More Thoughts On Iran
With this latest uproar about the Iran treaty and Huckabee’s hyperbole, I would put forward something you might learn if you have ever actually known any Muslims from the Middle East.
In general Muslims aren’t denying the Holocaust, they just don’t see the relevance for them. As far as most Muslims are concerned what happened to Jews in World War II was a Jewish-Christian situation and they had nothing to do with it. Which is also at the root of the resentment about the creation of Israel. For Muslims there is no justice in taking their land and giving it to Jews because of what Christians did to the Jews in Europe. Is it surprising that Muslims from the Middle East believe that if the Jews are entitled to their own country, then it should be in Europe, not Palestine.
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Or as one Muslim said to me, they view the problem of Jews in Palestine to be one of illegal immigration of people who ought to be sent home to the countries they came from, rather than one of religion. They don’t have a problem with Jews of Middle Eastern extraction living in Palestine, it’s the Europeans who need to just go home, already, either peacefully or forcefully as with the Crusaders before them.
Of course, the problem with that viewpoint is that probably 2/3rds of Israelis really *were* born there today, and the remaining 1/3rd emigrated from a country that no longer exists (the USSR). Both communities — Israelis and Middle Eastern Muslims — seem to however continue to behave as if this were still 1951 and ethnic cleansing and bullets are the solution to all problems everywhere.
The Jews are headed for minority status in Israel because of a low birth rate and out migration, and this is also a cause of concern.
A real annoyance for people who have lived in Palestine is that the Zionists and the Israelis who replaced them are trying to live like Europeans in a desert. Israel wastes resources, especially water, which is going to be the base cause for the next real war in the region. In a very real way, Israel is already at war with the environment.