It’s troubling to find in the news this week an event so quintessential to the point I was hoping to make in this entry that a metaphor is not needed. Recently, Israel has retaliated against Hamas (Palestine) for the 2 years and almost 10,000 missiles that have been launched into Israeli territory. On the cover of most news publications are the pictures of dead Palestinian children being paraded through the streets as if they represent "evidence" of Israel’s relentless oppression. Never-mind the countless civilian casualties of Israeli citizens from Palestinian suicide bombers in pizza parlors, buses, rockets launched into residential areas and kidnapping of Israeli Soldiers over the last several decades.
So what are the facts?
Almost 100 years after Jesus there was the last of 3 revolts against Rome by Jews, this one lead by Bar Kochba. Jerusalem (before this revolt) was re-named Aelia Capitolina by the Roman Emperor, Hadrian to be his capital city. So enraged by the constant trouble with the Jewish people, Hadrian, banished all Jews that could leave Jerusalem. Those who could not leave were forced by penalty of death not to converse with another Jew. Hadrian went steps further in his revenge on Israel starting with salting the land so that the vegetation would cease to grow. Finally Hadrian changed the name of Israel to “Palestine”, naming it after the Israelite’s historical enemies the Philistines (who were not of Arab decent).
For almost 2000 years, 1500 of which were under Islamic rule, Jerusalem remained completely undeveloped with only small settlements. Until 1921 when the League of Nations through the Balfour Declaration, co-authored by a Chaim Weismann giving the Jewish people a territory for their help in WWI. Fast forward to WWII and the discovery of the Jewish Concentration camps, creating a sympathy for the Jews and being the catalyst in the creation of the State of Israel on May 14 1948… This event was followed by an attack by all the Arab countries the day after Israel’s sovereignty was declared by the U.N.
Many pro-Palestinian historians site that the Arab residence left Israel in a large exodus at this time because of atrocities on them and attacks on Arab towns within Israel. This excuse for leaving Israel is hard to believe since the Arabs started leaving while Israel was still a territory of Great Brittan and the boundaries of what would be Israel were not even formed yet. Not to mention that the fact that these Arab countries would attack Israel on behalf of their “oppressed” Palestinian brothers but then not help them while they are “refugees” is dubious at best. Its is also noteworthy to add that the Arabs (now called Palestinians) who did leave on account of atrocities have recently legalized crucifixion as a penalty for "pro-Israeli behavior" and, Saudi Arabia (one of the attackers of Israel) legally allowed human slavery for almost 20 years after this attack. One must ask themselves why countries who were so unconcerned with humanitarian issues in their own country would risk their lives on account of humanitarian reasons for Palestinians? The truth is that the Arab countries would not attack Israel until they were no longer under the protective umbrella of Great Brittan. Palestinian Arabs on their own initiative left the soon to be Israeli territory in hopes that after the attack they would reclaim their property and that of the would be defeated Israeli’s. However, the Arabs did not count on such a one-sided defeat of the 1948 Arab attack. Especially since the Arab forces were multiple times larger in number and in resources than Israel.
Israel not even a day old held off and won a war against the combined force of several Arab countries. Israel not only fought them off but also won back land that was given to them from the Balfour Declaration. Since then Israel has given much of that land to the Palestinian’s, trying to barter peace but to no avail. Israel has been attacked for the last 60 years relentlessly and has been demonized by the media while the Palestinians have less freedoms and personal success than their Arab counterparts who stayed and live in Israel.
Israel is the one functioning democracy in the Middle East. It sits neighbors with countries who rival the dark ages in its treatment of people, it’s subjugating of women, and its lack of technology. How is it that Israel is one of our world’s greatest success stories without any natural resources and is only 60 years old and has a thriving economy while Islamic countries (which are more than a 1000 years old and owns the majority of the world’s oil supply) struggle with depression level unemployment rates, and poverty? Yet, our media furthers the lies pretending that Israel is the problem when in fact the problem is the Islamic preoccupation with the destruction of Israel. It is a frustrating distortion when these terrorist are called "freedom fighters" when in fact they would have even less freedom under their own Islamic government. But heaven forbid the media bring up a fault of Islam. Instead they do what they do best and (like Palestine) attack Israel because they rarely hit back...
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1 comment:
I get so tired of the propaganda spread by the Palestinians and the rest of the world buying it. All the sympathy for them when it's Israel that's suffered all these years.
Great Blog, thanks!
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