Prager claims Israel is legitimate
By Daily Bruin Staff
May 29, 2002 9:00 p.m.
By Kelly Rayburn
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
[email protected]
For Dennis Prager, a “moral case for Israel” is so
obvious it is ridiculous that he would even have to lecture on the
topic to a group of UCLA students.
When it comes to bloodshed in the Mideast, the author,
theologian and radio talk show host sees one culture as morally
right and the other as morally wrong. Those who believe all
cultures are by nature morally equal are naive and misguided, he
said Tuesday in Kerckhoff Grand Salon.
“My nine-year-old can understand that,” he said.
The question of Israel’s legitimacy as a state ““ an
issue debated widely throughout the world in politics, the media
and at universities ““ has an irrefutable answer in
Prager’s mind: Israel is as legitimate as any country, and
the tiny democracy has every right to defend itself from
Palestinian terrorists and neighboring “police
states.”
Prager said few people realize how small Israel is ““
“you can jog across Israel without having run a
marathon.” Those who don’t support Jewish control of
such a small piece of land are anti-Semitic, Prager said.
Many who sympathize with the plight of Palestinians argue that
there is a difference between condemning the state of Israel and
anti-Semitism. For many, the issue is not whether Jews deserve a
homeland, but whether the displacement of Palestinians by the state
of Israel is acceptable. Whether Palestinians were forced off their
land by the creation of Israel ““ and, if so, how many were
forced off ““ is a question still debated fervently today.
But setting demographic and geographic arguments aside,
“there is no country in the world that was created without
displacing some people,” Prager said.
“For some reason (Israel) is the one illegitimate
country,” he said.
Those who question Israel’s legitimacy but do not also
question Pakistan’s legitimacy or India’s
““Â countries whose respective creation displaced
thousands of Hindus and Muslims ““Â are anti-Semitic,
Prager concluded.
Earlier, most of the crowd nodded in agreement when Prager said
American universities are hotbeds for anti-Israeli sentiment.
First-year UC Berkeley student Joseph Shapo said he didn’t
care much about trying to influence people whose minds are set
against Israel, but asked Prager what Israel-supporting students
could do to help non-interested students understand pro-Israeli
viewpoints.
“Not much,” Prager answered. “Most students
are concerned with what they’ll do for a living, their social
life and the next text, not the Mideast.”
Meanwhile, Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, while supporting the bulk
of Prager’s argument,did challenge him on a few points he
said Prager exaggerated. For example, Seidler-Feller ““ who is
director of Hillel at UCLA, one of the organizations that sponsored
the event ““ disagreed with a comparison Prager drew between
the condition of the West Bank under Israeli occupation and that of
Puerto Rico as a U.S. territory.
Seidler-Feller asked if it was necessary for Israel supporters
to exaggerate to get their points across.
Prager did not answer that question, but he clarified his Puerto
Rico example, saying the occupation of the West Bank more closely
relates to Puerto Rico’s condition than to Nazi-occupied
Poland’s condition in the late ’30s and early
’40s.
