And what angers me about parents is they retort;
"I don't care who started it, I'll finish it."
This is injustice, albeit on a small level.
But that is the key, and as Dennis Prager mentioned, it does matter who starts it.
Thus, imagine my surprise when I found out the 72 hour cease fire between Israel and the Palestinians was broken by none other than....
the Palestinians.
And for all the complications between the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and for all the speculation and the philosophies of why who does what, if there is something I've consistently seen it's that the Palestinians in something nearly 98% of the time start it. I remember once, and in intellectual honesty, the Israelis starting it and where I disagreed with them. But they are heavily outdone in "starting-it-manship" by the Palestinians.
In any case, it's stuff like this that erodes any pity I have for the Palestinians because it's nothing more than outright lying when engaging in a farcical truce only to break it less than a week later. Furthermore, as long as this childish behavior keeps up, they can expect to have a standard of living equal to a one-paltry-25th of the Israelis because nobody will trust them and therefore nobody will ever invest in them. I don't see a Palestinian ETF or indexed mutual fund out there. But I do see an Abu Dhabi/Arab regional one.
Which begets a serious question I tender to the readers out there, why haven't they realized this and what on God's green Earth compels them to keep themselves down like this? Fine, I can understand them blaming Israel and the West for all their woes, but inevitably the Palestinian people have just got to get sick of this and say, "You know what, screw this suicide bombing stuff, I'm going to school to become an engineer and play X-Box."
10 comments:
Who starts it is not really relevant here IMHO.
It's the equivalent to a game of king of the hill, where the big fat kid is at the top of the hill just standing there, and the little skinny kid keeps running up and charging him, only to get pushed back down the hill. Well technically the skinny kid "starts" each encounter, but it's not like he has any other choice if he wants the top of the hill...
Ah, but to quote from one of the all-time great stand-up comedians, "Parents are not interested in justice, they want QUIET!"
Which begets a serious question I tender to the readers out there, why haven't they realized this and what on God's green Earth compels them to keep themselves down like this?
Islam, of course.
They have realized it - all those who are intelligent and motivated enough to do something with their lives have either moved overseas or become Israeli citizens. Those who remain are ignorant, uneducated, unmotivated, and religiously brainwashed. They live under an oppressive regime which constantly assures them that they are gods chosen people, and that only Israel stands in the way of their ultimate destiny. Under such conditions, do you really expect things to improve?
You may as well ask why North Koreans continue to leave in squalor and misery under the rule of a megalomaniacal midget. Liberty - freedom of thought and action - requires a rational and stable society. This is why liberal democracies are so unusual in human history.
"You may as well ask why North Koreans continue to live in squalor and misery under the rule of a megalomaniacal midget."
Because the midget has all the power and he and his will fed and well paid (relative to the rest of the population.)army has the guns.
Europe had the 30 Years War, and in 1648, after 30 Years of mass murder, plauge, starvation, poverty, famine, disease, and devistation that makes WWI or WW II look tame by comparison, Europe finally decided that as disgusting as the concept of religious tolleration was, it was better than continuing the war.
The Palestinians have yet to reach that point.
The Americans want Peace, Israel wants Peace, Europe wants Peace...
The Arabs want Victory.
There is a difference.
Re: the midget having the power in North Korea...yes, and the midget also has a monopoly on communications, and fills the airwaves with lies about how much better North Koreans have it than anyone else in the world. Think 1984.
Chris has it about right. The other point I would bring up - understanding that I really don't have a dog to hunt in the whole Israel/Palestine mess, and my attitude to both is "Share the f***ing land" - I have had Arabs point out to me that the people who are currently living in the West Bank and Gaza have essentially been living in camps for several generations, having been driven out of their homes when the world decided to give the Jews a state in the middle of the Arab world. After a while, one would tend to get desperate. And it doesn't matter how many truces or treaties the leaders sign; Johnny Palestinian has only to think that his government has sold him out, and then the only thing to do (in his mind) is attack Israel himself via suicide bomb.
Alex, if the Palestinians could just become Israeli citizens, like you imply, they'd have won already. Period. In fact, just that is Likud's nightmare. Fortunately for them the system is racist and doesn't allow it.
I wonder how many Palestinians could point to a specific house that was stolen from them.
I'd say not many, because the creation of Israel happened before just about all of them were born. These people (with the exception of the very old) don't want back what was once theirs, they want what never was theirs to begin with, but they feel entitled to it anyway.
Palestinian society isn't poor because of the Israelis. It's poor because it's dominated by a bunch of hatecrazy warmongers. Not exactly attractive to foreign investors.
Not to dump fuel on this fire, but if the original 1940's partition is examined, we can see that Palestine (British Mandate) was divided into Jewish and Arab territories, so that both groups would have areas to settle and no displacement need occur.
At least on paper. There were several slight difficulties (there usually are); the Arab portion was blocked from access to the sea by the Jewish portion, and, once the state of Israel was declared, the neighboring Arab nations declared war and urged the Palestinian Arbas to join in in expectation of pushing the Jews into the sea.
They did not, and, as a result, the Palestinian Arabs did lose their land. Such is the fortune of war. Now, there might be more sympathy for their plight in neighboring Arab states if a) they weren't so darned useful as an anti-Israeli proxy, and b) the PLO (remember them?) hadn't tried a coup d'etat in 1970 in Jordan.
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