Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat
There are extremists in every country on earth. Israel is a secular society and a liberal democracy. Women, for example, can be anything they want, from soldier, policewomen, doctors, politicians, even Prime Minister.
In Muslim countries, women face all types of restricitons, from having few legal rights vs their fathers/husbands, not being allowed to drive cars, to having to wear a Burqua in public, or in worst cases, being killed for having "dishonoured" their families by being caught alone with a man or having acid thrown in the faces of young girls just because they attend a school.
Every country around Israel, namely Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia is guilty of major human rights abuses, from arbitrary detention of hundreds of dissidents, to torture, to arbitrary killings and murders. (no need to take my word for it, just check the latest free Amnesty International report available on their website)
Of course, none of this ever gets reported or discussed. Al-Jazeera, for example extensively reports any bad news involving Israel or US/NATO in Iraq/Afghanistan while turning a blind eye to repression in Arab countries. There are many reasons for this, but the most important one is the fact that many arab countries have threatened to shut down the network if it reports on human right abuses in their country. On the other hand, extensive coverage of any perceived abuses by Israel or the USA is popular in every arab country.
Everyone simplifies the issue to being a purely Israeli problem, when it has always been a regional conflict which requires a regional solution. In 1947, the UN came up with a partition plan for Palestine. In 1948, Palestinian Arabs, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi arabia and Iraq all declared war on Israel, preferring to solve the issue by war. They lost, as they also lost in every other war since then. Since 1949, Israel has been waiting for a peaceful solution. Has there been intransigeance from Israel? yes, but there has been as much intrasigeance from the arab states who have their own reasons to perpetuate the conflict. Meanwhile the Palestinians are caught in the middle.
For 19 years from 1948 to 1967, the west bank and Gaza were occupied by Jordan and Egypt. Did they take steps to setup a Palestinian state? no, they just ruled the territories as their own. Palestinians have been living in arab countries since 1948, but in many cases have no legal status, even those born in other countries are not granted citizenship and can be expelled, as many were when the PLO sided with Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War. Of course, Palestinians did not go out of their way to be acepted. They tried to take over Jordan by force in 1970 and King Hussein had to use his army to throw them out. They tried to carve out a piece of Lebanon which was one of the causes of the Lebanese civil war.
Until everyone in the region is wiling to sit down and come up with a practical solution that garantees Israel's security inside the pre-1967 borders and clarifies the status of Palestinians, the conflict will go on.
|