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Israel's Critics Want to Cancel a Whole Country

(Newsweek) Dan Perry - The obsession of the West with identity politics seems to stem from understandable shame at the fact that much of the West was built on white colonization. Israel has attracted ire because many of its critics think it's a colonization project that can still be stopped - a whole country that can be cancelled. That is the meaning of the slogan "from the river to the sea" - the elimination of Israel and the expulsion of its Jews. There are plenty of arguments about why this is wrong. History has been one long power play. Pretty much every modern country is the product of conquest and injustice. Not knowing this is infantile; picking on Israel only is unfair. Moreover, Israel was created by a large Jewish migration to an ancestral homeland in which Jews had lived throughout. The same cannot be said of the Anglo arrival in Australia and New Zealand, the Iberian invasion of Central and South America, or the 7th century Arabian invasion of the Levant - which includes the Holy Land. Those now advising Israelis to "just go back to their home countries" should recall that the vast majority of Israel's 7 million Jews were born there. The countries from which their ancestors came to Israel in some cases include Arab ones that remain inhospitable to Jews. In many cases these ancestors were kicked out of those countries and their property stolen. The writer is a former Middle East, Europe, and Africa editor for the Associated Press.
2023-12-10 00:00:00
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