Israel At War Watch: Richard Cohen – “Israel Itself is a MISTAKE”
Posted by Flap in Israel
Washington Post: Richard Cohen – Hunker Down With History
The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself.
Liberally DEFICIENT neural thought from the LEFT.
Cohen does not know or UNDERSTAND history, does he? He does not answer the question,
Does Israel have the “RIGHT” to exist?
What say you, Richard Cohen?
Blogosphere:
Stop The ACLU: Cohen: Israel Is A Mistake
So there you have you it, straight from American media’s mouth, it is the creation of Israel itself that has created terrorism. That is where the blame lies in the mind of Richard Cohen. He doesn’t blame the terrorists, he blames the creation of Israel. Sickening.
No doubt Mr. Cohen, and his editors need to hear from you, badly. You can them contact here as well.
Captain Ed has a historical perspective: You Are A Fluke Of The Universe …
Jews have lived in the area for thousands of years. The Romans, the Ottomans, and finally the British ruled them as their numbers waxed and waned, but the area has always been home to the Jews. In the late 19th century, the Zionists began buying land from Arab owners and resettling in the harsh environment of the Trans-Jordan. Arabs at that time were only too glad to sell them what looked like worthless land for far more than its market value. By the time World War I loomed at the Ottoman Empire breathed its last, the Jews had started to tame the land and expand their settlements. Britain recognized this during World War I — not World War II — and obtained a mandate from the League of Nations to administer a Jewish homeland in the Trans-Jordan.
The Holocaust did not create Israel. The Jewish homeland had existed for two decades prior to it, but Arabists in the British government did not make it easy for Jews to emigrate to the new homeland, fearing the wrath of the Arabs in the area. Only three years after the end of World War II did Israel win its independence from the British mandate by a United Nations that opposed such mandates in any case, seeing them (rightly) as a rationalization for colonialism.
The Balfour Declaration in 1917 declared the intent of the British government to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. We should remember that the British intended that two homelands be established in Palestine, one for the Jew and one for the Palestinians — and that the demarcation was supposed to be the Jordan River. The Hashemites stole a march on the British and declared an independent kingdom in what is now Jordan, leaving the British with a much-reduced spot of land for the two homelands.One of the best histories of the region in the 20th century is A Peace To End All Peace by David Fromkin. It’s always on my sidebar, as it’s a must-read for anyone wishing to understand the politics of the Middle East.
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