We received a response to The Human Element Obstacle to Peace in Palestine (1) as follows:
Thank you for your response.
What you are proposing is that law and basic principles of justice should not apply. The very promise of a ‘land’ or ‘nation’ on someone else's land has no basis in law, justice and human rights.
For Lord Balfour and his successors to the present day to deprive Palestinians of their land, identity and culture is in a true sense a crime against humanity. What you would have is that their crimes of occupation, illegal expropriation, ethnic cleansing and genocide be simply “written off” by means of a pecuniary settlement so that the criminals can live in peace and harmony.
The fact that you see these things in such a clinical, surgical and mechanical way — perhaps a banker's solution — shows how far removed you are from the reality of the situation, and it is useless wasting further breath and time dwelling on this subject with you.
One is thankful that despite your rather expansive and pretentious claims you have very little say or influence in the matter.
Our response follows:
Thank you for your response.
You are right that “promise of a ‘land’ or ‘nation’ on someone else's land has no basis in law and justice”. And this is what our case is based on. And it also takes into account the realities as they are in today's world.
The only legal way to give an unowned land to somebody else is to buy it first. By trying to give somebody else's land which they did not own, and had not bought, the League of Nations (via Great Britain) had created the conflict, causing all that followed from it.
And from 1948 onward the state was supported by the USA and European powers, thus continuing to perpetuate the conflict and all the crimes following from it.
What you have not answered is what do you propose to do about it.
You talk about “crimes of occupation and expropriation” and one can add “mass murder and destruction of property”, but who and how can punish these crimes?
Who and how can stop further crimes being committed?
Before 1967 Palestinian organisations had been trying to liberate Palestine from Israel by military means, relying on help of Arab states. They fought for the land from which they were expelled, not for statehood, identity or culture — at the time it did not matter.
Palestine, before Great Britain took control of it, under the League of Nations mandate, was not a state, but a part of the Ottoman Empire and the identities were local and religious.
Later, 1950s, they started adopting national‐liberation ideology, and at this time the Palestinian identity emerged, and the word “Palestinian” started being used to mean not just a person born or living in Palestine, but an Arab expelled from Palestine and fighting for its liberation from Israel.
These attempts of these organizations and of Arab states to liberate Palestine failed, and more land was occupied in 1967.
In the 1980s US/Israel proposed to end the conflict by a peace agreement: “Land for Peace”. The reality behind this slogan was Israeli offer to withdraw from Gaza and some parts of the West Bank which would become “Palestinian State” governed by the Palestinian Authority which will replace the liberation organisations, and the role of which will be to keep security of Israel — once they deliver on security, Israel will end the occupation.
And this became known as the “peace process” towards “two states living in peace side by side”. There was no talk of “punishing the criminals” or “compensating the victims”, the crimes, as you put it, would be “written off”.
There are still some talks about such “two‐states solution”, but it has totally failed on the ground.
And after the US &Co “War on Terror”, which were crimes of wars of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, then Libya, Syria, now there emerged an Israel‐lead “Sunni Coalition” of some Arab states against Iran, Syria, Qatar. That is the Palestinians have lost support of most Arab states. The only states supporting the Palestinian side are Iran, Syria, Qatar and Turkey. But their support is not enough to liberate Palestine.
And will the criminals ever be punished for their crimes of wars of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria?
As the Palestinians continue to protest, they do get some support in the USA and Europe from various personalities and organisations, like the BDS movement. This causes some nuisance to Israel, but not enough to liberate Palestine or even improve the situation of the Palestinians.
So, the longer the conflict continues, the worse the Palestinian situation is becoming.
Being unable to liberate Palestine (or even only the West Bank) from Israel, some Palestinians and their sympathisers are talking about a “one‐state solution”, a single Palestinian state where Jews and Palestinian Arabs will live in peace and have equal rights. No, there is no mention of punishment or compensation in such solution. And there is little support for such solution either among Jews (in Israel or outside), or among Arabs.
The present situation in Palestine is as follows:
And this will continue until the Palestinians are either gradually squeezed out of Palestine, or become small groups living in some areas, like the Israeli Arabs in pre‐1967 Israel.
Punishment?
We have no means to deliver it. And, even if we had, many of the perpetrators are dead by now.
You can talk about punishment as much as you like, but can you, or anybody else, deliver it?
There is no force in the world today that can deliver the punishment.
But to make their own life easier Israel and their supporters in the USA, even the hated by you “bankers”, after playing with some unworkable “peace plans”, as they are doing it now, will come to the logical conclusion that compensating and resettling all the Palestinians in the USA is the best option for everybody concerned. And this will bring peace not only to the Palestinians and Israel, but to the whole area. And this will happen not due to “our influence”, but to the very logic of the situation.
Of course, the political leaders will be against this solution, because it will make them redundant. They prefer to posture and sloganize to get applause of their supporters, as they have been doing up to now, even if it does not change anything. But non‐political people will accept it, once they see it is real and working.
Are we “far removed” from the situation as it is in the world today?
The person who sent us the comments did not answer to the above, so we do not know whether he agrees with the above view of the world situation. Nor has he offered any alternatives to the proposed solution which he sees as “stupid and banal”.
Then, if not the proposed solution of compensation of all the non‐Jews adversely affected by the creation of the State of Israel and providing them with full US citizenship, so that they re‐settle in the USA, and abandon their claims to Palestine, then what?
Can anybody propose any alternative, as long as it is practically implementable. One would need to say who will do it, how it will be done, and how much it will cost.
