Brief Answers to Complex Questions: A Virtual Toolkit to Advocate for Israel
Brief Answers to Complex Questions: A Virtual Toolkit to Advocate for Israel
Prepared by Bob Feferman, Community Relations Director, The Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley. Questions to: rfeferman@thejewishfed.org
How do you answer the accusation that Zionism is based on colonialism and racism?
Do you think Israel should be doing more to achieve peace with the Palestinians?
What were the causes and effects of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war?
Do the Palestinians have a legitimate claim to a “Right of Return?”
Are Israeli settlements in the West Bank an obstacle to peace?
Question: How do you explain Zionism?
Zionism is the national movement for the self-determination of the Jewish people in the land of Israel — the historical homeland of the Jewish people. It is based on the understanding that the Jews are a people, and as a people, we have the right to a nation-state. Zionism is the movement to create and support Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
Although the modern political movement of Zionism began in 1897, the longing of the Jewish people to return to their homeland is ancient. In the book of Psalms (137), the Jews of the Babylonian exile wrote, “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion…If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”
After the annual Passover Seder, Jews finish with the words, “Next Year in Jerusalem.”
It’s important to recognize that thanks to Zionism, Jewish people from all over the world were able to come to Israel to escape persecution. That includes Jews from Ethiopia, the Middle East, and North Africa, survivors of the Holocaust, and refugees from the former Soviet Union. That’s why author Ari Shavit calls Israel “A home for the homeless people.”
Question: How do you answer the accusation that Zionism is based on colonialism and racism?
Zionism is nothing more than the national movement of an indigenous people- the Jewish people- to return to their ancient homeland, the Land of Israel. No colonial power sent Jews to colonize the land.
As Brett Stephens wrote in the New York Times, “Contrary to some opinions, Israelis are not “settler colonialists.” Jews believe they are originally from the land of Israel because they are. And Zionism, far from being a colonialist project, is the oldest anticolonialist struggle in history, starting during the Roman era, if not the Babylonian Captivity before it.”
Today, more than half of the Jewish population of Israel is comprised of Jews whose families never left the Middle East or North Africa. In America, they would be defined as “Indigenous peoples.”
The Zionist movement was motivated by the understanding that the Jewish people needed a safe haven from centuries of antisemitism. To achieve that haven, in the late 1800s, the Zionist movement began to purchase land in Palestine from Arab landowners to create the nucleus for a new Jewish state.
Israel also has a large Arab minority- 21% of the population- who enjoy full civil and political rights. Israel may not be perfect, but it is a shining example of a diverse democratic society in the heart of the Middle East. Therefore, Israel is certainly not founded on racism.
It’s also important to remember that ever since 1947, when Jewish leaders accepted the United Nations Plan for the Partition for Palestine, Israel has recognized the principle of sharing the land with the Palestinian people through the two-state solution.
That principle was reconfirmed when Israel signed the 1993 Oslo Accords and validated by its agreement to two concrete proposals for the two-state solution in 2000 and 2008.
To deny the Jewish people their right to an independent state to live in peace alongside a Palestinian state is in itself an injustice. As the historian Noah Harari wrote in the Washington Post, “Proscribing Zionism implies that Jews can have no legitimate national aspirations, unlike all other peoples.”
Question: Following its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, is it true that Israel turned Gaza into an “open-air prison”?
In 2005, the Israeli government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, ordered the unilateral withdrawal of all Israeli soldiers and settlers, thereby ending its occupation of Gaza that began as a result of the War of 1967. Contrary to the false accusation we often hear, Israel did not then turn Gaza into an “open-air prison.”
Following the Israeli withdrawal in 2005, the Palestinian Authority took control of Gaza. Following the Israeli withdrawal, an agreement was signed between Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, and the European Union on open borders between Gaza, Egypt, and Israel. Here was an opportunity for peace and prosperity for the people of Gaza. Everyone was happy with the agreement except Hamas.
The reason is simple: Hamas is a terror organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel.
In 2007, Hamas took over control of Gaza in 2007 by violently expelling the Palestinian Authority. Then Hamas turned Gaza into an enemy territory by firing thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians and digging terror tunnels under the border to attack Israel.
Israel has every right to defend itself. That’s why, in 2009, Israel put in place a naval blockade to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. To be clear, this was a naval blockade and not a military siege because every day, there were tons of food, clothing, medicine, and humanitarian goods coming into Gaza through the Israeli border crossings. Israel even helped to supply electricity and water to Gaza.
Unfortunately, Hamas prioritized its war for the destruction of Israel over the needs of its civilians. Since 2007, with the help of its sponsor in Iran, Hamas has invested enormous resources into building rockets and constructing hundreds of miles of tunnels for Hamas terrorists.
Since their 2007 takeover of Gaza, and before October 7th, Hamas had initiated four rounds of fighting by firing 20,000 rockets at Israel.
It’s also important to remember that there was a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas on October 6th. Life was improving for the people of Gaza. The government of Israel began to allow Palestinian workers to come into Israel, and there was an increase in international aid flowing into Gaza.
Today, the best hope for the people of Gaza is an end to the rule of Hamas. That would open the door to a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians.
Question: Is Israel an apartheid state?
Apartheid, as it was practiced in South Africa, was a system of racial separation. This is a false accusation because Apartheid goes against Jewish values, and it has no basis in reality.
Let’s put this into perspective. When you talk about the Arabs of Palestine or the Palestinians, there are four categories.
First, there are 2 million Arab citizens of Israel, usually referred to as Arab-Israelis. They make up about 21% of the population of Israel, and they enjoy full civil and political rights. They vote in Israel’s elections, attend Israeli universities, and work in almost every sector of Israeli society. They work as doctors and nurses in Israeli hospitals, serve on Israel’s Supreme Court, and some Arab-Israelis volunteer to serve in the Israeli army. Go to any Israeli city, and you will see Arabs eating in restaurants and shopping in malls. That is certainly not apartheid.
Then there are the 2.7 million Arab residents of the West Bank. The majority of the Arabs of the West Bank live under the rule of the Palestinian Authority with their own autonomous government and their own police. Each day, thousands of Arabs from the West Bank come to work in Israel and go shopping in Israeli malls, and many come for treatment in Israeli hospitals.
Another category includes the 350,000 Arab residents of East Jerusalem who live within the boundaries of the Municipality of Jerusalem. They make up around 37 percent of the capital’s population and are given the status of permanent residents of Israel. However, they can also apply for Israeli citizenship. As permanent residents, they pay taxes and are entitled to state benefits like healthcare and social security. They can work anywhere in Israel and study at any Israeli university. Although they cannot vote in national elections, they can vote in municipal elections.
Finally, there are the 2.1 million Arabs of Gaza who live under the rule of Hamas. Since Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel, their situation is very difficult. Hamas has dedicated its resources to firing rockets at Israel and digging terror tunnels under the border. Hamas has started five wars with Israel.
The truth is that the Arab citizens of Israel enjoy more civil and political rights than anyone in the Middle East. Through their example, Israel has proven itself as a model for co-existence where Arabs and Jews can live together in peace.
Question: Do you think Israel should be doing more to achieve peace with the Palestinians?
First, knowing what Israel has done to bring about peace is important. In 1947, the Jews accepted the U.N. Partition Plan that would have created two states for two peoples in Palestine. Unfortunately, the Arabs of Palestine and the Arab world rejected the plan and attacked Israel after it declared independence in 1948.
And yet, even after the war of 1948, there were more missed opportunities for peace through the two-state solution.
According to the cease-fire lines of the war of 1948, between 1949 and 1967, Israel did not control the West Bank or Gaza. It was Jordan that controlled the West Bank and Egypt that controlled Gaza. Jordan’s rule included East Jerusalem and the Old City, where they prevented Jewish access to the holy site of the Western Wall.
As we can see in this map of the pre-1967 borders, there was another missed opportunity for peace through the two-state solution. Unfortunately, neither the Arab world nor the Palestinians were interested in peace with Israel or the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Instead, they continued to pursue their goal of the destruction of Israel.
Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza only as a result of its war of self-defense, the war of 1967.
Israel continued its efforts for peace with the Palestinians in 1993 when it signed the Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian Authority. As a result, Israel withdrew from the major cities of the West Bank. Today, the majority of Palestinians in the West Bank live under the control of the Palestinian Authority, not Israel.
As part of the Oslo Peace Process, in the year 2000, Israel agreed to the plan presented by President Bill Clinton that would have created a Palestinian state in all of Gaza, 95% of the West Bank, and a shared Jerusalem as the capital of the two states.
The Palestinians not only rejected the plan, but their leader, Yasser Arafat, started the Second Intifada (2000-2005) that led to more than 110 suicide bombings that killed over 1,000 Israeli civilians.
Yet, despite the Intifada, Israel continued its efforts for peace.
In 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon unilaterally withdrew Israel from its occupation of the Gaza Strip. And in 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered another generous proposal for peace through the two-state solution that the Palestinians also rejected.
Question: What were the causes and effects of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war?
There are four main reasons why Israel felt it had no alternative but to launch a preemptive military strike against Egypt on June 5th, 1967.
Beginning in May 1967, the government of Egypt took four steps that caused the war:
Egypt demanded the removal of a United Nations peacekeeping force on the border with Israel.
Egypt then began to mass tens of thousands of troops along the Israeli border.
Egypt created a naval blockade of Israeli shipping to Asia in the Straits of Tiran, which was a clear act of war.
President Nasser of Egypt threatened the destruction of Israel by saying on May 27th, "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel.”
Facing explicit threats to its survival and being outnumbered on three fronts, on June 5th, 1967, Israel launched a preemptive air strike against the Egyptian Air Force.
Israel attacked Jordan only after the Jordanian army began an artillery attack on the Jewish areas of West Jerusalem. This happened even though Israel asked Jordan to stay out of the fighting.
As a result of the ’67 war, Israel took control of the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Syrian Golan Heights.
Following the Israeli victory in '67, Israel saw an opportunity to end the conflict with the Arabs. It was prepared to negotiate the exchange of lands taken in the ’67 war for peace with its Arab neighbors ("Land for peace").
Unfortunately, in September 1967, the Arab League responded with a decision at their summit meeting in Khartoum to reject any hope for peace with Israel. They decided: "No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.”
This stalemate led to another very bloody Arab-Israeli war, which began with a surprise attack by the combined forces of Egypt and Syria on Yom Kippur on October 6th, 1973. The Israeli victory, which came at a high cost in Israeli lives, demonstrated that Israel was here to stay.
Israel finally achieved peace with Egypt (1979) in exchange for the return of the Sinai Peninsula and peace with Jordan in 1994. Israel continues to pursue peace with the Palestinians.
Question: Did the U.N. Partition Plan of 1947 create Israel at the expense of the Arabs of Palestine because of Western guilt over the Holocaust?
The 1947 U.N. Plan for the Partition of Palestine was not created at the expense of the Arabs of Palestine. It could have been a win-win situation for both Arabs and Jews.
In 1947, the U.N. Partition Plan proposed to divide Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. It’s important to know that before World War II and before the Nazi Holocaust, the Jewish population of Palestine had already numbered 450,000. By 1947, it numbered 600,000.
During the 50 years before 1947, the Zionist movement built the foundation and the nucleus for a Jewish state through legal land purchases from the Arabs of Palestine.
On that land, the Jewish community of Palestine built cities, farms, factories, and Hebrew-speaking schools. They also created Hebrew newspapers, Hebrew theatres, a health care system, and a Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
In other words, the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan recognized an existing reality.
The leaders of Israel have already recognized the rights of the Arabs of Palestine to their own state next to Israel. They did it in 1947 and again in 2000 and 2008. Peace will come when the Arabs of Palestine recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state called Israel.
Question: According to the UN Partition Plan of 1947, the Arabs received 45% of Palestine, while the Jews received 55% even though they were fewer in number. Was this plan unfair to the Palestinians?
Looking at a map of the U.N. 1947 Partition Plan, one can see a fair solution, and so did most of the member states of the UN General Assembly who voted for the plan. Here’s why.
It’s important to remember that when we look at the map of the U.N. Partition Plan, another map is not seen. That is a map of the Middle East and North Africa in which there are 22 member states in the Arab League. There is only one Jewish state- Israel.
It’s also important to remember how incredibly small Israel was supposed to be. According to the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan, Israel would have been 5,500 square miles. Just for comparison, Indiana is 36,000 square miles.
Most importantly, it’s essential to know that 70% of the southern land area assigned to the Jewish state by the U.N. Partition Plan was the Negev desert. In 1947, the Negev desert was virtually empty of any population.
Even though the area assigned to them was tiny, the Jews accepted the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan that could have created peace through the two-state solution.
Question: What caused the Palestinian refugee problem?
The story of the Palestinian refugees is a tragedy. The reality is that this tragedy should have never happened. In 1947, the United Nations created a plan for the Partition of Palestine into two states: one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. The Jews accepted the plan.
Unfortunately, the Arabs of Palestine and the Arab countries of the Middle East refused to accept that plan and attacked the new Jewish state in 1948. During the war, about 700,000 Arabs left their homes in Palestine for three reasons:
Some left because they were afraid to be caught in the middle of the fighting.
Some left because the Arab leader told them to go so that they would not be in the way of the invading Arab armies.
Israeli soldiers evacuated others because Arab villagers attacked Israelis traveling on the roads. For example, because Jerusalem was under siege, the Israeli army had to regain control of the road to Jerusalem so that the Jews in the city would not starve to death. The Israeli military had no alternative but to evacuate Arab villages to save Jerusalem.
There is another aspect to the issue of refugees that is not often mentioned. The Arab attack on Israel in 1948 created a Jewish refugee problem. After 1948, more than 800,000 Jews left their homes in Arab countries because of a rise in antisemitism. And most of these Jewish refugees came to Israel.
To move forward, we need to get over the past. This conflict has been going on for more than 75 years. The question is: when will the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza recognize the right of Israel to exist?
Question: Do the Palestinians have a legitimate claim to a “Right of Return?”
The situation of the Palestinian Refugees is indeed tragic. However, that tragedy was the result of the decision of the Arab world to attack Israel in 1948, just after it declared independence.
The war in 1948 created about 700,000 Palestinian refugees. Ever since the Palestinians have always claimed a “right of return” to their original homes in what is now Israel, this unreasonable demand remains a significant obstacle to peace through the two-state solution.
It’s essential to recognize that the Arab attack on Israel in 1948 created two refugee problems: one Jewish and one Arab. After 1948, about 850,000 Jews were forced out of their homes in Arab countries, and most of them came to live in Israel.
The critical question is how to achieve a peace agreement to end the conflict. The only logical solution is two states for two groups of people. In any future peace agreement, the Palestinian refugees should be able to return to their new state in the West Bank, but not to Israel.
The Palestinian peace activist Sari Nuseibeh once said, “If we are to have a two-state solution, then you can’t have one state for the Palestinians and the other also for the Palestinians.”
Question: Are Israeli settlements in the West Bank an obstacle to peace?
It’s essential to address the concerns of those who think that settlements in the West Bank are an obstacle to peace through the two-state solution and put this issue into perspective.
Between 1949 and 1967, Israel did not control the West Bank or Gaza; there were no settlements in these areas, and yet there was no peace. During that period, Israel’s Arab neighbors- primarily Egypt, Jordan, and Syria- were still working for the destruction of Israel. Israel took the West Bank and Gaza only after a war of self-defense in 1967.
Today, about 80% of the Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, which amounts to about 5% of the area in what are called the settlement blocs. That 5% of the West Bank equals about one-fourth of the area of St. Joe County.
When Israel announces building in the settlement blocs, it takes place mainly within this 5% area of the West Bank that will remain part of Israel in any future peace deal.
Based on the peace plan presented by President Clinton in 2000, Israel agreed to create a Palestinian state in all of Gaza, 95% of the West Bank, with a shared Jerusalem as the capital of the two states. In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert presented a similar plan. In the context of these offers, Israel agreed to land swaps for the 5% of the West Bank it would keep in a peace deal.
Unfortunately, both offers were rejected by the Palestinians.
In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza by dismantling all the settlements and withdrawing 8,000 settlers for the sake of peace.
Israel has proven that it is willing to make painful compromises for peace. Therefore, whatever one thinks of settlements, they are not the primary obstacle to peace.
Question: The United States now provides Israel with $3.8 billion in aid. Why should American taxpayers support this aid package?
The people of Israel greatly appreciate the generosity of the United States and the American people. Because of the nature of the threats facing Israel and because Israel is a small country in a very tough neighborhood, this aid is essential. Yet it is also in the national security interest of the United States to have a strong Israel as an ally and the only true democracy in the Middle East.
There are several reasons why this aid package is of mutual benefit to both countries.
According to the agreement, 75% of American aid money must be spent in the United States on weapons made in the United States. In other words, aid to Israel creates jobs in America. By 2024, 100% of the aid must be spent in the United States.
Israel and the United States are close allies. They share intelligence on common threats like ISIS and Iran. This intelligence is crucial for American national security.
The United States and Israel hold annual joint training exercises. The lessons learned from experiences on the Middle East battlefield save the lives of troops from both countries.
A strong Israel that can defend itself by itself is in the American national interest.