Since I’m a Jew, I have a natural bias toward my own people. This is natural and to be expected, but that’s not to say that Jews cannot take the opposite side occasionally. This does not automatically make one a “self-hating Jew.” Sometimes, there could be valid reasons for siding against your own people.
Does Taki have valid reasons? Here’s what he writes, quoting Professor David Shulman:
It is a regime of state terror whose raison d’être is the theft of Palestinian land and, whenever possible, the expulsion of its Palestinian owners. I have seen this system in operation over the course of the past twenty odd years.
Taki goes on to write:
I’ve met a lot of Israelis who not only agree with him, but are adamant that Israel under Netanyahu has become an occupying power bent on capturing the whole West Bank. One thing is for sure, and I will get to the Hamas outrage and the Israeli reaction later on: To Palestinians living under the occupation over the past several years, state violence against them has escalated dramatically.
It is hard for me to describe what I’ve seen with my own eyes when Jewish religious fanatics—or settlers, as they’re called—mostly young men and women imbued with a burning, racist hate for Palestinians, come face-to-face with them. The Israeli army and the police, supposedly neutral, invariably side with the settlers, and thus one more Arab village empties out with religious fanatics moving in. The plan is a simple one and openly espoused by government officials: If life becomes unbearable, the Palestinians will leave and go to Jordan or Saudi Arabia, or anywhere, and the whole West Bank will be Jewish.
I’m not an expert on Israel, or Jewish-Palestinian relations, but I did spend a few years there, and I did witness some of what Taki is referring to. It bothered me at the time, and it bothered my friends… most of them; one of my friends was a settler, and he treated random Arabs very poorly.
I do have a soft spot for Palestinians, and this is as good a place as any to dispel the popular notion that “Palestinians are not a people.”
It may be true that the nation of Palestine is not mentioned until very recently, and it may be true that there was no political entity of that name, unless we go back to the Philistines, and that was a completely different nation; the ancient Philistines were Indo-European, and had nothing to do with the modern Palestinians, except for the name and probably some residual genes.
All that may be true, but whether they had a specific name or political entity doesn’t negate the fact that every human population, which has occupied a piece of land for hundreds/thousands of years, is a nation. Even if they were part of a larger (Jordanian/Syrian) nation at one time, this doesn’t mean they can’t be considered their own nation – especially if history has deprived them of a state. Whether it’s their fault or not is also irrelevant. Even if there was no “Palestinian people” prior to the 1960s, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist now.
In the past, I’ve written that White-Americans are a people in the making. Government persecution, systemic marginalization and replacement policies are forging a new people. We might say the same about the Palestinians – taking Taki at his word.
I sympathize, to a point, with Palestinians because in some ways, they resemble Ancient Jews more than modern Jews resemble ancient Jews – and Israel’s Europeanization policies have made this even more so. Modern “Hebrew” sounds like German, and far less like Classical Hebrew than does modern Palestinian Arabic. Unless things have changed, the Israeli government subsidizes bread – but only European-style bread, not the flat bread that Oriental Jews traditionally ate.
Israeli Jews are more civilized than Palestinians. The don’t “honor-kill” their daughters or publicly rejoice when their children blow themselves up. To the best of my knowledge, an Arab is a lot safer in a Jewish area than a Jew would be in an Arab area, even if he were allowed to live there.
Taki claims that anti-Arab persecution has grown worse in recent years. While I don’t support brutality, or injustice, to anybody, there are two facts we should bear in mind:
- As badly as Arabs may be treated in Israel today, when Arabs were in charge, Jews were treated worse – and there’s no reason to believe this would change in the future if Arabs gained control.
- In a multicultural society, there is no such thing as “equality,” much less “equity.” One group will always dominate the other(s).
Jews should be the group that dominates in the Land of Israel; it’s our only homeland. Personally, I believe that such domination should be with a soft touch. Unnecessary aggression, stealing land, destroying homes or businesses, beatings, humiliations etc. should not be tolerated – but the law should recognize Jewish supremacy, much as Muslim governments recognize Islamic superiority.
Taki makes much of the fact that Palestinians suffer in their camps. I never visited one of those camps, but I knew somebody who did. It was a rabbi, and he had gone there to collect money owed him by the Palestinian. When he arrived, and he witnessed the grinding poverty, he realized it was a lost cause. He returned home empty-handed.
I won’t pretend to know the reasons Palestinians suffer so much; it might have something to do with their propensity for violence – which goes back decades before the State of Israel was even founded. Israel responds by making it more difficult to find work. Poverty is a result.
At this point, it seems clear to me that both sides have erred. People like to characterize Israel as the responsible party, since it has the state and a powerful military. I don’t believe this is entirely true. Demographics, especially on the global scale, favor the Palestinians. The Great Replacement has ensured that Israel’s old allies in America and Europe will shift loyalties toward the Palestinians. As electorates become more and more brown and black, sympathy toward Israel will disappear. Politicians will follow suit, as will foreign policy. In the long run, Israel is the underdog.
In conclusion, Israel’s abuses and bad policies notwithstanding, I think that if the Palestinians were to collectively recognize Israel’s right to exist, and announce a willingness to forgive the past and make a fresh start, that would force Israel to change its ways. It would be far more effective than killing babies and raping women.
