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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Yaacov who wrote (1087)	5/7/2001 10:44:26 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23908

The reality is that there exists good and evil in every society. For every "Walloon" recruited by the SS, I'm sure there existed a person who sympathized with the Jews, who were being rounded for shipment to their deaths. And we can emphasize any particular point to justify any argument to the pro or con, with regard to Israel's guilt/innocence in oppression against the Palestinian people. But I operate in big trends... The kind of trends that shape foreign policy in geo-political realm, not the extremist views or arguments of a relative "irrelevant minority" (if I may use that term). For every argument that the Israelis have "invaded" Palestine, one can easily argue that Palestine had constantly been under the occupation of invaders, and at least the Jews sought to purchase title to the property they obtained from the Palestinians (who due to their poverty were often only too happy to sell). The bottom line is that the Jews were in no position to "invade" Palestine. They were refugees themselves, living at the grace of their overlords and provincial rulers. And the reality was that many Palestinians recognized that the Jews provided them their best opportunity to obtain economic security that had been constantly lacking in their lives of pseudo-serfdom under muslem rulers. Both cultures share more in common than they realize on a historical and cultural level. But this would require both sides to view their histories on a more expansive scale, and not just the microcosm of the past 50 to 100 years. Ultimately, the existence of Israel is a "fait accompli", just as the existence of the United States, or the status of Texas, California, and Arizona as part of the US and not Mexico. And so long as the Palestinians fail to recognize and acknowledge this fact, they will continue to breed only hatred and destruction. This is the Occam's razor of humanity. It's tantamount to living in a tough neighborhood where no one likes you, but you have nowhere else to go, because they've tried to exterminate you elsewhere on a wholesale level. So you hunker down and stand your ground. If your neighbors don't mess with you, you won't mess with them. In fact, you'll go out of your way to help them if they remain civil to you. But if they threaten you with a knife, you shoot them with a gun. And you certainly attack them first when you have compelling evidence they are preparing to attack you. And I would opine that Israel exists in one of the roughest neighborhoods on this planet. Which is what makes the region so fascinating to observe and analyze. It is the ultimate in realpolitik: realpolitik.com So yeah... we all need to cool down, an any offenders need to stop the personal attacks, and return some civility and objective analysis to this thread. Hawk