At 09:37 06-08-2012 -0400, Ed Weick wrote: >Viggo Andersen: > >And then the key gets stuck for me: "It's not to Westernize the Middle >East and make it more democratic." Because while Israel of course is a >democracy it's at its core not Western, and it can't be, because >Judaism is Middle-East, it's not Western. > >Me (Ed): > >I don't agree. While Israel has ancient roots in the Middle East (like >Christianity does) it is a western implant in the region.
And I disagree, it's a democratic implant and even this only to an extent. My problem with the matter is because of personal experiences that go back to 1966. Otherwise I would have had no interest in it. I was young and ignorant back then, I took for granted that Israel was a democracy and a society like my own. Boy, was I wrong! It never even occurred to me that there was no such thing as a civil wedding ceremony possible in Israel. I didn't know it until late 2009! And to me, no way is a country Western, when it forces its citizens to get their civil wedding ceremonies outside of their own country. I don't know that there is any such Western country. Which one would that be? Israel as the exception? Why? >Some half dozen years ago, I put together some notes on the creation and >status of Israel for an Ottawa Dissenters meeting. Here is an excerpt from >them: > >To understand what is underway in the Middle East right now, one has to go >back into history and recognize that Israel has been the Jewish Holy Land and >Promised Land for some 3,000 years. One also has to consider the Islamic >Ottoman or Turkish Empire, which extended from the Anatolian peninsula (Spain, >mainly) through the Middle East, parts of North Africa and into much of South >Eastern Europe all the way to the Caucuses. While already in long decline, it >finally collapsed at the end of WWI and because as part of the Central Powers >during the war it was divided among the victorious Allied Powers, with Britain >getting what was known as the Palestine Mandate, which territorially included >modern Israel, Jordan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. > >Thus the Ottoman Empires decline and fall enabled the non-Islamic west to >divide it up and impose its will on its peoples. One has to understand the >frustration and resentment that arose out of this. All that glory gone for >naught! > >But one also has to understand that the Jews were never Europes favourite >people. England expelled them in 1290. France in 1306, Lithuania in 1395, >Spain in 1492, Portugal in 1497. Jews were not readmitted to England until the >time of Cromwell, in 1655. Many of the expelled Jews wound up in places not >especially good for them the various principalities of what later became >Germany and in eastern Europe. > >Throughout European history, Jews were both demons and victims. The Holocaust >was not the first mass killing of Jews, even if it was by far the largest and >most efficiently organized. There had been many other mass killings based on >little more than the need for an ultimate victim a victim that was >anti-social, anti-religious, or anti-human and who was both despised and >dreaded. The Jews of Europe, seen as insular, secretive, and at times >sinisterly wealthy, filled this role admirably. > >So it was not surprising that the British, a major European power, given a >rather difficult chunk of the Ottoman Empire, decided that it would be a good >place to send the Jews of Europe. It was their ancient homeland, after all. >The Balfour Declaration of 1917, named after the British Foreign Secretary of >the time favoured the creation of a Jewish state, and was a primary instrument >in making the ancient homeland into a modern one. However, the Declaration was >simply recognizing something that was happening anyhow. Beginning in the >latter part of the 19th Century, Jews had bought a considerable amount of land >from Palestinian Arabs. The rise of Nazism spurred the migration so that by >1940, some 30% of the land of the Palestine Mandate was owned by Jews, who >comprised about as high a proportion of the regions people. >The creation of a Jewish State >While many minor conflicts occurred between the Jewish landowners and their >Arab neighbours, it wasnt until the period following WWII that problems >escalated to their present dimensions. In 1947, the British withdrew from the >Palestine Mandate and a United Nations Partition Plan divided the territory >into two states. Jews got some 55% of the land and the Arabs about 45%. The >Arab parts included the West bank and the Gaza strip, areas to which most were >forced to move. Israel officially became a state on May 14, 1948. Jerusalem, >sacred to Islam, Judaism and Christianity, was supposed to be an international >site but it was taken over by Israel and soon displaced Tel Aviv as the >Israeli capital. > >Large numbers of the Arab population fled or were driven out of the >newly-created Jewish State. (Estimates of the final refugee count range from >600,000 to 900,000 with the official United Nations count at 711,000.) The >continuing conflict between Israel and the Arab world resulted in the lasting >displacement that persists today. Immigration of Holocaust survivors and >Jewish refugees from Arab lands doubled Israel's population within a year of >independence. Over the following decade approximately 600,000 Mizrahi Jews, >who fled or were expelled from surrounding Arab countries and Iran, migrated >to Israel. > > > > >_______________________________________________ >Futurework mailing list >[email protected] >https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
