08.15.05
Politics in the Middle East
I don’t claim to have a complete understanding of everything that is happening in Israel and the Palestinian territory right now, and I’m not even sure what the correct term for the Palestinian lands are right now. That said, I’m seeing some interesting things on the news of late.
I was watching the news last night, our local news being a pretty pathetic option for information, but here we are. They presented a story on the events surrounding the settlers in Gaza and the protests occuring there. One of the protesters made a comment about the Palestinians that I thought was quite narrow minded. A young woman stated that she didn’t understand why the Palestinians needed the land. “There are so many other Arab countries, why don’t they just move there?” I was pretty amazed by the comment.
I suppose that there is so much going on in Gaza right now, that other political turmoil might not be in the forefront of everyone’s minds. I was pretty shocked by someone espousing the idea that “Arabs” are interchangable and that one country would be willing to just absorb an entire population with an entirely different cultural and political history. In light of what is happening in Iraq and the problems faced there by different religious groups… I was just amazed.
