PrintJune 3, 2013
Eric Hoffer Revisited
In 1968, a year after Israel's stunning victory over the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq -- which put Israel in control of the Sinai, Judea, Samaria, the Golan, and their populations -- Eric Hoffer, pre-eminent American philosopher and the 1983 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, had this to say about the political aftermath of its military achievement:
The Jews are a peculiar people. Things permitted to other people are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions, of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it; Poland and Czechoslovakia did it; Turkey drove out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchmen; Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese -- and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. ... Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.
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