By Jeffrey Weiser , , Redmond
I don’t have a problem with Prof. Finkelstein criticizing Israel’s policies regarding the occupied territories, the Security Wall, or the settlements lecture (“A question of motives, not of legitimacy,” May 16). These are legitimate topics of discussion and reasonable men can differ as to the wisdom or folly of these policies. But when he makes the accusation that Israel’s founding fathers engaged in anti-Arab “ethnic cleansing” during the 1948 War of Independence, he puts himself beyond the pale of reasonable men. This is as vile and nasty a lie as I have ever heard from the lumpen intellectuals that make up the let’s-hate-our-own-country wing of the Israeli Nihilist Left.
How do I know it’s a lie? The obvious facts are these. Before the 1948 War of Independence, Jews and Arabs lived all over the territory of British Mandate Palestine and in many areas side-by-side. When the 1948 War of Independence was over and the dust had cleared, in the areas that the Jews controlled, hundreds of thousands of Arabs still lived — a good 1/3 of the total population. In the areas that the Arabs controlled, mainly East Jerusalem and the so-called West Bank, there wasn’t a single Jew left alive. In fact, the Arabs even destroyed the Jewish cemeteries so you can even say that there wasn’t a single Jew left alive in these areas or even dead! So who were the real ethnic cleansers in 1948, Prof. Finkelstein? Who?
And what about the large and ancient Jewish communities of Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen? Where are they now, Prof. Finkelstein, where are they now? Gone with the wind. Ethnic cleansing, anyone?
For 60 years, Israel has had to earn its survival every day. It is surrounded by large and well-equipped Arab armies just waiting for it to show weakness in order to attack. And when that attack comes, if due to years of vicious internal and external anti-Israel propaganda the morale of the I.D.F. is weak and that of the average Israeli citizen even weaker, the Arabs will gain the ultimate victory they have fruitlessly sought for 60 years and millions of Jews will again be put to the sword. And then you will see, Prof. Finkelstein, then you will see what ethnic cleansing really means.