60 Years Israel - A Catastrophe? Reply to the Integration Speaker of the Muslim Religious Community in Austria, Mr. Omar Al-Rawi (60 Jahre Israel - Eine Katastrophe? - Replik an Den Herrn Integrationsbeauftragten Der Islamischen Glaubensgemeinschaft in Oesterreich, Landtagsabgeordneten Ing. Omar Al-Rawi)

Abstract

This article contradicts the theses published by the head of the Integration Department of Austria's official Muslim Community, Mr. Omar Al-Rawi, in the Vienna daily Die Presse (May 15th 2008) on 60 years Israel - 60 years of catastrophe. His article has to be contradicted on behalf of Social Democracy, on behalf of Austrian foreign policy and on behalf of a liberal and tolerant, cosmopolitan Islam. Mr. Omar Al-Rawi says: * the Palestinians have nothing to do with the Holocaust * Hamas will become a political movement, capable of transforming itself * Muslims in Europe have nothing to do with the dark history of Europe. There is a legitimate demand of Palestinian solidarity. It is time to remember the NakbaThe author hopes to provide a more balanced view of events:The tragic events of the year 1948, during which ultimately 2000 Jewish and 13,000 Palestinian civilians have lost their lives, were caused in the ultimate analysis by the anti-Jewish ideology of militant Arab nationalism, which from the beginning did not accept the coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. The military and political leadership of the young Israeli state at the time of the attack from the outside against the young Jewish state (5 Arab armies) was confronted with the tough question of possible internal subversion. Mr. Omar Al-Rawi does not mention the fact that the countries of asylum for the Palestinian refugees for many years did nothing to incorporate Palestinian asylum seekers. The author then analyses at length the role of Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the important Palestinian religious and political leader at the time, who was a close collaborator of the Nazi regime. The author then analyses the continuity of anti-Jewish Arab extreme nationalism in the Charta of the Hamas movement, which even quotes passages from the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is the worst anti-Semitic propaganda pamphlet before Hitler's Mein Kampf. Hamas blames in its Charta the Freemasons for French Revolution, the Russian Revolution and World Wars of the 20th Century. All this is decently neglected by this important Austrian politician and religious leader.While the website of the Austrian social democracy provides under the heading Israel unequivocally a link to the Aavoda Party - the Israeli Labor Party under Ehud Barak, Mr. Omar Al-Rawi tries to introduce the xenophobic and anti-Semitic Hamas movement as a possible partner for dialogue and cooperation.The author then analyses on the basis of Encyclopedia Judaica today's scientific consensus on the true dimensions of what constituted the al Nakba. The new generation of historians in Israel does not exclude these thorny questions, but it has to be said at the same time that Medinat Israel - the state of Israel - fully respects the Muslim minority, and that a genuine peace and an alternative social policy would facilitate a better socio-political integration. On the basis of European Social Survey data the author shows that the following relationships hold in the country (percentages per total population group):* low trust in the way democracy works in the country, 2002 non-Muslims 25.7 Muslims 49.3 * very difficult on present income, 2002 non-Muslims 39.5 Muslims 47.4 * low trust in parliament 2002, non-Muslims 32.3 Muslims 41.7 * low trust in the police 2002, non-Muslims 14.8 Muslims 26.8 * low trust in the legal system 2002, non-Muslims 15 Muslims 16.4 Inferences about the true dimensions of necessary, feasible and possible change can also can be drawn from the data series of the inequality project at the University of Texas (Prof. JK Galbraith) and World Bank and ILO data series. Globalization and the neo-liberal policies of past Likud governments indeed certainly increased the social contradictions of Israeli society. But a fair and proper balance on Israel 60 would imply that all this - with Israel being a democracy - is debated where it should be - in the Parliament, and that a fair balance would also necessarily imply to state in clearest possible terms Israel's right of existence as a basic and necessary principle of Austrian foreign policy, repeated many times by successive Austrian heads of government and foreign ministers. In analytical terms, the peaceful coexistence and collaboration between Turkey and Israel could serve as a role model for the region. The article also contrasts the unacceptable perspective of Mr. Omar Al-Rawi with the plurality of peaceful coexistence patterns, which the majority of the countries of origin of Austria's Muslims already established with Medinat Israel, and also shows the very positive patterns of active Muslim solidarity with Europe's persecuted Jewry at the time of the Shoa by such countries as Albania and Turkey.