Okay, I know this is going to sound insane, and I’m sure that many religious people and environmentalists (among others) will take issue with it, but when you think about how much blood has been spilled over such a small piece of land, it makes at least a little bit of sense to my agnostic eyes.
I’m not saying I advocate this idea, but rather that I’d like to hear some reasoned debate on it.
What if a neutral third-party were to forcibly herd everyone out of the hotly contested Jewish/Islamic holy lands, and then simply irradiate it Chernobyl-style? The area surrounding that infamous 1986 disaster is uninhabitable for at least 600 years.
That’s a hell of a long time - time which could conceivably give Jews and Muslims a chance to work things out instead of just killing each other.
I do realize this is a radical (and possibly idiotic) idea, but drastic times sometimes do call for drastic measures, and only the most optimistic idealists can envision an end to the current bloodshed.
Well, I have to agree with the first part of your OP.
Out of curiousity, once you’ve irradiated all of the disputed territory, where do you plan on resettling all of the people who are currently occupying it? If you put the Jews in Madagascar and the Palestininans in Bolivia, you’re just going to be adding two new regions and populations to the current problem.
It has a sort of an elementary school logic to it. If Suzie and Bobby can’t share the unicorn, then neither can have it. Of course, in this case Suzie and Bobby (and all of Bobby’s friends) have bombs and guns and will be very unhappy with teacher.
That would, in fact, lead to peace between Israelis and Palestinians - both sides would quickly put aside their differences to kick the third party’s ass.
Seriously - have you ever heard the phrase “throwing out the baby with the bathwater”? How about “cutting off the nose to spite the face?”
Or are you simply advocating the involuntary exile of 10 million people because they offend your sensibilities?
One more question - where are they going to live? Where do you live? Can we have your house?
Why is there only one country in the world, the right of which merely to exist – not its borders, not its political structure, not its human-right record; its right to exist – can and is questioned by people, repeatedly, without said people suffering the same ridicule they would if they advocated the destruction of, say, Belgium?
It’s not as if Belgium is an actual nation-state. It’s a political fiction invented by the British in the early 19th Century for the sole purpose of annoying the French.
As for breweries, as long as we have Denmark, I can do without Belgium.
It’s because to them, Israel isn’t a real country, but rather some sort of weird social experiment. It’s not just people hostile to us who think that way - I’ve encountered similar attitudes among ostensibly Zionist American Jews. It’s like we’re some sort of ideal or something.
That Israel has a right to exist is disputed it because its creation was and is the cause of another nation’s right to exist being effectively denied. Or that’s how I understand it.
According to most dictionaries, such as: freedictionary viable means: -
Your bizarre scheme does not come close to qualifying.
Neutral third party? :eek:
Surely you don’t believe that Israel has no effective means of defence, even with Olmert as PM.
Perhaps you should study the history of all the lands where Jews amd Muslims have come into contact with each other, not just Palestine, before making any optimistic assumptions on that score.
To be fair, the current conflict is all about land, so if you take away the land, you take away the conflict. OTOH, if you take away the land, nobody has any land.
I think that if you check back you’ll find that there was not really another nation.
In 1967 the West Bank belonged to Jordan and Ghaza was under Egyptian administration - neither are particularly interested in regaining their territories.
In 1948 ‘Palestine’ was under the British Mandate.
As for making Jerusalem unvisitable, it really is a remarkable place from the point of view of architecture and sense of history - it would be shame to ‘lose’ it.
I may be mis-informed here, but my understanding is that prior to the current ‘Holy Land’ debacle, Jews and Muslims had been living side by side in (relative) harmony. I’m specifically thinking of Algeria, but assumed that similar applied to other countries. My understanding is that prior to the current situation Jews had primarily been hounded by Christians, from the Reconquista to the Russian pogroms etc.
