When the insurgency is at the fullest in Iraq, the ISG seems to be under the impression that turning the attention of the world to the Israeli/Arab conflict will suddenly seem to fix all our problems in Iraq. When Hizbullah kidnaps Jewish soldiers, kills other soldiers and send rockets into civilian populated areas, it is the Jews fault when they retaliate and teach Hizbullah what the price is for crossing the line. When Hizbullah hides like cowards amid the Lebanon civilian population and sends rockets into Isreal, it is Israel that is blamed by the international community for taking out the rocket launchers.
Just ask Kofi Annan, who consistently wished to criticize Israel for protecting itself, yet barely spared a word for the acts of Hizbullah.
Just ask Jimmy Carter who does not address the Holocaust denial conference in Iran at all, yet will speak out alleging that Israeli's are cruel to many Christians, and, as occupiers, are understandably the targets of suicide bombers and other terrorist killers.
Just ask Ahmadinejad, who will host Iran's Holocaust denial conference and makes statements as he did in 2005 about "wiping Israel off the map".
It is the JEWS fault!!!
As I pointed out in my post "Never Forget", the world has forgotten that all this has been done before.
1933-1945, Hitler blamed the Jews also. As he systematically and documented the quest to exterminate them.
New statistics show that the Jewish people are four times more likely to be attacked because of their religion than Muslims.
One in 400 Jews compared to one in 1,700 Muslims are likely to be victims of "faith hate" attacks every year. The figure is based on data collected over three months in police areas accounting for half the Muslim and Jewish populations of England and Wales. The crimes range from assault and verbal abuse to criminal damage at places of worship.
Have the Jews not been persecuted enough and why must they continue to be harrassed and attacked, year after year and be blamed consistently for doing no more than protecting itself, which every country is entitled to do.
Will the world continue to sit back and watch, thereby encouraging this as they did with Hitler?
Will the world step up and say enough!!! If so, when?
The history of Israel is beseiged by conflict:
The difficult boundary, territorial, and resource problems associated with the presence of an Israeli state surrounded by Arab peoples can be understood only in the context of the long history of the Jewish people. In that history, a united, independent Israel has existed during only a few relatively short periods. Biblical writings indicate that King David first united the Jewish tribes around 1000 B.C.; his influence probably extended from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Euphrates but did not included Philistia - the vicinity of the present-day Gaza Strip. Following the death of his son Solomon some 70 years later, the kingdom split into two weaker states: Israel, conquered by Assyria in 722 B.C.; and Judah, conquered by Babylon in 586 B.C.
After a series of foreign rulers, Jews again experienced approximately a century of self-rule under the Maccabees between 166 B.C. and 63 B.C. Although the bounds of this kingdom extended into what is now western Jordan, they did not encompass parts of the Negev and Galilee that are now Israeli territory. The Roman conquest ended Jewish autonomy, and, after several Jewish revolts, Rome expelled many Jews from their homeland, which the Romans called Palestine. Most of the world's Jewish population remained outside Palestine for the next 18 centuries.
Palestine (British Mandate) 1920-1948:
Although Jews kept alive the hope of returning to Palestine, the concept of a Jewish state there did not crystallize until the founding of the World Zionist Organization in 1897. Subsequently, immigration by European Jews accelerated, and - after the Balfour Declaration of 1917 extended British encouragement to Zionist aspirations - Jews increasingly settled in Palestine, which the League of Nations mandated to Britain in 1920.
Ahmadinejad-April 24, 2006:"We say that this fake regime (Israel) cannot not logically continue to live. Open the doors (of Europe) and let the Jews go back to their own countries." (In a news conference held on April 24, 2006)
Perhaps Ahmadinejad should read his history before opening that insane mouth.... The Jews ARE home. They will stay there.
Britain gave the Israeli's back what was rightfully theirs.
Palestine (UN Partition Plan) 1947:
Jewish settlement during the mandate years aroused Arab resentment and led to frequent strife. The 1947 United Nations partition plan - which would have created a Jewish sate, an Arab state, and a UN-administered Jerusalem - sought to resolve this conflict, but the surrounding Arab countries opposed the plan and invaded Israel immediately after it proclaimed its independence in May 1948.
The Jews did not start this and THIS is what people also forget.
Now we come to the question of why...why the hatred of Israel? Why such hostility toward a country that has managed to do what no other country in the Middle East has been capable of, which is "democracy"?
Victor Davis Hanson answers this question very well. The answer is simply jealousy.
Palestine really is the touchstone of the Middle East, insofar as it is a valuable window into the minds and hearts of Middle Easterners. The sources of Arab anger about Israel should remind us of the need both to keep pressuring Middle East governments to reform and to continue trying to stabilize Iraq in hopes that something can emerge there different from the theocracy to its south, the autocracy to its west, and the monarchies to its east.
Finally, there is yet another irony to Mr. Sheikh’s lamentations (which we will apparently soon be privileged to hear, when al Jazeera goes live in English throughout the West): Where alone in the Middle East is there his dream of an Arab middle class of sorts? Where do Arabs have good schools? And where is there adequate medical care?
Ask the over one million Palestinians who live in a democratic Israel.
That last line says it all.
The one country in the Middle East that has managed to overcome almost insurmoutable odds to become a fully functioning democratic state begs the question of WHY, we as a world and the international community, is not doing everything in their power to protect and encourage everything that Israel stands for?
They are an example of what could be.
Previously: Never Forget.
Others discussing this:
The Astute Bloggers.
Tim Blair.
Hot Air.
.