It's easy to blame the problems with war and strife in the Middle East and Africa on the local people and Islam, but a lot of it can also be tracked back to European colonialism and drawn borders that threw a lot of people together who didn't want to be thrown together. Israel/Palestine is just one of the most visible examples.

And yes, I agree that it wouldn't be fair or practical to throw the Jews off that land now either. I argue the Palestinians' case because it seems to me that the U.S. government as a whole has been entirely too much on the Israelis' side in this conflict, for a whole host of reasons (some legitimate and some not). I agree with Oaktown's take that both the Jews and Muslims kind of got screwed in this deal and neither the leadership of Israel or Palestine has exactly covered themselves in glory in trying to resolve it.

And yes, there is currently an Israeli occupation of lands that were supposed to be reserved for the Palestinians. One can try to debate whether or not that occupation is justified, but to say it's not an occupation is silly.

bearister said:

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The British Museum: a salute to Britain's looting of the Middle East.

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Not just the Middle East. Greece wants their marbles back. It's hilarious. For years the British Museum essentially said that they needed to keep them because Greece couldn't take care of them and that if they had a place for them they would give them back. By the way, Greece has been petitioning for their return for almost 190 years, since 20 years after their theft. Finally, Greece built a museum and included a room for the Marbles and said "there -- that is where we are going to put them. We have a place. Now give them back". Instead of doing the right thing as a majority of the British people want them to do, the British Museum said - mmm. no. don't think so. Then, instead of at least saying - look, we stole it fair and square. Sorry, but the harsh reality is, you have no legal redress and we want them because they are valuable. It probably should be yours, be we ain't running a charity. We're keeping them. Instead of that, they said - stealing them, I mean removing them was a creative act. (really, they said that). Why should they be in a museum in Greece on the Acropolis when that is no more the original location than hundreds of miles away in London. (forget that we were the ones that took them off the Parthenon). And who is to say they are Greek. They are treasures of the world and the world can enjoy them here in England.

Then, as a final kick in the pants, they loaned some of them to a museum in Russia after steadfastly refusing to ever loan them to Greece.

Honestly, Greece should steal something important to British heritage, stick it in the museum where they want to put the marbles, and negotiate a swap.

Jews are tribal. Something about being almost exterminated tends to do that I guess (not excusing it, just saying). Armenians are the same way.

There probably shouldn't be a state of Israel, but since there is, it's completely rational (sort of) for Israel to hate everybody that's out to destroy them (duh) as it is for Palestinians to resent the state of Israel. Both sides believe they are being provoked by the other.

Plus, I thought America gave the Jews two states of Israel in the U.S. : NYC and L.A.

OaktownBear said:

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Honestly, Greece should steal something important to British heritage, stick it in the museum where they want to put the marbles, and negotiate a swap.

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How about Kate Middleton?

OaktownBear said:

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bearister said:

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The British Museum: a salute to Britain's looting of the Middle East.

---

Not just the Middle East. Greece wants their marbles back. It's hilarious. For years the British Museum essentially said that they needed to keep them because Greece couldn't take care of them and that if they had a place for them they would give them back. By the way, Greece has been petitioning for their return for almost 190 years, since 20 years after their theft. Finally, Greece built a museum and included a room for the Marbles and said "there -- that is where we are going to put them. We have a place. Now give them back". Instead of doing the right thing as a majority of the British people want them to do, the British Museum said - mmm. no. don't think so. Then, instead of at least saying - look, we stole it fair and square. Sorry, but the harsh reality is, you have no legal redress and we want them because they are valuable. It probably should be yours, be we ain't running a charity. We're keeping them. Instead of that, they said - stealing them, I mean removing them was a creative act. (really, they said that). Why should they be in a museum in Greece on the Acropolis when that is no more the original location than hundreds of miles away in London. (forget that we were the ones that took them off the Parthenon). And who is to say they are Greek. They are treasures of the world and the world can enjoy them here in England.

Then, as a final kick in the pants, they loaned some of them to a museum in Russia after steadfastly refusing to ever loan them to Greece.

Honestly, Greece should steal something important to British heritage, stick it in the museum where they want to put the marbles, and negotiate a swap.

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Interesting piece by Michelle Goldberg
on the revival of Jewish radicalism. Many thanks to the Chosen One

On Aug. 11, more than 1,000 people marked Tisha B'Av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, by occupying an Amazon Books store in Manhattan, protesting the technology behemoth's technical support for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Sitting on the floor, they read harrowing accounts of people in immigration detention and recited the Kaddish, the traditional Jewish prayer of mourning. One of their signs said, "Never again means never again."

New progressive Jewish groups are forming. Older ones, like New York's Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, one of the forces behind the Amazon action, are growing; once-sleepy organizing meetings have become standing room only. Jewish Currents, a left-wing Jewish publication founded almost 75 years ago, was reborn last year with a new cadre of writers and editors who speak to the millennial socialist zeitgeist.

Never Again Action was born in reaction to the perceived failures of mainstream Jewish organizations to stand up to Trump. In June, after Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referred to migrant detention camps as "concentration camps," establishment Jewish outfits like the Jewish Community Relations Council rushed to condemn her. Rubin was incredulous. A militantly xenophobic government is building internment camps for members of ethnic out-groups, and Jewish leaders worried that critics of this project were disrespecting the memory of the Holocaust?

The Jewish left rejects the idea that anti-Zionism is equivalent to anti-Semitism, but even more than that, it rejects the idea that Israel is the guarantor of Jewish safety or the lodestar of Jewish identity. A central value of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, as well as for much of left-wing Jewish culture more broadly, is "doikayt," a Yiddish term that means hereness"

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/24/opinion/sunday/trump-jews.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share