That doesn’t mean you are right…only that you are a decent person.
Dear Mr. Layton -
Thank you for your message, I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my letter.
Thus far, you are the only one of the various parties to which I wrote that has seen fit to respond at all and for that I am grateful.
However I am disappointed that you did not address my central point and one which is also made by a variety of Israeli historians, including Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappe, Benny Morris and others. That point is that the Occupation exercise began in 1948, when tens of thousands of peaceful, unarmed Palestinian Arabs were forced from their homes at gunpoint and driven out. The homes and lands of many of those innocent civilians were then confiscated and turned over to the new Zionist government, through one or more of the agencies which it controlled.
As I said in my letter to you and the others, by stepping so hard on Libby Davies, you have opened a can of worms that is not going to go away.
The proof that the Occupation process began in 1948 can be found in the writings of Yitzakh Rabin – albeit not in his published work because that was censored by Israel’s cabinet of the day.
But for the sake of public knowledge, the portion that was censored was given to New York Times Correspondent, David Shipler, who wrote a piece that appeared in the Times in October 1979.
Here is the quote out of General Rabin’s own mouth:-
- “We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?’ Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said ‘Drive them out!”
– Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.
David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister said,
- “We must expel the Arabs and take their places.”
– Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.
Ben Gurion also said:-
- “We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”
– David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.
There many other individuals and books one could cite, but I’ll include just one more, from a great man whom I knew briefly during his lifetime, Dr. Nahum Goldmann. In his book “Le Paradoxe Juif”, Dr. Goldman – who was head of the World Zionist Council – wrote that -
- “There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
– Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp. 121-122.
You say, Mr. Layton, that you are regularly in touch with the Israeli ambassador and Palestinian
representatives here in Canada and that last year, you met with president of ” the Palestinian Authorities Mahmud Abbas” and had an excellent meeting where I had the opportunity to outline the NDP’s policies on this issue.
You neatly side-step the core of the issue by stating that you “called on the government to reinstate and increase Canada’s contribution to UNRWA – in order to see improvements to the
lives of ordinary Palestinians.” You must know that UNRWA is a United Nations charity organization whose work only increases Palestinian dependency on charitable handouts.
You refuse to acknowledge that the people of Gaza elected – democratically – the Hamas party as their government. It’s not useful to get into the terrorist “name-game”, because it can be argued and has been argued by many people including Sir Gerald Kaufman, a British member of parliament, that there’s plenty of “terrorist” charges to go around on both sides. The commission of war crimes apparently does not prompt Canada or Canadian politicians to advocate placing the perpetrators of war crimes on a “war crimes list”.
Perhaps most importantly, you do not address the issue of democracy in terms of the United Nations partition resolution. That resolution certainly tested the principle of self-determination and most certainly it failed the test, because the indigenous inhabitants who made up the majority of the population, were never consulted. If that is your idea of a democratic process, then I find you no better than Harper on this issue.
I agreed with you that Canadians are divided on this issue. But they are divided out of ignorance and/or ideology. The failure to recognize that fairly obvious truth, is precisely where you – Mr. Layton – and the others – have let Canadians down.
And finally, rather than address the central issue at hand in any constructive way, you fall back on that old political tactic of pin the blame tail on the other donkey. You distance yourself from Libby Davies by saying that after you admonished her, “she quickly clarified her comments and I accepted her clarification.”
You conclude your response to me by condemning Stephen Harper and you say that in the next election you will defeat him. Sadly, Mr. Layton, you are whistling in the dark. Canadians may be divided on a number of issues out of ignorance and the double-talk of self-interested politicians.
But they are fully united on one major matter: they do not trust any of the leaders now heading up their political parties enough, to give any one of them a majority.
Sincerely,
Jim.
This is an excellent letter but it will not get a reply because they don’t have anyone who is capable of writing a reply to this type of letter.
Now that I have read this, I am going to send my own letter to Jack Layton.
My recommendation will be that the NDP should request the Israeli’s start vacating the occupied lands of Palestine immediately without conditions with the objective of having all 230 settlements completely vacated in 5 years. This would not be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations. This would be done because the occupation is illegal.
I will let you know if I ever get a reply.
Mike
Jim… your analysis is right on the money. Your incite, backed by references, underscores what the background story is. The real question remains unanswered “What to do with the ‘facts on the ground’?”
The world especially the US, needs to pressure (read cut off aid) Israel into understanding the consequences of their inaction. The world also needs to pressure the Arab World, particularly Egypt (read cut off aid) on the Gaza border crossing, given the intransigence to keeping it locked, to understand their responsibility in helping ease the suffering of the Palestinian people while talks with all relevant parties: regional and local, undertake to unravel what has taken place to the detriment of all, over the last 60 years. Hopefully, with pressure, cooler heads will prevail as a 2 state solution based on mutual understanding and respect of the similarities and differences but ultimately respect for each others’ humanity, will prevail and find a new way forward a la Canada. Hopefully, times… they are a-changing… nice idea… probably naive.
Thank you Jake
I know that perhaps I am being a bore on the subject of the Middle east, but I believe the very Conscience of Humankind is involved here.
The essence of Judaism is being placed at risk by Israel.
Christians have lost their way to some extent.
And Muslims have been needlessly radicalized.
But we in the West have a way of tolerating injustice and criminal behaviour by states. Look at the cruel and unjustified slaughter by China of hundreds of thousands of innocent Tibetans.
And then look at our mealy-mouthed cowardly politicians who make the trek to Beijing to kneel at the feet of the tyrants.
When we accept this kind of crap, we are no better than them.
Thanks Jake…we must chat in person soon.