Let's Have Some Realism Here!

Submitted by Blackspeare (United States), Mar 22, 2006 at 19:54

It appears that most of the comments are anti-Islam, but that's not going to work. There's a lot of Muslims out there and currently Islam is the fastest growing religion. Now why is that? The answer is simple, in that part of the world what people need most is structure and Islam offers that and so does totalitarianism.

Trying to inject what we call democracy into an area that is not mature enough just begets violence. And as president Reagan was fond of saying about the Vietnam war----that it was a noble cause so we can say the same about Israel. In the late 1800's when the Zionist were buying up land in Palestine they were warned by Islamic authorities not to try to create a state for it would open a wound that will not heal-----think they knew something back then?! Even the Sultan at that time when approached by a Zionist delegation at the "Sublime Porte" to buy the land adjacent to the Western Wall said to the delegates he would rather have his heart cut out then sell land to the Jews----pretty blunt!

And as the noted historian Arnold Toynbee said when Israel declared a state in 1948----they won't last 50 years, but he was just a little anti-semitic so what. And in 1948 when the new state of Israel was able to defend itself against the Arab countries, an Arab diplomat said, we may have lost this battle, but we have a secret weapon-----Time! And so it comes to pass all the concessions Israel has made have come without reciprocity from the other side-----even the peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan are really truces in disguise.

The Arabs and in particular the Palestinians know that time is on their side----either until they are militarily strong enough or a US administration takes power that is pro-Arab. In any event, Toynbee may have just been off by 50 years----for in the future a one state solution looms with Israel occupying a semi-autonomous area within a Palestinian state very similar to Kurdistan. Remember in the Ottoman empire Christian and Jews were welcome----they just couldn't own land and they paid a slightly higher tax rate.

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