Conceding a critical argument

The BBC's Nick Robinson provides an excellent analysis of Tony Blair's foreign policy speech, arguing that it is not a change in policy for the Prime Minister. Robinson says that it is the political situation that has changed, with the Americans now more open to the ideas that the speech contains.

I am struck by a different aspect of the Prime Minister's thesis - his idea that the Israel-Palestinian dispute is the core issue and that we must now bend every effort to reaching a solution. He said this last night:

There is a fundamental misunderstanding that this is about changing policy on Syria and Iran.  First, those two countries do not at all share identical interests. But in any event that is not where we start.

On the contrary, we should start with Israel/Palestine.  That is the core.

Mr Blair has been a good friend of Israel, a courageous friend, but I think he is quite wrong here.

He seems to have accepted the idea that we will only win the war on terror once there is peace in Israel. The truth is that there will only be peace in Israel once we have won the war on terror.

Mr Blair has conceded a critical point. He has accepted the idea that the behaviour of the state of Israel is the underlying grievance that drives on the Islamists and wins them what support they have in the Arab world.

The truth is very different. The existence of so many dictatorships, kleptocracies and violent thugs in the Middle East is what drives on the conflict, in Israel, as elsewhere. The Palestinian crisis and the tragedy of the poor Palestinian people is an effect, an outcome, not a cause.

An approach that begins by seeking peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is understandable. And who wouldn't want it to work? But I fear it won't. Because the Prime Minister’s idea that the Israel-Palestinian problem is the core is simply incorrect.

Comments

[John Logan]

I think that Blair is right to say that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies at the heart of Middle Eastern rancour. On the one hand, the existence of a prosperous Israel amidst a mass of Arab failures suggests an affront and anomaly that the Arabs cannot psychologically accept. On the other hand, the utter imbalance, ruthlessness and injustice that the Israelis inflict on Palstinians outrage many decent people in Arab countries and elsewhere.
Israel will not survive in the long run, no more than did the Crusader outpost, unless its government and people make a just peace with the Palestinians. Were the Israelis and Palestinians to live in symbiosis the Israelis would offer prosperity to the Palestinians, and in turn the latter would offer a crucial shield to the Israelis.

[Tom Beck]

Your analysis of the situation hits every nail on every head, and I’m only surprised that it still seems to be the minority view. To argue the other way round, as the otherwise admirable Tony Blair is apparently now doing, is in some ways like arguing that the Jews were responsible for Hitler, indeed for anti-Semitism as a whole.

But then of course, there is a saying that the world has never forgiven the Jews for Auschwitz, and there is some truth to that. In the present conflict, one has the feeling that all too many (and I except Tony Blair here, of course) are in effect saying, ‘Well, maybe the Jews didn’t quite deserve it the last time round, but THIS time they most definitely do!!’, a sort of a posteriori justification of the Holocaust.

If the author has to approve comments they are ten worthless as censored.
P.S. Winning the war on terror, does that include the terrorists who founded the state of Israel?

[Gerard Mulholland]

I am amazed to find myself saying that I agree with Tony Blair.

He is simply recognising that without the Israel-Palestine question there would never have been an Al Qa'ida.

To write that this is "in some ways like arguing that the Jews were responsible for Hitler, indeed for anti-Semitism as a whole" is to stand history and the historical order of events on their head.

And to then try and infer the disgraceful and unkind slur that it is somehow anti-semitic to oppose US and UK policy in the Middle East is to offer the weakest, the most preposterous and the most profoundly ungrateful of all the possible defences of those policies when they have already (and comprehensively) defeated themselves.

It is a poor day indeed for Israel when it begins to appear that that absurd charge is now the main thrust of their ungrateful critique of their most fervent Allies’ change of plan.

My only doubt about this position is that Blair has adopted it.
Hearing that Blair agrees with one is like hearing that the vegetarian Hitler had started eating Kosher by the end.

[Bryan Davey]

Re D. Finklestein comment.

There has always been terorism of one kind or another in the world, long before the modern state of Israel was formed.

Bryan Davey

[Harry]

Finkelstein’s arguments were also made to justify apartheid South Africa, Israel’s long time ally. A similar sea of chaos existed around her borders in Mozambique, Angola, Namibia & Rhodesia with dire warnings for what universal suffrage would bring (granted Robert Mugabe does the region no favours today). Southern Africa has only established a sustainable future on the basis of universal suffrage, ridding itself of division on the basis of race, and Palestine/Israel will be no different. A two state solution is a fallacy justifying apartheid.

Southern Africa is a telling lesson for what will happen to the Middle East when the anomaly of an Apartheid state at its midst, built on ethnic cleansing, with millions disenfranchised, is resolved. This isn't about Auschwitz and Holocaust denial, to so infer is a new apology for war crimes. Genocide, ethnic cleansing and other crimes against humanity are indefensible, no matter who carries them out.

[Frederick dos Santos]

Re Gerard Mulholland's posted comment that "without the Israel-Palestine conflict there would be no Al-Qaeda". This is nonsense and misses the point.
Osama bin-Laden's avowed reason for taking up arms against the West was that there were infidel troops in the holyland of Saudi Arabia (despite the fact they were there on invitation in order to protect Muslims from other Muslims). This is no longer an issue, but now Iraq and Afghanistan are the avowed causes, but I do not believe this either. The Muslims being killed in these countries are dying overwhelmingly at the hands of other Muslims.The bottom line is Al-Qaeda simply hate everything the West stands for. Even if there were no Western troops in the Arab world and all support from Israel was withdrawn, they would still find reasons to hate us...over cartoons of the prophet, bans on the veil in French schools, or blasphemous books by Western authors. Appeasement or even acceptance of such extreme sensitivities is not an option.

[Ian W]

Blair is fundamentally wrong, although his intentions are well-placed. The world of Islamic terror that we live in was not born out of a desire to see a better lot for the Palestinians but rather to return the world to the middle ages and impose sharia law on us all. It is the avowed aim of Bin Laden and his supporters to create a caliphate from the Euphrates to the Atlantic - this has nothing to do with Israel. The only resolution acceptable in Arab eyes is for Israel to be wiped off the map - a view expounded and whole-heartedly supported by Iran. I doubt this is the resolution to the conflict that Mr Blair had in mind but by making Israel the core to the world’s Islamic problems he may inadvertently be giving succour to these evil-doers.

[D'n]

For once I agree with the BBC's analysis. Sort of. Blair says that the Israel/Palestine conflict is the core; the BBC's commentator says, no, "Terrorism" is the core. In reality, neither is is correct; the core is Islam's implacable hatred for everything non-Islam, for which there is no negotiable or diplomatic "solution."

[Oliver Kamm]

I can reassure Gerald Mulholland that Tony Blair has not in fact adopted Mr Mulholland's own position, and certainly does not "recognise that without the Israel-Palestine question there would never have been an Al Qa'ida" - largely because it isn't rrue. In his first major speech after the 7/7 bombings, the PM identified the "evil ideology" that produces Islamist terror, and quoted from a television interview with Osama bin Laden broadcast on al-Jazeerah in December 1998: "From the mid 1990s onwards, statements from Al-Qaeda, gave very clear expression to this ideology: 'Every Muslim, the minute he can start differentiating, carries hatred towards the Americans, Jews and Christians. This is part of our ideology.'"

The idea that this ideology would be mollified by the highly desirable end of a two-state territorial accommodation between a secure Israel and a sovereign Palestine is - I use a euphemism here - ahistorical.

[Buzet]

Al-Qaeda would still exist without Israel/Palestine; on the other hand tackling this problem would remove one of the primary motivations and recruiting sergeants for militant islamism.

[John C Lipscomb II]

Mr. Finkelstein appears to dismiss the behavior of Isreal, as it has related to Palestine, as a causal factor in terrorism's spread in the Mid-East. However; If I am to believe an old friend of mine, it is, specifically,Isreal's behavior towards the Palestinians that has fostered and indeed been one of the causal factors for the brand of terrorism existant today.

In the late 70's I met an Isreali M.D. who had immigrated to the United States some years before.Our frienship evolved into a business association that lasted several years, until he left the country for an extended period of time.

My friend was Orthodox, and was born in what is now the city of Haifa.

Through my close association with him( in our business, we traveled together, extensively),I learned many specific facts concerning Judaism, Isreal, and Jewish customs.One of things I found out from him was that the state of Isreal had historically, and was continuing to, slant-drill for water that is actually located under Palestinian land; and this without renumeration, or official acknowledgement.

If this is true, And I have no reason to believe the contrary( my friend was also involved with some U.S. Intellegence Agencies, and, occasionally traveled abroad for them, during our association),it is this very thing; oppression, with no hope of redress, that has provided fuel for the spread and continuation of terrorism, and until the core problems are addressed and solved, there will be no resolution to this problem.

[G]

There was time when, upon two nations going to war, you picked your side and hoped for comprehesive victory. In these degenerate times, however, people can only mutter inanely about building peace.
The Israelis and the Arabs (of which the "Palestinians" are merely a subgroup arbitrarily defined according to certain geological markers) have mtutually exclusive goals. One wishes to live in a Jewish state between the med and the Jordan, the other wishes to see that state destroyed.

Only when one side is defeated -totally, absolutely with no hope of reverse- will there be peace. Ironically, this would have happened in 1948, 1967 and 1973 were it not for well-intentioned but irredeemably stupid intervention on the part of the international community in support of a ceasefire.

"Southern Africa is a telling lesson for what will happen to the Middle East when the anomaly of an Apartheid state at its midst, built on ethnic cleansing, with millions disenfranchised, is resolved"

Southern Africa is an example of how self-hating racism obsessed white liberals can get their knickers in twist about black voting rights in one country and not give a flyinf f**k bout millions upon millions of blacks being slaughtered elsewhere as long as the perpetrators are also black. Ask any sane person, of whatever colour, whether they would prefer to live in Apartheid South Africa or Mugabe's Zimbabwe you won't get alot of variety.

"Were the Israelis and Palestinians to live in symbiosis the Israelis would offer prosperity to the Palestinians"

May I suggest you take an economics class, it may cure you of your apparent inability to construct sentences which actually mean something.

[Murray]

I would to echo Ben's comment - if the author has to approve comments it hardly adds up to debate does it? Does the Times believe in free speech or not? Is the author similarly censored by the proprietor?.
>>'The truth is that there will only be peace in Israel once we have won the war on terror.'>>'The truth is very different. The existence of so many dictatorships, kleptocracies and violent thugs in the Middle East is what drives on the conflict, in Israel, as elsewhere.'>>> and just what has the US or UK done to encourage 'democracy' in the Middle East - wouldn't it be just little bit helpful to have some respect for and listen to the peoples choice in Palestine and in Lebanon.

[Akram]

Mr Finklestein lives in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks that the Arabs who are angry with the US and Israel, are not in fact angry with their actions. The apartheid state of Israel, is hated not only by Arab and Muslim countries but by a great many countries who despise colonisation, ethnic cleansing and Aparthied. Are they all just angry with their own governments?

[R MASON]

the solution to the Israel/Palestine problem is very simple. If the Arabs accept the existence of Israel then everything else will fall into place.

[DB]

Arabs have many things to be angry about. Corrupt, undemocratic government. Grinding poverty. A huge rich-poor divide. Low levels of education. Few opportunities for escape. Highly restrictive culture (no alcohol, pre-marital sex, etc.). The Middle East has always been like this -- indeed, these weaknesses are what enabled Israel's creation in the first place. Anyone who claims that Israel-Palestine is responsible for the misery of the Middle East is living in cloud cuckoo land. Anyone who believed solving Israel-Palestine can end the Shia-Sunni conflict is desperately ignorant of reality.

[James]

With all due respect, Mr. Buzet, your "Orthodox Israeli friend involved with US intelligence agencies", seems to be an imaginary figure concocted with the purpose of lending credibility to a story you were about to relate. But there seems to be no real story there. So it could be true that israelis at some point slant-drilled for water under palestinian lands... That in no way can be interpreted as a cause for palestinian terrorism, because palestinians have made their first attempts at ethnic cleansing (e.g. killing of entire jewish populations of specific towns) as early as 1920's - long before any supposed slant-drilling for water could have taken place. The string of their terrorist activity has continued uninterrupted from that time - for what has now been a "good" 80 years.
Of course, if this sector of terrorist activity alone (without referring to al-Qaida & co.) could be stopped with a genuine peace between Israelis and Palestinians, we would all be much safer. The trouble is, that such a peaceful resolution is impossible when violence under the banner of Islam is becoming more fashionable every day and in all corners of the Arab world.
Finally, it is hard to refrain from pointing out that it is, indeed, quite typical of people lacking basic historical literacy to fill in the blanks with rumours and conspiracy theories, the way you have done just now.

[M. Fernandez]

You are too right. There can be no peace until the underlying cause is resolved. The underlying cause is the right of Israel to exist. Palestinian terror groups will continue to attack Israel after any peace agreement between the government. The Oslo Peace was destroyed by Hamas and Hezbollah proxies working for Iran, Syria and their own hatred of Israel. Iran and Syria are working thru these groups to destroy peace in Iraq and Palestine/Israel and divert attention from them. It is no small coincidence that Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers on the day Iran's nuclear program was before the U.N. Saddam gave $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers in the lead up to his ouster. The surrounding countries are using the Palestinians as cannon fodder in a proxy war that has nothing to do with Palestinian interests.

[DanSoon]

Tony Blair should go resign with his ridiculous suggestions.
He always pretends to be the "smart guy" but he is a total looser..

How many times do the west need to sell Lebanon to Syria to get a deal in Iraq and Israel suffers.

In Gulf war I, the US and Britain sold Lebanon to Syria without even asking lebanon. this lead to the formation of Syrian terror in Lebanon for more than 15 years that ended up attacking, killing and suffering in Israel.

Now again, Tony Blair is asking our Administration to do the same mistake again,
"Talk to Iran and Syria, and beg them to help us in Iraq." We don't want terrorist states to help us in Iraq.
Also Syria and Iran want to regain control of Lebanon and turn it into a Shiite State the could piss off Israel whenever they want.. Syria and Iran will keenly help in Iraq if they get back Lebanon from the March 14 Forces. If that happens,
then welcome to Terror World Threee...
If Tony and his friends sell lebanon to the Shiite Iran this time, we will have to pay for a costly mistake in another 5years from now when Iran through Hizbullah will blow off Israel and drag us and the rest of the Civilized world to Armagedon!

Tony Blair should be the first person to pay for all his looser realpolitik..that have costed the Israeli and the Lebanese too much hate and suffering by strenghting terror shiite groups in lebanon..

Wake up Blair! are you o.kay if ten years from now you retire and we need to clean up your mess?

[Haime Weisberger]

The Israel leadership never had an interest in the plight of the Palestinians. Compare the pre-1945 situation of land ownership in Palestine with Sharon's final solution. In 1945 over 80% of the land of Palestine was held by Palestinians and other Arabs and now these people have lost most of this original land, forced to live abroad or survive in the Gaza and West Bank Ghettos.

Edward Said argued that the 1993 Oslo Agreement sold short the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and that carving a Palestinian entity out of Israel was wrong. He supported the creation of one state providing equal rights for Arabs and Non-Arab Israelis, some of which practice the Jewish religion. He kept alive the reality that the people of Palestine have been, and continue to be, subjected to a sustained policy of "dispossession" by all involved in the ongoing Middle Eastern crisis.

It is not as if any of this has any justifications related to Israel defending itself. This was planned from the start. According to David Ben-Gurion, “After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.” So the decision to expel large numbers of Arabs from their homes and territory and call this Israel was planned a long time ago and advanced on the basis of any pretext. Thus, Ben-Gurion acknowledged that “it is impossible to imagine general evacuation [of the Arab population] without compulsion, and brutal compulsion.”

Such brutal compulsion came in 1947-48 when some 700,000 Palestinians were driven into exile largely through acts of terrorism perpetrated by Israeli forces. These people fled to protect their families against violent death at the hands of Israeli forces. To say such people left "willingly" is an absurdity. No one leaves their homeland unless they feel threatened. Israel has since barred the return of the Palestinian exiles.

The moral crime against the Palestinian people has always been understood by the Israeli leadership, but they will never openly admit this. Ben-Gurion told Nahum Goldmann, “If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural, we have taken their country. There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing, we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”

[tom Brady]

I agree with Blair. I have just finished reading Rashid Khalidi's book the Iron Cage about the Palestinian struggle for statehood. I grew up with this image of Paletinians as evil terrorists, but reviewing their history you quickly realize they have been treated appallingly.
The current problems go back to 1922, when Britain wanted to create a Jewish homeland. They regarded the Arabs as a nuisance that might somehow go away. After 1948 Israel actively pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing. Unfortunately, there are still between 7 and 10 million Palestinians dispersed throughout the region.
The worry for israel is that the population of most Muslim countries is expected to grow significantly over the next 50 years. This will make Israel vulnerable militarily. Israel needs to start making friends in the region and treating the Palestinians fairly would be a good way to start.

[Jim Zackey]

Perhaps updating oneself on what some leading Israeli intellectuals are saying lately is helpful.

David Grossman for one criticises Israel's present leaders for being "unable to connect Israelis with... those constitutive parts of identity and memory... that can give us strength and hope," as if "the sound box... of their historical memory... fills only the tiny space between two newspaper headlines." Grossman clearly believes that such "identity" and "historical memory" remains functionally selective and so is Daniel's take on the situation.

[G]

By the way I think it is fairly clear that *solving* the only issue which unites the entire arab and Muslim world will clearly ease sunni-shia arab-kurd etc. tensions.
I mean once they have absolutely nothing whatsoever to agree about then surely they will stop blowing each other up.

P.S. Rashid Khalidi = The David Irving of Levant History.

[Harry]

People have pretty convenient memories here. Arabs are damned for using terror, but Israel was created largely through terror - King David Hotel and Dir Yassin mean anything to anyone? Recent acts of violence in Lebanon are little better.

Neither side has clean hands in this argument, castigating the Arab side of the argument for employing terror is an easy excuse for holding onto the status quo, through sound bites that push the right buttons on Capitol Hill. One man (or woman), one vote, one Palestine is going to be the only solution in the end so why kick against the traces, no racist regime has stood the test of time.

This isn’t the only "grievance" Muslim extremists have against the West but if this house is put in order their other claims will carry much less weight. I hate to agree with Bliar but he has a point here, shame he’s too weak and feckless to make it mean anything.

[Bernard Ross]

Many on this post seem to avoid recognising the obvious: the fact that in so many violent conflicts today muslims are at the heart of it and in almost all of these conflicts no Israel is present. Prior to 9/11 Israel was hardly ever mentioned by Al Quaeda. It was the US they were fighting. After 9/11 Israel was trotted out by muslim apologists who needed a red herring to deflect from the truth of 9-11 and it's lack of condemnation by Muslims. Where is Israel in Chechnya, Kosovo, Timor, Nigeria, Darfur,Kashmir, on ad nauseam. The fact is, contrary to polical correctness, that Islam is a violent and intolerant religion since birth. Mohammed and his armies swarmed across Africa and into Europe forcibly converting by sword all in it's path. As a role model Mohammed was quite the opposite of Jesus: There was no cheek turning there. Muslims are merely following the behaviour of the symbol of their faith. Europeans have a propensity for Ostrich like appeasement. They appear to be readying to turn Israel into it's latest Munich. Please remember the result of that betrayal for Europe in WWII.

[G]

Arabs already have the vote in Israel genius.
Except, of course you mean that Gaza and the West Bank should be merged with Israel, but I thought they were occupied territories which Israel had no right to be in in the first place? So which is is it?
The *solution* is for Jordan and Egypt to re-absorb their beloved cousins, as they were offered repeatedly after 1967. Of course they don't want to rule a bunch of death cultist weirdos who think it's more fun to strap bombs to their children than get a job. Who would really?

[Sam]

There will only be peace in the ME if there is justice for the Palestinians, leading to a reconcilliation between Muslims and Jews. This would be to the benefit of the whole world. Thus, Finklesteins argument is rather disingenious. He suggests that by killing, humiliating and murdering all those who oppose Israel will somehow lead to peace. Common sense suggests the opposite. A just peace where Israelis and Palestinians live,eat,study and work together is the solution. This will bring peace with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Gulf States and North Africa. A progressive, democratic, prosperous Palestinian society will create a model for other Arab states to follow. Off course there will be opponents, but the vast majority of Arabs will make peace, settle their differences and work to create a better society.
However, Westerners have to accept that the majority of inhabitants in the Middle East will vote in moderate religious parties with a strong social agenda (think Methodist, early Fabians) who will nationalise oil and gas production (Western interests). The sheikhs and other tin pot dictators (kept in power by the West) have wasted oil revenues on fast cars and equally fast women, instead of investing in healthcare, education, industrial production, water de-salination etc. This is a major gripe of Islamists.
To those correspondents who still believe in the Islam and world domination theory; AQ have always been very clear about what their aims are, that they are not more well known, or confused with rantings of young (Muslim) individuals in the West who maintain they want a Muslim state everywhere (NEVER an AQ demand that I can find in any of their published material) is far more due to mis-information put around by those who really do want a war between Muslims and the West (on both sides) than anything approaching the truth.

[MichaelH]

To solely blame Muslims for the strife in the Middle-East is disingenuous to say the least. The only claim Jews have on the Palestinian's land is that their 'holy book' says their 'god' gave it to them. If your neighbour told you to leave your house, or started using terrorism to force you out, because he said his god had given it to him, you might start to understand their mind-set.

Dismantle the artificial construct of Israel and peace may yet come to the Middle-East. While it exists the Jews will constantly be looking to expand it and the Palestinians constantly looking to reclaim what is their own.

[Martin]

I think Daniel Finkelstein is displaying flawed reasoning here. His comments only really make sense if you forget about Palestinian-Israeli history preceeding the Six Day war in June 1967. As I understand it, the foundation of the Arab and Muslim world's resentment to Israel is the project of Zionism itself. The notion that the European Jews in their enforced diaspora, shouldn't have come to Palestine after World War 2, in search of an independent state to call home, in order to escape European anti-semitism and the recent genocide.

The Zionist Movement argued that they had a historical claim to at least part of land of Palestine, (which was actually a British Mandate up until 1947), whereas the Palestinians believe that their long residency in the land, (some 3,500 years) demands that they are its rightful owners. Now speaking from a post-1948 context, the Palestinians have a legitimate greivance, as the land they had occupied, (though admittedly, never as a sovereign state)has been splintered by the establishment of the state of Israel, by, who were then, largely recent immigrants.

However, time and generations of indigenous Israelis who have created a viable nation state and home, means that an absolute rejection of the existence of Israel, today, is immoral and unfeasible. Therefore, compromise from both parties, on what should constitute their respective countries is necessary and right.

Having said all of this, solving the Palestinian-Israeli problem will not alleviate all of the West's or Israel's security issues. Yet, what is achievable from such a resolution is the potential pacification of the moderates, seperating them out from the extremists, which would take away the extremists soft support amongst the moderate community, who gives them credibility and resources. In this regard, Tony Blair is perfectly right in seeing Israel as key to a change (dramatic or otherwise) in the Middle East dynamic.

Mr Finkelstein is absolutely accurate in one regard. The problems we will face after any such compromise is struck, will be the result of despotic and kleptocratic regimes and other malignant regional powers in the Middle East. But this can be a window for organic and legitimate change too. When the Arab peoples realise that the state of Israel is not the source of all of their problems, they will inevitably turn their gaze towards the the rulers and so-called representatives. This could be a time when the project of nurturing legitimate Arab democracy can actually achieve something.

[Paul Smith]

Of course Blair is right (on this point anyway). The author is in denial, for whatever the reason. As long as I can remember the issue in the Middle East has been based around Israel / Palestine, whether it is the 7 day war or the continuing crisis in Lebanon. The growth of terrorist movements from the PLO were a response to the overwhelming firepower of Israel, supported by the US, and the impotency this engendered within the surrounding states. Palestinians saw that this as the only alternative, just as all other groups who see themselves as oppressed (cf South Africa, Northern Ireland and the early Zionists). And one man's terrorists are another man's freedom fighters / defenders. From the Palestinian perspective, the Israeli army is certainly pretty terrifying.

[Joseph Kellie]

I read with interest the differing and polar views of your readers but would like to make the following comments taken from the last week. 18 civilians have been killed by Israeli weapons that MISFUNCTIONED and the Israeli's said O dear what a shame never mind dont blame us it was an accident, this with very little press coverage. 1 Israeli civilian was killed by a rocket and the press coverage is considerable with full analysis etc. Israel is murdering innocent civilians (accidental = manslaughter instead) and until that stops everyone with a conscience will believe the palestinians are being victimised. Without US support and with the civilised world against such treatment; Israel could be made to stop and this would help the situation. Let us be fair though it has taken over 60 years of arab persecution so we should not expect any solution to be in place in the next 20; we can of course start somewhere.

[John]

Reading what has been posted so far my observation is that the polarisation continues! For a few facts;1) Under the Ottoman Empire Palestine never existed. 2) By the same rule Jordan and Saudi Arabia didn't.3) Al Qaeda never mentioned Israel until after the twin towers attack.4) If the State of Israel were to be recognised by the Muslim world then things could progress.5) As Jerusalem is the Holy City of all the monotheist religions it should be either declared a World Protected site under the control of the UN or the Headquarters of the UN worldwide with free access to all.

[Salim]

The total and complete ignorance displayed by the muslim apologists on this post is depressing and Daniel Finkelstein is absolutely correct. I was born a muslim and can assue you that hatred of Jews and the State of Israel is instilled in us from the day of our birth.

No peace with Israel will ensue while Islam continues to flourish. Wake up and realise this. Palestinians and their cohorts rain down terror on innocent civilians in Israel daily - the only thing Israel is guilty of is failing to win the propaganda war. Perhaps they should also ensure that the cameras are conveniently around when a young jewish child is slaughtered by a palestinian bomb.

And to those who say that Israel was born from terrorism you are simply wrong. Innocent women and children were not deliberately targeted as muslim terrorists today do and the British Mandate troops were happy to send jewish immigrants back to Europe to die in German death camps - was not this an act of terror by Britain to which the downtrodden and dispossesed had a right to rebel.
I have now renounced the faith of my birth and adopted Judaism - what a pity more people of peace don't do the same.

[Henry]

We live in troubled times indeed. How can anyone compare the damage caused to Israel - to the damage caused to Lebanon and the Palestinians BY Israel,is beyond me. Israel is the main aggressor. Look beyond religeon and look at the facts. Lives lost, injuries, homes destroyed, lose of jobs/livlihood . Israel cannot continue this fiasco any longer. Robin Cook was a wise man who understood that Palestinians deserved better. He knew the Iraq War was a huge mistake. The Labour party need to remember his words.

[John]

Listen Israel - the best way to have a friend is to be a friend.Give respect and you get respect in return.Do as you would be done by.Simple childhood lessons that Israel needs to remember (fast).
The total misery that they have put people through on a grand scale cannot continue. We have one world and all people are equal.Peace .

[Kevin Sullivan]

Perhaps Blair ought to be reminded that no Palestinians blew themselves up before 1948, that Afghanistan was a peaceful, prosperous Country before the Russians invaded in 1979 & Iran was a western style democracy up to 1953 when the CIA installed a puppet dicator.(because the elected leader intended to nationalise their oil industry)We are reaping the results of decisions made by the 'great powers'(primarilly the West) in pursuit of narrow minded national self interest at the expense of the smaller nations well being, irrespective of the cost and misery inflicted on them. The 'great powers' created the problem not the Palestinians, not the Israelis, and we all will suffer the consequences for many generations to come!

People need to stop talking about Palestinian refugees as if they were caused by Israelis. The Palestinans fled for 2 reasons. (1) They were asked to by the other Arab governments so that they wouldnot get caught in the cross-fire, and (2) because they thought the Jews would do to them what they would have done to the Jews if they won. And since then they have been treated appalingly by other Arab governments where they can't own land, work or become professionals.

[Dick Wixley]

Blair has finally totally discredited himself. His new stance has great similarities with the abject grovel of Chamberlain in 1938. If our history has any future, Blair's place in it will be one of greater ignominy than even Chamberlain. He is exposed as an empty poseur.

[Michelle]

The conflict is a good starting point but the Palestinians have to help themselves .Israel attempted to assist the Palestinians by evacuating Gaza and Northern Samaria -and what do they get in return? Rockets to the Negev & the town of Sederot.
Why don't the Palestinians focus on developing Gaza into a flourishing entity? If Israel sees the Palestinians help themselves instead of spending their time trying to wipe Israel off the map they would be more willing to give the Palestinians more territory. As an Israeli citizen living in Jerusalem, where Jews & Arabs mix freely in this city (a well kept secret) the general feeling is the desire for peace but with a people who are willing to accept a Jewish state along side a Paletstinian state.

[Rowan]

If Mr. Finkelstein truely believes that Israel will only find peace through the West's victory in the war on terror, then it is safe to say that there will never be peace in Israel. Why?

The Palestinians are not fighting for their right to terrorise Israel - they are fighting for a viable state which is promised to them by international law, and which is made ever more of a pipe dream as Israel continues its settlement expansions, resource theft, construction of Jewish-only road networks and and a bantustanisation program that would have made apartheid-South Africa blush.

Consequently, the more Mr. Finkelstein continues to indulge in this
moronic Bruce Willis-like vision of foreigh policy, the more we will see a peaceful world receed into the darkness.

[G]

Michael H, it's not just the Jew's holy book that says the land belongs to them, The Koran says it as well, many times. Oddly enough the Palestinians never come up, maybe because they didn't exist.

Paul Smith: it was the six day war, honestly how can you comment on things you know nothing about?

Rowan: If the Palestinians are fighting for a viable state, why did they elect a bunch of medieval religous weirdos who know nothing about governance?

[Leon]

I can hardly claim objectivity, so it's probably best to speak factually: Israel has made peace with anyone willing to recognise her existence, and has returned territory to any government that even feigns good intentions. The obstacles to peace thus emerge.
And a request to those much cleverer than me: despite its international celebration, I cannot find any record of Palestinian Arab culture, history or identity that predates Israel. Could someone point me to any examples please?

[Paul Smith]

G - in a free democracy anyone can make comments - however I suspect this may be at odds with your world view.

[Rowan]

G,

You could ask them same question regarding the US elections and it would still be a moot point. people don't vote for morons - they vote for candidates available in a given election. You don't think humanity can do better than Bush and Kerry? but that's all the American people have to choose from.

As for governance, Hamas knows more about civil governance than the Palestinian Authority. The reason that sounds strange is because no mainstream news outlet will ever tell you that the reason life still even exists in the territories is because Hamas acts as a kind of social support system, involving people in the communitites - health care, housing, education which provides jobs and services. The PA run a more sophisticated outfit, but they're so corrupt they're pretty much incapable of doing anything properly. and like every other third world movement, Hamas has a militia wing, which of course is the only thing you ever hear about.

The point is I don't like Ismail Haniyeh and the rest of those goons any more than you. But its up to Israel and other powerful countries to give the Palestinians enough breathing room to form a real civil political culture, which they simply cannot do under occupation.

[Harry]

So Leon you're suggesting that Palestine was an empty wilderness devoid of civilisation before the Zionists discovered it. Sounds familiar - oh yes, the Aparthied regime in South Africa used to peddle that one about the Boer's arrival in the Cape. May have been Mark Regev before he emigrated from South Africa to his Foreign Ministry spokesman's post in Israel!

If your comment wasn't so contemptable I'd take time to find references for you.

[L]

Finkelstein is absolutely right: Blair is wrong to put Israel-Palestine at the heart of the problem with Islamism. This conflict is a symptom of profound dysfunction in Arab politics and society, not the cause.

Those who carp on about the 'injustice' inflicted by Israel on the Palestinians are curiously blind to the much greater injustice inflicted on a million Jews expelled by Arab countries. The land they lost is many times greater than the entire land of Israel (66 percent of which is desert anyway). The Arabs would have to restore 40 percent of Baghdad and every other major city of the Middle East where Jews had property, businesses, hospitals and synagogues to the Jews if true justice were to be done. Sadly the Arabs have not even begun to recognise their part in the creation of Israel, where half the population are victims of Arab and Muslim antisemitism.

[Shalom Freedman]

The current Shiite- Sunnite civil war in Iraq has nothing whatsoever to do with the Israel-Arab conflict.
The sectarian divisions in Lebanon are by and large not related to the Israeli- Arab conflict.
The persecution of minorities in the Middle East by followers of Islam is not derived from the Israel- Arab conflict.
It is simplistic to take one source of violence and division, and make it the center of all.
I would also note that the problem is not a Middle Eastern one only- as radical fundamentalist Islam is in violent conflicts with neighbors in many different parts of the globe.

[Southern Wolf]

Was it also the fault of Israel that 200 years ago the Barbary pirates of Tripoli were kidnapping sailors and demanding ransom for their return? Of course not, Israel had not yet been re-founded. It was the fault of the pirates who were just as Muslim as al Quada and had essentially the same 'grievances' against the infidel West. There was no Palestinian people until 1967 so there could not have been the 'core' problem of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to 'justify' Muslim attacks on the West in the centuries before this conflict with Israel was initiated by the Arab world in 1948, on the very day the modern state of Israel was founded. Was Israel so cruel to Arabs at it's very birth? We must not accept the justifications of those who wish to war against us without evidence, as Blair accepts the 'justifications' of al Quada. To do so is to repeat the mistakes of Neville Chamberlain.

[Lee Green]

If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there would be peace and prosperity for both sides. If the Israelis put down their weapons....come on, be honest, you know what would happen...the Muslims would slaughter the Jews. That's the essence of the issue. Radical Muslim bigotry against those "uppity Jews" who dare to consider themselves equal to Muslims has fostered a culture of extremism, lawlessness (violence trumps compromise), violence and death for Palestinians. And that has nothing to do with anything the Jews did, and everything to do with the supremacist, intolerant attitude by the radical Muslims. And it's no different than how the radical Sunnis are treating the Shi'ites in Iraq, or how the radical Muslims anywhere in the world are treating those who do not live by their extreme interpretation of Islam. Blair needs to get a clue. It's not a Jewish issue.

[Gary]

This is like Britain blaming the Czechs for making the Germans mad. Which they probably did. It shows you how far gone Europe is -- how deeply Jihadist propaganda points have infiltrated.

[Leon]

Harry, I was not asking smugly, and would genuinely appreciate any references you may have. Your answer, however, seems quite in keeping with the debate. Mine was a perfectly reasonable question. Your response was the tired, shrill comparison with apartheid.
'Context' seems to crop up every now and again in the Middle East, and whether Israel-Palestine is cause or symptom of terror requires a review of its establishment. Mark Twain, accounting his pilgrimage to the Holy Land ('The Innocents Abroad'), provides one trustworthy perspective on pre-Israel Palestine. It is quite categorically not the picture painted today. I cannot find any reputable alternative views. Kindly assist.

[Sheri]

By the anti-Israelis here there is an amazing amount of false history. Where are they getting it from? Why are they being taught it? It proves the point of the article. Even if you solved the Palestinian lack of wanting a country of their own beside Israel, this revision of history would continue. And whatever the motivation for it, it would continue & would continue to feed violence. Peace can't happen with people so easily manipulated, lied to, & unable to evaluate knowledge for themselves.

Ben Gurion's quote is nothing like the words posted above & it's taken out of context. The claim of ethnic genocide in "Iron Cage" after 1948 makes not sense considering the Israeli's had no access to the Arabs (outside Israel) and their population grew & they were under guard by the Jordanians & Egyptians. Der Yassin was a total of 117-ish many men dressed in women's clothes with guns underneath during an Arab war to destroy Israel. It was a shame, but not terrorism. The British headquarters were in the hotel targeted, so also not terrorism.

You've been sold out in order to support the goals of others at the expenses of the Palestinians.

[Rowan]

Sheri,

If the actions of Irgun can not be interpretted as terrorism, as you so claim, then i think the CIA would be more interested in this assertion than any of us, seeing as they (along with British intellegence) were the one's who classified this armed group as "terrorists" at the time.

[Martin]

Last point, if anyone is still reading this blog. While there are many people who articulate criticism from racially prejudiced viewpoints, (aimed at both Jews and Arabs), I would like to encourage all people interested in this issue to stop decrying the opposing view as racism or anti-semitism, merely becuase they don't like what they are hearing. Lets at least agree on this, please.

[Gerard Mulholland]

I have just read this old Comment page and found the two subsequent references to my remarks from Frederick Dos Santos and Oliver Kamm.
Alas they are both so bound up in their limited memory-span history (in which I presume that they have been indoctrinated since birth) that either they cannot see or they just never knew that the Israel-Palestine problem (i.e. the continued State terrorism of Le'ev Zapotinsky's extreme Zionist disciples) is the prime cause of all the problems in today’s Middle East.

I admit that the Wahabi Saudis’ (supported by the Oil-thirsty US) usurpation of the Hashemites’ domain in Mecca, Medina and Riyadh (while the Hashemites were away unsuccessfully trying to make UK and France keep their WWI promises) didn't help.
The Saudis traditional territory was where the oilfields were found and that led the US to support their every whim and to stab their own allies in the back in order to get the oil monopoly out of the Saudis.
And the fundamentalists’ outrage at the Saudi's gleeful acceptance of infidels in their Holy Land fed resentment among the devout for 70 years.
But it was the continued outrageous injustice of the extreme Zionist's theft of Palestine -and the two-faced double-standards of the West in accepting and bolstering it- that created the larger cause and brought the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the Arabian Wahabi fundamentalists together.
The foolish American subsidisation of these fanatics in fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan boosted their heroic reputation among the hundreds of millions of disaffected Muslims and Al Qa'ida was born.

Mr bin Laden's theology is irrelevant to the causes that alienated and then radicalised his followers.
He merely supplies -to people who have already been radicalised- the funds, the training facilities and the alternative ideological motivation that carries the odour of success.

His kamikaze warriors fight and die reciting his mantras but it was the Israel-Palestine mess that drove them out of the mainstream and into his arms in the first place.

If Le’ev Zapotinsky had failed to take over the Zionist movement in the 1920s and the 1930s, Osama bin Laden would today be no more important or influential than that dear old nutter who used to wander up and down 1960s Oxford Street with big signs telling us all that it was eating lentils that had driven us sex mad.

[Andy]

Mr Mulholland - when you say Le'ev Zapotinsky, do you mean Ze'ev Jabotinsky? Doesn't give me a lot of confidence for the accuracy of anything else you argue - for instance to claim that any one thing is the source of "all the problems in today's Middle East" is a breathtaking piece of idiocy.
And congratulations to you for somehow managing to avoid all the indocrination and bias that the rest of us so obviously suffer from.

[Gerard Mulholland]

Well Andy, just found your comment.

Quite right.
Ze'ev Jabotinsky.
Though I can only suppose that the reason why you pose the question as though there was a possibility that I might actually have meant someone else is that you imagine yourself to be using a clever rhetorical device to boost the utter thinness of your following remarks.

I am not surprised that that mis-spelling (twice) was the only fault you could actually address in my analysis and I note specifically that you deny that the Zionist assault on Palestine was a prime cause of the modern mess. You merely deny that it is the unique cause without offering any other of equal profundity.

Moreover I am not so foolish as to accept your suggestion that I am unique in having seen through Zionist spin and its connections. There are great numbers who have been deceived for up to 60 years and then –on realising the contradictions of the Zionist position- become fearful of the Zionists' cowardly accusations of 'anti-semitism' but who are now recovering their courage and self-respect to stand up for truth.

You know that the accusation of 'anti-semitism' is as demeaning to its user as is the McCarthyist mantra of 'anti-americanism'.

Real anti-semitism is a vile and disgusting piece of racism.
No more.
No less.
And as disgusting as the anti-Arab (in general) and anti-Palestinian (in particular) remarks that I have heard from Israeli colleagues over the years.
Racism is racism and to harness it as spin to defend an otherwise indefensible position is both intellectually vapid and a revolting piece of disrespect to the memory of the victims of racism – in this case particularly of the Holocaust.

"The indoctrination and bias" from which you acknowledge yourself to be suffering was knocked into you and many others by decades of "believe this or at least shut up about it or we will destroy you by accusing you of anti-semitism" Zionist spin.