Promised Land a myth

[Re: “Dual homeland,” Letters, Sept. 27] So nice to see some fresh ideas in the Mirror’s Middle East mayhem dept. Rebecca Rustin presents a rather creative alternative to the cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948. The Zionists should have “pitched tents or created other means of temporary shelter alongside existing Arab-owned homes.” Let’s not forget that number has grown to over 450,000 stateless people, so that would be a serious tent project, and the over 400 Palestinian villages that the Zionist armies razed to the ground could be challenging.

And since we are atoning Israel’s guilt, let’s remember the 8,000 Palestinian homes illegally demolished since 1967, the nearly 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners held without evidence, charge or trial and, of course, over 440,000 illegal Israeli settlers living on stolen territories… on second thought, this is getting complicated.

The co-founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, seriously considered Uganda, as well as Alaska and Siberia, as the Promised Land. So let’s do this for Theodor and reboot Israel in Uganda, which has lots of desert to make all those flowers bloom, and best of all, it’s a land without a people for a people without a land.

>> Carl Aboud

Palestine a myth

[Re: “Peace for Israel?” Letters, Sept. 20] Ms. Shirley Groves is seriously uninformed and trusts her arguments to a host of tired buzzwords. About the Palestinians fighting alongside the British—why does she make reference to Ottoman times when the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hitler’s personal friend, totally committed the Arabs living in Palestine to Hitler’s ambitions?

The Palestinians were given Transjordan including the West Bank, which had been promised to the Jews as their homeland. Why the British had to bring in a Saudi from Hejaz (Abdullah) to be its king is another matter and a problem for Jordan to this day.

The UN granted the Jews a small sliver of coastal land between Tel-Aviv and Haifa with desert to the south and little more. This did not prevent Egypt, Jordan’s British trained Arab Legion, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq from invading this microscopic piece of land the day Israel declared its independence. They lost. No way was Israel ever going to let the countries committed to their destruction get close to them again. Has Russia returned the islands it took from Japan after their wars?

The fact Ms. Groves ignores is that there never was a Palestinian people. There never was a Palestinian culture, or history, or language, or anything that defines a people. Most of the Arabs came to Palestine when the Jewish populations built industries and agriculture and provided them with employment. Their loyalty remains fixed to their family clans, which is why the Palestinian entity has been axed to death by their own hands and has shown itself to be essentially a fiction.

>> Arnold Holtzman

Canada a hypocrite

[Re: “Protest Lebanon,” Letters, Sept. 27] Ken Frankel suggests that protestors against violations of human rights and international law by Israel should also be protesting about human rights violations elsewhere in the Middle East. This implies that he agrees with the following principles, which, if applied by Canada and other Western countries to all Mid-East parties, would bring about bright outcomes for Israel and its neighbours.

First, ensure the respect of human rights and international law. Second, have equal expectations of all parties. Third, violence or militaristic approaches are not the solution. Fourth, promote a vision of justice, peace, security and prosperity for ALL citizens of the region.

Unfortunately, our Canadian government has not lived up to these principles with its foreign policy on the Middle East.

Instead, it’s following these disastrous principles.

First, do not express equal concern for all human rights violations (stay silent on those perpetrated by our “friends.”) Second, have lower, more lenient expectations of parties that are viewed as “friends.” Third, go along with increasingly militaristic approaches even when they will only perpetuate the cycle of violence. Fourth, advocate exclusively for the security and prosperity of “friends” even when it will result in rapidly increasing oppression, discrimination, danger, poverty and desperation for millions of ordinary innocent civilians who are apparently “not friends.”

Canadians are increasingly frustrated with our government’s hypocritical stance. It is conceivable that recent protests serve to remind the government that Canadians expect it to support equality, human rights and international law in order to bring about real peace, security and prosperity for ALL people in the Middle East, without exception.

By highlighting where the most exceptions are, Canadians bring attention to where action needs to be taken.

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