Going completely off course from my blog's usual subject matter I'd just like to propose something to anyone who cares to listen?..
After last night's news of Israeli air strikes on an airport in Syria and recent posts I've witnessed here on Steemit about the conflict around Gaza I thought I'd offer my 2 cents and maybe open a discussion on how we're all being misled and misinformed on what's really going on in the Middle East and why Israel isn't as bad as everyone says they are.
First off the mainstream media is lazy and cannot be trusted, we all should know this by now. The countless stories being printed about how Israel is stealing land from the Palestinian people and killing innocent civilians creates buzz that draws readers in. A small oppressed group being mistreated by a powerful world player like Israel is a plot being fed to mostly ill informed people half a world away that can't be bothered to look at the issue from an Israeli point of view.
The story of a ruthless nation mistreating poor refugees garners attention and that translates into clicks, the substance is always the same and usually more often than not anti-Israel with them being villafied, but there's a few things you have to understand..
I think most people aside from the most "out there" conspiracy theorists would all agree over the course of history Jewish people themselves have been largely mistreated.
Before anyone was talking about the Gaza strip Jews suffered at the hands of others and were persecuted with unspeakable acts of brutality wherever they were located on the map. We're not just talking about the Holocaust here, Jews around the world were the subject of hatred and killed off long before WW2.
A quick internet search would probably find evidence that since 160 BC Jewish people were the oppressed and systematically slaughtered for their beliefs starting with the Seleucid Empire banning Jewish scripture and Greeks rounding up and killing Jewish people just for their choice of religion.
While I wouldn't argue that many times religion does more harm then good, I'm sure most of us would agree that if people want to practice any religion they should be free to do so.
So in the relatively new Jewish homeland of Israel there have been wars fought and many people have died, sadly alot of them innocent civilians but war isn't humane.
One thing you won't hear often however is that Palestine has already turned down two previous peace treaties and the opportunity to own half of the land Israel now possesses. Rather than accept peace the Palestinian people have chose to fight in a battle that they just can't win and have teamed with terrorists whose only purpose is to harm Jews.
While the media runs countless stories about how Israel is mistreating refugees you have to dig to find stories that maybe critical of how Palestinians themselves are acting with their terrorist allies..
When rockets are fired over Israel's borders that kill innocent Jewish lives the media often doesn't report these acts. They aren't deemed newsworthy by the Associated Press the same way that when Israel responds to these attacks or builds walls to try to protect its citizens.
You'll only hear about encampments on "Palestinian property" and how the Jews are trying to steal land but this totally flys in the face of fact that most of this land, and a big chunk of what is now Israel, could have been theirs had they chose to live in peace alongside Israel.
By building walls and setting up check points in a mostly lawless area to protect its own people from being attacked Israel is now seen as the bully.
Palestinian sympathizers also choose to ignore the fact Hammas, a terrorists organization that openly states they want to totally destroy Israel, is working with Palestinan fighters and using refugees along Israel's borders as human shields. If innocent people are killed they know the media will report it and further their agenda and this is exactly what they want.
Their intent is to harm Jewish people no matter the cost.
Palestine, Lebanon and Syria are used as a jump off point for many Middle Eastern groups to launch attacks against Israel and they don't want peace, their main goal is to kill Jews plain and simple. It's a religious war against Jews in a mainly Muslim region.
The same people that rally to support the Palestinian cause from half a world away ignore the history of the Middle East as being a war torn area of conflict since the dawn of man. There will probably never be peace in the Middle East sadly especially if history is any indication of what to expect in the future..
This will happen whenever you have a large swath of land with many different countries bordering eachother with different religious sects. The Muslim majority countries don't get along and have been at war or fighting for centuries.
Israel is a tiny speck of land smack in the middle of all this and there's no easy solution but at the same time they have to work to protect their people and they do.
Israel maybe tiny but it's a very powerful country.
In it's short existence it has fought wars with every country that it shares a border with. These counties want to wipe out Israel but Israel isn't interested in returning the favor..they just want to live in peace but they are more than capable of handling themselves on the battlefield.
Israel has fought wars with Iran, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, sometimes a few countries at a time have even tried to attack Israel and wipe out the Jewish populace but it has survived. When attacked Israel has pushed it aggressors back and seized land in a few other countries only to return the captured land later, they're not interested in just grabbing land and expanding their borders.
These aren't cuddly characters either, all of these countries that have attacked Israel have a proven track record of mistreating their own people and dealing out attrocities.
Israel is in a real fight for it's own existence that they believe is threatened, if you look at history you'd be hard pressed to argue that point.
So Israel builds walls, they respond when large groups try to break through their borders and harm their people and yes they even build out and try to provide a buffer zone in war ravaged area that many in the international community condemn. They're not doing it to steal some resource rich land but to protect their own citizens. Fact is there's almost nothing of value in the land they are said to be trying to capture..
Its not pretty but neither is the terrorist controlled Gaza strip or Golan Heights region.
Alot of the reaction and reporting about the conflict in the Middle East is anti semitic at its core and many of the pro Palestinian sentiment is largely from people that are misinformed about what is really going on in the area. They chose to look at Israel as a ruthless bully than just a country trying to protect its citizens after centuries of others working to exterminate them. They also ignore the fact there's many ruthless actors using the Palestinian "cause" as an excuse to try to murder innocent Jewish people and hide behind them.
Thanks for reading and I welcome your replies
Photo credit: the Japan Times