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Post by goz on May 13, 2019 6:21:48 GMT
I get really annoyed when other posters proclaim to know my views on subjects and then go on to misrepresent them, due to their own agenda. I hope Gameboy is the same, though I don't presume to speak for him, unlike some! I don't claim to be an expert on Arab /Israeli tensions, however to refresh my memory of events I just read the whole history on Wiki of the History of Israel with particular reference to evenst in the 20th Century. (btw I don't take Wiki as gospel butt it usually gives a pretty decent run down/summary when on such a public site) It re-enforces my previous opinion that the whole saga is an unfortunate mess. There is no right and wrong, no good guys and bad guys as each side has committed atrocities and with self serving agenda. They don't call it a war for nothing. On one side I feel for the Palestinians having had their homeland stolen from them by a British initiated and League of Nations orchestrated artificial solution to a problem, yet one must feel for the sheer numbers of displaced and traumatised Jews from Europe, desperately wanting 'a homeland' Does an ancient claim overturn an already historic claim and a needs based claim? I was going to start a thread butt I don't know if I have the stomach for it, as once again I am bi-partisan, and that usually (strangely enough) gets me into trouble.. Bavaria would have made a great homeland for the displaced the Jews. It would have held the Germans responsible for the atrocities they committed [/b]. Like I've said, only 4% of Israel/Palestine's population was Jewish in the 19th century. Why anyone would take seriously a 2000 year old land deed from god to his alleged "chosen people" is beyond me. Essentially the land was ripped right out from under the Palestinians who had lived their centuries, for over a thousand years. The Palestinians gave land to the Jews instead of Germany. Now their children are shot for cutting the barbed wire that keeps them in their camps[/quote]WOW! What a novel idea! I have seriously never heard anyone EVER even suggest something like that! Despite My family history ( as you know) I have often thought that the Germans got off light after WW2. There were reparations and help rebuilding and all kinds of stuff. I will have to process this idea for a while ( without sounding like Erjenious lol) and my first thought is that it would probably have caused almost as much trouble as setting up a new Jewish state in the Middle East has done.
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Post by phludowin on May 13, 2019 12:56:08 GMT
The borderlines of Europe had been redrawn many times and they were redrawn again after World War II. Much of what is now Poland was Germany before the war. The Germans had been defeated and the loser expects to lose territory. Most the displaced Jews who colonized Israel were Europeans. What better home for them than part of Germany? I think there would have been little resistance from the vanquished German people if the Jews had been given part of Germany. The Germans lived with enormous guilt over The Holocaust for decades. What we could have had was a prosperous European Jewish state as part of the EU, instead of the turmoil we now have in Palestine. The question is: Would the Jews have wanted it? I doubt it. Many German Jews left Germany after Hitler came to power, and did not want to come back after World War II. Germany was the country that killed their friends and relatives, and many Nazi officers and party members were not punished after World War II. The Nuremberg trials only dealt with the tip of the iceberg, and the Western Allies wanted Western Germany as an ally against Soviet Union, for the upcoming Cold War. Antagonizing the native Germans by taking away even more of their territory probably wouldn't have been a smart move. Since the Soviet Union was not reputated for being Jew-friendly, I guess that only masochistic Jews would have agreed on a Jewish territory in Central Europe, no matter on which side of the Iron Curtain. The only real solution would be: No antisemitism, no persecution of Jews, no behaviour that makes Jews feel unwelcome. But with Christian and Muslim majorities, I guess this would be a bit like putting a bunch of sheep in a cage full of carnivores, and politely tell the carnivores not to eat the sheep. Good luck with that.
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Post by goz on May 13, 2019 21:24:00 GMT
The borderlines of Europe had been redrawn many times and they were redrawn again after World War II. Much of what is now Poland was Germany before the war. The Germans had been defeated and the loser expects to lose territory. Most the displaced Jews who colonized Israel were Europeans. What better home for them than part of Germany? I think there would have been little resistance from the vanquished German people if the Jews had been given part of Germany. The Germans lived with enormous guilt over The Holocaust for decades. What we could have had was a prosperous European Jewish state as part of the EU, instead of the turmoil we now have in Palestine. The question is: Would the Jews have wanted it? I doubt it. Many German Jews left Germany after Hitler came to power, and did not want to come back after World War II. Germany was the country that killed their friends and relatives, and many Nazi officers and party members were not punished after World War II. The Nuremberg trials only dealt with the tip of the iceberg, and the Western Allies wanted Western Germany as an ally against Soviet Union, for the upcoming Cold War. Antagonizing the native Germans by taking away even more of their territory probably wouldn't have been a smart move. Since the Soviet Union was not reputated for being Jew-friendly, I guess that only masochistic Jews would have agreed on a Jewish territory in Central Europe, no matter on which side of the Iron Curtain. The only real solution would be: No antisemitism, no persecution of Jews, no behaviour that makes Jews feel unwelcome. But with Christian and Muslim majorities, I guess this would be a bit like putting a bunch of sheep in a cage full of carnivores, and politely tell the carnivores not to eat the sheep. Good luck with that. Great post. I agree with everything you say and wish to add that the main problem was that the British and the League of Nations had already set in train the mechanisms for the Jewish State in Palestine long before the drama of WW2, which only succeeded in making the setting up more urgent with the onslaught of European Jews who voted with their feet and headed towards Israel. Also once it was realised worldwide the extent of the holocaust committed by the Nazis against the Jews which was only fully revealed after the Americans freed much of Poland, that sympathy ran high for the Jews.
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Post by phludowin on May 14, 2019 11:18:06 GMT
But there really isn't much historical precedent for an oppressed people to up and leave a land which had been their home for centuries. African-Americans were enslaved in the U.S. A tiny number went back to Africa and settled in Liberia. But there was no mass movement to leave. African-Americans stayed in the land they helped build. Is that masochism? That's a somewhat silly term to use for staying in the land of your ancestors and rebuilding after war. But Bavaria was no more the home of most European Jews than Palestina was. Relocating European Jews to Bavaria would have meant as much stress as relocating them to Palestina. No, I think most Jews would have been happy to stay in Europe given autonomy over their own state. Germans are no more "carnivores" than white Americans. If this was true: Why did most German Jews who left Germany before World War II not come back after World War II? Yes, there was a Zionist movement before World War II. But most Jews stayed in Europe. You are both missing the point that another people lived in the Levant, the Palestinians. As are and were non-Jews in Bavaria. I've already shown that the Jews were a scant 4% of the population in the Levant in the 1800's. Sorry, Germany should have been carved up. It was divided into 2 states. Why not 3? Two German states were never supposed to be a permanent solution. And it's history now. But the point you seem to be missing is: Most Jews who want a Jewish state don't want it in Bavaria. They want it in Palestina. That's why they are called Zionists. So why would you insist on giving land to people who don't want it?
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