Quote Of The Week, 29.9.04

The early history of the State of Israel is not unique. Other countries have chapters in their history of which they should be deeply ashamed. And it must also be stated that [Benny] Morris's shocking revelations of death and destruction deliberately inflicted on the Arabs of Palestine do not justify Palestinian terrorism against Israel's civilian population.

But Morris's account points to the sorry fact that there is not much that distinguishes how Jews behaved in 1948 in their struggle to achieve statehood from Palestinian behavior today. At the very least, this sobering truth should lead to a shedding of the moral smugness of too many Israelis and to a reexamination of their demonization of the Palestinian national cause.

-- Henry Siegman, senior fellow on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations; Israel: The Threat from Within