AndrewV69 wrote:feathers wrote:Hunt wrote:All well, shapely and good, but I don't get Coyne's endorsement of Zionism. Zionism doesn't just "support the proposition of a Jewish homeland". It supports the illegal seizure of land in Palestine based on the religious claim that G-d gave Israel to the Jewish people. Very un-Coyne like. Add to that, that Zionism also supports the illegal expansion into Palestinian zones and the bulldozing of Palestinian homes to make way for Jewish settlements. Why does Jerry seem so unquestioningly committed to this? I find it baffling.
Yeah, I never engage in that discussion but he does have a very blind spot there. As much as I abhor Hezbollah and dislike the vitriolic antisemitic discourse under Palestinians, how does that justify illegal settlements or blowing up houses of presumed terrorists' families?
Without sanctioning any action on any side I am going to offer you a perspective that no one seems to acknowledge, but is based on my observation(s).
The goal of both sides is the extinction of the other side.
Everything make sense now?
To be fair you could say that of pretty much every conflict in the Middle East. And of many conflicts in Asia and Africa as well. Either physical extinction or "population transfers" or establishing one group's supremacy over the other and/or complete and unequivocal control over key resources are the ultimate goal in those confrontations, and every peace is more like a temporary truce.
The alternative to those conflict is usually a multicultural empire where the monopoly of force is concentrated in a single entity which crushes all those who rebel and/or cause trouble.
Europe has experienced this as well in the former Yugoslavian states, as well as, to a degree, in Northern Ireland and the Basque country. And for centuries wars of aggression and domination were the norm pretty much everywhere, along with ethnic/religious cleansing (pogroms, religious wars, etc. etc.)- Even recently the Nazi plans were ones of extermination/absolute domination.
On the other hand Communist Russia behaved like a multicultural empire. The US did the same thing, only through economic rather than purely military domination (at least in Europe, they were as happy to go to war to defend their sphere of influence elsewhere).
It's the current Democratic Peace in Europe and the "west" in general which is an oddity. People who live in modern "western" liberal democracies don't know how lucky they are. They're the most free, prosperous, safe people in history, at least as long as those "western" liberal democracies will last.