Israel delegitimizes itself

Joseph Harari (Nov. 20) judges the prospect of Mideast peace a mirage. I’d note that the entire peace process has been a mirage; an illusion with no substance.

The conflict that worries Harari derives from the overwhelming superiority in the exercise of violence that Israel has enjoyed since it was founded. It is the Palestinians who have suffered enormous loss of life and property. It is the Palestinians who have been concentrated and expelled as their land was taken and converted for Jewish use only in perpetuity. It is the Palestinians who have been subject to military control or relegated to second-class citizenship since 1948.

The Jewish citizens of all modern democracies enjoy full and equal status in their respective states. Indeed, modern democracies accord full and equal status to all citizens.

There is no need to delegitimize Israel. Israel’s Cabinet delegitimizes the nation by defining it as an exclusive state for all the world’s Jews in the Palestinian homeland. A state where one kind of people reigns supremely over another kind of people is not a democracy, but rather an apartheid state.

That shirt won’t come clean anymore. The sun has long since set on the golden age of colonialism.

Wayne Kraft

Spokane