I’ve been away most of the day and just noticed a comment on this post by a person claiming to be Afif Safieh. The comment reads,
What I have said in the lecture is “I never compare the Palestinian Nakba/ Catastrophe to the Holocaust. Each tragedy stands on its own. I never indulge in comparative martyrology. If I were a Jew or a gypsy, Nazi barbarity would be the most horrible event in History. If I were a Native American it would be the arrival of European settlers that resulted in almost total extermination. If I were a Black African, it would be slavery in previous centuries and Apartheid during last century. If I were an Armenian, it would be the Ottoman/ Turkish massacres. If I were Palestinian- and I happen to be one- it would be the Nakba. Humanity should condemn all the above. I do not know of a way to measure suffering or how to quantify pain, but what I do know is that we are not children of a lesser God.” I believe these are not the words of a sick person or of an ethno-centered tribalist, but of a universalist.
If the person who wrote the comment cares to go back and read that post and the prior two related posts, they can plainly see that I have not called Mr. Safieh names (“sick person”, “ethno-centered tribalist”).
If you, the person who left that comment, really are Afif Safieh, I and other bloggers would like to ask you,
- As a Christian whose father is buried in a Catholic cemetery, how can you associate yourself closely with a man who weaponized people to kill others by committing suicide when suicide is the most grievous sin in Christianity?
- Why was there no push for a Palestinian state when Jordan controlled the West Bank and Egypt controlled Gaza, before the 1967 war?
- Israel’s three conditions are:
Cessation of hostilities and terror
Secure borders.
Diplomatic recognition of Israel.
What exactly is one sided and unfair? What possible reason could the Palestinians have for not going along with the plan? In doing so, the floodgates of foreign aid, investment and all kinds of benefits would open?
Those are the questions we have for the real Afif Safieh.
Actually, the last question are the conditions for peace set down by virtually every single American administration since 1948.
As one Syrian friend has noted bitterly, “The real Naqbah has been audio and video tape. We can no longer hide who we are from you or from ourselves.”
Just today, Hamas (the Palestinian Nazi Party. Who can forget the charming Hamas chant, HAMAS, HAMAS, JEWS TO THE GAS! or the political candidates who refer to themselves as ‘abu Hitler’ or some derivative thereof) openly rejected recognition of Israel. The vitriol of Hamas preachers are routinely recorded as are the ‘activities’ at Palestinian summer camps.
“Itbach Al Yahud!’ – Slaughter the Jew! is not an acceptable form of political, religious or social expression- all current Palestinian realities.
Mr Safieh may sound reasonable in his sartorial splendor- in fact, he desperately needs to- but in fact, his efforts are as convincing and real as window the window displays at the Gap.
Notwithstanding Mr Safieh’s remarks at Princeton, the truth of the matter is well known to Middle East policymakers and those who influence policy. Mr Safieh is influential in the halls of western power as is the Pope at Mecca. In truth he is misreading anti American sentiment in Europe as ‘pro’ Palestinian sentiment.
Europe and America will not exchange Israel for Palestine. Last year, after the contrived Paris riots, Jacques Chirac made it very clear that neither France nor Europe will legitimize any efforts to eliminate Israel as a reality.
As I have noted many times, when Israel seeks out partners or opinions, it turns to western democracies.
When the Palestinians seek out partners and/or advice, they turn to that smörgåsbord of some of the most dysfunctional regimes in the world, tyrannical leaders of the Arab world.
Israel is not suffering from Arab world isolation or lack of recognition. That nation maintains educational, cultural and economic ties with the most advanced nations in the world. It is the Arab world that suffers from their self imposed isolation. In a neighborhood identified by the UN as being the most among dysfunctional and most poorly educated, not engaging Israel or demanding peace makes as much sense as poking oneself in the eye.
Not even Mr Safieh can make that dance graceful.
Fausta, madame, people will endure unimaginable hardship, grief, and in moments where they must, intolerable humiliation if a basic human necessity such as food or water were what they were after. When the children are starving the mothers and fathers do what’s necessary to feed them.
But when the children are fed and housed, “necessities” becomes taken for granted, and other goals consume their attention. And when anger and the maintenance of a ridiculously rigid sense of honor become the quantities strived for, people will be willing even to throw their children away to obtain it, and will think themselves honorable for doing so.
That is the problem the Palestinians have. They can eat, most have roofs over their heads, but this question of honor entagled with this anger that’s fed and enabled by the cynical in other countries consumes far too many of them, and they gladly throw away what should be protected for what is desired.
Yet, when people speak not to those who have vested interests in keeping conflict going – for example: Actual members of Hamas, Hezbollah (although that’s not a Palestinian group, but besides that, they fit the description), or other such groups – but to those trying to just live in the society they were born into, they find an amazing ability to let the past drop and allow Israel to live in peace. If only those devoted to the business of continued hate and fighting would leave the rank and file populace alone, Palestinians and Israelis might actually have a shot at peace.
If only…
But with the cynical Arabs continuing to fund only the hate and fighting, and those neighboring peoples maintaining the macabre society of martyrdom and rigid obeisance to a “victory” so Pyrrhic as to be worth less than utter defeat, and with the unbelievably stupid European and American leftist enablement of the worst aspects of Palestinian freedom movements, I don’t know if they do have a chance to gain their own nation, and above that, any sense of honor for themselves and peace with Israel. If they ever do gain it, it’ll be in spite of the detrimental “help” of Arab neighbors, and well in spite of any supposed “support” from the west (“support” akin to a drug-dealer’s “support” of his addicted customer i.e. self serving, cynical, and ultimately only of value to the one providing the support, not the one receiving it).
Which brings us to Mr. Afif Safieh’s comment. Should I condemn the Nakba? Or the latter exacerbation which has created a problem far in excess of the original injury? I choose the latter, because everytime I read or hear something from a “regular Joe” Palestinian, the nodding acknowledgement of “Death to Israel” is made, but in the more private revelations, the “regular Joe” is willing to actually drop the hate and get on with life. Yet, he’s not allowed. And who’s not allowing him? It’s not Israel.