Why has Israel lost so much sympathy among those who once would have supported her?
Surely, part of the answer has to do with the rise of Islam in Europe. European governments are trying to appease their growing Muslim minority.
Part has to do with the reflexive response of the Left, both hard and soft, whenever a Third World people clash in any way with a First World one.
But ... I think there is something else, very significant: after her victory in 1967, Israel occupied Gaza and the West Bank. When Jordan and Egypt had ruled these territories, they had not given the Palestinians a state. And the Arabs had shown no sign at all of wanting to make peace with Israel. So she was morally within the right in just seizing these territories that she had won in battle. That's what happens in war -- winners get things.
But the problem was, these territories were inhabited by the Palestinians. Had Israel been the Satanic power she is painted as by Islamists, she would have proceeded to drive out the inhabitants, in a repeat of the 47-48 war. She did not. Their material lives improved greatly under her rule.
But ... what was she going to do with the territories, with all those Palestinians?
We know what she decided to do. To create "facts on the grounds" by colonizing them with Jewish settlers.
I have always wondered, what did the Israeli leaders think would happen? Would the Palestinians leave? Die off? Or what? What was the long-term plan?
It would have made sense to expand Israel's borders somewhat -- for instance, to push out that terribly narrow "waist", only nine miles to the sea. But the settlements were everywhere.
Yes, there were the crazed religous zealots who aimed to re-take "Judea and Samaria" because "God gave us this land". But the leaders of Israel, at least many of them, are secular, intelligent men, not religous fruitcakes. What were they thinking?
In any case, we are now living with the consequences of the settlements. Israel apparently cannot withdraw, and cannot even stop building new settlements. And yet her only chance -- admittedly a slim one -- of a long-term peace, involves giving up almost all the settlements, of doing in the West Bank what she did in Gaza.
So it's going to be like some horrible tragedy, in which the hero is driven to do something that eventually results in his downfall.
And it will be a tragedy. Israel is the only really civilized country in that region. Nowhere else are women, sexual deviants -- sorry, gay people --, political minorities, and even Arabs, treated in civilized manner. A Palestinian state, now, has every chance of becoming another fetid Arab dictatorship, where dissidents are blown up or shot, the leaders steal everything that is not nailed down, and the masses continue to live in squalor.
How did this come about? What did the Israeli leaders think they were doing, back thirty or forty years ago when they decided to send outposts of Jews into the miiddle of a hostile Palestinian sea?
Surely, part of the answer has to do with the rise of Islam in Europe. European governments are trying to appease their growing Muslim minority.
Part has to do with the reflexive response of the Left, both hard and soft, whenever a Third World people clash in any way with a First World one.
But ... I think there is something else, very significant: after her victory in 1967, Israel occupied Gaza and the West Bank. When Jordan and Egypt had ruled these territories, they had not given the Palestinians a state. And the Arabs had shown no sign at all of wanting to make peace with Israel. So she was morally within the right in just seizing these territories that she had won in battle. That's what happens in war -- winners get things.
But the problem was, these territories were inhabited by the Palestinians. Had Israel been the Satanic power she is painted as by Islamists, she would have proceeded to drive out the inhabitants, in a repeat of the 47-48 war. She did not. Their material lives improved greatly under her rule.
But ... what was she going to do with the territories, with all those Palestinians?
We know what she decided to do. To create "facts on the grounds" by colonizing them with Jewish settlers.
I have always wondered, what did the Israeli leaders think would happen? Would the Palestinians leave? Die off? Or what? What was the long-term plan?
It would have made sense to expand Israel's borders somewhat -- for instance, to push out that terribly narrow "waist", only nine miles to the sea. But the settlements were everywhere.
Yes, there were the crazed religous zealots who aimed to re-take "Judea and Samaria" because "God gave us this land". But the leaders of Israel, at least many of them, are secular, intelligent men, not religous fruitcakes. What were they thinking?
In any case, we are now living with the consequences of the settlements. Israel apparently cannot withdraw, and cannot even stop building new settlements. And yet her only chance -- admittedly a slim one -- of a long-term peace, involves giving up almost all the settlements, of doing in the West Bank what she did in Gaza.
So it's going to be like some horrible tragedy, in which the hero is driven to do something that eventually results in his downfall.
And it will be a tragedy. Israel is the only really civilized country in that region. Nowhere else are women, sexual deviants -- sorry, gay people --, political minorities, and even Arabs, treated in civilized manner. A Palestinian state, now, has every chance of becoming another fetid Arab dictatorship, where dissidents are blown up or shot, the leaders steal everything that is not nailed down, and the masses continue to live in squalor.
How did this come about? What did the Israeli leaders think they were doing, back thirty or forty years ago when they decided to send outposts of Jews into the miiddle of a hostile Palestinian sea?