steve (06/26/82)
Looks to me like Menachim Begin has found a "final solution" to the Palestinian problem.
stuart (06/28/82)
dadl-a!steve provokes other questions: Any idea why Arab countries refuse to allow arabs from Israel to immigrate to other Arab countries and become full citizens? Any idea why "Palestinian people" became a seperate "people" with their "own culture" only after 1948 ? Why can't individuals live together in one country without worrying about having a new repressive government to call their own? Isn't individual freedom more important than 'collective freedom' (if there is such an animal) ?
jcwinterton (06/29/82)
The Palestinians are the people who were living in the British trust mandate territory of Palestine and who chose to leave after the partitioning declaration made by the U.N. in 1948. In any case, that was one generation ago, so now they should have been absorbed into the countries into which they fled except that these countries kept them in concentration [oops, I mean refugee] camps. If the Arab peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean did not want to have their brethern as citizens of their country, they probably had good reason other than the obvious anti-Zionist one. I believe that Arabs are relatively territorial people (even the Bedouin tribes have limited territorial routes). With respect to giving a big slice of Palestine to the Jews as an act of conscience on behalf of the most concienceless monster to ever live on the face of the earth, I am afraid that I have reservations as to the moral right of doing so. The Jews who "returned" to Israel have not lived there for nearly 2000 years. What gives them any claim on the territory better than that of the Caananites that they displaced? Do we now need to concern ourselves with the plight of the disinherited Caananites? Do we care? If not, why not? Shall we, as Canadians, grant a separate and sovereign state to the Inuit? the Quebecois? Will the people of the United States give the State of Florida to the Seminoles? etc., etc. There is too much "cause"ism in the world today, when we should be looking to set up a single world government for the benefit of mankind as a species to look after the life support system of space ship earth. All this ridiculous family squabbling must stop, or we will all be destroyed. End of sermon.