might in all other respects consider themselves liberal and tolerant and progressive - to acknowledge that there was no creating a Jewish state in Palestine that did not require the destruction of the preexisting population. With Jews making up only 4 percent of the preexisting population at the time of the first aliya, it was inherent in the project from the beginning that most of the Muslims and Christians would have to be expelled or disenfranchised, not because of anything they might do, but because they were the wrong sort of people. You simply can`t create a Jewish state any other way in a land that is so overwhelmingly non-Jewish.
It`s a difficult thing for Zionists to acknowledge, because if you recognize that Zionism required the destruction of the existing Palestinian population, then their rejection of it becomes perfectly logical, and you can`t go on pretending its all about some irrational prejudice on their part. |
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