Resolving Israel’s Dilemma

Israel’s dilemma has been how to construct a racially pure state and extinguish the Palestinian presence in the country without the world noticing the genocide. It has found the solution and the world takes no notice. The world can entertain another solution and the world takes no notice.

Want to rid the world of Hamas, rid the world of apartheid Israel. If apartheid Israel goes away assuredly Hamas will go away; after all, Israel says that Hamas’s only reason for existence is to eradicate apartheid Israel.

Want to stop the oppression and save the Palestinians from genocide, get rid of apartheid Israel; without the destroyer, there is no destroyed.

The Western world has shown it regards apartheid Israel worth more than five million Palestinian lives, echoing former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, who informed us that, “Yes, we feel it was worth having 500,000 Iraqi children die and save the world from Saddam Hussein,” who could not save himself.

Two clarifications:

(1)    Doing away with apartheid Israel does not mean doing away with Israel; it means transforming apartheid Israel from an oppressive killing machine into a genuine democratic government that operates with obedience to international law and respects human rights.

(2)    Israel oppressed and killed Palestinians long before Hamas. Israel has been killing and oppressing Palestinians throughout the existence of Hamas. Noting Israel’s continuous oppressive tactics in the West Bank, Israel will oppress and kill Palestinians regardless of Hamas. Prime Minister Netanyahu said the Palestinians will suffer for generations. Capture that remark ─ making innocent generations responsible for incidents that occurred long before they were born. Is that a remark from a responsible leader or a statement from a genocidal maniac?

Demolishing Hamas is an excuse for Israel’s excessive bombings of innocent civilians. Driving the Palestinians into psychological defeat with traumas that cause the children to lose a sense of security and a will to live ─ equivalent to the smallpox blankets that hastened destruction of the Native Americans ─ is one of the real reasons for the carnage. The other reasons are to conveniently change the dialogue from oppression of the Palestinians to defense of Israel and to reboot the conflict so that it starts from now. The 75 last years and its tears no longer have any role in analyzing the conflict; that conflict ended and a new conflict started when Hamas attacked Israeli civilians.

THESE ARE THE REASONS for the Israeli attacks on innocent civilians and these reasons are leading to one of the most diabolical genocides conceived by mortals — break their bones and break their will to live. Hamas is a problem but annihilating Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (Islamic Resistance Movement) cannot be used as an excuse for the devastation visited upon the innocent Palestinians.

This burst of angst was generated by watching discussion programs where “talking heads” offer solutions to the mayhem with unique suggestions such as, “the two peoples should learn to get along with each other,” and “Israel has a right to defend itself but should be careful and not cause too many civilian casualties.”

It was reinforced by the conventional U.S. media reports that continued to highlight the more than two week ago killings of Israeli civilians and captive Israelis and broadcast prepared references to Jewish victimhood and the 80 year old World War II Holocaust programs  ready to be aired when Israel needs some prepping, just as obituaries are ready to be printed when a known personality dies. It reached a crescendo upon constantly hearing, that this was the worst loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, passed on from person to person, each repeating the script. 

Watching David Rubenstein’s program , History, resurrect a December 14,2021 show that aired Jia Lynn Yang, a deputy national editor at The New York Times, discussing the American immigration system,  and observe how Rubenstein steered Ms. Yang to indicate that the 1924 Immigration laws were written expressly against Jews, which kept them locked up in  Europe to await their Nazi executioners, made me want to kick the first dog I saw. 

Wall Street banker Rubenstein went on to solicit the spurious story of how people went to plead with President Roosevelt to help German Jews, which then led to the ill-fated St. Louis cruise ship, which had  900 Jews on board who tried to enter Cuba and were not allowed. Also refused docking by U.S. authorities, the St. Louis returned to Europe. Contrary to Rubenstein’s low voiced mention of 700 passengers sent to concentration camps and eventually killed, the ship docked in Antwerp, all passengers departed for other nations, and almost all of them survived the war. Sure would like to know how an editor at renowned PBS permitted this discrepancy and why, after two years, it has out been corrected. PBS is regarded as one of the more accurate media.

 To relieve my emotional distress, I’ll mention two more corrupt media episode out of the hundreds I witnessed during the last week.

NBC showed an Israeli birthday Party for a missing 9-year old Israeli boy, a captive of Hamas. I gather NBC camera operators always wander through Israel and film birthday parties for American audiences. Maybe they should wander through Gaza and film posthumous birthday parties for missing Gazan children who will never return and never have another birthday party. By October 23, more than 2,000 Palestinian children are confirmed killed during the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip and 800 are missing. How many are traumatized for the rest of their lives? 

In another episode, PBS interviewed students involved in the campus demonstrations, A pro-Israeli student talked of Hamas rapes, undressing women, and parading captives through the streets of Gaza. I’m sure PBS interviewed several students. Because none of the mentioned incidents have been proven to have occurred , why couldn’t PBS present a credible commentator?

The interview with the pro-Palestinian student was less shocking; she wanted to obtain a truce and end the violence on both sides. Why didn’t PBS interview a student alarmed at Israel’s deliberate escalation of the violence?

Israel’s efforts to make Hamas’ violent incursion into Israel the momentous event of the last 75 years and reboot the crisis so it starts on October 7 is succeeding. Israel has determined it has the solution to cleanse Gaza and the West bank of all Palestinians and, at the same time, cripple Hezbollah and Iran so they can never be a threat. The “talking heads” are not even giving those pernicious activities any consideration. The Zionist adventure has never been capably treated; few learn the key elements of the story and even when told, don’t seem to have absorbed them. The constantly proposed two-state solution does not adhere to UN Resolution 181, the partition plan; it has the two states based upon the 1967 borders, which piles a farce upon a farce.

The 1947 UN Resolution 181 used arm-twisting bribes and economic threats to obtain votes and was barely passed. Is that mafia type of performance acceptable? The UN Resolution had no authority to enforce its Resolution; it was a suggestion by a world body. Why would the Palestinians agree to surrender part of their land to foreigners who had just been washed ashore and why would they follow orders form Europeans who lived on the other side of the Mediterranean?

When UN Resolution 181 partitioned Palestine on 29 November 1947, the population statistics, described in the Table below and referenced at 1945, showed about 500,000 Jews and 1.1 million Arabs in the partitioned area. The Arab population was indigenous to the area with almost its entire population born to parents who had resided in the Levant. The Arab population also owned and occupied a major part of the territory with one area, the Negev, mainly inhabited by Bedouin tribes.

Data from the Report of UNSCOP: 3 September 1947: CHAPTER 4: A COMMENTARY ON PARTITION

Because neither state had official names at that time, Arab and Jewish states were used to map out contours of land where the major portions of the ethnicities would live. The Jewish state, which hastily became Israel just before President Truman recognized the state, failed at that moment of origin. Although the state was, in effect, bi-national, a small Zionist group took control of all apparatus of the new state, and did that without consulting any Palestinian leadership. What leadership, well, no defined leadership, but place it all in proper context.

A census will have shown about 500,000 people described as Jews in the new state (another 100,000 in Jerusalem), but only a small portion of that group lived in the area for a long period of time and only a minor portion had much investment in its past, present, or future. Except for 40,000 earlier 20th century Zionists, practically all had arrived within the previous 30 years and not necessarily to stay — some to work in the British Mandate, many fleeing Nazi Germany, many from refugee camps after World War II, and some adventurers. Relatively few Jews were native to the region and almost all were from foreign nations. The UN did not create two states; it divided one Palestinian state into two states -─ a Palestinian state composed of almost 100 percent Palestinians, and a Palestinian state composed of about 70 percent who were native to the area (400,000 Palestinians), a small contingent of foreign Jews that had come as Zionists to live permanently in Palestine (200,000), and another larger contingent of foreign Jews (300,000) that arrived for expediency and not with original intentions of remaining in the British Mandate.  The Mandate was only a way station for Jews caught in the horrendous tragedies during the 1930s and World War II. If neither cataclysm occurred, would these Jews have gone to the Mandate? Without them, how many Jews would have been there in 1947? These refugees deserved protection, but should those who had been in the area for only two to twenty years, have counted equally in a population census with Palestinians that had centuries of generations in the same area? Did these Jews have a right to expel those who had provided them a measure of succulence? Didn’t they have a moral obligation to protect those who had been upset by their presence? Maybe the measures of refuge came unwillingly, but they were there and the refugee Jews survived. Normal response is to say, “Thank you, I will now leave and not bother you anymore,” and not repeat a crime by forcing exile on others, and, after doing that, grinding the true owners of the land into non-existence.

From that perspective, David Ben-Gurion and a small clique of opportunists took advantage of an ill-advised UN, an ill-led and ill- equipped Palestinian community, and a confused world to declare their state, and, with seasoned militia forces — Haganah, Irgun, Lehi, and Palmach — cleansed the area of Palestinians and established Israel. Just one example, which I have substantiated ─ Irgun troops after entering a Palestinian village were told to seize 10 Palestinians and shoot them; a plan intended to frighten other Palestinian villagers to flee. With seasoned militia forces –Haganah, Irgun, Lehi, and Palmach — the Zionists resolved the problem by cleansing the area of Palestinians and establishing a state composed mostly of Zionists, a state they called Israel.

Assuredly, if there was no ethnic cleansing and the UN planned bi-national state had come into existence, many Jews would have left. Within a decade, the Palestinians would have had an overwhelming majority, and, when they looked across the border, would have exclaimed, “Why are we in two states, let’s make one state.”

During World War II, a few eyewitnesses relayed their findings to British authorities of an impending genocide of European Jews. During the 1940s, communication and transportation were not nearly as advanced as today — no spies in the skies and no surveillance drones. Closed borders and battlefields prevented people from moving around and surveying conditions. Unable to validate the information from only a few persons, occupied with their own problems, and not knowing any means for rescuing those trapped in the catastrophe, the Holocaust ran its course. One phrase guided the activities of the World War II people ─ kill the other before they kill you. Saving anyone else was not on people’s minds.

In 2023, when everyone, billions, even those living in a remote part of Tasmania, daily witness the destruction of the Palestinian people and its genocidal conclusion, none of the world’s leaders, all of whom are fully aware of the impending genocide, and those who criticize the helpless World War II leaders for not stopping an unstoppable genocide, are readily permitting and abetting the ultimate genocide of the Palestinian people. A PBS program, The U.S. and the Holocaust, accused the United States, who rescued European civilization, of not doing enough to save European Jews. The program could not resurrect the dead and seemed to serve no purpose. Now, it has a purpose. PBS, where is your follow-up program on the United States abetting the genocide of the Palestinians and your urging the U.S. to save Palestinian lives? What and who caused this incomprehensible condition?

Israel’s dilemma has been how to construct a racially pure state and extinguish the Palestinian presence in the country without the world noticing the genocide. It has found the solution and the world leaders take no notice.

Dan Lieberman publishes commentaries on foreign policy, economics, and politics at https://dlieb10gmailcom.substack.com/.  He is author of the non-fiction books A Third Party Can Succeed in America, Not until They Were Gone, Think Tanks of DC, The Artistry of a Dog, and a novel: The Victory (under a pen name, David L. McWellan)