Heph and Tenni...thank you for your interesting and intelligent posts. However, what ever any of us, who are critical of Israel, may say, will not change the opinions of the pro-Israelis. I fear, that for some, it would not matter what Israel did and that is what I find most disturbing.
DD.....do you honestly believe that Israel should never receive criticism? For that is how it comes across.
Israel was created in 1948.....created and a homeland for Jews then existed. There were already Jews living in what was known, at the time, as Palestine. Christians and Muslims and probably people from other religions, lived there too. The land was homeland to those people. People who were part of the indigenous population of the region, or who had lived there for only a few generations. It was home.
With the creation of Israel, many thousands of people became displaced and ended up in refugee camps. Tented camps and I remember seeing film of these when I was a teenager...a young teenager. How was it right to create a homeland for one people and displace another people, from what they considered their homeland???
These Christian and Muslim Palestinians were not nomads, like Pasa suggested in one sentence...and back in 1948...as if that is such a long time ago. Palestinians were uprooted from their homelands...forced into exile and an artificially created land, was then allowed to bring in, as immigrants, Jews from across the world. Jews, whose ancestors had left the Middle East generation, upon generation before, the ancestors marrying into local communities, as does happen and so, as Fran rightly stated, although Jewish, their bloodline is less semitic than the Palestinian people who became displaced.
Jews in the UK, certain parts of Europe, including the UK and many other countries, where these Jewish communities, lived in perfect harmony, with other people, already had homelands. They were already Americans, British, etc. It is perfectly understandable, that those Jews, left in places like Germany and Poland and other Eastern European countries, which had seen the genocide, felt that they wanted to be in Israel instead of what had once been home. However, not even the genocide and persecution of one people makes it right and correct to create an artificial state and thereby displace another people, namely the Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim.
Israel has been attacked and defended itself well. It has proven, that it is a country, however it was created and deserves to be recognised.....but what about the displaced Palestinians? What about there right to a homeland?
Israel is a state, in the Middle East, in Asia, populated by mainly European Jews and surrounded by countries populated by both semitic and aryan peoples. It's an artificail and unnatural creation and yet it exists and should be recognised as doing do, by all other countries. But, I somehow think, that if it had not been for the importing of European, American etc Jews and the support and financial aid of the country's biggest fan and also financial aid from wealthy jews and jewish organisations, the country might not have lasted too long.
To me, it is wrong to support a country just because of what it's people may have suffered in the past. Where is the homeland for Gypsies, a people still oppressed and loathed and often their name given to any group of itinerant travellers. I always correct people, when they call Irish itinerant travellers (tinkers), or New Age travellers, Gypsies. I know a lot of people with Romany Gypsy, ancestry and like Jews, they are a race.
The Palestinians are Arab.....a race...a people....displaced, against there will....given no homeland.....there land taken by Jews, even after it was not meant to happen...even Jewish settlers deciding that they have the right to ''invade'' Arab sections of Jerusalem and build homes. They have seen their land taken...a wall built acoss it...they have been excluded from areas. Don't you think that they have a right to be angry?
What did the UN and it's member nations care about the Palestinians. Nothing at all. 1948 saw a people displaced and in 1967 and long after, many were still living in tented communities. That is wrong.
Things have to be put into perspective. You may believe Hammas to be terrorist, others in this world....especially Palestinians, who see no one really giving a damn about them... do not. There are many people and many countries, who think that the state of Israel, sometimes behaves in a terrorist, anti-semitic and anti-freedom manner. It doesn't mean that those countries and people don't want there to be a state of Israel.
Terrorism has always existed. Terrorists sometimes become leaders of a country with a democratic system of government...sometimes a dictatorship....but dictators fall. The mainland UK suffered terrorist attacks for years as did Northern Ireland, from the IRA. Eventually (and even now things are not perfect), terrorism was seen, not to work. The terrorists were a minority, when compared to the thousands of people, who wished to live peacefully. What a shame people with Irish ancestry, who sent money to Ireland, didn't understand, for the most part, where the money was going and what those terrorists used to do. So many things, which happened, probably didn't get reported in foreign lands.
I would never support terrorism.....by rebels or the state...where innocents are hurt and killed. If the Palestinians commit attrocities, it should be condemned. If israel does the same, it should be condemned.
This is the 21st century and to support a country, just because it's race may have been persecuted for centuries, does not make sense to me. The past we cannot change and we know that the persecution and eradication of any people is wrong. The present can be used to make a different future, but not if the bad behaviour of a state in found acceptable, merely because of history.
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Originally Posted by mdvbi
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