The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

There are those that equate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. This is a false correlation. Israel is a nation, its actions, good and bad do not reflect on the Jewish faith. There are some Jewish folks who feel that Israel is on a path to destruction with its confrontational approach to its Arabic neighbors.

I was arguing with another poster about Israel's relationship with Palestine. There's a nice synopsis of the conflict here:

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/ngo/history.html

Here's a link from someone who sees the ugly side of Israel's policies:

http://users.powernet.co.uk/mkmarina/palestine/palestine.html


My opinions about Israel's occupation of Palestine are that the Jewish folks who settled there were psychologically damaged from the horror of the Holocaust. This explains the brutal way the state of Israel deals with the Palestinians.

The international community was sympathetic to the Jewish folks, so they legitimized the Israeli land grab. But two wrongs don't make a right. Subjugating the Palestinians and doing a land grab isn't cool, no matter who does it. Sure, there have been Jewish folks living in Palestine for thousands of years, but so have their Palestinian neighbors.

I'm not excusing the violence that some Palestinians have engaged in. Violence is the last resort of the incompetent, in my opinion, and some Palestinians apparently feel that killing Israelis is the only way to get their attention. It sure does get their attention, and continues a cycle of violence dating back a thousand years.

The bottom line is most of the folks who live in that region would prefer an end to the violence, but they are being held captive by an insane government (hmm, U.S. parallel here) and the Palestinians are hamstrung by the fanatics they unfortunately live with.