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Introductory Remarks by John Papworth
to the article by
Kirkpatrick Sale
entitled
An End To The Israel Experiment? Unmaking A Grievous Error27th March 2003
How can peace be secured in the Middle East?The fathomless horror of the Nazi death camps, in which millions of Jews were wiped out of existence in meticulously organised gas chambers, has left an indelible stamp of shame and guilt on the conscience of civilisation.
It has led to a determination by world Jewry to have its own homeland in Palestinian territory, largely as defined by the Balfour Declaration of World War One, in the belief that within its borders it could achieve peace and, above all, security.
Far from achieving either of these objectives it has in fact resulted in their precise opposites, a state of increasing war and insecurity.
Even more to the point it has become clear that there is no prospect of either ever being achieved so long as the injustices involved in the establishment of Israel which have been inflicted on the Palestinian people, injustices themselves the product of an essentially colonialist mindframe, continue.
The people of Israel today can only continue to exist as virtual prisoners behind the walls of their own nuclear armed fortress in a perilous situation of ever increasing tension and hostility; unless, that is, there is a quite radical transformation of perspective.
It is because we are aware that there many Jews and Palestinians who share a common awareness of this need, who are aware of its urgency and who are already working together to create the conditions in which all peoples can live together on the basis of justice, that we have readily agreed to publish the following proposals by Kirkpatrick Sale.
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