One thing I do have more knowledge on than you however is growing up and living in a country where oppression of an indigenous people by a foreign occupying force was a fact of life (sound familiar?!?!?).
Yes, well, that may color your viewpoint just a little. To the best of recollection, the Irish have not recently tried to wipe England off the map, a piece of knowledge which colors my viewpoint just a little too.
If you just walk into the middle of conditions today, with no knowledge or memory of the last 80 years of conflict, the repeated attempts to destroy Israel, the years of complete Arab intransigence and refusal to negotiate, the careful arrangement of the refugee camps as permanent UN paid for slums, the complete absence of any Arab plan or desire to build anything in Palestine, etc, etc, then it's all sooo easy to sympathize with those poor oppressed Palestinians. Particularly if you like to romaticize violence and terrorism, as many on the left do (tho I'm not saying I've heard you do it). Do you suppose that the naifs recruited by the ISM even know that all those UN resolutions that Arabs now like to quote (242 etc) were completely rejected by the Arab side for the first 20 years and more, because they didn't include destroying Israel?
btw, when did I claim to be an "expert" on the conflict? Just because I post about it on SI? So do you! |
