Quote:
Originally Posted by Table 5
So just curious....are any of the people in this thread Jewish or Muslim? With a lot of the strong feelings flying about, I assume there's gotta be a few with some personal connection (apart from Puckluck).
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My heritage is Jewish, however, I'm an aetheist.
I do have a personal connection with the region. I travelled there when I was younger and spent some time in Israel and Jordan. While in Israel I also visited the West Bank and Gaza. I have some distant relatives in Israel and some friends that I made while there, including a Palestinian.
While my feelings about the region are strong I feel that they are balanced because I believe that both Israelis and Palestinians are victims and victimizers. For instance, the Palestinian people have been treated like pawns in the struggle for power between the West (including Israel) and the Arab nations. They are a people that are continually victimized by powerful forces around them (not just Israel). However, some of them have taken the opportunity to act like 3rd world strong men and terrorize Israelis and Palestinians for their own personal gain (eg. Yasser Arafat). On the other hand, Israel has essentially never not been in a state of war. Even before the country was formed these people, who were just looking for a safe place to call their own after the Holocaust, have been under the constant threat of annihilation. They are vastly outnumbered, have been officially and unofficially attacked by their neighbours on numerous occasions and are in a state of constant fear. 9/11 shocked the US and the world. While israel hasn't had the same level of carnage from one attack, they are almost subject to a 9/11 type of attack (on a smaller scale) daily. Between rockets lauching from Lebanon into suburbs to bombs on buses to executions on cruise ships, Israelis are always under threat. However, while most Israelis want nothing more than peace with their neighbours, there is a small faction, that includes the Jewish Orthodox establishment (which is particularly strong in the US), that truly believes that they are God's chosen people and the land is theirs by birthright. As a result, these scum antagonize both Palestinians and Israelis alike.
It's a sad situation that such a small piece of desert with essentially no resources should play such a large part in international power-brokering. The result is that there are a lot of innocent victims on both sides.
Anyways, yeah...Iran.