Israel And The Call for Genocide

 The conflict between Israel and Arab must stop being one side takes all with no middle ground. The position that there must be no Israel condemns Israelis and Palestinian Arabs to endless war. From the river to the sea as a call for there only to be a Palestine and for Israel to be destroyed is a call for genocide. It means countless deaths, maiming, wounds and misery on all sides. 

Over one third of the world Jewish population lives in Israel. Jews that were ethnically cleansed and that fled from countries all over the middle east and North Africa and their descendants form Israel's majority population. They cannot return to such places as Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Algeria, Afghanistan, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Iran and elsewhere where they will face certain persecution and worse. Jews that lived in British controlled Palestine were called Palestinians. They and their descendants know that Israel is the only safe place for them and the other Jews of the middle east and Africa. 

Arguments made on behalf of Palestinian Arabs also applies for the Jews from the middle east and North Africa. Some argue that Palestinian Arabs were driven out from what is now Israel, ignoring those that fled because of war, and that therefore Israel must be destroyed. Palestinian Jews were also driven out from their homes and there were massacres against them in pre-Israel British controlled Palestine. Middle east and North African Jews were ethnically cleansed and driven out from their homes across the middle east and North Africa and forced to flee to Israel, where they are now told they must leave. Unlike Palestinian Arabs, who live throughout the middle east and North Africa, Jews will be persecuted or worse if they step foot on those lands outside of Israel. Israel absorbed its Jewish refugees from the middle east and North Africa. Arab nations did not absorb Palestinian Arab refugees, with few exceptions, preferring to keep this conflict unresolved and ongoing. 

If Arab armies did not attack the newfound state of Israel in 1948, things would be very different today. Years devoted to destroying the small state of Israel from its beginning onward have only given death, misery and pain. 

The word occupation is used a lot in order to dismiss the legitimacy of Israel. Jews have always been indigenous to what is now Israel and the middle east and North Africa. There were Jewish communities and Jewish tribes living throughout the middle east, including in Jerusalem and elsewhere in what is now Israel, and in North Africa for many centuries before the rise of Islam in the 7th century and after. 

Israel did not displace a nation. Palestine was British controlled and before that Ottoman empire controlled. There never was a nation of Palestine. The majority of  what was Palestine was given to a king and is now Jordan. Arabs, not just Jews, migrated to British controlled Palestine as economic opportunities opened up, many of them created by Jewish immigrants. If the king of Jordan was a Jew, the same hatred that is directed towards Israel would be directed towards Jordan.

It is not 1948. Pretending Israel does not exist over 70 years later and seeking its destruction dooms countless people to an endless cycle of war, violence and terror. Israel is the only nation in the world whose destruction is actively pursued. Many nations in this world were built on the ethnic cleansing of their indigenous populations. Yet no one calls for these nations to be destroyed, or for people to leave and give the lands back to the indigenous populations. People that scream Jews must leave Israel because Jews are not native, which is untrue, are not willing to leave themselves from the lands on which they live that were stolen from native populations.

It is not 1948. Millions of Israelis have been born on the soil of Israel and know nothing else. There are large cities, villages, towns, farms, factories and more in a small densely populated nation. Wishing Israel does not exist and trying to make Israel not exist is not going to magically make millions of Israelis and everything built on that land disappear.

Arab and Jew share a small piece of land. They need to figure out together how to share that land without killing each other. Seeking the destruction of Israel means seeking ethnic cleansing and genocide. There has been enough of that in this world. When people say they are against Israel's existence, or against Zionists, not Jews, and want Israel destroyed, that means they are in favor of the destruction, genocide and ethnic cleansing of one third of the world's Jewish population. They absolutely are against Jews. 

If someone truly cares about Palestinian Arabs, if someone truly cares about Jews, they must want an end to this war and fighting. They must do everything they can to get the two sides to see the humanity of the other. Israeli and Palestinian Arab must figure out how to resolve this conflict, through mutual acceptance and tolerance, with steep compromises and concessions made on both sides, without more killing.