Back to Tony: Aye, well said Sir...

Submitted by Seamus MacNemi (United States), Jul 12, 2007 at 18:42

I wholeheartedly agree with you on all of your points made. Matters are not as simplistic as they are often made out to be either in Ireland or in Palestine.

One could hardly be Irish without seeing the suffering of his own folk in the suffering of others and the black cloud of history hanging over all of our heads thanks be to the British for that. But we all are capable of making our own decisions as to what we want and will do under any circumstance and the Palestinian Arabs seem unwilling to take the open option that peace with Israel might bring.

Arabs living under Israeli control are loathe to be transferred to the Palestinian side for one reason and that is that their lives are far and away much better under the Israelis than they would be under the control of the likes of Hamas or that pirate regime of Arafats hand. Having seen that with my own eyes I can safely say that peace with Israel would bring the Palestinians all of what they might wish for as a people and yet they continnually refuse to accept the hand of friendship that is offered.

I have worked with Israeli Arabs and to a man their attitude is as I have described. They all prefer to be under Isralei control even if they sometimes feel the sting of ignorant prejudice directed against them. They are not alone in their feelings of rejection. They share a common bond in their suffering with the Sephardic community in Israel who are often treated as second class citizens by the Ashkenazi Northern Europeans who hold most of the wealth and political power in Israel.

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