Starting the clock

Larry J. Kuznetz (“A one-sided documentary,” June 12) wants to start the clock in 1947 when the U.N. General Assembly recommended partitioning Palestine. I’d start the clock back in the 19th century when colonialism was still in its heyday.

Here’s what Theodor Herzl had in mind: “We will settle this space, according to the law that a superior people always has the right to conquer and to own the land of an inferior people.” As it happens, this particular quotation comes from an advocate for a different “people without land,” but there are certain commonalities in all racist undertakings.

There are some problems with starting the clock in 1947. First, the homeland of the multi-ethnic Palestinian peoples was not the property of the U.N. to give away. Second, the U.N. was trying to have it both ways by ceding 55% of Palestine to a minority community of immigrants and by claiming that the slender majority of Zionists in that 55% of Palestine would ensure that their Palestinian fellows enjoyed full and equal rights of citizenship.

The Zionists had nothing of the kind in mind. Indeed, they conquered 78% of Palestine, expelled most of the Palestinians, and consigned the remainder to second-class citizenship in an apartheid state.

Kuznetz explains all that has transpired by saying that the Palestinians failed to “accept the territorial compromise under the partition plan.” For an explanation, I’d look instead to the foundational racism of Zionism.

Wayne Kraft

Spokane