The war against the Jewish story

[thucythucy]

69. "We can repatriate first peoples here in America... We don't need to create

an entirely new nation."

Actually, technically speaking First Peoples in America, those on "reservations" anyway, actually are in nations of their own. The US government has signed treaties with those nations. Those nations have their own laws and their own law enforcement. Of course, the treatment of First Peoples by the US government, and the majority of Americans it represents, has been destructive, hypocritical, even, dare I say it? genocidal. And the rights of those nations have been systematically ignored whenever it suits European America. But technically, the nations are already there.

And Liberia, the first attempt to repatriate African Americans to Africa, was indeed a nation created entirely from whole cloth in the first half of the 19th century. Last I checked their flag was still modeled on the US flag, as crafted by that nation's American founders.

The reason Jews felt they needed "an entirely new nation" was because no national government on earth was willing to lift a finger to safeguard their right to live. European governments gladly cooperated with the Nazis to exterminate their Jewish citizens. Those nations not in Europe uniformly refused to take in Jewish refugees attempting to avoid being gassed at Auschwitz or exterminated by the Einsatzgruppen.

Ironically, the most recent rise in antiSemitism, both the rhetoric and the actual violence, can only reinforce those who feel that Jewish people need a Jewish nation to protect them, and to offer a safe haven in the event of another attempt at mass extermination.

I'm no supporter of Netanyahu, and I think many policies by Israel's government in past years have been self defeating, to say the least. The Likud policy of encouraging settlements on the West Bank is one such instance. I think that in the long run a two state solution is the only possible road to peace, and I hope against hope that a ceasefire will soon be reached, the hostages released, and a way can be found for the non-Hamas residents of Gaza, and all the residents of Israel, can live secure in their own homes.

But it does no good to gloss over or even deny the factors that propelled Jews around the world to call for a state with a government dedicated to protecting their existence. And the calls by Hamas for the extermination of Jews, and its apparent willingness to do just that when given the opportunity, can only reinforce the anxiety that led to the creation of Israel in the first place.