Friday 23 January 2009

Even the Obamessiah can’t kill old hatreds

I’m interested in the strong parallels between two apparently unrelated events: the shutting down of the Guantanamo Bay prison, and the birth of Israel.

What’s the common factor?  Let me explain. 

For years, countries opposed to America’s war against Islamic totalitarianism used the prisoners of war at Guantanamo  (which is what they are) as a metaphorical club with which to beat up ‘imperialistic America.’  Yet now the anti-Americans are offered those same captives as a means by which to shut down the facility, they’re all suddenly finding they’ve got more important plans for the weekend – that there’s no room at their particular European inns.

Turns out ninety-five percent of European leaders are in favour of other European leaders taking the prisoners.

This is hypocrisy is of a kind that only European politicians looking down their patrician noses can pull off.  Yet it’s the same sort of hypocrisy that explains why Palestinians have been largely homeless for the last sixty years. 

You see, when Britain and the US promised the same bit of land to three different bunches of people after the last world war, the UN resolved the problem they’d created by partitioning Palestine into one home for the Jews who’d fled there after Hitler’s holocaust, and another for the Palestinians they’d partly supplanted  -– and the Arab countries who surrounded Israel (the new name given to the new, tiny and seemingly defenceless Jewish homeland) figured this was their opportunity to incite the Palestinians into perpetrating their own portion of the holocaust, and helped them to try to drive the dirty Jews into the sea.

When they failed spectacularly –- as they have done every time they’ve tried -– the Palestinians found that all the Arab doors in the area were closed to them.  They discovered they were merely the spent refuse of Arab hatred who’d now been used up, and were no longer needed -– except as a means by which to keep the simmering anti-Semitism going.

So just as the Arabs need hundreds of thousands of homeless Palestinians to maintain their violent anti-Seminism, so too do the Europeans need hundreds of Guantanamo captives to keep their nasty anti-Americanism alive.  The last thing they want is to have the spent refuse of their own irrational hatreds delivered to their door step.

Much easier just to keep on hating.

Old hatreds die hard, you see, even in the new world washed clean by the Obamessiah.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Arabs are Semites, too, so the anti-Semitism isn't that which is perpetuated by the Arabs, it's the Europeans who didn't want the Jews after WWII in their countries and now don't want the Palestinians or the Gitmo refugees, either to enter their borders.

My questions is, why did supposedly intelligent people let this go on so long, citing religious reasons and differences and the coming of the anti-Christ blur the fact that Jews and Arabs lived peacefully in Palestine before the interference by the Europeans. Didn't it occur to Disraeli or anyone that maybe a little thing known as payment for the land would help smooth the way for the Jews? I know they hoped that the Arabs would finish the job that Hitler started, but here is where America came in. Too many of us knew Jews personally and identified with their struggle, so no more genocide was going to occur under our watch.

When it became apparent that the different prime ministers of Israel were taking different approaches to the Palestinian problem, counting on US aid and arms but not aiding the people whose land they took over, those of us who identified with the Jews withdrew our approval and then were tagged "anti-Semitic" whenever one even breathed opposition to any Israeli policy.

Now, it seems too late to help the situation. Every time the presidents leave office, Israel gets the chance to kill a few thousand Palestinian people, citing Palestinans or Hamas who have homemade rockets with limited range-- Not as many as Rwanda or the Congo, but enough to keep things interesting or the next four years of a presidential term. I barely remember Sharon, but I remember his baggage he left behind. This from someone who never liked politics.

All I can do is pray as the Book says, for the health of Israel. That includes the Palestinians. And the souls of the Israelis who are adopting the tactics of people who held them in captivity 60 years ago. Pray for us now and at the our of our death. Amen.

Anonymous said...

None of us refer to Obama as the Obamessiah, and, if you would kindly discontinue your generalizations against his supporters, you would realize that the plurality of us are cautiously optimistic.

I'm assuming you're either a right-leaning moderate or a conservative, which explains your word usage. You crave the sight of Democrats genuflecting at the altar of Obama. Too bad quite a bit of us are willing to break from the pack if deemed necessary.

Anonymous said...

What I like is how 'Anonymous' asks PC to stop his generalisations then he generally assumes PC is a conservative or 'right leaning'. The only difference is PC doesn't know who 'Anonymous' is thus can't check his blog out to figure out his political/philosophical stance, where 'Anonymous' has this access when it comes to PC but still made a false generalisation.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous is just your banal religious racist. He's a collectivist (note the use of terms such as "our", "us", etc.). He seems to think his soft headed mush gains a validity if he can pretend that he is representing many other people. What a fool.

LGM