Omri Casspi’s Thoughts on the Israel-Palestine Conflict

You make a great point. Sorry to be stickler, but the numbers are much higher than that. Also, it’s NOT sad for everyone–i.e. both the Israelis and the Palestinians. It’s sad for the Palestinians. In 2009 alone, the IDF killed 300 Palestinian children during Operation Cast Lead.
When the United States massacres people in Afghanistan and Somalia, it’s not sad for everyone–it’s sad for Afghanistan and Somalia. When Rwanda (backed by the US) attacks the Congo, it’s not sad for everyone–it’s sad for Congo. It’s media propaganda that makes us try and find an equivalence to Israeli aggression on the Arab/Palestinian side. There is none, other than resistance, which is *always* legitimate against foreign occupation. And even then, the death tolls are heavily disproportionate.
Heck, the Germans, when they occupied France, considered the French resistance terrorists too. Today we consider those “terrorists” to be heroes. Every occupier calls the native a terrorist when the native gets “uppity” and puts up a fight.
(notice how most conflicts and invasions today are started either directly or indirectly due to US intervention–hmm…)

Israel has as much a right to exist as the white apartheid state of
South Africa or Ian Smith’s racist minority government of so-called
“Rhodesia” (now Zimbabwe). You can’t objectively, or in good conscience, argue the existence of a state that literally depends on racism for its survival. I read a survey that said 58% of Israeli Jews would describe Israel as an “apartheid state.” 74% support or think it’s at least necessary, even if they don’t like it, to have segregated roads. 69% think that, were the Palestinian territories to be annexed outright, the Palestinians should be denied the right to vote. There’s not much of a debate about this, even in Israel.

The only way you can justify this is if you value the lives of white Europeans more than you value the lives of brown-skinned Arabs. Which would make you a racist. Because that’s basically what the argument boils down to.

The reason I say the Brits were the
“original” invaders is because we’re no longer living in the time of the
Romans, or the Ottomans. We’re living in the era of Anglo-European
imperialism, headed predominantly by the USA and Britain, with Israel
being their watchdog in the Middle East. We can talk all day about how
bad we feel for the original Israelites (who looked nothing like today’s
white European settler Israelis, by the way) when the Romans
invaded–and that would be an interesting conversation, but it’d have
zero bearing on today’s events. I’m interested in what affects us now.
White supremacy affects us now and it affects the Palestinians now.

The US and Britain are empires on
a scale larger than anything seen in history; Israel is but a branch of
their empire. Whitewashing their crimes by saying “EVERYONE conquered
and was conquered in the past!” is just not true.

I
can see the only thing that concerns Zionist supporters is what would happen to the foreign
white occupiers if the racist state were disbanded, and not the brown folks being killed right now.
Well, I can’t say I share those same priorities, but if it’s any
consolation, there are still white people in Zimbabwe and in
South Africa. The difference being that black people aren’t today being
forced onto reserves and being put under siege by them.

“Yes,
just like there never was a Jewish state in Palestine before 1948 there
never was an Arabic Palestinian state either – in fact the Palestinian
Arabs supported the British in 1916 because they needed to get rid of
the Ottoman rule before they could hope to realize their own
nationalistic dream.”

I disagree. The Palestinian
Arabs may have been ruled by the Ottomans, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. They lived ON that land for hundreds of years and had their own unique, Arab,
Palestinian identity. There’s a world of
difference between that and the white European Jews who had zero ties to that land. The Kurds, for example, don’t have equal claim to Chechnya even though they don’t technically have their own state.

Look, I’m not in opposition to a Jewish state at all. In fact, I wish there really had been a legitimate Jewish state created after WWII–I would support that wholeheartedly. I’m in opposition to the RACIST state that was created the British with the intent to lay siege to the Arab world–a state that only exists due to the ethnic cleansing of close to a million people.

I see a world of difference between Haj
Amin al-Husseini and the early Zionist leaders. His Pan-Arabism was a
reaction to British colonialism and he was against colonial settlement.
Zionism is a byproduct of British colonialism and IS colonial
settlement. Yes, the Brits played the Arabs the same way they played the
Native Americans into supporting them temporarily–that doesn’t mean they were willing to be colonized.

And while the Nazis were undeniably evil, at that
time, if you would have asked the majority of the world (i.e. the Global
South) to compare Germany and Britain, I guarantee you most people would have
preferred Germany. I mean, 1 billion deaths alone can be attributed to
Britain’s colonization of India. The Nazis were bad news for Europe and
I’m glad those evil fascists were defeated, but to the rest of the world,
they were NOT the threat that these other European countries posed. It’s not a pretty truth that many people in the West want to hear, but it’s a truth nonetheless. *Not to diminish the crimes of the Nazis and the German expansionism in any way.

I no longer read or purchase the paper copy of Slam as the writing standard has decreased consistently throughout the years. I loved Slam when I was growing up. You guys wrote great articles and you kept me as a reader into my early 20s and I was dissapointed as the standard of your magazine declined steadily through my 20s. You can count me out as visitor to your website now. This is the straw that breaks the camel back. If you’re going to publish highly politicised pieces like this you need to contextualise them appropriately. Mr. Casspi, although entitled to his opinion, is highly, highly biased. This is not a simple or straight forward issue and to lead your young, impressionable readership into thinking it is, is irresponsible to say the least.

*votes your comment up*

neaorin although your comments have not been popular…you held it down.

I know this is hard for you religious nutcases to believe, but the world doesn’t operate based on what’s in your fairytale book. It’s holy to you, but it means nothing when it comes to these issues. If that was an attempt at humor then you failed.

i’m surprised that casspi touched that question. his pr folks must not be too happy. in any case, i try to avoid these debates as most people can’t make the distinction betweem zionism and judaism.

alsom throughout times, people from all over the world have converted to judaism and they are not all linked to the middle east. the ashkenazi and sephardi and falashas do not share any “ethnic” links. to me, talking about a jewish ethnic group is as ridiculous as talking about an islamic ethnic group including south-east asians, northern africans, sub-saharian africans, and people from the middle east.

i also have a profound issue with any non-secular state, regardless of religion.

It doesn’t blatantly ignore anything. Europeans have no business building up nations in that region. The history you speak of involves people ethnically native to that land, whether they are Jews, Muslims, or Christians. Since Crusades, the most massive incidents of killing over a prolonged period of time have been because of an occupying European presence. These Israelis are simply today’s example. That’s what you are missing. European Jews are entitleted to NOTHING in that region. The only tie they have to it is religious. Religion is NEVER a justification for mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing the Israelis are perpetrating right now. Europeans belong in Europe unless they are willing to accept the fact that they neither will be nor should be the dominating and ruling group in the lands to which they’ve journeyed. That’s really the bottom line to this topic. Like South Africa and Zimbabwe, the Europeans in that region will know no peace until they begin to do what is right, starting with the cessation of the ethnic cleansing of Arabs from those lands.

You are right that a lot of real issues in the world hinge on religious beliefs, but that doesn’t make those beliefs true, nor does that make them a good basis for trying to solve political problems.

Here are three reasons why appealing to religion is the worst way to address this crisis.

1) Your religion is not my religion. Why should anyone who is not a believer CARE what is in this or that scripture from this or this religious tradition? These things only matter to their adherents, mean nothing to their antagonists and therefore have ZERO value in solving conflicts like this. (“I’ll see your Torah quote and raise you one Hadith”, ad infinitum). This is a waste of everyone’s time.

2) Your religion is full of baloney. Need I remind you that the bible also “indicates” that people can live to be hundreds of years old, get pregnant without having sex, perform magic tricks, come back from the dead, ride around inside whales, etc, etc. You, meanwhile, most likely find my religion to be full of baloney. What’s that? You don’t judge other religions that way? Well how about I tell you I am a Scientologist. Now tell me my beliefs aren’t kooky. With a straight face

3) This is not a religious problem. Contrary to a lot of superficial news reports, late night comedy show routines, etc this is not millenia-old conflict between implacable foes who are doomed to be on opposite sides of ancient religious divides. It is a roughly 65 year old political problem (maybe twice that if you look at the history of Zionism as a movment) arising from political self-determination for one oppressed group that was the target of an anti-Semitic European genocide; colonial settlement and ethnic cleansing of someone else’s land who had nothing to do with that genocide; and all the complications that have flowed from that reality.

Actual religious belief barely enters the picture. Don’t forget that many of the ethnically cleansed Palestinians are actually Arab Christians (Edward Said was a prominent example).

Man, I was worried about the reactions of this article when I read the headline. But Its good to see that there are some guys here who have a good head on their shoulders here and understand things at an intellectual level, and have common sense. Im proud of y’all slamily

@ pposse: Lots of people converted to Judaism all around the world. It doesn’t mean they originated in Palestine. We have to separate ethnicity from religion. The Palestinians are the original indigenous inhabitants of that land; the Europeans are foreigners. European Jews have no right to create a nation on somebody else’s land–it doesn’t mean they can’t go there as guests, or immigrate there provided they respect the customs and rules of the Arabs.
Take Islam, for example. The country with the largest population of Muslims is Indonesia, nowhere near the Middle East. They do go on religious pilgrimages to Mecca, etc. etc. and they do share a spiritual connection to that land, but when they go there, they go there as guests. They don’t have a right to drive out the indigenous Arabs who already live there and set up their own South Asian state.
I know you’re well meaning and I respect you asking though, and your willingness to understand the situation. Hope that makes sense.

Lorne, everything you’ve said is 100% on point. Good stuff. Peace and love.

Sigh. No, it’s not true that “European Jews” have zero ties to Palestine. Aside for themselves tracing their initial origins to Canaan (debatable), all Jews (non-Europeans included) have a religious connection to that land. And no, that doesn’t give them the right to proceed with ethnic cleansing (where did I argue that?), it DOES explain why that land has been the target of immigration by Jews living elsewhere (not just Europe), even before the Zionist movement started in earnest.

That’s what I’m saying, that besides Muslims (and Christians), there was also a continuous Jewish (by religion) presence in Palestine. This included Jewish people who never left, and immigrants from other areas. This has increased throughout Ottoman times and then the British rule, aided by the development of Zionism and the increase of persecutions elsewhere, mainly in Europe. Now, you guys argue that white people should stay the eff in Europe, because they’re… European and white? Weren’t they allowed to seek a better life elsewhere? They weren’t allowed to settle in Palestine? (Tel Aviv and others were founded on purchased land,for example). Because they happened to be white? I’d scale down on calling other people racist if I were to argue that.

Now, once the British rule ended and for the first time in history, there was a discussion of one or more NATIONAL states be established in the area we know as Palestine… the Jews (by religion) already made up one third of the population. Given that they knew what to expect as a minority population in any national state, and that the Arab revolts showed them how much the Muslim Arabs wanted to do with them, why not have two states? They did make up one third of the population. By the way, are they still “European” Jews now? Are their children, born and raised there, European at all?

One may argue that the UN partition was unfair, and that the Jewish state should have been smaller, or with different borders. Okay, but the Palestinian Arabs (sorely devoid of leadership) never made another two-state proposal and instead turned to their non-Palestinian Arab neighbors to help them “deal” with the Jews. They apparently claimed the entire area of Palestine for an Arab state; I say “apparently” because a state of Palestine was never proclaimed then, with whatever territorial claims. Take the government of southern Cyprus as an example, which claims the entire territory of Cyprus as its own, and today issues passports to Turkish Cypriots living in the north, even though they don’t fall under ROC administration. Because that’s what a people laying claim to a territory do.

And since the PA has been seriously trying to get the UN to accept Palestine as a state based on 1967 borders, I disagree that the Palestinians won’t accept the two-state solution. Looks to me like they are actively trying to.

Lastly, to everyone claiming that the conflict is racial and not religious driven. Religion is the main culprit for the prolonged conflict. It’s religion which drives Israeli settlers to continue living in settlements (illegal – all of them) in the West Bank; they believe that the entire place was awarded to them by God. This, incidentally, is the major difference between Jews and Afrikaner: the former have a religious motive for claiming the whole land (well those who feel that way anyway, because a lot of Israelis don’t), while the latter had a racist one (black and coloured people were supposedly “inferior”).

And it’s religion which drives the Palestinian extremists to never stop fighting until ALL of Palestine is devoid of Jews. The Hamas charter clearly defines the movement’s character as Muslim and their program as Islam. They want an Islamic state, not just a Palestinian one. This has nothing to do with anything but religion. This is in direct contrast with Fatah, who also don’t recognize Israel (formally) but at the same time recognize the right of jewish people to live in Palestine.

Hence, both sides have blood on their hands.

“Many Arabs are Jews.”

And are they persecuted by the Israeli government for having the “wrong” skin color?