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If Israeli Jews Were the Weaker of the Two Peoples

(Ha'aretz) Alexander Yakobson - Ha'aretz columnist Sayed Kashua asks Israeli Jews to imagine a situation in which they were the weaker party. That's actually a very important, if hypothetical question. But the one who asks it has to be prepared to hear an honest answer. Kashua apparently believes that Israeli Jews' apathy to Palestinian suffering stems from the fact that they never ask themselves what would happen if the roles were reversed. But I think just the opposite is true: This apathy is to a great extent the result of dwelling on this question too much. Because the answer the Jewish public gives itself when it imagines a military defeat and Arab conquest is that in such a case there will no longer be two peoples in this land. Moreover, when a Jewish Israeli remembers what the Hamas takeover of Gaza looked like, there's no reason for optimism. Is there in the entire Middle East an Arab fighter who wouldn't prefer, if he could choose, to fall into the hands of the Israelis rather than into the hands of a rival Arab faction?
2014-06-27 00:00:00
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