Response to a Palestinian Sympathizer

by Janet Hughes

While I begrudge no one their right to express their views and their analysis of current events, I believe that there are a few points of history that Ms. Hart is either unaware of, or mistaken about, and I would like them corrected.

She asks, "Were the Jews set up?" She also asks, "Why didn't they place white European Israel in a Western country where they could thrive, where they would have shared a common language religion and culture?" The answers to both these questions can be found in the conflicted and tormented history of the Jews and of that area of the world.

Ancestors of the Israeli people lived as a people in the Middle East during Biblical times, as part of the same race of people as the Arabs. They were conquered by the Babylonians and taken into slavery a few hundred years after the birth of Jesus. They then slowly made their way in to the Arab and North African worlds, and then into Europe. Although they were invited into some of the countries, to serve in roles useful to the owning class, they were considered outsiders to every culture they were in, to the point of laws forbidding them to own land or practice most respected occupations. They were regularly thrown out of countries at the whim of the owning class.

Jews were the targeted race of the 9th through 19th centuries in Europe. The Jews who came to Palestine in the 1940s were the remains of a scientifically planned slaughter of them as a people, which can be viewed as the end result of those centuries of oppression. No country in the world wanted them, including the countries they had been deported from. Many came to Israel/Palestine with high hopes of being friends and good neighbors to the current residents, while also believing that they were returning to the only land that they could be safe in.

As to Ms. Hart's belief that she is not being anti-Semitic for her views, historically, Jews are Semitic peoples, as they came from the same part of the world as the Arabs. They shared a common culture. They were mistreated through centuries as they came into the western world, based on those very same Semitic similarities.

I think that to hold the view that Israel is all wrong and the Palestinians are the total victims not only is a disservice to both sides, it is also a subtle but real anti-Jewish view. The Jews were placed in a hostile environment and then abandoned to surrounding countries who continually threatened their physical existence. While I believe they are now over-reacting to this scenario, to blame only the Jews for the current situation is a continuation of the targeting of Jews that has gone on for centuries.

I agree with Ms. Hart that the ruling powers of Israel are making some very aggressive, negative and destructive decisions. I agree that the Israeli army doesn't always conduct itself in an honorable fashion. I certainly agree that there needs to be an end to the conflict.

But I believe it serves no good to any attempts to bring peace to the area to try to view the whole scenario in terms of black vs. white, or good guy vs. bad guy, or to place all the blame on only one side of the problem. It is much more productive to have a larger perspective. There are people on both sides who want peace as much as we would like to see it, as there always has been in that part of the world. Our job is to encourage the peace efforts from both sides, not to further inflame an already very polarized situation.

—from our May 2002 Newsletter, reprinted from a recent issue of the Point Reyes Light newspaper with Janet's permission

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