http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/11/truman.diary.ap/index.html In the same entry Truman goes on to say, "The Jews, I find are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D(isplaced) P(ersons) as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, and Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes Wow this is not quite as explosive as Nixon's explicative tongue and freq drops of racial slurs but there's some meat here. I think that Harry was frustrated by the Jewish leadership's perceived indifference to plight of others. The last statement preludes to the irony he could've had no knowledge of: the continuing plight of displaced Palestinians. And apparently Ike was seriously considered a Democratic hopeful by some.
The first line or so I was thinking 'OK, it's a bit too strong, but I kind of agree that other ethnic groups don't get a mention in the horrors of the Eastern front', but then he very quickly lost me as he went off on one.
No, I think he was referring to [jesus, I can't type or think with those new flashing ads all over the screen...] special treatment that the Jews wanted from the Allies in the postwar period. Namely, I assume, a "special" country on land already occupied by another civilization. Most of this quote doesn't seem so far off to me (the "Jews are selfish" line excepted). The part about underdogs becoming tyrants when the tables are turned is pretty basic human frailty, unfortunately. As for his not being able to predict the plight of the Palestinians--hogwash. By the 1940s, Zionism was already pretty damn clear in its intents and methods towards the Palenstinian people. As far back as 1919, the US delegation sent by Wilson to view the sitituation in Palestine had this to say: "The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission's conference with Jewish representatives that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine." (King-Crane Commission)
And in light of this information, surely it can then be see nas the Israeli's who started the battle with the Palestinians that carries on to this day - I know it has shades of grey, but I can honestly sympathise with the Palestinians when you look at Northern IReland and how our land was robbed and would now cost an unreal amount to fix if we ever got it at all... anyway, that's another days work
Regardless of who "started" it (which neither really did, the two groups have been fighitng for millenia), the fact is that one side makes it a point of policy to avoid civilian casualties whenever possible, whereas the other side makes it a point of policy to blow up school buses and bar mitzvah parties, and to use ambulances to smuggle weapons past security checkpoints.
The Palestinians and Israelis have been fighting for millenia, Alex? Seriously, have you ever read a SINGLE book about the Middle East? Why do you feel the need/desire to respond to topics you know nothing about? The oracle once told Socrates he was the wisest man in the world. His response was disbelief, knowing how much he was totally ignorant of. So he spent the next few years searching Greece for wiser men, but failed. Finally he realized what the oracle's point was: He was the wisest because he recognized his own vast ignorance in the face of so much knowledge in the world.
Hey, if we could give back N. Ireland easily, we (the British) would. There is the small matter of the Unionists, and their terror groups who'd probably bomb Britain like the IRA if we did that. Just wait a generation, then we can hold a referendum when a safe majority are Catholic/Republican . I'd personally love to get shot of that bigotted, problematic, hate-filled cesspit today if I could.
Not in the current incarnations of "Palestinians" and "Israelis", obviously, but the Jews and Muslims living in that region have been fighting off and on pretty much since the beginning of history.
Alex, First of all, Islam only dates back to the mid 7th century. I have no idea what you mean by "beginning of history," but I'm pretty sure the 7th century is not it. Second, please list any/all examples of this "fighting off and on" that you refer to so flippantly. I'm betting you can't name a SINGLE battle or act of aggression between the Jews and Muslims pre-20th century and the birth of Zionism. Examples DO exist, btw, but not at all in the manner you characterize them. Seriously, Alex. Turn off the computer this weekend. Go to the library. Check out "Islam: A Short History" by Karen Armstrong. It's only 185 pages, and it's written entirely down to your intellectual level. I think you'll enjoy the book. Also see if the library has a copy of Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin's "The Israeli-Arab Reader." Lots of short primary documents in there you can skim from time to time to get a sense of how the current situation got to where it is. Hopefully you'll stop sounding like such an idiot.
And yet Alex shows more interest now in current events and history than most, if not all, of those students will ever show themselves - no matter how naive or unintelligent many people might think Alex to be.
This is true, and I respect that in him. Actually, I was only slightly less conservative than he is now, when I was his age. And I wasn't as polticially aware, even though I had done some polling for Bush I. As for the comparison to most other students.... You are so sadly right on it's scary. I've asked a classroomfull of college students about politics many times, and they can't even match Republicans/Democrats with the terms "liberal/conservative."