Fear and Desperation. Suppose your house was on fire and the only way out was to jump into your neighbor’s yard. What would you do, jump into his yard or burn in the fire? Suppose the neighbor didnt want you in his yard, now what would you do, burn or jump into his yard?
I think many of us are too busy thinking about our right as the neighbor. We think of our right to stop someone from trespassing onto our property. However, the bottom line was that at the time Israel was being created the Europeans owned the middle east. The Europeans hated most non Europeans, including Jews. During that time the Jews were being brutally murdered in Europe and even after the war they were not welcome in Europe. The Europeans who didnt want the Jews in Europe saw the middle east as a backward region of their empire and decided to allow these unwanted Jews to settle in it (as a way to get rid of them from Europe). The Europeans also did this also because they knew that under the Roman Empire the Jews were originally from the middle east. When the Jews saw this opportunity to create a homeland in Palestine, without European opposition, and get out of the burning house (Europe) they grabbed it.
Today, we may talk about the Arab right to no trespassing. We make talk about the right of the majority on the land to decide who should immigrate on it etc. However, we need to understand that in the colonial era these ideas were not fully developed. In those days, the general view was that the invader owned and made decisions of who should live on the land. For example, the mughal muslim invaders of India ruled India and made decisions about who lived in the Empire not the Hindus. So, if the owners decided they wanted the Jews to live in Israel, the Arabs really had no say in it, just as if the mughal rulers of India decided to bring Turkish troops to live in Delhi, the local Hindu populations would have no say in the matter.
Therefore, the way I see it, the fight between Arabs and Jews is like two servants fighting on who should live in the servants quarter behind the gora saab’s house. Since the two nokars are too scared to blame the gora saab for putting them both in one servant quarter, they blame each other.
regards,
bob