Again, you contorted view of the Middle East and Israel.
Billy Rose wrote:
Several good points. It is group punishment, albeit less sever than the
Palestinians receive at the hands of the Israelis but still similar to
the sanctions placed against South Africa.
No similarities there. Israel is not an apartheid state.
Most of the world is against
what the Israelis are doing (as they are against what our government is
doing), even if their governments find economic advantage in maintaining
ties with Israel (more a nod, in my opinion to the economic consequences
imposed by the United States).
So what else is new? Israel is defending themselves against idiots who
blow themselves up in cafes and buses hoping to get some of those virgins
promised them. Don't forget that Israel is the only democracy in the
Middle East that supports the war against terrorism. I think that is good
enough reason to support them.
But, please. Read what I write. Don't beat up a straw man. There are
many good, decent Israelis. Even peace activists who don't care if their
neighbors are Palestinians or a Martians, for that matter. What they are
concerned about is how their neighbors treat them.
I just don't see the need for an Israel.
You would rather the Jews have no country of their own and wander the
earth being thrown into ghettos and rounded up and murdered. The Jews
were in Israel long before the Arabs arrived out of the Saudi desert in the
eighth century. They are entitled to a country just like England where the
State religion is Christian (I forget which denominaton), and on and on.
An ethnically pure country?
There are several minority religious groups in Israel, including Moslems and
Christians. If you are going to point fingers about ethnic purity, look at
the
history of minority religions in the Arab countries. In some cases they were
accepted, but in many they were restricted in their activities and treated
poorly.
The Arabs would like the Middle East to be ethnically pure, all Moslem.
Hence,
the core of many of the problems of that region.
Just has a bad sounding taste to it and Jews should be the first to
recognize that. Of course Zionism pre-date Nazism. After WWI, maybe an
ethnically pure state sounded reasonable. After WWII, I don't think so.
So you think anti-semitism is dead? You are not very informed on that
subject.
Zionism, in my opinion, is the problem. It is Zionism, and now
territorial aggrandizement, through ethnic cleansing that is the
problem. All property in Israel is owned by the state.
Bull shit. The government owns part of the land as does the British
government in their country. Most of the land in Israel is privately owned.
Once a
Palestinian loses their land, they cannot get it back. Home destruction
by the state, and refusal to grant building permits are the weapons. How
about, I'm OK. Your OK. If you want to buy it, you pay for it?
In the Arab countries, they don't even pay for the land they take
from the Jews (almost a million refugees). If you want to talk about
prejudice, why were the Jews( and in some cases Christians) treated as
second class citizens in many Arab countries?
The international community should be able to guarantee Jewish safety
(a legitimate concern, considering the past).
You are a dreamer if you believe that would ever happen.
At present it is just the
United States and Guam (and maybe the Marshall Islands) that guarantees
Israel's survival. But are they safe? Billions of dollars of American
foreign aid is squandered in Israel every year. What kind of country
would it be, if that money was spent on social needs instead for Moslems
and Jews?
The Moslems get plenty of money from their oil glutted neighbors.
Yes the niqab in Britain and the foulard in France are contentious
issues. Group pressure to conform or individual freedom? Personally, I
have no problem with either (niqab or foulard), if it isn't coercion.
--
Billy
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
I know it bothers you that Jews have their own state, and a strong one
as well. Well, get used to it. Try and look on both sides of these issues,
as the Palestinians have been guilty of many crimes against Israel. Their
is a large group (Hamas and others) who refuse to recognize the State of
Israel, and like you would like to push all the Jews into the Mediterranean.
Sound familiar to you?
I suggest you pay a visit to the region to see the situation for yourself.
If
you rely on the prejudicial news like the BBC, you will only get one side
of the picture. If you are not anti-semetic and are willing to look at the
realities from both sides, you may come to different opinions. I have lived
in the region for 5 years and have made frequent visits to countries around
Israel, like Eygpt, so I am speaking from my own experiences, not the bull
shit propaganda sites you seem to dig up on the internet.
Sherwin