The Company Israel Keeps, According To Jeff Greenfield
August 15, 2006 at 3:02 pm
CNN’s Jeff Greenfield appeared on “Imus” Tuesday morning and said this about the Middle East:
“I’ve never heard it explained adequately how you solve a problem where two different people think God gave them the same piece of land. I mean, what actually, we’ve seen how you’ve made progress. And what happens is, at some point, and I don’t just mean in the Middle East, at some point, to be blunt about it, somebody gives up something. You don’t conquer them, you know, like Gormany and Japan after World War II.
DeKlerk gave up, in the best possible sense, South Afirca – he said, ‘we can’t keep this going any more.’ The colonial forces, the British and French and others said we can’t run this part of the world anymore.
Essentially Mikhail Gorbachev gave up that malicious dream of a totalitarian state could change the world.
And in the American south, the white southerners, the segregationists, they were made to give up, said you know what, we can’t do this anymore. So the question I get is, who gives up what?”
UPDATE: A Mideast expert writes me with this thought:
I don’t get his point. It can’t be that 6 million Israeli Jews (or 13 million Jews total), “give up” more of eretz Yisrael. The Arabs already have Judea and Samaria (West Bank), the Jewish religious and historical heartland, and most Jews seem willing to tolerate that, more or less. Not to mention, the Arabs already have 82.5 percent of British Mandatory Palestine (Jordan, West Bank, and Gaza Strip) and most Jews seem willing to live with that, more or less.
For Israelis/Jews, this isn’t about “giving up something,” it’s about not giving up. The South African example is misleading, as usual. Even at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, most blacks did not see most whites, as I understand it, as not South African. So is the reference to Germany and France. AFTER both were heavily damaged in World Wars, and Germany leveled in the second, Germany learned to live without all of Alsace-Lorraine, etc.
So, what’s Greenfield’s point? That the Arab-Muslims have to give something up? Yes, right after their version of the Protestant Reformation/Catholic Counter-reformation, or maybe Allied occupation.
Harry said,
August 15, 2006 @ 9:31 pm
Not to mince words, but the Jews right to live and prosper in a state of their own in Israel is not just due to its G-d given right. To say that lends credence to Jews as usurpers in a land for which they have no other connection than a book. The facts that Greenfield ignores by making this statement are how did Jews come to live in Israel. A few answers: (i) They never left entirely, so their connection to the land was not severed and (ii) when they made mass aliyah in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, they purchased land, built on non-developed/non-inhabited land and had a majority of Jews living in the area that became Israel. Also, it should be noted that Arabs flocked to the areas surrounding the Jews’ economic creations - Jews made the land attractive to live in - Tel Aviv was an uninhabitable swamp before Jews built it. Jews gave birth to this land as much as they returned to it. Jews have built the most creative and flourishing civilization in the Middle East - for that alone, they deserve the land they built. The Biblical birthright is just icing on the cake of the argument. The fact that the Arabs have done nothing productive with Gaza or the West Bank in the 30 years before Israel controlled it or since the 67 war is a persuasive argument that the Arabs have neglected and abandoned (if not physically abandoned) the land that they reside on. And, for the record Mr. Greenfield, neither the Koran nor Allah ever promised the land of Israel to the Arabs - so it is not a case of the Arabs thinking that G-d gave them the land.
Bob Bowie said,
August 15, 2006 @ 9:40 pm
Actually, the worst thing that can be touted is that the “conflict” is one of waring religions: Israel needs to avoid that pitfall above everything else. The “conflict” is not one of Israel trying to spread Judisim vs. their “Arab” neighbors trying to spread Islam: Israel is not trying to “spread” Judisim. It seeks and deserves to be a peaceful, legimate state, not a religious mecca. On the other hands, the “Arabs” DO seek to spread Islam, like a bad case of poison ivy.