I'd like to share another response of mine in an ongoing dialogue
Karim,
I’m afraid this conversation only serves to illustrate in the most frustrating way that chances for real change in this part of the world are close to nil. Let me put all this in a big nutshell: The Arabs make their way from Arabia, conquering and colonizing their way through the world. When all is said and done they find themselves “occupying” some 20 countries. You like to point out that “at least“ the indigenous populations of all those colonized countries were not expulsed. How magnanimous of the Arabs. I’m afraid your characterization of a benign Muslim stewardship of those invaded and conquered lands differs a bit with the historical facts. Yes, you were good to “your” Jews. Just so long as they understood their place, paid their Jizya tax, kept their eyes averted when passing a Muslim, and learned to live with the occassional massacre. Thank you for all that. But a miniscule home (1) for the Jews, in a land where there has been a continuous connection for thousands of years, with a proven willingness to respect the faiths of others, is just too much for you. That really is the bottom line Karim. Everything else is just window dressing. Germans, Poles, Finns, Indians, Pakistani’s, Cypriots, Turks, and more have all had to deal with population exchanges in times of war, and have moved on and made productive lives for themselves. Historically there has always been refugees because of war. ONLY the Arabs, who for the most part created the refugee issue, refuse to accept and move on. Twenty two countries in a crescent of Islam, and a (tiny)Jewish cancer smack dab in the middle is just too much to bear. So a people who didn’t even know they had a national identity before say, 1930 are put to good use by the rest of the Arab world. Keep the hatred burning, preach it to your children from birth and through your education systems. What a wondrous thing we can all have in common, helping to focus our rage on a common enemy, rather than on our own inequities, rather than having to have to come to grips with the realization that as a culture we, as Arabs, have been a society moving backwards for centuries. THINK OF THE TIME, MONEY, AND ENERGY SPENT ON HATING THE JEWS.
I’m sure you will write back and repeat your mantra that no, you in Lebanon love and, miss “your” Jews. Thanks but no thanks. We get to be our own Jews now. And that means screwing up and making lots of mistakes, and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are human, with all that that entails. But one thing for sure, we won’t be “your” Jews anymore.
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2 comments:
Good stuff !!!
'the indigenous populations of all those colonized countries were not expulsed.'
Wha? First of all, history and the hadiths relate how every non-Muslim in the Arabian Peninsula ( including large Jewish communities in Medina, a Jewish city) were either ethnically cleansed or became exactly what Mohammed told his followers to achieve, in 932 CE before he died...either a Muslim, a corpse or a dhimmi slave who "pays the jirzyah willingly and feel themselves subdued."
Then there's India, with a genocide of at least 10 million after the Muslim conquest.
There were almost a million Jews who were ethnically cleansed by the Arab countries after 1948 after everything they owned was plundered, close to a trillion dollars in today's money.
That's only 3 examples...there are lots more.
Then , we have the Arabs who identify themselves as Palestinians. According to the last Brit census in 1947, there were about half million Arabs living in what became Israel. 100,000 stayed, and became full Israeli citizens with protection of the rule of law and voting rights. Some ethnic cleansing!
The rest left voluntarily like the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini told them to (like Mahmoud Abbas) or they were pushed out by the fighting.And BTW, if there were only 500,000 to start with, that means the Arab refugees totaled more like 400,000, not 700,00 and apparently a number of indigenous Arabs who never had lived in 'Palestine' glommed on to UNRWA and claimed refugee status for the free food, medial care, cash allotments and lodging.
Me, I'd like to see the Arab countries acknowledge the refugee problem of both Arabs and Jews that the Arabs alone created.
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