posted on June 28, 2003 09:24:52 PM new
Or something else in the region....
Have any of you noticed how very much the increasing cycles of tit for tat violence between the Iraqis and the US forces look like the way Israeli and Palestinians have been doing for years?
A quick bomb or shooting by a small force of extremists that melts away and a massive reprisal that alienates the entire population - in ever increasing rounds.
The seemingly pro-Israel policy of every administration since Harry Truman - and that's over 50 years ago - derives not from the obvious strength of the New York city vote, Jewish vote, but from President Truman's fears once Palestine ceased to be a British mandate that the Arabs would overwhelm and conquer the whole land of Judea.
Hence the shocker of his insisting that 100,000 of Europe's homeless - homeless Jews - be allowed to settle in Palestine the moment [the] British lost control.
Now remember, this was a time when anti-Semitism had banished, or slaughtered, most of the Jews of Germany and it was rife in Austria, Poland, the Soviet Union, and of all the main combatants in the Second World War the United States alone, in the forceful person of President Truman, was determined to see Israel set up as a sovereign nation and to have and hold it as America's reliable ally in the Middle East.
You'll recall, I'm afraid, that Britain - still having a big say in the future of Palestine - agreed to this incoming flood of European Jews but only if the Arabs approved.
The Arabs positively did not approve. And from then on maybe the present troubles began.
The Israelis did not wait. In the spring of 1948 they declared Israel to be a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine.
And literally within half an hour President Truman declared the United States to be the first foreign nation to recognise it.
From that moment on, 54 years ago, American policy has had one main aim: to protect the establishment of Israel.
posted on June 29, 2003 08:25:40 AM new
stopwhinning
That is interesting and something I didn't know. What were the reasons they turned it down? I understand their reasoning for choosing Palestine with the religious significance. Did they think their settling where they did would not cause any resentment or discomfort or future conflict? Or, did they know that's what it would cause and settled their anyway? I'm just curious, is all. Personally, I think people have the right to live where they want. But the violence there as gravid pointed out (the tit-for-tat) doesn't make any sense to me at all. Around here we have the same thing going on only with radios. The people across the street will blare theirs at all hours of the night so in return, my other neighbor will blare his at dawn on Sunday morning. It goes on and on. The rest of us are fit to be tied over it.
I agree that it looks like that is what's happening in Iraq. I don't know how anyone could have expected anything different to happen. It's not an in-and-out thing. Our guys will be there for years unless someone in their right mind says enough is enough and yanks them out. I wonder how many more lives are going to be lost because we needed to get rid of ONE man. If it weren't for the number of dead it would be almost laughable when you think that it took our whole army, Britian's army and Australia to oust ONE man and we don't even know if he's dead or alive.
Cheryl
My religion is simple, my religion is kindness.
--Dalai Llama
[ edited by CBlev65252 on Jun 29, 2003 08:26 AM ]
