An Open Letter to Israelis (Jews) and Palestinians:
Hi, everybody: This is an open letter to both sides that I have written, that I think relates very succinctly to this topic, as well as the movie Exodus. It's a long one, so be prepared and bear with me. Thanks.
Hey--I realize that you've been at loggerheads for over 60 years, and it's more than just a conflict over land. It's clear that religious and cultural differences, too, have also been at the forefront of your decades-old conflict.
Israel: I know it's been a tough road for you to hoe-you've had a hard time just surviving and have absolutely had to fight and prevail for your very survival due to the fact that, for the longest time, the countries surrounding you would not accept you, a Jewish-majority, western-style nation-state, in their midst. Had you not fought back, you wouldn't have survived. That's very true, and, for a great long time, you commanded the respect of the international community because of that.
However, Israel, you've often overstepped your boundaries terribly. While I understand that you were threatened, even back in 1967, and you launched a pre-emptive strike in self-defense when threatened by three hostile Arab armies that were positioned on your borders ready to attack you, the time for you to make peace with your neighbors and cede West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem over to the Palestinians is long, long overdue. Moreover, the building of settlements on Palestinian land on your part, Israel, is not only ethically wrong, but it's illegal under international law, to boot.
The West Bank, Gaza Strip and East jerusalem do not belong to you, Israel. You have absolutely no right to build settlements on those lands, to demolish Palestinian families' homes, subject the Palestinian population to humiliating checkpoints and collective punishments, separate Palestinian civilians from friends and loved ones and farmland by your settlements, or to deprive the Palestinian civilians of food, water, electricity and medical care, education and/or their livelihoods. Those are gross violations of human rights. Israel--you cannot possibly keep an angry foreign population under martial law like this and survive, either.
All this being said, Israel, it's important that you exist as a Jewish-majority State. and we know you came into existence for legitimate reasons. In order for you to survive and preserve your Jewish majority population/character, however, you absolutely must withdraw your troops and evacuate your settlers from West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem now, and stop the daily incursions into those territories…now. Collective punishment on innocent Palestinian men, women and children doesn't help you, Israel, anymore than it helps the Palestinians.
Maiming and killing innocent Palestinian civilians is wrong, also. While I understand the reason for your building the wall--suicide bombers, you should only build the wall along the Green Line!!. Don't make the wall go into Palestinian territory! That is wrong!!. Please cease and desist at once!! Thanks. The Palestinians need and want their own state alongside you. I also think that running over the late Ms. Rachel Corrie with a bulldozer and killing her was wrong, as naive as she may have acted.
Israel: while I know that suicide bombers, as well as the the firing of rockets by Palestinians affiliated with the group Hamas into towns and cities on your southern borders and putting civilians at risk has been a problem for you, I believe, however, that your excessive, full-scale assaults on Lebanon back in 1982 and again in 2006, and, more recently, on the Gaza Strip, have proved counter-productive, resulting in the maiming/killing of many innocent civilian Palestinian men, women and children. Moreover, depriving Gazans of food, fuel, electricity, potable water, and medical care, as well as many other things has made already-bad situations worse. Israel--there needs to be a ceasefire, and a commencement of a real movement towards the just and necessary two-state solution for both you and the Palestinians alike.
Palestinians: I know that you also have a point. You, too have a right to some land, and to have an independent, sovereign Palestinian nation-state of your very own, but it has to be alongside Israel, and not in place of Israel, the way tons of people want. Palestinians, the best you can hope for is a mini-sized, independent, sovereign nation-state of your own, alongside the Jewish-majority state of Israel, which would be comprised of West Bank and Gaza Strip, with Arab East Jerusalem as its capitol. However, do not think for one minute that Israel, as harsh as her occupation of West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, which are rightfully yours has been, is the only one who is to blame here.
The Arab countries, too, have had to bear a great deal of responsibility for your predicament of oppression and statelessness, as they refused to accept Israel's existence, deliberately and knowingly kept you in squalid refugee camps, and led you, the Palestinians on, with all kinds of honeyed promises about how the then newly-formed State of Israel back in 1947-1948 would be destroyed by the Arab world's victory and that you would once again be able go back to the land where you once lived. That did not happen, because Israel fought back and prevailed.
The Arab countries, for at least the first 40 years of Israel’s existence, constantly made war on the then newly-formed, fledgling State of Israel, beginning back in 1948, and constantly exploited you, the Palestinians, as a political football for that purpose, instead of letting you have your own independent, sovereign nation state alongside Israel in Gaza, West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
Unfortunately, Palestinians, you also did not help matters any either, since many of you committed nasty acts of your own against the State of Israel and the West, ranging from cross border raids on Israel from West Bank and Gaza, which you used as launching pads for these raids, even before Israel’s military occupied you, to hijacking Israeli El-Al aircraft and taking Israeli Jewish passengers hostage, to the storming of Israeli schools that resulted in the killing/wounding of Israeli schoolchildren, to acts of terror such as the 1972 Munich Olympics incident where your leaders sent some of you to Munich to slaughter 11 Israeli athletes, the gunning down of Jewish people at various European airports, and your attempt at something similar to what you did at Munich in 1972, at Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976, which Israeli commandoes successfully foiled.
More recently, sending suicide bombers into Israel to blow up and kill innocent Israeli civilians on buses, as well as in discoteques, wedding halls, cafeterias, etc., and your more recent firing of rockets into Israeli cities and towns on Israel’s southern borders, thereby putting innocent Israeli civilians at risk, have also failed to advance your cause, and, along with other afore-mentioned acts over the years, have also contributed greatly to your present predicament--statelessness and oppression.
Palestinians-- Had you and the rest of the Arab world accepted the two-state solution from the start, you and Israel would be living in separate, independent states side by side today, with Jerusalem as a shared capitol of both the states of Palestine and Israel.
Israelis and Palestinians--I'm sorry to say that both your leaders have sold you out disgracefully, due to their persistent refusal to face up to their accountability in this decades-old conflict. This is unfortunate, and that's one big reason why there's no peace today. The United States, the European community, and other institutions who should be helping to get you both out of this deadlock and to implement the necessary two-state solution haven't been doing their jobs, which is also unfortunate.
Everybody should get to work--damnit!!
Israel-- like most people who criticize and condemn what you're doing, I care about you and want you to exist as a Jewish state, even though I'm secular.
I'm criticizing you and condemning what you've been doing, because I want you to continue to exist.
Israelis and Palestinians--you have both done many unspeakable things to each other over the years in the name of your religions and in the name of humanity. It must stop...now. However, there is yet another equally big, important obstacle to peace between you: the persistent refusal of both of you to come out and face up to your accountability and culpability in this decades-long conflict openly and squarely. This seemingly small step would be an important step in the right direction, which would invariably help facilitate the road to peace.