Danny Wakil’s fevered account of the events that led to the founding of the state of Israel needs the anodyne of Jewish historians like Ilan Pappe (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine), Shlomo Sand (The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland) and Anthony Loewenstein ([ITAL]My Israel Question[/ITAL]). He says that Palestinians and Israelis deserve to live good lives in peace, but how can this happen when Israel’s 2018 Basic Law enshrines Jewish supremacy over Palestinian citizens? How can this happen when Jews, fresh from the US or Europe, barge into a Palestinian home and, with the help of the police and military, expel its owners and move in? Israeli soldiers confess to following the most appalling orders that violate the basic human rights of Palestinians in Our Harsh Logic published by the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence. Finally, I challenge Danny to communicate with Anna Lippman, as I have done. She is a member of Independent Jewish Voices, Canada, and is part of a Centre for Jewish Non-Violence delegation to Palestine. She writes; ‘I wept for the people of Palestine. I wept for the cruelty of Jewish supremacy and the ways my religion, which has always taught me the importance of Tikkun Olam (“repairing the world”), has been weaponised for this brutal land theft. I wept for those who have lost their lives and lives of loved ones for this project. I have never imagined that I could witness such injustice with my own eyes. But this is the reality that the Palestinian people face every day.’
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