Two things from the desk of the Devil's Advocate
Okay, I'm about to say two things, one of which is probably going to make several of you choke on bile. Both relate to recent statements made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The first, that the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews never happened, is outrageous revisionist history, a politically and religiously motivated act of hatred that is unconscionable. If you hate the people, hate them on their own merits and for their own actions. If you want to make the disgusting suggestion that what they did was a good idea, go right ahead. You yourself will then be hated for supporting a revolting idea. At least then, however, you will not show your base ignorance and idiocy.
That wasn't what I figured would make several of you choke, barring of course that you hadn't heard of this story before now. The second statement is what I think is going to stir up the hornet's nest.
A week or two ago, Pres. Ahmadinejad suggested that Israel be moved to somewhere other than its current location in the Middle East. He said, "If European countries claim that they have killed Jews in World War II... why don't they provide the Zionist regime with a piece of Europe," and yes, that's a direct quote from the article and from his speech. Fine, he's an idiot, we're agreed.
Is he, though? About that particular suggestion? The German government and people were responsible for the deaths of six million Jews. So what happens? Palestine is destroyed and replaced with their ancestral enemies. I'm missing the logic here.
Is that knee jerking? Well put a clamp on it and think for a moment. Why did the Palestinians lose their homeland and have it turned over to the Jews when Palestine had nothing to do with the Holocaust? Hells, Palestine was a British possession at the time, and Britain suffered fairly badly at the hands of the Nazi regime themselves. You could make the argument that Europe did give up land, but why Palestine? Why not Germany itself? Now, you can easily make the argument that handing Germany itself over to the Jewish people would be unwise. For one thing, no one could blame the Jewish people if they never wanted to see Germany again. If your family was slaughtered in a house, would you want to move in and live there? Along similar lines, turning over Germany to Jewish rule would mean turning over the German people along with it. Would you blame them for turning the tables around on what would have been their new subjects? Ignore for a moment that this is basically what happened to the Palestinian people, finding themselves at the mercy of ancestral enemies. Finally, look at the condition in which Germany was left at the end of the conflict in the European theatre. Germany was a bombed-out shell; giving it to the Jews would have meant handing them not a blank slate but a junkyard in which to make a new home.
So fine, Germany would have been the wrong place to form a new Jewish nation. This still doesn't make the Palestinian area the right place. Which begs the question, why was Palestine chosen? Were the reasons based on religion? The Palestinians have a religion that says that land belongs to them; why was their religious history not given weight? There were plenty of places that could have been given over to become a new Jewish nation, places that would not have required disenfranchising a native population in such a fashion.
Explain it to me. I'm willing to listen to reason.
The first, that the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews never happened, is outrageous revisionist history, a politically and religiously motivated act of hatred that is unconscionable. If you hate the people, hate them on their own merits and for their own actions. If you want to make the disgusting suggestion that what they did was a good idea, go right ahead. You yourself will then be hated for supporting a revolting idea. At least then, however, you will not show your base ignorance and idiocy.
That wasn't what I figured would make several of you choke, barring of course that you hadn't heard of this story before now. The second statement is what I think is going to stir up the hornet's nest.
A week or two ago, Pres. Ahmadinejad suggested that Israel be moved to somewhere other than its current location in the Middle East. He said, "If European countries claim that they have killed Jews in World War II... why don't they provide the Zionist regime with a piece of Europe," and yes, that's a direct quote from the article and from his speech. Fine, he's an idiot, we're agreed.
Is he, though? About that particular suggestion? The German government and people were responsible for the deaths of six million Jews. So what happens? Palestine is destroyed and replaced with their ancestral enemies. I'm missing the logic here.
Is that knee jerking? Well put a clamp on it and think for a moment. Why did the Palestinians lose their homeland and have it turned over to the Jews when Palestine had nothing to do with the Holocaust? Hells, Palestine was a British possession at the time, and Britain suffered fairly badly at the hands of the Nazi regime themselves. You could make the argument that Europe did give up land, but why Palestine? Why not Germany itself? Now, you can easily make the argument that handing Germany itself over to the Jewish people would be unwise. For one thing, no one could blame the Jewish people if they never wanted to see Germany again. If your family was slaughtered in a house, would you want to move in and live there? Along similar lines, turning over Germany to Jewish rule would mean turning over the German people along with it. Would you blame them for turning the tables around on what would have been their new subjects? Ignore for a moment that this is basically what happened to the Palestinian people, finding themselves at the mercy of ancestral enemies. Finally, look at the condition in which Germany was left at the end of the conflict in the European theatre. Germany was a bombed-out shell; giving it to the Jews would have meant handing them not a blank slate but a junkyard in which to make a new home.
So fine, Germany would have been the wrong place to form a new Jewish nation. This still doesn't make the Palestinian area the right place. Which begs the question, why was Palestine chosen? Were the reasons based on religion? The Palestinians have a religion that says that land belongs to them; why was their religious history not given weight? There were plenty of places that could have been given over to become a new Jewish nation, places that would not have required disenfranchising a native population in such a fashion.
Explain it to me. I'm willing to listen to reason.