This opinion piece by ECAJ co-CEO Peter Wertheim was ori­gin­ally published in the Hobart Mercury on 9 August 2024.

Peter Boyer (‘Pro­claim­ing business as usual is just a state of denial’, Talking Point, August 6) makes a fair point when he observes how self-destruct­ive it can be to wilfully deny reality and refuse to take respons­ib­il­ity for one’s own actions.

He is also wise to acknow­ledge that most of us have been deniers on occasions when con­fron­ted with an awkward reality. His highly selective rendering of the history of the Israel-Palestini­an conflict is a case in point. The following are some of the key facts which weren’t included in his piece.

While the Jewish religion, the Land of Israel and Jerusalem (Zion) are intrins­ic­ally inter­con­nec­ted, Mr Boyer is wrong to suggest that modern Zionism as a political movement depends on religious claims. Rather, it is based on the col­lect­ive right of national self-determ­in­a­tion of the Jewish people in their historic homeland, Israel, where the Jewish people have had an enduring presence for more than 3000 years, including more than 1000 years of national self-gov­ern­ment.

After the destruc­tion of the Jewish com­mon­wealth by the Romans 2000 years ago, the land was ruled by a suc­ces­sion of foreign imperial rulers. Until the res­tor­a­tion of Jewish sov­er­eignty in 1948, the local inhab­it­ants at no time had any form of self-gov­ern­ment.

The right of self-determ­in­a­tion of peoples, including the Jewish people, has been recog­nised in res­ol­u­tions of the United Nations and its pre­de­cessor the League of Nations, and is enshrined in the UN Charter, the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

For the vast majority of Jews, and for many other people, the attempt to deny this basic, universal right to the Jewish people is self-evidently dis­crim­in­at­ory against, and dehu­man­ising of, Jews and is therefore a form of anti-Semitism.

Zionism does not neces­sit­ate any views about the borders of Israel, set­tle­ments, the legal status of Jerusalem or Palestini­an statehood. Among Israelis, the Jewish people and others who accept the validity of Zionism there is a wide range of views about these issues.

One can be a Zionist and also believe in the principle of two states for two peoples, meaning that within the territory of the former British Mandate there is room for a Jewish state and a Palestini­an Arab state existing side-by-side.

In 1947, the UN General Assembly voted in favour of this two-state principle (Res­ol­u­tion 181), which the Jewish side accepted and the Arab side not only rejected but commenced a war to prevent. It was this war, started by Palestini­an and other Arab leaders, that led to the Nakhba – the dis­place­ment of 700,000 Palestini­an Arabs.

Mr Boyer also omits to mention the sim­ul­tan­eous expulsion of more than 800,000 Jews from their ancient com­munit­ies in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Syria, and Yemen. They were phys­ic­ally per­se­cuted, their property and belong­ings were con­fis­cated, and they were subjected to severe anti-Jewish riots instig­ated by the gov­ern­ments of those countries.

It has since come to light that these measures were taken by Arab gov­ern­ments in concert in accord­ance with a document entitled: “Text of Law Drafted by the Political Committee of the Arab League”. It was affixed to a 19 January 1948, memor­andum submitted to the UN Economic and Social Council warning that “all Jews residing in the Near and Middle East face extreme and imminent danger”. This memor­andum was sum­mar­ised in UN Economic and Social Council Document E/710, released by the Committee on Arrange­ments for Con­sulta­tion with Non-Gov­ern­ment­al Organ­isa­tions. It provided for depriving Jews in Arab countries of certain cit­izen­ship rights and the freezing and expro­pri­ation of their bank accounts.

Since then, the conflict has erupted in many forms.

Neigh­bour­ing Arab states have tried to eradicate Israel through con­ven­tion­al warfare (in 1948 and 1967), terrorism, economic boycotts, lawfare and campaigns of demon­isa­tion.

Despite this, Israel has made at least three offers to the Palestini­ans which would have resulted in the estab­lish­ment of a Palestini­an state covering the whole of the Gaza Strip and an area equal in size to the West Bank, together with a capital in east Jerusalem. The offers have gone begging because Palestini­an leaders remain in denial about Israel’s existence and its right to exist.

The rejection of the two-state principle and of the Jewish people’s col­lect­ive right of self-determ­in­a­tion, within any borders, persists within the ideology of Hamas and other terrorist groups to this day and helped motivate the attacks they carried out and the atro­cit­ies they committed in Israel on October 7, 2023.

Deny it or not, this rejec­tion­ist posture remains the basic driver of the conflict.