Israel has been an accommodating neighbor
Cathleen Krahe’s letter to The Aspen Times on Jan. 7 ((“Israel’s policy of dominance,” Jan. 7, 2017)) is an inaccurate representation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In her desire to condemn the democratic State of Israel, she continues with her occasional rants to distort the full picture.
In the 68 years since Israel was admitted as a member state of the United Nations, dark forces of hatred have surfaced to attempt to wipe out the single democratic state in the region off the face of the earth.
The “people” who now call themselves “Palestinians” claim to want a state of their own. (There are, in fact, two Palestinian majority “states” — Jordan and Gaza.) On the West Bank, the Palestinians have been offered a state several times. And, each time, they rejected nationhood. So, what is really going on?
The secret known throughout the world is that the Palestinians do not want a state. Rather, they want to deny the Jews a state.
Step back and substitute the word “Christian,” “Buddhist,” “Hindu,” etc. for “Jewish,” and you will understand what is really going on in this conflict. The supremacist Islamists want to take over the world and convert everyone to Islam. (This is an affront to the many peaceful Muslims all over the world, including here in the U.S.)
One side wants peace and has given up huge swaths of land gained in defensive wars for the promise of peace (Israel with Egypt and Jordan). Israel unilaterally gave up control over Gaza and its “reward” was massive rocket attacks on its civilian population. Most of the Palestinian leadership wants to annihilate the Jewish people of Israel; it is written into their charters!
Survey after survey reveals that the Arab Muslims in Israel fare far better than their relatives in the West Bank who are largely under control of the corrupt Fatah (the Palestinian Authority) or its occasional coalition “partner,” the terrorist-oriented Hamas (the brutal Palestinian regime controlling Gaza).
Arab Muslims constitute about 18 percent of the population of Israel. They are full citizens of Israel. They enjoy religious freedom, the right to vote, the right to own property. Women have full rights, people of color have full rights, the LGBTQ community finds Israel the only state in the region that is open to people of other sexual orientations and so forth. While there are difficulties brought on by cultural and religious extremists in all of the religions observed within Israel, this society functions magnitudes better than any of its neighbors. Civil wars rage in Egypt (Muslims vs. Coptic Christian), Syria (everyone against everyone else), Iraq (Shia vs. Sunni), Jordan and Lebanon (Shia Muslims vs. Sunnis and Maronite Christians) have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dead and millions of displaced peoples. The basic fact is that Israel is an oasis in an area of considerable conflict due to forces outside of its control.
To understand a more balanced view of the dynamic in Israel, access the link to a speech given by a former black African slave from South Sudan who protests the UN’s hate-fest against the only democracy in the Middle East — Israel. I remind readers that Israel is a strong economic and strategic ally of the USA. The link is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kbsA7HRsoo
Perhaps Ms. Krahe should could learn something from watching this video. Let’s hope that she gets her facts correct next time.
David Kudish
Miami and Aspen
