Better Late Than Never; Part the First

These were a couple of blog thoughts I came up with while at work a few weeks back.  Naturally, such things get derailed, but better late than never I suppose.  This one is on Israel and Hypocrisy. Enjoy!

Yet again, we are expected to express shock and horror as the Israeli
state uses violence against "peaceful activists".  Yet again, I am moved
only deeper into the pro-Israel camp.  Allow me to explain why, before
the inevitable cry of "Zionist!" fills the air.


Firstly, Israel is a democratic country.  For a place that is supposedly
apartheid and evil, I find it odd that they issue the same citizenship
documentation to Arab residents as they do to the evil Jewish overlords.
Kind of bad for the class division system, you know?  It's also somewhat
awkward that they have Arab legislators at all levels of government.  I
mean, seriously, shouldn't they be oppressed and weeping somewhere? Not
to mention that the standard of living for all citizens is
significantly higher than the surrounding states, including Jordan.  How
the hell are you supposed to maintain an oppressive, racist regime when
Arab university professors make as much or more than your average
Hasidic Rabbi?

Secondly, Israel has the right to territorial integrity.  Yeah, sure, a
group of Arabs known as the Palestinians got a raw deal when
international geopolitics sectioned the land they occupied into several
pieces.  Shitty deal, sure.  Three wars later, Israel is pretty well
defined.  And you know what else?  They took a completely unproductive
stretch of dust and rock, and turned it into an economic powerhouse.
They are fully prepared (as they have shown with Egypt) to peacefully
coexist so long as you don't, say, lob rockets into Tel Aviv.  Not a
whole lot to ask, really.  As for the plight of the Palestinians, does
no one else find it odd that the UN has been administrating their camps
for nigh-on 50 years, and they are STILL living in squalor?  Short on
water, short on electricity, long on Kalashnikovs and Katyusha rockets.
Something doesn't quite fit here.

The simple truth of the matter is that the misery of the Palestinians
serves a wider Arab political purpose.  As everyone should know, the
Arab states are fractious, tribal, relatively ungovernable pseudo-states
dominated by strong men.  They also have petro-dollars galore, which
leads to a class of well-educated young men with more money than brains,
but enough brains to realize that life sucks even for rich people.  So,
you're the Emir of Oppressive-Arabia.  What do you do?  Obviously, you
don't admit that social problems are your fault.  That leads to riots,
and scratches in the paint of your 23rd Mercedes. You blame them on
someone else.  Your people are fervent adherents to a reasonably violent
religion, so it'll have to be some convenient infidel.  Unfortunately,
westerners have scary big armies and the nasty habit of launching cruise
missiles at people who get too uppity (or we did before President Obama,
anyway).  So you reach back into hallowed antiquity, and remember that
the powerful Quraysh tribe were Jewish.  And the Prophet hated him some
Jews.  And what do you know, those Jews are at it again, making you look
bad with their successful nation-state.

Here's where it gets diabolical.  You've got a bunch of people who want
to flee the new Israel because they don't like Jews either.  But you've
chosen not to let them into your Emirate because you don't even accept
that Israel exists, and you can't flee something that doesn't exist.  So
shrug your shoulders and watch as they form refugee camps.  And then you
use these same refugee camps to incite those troublesome young men to go
vent their frustrations on someone else, like those evil Jews.  Better
still, you blame all the resulting violence on Israel, for not being
humane enough to give land and control to the people who shoot rockets
at them.

And useful idiots in the west smile and nod, because after all, it's
what enlightened people do.

I don't really care that the Israelis happen to be Jewish.  Oddly
enough, most Israelis don't even go to temple.  They could be
Scientologists, for all I care about their religion.  I do care that a
democratic and open society has to build walls and checkpoints because a
subset of the population thinks that blowing up cafes and nightclubs
with suicide bombers is an acceptable political response to being forced
to live in a country that includes people who pray in a different way.
I dislike living in a country with people who think God wants them to
have multiple wives (and that's just those Bountiful, BC lunatics).  You
don't see me inciting my relatives to wipe BC from the map.