- POINT 1: Judaism is just a religion, and a religion cannot be the basis for a state.
- COUNTERPOINT: Jews did not form a state just because they practice a common religion. They are an ethnic, cultural, national group that has maintained its unique traditions and identity for 3000 years and deserved to have a homeland.
- Supporting Evidence: "Jews are members of a group held together for more than 3,000 years by a common faith and a common history. Many persons believe that Jews form a nation. Others claim that they make up a religious group only. But there is no single definition of a Jew." World Book Encyclopedia [1]
- Supporting Evidence: Some argue that a Jewish state "is not legitimate… because by definition it cannot be a democracy, and because religions are not entitled to political self-determination. However, this is clearly a misreading of the term "Jewish" in a "Jewish state," which refers not to religion but to national identity. The confusion stems from the fact that the relationship between nationality and religion in Judaism is a unique one. No other people has its own specific religion: The Arab peoples, for example, comprise Christians, Muslims, and Druze…. At the same time, no other religion has a specific nationality of its own: Christians can be French, American, Mexican, or Arab;…This distinction is not merely the result of secularization: Judaism, at least from a historical perspective, has never differentiated between the people and the religion. Nor was there any belated development that altered this unique fact:" Professor Ruth Gavison, Legal Scholar on Human Rights [2]
- Supporting Evidence: The very word Jew derives from the nation of their origin, Judea.(*) When the Romans finally conquered the Judeans rebelling against them in 135 AD, they renamed the area Palestine in order to de-Judaize it.(**) [3]
- Supporting Evidence: Jews were "an ethnic minority" who maintained an ethnic "solidarity …[for] over nearly two millennia [that] was more intense and dynamic than that of any other diaspora." They were united by "an idealization of the homeland," their "sacred language…with its unique script," "the edifice of Talmudic law," and a "common life-style and ethic." Sociologist Anthony D. Smith [4]
- Supporting Evidence: "Here you have a small race (Jews) originally inhabiting a small country…then scattered….yet maintaining a continuity of religious and racial tradition of which we have no parallel elsewhere." Lord Alfred Balfour 1922 [5]
- Supporting Evidence: When Jews were persecuted in Europe and in Muslim countries, they were not just seen as a religious group. They were seen as an ethnic, national or tribal group whose children and grandchildren were deemed Jews regardless whether they had converted to another religion or chose no religion at all. "An individual of mixed Jewish blood is one who is descended from one or two grandparents who, racially, were full Jews…" Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg Laws, 1935 [6]
- Supporting Evidence: "Jews are members of a group held together for more than 3,000 years by a common faith and a common history. Many persons believe that Jews form a nation. Others claim that they make up a religious group only. But there is no single definition of a Jew." World Book Encyclopedia [1]
- COUNTERPOINT: Shared religious identity is a defining characteristic of most modern nation states. Israel is no different in this regard.
- Supporting Evidence: "The nation is usually (though not always) composed of all persons sharing the same speech…a belief in a common descent or…common history, a common future, a common religion, a common geographical home or a common external menace. "(*) Historian RR Palmer [7]
- Supporting Evidence: "Nearly every country in the world boasts one majority community, and nearly all reflect the cultural identity of that community in one way or another. The United States officially celebrates only Christian holidays; many European countries openly identify as either Catholic or Protestant; and many Muslim countries uncontroversially refer to themselves as an "Islamic Republic," whether they are democratic or not. For some, such identification is simply a sign of the spiritual persuasion of the majority; for others, it is homage to the story of the country's founding. There is nothing obviously wrong with such expression." Dore Gold and Jeff Heimreich [8]
- Supporting Evidence: Modern European nations formed with distinct religious identities. There are the Protestant nations (England, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands), Catholic countries (France, Spain, Italy), and Eastern Orthodox (Russia).
- Supporting Evidence: Middle Eastern nations were formed through shared religious identity. Most of them have declared Islam their official religion and seek to preserve Islam’s dominance.
- Supporting Evidence: In 1947, Pakistan was separated from India to provide competing religious groups--Muslims and Hindus--with separate nations. [9]
- Supporting Evidence: The former Yugoslavia fragmented into five separate states to separate ethnic groups characterized by different religions—Muslim, Catholic and Greek Orthodox. Israel is no different.
- Supporting Evidence: "The nation is usually (though not always) composed of all persons sharing the same speech…a belief in a common descent or…common history, a common future, a common religion, a common geographical home or a common external menace. "(*) Historian RR Palmer [7]
- COUNTERPOINT: All major religious groups have sovereign nations where they form a majority and where their survival and interests are protected. They are not accused of being undemocratic nor is anyone calling for them to be dismantled. Israel has every right to expect the world to respect and honor the one small state where Jews, who have suffered millennia of persecution, form the majority.
- Supporting Evidence: There are 45 nations where Islam is the majority religion; 49 where Roman Catholicism is; 20 where Protestantism is; 12 where Eastern Orthodoxy is; 4 where Hinduism is. Israel, about the size of New Jersey, is the only state where Jews are the majority. [10]
- Supporting Evidence: Many nations still have an official state religion which has little to do with whether or not they are democratic:
• 7 nations have Christianity as their official religion, including Great Britain, Denmark, Spain, Greece and Finland. WorldIQ.com Encyclopedia (*)
• 724 nations have Islam as their official religion, including Morocco, Malaysia and the nations of the Middle East. WorldIQ.com Encyclopedia (**)
• 74 states have Bhuddism as their official religion, including Cambodia and Thailand. WorldIQ.com Encyclopedia(***)
[11]
- Supporting Evidence: "The Church of England, or Anglican Church, is the official state church in England. The British monarch must belong to it, but all other Englishmen may worship as they choose." World Book Encyclopedia, 1979 [12]
- Supporting Evidence: There are 45 nations where Islam is the majority religion; 49 where Roman Catholicism is; 20 where Protestantism is; 12 where Eastern Orthodoxy is; 4 where Hinduism is. Israel, about the size of New Jersey, is the only state where Jews are the majority. [10]
- COUNTERPOINT: The United Nations believed that Jews had a right to set up their own state, and called for them to do so.
- Supporting Evidence: The UN Partition Resolution in 1947 explicitly called for the establishment of an Arab state and a Jewish state. "Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in part III of this plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948. The boundaries of the Arab State, the Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem shall be as described in parts II and III below. UN Resolution 181 Part I, Number 3, November 29 1947 [13]
- Supporting Evidence: The UN Partition Resolution in 1947 explicitly called for the establishment of an Arab state and a Jewish state. "Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in part III of this plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948. The boundaries of the Arab State, the Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem shall be as described in parts II and III below. UN Resolution 181 Part I, Number 3, November 29 1947 [13]
- COUNTERPOINT: Jews did not form a state just because they practice a common religion. They are an ethnic, cultural, national group that has maintained its unique traditions and identity for 3000 years and deserved to have a homeland.
- POINT 2: A nation based on religious identity contradicts the principles of justice, tolerance and human rights.
- COUNTERPOINT: The issue is not whether a nation is based on a "religious identity" but whether it lives up to the principles of justice, tolerance, human rights and democracy. Israel does, even according to Palestinians.
- Supporting Evidence: Israel is a multicultural state where all religions and ethnicities have equal rights. 23% of Israel’s population is not Jewish, and includes:(*)
1 million Muslim Arabs (16% of the population)
[14]
170,000 Bedouin Arabs (Muslims)
113,000 Christian Arabs
106,000 Druze (a divergent Islamic sect)
3,000 Circassians (non-Arab Sunni Moslems)
They have equal rights and protections as in any democracy.
- Supporting Evidence: "[T]he Jewish character of the State of Israel does not, in and of itself, mean violating basic human rights of non-Jews or the democratic character of the country. Non-Jews may not enjoy a feeling of full membership in the majority culture; this, however, is not a right but an interest—again, it is something which national or ethnic minorities almost by definition do not enjoy—and its absence does not undermine the legitimacy of Israeli democracy. Israel has a multi-party political system and a robust public debate, in which the national claims of the Arabs are fully voiced. It has regular elections, in which all adult citizens, irrespective of nationality or religion, participate. Since 1977, it has experienced a number of changes in government. Its court system enjoys a high level of independence, and has made the principle of non-discrimination a central part of its jurisprudence. It has also developed a strong protection of freedom of speech, of association, and of the press. It is thus no surprise that it is counted by scholars among the stable democracies in the world." Professor Ruth Gavison, Legal Scholar on Human Rights [15]
- Supporting Evidence: Since polls were first taken in 1996, Palestinians have consistently rated Israel’s democracy as the one they most admire in the world, according to the Palestinian Center for Palestine Research and Studies. "Every year Israel has been the top performer, at times receiving 80% approval. The American system has been the next best [67% in 1999], followed by the French…." Center for Palestine Research and Studies. [16]
- Supporting Evidence: I "remain constantly amazed by the high standards of the [Israeli] legal system." Raji Sourani, Director of Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, 2003. [17]
- Supporting Evidence: "I envy them [Israelis and their democracy] and desire a similar regime in my future state. It is true that I am appalled by the culture of curses and profanities in the Israeli political arena, but I respect the democratic discussion, debate, decision, the sovereignty of law, and the freedom of the press…" Columnist Ata Al-Qemari, in Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam, May 22, 1999. [18]
- Supporting Evidence: "Israel has proved that for fifty years its real power is in its democracy, guarding the rights of its citizens, applying laws [equally] to the rich and poor, the big and small…and in the participation of the nation in the development of institutions according to ability and efficiency and not according to closeness to [the ruler]…." Columnist Dr. Talal Al-Shareef, Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds, May 27, 1999. [19]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel is a multicultural state where all religions and ethnicities have equal rights. 23% of Israel’s population is not Jewish, and includes:(*)
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel protects religious pluralism and practices religious tolerance.
- Supporting Evidence: "Israel is the only country in the region that permits citizens of all faiths to worship freely and openly." Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp and Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Memorandum April 24, 2002. [20]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel has greater religious pluralism than the USA. 20% of Israelis are non-Jewish while in the US only 4% of the population adheres to a non-Christian religion. [21]
- Supporting Evidence: Each religious community in Israel (Christian, Jewish, Moslem) is allowed to have jurisdiction over the marriage, divorce and burial of its members, and representatives of each of each religion are state officials. [22]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel gave the Druze, a group "traditionally persecuted by Moslem Arabs," the status of an official religious community, with their own religious council and courts. [23]
- Supporting Evidence: "The highest body of the Baha'i faith…declared the Israeli port city of Haifa the `Mecca' for the religion's five million members" in 1992 in part because of Israel’s tolerance and the persecution the Baha’is faced in other Middle Eastern states. [24]
- Supporting Evidence: The Christian population in Israel has quadrupled in the last forty years while it is precipitously declining in the Middle East and particularly in the Palestinian Authority. Israel’s Christian population has grown from 51,000 in 1961 to over 137,000 today. [25]
- Supporting Evidence: "Israel is the only country in the region that permits citizens of all faiths to worship freely and openly." Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp and Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Memorandum April 24, 2002. [20]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel gives asylum to desperate refugees, regardless of their religious affiliation.
- Supporting Evidence: Two Palestinian converts to Christianity who were persecuted by the PA decided "their only hope was to escape to Israel" for asylum. The PA had imprisoned, tortured and sentenced to death Saeed and Nasser Salame for converting from Islam to Christianity. In December 2002, they sought asylum in Israel until they could move to a Western country. US representative Jo Ann Davis (R-Va) and the Religious Freedom Coalition have taken up their cause. [26]
- Supporting Evidence: In 1977, Israel gave refuge and instant citizenship to 250 desperate Vietnamese boat people whom other nations refused to accept. As one Vietnamese refugee told the Jerusalem Post in 1996: "I don’t feel as though I’m in the minority. It doesn’t bother me that I’m Vietnamese, because in my head I’m Israeli." [27]
- Supporting Evidence: During war in the former Yugoslavia, Israel gave refuge to 84 Muslims fleeing war-torn Bosnia in 1993 and to 110 Albanians fleeing war-torn Kosovo in 1999. [28]
- Supporting Evidence: Two Palestinian converts to Christianity who were persecuted by the PA decided "their only hope was to escape to Israel" for asylum. The PA had imprisoned, tortured and sentenced to death Saeed and Nasser Salame for converting from Islam to Christianity. In December 2002, they sought asylum in Israel until they could move to a Western country. US representative Jo Ann Davis (R-Va) and the Religious Freedom Coalition have taken up their cause. [26]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel has protected all religious sites and access to them since it gained control of East Jerusalem in 1967, sometimes even to the disadvantage of Jews.
- Supporting Evidence: "There is unimpeded access today [to holy sites]. There wasn’t from 1948-1967" when Jordan controlled East Jerusalem and prevented access to Jews and Christians. President Jimmy CarterNear East Report April 2, 1990
- Supporting Evidence: In one of its first act after the 1967 War, Israel announced that it would let the Waqf (the Muslim Trust) maintain control over the mosques on Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount, and promised that Jews would be allowed to pray only at the adjacent Wailing Wall, not on the Temple Mount itself, in order to not offend Muslims. [29]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel entrusted administration of the Christian and Muslim holy sites to their respective religious authorities. [30]
- Supporting Evidence: "There is unimpeded access today [to holy sites]. There wasn’t from 1948-1967" when Jordan controlled East Jerusalem and prevented access to Jews and Christians. President Jimmy CarterNear East Report April 2, 1990
- COUNTERPOINT: The United Nations did not see a contradiction between a Jewish state and fulfillment of the principles of justice, tolerance and human rights.
- Supporting Evidence: The UN Partition Resolution in 1947 explicitly called for the establishment of an Arab state and a Jewish state. "Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in part III of this plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948. The boundaries of the Arab State, the Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem shall be as described in parts II and III below. UN Resolution 181 Part I, Number 3, November 29 1947 [31]
- Supporting Evidence: When the UN accepted Israel as a member state, it did not see any inherent problem with the Jewish state living up to the UN Charter’s ideals. "The General Assembly, Acting in discharge of its functions under Article 4 of the Charter and rule 125 of its rules of procedure, (1) Decides that Israel is a peace-loving State which accepts the obligations contained in the Charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations;" UN Resolution 273 (III), May 11, 1949 [32]
- Supporting Evidence: "During many centuries of oppression, the Jewish people had developed certain valuable characteristics and had left their mark in many fields of human endeavour, particularly in the sphere of progressive thought. The contemporary movement for peace owed much to the Jews. The past record of the Jews should be a guarantee for the future. Within the framework of the United Nations, Israel could make an important contribution to peace and progress." Mr. Drohojowski, Polish representative to the UN, Speech to the 207th Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly, May 11 1949 [33]
- Supporting Evidence: The UN Partition Resolution in 1947 explicitly called for the establishment of an Arab state and a Jewish state. "Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in part III of this plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948. The boundaries of the Arab State, the Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem shall be as described in parts II and III below. UN Resolution 181 Part I, Number 3, November 29 1947 [31]
- COUNTERPOINT: It is Arab states that violate the principles of justice, tolerance and human rights.
- Supporting Evidence: Arab scholars, in the UN Arab Human Development Report of 2002, underscored the ‘freedom deficit’ of Arab countries which are non-elected despotisms that practice intolerance, human rights abuses and have little regard for the well-being of their citizens. [34]
- Supporting Evidence: The anti-democratic regimes of the Middle East are described by NGO’s as among the least free(*) and most corrupt(**) countries in the world. In almost all states in the region a death penalty is attached (either legally or practically) to homosexuality(***) and conversion out of Islam.(****) In almost no country is there legislation protecting a woman from ‘honor killing’ by a jealous husband, brother, or father who suspects her of adultery.(*****) Finally, there is almost nowhere else in the world with a higher occurrence of Female Genital Mutilation.(******) [35]
- Supporting Evidence: Middle Eastern countries have not kept pace with the movement toward democratization occurring around the globe, according to Freedom House which has monitored political and civil freedoms around the globe for 30 years and recently concluded that "there has been dramatic progress in the expansion of freedom and democratic governance over the life of the survey…[but] Among the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, there has been virtually no significant progress toward democratization in the three decades of the survey. In 1972, the survey rated only 2 countries—Israel and Lebanon—as Free, while 3 states were Partly Free, and 14 were rated Not Free. Today, Israel remains the region’s sole democracy and Free country. There are 4 Partly Free and 13 Not Free states, virtually the same distribution as in 1972." "Freedom in the World 2003," Freedom House [36]
- Supporting Evidence: Arab scholars, in the UN Arab Human Development Report of 2002, underscored the ‘freedom deficit’ of Arab countries which are non-elected despotisms that practice intolerance, human rights abuses and have little regard for the well-being of their citizens. [34]
- COUNTERPOINT: It is Arab states that impose an official religion and persecute other religious groups, especially Christians and Jews.
- Supporting Evidence: The Arab states in the Middle East all established Islam as their official religion and have "very serious issues of religious restrictions, discrimination, persecution….lack of tolerance and pluralism…[and] impose significant legal obstacles to religious freedom, contrary to the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Steven J. Coffey, US Principal Deputy Assistant of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations May 1, 1997. [37]
- Supporting Evidence: Because of persecution, "Throughout the entire Middle East, once significant Christian communities have shrunk to a miniscule portion of their former robust selves. In 50 years they may well be extinct…2 million [fled] in the last 20 years alone." Professors Jonathan Adelman and Agota Kuperman, 2002 [38]
- Supporting Evidence: In Saudi Arabia, "the government prohibits the public practice of other religions;" in Egypt, "religious practices that conflict with Islamic law are prohibited" and "Christians cower[ed] in fear of violence from Islamic militants and systematic human rights violations by Egypt…." In Iran, "the printing of Christian literature is illegal, converts from Islam are liable to be killed and most evangelical churches must function underground." American Department of State First Annual Report on International Religious Freedom and Professor Jonathan Adelman and Agota Kuperman. [39]
- Supporting Evidence: Persecution and violence forced the close to one million Jews who had lived in the Middle East for millennia to flee between 1947 and 1967. Only a small and dwindling fraction of them remain. 600,000 of them sought and received refuge in Israel. Jewish Agency for Israel [40]
- Supporting Evidence: ""The demonization of Jews goes further than it had ever done in Western literature, with the exception of Germany during the period of Nazi rule. In most Western countries, anti-Semitic divagations on Jewish history, religion, and literature are more than offset by a great body of genuine scholarship.… In modern Arabic writing there are few such countervailing elements." Historian Bernard Lewis [41]
- Supporting Evidence: The Arab states in the Middle East all established Islam as their official religion and have "very serious issues of religious restrictions, discrimination, persecution….lack of tolerance and pluralism…[and] impose significant legal obstacles to religious freedom, contrary to the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Steven J. Coffey, US Principal Deputy Assistant of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations May 1, 1997. [37]
- COUNTERPOINT: It is the Palestinian Authority, not Israel that imposes religious uniformity.
- Supporting Evidence: The PA declared Islam its official religion. No Palestinian law protects religious freedom.US State Department, International Religious Freedom Report, 2001. [42]
- Supporting Evidence: PA Information Ministry declared that "The Palestinian people are also governed by [Islamic] Shari’a law…with issues pertaining to religious matters…..any Muslim who [converts] or declares becoming an unbeliever is committing a major sin punishable by capital punishment." [43]
- Supporting Evidence: The PA arrests Palestinian converts to Christianity. In late June 1997, the PA’s Preventive Security Forces arrested a convert to Christianity for regularly attending church and distributing Bibles. He is still in prison and has been subjected to physical torture and interrogations.(*) In December, 2002, Saeed and Nasser Salamah, escaped from prison and from a death sentence for converting to Christianity in the PA and sought asylum in Israel. (**) [44]
- Supporting Evidence: The PA declared Islam its official religion. No Palestinian law protects religious freedom.US State Department, International Religious Freedom Report, 2001. [42]
- COUNTERPOINT: It is the Palestinian Authority, not Israel that harasses and persecutes other religious groups, including Christians.
- Supporting Evidence: "Life in [PA-ruled] Bethlehem has become insufferable for many members of the dwindling Christian minorities. Increasing Muslim-Christian tensions have left some Christians reluctant to celebrate Christmas in the town at the heart of the story of Christ’s birth," according to a December 1997 report in the London Times. [45]
- Supporting Evidence: The Christian rate of emigration from the Territories has accelerated and the Christian population of the Territories has dropped from 15% in 1950 to barely 2% today. Many fear that soon few if any Christians will be left in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, or in Nazareth though they once were Christian majority cities. [46]
- Supporting Evidence: "Allah the almighty has called upon us not to ally with the Jews or the Christians, not to like them, not to become their partners, not to support them, and not to sign agreements with them."(*) Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Friday sermon broadcast by the PA on October 13, 2000 [47]
- Supporting Evidence: Graffiti in Bethlehem and Beit Sahur reads, "First the Saturday people [the Jews] then the Sunday people [the Christians]," according to the New York Times.(*) The same lines are often chanted during anti-Israel PLO/PA rallies.(*) [48]
- Supporting Evidence: Palestinian Muslims will not sell land to Christians. Muslim extremists have attacked Christian facilities and clubs, the Wall Street Journal reported in July 1994. Christian graves, crosses and statues have been desecrated. Christian cemeteries have been defaced, monasteries have had their phone lines cut and there have been break-ins at convents. [49]
- Supporting Evidence: "Life in [PA-ruled] Bethlehem has become insufferable for many members of the dwindling Christian minorities. Increasing Muslim-Christian tensions have left some Christians reluctant to celebrate Christmas in the town at the heart of the story of Christ’s birth," according to a December 1997 report in the London Times. [45]
- COUNTERPOINT: It is the PA, not Israel, that violates non-Muslim religious sites and property.
- Supporting Evidence: In 1997, the Waqf (Muslim religious property) authorities attempted to break through into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, which is adjacent to the al-Hanaqa Mosque in order to install toilets on the roof of the Church. The illegal construction was halted only after Israeli and world pressure. [50]
- Supporting Evidence: When the Intifada began, the PA’s Tanzim specifically "positioned themselves in or near Christian homes, hotels, churches (eg St. Nicholas) and the Greek Orthodox club so fire would harm Christian institutions and homes," according to an AP report. [51]
- Supporting Evidence: 150-180 Palestinian terrorists took over the Church of the Nativity on April 2, 2002, triggering a 39 day siege during which they ate all the stores of food, Bibles were torn up and used for toilet paper, many valuable sacramental objects were stolen, and the monks trapped inside were under a "regime of fear." [52]
- Supporting Evidence: The militants who took over the Church of the Nativity in April, 2002, had "imposed a two-year reign of terror [on Bethlehem Christians] that included rape, extortion and executions, according to Bethlehem residents. ‘Finally the Christians can breathe freely,’ said Helen, 50, a Christian mother of four. ‘We are so delighted that these criminals who have intimidated us for such a long time are now going away.’" [53]
- Supporting Evidence: In 1997, the Waqf (Muslim religious property) authorities attempted to break through into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, which is adjacent to the al-Hanaqa Mosque in order to install toilets on the roof of the Church. The illegal construction was halted only after Israeli and world pressure. [50]
- COUNTERPOINT: It is the PA, not Israel, that permits violence against non-Muslims.
- Supporting Evidence: In August, 1997, Palestinian policemen in Beit Sahur opened fire on a crowd of Christian Arabs, wounding six of them. Arafat attempted to cover up the incident and warned the Arab media against publicizing the story. [54]
- Supporting Evidence: In February 2002, Palestinian Muslims rampaged against Christians in Ramallah, burning apartments and stores owned by Christians and attempted to burn down the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. The PA failed to intervene, according to the Boston Globe. [55]
- Supporting Evidence: In August, 1997, Palestinian policemen in Beit Sahur opened fire on a crowd of Christian Arabs, wounding six of them. Arafat attempted to cover up the incident and warned the Arab media against publicizing the story. [54]
- COUNTERPOINT: The issue is not whether a nation is based on a "religious identity" but whether it lives up to the principles of justice, tolerance, human rights and democracy. Israel does, even according to Palestinians.
- POINT 3: Zionism is racism.
- COUNTERPOINT: Zionism is not racism. It is a movement for national liberation, based on the principle that the Jewish people, like any other nation, are entitled to their own homeland, to self-determination, independence and freedom from oppression.
- Supporting Evidence: "The Jews who will it shall achieve their State. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and in our own homes peacefully die." Theodore Herzl, The Jewish State, 1896 [56]
- Supporting Evidence: According to the World Zionist Organization(*):
• "Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people.
• Zionism is the modern expression of the 1,900 year old dream of rebuilding Israel, after Rome put an end to Jewish independence in the land of Israel.
• Zionism is the conviction that the Jewish people have the right to freedom and political independence in its homeland.
• Zionism is the ongoing effort, through political means, to develop and secure the Jewish people's national existence in the land of Israel.
• Zionism recognized that Jewish peoplehood is characterized by certain common values relating to religion, culture, language, history and basic ideals and aspirations."
[57]
- Supporting Evidence: " Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live in their own land... the fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord to all other nations of the globe."--Martin Luther King [58]
- Supporting Evidence: " It is manifestly right that the scattered Jews should have a national center and a national home and be reunited and where else but in Palestine with which for 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated?" Winston Churchill [59]
- Supporting Evidence: "The Jews who will it shall achieve their State. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and in our own homes peacefully die." Theodore Herzl, The Jewish State, 1896 [56]
- COUNTERPOINT: Zionism is not racism. It is a reaction against racism. The movement was born because Jews have been victims of one of the oldest and most pernicious forms of racism—anti-Semitism.
- Supporting Evidence: Anti-Semitism "is a remnant of the Middle Ages, which civilized nations do not even yet seem able to shake off, try as they will….[O]ur presence produces persecution…We have honestly endeavored everywhere to merge ourselves in the social life of surrounding communities….We are not permitted to do so….In countries where we have lived for centuries we are still cried down as strangers, often by those whose ancestors were not yet domiciled in the land where Jews had already had experience of suffering….." The only solution: "[T]he restoration of the Jewish state." Theodore Herzl, The Jewish State, 1896. [60]
- Supporting Evidence: The Jews have always "rowed all their weight in the boat of scientific, intellectual and artistic progress…" "What has been the result?..[T]hey have been described as parasites on every civilization….[I]f Christendom…can give a chance, without injury to others, to this race…[of] a Home where it will be secured from oppression…We should then have given them what every other nation has, some place….where they can develop the culture and traditions which are particularly their own." Lord Alfred Balfour 1922 [61]
- Supporting Evidence: Anti-Semitism "is a remnant of the Middle Ages, which civilized nations do not even yet seem able to shake off, try as they will….[O]ur presence produces persecution…We have honestly endeavored everywhere to merge ourselves in the social life of surrounding communities….We are not permitted to do so….In countries where we have lived for centuries we are still cried down as strangers, often by those whose ancestors were not yet domiciled in the land where Jews had already had experience of suffering….." The only solution: "[T]he restoration of the Jewish state." Theodore Herzl, The Jewish State, 1896. [60]
- COUNTERPOINT: To call Zionism racism perverts the very meaning of the term racism and is used to defame Israel.
- Supporting Evidence: "..[T]he definition of 'racism' has been perverted for political ends by including Zionism as one of its forms.The US cannot associate itself with [the first world conference on racism in 1978], so long as it endorses the patently false definition" President Jimmy Carter 1978 [62]
- Supporting Evidence: "Terms such as ‘genocide’, ‘holocaust,’ ‘ethnic cleansing’ and even ‘anti-Semitism,’ have been hijacked by the defamers (of Israel) and are now being used against the Jews, who have been key victims of all these phenomena." Manfred Gerstenfeld Jerusalem Viewpoints [63]
- Supporting Evidence: To single out the Jewish nationalist movement as racist is itself a form of racism and simply repeats the anti-Semitism of the Nazi era. "And what is anti-Zionism? It is the denial to the Jew of the fundamental right that we…freely accord to all other nations of the globe. It is discrimination against Jews because they are Jews. In short it is anti-Semitism." --Martin Luther King [64]
- Supporting Evidence: "Zionism…is the idea that led to the creation of a home for the Jewish people…And to equate Zionism with the intolerable sin of racism is to twist history and forget the terrible plight of Jews in WW II and indeed throughout history." President George Bush, 1991 [65]
- Supporting Evidence: Zionism is no different than other national liberation movements, and if Zionism is racist, then so are they, including the Palestinian national movement. There is no justification for singling Zionism out for criticism.
- Supporting Evidence: "..[T]he definition of 'racism' has been perverted for political ends by including Zionism as one of its forms.The US cannot associate itself with [the first world conference on racism in 1978], so long as it endorses the patently false definition" President Jimmy Carter 1978 [62]
- COUNTERPOINT: Zionism’s goals and practices were never based on prejudice against any racial or other minority group.
- Supporting Evidence: "The State of Israel... will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of creed, race or gender; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture."(*) Israel’s Declaration of Independence, May 14 1948. [66]
- Supporting Evidence: Israeli’s citizens come from over 100 countries and five continents, and include people of every color of skin and racial background--Latin Americans, Arabs and Arab Jews, Asian Jews and Black African Jews.(*) US Department of State [67]
- Supporting Evidence: "….I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy." Martin Luther King 1968 [68]
- Supporting Evidence: "Israel is a democracy; it is multi-racial; Arab citizens can vote freely and enter civil society; there is freedom of religion and a free press. An openly gay man just won election to the Knesset." Andrew Sullivan. Sunday London Times [69]
- Supporting Evidence: "The State of Israel... will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of creed, race or gender; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture."(*) Israel’s Declaration of Independence, May 14 1948. [66]
- COUNTERPOINT: Zionists also sought to make contributions to humanity, not just preserve a Jewish homeland.
- Supporting Evidence: In no other millennial movements "was the ultimate restoration of the community (of Israel) in its own land so intimately linked …to an era of universal peace and justice." Sociologist Anthony D. Smith [70]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel became the 4th largest high tech economy in the world in the 90’s; its high tech innovations included engineering the cell phone;its biomedical innovations included the ingestible camera for diagnosing gastrointestinal diseases, it has developed a vaccine for the West Nile virus. Christopher Reeves visited Israel in the summer of 2003 because Israeli researchers have developed the most advanced techniques for treating paralysis. [71]
- Supporting Evidence: Shortly after its founding, Israel developed programs to aid underdeveloped countries. "[M]ost of the 4,000 Israeli advisers, scientists and technicians abroad in the Third World since 1958 [in aid programs] concentrated upon areas in which Israel had developed a unique expertise….agriculture and irrigation, rural planning and development, the formation of pioneer and youth movements, medical, academic and vocational education and community development." Historian Howard Sachar [72]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel’s humanitarian missions include the Ethiopian airlifts in 1985 and 1991 when Israel rescued 28,000 black African Jews and brought them to Israel; assistance to Turkey and Greece after their devastating earthquakes; setting up its first class complete field hospitals in war-torn Rwanda and flood devastated Djibouti in 1994. [73]
- Supporting Evidence: In no other millennial movements "was the ultimate restoration of the community (of Israel) in its own land so intimately linked …to an era of universal peace and justice." Sociologist Anthony D. Smith [70]
- COUNTERPOINT: Zionism is not racism. It is a movement for national liberation, based on the principle that the Jewish people, like any other nation, are entitled to their own homeland, to self-determination, independence and freedom from oppression.
- POINT 4: Even the UN passed a Resolution claiming Zionism was racism
- COUNTERPOINT: The UN revoked the 1975 Zionism is Racism Resolution in 1991. It was, and still is, regarded as one of the low points of UN history.
- Supporting Evidence: The US boycotted the first world racism conference in 1978 because, as President Jimmy Carter said, "...the definition of 'racism' has been perverted for political ends by including Zionism as one of its forms. The United States cannot associate itself with [it], so long as it endorses the patently false definition..." [74]
- Supporting Evidence: "When, in 1975, [the UN] passed a criminal resolution equating Zionism with racism, the UN delegate from Costa Rica noted that the resolution "was an invitation to genocide against the Jewish people…." Ambassador/Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan [75]
- Supporting Evidence: "In his last speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September of 1990, my predecessor, the Right Honourable Joe Clark, stated inter alia that Canada abhors: 'such blemishes on this Organization as the odious Resolution equating Zionism with racism, passed 15 years ago by this Assembly.'" Honorable Herb Gray, MP, Canada 1991 [76]
- Supporting Evidence: "We must use (this) occasion to denounce anti-Semitism in all its manifestations. This brings me to the lamentable resolution….equating Zionism with racism and racial discrimination. That was, perhaps the low point in our relations; its negative resonance even today is difficult to overestimate." UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Address to the Israel Foreign Relations Council, 1998
- Supporting Evidence: An overwhelming number of UN members voted to rescind the Zionism is racism resolution. The vote was 110 in favor and 25 against with 13 abstentions.(*) The few who voted against the revocation included Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Cuba.(**) [77]
- Supporting Evidence: The US boycotted the first world racism conference in 1978 because, as President Jimmy Carter said, "...the definition of 'racism' has been perverted for political ends by including Zionism as one of its forms. The United States cannot associate itself with [it], so long as it endorses the patently false definition..." [74]
- COUNTERPOINT: The Resolution had originally passed because the Soviet Union had launched an anti-Zionist campaign in the 1970’s. The Soviet Union and its allies—new third world nations and the Arab states—had formed a bloc that wielded great voting power. They introduced and voted for the resolution. All western democracies voted against it.
- Supporting Evidence: The vote on the Resolution was 72 in favor, 35 against and 32 abstentions. The negative votes were cast by all the western-style democracies, including France, Sweden, Germany, Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. [78]
- Supporting Evidence: "The campaign on behalf of the resolution occurred when the Arab states routinely received support from numerous Third World nations as well as from the Soviet Union and its former Eastern Bloc allies," wrote Stephen Green of the Copley News Service. Christopher Gacek of the Heritage Foundation pointed out that 1975 was "a time when the United Nations served only as a battleground for Cold War tensions and Third World hostilities." Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote in The Washington Post that the resolution was not even an Arab idea; it was cooked up by the Soviet Union." Sheldon Richman, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December/January 1991/2 [79]
- Supporting Evidence: "During the 1970’s, an especially blatant and vulgar brand of anti-Semitism became a unifying global ideology of the totalitarian Left. Couched in the language of opposition to Zionism, this anti-Semitism became the preferred vehicle of the Soviet Union and its clients in international forums for political assaults against the democratic nations…A steady stream of denunciations of Israel…came to be adopted at international conferences and meetings. The height of the campaign, though not nearly its end, came on November 10 1975, when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the infamous Resolution ….declaring that ‘Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination. This marked a watershed in Soviet-inspired anti-Semitism…" Daniel Patrick Moynihan (former US Senator and UN Ambassador) 1981 [80]
- Supporting Evidence: The vote on the Resolution was 72 in favor, 35 against and 32 abstentions. The negative votes were cast by all the western-style democracies, including France, Sweden, Germany, Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. [78]
- COUNTERPOINT: The Palestinian national movement is racist, not the Zionist movement. The Arab world has a legacy of anti-Semitism—racism-- that still fuels its outrage at the existence of a successful Jewish state.
- Supporting Evidence: "Palestinian leaders and preachers, guided by history and religion, have traditionally seen the Jews as an inferior race whose proper place was as an abased minority in a Muslim polity; and the present situation, with an Arab under Jewish rule, is regarded as a perversion of nature and divine will." Benny Morris [81]
- Supporting Evidence: "In Palestine the Arab reaction to Zionism was shaped from the start by cognitive dissonance. The Jews had always been seen as ‘children of doom’—hapless, helpless victims. The Zionists did not fit that image, but the Arabs long refused to adjust their perception to the reality. Some still refuse, which is one reason why Arabs prefer to see Israel as the creature of some outside power: it makes everything more understandable." Historian David S Landes [82]
- Supporting Evidence: Palestinians did not call for "liberating" the Territories when they were under Jordanian and Egyptian—that is, Arab--control between 1948 and 1967. The 1964 PLO Charter explicitly stated that the PLO "does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, [or] on the Gaza Strip." Article 24 PLO Charter [83]
- Supporting Evidence: Only when Israel captured the Territories in their defensive 1967 War did the PLO and other groups expand the boundaries of what they considered to be Palestine. They revised the Charter in 1968, now defining the boundaries as all of "Mandate Palestine". (Article 2 of PLO 1968 Charter)(*) Their objection was to Jewish sovereignty over Arabs. Their objection was to Jewish sovereignty over Arabs. [84]
- Supporting Evidence: "From 1949 to 1967, the Palestinians receded from the political scene. Those who remained in Israel, as well as those who returned…in the first year after the war, became Israeli citizens. The indigenous Palestinians on the West Bank and those on both banks were incorporated into Jordan…There were also "Egyptian’…"Syrian’ and ‘Lebanese’ Palestinians…Only in the wake of the Six Day War did the Palestinians return to the political arena under their own banner…They reappeared as ‘Palestinians’—a term that had been forgotten for 18 years." Historian Yoav Gelber [85]
- Supporting Evidence: "Palestinian leaders and preachers, guided by history and religion, have traditionally seen the Jews as an inferior race whose proper place was as an abased minority in a Muslim polity; and the present situation, with an Arab under Jewish rule, is regarded as a perversion of nature and divine will." Benny Morris [81]
- COUNTERPOINT: The UN revoked the 1975 Zionism is Racism Resolution in 1991. It was, and still is, regarded as one of the low points of UN history.
- POINT 5: The demand for a Jewish majority in Israel is racist.
- COUNTERPOINT: The demand for a Jewish majority is not racist. Every nation tries to maintain its distinctive character and identity. Singling out Israel alone for condemnation is bigotry.
- Supporting Evidence: "The nation is usually (though not always) composed of all persons sharing the same speech…a belief in a common descent or…common history, a common future, a common religion, a common geographical home or a common external menace. "(*) Historian RR Palmer [86]
- Supporting Evidence: "In its simplest form, nationalism is an awareness of cultural and territorial identity—the identity, that is, of people who share a common language, history, and traditions…." Cannistraro and Reich, The Western Perspective: A History of Western Civilization [87]
- Supporting Evidence: Our modern system of nation-states is based on the distinctive identities and shared history and culture of each state. Most nations of the world--from Japan, to Bosnia, Russia, Liberia, South Korea, Mexico or Saudi Arabia—control immigration and have strict regulations for acquiring citizenship in order to maintain their particular character. If Israel is condemned for this practice, then all other nations should be as well.
- Supporting Evidence: The argument I will present here is framed mainly within the discourse of human rights, including the right of peoples, under certain conditions, to self-determination. Such an argument begins by recognizing the uniqueness of peoples and by acknowledging as a universal principle their right to preserve and develop that uniqueness….The need to preserve a national majority, especially in cases where the minority belongs to a nation that has its own, adjacent state, is not unique to Israel." Ruth Gavison, Professor of Law and Human Rights [88]
- Question: The Palestinians are demanding a Palestinians-only state and the eviction of all Jews. If Palestinians are not condemned for this demand, how can Israel be?
- Supporting Evidence: "The nation is usually (though not always) composed of all persons sharing the same speech…a belief in a common descent or…common history, a common future, a common religion, a common geographical home or a common external menace. "(*) Historian RR Palmer [86]
- COUNTERPOINT: Every major religion has a nation where it forms a majority and where its members can expect protection and safety. Israel has every right to expect the world to respect and support the one small state—about the size of New Hampshire—where Jews, who have suffered millennia of persecution, are the majority religion.
- COUNTERPOINT: The Jews have a unique cultural heritage, and they have the right to live in a state that allows that cultural heritage to flourish and grow.
- Supporting Evidence: "[A] Jewish state offers the possibility of an exceptionally vibrant secular Jewish life. Since the rise of the Zionist movement, the Jewish people has witnessed the creation, in Hebrew, of countless new works of literature, poetry, and philosophy, whose wellsprings of inspiration are Jewish beliefs, customs, and history. This immense creative activity benefits Jews everywhere, for it offers wide new possibilities for a Jewish identity….For Jews in both Israel and the diaspora, then, the loss of the Jewish state would mean the loss of all these advantages. Without a Jewish state, the Jews would revert to the status of a cultural minority everywhere. And as we know from history, the return of the Jews to minority status would likely mean the constant fear of a resurgence of anti-Semitism, persecution, and even genocide—…" Ruth Gavison, Professor of Law and Human Rights [90]
- Supporting Evidence: "[A] Jewish state offers the possibility of an exceptionally vibrant secular Jewish life. Since the rise of the Zionist movement, the Jewish people has witnessed the creation, in Hebrew, of countless new works of literature, poetry, and philosophy, whose wellsprings of inspiration are Jewish beliefs, customs, and history. This immense creative activity benefits Jews everywhere, for it offers wide new possibilities for a Jewish identity….For Jews in both Israel and the diaspora, then, the loss of the Jewish state would mean the loss of all these advantages. Without a Jewish state, the Jews would revert to the status of a cultural minority everywhere. And as we know from history, the return of the Jews to minority status would likely mean the constant fear of a resurgence of anti-Semitism, persecution, and even genocide—…" Ruth Gavison, Professor of Law and Human Rights [90]
- COUNTERPOINT: The history of Jewish persecution makes it imperative that the Jews have a state where they form a majority and can offer a haven to oppressed Jews around the world.
- Supporting Evidence: For two thousand years Jews had either been marginalized and ghettoized or had existed as highly integrated minorities in countries like Germany, Spain, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Whether they assimilated and made important contributions to the culture as in 20th century Germany or whether they maintained a low profile in ghettoes, they were not safe. They were annihilated or driven out of all these countries. The creation of a Jewish state was in large part a response to the real and repeated threats of total extermination.
- Supporting Evidence: In the 1930’s, when anti-Semitism was making life unbearable for Jews in Central Europe, no nation would offer them refuge. At the world meeting in Evian, France in 1938, "None of the [world’s] governments, with the single exception of the Dominican Republic, was prepared to modify its immigration quotas on behalf of the refugees." Historian Howard Sachar [91]
- Supporting Evidence: For two thousand years Jews had either been marginalized and ghettoized or had existed as highly integrated minorities in countries like Germany, Spain, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Whether they assimilated and made important contributions to the culture as in 20th century Germany or whether they maintained a low profile in ghettoes, they were not safe. They were annihilated or driven out of all these countries. The creation of a Jewish state was in large part a response to the real and repeated threats of total extermination.
- COUNTERPOINT: If Israel did not preserve its Jewish majority and allowed Palestinians to return, there is every reason to believe they would seek to sabotage Israel’s central mission: a state that is a haven for Jews.
- Supporting Evidence: "We welcome, as we did in the past, any Jew who wants to live in this land as a dhimmi, just as the Jews have lived in our countries, as dhimmis, and have earned appreciation, and some of them have even reached the positions of counselor or minister here and there. We welcome the Jews to live as dhimmis, but the rule in this land and in all the Muslim countries must be the rule of Allah." Sheikh Muhammed Ibrahim al-Mahdi, Sermon on Palestinian Authority TV, June 6 2001 [92]
- Supporting Evidence: "Depictions of Jews in Arab and Muslim media are akin to those of Nazi Germany, and medieval blood libels, including claims that Jews use Christian and Muslim blood in preparing their holiday foods—have become prominent and routine." Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp, Jeanne Kirkpatrick Open Memorandum April 24, 2002 [93]
- Supporting Evidence: In the Middle East, familiar anti-Semitic libels and accusations that Jews are the source of all evil in the world have been revived. The "Jews "were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about…They were behind World War I and were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate…and they were behind World War II." "The Zionist plan is limitless….Their plan is embodied in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Hamas Charter Articles 22 and 32 [94]
- Supporting Evidence: "Allah the almighty has called upon us not to ally with the Jews or the Christians, not to like them, not to become their partners, not to support them, and not to sign agreements with them."(*) Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Friday sermon broadcast by the PA on October 13, 2000, [95]
- Supporting Evidence: "We welcome, as we did in the past, any Jew who wants to live in this land as a dhimmi, just as the Jews have lived in our countries, as dhimmis, and have earned appreciation, and some of them have even reached the positions of counselor or minister here and there. We welcome the Jews to live as dhimmis, but the rule in this land and in all the Muslim countries must be the rule of Allah." Sheikh Muhammed Ibrahim al-Mahdi, Sermon on Palestinian Authority TV, June 6 2001 [92]
- COUNTERPOINT: The demand for a Jewish majority is not racist. Every nation tries to maintain its distinctive character and identity. Singling out Israel alone for condemnation is bigotry.
- POINT 6: Israel’s law of return is unique and racist.
- COUNTERPOINT: This law is no more racist that are similar laws in other nations. Israel has a right to determine who qualifies for automatic citizenship, just as all other sovereign nations do.
- Supporting Evidence: "There are those who argue that the Law of Return is racist, one of the clearest proofs that Arab Israelis are the victims of state-sponsored discrimination. This claim is baseless. The law does not discriminate among citizens. It determines who may become one. The principle of repatriation in a nation state is grounded in both political morality and international law. The United Nations’ 1947 resolution approving the establishment of a Jewish state was meant to enable Jews to control immigration to their country. Similar immigration policies based on a preference for people whose nationality is that of the state have been practiced in European countries, including many of the new nation states established after the fall of the Soviet Union. The need to preserve a national majority, especially in cases where the minority belongs to a nation that has its own, adjacent state, is not unique to Israel." Professor Ruth Gavison, Legal Scholar on Human Rights [96]
- Supporting Evidence: Germany established a law of return after WW II to give instant citizenship to Germans who had been expelled from eastern and central Europe where many had lived for centuries, and based it on "descent, language, upbringing or culture." [97]
- Supporting Evidence: Jordan established a law of return in 1954, giving automatic citizenship to all former residents of Palestine. It explicitly excludes Jews. [98]
- Supporting Evidence: Russia established a law of return when the Soviet Union broke up so it could quickly gather in Russians who had lived throughout the Soviet empire. China and many other countries still have a law of return. Even the U.S. grants automatic citizenship to children born abroad who have one American parent. [99]
- Supporting Evidence: "There are those who argue that the Law of Return is racist, one of the clearest proofs that Arab Israelis are the victims of state-sponsored discrimination. This claim is baseless. The law does not discriminate among citizens. It determines who may become one. The principle of repatriation in a nation state is grounded in both political morality and international law. The United Nations’ 1947 resolution approving the establishment of a Jewish state was meant to enable Jews to control immigration to their country. Similar immigration policies based on a preference for people whose nationality is that of the state have been practiced in European countries, including many of the new nation states established after the fall of the Soviet Union. The need to preserve a national majority, especially in cases where the minority belongs to a nation that has its own, adjacent state, is not unique to Israel." Professor Ruth Gavison, Legal Scholar on Human Rights [96]
- COUNTERPOINT: The law is not racist. Non-Jews can become citizens and the procedures for citizenship are no more difficult than they are for many other countries from Japan to Australia.
- Supporting Evidence: "Any gentile, be he Arab or from any other origin, who wishes to settle in Israel, may do so if he meets the requirements set forth in the Law of Entry to Israel (1952) and the Law of Citizenship (1952), regarding naturalization. These requirements are similar to those stated in the laws of most countries". Shlomo Guberman, Deputy Attorney-General of Israel. [100]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel is a multicultural state where all religions and ethnicities have equal rights. 23% of Israel’s population is not Jewish, and includes:(*)
1 million Muslim Arabs (16% of the population)
[101]
170,000 Bedouin Arabs (Muslims)
113,000 Christian Arabs
106,000 Druze (a divergent Islamic sect)
3,000 Circassians (non-Arab Sunni Moslems)
- Supporting Evidence: "Any gentile, be he Arab or from any other origin, who wishes to settle in Israel, may do so if he meets the requirements set forth in the Law of Entry to Israel (1952) and the Law of Citizenship (1952), regarding naturalization. These requirements are similar to those stated in the laws of most countries". Shlomo Guberman, Deputy Attorney-General of Israel. [100]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel’s law of return grew out of the special circumstances of the Jewish history of both persecution and expulsion—and the hostility of other countries that would not offer them refuge.
- Supporting Evidence: "The State of Israel was established for the very purpose of repatriating the Jewish people from the Diaspora, to enable the "Ingathering of the Exiles", to give every Jew anywhere in the world the option to return to the land of his fathers. The State of Israel was established with the aim of implementing the Zionist solution of the "Jewish problem" - a Jewish State - by virtue of the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign state (from the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel)." Shlomo Guberman, Deputy Attorney-General of Israel. [102]
- Supporting Evidence: "It grew out of a history of Jews being slaughtered because no other state, or Palestine under the British Mandate, would accept Jewish refugees" in the 1930’s and 1940’s, leaving them to be liquidated by Hitler. Alan Dershowitz [103]
- Supporting Evidence: Jews have been unceremoniously expelled throughout their history: from England in 1290, from France in 1306, from Austria in 1421, from Spain in 1492, from Bohemia and Moravia in 1744, among other countries.
- Supporting Evidence: In what became known as the "Voyage of the Damned," 1000 Jews fled Germany seeking refuge in 1939. The US and Cuba refused to take them in, and their boat was forced to return to Germany where they became victims of the Holocaust. [104]
- Supporting Evidence: At an international conference in 1938, "None of the governments, with the single exception of the Dominican Republic, was prepared to modify its immigration quotas on behalf of the [Jewish] refugees." Historian Howard Sachar [105]
- Supporting Evidence: "The State of Israel was established for the very purpose of repatriating the Jewish people from the Diaspora, to enable the "Ingathering of the Exiles", to give every Jew anywhere in the world the option to return to the land of his fathers. The State of Israel was established with the aim of implementing the Zionist solution of the "Jewish problem" - a Jewish State - by virtue of the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign state (from the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel)." Shlomo Guberman, Deputy Attorney-General of Israel. [102]
- COUNTERPOINT: Arab states, not Israel, practice racism in their citizenship laws.
- Supporting Evidence: .Arab states define citizenship strictly by native parentage. It is almost impossible to become a naturalized citizen in many Arab states, especially Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. [106]
- Supporting Evidence: "Each of the Arab countries has excellent excuses for not granting citizenship to Arab residents, never mind foreigners," says an Egyptian sociologist who teaches at Cairo University. "Jordan has a Palestinian problem, Kuwait has an Iraqi problem, Egypt has a problem with anyone who isn't Egyptian, and Lebanon has a problem of the demographic balance between the ethnic groups so that if it gives citizenship to a Sunni, it has to give citizenship to a Christian or a Shi'ite. The beautiful slogans about Arab unity smash on the rock of citizenship. The Arabic language and the religion of Islam have not been enough to produce a common identity ever since the Arab nation-states were created. The interesting thing is that it is the radical religious organizations, the ones that presumably should be supporting the elimination of the secular national and civil frameworks, that are the ones who are objecting to changing the citizenship laws. But with them, it is because of their aspiration to preserve the inferior status of women." Haaretz, August 20 2004 [107]
- Supporting Evidence: Several Arab nations have laws that facilitate the naturalization of foreign Arabs, with the specific exception of Palestinians. [108]
- Supporting Evidence: .Arab states define citizenship strictly by native parentage. It is almost impossible to become a naturalized citizen in many Arab states, especially Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. [106]
- COUNTERPOINT: To single out Israel alone for condemnation when its policies are the standard of most other nations, is itself racism.
- COUNTERPOINT: This law is no more racist that are similar laws in other nations. Israel has a right to determine who qualifies for automatic citizenship, just as all other sovereign nations do.
- POINT 7: Jews flourished as a protected people under Muslim rule. The strife between Jews and Muslims is the result of Zionism and the creation of the State of Israel.
- COUNTERPOINT: This claim is rather like a Southern plantation owner claiming that blacks and whites got along just fine until the Civil War came and slavery ended. In fact, Jews were third-class citizens, officially known as "dhimmis" in a system similar to apartheid, throughout Muslim lands. They were an often brutally oppressed minority for centuries until, with the coming of Zionism, they began to assert their rights.
- Supporting Evidence: "A non-Muslim in an Islamic state is required to pay jaziya, which in the Koranic language is a Humiliation Tax. In fact, the life of an unbeliever is a series of humiliations in a Muslim country….Since it is the Islamic way of life which requires an unbeliever to yield way to the Muslim when they happen to be walking on the same path, it can be safely called the forerunner of the South African apartheid." Anwar Shaikh (Muslim reformer) [109]
- Supporting Evidence: "The dhimmi were forbidden to strike a Muslim, carry arms, ride horses, build new houses of worship or repair old ones and they had to wear distinctive clothing." Historian Benny Morris [110]
- Supporting Evidence: "Mass violence against Jews, akin to the pogroms in Western Europe were rare but they did occur. In 1066 nearly 3000 Jews were massacred in Granada, Spain. In Fez, Morocco, some 6000 Jews were murdered in 1033, an massacres took place again in 1276 and 1465. There were massacres in…Persia in 1839 and 1867 and in Baghdad in 1828. The Jewish quarter of Fez was almost destroyed in 1912 by a Muslim mob." Historian Benny Morris [111]
- Supporting Evidence: "God has cast us into the midst of this people, the nation of Ishmael, who persecute us severely, and who devise ways to harm us and debase us…None has matched [them] in debasing and humiliating us…" Maimonides, Jewish sage, 12th century, during the reputedly Golden Age of Jewish Muslim relations [112]
- Supporting Evidence: "The Arabs often wrong the Jews publicly. But if the Arab is a respectable man, he will cause no injury….We may not raise a hand against a Turk, nor against an Arab…If one of them gives a Jew a blow, the Jew goes away cowering and does not dare open his mouth lest he receive worse blows. That is the way the Sephardis behave, who have become accustomed to the situation. But the Ashkenazi Jews, for whom it is not customary…" do not. "The Christians also must suffer such indignities. If a Jew makes a Turk angry, then latter beats him shamefully and dreadfully with his shoe, and nobody delivers the Jew from his hand. Nor is it otherwise with the Christians." Gedaliah, Polish Jewish immigrant to Palestine, 1716 [113]
- Supporting Evidence: "I never saw the curse denounced against the children of Israel more fully brought to bear than in the East….Where they are considered rather as a link between animals and human beings, than as men possessed of the same attributes, warmed by the same sun, chilled by the same breeze, subject to the same feelings, and impulses, and joys, and sorrows, as their fellow-mortals." Julia Pardoe, 1836 [114]
- Supporting Evidence: "The attitude of the Muslims toward the Christians and the Jews is that of a master towards slaves, whom he treats with a certain lordly tolerance so long as they keep their place. Any sign of pretension to equality is promptly repressed," H.E.W. Young, British Vice Consul in Mosul 1909 [115]
- Supporting Evidence: " In 1884, the Sultan of Morocco said Jews had to work on Shabbat, could only "clean foul places and latrines," had to part with merchandise at half-price and accept counterfeit coinage, to name a few of the provisions. [116]
- Supporting Evidence: "A non-Muslim in an Islamic state is required to pay jaziya, which in the Koranic language is a Humiliation Tax. In fact, the life of an unbeliever is a series of humiliations in a Muslim country….Since it is the Islamic way of life which requires an unbeliever to yield way to the Muslim when they happen to be walking on the same path, it can be safely called the forerunner of the South African apartheid." Anwar Shaikh (Muslim reformer) [109]
- COUNTERPOINT: Jews received the same abuse for centuries in Palestine, up to the time the Zionists began to come in 1881.
- Supporting Evidence: "[I]t is not without reason that the poor Jew, even in the 19th century, lives from day to day in terror of his life," a British official wrote after Muslim zealots mercilessly attacked, raped and sacked property of Jews in Jerusalem and Jews in [Safed] were massacred in 1834. [117]
- Supporting Evidence: "The Jews of Palestine were designated as inferior (in law as well as custom), segregated by appearance and residence, subject to discrimination and abuse, and liable to sporadic and not infrequent violence. Lynching—that is, group assault--…happened often enough and then with impunity, to constitute an immanent, imminent menace," Historian David. S. Landes. [118]
- Supporting Evidence: "There were rules: Jews had to pass Muslims on their left side, because that was the side of Satan. They had to yield the right of way, step off the pavement to let the Arab go by, above all make sure not to touch him in passing, because this could provoke a violent response….any demonstration of alternative forms of worship, had to be avoided so synagogues were placed in humble hidden places, and the sounds of Jewish prayer carefully muted." Historian David Landes [119]
- Supporting Evidence: "Like the miserable dog without an owner he [the Jew] is kicked by one because he crosses his path, and cuffed by another because he cries out—to seek redress he is afraid, lest it bring worse upon him; he thinks it better to endure than to live in the expectation of his complain being revenged upon him." Consul William T. Young to Colonel Patrick Campbell, May 25, 1839 [120]
- Supporting Evidence: "[I]t is not without reason that the poor Jew, even in the 19th century, lives from day to day in terror of his life," a British official wrote after Muslim zealots mercilessly attacked, raped and sacked property of Jews in Jerusalem and Jews in [Safed] were massacred in 1834. [117]
- COUNTERPOINT: This claim is rather like a Southern plantation owner claiming that blacks and whites got along just fine until the Civil War came and slavery ended. In fact, Jews were third-class citizens, officially known as "dhimmis" in a system similar to apartheid, throughout Muslim lands. They were an often brutally oppressed minority for centuries until, with the coming of Zionism, they began to assert their rights.
- POINT 8: The Zionists always intended to "ethnically cleanse" Palestine of all Arabs.
- COUNTERPOINT: Just the opposite was true. Zionist leaders from Theodore Herzl to Chaim Weizman to David Ben Gurion were dedicated to peaceful co-existence with the local Arab residents and to having them benefit from Zionist development.
- Supporting Evidence: Herzl’s vision of the future Jewish state: "Arabs and Jews lived in friendship side-by-side. ‘The Jews have enriched us,’ observed one Arab notable, Reshid Bey. ‘Why should we have anything against them? They live with us like brothers, why should we not love them?’" Theodore Herzl’s utopian novel, Alteneuland, 1902 [121]
- Supporting Evidence: "I explained to [Feisel]…the fact that there was a great deal of room in the country if intensive development were applied, and that the lot of the Arabs would be greatly improved through our work there. With all this I found the Emir in full agreement…" Chaim Weizman letter 1918 [122]
- Supporting Evidence: "All our aspiration is built on the assumption—proven through all our activity in the land—that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs…. "The Arab policy of the Jewish state must be aimed not only at full equality for the Arabs but at their cultural, social, and economic equalization, namely, at raising their standard of living to that of the Jews. David Ben Gurion Letter to his son, 1937 and Protocol meeting, 1938 [123]
- Supporting Evidence: Early Zionists planned to have Arabic taught in their schools, and to have their children learn the Arabs’ ways "in order that they learn how to live, not fight with them." Biluim (Jewish immigrant group) Society’s Regulations, 1883 [124]
- Supporting Evidence: "The State of Israel... will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of creed, race or gender; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture."(*) Israel’s Declaration of Independence. [125]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel established Arabic as an official language when it became a state in 1948.
- Supporting Evidence: Herzl’s vision of the future Jewish state: "Arabs and Jews lived in friendship side-by-side. ‘The Jews have enriched us,’ observed one Arab notable, Reshid Bey. ‘Why should we have anything against them? They live with us like brothers, why should we not love them?’" Theodore Herzl’s utopian novel, Alteneuland, 1902 [121]
- COUNTERPOINT: Jews repeatedly accepted partition plans to share the land—in 1937 (Peel Commission), 1947 (UN Partition Plan), 1993-2000 (Oslo Accords).
- COUNTERPOINT: It is Palestinian leaders who have always hoped to "ethnically cleanse" Palestine—of Jews.
- Supporting Evidence: "The Palestinian national movement, from its inception…has stuck fast to the vision of a ‘Greater Palestine,’ meaning a Muslim-Arab populated and Arab controlled state in all of Palestine, perhaps with some Jews being allowed to stay on as a religious minority." Historian Benny Morris [126]
- Supporting Evidence: "It is impossible for us to make an understanding with them [the Jews] or even to live with them….Their history and all their past proves that it is impossible to live with them. In all the countries where they are at present they are not wanted…because they always arrive to suck the blood of everybody…If the league of Nations will not listen to the appeal of the Arabs this country will become a river of blood." ‘Aref Pahsa Dajani, Jerusalem notable, 1919 [127]
- Supporting Evidence: "Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews. The answer I got was: ‘The Jews are yours.’" Mufti of Jerusalem, Leader of the Palestinian Arabs, Memoirs [128]
- Supporting Evidence: Arab representatives told the UN that they "rejected partition and advocated a unitary, democratic state from which the illegal immigrants [i.e. Jews] would be expelled and where the remaining Jews would have no political rights." 1947 Historian Benny Morris [129]
- Supporting Evidence: "The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians." All others would be forced to leave. Article 6, PLO Charter, 1968 [130]
- Supporting Evidence: Palestinian leadership rejected all compromise proposals that would have allowed a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian Arab state—1937, 1947, 2000.
- Supporting Evidence: Arab leaders even rejected the UN’s alternate suggestion for Palestine to be one state with Arab and Jewish cantons joined in a federal government—known as the minority proposal. "Indeed, both the majority and the minority plans horrified them." Historian Howard Sachar [131]
- Supporting Evidence: The Jews "must be butchered and killed, as Allah the Almighty said, ‘Fight them: Allah will torture them at your hands.’…Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them." Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Sermon in Gaza broadcast on PA television. October, 2000(*) PA-appointed religious leader. Sermon broadcast on PA television. [132]
- Supporting Evidence: "All spears should be directed at the Jews, at the enemies of Allah, the nation that was cursed in Allah’s book. Allah has described them as apes and pigs, the calf-worshipers, idol-worshipers…" Friday, August 3, 2001, sermon at the Sheik ’Ijlin Mosque in Gaza given by Sheik Ibrahim Madhi. The sermon was broadcast on Palestinian Authority television. [133]
- Supporting Evidence: "The Palestinian national movement, from its inception…has stuck fast to the vision of a ‘Greater Palestine,’ meaning a Muslim-Arab populated and Arab controlled state in all of Palestine, perhaps with some Jews being allowed to stay on as a religious minority." Historian Benny Morris [126]
- COUNTERPOINT: Just the opposite was true. Zionist leaders from Theodore Herzl to Chaim Weizman to David Ben Gurion were dedicated to peaceful co-existence with the local Arab residents and to having them benefit from Zionist development.
- POINT 9: Zionists had always intended to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. Proof is in the Zionist slogan, "A land without people for a people without a land."
- COUNTERPOINT: This was never a Zionist slogan or part of Zionist policy.
- Supporting Evidence: The phrase was used by Britain’s Lord Shaftesbury, a Protestant, in 1854 because he believed Jews should resettle the impoverished, underpopulated land. [136]
- Supporting Evidence: Forty year later, Israel Zangwill, a British novelist and Zionist, revived the phrase but his ideas were not accepted by mainstream Zionists and he broke with the Zionist movement in 1905. [137]
- Supporting Evidence: The phrase was used by Britain’s Lord Shaftesbury, a Protestant, in 1854 because he believed Jews should resettle the impoverished, underpopulated land. [136]
- COUNTERPOINT: The phrase described the reality of the land. Palestine in the 18th and 19th centuries was impoverished, underpopulated and losing population.
- Supporting Evidence: "[W]e rode across the plain..of Sharon…But where were the inhabitants? This fertile plain, which might support an immense population, is almost a solitude. Two or three wretched hamlets…are the sole representatives of the numerous and thriving cities which once occupied it." Reverend Samuel Manning, 1874 [138]
- Supporting Evidence: "Here as elsewhere, as everywhere in Palestine, city and palaces have returned to the dust; also disappeared, the forests…everything has been changed into a melancholy desert of brush and grass….This melancholy of abandonment…weighs on all the Holy Land." Pierre Loti, French traveler, 1895 [139]
- Supporting Evidence: "The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population," British consul James Finn noted in 1857. [140]
- Supporting Evidence: In certain parts of the country, "land is going out of cultivation and whole villages are rapidly disappearing…the local population extirpated." H.B. Tristam, The Land of Israel: A Journal of Travels Through Palestine, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1865, p. 490
- Supporting Evidence: There were barely 260,000 Arabs in 1882 in what today is Israel and the Territories, an area that had supported approximately 5 million people in the 1st century AD.. [141]
- Supporting Evidence: "The country was…and is now, underdeveloped and under-populated. The methods of agriculture are, for the most part, primitive; the area of land now cultivated could yield a far greater product. There are…large cultivable areas that are left untilled. The summits and slopes of the hills are admirably suited to the growth of trees, but there are no forests. Miles of sand dunes that could be redeemed, are untouched." Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, June 1921. [142]
- Supporting Evidence: "[W]e rode across the plain..of Sharon…But where were the inhabitants? This fertile plain, which might support an immense population, is almost a solitude. Two or three wretched hamlets…are the sole representatives of the numerous and thriving cities which once occupied it." Reverend Samuel Manning, 1874 [138]
- COUNTERPOINT: The phrase was accurate also because no nation would be displaced. Palestine was simply a neglected province, divided and attached to different administrative centers, in the sprawling Ottoman empire.
- Supporting Evidence: "The Ottoman Empire, which ruled Palestine from 1517 to 1917-18 …never made it a separate, distinct administrative district." Its boundaries kept shifting. Parts of it were attached to Damascus, parts to Beirut and parts were independent. Historian Benny Morris [143]
- Supporting Evidence: Palestine was not a state but simply "a geographical name of rather loose application…." It did not have " a boundary by which Palestine can be separated exactly from the rest of Syria in the north, or from the Sinaitic and Arabian deserts in the south…" (Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., 1911 p. 600).
- Supporting Evidence: "There is no such country [as Palestine]. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented!….Our country for centuries was part of Syria." Local Arab leader Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, to the Peel Commission in 1937. [144]
- Supporting Evidence: "There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history. Absolutely not." Arab-American historian Philip Hitti of Princeton University. 1946.
- Supporting Evidence: "The Ottoman Empire, which ruled Palestine from 1517 to 1917-18 …never made it a separate, distinct administrative district." Its boundaries kept shifting. Parts of it were attached to Damascus, parts to Beirut and parts were independent. Historian Benny Morris [143]
- COUNTERPOINT: This was never a Zionist slogan or part of Zionist policy.
- POINT 10: Zionists had always intended to ethnically cleanse Palestine. Proof is in Ben Gurion’s support of transfer and in the creation of a Population Exchange Committee.
- COUNTERPOINT: Zionists never raised the idea of transfer. Britain’s Peel Commission raised it in 1937. Zionist discussions about it were all in response to the Peel Commission proposal to divide Palestine and exchange populations so each area would be either all Jewish or all Arab.
- Supporting Evidence: "I saw in the Peel Plan two positive things….but compulsory transfer can only be effected by England and not by Jews…Not only is it inconceivable for us to carry it out, but it is also inconceivable for us to propose it." David Ben-Gurion, 1937 [145]
- Supporting Evidence: "Transfer as a concrete possibility never exceeded the bounds of the 1937 royal commission report—it was born and buried there. It was not even mentioned in the UN partition plan of 1947. Had transfer not been included in the Peel commission report, it would not have been placed on the political agenda of the Zionist movement, even though the idea itself had been mentioned occasionally in the past." Historian Itzhak Galnoor [146]
- Supporting Evidence: "I saw in the Peel Plan two positive things….but compulsory transfer can only be effected by England and not by Jews…Not only is it inconceivable for us to carry it out, but it is also inconceivable for us to propose it." David Ben-Gurion, 1937 [145]
- COUNTERPOINT: The Population Exchange Committee was set up in 1937 only to explore the pros and cons of the Peel plan’s recommendation. When the Peel plan was abandoned, the Population Exchange Committee disbanded, within eight months of its founding.
- COUNTERPOINT: The British and several Arab leaders raised the idea of population transfer in order to resolve the escalating conflict between Jews and Arabs. The Zionists did not.
- Supporting Evidence: In 1937 the Commission found that "because of the general hostility and hatred of the Jews by the Muslims, ‘national assimilation between Arabs and Jews is…ruled out.’" "Partition seems to offer at least a chance of ultimate peace. We can see none in any other plan." [147]
- Supporting Evidence: "[T]he only just and permanent solution lay in absolute partition with an exchange of populations; to leave Jews in an Arab state or Arabs in a Jewish state would inevitably lead to further trouble." King Abdullah of Jordan and Jordanian Prime Minister.) [148]
- Supporting Evidence: Nuri Said, Iraq’s senior politician and Mustafa Nahas Pasha, Egypt’s prime minister, also believed that partition with transfer of the Arab population out of a future Jewish state was the only solution to the conflict, according to British officials in the mid 1940’s. [149]
- Supporting Evidence: Britain’s Colonial Office proposed in January 1943 that Britain set up a Jewish state in Palestine and that "the Arab population in Palestine might be dealt with by an offer of assistance to migrate to Libya for those families who find conditions in Palestine unendurable." Historian Benny Morris [150]
- Supporting Evidence: In 1937 the Commission found that "because of the general hostility and hatred of the Jews by the Muslims, ‘national assimilation between Arabs and Jews is…ruled out.’" "Partition seems to offer at least a chance of ultimate peace. We can see none in any other plan." [147]
- COUNTERPOINT: Zionists never raised the idea of transfer. Britain’s Peel Commission raised it in 1937. Zionist discussions about it were all in response to the Peel Commission proposal to divide Palestine and exchange populations so each area would be either all Jewish or all Arab.
- POINT 11: Zionists had always intended to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. This is the now the scholarly consensus based on the work of "new" historians like Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe.
- COUNTERPOINT: This is not the scholarly consensus. The ‘new historians’ work is hotly contested. Established scholars have severely criticized them for their methods and their conclusions.8
- Supporting Evidence: "The theses of the ‘new historians’ and their research methods have precisely been questioned by fellow historians…Violating every tenet of bona fide research, the misrepresentation of the historical record by the ‘new historians’ has ranged from the more ‘innocent’ act of reading into documents what is not there, to tendentious truncation of documents in a way that distorts their original meaning, to ‘creative rewriting’ of original texts by putting words in peoples’ mouths and/or giving false descriptions of the contents of these documents." Professor Efraim Karsh [151]
- Supporting Evidence: Mr. Morris " has this inclination to look for any detail that can show the unsavory side of the Israeli army or politics, and to exaggerate it out of proportion." Historian Anita Shapira, New York Times April 17, 2004 [152]
- Supporting Evidence: "[A] large number of professors who espouse extremist views have flourished despite a record of minimal academic publishing and performance. In some cases, they publish mainly or exclusively in politicized journals, such as those published by the Palestine Liberation Organization and its affiliates…" Solomon Socrates 2001 [153]
- Supporting Evidence: "The theses of the ‘new historians’ and their research methods have precisely been questioned by fellow historians…Violating every tenet of bona fide research, the misrepresentation of the historical record by the ‘new historians’ has ranged from the more ‘innocent’ act of reading into documents what is not there, to tendentious truncation of documents in a way that distorts their original meaning, to ‘creative rewriting’ of original texts by putting words in peoples’ mouths and/or giving false descriptions of the contents of these documents." Professor Efraim Karsh [151]
- COUNTERPOINT: Scholars have especially criticized Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe.
- Supporting Evidence: On "the issue of "transfer," Morris has been prepared systematically to falsify evidence in an attempt to create history in an image of his own devising. There is scarcely a single document he has not twisted either by creative rewriting, taking things out of context, truncating texts, or giving a false description of the contents of the documents." [154]
- Supporting Evidence: Pappe"is perhaps the most tendentious of the New Historians. Unlike Morris, who purports to search archives and present facts, Pappe has been the most contemptuous of any necessity to base the charges against Israel on facts and insists that creating some sort of Palestinian narrative suffices." Solomon Socrates, 2001 [155]
- Supporting Evidence: "Indeed the struggle is about ideology, not about facts. Who knows what facts are? We try to convince as many people as we can that our interpretation of the facts is the correct one, and we do it because of ideological reasons, not because we are truth-seekers." "New Historian" Ilan Pappe [156]
- Supporting Evidence: Ilan Pappe’s academic credibility was seriously challenged in 2000, when one of his students at Haifa University was forced to retract libelous and falsified accusations in his Masters thesis about an alleged 1948 Israeli massacre on Palestinians no evidence could substantiate. The student, Theodore Katz, was forced to retract his claims and was found by the University to have falsified testimony "gravely and severely" in 14 different places in his thesis. The university ultimately denied his research M.A. In spite of the seriousness of the academic fraud perpetrated, Pappe continued to support Katz’s original findings, nearly costing him his job at the university in the process. [157]
- Supporting Evidence: On "the issue of "transfer," Morris has been prepared systematically to falsify evidence in an attempt to create history in an image of his own devising. There is scarcely a single document he has not twisted either by creative rewriting, taking things out of context, truncating texts, or giving a false description of the contents of the documents." [154]
- COUNTERPOINT: This is not the scholarly consensus. The ‘new historians’ work is hotly contested. Established scholars have severely criticized them for their methods and their conclusions.8
- POINT 12: Israel is a Jewish democracy, and this oxymoron should not be confused with real democracy.
- COUNTERPOINT: The fact that Israel desire to remain a Jewish-majority state does not mean that it is not a democracy any more than France, Italy or Spain cannot be democracies because they are primarily composed of Catholics. Israel is a democracy that includes all its citizens and it lives up to the principles of justice, tolerance, human rights and democracy.
- Supporting Evidence: Israel is a multiethnic, multiracial state with freedom of religion and civil rights for all its citizens. Israelis come from over 100 countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Israel has 15 sanctioned religions and 20% of Israelis are not Jews. They have equal rights and protections as in any democracy. .(*) US Department of State [158]
- Supporting Evidence: "As a meeting point of Asia, Europe, and Africa, Israel is a melting pot of religions, nationalities, temperaments, and ideologies, and although Hebrew and Arabic are the official languages, many European languages are also widely spoken." Entry on Israel, Organization of American States, Office of External Relations, 2002 [159]
- Supporting Evidence: "Israel is home to a widely diverse population from many ethnic, religious, cultural and social backgrounds. A new society with ancient roots, it is still coalescing and evolving today. Of its 6.4 million people, 77.8 percent are Jews, 17.3 percent are Arabs (mostly Muslim) and the remaining 4.9 percent comprise Druze, Circassians and others not classified by religion." Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2003 [160]
- Supporting Evidence: "[T]he Jewish character of the State of Israel does not, in and of itself, mean violating basic human rights of non-Jews or the democratic character of the country. Non-Jews may not enjoy a feeling of full membership in the majority culture; this, however, is not a right but an interest—again, it is something which national or ethnic minorities almost by definition do not enjoy—and its absence does not undermine the legitimacy of Israeli democracy. Israel has a multi-party political system and a robust public debate, in which the national claims of the Arabs are fully voiced. It has regular elections, in which all adult citizens, irrespective of nationality or religion, participate. Since 1977, it has experienced a number of changes in government. Its court system enjoys a high level of independence, and has made the principle of non-discrimination a central part of its jurisprudence. It has also developed a strong protection of freedom of speech, of association, and of the press. It is thus no surprise that it is counted by scholars among the stable democracies in the world." Professor Ruth Gavison, Legal Scholar on Human Rights [161]
- Supporting Evidence: "Nearly every country in the world boasts one majority community, and nearly all reflect the cultural identity of that community in one way or another. The United States officially celebrates only Christian holidays; many European countries openly identify as either Catholic or Protestant; and many Muslim countries uncontroversially refer to themselves as an "Islamic Republic," whether they are democratic or not. For some, such identification is simply a sign of the spiritual persuasion of the majority; for others, it is homage to the story of the country's founding. There is nothing obviously wrong with such expression." Dore Gold and Jeff Heimreich [162]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel is a multiethnic, multiracial state with freedom of religion and civil rights for all its citizens. Israelis come from over 100 countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Israel has 15 sanctioned religions and 20% of Israelis are not Jews. They have equal rights and protections as in any democracy. .(*) US Department of State [158]
- COUNTERPOINT: Even Palestinians admire Israel’s political democracy and human rights.
- Supporting Evidence: Since polls were first taken in 1996, Palestinians have consistently rated Israel’s democracy as the one they most admire in the world, according to the Palestinian Center for Palestine Research and Studies. "Every year Israel has been the top performer, at times receiving 80% approval. The American system has been the next best [67% in 1999], followed by the French…." Center for Palestine Research and Studies. [163]
- Supporting Evidence: I "remain constantly amazed by the high standards of the [Israeli] legal system." Raji Sourani, Director of Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, 2003. [164]
- Supporting Evidence: "I envy them [Israelis and their democracy] and desire a similar regime in my future state. It is true that I am appalled by the culture of curses and profanities in the Israeli political arena, but I respect the democratic discussion, debate, decision, the sovereignty of law, and the freedom of the press…" Columnist Ata Al-Qemari, in Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam, May 22, 1999. [165]
- Supporting Evidence: "Israel has proved that for fifty years its real power is in its democracy, guarding the rights of its citizens, applying laws [equally] to the rich and poor, the big and small…and in the participation of the nation in the development of institutions according to ability and efficiency and not according to closeness to [the ruler]…." Columnist Dr. Talal Al-Shareef, Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds, May 27, 1999. [166]
- Supporting Evidence: Since polls were first taken in 1996, Palestinians have consistently rated Israel’s democracy as the one they most admire in the world, according to the Palestinian Center for Palestine Research and Studies. "Every year Israel has been the top performer, at times receiving 80% approval. The American system has been the next best [67% in 1999], followed by the French…." Center for Palestine Research and Studies. [163]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel’s government is selected according to free and fair elections in which every citizen – man, women, Arab, and Jew – has the right to vote.
- Supporting Evidence: Israel’s Declaration of Independence commits to, "complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture."
- Supporting Evidence: Israel’s Basic Law guarantees that, "The Knesset (Parliament) will be elected by universal, national direct equal, secret and proportional ballot." Basic Law 1950 Article 4 [167]
- Supporting Evidence: All adult citizens of Israel, including women and minorities, have the right to form political parties and to vote. Israel has over 17 political parties in the Knesset representing every part of society and every political view. Arab-Israelis, who constitute 20% of the population, have 5 parties.
- Supporting Evidence: Election Day is a national holiday, and free transportation is provided to polling booths. Voter turnout often reaches 97%. Israeli Foreign Ministry [168]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel’s Declaration of Independence commits to, "complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture."
- COUNTERPOINT: Even Arab commentators have praised Israel’s democracy.
- Supporting Evidence: "Israel has proved that for fifty years its real power is in its democracy, guarding the rights of its citizens, applying laws (equally) to the rich and the poor, the big and the small…" – Dr. Talal Al-Shareef, Al-Quds, May 27, 1999. [169]
- Supporting Evidence: "I am also envious of … the simple Israeli citizen who can, with one ballot deposited into a small wooden box, humiliate one leader and raise another … I envy them and desire a similar regime in my future state … I respect (their) democratic discussion, debate, decision, the sovereignty of law and freedom of the press." – Columnist Ata Al-Qemari, Al-Quds, May 1999. [170]
- Supporting Evidence: "Netanyahu, who was nicknamed ‘King of Israel’, fell out of power and within half an hour relinquished leadership of his party … such elections are the result of a democratic regime that accepts change (by means of) elections as the basis of governeance." – Dr Ali Al-Jirbawi, Al-Ayyam, May 22, 1999. [171]
- Supporting Evidence: "Israel has proved that for fifty years its real power is in its democracy, guarding the rights of its citizens, applying laws (equally) to the rich and the poor, the big and the small…" – Dr. Talal Al-Shareef, Al-Quds, May 27, 1999. [169]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel ranks among the democracies of the Western World in terms of its rankings in freedom and civil rights. Arab regimes typically rank among the tyrannies and banana republics of Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Supporting Evidence: Freedom House, a non-partisan, broad-based non-profit organization that monitors and evaluates democracy and freedom around the world, rates Israel as the only "Free" country in the Middle East. Freedom House rates Israel’s guarantee of political rights as "1" and its guarantee of civil rights at "2" on a scale from 1-7. This places Israel in a bracket with the U.S. and Great Britain. The Palestinian Authority, on the other hand, is rated at a 5 and a 6 on the two scales respectively. This places the PA in the same bracket with The Congo. According to Freedom House, the majority of Arab regimes are among the least free countries in the world.2000 [172]
- Supporting Evidence: According to reports from the U.S. State Department, the U.N. and the non-profit, Freedom House, Israel is the only country in the Middle East to offer its citizens free media, freedom to criticize religion, unrestricted academic freedom, unrestricted freedom of artistic expression and unrestricted entry of foreign arts, books, and press. [173]
- Supporting Evidence: Freedom House, a non-partisan, broad-based non-profit organization that monitors and evaluates democracy and freedom around the world, rates Israel as the only "Free" country in the Middle East. Freedom House rates Israel’s guarantee of political rights as "1" and its guarantee of civil rights at "2" on a scale from 1-7. This places Israel in a bracket with the U.S. and Great Britain. The Palestinian Authority, on the other hand, is rated at a 5 and a 6 on the two scales respectively. This places the PA in the same bracket with The Congo. According to Freedom House, the majority of Arab regimes are among the least free countries in the world.2000 [172]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel’s detractors often describe leaders in the Arab World like Yasser Arafat as "democratically elected", despite the fact that they were "elected" in highly undemocratic show elections. These same people are often the first to label Israel as "undemocratic".
- Supporting Evidence: Yasser Arafat was "elected" by a landslide 87.3% of the vote.(*) "Arafat…has been criticized for conducting the election the way he ran the revolutionary Palestinian Liberation Organization: autocratically, arbitrarily, secretively, and without accountability. …Arafat's police have jailed journalists and human rights activists and have intimidated Palestinian newspapers. Winners of primary elections have been pushed aside and elections results ignored so Arafat's people could get on the ballot. "He and others are finding difficulty adjusting to a new situation. There were lots of violations of the election law," said parliamentary candidate Moustafa Barghoutti. The only alternative to Arafat's presidency is 73-year-old social activist Samirha Khalil. As many as 25 percent of Palestinians were expected to cast protest votes for her." CNN Report January 20 1996(**) [174]
- Supporting Evidence: "Yasser Arafat and the Myth of Legitimacy," is the title that Daniel Polisar--leader of election observer team for Peace Watch, a non-partisan organization accredited by the Palestinian Authority as an official elections observer in 1996,, chose for his article on the Palestinian elections. He reports that Arafat, "after having been brought in from Tunis amid widespread jubilation - used every means at its disposal to ensure that the Palestinian voter would have only one viable option as to which political party would represent him, and only one real candidate to vote for as president. Under these conditions, A r a f a t ’s landslide victory was not an expression of democratic will, but rather a testament to the success of the measures he employed…. I will document… the rise of a regime characterized by a massive police force whose specialty was intimidation of political opponents; an executive branch in which Arafat alone made all major decisions and in which the civil service was reduced to a corrupt patronage machine; the institutionalized absence of the rule of law, and a judiciary that lacked any independence; and the intimidation of the media and human rights organizations, to the point that it became virtually impossible to transmit any message other than one personally approved by Arafat." Daniel Polisar, 2002 [175]
- Supporting Evidence: "There is no tradition in the Arab world of a leader of Arafat's stature voluntarily giving up power. ‘Such a thing isn't part of our thinking or our vocabulary — there is no chance of Arafat stepping down by himself. In this part of the world, the ruler is replaced only by the undertaker's certificate. And Arafat believes he will live forever." Rafiq Natsheh, a former Palestinian Cabinet minister, LA Times, July 24 2004 [176]
- Supporting Evidence: Middle Eastern countries have not kept pace with the movement toward democratization occurring around the globe, according to Freedom House which, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that has monitored political and civil freedoms around the globe for 30 years and recently concluded that "there has been dramatic progress in the expansion of freedom and democratic governance over the life of the survey…[but] Among the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, there has been virtually no significant progress toward democratization in the three decades of the survey. In 1972, the survey rated only 2 countries—Israel and Lebanon—as Free, while 3 states were Partly Free, and 14 were rated Not Free. Today, Israel remains the region’s sole democracy and Free country. There are 4 Partly Free and 13 Not Free states, virtually the same distribution as in 1972." "Freedom in the World 2003," Freedom House [177]
- Supporting Evidence: "Israel is the only country in the region that permits citizens of all faiths to worship freely and openly." Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp and Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Memorandum April 24, 2002. [178]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel has greater religious pluralism than the USA. 20% of Israelis are non-Jewish while in the US only 4% of the population adheres to a non-Christian religion. [179]
- Supporting Evidence: Each religious community in Israel (Christian, Jewish, Moslem) is allowed to have jurisdiction over the marriage, divorce and burial of its members, and representatives of each of each religion are state officials. [180]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel gave the Druze, a group "traditionally persecuted by Moslem Arabs," the status of an official religious community, with their own religious council and courts. [181]
- Supporting Evidence: "The highest body of the Baha'i faith…declared the Israeli port city of Haifa the `Mecca' for the religion's five million members" in 1992 in part because of Israel’s tolerance and the persecution the Baha’is faced in other Middle Eastern states. [182]
- Supporting Evidence: The Christian population in Israel has quadrupled in the last forty years while it is precipitously declining in the Middle East and particularly in the Palestinian Authority. Israel’s Christian population has grown from 51,000 in 1961 to over 137,000 today. [183]
- Supporting Evidence: Yasser Arafat was "elected" by a landslide 87.3% of the vote.(*) "Arafat…has been criticized for conducting the election the way he ran the revolutionary Palestinian Liberation Organization: autocratically, arbitrarily, secretively, and without accountability. …Arafat's police have jailed journalists and human rights activists and have intimidated Palestinian newspapers. Winners of primary elections have been pushed aside and elections results ignored so Arafat's people could get on the ballot. "He and others are finding difficulty adjusting to a new situation. There were lots of violations of the election law," said parliamentary candidate Moustafa Barghoutti. The only alternative to Arafat's presidency is 73-year-old social activist Samirha Khalil. As many as 25 percent of Palestinians were expected to cast protest votes for her." CNN Report January 20 1996(**) [174]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel is not only a democracy for Jews. Israel protects religious pluralism and practices religious tolerance.
- Supporting Evidence: Yasser Arafat was "elected" by a landslide 87.3% of the vote.(*) "Arafat…has been criticized for conducting the election the way he ran the revolutionary Palestinian Liberation Organization: autocratically, arbitrarily, secretively, and without accountability. …Arafat's police have jailed journalists and human rights activists and have intimidated Palestinian newspapers. Winners of primary elections have been pushed aside and elections results ignored so Arafat's people could get on the ballot. "He and others are finding difficulty adjusting to a new situation. There were lots of violations of the election law," said parliamentary candidate Moustafa Barghoutti. The only alternative to Arafat's presidency is 73-year-old social activist Samirha Khalil. As many as 25 percent of Palestinians were expected to cast protest votes for her." CNN Report January 20 1996(**) [174]
- Supporting Evidence: "Yasser Arafat and the Myth of Legitimacy," is the title that Daniel Polisar--leader of election observer team for Peace Watch, a non-partisan organization accredited by the Palestinian Authority as an official elections observer in 1996,, chose for his article on the Palestinian elections. He reports that Arafat, "after having been brought in from Tunis amid widespread jubilation - used every means at its disposal to ensure that the Palestinian voter would have only one viable option as to which political party would represent him, and only one real candidate to vote for as president. Under these conditions, A r a f a t ’s landslide victory was not an expression of democratic will, but rather a testament to the success of the measures he employed…. I will document… the rise of a regime characterized by a massive police force whose specialty was intimidation of political opponents; an executive branch in which Arafat alone made all major decisions and in which the civil service was reduced to a corrupt patronage machine; the institutionalized absence of the rule of law, and a judiciary that lacked any independence; and the intimidation of the media and human rights organizations, to the point that it became virtually impossible to transmit any message other than one personally approved by Arafat." Daniel Polisar, 2002 [175]
- Supporting Evidence: "There is no tradition in the Arab world of a leader of Arafat's stature voluntarily giving up power. ‘Such a thing isn't part of our thinking or our vocabulary — there is no chance of Arafat stepping down by himself. In this part of the world, the ruler is replaced only by the undertaker's certificate. And Arafat believes he will live forever." Rafiq Natsheh, a former Palestinian Cabinet minister, LA Times, July 24 2004 [176]
- Supporting Evidence: Middle Eastern countries have not kept pace with the movement toward democratization occurring around the globe, according to Freedom House which, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that has monitored political and civil freedoms around the globe for 30 years and recently concluded that "there has been dramatic progress in the expansion of freedom and democratic governance over the life of the survey…[but] Among the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, there has been virtually no significant progress toward democratization in the three decades of the survey. In 1972, the survey rated only 2 countries—Israel and Lebanon—as Free, while 3 states were Partly Free, and 14 were rated Not Free. Today, Israel remains the region’s sole democracy and Free country. There are 4 Partly Free and 13 Not Free states, virtually the same distribution as in 1972." "Freedom in the World 2003," Freedom House [177]
- Supporting Evidence: "Israel is the only country in the region that permits citizens of all faiths to worship freely and openly." Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp and Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Memorandum April 24, 2002. [178]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel has greater religious pluralism than the USA. 20% of Israelis are non-Jewish while in the US only 4% of the population adheres to a non-Christian religion. [179]
- Supporting Evidence: Each religious community in Israel (Christian, Jewish, Moslem) is allowed to have jurisdiction over the marriage, divorce and burial of its members, and representatives of each of each religion are state officials. [180]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel gave the Druze, a group "traditionally persecuted by Moslem Arabs," the status of an official religious community, with their own religious council and courts. [181]
- Supporting Evidence: "The highest body of the Baha'i faith…declared the Israeli port city of Haifa the `Mecca' for the religion's five million members" in 1992 in part because of Israel’s tolerance and the persecution the Baha’is faced in other Middle Eastern states. [182]
- Supporting Evidence: The Christian population in Israel has quadrupled in the last forty years while it is precipitously declining in the Middle East and particularly in the Palestinian Authority. Israel’s Christian population has grown from 51,000 in 1961 to over 137,000 today. [183]
- Supporting Evidence: Yasser Arafat was "elected" by a landslide 87.3% of the vote.(*) "Arafat…has been criticized for conducting the election the way he ran the revolutionary Palestinian Liberation Organization: autocratically, arbitrarily, secretively, and without accountability. …Arafat's police have jailed journalists and human rights activists and have intimidated Palestinian newspapers. Winners of primary elections have been pushed aside and elections results ignored so Arafat's people could get on the ballot. "He and others are finding difficulty adjusting to a new situation. There were lots of violations of the election law," said parliamentary candidate Moustafa Barghoutti. The only alternative to Arafat's presidency is 73-year-old social activist Samirha Khalil. As many as 25 percent of Palestinians were expected to cast protest votes for her." CNN Report January 20 1996(**) [174]
- COUNTERPOINT: The fact that Israel desire to remain a Jewish-majority state does not mean that it is not a democracy any more than France, Italy or Spain cannot be democracies because they are primarily composed of Catholics. Israel is a democracy that includes all its citizens and it lives up to the principles of justice, tolerance, human rights and democracy.
- POINT 13: Christians and Muslims have always lived peacefully side-by-side.
- COUNTERPOINT: Christians and Muslims did not live peacefully side by side. Christians have been an oppressed minority in Arab lands where they were given the status of "dhimmis," second class citizens who suffered humiliations and persecution.
- Supporting Evidence: "Anecdotes of tolerance aside, the systematic treatment of Christians and Jews (who fall under the Islamic category of dhimmi) as second-class citizens is abusive and discriminatory by any standard….Under Islam, the dhimmi are not allowed to build new places of worship or renovate existing ones; dhimmi women are available for marriage to Muslims while the reverse is strictly prohibited; the political rights of dhimmis are absent; and the targeted dhimmi community and each individual in it are made to live in a state of perpetual humiliation in the eyes of the ruling community…..With the notable exception of the Christians of Lebanon, Christian communities native to the Middle East today exhibit the scars of centuries of inferiorization and marginalization. They constitute living relics of the ravages of a system that, although technically abolished in many modern Arab states, continues on the level of official as well as popular attitudes and practices." Habib C. Malik, Lebanese American University, 1999 [184]
- Supporting Evidence: "A non-Muslim in an Islamic state is required to pay jaziya, which in the Koranic language is a Humiliation Tax. In fact, the life of an unbeliever is a series of humiliations in a Muslim country….Since it is the Islamic way of life which requires an unbeliever to yield way to the Muslim when they happen to be walking on the same path, it can be safely called the forerunner of the South African apartheid." Anwar Shaikh (Muslim reformer) [185]
- Supporting Evidence: "The dhimmi were forbidden to strike a Muslim, carry arms, ride horses, build new houses of worship or repair old ones and they had to wear distinctive clothing." Historian Benny Morris [186]
- Supporting Evidence: "The attitude of the Muslims toward the Christians and the Jews is that of a master towards slaves, whom he treats with a certain lordly tolerance so long as they keep their place. Any sign of pretension to equality is promptly repressed," H.E.W. Young, British Vice Consul in Mosul 1909 [187]
- Supporting Evidence: "Anecdotes of tolerance aside, the systematic treatment of Christians and Jews (who fall under the Islamic category of dhimmi) as second-class citizens is abusive and discriminatory by any standard….Under Islam, the dhimmi are not allowed to build new places of worship or renovate existing ones; dhimmi women are available for marriage to Muslims while the reverse is strictly prohibited; the political rights of dhimmis are absent; and the targeted dhimmi community and each individual in it are made to live in a state of perpetual humiliation in the eyes of the ruling community…..With the notable exception of the Christians of Lebanon, Christian communities native to the Middle East today exhibit the scars of centuries of inferiorization and marginalization. They constitute living relics of the ravages of a system that, although technically abolished in many modern Arab states, continues on the level of official as well as popular attitudes and practices." Habib C. Malik, Lebanese American University, 1999 [184]
- COUNTERPOINT: Over the centuries, Muslims have also subjected Christians to massacres, most notably in Lebanon between 1840 and 1860 when close to 11,000 were slaughtered by Druse and Turks.
- Supporting Evidence: "The record of history is stark and cruel in describing the slaughter and enslavement of Christians, from Syria to Sardinia, from Baghdad to Bosnia, from Arabia to Andalusia. The "sword of Islam" served the Muslims - first the Arabs, later the Turks and Persians - in the unfolding drama of conquest and rule. Churches were turned into mosques and free peoples were demoted into oblivion as wide stretches of Central Asia, the Orient, North Africa and the Balkans were absorbed into dar el-Islam (the realm of Islam) from the 7th century to the 17th." Book Review, of Bat Ye’or’s,"The Decline of Christianity Under Islam," 1997 [188]
- Supporting Evidence: The Ottoman government’s decrees in 1839 and 1856 which equalized the status of Muslim and non-Muslim "…resulted in short order in the dramatic alienation of Muslims from Christians. The former resented the implied loss of superiority and recurrently assaulted and massacred Christian communities—in Aleppo in 1850, in Nablus in 1856 and in Damascus and Lebanon in 1860." Historian Benny Morris [189]
- Supporting Evidence: " It is not known exactly how many Christians were slaughtered in Lebanon but must sources put the figure between 7,000 to 11,000 and some well over 20,000. A letter in the English daily news in July 1860 states that between 7,000 and 8,000 had been murdered, 5,000 widowed and 16,000 orphaned. Mr Farley, in a letter, speaks of 326 villages, 560 churches, 28 colleges, 42 convents, and 9 other religious establishments, had been totally destroyed. Churchill puts the figures as 11,000 murdered, 100,000 refugees, 20,000 widows and orphans, 3,000 habitations burnt to the ground, and 4,000 perished of destitution." Enyclopedia Phoeniciana [190]
- Supporting Evidence: "The record of history is stark and cruel in describing the slaughter and enslavement of Christians, from Syria to Sardinia, from Baghdad to Bosnia, from Arabia to Andalusia. The "sword of Islam" served the Muslims - first the Arabs, later the Turks and Persians - in the unfolding drama of conquest and rule. Churches were turned into mosques and free peoples were demoted into oblivion as wide stretches of Central Asia, the Orient, North Africa and the Balkans were absorbed into dar el-Islam (the realm of Islam) from the 7th century to the 17th." Book Review, of Bat Ye’or’s,"The Decline of Christianity Under Islam," 1997 [188]
- COUNTERPOINT: It is the Palestinian Authority, not Israel that imposes religious uniformity.
- Supporting Evidence: The PA declared Islam its official religion. No Palestinian law protects religious freedom. [193]
- Supporting Evidence: PA Information Ministry declared that "The Palestinian people are also governed by [Islamic] Shari’a law…with issues pertaining to religious matters…..any Muslim who [converts] or declares becoming an unbeliever is committing a major sin punishable by capital punishment." [194]
- Supporting Evidence: The PA arrests Palestinian converts to Christianity. In late June 1997, the PA’s Preventive Security Forces arrested a convert to Christianity for regularly attending church and distributing Bibles. He is still in prison and has been subjected to physical torture and interrogations.(*) In December, 2002, Saeed and Nasser Salamah, escaped from prison and from a death sentence for converting to Christianity in the PA and sought asylum in Israel.(**) [195]
- Supporting Evidence: The PA declared Islam its official religion. No Palestinian law protects religious freedom. [193]
- COUNTERPOINT: The Palestinian Authority harasses and persecutes Christians.
- Supporting Evidence: "Life in [PA-ruled] Bethlehem has become insufferable for many members of the dwindling Christian minorities. Increasing Muslim-Christian tensions have left some Christians reluctant to celebrate Christmas in the town at the heart of the story of Christ’s birth," according to a December 1997 report in the London Times. [196]
- Supporting Evidence: The Christian rate of emigration from the Territories has accelerated and the Christian population of the Territories has dropped from 15% in 1950 to barely 2% today. Many fear that soon few if any Christians will be left in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, or in Nazareth though they once were Christian majority cities... [197]
- Supporting Evidence: "Allah the almighty has called upon us not to ally with the Jews or the Christians, not to like them, not to become their partners, not to support them, and not to sign agreements with them."(*) Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Friday sermon broadcast by the PA on October 13, 2000, [198]
- Supporting Evidence: Graffiti in Bethlehem and Beit Sahur reads, "First the Saturday people [the Jews] then the Sunday people [the Christians]," according to the New York Times.(*) The same lines are often chanted during anti-Israel PLO/PA rallies.(*) [199]
- Supporting Evidence: Palestinian Muslims will not sell land to Christians. Muslim extremists have attacked Christian facilities and clubs, the Wall Street Journal reported in July 1994. Christian graves, crosses and statues have been desecrated. Christian cemeteries have been defaced, monasteries have had their phone lines cut and there have been break-ins at convents. [200]
- Supporting Evidence: In August, 1997, Palestinian policemen in Beit Sahur opened fire on a crowd of Christian Arabs, wounding six of them. Arafat attempted to cover up the incident and warned the Arab media against publicizing the story. [201]
- Supporting Evidence: In February 2002, Palestinian Muslims rampaged against Christians in Ramallah, burning apartments and stores owned by Christians and attempted to burn down the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. The PA failed to intervene, according to the Boston Globe. [202]
- Supporting Evidence: "Life in [PA-ruled] Bethlehem has become insufferable for many members of the dwindling Christian minorities. Increasing Muslim-Christian tensions have left some Christians reluctant to celebrate Christmas in the town at the heart of the story of Christ’s birth," according to a December 1997 report in the London Times. [196]
- COUNTERPOINT: The PA violates Christian religious sites and property.
- Supporting Evidence: In 1997, the Waqf (Muslim religious property) authorities attempted to break through into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, which is adjacent to the al-Hanaqa Mosque in order to install toilets on the roof of the Church. The illegal construction was halted only after Israeli and world pressure. [203]
- Supporting Evidence: When the Intifada began, the PA’s Tanzim specifically "positioned themselves in or near Christian homes, hotels, churches (eg St. Nicholas) and the Greek Orthodox club so fire would harm Christian institutions and homes," according to an AP report. [204]
- Supporting Evidence: Palestinian terrorists took over the Church of the Nativity on April 2, 2002, triggering a 38 day siege during which they ate all the stores of food, Bibles were torn up and used for toilet paper, many valuable sacramental objects were stolen, and the monks trapped inside were under a "regime of fear." [205]
- Supporting Evidence: The militants who took over the Church of the Nativity in April, 2002, had "imposed a two-year reign of terror [on Bethlehem Christians] that included rape, extortion and executions, according to Bethlehem residents. ‘Finally the Christians can breathe freely,’ said Helen, 50, a Christian mother of four. ‘We are so delighted that these criminals who have intimidated us for such a long time are now going away.’" [206]
- Supporting Evidence: In 1997, the Waqf (Muslim religious property) authorities attempted to break through into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, which is adjacent to the al-Hanaqa Mosque in order to install toilets on the roof of the Church. The illegal construction was halted only after Israeli and world pressure. [203]
- COUNTERPOINT: Christians and Muslims did not live peacefully side by side. Christians have been an oppressed minority in Arab lands where they were given the status of "dhimmis," second class citizens who suffered humiliations and persecution.
- POINT 14: The military law that governs the Territories is similar to apartheid law.
- COUNTERPOINT: Christians in the Palestinian-controlled Territories try to turn a blind eye to the discrimination and persecution they face from Muslims and the PA.
- Supporting Evidence: "Apartheid is the South African government’s policy of rigid racial segregation. Its official goal is the separate development of the nation’s several racial groups. Laws isolate these groups in most activities, but especially in education, employment, housing and politics." The World Book Encyclopedia, 1979 [207]
- Supporting Evidence: "The crime of apartheid" means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime;" Article 7 (2) (h), Roman Statute of the International Criminal Court, July 17 1998 [208]
- Supporting Evidence: "Apartheid is the South African government’s policy of rigid racial segregation. Its official goal is the separate development of the nation’s several racial groups. Laws isolate these groups in most activities, but especially in education, employment, housing and politics." The World Book Encyclopedia, 1979 [207]
- COUNTERPOINT: This charge can be made only out of complete ignorance about apartheid. It was an official policy in South Africa, enacted in law and enforced through police violence, of brutal political, legal and economic discrimination against people of color. It was based upon minority control over a majority population. Israel never annexed the Territories and the Palestinians are not Israeli citizens, nor did Israel impose such a legal system in the Territories.
- Supporting Evidence: "Apartheid is the South African government’s policy of rigid racial segregation. Its official goal is the separate development of the nation’s several racial groups. Laws isolate these groups in most activities, but especially in education, employment, housing and politics." The World Book Encyclopedia, 1979 [207]
- Supporting Evidence: "The crime of apartheid" means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime;" Article 7 (2) (h), Roman Statute of the International Criminal Court, July 17 1998 [208]
- Supporting Evidence: "Apartheid is the South African government’s policy of rigid racial segregation. Its official goal is the separate development of the nation’s several racial groups. Laws isolate these groups in most activities, but especially in education, employment, housing and politics." The World Book Encyclopedia, 1979 [207]
- COUNTERPOINT: This charge can be made only out of complete ignorance about the legal system in the Territories. Israel never annexed the Territories and hence Israeli law never governed the Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens. When it began its administration of the Territories, Israeli left intact the mixture of Ottoman, British and Jordanian law that had governed the Territories prior to the 1967 War. These laws prevailed, along with new Israeli governing laws until 1994-1996 when the Palestinian Authority became the legal authority in the Territories. There are different systems of law precisely because Israel did not annex the Territories and impose its own system on the Palestinians.
- Supporting Evidence: After 1967, "At {Moshe] Dayan’s suggestion…the cabinet agreed that Jordanian law would remain operative throughout the West Bank and that it would continue to be enforced largely by the prewar Arab administration, and that in the Gaza enclave civil government would also be directed mainly by resident Arab officials. Ultimately, fewer than 220 Israeli army and civilian personnel oversaw these local regimes. It became the hope of the military government that Arab citizens in the occupied areas should be able to carry on their activities without so much as setting eyes on an Israeli official…." Historian Howard Sachar [209]
- Supporting Evidence: "In creating legal bedlam, Arafat took full advantage of the complex situation the PA inherited in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Prior to being captured by Israel in 1967, these areas had been governed successively by the Ottomans, by the British, and by Jordan (in the case of the West Bank) and Egypt (in the case of Gaza), and each of these rulers had added to the laws of its predecessors without creating a coherent, unified system. In two and a half decades, the Israeli military government promulgated nearly 2,500 orders, partly with a view towards putting in place a modern legal system that would apply throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Nonetheless, Israel did not succeed in establishing a framework that could serve as the basis for an autonomous state…What transformed complexity into chaos, however, was a series of decisions made by Arafat himself. In his first executive order as head of the PA, issued from Tunis on May 20, 1994, Arafat decreed he was restoring all laws that had been in effect on June 5, 1967, the day the Six Day War broke out, and canceling by implication all legislation effected by Israel in the intervening years." Daniel Polisar, Leader of election observer team for Peace Watch, a non-partisan organization accredited by the Palestinian Authority as an official elections observer in 1996. Article written in 2002 [210]
- Supporting Evidence: After 1967, "At {Moshe] Dayan’s suggestion…the cabinet agreed that Jordanian law would remain operative throughout the West Bank and that it would continue to be enforced largely by the prewar Arab administration, and that in the Gaza enclave civil government would also be directed mainly by resident Arab officials. Ultimately, fewer than 220 Israeli army and civilian personnel oversaw these local regimes. It became the hope of the military government that Arab citizens in the occupied areas should be able to carry on their activities without so much as setting eyes on an Israeli official…." Historian Howard Sachar [209]
- COUNTERPOINT: This charge can be made only out of complete ignorance about the facts. Under Israeli administration of the Territories, the Palestinians achieved more self-government and more self-rule than they had ever enjoyed in the 19 years of Jordanian rule. Israeli administration dramatically improved Palestinian self-rule. There was nothing that remotely resembled apartheid law.
- Supporting Evidence: "In the West Bank…the Israelis encountered an Arab population whose economic and political development had been systematically aborted for years by the distrustful Hashemite government. Citizens living west of the river had been refused even the mildest degree of administrative autonomy….When, therefore, Israel instituted a military regime in the West Bank, it launched something entirely new, the first authentically Palestinian administration the local Arabs had ever known. Under Israeli auspices, departments were established for West Bank agriculture, education, posts and telegraphs, commerce and industry…" all run by local civil servants. Historian Howard Sachar[229]
- Supporting Evidence: The Palestinians in the territories had, over more than a generation of Israeli rule, become intimately familiar with the workings of Israeli democracy and had benefited from an occupation that was more liberal in many respects than any Arab government. They enjoyed the freest press in the Arab world, based in eastern Jerusalem, and they sported a host of human rights organizations, scattered throughout Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, which had become internationally known for reporting on the practices of Israeli troops. Moreover, exposure to the chaotic workings of Israel’s Knesset and to the trial and appeal processes in Israel’s courts led Palestinian residents in the territories to develop views on power-sharing, pluralism, and the rule of law that were sharply at odds with those that Arafat and his colleagues were perfecting in Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunis." Daniel Polisar, Leader of the 1996 election observer team for Peace Watch, a non-partisan organization accredited by the Palestinian Authority as an official elections observer, 2002 [211]
- Supporting Evidence: "In the West Bank…the Israelis encountered an Arab population whose economic and political development had been systematically aborted for years by the distrustful Hashemite government. Citizens living west of the river had been refused even the mildest degree of administrative autonomy….When, therefore, Israel instituted a military regime in the West Bank, it launched something entirely new, the first authentically Palestinian administration the local Arabs had ever known. Under Israeli auspices, departments were established for West Bank agriculture, education, posts and telegraphs, commerce and industry…" all run by local civil servants. Historian Howard Sachar[229]
- COUNTERPOINT: This charge can be made only out of complete ignorance about how the Territories have functioned since the Oslo Accords. In accord with Oslo’s interim agreements, 98% of Palestinians came to be under the governance of the Palestinian Authority by 1997. The PA has its own legislature, administrative, educational and legal system. If there is apartheid in the Territories, then it was instituted by the Palestinian leadership, not Israel.
- COUNTERPOINT: This charge can only be made by confusing Israel’s security measures with the legal system that governs the Territories. Israel’s security measures—closures, checkpoints, curfews—were temporary measures instituted in response to terrorism. The PA has done nothing to eliminate terrorism, and under the Oslo Accords, Israel has the right to act to maintain the security of its citizens. There is nothing racist or apartheid-like about these measures. Palestinian Arabs are not subject to security measures because of their race, color,religion or nationality, but rather because they are declared enemies of Israelis and wish to murder Jews.
- Supporting Evidence: There was no separation barrier between Israel and the Territories from the time Israeli administration began in 1967 until 2002. During these 35 years, the area was open and unobstructed. Israel began constructing the fence only in 2002 when Palestinian terrorism impelled the nation to build it to protect its citizens from mass murder.
- Supporting Evidence: "The restrictions on movement that Israel has imposed on the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories since the outbreak of the current intifada are unprecedented in the history of the Israeli occupation… In the past, …it never imposed sweeping and prolonged restrictions comparable to those currently in practice." B’Tselem, Israeli Human Rights Group [212]
- Supporting Evidence: In the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar, editor Jubran Tuweini wrote, "Once again, we realize that the Arabs are their own worst enemy - just as the worst enemy of the Palestinian cause is the Palestinians, who have endorsed a policy of refusal and fundamentalist extremism as a way of behavior. How many times have they already served Israel with their deeds? How many times has the behavior of these groups already saved Ariel Sharon and his government?" December 24 2003 [213]
- Supporting Evidence: The liberal-leaning Hazem Abd Al-Rahman wrote in his Al-Ahram column:"… Are these scum of the earth [Palestinians who attacked the Egyptian Foreign Minister] capable of accomplishing something for the Palestinian people? It is reasonable to assume that they, like the supporters of suicide bombings, are the first to damage the Palestinian cause, and are bringing death upon the Palestinian people…" December 24 2003
- Supporting Evidence: On the liberal Arab website Elaph, Egyptian columnist Sami Buheiri wrote: "[T]he rabble majority of the Arab and Palestinian street today….refuse to accept any kind of a peace agreement with Israel... It is they who applaud the bus and restaurant bombings in order to destroy any spark of hope for peace... They are Arab nationalists who have failed completely in all their wars with Israel and in all attempts to achieve peace with Israel, because they were not serious, and they were not men - neither in fighting nor in peacemaking..."December 30 2003 [214]
- Supporting Evidence: There was no separation barrier between Israel and the Territories from the time Israeli administration began in 1967 until 2002. During these 35 years, the area was open and unobstructed. Israel began constructing the fence only in 2002 when Palestinian terrorism impelled the nation to build it to protect its citizens from mass murder.
- COUNTERPOINT: Christians in the Palestinian-controlled Territories try to turn a blind eye to the discrimination and persecution they face from Muslims and the PA.
- POINT 15: Israel is a colonialist nation.
- COUNTERPOINT: Given the accepted definitions of colonialism, there is no way Israel could qualify as a colonialist state. Unlike the imperial, colonizing powers that had no historical connection to the lands they settled, the Jews did. It was not foreign territory. They were returning to the land where their people had claimed a nation-state for 1500 years, where many of their brethren had continued to live, where the archeology, artifacts and place names were all part of their history and familiar to them. They were not claiming a new and unknown territory. In a sense, they were returning home.
- Supporting Evidence: "Colonialism is a system in which a state claims sovereignty over territory and people outside its own boundaries, often to facilitate economic domination over their resources, labor, and often markets." Free Dictionary [215]
- Supporting Evidence: " The immigration of Jews to Palestine was vastly different from colonialism, both with respect to their situation in their countries of origin and with respect to their relationship with the land itself. Unlike colonial powers, the Jews were a people in exile, foreigners wherever they went; they were everywhere a minority, and in some places persecuted relentlessly; and they had never possessed national sovereignty over any land but the land of Israel. Add to this their profound cultural and religious bond to the land, and you have a solid basis for a unique connection between the Jews and the land of Israel—one far more compelling than the claims of a typical group of European settlers." Professor Ruth Gavison, Legal Scholar on Human Rights [216]
- Supporting Evidence: "The Jews of the whole world are but Syrian émigrés, like the Syrian Christian émigrés in America, Paris and elsewhere. Like them, [the Jews] are also nostalgic for the country of their birth….We are quite sure that our Jewish brethren in the whole world will lend us their support to bring about the triumph of our common cause for the material and moral rehabilitation of our common land." ‘Abd al-Hamid al-Zahrawi, Chairman of the First Arab Congress in Paris, 1913, Interview [217]
- Supporting Evidence: "[W]e have seen the Jews from foreign countries streaming to Palestine from Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, America. The cause of causes could not escape those who had the gift of a deeper insight. They knew that the country was for its original sons, for all their differences, a sacred and beloved homeland." Sherif Hussein, Guardian of the Islamic Holy Places in Arabia, March 23 1918 [218]
- Supporting Evidence: "Colonialism is a system in which a state claims sovereignty over territory and people outside its own boundaries, often to facilitate economic domination over their resources, labor, and often markets." Free Dictionary [215]
- COUNTERPOINT: Given the accepted definitions of colonialism, there is no way Israel could qualify as a colonialist state. When Zionism was founded, Jews did not have a powerful nation-state that extended its power to dominate and exploit the resources and labor of a subject peoples. Rather, the Jews who came to the region of Palestine were from all over the world. They were refugees, trying to escape religious persecution. They bought and worked the land themselves.
- Supporting Evidence: Unlike other colonialists, "the Jewish immigrants who came to Eretz Yisrael since the 1880’s did not come armed to their teeth to take over the country by force from its natives." Historian Yoav Gelber [219]
- Supporting Evidence: "The Zionists come to this country to live. They are educated, cultured people; they do not inflate their importance and they are united among themselves. It is not just or humane that we should hate or despise this people. On the contrary, we should imitate them and learn from their activities, which can give us a good and appropriate lesson and thereby we can give an important impetus to the progress of our husbandry and agriculture." Husayn al-Husayni, President of the Municipal Council of Jerusalem, March 30 1914 [220]
- Supporting Evidence: "As pioneers in Palestine the Jews have a record of which they can be proud. In Palestine there has been no expulsion of the indigenous population, and exploitation of cheap Arab labor has been vigorously opposed as inconsistent with Zionism." Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, 1946, Chapter 8, Section 8 [221]
- Supporting Evidence: "Our settlers do not come here as do the colonists from the Occident to have natives do their work for them; they themselves set their shoulders to the plow and they spend their strength and their blood to make the land fruitful. But it is not only for ourselves that we desire its fertility. The Jewish farmers have begun to teach their brothers, the Arab farmers, to cultivate the land more intensively; we desire to teach them further: together with them we want to cultivate the land -- to 'serve' it, as the Hebrew has it. The more fertile this soil becomes, the more space there will be for us and for them. We have no desire to dispossess them: we want to live with them. We do not want to dominate them: we want to serve with them....." Martin Buber [222]
- Supporting Evidence: "Until 1948—with no parallel among colonial movements—the Zionists bought, and did not conquer lands in Palestine. The list of sellers included all the prominent clans of the Palestinian elite—al-Husayni, Nashashibi, Abd al-Hadi, al-Alami, Tabari, al-Shawa, Shuqairi and many others—who despite their radical political postures could not stand the temptation of the rising land prices in Palestine." Historian Yoav Gelber [223]
- Supporting Evidence: "In contrast to the colonial stereotype, the Jews who immigrated to Eretz Yisrael severed their affiliation to their countries of origin and to their cultures. Instead, they revived an ancient language and on the basis of Hebrew created a totally new culture that spread into all spheres." Historian Yoav Gelber [224]
- Supporting Evidence: "Beginning in the 1880’s, the Jews who moved to what is now Israel were refugees escaping the oppressive anti-Semitism of colonial Europe and the Muslim states of the Middle East and North Africa. Unlike colonial settlers serving the expansionist commercial and military goals of imperial nations such as Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Spain, the Jewish refugees were escaping from the countries that had oppressed them for centuries." Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz [225]
- Supporting Evidence: The Palestine area had no natural resources to exploit. Jews returned simply because the area was their historical homeland. They did not economically exploit the country for the benefit of a foreign power.
- Supporting Evidence: Unlike other colonialists, "the Jewish immigrants who came to Eretz Yisrael since the 1880’s did not come armed to their teeth to take over the country by force from its natives." Historian Yoav Gelber [219]
- COUNTERPOINT: Given the accepted definitions of colonialism, there is no way Israel’s administration of the Territories from 1967 to 1994 can be considered colonialism. Israel captured the Territories in a defensive war, and was obligated to administer them until the belligerent Arab states agreed to make peace.
- Supporting Evidence: "It is not illegal for victorious powers to occupy hostile territory seized in the course of war until they are able to negotiate a successful peace treaty with their former enemies. The Palestinians have failed to recognize this fact, " wrote George P Fletcher, Professor of International Law at Columbia University. [226]
- Supporting Evidence: "Resolution 242, which as undersecretary of state for political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until "a just and lasting peace in the Middle East" is achieved." Eugene V. Rostow, Under Secretary of State in the Johnson Administration [227]
- Supporting Evidence: "My feelings about the so-called occupied territories are that there was a war. Israel urged neighboring countries not to get involved in it once it started. They all jumped in and they lost a lot of real estate to Israel because Israel prevailed in the conflict." Since then, Rumsfeld said, Israel repeatedly has offered to pull back but "at no point has it been agreed upon by the other side." U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the issue of "Occupation" [228]
- Supporting Evidence: "It is not illegal for victorious powers to occupy hostile territory seized in the course of war until they are able to negotiate a successful peace treaty with their former enemies. The Palestinians have failed to recognize this fact, " wrote George P Fletcher, Professor of International Law at Columbia University. [226]
- COUNTERPOINT: There is no rational way Israel’s communities in the West Bank can be considered colonization of another state. No "State of Palestine" had ever existed in 1967. The West Bank and Gaza were unallocated parts of the Palestinian Mandate whose status had never been determined. Jordan and Egypt had illegally occupied them from 1948 to 1967, which meant their status remained undefined.
- Supporting Evidence: "Many believe that the Palestine Mandate was somehow terminated in 1947, when the British government resigned as the mandatory power. This is incorrect.….In Palestine the British Mandate ceased to be operative as to the territories of Israel and Jordan when those states were created and recognized by the international community. But its rules apply still to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which have not yet been allocated either to Israel or to Jordan or become an independent state." International Law Professor Eugene Rostow [229]
- Supporting Evidence: "Many believe that the Palestine Mandate was somehow terminated in 1947, when the British government resigned as the mandatory power. This is incorrect.….In Palestine the British Mandate ceased to be operative as to the territories of Israel and Jordan when those states were created and recognized by the international community. But its rules apply still to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which have not yet been allocated either to Israel or to Jordan or become an independent state." International Law Professor Eugene Rostow [229]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel’s neighborhoods and towns in Judea, Samaria, (the West Bank) and Gaza cannot be considered a form of "settler-colonization." Jews have legal, historical and emotional claims to these areas that have not been abrogated. They are not a foreign power, but a people with legitimate if disputed claims to the area.
- Supporting Evidence: Jews have continuously inhabited the region. These areas are the cradle of Jewish civilization and include the holiest sites in the Jewish religion,including the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Judaism’s second holiest city. Jews had lived continuously in Hebron from Biblical times until the Arab riots of 1929 when the whole Jewish community was massacred.(*) Similarly, Jews have had a continuous if occasionally interrupted presence in Gaza from Biblical times, attested to by remnants of ancient 6th century synagogues, traveler reports of the Gaza Jews’ "excellent wine" (Georgio Gucci (1384), reports of its prosperity in the 18th century until the 1929 Arab riots when the Jews were expelled(**). But the Jews returned and "purchased substantial blocks of land in the Gaza Plain," according to the 1937 Peel Commission Report.(***) [230]
- Supporting Evidence: Many Jews who chose to return and settle in these areas have roots there that span undreds or thousands of years. They were displaced during the 1948 War of Independence. All theJewish inhabitants of the region King Abdullah later called the West Bank, were massacred and expelled, their synagogues razed and their homes usurped. "Jews fled in fear from mixed neighborhoods such as the border areas between Jaffa and Tel Aviv, and even from Jaffa itself. There were some 10,000 Jewish refugees in the early stages of the war. Gush Etzion, on the road between Bethlehem and Hebron, was captured by the Arab Legion and local Palestinian forces: the inhabitants were killed or taken prisoner and carried across the Jordan. Their settlements were completely demolished. The settlements Neveh Ya'akov and Atarot north of Jerusalem, also captured, were totally obliterated. All the residents of the Jewish quarter in the Old City in Jerusalem, conquered by local forces with the aid of the Arab Legion, were taken captive. No Jew was allowed to return to settle in the Old City--not even the ultra-Orthodox who detested Zionism and were prepared to live under Arab rule." Historian Anita Shapira [231]
- Supporting Evidence: Because the Territories have never been allocated to another sovereign entity, the Mandate rules calling for Jewish settlement in the area are still in force, making "The Jewish right of settlement in the area [is] equivalent in every way to the right of the local population to live there," according to Professor Eugene Rostow, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the American Journal of International Law. [232]
- Supporting Evidence: "The heated question of Israel's settlements in the West Bank during the occupation period should be viewed in this perspective. The British Mandate recognized the right of the Jewish people to "close settlement" in the whole of the Mandated territory….But the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan river, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors. And perhaps not even then, in view of Article 80 of the U.N. Charter, "the Palestine article," which provides that "nothing in the Charter shall be construed ... to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments...." Professor Eugene Rostow, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the American Journal of International Law. [233]
- Supporting Evidence: Jews have continuously inhabited the region. These areas are the cradle of Jewish civilization and include the holiest sites in the Jewish religion,including the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Judaism’s second holiest city. Jews had lived continuously in Hebron from Biblical times until the Arab riots of 1929 when the whole Jewish community was massacred.(*) Similarly, Jews have had a continuous if occasionally interrupted presence in Gaza from Biblical times, attested to by remnants of ancient 6th century synagogues, traveler reports of the Gaza Jews’ "excellent wine" (Georgio Gucci (1384), reports of its prosperity in the 18th century until the 1929 Arab riots when the Jews were expelled(**). But the Jews returned and "purchased substantial blocks of land in the Gaza Plain," according to the 1937 Peel Commission Report.(***) [230]
- COUNTERPOINT: Given the accepted definitions of colonialism, there is no way Israel could qualify as a colonialist state. Unlike the imperial, colonizing powers that had no historical connection to the lands they settled, the Jews did. It was not foreign territory. They were returning to the land where their people had claimed a nation-state for 1500 years, where many of their brethren had continued to live, where the archeology, artifacts and place names were all part of their history and familiar to them. They were not claiming a new and unknown territory. In a sense, they were returning home.
- POINT 16: The Zionists needed to displace the Palestinian Arabs to create their state.
- COUNTERPOINT: This stands the facts on their head. Zionists never envisioned the need to displace Palestinian Arabs to recreate their homeland. When Zionism was founded in 1897, the region of Palestine was an impoverished backwater with only a sparse population. There was plenty of room for returning Jews and the existing population. International travelers consistently reported, from the late 18th century through to the early 20th century on how empty and barren the land was.
- Supporting Evidence: Theodore Herzl "did not foresee the clash with the Arabs, but those who criticize him in this respect tend to forget that the total number of Arabs in Palestine at the time was little over half a million and a Palestinian Arab national movement did not yet exist." Historian Walter Laqueur [234]
- Supporting Evidence: "[W]e rode across the plain..of Sharon…But where were the inhabitants? This fertile plain, which might support an immense population, is almost a solitude. Two or three wretched hamlets…are the sole representatives of the numerous and thriving cities which once occupied it." Reverend Samuel Manning, 1874 [235]
- Supporting Evidence: "Here as elsewhere, as everywhere in Palestine, city and palaces have returned to the dust; also disappeared, the forests…everything has been changed into a melancholy desert of brush and grass….This melancholy of abandonment…weighs on all the Holy Land." Pierre Loti, French traveler, 1895 [236]
- Supporting Evidence: "The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population," British consul James Finn noted in 1857. [237]
- Supporting Evidence: In certain parts of the country, "land is going out of cultivation and whole villages are rapidly disappearing…the local population extirpated." H.B. Tristam, The Land of Israel: A Journal of Travels Through Palestine, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1865, p. 490
- Supporting Evidence: There were barely 260,000 Arabs in 1882 in what today is Israel and the Territories, an area that had supported approximately 5 million people in the 1st century AD.. [238]
- Supporting Evidence: "The country was…and is now, underdeveloped and under-populated. The methods of agriculture are, for the most part, primitive; the area of land now cultivated could yield a far greater product. There are…large cultivable areas that are left untilled. The summits and slopes of the hills are admirably suited to the growth of trees, but there are no forests. Miles of sand dunes that could be redeemed, are untouched." Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine to the League of Nations, June 1921. [239]
- Supporting Evidence: Theodore Herzl "did not foresee the clash with the Arabs, but those who criticize him in this respect tend to forget that the total number of Arabs in Palestine at the time was little over half a million and a Palestinian Arab national movement did not yet exist." Historian Walter Laqueur [234]
- COUNTERPOINT: Just the opposite was true. Zionist leaders from Theodore Herzl to Chaim Weizman to David Ben Gurion were dedicated to peaceful co-existence with the local Arab residents and to having them benefit from Zionist development. They never thought it necessary to remove Arabs to create their state.
- Supporting Evidence: Herzl’s vision of the future Jewish state: "Arabs and Jews lived in friendship side-by-side. ‘The Jews have enriched us,’ observed one Arab notable, Reshid Bey. ‘Why should we have anything against them? They live with us like brothers, why should we not love them?’" Theodore Herzl’s utopian novel, Alteneuland, 1902 [240]
- Supporting Evidence: "I explained to [Feisel]…the fact that there was a great deal of room in the country if intensive development were applied, and that the lot of the Arabs would be greatly improved through our work there. With all this I found the Emir in full agreement…" Chaim Weizman letter 1918 [241]
- Supporting Evidence: "All our aspiration is built on the assumption—proven through all our activity in the land—that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs…. "The Arab policy of the Jewish state must be aimed not only at full equality for the Arabs but at their cultural, social, and economic equalization, namely, at raising their standard of living to that of the Jews. David Ben Gurion Letter to his son, 1937 and Protocol meeting, 1938 [242]
- Supporting Evidence: Early Zionists planned to have Arabic taught in their schools, and to have their children learn the Arabs’ ways "in order that they learn how to live, not fight with them." 1883 [243]
- Supporting Evidence: Herzl’s vision of the future Jewish state: "Arabs and Jews lived in friendship side-by-side. ‘The Jews have enriched us,’ observed one Arab notable, Reshid Bey. ‘Why should we have anything against them? They live with us like brothers, why should we not love them?’" Theodore Herzl’s utopian novel, Alteneuland, 1902 [240]
- COUNTERPOINT: Zionist leaders never thought they had to displace Arabs to create their state. They expected to become a majority in the land through Jewish immigration.
- Supporting Evidence: "Zionist leaders always believed that the hoped-for Jewish majority in Palestine would materialize by means of massive Jewish immigration. It should not be forgotten that in 1920 the Arab population of Palestine numbered only some 600,000. The Zionist premise--which history has proven right--was that there was land aplenty in westernPalestine for millions of Jews and Arabs. All the Zionist plans at the end of the 1930senvisioned the influx of a million Jews to Palestine within a decade. That magical numberwas geared to guaranteeing a Jewish majority, which is why the Arabs were so hostile toimmigration: not because they were afraid of expulsion, but because they wished to prevent a demographic transformation." Historian Anita Shapira [244]
- Supporting Evidence: "Zionist leaders always believed that the hoped-for Jewish majority in Palestine would materialize by means of massive Jewish immigration. It should not be forgotten that in 1920 the Arab population of Palestine numbered only some 600,000. The Zionist premise--which history has proven right--was that there was land aplenty in westernPalestine for millions of Jews and Arabs. All the Zionist plans at the end of the 1930senvisioned the influx of a million Jews to Palestine within a decade. That magical numberwas geared to guaranteeing a Jewish majority, which is why the Arabs were so hostile toimmigration: not because they were afraid of expulsion, but because they wished to prevent a demographic transformation." Historian Anita Shapira [244]
- COUNTERPOINT: When Israel became a state, it reached out to include Arab inhabitants within its borders. After the 1948 War, over 20% of its citizens were Arabs, who did not hinder the establishment of the democratic Jewish state.
- Supporting Evidence: "The State of Israel... will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of creed, race or gender; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture."(*) Israel’s Declaration of Independence. [245]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel established Arabic as an official language when it became a state in 1948.
- Supporting Evidence: "The State of Israel... will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of creed, race or gender; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture."(*) Israel’s Declaration of Independence. [245]
- COUNTERPOINT: Jews repeatedly accepted partition plans to share the land—in 1937 (Peel Commission), 1947 (UN Partition Plan), 1993-2000 (Oslo Accords).
- COUNTERPOINT: It is Palestinian leaders who have claimed that they had to displace Jews to create their state, that it had to be free of Jews.
- Supporting Evidence: "The Palestinian national movement, from its inception…has stuck fast to the vision of a ‘Greater Palestine,’ meaning a Muslim-Arab populated and Arab controlled state in all of Palestine, perhaps with some Jews being allowed to stay on as a religious minority." Historian Benny Morris [246]
- Supporting Evidence: "It is impossible for us to make an understanding with them [the Jews] or even to live with them….Their history and all their past proves that it is impossible to live with them. In all the countries where they are at present they are not wanted…because they always arrive to suck the blood of everybody…If the league of Nations will not listen to the appeal of the Arabs this country will become a river of blood." ‘Aref Pahsa Dajani, Jerusalem notable, 1919 [247]
- Supporting Evidence: "Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews. The answer I got was: ‘The Jews are yours.’" Mufti of Jerusalem, Leader of the Palestinian Arabs, Memoirs [248]
- Supporting Evidence: Arab representatives told the UN that they "rejected partition and advocated a unitary, democratic state from which the illegal immigrants [i.e. Jews] would be expelled and where the remaining Jews would have no political rights." 1947 Historian Benny Morris [249]
- Supporting Evidence: "The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians." All others would be forced to leave. Article 6, PLO Charter, 1968 [250]
- Supporting Evidence: Palestinian leadership rejected all compromise proposals that would have allowed a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian Arab state—1937, 1947 and 2000.
- Supporting Evidence: Arab leaders even rejected the UN’s alternate suggestion for Palestine to be one state with Arab and Jewish cantons joined in a federal government—known as the minority proposal. "Indeed, both the majority and the minority plans horrified them." Historian Howard Sachar [251]
- Supporting Evidence: The Palestinian Authority has demanded that the settlements be dismantled—that is that Jews—leave its future state.
- Supporting Evidence: The Jews "must be butchered and killed, as Allah the Almighty said, ‘Fight them: Allah will torture them at your hands.’…Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them." Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Sermon in Gaza broadcast on PA television. October, 2000 (*) PA-appointed religious leader. Sermon broadcast on PA television. [252]
- Supporting Evidence: "All spears should be directed at the Jews, at the enemies of Allah, the nation that was cursed in Allah’s book. Allah has described them as apes and pigs, the calf-worshipers, idol-worshipers…" Friday, August 3, 2001, sermon at the Sheik ’Ijlin Mosque in Gaza given by Sheik Ibrahim Madhi. The sermon was broadcast on Palestinian Authority television. [253]
- Supporting Evidence: "The Palestinian national movement, from its inception…has stuck fast to the vision of a ‘Greater Palestine,’ meaning a Muslim-Arab populated and Arab controlled state in all of Palestine, perhaps with some Jews being allowed to stay on as a religious minority." Historian Benny Morris [246]
- COUNTERPOINT: Palestinians repeatedly rejected compromise proposals because they did not want to share the land or accept Jews in Palestine.
- Supporting Evidence: Palestinians don’t have a state because they have had "an all or nothing policy," unlike the Zionists. "The Zionists never demanded the impossible….Our leadership….enabled the Zionists to succeed at every opportunity…by rejecting every proposal for compromise, rejecting proposals to give it a state on most of the land of Palestine…" Tawfiz Abu Bakr, Palestinian columnist, 2003 [254]
- Supporting Evidence: Because of "this irrational nihilist behavior [of Palestinians about accepting compromise], "Haj Amin Al-Husseini collaborated with Hitler and rejected the settlement offered him by the Peel Commission in 1937…Then, he repeated his mistake by rejecting the Partition Plan that this time would have given 55% to the Jews and the rest to Palestine….you rejected Clinton’s proposal, which gave your people 96-97% of the West Bank, citing the religious ruling that you rejected it because it was an American-Jewish conspiracy against the Palestinian people…" Al-‘Afif Al-Akdhar, Tunisian columnist, 2002 [255]
- Supporting Evidence: In the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar, editor Jubran Tuweini wrote, "Once again, we realize that the Arabs are their own worst enemy - just as the worst enemy of the Palestinian cause is the Palestinians, who have endorsed a policy of refusal and fundamentalist extremism as a way of behavior. How many times have they already served Israel with their deeds? How many times has the behavior of these groups already saved Ariel Sharon and his government?" December 24 2003 [256]
- Supporting Evidence: The liberal-leaning Hazem Abd Al-Rahman wrote in his Al-Ahram column:"… Are these scum of the earth [Palestinians who attacked the Egyptian Foreign Minister] capable of accomplishing something for the Palestinian people? It is reasonable to assume that they, like the supporters of suicide bombings, are the first to damage the Palestinian cause, and are bringing death upon the Palestinian people…" December 24 2003 [257]
- Supporting Evidence: On the liberal Arab website Elaph, Egyptian columnist Sami Buheiri wrote: "[T]he rabble majority of the Arab and Palestinian street today….refuse to accept any kind of a peace agreement with Israel... It is they who applaud the bus and restaurant bombings in order to destroy any spark of hope for peace... They are Arab nationalists who have failed completely in all their wars with Israel and in all attempts to achieve peace with Israel, because they were not serious, and they were not men - neither in fighting nor in peacemaking..."December 30 2003 [258]
- Supporting Evidence: Palestinians don’t have a state because they have had "an all or nothing policy," unlike the Zionists. "The Zionists never demanded the impossible….Our leadership….enabled the Zionists to succeed at every opportunity…by rejecting every proposal for compromise, rejecting proposals to give it a state on most of the land of Palestine…" Tawfiz Abu Bakr, Palestinian columnist, 2003 [254]
- COUNTERPOINT: This stands the facts on their head. Zionists never envisioned the need to displace Palestinian Arabs to recreate their homeland. When Zionism was founded in 1897, the region of Palestine was an impoverished backwater with only a sparse population. There was plenty of room for returning Jews and the existing population. International travelers consistently reported, from the late 18th century through to the early 20th century on how empty and barren the land was.
- POINT 17: Israel is carrying on an unjust war against Palestinian Muslims and Christians.
- COUNTERPOINT: It is absurd to try to argue that Israel's defensive war against Palestinian terrorism is a religious war of Jews against Christians and Muslims. Israel is defending itself against a well-orchestrated and well-funded terrorist war that Palestinians unleashed in September 2000 and which still continues. Israel is fighting against Palestinian terrorists, not a religious group. If there is a religious dimension to this war, it is a war of Palestinians against Jews.
- COUNTERPOINT: It is absurd to claim that Israel is fighting Christians and Muslims. Israel is caught up in a pre-meditated war that the Palestinians launched in September 2000. "Whoever thinks that the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is wrong, even if this visit was the straw that broke the back of the Palestinian people. This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations, where he turned the table upside down on President Clinton." PA Communications Minister, Imad Al-Faluji Al-Safir (Lebanon), March 3, 2001
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel is not fighting Christians and Muslims. It is fighting to defend itself in a war launched by Palestinians that has taken a drastic toll. By September 2004, it had produced higher casualties than all but two of Israel's previous wars. "The number of Israeli fatalities in the current conflict with the Palestinians exceeded 1,000 last week. Only two of the country's wars - the War of Independence and the Yom Kippur War - have claimed more Israeli lives than this intifada, which began on September 29, 2000. In the Six-Day War, 803 Israelis lost their lives, while the War of Attrition claimed 738 Israeli lives along the borders with Egypt, Syria and Lebanon." Haaretz, July 24 2004
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel is not fighting Christians and Muslims. It is fighting against terrorists who have launched brutal attacks on Israel. In the first three months of 2002, Palestinian terrorists launched 119 successful terrorist attacks, the equivalent of 1.3 a day. In March alone, 17 suicide bombers detonated themselves among innocent civilians. More Israelis were killed and severely wounded in these three months than in the whole of 2003: 177 were killed; 956 were wounded.(*) Between 9/29/00 and 4/14/04, 924 Israelis were killed, over 70% of them civilians, including children, the elderly and women. 4452 civilians have been injured, some so seriously that they are permanently crippled. Children have become orphans; parents have lost their children when they go or return from school.(**)
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel is not fighting Christians and Muslims, but the Palestinians have launched their war against Israeli Jews AND at all Jews.
- Supporting Evidence: HAMAS Charter calls for the "obliteration of Israel" and of the Jews [259]
- Supporting Evidence: The PA's official religious leaders repeatedly have given sermons calling for the death of Jews:
• "Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill the Jews, the Americans, who are like them, and those who stand by them. They are all in one trench against the Arabs and the Moslems. ... It is forbidden to befriend Israelis or to aid them. Don't love them or enter into agreement with them, don't help them or sign accords with them. Anyone who does this is one of them. This is the word of Allah, blessed be He." Transcript from Friday, October 13, 2000, sermon at the Zayed bin Sultan Aal Nahyan mosque in Gaza. The speaker is Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Member of the PA appointed "Fatwa Council" and former acting Rector of the Islamic University in Gaza.(*)
• "Notice, oh worshippers of Allah, the Jews are the most loathsome creatures on the face of the earth. For the Christians, despite their abominations, asked of Omar bin Al-Khattab one condition from among four-not to permit the Jews to live in Palestine. We want people like [Saladin] to liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque…." Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris, Friday sermon on PA TV August 15, 2003(**)
• The Jews "must be butchered and killed, as Allah the Almighty said, 'Fight them: Allah will torture them at your hands.'…Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them." Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Sermon in Gaza broadcast on PA television. October, 2000(***) PA-appointed religious leader
[260]
- Supporting Evidence: HAMAS Charter calls for the "obliteration of Israel" and of the Jews [259]
- COUNTERPOINT: The claim that Israel is fighting a war against Palestinian Muslims and Christians is preposterous. Israel is defending all Israelis, including Muslims and Christians who make up close to 20% of Israel's population. They, too, have been victims of suicide bombers and of the Palestinians' terrorist activities.
- Supporting Evidence: "The West Bank security fence has gained some unlikely enthusiasts: the leaders of Israel's Islamic Movement. Since the fence's completion in their areas last August, many Arab communities - especially those bordering Palestinian villages - have enjoyed a spike in both security and economic activity…. 'God be blessed, the fence ended the parade of terrorists through this city and gave us an economic boom and increased security,' says Umm el-Fahm City Manager Tawfiq Karaman." Jerusalem Post, June 17 2004 [261]
- Supporting Evidence: By March 2003, the death toll from the Intifada included 695 Israelis, 43 foreigners and 13 Israeli Arabs. Al-Jazeera, March 2 2003 [262]
- Supporting Evidence: "The West Bank security fence has gained some unlikely enthusiasts: the leaders of Israel's Islamic Movement. Since the fence's completion in their areas last August, many Arab communities - especially those bordering Palestinian villages - have enjoyed a spike in both security and economic activity…. 'God be blessed, the fence ended the parade of terrorists through this city and gave us an economic boom and increased security,' says Umm el-Fahm City Manager Tawfiq Karaman." Jerusalem Post, June 17 2004 [261]
- COUNTERPOINT: The claim that Israel is fighting a war against Muslims and Christians is absurd. Israel has insured freedom of religion and equal rights to all religions, including Muslims and Christians. The Palestinian Authority has not. Palestinian Christians flee to Israel or to other countries to escape the dangers they face in the PA. If the Intifada has a religious dimension to it, it is of Muslims persecuting Jews and Palestinian Christians.
- Supporting Evidence: Each religious community in Israel (Christian, Jewish, Moslem) is allowed to have jurisdiction over the marriage, divorce and burial of its members, and representatives of each of each religion are state officials. [263]
- Supporting Evidence: The Christian population in Israel has quadrupled in the last forty years while it is precipitously declining in the Middle East and particularly in the Palestinian Authority. Israel's Christian population has grown from 51,000 in 1961 to over 137,000 today. [264]
- Supporting Evidence: Two Palestinian converts to Christianity who were persecuted by the PA decided "their only hope was to escape to Israel" for asylum. The PA had imprisoned, tortured and sentenced to death Saeed and Nasser Salame for converting from Islam to Christianity. In December 2002, they sought asylum in Israel until they could move to a Western country. US representative Jo Ann Davis (R-Va) and the Religious Freedom Coalition have taken up their cause. [265]
- Supporting Evidence: "Life in [PA-ruled] Bethlehem has become insufferable for many members of the dwindling Christian minorities. Increasing Muslim-Christian tensions have left some Christians reluctant to celebrate Christmas in the town at the heart of the story of Christ's birth," according to a December 1997 report in the London Times. [266]
- Supporting Evidence: The Christian rate of emigration from the Territories has accelerated and the Christian population of the Territories has dropped from 15% in 1950 to barely 2% today. Many fear that soon few if any Christians will be left in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, or in Nazareth though they once were Christian majority cities. [267]
- Supporting Evidence: "Allah the almighty has called upon us not to ally with the Jews or the Christians, not to like them, not to become their partners, not to support them, and not to sign agreements with them." (*) Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Friday sermon broadcast by the PA on October 13, 2000 [268]
- Supporting Evidence: Graffiti in Bethlehem and Beit Sahur reads, "First the Saturday people [the Jews] then the Sunday people [the Christians]," according to the New York Times.(*) The same lines are often chanted during anti-Israel PLO/PA rallies.(**) [269]
- Supporting Evidence: Palestinian Muslims will not sell land to Christians. Muslim extremists have attacked Christian facilities and clubs, the Wall Street Journal reported in July 1994. Christian graves, crosses and statues have been desecrated. Christian cemeteries have been defaced, monasteries have had their phone lines cut and there have been break-ins at convents. [270]
- Supporting Evidence: Each religious community in Israel (Christian, Jewish, Moslem) is allowed to have jurisdiction over the marriage, divorce and burial of its members, and representatives of each of each religion are state officials. [263]
- COUNTERPOINT: It is absurd to try to argue that Israel's defensive war against Palestinian terrorism is a religious war of Jews against Christians and Muslims. Israel is defending itself against a well-orchestrated and well-funded terrorist war that Palestinians unleashed in September 2000 and which still continues. Israel is fighting against Palestinian terrorists, not a religious group. If there is a religious dimension to this war, it is a war of Palestinians against Jews.
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