Do you ever wonder why there are so few joint initiatives between far-Left Israelis and Palestinians who equally yearn for peace?
Here's a good indication why.
Al Ghad, a Jordanian news site, asks if there are any good Jews.
The answer is, the Neturei Karta - and that's it. Only Neturei Karta accept that Palestinians have a better claim to Israel than Israelis do, and are willing to live as dhimmis under Arab rule. Every other Jew, no matter how leftist he or she is, is not as willing to be subservient to Arabs who rightfully own the entire land from the river to the sea - and therefore they are not worth working with.
There are Jews - declaring belonging to the state of the occupying entity and bearing the status of "Israeli" - but who express sympathy for the Palestinians and oppose the policies of their governments, and demand the rights of the Palestinians. These are really puzzling. Some of them are demanding a Palestinian state in the "occupied territories," which they believe are only territories captured in 1967. Others are demanding one bi-national state, in which Palestinians are granted equal rights. Some do not object to the return of Palestinian refugees, often believing that the numbers of returnees will not be so large that they cannot be absorbed.Jews who want peace want to share the land, and they think that this will bring peace. Give them the "territories" and they will be happy, they think. Or give them the "right of return." Or make a single "binational state" and end the Jewish state altogether. Then there would be peace for sure, right?
Those belonging to the “peace camp” or “left” in the entity touch an emotional nerve in us. They address a need in us to see people from the other camp recognize and criticize the many shortcomings there and “do justice to us”. What they say and write certainly affects world opinion more than our own. These activists are sometimes so enthusiastic that Palestinians share their protests and boycotts, and spend time, effort, and sometimes passion for what they do.
But there is a question that confuses our initial impressions: these peace activists in the state of the Zionist entity are all living on Palestinian land, living in homes either built by Palestinians and forcibly displaced, or built on the ruins of Palestinian homes demolished - certainly on Palestinian land. What if the Palestinian owner of the land and the house went and asked them to return his property to him? Will they pack their bags and give him the keys, or will they stay and tell him to leave?
Those who demand a Palestinian state in the territories of '67 (less than a quarter of historic Palestine) want to give the landowners a small room with no furniture at the edge of the garden, and they will be relieved. Those who demand equal Palestinian citizenship want to make their homes in Palestinian homes and confiscated lands “legitimate” and also get rid of reprimand. They ignore - with full and premeditated consciousness - the history of their presence here and its modalities, whose outputs cannot be fair.
Being a citizen of an occupying entity founded on the existential abolition of an entire people can make you nothing but a living member of the body of this entity with its requirements and what it is, which is pulsing with its heart. Returning the rights to the owners will mean giving up the stolen house and the stolen land. Otherwise, your “morality” will be fundamentally false. Perhaps the maximum that these “Israelis” reach is something like: “As long as I have found myself here, no matter how, I may consider myself a partner with the landowner by more than half, and consider giving him half - or even less than a quarter. - Adequate, fair and comfortable compensation for their conscience, from the position of the boss?
I wonder if any of these peaceful people will accept to give the Palestinian owner of the house the roof of the house he occupies to build a floor, or share it half of the house and the garden. I imagine most of them won't. They do not find any contradiction when it is written: “The Israeli activist (so and so) spoke to us from the garden of his house in Haifa”, who certainly has a Palestinian owner, or the land on which he resided. They accept the colonization of historic Palestine as a “fait accompli” that needs only a simple beautification.
No. The more Israel gives, the more the Palestinians are convinced that it is proof that the Jews have no business to be in the land to begin with. The Western concept of win-win is foreign to people who think in terms of honor and shame.
This article is not anomalous thinking by any means. But nearly all pollsters are too afraid to ask Palestinians if they agree with this thinking, because it would burst the bubble of a people willing to live in peace with Israel.
UPDATE: The same article is now published in Al Quds, a Palestinian Authority newspaper, more proof that this is mainstream thinking. (The other proof is that there is no visible protest against this article.)