So it’s just a coincidence that today’s Israel is in the same locale as the Promised Land and closely resembles the kingdom of Jeroboam II?
I don’t think that the comparison of Israel to the US is valid. Yes, the US territory was taken in a succession of land grabs. The granting of large tracts of land they didn’t own by English, French and other kings was probably even more ridiculous than carving Israel out of existing states. I still am either flabergasted or amused by Napoleon selling the Louisiana Purchase, most of which France didn’t own in and meaningful sense, and of Jefferson and the US calm acceptance of the belief that he had a right to sell it.
However, the indigenous population of the US was overwhelmed by vastly greater numbers of invaders. That’s not true of Israel. They are a tiny population surrounded by a vastly greater number of enemies.
I have no idea of how to “think correctly” about Israel and Palestine, but I don’t see any peace in that area under any circumstances for a long time, and maybe never as long a Israel is there as a burr under the saddle.
I don’t. I don’t think “nuance” and various forms of cleverness and diplomacy are going to solve anything at this point.
The calculus is this: One side’s gotta win. I pick Isreal because I like that side better and I think they’ll be a peaceful, responsible nation once they win. If Palestine, the Arab world, and their fellow travellers were to win, they’d have destroyed Isreal (that’s their stated goal), probably killed as many Israelis as they could (i.e., genocide), and then go on to their next target. Because they are, in essence, a culture that derives its raison d’etre from conflict and dissatisfaction.
I totally disagree. It has been the attempt to apply civilized means to a problem involving an uncivlized enemy that has drawn this thing out so long. Israel had the right idea back in the 1960s.
More than support at this point, Israel needs respect.
I was very careful to say Arab world and fellow travellers. I don’t see Islam as the problem; it’s the ME negative and dissatisfied and antisemitic Islam that’s the issue.
Well, Bush’s plan for Afganistan was originally good and was working. IOW, total ass-kicking followed by a dominant presence. Plus it was attacking the right enemy, the people that actually attacked us. I don’t oppose the Iraq War because it wasn’t nice, I oppose it because it was strategically misconceived and ineptly executed at multiple levels.
I think my plan is better for the Israelis: kick ass spreading outward and keep the terrorists totally out of their territory.
Yeah, but Ireland is hermetically sealed. Israel is surrounded by enemies who define much of their politics in terms of enmity toward Israel. IOW, if Israel didn’t exist, they’d have to invent it.
Here’s a fact: People and entire cultures can choose negativity as their motive force. We all know people like this: Always a conflict with someone they’re bitching about, always some sort of injustice against them they’re bitching about, always a new psychodrama. People like that don’t want to solve their problems!
And so it is with much of the ME. These are not happy nations striving for a peaceful modernity. They define themselves in terms of envy of, resentment toward, and conflict with Israel and the West. They have accepted their role of loser and are playing it to the hilt.
That would be some major fireworks, and Israel would be setting most of them off.
Of course not. But to make a Labor Zionist like Ben Gurion out to be a religious zealot is absurd. Albert Einstein was as much behind the foundation of the State of Israel as any Haredi partisan, and despite being an avowed secularist, was invited to be the nation’s prime minister. Oversimplifying the nature of Israel simply doesn’t help current comprehension.
Yoiu express amazement over American grabbing Indian lands, yet I don’t see you giving those lands back and returning to Europe. In fact, you seem to be implying than the very fact that Europeans comminted genocide against the Native Americans is what gives you the right to live on their lands - that genocide is the solution to any potential problems. That’s an interesting thought. I’ll bear it in mind.
We’re Jews. We never let precident stand in our path.
First they told us that you can’t worship ONE god, you have to worship MANY gods. We showed the world different.
Then they told us that a tribal nation cannot continue to exsit as a coherent religion and culture after being banished from its homeland. Again, we showed the world different.
THEN they told us we couldn’t just get up and start a nation out of scratch. And once more, we showed the world that it was talking out of its ass.
Now you’re telling us that we can’t exist indefinitely surrounded by hostile nations. Well… we’ll just see about that, shall we? Don’t write us off yet.
This is us we’re talking about. We don’t have to obey history. History is our bitch.
One of the early proponents of modern organized anti-Jew(ishness) entitled a seminal (heh) paper “Anti-Semitism” in its modern sense (despite the fact it apparently only applied to Jews). So those who subscribe to organized antisemitism are using it as the term was originally invented.
The term has since been widened to apply to all those who are prejudiced against Jews. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch considering its historical links.
It’s their way of thanking Lebanon for harboring Hezbollah terrorists. It also stops the inflow of missiles by airlift from other countries.
When Israel relinquished Gaza to self-rule that was the political beginning for Palestinian self-rule. The infiltration and capture of Israeli soldiers was treated as an act of war by a sovereign state. This has the potential of a full-scale war involving Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon. And if Israel returns the Hezbollah missiles to their rightful owners then Iran will get dragged into it.
Sad to say, in the case of the US might seems to have made right. At least our political, religious and social leaders seem to spend quite a bit of oratorical time on how wonderful, what a beacon of liberty and exemplary model for the rest of the world we are.
I wish you only the best. However, without support from the US and other nations over the long haul you have a heavy load. At the moment we are seriously occupied elsewhere and can’t really do much in the way of assistance. I am not convinced that the recent aggessive moves by Hamas and Hezbolla are just a coincidence.
None of those countries are going to welcome the Palestinians. Syria won’t even grant citizenship to the Palestinians they’ve got. IIRC, in Syria many Palestinians are still living in “refugee camps” decades after they arrived.
Seems hypocritical of Syria, Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries to “care” about what Israel is doin to Palenstine. Yet these same countries themselves aren’t doin anything to integrate Palenstinians into their country.
Some questions raised by a pro-israeli at my school.
Was the land abandon for thousands of years, before Israel was created?
The Palenstinians didn’t call themselves Palenstinians before Israel was created?
War is mass insanity. There is no more vivid demonstration of that fact in the modern world than the Israeli-Palestinian death dance. The extremists of the two groups deserve each other, and I’d be happy to sit back and watch them slaughter themselves in the name of their bronze age sky gods if they didn’t seem so goddamned determined to bring the rest of the world down with them. I weep for the peace-lovers and innocents on both sides, and if I were among that group, I’d do everything in my power to leave that blighted charnel house for a saner place. A pox on both their houses.
The neighbouring states are using Isreal (and by extension and association the US and EU) as a bogeyman to justify the oppression and inequality of their own peoples: “Yes you’re poor and life sucks and we’re sorry, but it’s all Israel’s fault.” “But they’re just a tiny country and we’re the faithful and proud. Why don’t we go over there and kick some ass?” “Well, Isreal is supported by the U.S. and look at what they’ve done in Iraq - twice - and they’re calling the shots in Saudi-Arabia and Kuwait and corrupting the true faith.”
Keeping the Palestinians in Gaza and refugee camps is further pretext for the assholes in power in Jordania, Syria, helping the powers that be to keep the tension high, which serves their own puposes.
Now, the reasons we care are oil and Jews. Had this been happening in Sub-Saharan Africa, in some remote, but insignificant part of South America or anywhere else, it’d hardly merit a paragraph at the bottom of page ten. Look no further than Myanmar.
However, blaiming religion is not going to lead to an answer. Religion only serves as part of the rethoric, as is almost always the case when something is done in the name of religion. It’s about money and power.
