Here is the report on another Turkish Flotilla heading for Gaza.
I think that if the EU had accepted Turkey for membership that nation would be so busy being European that it wouldn't have time to worry about stirring up trouble in the Near East.
The reason we, as Americans, should care, is that, aside from the roughly 60% of the US Population that actually thinks that a Jewish homeland in its current location is right and proper, there is the question of what happens if things go horribly wrong. Of course, one answer is that things won't go horribly wrong and Israel will continue on, suffering rocket attacks and retaliating for decades to come. But, if things really do go horribly wrong we could get the Second Coming, as some 20% of our US Voters would tell you. Another answer is that we end up picking up the pieces for the survivors from the 7 million Jews now living in Israel.
But, you say, Israel has nuclear weapons. And so they do. Will those weapons deter a spiritually renewed Arab world? If they won't deter new Arab governments, will Israel use them to slaughter tens of thousands of invading soldiers?
Let us hope that things do not go horribly wrong and the Palestinians see a reason to negotiate two separate homelands and the Israelis agree and we get an treaty and peace.
If there is no agreement then we are going to have to find a place in this nation for millions of Jews who are going to be forced to flee once more in my lifetime.♠ I hope that if we have to welcome them, we do that with openness and generosity as we all sort out a new story on the run-up to the Second (or First) Coming. The reason I say that is the current story line is that the return of the Jewish People to their homeland is a signal that this is the end times.
Regards — Cliff
♠ Why us? Because no one else is going to be prepared to or be capable of absorbing that number of people who will want to do more than just sit in DP camps. And, we are a nation that understands that this is a problem with a long lineage and one that needs to be fixed sooner rather than later.
2 comments:
I prefer not to think of it as 7 million Israelis, but 11 million Semites of all stripes, and, yeah, it's likely a lot of them are going to find out how the other 4/11's live. (Dispossessed of a homeland, without personal or municipal security, though we can't say "national", since 4 million of them aren't considered by the rest of the world deserving of their own country).
This is not a new problem, nor are any of the positions vis a vis the claims being made over the lands occupied by Israel new or even improved. This has been going on since 1913 (more or less officially) thanks to the League of Nations and the British who wanted to expand their empire via occupation by Jews. The reaction of the Arab world was well known and anticipated then and has been extensively studied and reported on many times, including a declassified Top Secret study conducted by the OSS in 1946 discussing the pending declaration of the Jewish state. If one reads the conclusions of those studies regarding the presence of a Jewish state in that region, it is easy to see that nothing that has occurred is or has been unexpected.
It happened, we joined the world in pushing it, we knew then the reaction of the Arab states and we all pressed on anyway.
There is an interesting dynamic played with this long lasting conflict. The Jews claim that this is more about their right to exist as a nation than it is about their religion. The Arabs view the incursion of a Christian bunch proclaiming state status as a threat to the Arab/Islamic community as a whole, individual Arab nation-states being more incidental. Thus, IMHO, it is not a diplomatic matter between nation states, but much more a religious conflict that has run and will run very, very deeply. The second coming that Cliff references is part and parcel of that rubric. The Jews almost invite the Armageddon as fulfillment of Biblical prophesy while the Arabs have an entirely different path in mind. Neither the Arabs or the Jews mind dying, but will quickly employ deaths as a means of jockeying for public sympathy for their respective plight. And, the more dastardly their opponent can be painted because of deaths inflicted, the better.
America has turned away a boat load of stateless Jews in the past and may well in the future should it come to that. I think that there is an awakening in America about our imperialist nature in the world and a growing mandate to be much more judicious in our involvement in other folk's problems. Our relationships with various Arab countries over time are certainly fodder for that belief. Moreover, the changing composition of the American society I believe over time will reduce the amount of influence the Jewish Americans have over political decisions/direction taken by America. In fact, I think that is already happening in spite of the MSMs insistence on ignoring that change.
Having said that, Israel's at least short term salvation may lie in the tribal warfare going in in the Arab world as that keeps them fairly focused on regional matters for all practical purposes. The Arab world supports the Palestinian plight as a matter of religious principle and ideology, but practically speaking, for the moment, there are other more dominant issues. Should there emerge a greater solidarity in the Middle East led by tribal consolidations and concessions, Israel will be quickly much more in the Islamic cross-hairs. But for now...they are in a good place.
That the Jews have committed atrocities in the name of Israel and the blessing of God is beyond question. However, the Palestinians and the rest of the Islamic world have hands just as soiled. Thus, it is almost impossible to assess who is right.....and until the moment of unrestrained conflict...who will be left.
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