Once again, the Palestinians are the object of my loquacious wrath (I hope the Boston Herald will notice that I, as a human, have wrath, a storm does not.)
The Israelis have nearly completed the evacuation of the Gaza strip that they have held for over 38 years. It was very touching that the Palestinian leadership sent a nice thank you note with some flowers. They even went so far as to send a box of matzah to the Israeli Prime minister. Many Palestinians have offered to have the former Gaza residents over for dinner anytime they want to visit their old stomping grounds.
Oh, wait. No. No, I'm wrong, they didn't. In fact:
There was supposed to be a formal handover ceremony. But that was cancelled because the Palestinians said they weren't going. (Alright, if you won't be there to accept our gift, we'll keep it!)
The Palestinians (not just Hamas) said they weren't going to attend the festivities because they weren't happy about the border arrangements. Pardon?! "Wow! A car! For me? Thanks, but I asked for an SUV, this is a sedan!" "You bought me a house! Great! Oh, but there's no room for the indoor pool I wanted!" "Oh, hey, thanks for the country, but... It's not quite my size. I'd like it a little bigger" Can we say ungrateful?! So if any parents of belligerent teenagers know how to handle this type of attitude, please email the UN or Israel so that they can slap some manners into the Palestinians!
They are also upset that, while the Israelis destroyed all of the houses that they willingly fled from, they left the synagogues standing. They're upset about this? Isn't this like leaving a three year old in a room filled with houses of cards? Imagine his glee as he knocks over one after another. Stomping on one like Godzilla, and sneezing another over like Superman!
I say, until the Palestinians show a little respect and thankfulness, we send them to their room for a timeout. Maybe while they are there, they'll notice that their room has just grown by about 139 square miles!
Quite yer whining and quit yer terrorism! I wish this was more than just my opinion!
9 comments:
The Palestinians also fired a mortar from Gaza into Israeli territory, did they not? I do not have anything approaching a realized opinion on the Palestianian/Israeli thing, but if I understand it correctly, when the historical chips are investigated, the Palestinians have a good deal to be ticked off about. Israel's Zionist card, but more important, its pro-west politick, make it a favorite of 1st world democracies, but did it do the right thing by the Palestinians? What if we re-named the Palestinians, "American Indians" and called the year 1803? Does it change anything to find out that the Christians of that area are Palestinian? I agree that the Palestinians acted indecently and rudely. They acted as uneducated, and struck from hatred so long passed down and whispered and prayed that it has passed from opinion into blood-oath. Again, as my post probably shows, I don't know that much about this conflict - but I do know enough to know that it is difficult to parse out who to believe, who to support, who to condemn.
If your argument is: "We should give back the land to the people who first had it" then I'd like to find the Canaanites, Hitites, Jebuzites, Amorites, etc and return the "Holy Land" to them. I'd like the Saxons, Scots, Anglos, Vikings and others to get out of the British Isles so we can return that area to the Celts. The Etruscans get Italy back. It's actually my understanding that the Palestinians are claim to be the descendants of those who took the land after the exile. Therefore, based on that arguement, aren't the Israelis entitled to the land?
But this is exactly the problem. No one in their right mind would agree that simply taking someone else's land because you can because of some manifest destiny or whatever is a good thing. Nevertheless, there must be a statute of limitations. The United States can't exactly be handed back to what is left of its native inhabitants. The Saxons can't turn around and cede Brittania to the Angles. So where does the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land fit on the timeline of limitations? Indeed, where you put your finger down on that question determines your sympathies. If it is an unsolvable mistake, sorry about that but no undoing it now, question you go with the Israelis. If you don't think so. If you think that this occupation occurred in a manner as illegal as, say, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait or Germany's invasion of the low countries, then you side with the Palestinians.
That's funny. I'm in my right mind (according to most) and I have no problem believing in survival of the fittest. As I look over history, that's how it always happened. Yes, people faught back. Sometimes they reclaimed thier land, sometimes they didn't. If we had failed on D-day I believe we would have ceded Europe to Hitler. Why are we stopping this now? Why do we suddenly say "well, if you took the land after 1939, you've gotta give it back. Otherwise you're grandfathered into the whole "squatter's rights" thing. Oh, and by the way. The Anglos then have to give the land back to the Romans who in turn have to give it back to the Celts. The Romans also have to give France back to the Gauls (after they get it back from the Germanic tribes who took it from them)
Isn't this just Social Darwinism, then? Might makes right. Is it wrong to prevent armed invasions of one country by another? Or howabout taking a country from one set of people that is not well liked and giving it to other people deemend either more worthy or more controllable?
And, turning back to our original duo: who then can make anything like a morally legitimate choice when it comes to the Israeli/Palestininan divide? Doesn't it just come down to which side is better for the U.S.?
I believe it is socail darwinism. I don't believe that other nations should stand by and watch it happen (See Iraq, Poland, Charles the Hammer) but at some point one side is overpowered and someone owns the land (See Alexander the Great, Babylon, Rome, Atilla the Hun) and the people accept what has occured. How incredably rare is it that a nation that is not considered to be in decline gives back land they have taken?! Babylon did it for the Jews, Israel did it for the Palestinians. That's all I can think of. Oh, and the Jews were greatful.
First a question, then a comment (for the third time, something is wrong with the Blogger server at the moment). Question: Does the Christian faith have anything to say about this? Comment: In an interview in the Frankfurter Rundshau, Israeli historian Tom Segev discusses the significance of Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the implications for Zionism. "What we are observing now is a conflict between fundamental values, a sort of cultural struggle, which reflects the different Zionist approaches. One is more the original: pragmatic, realistic and open to compromise. Everything that Zionism represented until 1967. Since then however, another branch has emerged, a messianic, religious, ideological form." The withdrawal represents "a victory for the pragmatic, rational Israelis over the messianic settlers. You could say that Tel Aviv has triumphed over Jerusalem, the 5,000 year old city built on rock. Tel Aviv is just 100 years old, and it's built on sand. These are two different worlds and this is the real division in Israel. The clearance is of little concern to large swathes of Israeli society. It will not traumatise them, only the settlers."
That is an excellent question that I would wager you have an answer to. So, enlighten me. :) Oh, and I know nothing about Zionism save it is a term used by those that oppose the Israelis to make them sound as tho they want to rule the world.
Well, see I was just begging the question in raising the "Christian question." In reality, I have no idea, and if I did have a good idea I'd write a good article and publish it. Zionism, as far as I understand it, is Israeli Manifest Destiny. God gave it to us and so no matter who is on it, it is ours by divine right.
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