Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem..........

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is at it again. The Iranian President, who publicly stated in October that Israel should be "wiped off the map" and suggested last Thursday that the Jewish state should be relocated to Germany or Austria has now gone as far as to strongly suggest that the Holocaust never happened. Okay, let's face it - claims like this are nothing new and we have our own 'academics' who say the same. The problem here, however, is not the sensationalism that we have come to expect from the man but the fact that he does utter a real truth that just gets masked....

"If the killing of Jews in Europe is true and the Zionists are being supported because of this excuse, why should the Palestinian nation pay the price?", he said yesterday. I personally take it as absolute fact that the atrocities of the Nazi regime happened. Too many non-Jews on both sides have testified to the Holocaust to allow it to be any kind of propoganda. So the question indeed arises, why should Palestinians pay the price?

We all know that it was the meddling of the West (we're so damn good at that...) that re-introduced the State of Israel to the Middle-East. The idea may have been honourable - to give a persecuted nation their own land - but all that has happened is we have created another persecuted nation struggling to keep it's own land. Don't mistake me, I realise that many Israelis have died at the hands of Palestinian terrorists, a situation I deplore and will never seek to justify, but it is a violence that happens both ways... and it is always, always innocents who get caught up in the violence. It has to end somewhere.

The fact is it is too late to reverse the creation of the Jewish state, and nor should we. There is now a whole generation who were born there, who have made that land their own. Removing them would be akin to sending the entire Asian community in the UK back to their respective countries or re-locating all white Americans back to Europe. But a solution has to be found, one that allows Israeli and Palestinian to co-exist peacefully. Even if lines are drawn up that leave communities on the 'wrong' side measures have to be put in place to allow those settlements to continue to exist without fear and with the freedom to practice their own religious and cultural ideals.

One thing that is a must - school textbooks and teachings need to be revised, preferably by a co-operative body of Islamic and Christo-Judean nations to preserve balance. These revisions should remove all negative teachings about each other and add positive teachings. Israelis would do well to learn of the persecution Palestinians faced over the years in the same way that Palestinians should have knowledge of the Holocaust. Maybe by instilling these similarities at a young age these two nations can learn that aside from a difference in religion there is no reason that they cannot be cordial to each other... maybe even eventual friends and allies.

I know, better people than I have tried to create peace in the Middle East and I am saying nothing new, but maybe the more of us that keep saying it the louder it will get and the more likely things could change. And that change can only begin if both sides stop the indoctrination...

Take a look at the picture at the top. Tell me, are those children Israeli or Palestinian? Are you able to tell the difference? Do you think those children themselves would know the difference if it wasn't instilled in them....

Cheers m'dears!

The children in the picture are both Palestinian and Israeli at a rare mixed school based in Palestinian Bethlehem. The religions represented at this school are currently Muslim and Christian and the operators are actively seeking Jewish students. The school used to organise regular exchanges with others on the other side of the border until Israel implemented a law preventing this. Refusing subsidies from either government to maintain it's independence the school relies on charity. Unfortunately the building of the Israeli Security Wall resulted in the demolition of the school cafeteria and all expansion work on other school buildings has been suspended in the uncertainty. Please click any part of this text to be linked to the school website.