Hi to everybody...I've just watched a programme on BBC2 called The Birth of Israel. I hope some of you here managed to see it because it was a very in depth study of how Israel came into existence...after watching it, I still retain my feelings that the Palestinian people have been very wronged and have been left to their fate by the rest of the world, including the Arab countries. The disgrace is the fact that the surrounding Arab countries could not unify to defend the Palestinian people...in the Arab war against Israel, several Arab countries sent armies into Palestine to allegedly defend the Palestinians, but each of their leaders had their own personal agenda for going in with regard to the lands of Palestine, namely they sought control of it and to expand their own territories...and none trusted the other. The Israelis did not come out of this programme with clean hands, but defended what they did and only one regretted what had happened in one of the Palestinian villages they entered where one of many massacre by the Israelis took place. The rest of those interviewed included Shimon Peres, the current President of Israel, and fighters for the Hagganah and Irgun forces all of whom showed no remorse whatsoever for the driving out of the Palestinians from land rightfully belonging to them. It is 60 years now since the foundation of Israel and the wounds on both sides in this on going conflict are still raw and bleeding. Israel is still expanding its settlements into Palestinian land, and it looks to all intents and purposes that it will continue to do so now that it has established itself as a powerful state albeit under constant siege...I can see no way that peace will ever come unless the Palestinian people are completely and utterly crushed, which looks to be the aim of Israel now...it is an on going tragedy that contains within in it a fuse that is smouldering away and at the end of it is a time bomb of a catastrophe on a terrible scale...
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- 2008-05-05 @ 01:55:37
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jenray
Pro - http://www.jenniferhunter.co.uk
- 2008-05-05 @ 12:00:40
Yes, but we're not going to because we're responsible for the position they're in...big hugs...
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- http://www.sylviamurphy.co.uk
- 2008-05-05 @ 11:02:26
I was rivetted by the programe which for the first time seemed to tell the Palestinians' side of the story with some degree of fairness.
I agree with all that is said above, but have something to add for myself. I was born in Palestine in 1937 (I tell more of this on my website)of British parents - my father was a businessman but returned later in the British army, and he told me much of what happened in Palestine over those years. In the programe yesterday I recognised him in the archive film, coming out of the King David Hotel after the bombing looking very shattered - he told me he had been there but of course he is long dead no so I couldn't ask him for more details.
I am a writer and I have long sought to put some of these events into a novel that people will read, using the andecdotes told by my father, my mother, my grandmother, and from my own memory. I have recently achieved this, affter years of work. I know that to speak of a novel may seem to some people a very lightweight approach, but it is a good way of recprding second hand experiences, and people who have read it do say that they understand events in Palestine better now. I know it is easy to get things wrong in a novel and disclaim responsibility, but the Birth of Israel programme convinced me that in the way I have told the story I have got most things right. Anyone who is interested can judge for themselves by googling me.-
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jenray
Pro
- http://www.jenniferhunter.co.uk
- 2008-05-05 @ 12:04:57
Thank you for looking in, Sylvia...it was a very well presented programme and did, for a change, show the true plight of the Palestinian people and what the world has done to them...we should be feeling a great deal of guilt, but clearly not enough to stand up for them more than we do...I will check out your site...
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SeasideMan
Pro - 2008-05-05 @ 18:57:40
I share your fears for Palestine, Jen. It's a tragedy that is only going to get worse and that could be a time bomb if WMDs get into the wrong hands. The biggest problem I see is that there is no real solution. Neither side will ever give an inch and it will continue like it is until something enormously horrible happens.
Tom.-
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jenray
Pro
- http://www.jenniferhunter.co.uk
- 2008-05-05 @ 20:16:17
That's my biggest fear...in the Independent today - funny timing - there was a big article on the Exodus and the Jews who were turned away and sent to Haifa by Britain and eventually did get to Palestine...(no Israel at that time yet)...and how badly treated they were...actually the whole world is responsible for the Holocaust in that the West closed its doors to the Jews when they wanted to leave Europe en masse...I saw a film last night based on true incidents in France in the 13th and 14th centuries and Jewish boys were being killed in an area a lawyer went to and ended up defending a pig which was accused of killing the last one..The Year of the Pig, it was called...you had some idea in those times how the Jews were looked upon...apparently a man was done for sodomy because he was a Christian married to a Jewess and she wasn't considered human!!! He was done for having sex with an animal... Bloody hell...the Christians do hold a heck of a lot of responsibility for what happened to the Jews after the Diaspora and the establishment of Christianity as the religion of Europe...gross superstition and ignorance has governed human behaviour and minds for so long and it isn't abating...if anything it's experiencing an upsurge in both...Did the Jewish people bring such retribution on themselves by continuing to believe that they were the chosen of God and therefore deliberately distanced themselves from everybody else? I don't know...but the blame for the death of Christ was laid on their shoulders for centuries and persecution followed them wherever they went...odd isn't that Jews wrote the New Testament and had no qualms about making their fellow Jews, who refused to believe in their new Messiah, entirely guilty for his death...they must have known what would happen..but there again, they were expecting an imminent Second Coming, which of course never came...keeping faith centuries later in alleged promises from a deity, which are never kept, does make you wonder whether brains take flight when faith comes in....big hugs...
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SeasideMan
Pro
- 2008-05-05 @ 20:30:21
It's strange that history has condemned the Jews for the death of Jesus when it was actually the Romans who did it.
It's intriguing how long the memory of some people is too. For a Zionist Jew, the at least 3000-year old words in the Old Testament are as relevant now as they were when written and are seen (mostly) as both historical fact and as the literal word of god. That means that the "holy land" is their's by divine right. I don't know about you but to me, an ancient book that was inspired by a possibly supernatural creature with magic powers is a poor tool for determining modern political geography.
As far as historical persecution goes, there is also the question of how far back shoud we go? Certainly all the Christian evils you mention are real ones and thoroughly despicable they all were, but they are so far in the past that they shouldn't be allowed to intrude on modern politics. But the creation of the country of Israel is still within living memory and we can't dismiss the wrongs that went along with that so easily.
It would be a great start if both sides could stop murdering each other, but that doesn't look likely in the near future.
Tom.-
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jenray
Pro
- http://www.jenniferhunter.co.uk
- 2008-05-05 @ 22:31:40
Well, according to the gospels, the Jews were asked who they would rather have set free Barrabas or Jesus and they said the former...so indirectly they were responsible...and yes, I agree the Old Testament is alive to some practicing Jews today, and it's also been proven that it was nearly all mythical by a Jewish professor and an archeologist...Abraham, Moses and many of the patriarchs didn't exist...they represented aspects of faith created by the authors during the first Diaspora when the Assyrians defeated the twelve tribes of Hebrews...
You're also right that it is no use looking at past sins against them but they will hold them in their memories because that is what they live by 'memories' of the past, and their specialness in the eyes of their god...the programme ended with a wish that they would stop murdering each other but also that it didn't look likely in the near future sadly...-
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SeasideMan
Pro
- 2008-05-05 @ 23:13:02
I think you still have to blame the Romans - they actually did the executions.
I hadn't heard that much of the Old Testament had been shown to be mythical, that's interesting. That's in accord with my opinion on it too. But for many believers they are real events and that land is their land, which is why I see the problem as intractable.
A stop to the killing does indeed look unlikely and that's a great shame.
Tom. -
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- 2008-05-06 @ 05:25:59
First of all it would be good to remember that there were Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews
More seriously, however, what Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza failed to do was match their Jewish counterparts in cultivating their land, building new cities and establishing a flourishing economy, rather preferring to perpetuate a victim culture over the past 60 years.
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jenray
Pro
- http://www.jenniferhunter.co.uk
- 2008-05-06 @ 10:04:00
Israel receives one of the largest subsidies in the world, far more than some of the poorest countries in the world...Palestinians also received subsidies but not in any way on a par with Israel...and the richest land was bought or acquired by violence leaving the Palestinians to cultivate much poorer land with far less water...Israel occupied all the best lands...and yes, I do know that there had been Palestinian Jews living alongside Palestinian Arabs for centuries...unfortunately it was only the arrival of the Zionists that undid that peaceful co-existence...fanatics cannot be lived with peacefully...and I really don't think a victim culture is an appropriate description of a people who have literally had their lands stolen and with no choice...and they still have not got it back...now, I presume you are suggesting they accept they're not ever going to get it back and just get on with life...would you, if your country was divided up and the best part given to a people who said a god gave it to them so it's theirs forever? Wouldn't you think they're tantamount to insane, but nobody would dare suggest that to the Zionists...it's a sad day in the world when everybody acquiesces to what they know inside themselves to be a huge delusion but one they cannot bring themselves to oppose.
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- 2008-05-06 @ 12:10:32
How could the Palestinains cultivate their land and build new cities while living in tents on the edge of their stolen land! Do you really think the Palestinains had any choice in that? The Palestinians until now do NOT have a country, an independent government or any other essential factor for any nation to flourish. They are 100% occupied. Even the power stations that generate electricity to hosptials are bombed by Israel's American made F16. How can they establish a "flourishing economy" if they can't even have electricity in their homes and are bombarded everyday and every hour!?! Despite that, I was just reading about a Palestinian who won Google's summer of code for the best open source programme. He had to keep moving between houses of friends and relatives to be able to have electricity connection and do his project! what sort of life is that? how can you flourish in such situation?
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- 2008-05-06 @ 12:02:06
Hi,
I really liked this programme. I'm Egyptian living in Newcastle, UK. People in the Middle East (Arab world) "talk" daily about what's happening in Palestine and their duty to help the Palestinians. The majority don't even know that the Arabs lost the 1948 war because their leaders were (and still are) some selfish dictators. The people are very depressed about Palesting and associate the current problems with their leaders lake of action, any action. This is the climate that generate terrorists but western gevernment probably doesn't know (or doesn't care) and continue to support the Arab dictators against the will of their people.
I would really love to see the day when the majority of western people actually know about what's happening and happened in Palestine and influence their democratically elected governments to take an action, or at least stop supporting Israel blindly.
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- 2008-05-06 @ 12:19:10
I was in Scotland yesterday (Kinros) and met a really nice old man from Edinburgh. When he knew I'm Egyptian he started to tell me about his time in what he called "Palestine before it was changed to Israel". He talked about how young British soldiers back then in 1940s were really sympathising with the Palestinians (Muslims, Christians and Jews) and the way the new Zionist immigrants are taking their lands and ethnic cleansing their cities and towns. He said that until now he can not find a good reason for the British being there first place. It was really emotional and for me it meant a lot to listen to a British soldier from that time. He talked a lot about the terrorist zionist organisations who used to go in the dark into villages and burn it all up and the next day the whole village and nearby villages are empty of its people ready for the zionist immigrants to move to.
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jenray
Pro
- http://www.jenniferhunter.co.uk
- 2008-05-06 @ 15:00:31
Thank you, Mohamed Mostafa, for your contribution to this discussion. It is good to hear from somebody with knowledge of the area...I wish there was a peaceful solution to this dire problem but fear one won't come about, or one may be hammered out under extreme duress on the part of the Palestinians and they will have to start from scratch now to rebuild a new state - if they are prepared to accept a division of their land - so much bloodshed has happened and so much violence and it continues unabated with overkill by the Israelis for every attack on their state by the Palestinians. It is very difficult to watch the news and see the bombings of villages and the deaths of innocent civilians in Palestine...I'm aware Jewish people are being injured and dying as well, but not on a par with the Palestinians...the world makes noises about it, but so quietly the Israelis have no fear that anybody is going to stop them anymore...and that is to our shame, and I include the UN, the Arab states, and the USA in particular without who it is doubtful Israel could continue to flourish as it has for so long...
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When people are pushed to this edge they lose hope and desperate acts follow. There will never be peace that I can see unless the world is willing to acknowledge what has happened to these people.