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Zonie63 -> RE: Stephen Hawking joins Israel boycott (5/11/2013 4:53:40 AM)
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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
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I suppose this might make some American supporters feel as if Israel is being martyred. There are some Americans who present it as "Everyone is picking on poor little Israel. We must defend the little guy." Israel is the 98-pound weakling, and America is Charles Atlas coming to their rescue.
Israel is far from being a 98lb weakling, though it likes to encourage the false perception that it's an underdog and victim, not the regional bully. Israel possesses one of the world's most formidable militaries, armed to the teeth with the latest technology and with nuclear weapons back it up. Victims don 't do military occupations.
I agree that they're not a weak power today, but back in 1948, they might have been considered that.
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From the BDS website:
"The campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) is shaped by a rights-based approach and highlights the three broad sections of the Palestinian people: the refugees, those under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Palestinians in Israel. The call urges various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law by:
Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantling the Wall;
This might be part of the problem. Israel is not going to give up those lands any more than the U.S. would give up Texas or California (or the U.K. giving up Northern Ireland or Scotland, or Poland giving up their part of East Prussia/Germany, or Russia giving up the Kuril Islands, or France giving up Alsace-Lorraine, or Canada giving up Quebec, etc.).
The way Israel sees it (and I can kind of understand their point), the Arabs started a war with them in 1967, gambled, and lost territory as a result. It's seen as no different than Germany losing territory after they started wars with their neighbors in the World Wars.
They would also claim that the Arab nations had every opportunity to bring in their Arab Palestinian brethren and integrate them into the populations of Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, so that they would have their own homeland. The Arabs have so much land, from Morocco, all of North Africa, along with Syria-Iraq, and the entire Arabian Peninsula. The Arabs have plenty of space in their own countries to give the Palestinians a homeland, but they turned their backs on their own people. The Arabs have all that territory (and all that oil), yet it's still not enough for them? Arabs are richer than shit; countries like Qatar and the UAE are swimming in cash - and then they come over here, buy everything up and act like they own America. I don't see them struggling at all.
All they'd have to do is snap their fingers, and every single Palestinian man, woman, and child could be given their own mansion to live in. The fact that Arabs don't help their own is very telling, but it's hardly something I could blame on Israel.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Israel is right; I'm not really taking their side. But I'm not taking the Arabs' side either, and they have some things to answer for, too. I don't really see the Arabs as innocent victims in all this. Perhaps other Arab states are using the Palestinians as pawns, setting them up as victims of Israel to manipulate world opinion - when they could very easily give the Palestinians land and luxury with the stroke of a pen. It's hard to sympathize with them when looking at the big picture.
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