Maybe, because Westerners have not yet ended their proxy war against Israel?

Submitted by Martin J. Malliet (Belgium), Sep 10, 2018 at 20:48

I am reluctant to follow Daniel Pipes on this one: he's putting too much faith in the virtue of Realpolitik. And he thus misses something important: how the duplicity of the West, and of Europe especially (aka Western antisemitism), in waging this 'proxy war' against Israel (Gunnar Heinsohn's qualification), has to be overcome first. - https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123171179743471961

I just copy here what I've written on Yossi Klein Halevi's facebook page some days ago.

https://www.facebook.com/YossiKleinHalevi/posts/1575971719174549?comment_id=1579572975481090

I would go further: what the Palestinians as a people have to do, is what the Germans have done before them: to replace their political leadership with representatives who (1) acknowledge the responsibility of their predecessors for the unjust and criminal war against Israel that they started in 1947-48 and (2) accept all the consequences of that criminal responsibility, such as the forfeiture of the 'right of return'. - Not telling it straight to them is indeed condescending, Raja Shehadah is right on that point. - It may also help to explain that the Zionist claim to the land of Israel was never about people and their rights: it was a political claim to establish state sovereignty over a territory (all or part of Palestine) with respect for the rights of (all) the people living in that territory. State sovereignty that would allow for large scale Jewish immigration into Israel and not necessarily please everybody living in Palestine. From the 1937 report of the Peel Commission it is clear that poor Arab peasants already suffering from rapid population growth were the losers from the profitable land sales by their landowning elites to more productive Jewish immigrants. But that's simply what it means to live on Earth and not in Paradise. There's no way getting around it without becoming condescending or patronising.

Wars always have 'hard and brutal' consequences for their victims. Complaining about them when you started the war yourself is dishonest. Complaining about them when the war you started was unjust is even dishonourable and shameful. And that's what Palestinians are really suffering from: because as human beings they know it in their heart.

Hurt and rage are never in short supply. Especially when people allow themselves to invent a narrative to go with them. So there is no other way out than to go back to the facts. Being willing to do that is in my opinion the only proof of good faith that exists.

One such fact: the two-state solution was always available to the parties with conflicting (political!) claims to the land of Palestine. Even without the recommendation by the UN General Assembly. Another such fact: the Palestinian leadership and their Arab alllies refused to enter into negotiations on a peaceful political compromise of the conflicting claims. And still another one: the Palestinian leadership and their Arab allies not only rejected good-faith negotiations, they reacted with violence and started a war. To discount such rather significant facts is never a good idea. Not even when it's done out of sympathy. Or empathy.

Well, I'm writing to you now. But I also wrote to Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2013. Because I am of the opinion that it is up to her to take the lead on this one. Seconded by President Emmanuel Macron and President Donald Trump. Otherwise, Jared Kushner's efforts will not be understood. And consequently of no avail.

http://kko-fvd-mjm.blogspot.com/2013/02/vorschlag-die-deutsche-bundeskanzlerin.html

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