You go, Naomi. The DC backlash--however mild--against the boorish arrogance in Tel Aviv is the most hopeful sign I've seen out of that theater in virtually all my adult life, which is saying a lot since I'm 79. For way too long Israel has taken inexcusable advantage of world sympathy stemming from the Holocaust. Enough already.

It is refreshing indeed to read Naomi Klein's clear position on these issues. Calling Israel into account for its unlawful and inhumane actions towards the Palestinians and unilaterally changing "facts on the ground", does not imply anti-semitism nor a desire to delegitimate the existence of Israel.

It's really nice to see someone on the Israel-uber-alles-right-or-wrong side of the debate spell out the bounds of acceptable discourse in such specific terms. Now we know that John Lennon singing "Imagine there's no countries" was an existential threat to Israel. I wonder if there are any other categories of ideas I'm not allowed to think about because they contain some implcit hint that Israel should not be around? As a U.S. citizen, am I allowed to say my taxes are misspent, or does that tread too close?

Within the scope of dealing with enemies who seek to destroy you or your ability to protect yourself from those who state clearly it is their self assigned task to end your life, one may be willing to lie as frequently as one's enemies do.

Israel tried to negotiate a peace after the 1967 war and was soundly rebuffed. Since then Israel has been accused of being an occupier of lands and peoples that it tried to return to its previous masters but could not since no one was willing to talk. As time went on Israel returned Sinai and would have gladly given Gaza back to its Egyptian overlords but Egypt refused. Jordan does not want the West Bank back either. Since there was never a Palestinian nation there was no national group to give those lands back to.

Naomi Klein conveniently forgets that the Arab World is not interested in Israel's right to exist. She ignores history but nitpicks the actions of their government. I wonder what her views would have been regarding FDR and Churchill as they waged war to save the world. The Klein solution would be, I assume, of "One State" where the minorities (Jews and others like the Bahia) would be hounded and forced into chained Kasbahs like they were in every Arab land from the Crusades through the 1950's. She conveniently forgets the 880,000 Jewish refugees from the Arab world, who dispossessed of their property and what little rights they had as 3rd class subjects in the countries carved out of previous empires. She's big on fairness to others, but not to her own. If Israel and Jews had to depend on Klein and fellow travelers like; Chomsky and Zinn, Israel would have disappeared years ago.

Richard J. Garfunkel
Host of The Advocates
wvox 1460 am radio
www.wvox.com

Martin Gilbert, the renown historian cites, chapter and verse, the Arab-Muslim pogroms promulgated against the indigenous Jewish populations that resided in Arab lands from Morocco through the eastern reaches of Syria. She seems to ignore the historical bellicose rhetoric of the Grand Mufti, Nassar, Assad, Arafat, the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, Sadaam Hussein, and the brigands who rule in Iran. That is not enough for her. "Be fair to the Palestinians" as they murder and loot their own. Where has Fatah and the other totalitarians served their people? But blame it all on Israel, which has carved an oasis out of the desert. Arab Israelis have lived better and freer in Israel and never would trade their rights and existence to live under Arab rule. Radical Muslims want hegemony all over the world and they state that goal. The first line of defense against this 21st century fascism is Israel, and all clear thinking people around the world know it.

Richard J. Garfunkel'

As to the Barack Plan, it was vetoed by Arafat. I strongly disagree that their conduct has been horrendous. They have exchanged thousands of criminal terrorists for a handful of Israeli captives. They have afforded the rule of law for all of their citizens, and they have a legitimate court system and an elected government. But what of Hamas and Hezbollah who hide their missiles and artillery amongst their citizens? Maybe Israel should use the tactics of the British to win the Boar War? Maybe they should murder women and children like the suicide bombers? Maybe they should fight fire with fire? Klein and her apologists hold Israel to a higher standard of which no government has been held. The demographic war is on, and we will see if Europeans are willing to surrender their culture, values, language and freedom of religion to the new reality of a Muslim numeric hegemony. I doubt that any free people will allow a determined minority to use the system to destroy what thousands of years has built.

Israel often gets criticism for efforts to defend its own people by the Jew-haters of this world. In 1914, Pancho Villa crossed the Mexican-Texas border, robbed banks and killed US citizens. General Pershing was sent with an army in search of Villa and stayed there for a considerable period of time. Again, no society can tolerate its borders being violated and its citizens being killed and maimed. Whether one agrees on the legitimacy of Israel or not, one must understand that they have been a sovereign and democratic nation for a great many years. In fact, they have been a nation state much longer than a majority of the UN members today. Over1 million Moslem Arabs along with other minorities live in peace in Israel. They have the rights of citizenship, travel, work, education, and can socialize with whom they wish. They have extra special rights because they do not have to serve in the military and it seems on the surface that they would prefer an Israeli government to living in Arab lands.

Why didn't the Arab World absorb the so-called Palaestinian-Arab refugees? They didn't want to! They kept the problem festering, because they knew that the creation of a West Bank Palestinian state would have led to the de facto recognition of Israel. The Palestinian refugee camps, spread around the bordering Arab states, are the only refugee camps that still exist from that era or WWII. All the other camps that were created by the wars and genocidal conduct in the 20th Century were dispersed as their populations were assimilated into other nation states. Only where Muslim and non-Muslim exist as neighbors is there ongoing strife; Kashmir, the Philippines, the Middle East, Chechnya, Africa, and the Balkans. What is the reality? Israel has been feeling the sting of Fedeyeen terrorism and intrusions for sixty plus years. Thousands, of their people have been murdered and maimed. Is the poverty and religious strife within the Moslem world the fault of Israel?

The twenty-two Arab nations of the Central Command, and that in Petraeus' travels throughout the region the leaders of these countries had made it clear to General Petraeus, the greater the Israeli intransigence on resolving the conflict with the Palestinians, the greater the erosion in American security.
The Obama administration has put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a difficult political spot at home by insisting that the Israeli government halt a plan to build housing units in East Jerusalem. The administration also wants Mr. Netanyahu to commit to substantive negotiations with the Palestinians, after more than a year in which the peace process has been moribund.
World public opinion had also recognised that this was the only solution: That the Palestinians and their rights should be recognised as an independent Palestinian state on the Israeli occupied West Bank of the Jordan.

I note that Glen termed Israel a "major terrorist state," and not Syria, Sadaam Hussein's Iraq, Iran, and the rich oil sheikdoms that fund Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Quied. Maybe he believes America is also one! I also note that Haspiko wants a one state solution, though there are 22 Arab/Muslim states. I also note that Wade seems to characterized Israel as violating his tenets, though he disregards the reality of 60+ years of attacks, multiple embargoes, terrorism and war. I also recall that the Arab States were armed by the Soviet Union as their Cold War tool! How would these countries be able to develop their own weapons? I also remember that Israel won its own war of Independence without the great powers, with their own blood against 6 well armed Arab armies. I also recall that Jordan is a Palestinian state and had the future of the West Bank in their hands for decades. The reality is that if there were no oil in the Middle East, the concern over the West Bank would be zero.

All Americans should read Benjamin Franklin’s Prophecy, and Henry Ford’s views. Hoping it is not too late. Thank you Naomi Klein for your forthrightness.

Two or three or multiple wrongs don't make a right. Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are 100% evil, nor are either 100% good. Any solution that is anywhere near fair and equitable will be flatly unacceptable to the extremists on both sides. Israelis are understandably concerned about that Palestinian extremist minority who will be satisfied with nothing less than the total destruction of the Israeli state and the extermination of all Jews in the region they regard as rightfully theirs, and Palestinians are understandably concerned about the Israeli extremist minority who arrogate to themselves the right to displace Palestinians from any territory they wish to occupy. I am sure the good and decent majorities on both sides could work out a peaceful modus vivens if only the extremists on both sides would let them.

If Mr. Garfunkel was an impartial reader of history he would have noted that Sykes-Picot was exactly the issue that so infuriated the Arabs - a secret deal between France and England to break up the Middle East into little pieces they could control. The inhabitants of the Middle East had no say in the matter, just as they had no say in the deal to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

He would also have been forced to note that President Wilson, father of the “14 points”, sent a commission to Palestine to study the desires of the local population, which, in 1918, was about 95% Christian/Muslim and about 5% Jewish. It found an overwhelming objection to the notion of a Jewish homeland. Conveniently the findings were buried. This hypocrisy of the West – on one hand promoting “self determination” and on the other dictating terms favorable to itself - is the inconvenient truth that Mr. Garfunkel likes to overlook.

Does it not disturb you, Ms. Klein, to have the approval of all these anti-Semites in the comments section?

And, the term 'self-hating' is an interesting propandistic tool. It's preferred nuance when applied to Jews with conscience by Jews with zeal seems to be equivalent to, say, 'self-hating' Catholics who criticize pedophilia in the church, or 'self-hating' Americans who criticize the American penchant for slaughtering weaker peoples...

Again, an excellent point was made about Ms. Klein's efforts giving aid and comfort to the anti-Semites within this blog and the wider world. Again, there were no Arab lands, in the Fertile Crescent but nomadic tribal groups dominated by other empires. The Sykes-Picot Treaty gave these dis-unified peoples statehood. It was up to these indigenous peoples to rule themselves. History shows that they failed. As per example, the 80 year history of Iraq is fraught with coups, violence and assassinations. What has the Arab-Muslim world delivered? But of course this always reverts to the Jews. Why were there less Jews in the Mandate? We’ll they were constantly dispossessed from 70AD and the destruction of the 2nd temple through the struggles between Suleiman, Saladin and the Crusaders. But all the problems of this region are always their fault. What about the blood oath equating Zionism and racism? Again, the modern nuance of anti-Semitism!

Richard J. Garfunkel

Even up until the late 19th Century when there was renewed Jewish interest in Palestine stimulated by the writings and lobbying by Theodore Herzl, few people lived in that area, but always there were Jews. When European Jews showed interest in that region and invested there, with permission and blessing of the Ottoman Turks, who controlled that region for hundreds of years, poor stateless Arabs moved in looking for work, and a better life and reproduced in greater numbers. They had never lived there before most were from the Hashemite Arabian peninsular. Since the 1920's, the Arabs benefited by Jewish investment and their successful efforts to cultivate the desert. The few Arabs that lived there from the Napoleonic Era until the WWI did nothing to improve either the land or the region. After Jewish success in the 1920's the grand Mufti and his allies sought to destroy the Jewish settlements and take their work as their own. is this the history or not?

Richard J. Garfunkel

Mr. Garfunkel suffers from the same tunnel-vision (for want of a better word) perception of history that afflicts most defenders of Israel - Joan Peters and Alan Dershowitz come to mind. He makes the same tendentious arguments - that the Jews were always there, that the Arabs were never there, that the Jews made the desert bloom, etc, etc. He and they cling with ferocity to their beliefs, feeling that even one little concession will bring down the entire edifice of their logic. The problem with this iron wall mentality is that it leaves no room for air or light. As I have written before, rigid people and enclave states generally have short lives. Mr. Garfunkel can argue til the cows come home about how "right" he is, but it's a fact that after almost one hundred years there is still enormous animosity toward Israel and the West that enables it to exist. Betting that the Arabs will "get over it" and eventually accept Israel as it is today seems to me to be a losing strategy.

I never said that the Arabs were never there. But they did nothing for the land, and they didn't live on 80% of it. I repeat so that you can read it again. The land was purchased from the owners and there was no Arab control of the Mandate, plain and simple. it was legally purchased and statehood was up for grabs. The statehood was granted, defended in a war when attacked and defended ever since. What in the hell would you expect from anyone else? What weapons did the Arabs make? What oil did they drill on their own? What democratic government did they create? What justice do they exercise? Read the history yourself. Open your blind eyes and jaundiced heart, if you have one! Read what existed in the Mandate before 1920. There wasn't even a road to Jerusalem! There was a train from Constantinople to Jerusalem and the Turks rule an empty desert. Trans-Jordan was the Arab State I reiterate. The other area was available for settlement and cultivation.

Richard J. Garfunkel

As to Bjornson's views equating Fascism with Zionism, he's nuts. Israel is more pluralistic than all of the Arab lands, has people of all races and many religions, they live in peace, they have rights of citizenship and freedom of movement. I don't know where he has traveled, but I have been there and I ate at the YMCA and traveled with many Christians, rode in Arab cabs, went to mosques and churches, and met people of all stripes, views, religions, shades of color, and perspectives. By the way it is a free county. It has a free press, and it has a right of self-defense regarding murderous brigands. If BJornson doesn't like it, tough! Israel will be around long after you and yours are dust. Go the way of Haman, Hitler, Nasser, and all of the totalitarians. Hiding behind "be fair to the Palestinians," doesn't fool anyone!

Richard J. Garfunkel

Again, I misrepresent history? According to "no one you know" I have cherry-picked history. Please name one fact that was incorrect! "Misrepresentati ons of history," where, when and how! Everything I have cited has yet to be refuted. By the way, by most historical standards, of whom many here ignore, there were approximately 3 million native Americans, who also immigrated here from Asia between 15-40,000 years earlier, living above the Rio Grande at the time of Columbus. Including Alaska, Canada, and the United States there are about 7 million square miles. That means less than one person per square mile, or less people than live in Chicago or LA. Wouldn't one think that the area was underpopulated, and ripe for immigration? Or should it been left fallow or for the relatively few native Americans? Immigration is a world wide dynamic, and most of the Arabs living in the Mandate were immigrants from the Arabian Peninsular who came looking for work!

Richard J. Garfunkel