thoughts at one year

I've been writing this blog for a year now. Do I have any readers? I haven't a clue. I write because I want a record of my position on what I believe to be the moral issue of our time, just as slavery was a moral issue in the 19th century.

I've come from a state of complete ignorance concerning Israel to one in which I have a good idea of what happens there on a daily basis. I've also greatly deepened my understanding of Israel's position within the region. Here are some thoughts

Israel is a colony, originally of Europeans

Israel is an ethnic-cleansing project

throwing indigenous people out to achieve ethnic purity is not democracy

Jews have a right, no more or less than anyone else, to live in Palestine

the holocaust did not come with a consolation prize - being wronged, no matter how deeply, doesn't entitle the wronged party to do wrong

the holocaust made Israel possible

collective guilt has in the past allowed Israel a pass that no other state would be allowed

the political/financial power of Zionists in the United States is the only thing that now allows Israel immunity to world opinion

the charge of anti-Semitism has been a powerful (but rapidly weakening) force in protecting Zionsim in the United States

the claim that Jewish Europeans are more closely related to the people who lived in Palestine than the Arabs who live there today is pure mythology

the claim that any Jew anywhere in the world is by right entitled to replace any Palestinian living in Palestine is one of the most outrageous claims ever made

Israel will one day be a state for both Jews and Arabs with equal rights. In other words, there is no possibility of two states

racism on the part of Jews in Israel and in the United States toward Arabs is common

the close association of the United States with Israel has been a disaster for the United States, bringing justified charges of hypocrisy and understandable attacks by those sympathetic to the Palestinians. The refusal of the U.S. to see this drives it steadily lower in world public opinion.

the U.S. Congress is a captive of Zionism and will remain so until there is campaign finance reform

HAMAS is the enemy of choice for Israel because it plays on the chessboard of violence at which Israel is a master. Abbas with his bid for statehood in the UN is the more terrible enemy because he plays on the chessboard of diplomacy where Israel's indefensible position is weakening daily.