…perfect justice, Kirsch argues, would mean restoring the Land of Israel to the Jews who were driven out of it by the Romans and also to the Palestinian Arabs who have been denied sovereignty by the Jews. “But any attempt to secure the country for just one of these peoples would inflict suffering on millions…”
With the permission of the Jewish Review of Books, TTN is posting in two parts, “Unsettling Ideology,” Michael Walzer’s review of Adam Kirsch’s book, “On Settler Colonialism,” published in its Fall 2024 issue, beginning here.
2024 represents yet more descent down the slippery slope toward a conflicted, non-democratic, immoral, isolated, messianic and binational entity between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Yet … Israel’s security community registered dramatic victories over Iran, Hezbollah and almost the entire Axis of Resistance or Shiite Crescent.
… the Biden administration has wanted both to support Israel at a genuine hour of need and to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe taking place in Gaza. This proved insufficient given the nature of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s extremist coalition government and the fanatical nature of Hamas, which is singularly indifferent to the suffering of its people.
Bringing Arabs & Jews together is a rebuke to rejectionists on university campuses & social media. BDS added Standing Together to its boycott list, damning it for “normalizing” interactions with Israeli Jews—a threat to sclerotic orthodoxies of left & right, alike.
Despite my disagreement with some of Prof. Khalidi’s views, I appreciate his anguish over the ongoing suffering of his people, and hope against hope that they and the people of Israel will emerge from their mutual horrors with a two-state peace.
The October 7 Hamas attack has reset a new regional order in the Middle East, thanks in part to Israel’s offensive moves against Hezbollah and Iran. But these may be creating political openings for a more peaceful future.
“I came to understand that the current conflict is not all black and white as some people paint it. I learned how important Israel is to Jews worldwide, especially in the present times, why it had been created, but also how Israelis had been affected by the past decades of intermittent war with its Arab neighbours.”
A veteran Palestinian activist embraces the Olmert/al-Kidwa plan for a two state solution. He outlines a key need for both Israelis and Palestinians to “gain control over their violent tendencies.”
Take a look at this picture. Israel’s government and Hamas don’t agree on much, but they do agree on one thing: this picture is an abomination.
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