News on this subject is so subjective and everyone has an opinion. But I think its a safe assumption that most people want peace in this area of the world.
The string on The Church of England refusing to profit from an occupation reveals how poorly informed and confused most people are on this subject. The problem is that our news and media on this subject is mostly propaganda. So I will open this can of worms.
I will try to present the facts as honestly as I know them. I am also open to the fact that I don't know everything about this conflict and I've never been to Israel or Palestine. But in this day of the internet, all the information is on the web somewhere.
As a refence, I am posting a link to the
link
"If Americans Knew" website. This website deals with many common held but mistaken beliefs many of us have about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
Many people have an impression that before Israel existed, the area was a wasteland, occuppied by a few desert nomads.
This map disproves that belief.
link
Palestine was occupied by people who ran businesses, cultivated the land, and lived in homes.
When the UN created Israel in 1947, hundreds of thousands of non-Jews still legally owned and occupied the land.
Some history:
link
In 135 AD, Romans expelled all Jews from what is today Israel/Palestine. Yes it was cruel and wrong, but it happened over 1800 years ago. The descendants of these people have no more legal right to this land than the decendants of every other historical injustice for the last 1800 years. In Canada, you don't have to go back even that far.
Rome was an empire governed by law, and what the empire did was legal according to its laws. Human history has a very long list of injustices and this was one of them. But descendants of people historically wronged 1800 years ago have no legal claim on this land based on that distant historical injustice. If each of us examines the lives of our ancestors, likely you will find at least one who was also wronged.
Even though the Jews were expelled by the Romans, the lands were never emptied. Other people besides Jews lived there before, during and after the Jewish expulsion. These people had legal ownership of the land. They then transferred that ownership to others through sale or by inheritance.
Since that time, this area has been invaded and occupied many times, leading to many other more recent historical injustices. The descendants of these victims of these historical injustices have no rights to the land either.
After the Ottomans conquered this area in 1516, it became relatively stable for 400 years. The Ottomans governed all citizens including Muslims Muslims, Jews and Chrisitians by a relatively just legal system which recognized property ownership.
link
Jews and Christians may have suffered some discrimination from the Muslim majority, but its a fact that Jews and Christians were far better treated in the Ottoman empire than Jews and Muslims were treated in most of Europe. The legal system basically required people regardless of religion, to pay their taxes and in return the empire protected them. Citizens in this kingdom had rights which included property ownership. Each village (Muslim, Jewish, Chrisitian etc...) was also allowed to make their own laws as long as they didn't conflict with Ottoman law. While under the Ottoman rule, Muslims, Jews and Christains lived together relatively peacefully and shared mutual respect.
In WW I, the Ottoman empire collapsed and the area known as Palestine became a British Mandate
link
Under the British mandate, Palestinians (Muslims, Jews, Chrisitians...etc.) continued to have legal ownership of their properties.
That brings us to the point where the UN partitioned Palestine reserving land for a Jewish state. The UN made that decision without consulting the inhabitants or the neighboring countries. Its purpose was to solve a post WW II European Jewish refugee problem by allowing them to emigrate to a new Jewish state in Palestine. While this solution solved Europe's problems, the sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of people into Palestine created new problem for the million or so people already living there and the neighboring countries.
At the time the UN decision was made, hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees had already fled to this area to avoid the horrors of Nazi occupied Europe. Even before Hitler, a movement called Zionism (a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel) had already begun. WW II just accelerated the movement. Before the Zionist movement began in 1870, only only 2% of Palestinians were Jewish.
link
At that time, Palestine was no more Jewish than the United States or Argentina.
link
Even with hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees emigrating to Palestine, Jews were still a minority Jews were still a minority when the UN partitioned Palestine in 1946 giving most of Palestine for a Jewish state.
The Jewish refugees were immigrants to these lands despite their claim that their ancestors lived here 1800 years earlier and that they had a divine right to this land. Legally, they were still immigrants. They were not granted title to any land. Like anyone else could buy land from legal owners, most of whom were not Jewish.
Until this mass migration, Jews and Muslims had lived together in relative peace. But many Zionist immigrants believed all of Palestine was their divine right, as in they did not recognize the legal ownership of the land by non-Jews. This created tension between the new immigrants and hundreds of thousands of non-Jews who legally owned most of the land even after the UN partition. The Zionists wanted these people to abandon their property and simply leave. Inevitably this conflict led to war.
You can read about about the causes of the war of Israeli independance here:
link
Even though its hard to get the objective facts about who did what to whom, I think its safe to say atrocities were committed on all sides.
When full scale war broke out in 1947, the fighting was mostly between the heavily armed, well trained Jewish immigrants and poorly trained and disorganized foreign mostly Muslim armies from Egypt, Syria, Jordan...etc.
Most Palestinians (Muslims, Christians and Jews) were poor, unarmed and more focused on trying to make a living in the middle of a war zone during this time. Most were farmers, businessmen, peasants with families. Some did Palestinians (Jewish and non-Jewish) participated in the war. Muslims tended to side with the Muslim foreigners and Jews tended to side with the Jewish foreignors. But the overwhelming majority of Palestinians, (Muslim, Chrisitian and Jew,) stayed out of the fighting.
(See the links above about the war and its participants. Few of the nearly million non-Jewish Palestinians participated in the war.
When the Jewish immigrants defeated the mostly foreign Muslim armies, they turned their attention to ethnically cleansing their newly acquired territories of non-Jews, most of whom had lived in Palestine for centuries. The term ethnic cleansing isn't an exageration. Its a sad but well documented fact that Jewish soldiers raped, pillaged and murdered non-Jews to encourage them to flee Palestine in terror.
link
link
link
I can find many links supporting this historical fact.
Using terror tactics against people based on race and religion in order to remove them from the land and never allowing them to return is ethnic cleansing by any definition.
I am not claiming that Jews weren't also subjected to atrocities by Muslims during this period. They were. What I am claiming is that the Jews won this conflict and then proceeded to ethnically cleans Israel of non-Jews.
The extent of Israel's ethnic cleansing can be seen clearly with this map.
link
The red dots on this map represent non-Jewish villages razed by the state of Israel.
After the war, the new state of Israel passed the Absentees' Property Law.
This law is how all these people who were forced out of Israel lost legal right to their land.
The ethnic cleansing of Palestine is yet another injustice in a land which has seen more than its share of injustices.
As a result of war and the above law Israel became predominantly Jewish owned and occupied. Its also how 5 million Palestinians became landless refugees.
Since that time, Israel has continued seizing the properties of non-Jews. Worse, the people who refuse to leave suffer oppression, injustice, criminal behavior, war crimes committed by individual Israelis and the State of Israel. The people who left live in the hopeless and poverty of refugee camps.
These websites by objective sources back up my statements:
link
link
link
Far too few people know little to nothing of the suffering of non-Jewish Palestinians.
Think you are well informed? Then which number do you think is greater:
Just the number of Palestinian children killed by the Israeli miliary
or
The total number of Israelis killed by Palestinian suicide bombers.
The answer is here:
link
The reason for our misperceptions in this conflict is that our news has chosen sides.
The periodic violence committed against Israelis by individual Palestinians and Palestinian militant groups is newsworthy:
Israel's history of bomb blasts
The daily violence committed against Palestinians by the State of Israel and individual Israelis is not newsworthy.
I'm not asking anyone to take sides. What I'm saying that in order to have a balanced opinion, you need to listen to all sides of a dispute. For example this first person testimonials put you in the shoes of non-Jewish Palestinians during the time of the ethnic cleansing:
Non-Jewish Palestinians also include many Christians:
Palestinians are human beings deserving of the same fundamental human rights the rest of us take for granted. The five million Palestinian refugees came from what is today Israel. But pro-Israeli selective truths has created a lot of confusion about this conflict.
Listening to pro-Israeli selective truths creates about as accurate a perception of events as one would have if they listened to a radio broadcast of a boxing match, and the announcer only mentions the blows delivered by one boxer. Yes the information is accurate, but its not complete or in context. Its purpose is to manipulate rather than inform. Therefore most of what we know about this conflict is subjective and based on one side's selective truth propaganda.
But selective truth propaganda can be offset by considering all selective truth propaganda from all sides. Here are opinions and stories I recommend reading for balance:
Children and the Israel-Palestine Conflict
War crimes and the Israeli occupation
Suicide bombing
Abu Shanab
Myth: This is a "security wall".
link
Look at the route it takes and how it walls off Palestinians from each other, water and arable land.
Reality: Its yet another land grab at the expense of Palestinians
Creating a culture of impunity
So yes absolutely the Church of England is justified in not wanting to profit from what the state of Israel does to Palestinians. It would be immoral.
>>>>>>>
I know some people reading this are thinking I may be anti-Semitic/anti-Israel. I assure you I am not. I am a humanist. I just want people to live together peacefully. I believe in a two state solution to this conflict. But you can judge for yourself whether my conclusions about this conflict are reasonable and balanced:
The root cause of this conflict was Nazi Germany's genocide of European Jews.
Post WW II Europe used their power in the UN to transfer the burden of the European Jewish refugee problem onto the people of Palestine.
Creating the state of Israel without consulting the people in Palestine and neighboring countries was a mistake.
Neighboring nations invading Israel in 1948 and provoking Israel into subsequent wars were mistakes.
The world doing nothing while Israel ethnically cleansed Palestine was a mistake.
Doing nothing about the 5 million Palestinian refugees is a mistake.
This war will continue while Palestinians rot in their refugee camps.
I feel for both Israelis and Palestinians. Too many of our leaders have been guided by ambition and greed rather than a desire for peace and justice.
Allowing 5 million Palestinian refugees back onto their lands now would create new injustices for Israelis. But doing nothing about the refugee problem won't make it go away. Unfortunately no country wants these people or has taken up their cause.
The state of Israel has no immediate intention to stop seizing Palestinian land, destroying Palestinian homes and building new Jewish settlements.
Only a fair and just solution will lead to peace.
I think all nations involved in this conflict (Israel, nations that voted in favor of creating Israel and nations which have fought against Israel) have a responsibility for absorbing their fair share of immigrants and paying compensation. Canada voted in favor of creating Israel. Our fair share would probably be to absorb, feed, clothe, shelter and educate tens of thousands of these refugees.
I hope this rant clears up the many misconceptions about this conflict and I welcome civilized and rational commentary about this post.
The string on The Church of England refusing to profit from an occupation reveals how poorly informed and confused most people are on this subject. The problem is that our news and media on this subject is mostly propaganda. So I will open this can of worms.
I will try to present the facts as honestly as I know them. I am also open to the fact that I don't know everything about this conflict and I've never been to Israel or Palestine. But in this day of the internet, all the information is on the web somewhere.
As a refence, I am posting a link to the
link
"If Americans Knew" website. This website deals with many common held but mistaken beliefs many of us have about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
Many people have an impression that before Israel existed, the area was a wasteland, occuppied by a few desert nomads.
This map disproves that belief.
link
Palestine was occupied by people who ran businesses, cultivated the land, and lived in homes.
When the UN created Israel in 1947, hundreds of thousands of non-Jews still legally owned and occupied the land.
Some history:
link
In 135 AD, Romans expelled all Jews from what is today Israel/Palestine. Yes it was cruel and wrong, but it happened over 1800 years ago. The descendants of these people have no more legal right to this land than the decendants of every other historical injustice for the last 1800 years. In Canada, you don't have to go back even that far.
Rome was an empire governed by law, and what the empire did was legal according to its laws. Human history has a very long list of injustices and this was one of them. But descendants of people historically wronged 1800 years ago have no legal claim on this land based on that distant historical injustice. If each of us examines the lives of our ancestors, likely you will find at least one who was also wronged.
Even though the Jews were expelled by the Romans, the lands were never emptied. Other people besides Jews lived there before, during and after the Jewish expulsion. These people had legal ownership of the land. They then transferred that ownership to others through sale or by inheritance.
Since that time, this area has been invaded and occupied many times, leading to many other more recent historical injustices. The descendants of these victims of these historical injustices have no rights to the land either.
After the Ottomans conquered this area in 1516, it became relatively stable for 400 years. The Ottomans governed all citizens including Muslims Muslims, Jews and Chrisitians by a relatively just legal system which recognized property ownership.
link
Jews and Christians may have suffered some discrimination from the Muslim majority, but its a fact that Jews and Christians were far better treated in the Ottoman empire than Jews and Muslims were treated in most of Europe. The legal system basically required people regardless of religion, to pay their taxes and in return the empire protected them. Citizens in this kingdom had rights which included property ownership. Each village (Muslim, Jewish, Chrisitian etc...) was also allowed to make their own laws as long as they didn't conflict with Ottoman law. While under the Ottoman rule, Muslims, Jews and Christains lived together relatively peacefully and shared mutual respect.
In WW I, the Ottoman empire collapsed and the area known as Palestine became a British Mandate
link
Under the British mandate, Palestinians (Muslims, Jews, Chrisitians...etc.) continued to have legal ownership of their properties.
That brings us to the point where the UN partitioned Palestine reserving land for a Jewish state. The UN made that decision without consulting the inhabitants or the neighboring countries. Its purpose was to solve a post WW II European Jewish refugee problem by allowing them to emigrate to a new Jewish state in Palestine. While this solution solved Europe's problems, the sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of people into Palestine created new problem for the million or so people already living there and the neighboring countries.
At the time the UN decision was made, hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees had already fled to this area to avoid the horrors of Nazi occupied Europe. Even before Hitler, a movement called Zionism (a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel) had already begun. WW II just accelerated the movement. Before the Zionist movement began in 1870, only only 2% of Palestinians were Jewish.
link
At that time, Palestine was no more Jewish than the United States or Argentina.
link
Even with hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees emigrating to Palestine, Jews were still a minority Jews were still a minority when the UN partitioned Palestine in 1946 giving most of Palestine for a Jewish state.
The Jewish refugees were immigrants to these lands despite their claim that their ancestors lived here 1800 years earlier and that they had a divine right to this land. Legally, they were still immigrants. They were not granted title to any land. Like anyone else could buy land from legal owners, most of whom were not Jewish.
Until this mass migration, Jews and Muslims had lived together in relative peace. But many Zionist immigrants believed all of Palestine was their divine right, as in they did not recognize the legal ownership of the land by non-Jews. This created tension between the new immigrants and hundreds of thousands of non-Jews who legally owned most of the land even after the UN partition. The Zionists wanted these people to abandon their property and simply leave. Inevitably this conflict led to war.
You can read about about the causes of the war of Israeli independance here:
link
Even though its hard to get the objective facts about who did what to whom, I think its safe to say atrocities were committed on all sides.
When full scale war broke out in 1947, the fighting was mostly between the heavily armed, well trained Jewish immigrants and poorly trained and disorganized foreign mostly Muslim armies from Egypt, Syria, Jordan...etc.
Most Palestinians (Muslims, Christians and Jews) were poor, unarmed and more focused on trying to make a living in the middle of a war zone during this time. Most were farmers, businessmen, peasants with families. Some did Palestinians (Jewish and non-Jewish) participated in the war. Muslims tended to side with the Muslim foreigners and Jews tended to side with the Jewish foreignors. But the overwhelming majority of Palestinians, (Muslim, Chrisitian and Jew,) stayed out of the fighting.
(See the links above about the war and its participants. Few of the nearly million non-Jewish Palestinians participated in the war.
When the Jewish immigrants defeated the mostly foreign Muslim armies, they turned their attention to ethnically cleansing their newly acquired territories of non-Jews, most of whom had lived in Palestine for centuries. The term ethnic cleansing isn't an exageration. Its a sad but well documented fact that Jewish soldiers raped, pillaged and murdered non-Jews to encourage them to flee Palestine in terror.
link
link
link
I can find many links supporting this historical fact.
Using terror tactics against people based on race and religion in order to remove them from the land and never allowing them to return is ethnic cleansing by any definition.
I am not claiming that Jews weren't also subjected to atrocities by Muslims during this period. They were. What I am claiming is that the Jews won this conflict and then proceeded to ethnically cleans Israel of non-Jews.
The extent of Israel's ethnic cleansing can be seen clearly with this map.
link
The red dots on this map represent non-Jewish villages razed by the state of Israel.
After the war, the new state of Israel passed the Absentees' Property Law.
This law is how all these people who were forced out of Israel lost legal right to their land.
The ethnic cleansing of Palestine is yet another injustice in a land which has seen more than its share of injustices.
As a result of war and the above law Israel became predominantly Jewish owned and occupied. Its also how 5 million Palestinians became landless refugees.
Since that time, Israel has continued seizing the properties of non-Jews. Worse, the people who refuse to leave suffer oppression, injustice, criminal behavior, war crimes committed by individual Israelis and the State of Israel. The people who left live in the hopeless and poverty of refugee camps.
These websites by objective sources back up my statements:
link
link
link
Far too few people know little to nothing of the suffering of non-Jewish Palestinians.
Think you are well informed? Then which number do you think is greater:
Just the number of Palestinian children killed by the Israeli miliary
or
The total number of Israelis killed by Palestinian suicide bombers.
The answer is here:
link
The reason for our misperceptions in this conflict is that our news has chosen sides.
The periodic violence committed against Israelis by individual Palestinians and Palestinian militant groups is newsworthy:
Israel's history of bomb blasts
The daily violence committed against Palestinians by the State of Israel and individual Israelis is not newsworthy.
I'm not asking anyone to take sides. What I'm saying that in order to have a balanced opinion, you need to listen to all sides of a dispute. For example this first person testimonials put you in the shoes of non-Jewish Palestinians during the time of the ethnic cleansing:
Non-Jewish Palestinians also include many Christians:
Palestinians are human beings deserving of the same fundamental human rights the rest of us take for granted. The five million Palestinian refugees came from what is today Israel. But pro-Israeli selective truths has created a lot of confusion about this conflict.
Listening to pro-Israeli selective truths creates about as accurate a perception of events as one would have if they listened to a radio broadcast of a boxing match, and the announcer only mentions the blows delivered by one boxer. Yes the information is accurate, but its not complete or in context. Its purpose is to manipulate rather than inform. Therefore most of what we know about this conflict is subjective and based on one side's selective truth propaganda.
But selective truth propaganda can be offset by considering all selective truth propaganda from all sides. Here are opinions and stories I recommend reading for balance:
Children and the Israel-Palestine Conflict
War crimes and the Israeli occupation
Suicide bombing
Abu Shanab
Myth: This is a "security wall".
link
Look at the route it takes and how it walls off Palestinians from each other, water and arable land.
Reality: Its yet another land grab at the expense of Palestinians
Creating a culture of impunity
So yes absolutely the Church of England is justified in not wanting to profit from what the state of Israel does to Palestinians. It would be immoral.
>>>>>>>
I know some people reading this are thinking I may be anti-Semitic/anti-Israel. I assure you I am not. I am a humanist. I just want people to live together peacefully. I believe in a two state solution to this conflict. But you can judge for yourself whether my conclusions about this conflict are reasonable and balanced:
The root cause of this conflict was Nazi Germany's genocide of European Jews.
Post WW II Europe used their power in the UN to transfer the burden of the European Jewish refugee problem onto the people of Palestine.
Creating the state of Israel without consulting the people in Palestine and neighboring countries was a mistake.
Neighboring nations invading Israel in 1948 and provoking Israel into subsequent wars were mistakes.
The world doing nothing while Israel ethnically cleansed Palestine was a mistake.
Doing nothing about the 5 million Palestinian refugees is a mistake.
This war will continue while Palestinians rot in their refugee camps.
I feel for both Israelis and Palestinians. Too many of our leaders have been guided by ambition and greed rather than a desire for peace and justice.
Allowing 5 million Palestinian refugees back onto their lands now would create new injustices for Israelis. But doing nothing about the refugee problem won't make it go away. Unfortunately no country wants these people or has taken up their cause.
The state of Israel has no immediate intention to stop seizing Palestinian land, destroying Palestinian homes and building new Jewish settlements.
Only a fair and just solution will lead to peace.
I think all nations involved in this conflict (Israel, nations that voted in favor of creating Israel and nations which have fought against Israel) have a responsibility for absorbing their fair share of immigrants and paying compensation. Canada voted in favor of creating Israel. Our fair share would probably be to absorb, feed, clothe, shelter and educate tens of thousands of these refugees.
I hope this rant clears up the many misconceptions about this conflict and I welcome civilized and rational commentary about this post.
