http://uthinkithink.weebly.com/1/post/2013/05/israels-peculiar-position-written-in-1968-by-eric-hoffer.html

ISRAEL'S PECULIAR POSITION
by Eric Hoffer-- Los Angeles Times May 26, 1968 (Eric Hoffer's Bio Below)

ISRAEL'S PECULIAR POSITION by Eric Hoffer - LA Times 5/26/68
The Jews are a peculiar people: what is allowed to other people is forbidden to them.
Other nations drive out thousands, millions, and there is a "refugee problem." Russia has, Poland and Czechoslovakia have. Turkey expelled a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia drove millions of Chinese and no one says anything about "refugees".
But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs become eternal refugees.
The world insists that Israel must take back all.
Arnold Toynbee said that the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity was greater than any committed by the Nazis.
Other nations victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious, she has to ask for peace.
Everyone expects the Jews to be the only "true Christians" on this planet.
Other nations, when they suffer a defeat, survive and recover, but the day that Israel is defeated, it will be destroyed. If Nasser had triumphed last June [1967], Israel would have disappeared from the map and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews.
No formal commitment made ​​by any government to Jews, including those issued by our own government, are worth the paper they are written. The world outrage mounts a scandal when civilians die in Vietnam or when two rebels are executed in Rhodesia. But when the Jews Hitler murdered in cold blood, no one protested against it.
The Swedes are prepared to sever ties with the United States for our war in Vietnam, but they did not say a peep when Hitler slaughtered Jews. He was sent to Hitler his best iron ore, bearings for their tanks, and gave service to train troops sent to Norway.
The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be thanks to their own efforts and resources.
However, at the moment, Israel is our only true unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than they can depend on us. We just have to imagine what would have happened last summer [1967] if the Arabs and their Russian allies had won the war to realize how vital Israel to America and the West in general.
I have a hunch that will not leave me alone, what happens to Israel will seal our own fate. If Israel perish, the Holocaust will fall upon us all.

Eric Hoffer was a proletarian thinker. He worked as a stevedore at the ports and became philosopher of common sense. He wrote columns for newspapers in the U.S.. He was not Jewish ... was an American "walk".
Born in 1902 and died in 1983, after writing nine books and received the Distinguished Presidential Medal of Freedom ... the highest civil order of the U.S.. His first book, "The True Believer", published in 1951, was recognized as a classic.

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This op-ed (though I think the term not in use then) piece was written shortly after the 1the 1967 war. Already, then, it was clear how the world felt about Israel's victory over the immediate Arab world. We now consider it the Israel/Palestine problem. It seems to me that not much has changed for Israel in the subsequent 45+ years. Israel is still expected to make right Arab treatment of Palestineans, and Palestinean treatment of Jordan, Lebanon and Syria during the years since.

I think Hoffer's last sentence is precient. It may even be in progress as we argue at Mudcat.

Musket, Jim, Greg, Stilly, Stringsinger, Steve Shaw, et. al., I'm interested in your reaction to Mr. Hoffer.