Word: israelity
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...You’d think these facts would interest a law professor. But not Kennedy, who prefers a tale of “original sin” in which Israel simply drove Arabs from their homes, took their land, and oppressed whoever was left...
...Here’s some “context” Kennedy skipped: when Israel launched its preemptive strike in 1967, it was under direct threat from Soviet-backed Arab states that had blockaded Israel’s shipping routes—an act of war under international law. Arab states still refused peace, negotiations, or recognition of Israel until Egypt agreed to peace with Israel in 1978 and duly recovered its territory...
...Kennedy describes the 1967 war as though Israel set out aggressively to “generate” Palestinian refugees in some grim industrial process. He also gives bizarre dates and numbers to describe the growth of Israeli settlements in the territories it occupied. The first settlements began in 1967 and 1968—not 1973 as Kennedy claims—and the number of settlers is nowhere near the 600,000 that he suggests...
...Though Israel’s settlement policy was wrong and short-sighted, it was nothing like the rapacious image Kennedy projects. Israel did not “take over” Palestinian water; in fact, it pumps water from Israel into Palestinian homes in both Gaza and the West Bank. And Israel did not “exploit” and “starve” the Palestinian economy. In fact, the Palestinian economy boomed under occupation for 20 years until the first intifada...
...adopts the same peculiar interpretation of human rights law as the UN Human Rights Council, which is dominated by dictatorships and which denounces Israel as a matter of course but never considers Palestinian violations of Israeli rights—or Palestinian rights, for that matter. He even slips in an obscure reference to “pass laws,” which existed in apartheid South Africa but are entirely foreign to Israel...