Professor Neumann’s views are probably better expressed in this article than elsewhere - and they need to be considered because he, while being in the camp of Israel haters, largely demolishes the views of those who support Israel’s complete demise. Which is to say, his argument assumes the views of the Anti-Zionist part of the left and then shows them to be, if carried to their logical extreme, a folly that would bring terrible suffering to all involved.

The real flaw I see in his thinking - and it is the type of flaw one might expect to see in a person trained in philosophy rather than history - is his inability to distinguish the present from the past. On Professor Neumann’s view, true justice would send Israelis, whenever they were born, back to Europe (and to Arab country? - he does not say) for the sin of displacing Palestinian Arabs. Which is to say, the children of sinners carry the sins of their parents.

One has to ask him at what point the children of conquerors are forgiven for their parents or their grandparents or their grandparents sins? If never, how is it that he sees the Arab side - who surely came as conquerors - as living exemplars of complete justice?

That problem eludes him entirely.

I think he hides this problem by asserting that Zionism is inherently racial in nature. He fails to note that this supposedly evil Zionism has formed among the most diverse, multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies on earth - far more than Canada where he lives and more than in most European countries, for sure. So, his description of Zionist Israel is ideological, not descriptive.

And, further, he has no answer to the fact that Israel has offered real compromises. I know, from corresponding with him, that he is unwilling to accept that the December 2000 proposal by President Clinton, which Israel accepted and Arafat basically ignored, would, had it been accepted and implemented, created the very Palestinian Arab state he says Israel never offered. On this, he relies upon the same people upon whom Noam Chomsky relies upon and, to be blunt, they are both wrong.

Moreover, he fails to consider that Jewish migration to what became Israel was well within the universally accepted and basic human right to migrate to a place where refuge is available. And, he fails to recognize that the right to organize politically is also a basic human right. He sees only that Jews eventually triumphed and, in the process, Arabs lost with people being displaced (and, evidently, he only remembers those who were displaced on the Arab side).

On the other hand, he is certainly correct that the other examples available where more than one discreet group has asserted contradictory claims with respect to the same land under one flag have led to bloodbaths of a far worse scale than anything which has ensued the dispute between Arabs and Israeli.

I also think that Professor Neumann knows, full well, that the claims made by Hamas cannot be squared with anything pragmatic. Hence, even if one accepts his view of Zionism’s inherent incompatibility with any justice for Palestinian Arabs, you cannot ignore the position really taken by Hamas - which is incompatible with the rights of any non-Muslims. In this regard, I think Neumann hides that view and substitutes the inherent difficulties that have arisen in places like Lebanon and the former Yugoslavia. While those are reason enough to oppose a one state settlement, they make sense with respect to Israel if one understands that Palestinian Arabs typically hold views incompatible with any one state solution - otherwise not, at least on Professor Neumann’s way of thinking.