chalu2,
I have been reading an interesting book that might interest you too: Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. It attempts to answer the question: why did Europe conquer the rest of the world, rather than the other way about? Why did Amerinds die of European diseases, and not the other way around? Jared Diamond's answer in a nutshell, is, Eurasians got the lucky draw in flora, fauna and goegraphical alignment. I found his arguments interesting:
amazon.com
Getting back to the Israeli/Palestinian question, why do you give all your sympathy to the Palestinians? In fact, let me turn your whole analogy around, and you can tell me what you think of it.
If your moral currency is strong continuous attachment to land on which your ancestors were conquered or driven out by force centuries ago, the Jews yield second place to no one in this line of thinking. Just write in "Israel" for "Wyoming" (I don't know the Arapaho name of your ancestral lands), "Jews" for "Arapaho", and "Romans" and "Arabs", for "white settlers".
Is it only that the Israelis have succeeded in re-establishing Jewish autonomy on their ancestral lands, and are the stronger party now? Is that why your sympathy is all with the Palestinians? Consider the following analogy:
If the Arapaho succeeded in reclaiming their ancestral lands by purchase or conquest, would you not have your own "Palestinian" problem in dealing with the white settlers you had conquered or displaced? If you had to fight off repeated attempts by the U.S.A. to retake your newly autonomous Arapaho lands, would that not necessarily color your relations to the white settlers who remained on your land?
If during the course of your struggle to retain autonomy, the white ranchers on your lands changed their self-identification from "Americans" to "Citizens of Occupied Wyoming" (as the Palestinians have changed from "Arabs" to "Palestinians" during the last 40 years), and demanded an independent country of their own, to be taken from land under your control, how would you regard their claims? |
