There's a fascinating and enlightening discussion going on right now over at Little Green Footballs, triggered by Judith inspiring Charles to link to this NY Times editorial by Ethan Bronner. Even if you don't ordinarily read LGF comments, this thread is well worth browsing through.*
For an excellent critique of the Times piece and the pitfalls of historical analogy in general, check out Jonathan Tobin's essay "Lessons From History" in last week's Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. It's impossible to excerpt adequately, but here's just a snippet.
It would be a good thing if the Palestinian Authority actually decided to round up their terrorists. But the difference between 1948 and 2003 is that the Jews didn’t need a civil war to achieve a democracy or to make peace with an Arab world that wanted only to kill them. The Palestinians do need to fight a war among themselves in order to have a government that will be democratic and to make peace with the Jewish state.
But then again, Bronner also ignored the fact that Abbas’ supposed good intentions notwithstanding, it isn’t clear there actually is a pro-peace faction within the P.A. to fight such a war.
I would, of course, recommend reading it all.
* Note: You can find my thoughts on the "Deir Yassin massacre," here and here.
