Word: palestinians
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When John Larew characterizes Americans who support Israel "because it is a Jewish state" as "Zealots," I am reminded of Golda Meir's sharp reply to a critic who asked her if Israel suffered from a "Masada complex" of last-stand heroism. (Masada was the last stand of Palestinian Jews against the Romans in A.D. 73.) "Yes, we do have a Masada complex," she replied. "We have a Masada complex, we have a Chmielnicki [where 100,000 Jews were murdered by Cossacks] complex, we have a Dachau complex...
...Hajj Amin, the Mufti of Jerusalem and leader of the early Palestinian national movement, received an affirmative reply to his request from Hitler for future support in solving the Jewish question "in Palestine and other Arab countries [sic]...in the same way as the Jewish question in the Axis lands is being solved...
...years ago, Israeli poet Yehudah Amichai wrote that he was greeted with surprise by Palestinian representatives in Europe when he said that it was difficult for him to engage in meaningful dialogue while demonstrators in Jerusalem chanted "Hitler was right!" in Arabic...
...point in mentioning these things is not to claim that supporters of Palestinian nationalism are anti-Semitic, nor is it, as Larew suggests, to show how much "more morally palatable Israel is than the neighboring Arab states." I agree with him that this fact is irrelevant...
Leave aside for the moment the issue of how King, who was killed just as the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began, would have reacted to the oppression of the Palestinian people. What infuriates me is the letter's implication that anyone who criticizes the Jewish state must be motivated by hatred of Jews. Some other letters to The Crimson have even attacked Jewish critics of Israel as anti-Semites...