I am a huge history buff as well. I would be interested to know "who" in the book "designated" Palestine a Jewish homeland? I am pretty sure it was not the people who had been living there for dozens of generations.
One of the weird/scary things about Palestine/Jerusalem is it is one of the only major cities in the world that does not run on money. Everywhere else is economics driven but not there.
I think peoples actions not their beliefs are what defines them as human beings and in Palestine peoples beliefs are being used to do some horrible things.
The zionists (Jews who believe that Israelis defined in the bible)think that their belief in that gives them the god given right to kill anyone or do anything to bring this about. Definitely check out the frontline(PBS news show website) show called "Israel's next war".
Israeli has an incredible amount of power and control especially in the US.
Modern terrorism as we know it was invented by Zionists who killed people and took actions like the bombing of the king David hotel in Jerusalem. When the British pulled out and allowed them to win their where immediate copycats like Algeria. They had shown that terrorism could advance political goals effectively. The bombing of the king David hotel was brutal ,killed dozens of innocent people and the man who masterminded it Menchen Begin went on to become the Prime Minister of Israel and also ironically win a Nobel peace prize.
It is really hard not to understand why the Palistinains are so angry(unless you are not into history and get your news from US networks).
They live in a situation just like the blacks did in south Afrika under apartied. Former US President Jimmy Carter just wrote a book making this point.
They have no freedom of movement ,rights to vote ,are forced to live in squalid conditions. They are subject to summary execution ,no trial or appeal just a bullet or more likely a missle that 50% the time takes out innocents as well.
They are also subject to mass population punishment like shutting down all the food power ,water etc even though that is very illegal under international law.
WE(the western world and Israel) told them we needed them to have fair elections before we could do anything because we believe in democracy. They choose Hammas at a 90%+ rate over Fatah ,which is the new name for Arrafats corrupt old PLO.
WE (the western world and Israel) went crazy.
Since then we have totally refused to have anything to do with Hamas and have spent billions as well as sending thousands of AK47's and 7.62/39 shells to the PLO(sending them M16's and 5.56 would make it to obvious who they were getting the weapons from).
Some of you older guys particularly any ex marines might remember the PLO from their bombing of the Beruit marine barracks. Now your tax dollars are arming them and trying to put them in charge. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />
I don't like Hamas. They have the exact same type of "my beliefs give me the right to do anything no matter how horrible to achieve what I want" thing as the settlers/zionists etc. But they are the democratically elected government and if we made a deal with them they could get everyone to stick to it. No matter how much money ,guns etc you pour into Fatah they can never do this.
If we made a peace deal with Hamas where they could run their country(gaza and west bank) how they wanted so long as there were no more attacks on Israel.
The people living in Israel would have to be free from suicide bombers etc which is what most of them want.This would be quite acceptable to the majority on both sides.
Unfortunatly it is the fanatics on both sides who are stopping this from happening. On the Palistinian side their is a group that does not want to srop fighting until every last jew is pushed back into the sea. With every execution ,bombing or mass punishment this group gets power.
On the Israeli side there is what is known as the Settler Movement. They believe in Eretz Israel which is what it was in the bible(pretty much egypt to Libya).
The Frontline show I mentioned earlier has some great stuff. Essentially they want to kill every arab who won't leave. They have committed a lot of Terror attacks ,murder etc. Some tried to leave a huge bomb(Uhaul) next to a Muslim girls elementary school so it would kill as many little kids as possible.
Sadly it is these relatively small groups of fanatics who don't want peace because that would make it harder to fight for victory. Anyone who is trying to find a way for the majority to live together not only has to deal with all the bad blood but is also very very likely to be murdered by the fanatics on his side. It happened to Sadat in Egypt and the settlers hate Ariel Sharon.
That is my basic rundown of Palestine. The moral is "all the trouble comes from the ones who think their beliefs give them the god given right to do whatever it takes to get what they want.
