Terrorism cannot be justified in any way – in any form

There cannot be two documents more different from each other than the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the Charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The Israeli Declaration of Independence begins with the words: “The land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was formed.” It continues: “We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborly relations, and call on them to establish ties of cooperation and mutual assistance with the sovereign Jewish people living in their own country has established.”

In contrast, the PLO charter states: “The liberation of Palestine is, from the Arab point of view, a national duty and it seeks to repel Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in his country. Palestine.” It continues: “Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This is the overall strategy, not just a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people reaffirm their absolute resolve and determination to continue their armed struggle and to work towards an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their land and their return to it.”

The Jewish people, on the other hand

The Jewish people’s commitment to peace, as opposed to the Palestinian occupation by force, does not only exist on paper – it is visible every day in Israel.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an award-winning American journalist. His recent book The Message grapples with deep questions about how our stories – our reporting, imaginative storytelling and myth-making – expose and distort our reality. One of the parts of the book is about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2023, Coates made a ten-day trip to Israel and in that short time he was able to understand the conflict and firmly conclude that Israel was an occupying power, practicing an apartheid regime that oppresses the Palestinians.

Ta-Nehisi Coates at the University of Virginia during the 2015 MLK Celebration (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

MANY MEDIA outlets that tend to focus on stories that portray Israel in a malicious light have promoted Coates’ book and allowed him to promote his defamatory demonization of Israel. The only major media figure to ask critical questions of Coates, Tony Dokoupil, was immediately accused of racism and bias for daring to point out that The Message lacks fundamental balance and nuance and that in any context other than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be the case. called extremist writing. CBS, where Dokoupil is employed, was reportedly forced to hold an editorial meeting to address the controversy.

Since its publication, numerous articles and columns have been published listing the many omissions, inaccuracies, and blatant falsehoods found in The Message. Coates has not recanted anything he has written and has instead doubled down in numerous interviews he has given since the book’s release.

In a recent interview that has raised the eyebrows of many literary critics, Coates suggested he is not above engaging in an October 7-style attack. He imagined what he would do if he grew up as a Palestinian in Gaza and the West Bank: “And I grow up under that oppression and that poverty and the wall comes down.” Then he wrote without shame: ‘Am I also strong enough or even built in such a way that I say this goes too far? I don’t know if that’s me.”

With his comments, Coates even excused and justified the murder, kidnapping and rape of innocent Israelis on October 7. His apology for the most heinous acts against Jews since the Holocaust – and perhaps worse – was outrageous. In the four millennia of Jewish suffering, stretching from Egyptian slavery to the Palestinian Intifadas, Jews never dreamed of raping, burning and beheading the children of their oppressors, as the Palestinians did during their brutal attacks.

Such barbarism is so repugnant to Jewish values that the mere suggestion would turn the Jewish stomach. Coates showed exactly the kind of degeneracy he appreciates by imagining himself committing the same acts.

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Many defenders of Coates pointed to a quote attributed to former Israeli Prime Minister and IDF Chief of Staff Ehud Barak: “If I (a Palestinian) were at the right age, I would have joined one of the terrorist organizations at some point and fought against that.” Coates’ apologists juxtapose Barak’s statement that he acted as a Palestinian terrorist with Coates’ apology for the Palestinian terrorism of the Simchat Torah attacks to excuse his horrific commentary.

While the two quotes can be unfairly conflated to convey the same message of justifying terrorist attacks against innocent Israelis, even a little thought reveals the differences between the two statements. Barak was talking about the resistance against Israeli soldiers early in the First Intifada (1987-1993), when Palestinians generally attacked Israeli soldiers in an attempt to defeat Israel.

This was a decade before bus bombings and suicide bombings targeting children would become the frequent modus operandi of Palestinian terrorists. Coates talked about killing, kidnapping and raping innocent Israeli civilians.

Ehud Barak was wrong when he showed sympathy for the Palestinian terrorists. At any time from 1948 onwards, Palestinians could have chosen to recognize the Jewish right to self-determination in their historic homeland, the Land of Israel. Instead, they chose violence and terrorism to destroy the Jewish state.

For decades they have devoted their efforts and energy to murdering Jews around the world to put an end to the Jewish state. When they realized their tactics were failing, they duplicitously told the world that they were interested in peace – but over the next thirty years, through their support and encouragement of terrorism, they showed that they were more interested in creating an independent Palestinian state in instead of a Jewish state. then next to one.

The Palestinian choice was disastrous for peace in the Middle East and for themselves. Choosing violence and terrorism instead of peace is the preference of savages, not of civilized people. It was inexcusable that then Prime Minister Barak had made this seem justified. It is unconscionable that Ta-Nehisi Coates, an award-winning journalist, would promote his latest book by advocating terrorism.

Many people blame Israeli colonialism (sic), Israeli settlements and various Israeli military policies for the lack of peace in the Middle East. These are all misguided attempts to smear the Jewish state. There is no greater obstacle to peace than violence and Palestinian terrorism. Zionism is one of the largest liberation movements in the world and if Palestinians had welcomed Zionism and the Jewish people, their lives would be many times better than they are today.

The writer is a Zionist lecturer at institutions around the world and recently published his book Zionism Today.