All very true below.  But one view is that Israel, being essentially a
European state, is just doing what Europeans (US included) have always
done.  Of course it is true that we all expect better from Israel and with
pressure, we'll see that.

 > > Published on Thursday, March 21, 2002 by
Common Dreams > A Jew Seeking Justice
> by Jennifer Balkan
>
> As a Jewish American, I feel it is finally my responsibility to opine
> on behalf of my Palestinian sisters and brothers:
>
> Imagine if a group of strangers marched into your home and told you
> that you couldn't live there anymore. This is the home that your
> parents inhabited; your grandparents bequeathed to them. These
> strangers told you that thousands of years ago, their ancestors had
> populated this area, albeit for a short while. Now they have come to
> take what's rightfully yours and call it their own. When you don't
> voluntarily leave, they threaten you with violence. Fearing imminent
> danger, you take your children and flee. These people pay you a
> pittance of the value of your land without your consent and label you
> an 'absentee landlord'. When you return to reclaim your home, your
> land, the strangers argue that because you separated yourself from
> your belongings, they are no longer yours. Because they have attained
> the title to your home and land, you no longer have the right of
> possession.
>
> This is the story of Israel - a stolen land taken from the
> Palestinians. The Zionist movement was founded on the principle that
> the Jews deserved a land; a land that they could call their State;
> their home but they would only be able to identify themselves as a
> wholly Jewish state at the expense of uprooting an existent
> civilization, the indigenous Arab population.
>
> The Jewish claim to Palestine is based on the existence of a kingdom
> that reigned for only 414 years (Beatty, I: Arab and Jew in the Land
> of Canaan.) The Jewish kingdoms were only one of many periods of
> nti-Semitism. Tensions
> between Arabs and Jews began after Zionist settlers arrived in the
> 1880s and had bought land from absentee Arab owners. This led to the
> dispossession of land that had been cultivated by peasants. In
> effect, the Zionists were colonizing Arab land.
>
> The Zionists probably could not have been so successful in their
> acquisitions if it weren't for strong support from the British and
> later the Americans. The Balfour Declaration was instituted in
> November 1917 by the British Government to secure a Jewish Homeland
> in Palestine. It is easy to be skeptical of such a declaration as it
> was fashioned by a European power; about a non-European territory;
> and completely discounted the presence and desires of the indigenous
> majority residents of the territory.
>
> When Israel was declared a state in 1948, it owned a bit more than
> six percent of the land of Palestine. The UN charter envisages a
> peoples' right to self-determination based upon the democratic
> requirement of consent for the majority of the people - the Palestine
> Arabs had composed a 2/3 majority at that point it time. Thus, the UN
> Partition of Palestine in 1947 violated its own law.
> Since the inception of a codependency between Israel and the U.S.,
> the U.S. media has done everything in its power to taint the struggle
> of the Palestinians. President Truman stated in 1947 "I am sorry
> gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are
> anxious for the success of Zionism. I do not have hundreds of
> thousands of Arabs among my constituents" (Pres. Harry Truman, quoted
> in Anti Zionism, ed. By Teikener, Abed-Rabbo & Mezvinsky).
>
> Arabs have only responded to an unlawful, undeserved expropriation of
> their land. They became refugees in their own villages. Over 750,000
> Palestinians became refugees on their own land during the winter of
> 1947. But Israel was not satisfied with its allocation. In violation
> of international law, Israel seized over 52 percent of the land in
> the West Bank and 30 percent of the Gaza Strip for military use or
> for settlement by Jewish civilians.
>
> Israel has an historical record of invading surrounding countries,
> and currently occupies Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian territory
> against international law. It has been Zionist policy to kill
> anywhere from 50 to 100 Arabs for every Jewish fatality. But the U.S.
> media have never criticized Israel of inciting the ensuing Islamic
> terror. Instead, Israeli soldiers who participate in cruel acts of
> torture are labeled "security forces" whereas Palestinians are all
> perceived as terrorists.
>
> Currently, violence in the Middle East is as high as it has ever
> been. Israeli deaths are reported to us whereas Palestinian losses
> are dehumanized and go faceless in our news.
> Our unconditional support of Israel and its practices portray us as
> unsympathetic to a robbed people.
> Fundamentalist Halacha, or Jewish law, is what is propagating
> violence - it condones murder in the pursuit of Zionist expansion.
> Much like other sects of religious fundamentalism, it is dangerous
> and should be feared and mistrusted.
>
> We can no longer sit idly and watch an indigenous population become
> dispossessed. It has taken a couple hundred years for Americans to
> look at our ancestors with disdain - those who decimated the original
> inhabitants of our land - the once thriving American Indians. We
> still feel guilt for what our forefathers stole. Will disclosure of
> facts and revision of our textbooks in the secular classroom and in
> the synagogue someday reveal the truth about Israel? And will it be
> too late then?
>
> Jennifer Balkan lives in Austin, TX and can be found via email at
> [log in to unmask] Jennifer grew up in Short Hills, New Jersey
> and worked her way around the U.S. until finding a permanent home in
> Austin where she lives with her husband Jeff and cat Lotus. She
> received her B.A. in neuroscience from Lehigh University in 1992 and
> later went on to finish a Ph.D. in 2001 in sociology with a focus in
> demography. Jennifer completed her dissertation fieldwork in Chiapas,
> Mexico where she undertook a research project on rural human
> migration. Currently she works in Austin as a demographer during the
> day and paints at night.
> ###
>
>
> Read Labor's Militant Voice issue #9 at:  http://www.laborsmilitantvoice.com
>
> "I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than something I
> don't want and get it"    Eugene Debs
>
> Richard Mellor
> Member: AFSCME Local 444 Oakland CA
>