Israel: Just Pack up and Go

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This is a very interesting article by Nadim Shehadi, a Lebanese economist, written after the Lebanon War last summer. In contrast to the raw anti-Semitism that animates so much anti-Israel sentiment in the Arab World (let's be honest now - it's a fact), this article makes some very reasonable points.

First of all, Shehadi has argued that the Zionist dream has failed. Keep in mind that Herzl dreamed of a Jewish state that would end anti-Semitism by separating Jews from Gentiles, because the two could not live together due to the innate or at least timeless hatred of the Gentile of the Jew. Keep in mind that Herzl was speaking from the point of view of a European Ashkenazi Jew.

Herzl, an Austrian journalist and the founder of modern Zionism, was a secular Jew who originally was an originally an assimilationist. However, the Dreyfus Trial in France in the late 1800's shocked him and convinced him that the Gentiles were doomed to forever hate the Jews. He felt that it would be better for both parties to just separate.

In Herzl's dream, the Jewish state would gather the Jews from all around the Diaspora. Since living together caused anti-Semitism, separation would end it. The Jewish state would be at peace with its neighbors and Jewish-Gentile relations would be harmonious.

By all accounts, Herzl's dream lies in ruins. Zionism has not resolved the Jewish Question, as its founding has caused four wars, two wars in Lebanon and continuous guerrilla war in the area surrounding Israel. It has arguably contributed to two wars against Iraq, bombing of Libya and the general spread of Islamist terrorism in the region.

Israel has been a disaster. Surely it's no safe haven for the Jews. Most Jews are safer in the Diaspora, especially in the US. As recently as last summer, there were 13 homicidal attacks against Jews in and around Israel every single day (and that does not count the Lebanon War). In the war on Lebanon, Israel essentially destroyed the state of Lebanon, at least in terms of infrastructure.

As Shehadi notes, if the only way Israel can survive is by destroying the neighborhood, why doesn't Israel just pack up and go? We can argue forever about the reasons why Israel's presence in its current state causes so much animosity, but reasons don't really matter. The truth is a Jewish state is not wanted in the region and its creation created a huge number of refugees whose lands were taken and are forbidden from returning.

As Shehadi notes, Israeli paranoia is not justified. Three Arab states have made peace, most Gulf states have commercial relations with Israel and Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania have excellent relations with the Jewish state. Saudi Arabia offered total normalization in a peace plan, but Israel rejected it because it contradicts Zionist tenets of colonization of Judea and Samaria.

The West Bank is currently an unlivable prison, and settlements continue to expand there, even in the past year. It's no wonder Palestinians fight back in the West Bank.

Gaza has been cut off from all funding for the crime of electing Hamas, 70% of the population is unemployed, basic services are at a low level and much of the population is malnourished. Israel appears to be trying to push Gazans to their limits. Understandably, Gazans react to these provocations with continuing rocket attacks.

Zionist propaganda says that Jews can't live with Gentiles and everywhere they try to do this, life is Hell for Jews. In contrast, life appears to be Hell in the Jewish separation experiment called the Jewish state. In the Diaspora, in the US at least, anti-Semitism is at a low level and Jews surely face less hostility and insecurity and fewer attacks than they do in Israel.

So the notion that Gentiles are full of homicidal hatred for Jews everywhere the two live together is proven to be false. The main thing that has magnified anti-Semitism has been the deeply flawed separation experiment, an experiment that seems to have failed to achieve its basic objectives.

Time for a reconsideration?

Check the comments at the end for the usual Jewish paranoia, mostly out of Israel. Shehadi is...guess what? A Jew-hater, an anti-Semite, a Nazi, and a genocidal racist. You know, in the real world, people who insist that just about everyone is out to kill them are called...um...mentally ill, specifically, paranoid.

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