Many thanks Grant for such a fascinating explanation of the long history of this conflict. Wouldn't it be amazing if the 3 religions that trace back to Abraham practiced the teaching of loving one another as creations of the one God? We all have much more in common than we have as differences. Derek.
Thanks for the comment, Derek. I'm just reading Paul Johnson's History of Christianity (1976). He's a conservative Christian himself, but his book turns out to be much better than I expected. He doesn't shy away from the politics. If you find a copy, I recommend it. Cheers, Grant
Thanks, Grant - helpful to hear the history, and the present conflict discussed in such a balanced way. You made the point at the beginning that archaeological genetics has established that the Jews and Levantine Arabs share a common ancestry (with much admixture from other gene-pools). Some became Jews, some became Moslems - when those religions arose. We tend to identify nationalities with a shared religion, but it seems that, arguably, the Jews and Palestinians are warring siblings of the same human family. Although we in Australasia aren't directly affected at present (unless we have family in Israel/Palestine), we can validly have a gut reaction. Mine is that the Israelis (as a state) have been mistreating the Palestinians, and refusing to grant them their fair share of a shared land: in effect, the Israelis have been pursuing a policy of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, to increase their Lebensraum. The Hamas raid was abhorrent, but one can understand how Israel's treatment of the Palestinians contributed to it. Netanyahu and his ilk must take their share of the blame for it, alongside the Hamas leaders. And now we see Israel obliterating Gaza with great cruelty - behaving like the Chosen People in the Old Testament. Israel made Gaza a ghetto for the Palestinians, and now they're doing what the Nazis did with the ghettos: sending in the tanks. It is a vast bitter irony. They are indeed "a stiff-necked people", to quote the Bible. So my gut reaction is to sympathise deeply with the Palestinians, and call for an immediate cease-fire and political negotiations to achieve the two-state solution. I wish Israel would behave like a civilised modern state. Many, many Israelis and Jews outside Israel share this analysis. It isn't anti-Semitism (the knee-jerk response): it's humanitarian criticism of a cruel, racist regime (though one partly shaped into this by the extreme racism of the Nazis). But such cruelty has seldom turned out well for the cruel.
Thanks, Kai. I support your comments. Israel can justifiably be described as an apartheid state. A two-state solution would be a good compromise, but it appears to me that neither the Israeli government nor Hamas really want that, judging by their actions. To add to the point about the peoples being related, note also that Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic are all Semitic languages, as were Phoenician and Punic.
Thanks for the recommendation Grant, I've made a note of it and will look for it. I'm reading John Burrow's A History of Histories (2007). Humankind certainly has a long history of conflict. Derek
Many thanks Grant for such a fascinating explanation of the long history of this conflict. Wouldn't it be amazing if the 3 religions that trace back to Abraham practiced the teaching of loving one another as creations of the one God? We all have much more in common than we have as differences. Derek.
Thanks for the comment, Derek. I'm just reading Paul Johnson's History of Christianity (1976). He's a conservative Christian himself, but his book turns out to be much better than I expected. He doesn't shy away from the politics. If you find a copy, I recommend it. Cheers, Grant
Thanks, Grant - helpful to hear the history, and the present conflict discussed in such a balanced way. You made the point at the beginning that archaeological genetics has established that the Jews and Levantine Arabs share a common ancestry (with much admixture from other gene-pools). Some became Jews, some became Moslems - when those religions arose. We tend to identify nationalities with a shared religion, but it seems that, arguably, the Jews and Palestinians are warring siblings of the same human family. Although we in Australasia aren't directly affected at present (unless we have family in Israel/Palestine), we can validly have a gut reaction. Mine is that the Israelis (as a state) have been mistreating the Palestinians, and refusing to grant them their fair share of a shared land: in effect, the Israelis have been pursuing a policy of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, to increase their Lebensraum. The Hamas raid was abhorrent, but one can understand how Israel's treatment of the Palestinians contributed to it. Netanyahu and his ilk must take their share of the blame for it, alongside the Hamas leaders. And now we see Israel obliterating Gaza with great cruelty - behaving like the Chosen People in the Old Testament. Israel made Gaza a ghetto for the Palestinians, and now they're doing what the Nazis did with the ghettos: sending in the tanks. It is a vast bitter irony. They are indeed "a stiff-necked people", to quote the Bible. So my gut reaction is to sympathise deeply with the Palestinians, and call for an immediate cease-fire and political negotiations to achieve the two-state solution. I wish Israel would behave like a civilised modern state. Many, many Israelis and Jews outside Israel share this analysis. It isn't anti-Semitism (the knee-jerk response): it's humanitarian criticism of a cruel, racist regime (though one partly shaped into this by the extreme racism of the Nazis). But such cruelty has seldom turned out well for the cruel.
Thanks, Kai. I support your comments. Israel can justifiably be described as an apartheid state. A two-state solution would be a good compromise, but it appears to me that neither the Israeli government nor Hamas really want that, judging by their actions. To add to the point about the peoples being related, note also that Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic are all Semitic languages, as were Phoenician and Punic.
Thanks for the recommendation Grant, I've made a note of it and will look for it. I'm reading John Burrow's A History of Histories (2007). Humankind certainly has a long history of conflict. Derek