Isreal: The Last European Colony?Follow

During my rainy and idiot soaked 2.5 hour commute into the District this morning.. I was listening to CSPAN and this Congressman was on there talking about how we SHOULD support the Isrealis because of the "fact" that it was it's the Jew's GOD GIVEN LAND... and that we should be basing our foreign policy of Biblical notions...

at this one caller called in and declared that Isreal was nothing but another colony.. similar to the Brits in NA... the French in Algeria... the Belgians in the Congo... ect.... which got me thinking...

Most of the residents of Israel are from HoloCAUST... from Europe...
I can totally see the bigwigs after WW2... "EUREKA! why don't we put all these Europeans that no one likes in the Middle East... be all nice to them all of a sudden.,.. support them... water them like a garden.. and let them grow into a mini OASIS of Western values in the midst of the savage lands... and them we will have a total foothold in the area not seen since the First Crusade!! BRILLIANT!"

I mean.. no one wanted them in Europe... so they go elsewhere and ***** the natives... Sound familer? Like all of the persecuted Puritans and Catholics and other religious outcasts... go to another place... set up shop.. and using their ties to the "old country", impose their will on the natives and take over.


So I guess my point is.... all of these other colonies were eventually destroyed or had integrated..... So it makes me kinda see why these anti-Zionists actually have hope that they will someday "wipe Israel of the map" or perhaps that it... come to a mutually benificial understanding...
and from the viewpoint of these anti-Zionists... that is what Israel is.. nothing but a colony of the West... and it hasn't even been around for as long as the other colonies elsewhere in the world..


Just a thought

Would they be able to self govern without the support of the "West"? I think that's doubtful... Colonies were self governed to a limited extent.... but they depending highly on the resources of their "parent" nations.... in this case many nations... which obviously doesn't make it a "classic" colony... but it is pretty much dependent on support from abroad.

Perhaps large scale "gentrification" would be a better term for what has been done in Isreal. Worthless(to the West) Palestinian society... producing no wealth.... Move them out and put in something that "we" can work with and profit from while economically forcing out the original residents?


yes and weapons and economic development... In a way I suppose that in the same light that I could say that the half the world is economically colonized by Europe.

Damn, I think I'm gonna shave my head and become a Neo-****. WHITE IS RIGHT!!

that was a mistype.. I meant to imply "from and descended from" Holocaust survivors..
and I do know that there were Jews and Christians as well there for ages... but I confess that I don't know the statistics.

Your comment does make me think of the fact that here we have another society/nation who's identity seems to depend upon a religion.... so all in all the situation is entirely unique... and the only other religion that I can think of that has this is Islam... Unless you count the Vatican.


on another thought... one of the places I support in DC is one of those conservative think-tanks that sit around and write books and articles about why we should continue attempting to dominate the Middle-East..

I was talking to one of their directors who said to me "Arabs are generally pretty stupid" and how the Arab world lost it's foothold to true civilization after the Crusades and pretty much never recovered... and the results of this are the poverty and religious extremism that we see now.

I asked him if he could see any parallels in the Sunnite/Shiite split and such with early European Christianity and that eventually things would settle...
He saw parallels.. but was against any notion that "Islam just needs more time".

I kinda see his point....
The Arab world pre-Crusades was the cultural/learning/educational center of the WORLD. Christians caused that downfall as they tried to escape the squallor of their own medieval existance by taking up arms for a cause....

So in that capacity... the extremist Muslim world may be seen as trying to cause the downfall of the Western world in the exact same way...
The key difference is that Islam has no unifiying figurehead.. like a Pope. The only unifying figureheads are still seen as extremists like Usama bin Laden... Hopefully that view won't change.... and such extremist views will not become seen by the common Muslim as "normal" and therefore accepted.

But that being said.... I don't think that any kind of definition of things like the classic "colony" is going to have the same technical attributes in this day and age where the dollar flies farther than the canon shot ever did. I tend to look at things that have happened in history in these smaller instances as kinda a microcosm to the globally scaled modern events that we see now...


Edited, Oct 24th 2007 11:54am by Kelvyquayo

It's my text version of "UMMMM" I think. I just type this **** as I think it.

Edited, Oct 24th 2007 12:06pm by Kelvyquayo

Mostly agree, they're certainly militarily capable. Economically though, their clashes with the Palestinians, wall-building, security forces, have really hurt them, causing a couple of US bailouts over the last 8 years or so. If Israel were ignored by the West (not coddled or restrained), they certainly could simply invade the OT and take it. Or, depending on internal politics, may find the current slow war (basically it is a war, costing military resources, operations, etc.) too expensive to maintain, and reach a two-state solution.

Ironically the US aid has allowed more types of politicians to exist than the earlier hawks. With big brother making sure they're okay, doves can feel free to preach peace and two-state etc. without a possibility that through peace Israel would become too weakened. At least, they can survive that criticism a lot better with the US' constant vocal and material support.

As for Kelvy's post in general, the West's approach to Israel and what would become it has a convoluted history. Around the turn of the century plans were made for a Zionist state in Uganda (I think?). Then came the Balfour Declaration and soon after WWII and the British Mandate, who assumed control over "Palestine" ostensibly as a Jewish homeland, but then split Transjordan off. Zionist terrorist elements wanting their country asap and as expected caused a ton of trouble. And there were a ton of clashes between arabs and Jews in Palestine.

So at the end of 50 years of mostly broken promises (to both Jews and Arabs), and tweaking, Britain decided @#%^ it, we're just going to pull out and let them settle things. They put forth a partition plan, then the UN did, then Palestinians rejected it, and Israel unilaterally declared itself a state. I don't think many in the West were at all thinking of Israel as a colony at that point. Sure, some had theoretical sympathy (theoretical in that they didn't extend succor to Jews in their own countries), and this has grown starkly between the US and Israel. But most were just content to sort of help them when they could if it wasn't going to be anything audacious, an attitude that continues today.

Problem with my thinking may be the US' strong role of chaperone. If we didn't slob Israel's nob all the time perhaps more in the West would take that position. But, I kind of doubt it. Second problem is it's been awhile since I looked at the pre-1947 history, can't remember exactly what was promised to whom.

Basing foreign policy on the Bible is always stupid.

Edited, Oct 24th 2007 11:48pm by Palpitus

Australia and Canada are both self-governing colonies of Great Brittain. I don't know about Canada, but the Australian constitution is incredibly antiquated... but few referendums have been held to update it, and none have succeeded.

It's best not to ask about the legal status of the Australian Aborigines in our constitution. Really. Don't ask. And our entire government is entirely subservient to Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, who graciously doesn't exercise the actual legal powers she has over us.

More to the point, technically the highest political power resident in Australia is not out Prime Minister, but our Governer General. Governer, as in: Governer of the Colony of Australia.

Edited, Oct 25th 2007 4:36am by Aripyanfar

Ah, you're correct. I was mistaking relative doveness (within the hawkishish Israel) for true doveness.

/agree

While the Crusades may have hastened the demise of the prominence of learning and science in the region, it was already going out the door at the time. Just more slowly is all. It really is just a slower version of what happened to the Western Roman Empire. In the West, the cities in Italy were sacked, the barbarians went home, and over the next 10 centuries civilization slowly crept back out of those ashes.

In the East, the collapse took longer and wasn't so much a sacking as a gradual process of invasion and conversion by Islamic forces over several centuries. This is why we tend to view the level of advancement during the 10th and 11th centuries in the Middle East as so high. They kinda walked right into the cities and structures that already existed and took them over. Equally gradually though, the religious aspects of Islam overrode the scientific aspects of the states they'd taken over. This process began before the Crusades, and continued for several centuries after the Crusades were over.