A Place to Stand

The Israeli embassy's PR man has just been interviewed on Gary's show on Radio Scotland & I have just had this email I sent in read out (about 12.50). I was quite gratified to have it done in full, even with an "as he would see it" added to the NATO bit:

The number of Palestinians who were driven from Israeli territory (or as Israel would have it left voluntarily) was half a million. By comparison half of Israel's population were Jews driven from Arab lands (or as the Arabs would have it left voluntarily) & 2 million of the population of Serbia & Montenrgro are people ethnicaly cleansed from Croatia, Bosnia & Kosovo with the very active assistance of NATO, "as he would see it".

What do you think motivates people, particularly in Europe more affronted by Palestinain than Jewish or Serbian refugees?

His entirely reasoned & sensible reply was that the Palestinians had been kept as refugees quite deliberately as a symbol whereas the arabic Jews had got on with building a country. Israelis had hoped the Palestinians would have followed their example. I think this somewhat underestimates the problems the Palestinians have, but not all that much so, when you look at the problems that Israel faced in building the country on their side of the border.

He did not fall for the implication in my question that there is an undercurrent of anti-semitism in the opponents of Israel, particularly non-Moslems (which there certainly is) & considerably more than an undercurrent of Nazism in the attitude to Serbs (which is also true).

Neither he nor Gary mentioned the point about the Serbs which is what I expected - in fact I was quite surprised he hadn't cut that line.