david,

I welcome your honesty in admitting Palestanians are second class citizens, however I can't help but think your article perpetuates the myths of Jewish victimhood.

Jews have been persecuted throughout history, but so have countless other religions and minorities. From accused witches in the middle ages, to Protestants in Catholic countries and vice versa during the Reformation, religious minorities have always been persecuted. Gypsies were especially reviled and remain so to this day in much of Eastern Europe. That's before we look at the crusades and yje persecution of muslims. The sad fact is that human history is the history of suffering.

The Second World War claimed something like 50 million lives, yet if you ask a young person today they would only recognise the Jewish experience. Why do we get a Holocaust museum in every major city in the world yet see nothing for the 15 million or more Soviet citizens who perished? However heroic we feel our servicemen were, the simple fact is that without the unimaginable suffering of the Soviets, Hitler probably would have succeeded in wiping out the Jews. During this war hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed and millions of refugees created but it was only Jewish ones that were compensated 60 years later.

So why do we hear the constant bleating about Jewish persecution but nothing about the abomination of slavery; or about the thousands of children who die each day today due to preventable disease, or the billion or so people who endure grinding poverty every day of their lives? Why is it that only Jewish suffering counts?

We have a black president in 2009 while Britain had a Jewish PM over 150 years ago. It will be some time before a muslim becomes president or PM. Jews have long been integrated into the western elites and would have to be the most educated, best connected, wealthiest and powerful minority in the world. There is no Muslim Frank Lowy, Justice Spiegelman, or Michael Danby MP.

There is enormous suffering in the world today but it seems only Jewish suffering counts.

A thought provoking article, and one that indroduces aspects of the Palestine tragedy that are new to me.
Even so, the main driver as it were of the Palestine disaster is not Zionism per se, but the nonsensical religious views of the (largely American) fundamentalist 'right', amply supported by the catholic church whereby, we are informed, Christ will come again when all the Jewish people are 'home' once again in the land that god (allegedly) gave them. Accordingly, no price is too high to pay for such a wonderful outcome - providing of course that someone else pays that price.
The Jewish people have given much to the world and will, I believe, continue to do so. However, we could have done without the god of Abraham. Until the religious nutters see that there is no god, and christ is not 'coming back, and until the Jewish people themselves see that Palestine is not theirs by divine or any other fief, the obscenity that is modern day Palestine, and the tragic sufferings of both sides in the latest of any number of religiously driven conflicts, will continue at a theatre near you.
Prepare to see many more colourful scenes of children blown to pieces, heartbroken families, shattered lives and monumental destruction.

David, thanks for an interesting and practical way of looking at the problem. We need to know a lot of these things to rationalise the situation.

Tariq Ali recently wrote, discussing solutions: "[..] that the country and its resources be divided equitably, in proportion to two populations that are equal in size - not 80% to one and 20% to the other, a dispossession of such iniquity that no self-respecting people will ever submit to it in the long run. The only acceptable alternative is a single state for Jews and Palestinians alike, in which the exactions of Zionism are repaired. There is no other way."

It seems he hadn't considered that the Jews could leave Israel, which seems logical when trying to balance "tragedy", it would also be a good way of creating potential for a one state solution. His proportionate distribution of the land mass idea would require that "the exactions of Zionism are repaired". So it seems there are a few solutions; Dane's posting opens up the idea that solutions would rely on a mind-shift by the Israel government, and some Jews, of putting global suffering into perspective - an egalitarian consideration of "the other" - that others are as self-respecting as you, and need to be shown respect, as much as you do.

Maybe the Jews who understand this have already left for other countries. But I guess unless there is a protracted period of cessation of hostility it will be extremely difficult for "creative" thinking toward any solutions to take place.

Ask the real question about who resettled the jews and did the people who helped resettle the jews into palestine break every promise to the palestanian people.The people who resettle the jews put them back into a hell .

This is an excellent article . As an Australian Gentile ,until early adulthood , I knew no person whom I could clearly identify as Jewish , but I was brought up to regard Jews with a combination of pity [ because of the Holocaust and anti - semitic stereotypes in such literature as " the Merchant of Venice " and Australia 's Mo Mc Cackie ] and admiration . In particular , young men of my age spoke admiringly of the Israeli victories against the Arabs and of Moshe Dayan . As a socialist , I admired the kibbutzim and thought of spending time in one .

The reasons for Jews wishing to have a state of thir own are perfectly understandable , but , with hindsight , perhaps even the majority of Jews , inside Israel , begin to wonder whether it has been worth it , even for their own wellbeing , let alone the effect on the displaced Arabs . Certainly ,the Arabs do not have clean hands and there are many Arab groups which will never leave Israel in peace , despite any settlement which leads to a Palestinian state .

Probably , the least worst solution will be a viable Palestinian state , from which extremists will , somehow , have to be purged , alongside a smaller Israel . In the meantime , further immigrants to Israel , particularly from the USA and Russia , should be banned . US Christians who see Israel as being the fulfilment of a Biblical prophecy , should be deplored .

GYM-FISH erroneously writes as though God was the cause of our human problems. What about the oceans of blood shed by the atheists, secularists etc of the twentieth century.....Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot; atheistic Communism etc. God save us from the "no-God" and/or "God-hating" nutters