ICYMI: Is The State of Israel on the Road to Self-Destruction?
By Steven Jonas
If the State of Israel continues along its present path, of evermore expulsion-focused policy towards its Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank, in a word, “Yes!” And if this current process keeps going, who knows when the current government of Israeli Nationalism (as I call it) might turn its attention towards its own Palestinian citizens. (The “Nuremberg Laws,” anyone? See footnote.)
The territory occupied by the State of Israel as we now know it was created first by a set of United Nations Resolutions in 1947-48, which led-to/were-followed-by-over-time, three wars. Each of those wars was the result of either an Arab invasion of one sort or another, the “War of Independence” in 1948 and the “Yom Kippur War” in 1973, or the threat of one. “The Six-day War” occurred when Israeli intelligence uncovered an Egyptian plan to invade and in a term from the Old (U.S.) West, “cut them off at the pass” (most significantly destroying much of the Egyptian Air Force on the ground). As I have said on more than one occasion, if one looks at maps of the land-area that was allotted to the State of Israel by the final UN partition-resolution in 1948, if the “Six Nation Invasion” had not occurred, it is hard to see how that nation (about half of which was part of the Negev desert — which was really desert in those days) could have survived for too many years, surrounded by enemies.
As is well known, particularly after the “Sinai Agreement” of 1979, Israel, and its surrounding Arab neighbors as well as representatives of the Palestinians in what came over time to be known as the “Occupied Territories:” the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, slowly limped towards coming to an overall agreement, which would have proved some measure of justice, and peace for the Palestinians. The limping culminated in the “Oslo Agreements.” The resistance from the Israeli Right and Far-Right (there was some difference between them in those days) to “Oslo” intensified, culminating, as is well known, in the assassination of the former Israeli Rightist who was instrumental in getting the proposed treaty done, Yitzhak Sharon, by a far-far-rightist Israeli terrorist (who now likely now be considered just an everyday Israeli Rightist). And, symbolized by the violation in 2000 of a Muslim space in Jerusalem known as Temple Mount, by the villain of the “Sabra and Shatila massacres” of 1982, Ariel Sharon, it has been downhill from there, coinciding with the dominance of the Israeli government by Rightists for most of the time since then.
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Steven Jonas, MD, MPH, MA is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, StonyBrookMedicine, Stony Brook University. He has authored, co-authored, edited, and co-edited 37 books, on subjects ranging from the U.S. health care delivery system to health and wellness, drug policy reform, the sport of triathlon/duathlon, and politics. Presently, he writes weekly on politics at www.opednews.com and his website: https://www.stevenjonaspolitics.com/.
Source: OpEdNews.com
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