Re: “Understanding Gaza, Sderot and Najd”

A REBUTTAL BY CHERYL FIELDS

Southside Pride (March 2010) recently examined the history of the Israeli town of Sderot, a target of many Palestinian rocket attacks. Quoting Wikipedia, the article stated that in 1948, the Arab village of “Najd was occupied by Jewish soldiers” and “the inhabitants were expelled and fled to Gaza. The village was then completely destroyed and leveled to the ground. In 1951, the town of Sderot was built over the village lands.”

Wikipedia said something a little different the day I checked Sderot’s history. It said, “The town of Sderot was built near the village’s lands,” accompanied by a photo of Najd today captioned: “The ongoing qassam rockets shooting to the area along with the weather damaged the remains of Najd as most of its buildings remain standing until this day.” So I have to question the veracity of statements that the Arab village was “completely destroyed,” “leveled to the ground” and “built over.”

These little details are important, as is the bigger picture, the context, which was that the Arabs declared war on Israel in 1948. Omitting this context gives the impression that Israel is heedlessly cruel. The Arabs were the aggressors, and land lost in wars of aggression is not “theft”; under international law Sderot is undisputedly a city in the State of Israel.

It is interesting to note that the “newly arrived Kurdish and Persian Israeli immigrants” who settled in Sderot were from among the 850,000 Jews who were turned into refugees when all the Arab nations expelled them en masse in 1948. There were actually more Jews who were made refugees in 1948 than there were Palestinian refugees. All wars displace populations. The difference between the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs, who were also refugees, is that the fledgling State of Israel absorbed her refugees but the 22 Arab nations and Egypt refuse to absorb Palestinian Arabs. The Arab boycott of Palestinians is a major factor in keeping Palestinians “imprisoned” in a “ghetto” much of their own making.
Since 2001, Palestinians in Gaza have fired more than 10,000 rockets onto Israel, increasing these attacks after Israel, in a unilateral concession, gave the Palestinians all of Gaza. These Palestinian rocket attacks are intended to randomly kill anyone on the other side and terrorize an entire

civilian population. Even the U.N. agrees that the Palestinians committed “war crimes” and that Israel’s military response last year to these attacks was justified.
So the pro-Palestinian argument now becomes one of accusing the Israelis of disproportionate response, using “kill ratios” as proof, which, again devoid of context, are irrelevant. If terrorists were firing rockets on Minnesotans, e.g. killing 13 civilians, would we expect our security forces to kill just 13 terrorists and then go home? Or would we expect them to have to kill as many terrorists as necessary in order to neutralize the threat? And how tolerant would we be? How many missiles fired onto Minnesota population centers would be deemed acceptable before we respond? One? 10? 10,000?

It is unfortunate that in using “kill ratios” to build a case for “disproportionate” response, South-side Pride chose to use reprehensible comparisons of Jews to Nazis and also to European colonists in America, implying Jews/Israelis are worse than both. Israelis never randomly rounded up and murdered anyone as did the Nazis and those who hung the Dakota 38+2; Israel’s defense force even took exemplary precaution to avoid harming Palestinians not engaged in terrorist activities. The usage of such analogies is a distortion of history and an insult to memory.

Southside Pride also claimed that an Israeli announcement for “the construction of 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem (is) in violation of treaties and agreements” and was intended to “humiliate” Vice President Biden during his visit to Israel. There is some contention as to whether these planned apartment units are actually in “east” or north Jerusalem, but they are in a Jewish suburb that would be considered a part of Israel in any two-state solution negotiations, so building them in no way precludes the possibility of a two-state solution. This housing proposal also is not in violation of Netanyahu’s unprecedented moratorium agreement with Obama, which was for a 10-month building freeze on the West Bank, excluding Jerusalem. It is the Obama Administration that had accepted the terms of the building freeze in November and then went back on its word.

At the same time that Biden was harshly criticizing Israel for having the audacity to plan to build housing for its own people, in its own land, in its own neighborhoods, the Palestinian Authority was publicly honoring a Palestinian who in 1978 led the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history, killing 37 civilians and wounding 72; the first person killed in the attack was an American photographer on the beach. About this Biden said nothing. If there is to be peace, the very first thing the Palestinians must do is take steps to stop terrorism and the incitement of terrorism, which includes this glorification of violence.

Seemingly emboldened by Biden, Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians have doubled, with Arabs rioting in Jerusalem, throwing rocks and bricks at Jews, shooting at drivers traveling along roads in Judea and Samaria, and firing 35 rockets and six mortar shells at civilians in southern Israeli communities, killing a Thai immigrant worker.

Southside Pride contends that “The Palestinians believe the Israelis are trying to drive them into the sea. And most of the people in the rest of the world agree”; most Americans, however, disagree. More than 75 percent of U.S. congressional representatives (325 out of 435) recently signed a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing support for Israel and demanding an end to the state of tensions with Israel. While we dicker over where a Jew should be allowed to live, there are more critical issues, like a nuclear-armed Iran and $10 billion in new arms sales to the Arab nations.