The State of Israel Must Be Universally RecognizedIn a recent op-ed column, Naveed Majid used the marriagedivorce analogy to suggest that the worldwide distrust of Israel is justified. The piece was called The Israelis and Palestinians are in dire need of a divorce, published Dec. 9.
Majid’s piece is mistake-ridden. In particular, he completely misrepresents the birth of Israel. It is this error that I wish to correct.
Majid claims that “...with British help, the courtship and shotgun wedding of Israelis and Palestinians began in earnest from 1940 to 1948...So, one day in 1948 to everyone’s surprise, she (Israel) preemptively told the property manager, the British, that she (Israel) was breaking off her relationship with the Palestinians and was also taking over the property from the British. She called it the State of Israel.”
Majid should read factual history. The Jews have always lived in Palestine throughout all of recorded history.
And throughout history, Palestine had been ruled by one imperial power or another — the Romans, Christian Europeans, the Ottoman Turks, Great Britain).
After the First World War, with the dismantling of the Ottoman empire, the League of Nations assigned Palestine to Great Britain. Britain, to its credit, allowed local government rule for Jews and Arabs.
The Jewish Agency, from 1927 on, governed Jewish affairs through elected councils. Arabs during this period often attacked Jewish settlements, so the Jews formed civil defence groups.
After the Second World War, the United States pressured Britain to refer the Palestine matter to the United Nations.
The United States was in a strong position to do so. The UN in turn formed the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP).
The Jews co-operated with UNSCOP; the Arabs did not.
(An aside: Canadian Supreme Court Justice Ian Rand was appointed as the Canadian representative on UNSCOP.
Rand was a native-born New Brunswicker, and played a key role in the writing of UNSCOP’s majority report to the UN).
The report recommended the end of the British mandate on Palestine and its partition into separate Jewish and Arab states. And on Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations voted for a twostate solution.
At this point, surrounding Arab nations — Egypt, Syria, Transjordan — and various militia groups attacked the Palestinian Jews. During this critical period, Jewish forces repelled the attacks.
On May 14, 1948, the Palestinian Jewish Agency declared the State of Israel. But unlike what Majid claims, Israel did not achieve its independence on its own. Its independence involved supervision through United Nations administration.
Throughout Majid’s op-ed essay, he depicts Jewish Israelis as foreigners to Palestine, and Arab Palestinians as victims.
But ever since the 1947 UN vote, Arabs have consistently refused to recognize the State of Israel. Egyptian leader Abdul Nasser, who championed the destruction of Israel, fought and lost two conventional wars against the Jewish state.
In 1973, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, together with Syria and Jordan, fought and lost the Yom Kippur war against Israel. In between these wars, Israel had to defend itself against various terrorist attacks.
To this day, with the exception of moderate Egypt and Jordan, the Arab- Muslim community refuses to recognize the Jewish state of Israel. Militant Islamist groups — Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza — call for the liquidation of Israel, and still fire rockets into sovereign Israel.
Throughout the Arab world anti- Semitism predominates. Knowledgeable writers say that, with the upsurge in militant Islamism, Arab denial of Israel’s right to exist has been increasing.
It is said that, between two disputing parties, if one party refuses to recognize the other party’s right to exist, there can be no peaceful settlement of the dispute.
Naveed Majid, in his op-ed essay, neglects this point. Indeed, he claims a “divorce” is needed. But the divorce took place back in 1947. What is needed now is a post-divorce agreement which allows Israel to live in peace.
David Murrell teaches in the Faculty of Arts at the University of New Brunswick.
More balance, less biasIn your Dec. 13 editorial "Obama in Oslo: A prize and a fighter," you refer to the knock against the Nobel committee for being too early in elevating Barack Obama, and you go on to state: "If only imperfect timing were the main credibility problem associated with the prize. After all, fiends like Yasser Arafat have been co-recipients of the prize, although they were totally undeserving."
Your reference to Yasser Arafat shows a clear bias. It would have been more balanced if you had listed amongst the least-deserving such people as the well-recognized terrorist Menachem Begin, who was responsible for the bombing of King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946, killing 91 innocent people, and the massacre of Deir Yassin in April 1948, amongst many other crimes.
Furthermore, you make no mention of the equally undeserving Yitzhak Rabin, who ordered the breaking of the bones of Palestinian children for throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and who ordered the total demolition, in June 1967, of the villages of Imwas (the biblical town of Emmaus), Yalu and Beit Nuba, my own hometown.
Is there no room for more balance and less bias in your editorials?
Ismail Zayid, MD, Halifax
Tell whole storyIn your Dec. 13 editorial, it would be good to tell the whole story.
The 1994 Nobel Peace Prize was shared by YasserArafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. If Arafat was totally "undeserving," as you say, the same can be said for Peres and Rabin. Under Rabin’s tenure as defence minister, and later as prime minister during the first intefadeh, he said of Palestinian rioters, "We should break their arms and legs." Rabin implemented an "iron fist" policy during the intefadeh, when an estimated 1,100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces (and 160 Israelis were killed by Palestinians).
One month ago (Nov. 12), Israeli President Shimon Peres condemned Judge Richard Goldstone, who headed the Gaza war investigation team for the UN. Goldstone’s report criticized both Israel and Hamas for war crimes, and singled out Israel for shelling universities, schools, ambulances, civilian targets and UN facilities. Peres described him as "a small person who is out to hurt Israel… Judge Goldstone’s report was one-sided and aims at hurting Israel and its image."
Goldstone, an internationally recognized jurist, is a Jew whose commitment to Israel is clear. He has been a lightning rod for those who support Israel’s right to have destroyed Gaza, killing more than 1,400 mainly civilians, and leaving tens of thousands homeless and destitute.
To be fair, if you look at one of the "undeserving" prize winners of 1994, have a look at all three of them.
Judy Haiven, Halifax
To the Editor:
If Ismail Zayid and Judy Haiven wish to criticize Israeli recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize for past activities, that is one thing. However, to ignore the statesman-like actions of these men, as opposed to those of the corrupt and deceitful Yasser Arafat, is something entirely different.
When Israel became a state in 1948, David Ben-Gurion used the Israeli military to forcibly shut down groups such as the Irgun and The Stern Gang. On becoming the President of the Palestinian Authority, Arafat did no such similar thing, nor has his successor.
Menachem Begin concluded a peace treaty with Egypt, pursuant to which Israel made the painful concession of abandoning the entire Sinai Peninsula (including uprooting Israeli settlements). Arafat never made any meaningful concessions in search of peace, nor has his successor.
Yitzchak Rabin and Shimon Peres have tried to make peace with the Palestinians, but on every occasion, from the implementation of the Oslo Accords to the Roadmap, they have been met with violence. When Rabin and Peres publicly urged Israelis to support the peace process, Arafat told Palestinians (in Arabic) to murder Israelis.
As to Richard Goldstone and Gaza, Ms. Haiven makes it sound like the Israeli military decided one day out of the blue to attack Gaza – there is no mention of the thousands of missiles deliberately launched at civilian targets over an 8 year period. Further, it is obscene for her to imply that since Goldstone was Jewish that his report must be accepted unconditionally – does that mean that any acts of any person represent their religion, country, profession or culture? Finally, remember that Goldstone himself said that “If this was a court of law, there would have been nothing proven.”
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Bravo for Murell; thank G-d for his forthrightness.
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