Free Canaan

I warn you: Today's blog will be about issues. I'm not sure which one though- I've three in my diary, here. Well, let's go for the topical one.

I read an article in the news recently, titled Palestinians may seek single state. Essentially, it's a 'threat' by the Palestinian administration to press for a single state with equal rights for Jews and Arabs. Israel doesn't want this because there will soon be more Arabs than Jews in the region. Palestine doesn't want this because they see it as giving up.

For those who aren't familiar with the situation, after WWII the Allies decided that to protect Jews from persecution they would create a Jewish 'homeland': this movement is called Zionism. Now, when you're an alliance of every halfway decent country left on earth and you've got Nazi Germany to contrast yourself with, you can afford to be very forthright in your actions. So what we did is, we evicted anyone living in places that were mentioned in the Old Testament and gave the land to anyone of the Jewish faith who wanted it. Since the US was instrumental in setting it up, and since most Americans think of Mel Brooks when you say "Minority", Israel has enjoyed massive (nuclear) support from America ever since.

What about those people who lived there before? We built refugee camps, which are still there today. Like stagnant water breeds mosquitos, the hopeless injustice and crushing poverty of these camps has bred a lot of terrorists ever since.

By now, a lot of you are thinking that I'm an anti-Semite. After the unspeakable crimes against Jewish people in the Nazi regime, we're all highly sensitised to anti-semitism. I believe it's exactly that effect that has led to this sorry state of affairs. When states are immune to censure, they tend not to worry to much about making friends, least of all with marginalised people, and most of all when the state owes them a debt of guilt. It's so much easier to ignore the problem, or pretend that they bought it upon themselves. We only have to look at Sharons' Big Brother to see that much.

The latest developement is that Israel has toyed with an elegant solution to the problem: build a wall around the country. No, really.

But that brings us to the latest story. Remember? The Palestine administration may start pressuring for a single state. Now, I've been saying this for some time. Until you think about the possiblility, you don't relaise how mad the current thinking is.
Quote: The Gaurdian newspaper

"In Washington, the US secretary of state, Colin Powell,
said separation, not integration, was the only solution
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "I believe that's the only
solution that will work: a state for the Palestinian people
called Palestine and a Jewish state, state of Israel, which exists." "

In other words, a state should only be for people of the right race or religion. That's exactly the unwritten assumption we have here. I'm no expert on US history, but you'd think their attitudes on this were fixed in the civil war. "One state for Blacks, one for Whites"? Would the powerful nations of the world be supporting a country carved out of the UK exclusively for Anglo-Saxons? Really, imagine it: Let's say Kent, Sussex, Essex and Middlesex. It's 1946 and the Allied army drives out the Blacks, Asians, Jews and Irish to live in refugee camps in Bedford, Reading, and Portsmouth. Skip forward to the alternative today and imagine tanks rolling over houses in the "DP" slums. Do you think the existence of a state that is only for white people is right? Do you think that a state that is only for Arabs is rights? Do you think that a state only for Jews is right?

A single, nonracial, secular state is right. Equal Civil rights are right.

The answer isn't Israel, or Palestine, or apartheid.

The answer is Canaan.

Song in my head: "This Protector" by White Stripes