How the Jews learned to stop worrying and love the Palestinians
December 28th 2008 01:11
First, they apologised for taking away the homes and livelihoods of the people who had been living in the land for generations.
They pointed out that they had come home because they were not safe anywhere else and wanted a home to call their own, where they would be safe. But the dream had failed – because of their own mistakes, they were less safe in their own country than anywhere else in the world.
They now realised that they had created this situation themselves, and apologised for not understanding that in the years they had been away, it had become home to Palestinian people, too. Can you forgive us, they asked?
They offered compensation for the years of occupation and exclusion. After all, said the Israelis, we are stronger and richer than you, and we can afford to be generous. And besides, it is the right and just thing to do.
Then they asked to be forgiven for all the death and suffering they had inflicted on the Palestinians, and asked them to do likewise for all the death and suffering inflicted on Israelis.
It is no use dwelling on who was right and who was wrong, they said. We have both done great evil – let us acknowledge it and try to repair the damage we have done.
Let us make a new start together, they said. The only way to have peace is for Jews and Palestinians to occupy and rule the land together.
And so they offered to sit down together and negotiate a new democratic secular state which both could share. In the meantime, the UN would rule the country and provide government, police and military.
All Israeli and Palestinian forces would publicly surrender their weapons to the UN interim government and be disbanded. Jerusalem would forever become an international city belonging to neither, but to the whole world. Both would forever renounce all claim to it.
They also proposed a truth and reconciliation commission at which both sides would publicly admit their errors and offer restitution.
And a tribunal, staffed by independent judges from around the world, selected by a worldwide ballot, to decide questions of land ownership, occupation and restitution, and promised to abide by its decisions without protest, as long as the Palestinians agreed to do likewise.
Never, said the zealots on both sides.
Enough, said the silent majority.
Time to talk.
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Comment by RubySoho
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Comment by Yves Makhoul
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Comment by Doug Pollard
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Comment by Ahmed
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PolyKicks
They never offered compensation, heck, the IDF does not offer compensation for people they wrongly kill or the houses they wrongfully tear down.
It is virtually impossible to compare.
For an apology to be made, how about the Palestinians in Gaza be 'forced' to see the destruction 'they' caused by walking through Sderot, maybe see a few damaged picket fences and visit the grave of that Israeli who died.
while the Israeli's who supported the air raids can take a trip through Gaza, once they see all the deaths they've caused.
An apology requires an acknowledgment of an error and an understanding of the ramifications of the error. It isn't the Israeli peoples fault that they cannot come to grips with their mistake, no one in the world would be able to come to accept their support for an illegal blockade and military action led to the deaths of so many people.
So you might want to argue about it being 'forgive and forget', but the Israeli's have a lot more to forget and while they cannot be excused for being unable to forgive the Palestinians the Palestinians most certainly have the right not to want to apologize to Israel. The damage simply does not even begin to compare.
Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
They never offered compensation, heck, the IDF does not offer compensation for people they wrongly kill or the houses they wrongfully tear down.
It is virtually impossible to compare.
For an apology to be made, how about the Palestinians in Gaza be 'forced' to see the destruction 'they' caused by walking through Sderot, maybe see a few damaged picket fences and visit the grave of that Israeli who died.
while the Israeli's who supported the air raids can take a trip through Gaza, once they see all the deaths they've caused.
An apology requires an acknowledgment of an error and an understanding of the ramifications of the error. It isn't the Israeli peoples fault that they cannot come to grips with their mistake, no one in the world would be able to come to accept their support for an illegal blockade and military action led to the deaths of so many people.
So you might want to argue about it being 'forgive and forget', but the Israeli's have a lot more to forget and while they cannot be excused for being unable to forgive the Palestinians the Palestinians most certainly have the right not to want to apologize to Israel. The damage simply does not even begin to compare.
Comment by Doug Pollard
Current Affairs
Rainbow Reporter
Jews must accept there will never be a Jewish state, Palestinians that there will never be an Islamic state, bothe must accept Jerusalem will never be theirs.
Comment by Ahmed
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Morally Hamas and the IDF are matched. however you're kidding yourself if you think somehow what the Palestinians did out of desperation is on the same level as what the Israelis have done from Propaganda.
If someone murders your entire family you're going to be angry about it and no one is going to blame you because you are unable to forgive the murder because he was brainwashed.
That is not logical nor is it just, should the Palestinians take responsibility for the illegal blockade on humanitarian aid they were forced to endure? Should they take responsibility for being forced to eat grass to survive? Should they be forced to take responsibility for, in their desperation, firing rockets at Israel?
If you were to look at it logically then it is at the least 95% the fault of the Israeli's and barely 5% the fault of the Palestinians.
It used to be both their own, in fact when henry ford was writing about Jews taking over the world and Hitler was busily away murdering Jews Palestine was a safe haven for Muslims, Jews and Christians who lived their together (under Islamic rule oddly enough).
So it can be theirs, it has been theirs and it will be theirs if the terrorist zionist element stopped trying to have it all.
Comment by Doug Pollard
Current Affairs
Rainbow Reporter
the war will go on. That has to be laid aside. Why? Was all the death, sacrifice, suffering for nothing?
Yes. It always is. It is false coin, because all it will buy is more of the same - more accusations and counter-accusations, more 'retaliations'.
The war will go on because of this false moral economy, which makes peace seem more 'expensive' - in terms of what must be given away, forgiven and forgotten - than continued war.
It is easier to retaliate - in effect, vote for more war - than it is to accept that in the end it achieves nothing except more war. It is easy - but it is also profoundly immature and stupid. It will never produce a solution.
It is hard to accept that nothing can ever be done about past suffering, and it was all pointless anyway. It goes against the easy knee-jerk thirst for revenge. But that it what must happen.
In the end it does not matter who is to 'blame' - that's one of those silly schoolyard "but he started it" arguments. You think that's unfair? It is. Get over it. Complaining that one side is 'worse' or 'better' is wrong because it achieves nothing. Forget it.
The final price for peace in the area is the blending - at the simplest level, the intermarriage - of Jews and Arabs, and the end of each as a separate culture and group, creating a new kind of nation in that land.
This is not the work of one generation, but it is the only path that will lead to lasting peace.
Comment by JIllsyy
Except that you've failed to take into account the lasting desire Hamas has to eliminate Israel as per the Hamas covenant 1988.
You've failed to take into account that Jews have lived in the area of Israel- also known as Judea and Samaria - for the last sebveral thousand years, and several thousand years before Muhammad and Islam arrived on the scene.
For your information, Israel, which is technically under Jewish law, is one of the most multicultural societies in the world. EVERY religion is free to worship there, including the Bahais, who have been persecuted in Iran, and including Muslims, Chrisitians Jews and other religions.
You cannot worship Chrisitianity or Judaism in Saudi Arabia. Every Muslim country in the region is a theocracy and the Islamists in those countries are very busy persecuting and killing Christians. They expelled most of their Jews a few decades ago, having confiscated their houses and possessions.
In Islam it is punishable by death to be a homosexual. Israel in recent years hosted a multi-cultural Gay Pride holiday, attended by gays o0f all faiths - Jewish Chrisitian, Muslim.
If you are Palestinian Arab or Jewsih, you cannot become a citizen of Jordan.
Israel is 20%Arab and Arabic is the second language of Israle after its first language - Hebrew.
You talk abotu the blending of Jews and Arabs. Before
Muhammad came alpong, Jews, Zoroastrians, Assyrians and others in the region lived fairly peacefully together.
You wirte very glibly abotu war and retaliation. If you cannot be bothered to find out exactly what is happening in the area, and by extension, the rest of the world becasue of the exapnsion of jihad, you will never write a reasonable piece.
Israel gave up the Sinai to Egypt years ago to secure peace. Egypt alloowws Hamas to smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza. Israel left Gaza amid much local despair, leaving houses, shops and other infrastructure to the Palestinian Arabs, who promptly devastated the area and began smuggling weapons into Gaza and sending rockets - increasingly sophisiticated - into Israle. Thes erockets are funded by Iran and Syria.
Palestinians themselves are made up of Jordanians, Egyptians and Syrians, with a few descendants from the Balkans thrown in. The reason the Arabs think it belongs to them is because Muhammadf wanted Arabia free of everyone except Arabs, and they cannot accept that despite attacking the Jews in 1948, that they lost a war and theat the land is Jewish.
Jerusalem is a Jewsih city, but is currentyly shared amonst many faiths free to worahip there. This cannot be said for islamic cities.
Hamas, an off shoot of the Muslims Brotherhood, has just brought back Sharia law and crucifixion into Gaza. They have killed about 100 Palestinians who they suspect of haveing "collaborated" with the Israelis in the recent war.
Israelis do not like war, but to protect themselves they will -eventually - fight. Hamas has declared in its covenant that peaceful means and conferences are not to be considered at any time. Only armed struggle and the glory of Islam is permissible and desirable. They state that their mission is to spread Islam, eliminate Israel and die for Allah.
Please think a bit before you write something. There's a whole bunch of ugliness around the world and pompous superficiality does not help anything.
Comment by JIllsyy
Perhaps you would like to chat to Hamas about why they constantly steal the aid for miltary purposes, why they booby-trap house and schools with children in them and why they train and drug children to become suicide bombers. It's not for reasons of protection that's for sure!
Comment by JIllsyy
Perhaps you would like to chat to Hamas about why they constantly steal the aid for miltary purposes, why they booby-trap house and schools with children in them and why they train and drug children to become suicide bombers. It's not for reasons of protection that's for sure!
Comment by Doug Pollard
Current Affairs
Rainbow Reporter
Comment by RubySoho
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Hahahahahaha...hahahaha
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