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A pure state is a pipe dream Isaraelã‚

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A ‘pure state’ is a pipe dream, Israel 
XOLELA MANGCU

THE idea of Israel remaining a purely Jewish state is incompatible with the existence of a growing Arab population in that country. It is also incredible that in the 21st century, we have political practices and ideologies that are reminiscent of the ethnic nationalism of the late 19th century and early 20th century. That is the period during which ethnic nationalism led to the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe.

Is it fathomable, then, that people who were the biggest victims of those evil movements could turn around to visit such evil on others? The rightward shift in Israeli politics is troubling precisely because that is what it portends.

 

Short of extermination, Israel would have to drive the Arabs out en masse — like they did in 1948. You might think that improbable, but you would think again if you saw what I saw on a BBC documentary on the Israeli attack on Gaza.

President Kgalema Motlanthe was right in calling that attack a form of savagery. First, there is the story of the doctor who lost three of his daughters, and one who lost an eye and a limb. The BBC journalist took us right into their bedrooms and showed what they were doing when those deadly Israeli bombs fell on them.

And then there was the street that was completely wiped out, and a little boy who was left by Israeli soldiers, who lay with his dead parents and siblings for days.

Then the journalist crossed over to Israel’s security minister. All he could say was that those families must blame Hamas.

There is an inhuman callousness in that response. But I can understand why he would shift the attention that way.

Taking responsibility would have forced him to come face to face with his own humanity. If he did that he could not live with himself.

And that is why I found John Kerry’s comment that the US would treat Hamas as terrorists pitiful.

Barack Obama has to talk to Hamas, and tell Israel that a pure state is a dangerous pipe dream, something they should know better than anyone else in the world.

 

 

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