Netanyahu versus Einstein

Paul Eidelberg

In a message honoring the heroes of the Warsaw ghetto, Albert Einstein declared:

The Germans as an entire people are responsible for the mass murders and must be punished as a people if there is justice in the world and if the consciousness of collective responsibility in the nations is not to perish from the earth entirely. Behind the Nazi party stands the German people, who elected Hitler after he had in his book [Mein Kampf] and in his speeches made his shameful [genocidal] intentions clear beyond the possibility of misunderstanding.

The Constitution of the Palestinian Authority calls for “The complete liberation of Palestine and the economic, political, military and cultural elimination of Zionism.” Only fools would fail to see in these words the genocidal objective of the Palestinian Authority. Is not the meaning of this Arab imperative “clear beyond the possibility of misunderstanding”?

Did not the Palestinian Arabs repeatedly hear Yasser Arafat chanting Jihad against Israel and elect him as their Fuhrer? But then, should they not be held collectively responsible for the brutal murder and maiming of more than 10,000 Jews perpetrated by their government, now headed by Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas? And should they not be punished, as Einstein said of the German people, “if there is justice in the world and if the consciousness of collective responsibility in the nations is not to perish from the earth entirely”?

Is it not clear beyond the possibility of misunderstanding that the Palestinians have used Arab children as human bombs to butcher Jewish men, women, and children?

Is it not clear beyond the possibility of misunderstanding that Palestinians have taught generation after generation of Arab children to hate Jews and exalt those who kill them?

Yet Prime Minister Netanyahu would reward these Palestinians with statehood!

Albert Einstein was a gentle man, very much inclined to pacifism. But above and beyond his desire for peace was his desire for justice.