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Don't Confuse the Struggle of African Americans with the Struggle of the Palestinians
(Ha'aretz) Nave Dromi - Despite the temptation to draw a comparison, the struggle of black people in the U.S. has nothing in common with the struggle of the Palestinians. The struggle being waged by blacks in the U.S. is a racial one, while the Palestinian struggle against Jews is nationalist in character. The Palestinians refused the UN partition plan in 1947. They refused then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak's peace proposal in 2000. They refused to turn the Gush Katif settlement bloc, which was evacuated for their benefit in Israel's 2005 disengagement from Gaza, into a heaven on earth, choosing instead to create terrorist strongholds there. They chose Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Some chose, and still choose, terrorism. In contrast to blacks in the U.S. who seek to live in peace with their American compatriots, the Palestinians don't want genuine peace. It's true that we and the Palestinians do not belong to the same nation, share the same language, or were raised with the same values, but that doesn't mean we cannot live in peace. But for that to happen, the Palestinians will have to recognize Israel's Jewish character and its link to Zionism. In fact, such Palestinians already exist: Israeli Arabs, who enjoy full equality in terms of civil rights. The Israeli national anthem is addressed to the yearning Jewish soul and it will remain that way. Nevertheless, Arab citizens are not asked to sing it, the way that American Jews sing the U.S. national anthem and French Jews sing the French national anthem. They need only to recognize that it is the national anthem of the country of which they are a part. If not for the extremist worldview adopted by many Palestinians and their supporters, which seeks to change Israel's Jewish-Zionist character, perhaps they would have their own state already.