Arab Racism not acceptable: real causes of Israeli-Palestinian conflict more religious and political
Reader comment on item: Columbia University Celebrates Edward Said
in response to reader comment: Arab Racists' excuses

Submitted by Desert Sienna (Canada), Jan 2, 2008 at 11:07

Racism is not acceptable. One only needs to scan over the latest actions by Israel and the militants who go after them to understand that this vicious and tragic cycle of violence cannot go on. A peaceful resolution is needed. I don't excuse the past actions of Middle Eastern militants but most Muslims and Arabs are not racists and insurgents. Bush's policies have a lot to do with the situation in Palestine.

Any peace deal will have to accommodate the interests of both sides. Palestinians need realistic ideas about what can and can't be done. It is pointless to push the past in someone's face. If Israel has made mistakes, it has done so in self-defense. It is wrong to refuse their acceptance as a country with legitimacy. That wasn't my idea. The U.N. embraced Yasser Arafat and the P.L.O. as the 'sole voice of the Palestinian people' in their quest for self-determination. Arafat wanted to destroy Israel through the right of return of Palestinian refugees into Israel. Leftists do not understand the intention behind it. I suspect they support the destruction of Israel and do not see themselves as anti-Semitic racists. They make false accusations: apartheid, segregation, racism, etc.

It was the U.N. who passed the infamous 'Zionism is racism' bill. The U.N. is anti-Israeli and they were linked to the cause of the hostage-taking crisis over soldiers by allowing militants to do it. The U.N. has been called an 'instrument of terror'. As for the P.L.O., their web site reads 'the winning hand in the destruction of the Zionist entity (Israel) is the right of return for Palestinian refugees". So I will admit there is nobody to work with here and Abbas is not a likely candidate. The problems have always been militancy, the insistence on the right of return, Palestinian leadership and the refusal to accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish-majority country.

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