Israel-as-Israel was innocent, but I can't > imagine how the Arabs will ever see Israel-as-Western-usurpation as > anything but aggressive and wrong, unless the West -- not just Israel -- > does something to make up for it. We cannot abandon Israel, so we must > try to find another way. > > To paraphrase Dan, the West paid its debt to the Jews with Arab land. Now > our debt transfers to the Palestinians themselves. It's a debt that > precedes the acts of any Palestinian terrorists and IMO is not voided by > such acts.
To me this is a key point and bears on the response of europeans to this whole mess. The reality is that much of this is Europe's mess. A millenium of virulent anti-semitism should produce a requirement that European be more than passive observers of the horror in the middle east. > > Moreover, since the British were never able to come up with a partitioning > plan that Jews and Palestinian Arabs could agree upon while Britain still > controlled the area, it's fairly obvious that the West knew when Israel > was founded that that act would very probably spark Arab-Israeli warfare. > Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East should have been able to > deduce that such warfare would likely be nasty and multigenerational. The > West did the Jews a small favor by declaring the state of Israel, but not > much of one. I am more cynical. I think the europeans fully expected the arabs to wipe out jews who went to palestine. They would have stepped to save those that were left but many jews would have died. None of this justifies Palestinian terrorism, but perspective makes a big > difference. If we look at Israel vs. the terrosists and hatemongering > mullahs, then Israel is well within its rights to defend itself. If we > look at Western Civ. vs. millions of Palestinian refugees, then they are > right to demand satisfaction from the West. Since to abandon Israel would > be wrong, we need to find some way -- perhaps a Palestinian Marshall Plan > of sorts -- to make it worth Palestine's while to give up armed resistance > to Israel's presence. > > As for the 1967 war, it may have been wrong, but I can't see why anyone > expects the Arabs to view such things as anything but responding to a > prior evil. > Specifics aside, there are rules of war; they involve some level reciprocol respect for religous observances not of your own religion > Marvin Long > Austin, Texas
