A Broader Dimension
Reader comment on item: Hold Damascus Responsible
in response to reader comment: To Daniel

Submitted by John R (United States), Aug 8, 2006 at 23:18

YOU: Thank you, Daniel, for your response. Can you please respond to my main suggestion, that if Israel and the West would acknowledge Fact (1) in a negotiating setting for peace, don't you agree that this would give the Palestinians an alternative to violence? Thanks in advance.

Doubt it. It's not about land. Muslims everywhere, Philippines, in Russia, in Britain, in many parts of the world sing the same tune. And that is: Non muslims are evil. And that is: terrorism everywhere. And that is: racism because they do not want to live with non Muslims; non Muslims are not worth living with. And that is: The Koran spewing hatred towards those who are different, leading to violence among many things.

I do not think the Palestinians would stop. In fact, I disagreed with Dr. Pipes in his solution of defeating the enemy by an enormous amount of force so they stop. I do not think the Palestinians would stop. They would be like Hezbollah. Hezbollah does not have the same issue with Israel, land issue like the Palestinians' and yet hate and terrorize Israel. Palestinians will be the same, even if they get their own land. That is what I think. They will always believe Israel does not deserve sovereignity, and the festering reason is their religion, Islam.

As for your fact no#1. There were approximately 615, 000 Arabs and there were approximately 85,000 Jews living then in a place they call Palestine when Israel was formed in 1948.

It is a fact and yet it does not prove anything in that it cannot be used as a basis for who deserves what in terms of land. Being a majority does not necessarilly entitle you to many rewards in life. There's a myriad of criteria that it is so irrelevant to say just because a group of people are the majority of the population, they are entitled to control everything.

You can even say the Jews deserve the land and the Arabs don't because they occupied it first, from the time of Abraham to the time of the Roman Empire. The Arabs came later. Interestingly it proves too that the Jews at the time were more intelligent (which can be used as a basis for deserving the land) and more open (another criteria) because, like today, they did not behave like the Arabs then, behave in a way as to be steadfast in having their own state, an Arab state and an Arab state only, defying the League of Nations (UN) in it's suggestion to form both an Arab state and a Jewish state. They were given the opportunity to form their own state and yet, like today, it refused because to them it's not enough, what was enough was to have no Jewish state or no Jews at all in the area.

And another case is to say the Jews deserve the land because the British, who were the rulers of Palestine at a time, issued the Belfaur declaration, which supported a Jewish state in Palestine; it is relevant because they were the rulers a the time. To top it all, Jews then were a peaceful people (another criteria) and yet, like today, they got attacked, violent attacks, war against them immediately after proclaiming an independent state and the British leaving. And then countless of terrorism until today. Lastly, one can say the Israelis deserve the land merely because they were able to acquire it, that can apply, like the case in America.

John R.

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