I found Jill Gurvey’s op-ed published on April 29 disturbing, in that she thinks she now has the correct facts about the establishment of the state of Israel, but she doesn’t (“I’m finally questioning the narrative about Jewish inheritance”).
Jews and Arabs always have lived in the Mideast. After World War I, the British occupied lands formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire until 1948 with the understanding that Arabs and Jews would establish their own states. This was based on the League of Nations acknowledging the historical connection of Jews to Palestine in 1922 through the Balfour Declaration.
Between World Wars I and II, the Nazis rose to power and were intent on exterminating the Jews of Europe. Jewish organizations assisted survivors in finding refuge in Palestine, where there always had been a Jewish presence. Jews legally purchased land from Arabs.
During 1947 to 1948, the United Nations partitioned Palestine. The Jews declared their portion Israel and worked to establish their state in peace with their neighbors. The Arabs had an opportunity to formally establish their own state, but they failed to do so. The armies of Syria, Transjordan, Iraq and Egypt attacked Israel. They told the Arabs in Palestine to leave during the war that ensued, with the understanding that they would all return after the Jews were pushed into the sea. Nevertheless, many Arabs stayed and later became the Arab citizens of Israel with their own flourishing communities and representation in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.
Thousands of Arabs settled in Transjordan. In the early 1970s, the Jordanians killed more than 3,000 Palestinians in “Black September.”
The Arab states have never properly supported the Palestinians in their quest for statehood. Instead, the Arab states have used the Palestinians against Israel. In all the ensuing years, Israelis have been under attack in wars they have never started, never wanted and tried to prevent.
Gaza was under Egyptian control for many years, and like the Jordanians, the Egyptians never accepted the Palestinians as citizens of Egypt.
The state of Israel is here to stay. It’s time for the Arab states to accept this and help the Palestinians form a state to live in peace with Israel.
All peoples, including Israelis, are concerned about the condition of the citizens of Gaza. But Israel did not start this war and is anxious for peace. The hostages must be released, and the attacks on Israel must cease. Then real peace can follow, if the world will support a two-state solution committed to peace, not war.
— Ronnie Jo Sokol, Chicago
Israel needs to exist
Jill Gurvey overlooks so many important historical facts in her op-ed.
As the relative of Holocaust survivors, I, too, grew up with a strong Jewish/Israeli identity in my family’s home. The op-ed makes no mention of the fact that Israelis lived in what became Israel before 1948. My cousin, born in 1934, still lives in Tel Aviv. In the years (1973 to 1979) that I lived in Israel, we were great friends with the neighboring Arab villages, and they loved the development of their community until the Palestine Liberation Organization took over.
Gurvey makes no mention of the agreements made for peace that Yasser Arafat reneged on. She makes no mention of the monies Hamas stole from the Palestinian people who could have built better lives with that money or the brutal Hamas rule by force in Gaza. She makes no mention of Israel walking away from the Gaza strip to help create a solution to live side by side.
My Auschwitz-surviving mother returned to Poland only to hear that not enough Jews were killed, and she moved to Israel.
Israel needs to exist to defend the Jews of the world from exactly what is happening now.
— Marty Zak, Glenview
Op-ed is disingenuous
Jill Gurvey’s narrative about Jewish inheritance as it pertains to Israel is at best somewhat disingenuous. In 1948, when the state of Israel was created, by no less an illustrious body as the United Nations (and by an overwhelming majority), there were indeed many Arabs, Muslims and Christians who were living in that land. Israel was immediately attacked by five Arab countries that told their Arab brothers to leave, that the country would be liberated and they would be able to return. They were not expelled.
Many chose not to flee, and they, as Israeli Arab citizens, have been enjoying a standard of living disproportionately higher than their Arab brothers in some other Middle Eastern countries. Apart from having successful businesses and professions, some are even members of the parliament.
Yes, after the tragedy of the Holocaust, Jews needed a safe haven. Appropriately, it was Israel. Perhaps the wealthy Arab countries could display some magnanimity in providing for their brothers in need? Or is that too inconvenient?
— Lawrence Bergman, Glenview
Crimes against Palestinians
Thanks to Jill Gurvey for her questioning the narrative about Jewish inheritance. In 1991, I married a Jewish man, and we had seven wonderful years together until he died in 1998. He had asked me to promise to always be on the side of the Jews.
As a Lutheran raised on a dairy farm in Wisconsin who married a Jew originally from New York City, I was confident that our shared values of honesty and respect for others would carry us through. It did — until now.
I am so angry at the Zionists in Israel for their continued crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank that it makes me doubt my promise. Only in understanding that my American Jewish friends are good people who are just as horrified as I am and who have been subject to miseducation in their youth as have other minorities throughout history, can I still honor my promise.
Thank you to Gurvey for waking us all up!
— Ruth Zekowski, Evanston
Who initiated the war?
Jill Gurvey states unequivocally that the displacement of Palestinians in 1948 — the Nakba — arose because “people were forced from their homes so that Jews could come in and settle.”
However, many historians have a completely different understanding, which is that the displacement occurred after multiple Arab states invaded Israel in 1948. In the context of war, perhaps not surprisingly, many Palestinians reportedly left Israel voluntarily, often in response to directives from Arab leaders, with a plan to return after the Arabs had conquered Israel, and some others were unfortunately evicted by advancing Israeli military units.
If the Nakba owed to the war, then the responsibility for it falls very much upon Arab shoulders for initiating the war; in that event, they fueled their own catastrophe.
Those blaming Jews for the Nakba should ask: How many, if any, displaced Palestinians would there have been if the Arab world had chosen peace in1948 and there had been no war?
—Sheldon Hirsch, Wilmette
Questioning upbringing
As I’ve pondered the issues swirling in the Israel-Gaza mega-tornado that is causing so much devastation and heartache on many levels around the world, I’ve sought clarity amid what seemed to me to be only conflict-driven, polarizing confusion. I found a starting point for clarity in Jill Gurvey’s op-ed addressing the origin narrative of her childhood.
Have we been raised to have the wisdom and courage to question the assumptions of our childhood upbringing? Would we discover our missing common ground if we were all to probe those narratives for their flawed premises? Dualistic thinking may well be blinding us to our inherent oneness.
Paradoxically, might we all be unknowingly mistaken in some essential ways simply because we do not ask awkward, even unpopular, questions? I extend my gratitude to Gurvey for courageously showing me a way out of the multifaceted dilemma of perpetual polarization.
Now I see that I must relentlessly ask myself in what way may I be contributing to the seeming impossibility of reconciling issues peacefully for all of us. Is my unquestioned loyalty to my upbringing contributing to this perceived impossibility? Much of the debris carried by this whirlwind may be remnants of crumbling dreams of survival through competitive one-upmanship that earnestly need to be reexamined and discarded.
Perhaps we can simply cooperate with these housekeeping chores that seem to be beyond our control and find the elegant resolutions that otherwise elude us.
It seems to me no coincidence that Gurvey has devoted herself to health so we might all thrive together.
Let her soul-searching open-mindedness and vulnerability of heart be an example for us all!
— Art Nicol, Chicago
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