Re-Balancing History
No, not a re-write of history, not at all. Rather an honest look at what truly did transpire during historic events for the purpose of assisting in recognition of a true narrative, rather than continuing to cling to the distorted version that would have Israel responsible for displacing over a half-million unfortunate Palestinians - and equally responsible for re-introducing them back into the bosom of the State of Israel, in numbers tenfold their original.For this is, after all, one of the key ingredients put forward by the Palestinian leadership, encouraged and abetted by the greater Arab and Muslim world; the right of return of Palestinians to land once theirs, now incorporated into greater Israel, once the original owners fled. Oh yes, recompense to the original owners might also be an alternative to welcoming them and their progeny back to the inner confines of Israel, to significantly water down the Jewish presence in the Jewish State.
Most definitely a resounding YES! it was vastly unfortunate, a tragedy of immense proportions that to create a state, a place of refuge, a country of one's own for the world's disenfranchised, persecuted Jews in the wake of the Holocaust, another group of people faced the unsettling reality that they were invited to shift over to the "Palestinian" portion of the territory, or remain where they were and be absorbed.
Those that did remain were absorbed and realized a better social and political and economic lifestyle than they had hitherto enjoyed. Those who decamped in bitterness and fear refused to settle elsewhere, just as their Arab brethren in the countries to which they temporarily settled in refugee camps, refused them permanent residency, and the clarity and support of citizenship among them.
Ever since the world has been harangued with the narrative of Israeli aggression in throwing its Arab population out of the Jewish State. This, despite that out of a population of some six million, roughly one million Israeli citizens are Palestinian Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, and Druze and Kurds, enjoying full citizenship, and with a democratic presence in the Knesset, the parliament of Israel.
Well, world at large, what about the estimated 900,000 Jews who had resided for thousands of years in the geography's Arab countries who were summarily ousted in 1948, their properties and goods confiscated? Israel has absorbed them, for she tends to her own. No one speaks of the tens of thousands of Christians and other minority groups who joined the chorus of migrating refugees. Only of the Palestinians and the great wrong done them.
The United Nations was completely complicit in this charade, giving complete credence to the distortions so beloved by Arab and Muslim and leftist and developing countries who find common cause with one another. To the extent that annual UN resolutions condemning the State of Israel pass handily, in reference to the parlous plight of Palestinians.
And observe their state of dependence upon the goodwill and kindly efforts of the United Nations, the European Union and countries like the United States and Canada, among others. Vast sums of charitable funds have been invested year after year to ensure that refugee camps, now more resembling small cities than 'camps' were established with the needed civic amenities, food and pharmaceuticals.
With that vast investment in aid what has resulted in the Palestinian Territories besides the exponential growth of a collective aura of aggrievement, revenge and guerrilla tactics designed to unsettle the State of Israel? Israel, after all, welcomed, however reluctantly, the presence of Chairman Arafat and his cronies back from Lebanon, and actively assisted it in training security personnel for a nascent State.
Vast sums of money meant for relief for the Palestinian people, meant for the building of civic infrastructure systems, slowly and purposefully evaporated into private accounts held abroad by key members of the PLO. Little trickled down to fund needed infrastructure. Corruption was rampant and it was soon enough evident to the very people that the PLO and then the Palestinian Authority were meant to represent and to shepherd into an autonomous and forward-looking society.
While Israel quietly went about absorbing refugees of her own, encouraging migration to the Jewish State of Jews from around the world, those who were facing daily hardships related to state-sponsored discrimination, those whose historical places in their countries of birth were being devalued by state authorities and who launched a sterner campaign of imprisonment and sometimes torture and death.
With the creation of the State of Israel, a mortified and horrified Middle East geography went about systematically persecuting their Jewish citizens. This is a historic event, a situation that must be recognized, acknowledged and rectified. If only to agree that there was great harm done to more than one group of people.
And with the balance of the scale of injury and deprivation acknowledged, then the world and the two protagonists can begin the long slide to move forward into the future.
Labels: Justice, Middle East
posted by Pieface @ Friday, July 20, 2007
<< Home