Where there is Islam, there is war.
Not that I agree with it, but it is a topic for conversation.
Well, I would like to stick my neck out and take great issue with such a supposition. Just the other day I had a wonderful conversation with an Afghani friend of mine (he runs the business where I buy computer parts) and we found ourselves agreeing much more than disagreeing about tolerance for other people's religious views.
One thing we agreed on was that all religious extremists can draw any conclusion that they want to justify their acts of violence. And they certainly are not limited to being muslim. They could be Christian "crusaders", Catholic "inquisitionists", or puritanical protestants.
We have to remain aware that there centuries of brutal history behind the conflict in the Balkans (remember Vlad the Impaler?). And they are not specifically religious conflicts, but cultural ones. I would say that the battle there in Macedonia is more one of "protecting" the Balkans from another Turkish invasion and domination of the region, which is what the Albanians supposedly represent to the orthodox christians and various ethnicities in the region.
They don't see the Albanians as being anything other than a holdeover of the Ottoman Turks and an intolerant culture (nearly as intolerant as their own).
Who's right? Who's wrong? Who knows?....
It's like this anti-semitic crud that Gustave tries to conceal as a more politically correct "anti-zionism". It's merely a convenient cover to hide his views against an entire ethnicity, rather than any attempt to view the Paletinian problem in a historic context.
The crux of the Palestinian/Arab argument is that Israel turned the Palestinians into refugees and have confiscated their lands. And now they want that land back, even if it means the dissolution of Israel.
Well, wouldn't it be interesting if Israeli Oriental Jews, who make up an equal percentage of the Israeli population as the Ashkenazi European Jews, started asserting their claims against the Arab governments who expropriated THEIR property and forced them into refugee status in Israel?
Because Israel is essentially a refugee state for Jews and has been for decades.
There has NEVER been a Palestinian state. Not under the Turks, not under the British, not under the Jordanians.
The Palestinians have also been oppressed throughout history, but they have NEVER, to my knowledge, been the target of concentrated racial hatred by so many other people
to the extent that 1/2 of their global population were exterminated.
Zionism existed years before the British conquered the Levant from the Turks, who had ruled Palestine for centuries. The Jewish community established themselves in the "Yishuv", fought against the Turks on the side of the British, and rightfully expected some reward for their service, culminating with the Balfour Agreement, acknowleging a "Jewish national homeland". They solicited development funds from other Jews throughout the world and financed almost all of the existing infrastructure in the region.
And in WWII, while the Palestinians and Arabs were allying with the Nazis against the British, the Jews allied themselves with the Allies and fought against the Germans (not always with the acceptance of British commanders). After the war, both the Jews and Arabs/Palestinians continued their respective political battle for respective recognition, which resulted in the UN partitioning of Palestine into the Jewish and Palestinan partitions.
And there is no doubt that both sides fought the British occupation of Palestine, and that the British favored the Palestinian cause out of political respect for their Arab oil interests in the region. But upon the declaration of independence by Israel, the Palestinians and surrounding Arab states opted for outright warfare against the new Jewish state and as a result lost miserably against the Jews, relegating the Palestinians who opted not to remain under Jewish government as refugees. And Jordan annexed the Palestinian partition outright.
And in exchange(retaliation), the various Arab states began a process of expropriating Jewish owned property in their countries, forcing hundreds of thousands of Oriental Jews to become refugees as well with little, or now, compensation for their property. Thus, the historical evidence reflects that atrocities and ethnic cleansing occurred by all sides.
But this belies the fact that certain Arab elements also found safety in Israel. Take the Druze, for instance. They were also oppressed by various Arabs and Palestininans for their distinct (some say heretical) interpretation of Islam. They were welcomed by the Jews, and Druze have served with distinction in the Israeli army ever since. So here is an example of the Palestinians oppressing other people. And there is the Palestinian persecution of Christians on the West Bank. During the British mandate period, Bethlehem had a Christian majority of 80%. Today, under Palestinian rule, it has a Muslim majority of 80%. Who will provide "restitution" to those displaced christians??
The bottom line is that Israel is an artificial state, carved out of conquered Turkish territory, just as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia were. And the Israelis technically have as much right to a homeland as do any other group of people in the region. And maybe more so given the outright attempts of Genocide against their entire people.
Zionism was a European Jewish creation. But as a result of the creation of Israel, various Arab nations oppressed their own Jewish communities, inflicting the same kind of oppression as they denounced the Isralis for against the Palestinians. But unfortunately for the Palestinians, they had no where to go where they would be welcomed.
For as much griping as the Arab states made about the plight of these people, cast into refugee status by their aggression against the Israeli state, relatively few have welcomed them as additions to own communities. And the primary reason behind this that the Palestinians are not Arabs, per se, but remnants of the Philistines and Canaanites. They genetically have more in common with the Hebrews than the Arabs. And the Arabs don't want them anymore than the Jews do.
So the Palestinians have to make their own way in asserting what they perceive as their "rights" They will have to figure out how to achieve a "homeland" of their own, knowing full well that few Arab states will risk an outright war with Israel on their behalf. And besides, almost all of the West Bank (the Palestinian Partition), is now under control of the Palestinian Authority. The Israelis only control certain strategic areas in the area, normally astribe major road networks.. Thus, the Palestinians are essentially no longer "occupied" by the Israelis.
Now when I see Jewish Children being exploited, sent out to throw rocks at the border stations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, with Jewish men hiding behind them throwing Molotov cocktails, or when I Jewish suicide bombers blowing themselves up in busy shopping districts, then I might have more sympathy for the Palestinian plight.
But with the current tact by the Muslim Arab extremists, and how they are cynically exploiting Palestinian youth to fight for cause that does not serve the interests of co-existence between Israel and the Palestinian people, I have to side with the Israelis.
After all, considering that so much of the Palestinian Authority's public infrastructure was built and controlled by the Israelis(power, water, sewage), were they so inclined to do so, they could readily shut off essential services to the every Palestinian on the West Bank and Gaza.
There have been calls for the Israelis to set up a security fence between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and discontinuing all essential public services over a period of time. Personally, I think this is the way to go. Segrate the Palestinians and the Israelis and let the PA and Arafat prove they can provide the same level of economic benefit as the Palestinians have enjoyed from the state of Israel.
And btw, lest anything think otherwise, I'm not Jewish.
However, I'm a realist and a pragmatist. And I don't have much patience for jingoistic BS that masks the reality of "realpolitik" in that, or any other region.
Hawk |
