The Arabs’ Right to Revolt (Haaretz – 2001)

In his article from Tuesday (27.3), Baruch Kimmerling advances the worn-out and trite claim about the Palestinians’ right to rise up against us, by every standard, in his words, legal or moral. This ‘right’ is based (how could it not be?!) on life without rights under our wicked rule of occupation.

Although the matter is simple enough, and I do not understand how anyone can still repeat such foolishness, it seems necessary once again to explain to Prof. Kimmerling and those who share his view a few basic facts. I shall try to do so briefly, by describing what has happened in history and what is likely to happen again in the future in a cyclical pattern.

The scenario Kimmerling offers us is as follows: 1. An Arab attack (terrorism, or war). 2. Self-defense and the conquest of Arab territory (if we succeed). 3. Opposition on the part of the Israeli public to the annexation of the conquered territories and to granting civil rights to all their inhabitants deemed eligible for them (as in the War of Independence – the ‘Nakba’). 4. A ‘justified’ murderous uprising by the population that does not receive civil rights because of the aforesaid opposition, including those who did receive such rights and do not make use of them (the residents of the Palestinian Authority). 5. Israel itself justifies the uprising and does not deploy the IDF to prevent it. 6. Handing the territories back once again to Arab rule (preferably one with a proven terrorist past. Of course, the ‘sane’ left must ignore the repeated warnings of the ‘delusional,’ or ‘extremist,’ right—warnings that keep coming true (!)—with the crushing argument: “What is their alternative?”). 7. Return to step 1.

It is not clear to me who is delusional here and who is sane. And who, for heaven’s sake, has an alternative? Perhaps Gandhi (and I most definitely do not mean the Mahatma).

Some think that Chabad followers (and the settlers) are messianic, but this seems to be a general Jewish trait. Prepare for the coming of [the process of] eternal peace!