Let's recall that the British mandate for partition in '48 sprang from the League of Nations in 1923. The area at that time was populated by indigenous Jews, who were purhasing land from Arabs across the region. Willingly sold, too.
"Palestine" then consisted of Gaza, the place now called Israel, The West Bank and Jordan. The Balfour Declaration contemplated all of it for Israel, but Trans Jordan was taken away.
In short, the Jews accepted, the Arabs didn't, and they went to war with Israel in '48, '56, '67 and '73, and continually in various ways since then. I haven't researched this, but it's claimed that Israel represents less than 1/500th of Arab territory, a matchbook on an area of 9,400 square feet.
I find it interesting that the Arab view of the necessary cosmic purity of Muslim land is moored to the most barbaric, backward, exploitative and vicious regimes on the planet. The Islamist view of The Law, and its realization in death and martyrdom, is the reverse of the progressive, search for the undisclosed in the Judaeo-Christian world.
In that way, we have found our perfect enemy, the perfect antithesis to The West, which even in its secularism, is convinced of the essential value and possibilities of life as the condition for revelation rather than death.
In my view, this war will be "two men go in, one man come out". We will tremble at the awfulness of it but we will not be defeated. In their gross ignorance and fury, they are pushing us into a corner. Israel will suffer a great deal, I'm afraid, but she'll live and her enemies will die.
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for a different perspective, see the following:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ga...s-
_b_25336.html
I read it, Anonymous. It's recitation of historical assumptions about migration and assimilation is completely irrelevant to the dispute between Israel and radical Islamism. You, of course, wouldn't understand that.
Its most obvious flaw is the reality that Jews are indigenous to the region, and the Exodus of European Jews after WWII didn't introduce anything that would account for the compressed rage and fascist leanings of the failed systems in the region. The Jews represent The West, and that's their sin.
Pointless and evasive screeds like yours at Huffington give simple-minded people a spurious intellectual underpinning for ideas which, by themselves, are preposterous. Even allowing for the idiotic propositions that racial, religious and ethnic purity are guarantors for peace, and that the pursuit of them justifies war against the innocent, the internal facts are that such societies ultimately poison the worlds around them. Your argument is essentially the argument of the scapegoating German fascists of the last century.
Well put.
Fantastic retort, Rhod. Interesting, I looked at "Love's" site, and simply declaring that "I'm okay, you're okay ... there's no truth" is not the answer, either. I understand the impulse, but it's also the same impulse that people have to surrender rather than to fight evil.
Acknowledging the truth requires response.
You are right in that Israel represents the West, for sure. I think it's more, though, having to do mainly with the fact that they are Jews. I don't fully understand it, but I think it's true nonetheless.
With that said, it seems that Militant Islamists fight with all who are not ideologically "pure". The last dog of an enemy is the worst ever seen since the next ... They hate other Muslims, Christians, Jews, the infidel, etc.
To negotiate with such an enemy is complete folly. The only response they understand is the one Israel is giving to them right now.
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