Peter Bromberg's UnBlog

  The problem that many people arguing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have is that they have no idea who is who, and what are the historical forces behind the conflict. Most people outside of the middle east think the violence in Gaza is a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But history shows us something different: At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the division of land to be agreed was that the Jews would receive Palestine from the Mediterranean Sea and including what is today Jordan, and the Arabs would receive the Arab Peninsular and what is today Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.  This, in effect, converted the Balfour Declaration into a binding legal document. It was no longer the whim of a British Government with no rights but now incorporated into international law by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers. The Jewish people have the legal right to live and remain in every part of the territory which was part of the Mandated territory of Pales...

In an era in which the main battlefield against Israel is the campaign to delegitimize the very existence of the Jewish state it is important to challenge the false narratives that are being thrown into the public discourse and gradually being accepted, not by governments, but by a wider audience. The narrative tells of a dispossessed Palestine whose rights have been usurped by colonial invaders who have conquered their land through the Zionist enterprise. They are, in is claimed, made to suffer by the imposition of a European Holocaust which has left them paying the price. Driven out of their land by Jewish interlopers the remnants have been occupied and oppressed by a brutal ‘Nazi’-like regime. No country has a greater legitimacy, under international law, to exist than Israel. If Israel does not possess that legal right to sovereignty then no nation on earth can claim greater legitimacy than Israel. To fully understand this, one needs to understand the unfolding of modern histor...

When I was in my 20's I suddenly became very interested in Israel. I should mention by way of preface that I am probably the most unobservant Jew you will ever meet - I think the last time I was inside a synagogue was when my friend's son died and I attended the funeral service; I was married to a Christian woman for 23 years and attended church with her. Israeli consulates here have what is called the "Aliyah" program - if you are Jewish (e.g., your mother is Jewish) they will welcome you to return to the ancestral homeland, usually to work on a Kibbutz. I had drifted, going to community college, having a lot of fun, learning to play jazz (flute and string bass), but I was unfulfilled. So off to Israel I went - to Kibbutz Na'an, south of Tel Aviv. It's a vibrant community of some 2000 plus residents that raises oranges and vegetables and also has a sprinkler factory that makes the Na'an lawn sprinklers that most everyone has seen. While there you spend ha...