True friends of Israel oppose Sharon's war

GOOD FRIENDS can not only disagree from time to time, but are actually better friends for their willingness to offer frank advice, as President Bush demonstrated with his recent speech on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.


When the world was simpler and based on a bipolar political system, friendship was also simpler. Friends of Israel were those who understood that Jews, too, deserved to have a state of their own after the Holocaust and the terrible sufferings they had endured. These friends were proud that Israel was a democratic state and understood its need to defend itself against Arab states that refused to recognize it. They largely attributed the Palestinian refugee problem that was created in 1948 to a Palestinian leadership that encouraged the Arabs to leave their homes only to return later together with the victorious Arab armies that would destroy the new State of Israel.

The friends of the Arab states viewed Israel as a foreign body existing within the Middle East. They did not understand why the Palestinians had to pay the price of the European Jews' Holocaust and viewed Zionist immigration as part of a colonialist process driving another people into oppression. They viewed the Palestinian refugee problem as resulting exclusively from their eviction by the Israelis and from brutalities committed against the refugees in some villages.