Remorseless Atonement

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Peaceful coexistence is questionable. The Arab citizens of Israel and the Jewish Israelis are incapable of living side by side under the present circumstances. This week's events in Acre prove the point. The clashes between the Arab citizens of Israel and its Jewish citizens demonstrate that the so-called two-state solution is not necessarily the ideal, especially if fanatical Jews insist on shoving Arabs into ghettos that amount to open prisons.

The Jews of Israel must learn to respect fundamental human rights. Not only must they understand and accept the Palestinian right to return, but they must also accept that Israel cannot remain indefinitely a "Jewish" state. Israel has been and always will be a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state. More than 20 per cent of the Israeli population is non-Jewish -- Arab -- mainly Muslim with Christian and Druze minorities.

The bi-national state solution is plausible, but only under conditions that guarantee the inalienable rights of the Arab citizens of Israel. Arabs residing in the territory of Palestine, be they in the territory designated as "Israel proper" or in some future Palestinian state, have rights that cannot be denied, nor ignored. De-Zionising Israel is not an unattainable goal. On the contrary, it is the very salvation of Israel and the entire region.

In reality, it is the demography of Israel that will ultimately determine the course of democracy and the nature of the state of Israel. The fallacy of arguing for a two-state solution under present circumstances is cruelly exposed by the latest incident of bigotry by Jewish fanatics, euphemistically called "settlers", in Acre. On the eve of the most holy of Jewish holidays, the Day of Atonement, when Jews ask for forgiveness for their sins during the past year, a gang of Jewish thugs lynched Jamal Tawfik, an Acre resident, and his son who were on their way to pick up Tawfik's daughter from her fiancé's family home. The gang would have killed them -- the Israeli policeman was no help whatsoever -- except for a lowly Jewish caretaker, who hid them from the mob, recalling the well known tale of Ann Frank and the Nazis. The bigoted Jews of contemporary Israel are proving to be as jingoistic, barbarous and bloodthirsty as the Nazis.

The current situation is untenable. Israeli Arabs cannot be treated as second- and third-rate citizens. They must be afforded equal rights with their Jewish compatriots. If these conditions are not fulfilled, then a two-state solution would only pour fuel on the fire of such racist bigots as these Israeli "settlers". Such hotheads would force Arabs to flee into economically non- viable and unlivable Bantustans. These Bantustans would inevitably be carved out of rightful Palestinian lands. And, the Jewish zealots would undoubtedly be keeping an armed watch over the natives from hill-top "settlements".

The only way to drive a stake through the heart of such evil genies is for Israeli society to make the fanatical Jews observe internationally accepted human rights, to outlaw racism and rebuild Israel as a civil society, with civil norms of behaviour -- just like any other proper democracy. There cannot be one "democracy" for Israel and another for the rest of the civilised world.

If America can -- hopefully -- elect a black president, why shouldn't Israel accept its native Arab residents as fully-fledged citizens? Why shouldn't an Arab citizen of Israel be elected president or prime minister of Israel? This week's bloody events in Acre that were capped outrageously by the further vicitimisation of an Arab taxi driver -- he was arrested by Israeli police for inciting the very riot that he was the victim of -- have opened up a can of worms. The world can no longer tolerate such hypocrisy.

Let this Day of Atonement 2008 be one that goes down in history as Israel's Day of Infamy. The bigoted Jews of Israel ought to be ashamed of themselves. The world will not accept such a state with such hypocritical and ideologically anachronistic foundations.