I love to start my day reading essays composed by Brits regarding the bad effects of colonization... (A friend from Cyrpus says hello BTW- his father was tortured in the jail by the Brits for taking part in the Liberation movement of Cyrpus-his uncle was hunged for the same reason and he was only 25... sad stories...)
Oh! I forgot, I apologize! You mention it yourself in your post;you talk judging by your country's historical background!
Of course , we would expect milder tones from a Brit, when we are discussing colonization but it's ok.
What makes you assume, as you seem to, that I approve of colonisation? The colonising powers did not usually have charitable objectives.
Anyway.
Name one country apart from yours which wasn't created the way Israel was...
Why apart from Britain, or indeed England? The country was created by the usual assortment of population movements, invasions, wars etc. The majority of the current population are more or less german originally.
Israel is unique in that it was created by a religious group spread over three continents, if not more.
Indeed... and I wonder why none made it... Do you think that it was only because of your food?
I'm sorry but you're missing the irony of those words. My point was that no one welcomes attempted colonisation but that we were only too happy to impose it on others.
First of all, it's better to use the term Israelis instead of Jews.
Well no. As you know 20% of Israeli citizens are Palestinians and the rest of the Palestinians have no axe to grind with them. In my experience muslims, unless they are on their best behaviour, do tend to talk about "the jews" in the context of Palestine. Your experience may be different of course.
Then, yes, we can't expect them to be thrilled and grateful about the occupation, in fact, we never said that we went there to introduce them to civilization , only Brits believe such things for themselves-
actually no. All the European colonists used this sort of justification right from the time Columbus landed in Hispaniola.
but you are right, we used the methods you and millions of others did to create a country...
Actually lacking military power you had to be more subtle and sneaky. Thats not a criticism by the way. I appreciate that what was done was insignificant by historical standards. The trouble is that timing is everything. You were busy colonising just when the idea was going out of style and you came into headlong collision with arab nationalism. That said the French started colonising Algeria in the 1820's or 30's and still got kicked out so it might have made no difference if Zionism had started up earlier.
The Palestinian reactions that they are not understandable are the murders of innocent civilians. Personally, maybe I wouldn't have a problem to accept even the suicide bombings, if they weren't committed in the name of Allah...but they are and this can't be justified.
I'm sorry but war is hell to use a cliché. The UK and US were perfectly happy to target civilians in vast numbers in the WW2 bombing campaigns (in which god was no doubt on our side). Under sufficient pressure we can all usually manage to find excuses for our brutal behaviour when national identity and national survival is at stake. In the case of the Palestinians if you brutalise people then you must expect to get a fair number of brutes. Judging people who don't accept your right to judge won't get us anywhere.
It doesn't alter the fact indeed but it may alter the way you criticize things....
I honestly don't see why it should. It would be perfectly possible for me to criticise arab governments but why bother when there are posters on this board who do little else? This definitely does not mean you by the way!
