A Japanese View of the Palestinians
 By Yashiko Sagamori
 
 If you are so sure that "Palestine, the country, goes back through most of recorded history", I expect you to be  able to answer a few basic questions about that country of  Palestine:
 
  When was it founded and by whom?
 
  What were its borders?
 
  What was its capital?
 
  What were its major cities?
 
  What constituted the basis of its economy?
 
  What was its form of government?
 
  Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat?
 
  Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for
 interpretation? 
 
What was the language of the country of Palestine?
 
  What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine?
 
  What was the name of its currency? Choose any date in history and tell what was the  approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary  unit against the US dollar, German mark, GB pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese Yuan on that date.
 
  And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and  when did it occur?
 
  You are lamenting the "low sinking" of a "once proud" nation. Please tell me, when  exactly was that "nation" proud and what was it so proud of?
 
  And here is the least sarcastic question of all: If the people you mistakenly call  "Palestinians" are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over — or  thrown out of — the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic identity  that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to  become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat in the Six  Day War?
 
  I hope you avoid the temptation to trace the modern day "Palestinians" to the Biblical Philistines: substituting etymology for history won't work here.
 
 The truth should be obvious to everyone who wants to know it. Arab countries have  never abandoned the dream of destroying Israel; they still  cherish it today. Having time and again failed to achieve their evil goal with military means, they decided to fight Israel by proxy. For that purpose, they created a terrorist organization, cynically called it "the Palestinian people" and installed it in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria.
How else can you explain the refusal by Jordan and Egypt to unconditionally accept back the "West Bank" and Gaza, respectively?
 
 The fact is, Arabs populating Gaza, Judea, and Samaria have much less claim to nationhood than that Indian tribe that successfully emerged in Connecticut with the purpose of starting a tax-exempt casino: at least that tribe had a constructive goal that motivated them. The so called "Palestinians" have only one  motivation: the destruction of Israel, and in  my book that is not sufficient to consider them a nation"
 — or anything else except what they really are: a terrorist organization that will one day be dismantled.
 
  In fact, there is only one way to achieve peace in the Middle East. Arab countries must acknowledge and accept their defeat in their war against Israel and, as the losing side should, pay Israel reparations for the more than 50 years of devastation they have visited on it. The most appropriate form of such reparations would be the removal of their terrorist organization from the land of Israel and accepting Israel's ancient sovereignty over Gaza, Judea,and Samaria.
 
 That will mark the end of the Palestinian people. What are you saying again was its beginning?

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J'ai lu ce texte et les arguments ne sont pas nouveaux. Ce qui est nouveau c'est de voir un japonais s'interesser aussi passionnement au conflit israelo-"palestinien".

Comme je l'exprimais ailleurs, une chose est evidente, c'est qu'Israel n'a pas ete tres brillante en communication et les "palestiniens" ont fait mieux.

Tout ce qui est dit dans ce texte est reel et incontestable mais le probleme, c'est qu'en politique comme dans l'identite religieuse, interviennent des sentiments et des facteurs qui ne sont pas toujours en accord avec le rationnel et ainsi chacun se range du cote auquel il s'identifie sans considerer les faits reels et c'est pratiquement peine perdue de tenter d'expliquer quand la subjectivite est si grande.

Je lis actuellement Hannah Arendt dans un de ses livres "Qu'est-ce que la politique" - Texte etabli par Ursula Ludz - et elle a eu une phrase qui m'a quelque peu perturbee. Ursula Ludz ecrit ainsi en citant Hannah Arendt (je reprends un peu plus largement le contexte dans lequel elle ecrit cela) :

"Ce que la guerre nucleaire aneantirait, c'est la pluralite,le monde des relations humaines qui s'instaurent partout ou les hommes vivent ensemble, la possibilite de parler, d'agir de concert..."

"A supposer qu'un seul peuple survive a une catastrophe nucleaire, ces hommes prives de monde qui subsisteraient n'appartiendrait donc plus a l'humanite. Hannah Arendt fait toutefois une exception : le peuple juif lui, a survecu au monde produit tangible.
Dans "La Tradition cachee", elle s'etait deja interessee au peuple juif en tant qu'exemple type de formation populaire acosmique se maintenant depuis des millenaires."

Hannah Arendt ecrit aussi : "C'etait quelque chose de tres beau que cette faculte de se tenir debout en dehors de toute liaison sociale."

Et c'est cette faculte qui aurait ete perdue au moment de la creation de l'Etat d'Israel car c'etait la le prix de l'acces a la visibilite politique, a la liberte. Par la suite le sionisme dans lequel elle vit un moment l'espoir d'un remede a l'acosmisme du peuple juif, subira la meme critique : il s'agit la d'un nouvel acosmisme qui se caracterise par la meconnaissance de l'alterite et de la pluralite arabes.

"Ils avaient fui en Palestine comme on souhaite se propulser sur la lune, pour echapper a la mechancete du monde"** ecrit-elle (Hannah Arendt).

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** "Reexamen du sionisme" in Auschwitz et Jerusalem, Paris, 1991.