I didn’t show a contemptuous disregard for the right of Israelis to occupy Palestinian territory. If one ascribes to the belief that ‘to the victor goes the spoils’, then one must acknowledge that the Israelis kicked a## in 1967 and should be entitled to occupy all conquered land. But the same is not true for the 1973 conflict, when the Israeli miltary proved somewhat less than invincible and the US intervened.
I am also very much aware that Hamas (in Gaza) and Hezbollah (in Lebanon) continue to fire rockets into Israel and kill innocent Israeli citizens. But are you also willing to acknowledge that Israeli soldiers continue to kill innocent Palestinians?
The Jewish argument for the establishment of Israel as their homeland is based on the fact that Jewish people occupied Israel for thousands of years up to about 700 AD. I also know that many Jewish citizens of Arab and European nations were forcibly evicted from their homes/lands and ‘resettled’ in Israel.
But Muslims occupied the land from about 700 AD up until creation of the Jewish state of Israel. Are you willing to acknowledge that many non-Jewish Palestinians were forcibly evicted from their homes in Israel and ‘resettled’ in Lebanon, Jordan and elsewhere? Are you willing to grant these Palestinians (and their descendants) the right of return to their homeland? Israel sure won’t because to do so would create an Israeli state with a Jewish minority, and that would be the end of their theocracy. On top of that, Israelis continue building settlements in the West Bank. Why?
It seems to me that BOTH sides go back in time and select a date (any convenient date) when their people ‘ruled’ the land and use that date as a justification for why their ‘tribe’ is entitled to ALL the land. If they can’t get what they want, then they resort to military aggression and terrorism.
I thought (hoped) as people of the world we had evolved beyond the mentality of ‘to the victor goes the spoils’. But I see no evidence that either the Palestinians or the Israelis have given up that notion. Until BOTH sides do, there will continue to be conflict.
I find the whole thing absurd. Both ‘tribes’ claim to be direct descendants of Abraham. But the Jewish people claim Judaism predates Islam by many thousand of years (which is true). Some religious scholars, however, think the term ‘Abraham’ is derived from the Hindu God, Brahma. Hinduism predates Judaism by thousands of years. Using the tortured logic used by others, then does that mean Israel should be designated a Hindu state and we should ‘resettle’ Hindus in India to Israel?
But most of all – as a US taxpayer worried about the ballooning deficit – I question why billions of US taxpayers dollars are spent every year on this ridiculous tribal warfare.
