I don’t know if you’ve noticed but everything is either ridiculous or sublime.
Doug Emhoff doesn’t know what Chanukah is and he’s Jewish, but Richie Torres who isn’t Jewish does, and antizionist Jews are more mad at Richie than they are at Doug. Both Richie and Doug are Democrats. Richie is a Black man, Doug is a fair-skinned Jew. I don’t know how to square this. Richie Torres is terrible for knowing what Chanukah is according to antizionist Jews at If Not Now (or If Not How, as I call them). Free Palestine from Richie Torres.
Elsewhere in the ridiculous, Beyonce is now being cancelled for showing her concert film in Israel. No, she didn’t play a live show in Israel. She merely allowed her concert film of her latest tour to be screened in Israel, and presumably all territories everywhere because she’s BEYONCE. This is BEYOND. So now not only are artists boycotted relentlessly if they flirt with the idea of touring in Israel, Israelis cannot even enjoy watching concerts that couldn’t take place in their country. And as a result of this, the progressive community are going to cancel the first Black woman in history to headline festivals such as Glastonbury and Coachella? Guys, they’re eating their own tails now.
Oy and indeed vey.
In addition to all this nonsense, the ceasefire platoon have found some reinvigorated energy just ahead of Christmas (when presumably they’ll take a brief break to celebrate the birth of Jesus, who they will claim was a Palestinian). So yes, we are now hearing again en masse that it’s Israel, and not Hamas, who have to “cease fire”.
That’s what I have to say about the ceasefire.
Anyway, onto the sublime. I went to see Dr Einat Wilf speak tonight, and had the pleasure of meeting her for the first time. Dr Wilf talked about radical positivity and not just imagining peace, but having honest conversations about how peace will be achieved. I have to be frank. The second October 7 unravelled, my first thought was that the dream of a two-state solution was dead. How can we still have a two-state solution and live comfortably next to such people?
Dr Wilf talked about the possibilities of re-educating the Palestinians the day after Hamas. Of looking to how Germany and Japan and Korea have been successfully de-radicalized. And employing similar tactics with the Palestinians. But what I found most compelling was her reminder about what happened when this started, and it started before 1948. In the British Mandate of Palestine there were many Jews and many Arabs. The Jews wanted one priority. The Arabs wanted another. The Jews’ priority was to have a state of their own. The Arabs’ priority wasn’t to have a state of Palestine, but to ensure that there would be no Jewish state in the land. Before the state of Israel was even declared, the Arabs did not want it to exist at all. So when they called “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” we really needed to listen, because they meant what they said. And that is why they have always walked away from any deal for a two-state solution. They don’t want two states. They want one - Palestine.
It may be the case that the elite here have "West-splained” the Palestinians to soften this call for genocide and claim that’s not really what they meant, but it is what they meant. It is what they continue to mean. Palestinian liberation at the expense of a Jewish state is taught generation after generation and it needs to stop. If the Palestinians in Gaza wanted a two-state solution, they would have turned Gaza into Singapore. They never wanted that. They wanted Gaza to be the weapon by which Israel would cease to exist. They turned Gaza into a war launchpad. And hence October 7.
In my opinion there is no value for life in Gaza, period. It is not the fault of the Palestinians born into the society. They never stood a chance. They are trapped in a cycle, and they are bound to remain in it, unless by some bold life-risking act of courage they break free. Every Palestinian born in Gaza while Hamas rules are living in the launchpad and become nothing but an aid to war – and not just in a war in the Middle East, but in a PR war the world over.
But here’s my question. Say we achieve a two-state solution, and the Palestinians finally let go of their grievance (ie, that there’s a Jewish state), what about the rest of the world’s grievance? Because it’s true, right? It’s not just the Palestinians who are aggrieved now. They have successfully lasso’d their cause onto every victimized group in the West and further afield, and now nobody is OK with the fact that Israel exists. Will the world ever let it go? Did the world ever really want Israel to succeed?
The answer, I think, is no.
There could be hope for the Palestinians if the mentality they’ve been trapped in is radically changed. But the fact is there will always be an enemy of the Jewish state. It’s about Palestinians today, it will be about someone else tomorrow. The obsession will never cease. But neither will we.
I don't know Dr. Wilf, so I address her argument generally, not specifically her.
WTF?
To elaborate... where among the Arab occupiers of Gaza (and Judea and Samaria) is the germ, the mitochondrial DNA, of cohabitation with Jews? If October 7th was the blackest day in the history of Israel, it ushered in an even darker season of sympathy with the butchers (apologies to butchers for the unfortunate association with, you know, butchers), gang rapists, child kidnappers, and other dregs of subhumanity (to keep it real). And three months later, we are supposed to "Imagine" (à la John Lennon) all the people living in peace? I don't want to flatten Rafah or burn Ramallah in an unholy conflagration--those locales will come in handy when the borders of Israel reach from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.
But flattening and unholy conflagrations were how Japan and Germany were defeated. If any country can accomplish the utter defeat of its enemy *without* unnecessary flattening and conflagration, Israel is that country. But the enemy needs defeating. Utterly. The sympathy others feel for Arab/Muslim atrocities and crimes against humanity is on them. Israel is one small nation of barely 7 million Jews in a world of over 8 billion. Outnumbered by more than a thousand to one, I like Israel's chances.
Even though he is not Jewish, they should take that Genesis Prize they gave to silent Natalie Portman and give it to Richie Torres.