Dear
Readers,
These columns began on my area of America Online, called: Judaism
Today: Where Do I Fit? People anonymously
sent me E-Mail, and I began to choose one for a public response
in my Jewish E-Mail of the Week column. The column has become
quite popular and is now syndicated internationally in many
Jewish papers and websites. I hope you find they help you
as you think about the Ethics, Spirituality and Peoplehood
components of the Jewish way of Life. I welcome your
comments... see the end of the column.
Gil
PS
Teachers and others, feel free to copy my columns and forward
them or use them as you see fit. Please see the friendly
copyright notice at the end. |
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THE
JEWISH SETTLEMENTS ARE THE PROBLEM!
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Hi
Gil:
Which
is more important: the settlements in
Palestinian territory or the lives of
people being killed on both sides in
the present conflict? What will happen
if nothing changes and the inevitable
escalation into full scale, all out
war between Israel and all the Arab
countries actually happens? How many
lives are affected then? More than the
settlers.
H
H
shalom:
The
loss of lives of innocent people
during the current violence has been
painful and horrible. The situation
has become depressing and
tragic...especially for the
Palestinian people. Personally, I
would like to see the day that a
Palestinian State exists in peace next
to Israel. But saying that settlements
are the obstacle is not fair or
accurate.
The
settlements are not well understood by
anyone who has not seen them and
studied their history. About the only
thing that people can agree upon is
that they are controversial. Even the
question of who legally owned the land
is hotly debated.
What
is not debated however, is that much
of the land that is now under Israel's
control is a result of wars with Arabs
who were trying to eliminate Israel.
"Throw her into the sea"
they used to say in the wars that THEY
STARTED and lost. You must use this
context when trying to understand
"the settlements." There are
different kinds of settlements and I
would not lump them all together.
Most
of the settlements on what is called
the West Bank or Judea/Samaria
depending on your politics, were built
after the 1967 war when numerous Arab
countries declared war on Israel and
were defeated. These settlements were
placed on militarily strategic
locations to protect the heart of
Israel -- which pre-67 was only 9
miles wide at it's narrowest spot.
Virtually all of them were built on
empty raw land.
Next,
there are settlements that more
accurately would be described as
neighborhoods or suburbs of Jerusalem.
They were built to insure that the
Arabs can never again do what they did
until the 1967 war; namely, desecrate
Jewish cemeteries and other sites and
prevent Jews from access to all of the
city. Most notably, Jews could not
visit the holiest site in Judaism, the
Western Wall before 1967.
Finally,
there are a few settlements, like the
handful in the Gaza Strip that many
Israelis view as merely insulting
irritants to the Palestinians. From a
strategic point of view they serve
little purpose. In fact, they are a
drain on Israel's army to protect.
These settlements are ideologically
driven (i.e., the land of Israel was
promised by God to the Jews) and from
my point of view do more harm than
good.
But
as I said at the beginning, the
existence of settlements is not the
reason the Palestinian leadership will
not make peace with Israel and don't
have a state. The real problem is the
existence of Israel. In their minds,
their media and their children's text
books, Tel Aviv is also a settlement.
They call the establishment of Israel
"el nakba" the catastrophe.
And from 1948 until the present, the
mentality has been that through
violence they will prevail over
Israel.
The
latest violence, started by Arafat is
a case in point. He rejected an
Israeli offer which included giving
Palestinians control of over 90% of
the land captured from Jordan in 1967,
adding to that some pre-67 Israeli
land, sharing Jerusalem and reportedly
dismantling or relinquishing most of
the settlements. Arafat's
counterproposal? Stop negotiating and
turn to violence and terror bombing.
The
Palestinians are experts at
manipulating the media, portraying the
settlements and every other Israel
policy as oppressive, brutal and
cruel. As an American with a natural
sympathy for the downtrodden, their
plight touches the heart...but saying
the problem is settlements is far from
the true story.
For
more honest analysis, I suggest you
read some Israeli newspapers in
English -- who are often very critical
of Israeli policy--as opposed to the
government controlled Arab press. Try:
www.jpost.com. and
www.haaretzdaily.com. Two other
resources worth checking are:
www.honestreporting.com and
www.us-israel.org/jsource/myths/mf22a.html.
I
thank you for your questions because
only talking and listening will lead
to peace. The more people on both
sides of this conflict learn and seek
truth, the greater the chance that
compromises and peace will someday
prevail.
Gil
A FRIENDLY COPYRIGHT NOTICE
© Copyright Gil Mann
These columns can be found at www.beingjewish.org. Not
only do I give you permissions to copy these Jewish Email
columns...I HOPE YOU WILL and that you share them with others!
All I ask is that you never charge anyone for them and that you
also include this little copyright notice. Thank You!
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