I'm Gonna Get Some Flak For This One

I was just thinking to myself I needed to have a damn good rant about all this Israel stuff. And the main thought that revolved around my head concerning all of the atrocities and shelling and emotive heart-string-tugging on the media channels was this: How can people be so goddamned stupid?
I know I'm severely undereducated when it comes to this topic, but it is one of those subjects where I think knowing too much about the underlying history behind the conflict actually clouds the issue and makes it more difficult to deal with.

From where I sit it seems very simple. Israel, having been moaning for centuries about how the Holy Land is rightfully theirs, finally got what they saw as a break after World War 2 when the UN said here's the plan, you have this bit and the Palestinians, who have been living here for bloody ages, can have these bits. Alright, says Israel, fine. A little while later Israel says nah, actually, we want more than that. Since then, they've been fighting on and off for nigh on 70 years. Now Israel have stepped up the anti-Palestinian stance and seem content in bombing the living shit out of everything until all the Palestinians either get fed up and leave or just expire. It's like a landlord that tries to kick its tenants out (OK, I know, Israel isn't the 'landlord' of the Palestinian territories, but bear with me and let's see where this ends up, shall we? Patience, people, patience.) by sustained and constant attack on the property they live in. It's ridiculous and untenable. It would be crazy for a landlord to systematically destroy bits of their rental properties in order to get rid of the people that lived there, because he's ending up with a property in disrepair and it would be worthless. Similarly, Israel seem to think that the best way of regaining control of Gaza is to shoot fucking huge rockets at it until the Palestinians either up and die, or up and leave. What they seem to not understand is that Gaza will not be worth a tinker's toilet pan if they have levelled the bejeezus out of it.

"Hey guys? Guess what? Good news, the Palestinians are all gone / dead. Brilliant!"

"Cool! Now we can go back in there and... oh. Umm... looks like shit, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, well... nothing to do with us, surely?"

What is the point of trying to explain this to anyone? I mean, I know I'm gonna get some comments from people. I'm gonna be unfriended by several, I guess. But here's the thing.

I'm not anti-Semitic, I'm not anti-Palestinian, I'm not anti-Jew, anti-Muslim, anti-anything.

Except war. I'm anti-war. Anti-pain. Anti-violence.

I'm pro-people. Pro-peace.

Right now in the good ole U S of A, the thinking seems to be - stand behind Israel. Israel is right, Israel is the victim here, and if you are a Jew you need to be standing with them. If you are American you need to stand behind Israel because Israel is our buddy. So what if they blew the holy crap out of a UN school in Gaza? There must have been Hamas terrorists in that school because they wouldn't have destroyed it and all its contents (including children) unless there was some serious terrorist-type stuff happening there, would they? So let's all give Israel more weapons with which to protect themselves from those terrible terrorist Palestinian kiddies. Yeah. Good idea. (Sarcasm alert!)

Understand that I am only a simple Englishman who is pro-peace, pro-people, and not anti-Semitic. I am, however, anti-religion, because as I see it, every war that can be thought of has had some kind of 'religious' motive behind it, as if it was an excuse when all other excuses failed, and the fighting in the Middle East has always had some kind of territorial or religious reason behind it.

"Well, we're Israel and we deserve to live in Holy Land without any of those infidel Muslims cluttering the place up, because well, we're the children of Israel, and we have been very poorly treated throughout history, so be nice to us or else."

"Oh sure, poor Israel, let'em live there and boot everyone else out, because it's such a fucking attractive place to live, innit? The Negev Desert is so gorgeous this time of year."

Seriously, you're fighting over a hot dry piece of shit strip of sand, and you want to make sure you get control of it by bombing the shit out of it? Why, so you can build a frigging hotel and form a beach club? Well, sign me up, Israel, I always look for an arid area to vacation in. Pass me my Sandy Colada served in a spent grenade, I wanna work on my goddamn tan.

I realise this all sounds like hot air and ill-informed bull crap, but to me it's all very simple. Israel wants to bully Palestine out of its homeland - yes, homeland, they've been living there for fuckin' centuries. Why can they not get along? Why can't they be like these guys?

Why'd everybody clown Rodney King/

When he said that "why can't we all get along?" thing?/

Well it makes perfect sense to me/

But history tells us it just wasn't meant to be.

 -Wax , "It's All Love"