G-Rock wrote:Someone brought up Israel, or the fact that Israel could be a reason why radical Islam hates the west.
Here is a hypothetical question for you.
How would the US have reacted had the Allies after WW2 decided to take Arizona away from the Arizonians, and had given it to the Jews?...
Allies gave land to Israel?
Following World War II, the British withdrew from their mandate of Palestine, and the UN partitioned the area into Arab and Jewish states, an arrangement rejected by the Arabs.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/fa ... os/is.html
Before generalizing how allies "loved" Jews and how Arabs are victims of pro-Israeli decisions made by allies read this:
What happened in Palestine during World War II?
The Jewish Agency rejected the heavily pro-Arab 1939 White Paper emphatically, branding it as a total repudiation of Balfour and Mandate obligations. In September 1939, at the outset of World War II, Ben-Gurion, then chairman of the Jewish Agency, declared: "We shall fight the war against Hitler as if there were no White Paper, and we shall fight the White Paper as if there were no war." Ben-Gurion's statement of 1939 set the tone for Jewish Agency policy and operations during World War II.
In May 1940, however, when Winston Churchill, a longtime Zionist sympathizer, became prime minister, it appeared that the 1939 White Paper might be rescinded. A brief period of close British-Jewish military cooperation ensued, and there was talk (which never came to fruition) of establishing a Jewish division within the British Army. The British trained Jewish commando units, the first elements of the famous Palmach--the strategic reserve of the Haganah--and they also gave Jewish volunteers intensive training in sabotage, demolition, and partisan warfare. Ironically, this training proved indispensable in the Yishuv's efforts after the war to force the British to withdraw from Palestine.
The entry of Italy into the war in May 1940, which brought the war closer to the Middle East, convinced Churchill and his military advisers that the immigration provisions of the White Paper needed to be enforced so as not to antagonize the Arabs. Thus, the British strictly enforced the immigration limits at a time when European Jewry sought desperately to reach the shores of Palestine.
During World War II, the Zionist aliyah effort focused on rescuing Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe. Some immigrants entered the country on visas issued under the "White Paper" quota; the majority came illegally. This immigration, called Aliyah Bet, arrived by land and by sea, from Europe and the Middle East, in contravention of British orders.
The loss of contact with European countries, the hazards of maritime travel under wartime conditions, and the difficulty in obtaining vessels for transport of illegal immigrants placed severe constraints on Aliyah Bet.
Several boatloads of immigrants who managed to reach Palestine were sent back by British authorities upholding the quota system. Many lost their lives at sea or in the Nazi inferno in Europe. Overland, 1,350 Syrian Jews were escorted to Palestine in an intricate and audacious operation. In 1940, 267 refugees were killed accidentally by the Haganah during an attempt to prevent the British from deporting them on the 'SS Patria' in Haifa harbor.
The British disgraced themselves further in February 1942 in the case of the Romanian ship 'Struma' which anchored in Turkey awaiting permission to land 747 Romanian Jews in Palestine. The British not only refused to let the refugees continue to Palestine, they encouraged Turkish authorities to tow the ship into the Black Sea and cast it adrift, an inhuman act given that the passengers had been on board for 74 days, overcrowded with inadequate supplies. The ship was then sunk by a Russian submarine with the loss of 796 people. This tragic incident was the final blow to support of Britain among the Jews of Palestine.
For the duration of the war, Jews had no option but to throw in their lot with the allies and most of them cast aside concerns for their dreams of a homeland in order to concentrate on the destruction of the virulently anti-semitic German Reich. Arabs were similarly pacified by the concessions to them in the 1939 White Paper. Palestine settled down to a relatively quiet time during the Second World War, the major concern being the approaching Italians and Germans who advanced towards the Suez early in the war. The battle of El Alamein removed any real threat to Palestine in this period. In June 1941 the British Army and Free French forces entered Syria from Palestine. After facing tough resistance from the Vichy forces the Allies captured Damascus on 17th June. The armistice was signed on 12th July and pro-British regimes were maintained in Syria for the rest of the war.
Palestinian Jews in British Army, World War II
Despite British-Jewish tensions, thousands of Jewish volunteers served in the British army in scattered units, and on September 14, 1944, the Jewish Brigade was established. The Jewish Brigade of approximately 5,000 soldiers was the only military unit to serve in World War II in the British Army — and, in fact — in all the Allied forces — as an independent, national Jewish military formation.
The Arabs took the side of the Axis, either overtly like Iraq or indirectly by withholding support for the Allies. Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini issued a fatwa- "summons to a holy war against Britain" in May 1941. The Mufti's widely heralded proclamation against Britain was declared in Iraq, where he was instrumental in "the pro-Nazi" Iraqi revolt of 1941.
In the 1930s, the fascist regimes that arose in Italy and Germany sought greater stakes in the Middle East, and began courting Arab leaders to revolt against their British and French custodians. Among their many willing accomplices was Jerusalem Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini, who fled Palestine after agitating against the British during the Arab Revolt of 1936-39. He found refuge in Iraq – another British mandate – where he again topped the British most wanted list after helping pull the strings behind the Iraqi coup of 1941. The revolt in Baghdad was orchestrated by Hitler as part of a strategy to squeeze the region between the pincers of Rommel's troops in North Africa, German forces in the Caucuses and pro-Nazi forces in Iraq. However, in June 1941 British troops put down the rebellion and the Mufti escaped via Tehran to Italy and eventually to Berlin.
Once in Berlin, the Mufti received an enthusiastic reception by the "Islamische Zentralinstitut" and the whole Islamic community of Germany, which welcomed him as the "Führer of the Arabic world." In an introductory speech, he called the Jews the "most fierce enemies of the Muslims" and an "ever corruptive element" in the world.
Mufti Husseini Inspects Bosnian-Muslim SS 1943
Husseini soon became an honored guest of the Nazi leadership and met on several occasions with Hitler. He personally lobbied the Führer against the plan to let Jews leave Hungary, fearing they would immigrate to Palestine. He also strongly intervened when Adolf Eichman tried to cut a deal with the British government to exchange German POWs for 5000 Jewish children who also could have fled to Palestine. The Mufti's protests with the SS were successful, as the children were sent to death camps in Poland instead. One German officer noted in his journals that the Mufti would liked to have seen the Jews "preferably all killed." On a visit to Auschwitz, he reportedly admonished the guards running the gas chambers to work more diligently. Throughout the war, he appeared regularly on German radio broadcasts to the Middle East, preaching his pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic message to the Arab masses back home.
During the Second World War in Yugoslavia, many Muslim clerics in Bosnia and Kosovo were willing accomplices in the genocide of the nation's Serbian, Jewish and Roma population. From 1941 until 1945, the Nazi-installed regime of Ante Pavelic in Croatia carried out some of the most horrific crimes of the Holocaust, killing over 800,000 Yugoslav citizens - 750,000 Serbs, 60,000 Jews and 26,000 Roma. In these crimes, they were helped by Muslim fundamentalists in Bosnia and Kosovo who were openly supported by the Palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Husseini openly encouraged Muslims to join Nazi units that would be later implicated in genocide and crimes against humanity - the infamous Hanjar (or Handschar) 13th Waffen SS division.
Husseini represents the prevalent pro-Nazi posture among the Arab/Muslim world before, during and even after the Holocaust. The Nazi-Arab connection existed even when Adolf Hitler first seized power in Germany in 1933. News of the Nazi takeover was welcomed by the Arab masses with great enthusiasm, as the first congratulatory telegrams Hitler received upon being appointed Chancellor came from the German Consul in Jerusalem, followed by those from several Arab capitals. Soon afterwards, parties that imitated the National Socialists were founded in many Arab lands, like the "Hisb-el-qaumi-el-suri" (PPS) or Social Nationalist Party in Syria. Its leader, Anton Sa'ada, styled himself the Führer of the Syrian nation, and Hitler became known as "Abu Ali" (In Egypt his name was "Muhammed Haidar"). The banner of the PPS displayed the swastika on a black-white background. Later, a Lebanese branch of the PPS – which still receives its orders from Damascus – was involved in the assassination of Lebanese President Pierre Gemayel.
The most influential party that emulated the Nazis was "Young Egypt," which was founded in October 1933. They had storm troopers, torch processions, and literal translations of Nazi slogans – like "One folk, One party, One leader." Nazi anti-Semitism was replicated, with calls to boycott Jewish businesses and physical attacks on Jews. Britain had a bitter experience with this pro-German mood in Egypt, when the official Egyptian government failed to declare war on the Wehrmacht as German troops were about to conquer Alexandria.
After the war, a member of Young Egypt named Gamal Abdul Nasser was among the officers who led the July 1952 revolution in Egypt. Their first act – following in Hitler's footsteps – was to outlaw all other parties. Nasser's Egypt became a safe haven for Nazi war criminals, among them the SS General in charge of the murder of Ukrainian Jewry; he became Nasser's bodyguard and close comrade. Alois Brunner, another senior Nazi war criminal, found shelter in Damascus, where he served for many years as senior adviser to the Syrian general staff and still resides today.
Sami al-Joundi, one of the founders of the ruling Syrian Ba'ath Party, recalls: "We were racists. We admired the Nazis. We were immersed in reading Nazi literature and books... We were the first who thought of a translation of Mein Kampf. Anyone who lived in Damascus at that time was witness to the Arab inclination toward Nazism."
These leanings never completely ceased. Hitler's Mein Kampf currently ranks sixth on the best-seller list among Palestinian Arabs. Luis Al-Haj, translator of the Arabic edition, writes glowingly in the preface about how Hitler's "ideology" and his "theories of nationalism, dictatorship and race… are advancing especially within our Arabic States." When Palestinian police first greeted Arafat in the self-rule areas, they offered the infamous Nazi salute - the right arm raised straight and upward.
The PLO and notably Arafat himself do not make a secret of their source of inspiration. The Grand Mufti el-Husseini is venerated as a hero by the PLO. It should be noted, that the PLO's top figure in east Jerusalem today, Faisal Husseini, is the grandson to the Führer's Mufti. Arafat also considers the Grand Mufti a respected educator and leader, and in 1985 declared it an honor to follow in his footsteps. Little wonder. In 1951, a close relative of the Mufti named Rahman Abdul Rauf el-Qudwa el-Husseini matriculated to the University of Cairo. The student decided to conceal his true identity and enlisted as "Yasser Arafat."
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_during_ww2.php
So, Arab leaders declared holly war against west 7 years before Israel was founded after they've helped Hitler and participated in holocaust with their own free will. Symphaty? No. PLO is terrorist organization just as Hammas is. It is not west's fault or Israel's fault that 75% of Palestinians voted for Hammas. They themselves are victims of Islam (especially their woman). Problem is in Islam because just as communism Islam sounds like paradise in theory but in practice it is worse than communism or fascism.
Here I'll make a switch;
Defending western civilization from Islam is what I'll always support just as I'll support liberation of woman in Islam countries from slavery under male terror. BUT, just as practical Islam is bad US way to deal with is also very bad. If US claim that they are land of the freedom and democracy in which I believe than they can't invade Iraq in a mission to overthrow Saddam and cause death of over 100.000 Iraqis and several thousand of their own soldiers.
Everlasting problem with initially good intentions of US is in fact that whenever there's an easily solvable conflict or a dictator that needs to be eliminated US weapons industry pulls back those who want to solve the problem and instead of assassination of dictator or a bombardment of one building or bunker they lead conventional war made to last as long as possible because that fills their pockets.
US and UK too had the power and means to kill any dictator in the world from Hitler to Saddam, but they never did it. That's what's bad and what people don't like about US foreign policy - causing wars instead of eliminating individuals who are causing the problem.
If they've assassinated Saddam most of the world would applaud but they didn't, they've started a Vietnam part II and shown that their means and ways of solving the problem are not more humane or more civilised than means of dictators and terrorists which when everything is added doesn't make them good guys in general.
Innocent victim is an innocent victim in the eyes of the world and it doesn't matter if it was killed by terrorist with AK47 or by US soldier with M16 - it is dead. There is no essential difference between those two. Only difference is form - one is backward fundamentalist and the other one is high-tech equipped, big smile soldier. That is of no relevance to impartial people in the world or to victim and its family and friends. US militarists expect whole western civilization to support them because of form. They are offending people's intelligence expecting that people should care more about how soldier looks than what he does.
In general, I'll agree with Tom. Problem is in most of the religions, to be more precise in organized religions. If there was no religion people would focus on their life and on economical welfare and expand trade.
No one on this planet has a proof that any of religions teaches anything that is truth and yet millions of people die and suffer in poverty since many people are willing to kill and torture because of the story written in some ancient book several thousands years ago. Even worse, they kill and torture by misunderstanding meaning of those holly books, bringing them to bad name.
