I have stayed out of this but let me provide some personnel perspective to support what Dan suggests: > >The present fraction of the world Jewish population that is afraid to > move to Europe is not established. FWIW, I will expand my questioning to see > if this report is non-representative. > I don't think that many of my friends and relatives would be afraid to move to Europe but why would we want to? We have it good in America; We don't speak the language and why would we go where we would feel somewhat unwanted. Of all the places in Europe that would consider moving to (aside from England) Amsterdam would be near the top of my list because my experience there was that the people were friendly and did not seem to view Americans as suphumans. But in other cities I have felt unwanted. Why would we go there?
> But, let me go back to the statistics again. One needs to understand how > risky going to Israel was in the late 40s. The consensus opinion at the > time was that the Jewish settlers didn't have a chance against the Arab > armies. Not only were they outnumbered (> a factor of 10), but they were > not as well equipped. The Arabs had planes from the British, IIRC, and > Israel had to find a way to buy a few planes from Checkslovakia. > > The fact that over half of the Jewish people remaining went to a place where > a reasonable person would have to conclude that there was a high chance of > death should indicate something about their feeling of safety. The Jews needed to get out of Europe. They needed to be in a place where they had some control over their fate. Palestine worked for a number of reasons; 1) It was their homeland; 2) The European countries were more than happy to dump their problem (all those displaced starving obnoxious Jews) into a place that was undesirable to them. Most assumed the Jews would get killed but if not who cared? Let them fight the Arabs. It was a perfect solution for the europeans. Kill several birds with one stone. 3) They could get to Palestine (it was hard and many died along the way but many made it). Many walked most of the way. Were stuffed into old boats for the end of the journey. Someone (on list I believe) suggested that the Jews might just as well have been sent to Montana. I think many would have jumped at the chance to establish a homeland in the American west. Not all but many. The fact > that the population in the United States increased over the same time period > should indicate the relative feeling of safety in the US. > > I'm not trying to argue that the Netherlands is some evil place where > non-Europeans are treated like cattle. However, it strains credibility to > think that anti-Semitism that prevailed for at least a thousand years and > which provided the basis for the Holocaust evaporated since WWII. This is a key point. Jews experienced virulent anti-semitism for over a milenium in Europe. From goverments to organized religions to individuals. Words like 'Progrum' and 'Inquisition' and 'Holocaust' have all passed into language as exemplirs of horrible inhuman behavior. But for Jews they are real things that happened to us at the hands of Europeans. Jews always expect the Spanish Inquisition. So when europeans profess to not understanding what Jews in Israel are doing their or choose to judge them harshly we look at this as just more of the same. I believe that we are correct in this regard. The fact > that the reports y'all read indicating that the Jewish people are mostly at > fault for the strife in the Middle East, that nothing sympathetic to their > plight gets published blows my mind. > > Generalize it. Take an ethnic minority that has lost 1/3rd of their > worldwide population and 2/3rds of their population in a region. Most of > them decide not to stay in the countries where they were murdered. Their > ability to move to a safer country is limited. It was more than limited. They very countries that did little or nothing to stop the holocaust actively obstructed Jewish movement in some cases. But, there seems to be a > chance for them to establish their own country where they can defend > themselves. Are they evil to jump at the chance? Are they at fault? > > Then, they were attacked immediately, and often by superior forces. The > leaders around them proclaimed that they would be destroyed. Now, > considering what had just happened to them, would it be paranoid for them to > take those leaders at their words? The second time they were attacked, they > gained a great deal of territory, but were forced to give it back and to > retreat into boundaries that are absurdly hard to destroy. The third time, > they kept the land as a buffer. The fourth time, they barely survived, even > with the buffer. > > And, as Jerone states, there is nothing good to be said in the local press > about these people? That its all their fault. And, said press are in the > same countries where they were slaughtered. And, I'm crazy to think that > there is lingering prejudice against them? > >
