Moderate Israelis, where are they?

Netanyahu's lust to remain in power has placed the Jewish desire for a secure future in peril. His violation of human rights, robbing the land, building settlements, and gradual ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and isolation of Israel in the community of nations is detrimental to a secure Israel or Israelis around the world. He lives scheming and manipulating the world instead of dropping the guards and living a life. 

Why should Israelis live in apprehension, when will the Israelis sigh a breath of relief?

Thanks to the American Jews, who have always stood up for Justice and harmony, sadly the few who are possessed with hate, want to do to the Palestinians what was done to them. What a shame?

Look at the UN resolutions since he became the PM, 95% of the world is on one side, while a handful of countries give him a hand. Resentment is born out of slapping the 95% of the nations and ignoring the US resolutions. Ninety-five percent of the nations resent the bully tactics of Netanyahu and Trump's support for it; if there is an increase in Anti-Semitism, we should hold these two men squarely responsible for it. Where are the moderate Israelis? Why are they putting their future in peril?

I stand for Israel and Palestine, and their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of their happiness. And, I strongly condemn the ugly politicians for their hate and false propaganda against each other.

Mike Ghouse
Center for Pluralism

Israel keeps Gazans ‘caged in a toxic slum,’ UN human rights chief says

The moderate Jews need to speak up for the sake of Jewish and Palestinian Children, it's time to shelve the hatred for each other and working on living a life.

As an American, I will do everything I can to make my government represent the Americans, which it has not.

Mike

Natasha Turak | @NatashaTurak

CNBC.com

The United Nations' human rights chief issued a scathing critique of Israel's policy toward Gaza on Friday.

Israeli forces on Monday killed 60 Palestinian protesters in Gaza during a demonstration that followed weeks of protests.

Israel and the U.S. have criticized the 47-state Human Rights Council, accusing it of anti-Israeli bias.

FABRICE COFFRINI | AFP | Getty Images

The United Nations' human rights chief issued a scathing critique of Israel's policy toward Gaza on Friday.

"They are, in essence, caged in a toxic slum from birth to death," Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, said of the Palestinians living in Gaza during a special session of the UN's Human Rights Council, convened in the wake of Monday's deadly violence on the Israeli-Gaza border.

"Nobody has been made safer by the horrific events of the past week," Hussein said. "End the occupation, and the violence and insecurity will largely disappear."

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) killed 60 Palestinian protesters in Gaza during a demonstration that followed weeks of protests marking the 1948 establishment of the Israeli state. It also coincided with the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.

Israel defended its actions, saying it had acted in self-defense and blamed the bloodshed on Hamas, the Islamist militant and political group that governs the Gaza Strip.

Israel's UN ambassador Aviva Raz Shechter called Zeid's words "politically motivated," adding that "the loss of life could have been avoided had Hamas refrained from sending terrorists to attack Israel under the cover of the riots, while exploiting its own civilian population as human shields."

'Toxic slum'

With the words "toxic slum," Hussein was likely referring to the living conditions in the blockaded territory of Gaza, where 1.9 million residents live in an enclave of 225 square miles, making it one of the most densely-populated places on earth. Both Israel and Egypt imposed air, land and sea blockades on the territory in 2007 after Hamas won local elections in 2006.

Thirty-nine percent of the population lives below the poverty line, more than half lack access to reliable electricity, and unemployment stands at 42 percent, according to the UN. The World Bank in March said that Gaza's residents have "for years… endured an environmental disaster due to sewage pollution." Ninety-seven percent of Gaza's drinking water is contaminated by sewage.

Hussein described Gazans as "deprived of dignity, dehumanized by the Israeli authorities to such a point it appears officials do not even consider that these men and women have a right, as well as every reason, to protest."

Roberto Schmidt | AFP | Getty Images

A Palestinian woman takes some of her belongings from her partially destroyed home across the street from where a high rise apartment building in Gaza City was targeted by Israeli airstrikes, Aug. 26, 2014.

Although Israeli troops left Gaza in 2005, Israel still retains control of Gaza's airspace and coastline, leading the UN to designate it as an occupying power there.

Israel and the U.S. have criticized the 47-state Human Rights Council, whose members are chosen by the UN General Assembly, claiming it is biased and has a disproportionate number of member countries hostile to Israel.

Decades of turmoil

Monday's violence was met with condemnation from international leaders, who urged the protection of rights to peaceful protest. But Tel Aviv affirmed its position as absolutely necessary to protect its citizens from attacks.

"The Hamas terrorist organization declares it intends to destroy Israel and sends thousands to breach the border fence in order to achieve this goal," Netanyahu had written on Twitter after the events. "We will continue to act with determination to protect our sovereignty and citizens."

Hamas is designated a terrorist group by the U.S., and has killed hundreds of Israelis in attacks since the 1990s.

The White House echoed Netanyahu's defense, emphasizing the right of Israel to defend its border and calling the deaths "unfortunate propaganda" on the part of Hamas. Hamas denied provoking the violence, while a Hamas official told local press that 50 of the demonstrators killed were members of the group.

Mohammed Abed | AFP | Getty Images

Palestinians run for cover from tear gas during clashes with Israeli security forces near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, east of Jabalia on May 14, 2018, as Palestinians protest over the inauguration of the US embassy following its controversial move to Jerusalem.

More than 2,400 people were reported injured Monday in addition to the dead. At least eight children under the age of 16 were killed, according to Palestine's envoy to the UN. The UN subsequently called for an independent probe into the event, which the U.S. so far has blocked.

The UN classifies Israel as an occupier state over the Palestinian territories, whose occupations following the 1967 Six-Day War are still considered in violation of international law. More than 1.5 million Palestinians live in refugee camps across the Middle East today.

Demonstrations have gone on for several weeks to mark the 70th anniversary of the 1948 "Nakba," as many in the Arab world call the time period that saw Israel establish itself as a state. Some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes, and have since not been granted the right to return.

Palestinians, 70 years of suffering

by Eric Margolis

May 26, 2018

To date, 62 Palestinians have been shot dead in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army and over 5,500 wounded by gunfire.  Their crime: protesting the loss of their ancestral homes in the West Bank.

Here was an example of Gandhi-style passive resistance that failed.  Israeli sniper teams just fired at will at the protesters, some of who were throwing rocks or firing sling shots.  High concentration tear gas was dumped by drones on the demonstrators.  Israel claimed it was killing ‘terrorists.’

The United States, Israel’s patron and financier, reveled in the move of its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move seen by Bible Belt religious fundamentalists as a key step to the return of the Christian Messiah and Armageddon.  The rest of us, Jews included, are fated to be burned alive.  The American Republicans, who have become a far-right theocratic party, cheered this good news.  The Trump administration, by now an extension of Israel’s hard right Likud Party, was cock-a-hoop.

There was no joy in Gaza.  This miserable, squalid human garbage dump is a giant open-air prison packed with 2 million Palestinian refugees driven from the newly created state of Israel in 1948.  Israel and its close ally Egypt keep Gaza bottled up on its land and sea borders.  Palestinians are only allowed to fish along the shore. Coastal gas and oil reserves have been expropriated by Israel and Egypt.

Gaza’s two million people subsist on the edge of starvation. Israel openly boasts that it allows just enough food into the enclave to prevent outright starvation.  Chemicals to treat water are banned. Electricity runs only a few hours daily because the power plant was bombed by Israel’s US-supplied air force.  Hospitals have almost no medicines.  In short, wartime conditions in the open-air prison. Even the wretched animals in Gaza zoo are starving.

The intensive punishment of Gaza, a crime under international law, began after its people voted in a free election for the Hamas movement over the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which is more or less run by Israel and the United States.  Israel helped found Hamas in 1987, but then sought, with the US, to destroy the organization, branding it ‘terrorist.’

Israel has extensively used US-supplied arms and money to fight Hamas in Gaza, a clear violation of the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 that bars the use of American weapons against civilian populations.

The question remains, where did all the Palestinians come from?  Israel long claimed there were no such people, or a made-up nationality. This was a pretty rich claim coming from Israelis, many of whom hailed from Russia, Poland and Eastern Europe and who had assumed biblical identities and asserted a direct link to the Hebrews who had lived two thousand years earlier in the Levant.

When Israel was created by the US and UN (with Soviet support) in 1948, from 750,000 to one million native Palestinians were driven from their ancestral home at gunpoint or panicked to flight by massacres and ethnic cleansing.   Their villages were bulldozed.

When Israel conquered and annexed the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967, another 500,000 Palestinians were made refugees.   Some 50,000-250,000 Syrians were driven by Israel from the strategic Golan Heights.  Bedouins were driven from Israel’s Negev Desert.

By our era, the number of homeless Palestinians has grown to 5 million refugees helped by the UN and at least another million scattered about the Mideast.  The actual number could reach as high as 8-9 million thanks to the Palestinian’s high birth rate and strong family values.

Half of Jordan’s people are Palestinian refugees.  Kuwait had 400,000 Palestinians until they were expelled in 2002-03 after their leader, Yasser Arafat, foolishly backed claims by Saddam Hussein that he was occupying Kuwait in order to trade it for a Palestinian state.  This was the biggest Palestinian expulsion since 1948.  Egypt’s brutal dictator, Gen. al-Sisi, is now the biggest persecutor of Palestinians after Israel, keeping them locked away in the Gaza prison.

The Arab states have done very little for the Palestinians save slogans and hot air.  The Saudis are now in cahoots with Israel to repress the Palestinians lest they spread modern secular ideas in the medieval Mideast.  Interestingly, some of the most extreme Palestinians, like George Habash, were Arab Christians.   Palestinians remain some of the best educated and most commercial of the Mideast’s peoples.  For a long while they ran most of the Gulf Emirates until replaced by Indians.

‘Sand in the eye of the Mideast’ is what I called this oppressed people without a home.   Their plight could be greatly eased by the creation of a Palestinian state on the West Bank.  But this would interfere with plans for Israel’s right-wing government for planned expansion.  So, the future for Palestinians is bleak.

Paper on Israel Palestine Conflict

Paper on Israel Palestine Conflict

The following papers were presented to Ambassador Brownback; Securing Safe Zones for Refugees, Religious freedom and prosperity of a nation, State Departments’ visitors’ program, Religious freedom in India and now this one on Israel Palestine conflict.

Thanks to Al-Bilad Daily News for publishing this at http://www.albiladdailyeng.com/paper-israel-palestine-conflict/

I will be talking about this next week, if you have suggestions, please share, a lot has been written about it at http://www.IsraelPalestineDialogue.com

Please visit www.RamadanNews.com – everything you wanted to know about Ramadan is here!

A summary of the issues;

Israel Palestine conflict is not going on for thousands of years, it is new, and began with the Balfour declaration in 1917. The actual flare-up started in 1948 with the creation of Israel. For the Jewish immigrants, mainly the survivors of Holocaust, it was a battle for survival, and for the Palestinians, it was a battle to live in their own homes against forcible evictions.

The leadership of the western nations had the arrogance to believe that their solutions were the best and imposed it on others. They were rooted in disrespect for the culture of other people. Even though they talked about equal rights, deep down they believed they are more privileged than the others.

The Colonist left a mess while departing from their colonies. They did that with India and Pakistan, and they have done it in the Middle East. We cannot blame them after 70 years; we have to blame the current regimes that are aggravating the conflicts and passing the misery on to the next generation.

I support Israel and a homeland for Jews; they have been deprived of the sense of security throughout their history. The Jewish people, in general, want nothing but safety, but their political leadership is doing everything to keep them from having it. It is wrong for the administration of Israel to do unto Palestinians, what was done to them.

Security to Israelis and justice to the Palestinians are interdependent, and one will not happen without the other.

Jews have a need to be understood and be acknowledged for their eternal security needs, not the military, but mental security where they can put their guards down and live their lives in peace.

Palestinians have a need to be understood. They have suffered immeasurably, no human should be stripped of his or her hope and dignity; hope to have a family, work and own a house and call a place their homeland.

As Americans, we need to be above reproach and seek justice for one and all.

The policies of the current Israeli leadership will continue to be a source of insecurities for Israelis in the long haul unless Israel is willing to annihilate the Palestinians, which they have attempted repeatedly.

This week the UN passed the resolutions to void the Jerusalem as Capital of Israel. 128 nations including our allies voted, and only seven countries reluctantly voted against it, since they live off our aid. Over the last 70 years, 95% of the community of nations vote one way, and about 4% of countries vote the other way, and usually, our representative in the United Nations vetoes that vote. It is like slapping on the face of 190 some nations and letting them know that their vote is worthless. It results in resentment towards America, and Israel. That resentment is wrongfully called Anti-Semitism. We must condemn real Anti-Semitism with all our hearts, minds and might, but not the anger.

What can we do?

First, we need to quit blaming the Palestinians for their rockets, and understand that they live in open prisons, they cannot go to a hospital, the children harassed, their homes are forcibly taken and bulldozed, their land is taken, and settlements are built in violation of all civility.

What can they do, the world did not do anything for them for 70 years but blame. The only thing they can do is throw rocks at the oppressors or commit suicide as the proud Jewish people did at Masada. As Americans we need to respect human dignity, whether Palestinians “behave” or not, we have the responsibility to do the right thing. Injustice to one will create ripples and affect all of us one way or the other.

Secondly, we need to demand that parties sit down and come out with a solution, we have that right, and we should tie our $3 billion a year donations to bring peace. If you cannot make peace, you don’t get our support. I hope we value righteousness over politics. The dominant party is always in the position to negotiate peace provided they don’t look down upon the weak. Both the American and Israeli leaders need to shelve the arrogance of superiority over the Palestinians, if we can treat, feel and act as equals, all of us will have peace and security. That is the bottom line.

Finally, we need to hold a conference, and I will be happy to organize one to find solutions. We are competent people, and we can do it. I am a part of Israeli Palestinian Federation and have written extensively on the topic at http://www.IsraelPalestineDialogue.com

Request to NGO’s –
Support this initiative.

Request to the Ambassador/ DOS

Commission a survey to see what Americans want, and represent their interest at the United Nations. The study must also include responses from the Jewish Americans.

I suggest that we ask Netanyahu and Abbas to visit at least a dozen children a week of the other populations, look them in their eyes and promise them, that they can hope for a better future and assure them that they are not their villains.

We need to take a firm stand on one state or two state solutions, if it is one state, we the people who stand for human rights, need to encourage it to be an authentic democracy and not have more privileges to one group over the other.

Mighty empires can crush the weak for a short term; in the long run, everyone goes down the tube. We cannot rob anyone and live with a good conscience.

Finally, what will we answer our Grandchildren for passing the problem to them? I am sure they will ask if we did not dare to do so.

Religious Scriptures are a part of the problem

Part of the issue of the Israel Palestine conflict is based on misinterpreted sacred scriptures, and the other parts of the equation are security and justice.

All of us have reduced God’s wisdom to be bigoted, discriminative, and partial. Is this our God? Jesus is not going to hurry up and come down on the earth until the Israeli politicians kill all the Jews and Muslims. The Son of God is not in the business of terrorizing people. What kind of promise is that where God rewards massacring of the people? What kind of God is that who rejects others and accepts only one religion? These are serious flaws in our understanding of religions for thousands of years; it is time to correct these errors in our understanding of the Just God.

Is this God happy that we have killed 58 people in Gaza in the latest bout of ethnic cleansing, wounded hundreds, and continue to shoot the unarmed?

Take a look at the following misinterpretations of the verses, and let me know if God could have said something like that. May I suggest you to say what is right, rather than pleasing a ‘few’ Pastors, Imams, Rabbis, Pundits or religious men.

A few Jews believe that they are the chosen people. A few Christians believe Jesus’ arrival will wipe out everyone but Christianity. A few Muslims think Islam is the only religion acceptable to God. A few Hindus, Sikhs and others have similar arrogant attitudes that they are the best, scientific or the oldest and wisest. Indeed, none of the religions are wrong; the flaw is in our understanding.

God is not a little guy; God is the creator. Should we reduce his words of wisdom to the narrow, exclusive claims as in above?

Knock off Religion from Israel Palestine Conflict

As we start applying common sense to understand the deeper meaning of these verses, maybe we can knock off the religious aspect from the conflict and focus on the land aspect, which may be more comfortable. No one is more privileged than others, and no one is more than equal.
Religions are always used and abused to suit one’s greed. Indeed, all of us have reduced God’s wisdom to be bigoted, discriminative, and partial. Is this really our God?

As we chose representatives to govern us on our terms, we need to appoint a reformatted God that cares for every human and guide us.

Thanks to America, more and more religions are moving towards their central values, which are a common denominator of beneficence, and thanks to each group for chiseling out the fluff. America will eventually have its own version of Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Shinto, Paganism, Zoroastrianism, Tao, Dao, Wicca, and others. Judaism and Christianity have already established reformed versions, others are working on it. I clearly see that.

Your precise comments will be selected to go into the report.

The author is President of the Center for Pluralism in Washington, DC. He is committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day.

# # #

What do we do at the Center for Pluralism

Pluralism is an attitude of “Respecting the otherness of others” and “accepting the God-given the uniqueness of each one of us.” You are who you are, and I am who I am, neither one of us has to compromise the uniqueness of our faith, race, culture, nationality, and language.

Our purpose is to acknowledge the differences and live with least conflicts. Pluralism News is the weekly publication of the Center for Pluralism. You can access this anytime through www.PluralismNews.com. We will be happy to speak to your congregation, students, friends. We can conduct a workshop in building a cohesive community, workplace or society. Pluralism does not mean compromise or appeasement; it is simply a development of an attitude for living with others with least conflicts. Please email to Mike@CenterforPluralism.com

DONATEAll this work takes time and effort. We are a non-profit organization and your donations are appreciated. Please donate http://centerforpluralism.com/donate/

Thank you,

Mike

Mike Ghouse
Center for Pluralism
Washington, DC
(214) 325-1916- Cell
(202) 290-3560 -Office

Mike@CenterforPluralism.com
www.CenterforPluralism.com
www.PluralismNews.com

Norman Finkelstein on Israel

A powerful video, more an more Jewish people are waking up and see the dangers the Israeli leadership is treading thru - I hope there are enough Jewish people to demand the leaders to bring justice as the core principle of the Israeli government.

Here is the video https://www.facebook.com/inthenow/videos/1025760407574328/

Micahel Pelod on Israel

https://www.facebook.com/TheEmpireFiles/videos/2064392906921980/

Knock off Religion from Israel Palestine conflict

Mike Ghouse

Religions are always used and abused to suit one’s greed.  Part of the problem, not the whole, of the Israel Palestine conflicts is religious scriptures, and the other part is security.  All of us have reduced God’s wisdom to be bigoted, discriminative, and partial. Is this our God?

Take a look at the following interpretations of the verses, and let me know if you find a deeper meaning in it. May I suggest you not to worry about what the Pastors, Imams, Rabbis, Pundits or religious men say, what is that you see?

A few Jews believe that they are the chosen people. A few Christians believe Jesus’ arrival on doomsday will wipe out everyone but Christianity. A few Muslims think Islam is the only religion acceptable to God. A few Hindus, Sikhs and others have similar arrogant attitudes that they are the best, scientific or the oldest and wisest. Indeed, none of them is a wrong religion; the flaw is in our understanding.

As we collectively understand the deeper meaning of these verses, maybe we can knock off the religious aspect from the conflict and focus on the land aspect, which may be easier. No one is more privileged than others and no one is more than equal.

God is not a little guy; God is the creator. Should we reduce his words of wisdom to the narrow, exclusive claims as in above?

As we chose representatives to govern us on our terms, we need to appoint a God that cares for every human being and not bigoted.  The death of 58 Palestinians is despicable, and Netanyahu may get away with this, but the people of Israel will have to endure insecurities for years to come. When the world is on one side, that is 195 countries on one side and 5 on the other, there is bound to be resentment for the five who consistently violate what the community of nations decide.  Let's knock religion out of the equation and focus on the land issue.  

A full blown article and a seminar are in the works. Your precise comments will be selected to go into the report.

Thanks to America, more and more religions are moving towards their central values, which are a common denominator of excellent benefits, and thanks to each group for chiseling out the fluff. America will eventually have its version of Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Shinto, Paganism, Zoroastrianism, Tao, Dao, Wicca, and others.

The author is a president of the Center for Pluralism in Washington, DC and runs a think tank called World Muslim Congress. He is committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day.

A Grotesque Spectacle in Jerusalem

This article reflects my views as well for the most part

Mike Ghouse

Courtesy - NY Times
By Michelle Goldberg

Opinion Columnist

May 14, 2018

On Monday, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and other leading lights of the Trumpist right gathered in Israel to celebrate the relocation of the American Embassy to Jerusalem, a gesture widely seen as a slap in the face to Palestinians who envision East Jerusalem as their future capital.

The event was grotesque. It was a consummation of the cynical alliance between hawkish Jews and Zionist evangelicals who believe that the return of Jews to Israel will usher in the apocalypse and the return of Christ, after which Jews who don’t convert will burn forever.

Religions like “Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism” lead people “to an eternity of separation from God in Hell,” Robert Jeffress, a Dallas megachurch pastor, once said. He was chosen to give the opening prayer at the embassy ceremony. John Hagee, one of America’s most prominent end-times preachers, once said that Hitler was sent by God to drive the Jews to their ancestral homeland. He gave the closing benediction.

This spectacle, geared toward Donald Trump’s Christian American base, coincided with a massacre about 40 miles away. Since March 30, there have been mass protests at the fence separating Gaza and Israel. Gazans, facing an escalating humanitarian crisis due in large part to an Israeli blockade, are demanding the right to return to homes in Israel that their families were forced from at Israel’s founding. The demonstrators have been mostly but not entirely peaceful; Gazans have thrown rocks at Israeli soldiers and tried to fly flaming kites into Israel. The Israeli military has responded with live gunfire as well as rubber bullets and tear gas. In clashes on Monday, at least 58 Palestinians were killed and thousands wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The juxtaposition of images of dead and wounded Palestinians and Ivanka Trump smiling in Jerusalem like a Zionist Marie Antoinette tell us a lot about America’s relationship to Israel right now. It has never been closer, but within that closeness there are seeds of potential estrangement.

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Defenders of Israel’s actions in Gaza will argue no country would allow a mob to charge its border. They will say that even if Hamas didn’t call the protests, it has thrown its support behind them. “The responsibility for these tragic deaths rests squarely with Hamas,” a White House spokesman, Raj Shah, said on Monday.

But even if you completely dismiss the Palestinian right of return — which I find harder to do now that Israel’s leadership has all but abandoned the possibility of a Palestinian state — it hardly excuses the Israeli military’s disproportionate violence. “What we’re seeing is that Israel has used, yet again, excessive and lethal force against protesters who do not pose an imminent threat,” Magdalena Mughrabi, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, told me by phone from Jerusalem.

Much of the world condemned the killings in Gaza. Yet the United States, Israel’s most important patron, has given it a free hand to do with the Palestinians what it will. Indeed, by moving the embassy to Jerusalem in the first place, Trump sent the implicit message that the American government has given up any pretense of neutrality.

Reports of Israel’s gratitude to Trump abound. A square near the embassy is being renamed in his honor. Beitar Jerusalem, a soccer team whose fans are notorious for their racism, is now calling itself Beitar “Trump” Jerusalem. But if Israelis love Trump, many Americans — and certainly most American Jews — do not. The more Trumpism and Israel are intertwined, the more left-leaning Americans will grow alienated from Zionism.

Even before Trump, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu helped open a partisan divide on Israel in American politics, where previously there had been stultifying unanimity. “Until these past few years, you’d never heard the word ‘occupation’ or ‘settlements’ or talk about Gaza,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal pro-Israel group J Street, said of American politicians. But Ben-Ami told me that since 2015, when Netanyahu tried to undercut President Barack Obama with a controversial address to Congress opposing the Iran deal, Democrats have felt more emboldened. “That changed the calculus forever,” he told me.

The events of Monday may have changed it further, and things could get worse still. Tuesday is Nakba Day, when Palestinians commemorate their dispossession, and the protests at the fence are expected to be even larger. “People don’t feel like they can stay at home after loved ones and neighbors have been killed for peacefully protesting for their rights,” Abdulrahman Abunahel, a Gaza-based activist with the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, told me via email.

Trump has empowered what’s worst in Israel, and as long as he is president, it may be that Israel can kill Palestinians, demolish their homesand appropriate their land with impunity. But some day, Trump will be gone. With hope for a two-state solution nearly dead, current trends suggest that a Jewish minority will come to rule over a largely disenfranchised Muslim majority in all the land under Israel’s control. A rising generation of Americans may see an apartheid state with a Trump Square in its capital and wonder why it’s supposed to be our friend.

The Times needs your voice. We welcome your on-topic commentary, criticism and expertise.

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Massacre in Gaza highlights Zionism's double standards

If Israeli children and their children live in insecurities, and the Palestinians live without hope in an apartheid state, they should blame all of us; the Israelis and Americans for not doing anything and blaming one or the other, usually the Palestinians. Blaming anyone does not solve the problems your grandchildren face Mr. Netanyahu, you may be sadistic and draw pleasure out of oppressing, bombing and showing Palestinians their place. Down in the history, you will be considered a villain not only by the Palestinians, but the future generation of Israelis, and indeed the people of the world.

Mike Ghouse

As Trump celebrates his embassy in Jerusalem, a massacre in Gaza highlights Zionism's  double standards

A moral and principled position would require us to apply to Israel at least the same standards that we apply to the Palestinians.

Courtesy NBC NEWS
May 14, 2018

While Palestinians are being massacred — over 50 killed and 2,700 wounded as demonstrators are being met with live fire — Israel and America celebrate the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. That juxtaposition is revolting, but it is also revealing. The double standards of occupation and dispossession have never been clearer.

Since March 30th, which marked Land Day — a day mourning the deaths of Israeli-Palestinians killed while protesting in 1976 — Gazans have repeatedly massed at their border with Israel, demanding the right to return to lands they were expelled from during the formation of Israel. They have been met with tear gas and live fire.

While some of these Palestinians intended harm, they have been remarkably few and far between, a minuscule percentage of the tens of thousands of unarmed protesters. That is part of a historic pattern: Israel claims it only uses force when absolutely necessary. The evidence suggests otherwise. A hugely disproportionate number of Palestinians die, while few if any Israelis ever do (in this case: zero). Still Israel claims it is defending itself.

It is a curious line of defense, one which reveals the very (troubled, and troubling) logic of Zionism itself.

Zionism, broadly speaking, is the belief that the Jewish people deserve the right to self-determination, to define themselves collectively as so many other peoples do.

Zionism, broadly speaking, is the belief that the Jewish people deserve the right to self-determination, to define themselves collectively as so many other peoples do. This, and the undeniable historic tie of Jews, and Judaism, to what is now Israel and the West Bank, is used to buttress the legitimacy of Israel.

Now, these are important points. Why shouldn’t the Jews have the right to self-determination? And there are plenty of anti-Israel voices who do deny the historical connection of Jews, and Judaism, to what is now Israel and Palestine. Such voices are frequently anti-Semitic and, flatly, wrong. But the problem isn’t self-determination.

It's not historical connection, either.

It’s that the Palestinians are indigenous. They were already there. Foreign settlers, whether they arrived before 1948 or after 1967, sought to enter that land — in order to transform that land into their own.

Thus, if Israel is justified in using live fire against Palestinian civilians trying to re-enter territory they were literally expelled from by that state, then shouldn't Palestinians have an equal right to indiscriminately use violence against Israeli settlers? Settlers, after all, aren’t just trying to encroach on the meager rump state that is now purportedly on offer to the Palestinians, but are creating facts on the ground — cities, roads and checkpoints — that make a contiguous Palestinian state impossible.

Of course, that idea strikes us as outrageous, and rightly so. So why the double standard?

This conflict does not have a military solution, and a moral and principled position would require us to apply to Israel at least the same standards that we apply to the Palestinians. Such an approach itself is an injustice (if even unavoidable): This is not a conflict between two equal and competing narratives. The Palestinians were already there.

Sadly at this point, even to be evenhanded approach would be progress. We see the incredibly insensitive spectacle of America's elected leaders feting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the president of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tweeting a selfie while dozens of miles away, a slaughter of the defenseless unfolds.

Quite a victory it is.

Relations between American and Israeli Jews are already in decline; the spectacle of anti-Semitic religious fundamentalists sharing the stage with a right-wing Israeli prime minister deeply hostile to the lived religious experience of most American Jews is certainly not going to help. Organizations like the ADL, with its already checkered record among Arab and Muslim Americans, might not want to ask after today why movements such as Black Lives Matter have successfully turned away.

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h in as Palestinians clash with Israeli soldiers at the border fence with Israel as mass demonstrations at the fence continue in Gaza City, Gaza on May 14, 2018.Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Americans have every right to reject this alliance, and propose in its stead a foreign policy that serves our interests, as well as our values. That means ceasing to hypocritically advocate in the Middle East what we would never tolerate at home for ourselves.

The only future for Israelis and Palestinians that offers both security and dignity is a single state which shares some higher functions, and delegates others to its constituent peoples. Some might say this is a fantasy. Others might argue it undermines Zionism itself. My response is simple: Actions have consequences, and rectifying the wrongs inherent in building a nation on someone else’s land requires, at the very least, sharing that land in pursuit of a reasonable peace.

And that is not delusional: While the lived experience of Native Americans and African Americans in the United States remains very troubling, we have made substantial progress in transforming the narrative of our nation to recognize the wrongs of history and policy. Israel’s leaders and supporters never tire of telling us how the country represents values shared by Americans. Well, our foundation values are equality and democracy.

Israel is welcome to try them.

Haroon Moghul is a commentator and author of three books. His most recent is a memoir, "How to be a Muslim: An American Story."