I must respond to Fadi Nazeeh Kablawi’s misleading column.
I get the impression Mr. Kablawi believes that if he throws around
accusations such as “apartheid”, “racist”
and “ethnic cleansing” often enough, people will
believe him.
In his accusations, Mr. Kablawi does a number of things to
help bolster his points: he overlooks the fact Israel offered the
Palestinians a state, he justifies terror against Israeli
civilians, he overlooks the fact Israel is a pluralistic and
multi-ethnic society, and he avoids altogether the very real,
racist and anti-Semitic output from Palestinian media, schools and
“resistance movements.”
Israel is a democracy. Arab citizens have the same basic rights
as other Israelis, including the right to vote, freedom of religion
and movement, and to serve as legislative representatives,
including the many Arab members of the Israeli Parliament. Israelis
belong to many racial groups. The majority of Israeli Jews are of
Middle Eastern background and are physically indistinguishable from
Arabs. The “racist” state of Israel airlifted tens of
thousands of persecuted Ethiopians into Israel.
Israel has long had a huge peace movement, Peace Now. Where is
the Palestinian Peace movement, Mr. Kiblawi? If the issue is merely
about occupation, then why did Arafat walk away from an opportunity
to create a Palestinian state two years ago? He was offered 97
percent of the land he says he wanted as well as a shared
Jerusalem, and even this was not enough to merit a counter offer?
Was blowing up buses and children outside of ice-cream parlors
really the only response the Palestinians could have made?
Give me a break. There is no excuse for terrorism. None. I would
have a lot more respect for Mr. Kiblawi’s claims if the
Palestinians began a Gandhi-like resistance rather than blowing up
commuters on buses and students in cafeterias. Non-violent
resistance would be more powerful.
The Palestinians would succeed in ending occupation quickly by
truly holding the moral ground. Today their actions, which classify
even Israeli babies as “soldier occupiers” and thus no
different than armed soldiers, are the immoral ground.
Mr. Kiblawi, do you have any doubt these actions amount to
anything less than ethnic cleansing, than a genocide? The Coalition
for the Defense of Human Rights writes of the racism inherent in
the Radical Islamic vision with intolerance for Christians, Jews,
members of other faiths and non-religious Muslims, all of whom are
referred to as “dhimmi,” a lower status being.
Despite Mr. Kiblawi’s claims of “ethnic
cleansing,” the Palestinian population is one of the
world’s fastest growing. And since he sheds tears for
the death of babies, I offer him a few more. Sinai Keinan, an
18-month old baby, literally had her brain blown out of her head
outside an ice-cream parlor and died along with her grandmother. A
10-month-old Shalhevet Pass was killed by a Palestinian sniper
while she sat in a park in her stroller. The 3 Schijvescuurder
children, including Hemda, 2, and Avraham Yitzhak, 4, was killed
eating pizza in a restaurant, along with their parents. These are
only 5 of the dozens of Israeli children Mr. Kiblawi can mourn. No
one in Israel celebrates their deaths, and no one in Israel
dances in the streets when Palestinian civilians, especially
children, are killed. Why should so many Palestinians dance in the
streets after “successful” suicide attacks against
Israelis?
The first step to making peace is ending hate incitement. We can
no longer close our eyes to this incitement, and lend it our de
facto support. The war against terror is all of humanity’s
struggle. The Palestinians have legitimate grievances, but let them
abandon their dream of destroying Israel, of martyring themselves
to become human bombs. Let negotiation and compromise take place so
peace can exist for Arab and Israeli in the Holy Land.