Thoughts on Israel and Palestine…

This is an open letter to a Palestinian friend who, after reading it, I hope will remain my friend. I made it a blog because it was so large but also because it’s pretty much how I feel and I want to save it. There are three links to some information at the bottom to cover for some of the numbers I’ve used. I suppose there are other numbers by other sources but one has to pitch his tent somewhere, right? The point to the whole thing is that while I obviously have beliefs there are no absolute right or wrongs and never will be. As the computer said in that Matthew Broderick movie..”War Games”, “The only way to win, is not to play.”

1,154 people have been killed in Israel by Palestinian terrorists since September 2000. The link below, from scribd.com lists every single one of them and the circumstances of their deaths as well as their names.

In it’s charter Hamas makes it quite clear that it does not regard any agreement made with Israel, no matter who makes it, as being valid. Israel must be destroyed until even the rocks and trees say “There’s a Jew hiding behind me!”. This information is linked through the palestinecenter.org.

In 1993, at the Oslo summit, the PLO agreed to remove it’s objection to Israel’s existance from it’s charter. It has not done so. (palestinefact.org link).

Israel agreed to ARM (to actually give guns) to the PLO for a police force. They did this.

Israel promised to recognize the PLO as the legimate goverment of the Palestinian people. It did so, as you know, because Arafat became the President of the newly created Palestinian Authority. The video I sent you (it’s long, I know..but it had information in it) explains about the agreements made and the fact, the FACT, that the PLO broke those agreements. No, not every agreement was broken nor did Israel do everything it said it would, but if you are arguing that Hamas was justified in rocketing Israel because of broken agreements, you are being intellectually dishonest (a bad thing for a scholar). One- Hamas in it’s charter recognized no agreement to begin with and two, a party cannot attack another by claiming that a pact was broken when that party isn’t keeping the deal either.

You claim that Palestinians own the land of Israel and it’s rightfully theirs. This is an argument that is both worthless, and impossible to verify. Jews have been in Jerusalem almost constantly for thousands of years. They were forceably exiled but always returned. They have been a part of the land, with the decendents of the Palestinians being another part, for centuries. Since there were no Mulsims at that time one has to assume that some of the various groups in the area were your ancestors, but some maybe not. The point is, the Jews WERE there. I don’t give them the right to take land from you based on this, but you can’t claim that right either.

A man in the video makes a point that cannot be argued with, and which shoots down your argument about Israelis wanting war. No country in history has ever been attacked (as in 1967 Israel was), defeated it’s enemies and then, in order to have peace, gave back the land it won in order to give a country to it’s sworn enemies (PLO). This act was the death sentence for Rabin, as you remember. He was killed by one of his own people.

This is what I think about the situation. I have seen dead people before, dead children included, and it’s disgusting and I cried. These kids weren’t Americans, or white or anything close to me but they were children and the site of any hurt child is horrible. I literally cannot describe what I feel. I feel that the responsibility for every single one of those deaths lies in the hands of Hamas and the people who voted Hamas into power. They voted in a group that they knew would continue to attack and provoke Israel, and knew that Israel would respond in kind. They knew that they’d provoke bombs and knew that they’d be receiving those bombs in their crowded streets. They knew that their children would be killed but they let it happen. The people of Palestine had a right to expect Hamas to care for their safety and they were failed. You should be mad, but not at the Israelis.

I watched Hamas rockets on Al Jazeera being shot right out of crowded streets that the commentator said was Gaza City. Hamas is using the city, and the women and children who live in that city, as human shields hoping, praying, to be able to draw return fire from Israel so they can march the children’s bodies through the streets in front of the cameras of the world and scream ‘See! See what the Jews did!”. Then people like you take those pictures and here you are. Or even better, you go to Gaza and put on a belt. But don’t doubt one thing. Hamas are the murderers of those children.

Hamas are cowards. Terrorists are cowards. Anyone, Arab, Jew..it doesn’t matter..who commits an act of terrorism is a coward who is unable to face his enemy but must attack from the shadows. If Hamas couldn’t fire their rockets from a place outside of the city because the Israelis would see them and attack they should have said “We must stop then”, but they didn’t. They moved them into the city where the children live.

I remember watching Al Jazeera and being outraged when I saw how the Palestinian people cheered upon learning of 9/11. Thousands of my people, innocent people, killed and the Palestinian people were cheering. I even saw the picture of the same fat women making the ululating noise to celebrate in the video I sent you. Don’t tell me Palestinians are peace loving people. Maybe most are, but the dancing in the streets sure wasn’t an isolated band of loonies who were soon arrested or chased away by the good people. That makes the silent ones culpable in my book. The only thing evil needs to thrive is for good people to say nothing, I think the quote goes.

Here is what I know about Israelis, and this comes from my own observations and study (because I love to study). They believe the land is theirs as well, at least the more virulent amongst them do. There are ultra orthodox who deny the right of existance of Israel itself (go figure) and those called “settlers” who steal land and homes from decent Palestinian people because god supposedly said they could. These people make me sick. Always have. A book written by men 4000 years ago (or whatever) carries no weight for me because there’s as much chance that god wrote is as there is as my ancestors left Italy for America on a dinosaur puppy’s back. Dinosaur crap. The book was written by human beings. So was yours. You’ve no right to claim your book gives you the right to do anything to someone else, and neither do the Jews, or the Christians or the Mormons or anyone else. But most Israelis would prefer to be left alone in Israel, not go looking to fight you. I think in their hearts most Palestinians are the same. It’s people like you and your counterparts on the other side who scream and make people angry that are keeping anyone from seeing that the past can’t change, only the future.

So, where are we. I think this war should stop now and people should talk and work out a deal. I think the Palestinian people should stop supporting Hamas and demand a government that is commited to their safety and solutions, diplomatic solutions, to their problems with Israel. You may not get everything you want but neither will Israel and at least the children you’re screaming about will still be alive. The alternative is to fight and if you do I think you will lose and more people will suffer because frankly, the Jews of this world have been pissed on since for 2000 years and aren’t going to let it happen anymore. Your people haven’t had to face that. If you got past your hatred you’d see that. Get past it, my friend. There’s no future in hate and war and nothing is going to be solved by trying to place blame and call that justification. When the killing stops, all of it, then you’ve won.

 

http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1991to_now_plo_charter_revise.php

http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/documents/charter.html

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2962674/Victims-of-Palestinian-Violence-and-Terrorism-since-September-2000

 

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