Israel was conquered by the Romans and was under Rome even during the time of Jesus. Since the Jews were unwilling to bow down to Romans gods as they bow down only to "Jehovah" God, the Romans wanted to kill all the Jews. And under the Roman general Hadrian, the Romans destroyed the Temple at Jerusalem and other entire Israeli cities and drove out the Jews and renamed Judah and Samaria as Palestine just to spite the Jews whose greatest enemies were the Philistines. Only a few Jews remained and they mingled with the Arabs, Syrian, Jordanians. But there were always one Jewish leader or the other trying to set up an Israeli state for more that 2000 years. Only in 1948 their struggle became a reality and a small piece of land was declared as Israel.
The so called farmlands mentioned in your article were not farmlands at all. They were barren desert lands that were purchased over several years by the Jews since they wanted to return to their homeland someday and were willing to pay and buy lands that once belonged to them. The so called "Palestinians" sold the land because they saw no value in the desert land.
RE:Some Mistakes in Facts
by Sudhir Bisht on Aug 24, 2006 01:30 PM Permalink
My dear Santunu, Thanks for your response to my article. I must confess that I don't have the experience of living in Israel like you have but in writing this piece I have interacted with at least a hundred jews and more than 250 Lebanese residents. The article is not supposed to a doctoral thesis but is aime to be what the title suggest it is - It is a layman's guide to the conflicts. I wanted to draw the layman's attention to the fact that Middle East conflicts have many hues and its not about Israel VS the rest of Middle East only.
I would like to thank you for your frank view and acerbic comments which I accept in all humility, as the readers' right to criticize is as acceptable to me as is my own desire for the bouquets!
RE:Some Mistakes in Facts
by Mozzy on Aug 25, 2006 07:49 AM Permalink
Dear Sudhir Bhist,
You say that you talked to about hundred Jews and about two hundred and fifty lebanese residents and you say that you haven't been to Israel. So, where did this "interaction" take place? Dont tell me that you logged onto some irc server, entered a #israel or #lebanon channel and did your "interacting".
And saying the article was a layman's guide and not a doctoral thesis is a feeble excuse for a badly written and RESEARCHED article. Buck up Rediff! I am disappointed in you.
The article appears to be very biased as it skips out events that reveal the true colours of Israeli attitude towards the palestinians . The author should read a few books and articles before venturing into writing articles on an issue as complex as this. Why not start with Chomsky's " The fateful triangle " and the excellent books and articles by norman finkelstein ? To "balance" things out he might as well try alan dershowitz's "a case for israel" Also there are plently of clips of debates regarding middle east available in the net which might enlighten him , in particular watch Shlomo Ben Ami ( ex foreign minister of Israel) debate Finkelstein where Ben Ami explicitly admits of the ethnic cleansings carried out by the Israelis. Finally on a personal note this correspondent has been living in Israel for two years now and have witnessed bigotry on the side of hawkish jews evidenced in their comments and correspondence . Also not concidentally Israelis ( atlast the white ones ) are well off, attuned to western lifestyle perhaps reason why Indian columnists in websites carrying tips about how to make it big in the west find it so easy to label poor people as bigoted ?
I would definitely like to see articles like these instead of the usual movie reviews and hottest moments on Television.A well researched and informative piece of writing.
Pkl. Aug 23,2006,Wednesday Well all lovers of a global peaceful coexistence between hostile Neighbours like Israel Jews and the native Palestinians and Lebanese Arabs ,now led by violent Hamas /Hezbollos wish that none should live with Historical Hubris of mayhem , murder and fratricidal Violence.Most certainly Jews should realize that what they take as modern Biblical redemption after exile of aeons and memories of dastardly Holocaust in Europe in XX century the Palestinian Arabs cannot be deprived of their basic rights to live as free and independent society either in Palestine or in Lebanon.What is tragic in extreme that violent Zionism is turning the peaceful Arabs into cannon Fodder for HamAs & Hizbollos. Relatively more experienced, and superiorly provided with modern Capital and Military Technolgy Jews should large heartedly accommodate Arab nationalism and its legitimate rights.Arabs should accept Jews as fait -accopli neighbours, now. D. Goel
This is a very good article for anybody to understand the situation in the middle east and the reasons for it. At the same time India should take a inspiration from this. and everybody should think that peace will come to india one day. Even if there is constant threat to our country, we should not take off our aim to become the developed country in the world.
Dunno, but to me the article doesnt look totally unbisaed...it has a tilt towards Isreal and I dont have a feeling that Israel is entirely innocent in all this.
As far as comparing the GDP goes, one should not overlook the constant support of US and US jews.
RE:Arab Conflicit
by Skasster on Aug 24, 2006 10:36 AM Permalink
this is hilarious. call yourself a 'peace loving muslim' and ask for the destruction of israel? you are a true Ironist.
RE:Arab Conflicit
by peace loving non-muslim on Aug 24, 2006 09:51 AM Permalink
No, there will not be peace in the world after Israel is destroyed. After that it'll be India's turn. There will be peace in the world when India is destroyed and becomes part of Pakistan. After that it is Europe, then America. Ofcourse, we know what peace loving muslim means -- when the whole world becomes islamic, then ofcourse there'll be complete peace in the world (Wait, think again.. do you really think so... Deprived of an external enemy to fight with, they'll fight with each other :-))
RE:Arab Conflicit
by indian on Aug 29, 2006 02:26 AM Permalink
these muslims never ceases to amaze me.. see this person who claims to be peace loving muslim, talks one like this Iranian President ahmadinejad, wants to wipe israel of the world map!!!!.. they all are funny!!!.. funny creatures!!!
Well this is really an interesting article and we can clearly understand that the root cause of all the Middle East conflicts is Israel.US has always backed Israel and ignored its attrocities on innocent muslims.Moreover US is responsible for Iran-Iraq war and Iraq -Kuwait war, if you go deep into that history.US always wanted to grab the oil rich Arab land and it made Israel as one of its sources by suplying funds, weapons, support and even VETOing decisions at UNO to Israel.Israel HAS to be completely destroyed from the world map .Only then peace is possible not only in Middle East but also in the world.
The whole Muslim world is not going to sit quiet. One or other day Israil will be brought to justice. They will be thrown out of Palastine. Justice is awaiting them and they need to pay for their action.
RE:Justice awaits Jews
by akshay on Aug 24, 2006 01:52 PM Permalink
stop dreaming Iqbal....think of something constructive, which would be better for your and your muslim brothers.... How many times are you guys going to repeat this inane phrase? Arabs/muslims are victims blah blah. Every muslim (arab or any other) says the same thing like a parrot. It sounds like something school children would say while skipping... ---- 'We are victim' is untrue. For god's sake, pls read the article before going on a mental spasm and just frothing. For example, "In 1967 Syria, Jordan and Egypt attacked Israel." How can Syria, Jordan and Egypt be the aggressors and victims at the same time? Just because Israel kicked in their teeth down their throats does not change the aggressor/victim equation.
Before you or anyone decides to reply, please spare us the usual diatribe about how Israel is trying to the destroy the Middle East, we are victims and other folktales. Pls come up with something new
