June 22, 2002
I Finally Make A Statement About the Middle East
Picking a side in the Israel-Palestinian business is like rooting for someone in the Jets-Raiders game. In other words, I have issues with both teams. As I understand it (and trust me, I don't pretend to), for the most part, the Palestinians want a homeland of their own without having to worry about tanks rolling over their borders. And the Israelis want a homeland of their own without having to worry about bombs and tanks and stuff coming at them from all their neighbors. Both seem like pretty legitimate goals.
But there's this faction of Palestinians who don't really care about the homeland thing...they just want to blow up Israel. And they have friends in other Middle Eastern countries who want to blow up Israel as a trial run for blowing up the USA. See, while God was telling the Jews that Israel was their home, God was also telling the fundamentalist Muslims that Israel was their enemy and they should conquer it. Either God is nuts, or someone's fudging the truth. Hmmm.
I realize that most of the Palestinians do not have sinister aims and just want to be able to settle in their ostensible homelands. As Americans, we believe that everyone has that right (except the Indians, who we kicked around America till we found them a place that we didn't want to be...but that's a whole 'nother entry). And I know the state of Israel has hands that are far from clean in dealing with their less-than-wanted Palestinian residents.
Often I'm tempted to think that the US should just back out and leave the whole crazy mess alone. I know that it's weird that we cheerfully bombed the hell out of Afghanistan but we are urging restraint on Israel's part. (Or are we? I don't even know any more.) But it comes down to this: do we want to support an inclusive, democratic society, or a bunch of idiots who bomb pizza parlors and busses (and New York City)? Need a minute to think? And no, of course not all Palestinians are mad bombers. But their leadership and their friends don't give me a lot of confidence in their ability to be a successful, friendly nation.
And someone please tell the people in charge of Palestinian terrorism that they might have had a country by now if they weren't so interested in blowing up little kids and grandparents? Is that so hard to figure out?
Posted by michaelf at June 22, 2002 01:19 AM
