Feeding Africa

7 August 2009 at 10:11 am (Global Economic Crisis)
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Hello everybody,

just recently I’ve come about an article I wrote for a Switzerland e-zine in October 2008, when the World Economic Crisis, had just started. Actually I might translate it into English some time soon – if I find the time to do so for Swine Flu hasn’t yet locked me indoors. Back last October I declared the World Economic Crisis wouldn’t mean the end to the world as we know it. There wouldn’t be a World War III. Just none of all the horror parcel some people were expecting (and might still be).

One morning as I went through my usual news – Austrian news, as I’ve become lazy with international sources lately – I got reminded that for some it might indeed be the End of the World. The end of their world. Their life. Austrian public news network ORF reported how United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) claimed due to the Crisis there would be too little money to feed the „poorest of the poor“. Only a budget of 2,62 Billion Euros had been granted to WFP – half of what would be needed to feed the top 1% of an estimated 1 Billion starving people worldwide. Aid had already been cut due to that, WFP claimed.

Of course I surfed WFP’s website for additional information: Migdalit’s journalism rule no.1: Get as close to the primary source as possible! And though the article was published by ORF on July 31st – is there a Pagan around who remembered to talk about food on Lughnasad? – I had to scroll down their press section pretty far to find a press release related to the article presented as hot news by ORF. It was issued on June 19th. Really, it’s moments like this, that really give you a clue how the media functions. I wonder how they do it: Do they just save potentially interesting press releases for later on when they might be needed for days without any „real“ news? Or do they keep some kind of a list of „usual suspects“ of agencies that would always have something to report on as „hot news“?

However, back to food and the food crisis. It really is a tough issue and, though I am not too much of a fan of any UN agencies anymore since I’ve had the joy of my own set of experiences with them, I admit that I wouldn’t want to be in any WFP official’s shoes.

I’ve been having some rather vivid arguments with my common-law husband (in Germany regularly referred to as „boyfriend or life partner or spouse or whatever that’s supposed to be“), who used to live in Africa, about Africans and whether Europeans really screwed them up to the point most believe them to. As a 1990ies’ child I sure came of age believing Europe had a historic responsibility to Africa because it was us who screwed them up during colonialism. Later on I realized that, for most African states, actual colonialism lasted hardly a lifetime. Indirect rule systems might have for a century or two, at most. Does it really take so little time to screw up an entire society to the point of it seemingly being unrecoverable wounded? History tells us that most of the time things are rapidly destroyed, in fact, are rather rapidly rebuilt too without devastating chaos following them keeping the place and society from recovery.

Perhaps in the end it’s mostly about the people affected that need to be kept sane and hopeful. As long as they are natural disasters and wars and alike might devastatingly wash over them, they might change lifes forever but in the end society – as a whole entity – will start recovery as soon as the major effect is over. Just take Croatia. Hardly more then ten years after a major civil war there are hardly any sights of it anymore. It’s astonishing how much capacity of healing human society has in the end. Even after two devastating wars in Europe she recovered. Society got over it. People concentrated on other issues then their wounds to tend for. Most major tragedies of history had a beginning and they had an end. But for some reason the tragedy of Africa doesn’t seem to have an ending. Does it have a beginning?

It’s understandable how people would just assume the obvious: Europeans went to Africa and screwed it up. They destroyed their societies, their agricultural systems, their hierarchy and when they were forced out of the continent again by the end of the 20th century they left her in chaos. But why didn’t Africans, other then other peoples, just restart where they ended before Europeans conquered them? Why did things get even worse when Europeans left? There’s quite a list of post-colonial nations all around the world that managed pretty fine (though most do have their issues). Why didn’t Africa do? It’s not like it was a continent naturally lacking resources of any kind. There is nothing Africa wouldn’t have. There’s that story, indeed, of how

God, when creating the world, went this place and that place, putting that little bit of resources everywhere. However when (s)he cam to Africa (s)he would just shake everything that was left her/his hands.

So this is where the argument starts – and you’re heavily encouraged to join in in your own blogs or simply adding your comments – as my partner has been raising the idea Africa might in fact already have been in chaos by the time Europeans arrived there. Which sure has a point given how Africans do have a history of slave trade pre European arrival, for instance. And assuming chaos wasn’t implemented on Africa by Europe it would be all too natural if she fell back into even more chaos after Europeans left. But if this was true, how could be possibly help? Keeping people dependent on food aid can hardly be the solution but, in my opinion, only adds to African governments keeping their attention on their own business instead of on their starving population. What is the appropriate response, the one that will help most on the long run? Interestingly enough it leads to the same two options I have often seen confronted with as regards the Middle East Region:

  1. Try to teach them, help them, set an example and push them into whatever direction some team of experts thinks will help by means of outside power or
  2. Have the guts to keep out. Debrief them of international attention, make sure nobody else interferes where „Western“ World backs out and have them sort it out on their own, even if it might have things escalating in the first, if escalation is part of a self-regulation process.

Nobody ever claimed making a difference would be easy …

Shalom and As’salama

yours,

Migdalit

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Another Brick in the Wall

27 March 2009 at 12:00 pm (Uncategorized)
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Shabbat Shalom everybody,

I just keep on loving Spirit of Entebbe’s (unfortunately German written) blog. And sometimes the critics are even better then the whole rest of it. Guys: So many tears have been shed about the Conflict. Did they change a thing for the better? Did they do anything but produce hate and yet another radical settler / “martyr” terrorist? Not only due to the Pagan 101 – i.e. “everybody you do will be mirrored back at you [trice]” – I learnt during adolescence, but also due to my modest life experience I can assure you that bad (like tears) has seldom been the seed of good. It’s just like genetics: Blond parents will likely have blond children. There are mutations, sure, but if you wanted to breed a purple orchid would you crossbreed yellow parents?

So that’s why I love laughing about the Conflict though it’s true that it’s tragic and perhaps, from a moral point of view, crying would be more appropriate. Only that it won’t help. And perhaps, if we just keep laughing about it there will come a point at which radicals on both sides will feel so ridiculous that they’ll stop their bullshit. Don’t all those pedagogics always teach you that the worst punishment is withdrawal of attention!? Okay, I admit this is wish full thinking but again I think wishful thinking is more likely to bring about change for the better then hovering over worst case scenarios. But then I think people not getting tired of worst case scenarios just need some attention of their own.

However, I did intend to give some attention to Spirit of Entebbe or, better to say, its readers. Claudio recently wrote a post regarding the security fence aka. “Apartheid Wall” between Israel and the PA:

The security fence between Israel and, depending on version, the west bank, Judea & Samaria or also the Palestinian Authority, is, as the decline of attacks to zero proves, perfectly capable of preventing terrorism, but not of being adorned by graffiti. Fortunately in urban areas and within gunfire reach of highways there are parts made of concrete that delight every critic of Israel. [...]

[...] the artistic campaign, about which  SPIEGEL online reported, and garnished with pictures of the “Apartheid fence” has inspired Spirit of Entebbe to a very similar campaign. Whilst opponents of the wall protest via text message, the friends of this blog are called to give their fancy full scope in order to voice the “yes” to the right to exist of this security installment in a creative way. [...]

The readers were subsequently asked to suggest slogans that should be sprayed on the wall. And so of course Claudio Casula’s faithful readership did. Here come some highlights I’d love to share. Not quite PC but who gives a damn?

Peter suggested:

“This is a security installment. If you want to protest against an Apartheid wall, you have to go to the Moroccan occupied West Sahara.”

Eisaluf, quotes Ephraim Kishon (have I mentioned I love that guy?):

“Sorry, we have won.”

I especially love caledooper’s:

“Another brick in the wall” and right next to it the updated list of the – hopefully not happening anymore – recent attacks.

Stephan’s are funny too:

“Receipe against suicide attacks: 285 kg concrete, 200 l water as well as 1900 kg additions at mix ratio 1:0,6:7. This equals one cubic meter of clean protection.”

[In Berlin slang] “If I was from Berlin you would long be to Siberia before you come near me, let alone getting your spraying can out.”

Or take Frau Antje:

“Welcome to Israel, martyrs! The Israeli government wants to inform You of a mistake in Your recent job description. There is only one 72-years-old virgin waiting in paradise. Have a nice day and drive carefully!”

Malte S. Sembten – last but not least – suggests:

[in Arabic] With every “martyr” attack this wall prevents 72 virgins leave the Muslim paradise, jump into tiny bikinis and luxuriate at the beach in the Tel Aviv sun.

Got un-PC and creative? Just visit Claudio Casula’s and add your own one. I would love to read some more. (Man I can really picture the “wall” adorned with all those slogans. And the “pro-Palis” making all that huge mess about it.)

have great and cheerful day

yours

Migdalit

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In a way … just the same

20 March 2009 at 12:36 pm (Uncategorized)
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Hey there,

me again - believe it or not.

As it seems like my life is finally finding back into some kind of normality after me moving from Austria to Germany and into a new life (even though it happened not to be quite like I imagined it) these days for the first time in about six weeks did I find (or take) my time to read through what used to be my daily share of information source: various international and national newspapers and – of course – blogs (pretty much what can be found in my blogroll). Six weeks without much time (or longing) to read newspapers, dependant on that one Austrian news website I was visiting every once in a while and those news on TV and radio I listened to every couple of days. Only as a side note did I hear about the elections in Israel, the worsening global economic crisis, new troubles in Gaza, South Africa’s Jacob Zuma being cleared of corruption accusations (no word about rape) again and the beginning of Obama’s term of “change” (by the by: everybody speaking German just has to read Ruth’s article on Obama and Mao. Perhaps I should translate the most crucial parts but right now I just don’t feel like it. For now non-German-speakers could have a look here for some clues.)

One should think that after six weeks of being away from the news, away from writing, in a way even away from thinking about global politics it would be hard to find back into it. Yet surprisingly I found things having changed little. It’s still the same problems being written about. The Conflict (TM) is still pretty much the same as it used to be six weeks ago. The US are still pretty much the same as they used to be six weeks ago. In a way a lot of things have changed but then, in another way, they led to nothing anyway on the long run. They didn’t change a lot after the first round of media coverage was over.

Perhaps, it came to my mind as I wrote this, that’s the problem of our time. The real problem, I mean. There is just no change anymore. Our world camouflages as so modern, so fast, so changing but in fact I am not sure whether any more then the surface ever changes. Climate Change is no news. The global economic crisis is no news (as far as the media is concerned there was reporting about one after the other for years now anyway). Corrupt, striving-for-power politicians are no news. And of course the Middle East Conflict is no news. Details may change, names and photographs may change but does it have any affect on the big picture? Does it change the global situation and the way men all around the place go on with their daily life?

I remember when I was a teenager I was pretty much active with some locale socialist youth group (if only I didn’t know so many people who “used to be” socialist, green or whatever …). Rumours held it that we had even gathered the interest of the (most likely permanently under-occupied) Austrian Federal Bureau for Protection of the Constitution (Austria’s idea of a national intelligence agency). Of course for us back then this was nothing but a big compliment. Sometimes, when we would organize big demonstrations (up to 5′000-10′000 people in our best times) one of us would bring a camera with a huge telephoto and shoot back at the guys hiding in nearby buildings with their huge telephotos. We really had a nice collection we loved to look at when sitting in our small, crowded office operating our iMacs.

However. This was some time in the late 1990ies, remember? Back then 5′000 people on the street were no big deal. Recruiting new members of our organisation was no big deal. We went out there and thought we could move something, change something if only we could gather enough people, enough media coverage (which we did). We would do all kind of things like publicly burying a coffin labelled “education”. We would write articles and talk talk talk. And of course we partied a lot, went out for “seminars” on which we were talking about how to rescue the world during daytime and having a hell of a party during nighttime. We thought we could be a part of democracy – and had fun doing so.

I don’t know how about the others but after a year or two it struck me that we had archived nothing at all. That our huge demonstrations, our speeches, our fliers and all the media attention we got hadn’t changed a thing. I guess those politicians in Vienna realized the same thing. Had, earlier, our actions at least made them give press conferences talking bullshit about how they were taking care of the problem with time they ceased. In fact they ceased everything; they just wouldn’t react anymore at all. Next came the media: Had we triggered articles in most of Austria’s important newspapers without much more then a press release before now we could be lucky if we were mentioned in a side note in a local paper. Some years later I would – by mere coincidence – find out that there had been a teacher’s demonstration in Vienna (might have been around 2002/03) that blocked Vienna’s main traffic route (the “Ring”) for the whole morning but they didn’t get a line of media coverage, they had just been ignored.

Slowly our group fell apart. Was it because people – like me – realized they couldn’t change a thing or was it mostly because we grew up and got all to involved with starting our studies, lifes, careers? Some of us subsequently became local politicians with the social democratic party but the rest was never again seen in any kind of politics. I paid a visit to our old office some years later and was shocked by what I found: The next generation of our organisation was concerned about little but where they would get their alcohol from. I offered to help them if they needed a hand but they were doing nothing at all anyway. My last demonstration was in Germany about four years ago. It was against tuition fees introduced at German universities back then. Nearly everybody I knew was worried about how to pay for school and some said they would quit for they couldn’t afford it (in fact some did, others are hardly eating anything but potatoes). The demonstration took part in a city in reach of some of Germany’s biggest universities. I guess about 100′000 students must have been within a 45 minutes travel. Now guess how many attended? 400 according to both the media and the police. The organisers didn’t even give an estimate. We were 30 people heading there from my university, which was a 30 minutes ride by train. I was the only one who didn’t belief in communism … it was my last demonstration.

During the 1990ies people of my generation were taught that they couldn’t change a thing, that they weren’t meant to participate. Did we ever get the feeling that we are tomorrow’s leaders? Did we ever get the idea that we are to take over as soon as the Baby Boomer-generation steps back? Today we have finished our studies and are being pushed from one internship into the another. Half of the time we aren’t paid at all. Does anybody wonder there’s nobody to lead anymore? Does anybody wonder there’s no change, no movement, no interest in politics? For decades democracy has worked through associations showing the system’s problems and clearing the way for change. Youth groups and other grassroots movements put a halt to things if they were going too far the wrong direction. For about ten years it hasn’t happened anymore or nobody gave a damn. Does anybody wonder where we are today?

yours,

Migdalit

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East and West

12 March 2009 at 2:39 pm (Global Economic Crisis, Hope., Uncategorized)
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Hey folks,

has been a while yet there’s that post running wild in my thoughts for quite a while now that I need to get written down. Remember that job I was getting? Well in the end I didn’t get it (well, not yet) for reason of our all beloved economic crisis which has cost me two jobs so far. It was quite a story: I was meant to start working on Monday and – only by lucky coincidence – did I get the information that the whole thing was cancelled on Friday morning, around 3 am. Wasn’t quite funny, I can tell you that, not at all funny. Yes, I had known that that company was facing some troubles, and yes, I gave them a call as soon as I found out what was going on but all they’d say would be that it wouldn’t affect me thereby naturally keeping me from looking for another job.

In my darkest hours I have brooded the question whether the sudden cancellation of that job could have been connected with the way I have myself found treated because I am a woman but, frankly spoken, I think this would be going too far and leading straight the way to paranoia. More likely all it was was a bad coincidence or, perhaps, even the company trying to keep me as long as possible until there was just no other way then to cancel the job. I guess you guys know Occam’s law? If two possibilities are equally likely in most of the cases it’s the more simple one that’s true. You can spare yourself a lot of troubles and thinking the wrong way if you stick to that one.

However, only so you know the rest of the story. What happened after the first shock was over was of course me trying to find another job as quickly as possible – not so much for reasons of money then way more because I was going mad sitting in that goddess-damned village in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do. I am not a good housewife at all after all (perhaps the true meaning of a “desperate” housewife …). In the end I called another branch office of the same company and asked there and – believe me I was surprised! – they got me a job within two weeks. So here I am now and I am loving it a lot having superb collegues and work that might, again, not quite be a challenge, but that is fun in the end.

It happens though that that new branch office – which is quite a drive from my home yet still better then doing nothing though I can imagine the size of my CO2-footprint pretty well - is situated in Eastern Germany, former German Democratic Republic. It’s an interesting feeling to cross a border that has been closed for decades, separating people from each other, killing people, twice a day. There’s some old watchtower where I cross the border that’s not a border anymore that somehow keeps reminding me every day. Yet as strange as it feels it is also something that gives me hope. I mean who would have thought that I could do this – crossing the border by car without as much as flashing my ID – back in 1988? Nowadays people might find it equally unlikely that one day people (especially Palestinians) might find themselves crossing today’s Israeli – Palestinian border just like that. But perhaps if Germany taught us one thing it’s that miracles like that can happen. And they can happen by little more then the people of a country stepping out and asking for it out loud. I know it’s not as simple as that but bottom line of Germany 1989 is that the people of the German Democratic Republic raised and told out loud that they were fed up with their corrupt government. That they just wouldn’t support it anymore.

In the end no regime in the world – the least tyranns – can succeed without the people supporting them. Even if “support” means no more then looking the other direction. And neither Hamas nor the corrupt political systeme of Israel – wasn’t it more then enough to have Bibi Netanyahu elected once? – could survive if they weren’t backed by their people. If people stood up and proclaimed they had had enough of war and hatred – on both sides of the border, best of all in an movement that touched the whole region – there would be peace. I am 100% sure of that (and I am hardly that sure of anything).

Yet I know it’s wishful thinking. In both places people are to deeply fractionated and fighting each other – a good Israeli friend once said that by the time there was no outside foe of Israel anymore people would turn on each other – there is hardly anything unifying them, in a way not even their enemies. Or would have people said the same thing about Germany in 1989? Would they have claimed people couldn’t team up too? Just how did they do it? How did they make it happen?

Don’t get me wrong: Germany is way away from being truely unified and the schism running between East and West is still giant – after nearly 20 years. There is in fact a growing number of people – Eastern and Western Germans alike – that would like to rebuild the Wall. In a way I can even see why – I have seen villages deserted because industry was closed down and people lost their jobs; I have seen villages inhabited by nobody younger then 60 years – yet still they did it. They made the Wall disappear by the sheer power and force of a grassroots movement. So if it was done once (and in fact it was naturally done more often then the one time in Germany) who says it can’t be done again? In the end one or two peaceful state(s) facing problems is/are still better then what we see today.

yours

Migdalit

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Does medinat ysrael belong to erez ysrael?

15 January 2009 at 12:46 am (Uncategorized)
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shalom everybody,

so this is the day: The comments of Poor Insane – which I appreciated a lot for he, finally, seems to be a person sincerely looking for a dialog where one listens to the other’s arguments – and a discussion I had with a dear friend, D., who is reading this blog though only commenting in private (why by the way?) pushed me into getting something written down I have pushed off for quite a while now. Nearly a year to be specific; as long as I have had this blog: Does Israel belong there?

First of all I feel I have to make you learn two pieces of vocabulary so we can tell things from each other in this posting: medinat ysrael, the State of Israel, referring to today’s political nation Israel and erez ysrael, referring to the historic-geographic land of Israel as it is described in the bible.

So far … any more to procrastinate the “hard issue”? I am afraid nothing that wouldn’t be all to obviousely distracting from it …

To put it in a nutshell: I don’t have an answer to that question. There’s just too much information amiss or information I’ve only gotten from untrustworthy (either pro-Zionist or pro-Palestinian) sources to come to a solution. I’ll include those questions I’d love to have answered and if somebody can provide sources to any of them he’s more then welcome!

Nevertheless, me not being able to answer that question doesn’t change anything about the right of existence of today’s medinat ysrael, State of Israel. As far as the situation goes today the world – and that does include the Arab and thereby also the Palestinian world – will have to accept Israel existing and Israeli and Palestinians will ultimately have to come to a solution that grants both populations a peaceful, free and sustainable way of living. Whether that will be a classical two-state-solution or one or another kind of a joined state or maybe a completely different approach is another topic and a question only to be answered by history in the years to come. Even if Israel was to be proven “guilty” as the trigger of the current conflict (though I suppose even in the worst case scenario plenty of other entities would have their part too) it cannot be suggested today’s Israeli population (neither the Jewish nor the Muslim or any other) is punished for what their parents might have done wrong. This is why untouched by the historic “truth” I will never accept any voices questioning today’s medinat ysrael’s right of existence.

As far as history goes – and I hope Poor Insane and others are with me as far as that – there was some kind of political entity inhabited by Jews at some point in history at least to the Jewish rebellion against Rome and the destruction of the second temple by the Romans in 70 CE. And this is where my first questions to historians enter the stage: Who – ethnically – were the inhabitants of erez ysrael up to 70 CE? Was there already an Arab (Jordanian / Palestinian) population in erez ysrael? (remember there where no Muslims back then!) and about what percentage of the total population were they? What other minorities (?) used to live there in that time? (Today it’d be Druze and Beduin people and a number of other minorities).

Around 70 CE and the centuries following would also be the time when Rome did its best to get rid of the Jews of Israel. They did prohibit teaching of Judaism – Rabbis had to teach in hiding – and destroy everything and everybody Jewish they could get hold of. Also they “exported” plenty of Jews off to Europe as slaves (the last “Roman” diaspora). What I don’t know, though would love to find out is how many (what percentage of the total population) Jews remained in erez ysrael in about 700 CE? How and when did they disappear from the land that apparently at one point was inhabited mainly by them? When would be the first time there where more Arabs (Jordanians / Palestinians) then Israelis (Hebrews) in erez ysrael?

The 8th century CE brought about the rise of Islam and subsequently them taking over erez ysrael. But what happened to the Jews living there? My idea of it – though I might be mistaken so feel free to correct me – is that a number of them apparently converted to Islam and another group was killed (let’s avoid the g-word here). If this is correct it’d mean that ethnically today’s “Palestinian” population of erez ysrael was no more no less then Jews who converted to Islam at one point around the 8th century. Which is interesting if you consider that Judaism isn’t only about what religion one chooses but also about genetics – inherited belonging to the tribe of Israel.  ((I’ve suggested that to some rather zionist friends of mine once and they nearly freaked out *lol*. I wonder how pro-Palestinians ‘d react to that one?))

I know for sure though that there were some places in Israel that are known to have continuously and in direct line been inhabited by Jews all the time from the time of the second temple: Jerusalem, Hevron (well, no longer, apparently), Zfat and Pki’in.  So I dare to claim that there have, since the days of Moses, been Jews living in erez ysrael. It’s not like they completely disappeared at any given time … they just declined from a majority to a minority in the land that used to be their’s.

Anyway: After the Muslims came the Crusaders or better to say the split the country between the two of them for a while. There’s plenty of records of Jews living in erez ysrael during crusader time and the impression I got – though I am not a historian nor an expert of any kind – is that the population seems to have been rather mixed at that time with no population outnumbering the other all too much. In general Jews seemed to have had quite a lot of power and influence when it came to trade whilst political power, unless it was with the Christians, was more likely to be with Muslims. But again: That could be my fantasy going wild.

Later on, however, Muslims took back the land and held it basically until Ottomane times. By then Aliya Alef, the first wave of, mostly European, Jews migrating back to Israel would already have started. David Ben Gurion, for instance, legendary first Israeli Prime Minister, used to have a Turkish passport at some point. So now we are well into Zionism and Jews already moving back to Israel. A Israel that, by that time, hadn’t been existing anymore for about 1′800 years but then, though it was in contemporary literature referred to as “Palestine” talking about the geographic area wasn’t Palestine either but a part of the Ottomane empire until World War I in which it was taken over by Great Britain until medinat ysrael’s Independence in 1948.  An Independence that, according to Israeli sources, wasn’t all to much Great Britain’s doing anyway for apparently (according to Israeli sources) Jewish underground organisations, such as the Ha-Ganah, had already fought a decent battle against Britain’s rule for some decades pushing her to the point of getting out of the region before they completely lost their face.

I’ve read in a book about Theodor Herzl’s life once that in the beginning of Zionism many weren’t all too concerned about where that Jewish State would be located. The most important point about it, at that point, was to have a state that was mainly Jewish in order to protect Jews from persecution. There were talks about giving the Jews some piece of land in today’s Uganda (Africa) but it never happened for one reason or the other. Only later on Zionists chose their old homeland, erez ysrael, as the target for Jewish migration in order to establish that Jewish State.

What I’d love to have are reliable sources about the percentages of ethnic groups in erez ysrael around 1800 and their development during the 19th century yet I haven’t found any reliable (paid neither by Jews, nor Ottomanes) sources about that one. So I can’t tell you anything about who “inhabited” erez ysrael when Aliya Alef started. I’d love to know. I’ve seen some charts but not only am I afraid their numbers mirror that of those who paid the author but also did it strike me that the numbers only consist of “Jews” and “Muslims” or similar but there’s no word about Christians, Beduins, Druze safe any other minority and no difference between a “Palestinian” Arab and a Turk which limits the reliability of the sources to nil in my opinion.

The time of the foundation of the State of Israel is known as the “nakba”, the catastrophe, in Palestinian and Arab history. For Jews of course it was exactly the opposite: They finally had a country of their own, a place where they could feel safe. Well, mostly. At least now their enemies came from outside and they knew who they were.

I know some survivors of the Shoah and I can clearly depict what a great feeling it must have been for them. One lovely elderly lady, an Auschwitz survivor, H., whom I love dearly and who – in her way and perhaps without knowing of it – taught me a couple of very important lessons about “life” and “fate”, told me the point where she had really been able to make her peace with her past was the day when her son, while at the army, visited Auschwitz with his unit; that regular Israeli soldiers could go and visit there was the greatest of all feelings to her. Anyway where I want this to lead to is the following: Of course Jews at that time had a lot of wounds to hatch – psychologically as well als physically – and a whole state to build up so yes, it is perfectly possible that they forgot about those who had to innocently suffer for their happyness. I am sure wrong has been done and people have come to harm without contributing to it.

As concerns the “nakba” there’s quite a lot of controversial information again that makes it hard for me to sort out who’s “right” and who not. Whilst Palestinian sources claim “Palestinians” had been displaced from their homes by Israelis or similar I’ve read and heard plenty of Israeli sources claiming the only people that called for Arabs to leave the newly founded medinat ysrael was Arabs. I couldn’t remember ever having heard of Israelis actually killing or driving Arab people out by force – though this, again, might be due to me lacking sources so feel free to supply any. Anyway apparently for one reason or another many Arabs didn’t feel welcome in a Jewish state so they left to neighbouring countries who in the subsequent decades gravely betrayed them by declining even second and third generation refugees citizenship, work permits and a live outside refugee camps. (Or am I mistaken concerning this? How do you think about this, Poor Insane? Why do they do that?)

Talking about medinat ysrael and its foundation: British Mandate Palestine consisted not of today’s medinat ysrael but rather of both today’s medinat ysrael plus today’s Jordan. So when UN allowed – more or less voluntarely – medinat ysreal to be founded it already split the land and gave the bigger part, Transjordan – today’s Jordan – to the Arab population. A part of land Israel wasn’t all too interested into anyway for first of all they just wanted some land where they could finally settle down in peace and second of all according to bible sources it didn’t belong to them or their ancestors anyway.

So I can kinda understand why many Israelis claim they have already given half of the land to the Arabs anyway and them feeling the Arabs are just taking more and more of the land until, if they keep giving the Arabs more land, there will be no land left for Israel in the end. From the Israeli perspective it looks like every time they give land to the Arabs they just want more which of course makes Israel reluctant to give them any.

Another word to the name “Palestine”: There is two possible roots for the name “Palestine”. One of them being the ancient people of the Philisters, a people of whom we hardly know a thing but that they settled down in today’s Gaza strip and were pretty misterioue tradesmen – there’s quite a lot of really cool archaeological stuff left over from the Philistines in Gaza. Some say they were responsible for a series of raids in all the Eastern Mediterranean in that time but there’s not sufficient proof to be sure yet. Anyway it seems that those Philistines were no Semitic people, neither Arab nor Hebrew, but indogermanic spoken so they didn’t “belong” to the area at all. So I suppose as “original Palestines” the Philistines can be ruled out (though I’d love to run some genetic testing on today’s Gaza population (the part of it that’s not refugees from somewhere else) to find out if they are the actual descendants of Philistines).

Possibility number two and what is broadly accepted as historic truth (again I am open for sources suggesting the opposite) is the Romans renamed what used to be Judea into Palestine in order to disconnect the Jews with Judea; as a punishment for the Jewish revolts so to say. So as far as I am concerned there has never been such a thing as a “tribe of Palestine” that today’s Palestinians could derive their name and identity from. So here – again – comes one question: When and why did Palestinians begin to call themselves “Palestinians”? And what did they call themselves before that? I’ve heard rumors though unfortunately nothing reliable (sources anybody?) that up to some point in the 1960ies the average Palestinian would identify himself as “Jordanian” and only as the Palestinian liberation movement gained momentum were they told to call themselves “Palestinians”. There is hearsay about some elderly Palestinian people telling they were born “Jordanian” until one day somebody dropped by telling them that now they were “Palestinian”. I’d love to know whether there’s truth in that for that really makes it sound as if there is a possibility that “Palestinians” and thereby “Palestine” is no more no less then an artificially constructed entity in order to be used for Arab foreign politics (while nobody cares what happens to those being called “Palestinians”). Which even in the worst case scenario of  medinat ysrael not “belonging” to erez ysrael wouldn’t make “Palestinians” any better then “Israeli”.

This is just a rather random serving of aspects being part of the big question. There’s plenty more where that comes from at nearly every blog concerned with the area and its politics and history.

So here comes the thing with the question asked above: Who is to judge which people “belongs” to erez ysrael? What conditions have to be met for a people to rightfully “own” the land they are living in and what conditions have to be met in order for a people to loose that right? Poor Insane is absolutely right that, if following the logic of the Jews belonging to Israel because they did live there at some point you had to displace half of mankind and draw a completely new map. Many Jews claim they are a special case because of being persecuted for so many millenia and that historically proven the only way to grant their savety is by giving them the possibility to stand up for themselves by giving them a state of their own – medinat ysrael. Is this valid? I don’t know but I think if we have a look into history we cannot completely dismiss the argument nor the one that whilst Arabs do have half a continent to run to Jews have nothing but that tiny place called “Israel”. But then of course I can perfectly understand every Palestinian asking what the heck this does have to do with him and why this means his grandmother had to (?) leave her home in order to go someplace else.

I don’t believe anyhow that further forced displacements (neither of Jews nor Muslims) can pose a solution to the conflict but rather does a solution have to be found with everybody staying in the place he is living in now (which of course leaves open the question of what to happen with millions of “Palestinian” second and third generation “refugees” that likely couldn’t be supported by the pure size and resources of erez ysrael whatsoever.)

That’d be my personal overview of the situation. I think it’s the longest posting I’ve written so far but still merely scratches the surface of the whole problem, anyway I hope I could give you an idea of how complicated and multi-layered it is. I am more then open to any questions and any further discussion and if you are interested in any particular aspect just tell me and I’ll see what information I can get.

looking forward to a great discussion

Migdalit

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