|
June 25, 2002
|
"All lies and jest
still a man hears what he wants to hear
and disregards the rest."
--Paul Simon, The Boxer
The President of the United States gave a speech on Monday regarding the prospects for peace in the Palestine region of the Middle East. I am amazed at how the speech appears to have been received by leaders in that part of the world. (See this article.)
Palestinian leadership, for example, praise the speech because it mentions the United States' call for the eventual creation of an independent Palestinian state... although they also seem to be scoffing at the idea that Yasser Arafat should step down (also mentioned in the speech) as being ludicrous.
Meanwhile, leadership in Israel praises the speech because it calls for new leadership in Palestine, while the Israeli leadership scoffs at the idea that there could ever be an independent Palestinian state along their border.
And, then, beyond the leadership, the people of the region are quoted by the aforementioned news article as condemning the speech because the listeners hear the message of compromise and they say words to the effect of, "This will never happen. The U. S. expects us to actually back down on 'X'? Not gonna happen."
The article is almost comical. The whole situation is almost comical. The way these people hear only what they want to hear and disregard the rest has all the makings for a Shakespearean comedy.
Except, of course, this isn't a comedy. Both sides are intent upon exterminating the other. The lessons of the Holocaust, forgotten. It's really quite sickening.
Posted by on June 25, 2002 10:03 AM in the following Department(s): Tidbits
|
Comments
|
Your closing comment is incorrect. Palestinians are not any more interested in exterminating Jews or killing all the citizens of Israel than the Native Americans were in killing all Europeans that turned up uannounced. They just want their land back and for the so-called Jews to go back to where they came from.
However, the Israeli's have no intention of giving that land back, much like the Europeans had no intention of giving anything back to the Native Americans or even sharing with them, for that matter. They just want the Palestinians to give up and leave.
In order to grasp the full absurdity of Israel you have understand that they have NO RIGHT to that land. They turned up there, uninvited, and simply took up residence there. They don't belong there anymore than the Europeans belong on this continent. They are thieves.
They say their right to that land is detailed on a couple of sheets of paper with some scribblings they claim is a divine deed, given to them by God. Zionism sounds a lot like that whole Manifest Destiny thing, which was used as a kill-all-native-americans-you-want-cuz-god-says-it's-okay card for *years*.
But, truly, Zionism has nothing to do with anything. The Europeans who "settled" Palestine and called it "Israel", went there for the same reason the other Europeans came to this land--they had no place else to go. The Manifest Destiny Europeans were getting screwed by their countrymen, so they came here. Centuries later, when Europeans were getting whacked by their own countrymen, they simply employed a strategy that seemed to work before and called it "Zionism": Go there. Say God gave it to you. Keep killing whoever's there until they give up.
And, after all, why shouldn't they? They had nothing to lose, nothing to go back to, and it worked before.
People think the reason why the US supports Israel is because of the monetary and political power of Jews in America. They think it's because Israel is a sovereign Democratic state. Those are not the reasons. The US will never come out and say that the Israeli's are wrong or don't belong there or even discuss the means by which they got situated on that strip of land, because to question or impune the Israeli's "right" to that land, is to question or impune Americans' "right" to be on this continent.
Posted by: jehan on June 27, 2002 8:06 AMJust a few comments for Jehan...
The Romans came up with the name Palestine. It was intended as an insult and originates from the philistines. Looking back across history, there has never been such a thing as a palestinian essence, untill recently.
A lot of the land was actually bought by Jews living in Europe. If Jews came to Israel 'uninvited' then the 'original' landowners should not have sold their strips of desert that the Israeli's turned into fruitful land
There are Palistinians in other Arab countries that have no rights at all. We are talking about countries like Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen and Kuwait. And these are 'Arab' countries. I don't hear anybody proclaiming any intifada's on these states for allegedly mistreating Palestinians there.
After WWII the palestinians had a chance of an independant State. And they rejected it, because they wouldn't tolerate the Jewish presence.
Over to you...
Posted by: Tom on December 23, 2003 6:31 AM|
Post a comment
|
Copyright (c)1998 - 2010 by Allan Rousselle. All rights reserved, all wrongs reversed, all reservations righted, all right, already.
Click here to send me mail.
