History suggests the Brits and the Jews to be perhaps the most amazing peoples on the planet, their cultural impact far exceeding what one might expect, given their numbers. The recently emergent notion of White Supremacy as well as history’s various outbreaks of Anti-Semitism each seem to me to be but pathetic examples of racial envy. Really, how did it come to pass that two of the 20th Century’s most profound cultural influences are Einstein and Freud?
Two recent videos posted by Prager U, the one narrated by Dennis Prager himself, the other by David Brog, director of Christians United for Israel, outline the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict since 1914, their thesis being that the Israelis have offered the Palestinians their own independent homeland on five separate occasions, each of these proposals not only rejected but on more than one occasion met with military reprisals. The problem, both Prager and Brog insist, is very simple. The Muslim/Arab world, motivated by HATRED, simply refuses to grant the legitimacy of a Jewish State in its midst.
I have no intention of engaging in a detailed account of the history of this conflict which is available on Prager U. But having inherited control of the disputed area in 1914 due to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Brits tried repeatedly to negotiate some sort of peaceful accord between the Israelis and Palestinians. In 1936 the Peel Commission proposed a solution granting the Palestinians over 80% of the territories they coveted. They rejected the offer outright. In 1947 the U.N. was conscripted to propose another settlement which was once again rejected and followed by military actions against the Israelis which they quickly rebuffed. In May of 1948, the day after the end of British rule in the Middle East, every Arab nation in the vicinity once again attacked Israel only to be once again defeated, a humiliation repeated in the Six Days War of 1967. In the year 2000, clearly motivated by a desire for peace rather than an irrational racial animus, Israel offered Yasser Arafat and the P.L.O. all of Gaza, over 90% of the West Bank and the rights to East Jerusalem. Need I give you the details of what ensued? In 2005 the Jews simply gave Gaza to the Arabs who, the very next year, put Hamas, a terrorist organization, in control of its destiny. Yet the Palestinians continue to be characterized here in the West as the innocent victims of Jewish aggression.
The real tragedy of such situations is that the ordinary people most affected are frequently not guilty of the same fanatical obsessions of those who rule them. I have just watched a video posted by The Rebel in which one of its reporters, Avi Yemini, talks about his uncle’s enforced departure from Gaza in 2005. A successful Jewish farmer, employer and friend to several Palestinians, his government’s edict immediately deprived him of everything he had worked for. Yet he still keeps in touch with his Palestinian friends. As Brigitte Gabriel points out in refuting the notion that Islam poses no real threat to world peace because most Muslims are peace loving, the fanatical tail frequently wags the dog. It happened in Nazi Germany and it continues to happen in the Middle East. While the Western press constantly highlights the impact of Israeli bombs on an innocent Palestinian population, their innocence in no way mitigates the effort of their terrorist government to simply wipe Israel from the map.
It is sadly ironic yet ironically inspirational that many Christians and Jews are now united in their opposition to a mutual enemy. But even more ironic and perhaps absurd is the fact that “progressives” see that alliance as just another example of White Supremacists intent on oppressing people of a skin color other than their own.
Every one knows that people of a different hue are always right. Isn’t that the sophisticated “intellectual” basis of “progressivism”?