MORE ON LAST WEEK'S HORRIBLE NYT OP-ED

The New Anti-Semitism - Clifford D. May (Washington Times)
Last week, the New York Times gave Michael Tarazi, an American lawyer who advises the Palestine Liberation Organization, space on its Op-Ed Page ("Two Peoples, One State") to make this audacious argument: Having failed to eradicate Israel with tanks and terrorism, Palestinian leaders are now "being forced to consider a one-state solution."

And if Israelis refuse to willingly become a despised minority in their own country, ruled by people who have waged genocidal campaigns against them, that will demonstrate, Tarazi declares, "Christians and Muslims, the millions of Palestinians under occupation are not welcome in the Jewish state." "Not welcome." Imagine that. The nerve. The chutzpah.

As Tarazi well knows but neglects to mention, there is only one Jewish state on the planet. It's about the size of New Jersey. By contrast, there are 22 Arab nations and more than 50 predominantly Muslim countries, covering an area larger than the U.S. and Europe combined.

In these lands, Jews are, to varying degrees, conspicuously unwelcome. In Jordan, a relatively liberal country that has diplomatic relations with Israel, Jews are denied citizenship. In Saudi Arabia, no synagogue or church may be built.

Nor does Tarazi appear to recall that almost 15% of Israel's citizens are Muslims. They enjoy more rights and freedoms than Muslims elsewhere in the Middle East - including the right to free speech, to vote, and to worship as they choose.

But Tarazi believes he can convince "the international community" that if Israelis are unwilling to open their doors to millions of people who have been indoctrinated to believe butchering Jews is a form of "martyrdom," it is the Israelis who are the bigots and oppressors.

Tarazi is not sincere. He wants Gaza and the West Bank judenrein. And eventually he wants what is now Israel to become "jew-free" as well - by whatever means. He really isn't choosy.
In 2004, this is the form genocidal anti-Semitism takes. In the long run, anti-Semites seek a world free of Jews. In the short run, a world free of a Jewish state will do.

If they can disguise such extremism as a fight against bigotry, a "struggle for equal citizenship" and against "apartheid," and if they can push such boldly Orwellian propaganda on the pages of the New York Times, they would be crazy not to.

SEE ALSO: Who Needs a Jewish State? - Editorial
Some Palestinian leaders are abandoning the two-state solution - Israel and Palestine, side by side - in favor of a one-state solution: a single, secular state in which Jews and Arabs would live in democratic harmony. This idea is percolating through the Western intelligentsia and even into left-wing circles in Israel. The problem is that such a state would not be Jewish. The premise of Zionism - the premise of Israel - is that Jews need and deserve their own state. Israel must remain a Jewish state, and to do that and be a democracy as well, it must always have a Jewish majority. It took the Israelis decades to accept the idea of a Palestinian state next door. They saw it as a staging ground for conquest and elimination of the Jewish state. The "single-state" solution would achieve that same illegitimate goal by more decorous means. (Los Angeles Times) See also An Answer to the New Anti-Zionists: The Right of the Jewish People to a Sovereign State in Their Historic Homeland - Dore Gold and Jeff Helmreich (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)