1947 and 1948 when this whole thing got started. And our Israelis can spin it any way they like, until the wheels fall off, but it won't change the facts, which remain fact regardless of 64 years of bullshit.
The plain fact is that Palestine got its name because it's the home of the Palestinians, and it was also a British Protectorate at the time of the creation of the country now called Israel, which was formed when armed mercenaries and so-called 'freedom fighters' invaded Palestinian territory and killed or chased out the legal owners of the land, and took it for themselves. Israel is therefore sitting on stolen property, and the original inhabitants continue to want it back.
And that's why the fighting has continued for 64 years now, and will likely go on for another 64 years, or until one side completely assimilates or eliminates the other. For the rest of the world to be choosing sides in that conflict is totally ridiculous, because there are no sides to a question of right or wrong, and that
is the underlying issue in this dispute. The Israelis are saying that it's OK to steal someone's property, as long as you allow them to have fresh water and electricity and let them work for you in businesses you created on their own original property. The Palestinians are saying that's wrong, because theft is wrong, and lying about it is wrong.
The Israelis are masters at reminding us of the holocaust and World War Two, and Hitler's treatment of their people. It was horrible - but so are the things that have been done and are being done to Palestinians by these Israelis in the name of defending their stolen Palestinian territory. And it's goddamned near time the rest of us started calling a spade a spade and stopped listening to bullshit.
When I worked in our federal government in the 1960s I met a man in Ottawa who had been a colonel in the emerging and brand-new Israeli army and who was a personal friend of Moshe Dayan, the one time Defense Minister and military leader of Israel. He told me the whole story of how they took that land
away from its rightful owners, including how they stole their first functioning tank from a British Army compound, and kept it out of British hands by moving
it every night, and burying it in the sand to hide it from British patrols. They used it to shell roads where the British were moving troops to counter their attacks. They got a lot of help and support from America, because in those days, there were more Jews in America than almost anywhere else, and the
Americans really wanted them to have a place of their own - and you'd understand that if you ever had a Jewish mother-in-law or lived within earshot of one. So they got aircraft shipped over from New York to Tel Aviv in crates on ships carrying "humanitarian supplies", and the first two aircraft were Piper Cubs, equipped with desert-dog tires for landing on the sand. They took the doors off them, loaded two crates of hand grenades behind the pilot's seat, and they flew them over the British lines, and dropped hand grenades on the Brits.
They had a secret mobile radio station mounted on the back of a truck, and it broadcast on a certain frequency known to local Jews, with news of where to assemble for the next battle, or news of how it came out. After an attack on the Brits by those two Piper Cubs dropping hand grenades for example, that radio station on the truck would make an announcement that went like this: "Today, elements of the Israeli Air Force flew several sorties against the British and all our aircraft returned safely."
Like I said, it's tough re-writing history when some of us remember the real story. And there's a difference between a Lion Tamer and a Lyin' Bastard.
Please Note:
In a comment here, I mention the ancient Middle East and its nations. This map shows the area around 1400 BC, about the time of the events related in the comment herein.
Hi Ray,
ReplyDeleteLooking through the pages of history, it becomes clear that
the war over the possession of Palestine and Jerusalem has
been going on between Muslims, Christians and Jews since
Biblical times without reaching any settlement ever.
Archaeological findings and statements in Bible clearly
show that Palestine was inhabited by non-Jewish Semites a
long time before Jews even claimed that it is their
“promised land” and long after that. The justification of
Jews, that they claim the land because it belonged to them
3,300 years ago and was lost in the war, is absurd because
if that logic is true; America should give the southwestern
territory back to Mexicans and the rest of the land to
Indians.
Who Are the Palestinians?
They are the descendents of all the groups that inhibited
Palestine since the ancient Canaanites and beyond.
Palestine was successively conquered by Canaanites,
Philistinians, ancient Hebrews, ancient Egyptians,
Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Muslims, Crusaders,
Ayyobies, and Turks and now the Jews. The groups which
lived in Palestine fought, inter-married, collaborated and
no group was obliterated.So that broadens the base from the
Mexican,Indian theory.
@ Peter -
ReplyDeleteI'm pleasantly surprised at your knowledge of the ancient middle east and its various waves of invading inhabitants.
One of my hobbies for a couple of our long rainy winters was to study the ancient Egyptians and they invaded present-day Palestine more than once.
Here's some of the historical outline about the New Kingdom and
the 18th Dynasty, ruling from Thebes, as it appears in 'The Dwellers On The Nile' by E.A. Wallis Budge, former curator of the Egyptian antiquities at the British Museum:-
Hyksos expelled by Aahmes I, and Palestine and Syria become provinces of Egypt; under Aahmes, a truly military dictator, Egypt becomes a warlike power with horses and chariots and a large army. Wars in Libya and Syria; Nubia conquered as far as the foot of the Fourth Cataract. Wars in Western Asia, the country conquered as far north as the Upper Euphrates, Egyptian colonies made, and governors of all important towns and cities appointed by Pharaoh. Western Asia and the Sudan pour tribute into Egypt, which becomes the richest country in the world. All trade routes seized by the Egyptians; trade with Punt, Arabia, Syria, Palestine and many islands in the Mediterranean quickly developed. Thothmes IV marries a princess of Mitani, and Amenhetep III marries several Mesopotamian princesses. Treaties made with kings of Babylon and Assyria. Great temples built at Abydos, Thebes, Sulb, and other places. (...and it continues on...)
So Yes! The Middle East has been a hotbed of intrigue for millennia, and the idea of the Jews hiring mercenaries to do their dirty work while taking over Palestine yet again back in 1947/48 is also quite in keeping with historical traditions for peoples from that region of the world. The Pharaohs and others in that part of the world traditionally hired outsiders to act as mercenaries in their armies and do the actual fighting for them. The employer, of course, claimed all the credit and all the tribute when a war was won. It's not a lot different now.