I accede to Omar's clarifications about the establishment and recognition of
Israel. I was wanting only to address Irene's insistence that Israel stole
the land from the Palestinians. If anyone "stole" the land, it was the U.S.
and the European countries, who acted, I believe, both out of guilt for the
Holocaust and in a desire to establish a European state (the returning Jews
were European for the most part) in the Middle East.
Israel has never failed to disappoint me when it comes to dealing with her
neighbors. Her leaders cannot think outside brute military responses and
her neighbors are hopeless fools who would rather cut off their own throats
and those of their children than work together towards a mutual peace.
Hopefully, some Gandhi will emerge to lead both sides to peace. In the
meantime the blood continues to flow and I curse them both.
Mike Geary Memphis
--- Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
No, it's not. Israel was a creation of the United Nations in 1948. For the most part the Arab populations of the Middle East rejected that recognition, but most of the world didn't. Israel's legitimacy as a nation is an accepted fact by the international community regardless of what some individual nations might hold.
*That's not completely correct. The UN did not create Israel - originally it favored a partition plan - rather it subsequently recognized the reality of its being created. Also, Israel admittance into the UN through Resultion 273 was conditioned on its implementation of an earlier resolution (194) which called for "The refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return."
http://www.altpr.org/print.php?sid=647
Israel has never fulfilled this condition. Also, you should note that Israel's borders have not been settled to this date, and the international recognition was extended without the borders being specified. If Israel and its allies are entitled to view the question of their borders as being open, so are surely the others.
Israel's legitimacy as a state is thus not beyond being questioned. However, what is at issue here is not the reality of Israel's existence, which everybody including the Hamas recognizes, but its moral right to exist as a Jewish state in the Palestinian land.
O.K.
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