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Haim Misgav

Time to say goodbye

Israeli Arab leaders who object to Jewish State’s existence should not be part of it

A total of 120 Knesset members, every single one of them, were elected to serve in the parliament of the Jewish State. This is the state that was established by the Jews in 1948 to serve as their national home.

 

By examining the Israeli Arab protests at Gaza’s Erez crossing we can understand that Knesset Member Ahmad Tibi, as well as Ra’ed Salah and his comrades in the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, a body holding anti-Jewish positions, do not think that the Jewish people deserves its own state; at least not in this part of the world, which in their view was always meant to be the home of the Palestinian people.

 

In their view, the immense Arab nation, on all its states, cannot make to with the national entities that already exist in the Middle East, based on an arbitrary division that followed World War I, and therefore everything should be done in order to take away even the little left for the Jews.

 

I don’t know how the founding fathers of the Jewish State would have acted at the time, if they were presented with the horrific scenario whereby the Arabs who stayed in the country in the wake of the War of Independence will be a hostile body seeking the state’s destruction from within.

 

In any case, we can certainly assume that some of the founders of the State of Israel would have considered doing what would have seemed to be the required step: Population exchange. Even by force – as was done at the time in many locations across the world following the allied victory over the Germans. All across Europe, and not only there, it was understood that the attempt to connect ethnic entities cannot succeed. These sort of hybrids always, and I mean always, come to a bitter end.

 

It may be that now it is already too late for radical solutions. Yet we should weigh the issues carefully – and without exaggerated passion. Those who wish to stay and be part of the Jewish state should know that their loyalty lies only with this country. They cannot protest on behalf of those who wish to destroy it. All the others, such as Ra’ed Salah and Ahmad Tibi, must decide where they want to live. If they think that another “Palestinian state” should be established here, instead of the State of Israel, they should get up and leave. They can fight us – but from the outside. Not from within us, and not at our expense.

 

Certain measure of sanity

The process won’t be easy, but we must embark on it; simply in order to maintain our national strength – and also a certain measure of sanity; both ours and theirs. We should do it not only for the sake of western Negev residents, who have become sitting ducks, but also for the sake of all those who lost their loved ones ever since that grotesque ceremony on the White House lawns.

 

The buses the blew up in our streets or the restaurants that went up in flames did not prompt Ra’ed Salah, Ahmad Tibi and their partners to the path of uncompromising hatred for the “Jewish entity” to protest against those who rejected peace – so why do we need to tolerate their current protests near the Erez crossing?

 

Perhaps the time has come to say goodbye. Not to everyone. Only to those who do not want the Jewish State to exist. But we need to do it. The way to do it will certainly be found. As noted, it was done already done before

 

We, the Jews, did not do it to the Arabs back then because we thought the Jewish State should be a light unto the nations, a symbol of mutual tolerance. Yet things, it appears, are not working out. Tibi and Salah and their comrades prove time and again that they do not want us, and therefore they do everything in their power in order to weaken us – in order to do to us what we didn’t do to them back then.

 


פרסום ראשון: 01.23.08, 16:29
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