Come, let us reason together

Submitted by argus4 (United States), Sep 25, 2011 at 20:30

Ms Richman, I've read your comments several times. Here are some observations.

1) Is there a certain percentage of an area that a given ethnic or ethno-religious group should occupy? What about the Uigurs or Tibetans in China. Should we be troubled about the percent of the total land area that the Han Chinese occupy, or should our concern be about the civil, social, religious and other rights of which the Chinese are sometimes not so subtly depriving these peoples?

2) Is there a specified number of countries that are characterized by an ethnic or religious criterion. So there 22 Arab countries. How many would you prefer? I suspect you'd be happier with fewer. Why don't we encourage mergers so that the number is reduced to 11? If we were shooting craps, that would be a winning number!

3) "Do we really want a 23rd Arab country..." Mutatis mutandis one might ask "Do we really want an Hispano-Indian country on the sourhern border of the United States? Look at all the trouble some of that country's population is giving its fellow citizens, to say nothing of the problems that same segment of the population is giving to the United States.

4) While the past must be taken into consideration in working out a permanent peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, let's face it -- until both groups are relatively satisfied and dissatisfied there will be no peace. Neither group is 100% right or 100% wrong.

5) The United States and the UN need to butt out, except as needed to provide to the Palestinians aid that cannot or will not be provided by anyone else: food for the undernourished, especially children; assistance with primary and secondary education; assistance with developing programs to occupy young men, especially, financially and psychologically.

To be even handed, the US and the UN should provide or at least offer assistance to Israel when its troubles are the result of Palestinian (mis)behavior.

The UN has more urgent problems than Israel and Palestine, I agree. But the UN is, on the whole, in such matters a manifestly ineffective organization -- just count its successes in Africa on your fingers. Did you need more than one hand?

Finally, YES, Ireland belongs to the Irish. That said, short of moving all the Protestants elsewhere, I don't think you'll see the unification of the Republic of Ireland with that part of the island that is part of the United Kingdom. Scotland, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely. Devolution is already underway.

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