A propósito del libro de Jimmy Carter Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
A continuación copio algunos párrafos interesantes del artículo.
Sobre las raíces de la ira palestina (y el relativo conformismo de los árabes-israelíes):
I eventually wondered how I, a native Southern Californian, would have felt if back in the 1940s the Japanese had taken over the coast of California from Santa Barbara to San Diego, established a “Shintoist State,” expropriated my aunt’s house when she fled their advance, and gave it to refugees from Hiroshima. Would I be philosophical and understanding about it? Would most Americans?
Probably not.
Does this analogy mean that Israel has no right to exist? Of course not, no more than the dubious origin of the Mexican-American War means that Mexico should get back California. But it does explain a little about why the Palestinians and the rest of the Arabs feel the way they do.
It also helps explain what is otherwise a mystery: Why are the Arab citizens of Israel so much less homicidal toward Jews than their non-citizen cousins in the West Bank? So far, at least, Arab Israelis have not proven a dire threat, engendering few suicide bombers. By contrast, the rage of West Bank Palestinians is legendary.
Here’s one important reason: the Israelis let Arab citizens keep their homes. The victorious Israelis permitted many Arabs who hunkered down in their houses during the 1947-48 fighting to stay where they were, and keep their farms. In contrast, those who fled were dispossessed. Not surprisingly, the descendents of these families, still living on their old acres, seldom go off and become terrorists.
These Arabs living within the pre-1967 boundaries of the Jewish State are indeed more or less second-class citizens of Israel, being subject to systematic (although not brutal) discrimination. On other hand, they enjoy the benefits of living in a more or less first-class country. So there hasn’t been much recent outflow by Arab Israeli citizens to Arab countries where they could be first class citizens in third-rate republics such as Syria.
Sobre cómo enfrentarse al crecimiento de la población árabe-israelí, y al aumento de la población al otro lado de la frontera.
Before Arab Israel citizens approach a voting majority, Israel will likely implement ways to exclude them, such as by trading Arab-dominated villages in Israel for Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Another possibility is buying many of them out by offering Arab Israelis sizable payments to leave Israel, just as it successfully bought out its own Jewish settlers in the Sinai in 1981 and in Gaza in 2005.
Israel faces a far more pressing problem, though, with the families of those who fled in 1947-48. The 656,000 Arabs who escaped inland from the war had their homes in Israel taken. This had beneficial consequences for the fledgling country’s homogeneity and stability. Paul Johnson notes in his History of the Jews that the Palestinian exodus “reduced the Arab population of the new state to a mere 160,000. That was very convenient.”
In 1967, Israel conquered the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where a majority of the dispossessed refugees had wound up. By now, it’s clear this was very inconvenient for Israel, since many of the sons and grandsons of those families are still angry about it. As Machiavelli observed, “Men sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.” And as real estate agents never fail to remind us: “Real estate—they ain’t making any more of it.”
Sobre los beneficios de un Estado palestino centralizado (aunque sea dictatorial) que sea susceptible de ser intimidado por Israel y sea capaz de surpimir movimientos terroristas, tal y como sucede Con Jordania, Egipto o Siria.
If I might, as a foreign observer who wishes Israel well, make a hard-headed suggestion: Instead of democratic neighbors, what Israel needs now are more moderately well-armed dictatorships on its frontiers, along the lines of Jordan, Egypt, and even Syria. Israel, the regional military superpower, can intimidate these into suppressing their native terrorists. (...)
Unfortunately, Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon aren’t well-established dictatorships, but semi-anarchic territories, so Israel will continue to be intermittently pestered by organizations operating out of them. Eventually, if Israel is lucky, they may coalesce into centralized dictatorships that the IDF can intimidate into stopping terrorism.
