Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant/ Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants/ C.i.f. London:  documents at sight,/ Asked me in demotic French/ To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel/ Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

Let me dissent from this view. The Palestinian Arabs still didn't think there should be any Jewish state in 1948. They rejected the plan and they ended with a much larger Jewish state than partition envisaged. But they didn't use is as justification for "eradicating Palestinians from their homes." You may think the Arabs in Palestine and the bordering states were justified in starting the war. But they did start the war.

The UN partition plan granted one third of the population that owned a smaller proportion of the land over half of the territory and arguably a more agriculturally valuable part.  A compromise is something both sides actually agree on.  The UN partition plan was, if a compromise at all, a compromise between some Westerners and other Westerners.  Kind of like the "compromise" that Belgium gets the Congo and England gets Nigeria.

I can't think of any group of people in history that has accepted a "compromise" made by others of that sort.

Richard Cohen's argument, which I think is valid and even obvious, is that the Palestinians of 1948 and continuing have an actual legitimate reason to oppose the arrangement imposed by the UN and they can be expected to continue to oppose that arrangement indefinitely.

The US can continue to prop up "moderate" dictatorships around Israel, that while moderate by US standards are way outside of the mainstreams of their own societies.  And the US can continue to attempt to overthrow "extreme" dictatorships and democracies such as Hussein and Hamas even though these "extreme" governments represent normal views towards Israel in their societies. But that gets very expensive and a lot of people die whenever the US slips at the wheel, including some Israelis.

Cohen's point, which very few Americans get, is that the anti-Israel position is not only the normal and more popular position - but it is actually justifiable and not necessarily driven by rage or hatred.

South Africa and Zimbabwe, for all the indignity of European derived folks living in non-European majority states, have been far safer over the last 15 years for White South Africans than Israel has been for Jews.  And that is without even considering how much better life is for the non-Europeans.

For those who do not want a one state solution, the key is the refugees.  Hold a conference, come up with a number that they will vote for, if its 200,000 per head then come up with that amount.  The problem is that it is not clear that they will accept this "blood money" and it is not clear that there are countries that will take them in.

If for any reason it is impossible to come up with an offer that the refugees will willingly accept, then the most reasonable solution is what Iran calls for - a referendum that would end Israel's Jewish identity but that would safeguard the lives and property of Jews as individuals.

If neither a resolution of the refugee issue acceptable to the refugees or a one state solution is possible then somebody, meaning the US, is committed to spending a lot of blood and treasure propping up and protecting unpopular governments throughout the Middle East indefinitely.

Now we're geting to the heart of the matter: the question of Zionism itself. It's taken long enough. Pretty soon we'll be able to discuss the "Right" of "Return," (specifically of 3 million Russians since 1990.)

Again, as with Baer and Rosenberg, the readership has taken the lead.

Thousands of innocent Lebanese have been forced from their homes by the bombings, especially in the South, and have headed up to Beirut (which the Israelis are also indiscriminately bombing). Some 100,000[!] Lebanese have fled to Syria, though Israeli bombing of roads and bridges has not made it easy for them to get out. Although, because of widespread Western racism, very few over here care about these displaced persons, they face a desperate situation. Roads have been bombed out, and bridges are gone. Lebanese television reported on numerous villages bombed. Rescue teams attempting to take an injured woman to a better hospital with more supplies were blocked when they found the bridge destroyed. ...The European Powers all ceded the Levant to the US-Israeli sphere of influence a long time ago. They will not get out ahead of the US. They mostly deeply dislike the Apartheid policies of Israel in the Occupied Territories, but they also deeply dislike and fear Hamas and Hizbullah, having their own large Muslim populations that they don't want radicalized.

So, basically, the Palestinians and the Lebanese are screwed. The Lebanese might not have been in such a vulnerable situation if they had not kicked out the Syrians, though the Syrians were there in 1982 the last time Israel invaded.

That is why there is terrorism in the Middle East. The Israeli occupation of the Occupied Territories has been barbaric and intolerable. It produced Hamas. The Israeli occupation of South Lebanon was barbaric and intolerable. It produced Hizbullah. A wise Great Power can walk back such bad situations, as the US did in Europe and Japan after World War II. Unwise Powers get stuck with the Tar Baby.

But terrorism is a weapon of the weak and should not be over-estimated as a deterrent for Great Powers. Mostly they see it as a cost of doing business, and even where the Powers suffer from it, it has the advantage of rallying home populations behind militaristic policies.

I'm not sure I understand your point here Matt. While to much of the world the partition plan might have looked like a "compromise", surely most Arabs in the region could not have viewed it as such - and you don't have to be "intransigent" or a "rejectionist" to see their point.

To those on the ground the plan looked like an outrageous land grab - one that was now not just sponsored by colonialist Western powers, but was being stuffed down their throats by the whole "international community", such as it existed. It delivered to the Jewish settlers all sorts of land which they didn't even inhabit, much less own. (I believe those settlers were in possession of 6%-7% of the land of Palestine at the time, but Israel was to be given 55% of Palestine by the partition.)

We could say that the Arabs should have responded, "well, the UN is now behind this giant ripoff, so I guess we'll just have to read the writing on the wall and accept it." And perhaps they should have had the foresight to recognize that if they didn't go along with this forced giveaway, they would have even more territory seized from them and annexed by an Israeli war for independence. But this sort of collective resignation and cold acceptance of an unjust disposition is probably an ideal that is too high for most of humanity.

How many people could accept such a "compromise"? If you have already taken 7% of what I think is mine, and we are struggling over that, how is it a compromise to hand over 50% of what I have left?

I don't think you have really addressed the substance of the issue of whether or not the establishment of Israel was a mistake. It is not enough simply to note the intelligibility of the motives of those who wanted to establish it. Obviously the Jews who flocked to Palestine, both before the war and after, had abundantly good reason for wanting to go there. Their desire for a state that could serve as a future refuge for Jews is completely understandable. And given the religious attitudes and historical self-conception of the Jewish settlers, their desire that the new state exist in what was roughly Palestine is also eminently intelligible.

But the question is, taking those motivations into account, was the establishment of Israel a smart decision for the world as a whole. Surely the history of Israel in the decades leading up to its founding, and in the years since - a history which includes an expanding circle of violence and zealous hostility around that tiny corner of the Near East, hostility that periodically threatens the security of people well outside the region in question - lends a prima facie plausibility to the claim that it was a mistake.

How about the role of the United States here? Most of those Jewish refugees, exiles and emmigrants could have come to the United States and settled here as US citizens. Or perhaps a state could even have been established here. There are regions of the United States which could have provided land for a Jewish state - even more than Israel actually possesses - and establishing a state on those lands would in the end have displaced far fewer people than have been displaced by the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine. The fact that this proposal seems just laughable to many is evidence of the continued hold on us of the bigoted sense that all of that land occupied by the whiter peoples of the world in the first half of the 20th century was "already taken", but the status of the land where all the brown people lived was still "up for grabs" or "yet to be determined".

Some would argue, "A Jewish state in North America? Well that's just ridiculous! Delivering some portion of the United States to the Zionist movement would have been politically unachievable. It just wasn't doable. No US government could have proposed it, or carried out the proposal."

But has the history of Palestine and Israel over the past century suggested that establishing a Jewish state in Palestine was any more realistic?

Zimbabwe? Are you kidding? The violent confiscation of white farms was the beginning of the current famine. This constitutes being "safer" for "European folks"?

As for "refugees" - the Palestinian leadership ordered their own people to leave back when they were preparing for war against Israel in the late '40s. Yes, Israel accepted this as a gift; but it wasn't of Israeli creation. Since most of the Palestinian "refugees" are of more recent birth, you are arguing that the children of those who have left a land voluntarily (or at the order of their own leaders) inherit a "right" to move back to that land? That's like saying that my parents sold a house (and the Israelis did purchase much of the land the Palestinians were largely squatting on from its legal owners), but because my parents lived there, I have a right to come back and take up residence, even after the subsequent owners have vastly improved it (and the standard of living among Palestinians who remained in Israel is higher than that of Arabs in surrounding countries).

There is a profoundly racist reaction to Muslim terrorism that would not apply if the terrorists were white of Western European origin. The latter
we'd take entirely seriously as to their threat, and the need to take any and all measures to destroy them, if they were conducting bombings on the same level as the Muslim terrorists currently are world-wide. But too many of us on the left racistly believe that brown people, by virtue of some genetic incapacity, can never be a threat deserving of a full response - want to treat them as just children playing a rough game, rather than adults gone far over the line beyond which we'd judge of our own kind that they need to be killed if they can't be disarmed or jailed.

I don't have statistics, do you?

I doubt that over a thousand whites have been killed by non-Whites in Zimbabwe over the past 15 years.

I offered Zimbabwe as a worst case.  As far as I know, it is still better than Israel. 

The "mistake" debate has been rendered moot by history.

Rightly or wrongly, Israel is here to stay. The only remaining issue is how to achieve a durable peace.

Any country that wants to eradicate any of the countries involved has no standing to participate in a satisfactory solution, and should be subject to the civilized world's opprobrium or worse.

Palestinian civilians -- as with civilians enywhere else -- are entitled to continue living on their own land in their own homes regardless, and Israel was not legally or morally justified in ethnically eradicating them pursuant to "Plan D" regardless.

Please, Dan K, go to the Holocaust Museum in Washington and see for yourself how readily Jewish refugees from Nazi genocide could come to the U.S. between 1933 and 1965. Or go rent Ship of Fools which depicts the fruitless efforts of about a thousand of them to find refuge in Cuba or the U.S. or any safe place in 1938. People like you make Hitler smile wherever he is.

Some "moderate dictatorship" Israel--let's see, schmuck, between 2001 and 2006 Israel has ahd two elections that had none of the shennanigans the GOP used to manipulate the results in our last two elections. And, just in the past week there have been anti-government demonstrations in Israel by Israeli Jews who want a cease fire. Some "dictatorship"

I definitely agree that some sort of reparation system needs to be put in place.

It's worth pointing out that most historians do not accept that the Palestinians left because they were ordered to. Most historians (Morris, Tessler, etc.) agree that most Palestinians left as refugees fleeing to safety to avoid the fighting. At the time of partition, the land of Israel was 90% owned by Arabs. Most of that land was not purchased, although prior to partition, Jews did acquire most, if not all, of the land they owned by purchase. I suggest you read a decent history of the conflict. Tessler's A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is pretty balanced and a good starting point.

umm, you missed the point - the writer was talking about "moderate" dictatorships AROUND Israel - ie, not Israel. Try to read a little more carefully next time before getting all hot and bothered.

I agree with the previous two commentators that the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine is a fait accompli, and that constructive approaches to peace in the region must accept this fact as one of the starting points.

However, I don't believe the history is "moot", or that it is pointless or counterproductive to discuss the history of the formation of Israel.

First, because a clearer understanding of the history of the international role in Palestine may serve as an important lesson in the case of future conflicts, and for similar international decision.

Second, because understanding what sort of settlement makes sense and is achievable, and the dispositions and character of the people involved, requires an informed view of the history of the conflict.

To take one obvious example of the importance of history, I have met many Americans who believe that (i) the state of Israel has existed since biblical times, and (ii) the present conflict was caused when that long-established state was invaded by Arab Muslim neighbors.

Clearly, anyone who believes this is likely to believe that the Palestinian Arabs are uniformly just crazy and bloosthirsty fanatics and marauders who can't be bargained with, and can only be dealt with through violence.

Of course, these observers are fairly crude. But the continuing perception among more sophisticated observers that the Arabs in Palestine are all a bunch of intransigent and obstreperous rejectionists is based, in part, on historical judgments such as Matt relays here. According to these supposed lessons, the Palestinians have had many perfectly reasonable opportunities for a settlement in the past, but "have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity" due to their irrational maximalism.

If the analogy were perfect, the correct solution to the Israel/Palestine issue would be the same as the agreements reached in Mandela's South Africa.

But the analogy, unfortunately, is NOT perfect.

Whether or not partition was really the correct solution in 1948, I think it has to be considered the correct policy now. Unlike the ANC, there is no Palestinian leadership that can be trusted to assume leadership of a pluralistic democracy and protect the rights of a Jewish minority. Like you, I'm sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, not the methods. However, the methods have long since corrupted the cause.

After nearly 60 years of war and terrorist attacks, the wave of suicide bombings that followed the Oslo accords, and the attacks from Gaza that followed the IDF withdrawal, it is simply naive to assume that the violence would end if Israel withdrew to its 1967 borders, or any other internationally-acceptable arrangement. The dead-enders, particularly (but not exclusively) on the Arab side, will fight any peace agreement. I say this not to excuse the Israeli settlement policy, which is abhorrent, or to excuse their current bombing of Lebanon, which I deplore. This is just simply obvious.

I believe the only reasonable solution is the one attempted in 1948 -- a UN-mediated partition. As with Pakistan/India/Bangladesh, there will probably need to be 3 independent states. Israel then withdraws all troops and settlers within its designated borders. Afterwards, if the dead-enders want to keep fighting, there's not much than can be done to stop Israel from bombing the Arab states, but at least the final map will exist for whenever the people are ready to accept it.

In fact, one proposal that was entertained (although not as seriously as the Palestine option or the Uganda option) was Jewish settlement in Australia's Northern Territories.

I've also often wondered about the feasibility of the Sinai as the Jewish state, alongside Jewish settlement in Palestine (though not as a majority-Jewish state).

Granted, these are all counterfactuals, not present-day solutions. As some others have pointed out, mistake or not, Jewish Israelis are in historical Palestine to stay; the only question now is whether that will be a Jewish state of Israel within the pre-1967 borders, or a binational state in all of the former British Mandate of Palestine.

I am afraid you history is a bit wanting. There have been Jews living in the area for about 2500 years. The name Palestine was that of a Roman province. The land that is now Israel and Paletine has been ruled by Greeks, Seljuk Turks, Christians, Mongols, Mamluks, Ottoman Turks and the British.

Had the British and the French, especially the British not wanted to punish the Ottoman empire there might be no Arab nations, not Saudi Arab, Iraq, Jordan, Syria or Lebanon. They were all part of the of the Ottoman Empire. Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and the Trans-Jordan were all part of the province of Great Syria.

With the begining of the First Zionist Congress in 1898 Jews started buying land in Palestine, from Turkish landlords. After WWI and the eviction of the Turks the Jews started buying land from Arab landlords.

The Jews started increasing their population by purchasing land and having Jews come from Europe to work their land. An Arab riot in 1923 was supressed by the British.

Jews kept increasing their population by purchase and natural population growth. As anti-Semitism in Europe grew so did emmigration to Palestine.

This led to the Arab riots of 1936-1939. The British had no tolerance for this and they crushed the Palestinians.

During WWII many of the Jewish Palestinians fought for the British while the Palestinians sided with the Germans. When the war was over Britain promoted a new partition of their Mandated territory. A small Jewish state and a larger Palestinian state.

Upon the partition the Arabs of Palestine began a civil war against the Jews. They were in no position to overcome the Israelis. When that phase of the war was winding down the other Arab nations led by King Abdullah of Jordan began the next phase of the war. Abdullah working with the British moved into the West Bank and took over a large part of the Palestinians state. The rest of the "Arab nation" then acted for their own interest and entered into cease fires with Israel.

As Benny Morris the favorite new Israeli historian of those who oppose Israel as said most of the Palestinians displaced by the war itself. Had the Arabs not attacked Israel maybe Israel would have ousted the Arabs but those who advocated such a view were much the minority of Israel.

I am unclear why the Arabs have been morally justified in trying to destroy the Jewish homeland.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Zimbabwe is better than Israel?

Zimbabwe:
Life expectancy at birth: 39.29 years
infant mortality rate: 51.71 deaths/1,000

West Bank:
Life expectancy at birth: 73.27 years
Infant mortality rate: 19.25 deaths/1,000

Zimbabwe under majority rule has been an utter disaster: famine, AIDS, social upheaval, destruction of the existing civil society and environmental despoliation.

The West Bank under Israeli control has seen a rise in literacy, a rise in life expectancy, a decrease in infant mortality, a rise in GDP. This is not to argue that Israel has a right to continue the occupation; but the material and social conditions of life on the West Bank are no worse than in most of the Arab world.

Seth Edenbaum quotes a writer who says that Hamas and Hezbollah are the result of "barbaric and intolerable" conditions imposed by the Israelis. Precisely the reverse is the case. When the PLO tried to set up a state within a state in Jordan, the Jordanians (who are ethnically Beduin, not Palestinian) massacred them in the tens of thousands. When the Palestinians attempted to take over Lebanon, the Syrians massacred them and drove them out of Northern Lebanon, confining them to the South. The Palestinians have learned from this: don't try to fight other Arabs, they will kill down to the last child.

Israel can't do this. It can't conduct the sort of ruthless elimination of entire families and communities that the Jordanians did in 1971, or that the Syrians did at Hama in 1982. Its press is too free and it is too dependent on Western good will to conduct these sorts of genocidal activities. And Israel has a large Palestinian citizenship (unlike Palestinians in Lebanon, who are refused citizenship) - Israel cannot afford for them to become radicalized.

The thing about genocide is that it works. Various Arab states have used it regularly, against various minority groups of Arabs, including Palestinians, to great effect. The Palestinians can resist Israeli occupation p