The key contradiction

Submitted by Amin El-Kholy (United Arab Emirates), Aug 28, 2007 at 23:55

I find the following paragraph in the article which baffles me:"

"— The Israeli government has not adopted the Bible as a policy document. The Saudis call the Qur'an—or Koran—their constitution and virtually every other Arab state derives some of its legislation from the Qur'an. Fundamentalist Muslims all agree that "Islam is the solution."

So it is reasonable to imagine, as does Vice President ‘Abd al-Halim Khaddam of Syria, that "Zionist ideology is based on the Jews' Torah."[16] Reasonable maybe, but certainly not accurate; Israel was founded by secularists inspired by nationalist and socialist goals, not religious ones. And really, isn't it faintly preposterous to assume that passages dating from three millennia ago would guide the actions of modern democratic polity?"

Let's assume for a minute that this is, or at least was, a secularist nationalist movement. What possible excuse is there for taking over a whole country/land, knowing full well that it is inhabited by others, and displacing its people to create a 'Jewish' state?

I am more interested in what justification, moral or otherwise, people gave to themselves for removing others from their homes and villages. If anyone is going to answer my question by repeating one of the many other myths around this conflict that 'the Arabs just left after being instructed by their leaders' or that there was no Palestinian state pre 1948 please don't waste your time or mine.

This is a genuine question and I would appreciate an genuine answer from any of the millions of moral self respecting people out there, Jews or non-Jews, who speak in favour of Israel, its establishment and its present state. I really am interested to see how they square this circle, how they can justify what seems to me like a blatantly racist act to their own conscience.

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