End To The Jewish Nation Of Israel example essay topic

A divestment movement to boycott Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is taking place worldwide with an extreme push from over forty college campuses including Harvard, Princeton, University of California - Berkley, University of Michigan, Yale, Penn, and many other prestigious universities (Tutu). The term occupation describes Israel's control of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, territories acquired through victory in Six-Day war in June 1967 (Karsh). This divestment campaign is a plan similar to the anti-apartheid movement for the abolition of "legal segregation" in South Africa that was strengthened by a push from college campuses in the 1980's. It was the extreme push from colleges that eventually got businesses to divest from South Africa in the 1980's, so present day divestment campaigns hope to have similar, monumental effects. Campaigns for divestment from Israel actually began nearly two years ago, "but have intensified since the September 11 terrorist attacks as students grow more aware of international issues", said Francis Boyle, an international law professor at the University of Illinois (Marklein). After the success of economically pressuring the South African Government, universities are eager to use similar tactics and bring about an end to Israeli occupation upon the questionable lands (Serwer).

The student groups are advocating that colleges review their financial profile and divest, or sell all shares of stock, from any company that participates in business transactions with Israel (Lacayo). The divestment plan intends to cause the divested companies to lose a tremendous amount of money from their generous college sponsors so that the companies will, in turn, stop doing providing their specific businesses to Israel. For example, divestment activists at Harvard claim to have more that $600 million invested in companies that have interests in Israel (Lacayo). Then, Israel, devoid of many invaluable services, will be forced, just like the South African government, to end their occupation in order to regain the trade (Urbina).

To date, thousands of faculty, students, staff, and alumni nationwide have signed petitions supporting the divestment campaign (Marklein). Furthermore, countries such as Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, and Sweden have already taken action begun to boycott Israel (Urbina). After selling an estimated 170 million dollars worth of military equipment to Israel in 2000, Germany announced that it would suspend further arms sales, which will hurt Israel's plans to begin production of its top-of-the-line Mer kava tanks. Belgium, which supplies light weapons for security forces also decided to end all military export to Israel while France and Italy are considering similar measures. Britain, which shipped over twenty-five million dollars worth of arms to Israel last year also has a "de facto arms embargo in effect" (Urbina).

Despite the push from many college campuses and protesters, the American government has yet to follow this international trend of divestment from Israel and should stay strong on its reluctant stance. Although comparisons have been made between South Africa's apartheid and Israel's occupation, they originate from two very divergent causes - one from the white race attempting to establish superiority, and the other originating from the pivotal concern for national security. Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, both formerly Palestinian territories, because had anti-Semitic supporting countries along Israel's borders and the proximity to cause major damage to the nation of Israel if measures weren't taken. Israel is faced not only with protecting its nation and people, but the only Jewish nation in the world. Furthermore, Israel's occupation and forced segregation has only been implemented in recent years because of terrorist attacks upon her homeland, people, and sense of national security - an argument with which America can directly relate. With the recent terrorist attacks upon American soil, America has been participating in her own controversial act of racial profiling which she deems necessary for her national security.

Although many Americans are opposed, the American government deems these measures necessary to protect her citizens at the sacrifice of others who may be potentially dangerous. Yes, it is unfair to small minority, but the benefits of safety for an entire nation outweigh the setbacks of the implemented safety precautions. Israel is taking more extreme safety measures than America but only because the threat is right on her own soil and borders. Yet principle remains the same: Israel is protecting her people from those who publicly declare that they'd like to see an end to the Jewish nation of Israel. Israel is not entirely right in segregating a group of people but it is the only way to protect her people from potential enemies thus deserving American support against divestiture. Although Palestinians claim that Israel is intruding upon land to which they are rightfully entitled, it is a fact that upon the creation of Israel in 1948, no Palestinian State was either invaded or destroyed to make way for Israel's establishment (Karsh).

Palestine never actually existed as a distinct political entity but assimilated into the current conquering force (Karsh). They went from the Roman Empire to the Arab regime, then became part of the Ottoman. Furthermore when the British arrived more recently in 1917, the inhabitants of Palestine were simple alle giant to clan, tribe, village, town, or religious sect, who coexisted with the Ottoman regime (Karsh). From biblical times, this territory was the state of the Jews, to its occupation by the British army after World War I. Under the League of Nation's specific mandate for a Jewish national home, the British established an independent Palestine with distinct boundaries for the first time (Karsh). In 1947, because of the determined Jewish struggle for independence, Britain turned over the mandate to the United Nations who then split Palestine into two states, one Jewish, the other Arab, on November 29, 1947 (Karsh). Palestinian cultural figure Jacques Persiqian and many divestment advocates add to this already erroraneous argument of "stolen land" by claiming that "In 1948, we became subject to a grave historical injustice manifested in a dual victimization: on one hand, the injustice of dispossession, dispersion, and exile forcibly enacted on the population...

On the other hand, those who remained were subjected to the systematic oppression and brutality of an inhuman occupation that robbed them of their rights and liberties" (Karsh). Not only is Persiqian inferring that the land was stolen 54 years ago in the creation of Israel, but he is also asserting that when Israel became "occupied" by the Jews, the Palestinian population was exiled out of native lands or subject to oppression and hardships under new Israeli government control. First of all, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, notes Efr im Karsh, "did not come about as a consequence of some grand expansionist design, but was rather incidental to Israel's success against a pan-Arab attempt to destroy it (Israel)". As is turns out, at the onset of the Six-Day War, (which resulted in Israel gaining control of Gaza Strip and the West Bank) the Israeli government secretly pleaded with King Hussein of Jordan and possessor of the West Bank to forgo any further military action (Karsh).

He refused and adamantly supported the upcoming military action to which the Arabs thought would be the "final round with Israel". Israel being the victors, they suddenly were in control of about one million Palestinians living in "quite dire" conditions upon the conquered territories (Karsh). Malnutrition, infectious diseases, low life expectancy, high child mortality, and low levels of education beleaguered the territories (Karsh). As a result of access to the "far larger and more advanced Israeli economy", the number of Palestinians working in Israel rose from zero, in 1967, to 66,000 in 1975, and 109,000 by 1986 (Karsh). Additionally, the gross national product (or GNP) of Palestine increased from $165 in 1968 to $1,715, nearly doubling Syria's per-capita income and increasing to four times Yemen's (Karsh). Furthermore, life expectancy rose from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000, compared to an average life expectancy of 68 years in the surrounding countries of the Middle East and North Africa.

Mortality rates also fell more than two thirds between 1970 and 1990 while Israeli medical programs reduced the infant mortality rate of 60 per 1,000 live births in 1968 to 15 per 1,000 live births in 2000 (Karsh). Also, through a systematic program of vaccinations, reining childhood diseases such as polio, whooping cough, tetanus, and measles were wiped out (Karsh). The Palestinians's tankard of living was also increased to the point that 92.8 percent of the population in the West Bank and Gaza had electricity by 1986 as opposed to 20.5 percent in 1967 (Karsh). Over eighty-five percent of the population now have running water, compared to 16 percent in 1967, and 83.5 percent have electric or gas ranges for cooking as compared to 4 percent, and the drastic numbers continue for appliances such as refrigerators, televisions, and cars (Karsh). Finally, prior to Israeli occupation, Palestine had not one university, but by the early 1990's, they had seven. The number of school children grew to 102 percent and the illiteracy rates dropped to 14 percent (Karsh).

Then, as if this high quality lifestyle for the once underprivileged Palestinian citizens were not enough, Israel has offered to compensate the Palestinians for the refugees who may have emigrated from Israel when it became a Jewish nation (Dershowitz). But, this is highly unnecessary, asserts Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, because this emigration of approximately one million Arabs is a smaller number than the Jews who were forced out of Arab nations upon Israel's creation. Many also claim that Israel is preventing the peace process when in fact that could not be farther from the truth. In the United Nations Security Council resolution 242, Israel is not required to return "one inch" of territory until it receives full peace from its surrounding countries (Dershowitz).

What this U.N. drafted document does imply is that Israel is obligated to return "territories" not but not all territories in return for "full renunciation of belligerency and full recognition of Israel's right to exist" both of which are far from reality (Dershowitz). Israel is in complete compliance with 242, as soon as Egypt recognized Israel's right to exist and make peace, Israel returned every inch of territory captured from Israel from the war (the Gaza Strip) (Dershowitz). As far as Jordanian peace is concerned, when Israel made peace with Jordan, Jordan had already denounced all claims to the West Bank so there were no territorial disputes with Jordan (Dershowitz). Furthermore, at Camp David and a Kaaba in the summer of 2000, Israel agreed to give back between ninety-four and ninety-seven percent of all the territories captured from Palestinians, and "of course" it was Arafat who walked out of Camp David and Kaaba so it is "very hard to fault Israel for not complying the peace process" (Dershowitz).

Divestment campaigners have singled out Israel as going against Human Rights violation, yet in 2002 the Israeli supreme court became the only supreme court in the modern world which "completely and unequivocally" outlawed all tortured torture and all physical torture on anyone who is subject to interrogation (Dershowitz). Yet no one has suggested divesture from Jordan, Egypt, or the Philippines, all experts and well known practitioners of extreme and cruel torture (Dershowitz). "As has been shown, the purpose of this divesture is not to get Israel to make these changes, its not to get divesture, its simply to miseducate, misinform, and communicate falsehoods to the generation of college students who will become the leaders. The anti-Israel, anti-Zionist groups who moment this kind of divesture campaign know full well that the current leadership in the United States is sympathetic to Israel in general, they " re aiming for the next leadership and they " re doing a good job of it (Dershowitz). Campus resistance is growing as rallies and protests are being held nationwide on various college campuses (Featherstone). At the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Michigan, and the University of California, Berkeley, Students for Justice in Palestine took over a major campus entrance, dressed as Israeli soldiers with cardboard guns and let students pass freely through one entrance of the gate marked JEWS ONLY (Serwer).

On the other side marked PALESTINIANS, the group demanded student's papers and asked where they were going (Serwer). At another rally at Berkeley, 1,200 students occupied and academic building demanding that the University of California divest from companies doing business with Israel, resulting in seventy-nine arrests. In another instance, busloads of student protestors went to Washington on April 20, 2001 with a turnout of 50,000 - 80,000 people which turned out to be the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in United States' history (Featherstone). All this protest, yet not one offers a probable solution for the survival of Israel. What do the protestors hope to eventually achieve? If Israel ends its occupation, it will give opposing powers a base on Israeli land to which they will be free to destroy the Jewish Nation of Israel.

This is simply a defense measure to protect a country that originated after the Holocaust because the Jewish people needed a homeland when six million were killed as a result of religious persecution. So, in conclusion, all the ardent, hardworking, tireless anti-Israel support groups need to consider the countless other human rights violations of the surrounding Arabic nations aligning Israel's borders. The torture and superiority going on foreign lands far outweighs the wrongs in Israel. Israel has tried for peace. She's given up land, made sacrifices, and had peace talks only to be faced with more and more bombings resulting in the deaths of soldiers and innocent civilians. Israel is holding up a protective stance and will defend its nation, a position that America has tragically experienced and must support to prevent complete hypocrisy.

The pressure must be converted and put upon the opposing sides to end the violence against Israel to start to pave the path towards peace. Only in that end, will peace become a reality; Israel should not and will not back down upon protecting her valuable soil.

Bibliography

List Dershowitz, Alan. Speech. 8 Dec. 2002 Featherstone, Lisa.
The Mideast War Breaks out on Campus". The Nation. 17 June 2002: 18-21.
Karsh, Efrain. "What Occupation?" WilsonSelectPlus. July / August 2002.
16 December 2002.
OCLC First Seach Lacayo, Richard. "A Campus War Over Israel". Time 7 Oct. 2002: 63 Marklein, Mary Beth.
Israel Divestment Draws Campus Battle Lines". USA Today. 10 Oct. 2002.
15 December 2002.
Serwer, Andy. "Divestment Done Wrong". Fortune 14 Oct. 2002: 259-60 Tutu, Desmond and Ian Urbina.
Against Israeli Apartheid". The Nation. 15 July 2002: 4-5.
10 December 2002.
Urbina, Ian. "The Analogy to Apartheid". Middle East Report. 32.2. (Summer 2002).
3 Dec. 2002.