Talk in the Knesset is already rife about this issue.  The fear that we should all have is this: the Israelis have for 60 years  now been making Palestinian life more and more intolerable.  The Israelis have always wanted  Palestinian land and water.  Peace is not on the Agenda, whether it be a two or one State solution.  Most Palestinians would argue that Peace between the two sides has never been an option for Israel.  Israel is so clearly a mighty State, militarily, and the Palestinians so clearly a subject People;  why should Israel compromise for Peace?   Never has this unwillingness to compromise been so clear as now in the Gaza siege now.

The problem with all this is as follows.  The Palestinians are resolute, they are willing to suffer any indignity, but they will not move.  They all know consciously,   (it sometimes comes across in the newspaper reports) that they moved in 1948, and they lost everything, so now they simply will not move.  They will suffer terribly.  And it is this which the Israelis will find intolerable.

The Israelis will do everything they can to make life intolerable for the Palestinians.  Again the Siege of Gaza makes this clear enough. And still the people are immovable.  The Israelis will have tried everything including starvation, and a resolute Palestinian people will still be there.  In the end Israel will be forced to find  a new final solution to end Palestinian immovability.    What that final solution may be is impossible to tell.

But just as Nazi Germany tried everything to move the Jews out of Germany before 1941, so too  Israel will sooner or later decide the moment has come to finally remove this thorn in their flesh.  The Holy Land was they believe theirs given them by God, and with this in their memory, a new final solution will become inevitable.

The Palestinian question is Israel’s achilles heel.  The more the Palestinians are oppressed, the more they resist.  I remind you about another people in another time, The Renamo in South West  Africa, at the beginning of the 19th century, who faced with German colonisation decided “Let us Die Fighting”.  It appears that Palestinians may similarly decide, rather than move.

Blood and Religion

Israel has continuously increased its settlements on Palestinian territory over the 65 year period, and has continuously reduced the opportunities for a successful Palestinian economy.

Israel is a garrison society, permanently on a war footing, and many legal Rights, taken for granted in the West are missing. Discrimination  at every point of life for minorities brooks little opposition.  

Non Jewish peoples living within the borders of Israel, and especially Palestinians living legally within Israel, suffer indignities which include having their houses bulldozed.   I saw this with my own eyes on a visit five years ago.

One key and straightforward issue is that of Racial discrimination. In a recent book titled Blood and Religion, the author, who lives in Palestine,  show  how Israel was founded and maintained on  racial lines of Blood ties and Religious beliefs. Chillingly, a couple who are mixed, in the sense that one may be Jewish and the other non Jewish, cannot any more live together within Israel.

Hitler might have been proud to have been associated with such society. As Hannah Arendt showed, racism is an essential component of Totalitarianism.

The Black Arts of Propaganda

Such a society needs to control information, something very tough in these internet days.  But a censor is crucial for the written word.  All newspapers in Israel are subject to censorship. I know this, as a book I published on Israel and their  Nuclear bombs had to be passed by the Israeli censor.

Control of Information is not just internal in the Israeli case, but also external within the USA.  A huge effort is made within the USA, by the Israeli State to control pro Israeli  information.  This effort is relatively easy in the main media, which are huge conglomerations  of privately owned TV and newspapers  tied in  closely with  America’s  political elites. 

Israel co-ordinates the flow of information through the President’s Conference of Jewish ~Organisation,  and through  well financed organisations like the Anti Defamation league and Campus Watch.  Any one stepping out of line is immediately accused publicly of anti semitism.  As the publisher of Pluto Press, I have a  number of Jewish American authors, who have been attacked in this manner, and I have been following the nefarious attempts to control pro Israel information for many years.

A totalitarian society attempts to control the flows of information; Israel is a master of the black arts of propaganda.

The dream of a safe homeland  for all Jews is now further away than ever .  No small or large state for that matter, can  be safe  for long periods of time if it is surrounded by enemies.