Michael Caplan and "Long War Denial"

Michael Caplan

Pro-Israel Writer, Michael Caplan

{This is a guest post from a crazed Canadian that I tend to see eye-to-eye with. It represents a broad overview, but I like broad overviews. I also did not go anywhere near the editing. I like my contributors to keep their own voice. - ML.}

A (from my perspective) sympathetic, well-informed, articulate, intelligent, proudly Jewish and pro-Zionist professor – one of the panelists in a warm-hearted discussion tonight on "Israeli and Palestinian Narratives" that was predicated on the possibility of communication (and warm-heartedness goes a long way, if not nearly far enough) – spoke, while valiantly trying to address the "flight and expulsion" of Palestinian Arabs in 1948 and 1967, of Israeli responsibility, then added something along the lines of, "I know the Arabs played a part, too."

And that's what I mean about "Long War Denial": in the most positive-minded, interest-group balanced (totally freakin' Canadian) discussion of the issue, with apparently well-intentioned people from "both sides" aiming to listen to each others' narratives (and yes, some of that did happen), what cannot, it seems, even be *spoken* is the very reason for the wars of 1948 and 1967 that resulted in Arab refugees. Israeli aggression is the absolute, unquestioned underlying assumption – even if then "excused" to some degree by a reference to the history of repeated Jewish persecution and the legitimate need for Jewish self-protection.

Now, this is could be understandable from Palestinian civilians who lived through the experience and didn't know the political machinations that were going on, perhaps. And it is understandable for those dedicated to "revisionist" histories like those fabricated by Illan Pappé. But is it in any way reasonable at this point in time, at a gathering with *this* sort of intention, and with the real history readily at hand? (This professor was *clearly* aware of it.)

Israel was attacked, both times, by massed Arab armies from multiple countries, with "Wipe them off the map!" on their minds. There was no other substantive reason for the wars than ethnic cleansing of the grossest type, the supremacist rejection of Jewish sovereignty even in the shared, pluralistic country that Israel sought (largely successfully, especially in such a context) to become.

As I've said in FB posts again and again (and will say, again and again): a bunch of Arab/Islamic supremacist thugs – like their version of the KKK, active collaborators with Nazis, and believing they had God on their side – took total control (not without resistance, thank goodness, yet with much support) of the leadership of the Palestinian Arabs, while coming to dominate the positions of the surrounding Arab world.

Hate assumed the reins of power and it has never released them – launching wars and terroristic operations, indoctrinating Arab populations with propaganda about nefarious Jewish intentions, misleading them with falsified history, manipulating situations on the ground to put Israel into no-win scenarios where, compelled to use force, the resultant suffering of Arabs (actually their own leaders' responsibility) can be used to make Israel and the Jews look criminal in the world's eyes.

More than 70 years of explicitly articulated, continually enacted warfare-by-any-means, motivated entirely by the prejudiced rejection of peace and cooperation, and all that the most "balanced" discussion can produce (from the Jewish, pro-Zionist professor on the panel) is "the Arabs played a part, too".

Long War Denial: today's favourite propaganda weapon of those striving for a more successful Shoah, a really "final solution" to the "Jewish question".