Whose Land Is It?
Crisis Could Undercut Bush’s Long-Term Goals
Although the United States has urged Israel to use restraint, it has also strongly defended the military assaults as a reasonable response to Hezbollah rocket attacks, a position increasingly at odds with allies that see a deadly overreaction.
The rocket attacks themselves being a response to Israel kidnapping and imprisoning Lebanese political leaders. (Which was in response to Hezbollah kidnapping Israeli soldiers.)
What a fucking mess.
There’s no pretending that kidnapping Israeli soldiers and holding them for ransom or for prisoner-exchange deals is a good thing. It’s wrong. It’s bad. And hiding your rocket launchers or whatever in amongst the civilian population? That’s wrong and bad, too.
Here’s the thing, though: If you find out your enemy has hidden his rocket launcher in the village, you don’t bomb the shit out of the village anyway, killing scores of civilians in the process.
You find another way. And, folks, despite what you may have been told, there is always another way.
It’s long past time for the United States to quit supporting Israel in these insane conflicts.
Bush and his advisers hope the conflict can destroy or at least cripple Hezbollah and in the process strike a blow against the militia’s sponsor, Iran, while forcing the region to move toward final settlement of the decades-old conflict with Israel.
Not bloody likely. You want peace in the Middle East? Move Israel out to the Rhineland where it belongs and give that land back to the people who were living there before a bunch of guilt-driven Americans decided it should become Israel.
When I was a kid, we had a recording of the soundtrack to the movie Exodus. (You know the one, based on the Leon Uris book.) It’s a wonderful soundtrack. The music is very moving. I’ve always loved it. At some point in my childhood I heard lyrics to the main theme:
This land is mine.
God gave this land to me,
This brave and ancient land to me.
While I was still young, this was a wildly romantic idea to me! I was the ultra pro-Israel kid. I even toyed with the idea of converting to Judaism just so I could be a part of the excitement. (“Toyed” because I was probably only 12 or 13 years old.) It wasn’t until I grew older that it occurred to me: Wait a minute. Why would God give the land to the Jews — when there were already other people living there? Isn’t that an awful lot like how the Europeans grabbed land from the native people in the Americas? Didn’t our ancestors also think they had some sort of God-given right to drive people out of their homes? And don’t we now know that we were very wrong to have done that? (Don’t we??)
So I gradually came to understand that God isn’t in the real estate business. God didn’t give that land to the Jews. They had no more right to it than any other invading force would have had. And I gradually came to understand that the anger and resentment the Arabs feel towards these invaders (and their backers in the United States) isn’t necessarily unfounded.
Posted by RebeccaHartong on July 31, 2006 under Uncategorized
And even if God did give the land to the Israelites, I don’t think God said anything about other people not being able to live there, too, in peace and as equals.
As for the claim that Hizbollah is hiding amongst the civilians, this is an interesting Salon article on that. The gist is Hizbollah operates differently from other terrorist organizations and realizes they’d be turned in if they tried to shield themselves with their own, just as the Palestinians get caught.
The Jews lived in Israel originally. Many (most, maybe) were kicked out after the Romans destroyed the Temple for the second time (its called the diaspora). Some Jews did remain but Israel was no longer a Jewish state. Centuries later Jews began returning slowly and after WWII Palestine agreed to give some land to establish a Jewish state, but at some point backed out. Jews were already there, or went anyway, and this, along with the fact that both groups consider Jerusalem a holy site, has led to their constant fighting.
But I agree with Michael, there’s no reason these two groups couldn’t live together and share the land. Both sides are wrong for what they’ve been doing.
Unfortunately you are misguided and are presenting totally unfactual commentary. The jews never ever left this area under any rule including the Turks from 1517-1917. They stayed to keep the Zionist dream alive. The Palestinian claim to this land is fabricated. These were a nomadic people who bounced from area to area and never hung there hats. They tried to go to Saudi Arabia and Jordon but were turned away. Why they feel that this little tiny piece of land that has become Israel is theirs is curious.
If the violence would cease against the Jews the violence would cease all together. I t is quite interesting that when know violence is perpertrated against Israel there is no violence and the people co-exist. In America we live with all different people and even though there is some violence we are not blowing each other up. Would it not be scary if the Israelies were to go into the Palestinian areas and blow themselves up. Fight fire with fire. Boy would the suicide bombing stop quickly if that happened,
So that whole “diaspora” thing is all made up, eh?
The Israelis don’t need to resort to suicide bombs — they’ve got the might of the United States behind them. All the military aid they could ever want.