Reply to Irsael & Hamas Agree to a 72 hr Cease Fire

Forum Index » Political Discussion

Reply to "Irsael & Hamas Agree to a 72 hr Cease Fire"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]then what was it?[/quote]

I actually wrote a post on that but I believe it was in the wrong thread and Jeff deleted it. I was there when the huge wave of immigration was happening. Number 1, or as an aside, Russian Jews didn't go to Israel because of a great attachment to the Jewish state.  Russia at the time was a bad place to be, and Israel presented a form of escape. If it was Italy or Australia, they'd go there, too.  Many did move past Israel once they got on their feet.

The primary reason Russian Jews turned hardline and right-wing was because prior to getting on the plane, they were sold - via lectures and outreach at synagogues - the story that Israel was a "land without people and people without land."  At no point of time was it mentioned that there is actually another group of people in Palestine/Israel that thinks of this land as their own.  The history of Arab/Jewish conflict and its prevarications since 1948 were largely unknown to the Russian Jews headed to Israel.  No one understood the issue of occupation, no one understood where these lands came from, no one questioned what should be done with them, no one talked about Palestinians as a people with legitimate grievances. At most, this was mentioned as "these Arabs who all want to kill us."  For most, the existence of Palestinians and their aspirations vis-a-vis statehood was an utter and complete discovery they made after they landed in the country.  Therefore, the attitude of the Russian Jews toward Palestinians was that of utter bewilderment that "these people" dare to exist at all.   Add to this the fact that most of them were poor, and real estate in central Israel is incredibly expensive, and therefore most recent immigrants could only afford housing in far-out suburban communities often in recent settlements.  This is the home they know. They feel entitled to that.  No Arab is going to take that away. Lack of experience with democracy doesn't come into the picture at all.

And it completely understandable why Israel didn't present them with a complete picture - because Russian Jews were a big part of the solution to Israel's demographic dilemma, and a big source of immigration (let's face it, no one is standing in line for the Israeli passport if they have better options), and Israel wanted more people.   How many people do you think would immigrate if Israeli outreach services told them, "yes, please, you are welcome to come, but mind you that half the country is actually taken up by the disputed land we took away from another people (really really recently), and they are still kinda angry about that.  And you're most likely going to live right next to them as that's all you'll be able to afford."

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics