Critical View on Israel

Bladet Vesteraalen is my local paper and loves publishing comments and views on local and international issues.  Fairly often something is  published about Israel, and frequently with a Pro-Netanyahu view.  Anyway, one day I felt enough is enough.  Below you find my response:

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Regularly Bladet Vesteraalen has articles defending Israel.  In a well-known retoric there is no mentioning of the root causes of the conflict between Palestine and Israel In stead the articles deal with how misunderstood Israel´s motives and actions are. Consequently the discussion is conducted on the premises of Netanyahu, the opressive regime of today´s Israel. The discussion is systematically neglecting the factual policy Israel as a state is conducting against the Palestinians. The articles vouch for a regime that today is occupying and subjugating a whole nation. 

The Nobel Laureate, Bishop Desmond Tutu from South Africa, doesn´t mince his words and caracterizes the regime in Israel as worse than the one excisting during the Apartheid Era in South Africa. It should suffice to refer to the Wall Israel has built, streight through Palestine, to underscore the point. The UN is, in a report of this year, documenting humanitarian crimes commited by the State of Israel. All together, they are not few. Consequently it doesn´t suffice to depict a glossy picture of Israel with no root in reality.

The political commentator in the paper The Haaretz, Avi Shavit (an Israeli) writes about "The Palestinian Elephant" on what he considers as Israel´s spesific problem today ( Haaretz 02.05.2013): He uses the image "there is an elephant in the room" used in English when something is too threathening to talk about. He alleges that Israel conducts itself as if Palestine were no nation. There is no public debate in Israel today how to get started with the peace talks again, or how to solve the conflict with Palestine. He thinks that the Camp David-agreement and the Oslo Accord are dead and that all this is swept under the carpet. He is absolutely shocked that Israeli voters don´t demand that their politicians handle the issue. He warns the readers that such behaviour will turn against the Israelis and consequently the Palestinians.

Another critical voice is Miko Peled. He has recently written "The General´s Son". He is the son of Matti Peled who participated in the freedom fight of 1948 and is one of the heroes og the war in 1967. Matti Peled attempted, after having left his position as general, to achieve peace with the Palestinians and participated in meetings, among others, with Yasser Arrafat. You find speeches he made in the USA on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xbh9hhskzg . All his children are peace activists. The book Miko Peled has written, I would like to come back to on a later occation.

Even former heads of the Israeli Security Service think Netanayhu´s policy of today is sustainable. I refer to the Oscar nomination og the documentary, "The Gatekeepers"

Many of us are friends of Israel, but it can´t be thus that we do not assess what Israel in fact does. The same goes for Palestine. But the conflict can neither be understood nor solved without a) a historical understanding of what has happended the last century, and b) peace negotiations where both parties are equal.

Sortland 2. mai 2013

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