Wow, some people's grasp of history really comes up short. The trouble in the Middle East didn't just began 20 years ago with the PLA -- Zionist terrorist organizations like the Irgun and Stern Gang were conducting assassinations and terror bombings well before Israel became a state, so the current Palestinians have a successful model to go by when seeking statehood.
As has already been pointed out on other threads, the creation of a state of Israel in Palestine was not a foregone conclusion until Jewish refugees flooded the region following World War Two, moving its Jewish population from a distinctly minority position to one that could force its will on the region through sufficient numbers and superior military sophistication. From the United Nations standpoint, supporting the establishment of state of Israel was a matter of guilt and convenience and not some preordained, and divine, act of natural order. The state of Israel is about as natural as the former Yugoslavia was in the Balkans.
To be fair, what Israel has done and is doing is really little different from what many countries (including the United States) have done in the past where the land they covet is occupied by others lacking sufficient power to conventionally resist their territorial ambitions. Zionists have been ruthless about achieving their ambition since before the state of Israel was founded (which we should remember wasn't all that long ago, since there are people playing this game who are likely older than the state of Israel). The Israeli olive branch, where Palestinians are concerned, is more of a club held in one hand and a few second-class concessions in the other -- take the concessions or pay the price. Zionists coined a term, "The Iron Wall," in the 1920 for dealing with Palestinians from a position of unassailable strength, which remains a cornerstone of Israeli policy to this day. Oddly, organized Zionism that centered on the creation of a Jewish state did not really develop until the turn of the century, and even then Palestine was only one of many areas under consideration since it happened to be full of Palestinians at the time. Large underdeveloped parts of Argentina were seen as being far more practical, but Argentina hardly had the emotional appeal of the biblical homeland.
In the United States we have received a fairly one-sided view of the establishment and continuing development of the state of Israel. I am not referring to the rather laughable contention among the anti-Semites and neo-Nazi types that there's some "Zionist occupation government," controlling the media and filtering what we see and hear. I will contend, however, that defenders of Israel (such as the JDL) are extraordinarily quick to use the anti-Semite card to silence critics, along with a continued push to somehow give Israel cart blanche to do as it pleases because of real, but unrelated, suffering during the Holocaust. Ironically, it's the lessons of the Holocaust, and of territorial aggression in general during World War Two, that have helped change the acceptability of countries doing what Israel is today.
Israel and its supporters are masters at public relations and have been astonishingly successful at getting its side of the story out. This is not just my opinion, the editorial staff at the Chicago Tribune and other news outlets have discussed the media failure to cover the Palestinian side of the story during recent soul-searching. Further, as foreign correspondent William Paff noted, Zionists like Ariel Sharon are less careful about playing up the security message when they are not pushing that propaganda in the United States. After all, Israel is a nuclear power with a conventional military that is second to none in the region.
At a recent interview with the Hebrew-language Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz and another interview in Le Figaro (a Paris daily) Sharon was quite clear about Israel's continuing Zionist ambitions. Among his quotes: "... people today are not much excited by the idea of gaining a 'Hectare and then another Hectare for Israel' -- but for me, that's still exciting." In another statement Sharon clarified that Israel would not evacuate its existing settlements for Zionist reasons, even in the Gaza. The strategic importance of these colonies was also cited (water table, etc.) but not the "Israel is under attack" security reasons that are played up in the in the United States.
So yes, Palestinian terrorists who kill innocent people are monsters, but there been plenty of Zionist monsters leading from the 1930's until today. A look at the casualty figures shows exactly how one-sided the current terrorism has been in Israel. I fail to see the distinction between a 155mm artillery shell or 105mm tank round fired indiscriminately into a civilian population center for intimidation purposes, and a suicide bomb detonated for much the same reason. Particularly since Israel's claim to the territory seems far less reasonable than that of people who can claim the ownership of the property in question (not some biblical ownership, but real ‘land deed’ ownership) back a hundreds of years or more before 1948.
There was some horrid video months ago of a Palestinian crowd killing several Israeli police officials in a brutal act of violence. However, that scene reminded me of another one from 1947 showing two British soldiers, both 20 years old. Clifford Martin and Mervin Paice were kidnapped by the Irgun, as a reprisal for two Zionist terrorists put to death by Israeli authorities. Zionist terrorists had claimed nearly 400 victims by that time, including a bombing at the King David Hotel that killed 91 Britons, Arabs and Jews. These two British soldiers were hanged in a eucalyptus grove, and their bodies booby trapped. I imagine that their families, even today, have a fairly clear understanding of the true scope of terrorism in the Middle East.
Charon
P.S.
Unfortunately, the anti-Semite/ neo-Nazi crowd jump on the opportunities Israel provides and help discredit any discussion on these subjects by linking the acts committed by the state of Israel to Judaism as whole. For my own credibility, and to disassociate myself from these morons, while I strongly disagree with Israeli policy I am certainly not an anti-Semite -- my Jewish fiancée would have likely caught on in the past five years and I likely wouldn't agree to a rabbi officiating at the ceremony, no matter how reformed he is
[ 08-09-2001: Message edited by: Charon ]
