Jews vs. Arabs: Round 4001

So the big news of the week is the Israeli raid. I have a lot of thoughts, and I’m not sure in what order to hit them all, but let’s try.

1. I want America to leave the region. I like Israel just fine, and as an ally, if they are invaded by a ground army of a foreign nation, we can send in our troops. But they are having a border dispute with the Palestinian people and that’s their issue, until that issue is resolved, we need to stop sending either party aid of any kind, no money, no weapons, no training. We need to make it clear to all those people over there that whatever their beef, it ain’t got nothing to do with us.

2. That part of the planet is an extremely complicated cluster fuck. Jerusalem is the birthplace of three of the world’s most prominent religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. And for some reason, they all seem to have spent the past 2000 years wanting to kill each other off. That city and land was taken by the Hebrews after they killed everyone else who lived there, that’s called genocide (as commanded by God of course, you know, the god of love. I read once in the bible that if you live by the sword you die by sword. Would have been nice if God thought of that before founding Israel with genocide).

After killing everyone who lived there and claiming the place as their own, the Hebrews became Israelites. Since then, unknown millions of people have died on that soil in conquest. Everyone from the Romans to the Turks to the Christian Crusaders have called that place their own. Even the Umayyads had a crack at the land. Who are the Umayyads? I don’t know or care. The point is, untold scores of armies and peoples have called that miserable desert home and just as many died trying to take it. The British took the land in the 1920’s (because they were the biggest badest empire of the time) and they decided to split it up. They created Iraq, Syria, Jordan and recreated Israel. Then the UN split up Israel to allow some of the native Arabs to have land of their own.

These native Arabs became called Palestinians, but they were not a nation at that time. The land went from the hands of the Ottomans to the British, and the British started state creating. After WWII the jews flooded into Israel as it was now their official homeland. The Arabs resented this and all the arab nations around Israel went to war with them. Since then, the Jews have enjoyed decades of war and death in the desert. The point of all of this is that the whole area is a disaster. No single people have any real claim to that ground except the Canaanites, but they’re all dead because the Jews killed them all off in an act of Genocide. This cycle of war and death has been going on for 4000 years and will just as likely carry on for another 4000 years. It’s a cluster fuck and (getting back to Point 1) America needs to get ourselves the fuck out of it.

3. The Video’s clearly show the Israelis soldiers were attacked with weapons as soon as they were on the deck. As far as I’m concerned, a person swinging a knife or throwing a grenade or tossing someone over the edge of the ship is not a peace activist. They’re a rioter or a militant or a criminal. They were war activists looking for a fight and trying to start a war. They told Israeli soldiers that if they didn’t put down their guns, they’d get hit with bats. The Israelis shot them dead. Those people on the boat got exactly what they planned and begged for.

4. Israel and the Palestinians (and most of the Arab world) are at war. On good days, maybe it’s a cold war. On bad days, it’s real tank and bomber and rocket and suicide bomber war. If one party wants to blockade the other, that’s an act of war and that’s fair. Likewise, if the party under blockade wants to break that blockade, that’s also a fair and reasonable act. If the Palestinian government wants to start lobbing more rockets at Israeli military positions, that’s their right. They are at war. The government of Gaza is Hamas, who most of the civilized world consider to be a terrorist organization. Hamas has clearly stated they want to kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea. If that’s the stated goal of Israel’s enemy, then war makes sense.

None of this is say that war is good, but it is to say that it is war. Those people on those boats were taking sides in a war, were trying to break a military blockade to provide supplies to the Hamas government. People need to stop pretending Israel went looking for citizens and found some to shot some. These were people choosing to enter a war zone to pick sides and wage war. They found it. (Getting back to point 1, this is the same reason I want America out of it. It is a war zone and right now we’re picking the Israelis. We need to stop picking sides and get out of picture.)

5. Israel needs to learn a bit about self control. Two years ago rockets killed like a dozen Israelis, they’re counter attack wound up killing like 300 Palestinian civilians. On that boat the Soldiers were hit with bats and knives, they responded with automatic assault rifle fire. Sure, they have every right to kill their enemy, but they really have to smarten up. They’re a tiny nation surrounded by enemies, they need to start showing more restraint or this shit’ll be on them for another 4000 years.

6. Why are countries so afraid of blaming the crazy people? North Korean shoots a torpedo at a South Korean navy ship and everyone’s afraid of saying the simple truth, North Korea is a crazy crazy nation that wants war. South Korea complains about the torpedo at the North fakes insult and threatens more war. Israel says “Stop shooting rockets at us” they shoot more rockets. The Israelis find the rockets are from Iran, so they put up a blockade to prevent the rockets from getting into the hands of Hamas. Everyone yells at Israel. Turks try to break through the blockade to supply Hamas, Israel tells them to stop. They attack the soldiers, the soldiers shoot back, and everyone yells at the Israelis for killing “Peace Activists and civilians” WTF? The crazy people here are the Arabs who have spent 1500 years trying to kill the Jews at every turn, and the past 40 years trying to destroy their country. We might as well yell at the South Koreans for ramming the North Koreans torpedo, and demand, yes demand, the South Koreans pay the North for the damage caused.