In centuries passed anti-semitism was based on contrived false-hoods that Jews were an inferior race, killed Jesus, caused the Black Death, controlled the world’s money, and used children’s blood in religious rituals. All of that is now debunked and rejected by most of the world.
In the past century a new form of Anti-Semitism has arisen, and ironically, it is based on the very values Jews cherish: freedom and equality. The “Jewish State” of Israel, intended as a safe haven for Jews after centuries of pogroms, expulsions, forced conversions and genocide, is now rejected by many as oppressive and anti-democratic.
Never mind that the Palestinians rejected at least four offers for their own state (in 1937, 1948, 2001 and 2008); never mind that in 1948, just as thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from Israel, thousand of Jews fled or were expelled from neighboring Arab countries into Israel; never mind the wars, airplane hijackings, intifadas, attacks on civilians, suicide bombings and missile launches intended to destroy Israel.
Make no mistake, they may call it anti-Zionism, but it’s the new form of Anti-Semitism. Bottom line, it’s a subversive attempt to delegitimize and eventually destroy the Jewish State in the name of “modern progressive” values. It’s the twenty first century brand of anti-semitism and it’s incredibly dangerous.
87
Whether justified or not, Israel has a PR problem, and columnists making Faustian bargains with conservative and far right elements don’t help their cause. The idea that you need to go out and bomb and shoot people keeps creating more problems, and yet conservatives cling to the same tired Bush/Trump playbook. I don’t see much difference between the far right Israel leadership and the far right in Iran and Saudi Arabia that don’t represent most of their common sense people. In comparison, the everyday moderate Jews, Kurds, Iranians and others should be empowered over these fringe power hungry people (like Jared Kushner) that do damage to world peace in the pursuit of personal power. (Also, FB and Twitter could easily stop the far right in Europe but doesn’t.... why?)
23
A few more questions to add to the ones in this article:
Why is it that 1.6 million Arabs (20% of the population of Israel) living as Israeli citizens with full rights is not an issue, yet a few thousand Jews living on the West Bank is "an obstacle to peace"?
Why is it that nobody talks about a "right of return" for the descendants of the millions of ethnic Germans who fled or were expelled at the end of WWII from territories that are now part of Poland and the Czech Republic? or the descendants of the millions of Greeks kicked out of Turkey after the Greek-Turkish wars in the 1920's? or the descendants of the millions of Hindus and Moslems who became refugees in 1947 as a result of the partition of India and communal fighting between these groups?
Why is it that a blockade of an enemy territory, to keep that enemy from arming itself and attacking you, has been considered a legitimate act of war since ancient times, yet when Israel does this to prevent Hamas from getting weapons and arms to attack Israel, it is called "a siege", "illegal" and "turning Gaza into a giant prison"?
385
A liberal democracy that fails to defend itself will cease to exist. Glib throwaway lines about being “Jewish or a democracy” can only be offered from a snug perch far from the fence. And plenty of Diaspora Jews understand this and whole-heartedly stand by Isarael.
172
Thank you, Bret Stephens, for the best column of many I read this week about either the Gaza fence demonstrations or the 70th anniversary of Israel. A number of readers supported Roger Cohen's criticism of Israel defending itself in the Gaza fence protest. You provided the best answer to him: "The armchair corporals of Western punditry think this is excessive. It would be helpful if they could suggest alternative military tactics to an Israeli government dealing with an urgent crisis against an adversary sworn to its destruction. They don’t."
215
Bret Stephens makes important points, but he neglects the Israeli policies that antagonize friend and foe alike: Israel's aggressive and expansionist settlement policies in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Those policies are not in the "defense" of Israel, they are not "scrappy," and they feed the rage of Palestinians. It boggles the mind that Israelis and their strongest supporters don't understand how much the expansionist policies of Netanyahu have degraded the reputation of Israel throughout the world.
162
Stephens at his best.
97
I can empathize with Brett's points on the safeguard that the country still remains and his defensiveness. But in that defensiveness I sense a guilt over the ill treatment of Palestinians for decades by the Israeli government, yet Brett will not admit this.
65
This is one of a few situations in the world where both sides truly have blame. On one hand, people in Gaza have elected Hamas, a terrorist organization to run their government. Now Abbas and Fatah have a grand coalition with Hamas, who fires rockets into civilian areas and refuses to recognize the right of Israel to exist. Legitimate political movements don't have armed military wings and there is no excuse for electing someone like Hamas, no matter how dire the situation is. On the other hand, Netanyahu and the extremists in the Jewish Home Party, have continued to support the continued and worsening settler occupation of parts of Palestinian land. Additionally, the response of the military to Palestinian protests by shooting at civilians has only worsened the problem. Both sides have historical ties to the land and coexistence is the only solution. I fear the sidelining of the adults in the room has made a peaceful two-state solution nearly impossible.
63
It is never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket. It is also a bad idea to mix religion and politics. To combine the two ideas, as Israel has, is compounding the error. Israel is not an independent country, it is dependent on financial subsidies from the Jewish Diaspora, and from the Government of the United States. It is a virtual target for the failed states in the Middle East to focus their populace's enmity on a convenient external enemy. How well would it survive in such a hostile neighbourhood without the military backing from America? What would happen if the U.S. government decided to abandon Israel?
Judaism as a religion would likely not exist today without the diaspora. It's most powerful core and essence developed in the diaspora and as a result of exile, not from the ossified state religion of ancient Israel.
54
Thanks for these words. Israel has the duty to defend its borders and people. Hamas brought the "demonstrators" as human shields leading with their children, as usual. Promising martyrdom for them, while tunneling underneath to massacre Jews. How ironic, because right here in our bastion of freedom, we are rounding up people, ripping them from their families, destroying their lives, for what? Because they want to pick our crops, tend our gardens and take care of our children. Right now we're heartlessly restricting immigration, even those fleeing tyranny and unbelievable hardships and death. And we're busy buildings walls, defending them with armed guards and drones overhead, maybe even electrifying them. So what's Ok in river city is not Ok for the Jews. Face it, Israel has fought and died for their country and they are not going to give it up no matter what, certainly not for the terrorists called Hamas whose charter calls for the death of Israel and all the Jews therein. For American Jews that must be our refuge, if not physically, but in our hearts. Israel can take care of itself and will.
60
What is the point of these protests at the border. Is it to fight the establishment of settlements in the West Bank? No.
The stated purpose of these demonstrations is fight and remove the original settlement, the State of Israel. These demonstrators seek to breach the border between Gaza and Israel for the purpose of letting Gazans run back to their old homes and property and occupy/take back the land supposedly stolen from them or abandoned by them in 1948 with the creation of Israel.
Israel was created in the wake of the discovery that "6 million Jews were slaughtered throughout Europe. Never mind it was the Jewish people who were evicted from Ancient Judea/Palestine by the Romans and others before them.
Never mind that eviction of Jews and killing of Jews is a historical imperative practiced by many. The Spanish Inquisition predated "Crystal Nach" in case you have forgotten.
Eviction of Israelis, erasing the State of Israel is the real purpose of these demonstrations and it is Hamas, haters of everything Jewish and Israeli that is behind these demonstrations.
Stealing money intended for improving the life of Gazans and using it for missiles, guns, and invasion tunnels is the means they use to create the "poor suffering Gazans" at the barbed wire between Gaza and Israel.
Think back to the 6 million and then look at today's misguided demonstrations designed to wipe Israel off the map and remember "NEVER AGAIN".
119
You might include yourself in the "arm chair corporal" category and get down from your self-righteousness. For one thing, your glancing mention of illegal UN-condemned of Palestinian lands does not really address the moral bankruptcy of this travesty. Israel has done much right in its short nationhood but it has much to amend if it is to be accepted more openly into the full world community.
57
Perhaps Bret Stephens and Roger Cohen should have a point-counterpoint discussion based on their columns today.
24
A challenge to Bret. Imagine yourself a 40 yr old Palestinian man with a family. You live in Gaza, an open air prison. You have a repressive cynical violent government in Hamas. And you have a cynical hateful colonial adversary in Israel whose leaders think the periodic slaughter of Palestinians as mowing the lawn. How do you resist both Hamas and Israel. And how do you address glib American intellectuals like Bret Stevens who have gotten to the point that the killing of unarmed Palestinians is now very legitimate. What type of resistance would you mount. What form would it take. How would you maintain your own humanity in the face of a such cruel dehumanized attitudes. What would be your vision of the type of society you are working towards.
126
The fundamental purpose of the existence of Hamas is the destruction of Israel. Read their manifesto!! If someone says they are going to kill you, BELIEVE THEM.
92
This “armchair corporal” can’t condone shooting unarmed 15 year olds in Gaza.
68
Leave it to Bret Stephens to ignore the reality that 43% of the world's 16 million Jews live safe, secure and sound in America. And while 98% of Americans are not Jewish, since the end of World War II, Israel has been the number one recipient of American aid.
And the 6.1 million Jews in Israel-43% of Jews- deny the divine natural equal certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of 6 million Christian Muslim Arab Palestinian Israelis under Israeli dominion. By occupation, blockade / siege, exile and second class citizenship.
The Arab Muslims did not perpetrate the Holocaust. The Holocaust was not perpetrated in America by Americans against other Americans. Israel is a foreign country. Israel can be a Jewish or a democratic state. It cannot be both.
The Palestinians have the right to use every means employed by the founders of America and Israel in order to obtain their freedom and liberty. A one-state civil liberal secular plural egalitarian democracy is the only fair, just and moral modern solution.
77
I don't seem to recall that either set of Founders deliberately blew up kids, but I'm not sure what to say to anybody who really thinks that the likes of Hezbollah has the slightest interest in equal rights for all.
One may loathe the shabby likes of Netanyahu without losing track of reality, you know.
82
You write that Jews cannot rely for their safety on the kindness of strangers, but surely they do in fact rely for their safety on their neighbors, in the US and in Europe, where Jews are safer than they are in Israel. And perhaps the reason why Jews are less safe in Israel is that they have, more or less non-stop since 1949, continued to steal land from Palestinians. Perhaps if Israel did less stealing of land, and less killing of Palestinian women and children, Palestinians would be less violent? https://www.btselem.org/statistics/fatalities/during-cast-lead/by-date-o...
61
1) Is there a time limit when "exile" is no longer exile?
If not, there's a loooong list of people waiting to return "home."
2) How were Arabs living in Palestine responsible for forcing Jews to leave all those years ago?
If they weren't, why must they make way for the ever expanding settlements?
As a citizen of Israel's greatest ally and supporter, am I even allowed to ask?
57
It's a sad and depressing situation that Angel Merkel's generosity in agreeing to admit 1 million Syrian refugees has contributed to the rise of antisemitism there. A close friend of mine who is German, but now a U.S. citizen that the backlash is what has led to Merkel's diminished popularity and spurred the resurgent right-wing in the recent elections. Syrians are indoctrinated with virulent antisemitism and the assaults and attacks ate the result.
51
Stephens could cast the net wider. Anti-Semitism flourishes in England (see Labour Party), France, and German, where it is now supplemented by recent immigrants from the Middle East and Northern Africa. But a dishonorable mention might go to, say, Poland, which manages to exercise vitriolic anti-Semitism in the virtual absence of Jews. And another might go to the New Left on America's West Coast. What we think of as the bastions of liberalism, large San Francisco, CA, and little Ashland, OR, are hot spots of anti-Semitism. Of course, the alt-right is so powerfully anti-Semitic that, in the Charlottesville march to preserve symbols of the Confederacy, it included anti-Semitic symbols and chants irrelevant to that cause. Perversely, anti-Semitism underlies the pro-Israel positions of many Christian fundamentalists: they want to use Jews--using them is partly what anti-
semitism is about--in-gathered to Israel for their purposes, as the prelude to the Rapture.
53
Are six former leaders of Mossad “armchair corporals”? Israel has a right to defend itself fully, and strategic/tactical views about the amount of force used may differ among reasonable people, but the ultimate issue is the inevitable population problem that is like rising water. From Roger Cohen’s recent column: “Here’s Tamir Pardo, Mossad chief from 2011 through 2015, speaking to the Israel daily Yedioth Ahronoth: “If the State of Israel doesn’t decide what it wants, in the end there will be a single state between the sea and the Jordan. That is the end of the Zionist vision.” To which Danny Yatom, director from 1996 to 1998, responds: “That’s a country that will deteriorate into either an apartheid state or a non-Jewish state. If we continue to rule the territories, I see that as an existential danger.”
27
like the years in the 70's the visible former Israelis in Europe-most especially in Germany- make the home folks fearful that the desert fort might not be self sustaining. AS a result, there are stories about the horrors and dangers for anyone living in such non Jewish lands. Years after the war and the issue of Jews in Germany was a non starter. Instread, great programs to get US jews to move back "home" were always in the offing. This was fine when the USA was a one nation colossus holding the world together , Atlas like.
As the reality of politics returns to a level, a fear of the homeland ending like the Crusader state(s), becomes uppermost in the minds of it's residents. If they could solve all problems with propaganda this might make sense but real, live breathing and bleeding people are needed and there may be more who pefer a normal European-Western lifestyle than who are willing to sacrifice all to live in a national monastery.
3
"The armchair corporals of Western punditry think this is excessive. It would be helpful if they could suggest alternative military tactics ..." How about adhering to basic moral and legal norms by not shooting people on their own side of the fence. Israel is shooting fish in a barrel because they are afraid the fish will jump out.
39
I agree. The world has a moral choice, ostensibly an easy one: let the Jews alone or suffer the consequences. The world can not seem to let the Jews alone. If not, therefore, the consequences will be manifest.
10
“The world has a choice, ostensibly an easy one: let the Jews alone or suffer the consequences.”
Sounds like a threat the world needs to take seriously. But really seriously, I can’t fathom how this comment passed moderation.
22
From this lifelong Democrat who was told your opinions are not relevant because I disagree with you on climate change, thank you Mr. Stephens! This piece comes at an important time, as my fellow “liberals” bash Israel for trying to stop people from breaching its border, with the express intent of NOT JUST returning to a HOMELAND they feel they lost 70 years ago, but more specifically returning to the ACTUAL HOMES they feel they lost 70 years ago. It is akin to descendants of Native Americans coming to YOUR house and demanding that YOU pack up YOUR children, and leave YOUR own home, because their great-great-great-great-grandfather once pitched a teepee on the land YOU now raise your children in
37
Really, there are conflations in this piece that Stephens should be ashamed of. The Syrian refugee in Berlin is reacting to regional sectarianism based on the after-effects of setting up the Jewish State. The German neo-Nazis he cites are celebrating exactly the opposite, pushing Jews out of Europe and into a Jewish State. Being hostile to Jews is a tad more complicated than the label 'neo-Nazi'. Viewing Auschwitz as a foreigner in Germany means "look at the shameful past we face up to, and if you want to be a citizen, you're asked to do the same." Exactly why do you think it incites anti-Semitism, and can you read a man's mind? European Jewish culture was not born in Tel Aviv, but Europe, and European Jews are European. The fact that this point is still being made is good, not bad-- for both Europe and the Jews.
8
Stephens is serving up myopic Likud-serving propaganda. As it's espoused by a Jewish-American neocon, and also a climate-change denier, its combination of denial and abdication of responsibility is no surprise at all.
No peace will come to Palestine and Israel until the parties take responsibility and hold themselves accountable. As that has not been evident much at all in the last 70-plus years, there is no reason to hope for the future.
23
The tragic flaw for Israel is the Occupation, which sends the message to the world that Israel perceives Palestinians and Arabs as inherently being of lesser worth.
32
The tragic flaw is the Palestinians who refuse to see Israel's right to exist and have been trying to "push them into the sea" for 70 years.
47
If we forget history, we are doomed to repeat it. To paraphrase a certain wise man. Many of the comments, seemingly wise they may be, posted by NYT, remind me of this too. Please remember the burden as "God's chosen people." First, we need to be sure not to vanish. Or, if we must die, we need to take the rest of mankind with us. "Never again" actually means something for some of us.
7
Mossad of Israel has to muster all its skill and help destroy Hamas . These hateful killers are destroying all hopes of peace between Palestinians and Israelis . They have the skill necessary . Israeli justice must be swift and put Netanyahu on trial for his corruption . Once he is adjudicated , Israel can move forward with new , enlightened leadership and proceed with peace talks with the Palestinians . In the meantime , the world must condemn the over-response of Israeli military power at the border wall against civilians .
6
Very interesting piece. Sophisticated, secular Jews tried to become a patriotic, accepted part of their European nations (particularly France and Germany) in the 19th century. It didn’t end well. First the Dreyfus affair; then the Holocaust. If we Jews have learned anything it is that we have only ourselves to rely upon for protection from a consistently hostile, envious anti-Semitic world. We may not win any popularity contests with Israel’s policies toward its Palestinian neighbors, but we weren’t very popular for the prior few thousand years either.
36
Mr. Stephens: Will you allow that Israel's reliance on "Jewish Power" might be a factor in the international disenchantment with its policies?
11
Mr. Stephens writes some things that I consider bedrock, unassailable truths when it comes to Israel:
* "Jews cannot rely for their safety on the kindness of strangers... ."
* "[Israel] exists to end the victimization of Jews."
* "objections [which] are prompted by the nonchalance of the supposedly nonvulnerable when it comes to Israel’s security choices .. are worse than feckless" [i.e., when criticizing Israel always take into consideration that the lives of Israelis are at risk and yours is not].
I think, however, that he is overlooking the real possibility that Israel could have lessened, or even eliminated, the horrendous death toll at the Gaza fence by employing non-lethal riot control (tear gas, water cannon, rubber bullets) rather than live fire. It seems to me that there is an element of deliberateness in the way Israel resorted to live fire as a first means of defense: to deter those who can be deterred and to kill those who cannot. This was wrong. It was shameful. It cuts directly against Jewish values -- the point of which is to preserve and celebrate life. All life.
13
Israel did employ all those non-lethal methods that you speak of. Lethal methods were employed when armed rioters attempted to rush the fence and enter Israel.
33
About time someone said these things. Hamas is committed to destruction of the Jewish state. Not to negotiating borders.
45
Mr. Stephens writes: "If the armchair corporals want to persist in demands for withdrawals that for 25 years have led to more Palestinian violence, not less, the least they can do is be ferocious in defense of Israel’s inarguable sovereignty. Somehow they almost never are."
This is grossly unfair. Americans for Peace Now, J Street, and many other organizations and individuals in the "peace camp" have for years - even decades - been arguing for a two-state solution that absolutely includes recognition of Israel's right to exist.
16
This is an excellent article, well composed, and author is unafraid to write what so many who favor immigration "a outrance" r afraid to say: that allowing massive numbers of unvetted newcomers to enter . w/o a referendum moreover, whose values are not those of the West, poses a problem and can bea threat to life and limb of ordinary citizens. In France synagogues, schools, even cemeteries r guarded 24/7.As the attacks at Charley Hebdo and the Jewish grocery demonstrate, not every Mahgrebin is a potential Robert ABDESSALAM or Mouloud Feraoun!Within the Magrebin communities in la Belle France, there are also zealots.Hats off to the author for recognizing Israel's right to survive, and to have focused on a topic that so few, in the name of political correctness, r willing to discuss: the dangers inherent in adopting a policy of immigration "a outrance!"When workers from the Kabylie began to filter into France after WWII to fill a labor shortage,incomers were carefully vetted, became assimilated, and their children sat on benches in class with French "ecoliers" to hear "instituteur " say over and over again,"Nos ancetres les Gaullois!"Let us hope to see a return of those days when assimilation in France was considered the highest form of patriotism!
24
There is validity to the principle of Israel as a Jewish refuge. As an American Jew, I believe in Israel's right to exist.
But that ideal has been perverted by a country that has become an aggressor, with a right-wing government that pushes racism and Islamophobia to justify treating Palestinians as sub-human while systematically stealing their land.
The behavior of Israel today is indefensible by anyone who sincerely cares about morality and what are supposed to be Jewish values. Israel is plenty strong - militarily, economically - and it is fundamentally untrue that self-defense requires the oppression of others.
23
@David, you have the completely wrong context. The Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict is a war, not a civil rights issue. Its not "racism" or "Islamophobia" when you are taking steps to protect yourself against an enemy whose long term goal is the destruction of your country.
43
Seventy years ago one group of people decided to start a country only for themselves in a place where other people lived, too. What could possibly go wrong?
31
You are completely wrong. Seventy years ago one group of people (the Jews of Palestine) were willing to compromise and work out a peaceful solution with their neighbors (the Arabs of Palestine) so that each group could realize its national aspirations. The Arabs refused a compromise and went to war to destroy the Jews. The Arabs lost. The problem is that they have never accepted that they lost, and continue to chose the path of terror and violence rather then negotiations and peace. So they continue to lose and continue to find themselves worse off...
50
The greater point here is that without the support and aid from the US, Israel would be dust in the wind. Will this last for as long as there will be anti-Semitism not only in Europe and the Middle East, but also Asia? The Truman experiment continues.
6
Anybody with even a small degree of objectivity would agree that a two state solution is the only path to peace in the middle east. That certainly won't happen with Netanyahu but it also probably won't happen without significant change in Israeli politics. And I don't believe that a country that believes in perpetual war is a good country. Nor does it deserve America's support.
Your commentary is unconvincing. As another commenter said, it sounds like propaganda.
21
All of that said, and points generally taken, it has to be acknowledged that the behavior of the Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu has been atrocious. This is not to say the behavior of Israel's enemies isn't even worse. It is, but Israel is Its own worst enemy as it generates needless enmity abroad. Former presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and both Bushes would support this point.
14
Bravo. It is particularly striking that the "armchair pundits" never offer alternatives to what Israel must do to defend her borders.
38
Excellent column and largely disappointing comments. So many of my fellow liberal Jews seem to bend over backwards to see only one side of the equation. Yes, Gaza is appalling to anyone with a concern for human rights, but how does Israel make peace with Hamas who refuses to recognize their very right to exist? This is not a side issue. This is THE issue. Pontificate all you want from your Brooklyn brownstones, but until Hamas accepts the fundamental right of Israel to exist, the lives of Gazans can't improve.
59
Israel today is secure, more Goliath than David. It can deal with its neighbors as it wishes, and shoulder the moral consequences. And let's not forget, the Palestinians have rights too.
What we as Americans should reject is continuing to invest our blood and treasure in neocon wars instigated on behalf of Israel. The "creative destruction" of Israel's neighbors has Israel Lobby fingerprints all over it. Our focus should be elsewhere.
19
"But there’s a more basic reason. Jews cannot rely for their safety on the kindness of strangers,"
And yet, there is the United States, which provides more safety AND freedom of conscience to Jewish individuals than the State of Israel. The former isn't that high a hurdle, considering Israel's neighborhood, but the latter is more pointed: the US would never allow its government to define what is or is not being a good Jew and enforce it with laws.
It seems to me that the danger to Jews in Europe justifies Israel's existence, but not what Israel does with its existence, and the latter is not what it could or should be.
68
I understand the importance of Israel, and I want it to succeed, in peace and democracy. The reality is that Israel cannot ultimately safeguard Jews by victimizing others. If Israel cannot grant Palestinian independence--and partner with them to make it succeed--then Israel must incorporate Palestinians as citizens itself. I fear that Israel will not find its way to the path of equality in time to save itself from authoritarianism and isolation.
103
All Jews deserve to live and thrive in a place of safety, with the history of having endured over 2000 years of prejudice and ill-treatment. However, establishing a homeland by depriving others of their homes and their sense of safety and well-being was never going to fulfill that dream. We think that we are entitled to things based on our experience and our history but that's never true. Life is not, and never has been, fair or just except when human beings have worked together to make it so. Seeing and keeping ourselves separate and apart, for whatever reason, only serves to divide us. We all have the same needs, the same feelings, and similar dreams of happiness however we cannot achieve them in any lasting way at the expense of another's ability to achieve them as well. Whether it's Israel, Ireland, Africa, Russia, the UK or the USA.
71
While I don't think all of Israel's critics are nonchalant,
given the distortions and sheer dishonesty of most of its
foes this is a refreshing article. However, my worst concerns are twofold: First, I don't think the IDF's
response will stop Hamas and further that it will only
abet Israel's foes. So what! Passivity would be worse.
Second, I remain concerned at how this continues to affect the sensibility of Israelis, who after all have long hoped for moral solutions to their problems with Muslim
refusal to accept tiny Israel's existence. But, as you say,
unfortunately this remains mainly the province of those
who aren't as directly affected.
12
I visited Auschwitz 53 years ago while a college student hitchhiking through Europe. During the visit I teamed up with a Syrian guy about my age. During that visit he turned to me and assured me that the Holocaust never happened.
Almost 20 years ago I visited Israel and managed to cross the Green Line and tour the West Bank. I met Palestinians whose houses and olive orchards were bulldozed to create hilltop Jewish settlements and were not allowed to rebuild their homes on their remaining land. My guide took me to a hilltop park where we were chased away by Israeli soldiers in tanks. At the airport in Jerusalem awaiting my return flight I was interrogated by intelligence agents who knew my every move that day in the West Bank.
We lessen ourselves no matter what group we may associate ourselves with when we fail to recognize the full dignity of every human being.
This is why I believe "Make America Great Again" is anything but.
139
I find your use of the phrase "armchair corporals" to describe those who do not agree with you offensive. You might note that had Gaza not been turned into a prison the inmates might not be trying so hard to escape.
42
Gaza was turned into a ‘prison’ by its leaders, Hamas, an organization described as ‘terrorist’ by most of the West. Instead of building schools and hospitals, Hamas was more interested in building tunnels into Israel. Had it not been for their obsession with never accepting a peace deal with Israel, and always searching for ways to create a ‘better’ missile with which to kill Israelis, Gaza would have never faced an embargo and their citizens would have fared a lot better. Hamas cares little for its own citizens...making human shields of its people has proven to be a win-win situation for Hamas, as it increases sympathy for the Palestinians and forments hatred for Israel. This is the same mentality that has allowed the continued existence of refugee camps in countries like Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, where Palestinians have been kept like prisoners for over 70 years. Gaza could have become the ‘riviera of the Middle East’ when Israel unilaterally withdrew from the area but, unfortunately, that is not what Hamas was looking for.
36
And dear Orange County neighbor, I remind you that if Hamas used the materials that were once allowed into Gaza for the purpose of building schools and hospitals, rather than terror tunnels to kill Israeli civilians behind the ‘67 borders, there would be no need to blockade Gaza.
And by the way, Egypt fully participates in the blockade.
28
This is not thoughtful commentary; it's little more than propaganda. A fair-minded columnist would give at least a nod of recognition to the fact that Palestinian Arabs have been and continue to be brutalized by the Israeli state.
57
The people of Gaza chose their own destiny when they elected Hamas as their government. They continue to be brutalized by their own government (if you can call it that) - they have been betrayed by the Palestinian Authority and abandoned by the greater Arab world - their fate is more tied to that than Israel (which provides water and electricity).
27
Dear jwh - to quote a previous comment, you're just another "armchair corporal," reveling in your so-called "superior" understanding and self-righteousness. I'm betting if you were born in Gaza, you'd be the first person to volunteer to dig one of those tunnels into Israel. Because they feel just as victimized as you do - the only difference is they are *really* victims, and you're just an armchair corporal.
5
Menachem Begin realized one salient fact on the ground: you negotiate from a position of strength, but you negotiate.
It takes a tough and smart Jew ( being one myself) to achieve respect. Netanyahu is only arrogant , and as he is the face Israel shows diplomatically, Israel wins little respect from rational Jews....and those that Israel requires to respect them: their enemies.
118
Your characterization of Netanyahu and your distinguishing him from Menachem Begin are correct. I might remind you, however, that beyond "rational Jews" and "their enemies" there is a third group, and we are not all evangelical Christians.
7
Once again, these first commentors and, I'm sure many will follow, have not read or choose to ignore why Hamas is not to be trusted and is not a worthy negotiating partner for peace. They have it stuck in their heads that Israel is the aggressor. They choose to ignore the pains Israel takes to not injure civilians. Yes, it seems like an uneven fight but it isn't. We in the U.S. quake in our boots about terrorist attacks. They happen infrequently but let's not forget 911 and the fatalities on the Hudson River walkway. Let's think about terrorism every time we walk through security at airports, office buildings, schools, concerts, and ballgames. Everyone uses Israeli security measures. So, Mr. Stephens is absolutely correct. Israel must be strong and defend itself because as history shows and current times prove no one else will. And a shout out to Mr. Anoush for shining a mirror on the European antiSemistim. And a Bronx cheer to the armchair corporals. They criticize but offer no viable solutions.
44
Please, ethyl, tell us how you're not just another armchair corporal, using your point of view and inflexibility to justify your position.
7
The Palestinians have had ten years to build up Gaza and show the world that they can govern peacefully. They did not. The same materials that were smuggled into Gaza could have been used productively to help the people instead were used to build tunnels specifically to kill Israelis. The tunnels can't even used by the Gazan citizenry for their protection. If there truly is a boycott, how are the Gazans able to smuggle weapons and building materials but will not smuggle needed products for it's people. Egypt has closed it's border as well in response to repeated violence from Gaza. No other country in the world would tolerate this level of violence on it's border, political stalemate or not. This is the route that the Palestinians have chosen. When they prove to Israel that they are not like ISIS, Iran, Syria or Lebanon, maybe there will be a chance for peace. In the meantime , the Palestinians cannot be trusted to act non-violently and make peace with Israel.
52
Mr. Stephens:
I would disagree that Israel's sovereignty is inarguable.
12
Zionism, true Zionism, continues to be the only answer for Israel, and it requires a free nation whose citizens are free and whose borders are secure. The 70th birthday of the State of Israel should be a cause for celebration for all fair-minded people, Jews and non-Jews, with any knowledge of history.
As long as Israel fails to do justice for the Palestinians surrounded by its walls and fences, the future of Israel will be in peril. As long as Israel is intent on acquiring even more land, more potable water and more absolute power over the Palestinians, the security of Israel will be eroded, not enhanced.
The preceding two paragraphs are not contradictory, although Bret Stephens appears to believe that they are. Benjamin Netanyahu certainly believes that a Palestinian state contradicts an Israel.
For Netanyahu, the Palestinians must be demonized to the world, because the Likud extremists see the only solution for the Palestinians as either eviction or enslavement or elimination.
Zionism and a two-state solution are better.
36
Mr. Stephens strikes a match although I am not sure what he is trying to light.
The questions he raises are at the heart of what is ripping the Jewish community apart from the inside.
The Holocaust really did happen and in terms of history, not that long ago. Israel was a solution for a world that had no idea how to deal with a refuge crisis and pretty much punted. Would the Arab nations destroy the new Democracy? Not many nations cared one way or another. At least the fighting in Europe and the Pacific was over for them.
It is also true that Palestinian Jews hoped to continue to live peacefully along side their non-Jewish neighbors but the Arab warlords made certain that peaceful coexistence would fail. If one chose not to rise up against their Jewish neighbors, the Mullahs were quick to make an example of you. Many Palestinians were murdered by their own.
Since those days 70 years ago, Israel faces her greatest challenge yet, the splintering of Jewish support for her. In my youth, pride for Israel was pretty universal. They defeated their adversaries in just six days and later had to go to war during Yom Kippur. There was a peace deal with Egypt. It was easy to support Israel as she was the underdog and constantly had to play defense. Her fight felt moral.
But during subsequent expansion and occupation, it feels that safety concerns replaced moral consequences pitting a religion that teaches peace and justice against a country that is constantly defending itself.
78
This column would have been convincing in 1966. Not today.
During the intervening years we’ve seen too many heavily-armed Israeli soldiers shooting unarmed Palestinian. We’ve seen too many Israeli missiles fired intentionally at civilian targets. Just yesterday a 15 year old, unarmed Palestinian was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper. The word “refuge” is absurd today.
The settlement movement betrays the purpose of today’s Israel. Settlers are not looking for “refuge,” they are looking to expand territory in accordance with their own messianic beliefs. And the leaders of Israel openly support that movement, bulldozing Palestinian houses and villages to make room for. . . .certainly not for refugees.
That Mr. Stephens and others can ignore the reality in front of their eyes, that they can look at photographs of Israeli tanks facing unarmed Palestinian children and see the tanks, not the children, as the heirs to the Warsaw uprising, shows the enduring power of tribalism.
The next time Mr. Stephens feels inclined to write a column about Israel he should just write “You know.” We do.
51
Judaism and Hinduism are the two continuous civilizations in the world and still surviving the assault of many violent forces. Hinduism was able to hold their motherland and protected its culture during the 800 years of foreign occupation, Judaism could not hold their motherland but survived its culture for about 2000 years of its exile. For 70 years these two civilizations are trying the shape their motherland and cultures by adopting the modern liberal democracy. There are many forces that wants to destroy this continuous history of 5000 years - rich in practies, traditions, and philosophy. The modern time is a very dangerous time when many of the assumptions of "enlightenment " and "capitalism" are questioned, and deeper understanding of human experience becoming a challenge in life. As Bernard Russell said more than 60 years back that when material possession will not make people satisfied, he will ask the deeper questions of life and we must look inside.These two civilizations are the pillars to show that path and the world has to recognize the consequence of the hates of anti- judaism and Islamism. The Jews state is powerful enough to bring the remaining Jews to its homeland. The economic and military power of Jews state and its power of creativity can be used to fight back any tendencies of hate by any State against their culture and people.
3
The New European anti-semitism is nothing more than an importation from the middle east via immigration. The Israelis are going to keep "massacring" Palestinians as long as Hamas continues supporting what amount to suicide attacks. The Palestinians have some of the most inept political leadership in human history. They've argued for peace yet walked away from it on more than one occasion. Their Arab neighbors failed militarily and appear to be indifferent now that the Iran/Syria axis is a much bigger threat in the region.
There will not be peace as long as Israel's right to exist is not recognized. It's really that simple.
26
The primary reason for the hostility of the "Diaspora," i.e. the majority of the American Jewish community, is their strong dislike for Benjamin Netanyahu, and Menachem Begin before him. Netanyahu is not going to allow Iran or any other enemy (Hezbollah, Hamas, ISIS, etc.) of Israel to gain a potential military advantage over the Israeli defense forces.
The Arabs/Palestinians have had numerous opportunities to reach an accord with the State of Israel; starting in 1948. However, they and their enablers in the larger Arab community have rejected these proposals for peace. Israel's only logical response is to continue to "fight forward" to protect the Jewish state. There will never be an accomodation with the terrorists or their supporters in Iran and the Arab countries.
24
It's uncertain exactly how "liberal" the Israeli democracy is, especially in light of the relentless expansion of settlements by Bibi and his right-wing coalition on lands once deeded to Palestinians. It is nothing more than open pandering for the votes of Israeli jingoists, similar to the manipulation of jingoistic Americans with the drums of war. Unfortunately, it works.
It's questionable whether Iran and the Arab states seriously desire peace with Israel. They portray negative Jewish stereotypes in their street protests while promoting hatred in the children's textbooks. When peace offers are proffered, the Palestinians and their fair weather friends spurn them.
Israel has a right to exist and America is unwavering in its support, but that does not give the Jewish state a blank check or justification for unaccountable actions against Arab and Palestinian citizens of that state.
Peace will never come to the region until the ayatollahs, mullahs, sheiks, et. al., recognize the right of Israel to exist with secure, clearly defined borders. By the same token, Israel should abandon settlements in lands occupied by Palestinians before 1948. Perhaps they could even establish an Arab/Palestinian state within the State of Israel. Who knows what could be achieved with a paradigm shift by Prince MBS and the Persians? It will take negotiation and compromise by all to achieve any kind of peace. Unfortunately those qualities appear to be in short shrift on all sides.
16
Ultimately, the only reasonable solution is to create two states: Israel proper and a contiguous Palestinian state. The current Israeli government has been hurting that effort by allowing more and more settlers into occupied territories and, I'm told, distributing maps that do not have the green line that designates Israeli and Palestinian areas. I'm not blaming Israel for the impasse. But the way to reach a place where one wants to be is not to walk in the opposite direction.
22
A convoluted mess whose roots go back millennia, not just decades.
The ancient religions that incubated it, and upon which most of this rests, all had a deeply-embedded universal wisdom in what otherwise were vague and fact-challenged records of existential history.
The cruelest joke humanity could have played on itself was creating a personal, geocentric god whose love for humanity is unconditional.......as long as one is from a certain persuasion.
That deeply embedded wisdom that remains so elusive even now has nothing to do with god-creation. It has everything to do with simple logic and reason, which only enhances true spirituality, which adherence to material religion can't touch.
Taken individually, the daily incidents are hard to take. It's our nature to peg the agressor/oppressed and take a side accordingly. And over the course of history, it's fairly easy to spot who occupies what part of that dichotomy. But taken together, that's missing a much larger point.
18
Dear Kevin Rothstein: Isn't Israel a theocracy that discriminates against Palestinians? It was not the Muslim Arabs who caused Jews to leave the area. They are not "foreign Arabs who came in an occupied the area. Those who did not leave adopted Islam. Those who left have no right to evict those who remained. I am neither a Muslim nor a Christian. But I have been to Israel and Jordan and Egypt for work. Israel can make a deal with Iran that Muslims can live in Palestine as a muslim state with access to Mediterrenean Sea. As I sea it, the Israeli Jewish leaders dream is to make the whole of Palestine for Jews only and don't want any peace. Ths is how the non-American, non-muslims sees the issue.
37
Your premises are in error. Israel is not a theocracy and Palestinians, not being its citizens, cannot be said to be victims of discrimination. There are many rights and wrongs to be discussed, but it's very important to do so in the proper terms.
7
Agree with you Bret 100%. But heard you talk the other night and asked you what was wrong with Trumps policy towards Israel. You couldn't give me a straight answer and said that he doesn't have firm policy because he has a revolving door in his administration. Really? Trump is the strongest friend of Israel since Harry Truman. You said you were happy you voted for Hilary.Really? Potentially another 4 years of anti Israel policies to pander to the far left. Aside from your unwavering support for Israel you've clearly gone over to the other side. Your NYTs readers I'm sure are happy about that.
13
With friends like Trump who needs enemies?
I am glad someone actually trusts him....I certainly don’t trust or believe a word he says.
7
Trump has destroyed the United States' influence in the Middle East because of his blatant pro Israel bias. That is a problem because there is no force to balance the Russians. Even Obama, who, like Nixon, was blatantly anti Israel, protected Israel because it is the only force in the Middle East to balance the fundamentalists and Russians. Now the only balance is Israel on its own. It is completely wrong to think that Clinton is anti Israel. However, she does understand that to have influence with Israel's enemies one must be perceived as fair. Survival in the Middle East requires playing diplomatic chess. Trump, in his self serving way, is playing an amateurish game of checkers.
3
Rachel Corrie speaks for me.
28
Rachel Corrie has been dead for about 14 years. Why is it that you can't come up with a more recent example?
5
"It [Israel] exists to end the victimization of the Jews."
Yes, but how? And at what cost?
I have supported Israel all my life. I support the right of Israel to exist as a safe haven for Jews in a world that can't seem to kick its persecution habit. I support its right to defend itself.
But I am so sick of the myriad ways in which we human beings delude ourselves into justifying the brutality inflicted on our behalf by those we empower and arm to defend us.
Oh, how easy it is to go from vowing to pevent our own victimization to victimizing others!
56
How, through legitimate self defense. At what cost? The cost is the price that any sane individual will pay to defend his life from those that would kill him. Remove the people who would kill him from the equation and there is no need to talk about cost.
8
And why never a word as to why Egypt feels it necessary to keep its border to Gaza shut tight.
48
Unoriginal. and I am also sick and tired of seeing the word "feckless". Pathetic.
4
And I’m sick and tired of seeing the word “pathetic” used to mean “feckless.”
2
I watched Israeli vehicles rolling to kill Palestinian protesters until the tv picture was cut off. This was years back. This was documented. It was horrible. No matter Brett, I cannot forget and I think, I cannot forgive what I watch for and see being done to Palestinians thru the years.
38
Why aren't readers pointing out how Arab nations treated their own Jewish citizens?! Fact is, there aren't any Jews left in Arab countries. They were forced into exile - penniless- between 1948 and 1956. Many thousands were murdered. Israel is right to defend itself. We know what the alternative would bring.
98
@mch --- Quite apparently you don't know why the Arab countries forced out their Jewish population. It happened AFTER the Yishuv or Israel respectively threw out their Arab population in 1947/48. Also penniless. We have reports that Israeli troops standing at the streets leading to Jordan fleeced the fleeing Palestinians and took every bank note and the gold coin jewelry of the Palestinian women. Like street robbers. Disgusting.
10
Don't you want Israel to be better than Arab dictatorships?
6
Iran a Persian country has many Jews who are living in Peace contrary to what the most of the West thinks.
12
The two forces that can't live in counterbalance - the safety of Jews constantly faced with lethal antisemitism and the creation of a state by Europeans in the middle east, out of Arab territory - has just simply created a unreconcilable situation. And it has remained unreconcilable for more than half a century. That puts Israel in the position of both having to fiercely defend itself, and be required to act with care towards the people in the region. Unsurprisingly they cannot do both. I am not an apologist for either Israeli actions towards Palestinian protestors or for Palestinian violence towards Israelis. Choosing sides? You are going to be wrong either way. THAT is the central, unfixable truth.
27
Mr. Stephens, I applaud your editorial bravery...it's not easy to opine in the NYT, without anticipating backlash, on the necessity of a continued existence for a Jewish homeland, a safe haven from incessant antisemitic aggression on a planet that has conveniently scapegoated Jews for the woes of mankind throughout history. There are 50 Muslim-majority countries, many of which use to have large Jewish populations prior to WWII, yet no one seems to begrudge them their prevailing theocracies, or there right to exist.
When you have a chance, I'd love for you to actually interview Adam Armoush and his family of "Israeli Arabs", as opposed to the Gaza and West Bank Arabs that are always spotlighted by the media.
Are the Armoush's a happy family? Don't they possess all the rights extended to their Jewish citizen neighbors...including the right to vote; the right to freely practice their religion; the right to representation in the Knesset; the right to pursue (and attain) jobs in political, judicial, and military arenas; the right to attend public universities; the right to express their sexuality in any manner that pleases them....? Does Adam's mother have the same civil rights as his father, a guarantee to all women, enforceable by Israeli law? I think that the NYT readership would be shocked to learn that Israeli Arab citizens might actually be living in a manner that is the envy of their ethnic counterparts in other Middle East countries.
Happy 70th Anniversary, Israel.
102
To read your fellow opinion columnist Roger Cohen's piece--about the harm to Israel's self-interest the present over-reaction at the Gaza border represents--is to refute many of your core points. Cohen points to the recently [published article by all living former heads of the Israeli spy agency Mossad who see more latitude for diplomacy where you seem to contend that there is no choice. It's offensive that you imply that critiques only come from armchair elite far removed from the on the ground reality.
28
While agreeing with much of what’s been said and commented, Israel and the Jewish people should never cede the moral high ground.
8
It matters little in the great scheme of things.
A culture of victimhood that persists 80 years after the Holocaust can justify any excess meted to unarmed demonstrators divided by an almost impenetrable fence.
Any crime no matter how trivial against a Jew in Europe or here is seen by Stephens as an existential threat against a whole tribe.
While Black men here are shot, intimidated and humiliated and nothing changes. Where is Stephens righteous indignation about those crimes?
If Jews cannot feel safe anyplace except Israel they are free to move there except if they are not Orthodox or women who believe they are equal to men or those who believe in seperation of church and state and believe that all people including Arabs are humans with human rights.
22
Israel is not our responsibility.
They've brutalized the Palestinians, and, ultimately, they will pay the price.
20
Don't forget that the Palestinians have brutalized the Israelis as well.
This idea that the Palestinians are the innocent victims of the evil Israelis is a deft bit of propaganda that completely ignores the history of brutality that Palestinian terrorists have heaped on Israel.
There are no clean hands in this conflict; if there is to be a solution to it, that reality needs to be accepted by all sides.
8
My error. A misplaced question mark. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.
6
"To be Jewish — at least visibly Jewish — in Europe is to live on borrowed time."
That is the case for Arabs as well, not only in Europe, but to some extent in the US and even in Israel.
Even those who "appear" to be Arab, but in reality are not, have been shot and killed right here in the U.S.
Prejudice or hatred is a problem not just for Jews, but to people of all religions and race and not just in Europe.
19
It’s always helpful to remind worldwide citizenry that there were no settlements or occupation before 1967.
In that year, the massed Arab armies tried to wipe out Israel, once and for all. It backfired. With no help at all from the United States, Israel prevailed. And then offered to return conquered territory in exchange for peace treaties. Complete and utter Arab rejection at Khartoum conference.
Rabin offered a peace plan. Clinton offered a peace plan. Olmert offered a peace plan. Sharon vacated Gaza, only to be met with missiles and terror tunnels.
And for the record, I visit Israel annually. The stores, the universities, the buses, the trains, the restaurants — they are all filled with Muslim Israeli Arabs, as well as Jews.
90
Actually, no. Israel attacked first. Though Nasser's political ineptitude and Russian provocation led Israel to attack, there is not real evidence that the war would have happened absent the Israeli attack on Egypt.
19
The first attack was the Arab blockade of Israel. That was the act of war that started the conflict.
1
Straw men. Will ignore the fundamental issue why European Jews were settled in the Middle East since realistically they literally could not go home, but will address the critical international law issue that the 1967 borders are solely by Israeli armed aggression. The UN grant was far smaller, though given the Jewish % in Palestine population, far out of proportion to their numbers. The short answer is Israel should have been forced back to the UN borders and definitely out of Jerusalem, which the UN set up as an international city.
11
From David G.s comment:
"In [1967], the massed Arab armies tried to wipe out Israel, once and for all. It backfired. With no help at all from the United States, Israel prevailed. And then offered to return conquered territory in exchange for peace treaties. Complete and utter Arab rejection at Khartoum conference.
Rabin offered a peace plan. Clinton offered a peace plan. Olmert offered a peace plan. Sharon vacated Gaza, only to be met with missiles and terror tunnels."
8
Jewish lives matter. Palistinians lives matter. And the lives of each group matter equally. Both groups have a long history in the area of Israel/ Palestine. Those whom deny this do so on the basis of their own partisan tribalism , ignorance , or racism. Antisemitism is another subset of racism.
10
Stephens thinks its rough being Jewish in Berlin, he should try being Arab in Gaza.
The first, involving assaults, he considers appalling. The second, involving killings, necessary.
Which is precisely the disconnect, the absurd racist inconsistency.
36
(...Israel is not their vanity. It’s their safeguard.)
Perhaps it's their problem.
5
One manifestation of antisemitism is when criticism of Israel is generalized to all Jews. Unfortunately, this article essentially falls into that same trap: it equates Israel with Judaism, particularly with its title, "Jewish Power at 70 Years."
It's time to stop giving aid and comfort to both antisemites and to nationalistic chauvinists by recognizing that Israel is not equivalent to Judaism. In fact, if one examines many interpretations of Jewish ethics, the actions of the state of Israel and its status as an apartheid state are actually deviant with respect to Jewish ideals.
28
In 1948 when Israel was created, it was about 50-50 Jews and Palestinians. Unfortunately, the Palestinians were treated like the Native Americans. But they had allies and the Native Americans did not. I believe neither side at this point wants to live in peace and share the land. Both feel they are fighting an existential battle. They will both lose. Ahhh history, how it repeats itself
7
Bret Stephens has a batterers mentality: They made me do it.
16
As I, along with Israel, turn 70 next month, I have reluctantly and painfully reached the same conclusion as Bret Stephens: "Jews cannot rely for their safety on the kindness of strangers."
30
"Israel...exists to end the victimization of Jews. That’s a point that Israel’s restless critics could stand to learn."
Restless Israelis --those settling the West Bank--could stand to learn their settlements are criminal and a permanent obstruction to the peace Israel claims to want.
That said, Mazel Tov to the Jewish State. If the U.S. ever develops an even-handed foreign policy in the region, Israelis are going to need all the luck they can get.
13
I am opposed to the settlements and believe me I want peace and I supported the withdrawal from Gaza but when Israel withdrew we got not peace but rockets aimed at civilians by the Hamas who wants to destroy us.
12
Mr. Stephens' points about Israeli security are fine with me. But as for the situation in Europe, like Bari Weiss a few weeks ago, he utterly ignores the fact that violent Muslims frequently attack non-Jewish people too. More importantly, he says nothing about the fact that Jewish organizations -- and newspapers-- have consistently been the most ardent advocates of immigration and the most strenuous critics of "nationalists" and "populists". He obviously cares not at all about Europe except in relation to Jews' security. Very much like the New York Times itself.
6
Stephens confuses "Israeli" power with "Jewish" power, as his example of the attack in Berlin clearly shows. Extend the Berlin incident to France and to a lesser extent to the UK, and voila, his contention is subject to a 180 degree turn. It might become the reality that the only European country that is safe for Jews is Germany. Will wonders never cease!
It is also instructive, for those who can bear instruction, that the alleged asylum seeker (from what) from Syria attacks someone he believes to be Jewish, as though Muslims and Arabs are not the cause of the humanitarian disaster in Syria. Israel cannot have too much power in the "Muddle" East.
5
Mr. Stephens, there may be many good reasons to celebrate the Zionist movement's success at building a state for the Jewish people, (let's give it another 70 years before we evaluate) but ecology is surely not one of them.
You erroneously refer to "the ecological rescue of a once-barren land..."as one of the causes for joy. Here you repeat outdated Zionist propaganda, to be sure.
1. Tell the thousands and thousands of Palestinian farmers who used ancient ecologically sound organic methods to cultivate barley, wheat, chick pea, sesame, sheep, goats, almonds, grapes, dates, oranges, peaches, olives, saber fruit, and more all over Palestine that their land was barren.
2. Dont forget the ecological disaster that the draining of the so called "swamps" of Lake Hula created, whose effects are still being felt.
And don't forget the ecological disaster of the settlements, draining the aquifier to fill swimming pools while Palestinians are not able to get water out of their ancient wells. Ecological rescue for whom?
And plz don't forget the destruction of various Negev desert ecological zones by the nation's military.
Celebrations are relative. Tell the truth.
27
You say Israel is needed because Jews cannot rely on historically Christian governments, but Israel itself relies on the support of the Imperial West and US Apocalyptic Christians. It has destroyed the relative haven of the Islamic world.
8
It would also be helpful if they could explain how they can insist on Israel’s retreat to the 1967 borders and then scold Israel when it defends those borders.
Mr Stephens, you have just apologized for the murder and injury of dozens of (unarmed) people. What's next, an apology for Kent State? An apology for Birmingham, 1967?
6
I do not support the shooting of unarmed protesters but the analogies are wrong. The Kent State and Birmingham protesters were totally non-violent. The Gaza protest has been taken over by the Islamist Hamas which wants to destroy Israel. Horrific suicide bombings didn't work, so they are trying mass protest as a tactic
12
Israel will never say“none is too many”as Canada shamefully said when refusing entry to the doomed passengers of the St Louis. God bless Israel.The only democracy in the Middle East?The diaspora Jew will always be welcome in Israel. Very reassuring.
16
There is a great deal of change required in the societies that surround Israel that must occur before Israel can ever be secure enough to drop the iron fist when engaged.
All western societies elsewhere must never tolerate anything that justifies attacks on its fellow citizens arising from personal and family beliefs and heritage. Individual rights remain our keystone.
Remained in at a war standup 100 miles off the coast of Israel from the begining to the end of Yom Kippur war, 1973. We, US Navy, faced an aggressive Russian flotilla while we prepared to engage if needed to defend Israel under assault from its neighbors. Have never forgotten how strong we felt and how far we were prepared to go in defense of this valuable ally, as old as we, sailors, who assembled in the eastern Meditteranean Sea then.
12
I am a Christian pacifist. I have read the Bible and the Koran. I know that all three monotheistic religions teach their followers to strive for peace and reconciliation. The Jewish religion believes that one injustice does not justify another injustice. The only way to obtain peace is by respecting international law.
7
So you must also ask that of Hamas, who violate morality and international law every day.
10
Great article. People seem to not recognize a simple truth. Just like if you don’t want to get shot don’t rob a bank, if you don’t want to get shot don’t attack the border of a country with Molotov cocktails. The blame is solely for the instigators who are not protestors but terrorists.
33
Mr. Stephens has defined the current situation Israel faces accurately. It is unfortunate that those outside Israel, like Natalie Portman, only encourage dangerous protestors from Gaza to cross into Israel. Their determination to destroy Israel and harm Israelis requires Israeli defensive measures in order to protect the lives of its citizens. The propaganda machine of the Hamas thugocracy only perpetuates the status quo without resolution. I would suggest that the residents of Gaza turn their frustration and anger onto their own corrupt leaders who could care less about lives lost.
23
Mr. Stephens, I am happy to explain how I can insist on Israel's "retreat" to the '67 borders and then "scold Israel when it defends those borders."
The two-state solution based on the '67 borders never envisioned a Gaza strip turned into an open-air prison, where no person or thing can enter or leave without permission (rarely granted) from Israel, with no access to the West Bank or Jerusalem, where every attempt to build an air- or sea-port is ended by Israeli bombs, where any boat that goes beyond a short Israeli-mandated distance from shore is fired upon, where anyone entering a "buffer zone" entirely within the Palestinian side of the border is fired upon, and which is repeatedly bombed to dust and then forbidden to rebuild.
You scold the Palestinians for having the temerity to protest their subjection --- and even for attempting to walk to Jerusalem. Do they not have a right to visit their most important city ---- long the religious, cultural, and commercial center of Palestinian life? May I remind you that East Jerusalem is on the Palestinian side of the '67 border?
18
Food and medicine enters Gaza every week through the crossing with Israel. The partial blockade is necessary to protect Israeli civilians who are targeted by Hamas terrorists. Hamas stated aim is the destruction of Israel. I do wish that all Palestinians could visit Jerusalem - but after hundreds of Israeli civilians were slaughtered by Hamas suicide bombers during the Second Intifada when Hamas leaders lead the protesters in chants of "A million martyrs marching on Jerusalem" you can understand why I suspect they aren't coming to drink coffee with me and go shopping.
8
Israel, long may it's people and the tiny nation live.
The terrible thing about the demonstrations is that professional agitators are causing the most trouble.
When Hamas and PLO founding documents openly state that the elimination of Israel and all Jews is their goal, there is little choice but to fight.
For the surrounding Arab states, peaceful relations would be a far better choice than hostility.
19
Given that the Israelis have just massacred is it 37 Palestinians from their essential Israeli imprisonment in the Gaza ghetto this tale of Jewish victimization sounds a bit hollow. No doubt this comment will provoke lots of outrage from Israeli apologists but the fact is there are roughly 13 million people between the Jordan river and the sea and about half of them are Palestinians. Jewish power cannot keep nearly 7 million people locked up indefinitely.
32
If the so-called civilized world wanted peace in Israel/Palestine, there would be peace. The nations surrounding Israel are, for the most past, either theocracies or dictatorships. What makes Israel think that a democratic state of Palestine would be a viable possibility?
Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, are all disaster areas. Israel is in a no-win situation.
29
Appalling column from Mr. Stephens. There can be no justification for opening fire on unarmed protesters. The individual acts of anti-semitism that he cites can't be used as a rationale for state-sanctioned aggression against defenseless individuals.
244
That is if you define throwing fire bombs, launching incendiary kites over the border deliberately to set farm fields on fire, shooting lethal sling shots at border guards, planting IEDs on the border fence, trying to break it down for the purpose of overwhelming border guards while planting IEDs in Israeli territory, burning tires to overwhelm border guards with toxic smoke that also serves as cover for terrorists to try to penetrate the border fence and attack civilians on the other side-- and all the while brandishing signs calling for the destruction of Israel as simply non-violent protest.
83
Why do you call them unarmed? Why do you call the defenseless? They came to breach the border with fire, bombs and smoke. Why do you not blame Hamas for sending there own people to their deaths?
59
No. What is appealing is that you view this as an attack on unarmed protestors rather than a march organized by terrorists to destroy Israels sovereignty over its territory. Anyone marching in. Hamas organized march is a supporter of terror in the same way that marchers next to neo Nazis in Charlottesville cannot escape culpability. The difference is that attacking a recognized border with Molotov cocktails, fire, rocks etc. while at the same time threatening to eat the livers of Israelis across the border (yes that happened Yahyah Sinwar proclaimed it) is an active attack that justly is met with force. Imagine any other country tolerating this and you imagine a country that no longer exists.
25
So does the fear of antisemitism override liberal democratic values and justify a ethno-religious state where non-Jews have inferior status and do not have the rights and protections that minorities at least nominally have in the U.S. and other Western countries? Does the need for a Jewish state justify shooting and jailing teenage children, and seizing land for settlements? Bret's column seems saying yes. We should ask ourselves if we agree.
112
Within the Green Line, the 20% of the Israeli population that is non-Jewish do indeed enjoy the rights and protections that minority populations have in the US and other Western countries. In fact, I would argue that, while there is discrimination against Arab Israelis, it is less than the racism against African-Americans. As for the settlements - no they are not justified and I, along with many other Israelis voted for Ehud Barak in 1999 who negotiated with the Palestinians and offered them a withdrawal from 95% of the West Bank and Gaza with compensating land swaps. It was Yasir Arafat who refused a Palestinian state at Camp David in 2000.
32
You have been misinformed. All citizens of Israel have equal rights. The Arab joint list is the third largest political party. The official languages of Israel are both Hebrew and Arabic. Etc.
37
And neither does worrying about what naive pontificating pundits sitting on their rear ends safely 6000 miles away override the safety of Israel's people and the integrity of its borders.
As Golda Meir once said: "Better a bad press, than a good epitaph."
24
We Americans are responsible for 100,000 or so of needless civilian deaths in Iraq. We can justly criticize other nations so long as we don't single out the Jewish nation for criticism beyond our own and all other nations. This is also true: "the extent that the Diaspora’s objections are prompted by the nonchalance of the supposedly nonvulnerable when it comes to Israel’s security choices, then the complaints are worse than feckless." I think it comes in part from believing that if they go along (in singling out Israel's violations above all other nations') then they will somehow exempt themselves from being victims of anti-semitism.
18
Many valid points are made in this article! Nonetheless, I thank G-d everyday, that most of my family came to America's shores over a hundred years ago! For myself, and I think the overwhelming majority of American Jews, the United States is our promised Land, and my home sweet home! However, I'm also reminded of what someone once told me about modern Israel's existence, based upon the history of people who share my faith! Israel exists because the next time the evils who walk this earth want to persecute the Jewish people, they'll know exactly where to find them! In a nation of their own! And rather than being defenseless, or fighting back with broomsticks, the Jews will be ready and, waiting, and armed to the teeth! Never again!!!
43
Jews in 19th century Germany saw that country as their promised land as well...
5
This was an excellent article.
Among other things, Stephen notes, quite correctly, that Arab violence towards Israel has not been the least bit mollified by Israeli concessions to Arabs.
There are at least two clear-cut examples of how Arabs respond to peaceful gestures with more hostility, not less:
1) Around 2000 or so, Israel retreated from Southern Lebanon. Arabs responded to this concilliatory gesture by filling up Southern Lebanon with missiles poised to strike Israel (And they did descend on Israel in 2006 or 2007)
2) Some years later, Israel retreated from Gaza. Before Israel retreated from Gaza, they built infrastructure to enable the Arabs to thrive commerically. However, Gaza went gaga over Hamas and Hamas has fillled Gaza with missiles, which periodically mar and scar the Israeli landscape --- and sometimes its people.
There are so many facts which prove the moral superiority of the Israeli position, and which decimate the argument that Israel should make more masochistic concessions to appease the Arabs, but I don't have the space to convey those reasons, and besides, I am sure most people, who have already made-up their bigotted minds, are not interested.
94
The rise of anti-Semitism in Europe is directly caused by the violence and bigotry that Israel regularly practices on the Palestinians. There is an absolute direct line. Many of the people who attack Jews in Europe are Muslims, who benightedly believe that they are acting on behalf of their oppressed and brutalized co-religionists in the Middle East. Put bluntly, the anti-Semitism in Europe today would be far, far less than it is if Israel did not exist. The cause and effect here are absolutely obvious; before Israel's creation and before the world's growing awareness of Palestinians, anti-Semitism in the Islamic world was only a shadow of what it was in the Christian West. That has changed because of Israel. Mr. Stephens' argument is putting the cart before the horse. But I suspect, at some level, that he knows that. His views on Palestinians betray a remarkable level of contempt towards an entire group of people who have spent much of the past 70 years beaten down and oppressed by the same country that Mr. Stephens lauds. Indeed, the vast disparity in power between the Palestinians and Israelis cannot be exaggerated. It takes a special kind of delusional mindset to look at people who are weak and desperate and consider them the victimizers and antagonizers of an infinitely more powerful enemy. Contrary to what Mr. Stephens seems to believe, the strong cannot be the victims of the weak.
32
Really? I didn't realize the last 1500 years of antisemitic hate and murder of Jews in Europe was caused by anticipation of how the Jews would one day conflict with the Palestinians.
Come to think of it, the Chinese conquered Tibet, the Arabs and Turks oppress the Kurds, the Turks oppressed the Greeks, the Burmese oppress the Rohingya, the Armenians and Azerbaijanis are killing each other over Nagorno-Karabakh, the Brazilians exploit the Amazon Indian tribes, and the Russians carpet bombed Chechnya. How is it that only the Jews are singled out for all these supposed sins real or imagined against the poor hapless Palestinians who never ever agree to any peace proposal to finally settle this conflict as you claim?
39
Bret, THANK YOU!
Thanks for "justifying" apartheid.
Thanks for excusing any action/oppression/brutality/disenfranchisement by a group seeking to gain and preserve its power at the expense of those it subjugates.
Essentially, anyone who's scared, concerned, irritated, should, as you argue, have the license to do anything they can to maximize their power and loot at the expense of those they are able to crush (all the while wailing about their own claimed vulnerability and "reasoned" "responses" that are so ahead of the curve of anyone else's actions, that it's really "response to the future what ifs.")
So again, Bret, just a whole lot of thanks. Can't wait for your "at 100 Years" missive.
32
Israel loses much needed support when they deploy antagonistic tactics such as building more settlements. That alone allows a credible questioning of their motives.
92
If the Palestinians really wanted a state they would have made peace which would have stopped the settlements.
16
Mr. Stephens, if you can justify Israeli violence as a consequence of being victimized, surely you could understand that Palestinians feel the same way, too.
They have endured humiliating, painful decades of abuse from Israelis - land thefts, lopsided military assaults, obstruction in going through their daily lives, second-class citizen treatment, being cut off from food, water and power, taunting and torment from settlers; essentially, on the receiving end of a relentless campaign to make their lives unbearable. Is it really so surprising that some would conclude that life isn't worth living?
You also may have noticed that the Palestinians were not the historical aggressor against Jews, European Christians were. So why should Palestinians be expected to pay the price?
Further, Mr. Stephens, as you write about anti-semitism, you do no one any favors by making Jewish people indistinguishable from Israel. More than a few people would have no prejudice against Jews but do resist a nation that operates on an apartheid premise and whose own government is far right.
43
How tragic that the Palestinians did not accept the UN partition vote in 1947 or Ehud Barak's Camp David offer in 2000 - then they would have a state. By the way, Israel has never cut off Gazans from food and water -deliveries have always gone through and never cut off Gazans from electricity - even when Hamas lobbed rockets that killed Israeli civilians. The electricity blackouts are the fault of Abu Mazen's Fatah - who are feuding with Hamas.
18
No way can I measure up to the comments already offered, but what the heck! I've been following the Palestine/Israeli conflict ever since driving across the USA, listening to news reports, while the six day war raged. Ever since, I've played the mental game of "who's to blame?": Israel displaces and exiles its Palestinian population after the 1948 war. Not a good start. The Arabs swear to drive the Israelis into the sea. Not a good rejoinder. Israel relentlessly colonizes the and East Jerusalem in Machiavelli fashion. No solution possible unless they back down. Palestinians bomb Israeli private citizens. No way to get the West Bank back. The Camp David accords. At last, a breath of hope. Israelis offer a good first deal at Oslo and Yasser Arafat can't take yes for an answer. The Israelis give up Gaza and Hamas immediately poisons the chalice. They just won't accept half measures, because accepting them means giving up the dream of return. And still the settlements expand. What a mess! Plenty of blame for both sides. But the world is a strange place. Now Israel and the Saudis have a common enemy in Iran, and the dance goes on.
52
Yes, and at this point Gaza is almost a sideshow. The Sunni-Shiite war (in Yemen, Syria etc). is even more serious. Iran, with its nuclear ambitions and its interventions throughout the Middle East is a greater threat to Israel (although its complicated - they also do fund Hamas) than Gaza.
9
Mr. Stephens, this column is outrageous and you should apologize. You mention the rising number of anti-semitic incidents and in the same sentence the 'neo-facist' AfD in the Bundestag, drawing a clear connection. The truth is that the vast majority of anti-semitic acts in Germany today are perpetrated by so-called refugees and other muslim immigrants or children of immigrants, and the AfD is the only party in Germany openly trying to combat this massive threat to civilization in Germany and Europe. All the others are just paying lip service while continuing the same policies that are making life for Jews increasingly untenable.
The AfD has a small number of fringe figures who appear to hold anti-semitic views. But most of the party is very pro-Israel and Jews were welcome guests at party gatherings. (I am not a party member but I follow these issues closely.)
The 'new German anti-semitism' is in reality just the old Arab anti-semitism that has migrated to Germany.
16
Sorry, Mr. GS, but as an Israeli and a Jew who is concerned about Muslim anti-Semitism everywhere but doesn't tar all Muslims with the same brush and who lost relatives to the Nazis, I decline the invitation to Afd gatherings. I reject their Islamaphobia and don't trust their attitude towards Jews. Bret doesn't owe anyone an apology - "neo-fascist" is an apt description.
11
Unarmed people? An individual throwing rocks at somebody is wielding a lethal weapon with the intent to kill or maim that somebody.
39
You refer to pre-1948 Palestine as a “once barren land,” Actually, it was fertile, and most Palestinians worked on the land and in orchards.
36
I am astonished that Bret Stephens thinks he can get away with the crude trick of associating terrorist acts against Jews in Europe today with pre-war European Jew-hatred and its legacy.
Stephens knows perfectly well that the two phenomena are almost entirely unrelated even if they sometimes borrow the same tropes. The terrorist acts against European Jews (and other Westerners) have been carried out by Muslims, and the attacks have had nothing to do with European anti-Semitism, and everything to do with Israel's humiliation of Arabs and Muslims and its dispossession of the Palestinians. (It goes without saying that legitimate grievances don't justify resorting to terrorism).
By linking Muslim grievances against Israel and the terrible crimes of pre-war European anti-Semitism, Israel's expansionists seek to demonize the victims of Israel's aggression and to distract our attention from their legitimate grievances.
Israel's many achievements are overshadowed by its crime against the Palestinians. Instead of trying to change the subject, Stephens needs to honestly address that issue.
26
The motive for many attacks in Europe is not Israel's conduct but extreme Islamist idealogy which calls attacks on Jews and Westerners.
10
Golda:
You conveniently gloss over the role of Israel's brutal expulsion of a million or more Palestinians from their fields, homes and places of worship in fueling the rise of that extreme Islamist ideology. That ideology is a direct result of Arab shame and despair at their inability to protect their fellow Muslims from Israel's aggression. It is not unfair to say that -- in large part -- the Islamic extremism that now plagues the world was "made in Israel."
2
Extremism spares no particular group but given what Jews have endured it is startling to see it rear its head among Jews. The assassination of Yishak Rabin was as momentous an event for Israel as the assassination of Lincoln was for the US. No one can say whether Southern racism would not have triumphed in the years following it nor whether Israel would still have ended up with Netanyahu in power and no prospect of peace. But the path the present Israeli government has embarked on promises only more strife in the future. What is most disturbing is when well meaning foreign criticism of Israel's government is immediately attacked as anti-semitism and critical Jews denounced as self-hating Jews. Hamas poisonous rhetoric plays into the hands of the Israeli right wing but in no way can justify shooting live ammunition into protesting crowds. The Palestinians have a right to live as much as Israelis and will always be Israel's neighbors. In the long run there is no alternative to peaceful coexistence and responsible governments should refrain from acts that exacerbate hatred between neighbors. That applies to Hamas as much as to the Israeli government.
33
" they can insist on Israel’s retreat to the 1967 borders and then scold Israel when it defends those borders. "
But, they aren't defending the 1967 borders, they are defending an occupied quarter of the 1967 partition that was given to the Palestinians.
44
Wrong. There was never any treaty granting Palestinians a "partition" based on the 1967 border, which is actually the armistice lines of the 1948 war. Palestinian leadership demands that any peace negotiations start at that border. which is simply a sneaky way of saying let's go back to 1948.
18
Please get your facts straight. There was no "1967 partition." Mr. Stephens refers to Israel without the West Bank and Gaza - the area that all supporters of a two-state solution agree would remain in the hands of Israel. The fence is between this area and Gaza. One can argue with Israel's military tactics but one cannot argue that Israel is doing something other than defending its borders against demonstrators who are led by Hamas in chants of "A million martyrs marching on Jerusalem"
5
Anyone who physically assaults a Jewish person, deliberately destroys their place of business, or vandalizes their synagogue or cemeteries should be prosecuted with a hate crime attachment. Anyone who wants asylum but commits a hate crime needs to be deported back to their war-torn country. People only do what society allows so if Europe still has a problem with antisemitism it's because Europe hasn't done enough to combat it.
As for Israel, I understand that Jews wanted their own country after WWII so that they could feel a sense of security after nearly being wiped out. But shooting unarmed protestors never plays well regardless of who's doing it or why. There's a reason that protestors used nonviolent protest to secure civil rights here in the US. The group committing the violence always comes off poorly when their actions are viewed by the general public.
I wish that some sort of peace agreement could be reached similar to what happened with Ireland and northern Ireland. Palestinians need to accept that Israel isn't going anywhere and find a way to create their own country. If the two sides could find a way to live together in peace the Palestinians could perhaps enjoy the same economic development that Israel has enjoyed.
35
I agree that shooting unarmed protesters doesn't play well (and is wrong) but its important to differentiate between the civil rights protests in America and what is going on now in Gaza. Martin Luther King and the civil rights marchers mostly believed in non-violence as a philosophy. King never carried a gun and paid with his life at the age of 39. The civil right marchers never threw rocks or bottles or Molotov cocktails. The Gaza protesters are using nonviolence as a tactic - because suicide bombings that slaughtered innocent Israelis didn't work. They are mostly being used by Hamas, which is a totally violent, terrorist group.
9
Bret, could you offer a commentary on the plight of the Ethiopian Jews vis- a- vis Israel? Would be most interesting. Seems that they have been "belted" in more ways than one.
19
Hear, hear! I second the motion.
1
Mine is a minor point.
Sitting in a cafe, I overheard an older couple and daughter refer to my wife and I sitting on the next table over as schvarts, even as they tried hard to inch their table away from us. Yiddish is not that impenetrable.
It was a few weeks after the Trump victory. These folks had a chamber in mind all of their own; this time for me. I thought I might say something to them; but decided to not. This wasn't the first time, and not an isolated event. I know a pattern when I see one.
Ironic; we are heavily, and belligerently pro-Israel at public forums. I have a rabbi, and we are members of a Jewish community center. Neither of us were born Jewish, and look decidedly Arabic to provincial, parochial eyes.
You talk of a Syrian asylum-seeker's nihilism. It is deplorable. But the rather hostile family next to us were big city sophisticates, who had grown up right here. No they didn't stab, but they voted Trump who told them he would.
Are you seeing the clear, disturbing trend in a community that is slowly becoming what it hates? I do, and it makes me weep.
I expect people I don't agree with - to stab me when they can. But when people I love and agree with stab me, it hurts more.
Is what I suspect the antisemitism, virulent and nascent in Europe (east and west), must make native born European Jews feel. Is the way I felt when a newspaper in Paris reported (year 2000) that too many TV stations were owned by French Jews.
Complex stuff.
22
The schisms within the Jewish community itself makes this "complex stuff" even more difficult to deal with. The prejudices that you have dealt with are shameful and disgraceful. With a growing ultra-orthodox culture that is vehemently anti-Israel buttressed by the clueless J-Streeters on the left, one wonders how long the center can hold. That center needs as many decent people as possible because, like you, since Trump, I have seen people openly embrace aspects of extremism that I never thought they would. So, I disagree..... your point is not minor. Not anymore.
11
Now more than ever - we sane, rational folks who want to live together, whatever our differences must speak up against all prejudice and for co-existence and rationality.
1
I'm not sure I agree that a Jewish theocracy in the middle of a hostile neighborhood of predominantly Muslim theocracies is keeping me safe from another attempt to perpetrate genocide against Jews. I think the principle of separation of church (or synagogue, or mosque) and state, invented by a very flawed but nevertheless brilliant goy named Jefferson, as well as a Bill of Rights promulgated by a bunch of other British colonists who embraced the political theories developed by the English Enlightenment philosophers, probably does a better job of that. The rule of law; governing by the consent of the governed: these are the principles that can result in protecting the rights of any minority. I absolutely agree that Israel has a right to defend their borders. However, I see a line of departure not according to whether or not I'm a diaspora Jew, but according to whether or not I'm an American who disagrees with a government running roughshod over the civil rights of a minority.
189
If i am correct, i do recall my mother, of blessed memory, sara rudavsky, mentioning many times that A.I. Kaplan was against diaspora Jews migrating to Israel, b/c we were safer spread out around the world.
7
Ross, perhaps what is really keeping you unsafe are the ethnocentric attitudes of men like Benjamin Netanyahu. What did you think was going to happen when Jews expelled Palestinian Muslims from their homes and there land during and after 1948? Oh yes, remind me that this was the Jewish homeland.
13
Not sure if Jefferson should get the credit but I take your point.
3
I completely understand the absolute pride of the 70th anniversary of the forming of the Jewish state, Israel. I, too, celebrate that. But let's hope that there isn't a greater proliferation of armchair corporals, like Mr. Stephens, who whitewash and excuse the excesses of the Israelis when dealing with Palestinian uprisings. Shooting defenseless people unnecessarily and then celebrating and laughing about it, the way a recent IDF video displayed for all to see, is engaging in the behavior to which the Jewish people have been victimized for centuries. Two wrongs do not make a right. And Israel has much, much more to do towards forging a lasting peace with the Palestinians, who also have a right to some of the land which the Israelis presently occupy. As Jews know better than most, squatting on another's land made possible by the barrel of a gun does not make it yours.
126
I agree that 2 wrongs don't make a right and certainly the Palestinians have a right to their own state. But since my armchair is in Jerusalem and not in Arizona, I wonder what Israel can do after the Palestinians were offered almost all of the West Bank and Gaza for their own state at Camp David and Yasir Arafat refused and started the Intifada where hundreds of Israeli civilians were slaughtered by suicide bombersl Maybe the Palestinians could do much, much more
17
Thank you. That’s what I was thinking. What are soldiers supposed to do when a huge, angry crowd seeks to march over them? Let it happen and lose control of their weapons? Maybe instead of ignoring Israeli warnings to stay away from the fence, the border-rushers of Gaza should hold Hamas responsible for their troubles and rush that way.
36
But if they did rush towards Hamas, they, including women and children among them would be slaughtered without mercy and the massacre would receive less attention than Israel's actions. Look at what is happening in Syria.
4
Way to go, Bret. Telling it like it exactly is.
Am Yisrael Chai!
22
Natalie Portman has it right.
77
Many Americans, including myself, are becoming increasingly disillusioned by the US's continued unconditional support for Israel. The unwavering US support for Israel is likely the most major policy mistake made by the US over the past 60 years. The cost to the United States for supporting Israel has been exorbitant and, that price, in terms of US lives and treasure, is incalculable. We are hated across the Middle East and it is now crystal clear that Netanyahu, and the Israeli's that put him in power, have likely never had the intention to end this conflict with a two state solution. In fact, it is very likely the case that peace is not part of the Israeli game plan at all, as peace would likely mean an end to rapid settlement building and the expansion of Israel's territory. Additionally, we have learned over the past two years that Israeli's consider themselves a "Jewish democracy". The words Jewish and democracy when used together are mutually exclusive. The primary beauty of a democracy is its inclusivity. Americans are quickly coming around to the fact that we must lose this one-sided relationship. In line with this, let’s begin to limit financial aid to Israel. The $3.5 billion we give Israel yearly needs to be curtailed sharply. Americans must not tie our fate to the fate of Israel. Contact your senators and congressmen and let them know that Israel must cease in its persecution of the Palestinians.
122
"It would also be helpful if they could explain how they can insist on Israel's retreat to the 1967 borders and then scold Israel when it defends those borders."
There is a good explanation. That Israel breached those borders in 1967, refused to obey UN Resolution 242 to retreat to those borders afterwards, and then encouraged settlers from Brooklyn New York to over-run and occupy the lands beyond explains and justifies the Palestinians efforts to breach the original borders in the reverse direction.
The predictions of the marginalized American Council for Judaism are coming true. Instead of Israel becoming a haven for Jewish refugees from anti-Semitism, it is becoming a garrison state, surrounded by enemies; instead of becoming a democracy with equality and justice for all citizens, it is becoming a militarized, authoritarian state that favors its Jewish citizens over its non-Jewish citizens; instead of drawing support and succor from Jews in the diaspora, it is earning their dismay and contempt.
141
Can you also tell me why they breached those borders in the first place? Could it possibly be that they were about to be invaded and destroyed? Could there strike have been the smartest thing they could have possibly done to survive perhaps?
Also when has any nation followed what the UN asks? Isnt there a dictator named Assad that runs a murderous regime in Syria on the Isreali border that has ignored about 50 UN resolutions?
30
Oh yes and Syria has twice been in the UN Security Council. Israel????
18
Most discussions use the terms "Palestinians" and "Israelis", but using terms like "Arabs/Muslims" and "Hebrews/Jews" would more closely address the ethnic and religious aspects of the conflict. There is lots of ethnic and religious conflict between Muslims and other Muslims without Jews being involved at all. If the Arab states accepted the 1947 terms there would currently be two states.
17
Zionism's original intent was to normalize the position of Jews in the world. In that they have been a huge success inasmuch as Jews, like Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, now have a country of their own run by shmucks.
While Stephens thoughts are largely valid for the medium past, perhaps the reason Jews have survived as a people for the past two thousand years while others vanished is precisely because they did not define themselves by a piece of turf. Others' thoughts on that are very welcome.
14
Perhaps a semi-parallel is that self-styled “Romans” practicing Roman law etc stuck around for over a thousand years after they’d lost the piece of turf called Rome.
2
PL, thanks for engaging. I'm going to give that some thought.
Somewhat parallel to the pre-Israel situation of the Jews is that of the Roma, a people with a long history and no territory of their own, or even an "old country" to long to return to.
Migosh, is Meir Kahane alive and well and writing for The Times under a pseudonym? All that's missing from Mr. Stephens' op/ed piece is the description of Arabs as "dogs." First off, whereas anti-Semitism is clearly on the rise in Europe, Islamophobia is an even more ubiquitous reality there (and here in the U.S. it's not even close). Furthermore, I'm convinced that in many- if not most- cases, this hatred towards Jews has been incentivized by what the world, if not Mr. Stephens, sees as the confiscation of Arab lands on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem and the long-running embargo imposed on Gaza by the supposedly democratic government of Israel (a country in which the Arab residents of those occupied territories are not granted the right to vote, among other things). Let's make this very simple: the Israelis have a state, the Palestinian Arabs do not. So long as that continues to be the case the Arabs are the aggrieved parties in that equation. Insofar as Israel's security is concerned, to the extent that they can't rely on the U.S. for whatever assistance they might need in the event that they can't handle a few rockets launched by Hamas militants, their army (by far the best-trained and equipped in the Middle East) and their nuclear arsenal (shush....!!) can certainly deal with them. But, then again, this isn't about security; it's about land, plain and simple, and the Israelis no longer even bother making excuses on that account.
272
"the Israelis have a state, the Palestinian Arabs do not."
The Palestinian Arabs have a state. It was part of Palestine and was renamed Jordan.
61
This is the single most overlooked historical fact about the Middle East.
Maybe because it's an inconvenient truth?
2
Isn’t the anti-Semitism “clearly on the rise in Europe” mostly Muslim anti-Semitism?
32
Thank you Mr. Stephens. And regarding the Berlin incident, I have long thought that Germany and other European countries made a grave mistake in taking in all of those Arab refugees. I disagree with just about everything Trump does, but I don't fault him for limiting immigration from the Middle East.
35
For this Diaspora Jew, my problem with Israel is not how it deals with its hostile neighbors. My problem is how it deals with its friends. For the first six decades of its existence, the government of the State of Israel understood that it needed to stay on good terms with both Democrats and Republicans, for reasons that should be obvious. There was a red line of partisanship that Israel governments were careful never to cross. But the current government of Israel acts as a wholly owned subsidiary of the GOP. It makes no bones about its support for Trump and was a cheerleader for Romney when he was the candidate. For a progressive American Jew, why would Israel expect my support when it works to undermine everything i believe in here in my own home? Israel is strong now, but the day will come when it again asks for our help. We will remember then how Israel treated us today.
318
I'm a Democrat. Unfortunately, many in the party are anti-Israel. It's not really surprising that Israel looks to the Republicans for support.
31
There is universal health care coverage in Israel.There is no financial barrier to higher education.Though not perfect but seeing how Jews of all color interact suggests how we should interact too.The actions of the Israeli government fits the most progressive models of the Democratic Party.Obama was the most anti Israel and Pro Iran president in history.
13
And as a Democrat, a Jew, who voted for and liked Obama, he was cool and not sympathetic toward Israel. Not even as a candidate.
17
Mr. Stephens does make some valid points. But why on earth is Israel building settlements deep into the West Bank? Why has Israel carved up the West Bank to where the locals cannot move around without going through a myriad of checkpoints? If they don't want to have anything to do with the Arabs, why are they having everything to do with the Arabs?
I understand the barriers between the West Bank and Israel. I don't like them but they did dramatically reduce terrorism. So why put tens of thousands of Jews on the Arab side of the barrier?
I understand the blockade of Gaza. Hamas has pledged to destroy Israel and has many crude missiles. Why do they wish to perpetuate the blockade by continuing to wage war, a war they cannot win? What's the point? Roger Cohen just wrote a brilliant essay where he described Gaza as an open air prison. He's right. It is. Prisons are for containing threats. So stop threatening.
Why is there no central Palestinian Authority to bargain with? Why can't these people get along with themselves?
Can't Israelis live without the settlements? Can't the Arabs live without their missiles?
Jewish people are not naturally warriors. We are scholars, writers, scientists, musicians, physicians, and generally people who talk too much and get too emotional. This warrior thing is a reaction, not a desire.
Why can't the rest of the world just leave us alone and let us be creative and inventive. We don't want to be soldiers.
339
Israel would give up most of the settlements as the price for peace.They gave up Sinai and Gaza.There will be no peace until Hamas ,PLO accepts the Jewish State.
52
"Jewish people are not naturally warriors. We are scholars ...." Nothing marks nonsense like a racial or ethnic stereotype. Bruce R. has soiled is generally reasonable comment with ethnic stereotyping. If ethnic stereotypes are true, Israel would be filled wall-to-wall with banks, and Africa would have a basketball hoop every 30 feet or so. And Ireland ....
26
Now … I wonder why a Syrian asylum-seeker thought it was safe to assault a man wearing a yarmulke in the middle of Berlin.
I’ve had this same argument with American Jews. I’ve made the same arguments that Bret did, and others as well, including that a situation where two very alien peoples want the same land is not likely to end well from historical experience. The Jews with whom I argue are very liberal Democrats, which means that they favor directions for the very best reasons yet don’t give a thought to their practicability or their implications.
If not for Israel, there WOULD be another holocaust.
Israel has challenges, which might include electing a government more willing (yet again) to trade land for peace, allow a two-state solution and leave the Palestinians to whatever destiny they can build for themselves. However, there will never be a Palestinian “right of return”, and Israel will continue to defend its borders.
Congratulations to Israel on the occasion of its 70th anniversary as a nation.
202
Who will be responsible for another holocaust? What is the basis for that assertion? Right wing anti-semitism has no vanished in Europe but no one can claim it is anywhere near where it was before 1947.
Most anti-semitic violence these days is from Muslims extremists spurred on by the images of Palestinians victims of not particularly discriminating bombing, Israelis have a right to defend themselves against terrorism but what are Jewish settlements in the West Bank if not magnets for terrorism?
11
serban:
Did you read Bret's column? This is happening increasingly throughout Western Europe. It never stopped happening in Eastern Europe. And, not to be too delicate on THIS side of the pond, it's increasingly happening HERE again.
23
"...a situation where two very alien peoples want the same land is not likely to end well from historical experience."
Indeed -- ask American Indians (it wasn't that long ago).They don't have a "right of return", either. I gather you think they should.
Superior firepower trumps (yes) human dignity and equality every time, but conveys no moral superiority (almost always the contrary).
Borders are political, not natural or divinely gifted. Israel's were a man-made designation imposed by the winners of armed conflict in a region that already had defined borders, not a sacred gift, and it's claim to define them as expansively as it wishes now is a political policy based on firepower, not divine right.
Jews have often been demonized and victimized. So have many others (native Americans, Africans, Rohingyas, Tibetans, to name a few). If they institutionalize and enforce the same racism they suffered, are they better human beings? Or merely better armed?
10