I mush applaude your effort to stay objective, can't be easy when your country is at war.
What I find to be very interesting is the fact that Israel is a democratic and prosperous contry, whilst its neighbours are neither... There could be many reasons for this, and I'm not going to try to list them, but it is interesting. :)
Great job man ! Let the truth be known.
Roy, I believe that, as occurs in marriage, this fight will only find an end when both sides decides to lose something. Both sides needs to understand that a war, will not help, and worst, will make everything harder, because, the war, will cause some (lot of) deaths and lot (thousands) of injured. I hope that the mans can see that and that both states can live in peace. Although in my point of view, the war between Israel and Palestinian will never find and end. This fight occurs for thousands of years and won't stop in a "Click". But I hope for peace soon. See you.
Good, decent info. Thanks for that. But don't be fooled by any fighting party when they say they're just defending themselves. It's an excuse that has been used too many times, and in the end, innocent are victimized.
Vietnam was a defensive action against upcoming communism, Afghanistan against terrorism, Iraq against Sadam's non-existent weapons of mass-destruction, warring parties in Congo claim to defend minorities, ... Hamas claims to defend Palestinians, Israel claims to defend Israeli's.
I'm not saying none of it is true, but there is always an extra agenda: elections, power (geopolitical, military,...).
What Israel should focus on, is empowering Fatah because they are obsiously a better partner than Hamas. And they will need a partner if they wan't to get out of this.
Just my two cents, love your blog :)
Roy
I used to be a "two states" man but that looks doomed. What about a "one state" federal, secular solution? Has worked elsewhere (but takes about 10-20 years to happen!)
Thanks a lot for that post!
I was wondering for some time how israeli people see the current situation and was hoping for such a post either by you or ayende (since you are the only isrealis I "know").
The situation in israel/palestine is very difficult to understand for someone outside. And it it's easily possible to have a very strong (and possible wrong) opinion about it, even though we don't know all the facts.
One question though: Isn't Isreal still building more settlements in these parts? How is your opinion (or generally the opinion of the israeli people) about that?
I guess its a matter of point of view. Here's another version of the story
(Should be read with a clear indian accent while knitting dressed in sandals and a white robe)
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"
M. Ghandi
Cu around Roy (Norwegian party TechEd 2009 Berlin?)
Very nice and objective article. I just wanted to say that it isn't fair the fact that the media is unbalanced showing only "what horrible things" Israel does, without telling the whole truth, while arab countries (Iran, Irak and more) killed and kill more arabs than Israel, but this is ok because arabs are allowed to kill, hang, torture, lynch and do many other calamities to arabs, but if Israel defends itself then Israel is committing an holocaust.
Also the hypocrisy of some countries which condemns Israel operations in Gaza, such as Russia (see what they did in Georgia or in Chechenia).
I wonder how UK would react if some country would (hope never happens) throw the more tiny rocket in London?
Well Israel is dealing with it 8 years.
I just hope all this will end some day, so I can write programming comments instead of political comments.
Good day everyone.
Great great job Roy! Thank you for sharing this information with us.
so in summary you are saying
1: Its OK to take that land because no one lived there
3 & 4: It's OK to take that land because we won it in war fair and square
absolutely unbelievably arrogant.
Roy, great article. I dont know of any other country that would show as much restraint as Israel has shown.
Why does it seem like the Jewish people get blamed for everything?
BTW: Israel is an awesome place to visit.
Considering you live there, you did an amazing job trying to be fair and representative of both sides.
It sucks that some anonymous a55 like "Chris" implies a summary of your point that you didn't make.
Roy never said it was "OK" to take that land b/c it was uninhabited. He said BRITIAN ruled it (read - it wasn't either party's land in any real sense) and then the UN split it up - and Israel got the shorter end of the stick. Implied is that if Israel was satisfied with the shorter end of the stick, they certainly would be satisfied if they got what the Palestinians got.
As far as 3 & 4 go - it might be arrogant if Israel started the war but they didn't. They were attacked, they handled business and in the face of an ongoing ever present threat, they did what they felt necessary to defang their opponents.
I wonder "Chris", if I parked outside your house and started firing a gun in the direction of your home, would you feel comfortable with it? If the cops came and moved me but I was allowed to come back and start doing it over and over, would you sleep at night? That's why we have restraining orders and in essence, that's what happened with your 3&4.
No country is perfect and all have blemishes. There's pleny of blame to go around to all parties in this but don't act like it's so hard to imagine that people want to sleep at night without fear of getting killed by someone with the means and desire to do it. It's a complex issue that's spawned several years and simplistic This Good That Bad arguments are, to borrow a phrase absolutely unbelievably ignorant. The truth is, if Israel was 1/100th as 'evil' or 'Zionist' as many of her critics assert, this thing would have been over a long time ago.
One real tragedy about this whole thing is that it's turned into a proxy Left/Right America/Anti-America argument. Israel's wrong b/c they are friends with the US. In almost every case you can tell what someone's politics are in large part based on this one issue.
wassem:
you might be interested in this critic about IfAmericansKnew:
http://www.themiddleeastnow.com/ifamericansknew.html
that site is not only one sided, it actually stated wrong facts and repeated facts.
give me a side-free site and I'd love to read it.
just check this link to know what israil is doing !!!!!!
http://www.islamonline.net/English/in_depth/GazaHolocaustMuseum/index.shtml
There are lots of horror stories about Israel too and well documented. Your points can also be refuted but let's not open a heated discussion. Ask any Intellectual Arab and he or she can supply you with persuading facts.
My question is where was Israel before 1948 and before Britain's colonization of that land? What country was it?
---
On a side note..
Democracy is not a reason to invade another country and kill thousands of people. You don't shove your political ideology down other people's throat. I am talking here about what American's think of democracy. If you ask 10 Americans what does democracy mean to them, you probably get 10 different answers and most probably naive silly answers based on what they hear from the media. Maybe my democracy does not go well with your democracy and you should be punished?
---------------
The situation between Israel and Palestine is a big mess. I don't think there's a way to make everyone happy and I think the fighting will go on for a (very?)long time. I believe both Israelis and Palestinians do not like each other deep in their hearts and do not believe in peace. Each one wants the other out of the land.
Ray: The only reason innocents are dying is because rockets are being shot from within populated areas: schools, hospitals and mosques. Still, israel tried its best not to involve civilians in the process, but it is hard when you have people hiding behind women and children.
the people to blame for those unfortunate deaths are the ones who shoot from within those places.
hamas leaders, while staying in bunkers, are even calling out to citizens to play a human shield for hamas.
that's fair , isn't it?
Roy,
I wish you and you country all the best. You are a beacon of civilization amongst those who would seek to return you back to the dark ages and I admire the courage and fortitude of the Israeli people.
@Niki:
"It's the Hamas that doesn't get that (yet), and while I do feel compassion for the civilians in Gaza, I really don't see what else Israel could have done in the current situation."
As I said: if you consider that the core reason Hamas even exists is the fact that there's no future at the moment for anyone in Gaza due to the fact that there are no economic possibilities (I hope I don't have to explain that), one could argue that to get rid of Hamas is equal to get rid of the reason it's there: make it possible for the people in Gaza to live a normal peaceful life. Of course, there will always be extremists among them, but similar to today, that group is very small compared to the overall population (and let's not forget, the number of extremists among israeli's isn't smaller either).
Though that requires sacrifices from both sides. Israel won't do sacrifices, because that will be political suicide and they also think they don't have to as no-one blames them for killing a lot of people and destroying vital infrastructure, and Hamas won't do that either, for the same reason and unfortunately for the pro-israeli's: they do have a point when they say that life for a palestinian in general sucks compared to what it could have been and the world apparently doesn't care.
What I find to be very interesting is the fact that Israel is a democratic and prosperous contry, whilst its neighbours are neither... There could be many reasons for this, and I'm not going to try to list them, but it is interesting. :)
>>>
lol dude, easy with 84 billions of international (mostly usa) financial aid since 1949
@guts: "lol dude, easy with 84 billions of international (mostly usa) financial aid since 1949"
Apparently not that easy, if you consider that the Palestinian government gets more than 1 billion dollars of foreign aid per year.
@guts. Egypt get 2.4b a year and yet, the last time I was there, most of the place lived in abject poverty. So, yeah, not so easy.
Btw, ~100% of usa aid is spent on weapons, which have nothing to do with prosperity.
"Israel is in gaza now for the simple reason of stopping the rockets and achieving a ceasefire that will last for a long time."
I don't think many people will argue that Israel shouldn't be doing that. What I think is causing horror around the world is the huge amount of unnecessary suffering caused by the manner in which the offensive is being conducted.
Roy forgot to mention the first partition of Palestine Mandate, where Trasns-Jordanian part of Israel was given by Brittish as a present to Beduin clane.
Roy forgot to mention the first partition of Palestine Mandate, where Trasns-Jordanian part of Israel was given by Brittish as a present to Beduin clane.
As a human being, I am proud of Israel and brave Jewish people who live in the middle of hell sorounded by barbarians. It is a very noble gesture that Roy decided to write about the war. I have survived a war (in fact, a few of them) and have no illusions how horrible it is, but sometimes there's no other way to defend your people and family. I hope IDF will finish the job this time.
Long live Israel!
Fantastically informative. Thank you. I hope it educates a lot of misguided people.
"My People", that is how The Lord called Israeli,written in the Bible. With these words,it's enough for me to understand that no matter what happen,your country will always survive & protected.
I live in a group of minority, at the largest moslem country in the world. To be honest, most people here hate Israel/Jewish people (for their religous reason)...they should read your blog :)
Cheers
Hello,
nice post, I am happy to see someone from one of the sides keeping cold blood to express his point of view.
I have a few questions, that you may find oriented.
- Since the population in 1946 was 80% muslim, don't you think that the establishment of a democracy should have lead to a muslim goverment (on the basis of 1 human 1 vote) ? (sorry to use the religion as a way to identify each "side", but it looks like it is an accurate way of identifying who is who (I'm letting the christians apart).
- I have seen another picture of Israël showing the percentage of muslims over the time, something near to the picture you show. Don't you think that the muslims disapearing could be seen as ethnical cleansing ? (this is probably not the good word, but my english is poor. I don't mean cleasing in the way of killing, but in the way of forcing the people to move out of their homes)
- In your post, you tell that Jews have nowhere to go. Then where do they come from ? The world has changed, we are no more in 1936 (or before, with jews hunt and humiliations by having them living out of the towns in ghettos, like in the Middle-age) and Jews can go and settle anywhere in the western countries. I do not know any nation in the western block who refuses to accept jewish immigrants, as they are usually qualified workers, scientists, etc... Instead of what, Israel keeps doing the opposite, calling the Jews of the whole world to go there and settle.
What is your opinion on this question ?
so go and chose some desert land in africa but not in Muslims land of course or in Nivada in USA or in Alska we will never mind at all damn you all
between salivary for Israel and death there is no choice
we chose death of course
I think that the world hated the zion and they want to get rid of them so they put them where they hate, they hate Arabs and Zion, they were right about the fact the both will exterminate each other.
Israel by default is expanding country, this country has no boundaries simply they are seeking for the old big dream from "Nile" to "Eufrat", I hope that you remember that Israel attacked Egypt at 1967 and Israel "Hijaked" Sinai, but Egyptian get them out of Sinai in one of the "unforgettable" battles in history, anyways, we know that Israel will try to look nice as much as they can, but this is will not change the fact that Israel is "cultivated nation" which means, it is not your land, it is Arabic Land you took it by war and some day you will get out of it by war or by peace, I hope that you get it and try to hold on your ideas as much as you can because it will the only thing that will remain to you, I think that the final facing is coming, and it will be the end of it,
remember also that fear makes Israeli army kill without thinking, I think such thing has consequences.
good article but Iran is not arab
country and they are Persian! different
race and if you read history before 1979
revolution they were friends with israel
still there are lots of Jews living in
Iran. Israeili ex-pm was Iranian same as
ex-defence minister. too complicated I know
but that's the fact.
It is simple fact, any occupation is not accepted and the land ownera have all rights to force it back, no matter how long will it take, and no matter if the whole world accepted such occupation
By the way, the Egyptian British occupation lasted over 80 years and finally Egypt got its independence. There were much longer occupations times in other countries. Israelli occupation is just 60 years old...
I guess my question would be what "right" Britain and the UN had to distribute the land in the first place. It's not as though the indigenous population had any sort of representation in the UN when the decision was being made and were simply outvoted. The existence of Israel may be a fait accompli, but that doesn't mean it has a "right" to exist. It simply exists, and the region will eventually have to adapt to that fact. Right and wrong doesn't really enter into it.
As for Israel being tiny, it's the significance rather than the size. I suspect if you were to offer the Pope the state of Wyoming in exchange for Vatican City he'd probably turn it down too :)
I say this as someone who has admired your work in software - and who will continue to admire your work in the future.
1) First, you call the title of your post as 'The Truth..." and yet you mention in your post that it as "... my point of view, based on what the real facts."
That's not really correct, is it?
2) You mention that you are a citizen of israel. That does not promise any balance or unbiased views. ( I say this as a non-muslim, a non-jew but a member and citizen of the world )
3) The british may have ruled the palestinian terroritories but before they came, the palesinians were living, in a majority, for a 1000 years or more.
Just because england ruled that place does not make it english. England ruled lots of places in the world. That does not make any of them english.
4) Just because a part of the territory is desert does not mean it belongs to nobody. Would you claim that the sahara desert belongs to nobody because it's a desert? Would you claim that california doesn't belong to anybody because its a desert? That's downright silly.
5) You mention that the arab population was larger than the jewish. Dude, the arabs were a huge portion of the majority. In 1917, jews owned less than 2.5% of the land.
By omission and vague statements, you distort the truth - and yet, have the temerity to call your post 'The truth...'
6) You mention lots of killing and massacre between the jews and palestinians - and use that as the basis for UN's decision to partition that area.
For centuries the majority palestinians and the very few jews have been living in relative peace. Then a few jews in britain and america decided to use their power over their government to get palestine for themselves.
The UN cannot create a country belonging to an indigenous people. Especially since, in 1940's the UN was basically a tool created by the US, britain and a few of its friends.
No group has the moral right to create a country over the wishes of a large majority of the native population.
7) You mention 'the right side of the map borders with Jordan, which means the UN declared the green right part to actually be jordanian terrotory'
Dude. Just because palestine had a border with some country doesn't make it part of that country. Israel borders egypt today. Would you claim that israel belongs to egypt?
What kind of crazy, half-ass logic is that?
I could go on - but it's rather pointless. There is so many in-accuracies, half-truths and distortions in your post.
Massive State-sponsored violence and genocide can never be the basis for long lasting peace and prosperity. If today you sow violence, one day some bright palestinian kid will invent some weapon of mass destruction and karma will strike.
Who will ultimately benefit? Neither your children nor the children of the palestinians.