January 13, 2009

• I'm about to post on something I know very little about, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I've never fully understood the whole conflict, except to say that as is my understanding, and please correct me if I'm wrong, way back in the day (and by back in the day, I mean thousands of years), the Jews had the area that is now Gaza. After WWII, the Jews had nowhere to go so we (either the United States or the UN) gave them land in the middle east that was then occupied by Palestine and in the process infuriating many people in the mid east, in particular Muslims. Of course the tough part is determining who should have that land, I mean if the Jews had it first aren't they entitled to it, but on the other hand you move it you lose it and therefore it becomes squatter's rights meaning the Palestinians should have it. Either way, it doesn't change the fact that the Jews are there and they aren't going away. So both sides need to compromise and learn to live with each other. Doesn't matter who's right or who's wrong, all that matters are two things, the land will remain Israel's and the war needs to stop.

  Now, I've always been under the belief that we (and by we, I mean America) seem to offer blanket no questions asked support of Israel, to question Israel is sacrilegious and should never be done. I've never quite understood that. Jon Stewart pointed it out last week on the Daily Show about how the press, American politicians and the American people never say anything close to even being considered critical of Israel. We will rip Palestine and talk about how wrong or evil they are,  but nary a bad word about Israel. Bush 41 wanted to cut funding to Israel during the recession back when he was president and the Israelis not only in America but also in Israel flipped out. When Barack Obama was running for president, not only were the Israelis worried that he might not be completely 100% no questions asked behind Israel, but he had to also really lay it on very thick his support of Israel or else run the risk of losing support. My question is, why do they have so much power over us? They are not nearly the superpower we are and I'm under the impression (and again correct me if I'm wrong) that we are a richer country then them. So why are we pussy whipped when it comes to Israel? Why is Israel the perfect little child who does no wrong and if they do we just bury our heads in the sand and pretend like it was other people's (the Palestinians in specific) fault. Of course by merely typing this, I'm sure there are people out there who if they were to ever read it (and honestly, I'm safe since nobody reads this, or at least very few people, all of which are reasonable sensible people) would say that I'm a supporter of terrorism and am anti Semetic because I might suggest that maybe we shouldn't give Israel unconditional support.

  What has really made me think twice is the fact, that as what I was told, Israel intentionally blew up a Palestinian school complete with children inside. Of course, Palestine and Hamas are only giving us information that they want us to know. Some Israelis would say that Palestine had it coming because of the way Hamas has killed people in Israel. Now I'm not going to defend Hamas, after all I think its well documented that they are evil and have no excuses for doing some of the stuff they do. But, killing innocent children in retaliation of strikes against your own people is still not right. Some might say that those schoolchildren would only grow up to hate Israel and join Hamas or Hezbollah and while that might be true, it doesn't make killing these kids right. There is nothing anybody can say to me that is going to make me think that killing a school full of children is the right thing to do or is justified.

  No, I'm not anti Semetic. No, I don't have a problem with Jews. I'm just an unbiased concerned observer from afar who believes that its ok to question the tactics of both parties in a war. The American government might be blindly on Israel's side, but that doesn't mean I have to be. For me and people like me, and I know there are people out there who think like me, I'm not on a side. Maybe I don't fully understand the situation. Correct that, I know I don't fully understand the situation. But I do fully understand this, war is hell and has no winners. Honestly, who wins when one country fires missiles or sends suicide bombers into the other country or when the other country retaliates by  firing missiles at another country's schools. In the end, all you have is death and destruction and the promise of revenge and more death and destruction and does anybody really want or need that?

  • 10:39 pm
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