[(Continued from p.3)]
future. It is part of the necessary 40 years in the desert and the new generations that lie before the Arabs of Palestine. If and when they learn to live under the rule of law and enjoy its freedoms they might find that what state they live in with these blessings makes little difference and was not even an issue.Now more than ever, we feel that the only resolution to this problem is one democratic state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River: Israel. And most importantly, we have to recognize that it is Israelis who have to bring about any change in that situation if they feel that it warrants one. Arabs unable to live under a government that isn't totally Arab, no matter how fair and just, should be allowed to do so elsewhere. Resettling them on the vast expanse of uninhabited land in surrounding Arab countries is a task the world can share, while those Arabs who'd rather live in a democratic society with the rights of free men can stay in Israel to prosper with it and its people. The numbers that would opt to stay could shock the world.
President Reagan said that "If history teaches us anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom." America can't ignore the moral, legal, and historic claims to that piece of blood-drenched land that Israelis own and others covet. The simplistic majoritarian argument for self-determination distorts what democracy is. President Bush's hopes and intentions are worthy of our nation, but the nature of the problem doesn't lend itself to his proposals. A just and lasting peace will never come to that part of the world if there is constant ambiguity about the historical rights to the land.
Jacob Miller is a commentator on American policy in the Middle East who lives in Boston.
Given the wave of anti-Semitism sweeping Europe, including countries like Denmark, whose rescue of its Jewish population in the Nazi era still inspires gratitude in Israel, the last country where one would expect to find fairness, even widespread affection, for Israel is Poland. Yet in today's topsy-turvy world, many of Poland's journalists have become the most scathing critics of the mad scenario propagated by Europe's intellectual elite in which Jenin is the Warsaw ghetto and Sharon the Nazi general while Arab suicide-murderers are cast in the role of noble freedom fighters. And large numbers of ordinary Poles are demonstrating their solidarity with Israel.
Apart from Nazi Germany, Poland's record of behavior toward its Jewish population in the last century was the bleakest in Europe. It was no accident that Germany and Austria chose Poland as the chief site for implementing the "final solution." Even after the war, when the pitiful surviving remnant returned to their homes in Poland, many encountered new pogroms and the survivors were forced to flee. Following the Six Day War, the Polish Communist government froze all relations with Israel and launched vitriolic attacks on Jews and Israel in their media. Some 20,000 Jews, most of the remaining Jewish population, many of them ardent Communists, were forced to leave Poland, welcomed by the Jewish state they had excoriated.
And yet today, although anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel still exist in elements of Polish society and the media is not free of it -- Polish television especially apes Western models -- a large part of the intellectual elite, in contrast to Western Europe, is notable for taking up cudgels on behalf of the embattled Jewish state.
A large part of the intellectual elite is notable for taking up cudgels on behalf of the embattled Jewish state.
That is the theme of an article by Lawrence Weinbaum, a researcher at the institute of the World Jewish Congress, in the June 2002 issue of the Israeli journal Nativ. Weinbaum quotes the chief editor of the most widely read Polish weekly, Zwaprost (Forward), in its April 21, 2002 issue: "I feel ashamed and disgraced when serious European politicians threaten Israel with economic sanctions. I am dishonored when the European Parliament takes pro-Palestinian positions threatening to suspend economic agreements with Israel. In view of such hypocrisy and the rising wave of anti-Semitism, I can only say this. I am an Israeli. I am with the nation that, despite being condemned to destruction by enlightened Europe, performed a miracle: namely the establishment of a democratic state in a sea of Arab totalitarianism. Today all Europeans -- not only the citizens of the United States -- have a duty to do everything to ensure that Israel's survival is not threatened. Tito warned that crawling does not protect you from falling. Unfortunately Europe has chosen to crawl,even though this crawling in the past led to annihilation. But the Old World has ceased to learn."
The same issue of Zwaprost included an article on the European Union under the headline "Union of Hypocrites," a report from Beirut that Weinbaum says could land the writer a place in Hizbollah prisons or worse, and
[(Continued on p.5)]
Outpost - 4 - July-August 2002