Why do they not blame Hamas? Gaza was turned over to the Palestinians in 2005 to self-govern. In 2006 they elected Hamas. And, as I understand, there has been no election since 2006. Why do none of the wealthy Arab countries help Palestine? I'm sure that they must know how inhumane Hamas is.
thank you amjad for this. as someone with little knowledge of this situation i tend to hear only one side of this story though my gut has always told me it is much more complicated
> Anyway, when the Arabs rejected the partition plan that the Jews accepted, they began a war against the Jews, not against Israel, but against the Jews. Had the Arabs accepted the partition plan, Israel would be a far smaller place than it is today. So what compensation do we need to give to those who started a war against us and lost?
Who behaved the worsest isn't a debate I want to have. Yes, the Arabs ... well, what's that saying: 'The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity', yes? Will hindsight of bloody course they should have accepted the partition. OTOH many Zionists were on record as saying that every agreement, every peace, was only a truce and that one day Israel would reconquer the entire Promised Land (including most of Jordan and half of Lebanon and a good chunk of Syria). That remains the plan, does it not? The Arabs decided they may as well fight now (meaning then). Everyone behaved badly.
>They have rights. The Arabs in the Palestinian Authority are citizens of the PA,
Good. So give them, also, the right to be compensated for expropriated property and the right to live in a little country that has the rights of any other little country (like being able to come and go without Israeli permission, etc.). Remove all illegal settlements from that little country, and withdraw to the legal borders of one's own country -- and we'll be on the same page.
>That is what the Oslo Accords were all about -- creating a new political entity called the Palestinian Authority. Had they just got to the business of building a state, then the PA would have been the State of Palestine decades ago. Instead, they regard ALL of Israel as occupied territories. They want me out of Haifa. I have been told that to my face.
Probably their biggest missed opportunity. I detest the Palestinian 'leadership'. My sympathies are with individual people. And needless to say there are as many Palestinians who want you out of Haifa (my dad grew up in Haifa) as there are Jews who want to occupy the entire West Bank. Let's be honest.
>Palestine was not conquered by anyone because there was never a country called Palestine.
Irrelevant. I'm NOT talking about political entities, I'm talking about expelled people. Indeed, there was no 'country', there was a UN mandate over a fraction of the wreakage of the Ottoman Empire. Whoop-de-do.
This is one of the pointless diversions I try to avoid, it gets into legalistic mumbo-jumbo. Who said exactly what, exactly where, and how might a lawyer interpret it? Before the UN, Abbas said, and I quote: "We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Israel." It will do. No doubt one can split hairs on the issue forever, but I'm not interested.
> And there is no legal boundary between Israel and what Jordan called the west bank. There is the green line which is an armistice line, in other words, where everyone was when the War of Independence ended.
To this day, when you see a map of Palestine they show the same border between the West Bank and Israel. The same line has been internationally recognized for over 50 years. Israel has claim to 80% of the old Mandate, why not let the Palestinians have 20%? Too generous?
> You want to blame Israel for that? Go ahead, we're used to that.
I want to divert from the question of blame entirely. There is so much blame to go around that a full accounting of blame would occupy God himself for a long time. People do not suffer as political entities, they suffer as individual people.
>You call us invaders? We've been called worse. And no, nobody was given title to Arab privately owned land.
Sheri, you are defending your position with class and style, why resort to an outright lie? I shows you are against the wall. You know as well as I do that every inch of the fertile plains was held via legal title. Hills of Judea and the Negev, not so much.
> And Jews bought land from Arabs and either it became privately owned Jewish land or, if bought with funds raised by Jewish communities around the world, it was added to public land.
You're trying to have it both ways. Indeed, before '48 the Jews bought land from it's previous legal owners. Can't buy what doesn't exist! And note that whereas some fanatics and folks who could foresee that eventually the Jews would stop purchasing and start stealing (which is what happened), other Arabs -- some would say they were naive -- thought that the Jewish immigrants were a very good thing -- until the purchasing stopped and the stealing started.
>Glad you accept that idea. That is the great bulk of the land. Don't believe those little green maps that show so-called Jewish take-over of private land. The maps lie.
No, they don't. What you are attempting is that once a Jew has purchased a property, it is Legal Title but prior to that purchase -- or in case of land that was not sold to Jews -- it belongs to nobody, yes? What's mine is mine, what's yours is nobody's so I can just take it, yes?
Ah! But there are Samaritans! They've kept their identity these 2000 years too and they've never lived anywhere else than Palestine -- they own the whole place. And they are demonstrably, racially more Hebrew than the blond 'Jews' invading from Poland.
> I don't know about Celts. The Native Peoples of North America are comprised of various tribes who had specific areas they controlled.
Rather like the tribes of Israel that each had a specific slice of the Promised Land, yes? And that officially split into two nations and that even by the best reconing were independant and owners of the whole teritory for ony a decade or two. It's almost funny -- if a 2000 year old racial title were to be exersized, then the Ashkenazim would get part of the West Bank (Judea), the Samaritans would get the rest of Samaria (most of the West Bank and more) and the 'Palestinians' would get the fertile plains, which were under Canaanite or Philistine control for almost the entire time. Your 'title' is a joke.
> Not the entire countries. I won't tell them what they should or can do. The Amazigh are fighting for their rights in Morocco. They want to regain sovereignty over their land that was eaten up by the Arab Conquest. Have you even heard about that?
Nope. But I can guess it's more of the same. I'd say if the land changed hands 1300 years ago, then that's the way it is. 1300 year old tribal title is a very bad idea.
> Would you support their fight? I do. And if the Amazigh diaspora around the world came back to the land to fight alongside those who never left, would you call them invaders?
Yes. Mind, if they really wanted to reestablish a tribal/racial nation and they purchased what they wanted ... sure, why not? More power to 'em.
> Solomon's time is still Biblical times. As was the time of the Babylonian Conquest, at which time the Philistines are believed to have ceased to exist. And the Greeks used the name Palestine before the Romans did. You just don't hear about that.
Sure. No dispute. The Philistines just merged into the next polity. It is comical to suppose that these things can possibly be 'undone' or 'fixed' or than any of these tribes still have title to anything that lets them dispossess current legal residents based on 2000 year old history. Nuts, Bibi has more claim to Poland than he does to Palestine. Silly isn't it?
> We Jews are a People, not a religion. We are not a blood-determined ethnic group because we accept (but do not seek) converts.
Yes. But your title to Palestine is based on religion or on nothing. By you definition the Jews are a social club, like the Free Masons -- not a religion, not a blood-line, so ... what? Yeah, a *religious* Jew can say that the Holy Land is not negotiable, but appart from God's promises, what's your claim to Palestine? I've got you! Me, I think that if the Jews want to own Palestine, that's just fine -- the world agrees that they have a (now) legal claim to most of it, but that they should stop expropriating more of it than they are entitled to. Want more? That's fine, just purchase it.
> And the Palestinians are made up not just of Arabs but also Bosnian Muslims, Kurds, and more
Of course. Let's forget about blood-lines. It's a political category based mostly of historical residence, with some religion thrown in.
> I never once referred to God in anything I wrote. Our archaeology shows that the Jews are indigenous to this land.
Ah, but who are the Jews? Back to blood-lines? What does indigenous even mean in a territory that's had literally dozens of ethic, racial, tribal, religious, political waves of settlement? Sounds to me like the Samaritans own everything.
>We did not ask for more land. When the war ended in 1948, we got to busy building a country. We would not started any war and certainly not for land. We would still not be in Judea-Samaria and not even in the Old City of Jerusalem had our neighbours not tried to exterminate us. Remember -- for them ALL of Israel is occupied territory.
Nasty savages, aren't they? Still, they are people and their land should not be stolen. There is always an excuse isn't there? As you know, Hitler wept with grief when the Poles *forced him* to invade. He hated it, but they made him do it, yes? Besides, the Germans owned Poland anyway, the name Poland was invented. The subhuman Poles were better off dead in any case.
>The Palestinians do not fight us over land -- they fight us because they don't believe we have any right to be here at all unless it is under Islam. Dar al Islam -- heard of that? This is a religious war. Any land that was once under Islamic rule must remain under Islamic rule.
Yes. Once dar al Islam, always dar al Islam. To this day many Arabs refer to Israelis as crusaders -- it's not so much the religion as it is an invasion of infidels. Crusaders. They must have a token victory to reestablish their dignity. So back out of the West Bank, return to the Green Line, pay off anyone who can prove that they were disposessed, let them celebrate their victory -- expect it to become a holiday -- and then start negotiating the purchase of more land as you want it. Shit, buy half of Jordan if you want it. Arabs have little connection to any specific plot of land, what's sold for good money is sold.
Well debated Sheri, you have been a worthy opponent.
Oh, one more point. My agenda in all this? A legal Israel is an Israel that holds the moral high ground -- I mean really holds it, not just pretends to hold it -- and thus, if attacked, there's no need to hold back. A rocket for a rocket, no hand wringing. Even now Bibi can't kill Gazans as freely as he'd like, because the moral water is muddy. I say clarify the water. I like automatic counter-battery. Rocket is launched, computer calculates launch position, artilery shell is returned automatically. Launch from hospital, shell back to hospital. Launch from mosque, shell back to mosque -- their choice! But given full human dignity I suspect that fewer Palestinians will be interested in jihad, much better to get on with a normal life where a normal life is possible.
I need to go back and reread all of this but thanks for the interesting viewpoint, it adds a lot more to the discussion than the article above.
If we start “giving back” land where does it stop?
Who decides where it stops?
The UN? They created the current situation.
Poland currently partly sits on germany taken away in 1945, it was shoved west a couple hundred km, they lost the eastern part. Should Germany be making demands? Should the poles be agitating for return of the east?
What about the Tatars of the Crimea, should they get to return or are they in turn SOL as they were there due to the Mongol empire.
I live in southern AB canada and at all sorts of official events there are official land acknowledgements to the previous native occupants.
After the first recitation what is the point?
We aren’t going away or giving it back, several million people here compared to maybe 10s of thousands back in the day (the prairie is a harsh place to live).
I just don’t know where any of this ends, as long as both sides want all or nothing.
Thanks for the moderate reply Pat, we need more of the same.
"If we start “giving back” land where does it stop?"
The Green Line. It's the only candidate for an internationally recognized starting point. Mind, nobody has to move right away, the occupied lands with the Line are 'officially' Palestinian again, but then the haggling starts -- Israel will no doubt want to purchase additional land so lots of people within the Line won't be moving.
"Poland currently partly sits on germany taken away in 1945"
Sure. And dozens of similar. I myself still think the Germans should give Holstein back to Denmark. Here's the difference. When Bismark grabbed Holstein, nobody was thrown out of their houses and made refugees. All that happened is that a different flag was hoisted over the town hall, the official language changed ... and so on. Happy Danes became happy Germans. Nobody was expelled. I once heard a joke to the effect that there was a time when Alsatians kept both a German and a French flag in the closet ... just in case. I don't care about flags, I care about legal title to private property.
You could think of Canada's acknowledgements as the exact opposite problem -- we now fawn over the Indians and treat them like hereditary aristocrats. We profess that all the land is really theirs -- but we aren't really going away. Imagine Israel treating the Palestinians the same way.
So who is to blame? The Jews? Or the Gaza leadership? Which side wants their neighbors dead "from river to sea"? It's time to work on peace, not death. I understand the plight of the Gaza citizens is bleak. But focusing on the end of the Jews rather than improving Gaza's economic situation will get them nowhere.
My big question: why is Gaza in such a state? If billions of aid flows into Gaza, and people still sleep on tombs, then I have to guess it's not the Israelis siphoning off the funding, but Hamas. So Palestinians are yet another people being tortured, subjugated and starved by their rulers, much like Haiti, and many African countries. What's the solution to that?
VA could not have expressed it better. You have courage, insight, honest, incredible perspective and a huge heart. We are really blessed to have you in our daily lives. We respect you immensely. Thank you.
I weep for Palestinians and Jews . I weep for the whole world. Evil trys to block out any hope of brother and sisterhood.
The Holocaust memory creates the anger and fear to self protect in a way that just fosters destruction. Forgiveness is so difficult when there is so much pain. I pray for a miracle that iin some way brings peace.
If there are more people like this gentleman on both sides, there can be peace. They just have to get together. It would also be nice is Christians we’re welcome more as well.
A beautifully sad story. I feel profoundly for the families on both sides of the fence who are collateral damage.
It would have been nice to hear his perspective on Hamas. He may share some beliefs with them, but how does he feel about their opposition to the Palestinian Liberation Organization? Does he see that an official policy of pledging to eliminate a people from the planet is a dangerous proposition for his own people? Does he feel Hamas is doing right by his people?
I read this and of course my heart went out to this man. But something was unsettling about this and so I paused, took a moment to be quiet and still. And I realized what didn't sit well. For me? What was missing was his condemnation of Hamas. He stated his anger was directed at the State of Israel. But none was directed at Hamas. He made no mention of the failure in Hamas leadership which turned Gaza into a terrorist stronghold which used pipes for rockets instead of plumbing. He cited no anger at Hamas for plundering billions in aid which could have been used to build Gaza as opposed to kill Jews. Gaza is a strip of land with endless possibilities. It could have been a seaside jewel. Instead it was turned into a rat Infested ghetto where its people lived in squalor as its leaders enjoyed lives of safety and luxury from their perches in Qatar. There was no condemnation of Hamas for that or for any of the suffering of his people- only grievance that it was their land and Jews are occupiers. Well Jews do have a right to live in their homeland. He curiously failed to mention that Israel vacated Gaza years ago. He failed to acknowledge that Hamas murderous terrorism created security issues for BOTH Israel and Egypt necessitating enforced borders and blockade. There was no condemnation of Hamas responsibility for that. There was no condemnation of the atrocities Hamas carried out last week. Women raped, defiled alongside of their friends corpses. Civilians- young and old alike butchered by Hamas. Babies carved out of their mothers bellies and set ablaze. He never said a word about any of the Jews slaughtered. He made no call for releasing the hostages. And so his assertion that he loves us Jews feels a bit empty. My heart goes out to all of the innocent who suffer in this conflict. And the first time I read this? My heart went out to the author too. But now I'm swallowing the bitter truth in all he left unsaid. I'm drying my tears and reeling my heart right back in.
Questions for the author: How did coming to America come about for you? Why don’t others come? Seems like a better outlook for a person and most definitely their children to live in a free country. Why don’t more Palestinians try to get out like you did?
Were you taught at the young age you mention to hate Israel? Do you have perspective on it now? Does living here help with that?
You seem like an anomaly. So I’m curious how that happened.
Consider Psalm 83. It's opening verses mirror what Israel faces today, almost verbatim. The best case for Gaza is captured in the last verses, especially the last. I'll not copy and paste for the sake of encouraging the reader to do so on their own.
We are living what the WWII generation (1939-1945) understood about total war. It is the ultimate zero-sum calculation.
My closeness and prayers are for all the innocent people who have been kidnapped, killed or injured since 7 October, of whatever faith or nationality they may be and on whichever side of the border they live . Having said this, everyone is asked to make a clear judgment on the responsibilities of what is happening now and what has happened in past years. Mr. Abukwaik, a little courage! From your safe American refuge try to make a judgment. We need courageous people if we want to get out of this tangle of violence.
Why do they not blame Hamas? Gaza was turned over to the Palestinians in 2005 to self-govern. In 2006 they elected Hamas. And, as I understand, there has been no election since 2006. Why do none of the wealthy Arab countries help Palestine? I'm sure that they must know how inhumane Hamas is.
thank you amjad for this. as someone with little knowledge of this situation i tend to hear only one side of this story though my gut has always told me it is much more complicated
I appreciate the point of view and how horrible this must be for the author.
But when I started reading I was hoping for a perspective from the Palestinian side, ideas for how to end it?
Basically this piece is “war is hell”.
But I know that.
What is the solution?
> Anyway, when the Arabs rejected the partition plan that the Jews accepted, they began a war against the Jews, not against Israel, but against the Jews. Had the Arabs accepted the partition plan, Israel would be a far smaller place than it is today. So what compensation do we need to give to those who started a war against us and lost?
Who behaved the worsest isn't a debate I want to have. Yes, the Arabs ... well, what's that saying: 'The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity', yes? Will hindsight of bloody course they should have accepted the partition. OTOH many Zionists were on record as saying that every agreement, every peace, was only a truce and that one day Israel would reconquer the entire Promised Land (including most of Jordan and half of Lebanon and a good chunk of Syria). That remains the plan, does it not? The Arabs decided they may as well fight now (meaning then). Everyone behaved badly.
>They have rights. The Arabs in the Palestinian Authority are citizens of the PA,
Good. So give them, also, the right to be compensated for expropriated property and the right to live in a little country that has the rights of any other little country (like being able to come and go without Israeli permission, etc.). Remove all illegal settlements from that little country, and withdraw to the legal borders of one's own country -- and we'll be on the same page.
>That is what the Oslo Accords were all about -- creating a new political entity called the Palestinian Authority. Had they just got to the business of building a state, then the PA would have been the State of Palestine decades ago. Instead, they regard ALL of Israel as occupied territories. They want me out of Haifa. I have been told that to my face.
Probably their biggest missed opportunity. I detest the Palestinian 'leadership'. My sympathies are with individual people. And needless to say there are as many Palestinians who want you out of Haifa (my dad grew up in Haifa) as there are Jews who want to occupy the entire West Bank. Let's be honest.
>Palestine was not conquered by anyone because there was never a country called Palestine.
Irrelevant. I'm NOT talking about political entities, I'm talking about expelled people. Indeed, there was no 'country', there was a UN mandate over a fraction of the wreakage of the Ottoman Empire. Whoop-de-do.
> And the PA does NOT recognize Israel.
This is one of the pointless diversions I try to avoid, it gets into legalistic mumbo-jumbo. Who said exactly what, exactly where, and how might a lawyer interpret it? Before the UN, Abbas said, and I quote: "We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Israel." It will do. No doubt one can split hairs on the issue forever, but I'm not interested.
> And there is no legal boundary between Israel and what Jordan called the west bank. There is the green line which is an armistice line, in other words, where everyone was when the War of Independence ended.
To this day, when you see a map of Palestine they show the same border between the West Bank and Israel. The same line has been internationally recognized for over 50 years. Israel has claim to 80% of the old Mandate, why not let the Palestinians have 20%? Too generous?
> You want to blame Israel for that? Go ahead, we're used to that.
I want to divert from the question of blame entirely. There is so much blame to go around that a full accounting of blame would occupy God himself for a long time. People do not suffer as political entities, they suffer as individual people.
>You call us invaders? We've been called worse. And no, nobody was given title to Arab privately owned land.
Sheri, you are defending your position with class and style, why resort to an outright lie? I shows you are against the wall. You know as well as I do that every inch of the fertile plains was held via legal title. Hills of Judea and the Negev, not so much.
> And Jews bought land from Arabs and either it became privately owned Jewish land or, if bought with funds raised by Jewish communities around the world, it was added to public land.
You're trying to have it both ways. Indeed, before '48 the Jews bought land from it's previous legal owners. Can't buy what doesn't exist! And note that whereas some fanatics and folks who could foresee that eventually the Jews would stop purchasing and start stealing (which is what happened), other Arabs -- some would say they were naive -- thought that the Jewish immigrants were a very good thing -- until the purchasing stopped and the stealing started.
>Glad you accept that idea. That is the great bulk of the land. Don't believe those little green maps that show so-called Jewish take-over of private land. The maps lie.
No, they don't. What you are attempting is that once a Jew has purchased a property, it is Legal Title but prior to that purchase -- or in case of land that was not sold to Jews -- it belongs to nobody, yes? What's mine is mine, what's yours is nobody's so I can just take it, yes?
>There are no more Edomites.
Ah! But there are Samaritans! They've kept their identity these 2000 years too and they've never lived anywhere else than Palestine -- they own the whole place. And they are demonstrably, racially more Hebrew than the blond 'Jews' invading from Poland.
> I don't know about Celts. The Native Peoples of North America are comprised of various tribes who had specific areas they controlled.
Rather like the tribes of Israel that each had a specific slice of the Promised Land, yes? And that officially split into two nations and that even by the best reconing were independant and owners of the whole teritory for ony a decade or two. It's almost funny -- if a 2000 year old racial title were to be exersized, then the Ashkenazim would get part of the West Bank (Judea), the Samaritans would get the rest of Samaria (most of the West Bank and more) and the 'Palestinians' would get the fertile plains, which were under Canaanite or Philistine control for almost the entire time. Your 'title' is a joke.
> Not the entire countries. I won't tell them what they should or can do. The Amazigh are fighting for their rights in Morocco. They want to regain sovereignty over their land that was eaten up by the Arab Conquest. Have you even heard about that?
Nope. But I can guess it's more of the same. I'd say if the land changed hands 1300 years ago, then that's the way it is. 1300 year old tribal title is a very bad idea.
> Would you support their fight? I do. And if the Amazigh diaspora around the world came back to the land to fight alongside those who never left, would you call them invaders?
Yes. Mind, if they really wanted to reestablish a tribal/racial nation and they purchased what they wanted ... sure, why not? More power to 'em.
> Solomon's time is still Biblical times. As was the time of the Babylonian Conquest, at which time the Philistines are believed to have ceased to exist. And the Greeks used the name Palestine before the Romans did. You just don't hear about that.
Sure. No dispute. The Philistines just merged into the next polity. It is comical to suppose that these things can possibly be 'undone' or 'fixed' or than any of these tribes still have title to anything that lets them dispossess current legal residents based on 2000 year old history. Nuts, Bibi has more claim to Poland than he does to Palestine. Silly isn't it?
> We Jews are a People, not a religion. We are not a blood-determined ethnic group because we accept (but do not seek) converts.
Yes. But your title to Palestine is based on religion or on nothing. By you definition the Jews are a social club, like the Free Masons -- not a religion, not a blood-line, so ... what? Yeah, a *religious* Jew can say that the Holy Land is not negotiable, but appart from God's promises, what's your claim to Palestine? I've got you! Me, I think that if the Jews want to own Palestine, that's just fine -- the world agrees that they have a (now) legal claim to most of it, but that they should stop expropriating more of it than they are entitled to. Want more? That's fine, just purchase it.
> And the Palestinians are made up not just of Arabs but also Bosnian Muslims, Kurds, and more
Of course. Let's forget about blood-lines. It's a political category based mostly of historical residence, with some religion thrown in.
> I never once referred to God in anything I wrote. Our archaeology shows that the Jews are indigenous to this land.
Ah, but who are the Jews? Back to blood-lines? What does indigenous even mean in a territory that's had literally dozens of ethic, racial, tribal, religious, political waves of settlement? Sounds to me like the Samaritans own everything.
>We did not ask for more land. When the war ended in 1948, we got to busy building a country. We would not started any war and certainly not for land. We would still not be in Judea-Samaria and not even in the Old City of Jerusalem had our neighbours not tried to exterminate us. Remember -- for them ALL of Israel is occupied territory.
Nasty savages, aren't they? Still, they are people and their land should not be stolen. There is always an excuse isn't there? As you know, Hitler wept with grief when the Poles *forced him* to invade. He hated it, but they made him do it, yes? Besides, the Germans owned Poland anyway, the name Poland was invented. The subhuman Poles were better off dead in any case.
>The Palestinians do not fight us over land -- they fight us because they don't believe we have any right to be here at all unless it is under Islam. Dar al Islam -- heard of that? This is a religious war. Any land that was once under Islamic rule must remain under Islamic rule.
Yes. Once dar al Islam, always dar al Islam. To this day many Arabs refer to Israelis as crusaders -- it's not so much the religion as it is an invasion of infidels. Crusaders. They must have a token victory to reestablish their dignity. So back out of the West Bank, return to the Green Line, pay off anyone who can prove that they were disposessed, let them celebrate their victory -- expect it to become a holiday -- and then start negotiating the purchase of more land as you want it. Shit, buy half of Jordan if you want it. Arabs have little connection to any specific plot of land, what's sold for good money is sold.
Well debated Sheri, you have been a worthy opponent.
Oh, one more point. My agenda in all this? A legal Israel is an Israel that holds the moral high ground -- I mean really holds it, not just pretends to hold it -- and thus, if attacked, there's no need to hold back. A rocket for a rocket, no hand wringing. Even now Bibi can't kill Gazans as freely as he'd like, because the moral water is muddy. I say clarify the water. I like automatic counter-battery. Rocket is launched, computer calculates launch position, artilery shell is returned automatically. Launch from hospital, shell back to hospital. Launch from mosque, shell back to mosque -- their choice! But given full human dignity I suspect that fewer Palestinians will be interested in jihad, much better to get on with a normal life where a normal life is possible.
I need to go back and reread all of this but thanks for the interesting viewpoint, it adds a lot more to the discussion than the article above.
If we start “giving back” land where does it stop?
Who decides where it stops?
The UN? They created the current situation.
Poland currently partly sits on germany taken away in 1945, it was shoved west a couple hundred km, they lost the eastern part. Should Germany be making demands? Should the poles be agitating for return of the east?
What about the Tatars of the Crimea, should they get to return or are they in turn SOL as they were there due to the Mongol empire.
I live in southern AB canada and at all sorts of official events there are official land acknowledgements to the previous native occupants.
After the first recitation what is the point?
We aren’t going away or giving it back, several million people here compared to maybe 10s of thousands back in the day (the prairie is a harsh place to live).
I just don’t know where any of this ends, as long as both sides want all or nothing.
Thanks again.
Thanks for the moderate reply Pat, we need more of the same.
"If we start “giving back” land where does it stop?"
The Green Line. It's the only candidate for an internationally recognized starting point. Mind, nobody has to move right away, the occupied lands with the Line are 'officially' Palestinian again, but then the haggling starts -- Israel will no doubt want to purchase additional land so lots of people within the Line won't be moving.
"Poland currently partly sits on germany taken away in 1945"
Sure. And dozens of similar. I myself still think the Germans should give Holstein back to Denmark. Here's the difference. When Bismark grabbed Holstein, nobody was thrown out of their houses and made refugees. All that happened is that a different flag was hoisted over the town hall, the official language changed ... and so on. Happy Danes became happy Germans. Nobody was expelled. I once heard a joke to the effect that there was a time when Alsatians kept both a German and a French flag in the closet ... just in case. I don't care about flags, I care about legal title to private property.
You could think of Canada's acknowledgements as the exact opposite problem -- we now fawn over the Indians and treat them like hereditary aristocrats. We profess that all the land is really theirs -- but we aren't really going away. Imagine Israel treating the Palestinians the same way.
So who is to blame? The Jews? Or the Gaza leadership? Which side wants their neighbors dead "from river to sea"? It's time to work on peace, not death. I understand the plight of the Gaza citizens is bleak. But focusing on the end of the Jews rather than improving Gaza's economic situation will get them nowhere.
My big question: why is Gaza in such a state? If billions of aid flows into Gaza, and people still sleep on tombs, then I have to guess it's not the Israelis siphoning off the funding, but Hamas. So Palestinians are yet another people being tortured, subjugated and starved by their rulers, much like Haiti, and many African countries. What's the solution to that?
Rockets and ak47s aren’t cheap
Tunnels, drones, paragliders, attack boats, RPGs, who can afford food and medicine when there are more important things
Thank you for sharing your experience but at what point do you blame Hamas and not Israel for what they have done to Gaza?
VA could not have expressed it better. You have courage, insight, honest, incredible perspective and a huge heart. We are really blessed to have you in our daily lives. We respect you immensely. Thank you.
I weep for Palestinians and Jews . I weep for the whole world. Evil trys to block out any hope of brother and sisterhood.
The Holocaust memory creates the anger and fear to self protect in a way that just fosters destruction. Forgiveness is so difficult when there is so much pain. I pray for a miracle that iin some way brings peace.
If there are more people like this gentleman on both sides, there can be peace. They just have to get together. It would also be nice is Christians we’re welcome more as well.
The poor will always be with us. The cruel will always be with us. Pain will always be with us. The best we can do is create good governments.
A beautifully sad story. I feel profoundly for the families on both sides of the fence who are collateral damage.
It would have been nice to hear his perspective on Hamas. He may share some beliefs with them, but how does he feel about their opposition to the Palestinian Liberation Organization? Does he see that an official policy of pledging to eliminate a people from the planet is a dangerous proposition for his own people? Does he feel Hamas is doing right by his people?
I read this and of course my heart went out to this man. But something was unsettling about this and so I paused, took a moment to be quiet and still. And I realized what didn't sit well. For me? What was missing was his condemnation of Hamas. He stated his anger was directed at the State of Israel. But none was directed at Hamas. He made no mention of the failure in Hamas leadership which turned Gaza into a terrorist stronghold which used pipes for rockets instead of plumbing. He cited no anger at Hamas for plundering billions in aid which could have been used to build Gaza as opposed to kill Jews. Gaza is a strip of land with endless possibilities. It could have been a seaside jewel. Instead it was turned into a rat Infested ghetto where its people lived in squalor as its leaders enjoyed lives of safety and luxury from their perches in Qatar. There was no condemnation of Hamas for that or for any of the suffering of his people- only grievance that it was their land and Jews are occupiers. Well Jews do have a right to live in their homeland. He curiously failed to mention that Israel vacated Gaza years ago. He failed to acknowledge that Hamas murderous terrorism created security issues for BOTH Israel and Egypt necessitating enforced borders and blockade. There was no condemnation of Hamas responsibility for that. There was no condemnation of the atrocities Hamas carried out last week. Women raped, defiled alongside of their friends corpses. Civilians- young and old alike butchered by Hamas. Babies carved out of their mothers bellies and set ablaze. He never said a word about any of the Jews slaughtered. He made no call for releasing the hostages. And so his assertion that he loves us Jews feels a bit empty. My heart goes out to all of the innocent who suffer in this conflict. And the first time I read this? My heart went out to the author too. But now I'm swallowing the bitter truth in all he left unsaid. I'm drying my tears and reeling my heart right back in.
Questions for the author: How did coming to America come about for you? Why don’t others come? Seems like a better outlook for a person and most definitely their children to live in a free country. Why don’t more Palestinians try to get out like you did?
Were you taught at the young age you mention to hate Israel? Do you have perspective on it now? Does living here help with that?
You seem like an anomaly. So I’m curious how that happened.
Consider Psalm 83. It's opening verses mirror what Israel faces today, almost verbatim. The best case for Gaza is captured in the last verses, especially the last. I'll not copy and paste for the sake of encouraging the reader to do so on their own.
We are living what the WWII generation (1939-1945) understood about total war. It is the ultimate zero-sum calculation.
My closeness and prayers are for all the innocent people who have been kidnapped, killed or injured since 7 October, of whatever faith or nationality they may be and on whichever side of the border they live . Having said this, everyone is asked to make a clear judgment on the responsibilities of what is happening now and what has happened in past years. Mr. Abukwaik, a little courage! From your safe American refuge try to make a judgment. We need courageous people if we want to get out of this tangle of violence.