Foxy,

The Leowenstein article is behind a paywall. Maybe its worthwhile, but my experience of Leowenstein is that its more likely to highly partisan and full of errors that he hopes the naïve reader will fall for. But who knows.

"Why do you see only Israel as the
victim in this conflict?"

Did you read my previous posts? The leadership of the so-called Palestinians have, as an explicit policy, the destruction of Israel and the removal by death or otherwise of the Jewish inhabitants. Israel has no such policy. The 'war', if that's what you want to call it, continues because Hamas and Fatah leadership want it to continue.

I don't know why you want to advert your gaze from the fact that Israel, under the most intolerable external pressure of any state on the planet (save perhaps Ukraine and Taiwan) still achieves a level of democracy and liberalism unheard of in the rest of the M-East.

The Palestinian leadership (note how I separate the leadership from the people) could have peace tomorrow if they so desired. They don't.

Again I'd point out that when you were put under far less pressure than the average Jew, you reacted in a much more authoritarian manner than does Israel.

Other Arab states and groups have had enough of the Palestinian leadership's shenanigans and are walking away from supporting them. See the article I posted earlier from Kuwait, the data I posted above concerning Lebanon and the states signing up to Trump's Abraham Accords.

mhaze,

I didn't realize that haaretz.com is under a paywall.
I just joined up and no - problems. I like their
articles. All I had to do is choose a password.

Anyhow. I can see that we're going to have to agree to
disagree on this one. The Australian Jewish News published
a letter sometime ago that read:

"I have always believed that whatever Israel does is always
right for the Jews."

This uncritical and anti-intellectual stance completely
contradicts the noble Judaic tradition of rigorous thought
and dissent that I have come to believe in since my days
at uni - thanks to my teachers.

Foxy,

Haaretz, unless you have a paid subscription, allows 5 free articles per month. I've already reached that level. I'll perhaps read the article next month.

" can see that we're going to have to agree to
disagree on this one. "

Do you accept that the written policies of the Palestinian leadership call for the destruction of Israel? If not why you reject their own words.

If yes, then do you concede that Israel has the right to do whatever necessary to avoid that fate?

It is a fact that more than once the Palestinians have been offered a two-state solution that gives them about 90% of the occupied territories, but both times it has been rejected because the Palestinian leaders didn't want to be seen as weak and preferred to see their youngsters throw themselves against the Israeli defences with predictable consequences.

SM, do you consider those who complain about Zionist tanks being driven over Palestinian mother's and babies as anti-Semitic?

mhaze,

The popular media both in the US and here has been sold
the myth that Israel is the victim in this conflict and
is only defending itself against its hostile neighbours.
Look at the history beginning with Ben Gurion. Read his
letters and correspondence. They are very revealing.

I have a question for you. Do you concede that Israel sits
on stolen land, pushing out an indigenous population,
burning down homes, killing civilians, then cries when they
fight back even though they have billions of dollars invested
in defense while the people fighting back have rocks and
essentially bottle rockets.

Israel has been in violation of multiple international laws and
in violation of the Geneva Convention, but nothing happens
because the US blocks anything from happening and supports
Israel.

The West Bank remains undr direct Israeli military and
civilian control.

As I said earlier - we are going to have to agree to disagree
on this one.