Response to question #5, Kimmerling

Can the treatment of Palstinians by the Israelis in their newly-formed state be reasonably compared with the treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government?

This is a complex question, and has a good deal of depth to it. Intuitively it seems absurd, and even insulting to the Israelis, who to this day maintain the only true democracy in the Middle East. Without consulting mounds of details, documents, primary and secondary sources, and interviews, it seems almost inconceivable that an offer like the one Ehud Barak made to Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian people at the Camp David-Taba negotiations in 2000-2001 could reasonably be compared to the legacy of violations of U.S. Indian treaties that is taught to any middle school student today. Barak at this time offered the Palestinians:

• 94-96% of the West Bank;
• All of the Gaza Strip;
• A Palestinian state with Arab Jerusalem as its capital;
• Complete control of East Jerusalem and the Arab Quarter of the Old City;
• Control of the entire Temple Mount; and
• $30 billion in compensation for Palestinian people not moving to the new Palestinian state.

This was an unprecedentedly unfair deal - for the Israelis! Incredibly, Arafat dismissed it. Without overgeneralizing, it can safely be said that in this scenario alone, the Israelis viewed Palestinians much more favorably than the US government viewed Native Americans in the first stereotypical examples of mistreatment we think of, such as Wounded Knee.

Source: Dershowitz.