Ofran's Reverse Irrationality

Peace Now's Hagit Ofran of its Settlement Watch Project is now arguing backwards:

The right wing, in order to justify continuation of Israeli control over the West Bank and of the expansion of settlements, is trying to claim that 1967 and 1948 are essentially equivalent: if 1948 was justified, then 1967 must also be accepted. Or, most simply: Once Zionism is what we call support for Israel as a homeland of the Jewish people, then Israeli occupation of the West Bank is merely a logical extension of the Zionist doctrine.




Paradoxically, by invoking Zionism in support of the settlements and the occupation, the right wing is joining the biggest opponents of Israel, who argue that if, as they believe, Israel's occupation of the Palestinian people in the territories is illegitimate, then, by logical extension, so is the entire Zionist enterprise.

That is a neat trick.

I have argued for over three decades with all of Hagit predecessors that

(a) indeed, 1967 was an extension and continuation of the 1948 war;

(b) it was so, since the Arabs, who began their terror campaign in 1920, rejected Zionism and the establishment of a Jewish state, had launched a war in 1948, actually on the morrow of the UN Partition recommendation adoption, and had never stopped all throughout the 1950s and 1960s;

(c) by doing so, the Arabs had displayed implaccable hatred that had simply intensified and led to the 1967 conflict triggered by Fatah/PLO terror;

(d) the only conclusion was that anything post-1967 could not be blamed for the hostilities and violence that ocurred pre-1967 and that  includes "settlements", "outposts", "occupation", "illegal construction", "East Jerusalem neighborhoods", et al.;

(e) and now, Ofran seeks to reverse all that in an irrationality that astounds.  If, as she writes

the right wing is joining the biggest opponents of Israel, who argue that if, as they believe, Israel's occupation of the Palestinian people in the territories is illegitimate, then, by logical extension, so is the entire Zionist enterprise.

by logic, the opposite is true, which is the position I outlined above.

If the Arab opposition was a principled one, one that began in 1920 in a political sense, and if the Arab behavior was consistently negative and violent and was not at all dependent on what Jews did but ipso facto an attempt to prevent any Zionist achievement, then no only is the presence of Jews in Judea and Samaria justified by historic and legal right, but the Arab demand for a state is irrelevant to any solution to the conflict.

Their "Palestinianism" is illegitimate.  And by their attempt at inventivity, not only of manufacturing their own "history" but of denying the identity of Jews as possessing full national characteristics, the Arabs lose any legitimacy they may have - and shouldn't have - and Ofran loses her own credibility.

Backwards thinking really doesn't behoove her.  And it makes no sense.

Can't Ofran grasp that?

^