Last week in Texas, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made simple statements that are simply incomprehensible: Israel will be withdrawing from Gaza this summer; but his nation must build new housing in the West Bank to establish an \u201cunbroken presence\u201d from Jerusalem to a community called Maale Adumim.\u00a0 Unfortunately, by so doing, Israel would be continuing its self-damaging policy of erecting walls and roads and settlements that cut off, harm, and generally outrage Palestinians in occupied territory.\u00a0 No matter who leads Israel or the Palestinians, there will always be intolerable complexity and tension until a straightforward commitment is made: Israel must help \u2013 or at least permit \u2013 the Arabs to expeditiously create a free and democratic Palestine wherein everyone would be a Palestinian citizen.<\/p>\n
Is this a fantasy?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Fantastic is the continuing belief that current trends will ever lead to peace.\u00a0 Both sides, all the many sides, claim that God long ago decreed this ancient land was for them, and not the other people.\u00a0 Actually, it looks like the intention was for everyone to live together.\u00a0 Some Arabs still believe the Jews will somehow be vanquished and hurled into the sea.\u00a0 That\u2019s not going to happen.\u00a0 And growing numbers of Israeli Jews want Israeli Arabs to emigrate.\u00a0 Emigrate where?\u00a0 The Arabs aren\u2019t leaving, either.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t the late 1940\u2019s when almost a million Arabs lived in what is now Israel, and shortly after the end of the first Arab-Israeli war all but one hundred seventy thousand had been forced to leave and, very often, live in squalid refugee camps.<\/p>\n
Building an independent Palestine would be an enormous first step in resolving the tortuous problem of Israeli Jewish settlers living in occupied territory: those who chose to stay would automatically become citizens of Palestine.\u00a0 That is indisputably fair.\u00a0 Arabs inside Israel\u2019s initial borders were given citizenship and the right to vote.\u00a0 Arabs have served in the Knesset.\u00a0 They have served as both permanent and temporary Supreme Court justices.\u00a0 Arab women have been elected to office in Israel.\u00a0 In that regard, they are certainly ahead of where they\u2019d be in any Arab nation.\u00a0 Palestinian Jews \u2013 former Israelis, that is \u2013 would naturally be eligible to hold office.\u00a0 In time, we would likely see an Israeli Arab as prime minister of Israel and a Palestinian Jew as prime minister of Palestine.<\/p>\n
If you think that\u2019s unrealistic, then pick up the phone, dial time travel, and tell George Washington and Thomas Jefferson that many of the most powerful leaders in the United States are descendents of slaves and that blacks, too, will someday occupy the highest office in the land.\u00a0 Washington and Jefferson will tell you that\u2019s all preposterous.\u00a0 Thankfully, you\u2019re more enlightened in regard to race and ethnicity, and can lecture the founding fathers.<\/p>\n
A free and functioning Palestine would also create a crescendo of pride and good will throughout the Middle East and thus lessen tensions inside Israel, where more than twenty percent of the citizens are Arabs.\u00a0 (Keep in mind, that percentage will continue to increase.)\u00a0 The improved social and political environment in Israel would enable all citizens to more effectively work at rectifying discrepancies in quality of life between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs; regarding the latter, according to the Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development, twice as many live in poverty, per capita income is half as high, infant mortality rates are double, and only half as much is spent per child for education.\u00a0 Discriminatory policies, such as those denying Arabs comparable access to jobs and mortgages, must be dismantled.<\/p>\n
Citizens of a new Palestine would confront even more difficult economic issues but finally have the freedom and opportunity to more rapidly develop.\u00a0 Living next to a more relaxed Israel would help immensely.\u00a0 In order for this to happen, Palestine will need to embrace responsibility not only for protecting all of its citizens, including Palestinian Jews, but also for controlling or eliminating those who seek to attack Israel.\u00a0 Democracies don\u2019t attack each other.\u00a0 That\u2019s the key.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week in Texas, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made simple statements that are simply incomprehensible: Israel will be withdrawing from Gaza this summer; but his nation must build new housing in the West Bank to establish an \u201cunbroken presence\u201d from Jerusalem to a community called Maale Adumim.\u00a0 Unfortunately, by so doing, Israel would be continuing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,113,84,114],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n