I am British, I lived as a child in Aden, now part of Yemen. It ceased to be a British colony shortly before I was born. My parents left because the communists took power, and mainly East German engineers took most of the positions that had been filled by British workers.
I grew up supporting Israel, and still do. I also grew up knowing that most Arabs are friendly, not terrorists intent on killing all non-muslims.
I support Israel, but I don't support all it's actions.
Israel has internal politics, and many Israelis don't support all the actions of their government. For an alternative view of Israeli actions, try the Israeli human rights group
http://www.btselem.org, or the Israeli peace group
http://www.gush-shalom.orgFor an alternative to the filtered news you get, try the Israeli newspaper
http://www.haaretzdaily.comThese organisations represent people who want Israel to live in peace with the Palestinians, not dominate them.
For the message of hate, go to
http://www.masada2000.org, a group that describes Arabs as a "cancer" in Israel.
I am against the colonisation of the West Bank for two reasons.
I don't believe it will work. People being disposessed of their land by an occupying power nearly always fight back against it. Before Hortlund brings the legal arguments over on to this thread as well, the history doesn't matter as much as the fact that the Palestinians
believe they are occupied, and
believe they are being dispossed. They believe that if they do not fight now, they will have less land next year, and the year after, and the year after that.
The fears of the Palestinians were summed up by a speech their representative made to the UN in 1947, as the UN decided what to do with Palestine:
"... the question of creation of a Jewish State cannot be taken without two other connected problems; that is, the question of immigration and that of foreign subsidies. A Jewish State would, of course, be master of the immigration into Palestine. It might decide that immigration would be without limits and the economic argument, which would be that it is impossible for a very large number of people to live in a very small territory, would become void if the Jewish State can still reckon with foreign financial support. Therefore, with the doors of the country wide open to immigration, and financial support from outside, the Jewish State would become extremely populated. Therefore, it might not be 1 million, but 2, 3, 4 million, since it would not depend on its own economy or its own produc- tion. As soon as it goes beyond a certain limit in numbers, it is no longer a State where Jews can come and be safe but it becomes a bridgehead against the Arab world. This is what we absolutely want to avoid.
The facts are that Israel now has more than 5 million citizens, that it is supported by foreign subsidies, and that the Arabs
feel it is a bridgehead against the Arab world.
The Palestinians believe that Israel seeks the whole West Bank and Gaza, and Israeli maps and actions and speeches bear that out. Sharon has described Netzarim, a small isolated settlement in Gaza as important to Israel as Tel Aviv.
Most Palestinians believe that Israel claims even more land, which Jewish extremist groups do. Mainstream Israeli groups and political parties would be happy with Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, but the feeling amongst Arabs is that once those are gained, Israel will then want Jordan, which once was part of Palestine.
For Palestinians the choice is fight or surrender. Even if you ignore the claims for a Palestinian state, it still comes don to Palestinian land. The West Bank is owned by people, individuals and families who own land, and houses, and farms and orchards.
Palestinians will fight to protect that, just as Americans, or British, or anyone else will.
If you want to talk about methods, it is a dirty war on both sides. The Palestinians target children, the Israelis do not, or say they do not. The Palestinians do not believe them, and their reason for not believing is that so many of their children are killed by the Israelis.
The Palestinians suicide bombers strap on a bomb and walk up to a group and detonate it. The Israeli soldiers put a shell into the breach of a gun and fire it at a school. Both are common enough actions, both kill children.
Israel asks for peace with the Palestinians. For the Palestinians, peace means surrender to colonisation. At no point has Israel offered to stop colonisation.
The second reason I am against the current actions of Israel is because I think there is a better way.
Palestinians want a country. They want to own land without having it taken away with no compensation to improve the field of fire around a Jewish settlement. They don't want to give up their farmland because they are not allowed enough water to irrigate it, because most of the water goes to Jewish settlers.
Offer the Palestinians a chance at their own country. The middle classes bring stability, because they know that if there's a war, their house, or farm, or place of work could be destroyed in the fighting. Give them an example other than Deir Yassin, which agreed to keep out the Arab guerillas and was destroyed anyway.
An independant Palestine would have leaders with a lot to lose, and a middle class with jobs and property to protect. Those people would crack down on the terrorists to protect themselves.
Palestinians do not believe peace will bring them their own country. Settlers do not bring security, even the IDF has appealed for many settlements to be abandoned because they are such a security risk.
If settlements are not to do with security, then how can the Palestinians believe they will be removed if the security situation improves?
There can be no Palestinian state with the settlements in place. There will not be peace until there is clear progress towards a Palestinian state.
About 2000 people have been killed in the last 18 months. In the end, these issues will have to be faced anyway. I am against current Israeli policy because people are dying whilst nothing is done to improve the long term situation.
Continuing a war that cannot be won is stupid, and a waste. Buying time with people's lives because you might lose votes if you try to find a permament solution is stupid.
The two sides are now so distrustfull of each other that there can never be peace whilst they live in the same country.
Given that approx 100,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, in settlements that go back at most 30 years, compared to nearly 2,000,000 Palestinians, living in towns and villages that their ancestors have occupied for centuries, it's clear what the moral decision should be.
Given that the 100,000 Israeli settlers could easily be integrated back into Israeli society, whilst 2,000,000 Palestinians would have to be deported by force into a neighbouring country that would not take them, resulting in a large scale war, it's clear what the practical decision should be.
Given that whatever happens, short of killing all Arabs, Israel is either going to have to share land with the Arabs, or share borders with the Arabs, and that it's better to share borders with people you have concluded a peace deal with, rather than millions of people you have just fought a war to ethnically cleanse, it's clear what the sensible decision should be.
Fighting a war to delay taking the moral, practical sensible decisions that will have to be taken at some point, is stupid. It's also wrong, and evil, because every death is wasted.
