I have recently been thinking about Islam, as it is 9/11. A professor from Bethlehem Bible College in "Palestine" came to our university twice and talked about the injustices of Israel against the Palestinians.
What was this injustice? Most of us have read and heard about the occupied territories and the constant warring between these two "brothers". This professor from Bethlehem Bible College said that the understanding of the territories is different, of course, than what we now know as Israel. Are these people without an identity because they have no "nation-state"? What does justice look like when it comes to these kinds of disputes? Is Muslim identity soley a religious one and that is the problem concerning terrorism? Are they seeking an identity only in Shairia Law, that they try to export into Western nations? And what about Western nations that have difficulties in knowing how to integrate a "people" whose identity is so tightly bound to their religion?
These questions, I'm sure, have been studied by the State Department and our diplomats. What do you think the solution is? A dissolution of national identity? Whose law will rule, then? Is a Democracy congruent with Islamic Law? Is a one world government possible? How are the nations to resolve these issues when the U.N. and international law has not? What do you think?
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Psalm 46
9 hours ago
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Whenever the Palestinians come up, I think it's instructive to remember how long we've been on our land. A paltry two hundred years.
The Palestinians were in that area longer than that, after the Jews were forced out. These people have been on that land far longer than we've been on ours, and I think you can imagine the chaos that would result if, for example, the Native Americans suddenly routed us out with full endorsement from the global community.
This is the position Palestinians are in. Sure, it's ancestral Israeli land, but it's ancestral Palestinian land, too. The fact that they were driven out and left to sustain themselves (in many cases) in what amount to refugee tent cities... it's bound to create bitterness. We'd be bitter, too.
This isn't my area of expertise, since I didn't study the Middle East too much. But I can say that both sides have a decent claim to that land, and that both sides have done terrible things to protect those claims. That's part of why it's such a hard issue to resolve; no one can really easily say "these are the bad guys and these are the victims."
Thanks Cobalt for your comment. I believe that men are short-sighted when it come to justice, as there are so many varibles to consider and many issues are subjectively (experiencially) assessed. There is no "right or wrong" in these cases. It just seems that there should be a little more equality in humane treatment....
By the way, exile happens all the time, without a batting of the eye. And sometimes it is due to downright jealousy, envy or what have you...national identities remain as "evil" as individual ones....
I re=read my last entry and it could be misunderstood. Identity, of course, is not 'evil' but, when we tie our necks to it so closely that we cannot engage another, then our idenity is too tightly bound to whatever is binding it...be it nation, family, religion, cultural standards...etc.
Right on.
And yeah, exile is horrible whenever it happens, which is one reason I get annoyed with a few people I know (not you) who lament that the Jews lost their homeland but feel perfectly justified in putting Palestinians through the same experience.
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