Byzantine was a Christian country
and was taken by force.
Sorry, what?
Before now-Israel was British it was Ottoman. The Arabs made almost no use of the land, it was either swamp or desert; Tel Aviv was built out of a desert, kibbutzim did all the hard work, farms and villages were constructed where previously it was thought impossible. Israel isn't made up of villages taken from Arabs, Israel is made up of hard graft, then war happened, then Israel expanded.
In 1947 the UN gave a scenario, Israel said yes, the Arabs said 'all or nothing' - they got nothing. The other Arab states took the Paletinian Arab land, Israel may have occupied Palestine for 40 years, but Egypt and Jordan did it, in far worse methods, for 20 years prior to that. Each time Israel has expanded has been after an attack from an enemy. Then Israel withdraws from Gaza, leaving greenhouses, community centres and synagogues (due to reluctance to tear them down) - the Arabs tear down the synagogues, fair enough, they're a structure that signify the enemy, but they also tore down the greenhouses and the community centres - then fired rockets into Israel as thanks. They did themselves no favours.
If anyone really does give a flying fuck about the Palestinians it's about time they stopped playing into the hands of the Arab elite and instead criticised the real bastards in this situation, the House of Saud, the Hashemite Kings, the Assad Family. They're dynasties that rule the middle east, and subject their common populace to hideous living standards, oh, and regularly fuck the Palestinian Arabs over.
(, Wed 14 Jan 2009, 22:04, Reply)
Well, that's the retard way of viewing history
given loads of jews were living there long before the Second World War; and who would have forgiven loads of them for wanting to get out of Europe after what they went through in the thirties and forties
I genuinely suspect a great deal of injustices were committed by those new settlers on the Arabs living there, such as evicting them from homes etc; but the historical context was somewhat inevitable given six million of them had just been exterminated in Europe; I doubt some of them gave a fuck for the rest of humanity after what humanity put them through, and just wanted a heaven where it could never happen again
The rest, as they say is a load of bollocks
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Jahled Three shades of black, Wed 14 Jan 2009, 22:15,
Reply)