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.