starcraft said:
I sympathise with the Palestinian's plight, I really do. And in a fair world they would be entitled to compensation from somewhere. It is just that any attrocities that current Israeli jews might have committed tend to be the kind that simply come with war, and are normally in response to, or immediately followed by a retaliation from the Palestinians. The major oppressions you are talking about were committed mainly by third party nations or Jews (and Israeli Arabs) that have died, and were mainly committed against Palestinians that have died. So my point is not that the Palestinians are not suffering, but that it is unfair to blame their suffering on Israel, and especially on currently living Israeli's by compelling them to pay compensation. Most currently living Israeli's (Jew and Arab) were born in their country and from their perspective cannot be expected to know anything beyond the fact that many Palestinians would be quite happy for them to permanantly disappear, and many (though a smaller number) actively pursue this goal through war. If Israel were to offer substantial assistence to help form a Palestinian state and eradicate poverty (they already do, but I mean something drastic) in an entirely voluntary environment as a neighbour helping another neighbour, I would be completely behind that. I just think that any payment that was obviously made as some sort of 'compensation' would force currently living Israeli's to admit wrong doing for something that was set in motion long before they were born or old enough to prevent it. Just like the Palestinians, they have known only war. The Palestinians live an extremely unfair life, but two wrongs do not make a right, and it is just as unfair to blame the people's current plight on modern Israel. |
EDITED!!! I just realized I read the quote wrong as shown by starcraft below. My fault, sorry. Will read mrore carefully next time.
I'm not going to go into detail the atrocities that Israel and the settler movement have pushed on to the Arab population. You really need to read more about the Green land laws, how everyday life is for an Arab living in the occupied territories, the state of their economy, the continued aggression from settlers, and so on, so you can get a better understanding of how bad it really ist.
Just as US has and continues to make ammends to Native Americans and Australia does the same with its native people's, so should Israel. It is just the ethically right thing to do.
