The sad truism of the kindergarden is that few people always ruin it for everyone else. Remember when teacher took away the priviliges of the well-behaved? Without entering into a lengthy discourse, or debate, on the history of Israel, answer honestly, If you were Israeli, would you just “tear down the walls,” throw away the IDs, and embrace a sudden and new peace? Now? I’m sure you’ve seen the same videos I have of Palestinians swearing ultimate destruction of Israel. Not all Palestinians. But maybe enough to warrant closed borders.

Thank you for your comment. I was fortunate enough to meet Israeli peace activists at a protest in Tel Aviv against the military occupation a couple weeks ago. There are many Iraelis calling for the end of the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. They understand that peace cannot be found through checkpoints and ID cards. 80% of the wall has been built within the Palestinian territories, not on the Israeli side. The International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion declaring the wall in violation of international law.

I appreciate your cordial dissent, but I have to say that yes, if I were an Israeli, I really would call for the the wall to be torn down and the IDs to be thrown away.

Kindergarten ? I dont think for a second that someone would describe a whole nation full of culture as kindergarten … close the borders? have you not noticed that these illegal borders are on Palestinian territory … Why do you think some few Palestinians are trying to do something ? don’t you believe in Human Rights, Palestinians have a right to self determination … they are entitled to have a decent life … and right now … the only recognized government here is Israel’s, and Israel has pulled out of Gaza while still controlling the borders … making it one of the most impovershed areas in the world. Don’t blame people for trying to resist an illegal occupation … how would you feel if your house and demolished when you were 5 … you dad was arrested when you were 7 … your brother executed when you were 10 …. and your mother dying infront of your eyes in a hospital and isnt able to provide the necessary medicine because of these “border closures” …. come see what the real life is in Palestine … I am a proud PROUD Palestinian

Generally in a kindergarten, Anonymous, its not OK to occupy someone else’s land. I think our hypothetical Kindergarten teacher would have put the Israeli’s on time out a long time ago. As it is they have only a rather less effective set of UN resolutions to rely on. And as for our natural concerns for security, is it still necessary to point out how many more Palestinians are killed by Israeli’s than vice-versa? So who are the dangerous ones?

Well, i think the kindergarten analogy is rather apt since our schools here in the US resemble prisons, as do the occupied territories. However, your simplistic view of “good” and “bad” countries ignores the structural conditions which have shaped Palestine. Maybe you need some remedial education Anonymous.

From this week’s (American) newspaper: “[Palestinian attacks on Jews in the 30s helped maked the case internationally for a Jewish state]… When Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the way lay open for the 1.5 million residents to create a workable ministate, a demonstration that would have animated international support, including Israel’s, for a full Palestinian state that would include the far more populous West Bank. Instead, Gazans voted to put the terrorist, Islamist and anti-democratic Hamas in control of the Palestinian parliament, at a stroke igniting the turmoil that produced the recent armed coup.” — Tom Teepen
Everyone has to ask themselves: “Do you want Peace… or the destruction of Israel?” Can you separate the two? Do you hate Jews? Now what is your honest answer?

I am sorry to carry on, but Jeremy, I must respond to your comment. One government sanctions murder; the other, despite tragic errors and fatal losses, does not. Nor do the majority of its people. To say, “who is more violent,” betrays a real lack of insight on your part. Who is the restraining power? And what would the world look like if those scales were tipped? What would that government, and the majority of its people, sanction? What are they, in their own language, really calling for? Peel back one layer and listen to the voice of “the resistance” in its own words. Noone is adding anything here. You’re missing the point. One power could do more to hurt the other side, and chooses not to; the other can’t, but would, given the opportunity. Why are liberal Americans so brainwashed? It’s so easy for you to have a “good guy” “bad guy” routine; the world is not that simple, and especially in this case it is not black and white, “opressor” and “opressed”… I expect to see you with pom poms and a mini-skirt next

Very ironic, Anonymous. Who are you to say that the world is not so simple (which I think most of us would agree with you on), yet you are utilizing analogies of a kindergarten classroom in your first comment and utilizing a vague and dangerous label “they” in your last comment.

I would also ask who is this “they” you refer to in your last comment? Every single Palestinian? Every single member of the Palestinian government?

And, to play off of your analogy, who is well-behaved is always relative.

Of course the world is not as simple,anonymous, and over simplifications, blanket statements and moral equivocations do not help anyone.

However, at the end of the day, you must make a choice about where you stand.

If you have ever been to the Gaza strip or the West Bank, you might better understand that nothing, not security, not anything, is worth what is happening there on a daily basis.

As for the mantra of security, the numbers speak for themselves. Who’s security is threatened in this situation when1 Israeli is killed for every 30 Palestinians who’ve died as a result of the conflict?

And besides… Its not your land baby…

at least it’s a dry heat

Come to think of it, Anonymous is right. I’m not so sure about miniskirts and pom-poms (I’ll have to think about that). But the substance of his point, that Israelis and Palestinians are basically different kinds of people, with different ethical predispositions and moral qualities, is absolutely persuasive, and not at all “black and white.” Incidentally, though, Anonymous, our challenges are greater than you seem to realize, since its not only “Liberal Americans” (actually a small group of these) but rather most of the world that fails to appreciate the inherent ethical and moral superiority of the Israeli people. I wonder why?

When you fire rockets onto the heads of civilians, you accomplish nothing. Israel is a country; it has flaws. Will you work within the system, granting that they are basically a kind, reasonable, people, albeit on the defensive for good reason (surrounded by sworn enemies, all calling for their destruction.. again, honestly, in those shoes, what would *you* do? Have you ever been there (in that place of being hated for who you are/ or something someone did in the past, not you?). Or will you attack, following bad leadership, to make your point? “Israel is so bad. Bad bad bad.” we hear again and again. Israel includes women’s rights. Israel practices religious tolerance: mosques, synagogues, churches. Verbal dissenters in Israel are not killed without arrest or trial… anyone want to try Hamas-style justice? Lately I hear even being Palestinian is no protection in their holy war. Israel gives land back, even though it is a security threat. But if an eighteen year old soldier does something stupid, then Israel is bad. Bad bad bad. Glad to see the big picture.
The Israeli people just want to be left alone. Yes there are idiots in Israel, everywhere actually. But they do not represent the majority. They do not wish to destroy their enemies. But can their enemies say the same?

Schools in America are like prison? You, obviously, have never lived anywhere else.

p.s. Would it mean more to you if I wrote “Bob” up there? Please… we are discussing ideas, not identifying ourselves in a world where people kill those they disagree with.

As a Kindergarten teacher, anonymous, I would just take away your privileges, for being such a bully. Being a bully is generally frowned upon in Kindergarten, as is STEALING, whether it be toys or PEOPLE’S LAND!

How about some facts folks?

In the summer of 1929, a long-running dispute between Muslims and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem escalated, and erupted into a series of violent demonstrations and riots in late August. During the week of riots, 133 Jews were killed and 339 wounded (mostly by Arabs); 116 Arabs were killed and 232 wounded (mostly by British-commanded police and soldiers).[1]

— from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots

Who needs the truth?

http://www.crisismagazine.com/december2005/rychlak.htm

The truth hurts…

Dear anonymous,

I hate to break it to you, but “Closed” borders and the resulting economic strangulation do not actually make either Israelis or Palestinians safer. Rather, they lead to festering inequities which only worsen the situation for everyone.

Have you ever been stopped from going into the next town, or getting to your job, because of your race?

Look… my point is not that closed borders are in any way “good.” Nor that anyone’s suffering is desirable; suffering is bad news for everyone all around. My point was, and is, simply that the borders are closed because the Israelis are afraid- and with good reason. They are not closed because the Israelis are evil war-mongers out to decimate the Arab population. That simply isn’t the case. Jews have been in the land now-called Israel since biblical times, at times the majority, at other times, the minority. They have the right to be there, and it is partially “their” land, as much as anyone elses. Until the Palestinians admit their fundamental right to be there, in whatever form, their right to exist as people, to practice their religion and lifestyle in peace– until the Palestinians will grant that, there will be no peace, because Israel will constantly be running an offensive-defense to protect themselves. When Jews were in the minority in Palestine around the turn of the century they were constant victims of hate crimes, crimes they neither instigated, nor retaliated against. The world saw that, and combined with the effects of WWII, saw fit to give them their own state; they were under seige before, and after, modern “Israel.” And Palestinians have always criticized their own leadership… when it did outrageous things… but then those people were themselves killed or silenced. It is a matter of the historical record; check it. Noone is calling the Israelis “superior.” And noone is being a bully. I’m just asking everyone to move past sloganeering and take a realistic look at the history and root causes of this very serious problem. The Palestinians need to accept the Jews right to be in Israel and practice their religion. This is not a question of nation-state-hood, as has been so deceptively presented in the media… it is a question of how you relate to The Other (in this case, the Jews)… are they people like you, with a right to their life? Or will you go to heaven for killing them, because they are fundamentally wrong because of their blood-line and religious choice– a belief espoused BEFORE the modern Israeli-state, continuing until present time, although now with the suffering of the Palestinian people cleverly put to Western liberal as to “why” the hatred.

this is obviously a very complex and emotional situation and everybody will have their own version of the “facts” depending on what they filter in or out. it doesn’t do much good to debate whether israel has a “right” to exist. i don’t think they do, but they are there, they are people and there is now a state called israel and they are not going away. it was “given” to them by people who did not have the right to give, borders were drawn up and people were forced to leave their lives behind. almost 50 years later there are people who have been living in camps for 3 generations without any hope of a normal life. and really, that is all anyone wants. young men who have lives and hopes and aspirations do not become suicide bombers. israel has never taken responsibility for the displacement and suffering that they have caused. i am often accused of being anti-semitic, even though i am jewish, because of my feelings about how the israelis have treated the palestinians. i am sorry, but if you think you can make friends with someone by killing their children and taking away their freedom then you are just wrong. so now you have a stalemate, you have a state that has the backing of the most powerful military in the world and a small, angry group of people without an army, a treasury or any means of self-reliance fighting for their existence. who is the victim and who is the perpetrator. please don’t tell me that israel is a victim of palestinian violence. when someone is abused for long enough they will fight back, i think it’s amazing that that palestinians have shown the restraint that they have. i can’t imagine how i would react if i had been cornered like that for so long. let’s as a world community give up being “right” and look at who we need to be in order for people to live together in peace. we all want the same things, really. in the meantime i am incredibly proud of my daughter who is committed to doing what she can to contribute to people having the lives they all deserve.

The above post *sounds* great. I used to vocalize a similar story. We all love to have an underdog to help. And it doesn’t hurt if you’re fighting a big, powerful, mean agressor while you’re doing it. But Israel was not “stolen.” Jews have lived in an unbroken lineage since the beginnings of our recorded history in the Holy Land. They have every right to be there. So do the Arabs in the area, called Palestinians in more recent history. Have you actually read either of the web-links above? I know we are all bombarded by internet information and it can be overwhelming. But it really helped me understand the situation when I learned that Jews had been the victims of Arab hate-riots in the 20’s and 30’s. From there, the rest is history. Also, the clear, factual, non “story-like” proof of the first “Palestinian resistance leader,” al-Husseinni, and his close working relationship with Adolf Hitler, his exhortations that Arabs kill Jews wherever/ whenever they find them, this helped shed light on the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. But noone wants to talk about this, or acknowledge it, a) because it isn’t pretty, and b) because it makes it much, much harder to write a story about innocent Palestinians whose land was snatched from them and all they can do to fight back is blow themselves and civilians up. I think they are capable of doing a lot more; and I think the world, and Israel, would be receptive to that; of making inroads to peace, but they must reject some of their leaders and walk the high road. The people who defend the Palestinian violence have never been under seige. Have never known what it’s like to have a missile fired randomly into the heart of your village. And then had people intellectualize what you should have done in response. There are anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiments in educated, liberal American circles. I don’t know why. Perhaps it is flirting with a bizarre form of self-loathing, an intellectual experiment. At the risk of sounding cliched, I’d like to remind our readers, that despite our flaws, despite our imperfections, the people of the West care about other people, we really do, and we try our best to help, at a level that no other country has ever, ever done, though often our own citizens tear down these efforts. Military interventions, trillions of dollars in aid, rescue efforts. Really. What other country sticks their neck out as much as the U.S.? And how easy it is to take for granted the joy of a free press, and rule by law, and champion “victimized” countries who would shoot a dissenter as soon as look at them. Privilige can empower, but it can also make one blind to incredible, tangible differences in operating practices between countries.

Anonymous,

I’m sorry to chime in so late (but not so sorry that I won’t do it anyway).

You say that “One government sanctions murder…”. I can only assume that you’re talking about Israel using its military to kill Palestinians. It’s doubtful that the government of Palestine is sanctioning those Palestinian kids who blow themselves up.

But let’s go back 50 years. A bunch of countries got together and supported the creation of Israel, mostly because they didn’t want a huge influx of Jews into their countries, after WWII. And so a Jewish state was formed, in a land inhabited by Moslems.

Now, clearly, you can’t have a Jewish state, which allows a large population of non-Jews to have equal rights. They might support a non-Jewish agenda. And so, from the beginning, Israel intended to either keep the Palestinians as second-class citizens, drive the Palestinians out of Israel or kill the Palestinians off.

Seeing that coming, the Moslem countries bordering Israel refused to accept Palestinian refugees; and so began the stalemate. Israel did what it could do. It kept Palestinians as second-class citizens while also engaging in systematic genocide of Palestinians. Oh, I know that sounds harsh. And accusing Jews of genocide sounds like over the top anti-Semitic. But I’m a Jew and the numbers speak for themselves. What Israel has done to the Palestinians can in no way be construed as self-defense. And surely, Israel can’t expect a peaceful relationship with a country that it has under siege.

On the other hand, Islam has its problems too. Mohamed lived in dangerous times. So he spoke about fighting to defend religious freedom. Unfortunately, his followers took the religion in a variety of different directions, after his death. And for 1500 years those factions have been fighting to defend their religious freedom, often fighting against other Islamic factions (as seen so clearly in Iraq).

The saddest part is that Mohamed spoke of religious tolerance; observant Moslems, observant Christians and observant Jews being together in heaven. He also spoke of women’s rights, so you can see how far various factions have strayed from what was written in the Koran.

Both sides have a lot of work to do on themselves, as well as on their relationship with each other. But before Palestine can start working on eliminating suicide bombers, it needs to be able to offer an alternative life to its youth. And that alternative requires a working economy, so that life might look like a better alternative than death. To have a viable economy, one needs infrastructure and one needs trade. For Palestine, that will require open borders and an influx of money from other nations.

So let’s stop pointing fingers and start solving problems.

Hamas, the Palestinian elected government, does support suicide bombers.
Jews have been in the land called Israel for a long, long time.
Arabs have terrorized Jews in the area for a long, long time.
Because the modern state of Israel received help from rich Western powers and was able to successfully fortify itself against a seige which was essentially impossible to stop, but only to contain, with losses on both sides, does not make Israel bad, or wrong.
The rhetoric coming from Palestinian leaders and documentarians is in no way sugar-coated as regards their feelings towards Jews or Israel.
And it makes it impossible for peace to happen.
Change the rhetoric, and the feelings, and peace will become possible.
And blame the actions of the Palestinians, and their leaders, for where they are, not Israel.
Don’t deprive them of the power of their free choice, by placing responsibility for their actions on someone else.

I thought mom’s comment was great… I find that the core of our problems lays in the media. We all get different information, and we believe ourselves to be right because we read this information somewhere, and it was cited …etc. But what is this talk about hate crimes against Jews by Arabs? Jews were a minority in Palestine, and only began to increase in number with immigrations from Europe, I do not know where you get your info from, But Jews like as a small minority among Arabs in Palestine, they lived in simple communities and all interacted with each other. Even during the 1947 un partition plan, Jews were still a minority, and the Jewish state that was proposed composed to more Arabs than Jews, so seriously, what are you talking about
As humans, alot of times we tend to just read someone’s comments, or listen to them, while simultaneously thinking of ways to go against what others are saying. Through experience i have learned to listen. As a Palestinian, i have engaged in several Palestinian Israeli conferences where we all met and discussed the situation, sometimes i found myself in the Middle, since on one hand, some of my Palestinian brothers had come from closed up villages, and although they were older than me, they had never left their village, some had never even been to Ramallah (my city ), and the majority of them had never even been on a plane. And so, due to these “closures” alot of these people adopted extremist Islamic views, if not extremist, than a certain interpretation of Islam that alot of other muslims may not agree with. It was difficult to hear their comments, because though i agreed with alot of political ideas, though some were more religiously backed up, I still had to go against them when it was my turn to speak in order to explain to the Israelis that this is more than just one interpretation of Islam (since although we live so close, Israeli kids told me they knew nothing about Islam) … It was difficult but very engaging, and even though one of these muslim Palestinians differed from me in his religious beliefs (after the first meeting i went up to him to discuss what we talked about, and he told me: in my religious beliefs in is forbidden for me and you to be talking alone like this ) By the end of the conference, we performed dabkeh (Palestinian traditional dance) where we both put our hands on each others shoulders and performed our culture together.

Change is possible, I advice people to read “One Country” by Ali Abu Nimah. I believe that the proposal of one country for Israeli Jews and Palestinians is the best solution at this point, everybody will get what they want, and even though it seems so far fetched, It has actually been proposed by both Zionists and PFLP members and other Palestinians.

Jumana,
I hear very much in your “voice” that you want peace. And that call hits a place inside of me; I want that also. Others must too. Then the community of “humans” can live together.
One country is certainly a workable idea; but it is not for me to decide, but rather the people who must share this country, who are living in the region. No idea is too “far-out-there”, though. The reality we are living is too far out there.
And yes, people can change, when they become real to other… we see what we hold in common, which is much more than what keeps us apart. And that is a good reason for removing walls, physical and mental, because people become less foreign to each other. But all people must want peace, or they will never have it. China, which wanted to form “The People’s State,” enforces its will with an iron hand on the people, and I read this week in the paper that China executes more of it prisoners than all other countries in the world combined, with a 99% conviction rate in their criminal trials. So some places are easier to live than others, some harder. And the will of the people must be strong, things like peace and justice can never indefinitely be enforced from above… ultimately, they must come from below, or thereis too much pressure and strain and they will not last.
You might want to investigate the wikipedia and crisis links above; it will only take a few minutes. It will give you insight into the mind of the world, and the Jews, before the Israeli state was founded, and show a link between the unrest of today, and yesterday, that is often washed over. We must investigate these hard truths if we are to come to some positive conclusions. Otherwise, we are just avoiding the issue, and not resolving it.
I appreciate your post, and wish you luck in helping to bring peace to the region.

Hey. People immigrate to countries to escape opression. It happens. The normal response is not to kill or terrorize those people. We have MILLIONS of “illegal” immigrants in our country (the US). If we attacked and terrorized them the way the Palestinians attacked the Jewish settlers, because we were afraid there would be “more of them” than us, 1) we would be insensitive to the situations they were leaving (maybe there is a good reason? like noone wanted the Jews anywhere), 2) paranoid, 3) overly violent, the world would criticize us, in fact many think we should give them social services! not expel or protest or kill them. Why was Jews immigrating back to their homeland resulting in violence? Is there a double-standard?

No one who has ever been to Hebron could possibly defend the behavior of Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Most Israelis think they are totally nuts. In fact, Israeli groups regularly stage protests against the settlements. It’s the settlers that have the Uzis, not the Palestinians. Equating stealing people’s homes with “illegal” immigration is totally irrational.