<Isn't this what the Germans attempted to do in the late 1800's? And didn't that new found German nationalism, and warlike culture drag the world into decades of its bloodiest history?>
Before 1871, Germany had, for centuries, been a playground for other nation's armies. It was divided up into a multitude of tiny feuding fragments, none of which could stand up to the united nations that surrounded them (France, Russia, Spain, even Italy and Sweden). The situation was much like the Middle East is today, and for much the same reasons. Disunity invites conquest.
After they beat the French in 1870, German nationalism had succeeded. Their people were united, and all areas with a majority German-speaking population were freed of foreign control. They should have stopped there. But, as so often happens, as soon as a people get united and powerful enough to free themselves, they start enslaving their neighbors. This is the big danger for nationalists: they never know when to stop.
The obvious place to stop, is when you reach the natural frontiers, the demographic frontier.
Israel, today, rules 10 million people, only half of whom are Jews. They have expanded far beyond their natural demographic borders. The consistent lesson of the last 200 years of world history, is that there will be continuous conflict, wherever political and military frontiers don't correspond with clear demographic frontiers. Israel has blurred those demographic frontiers by their settlement policy, and controls about 5 million unassimilable people. There will never be peace, as long as Israel continues to expand their demographic frontier at the expense of the Palestinians.
The Zionists have, all along, pretended that the land they colonized was empty, that they settled a wilderness. "A land without people, for a people without a land." This Myth is essential to Zionism, so they can avoid the truth: that Zionism is the theft of someone else's land. A theft which continues, with every new hilltop settlement in Samaria, every new Jewish housing project in E. Jerusalem. The Walls, East and West, will steal half the remaining Palestinian land. |
