Israel needs to fix itself before it begins to look absolutely insane. It needs to get onto a better road before it really begins to look like South Africa under apartheid.
That is precisely the angle I'm coming from. Ian Smith once asserted that white ruled Rhodesia would last 1000 years (what a stupid statement given Hitler's boast) but at the time I sure hoped he was correct.
It was amazing to visit Zimbabwe. I saw no prosperous white farms, no prosperous looking farms at all. The city of Bulawayo, which was a modern, almost European looking city in the 1970's I hardly recognized. My wife says it reminds her of Nigerian cities (she has not been back there in awhile either, so I suspect that comparison lacks something). But there is another thing that I found a little shocking as well. I bumped into ex-Rhodesians sprinkled around S. Africa & Botswana. In talking to them, I saw again the attitude that African's (Blacks) are not their equal, and never will be. Having lived almost 30 years in the USA, that is now strange to me. To them it is not. All one has to do is look at the evidence. Incompetence, corruption, etc.
I can agree in some sense. If you were to take Zimbabwe, populate it with 12 million Europeans, and displace all the native Zimbabweans, I seriously doubt that any country in sub-Sahara Africa could touch them on pretty much any metric by which modern countries are measured in a generations time. You might note that this is more or less exactly what Israel is in the ME: 6 million Europeans carved out a country, displaced the natives, and none of their neighbors are remotely close on any such metrics.
The problem is that those displaced don't like it, and kind of want their land back. The fact that the new owners have made the land way more valuable in the bargin does not diminish that drive, and in fact most likely adds insult to injury.
It is possible that successful ethnic states can live surrounded by unsuccessful states of different ethnicity, it might even be possible that this can be done when the successful state acquired their land by force from the others, but if so, I don't think we have anywhere near the answer on how to do it. As long as people stonewall discussion I don't see solutions. |
