50 Responses to ** Israel’s 60th Birthday Celebration **

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1. 41. winesnob | April 29th, 2008 at 3:44 pm

   yeah, what we did was much worse, at least the jews had a historical attachment to the land, the majority of europeans that came here did so only for economic gain

2. 42. emarche | April 29th, 2008 at 3:50 pm

   Well, we did it for economic gain and all the tasty, tasty animals that roamed the land.

   Actually, -we- didn’t do jack shit except be born long after the incredible story of this country was written for us. You can lament the fact that some of this country’s founders were less than humane in dealing with the natives, but in the years between then and now plenty of Americans have done some absolutely noble things for the people of this planet. That’s a fact.

3. 43. Tiger | April 29th, 2008 at 4:05 pm

   hobodave if there is such a thing as a ‘blog comment award’, I would hand it to you right now. Well said!

   The way I see it: what’s done is done, Israel is there, and Palestine is there too. No one is going anywhere, so both sides should work together for the long-overdue peace in the area.

   Just like many Jews in Europe a hundred years ago, a lot of Palestinians are established immigrants all over the world, heck they are sometimes tagged as ‘The New Jews’; I highly doubt they would want to leave it all and go back to their land. Afterall, I think it is all about belonging; it feels good to belong somewhere even if you never end up living there.

4. 44. MidnightRacer | April 29th, 2008 at 4:21 pm

   Anyone seriously curious about the history can easily read up on it for themselves if you’re truly wanting to understand. I’d advise caution on taking a stranger’s slant as fact.

5. 45. Katie_Scarlett | April 29th, 2008 at 4:51 pm

   MidnightRacer wrote:

   Anyone seriously curious about the history can easily read up on it for themselves if you’re truly wanting to understand. I’d advise caution on taking a stranger’s slant as fact.

   Well, can’t that be said for all author’s? Don’t their personal feelings sometimes make it into books as “fact”.

   By the by, his slant was far better than my cursory knowledge and about as in-depth as I care to get. I’m at a point where I’m sick of hearing about the fighting in that area and the poor Jews and the poor Palestinians. 60 years ago this constant fighting and death didn’t exist - now it does. It’s not hard to do the math and see that creating a country where one was not had some sort of destabilizing effect on the area. And the allies are to blame for the creation of that country - their motives were more about having a sphere of influence in the middle east and less about giving the Jews somewhere to call home for altruistic purposes.

   The way I see it, the Jews have been persecuted over history - and so have many other ethnic groups/races of people. Having never been part of a persecuted class, I don’t really know how that feels first hand, but I do know that until all these groups move forward and stop looking at past persecution, the fighting will continue, hate will thrive and things will continue to be not good.

   As an aside, one thing that has always baffled me is the “I’m Jewish” answer when you ask someone their ethnic decent. When someone asked me, even in my practicing Catholic days, I said “Italian & Irish” or “McDego.” Yet, most Jewish people will say they’re Jewish, regardless of time spent in a synogague or their level of devotion to the faith. Clearly there’s a blood line there - I mean, are you Russian? Austrian? German? Polish? In the early 1900’s Jews very much identified with the countries from which they came, and the established German Jews of NYC hated the come-lately Polish Jews (from the ghettos of Poland) when they showed up 20-50 years later. What happened?

6. 46. MidnightRacer | April 29th, 2008 at 5:08 pm

   October, then

7. 47. Easy-E | April 29th, 2008 at 5:11 pm

   Really? What do you call it when a country is given to people at the expense of those already living there?

   America?

   Not that we don’t have plenty of company in that regard.

   Just sayin’.

   There’s a significant difference between “conquering the new world” or whatever they called it as they colonized and forced people into assimilation, and what happened 60 years ago in what is now Israel.

   

   Jeez. You throw that out there… Katie, you *know* I am going to ask, so state your case counselor. Show me a significant difference.

8. 48. matt_72 | April 29th, 2008 at 5:47 pm

   I think hobodave conveniently forgot to mention the several decades of violence between the Jewish & Palestinian communities prior to 1948. There were atrocities committed by both sides going back as far back as the early 1900s. And much of that violence was started by Palestinian (though not all). The Jews more retaliated than initiated the violence (though this was clearly not always the case). Remember that the Jews were both outnumbered AND outgunned by Palestinians up until the British armed them during WWII so it is insane to even think they would “start” trouble w/ their neighbors. But in 1948, the Palestinians realized that the Jews now had tanks & other heavy weapons left over from WWII. And because of the mass migration starting around 1910, the Jewish population also increased from a few tens of thousands to a few hundred thousand. And the vast majority of the first Jewish residents didn’t “push out” the Palestinians, they either settled on empty land or bought out Palestinian occupants. The Jews largely took over Palestinian land AFTER 1948, not prior to that. So it is completely unfair to suggest that when they first arrived, they stole land from anyone (though I would agree that they did so in 1948 and in the wars thereafter). The Palestinians fled not b/c of the massacre, but b/c they realized that without the British there to govern the combined territory, the Jews would be running things because now they had the heavy weapons. And I bet they feared what would happen to them given all the pent up mutual hatred between the 2 groups. I don’t at all condone all the violence, but the Palestinians need to realize that they are equally to blame for the cycle of violence if there will ever be peace. And they also need to recognize that as equal contributors to the cycle of violence AND as losers in every armed engagement, they will never get all that land back (especially not land bought fair and square for hard currency).

9. 49. Lady | April 29th, 2008 at 6:56 pm

   So who’s going to this thing?

10. 50. Tiger | April 30th, 2008 at 11:05 am

    Matt-72 No one said Palestinians are 100% innocent, but putting this in prospective they are definitely the ones who got ’screwed’ more.

    You make it sound like the British were there to protect Palestinians, that is absolutely incorrect. The British did expedite the creation of the Nation of Isreal (Belfore Promise? That was all Britain’s work), and even with INTENSE pressure from both the British and Jewish less than 2% of the land was ’sold’ in legal manner.

    IF you saw the CNN documentary about warriors of faith you will get more insight about ‘other’ ways Jewish settlers settled in. How about checking in a hotel and never checking out, ever? and eventually taking over the whole building and being backed by the British police? And that is only one example, there are countless bitter stories about things like that.

    Funny you never mentioned ILLEGAL settlers in what is known as Palestinian land ‘fair and square’? This is something that to this day still happens, they are ILLEGAL and are still being built making a bad situation worse.

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