An educated, liberal, non-practicing Jew confronted me at one of my lectures, early in 2008, saying “Get Israel out of Gaza!”

A fellow sympathizer in the audience, equally educated, echoed “Israel must leave Lebanon immediately!”

This was immediately followed by the strident voice of a self-identified, National Public Radio listener who said, “Stop the Occupation! Free Palestine! Enough of Zionist Occupation!”

Inevitably, and understandably so, came the question: “How is Israel going to solve the Palestinian refugee problem? Those people have been suffering for 60 years!”

A bit later, when I discussed the creation of the security fence or separating wall being built between Israel and the West Bank, a long-time activist commented that, “This fence turns the West Bank into a concentration camp.”

Then came the icing on the cake: “Israel has no moral or political right to threaten Iran for developing nuclear weapons. Israel, itself, owns dozens if not hundreds of nuclear bombs!”

Initially, I made a sincere attempt to shed light on some basic and generally undisputed data, such as the fact that Israel left Lebanon back in 2000, and that Israel unilaterally took all of its soldiers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 and dismantled the settlements there. This didn’t seem to make a dent in the uninformed, entrenched convictions of my critics. But nevertheless, although they had the facts wrong, I did understand their moral outrage regarding Israel’s relationship to the Palestinians. In fact, I fully agreed with their basic premise that the occupation was morally wrong and politically unjust.

As a young lieutenant and paratrooper in the Israeli army, I served in the occupied West Bank; I took part in military operations in Lebanon, and saw one of my soldiers killed with one bullet to the heart in one of the most crowded refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. He was killed by an armed refugee - a man dressed in women’s clothing. Out of respect for Arab sensibilities, we did not search women, or those we thought were women. In the years immediately following, I came to wonder if, by being part of the occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, I was serving injustice more than I was serving my country. I was wounded in battle in the 1973 war on the Western side of the Suez Canal in the waning minutes of the war.

The wound, as it turns out, was more philosophical and emotional than merely physical. The years following my injury were devoted to rigorous physical rehabilitation, but I knew that another kind of rehabilitation was needed to cure my injured spirit: my proud self-image and self-respect were gone like that chunk of flesh, carried away by an enemy shell. A stranger with my face had returned from the desert and I needed to find out who I had been and who he was. The very nature of the morality and values that formed my core were first to be examined. Why had I been so willing to be part of an occupying force? What were the roots of my attraction to war and my willingness and readiness to die for my country? I saw who I had been - the ardent Israeli soldier idealistically and unquestioningly following the path that all young Israelis followed in those days, filled with a romanticism, nationalism and belief in one eternal, immutable right. But with new eyes I saw that that old self was gone. My compass had turned. I saw right and wrong on both sides. I saw that we, seeing ourselves beleaguered, our newly reborn state endangered, could see no other morality than that which served our cause. Perversely, the occupation has taken a toll on the collective soul of Israel and the hearts of Jews everywhere, whether they admit it or are even aware of it.

My final despairing protest of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza was to leave Israel in 1980. I chose to leave because I knew that being politically active was not good enough for me. By remaining, I would have felt that I was in collusion with the occupation and the self-destruction of the Jewish State and its people. Several of my friends also left; many more stayed and continued, like my parents, my sister, and her children, to march in peace marches, to vote, and later to light candles at Rabin Square. Although it pained them, my parents and sister understood my reasons for leaving. There was a sad saying in Israel at this time, "The best either die first or leave first."

I left Israel, but Israel and the negatively evolving political, military and human saga are never far from my mind.  Over the years, I have analyzed the unfolding events and given much thought to how and why things are as they are.  I find that my views have also evolved and I see some things, though not all,  differently than I did when I left Israel.  These are some of my thoughts on this complex and baffling issue.

One of the most egregiously neglected facts in the dialogue about the Middle East for the last twenty years is that it was Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries that jointly attacked Israel when Israel received its recognition of independence from the UN in 1948. This was the beginning of the Palestinian refugee problem, for which both sides share some responsibility. It was also the beginning of a familiar catalog of other complex issues, some of which I will touch on here.

The second central, but conveniently ignored fact, is that Israel conquered the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 1967 during the Six Day War – a war that was indisputably instigated by Egypt’s unprovoked blockade of the Red Sea, which effectively shut down the port of Eilat, a major Israeli access point to the rest of the world. Syria and Jordan joined forces with Egypt against Israel with the openly declared goal of ‘wiping Israel off the map and driving the Jews into the sea’ (a constantly recurring theme). Israel’s ensuing victory, against great odds, resulted in Israel conquering the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, Gaza and Sinai from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria. This was the inception of the occupation of today.

Jimmy Carter, like so many other ‘enlightened’ and biased politicians and uninformed ‘liberals’, discusses Israel’s “apartheid policies” as if the occupation has taken place in a vacuum. (For a critique of Carter’s skewed views on Israel, click here.) He, and they, blithely speak as if Jordan, Egypt and Syria did not attempt to destroy Israel in 1948 and again in 1967. Israel did not arbitrarily decide in May of 1967 to attack and conquer the West Bank and Gaza and Golan Heights; it was a clear response to declared hostile intentions by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.

What does become clear to any student of this conflict is that a basic knowledge of the history of the conflict, obtained from neutral, balanced sources, is imperative before any rush to judgment.

Some months after addressing those critics of the Israeli occupation, I visited my family in Israel in the summer of 2008. This visit further revealed the spiraling depth of the complexities and paradoxes that mire this tiny piece of the earth and its people. In talking to right and left wing Israelis, Palestinians, Christians, Muslims, and Jews from Russia, Ethiopia, USA, Europe and Iraq, a very disturbing and inescapable conclusion emerged. Let us look at this three-fold geographic, political and cultural Gordian knot.

The Occupation Overview:

• Israel left Lebanon entirely in 2000. Since this withdrawal, Hezbollah (backed primarily by Syria and Iran), has built hundreds, if not thousands, of small, underground bunkers from which they launched in 2006 thousands of missiles into northern Israel, shot from the very same areas in Lebanon that the Israelis evacuated.
• Since Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas has assumed power and fires a daily barrage of missiles into the town of Sderot and surrounding settlements, all within Israel proper.
• Most Israelis support the idea of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, i.e., the two-state solution. They are sick and tired of the occupation and realize that, if Israel does not leave, it is very likely that Hamas and other radicals will take over the West Bank (as happened in Gaza), and the situation will become even more intractable and peace even less attainable.
• There seems to be a growing realization of what I have been asserting since 1967, that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is not only immoral, but, in the long run, has a deleterious effect on the very souls of all Israelis, civilian and soldier alike. In fact, as Israel and the Israelis are weakened by the occupation, the Palestinians seem to grow stronger, more defiant and belligerent.

Overview Map

Many people who criticize Israel are not aware of the political map of Israel and where the West Bank, Golan Heights, and Gaza Strip are situated. A basic knowledge of the geography and topography of Israel is essential to appreciate its challenges and dilemmas, for example, look at the distance from the western border of the West Bank to the sea. This, at its narrowest, is no more than 9 miles, or what we call ‘spitting distance,’ in Israel.

Gaza Strip – Overview of the Situation

• Israel conquered the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the Six Day War of 1967 from Egypt. This war was instigated by Egypt’s blockade of the Red Sea.
• Israelis evacuated the cities and settlements they had built during the years of occupation and left Gaza entirely in 2005.
• Since Israel left Gaza and Hamas took over there, the town of Sderot and surrounding settlements, all within Israel proper, have sustained daily rocket attacks.
• I doubt that any American or European parent, or any parent in most of the world, would be willing to stand by passively if their town were, like Sderot, randomly bombed on a daily basis. Could they go on living and attempting to rear their children without reacting to this violence without doing whatever was necessary to protect their families?
• Sderot and surrounding settlements are attacked by rockets, fired from light and highly portable launchers, which are often placed in schools, homes and densely populated residential areas. In an attempt to stop the bombing, Israel uses sophisticated technologies to identify the exact launching sites, which enable it to respond with targeted precision bombing hitting the exact spot that the rocket was launched from. Atrociously, and inevitably, this results in the death of women and children who are present at the launching sites. The Palestinians then parade the bodies of these dead children and women, effectively manufacturing unbelievably heartless and manipulative propaganda, geared to pierce the hearts of the European and American liberals.
• Suicide bombers, which now include young children and young women, are considered martyrs and heroes by many, if not most, Gazans. Video coverage of mothers, praising the deeds of their dead suicide bomber children, is often seen on TV, which appears to be an effort to continue the recruitment of “martyrs".
• The only way to effectively combat suicide bombers is by pre-emptive attacks to stop them from reaching their targets. Once the suicide bomber has reached his target, shooting him would just activate a deadly explosion and kill or wound many people in the vicinity and insure the ‘martyrdom’ of the bomber.
• International and Israeli attempts to build industries in Gaza were bombed to the ground by the Gazans themselves. More recently, they bombed the only oil pipeline in the Strip on the very day Israel re-started operations. It appears that the Gazans would rather display their poverty to Western liberals than ameliorate their lot by rebuilding their economy.
• Neither Israel nor Egypt, which border Gaza, wants to rule it or be embroiled in the chaos of that area. Israel wants to wash its hands of Gaza. The only reason that Israelis reluctantly continue to enter the Strip since they evacuated it in 2005 is to attempt to stop the rockets being launched into Israel.
• Israel has desperately used economic sanctions, energy restrictions and other pressures against the Strip in a (failed) attempt to stop the daily bombing of Sderot and other towns. Other, more extreme measures, which have also failed, have been the bombing of and/or military incursions into the Strip.
• Gaza has about a million people, almost all unemployed, poor, living in crowded conditions, primarily on UN welfare, with an exceptionally high birth rate and almost no industry or economic base to sustain them. Strong Moslem religious sentiment, hatred of Israel, and the desire for its complete destruction seem to be the sole unifying forces in the Gaza Strip. In many ways, the Gazans hatred towards Israel is understandable, as Israel has subjected them to four decades of occupation.
• In summary, there is no solution in sight! The problem is likely to intensify as the Strip becomes more crowded and, if possible, even more mired in poverty and, without doubt, more filled with hate for Israel, Israelis and Jews.

Israel and the Arab World:

In order to understand the enormous disparity in size between Israel and the largely hostile Arab world, here is a map that depicts the situation:

And . . . this map does not even include Islamic states such as Iran, Indonesia and others.

West Bank – Overview of the Situation

• What most people do not realize is that the idea of a Palestinian State or Palestinian identity as a realistic possibility never entered political awareness until 1967. Before that, the West Bank was part of Jordan, which was a fairly new creation. (Trans-Jordan was arbitrarily formed after WWI by the Western colonial powers and gained its independence in the mid-20th century.)
• Israel conquered the West Bank in the Six Day War of 1967. As noted above, Jordan joined Egypt in the war and in their attempt to destroy Israel. At the very beginning of the war with Egypt, Israel told Jordan that if they did not attack Israel, Israel would not attack them. Jordan decided, nevertheless, to join the war and attacked Israel and had to face the unexpected consequences of its actions with Israel’s conquest of Jordanian East Jerusalem and the West Bank in the last couple of days of the Six Day War.
• Criticism of the occupation is often legitimate and I have been a vocal critic of it, as well. However, every criticism of the occupation must take into consideration that the occupation has not taken place in a vacuum but was a direct and immediate result of a united Jordanian, Egyptian and Syrian attempt to destroy Israel in 1967.
• The West Bank is home to over a million Palestinians. It has many industries and sizeable agricultural areas; however, the Palestinian economy depends heavily on Palestinians working in Israel. And the reverse is also true: the Israeli economy depends, in part, on Arab labor despite an effort to neutralize that dependence by attracting foreign workers.
• The expansion of existing West Bank settlements together with the establishment of new ones, which almost always involved confiscation of Arab land, are unjust, a violation of international law, destructive, and a major obstacle to peace.
• As in Gaza, the West Bank Palestinians hatred of Israel is not difficult to understand. Israel has subjected them to four decades of occupation, including unjust restriction of movement, checkpoints, confiscated land, demolitions of houses, curfews, and the acts of fanatic and often violent Jewish settlers. All these have fueled the hatred of the Israeli occupiers.
• The walls and fences fulfill only some of the security needs of Israel: they can reduce the number of suicide bombers and Palestinian terrorists entering Israel but, obviously, they cannot stop rockets. Until Israel can find a military or other solution for the rockets that are still being launched from the Gaza Strip, and can be as easily launched from the West Bank with far more devastating effect, it will be very hard for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank. While a peace agreement may be achieved with moderate Palestinians, there is very little evidence that these moderate Palestinians can stop radical Palestinians from launching deadly rockets into Israel.
• Most Israelis, even many on the right and who are religious, agree that the occupation of the West Bank is not a long-term solution.
• The dilemma of the West Bank, as articulated next, is probably the most tragic of all.

In light of the above, the obvious and most looming question is: How can Israel leave withdraw from the West Bank, whose western edge, at one point, is only nine miles from the coast of Israel, and hand it over to the Palestinians without risking the same daily barrage of rockets that Gazan militants /terrorists now fire at the Sderot region. It is important to understand that rocket attacks from the West Bank would be utterly different from those emanating from the Gaza Strip. A quick look at the map reveals that short-range Qassam rockets launched from the West Bank would easily put Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and literally the rest of the country, within reach and in mortal danger.

The Security Fence or The Wall Dilemma:

• The idea of building a security fence or separating wall was an attempt to find a way to stop suicide bombers from entering Israel.
• The Wall was supposed to provide an answer to the reality that any day and any time a suicide bomber or gunman could simply walk across from the West Bank into Israel and kill Israelis at will.
• The wall was not designed to keep Palestinians in but to keep suicide bombers and other Palestinian terrorists out.
• The wall or security fence is designed with clearly designated gates or border crossings where laborers and goods can continue to flow in and out of Israel under the watchful eyes of Israeli security personnel.
• Most of Israel's barrier is being constructed of fortified fencing. Near populated areas it typically becomes a 26 ft high concrete wall.
• The biggest problem of the wall, in my opinion, is not its existence or intended security function, but the insensitive, and at times nonsensical, route it has taken. In many areas, the wall separates neighborhoods and families, prevents children from going to school and Palestinians from accessing their local hospitals. At times, it divides villages or prevents people from being able to tend their crops.
• Additionally, the fence often does not bear much resemblance to the 1967 Green Line. At times, it follows a politically callous and one-sided route geared exclusively to the protection of mostly illegal settlements and the roads leading to them. Above all, its route assures that most settlements will be on the Israeli side of the fence. As a result, the fence very often unjustly cuts deeply into Palestinian territory.
• While the wall/fence may evoke grim or painful memories of ghettos or camps, the fact is that, historically, walls have successfully served a purpose in dividing hostile or inimical parties. The Berlin Wall successfully divided the two Germanys until the time was right. When that day arrived, the wall came down and unification ensued. A wall has successfully separated the Greeks and the Turks in parts of Cyprus and Catholics and Protestants in parts of Ireland. The grim DMZ between North and South Korea has so far fulfilled its divisive purpose, too, as did the Great Wall of China for almost two thousand years.
• An Israel-erected fence has served as an almost 100% effective barrier preventing Palestinian terrorists and suicide bombers from crossing into Israel from the Gaza Strip for more than a decade.
• After years of senseless losses in Lebanon, in 2000, Israel withdrew unilaterally in 48 hours and positioned itself behind the northern security fence. The fence was very effective for its original purpose, i.e. stopping Palestinian terrorists and suicide bombers from infiltrating Israel on foot. However, the rocket bombardment, which started in 2006, could not be deterred by the fence and thus, presented a different challenge.
• Back in 2002, even the most liberal and left-leaning had come to realize that peace was not even a remote option and that it was time for a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank. The logical first step was creation of a separating fence or a wall. (For more details, see my 2002 article, Time for a Wall.
• The idea that I advocated in 2002 was that unilateral withdrawal and separation by a wall-fence combination would not require negotiation or agreement with the Palestinians. It was based neither on trust nor on love, nor would it bring immediate peace or tolerance, trust, or love. And, in fact, this pragmatic, concrete separation has served to reduce the violence between the Palestinians and Israelis significantly. At the very least, it has made it much harder for any Palestinian with explosives strapped to his or her waist, to cross into Israeli territory.
• Another objective of the wall was to provide the Israelis and the Palestinians with a time buffer - another fifty years, one hundred years or longer, to allow the sharp pain of loss to subside a bit. It could permit a new generation to grow up without experiencing first hand the injuries that fueled the hatred and fear of neighbor for neighbor. Then, and only then, would peace even be a possibility.
• In Summary: While less than an ideal solution, the Wall presents an effective means of stopping suicide bombers and other extremists from crossing into Israel to do their grisly work. It serves, not only as an effective barrier, but also as the possible future border between the two states, Israel and Palestine. The main drawbacks of the Wall are the perception that it is meant to keep Palestinians in rather than keep Palestinian terrorists out; and, the discriminatory and inequitable route chosen for its construction.

For images and maps of the Wall, click here

Rethinking the Refugee Issue

Estimates about the original number of Palestinian Arabs who fled or were forced out of their homes during the fighting in 1948 vary from about 520,000 (Israeli sources) to 726,000 (UN sources) to over 800,000 (Arab sources) refugees. At the time of the creation of Israel, about 900,000 Jews fled Arab and Muslim countries. According to United Nations Relief and Works Agency's (UNRWA) estimates there are more than 4 million refugees today in Gaza, Lebanon and Jordan and the numbers are rapidly growing.

Sixty-five percent of Jewish Israelis were native-born by the end of 2004. Those Jews who did immigrate to Israel cannot go back to their countries of origin, such as Egypt, Germany, Poland, Russia, Yemen, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, etc. Even were such a strange thing contemplated, the European nations already have severe immigration problems and surely wouldn’t welcome more. Ironically, the very thought of such a reverse migration would be met with the same resistance in those countries as the Palestinians now meet in their demands to return to Israel. Would the Liberals of the world be similarly outraged at that refusal?

Common sense will tell us that there is no way to implement the repatriation of the Palestinian refugees. Tiny Israel, having already absorbed millions of displaced Jews from Europe and the Arab countries, cannot absorb millions of Palestinian refugees [many of whom are hostile], but the Arab lands, with their vast spaces and sparse populations, can do so. In the name of that solidarity with their kin, about which they pontificate so vociferously in all the media and from every available pulpit, they have an obvious reason for doing so.

The issue of the Palestinian refugees is one of the main sticking points in the peace process in the Middle East. Underlying the question of how to solve this problem is the question of who is responsible for creating these refugees and how did it all start? More specifically, the question has been, did Israel forcibly evict these Arabs in 1948, or did they leave voluntarily? What my previously cited ‘misguided and uninformed liberals’ do not understand is that the Israelis or the Zionist movement cannot be tarred with the brush of responsibility for the refugee ‘problem’, neither can it simply be solved by the Israelis.

When Israel ascended from the Third World to the First World, it lost its underdog rating among the denizens of the Left and various habitual, and often undiscerning, supporters of all Liberal causes. These now reflexively point fingers at Israel as the cause and perpetrator of all the evils of the Israel-Palestine morass having somehow lost sight of, or ceased to closely examine, the layers and colors of this never black and white conundrum. Blame, if that is the goal, can be quite evenly apportioned between Israelis and Arabs.

There is shared responsibility and the solution ought to be a shared one, as well. But this is not a perfect world with idyllic solutions. Any solution is highly unlikely given the unresolved animosities between these angry neighbors. Israel cannot be expected to commit suicide by welcoming into its midst a million or more hostile Palestinians. Negotiated compensation is, however, doable. Common sense, therefore, tells us that the focus must move firmly to the achievable, and leave the fruitless impossible behind.

Fairy Tales and Myths: What Israel has done is without precedent. After two thousand years of exile, the ancient state is reconstituted and the ancient language restored. In the midst of this amalgam of ancient desires, dreams, there is a great holocaust wiping out a substantial portion of all Jews. Now Israel becomes not only the reconnection of a severed historical cord, it becomes a land of refuge. Much has been written about the rebirth of Israel and often it has been called the stuff of legend, using such words as “high-minded, idealistic, filled with purpose and hope”. Only one incendiary problem – over those two thousand years, the world has moved along, the land has been repopulated and become home to others.

It is their home, too, and they don’t want the Jews, despite any historic, religious and racial claim, to take their homes away. This land now has two owners – one ancient and dispossessed, one who came after but with their own history in this place. This movement of peoples from land to land and culture to culture is as old as humankind itself. Now one dispossessed/repossessed population faces another over the same tiny piece of the planet. Reason, compromise, mutual understanding, good will and a spirit of accommodation will not take root in an atmosphere of self-righteousness, nationalistic fervor, fierce emotion, intolerance and downright hatred.

In order to shed light briefly on this complicated situation, I will address three aspects of this situation. First, I will try to summarize the origin of the refugee problem; second, I will speak to the broader historical concept of refugees; third, I will look at unique features of the Middle East refugee issue, and fourth, realistic solutions will be proposed.

A. The Origin

The three uncomplicated and clear facts that are most relevant to this issue of how the whole refugee problem started and who may bear responsibility for the problem are:

1. The refugee problem that we are facing today was created only after the Arab countries attacked Israel in 1948 after Israeli independence was declared and recognized by the UN. There were no refugee camps prior to the 1948 war, nor did Israel start this war.
2. Indisputably, Israelis are partly responsible for the displacement of the Arabs from Israel in 1948. They actively supported, strongly encouraged and, at times, forced Arabs in certain areas to leave.
3. There is undeniable evidence that Arab leaders encouraged Arabs to leave their homes and land in Israel so they would not hinder the forward march of the Arab armies and what they assumed would be their ultimate victory. It was then anticipated that the Arab population could come back to take possession of Jewish homes in Tel-Aviv, Haifa, etc., after the Arab armies had destroyed the newly established Jewish State and had ‘thrown the Jews into the sea’. In short they were saying, “Get out so that we can get in.” (For more facts, click here.)

Apparently, there is not one entity, nation or people to blame, as the origin of the refugee problem is complex and involved. As a simple and general rule, in all wars, people fear for their lives. It is this fear that makes them take flight and seek safety elsewhere.

B. Historical Perspective

Once we have established the basic facts regarding the emergence of this specific problem, we must next look at a brief historical review of refugees throughout history. To cover this issue, I will rely on David Harris’ excellent summary.

In the twentieth century alone, tens of millions of refugees were forced from their land and had to find new homes. They were victims of World War II; massacres, population transfers, ethnic cleansing, border adjustments and natural disasters.

• Famines, floods, earthquakes and fires have forced relocation of untold millions of people in this period.
• The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne included a section, which mandated the population exchange and transfer of Greeks and Turks, totaling more than 1.5 million people who lost their ancestral homes.
• Massive numbers of Hindus and Muslims were moved to accommodate the partition of the sub-continent into two independent nations—India and Pakistan.
• Refugees by the millions, unable to return to their countries, were created as a result of the Nazi’s Third Reich. Millions of Russians, Slavs, Czechs, East Germans, Hungarians, Poles, and Romanians fled the brutal Soviet tyranny for the West. Later in the century came war again creating more refugees, this time from Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, etc.
• Millions more joined the exodus from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam after the victory of Communist and rebel forces.
• Africa has long produced a river of refugees fleeing tyrants like Idi Amin, tribal massacres, such as in Rwanda, and endless regional wars, as we have seen in Somalia, Nigeria and, of course, most recently in Darfur, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

I needn’t look further than my own family. My parents were among those who were forced to leave their homes and relocate. My mother foresaw what was to come and left Germany as Hitler was about to rise to power. My father managed to leave Hungary as Eastern Europe increasingly allied itself with the burgeoning Nazi movement. They chose to flee Europe to what was then Palestine as illegal immigrants, making their way through the British blockade of Palestine in the early 1940’s. Members of my family, such as my grandparents, who did not leave in time, died in the gas chambers, like six million other Jews.

What is most revealing, when we review this long list of injustices, discrimination, and pain for these untold millions of refugees, is that very, very few were able to return to their homes or reclaim their ancestral homelands. The Greeks, Turks, Jews, Indians, Pakistanis, Czechs, East Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, Tutsis, Somalis, Nigerians, Laotians, Vietnamese, and other refugees settled in places other than their birthplace. Almost none of these groups became rooted, like the Palestinians, for generations in refugee camps living on handouts from the UN. While undoubtedly living with the heartbreak of lost homes and deep resentment of the injustices they sustained, other refugees have found the courage to adjust to the new reality and have resettled in new lands, among new communities. Rather than becoming entrenched in their misery and allowing themselves to be exploited by unscrupulous leaders, or become consumed by hatred and revenge, they built new lives in new lands, often grateful to their adopted countries for making it possible.

C. The Middle East Refugees

Unlike the millions of refugees that dealt with the injustices that were inflicted upon them in positive and realistic ways, the Palestinian refugees have stayed in their camps, of which there are still dozens in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza Strip and the West Bank (see following map). Of all the world’s refugees, one group—the Palestinians—is treated entirely differently from all others. In fact, to handle the Palestinian situation, the UN established a one-of-a-kind agency called United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). There is no equivalent UN body for any other refugee group in the world. Unlike any other refugee group in the history of mankind, the UN is not attempting to resettle or resolve the situation. Instead of seeking political and economic solutions, they perpetuate the suffering and stifle any motivation by continuing to give the Palestinians handouts in the form of free food, medical and political-moral support. As they continue to do so, the number of refugees grows due to an unimaginably high birthrate. Thus, the congestion of the camps, which was already intolerable, becomes even more so. I ask myself, ‘why this special treatment’?

Given the vast wealth of the Gulf States, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, not to mention other wealthy Islamic states, it is interesting that the Palestinians do not direct any of their hate and anger to these ‘brethren’ who – and here I must repeat - could effortlessly alleviate their pain and suffering both by injecting financial support and by acting to resettle them on their vast territories. Many billions of petrodollars are poured into luxury playgrounds such as Dubai and Doha, and dozens of other frivolous, or at least, non-urgent projects. These same governments consistently and vocally declare their fervid support for the Palestinian struggle. One wonders why they can spare so absurdly little to help Gaza. Americans would say, “Put your money where your mouth is.”

I would be disingenuous if I did not wonder if their ulterior motive might be to keep the Palestinian-Israeli conflict alive and on the boil. The question then becomes why neither the UN nor the super wealthy and oil/land rich Arab countries do not solve the situation by simply acting humanely to their kin by resettling the refugees. The answer, as I see it, is quite simple. Resolving the Palestinian refugee problem is equated with the unacceptable: The final acceptance of Israel and the Jewish homeland.

D. The Solution

We all know that the time is long past due to attend to the suffering of the Palestinian refugees. They have been living in subhuman conditions for too long and their situation only worsens as their population continues to grow and resources become scarcer. The Palestinian and other Arab leaders, with the complicity of many in the international community, have pulled off one of the most successful spin jobs in history. Rather than aid the refugees by resettlement, which is the norm among similar refugee groups, they have shamelessly exploited the refugees instead to further a questionable cause: to bring Israel into disrepute. Therein lies the ineradicable tragedy of a decades-long conflict.

A pragmatic, political solution is, at least conceptually, quite simple. While some token refugees may be absorbed by Israel, most of them can be resettled in any of the neighboring Arab countries, which have the financial, economic and space resources to resolve the situation with the stroke of a pen, but not the will. Without the language and cultural barriers that often make resettlement of other refugee groups difficult, the resettlement of the Palestinian refugees could be relatively simple and smooth. In reality, as long as Arabs and the Islamic world seek the destruction of Israel, they require the front-page, suffering presence of the Palestinians. The UN and many countries and organizations around the world wring their hands over the plight of the Palestinian refugees but in fact prolong their suffering by not demanding a pan-Arab solution to this problem. Once again, there is no solution in sight.

The Iran Dilemma:

• Iran’s Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threats and promises to eliminate Israel are taken very seriously by Israelis regardless of the argument that he has not the power to order an attack on Israel.
• Israel was built from the ashes of the Holocaust on the premise that the Holocaust will never be allowed to happen again. As a result, Israel has built up its military power to its legendary strength as the most convincing deterrent to any would-be Hitler.
• When Americans and Europeans dismiss Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threat as hollow rhetoric, many Jews, and all Israelis, readily recall how the entire world dismissed Hitler’s “final solution” as hollow rhetoric and passively stood by for years, ignoring the systematic extermination of European Jewry.
• The fact that Israel, reportedly, has many nuclear weapons in its arsenal, does not necessarily protect the Jewish state against suicidal nuclear attacks. Israelis have witnessed hundreds of suicide bombings over the last few decades and have learned that death is not a threat but an honor for those who view themselves as martyrs, whether they are individuals or heads of states.
• Stating that nuclear weapons are immoral may be a true and valid position but is not politically relevant.
• Equating Israel’s nuclear arsenal with Iran’s nuclear designs is a fine philosophical argument or a profound mental masturbation by those who live safely in their homes and countries. The argument that states that Israel has no moral grounds to oppose Iran’s nuclear buildup ignores the fact that Israel does not threaten Iran while Iran’s president repeats his commitment to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ on a regular basis.
• If Israel loses just one war, it would, indeed, be wiped off the face of this earth.
• If Iran continues to threaten to annihilate the “Zionist Enemy,” Israel may have no other option but to pre-emptively strike Iran, the most proven and dependable strategy against fanatic and hate-filled suicide bombers or threatening states.
• In summary, the Iran threat poses another complicated and extraordinarily complex dilemma: If Iran insists on developing nuclear capacities and Israel does not pre-empt the implicit threat of a nuclear attack, Israel leaves itself highly vulnerable to another holocaust. However, if it pre-emptively strikes Iran’s nuclear facility as it did with Iraq and Syria, it is likely to be widely condemned and may be sanctioned by many nations. Such a pre-emptive strike is also likely to add justification for already resurgent anti-Semitic and existing anti-Israeli sentiment in the world. Ironically, while not very likely, if Iran would follow the lead of North Korea in its commitment to nuclear disarmament, the situation would be resolved peacefully.

Most Incomprehensible – On Hate and Vengeance

For well-meaning, thoughtful, humanitarian and intellectual Westerners, including Jewish liberals, what is most incomprehensible in the Middle East (and therefore often ignored) is the depth of the hatred some Arab groups harbor towards Israel and the Jews.

Here are samples:

• “Peace for us means the destruction of Israel.” Yasser Arafat, 1980
• “Martyrs, Martyrs, Martyrs, . . We want a million Martyrs to march on Jerusalem.” Yasser Arafat, 2002
• “Israel must be wiped off the map.” Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 2005
• “If they (Jews) gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, 2002
• “Israel will exist and continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” Hamas Charter, 2007, when it became the ruling government in Gaza

Of course, examples of this hatred are myriad: witness the classic anti-Semitic text, used by the Nazis, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion still taught in schools in some Arab countries; seen in daily anti-semitic newspapers and Internet cartoons; witness the text books used in Arab schools which teach hatred to young minds; witness the Arab maps of the region with no Israeli city or town shown; witness the pride and satisfaction of the mothers whose children commit suicide by blowing themselves up in order to kill innocent Israeli citizens, and on and on. How are we to understand hatred so far outside our own experience?

And yet, variations on this theme can be found even in Western halls of learning. Witness the British academics who decided to ban all Israeli academics from their campuses in recent years. It is, of course, gross censorship reminiscent of Hitler’s book burning. This fulminating, visceral hatred of the Jews and Israel is an unfathomable tragedy and a disturbing, daily, painful reality that transcends ‘the occupation’ and any possible political solutions.

The Occupation Catch 22 - Times Five:

• One of the reasons I left Israel was my opposition to the occupation of Gaza. I served there and saw first hand how the occupation harmed us, the occupiers. (To read more, click here.)
• Continued occupation of the West Bank also has the same broad, negative impact on Israelis, but the emotional, psychological and physical damage is even greater for the soldiers serving there.
• If Israel continues to occupy the West Bank, it is almost inevitable that the radical Hamas will take over, as they did in Gaza.
• If Israel leaves the West Bank, Israelis may be subjected to rocket assaults as they were after leaving Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, except this time the rockets will have Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and hundreds of cities, towns and villages within reach. Jerusalem will be just a few hundred feet away and millions of Israelis will be within easy range of those rockets.
• Returning rocket fire, as the Gaza experience tells us, does not seem to be an effective strategy for stopping the daily Qassam rockets.
• Negotiating a “land for peace” deal with the more moderate Palestinians seems to be the best available option. However, very few are convinced that a moderate Palestinian regime can control the militants and prevent them from bombing Israel.

Afterthought - The Challenge of Tolerating Ambiguity:

In some ways, the position I am taking here comes as a surprise to me. I grew up in a household dedicated to justice and equality for all nations and peoples. I have never felt animosity toward Arabs or Palestinians and have always believed in a two-state solution. From day one of the Israeli occupation in 1967, I have strongly believed that the Israeli occupation was unjust and that Palestinians deserve to live in peace and dignity in their own state. My last visit to Israel clarified the hopelessness of the current state of affairs and I have sadly resigned myself to the fact that at present, there is no viable, peaceful solution. We, in the Middle East, know that solutions may take a very long time. It may take a few years or a few hundred years and even then…sometimes, there are no solutions. I hope that this short piece will help Liberals and Conservatives alike to comprehend the complexities and history of the region and to avoid forming and offering irrelevant, shallow, meaningless, or dangerously ill informed opinions and simple solutions. Blaming Israel for all the suffering in the Middle East is politically naïve and irrational at best and anti-Semitic at worst. Furthermore, educated and informed Liberals must be able to comprehend the immense complexities and have compassion for all suffering in the region. From true compassion, a thorough understanding of the complexities of this tragic drama and tolerance of its ambiguities, a true liberalism will emerge that may lead to a humane and just solution in the region. I am not holding my breath.

Additional online Resources:

Articles on Israel, War & Peace by Dr. Zur:
On Sacrifice
Time for a Wall
Sacrifice, Martyrdom, Scapegoating, Suicide and Terrorism
Soul of Israel
Love of Hating: Psychology of Enmity

Additional online resources:
Critique of Carter’s View of Israel