Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Curval on May 06, 2002, 08:34:08 AM
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Nashwan, Hortund, Caligula, Babek Udie et al...
We all have personal reasons for supporting one side or another. Some of them are fairly obvious...Caligula is Jewish, for example. Some may not be so obvious.
I think it is about time we explore them, honestly and openly. Arguing over minor points of history is getting us nowhere.
I will start:
When I was thirteen years old I was in school in the UK. I had know only a couple of Jewish people up to that point, but my opinion of them was less than favorable. I had read "Merchant of Venice" and hated the Jewish character. In church I was taught that the Jews had condemed Jesus to death, despite an offer of amnesty from Pontius Pilot...etc. etc.
While at this school I became friends with a Jewish guy. One of the reasons we became friends was the amount of bullying and "picking on" that we both suffered through...I guess misery loves company. I was picked on because I was the youngest boy in our "house" and because I was not from England. Also, due to my accent I was dubbed "Fat Yank"...I was a little bit tubby, but you would laugh at that nickname if you saw me now..anyway, the Jewish guy was picked on because he was Jewish.
The abuse that I suffered paled in comparison to what my friend went through. For him it was constant...and I am embarrased to admit that on occassion I joined in...basically the "mob" mentality overcame me, in retrospect. "Yid, Kike"..was how he was reffered to, even by other kids whom he considered "friends". Another Jewish kid came to the school after I had been there for a year....he was thrown straight into "the fire" and the two of them lived under constant threat and abuse.
One night, after Miss Bermuda won the Miss Universe pagent I was woken up at about 3.00am. The older boys (18 years old) had been out drinking and were pissed off that Miss UK didn't win the pagent. I was ordered to put on my "plimsoles" (sneakers) and to go to the "hotroom" which was where we hung up our wet rugby clothes etc. When I got there and the door closed behind me there was four or five of them waiting for me with "rat-tails" in their hands...Rat-tails are made by rolling a folded towel at an angle to produce a "rat-tail" like shape...the end is dipped in water and when flicked, produces a very painful "crack" if done properly. They grabbed me, hung me upside down, and hooked the back of my sneakers on pegs for the clothes. I was hanging with my face outwards, but covered by my pajama top due to gravity. They then proceeded to give me a "lesson" with the rat tails. When they finnished I was then told to go and wake up my Jewish friend, because it was his "turn" and that they loved to beat "Jew-Lovers" first. There was nothing I could do. I woke up my friend and sent him on his way to the hot-room. Frankly, all I wanted to do was get back into bed and feel sorry for myself. Did I tell anyone in authority about it? Are you mad? Once was enough, thanks.
Anyway...this was "one" example of the abuse. There were many.
My Jewish friend would invite me to his home when we were given weekends off, or half-term holidays. One one occassion a film was going to be shown on BBC. It was called "The Holocaust". The Friday night before the show (on Saturday) I was invited to joiin the family for their Friday dinner. It was a very inspiring evening for a little kid and I felt quite privaledged to be allowed to participate. The next day the whole family showed up to watch the movie...uncles, aunts, cousins etc etc. Watching that movie under those circumstances....with family members weeping over relatives that were lost in the war etc. was something I will never forget.
After leaving the UK I ended up, later in life, in university in Toronto. There I met a beautiful young girl who I fell madly in love with. She was Jewish. We were together for six years and remain good friends today.
While we were living together we ended up living in a basement apartment in a house owned by an old Jewish lady. We got off to a rather bad start with this old lady, because when I went into a cupboard I found a bag of potatoes that was growing huge roots off each potato. I threw it away in disgust. When the old lady found out she lambasted me for about a half an hour. I told her that I would buy her a new bag and couldn't figure out why she was so upset (her English wasn't good). Then her daugher, who we had done all the rental negociations with, told us what the problem was....the entire family had been sent to Aushwitz in the late stages of the war, and the lady had been telling us that those potatoes would have fed her family for a month in the camp. From that point on we ended up having to avoid the old lady at all costs. She wanted to talk to us about her experiences and it was just too terrible for us to listen to. We ended up meeting her other daughter that was missing half of one of her arms after an experiment peformed on her had caused an infection and it was amputated. The daughters would give their mother grief for talking to us about things that should stay private...for which we were somewhat grateful at the time.
So...there you have it...my personal reasons for my wholeharted support of Israel..biased...perhaps. If I had had a similar experience with a Palestinian "flavour" I am sure my opinion would be different...but it isn't. I'm not looking for any comments on my experiences...no "awww poor Curval" crap...I just wanna hear WHY you guys support either side.
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Now and then here in South Florida I run across poor Jewish souls who have the tattoos of prison numbers on their arms. I have a lot of compassion for them.
Most of the older Jews I encounter are from New York, and retired. I avoid them like the plague, if I can. (The New York culture grates on my mid-western)
I'm fine with Jewish people in general.
I have little meaningfull personal experience with Arabs or Palestinians. I have had interactions with some, and I found the gulf between us seemed to be very wide. I have negative feelings towards them, in general. (I wonder why? ;))
Now take the above sentiments, and throw them out the window. They should not be used in trying to arrive at an intelligent foreign policy toward the Middle East region.
Your experiences fall into the same catagory, Curval, though I can see how you would feel emotionally about it.
.02
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Fair enough.
As you might have guessed, I support Israel in the conflict.
I'm not jewish. Mom is Swedish and dad is German. So although I see myself as a Swede, I'm also half-German. My dad has told me about the family history on my fathers side. Pretty depressing. His mom had 7 brothers, 6 of which died in the war. Three were infantrymen, one was a 109 pilot, those four all died in Russia. Two were just 3 and 5 yrold kids who was killed in allied bombing raids. Grandmom never wants to talk about the war. I went to visit her a couple of years ago, and she showed me the cemetary where the two young ones were buried. She never said anything, but dad has told me she was there that night when they were killed. It was in Dresden btw.
My dads father comes from a kinda welthy family. They used to live in East Prussia. When the russians arrived in 1945, my grandfather and his brother managed to escape. The russians killed the rest of his family. He never did like those russians after that.
Hm, kinda drifted from the subject here.
Israel.
Well, to me the issue is very simple. You have a country, it is small and it is surrounded by enemies. For as long as the country has existed, all its neighbours have tried to exterminate it. They have fought war after war against the tiny country, each time attacking it several countries at once, every time outnumbering the forces of the tiny country with horrible odds. Yet somehow the tiny country manages to struggle on and survive.
The tiny country is the only one in the region who shows any kind of respect for the values I share, and the tiny country is the only country in the area that seems to "follow the rules". Surrounded by dictators and madmen, the tiny country is a democracy.
The soldiers of the IDF has earned my respect because of what they have managed to do against hopeless odds. I have nothing but respect and even admiration for them. At the same time, they have balls of steel. Take a look at the F-16 strike against the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 81. If they hadn't done that, Saddam would have had nukes in 91. Now there is a happy thought.
They have the best intelligence agency in the world. They have to, otherwise they would soon be dead. Without the Mossad, OBL and his thugs would still be roaming afghanistan trying to invent new ways to slaughter westerners.
I sympathize with the Israelis, perhaps because I can identify with them, under different circumstances, it might just as well be me who would have to patrol the streets as an infantryman trying to spot the next suicide bomber.
Their enemies on the other hand are horrible. To me they represent pure evil. You have persons going to any length to kill civilians, women and children. They will stop at nothing. I have read countless reports on exactly how sick they are too. They have suicide bombers walking up to women with baby carriages and then detonating their explosives. They have snipers shooting at 10 month old children. They have kill-squads entering villages and houses slaughtering as many as they can. They use artillery to shell villages. They prep the explosives with rat poison in their attempts to increase the fatalities after a suicide bomb. They seem to be capable of anything. 9-11 showed that.
They possess a hate that scares me. A level of hate that I dont think we ever can understand. Can any of you think of something that will make you mad enough to strap on a vest filled with explosives and walk up to a woman with a baby carriage and detonate the bomb? I know I cant.
So, to summarize. On the one hand you have Israel, a country much like my own, with much of the same values and rules as we have in my country. They have an army that I respect and I admire them for what they have managed to do. There is a war going on right now, and they are the frontline, and thanks to them, I can sleep better at night.
On the other hand, you have some of the worst criminals in the hístory of the world. These are the guys who invented most of teh elements of modern terrorism. They seem to stop at nothing, and they are trying to get their hands on various weapons of mass destruction. So they can kill more innocent civlians.
To me the choice is easy, and to me it is important to take a stand in the conflict.
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I support Israel because ... ....
the Palestine nutbags & their friends would kill my family and I given half a chance
boy, that was a hard choice :rolleyes:
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Originally posted by Gunthr
Now take the above sentiments, and throw them out the window. They should not be used in trying to arrive at an intelligent foreign policy toward the Middle East region.
Your experiences fall into the same catagory, Curval, though I can see how you would feel emotionally about it.
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Have you been reading all the threads on this topic? Are we any closer to actually having an intelligent foreign policy? No.
Who, pray tell, is forming this intelligent foreign policy?
Whomever it is will undoubtedly have personal experiences..these will be reflected in those policies somehow. To think otherwise is extremly naive.
My 0.02
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Hortlund....
Thanks man. I initially suspected that you were Jewish, but having read into some of the things you wrote I wasn't sure.
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I really haven't weighed in on this issue too much, mainly due to an overall lack of knowledge on the subject. ("That never stopped you before Tahgut" -- saved someone the trouble)
I lean toward Isreal for personal reasons too. No great story of persecution, just fond memories.
My family is mostly Italian and from Chicago. My Uncle, however lived in the middle of the Jewish part of town (Chicago was and may still be one of the most segregated cities in America). I loved visiting him and experiencing the "neigborhood". My other relatives lived in Italian neighborhoods, and the sense of extended family was very similar. When you were out on the streets of those places, you were everyone's kid. If you did something wrong, any adult in the vicinity would let you know. If you needed help, it came from the nearest house. If you were looking for a game or fun with the other kids, it was just a matter of walking outside and joining in.
I recall the drives to "Send Trees to Israel", and how proud the adults in the area were, showing pictures of the trees that they sponsored.
I guess that no matter how hard I try to maintain my open-minded liberal attitude, I will always lean toward Israel for these reasons.
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Have you been reading all the threads on this topic? Are we any closer to actually having an intelligent foreign policy? No.
Who, pray tell, is forming this intelligent foreign policy?
Whomever it is will undoubtedly have personal experiences..these will be reflected in those policies somehow. To think otherwise is extremly naive.
My 0.02
I may have misunderstood your original question, Curval. You asked us to tell why we support either side. I realize now that you were actually asking us to tell about our personal experiences that led to how we feel about either side.
The foreign policy position that I would support for either country wouldn't necessarily have anything to do with my personal feelings... no offense intended.
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Originally posted by Gunthr
I may have misunderstood your original question, Curval. You asked us to tell why we support either side. I realize now that you were actually asking us to tell about our personal experiences that led to how we feel about either side.
The foreign policy position that I would support for either country wouldn't necessarily have anything to do with my personal feelings... no offense intended.
No offense taken.
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I'm going to weigh in with my armchair response...
As long as I've been follow the drama in the MidEast, I've noticed a few things...
Israel takes it on the chin after being bombed a few times. They retaliate, and the PLO and Arab World cries FOUL FOUL
Israel takes an Anti-Terrorism stance like we are, saying enough is enough, and again, the PLO and Arab world cry FOUL FOUL
Israel agrees to a cease fire/peace treaty...and its the PLO funded morons that blow up civilians. Its a stupid cycle of violence the civilized world is weary of.
So, from my armchair, and minus the history-of-the-world opinion, I'm currently siding for Israel in this matter. Israel has been doing what they have been *saying* they would do. PLO hasn't. That's been proven over and over again. The PLO's use of crying and claiming to be the victim is growing old, and no one beleives it anyways.
If the Arabs love their PLO brothers so much, come and get up, settle em down in Saudi and let the new PLO state begin. Walk the walk, are they brothers or not?
Furthermore, it wasn't Israeli's in the street dancing and being jubilant when word of the 9/11 attacks got out now, was it? It wasn't pulp fiction, I was glued to the tube all day/night Sept 11, and the dancing and celebration was in full force in PLO land.
So, there's my take on it.
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My personal reason for not sympathizing with the PLO, is that I find it hard to side with those that would like to kill me and rejoice at my death .
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Here is my story then.
I don't support either side, though some already managed to call me a "terrorist lover" so i guess perception is that i'm pro-palestinian, so be it.
I lived in Poland for 18 years. Polish history is full of wars with germans and russians, both of whom i was taught to carry a grudge against. Also, i've met Jews in poland ( my Godmothers' family is jewish ) and never had any issues with them. My mother in her youth participted in Jewish Cultural Choir and many of her aquentices still carry on. I've met most of those people since.
Before living poland, as well as after coming to USA, I had a chance to met people of many nationalities, such as Russians, Germans, so on.
Those encounters taught me the following:
Each person should be judged for who they are, not by the history of the nation to which they happend to belong.
I've met Russians and Germans who I liked and admired, and i've met Polish people who were utmost discusting, and made me feel ashamed for having any sort of association.
I've met bad americans and good americans. Good arabs and bad arabs. Israelis I liked, and those I didn't.
As such, i refuse to believe or accept the stupid nationalistic streotypes aka:
- all palestinians want to kill jews.
- all jews want to kill palestinains.
- all germans are evil
- all russians are drunks
- all americans are hicks
so on. List is neverending.
With the view of the current conflict:
- isreal is POPULATING the territory in question. They are forcably removing people who are living there, and settling it. This is a big no-no for me. This is nothing more then PC expensionism.
- dispute is over religiously important land, and i doubt that we will ever have enough cool heads on both sides to settle it. Religious zealots on both sides will make sure that will never happend. They both stand too much to gain for continued war.
- palestinan methods of sucside bombing repulsive, especially since they are aimed against civilians. I understand WHY they do it, but it doesn't mean i support it. I believe that they should direct those atacks against IDF if they feel that they are fighting a war.
- Sharon and Arafat are both criminals in my eyes. They both play in stupid nationalistic slogans for they own personal interest.
- Isreal leadership ( with Sharon in lead ) is nothing more that Jewish version of Le Pen of France. They are extremists of worst sort, democracy or not. It's shameful that people of Isreal felt compelled to vote for them.
- i have serious doubts whether the current anti-terrorist operation will bore results it aims for. I predict that within 1 month of end of it, "reprisals" will start again. It doesn't take a genious with PhD to strap explosives to himself and blow himself up. And they'll just end up manufacturing them in Syria, where they can't be reached.
If Isreal abandons all it's settlements in occupied territories, i'll support any anti-terrorists operations it conducts. Until then, they are fighting savage partisants, and lot of innocents are getting hurt in process.
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Well Samm - so you're not supporting the PLO. How about the Palestinians?
There are many Israelis who do not like their government (i.e. Sharon's) stance. And some of these Israelis have lost limbs in suicide bombings. Yet you wouldn't automatically say they sympathised with the terrorists would you?
Or are we applying Bush's absurd 'with us or with them' mantra to a ridiculous extreme?
To disagree with Israel's conduct does not automatically make you a PLO sympathiser. My main beef is with the systematic and deliberate colonisation of West Bank; the bull-dozing of Palestinian homes to make way for Israeli settlements can be compared to Germany's quest for lebensraum. It's simply unacceptable.
Sharon is a bloated, bigoted war criminal pursuing a personal vendetta against Arafat; it's absurd for anyone to claim he has some moral superiority over his nemesis. It would be like comparing a couple of turds. Pointless and irrelevant because their inherent charcteristics are never going to change.
Personally I believe the way forward is through the moderates on both sides - but there needs to be atmosphere in which their respective voices can be heard. Hopefully, Sharon and Arafat can retire and pursue their games elsewhere and give the people of the area a crack at peace.
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Originally posted by Eagler
I support Israel because ... ....
the Palestine nutbags & their friends would kill my family and I given half a chance
boy, that was a hard choice :rolleyes:
Heh heh. Doesn't get much simpler than that, does it?
- oldman
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Kind of an aside...
I enjoy hearing Benjamin Netanyaho (sp?) and thought he was a good leader. Sharon, with his colorful history, etc, I have a somewhat tougher time with.
Netanyaho has been on Foxnews several times, and I think the way he spells out the issues has always been clear, concise, and quite level headed. Barak and Sharon, I dunno, maybe they are no good on camera, but Mr N spelled out the "situation" nicely on TV several times I've seen it. Of course, the reporters he is discussing this with have no desire to hear Israels take on the issue, just questioning why they retaliate..... :rolleyes:
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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.org
For an alternative to the filtered news you get, try the Israeli newspaper http://www.haaretzdaily.com
These 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.
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Nashwan,
Ya just couldn't stop after the first six lines could you?:)
Thanks though for responding.
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I have posted more or less the same sentiments as eagler, in the past. It does not matter much how we got to where we are today. The ragheads have declared us the enemy. We better take that seriously. And proceed accordingly.
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I don't like the Palestinian terrorists who kill innocent Israeli civilians. I don't like the Israeli citizens and government and military people who opress and sometimes kill innocent Palestinian civilians. Anybody who thinks either side in this conflict is "right" is out of their mind.
My (only half joking) solution. (http://www.ozcraft.com/cgibin/clipplay.cgi?images/aliens/nuke.rpm)
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Originally posted by Dowding
Well Samm - so you're not supporting the PLO. How about the Palestinians?
Which palestinians ? The isrealis or the ones that celebrated the destruction of the world trade center and Iraq shooting down american planes ?