Some people say that Israel gets treated like a second
class citizen in the family of nations. That's probably true. But it isn't
without reason. I read the pro-Israel articles
posted here and using the
power of JoeUser, I'm taking advantage of
the equal time this site provides to give a different point of view.
The nation of Israel was a gift. Yes, Jews lived
there at the time of creation and those particular Jews have a historical claim
to the region. But they didn't get their nation through force of arms. They
didn't get their nation through a compelling argument for self determination.
They got their nation because 6 million Jews were murdered in World War II. You
can debate back and forth all day about whether what mighta, shoulda, woulda
been if the holocaust hadn't happened. But the bottom line is that the United
States with Britain pushed through the creation of Israel largely out of
sympathy. The nation of Israel was thus born. But it was supposed to be 2
nations. Transjordan did indeed occupy some of the territory originally
envisioned to be part of a "Palestinian" state. But not all. The Arabs responded
the same way they have responded since the original crusades, they tried to push
the invaders into the sea. They lost. And Israel, through subsequent wars (that
were not Israel's fault) gained additional territory.
But to leave it at that would be an incomplete picture.
The incomplete picture that many Americans cling to.
To Arabs, many if not most Jews living today in Israel are
just plain foreigners. Westerners at that. They're people from Russia, eastern
Europe and the United States mostly. Anyone reading this, if they want, can be a
Jew. Poof. You're a Jew. You're from China? No problem. You can convert. Move to
Israel. Get a settlement in the West Bank. That is how many Arabs look at it.
Israel is just a Western colony backed by the United
States that is full of foreigners. Foreigners who, year after year, take land
from people whose descendents have lived in that region for hundreds if not
thousands of years. To Arabs, the claim that some European or American calling
himself Jewish can therefore have a historical claim to that region is
offensive. What? Some ancestor 15 generations back came from that part of the
world? You think Ariel Sharon's family has some multi-generational claim to the
land that Israel currently occupies? Whatever you want to call the Palestinians,
there's no debate about where their ancestors came from.
I wonder how Americans would feel in an alternative
reality where the Ottoman Empire was the world's super power and that the state
of New York was designated as a land where "Native Americans" could return and
settle (to the exclusion of people who happened to live in New York). How would
they feel if most of these "Native Americans" were not actually from North
America but in fact came from say China and Russia and the Middle East but still
claimed to be "Native Americans" because their families, at some point down the
line, chose to Cherokees? What if, in fact that the Native American claim was
actually 2000 years old instead of just 100 years? How do you think Americans
would react then? In fact, we do know since we can see exactly how Americans
dealt with people on lands that they wanted. Live in Oklahoma? Did you know the
entire state was originally set up by the United States as a land for American
Indians? But they changed their minds later on. Which is particularly galling
given the background on how
the American Indians got there in the first place.
This doesn't excuse the terrorism of the Palestinians. And
it is that -- terrorism. From their vantage point, they feel like they have no
alternative. They're desperate. Israel doesn't exist thanks to its own hard work
alone like Draginol
claimed. It exists largely thanks to BILLIONS (that's with a of dollars in
aid from the United States every single year. In Arabic eyes, if it looks like a
colony, acts like a colony, maybe it is a colony. A colony that year after year
claims it wants peace while not addressing the basic problem: The foreigners who
moved in who happen to call themselves "jews" have no more legitimate claim to
the lands that Arabs have lived on for centuries than the Chinese do.
So why do Europeans see Israel as a threat to world peace?
Because Israel is a luxury that the west may not be able to afford. Think about
it. Where did modern terrorism come from? Northern Ireland? Think again. Suicide
bombers are the invention of Islamic fanatics in their attempt to try to reclaim
the land of Israel from this latest western crusade. And that instability, that
violence, that terrorism has spread across the entire Islamic world. Would it
have happened if Israel had never been re-created? Probably not. Without
Israel, the corrupt Arabic regimes would not be able to focus the resentment of
their masses on something in order to deflect from their own incompetence. The
United States would not have to prop up the petty dictatorships in countries
like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In other words, the world, as a whole, has
paid a high price for Israel to exist. And has its existence somehow benefited
the world in some way that can possibly outweigh the misery it has caused
directly or indirectly? I don't see it.
When Israel is listed as a threat to world peace, it
doesn't mean that the people of Israel have intentionally done ill. It doesn't
take responsibility for the evils committed by the Palestinians or other Arabs
away. It just is a straight forward calculus that regardless of blame, the
existence of Israel has created a lot more problems than it has solved. And that
there are two sides to any story. It's not anti-Semitism. It's not hatred of
Jews. It is just a realistic assessment of world affairs. The policies of Israel
and the west have, like it or not, created an environment that has generated 3
generations of terrorists now. Americans can be for Israel on principle.
But Europeans have to deal with the mess created by America on a daily basis
because of their geographic closeness. It's easy to have high minded principles
when you have an ocean to separate you.
Israel is a threat because it is seen by many, as a
western colony that takes land away from peoples who have lived there for
centuries to hand over to foreigners whose families have little or no claim on
those lands. From that springs anger and hatred in a region that still remembers
previous western crusades. That hatred in turn creates terrorism that affects
the entire world. Not everyone cares who's fault the terrorism rests on.
They care, however, that it happens and what the root cause of it is.