October 30, 2024
Dear Editor,
In his October 16th article: “Netanyahu Invades Lebanon,” Gwynne Dyer sums up much of what is taking place in Palestine and Israel, but some of his comments require clarification and correction. In dealing with Palestine and Israel, Gwynne Dyer includes the innocuous word “nonsense” as it pertains to the on-going war between Israel and Palestine. “Nonsense” is a simplistic word, which conveys a paternalistic world view.
The reality is that a major conflict is taking place that began in the late 19th century, initiated by settler-colonialists with their role being given credence by the British Mandate of 1918. Twenty years later, on May 14th, 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed, despite the fact that the majority of the population was Palestinians. Soon after, in a coordinated attack, the infamous “Nakba” (catastrophe) took place, in which 750,000 Palestinians suffered expulsion from their ancestral land, and were dispossessed of 4.2 million acres, resulting also in the destruction of 400 villages.
Gwynne Dyer noted that “without U.S. support…any attack on Iran would fall far short of expectations.” The truth is that without U.S. support, Israel would long ago have been compelled to work out a peace settlement with the Palestinians. The delusion is that Israel could exist at all without the vast military weaponry provided free of charge by the U.S. These weapons have been used in continual bombing for the past year upon the open-air prison of Gaza. Over two million Palestinians have been compelled to live in this tiny strip of land, no more than 25 miles long and five to seven miles wide: (about half the size of Toronto’s urban area).
The sheer scale of the bombing of Gaza has shocked millions of people around the world, who have viewed images taking place and the resulting death of 16,000 children and adults, totalling 42,000 dead.
Additional consequences of this awful conflict, according to the economist, Jayati Ghosh, have resulted in “a disintegration of established international rules” betraying that “the International Court of Justice’s pronouncements have had little effect on real world actions.” Ghosh states that “the international justice systems are in chaos” as a result of U.S. support of Israel, both having ignored the ICJ ruling that “a plausible genocide is taking place in Gaza [with] Israel committing acts that violate the Genocide Convention.”
There are well-informed Israeli and Palestinian historians who have investigated the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Ilan Pappe, is one such. He was raised in Israel and is one of several outstanding scholars who have devoted considerable research on this subject. He considers what is taking place as “ethnic cleansing,” and a catastrophe for millions of Palestinians.
Gwynne Dyer observes that “...the idea that [Israel] can break out of these constraints by mere military force is a delusion” and that “the borders defined by the end of the 1948 war are legitimate and permanent.” But Israeli settlers continue their attacks on West Bank Palestinians and their traditional land, and have built outposts and settlements over the past few decades and have now taken control over much of the West Bank.
Gwynne Dyer’s assertion that a “two-state solution” can be attained, based on 1967 boundaries, is no longer viable. Most of those who have proposed this “solution” have realized that a two-state solution is “dead.” They have become resigned to the fact that the West Bank has become a fragmented Palestine with only sparse pieces of land occupied by Palestinian farmers, while most land is now controlled by Israeli settlers, who have the full support of the Israeli military.
Ezra Klein, a former New York Time columnist, observes that: “people who still think of the Jewish state as a democracy are delusional.” A suggested solution by a number of Israeli scholars is to develop a genuine one-state democratic nation that protects the rights of all citizens, (seven million Palestinians and seven million Israelis), with all given equal rights through the creation of a unitary, federal state that would include Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights.
Hugh J. Curran
East Margaree
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