LGF:
No one can deny that there's tremendous suffering in Palestinian areas. But is it the fault of Israel? If the Arabs who lived in the area (which was not "Palestine," by the way; it was controlled by England and the Hashemite kingdom of Transjordan prior to 1948) had accepted the UN's original partition plan, they would have had their state from day one, on much more land than they'll ever get now. Instead, the Palestinian Arabs were promised by their Arab neighbors that they would be allowed back into the area as soon as the surrounding Arab countries finished wiping Israel off the map -- a disastrous miscalculation based on hatred and self-delusion that continues to this day. After that first war, the Palestinian Arabs were deliberately kept as unsettled refugees by their Arab "brothers" (with the complicity of the UN), instead of being accepted into their countries and repatriated. And so it remains, because the Palestinians are worth more to the cynical leaders of the Arab world as permanent victims.
So who is really responsible for their suffering?
Also, in the NYTimes article he links to, an interesting look at the twisted culture over there. It's about a boy suicide bomber who failed to hurt anyone but himself because only his detenator went off, and not the bomb. Some interesting quotes:
He said he was "pushed" to make his attack not by Israeli action or a terrorist group, but by "the love of martyrdom." He added: "I didn't want revenge for anything. I just wanted to be a martyr."
He said he knew that he would cause his mother pain by killing himself, but said each martyr gains the power in paradise to choose 70 people to join him. He said he would have included his family.
Finally, I like this statement:
"I know Israel," he said, recalling his six years as a peddler here. "I know that the individual Israeli citizen is innocent like us. Unfortunately, we are victims of our leaders, sitting on their chairs."
even though the part about them being victims in this situation isn't really true.
Saturday, June 8, 2002
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