If we were to add contemporary issues things would get even more complicated: Zionism and Israeli policies has created a lot of anger against 'Jews'. This has much less to do with ethnicity than historical anti-semitism, but the two get conflated which leaves everybody confused and talking past eachother. Add to the mix the fact that Jews dominate banking and media (I assume this is accepted as fact and not conspiracy theory), industries that get little love these days.
Since this opposition is shared by many westerners, I think a lot of westerners assume that it is shared based on similar reasoning. Human rights, international law, national freedoms. But the reality is that a substantial portions is nationalist/religious/xenophobic/nationalistic/scapegoating.
Belief in arab countries that Israel was behind 9-11 or some other local event (eg shark attacks in egypt)* is very common. Lots of easily verifiable made up stories are common knowledge. A lot of the old anti-semetic propoganda is distributed in the greater Muslim world via mainstream local media (I saw an article about the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' a Czarist propoganda document that has a special place in most Jews consciousness, discussed in an Indonesian magazine. It's also in the Hamas charter document* .
A lot of the complaints that are interpreted as objections to human rights violations or similar are (when seen in context) really objections to non Muslim rule in 'Muslim Lands' (as opposed to lands where muslims live) or various conspiracy delusions.
I'm not trying to justify Israeli policy. I think it's immoral and stupid. But the type of objection to it do not make me think that changing policy will result in substantial changes in attitude, though they might provide an incremental improvement.
http://blogs.news.sky.com/middleeastblog/Post:2c6bf5da-e006-... * *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_CharterIn the Middle East today, the relative prosperity of Israel relative to its neighbors is a good example of that. Abandoning science and reason has a negative affect on a society, and blaming your neighbor for your misfortune is easier than dealing with that.
But there is also a lot of anti-Muslim factor widely prevalent in the west too! Every bit of people on this earth have suffered with that problem. The Muslim world looks at these problems from their own view. Think of it this way, there was no signs of Israel in the Arab world around a century back, the settlements start. There are splinter groups. Slowly albeit steadily a vast majority of the native population was displaced to settle new set of people. A new nation is declared, backed by most powerful nations on earth. What was your country yesterday is not today and you are mercilessly kicked out. Now what sins did the natives do to deserve that? On top of loosing their lands, there is huge under development and humiliation since decades. How do you expect them to react?
To quote Ben Gurion himself:
I don't understand your optimism. Why should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations' time, but for the moment there is no chance. So, it's simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out.
- http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion
Tomorrow if some state like California is invaded by some one, existing citizens of the state thrown out. How will those people react. Will they laughingly walk out of their homes, stay in tents and welcome the invaders with Garlands? And business goes around normal?
There isn't a community on earth today which is different than any other community. People everywhere are just the same. When these sort of things happen friction is but natural but to take place.
All nations and their people on earth or same, Jews, Muslims and Christians. No one is different. Now there is also a clash of cultures. Others like their culture as much as you like yours. To assume everybody must follow your way of life is unacceptable to any community on earth.
I come from a nation(India) which hasn't attacked/invaded any country in thousands of years. We even got our freedom through complete non-violence. For thousands of years we absorbed other religions, cultures and languages and their people with open arms. Tolerance is not everybody's cup of tea.
Friction will remain, the way out is tolerance and respect for others.
I was commenting though on different types of objection though. Objections based on delusions, nationalism and religion. Jews absolutely do not have a monopoly over these. Anti-muslim sentiment in the Europe is largely xenophobia and in the US its mostly nationalism. These (as I'm pretty sure you agree by reading what you wrote).
But the scale and flavour of some of the delusions directed at Israel from what are in the Muslim world, non marginal sources are uncommonly fantastic. I participated in a Syrian-Israeli dialogue once where we answer each others' objections to peace. We found that the majority of Syrians believe that the stripes on Israel's flag represent the sea and the euphrates, Israel's ambition to conquer all of modern Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. They referenced a nonexistent map in the Israeli Parliament, nonexistent speeches by early leaders, etc. These were not hawks by any means. They doctors and engineers and teachers that wanted peace and were actively pursuing it. They basically wanted a guarantee that Israel will give up these ambitions. All fantasy.
There are some insane surveys from various countries (Egypt, most commonly) about what the average person believes.
Americans can be delusionaly racist and nationalistic to. But, you can't sell the idea that shark attacks were orchestrated by from Iran or anything like that.
The main difference to Karelia I can see, is that many refugees from Israel are locked into camps and get their lives destroyed, just in order to keep the question alive.
The point isn't right or wrong; the point is that everyone else with similar experiences left it behind them. Including almost all the Jews that lived in the Muslim world and had to leave -- because of their religion, not because of a civil war.
I doubt it, if you compare Israel with e.g. the surrounding dictators -- and (at least here in Europe). Israel gets at least two factors of ten more criticism (before March this year) for arguably much less.
The first time when I read criticism of Tunisia's dictator in Swedish media, was when he fled.
(I'm not claiming you can't criticise Israel, democracies with terror problems tend to throw out the law book (Germany, USA, England, Spain, etc). I'm comparing amount of criticism.)
From my perspective (in my ultra-liberal enclave in the east), a large part of the criticism isn't that Israel's policies are objectively bad - one can hardly expect a country surrounded by its worst enemies to have a polite attitude toward said folk. The criticism is that we, in America (and until recently, throughout much of the west) are giving them disproportionate (military and otherwise) support. I'm not comfortable with giving aid - especially military aid - to a government with major human rights violations, and a generally trigger-happy military at odds with a free press and so on.
Again - the trigger-happiness is understandable, given their position - but until evidence is produced that withdrawal of military support would make the situation more violent, it's hard to justify that military support.
You should see my local Swedish media...
The reason I follow this is not that I care about Middle East politics -- it is because I am shocked about my local media. I have compared Swedish media with BBC and NY Times since 7-8 years.
Some subjects are more or less censored in Sweden. Things like torture between Palestinian groups have been cut out since the 1990s, Pallywood has never been mentioned, etc.
Translation of Reuters/AP/etc telegrams are slanted.
And so on. Sweden is probably an extreme case. I am seriously thinking of Swedish as the language of lies.
My point is that the relationship between Israel and the US taxpayer is very intimate. I feel somewhat entitled to criticize Israel if I don't think they are acting in our interests.
http://xkcd.com/915/ relevant?
