine will not achieve Netanyahu’s goals—it will achieve the goal of religious settlers. If they have their way, their asphalt and concrete will prevent partition into two states and will drown the ship of Zionism in a Lebanon-like bi-national swamp. Religious settlers are therefore not just a clear and present danger to peace, or to peace talks, but an existential threat to Zionism itself. Supporting settlement is an anti-Zionist stance. The grounds for resisting the settlers’ enterprise are not only the right of Palestinians to self-determination but also the right of Jews to self-determination. Zionists and their allies must therefore oppose further settlement, for Israel’s, not just Palestine’s, sake.
Advis3r
16 October, 2010 - 17:52
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You have posted this crock of whatsit three times and it does not make it any more palatable or indeed anymore true. A touch of the Dr Goebbels syndrome again?
The 1922 Mandate for Palestine made it quite clear that the Jews had the right to settle the whole of what was their ancient homeland. Just because the so-called International Community that is so-beloved of the BBC now resiles from allowing the Jews their right to self-determination in their ancient homeland does not mean we as Jews should listen to them. For two thousand years they seemingly controlled our destiny and look where that took us. Now we have a measure of control over our own destiny the International Community can gnash their teeth as much as they like while we build up the country as we are meant to do. Mr Taub can pontificate as much as he likes about what he perceives "Zionism" to be but the settling by Jews of all of the Land of Israel is what Zionism is all about.
It seems that in every decade a different excuse is given for surrendering the Israeli heartland. In the 80s it was: This is an occupation of foreign land and immoral. When this failed to convince the public, in the 1990’s it became: If we surrender land we will get peace. After the Oslo terror wave, when this line of reasoning was revealed as preposterous, it became a nationalist argument in the 2000s: The demographic threat forces us to give up Judea and Samaria. After this claim was also debunked due to plummeting Arab birthrates and rising Jewish ones and the revelation as to the real number of Arabs in Yesha, a new seemingly waterproof argument has been proposed for 2010: We must surrender land in order for the Americans to agree to save us from Iran and holding on to it is anti-Zionist.
The answer to this claim is twofold. First, the State of Israel was founded because the Jewish people decided that it could no longer rely on the gentiles to protect them. Unfortunately the State was founded only after the Holocaust, but Israel’s first leaders all came here long before. The Jewish State was proof that the Jewish people were going to take responsibility for their own destiny and no longer rely on others.
Secondly, the surrender of Jewish land ultimately weakens us. The strongest argument we have against the Arab claim that we are imposters in the region is our moral right to our land. When we hold onto our land we show the Arabs we are natives here and it is they who are encroaching. While this does not change the physical balance of power, it does provide the inner reasoning without which no battle can be fought – just cause. It is the justness of the cause which is ultimately our strongest weapon. By giving in to Arab demands we are just showing them that we do not even believe in our own right to the Land.