From Budour Youssef Hassan at Electronic Intifada:
Can every instance of Israelis flocking to the streets chanting “End the occupation” be blithely described as solidarity? Should every occasion of Israelis carrying Palestinian flags be ecstatically celebrated as a major boost for the Palestinian cause? Should Palestinians be simply grateful that, amid the increasing construction of settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the overwhelming surge of racism in Israeli society, there are still some Israeli voices willing to “recognize” a Palestinian state?When the Palestinian Arab leadership decided to launch the terror spree known as the second intifada, it caused many former Israeli leftists to wake up and realize that the Palestinian Arabs were not interested in living in an independent state side by side with Israel. There were some hard-core leftists who kept the faith, continuing to demonstrate and push for a two-state solution and pointing to flawed public opinion polls that seemed to imply that Palestinian Arabs were interested in peace with Israel.
When persons in a position of privilege formulate and design a solution and impose it on a colonized and occupied people as the only viable solution and the “sole remaining constructive step,” as the 15 July call to action put it, this is not solidarity but rather another form of occupation. Solidarity means not telling people what you think their problem is, let alone telling them what you think the solution should be. Solidarity means not agreeing on everything or even agreeing on a fixed solution but fighting for a shared cause irrespective of the differences.
A quasi-state built on 22 percent of the land of historic Palestine is not what Palestinians have been fighting for over the last 63 years and presenting it as such strips Palestinians of their voices and of their right to decide their own destiny.
... The whole idea of two states for two peoples as the only solution to the Palestinian-Israeli impasse — extremely popular among liberal Zionists — is predicated upon isolationism, exceptionalism and Zionists’ sense of moral righteousness and superiority to Palestinians which grants them the legitimacy to determine the problem, the solution and the means by which this solution shall be achieved.
Certainly the minority who march with Palestinian Arab flags feel that they are in the vanguard of solidarity, that they are the "good Jews" and that they are appreciated by the Palestinian Arabs who are happy thattheir cause is being publicized by the enemy.
But this essay shows that the Palestinian Arabs aren't really that appreciative. In fact, they resent it. The activists among them are not demonstrating for peace or equality - but for Arab subjugation of Jews in the Middle East. They are dead-set against the Jewish right of self-determination.
They want Israel destroyed, and they will not be happy until they reach that goal. They make their positions crystal clear.
Yet the sympathetic media and their Israeli leftist buddies continue to act as if these people are liberal, tolerant Arabs. They simply cannot accept that their Arab counterparts are bigoted, hateful warmongers whose entire purpose is the destruction of the Jewish state. It doesn't fit into their worldview, so they willfully ignore it and pretend that they are as interested in peace as they are.
And, as Israellycool points out, this writer who rails against Zionism and the Zionist left is a third-year law student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The media will reluctantly portray crazed Islamists as being against Israel's very existence, but they will never interview a well-dressed secular Arab whose views are equally intransigent and repulsive. They prefer to ignore the evidence that is staring them in the face that the Palestinian Arab "left" is not motivated by the desire of peace but of revenge, not of compromise but of conquest. The website that carries this pure, unbridled hate is treated with respect by the New York Times and is funded by the Dutch government.
When will the media call out and start to highlight the pure hate and intransigence that has become mainstream in Palestinian Arab thought?
(h/t Rafael)