Subject:
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Re: A question of remembrance...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 7 May 2001 20:29:10 GMT
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Viewed:
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1288 times
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In replying both to Richard and Dan -
I agree. We all want peace, and naturally everyone's peace will be on different
terms.
We cannot change the past, but we can try and deal with what's here.
I agree that Israel as it was formed was not a good plan.
On the other hand, you had a couple of millions of survivors emerging from a
world war in which they had been opressed, and were worried that the same thing
will happen again. They wanted a solution. YES, they played on world
sympathies, but NO, they weren't doing it out of greed or deception. They were
honestly worried, afraid for their existence, and they had a good reason to be
afraid. Too bad they didn't find a big unsettled island to live in. They
didn't, they came to Palestine, where they felt that they had a base. Perhaps
they were wrong - even, most likely so.
But what was done was done, and we can't turn the wheel back. (I think that's
*one* thing we can't argue about! ;-) ... now Israel exists, and there are
people like me who grew up there and love the country... to death... (no pun
intended, right?)... unfortunately. Lately I've came to believe that there is
no geographical location that is important enough to tie yourself to (let alone
die for). From heart-wrenching experience, believe me - it's not the place,
it's the people. It's the mentality that the people have. The climate. And if
you took all the people and everything that Israel is, minus the wars, and
transplanted it to some distant island, or some barren unsettled
land somewhere, I'd move there in a heartbeat rather than staying where it is.
(I'd like it to be warm and have a sea coast, but I oculd give that up in
exchange for peace, you know?)
I hope this makes sense. What I'm saying is, Israelis already put in place, and
people don't want to leave, because it's where they've been living for the past
50-odd years. That's almost two generations. My *parents* were born and raised
in Israel, they didn't know Poland, they never saw Rumania, so no, Dan, I won't
buy into that idea. My grandparents left Europe, they left because of what had
happened there, because of their families that died there, and believe me, they
have no desire to go back. Like Frank said, claims to ancestry just don't work,
which is why Israelis *and* Palestinians have just the same right to live
there. Which is *no* right.
So now what do we do? How do we put the past behind us? Decades and centuries
of hate, almost two millenia of anti-Jew sentiments, and 50 years of
Zionists-versus-Palestinian struggles. It's hard to do, and no one denies that.
But impossible? No, I don't think so. It takes that sitting down and talking.
Which is hard to do as well - almost even harder than putting down the weapons
is saying, let's talk. For real. How do we get past this, how do we stop hating
each other and how do we stop buying into the stereotypes. Not all Palestinians
are evil, not all Israelis are evil, quite the opposite, we are all humans who
love and care and breathe and we don't want to fight.
<smile> In that sense, 100% agreement with Richard. Maybe not your generation,
maybe not even mine, but someday... someday. We can help it happen.
-Shiri
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: A question of remembrance...
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| Alsalaam aleikum! Shalom! (...) Actually, the Zionists WERE doing it out of greed and hoodwinked the mass of Holocaust victims worrying about a homeland. No real Jew would ever have supported invading someone's land, murdering, crippling and running (...) (24 years ago, 7-May-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: A question of remembrance...
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| (...) First, no apologies are necessary. You obviously have some things you wish to express. (...) To be honest, I don't support much of anything outside of U.S. borders. I want to mind my own business in relation to my neighbors, and I want U.S. (...) (24 years ago, 7-May-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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