We seem to always tragically misapply the lessons of the past. From Munich, to Vietnam, to Iraq to the Palestinians, to Iran. Nothing could be more naive than the notion that a fixed record of the past exists. History is infinitely plastic, a panorama of dimly seen events onto which each age projects its own anxieties and concerns: hence we have the repeated phenomenon of “revisionist” historians incessantly reinterpreting the actions and motives of the key players.
This re-morphing and re-invention is an industry in itself, one whose roots may be American as de Toqueville remarked on the American phenomenon of contemporary reincarnation and recycling. And Obama understands this very well ennobling his campaign with contradictory forces as the man of peace and the war monger, the man of change and the reinforcer of the status-quo, the colonizer and the liberator; and the Middle East encapsulates this entire delusional combat…
(see link at end)…Benny Katz:Salaam Fayad, the PA’s unelected prime minister, worked as an economist for both the World Bank and International Monetary Fund before being tapped by George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice to serve as PA premier. Fayad is not only an agent of American imperialism but also represents the interests of those forces responsible for the concentration of global media, hyper-commercialism, compulsive consumerism and international wars.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas, locally known as Abu Mazan, has had absolutely no legitimacy to hold office since his term expired in early 2009. Even the few instances in which domestic opposition to his authoritarian rule has forced him to announce intentions to resign from his post, Washington has persuaded him to reconsider and continue as their unelected puppet despot in Ramallah.
Despite the low popularity they enjoy among their people, Fayad and Abbas have their leadership bolstered by a Fatah militia armed to the teeth by the United States and trained by US Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton. This militia has brutalized, extorted, arrested, tortured and even murdered opponents of the Fayad-Abbas regime, prompting the Western-backed PA to earn the local moniker of “Dayton’s Republic.” Read More:http://zionistfreedom.org/resources/opinions/the-justice-of-israel
But even if the PA really is an abusive, corrupt and unelected autocratic regime serving the interests of Western imperialism in the Middle East, none of this should take away from the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination on land currently occupied by Israel. In other words, the quality of the PA and the justness of its policies should have absolutely no bearing on the rights of Palestinians to an independent state.
This brings us to the question of justice, which in any situation needs to be grounded on historical facts. While nearly the entire world has accepted the notion that Palestinians deserve a state in at least part of the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River, the truth remains that prior to 1948, the last indigenous population to enjoy self-governance in Palestine were Jews….
From the time the Jewish kingdom was destroyed by ancient Rome until Zionist guerrillas succeeded in driving out the British Empire, Palestine had been the property of a series of foreign imperialist powers and never once belonged to any indigenous population. Any way we cut it, Jews were the last native people to possess self-rule in Palestine….…The bottom line is that as the last native population to enjoy self-governance in Palestine, the Jewish people has a legitimate legal, moral and historic right to renew that self-governance and defend it against anyone seeking to challenge or threaten it.
All this isn’t to say that I blindly support Israeli government policies or believe non-Jews should be relegated to second class status. I don’t. Nor do I necessarily believe I have an ideal solution for peace in the Middle East. But not having a solution doesn’t prevent me from battling injustice. And just as I naturally oppose checkpoints, walls and restrictions on movement, I equally oppose attempts by the international community to rob the Jewish people of its inalienable right to self-determination in the country Jews have struggled to return to since the moment they were exiled.
Contrary to some of the accusations lobbed against me, I don’t see any ideological difference between myself and my comrades on the Left who attack the State of Israel and question its legitimacy. The only real divide is our perceptions of history and Jewish national identity. My reading of history identifies the Jewish people as not only a distinct nation but also an indigenous Middle Eastern nation that has time and again fallen victim to Western imperialism in its homeland. And from this position it is only natural to view Zionism as the Jewish people’s national liberation movement and a rectification of a great historic injustice….Read More:http://zionistfreedom.org/resources/opinions/the-justice-of-israel