BF2S Forums It's All About Education

CameronPoe wrote:

It would be funny to listen to lowing squirm the issue of a nation of 'Nuevo Mexico' being created through force in Arizona or California using his tired reasoning.

CameronPoe wrote:

You're trying to tell us that Palestinians aren't tired, weak, persecuted underdogs. What a joke.

These quotes betray a significant misunderstanding about Israel and Jews. A "Nuevo Mexico" in California would be different from Israel in critically significant ways. I'm sure you are well aware of the history, but your comments about Mexicans and Palestinians seem to ignore the fact that hatred and violence against Jews is unlike anything Mexicans or Palestinians have experienced or will experience in the foreseeable future. Lots of peoples have been treated brutally, but Jews were persecuted in almost every country for more than a thousand years, demonized, assaulted and expelled from numerous countries, then murdered on an industrial scale while the world stood by and did nothing. If Mexicans or Palestinians were treated like this (for over a thousand years!), I would give serious thought to the creation of a Nuevo Mexico or Palestinian homeland where Mexicans or Palestinians would be safe from future persecution. I would see it as a moral obligation. Don't misunderstand, the point isn't how groups have been treated in the past, it is how we can reasonably expect groups to be treated in the future. Many Jews (including myself) do not think the centuries of persecution ended in 1945. Many Jews do not think the world is so civilized that persecution of Jews won't happen again. That's what Israel is for, to create a place where Jews will be safe. It's fine to debate about Israel, but the "Nuevo Mexico" analogy and the equation of Palestinian persecution to Jewish persecution creates a straw man by missing this fundamental point.

In a sci-fi series called "Bio of a Space Tyrant," the solar system is "fairly" divided into territories to loosely emulate "old" Earth's (which India gets) political borders. Israel gets Phobos, Palestine gets Deimos, and the rest of the Arab world gets Mars. Talk about carrying on tired old legacies.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2007-04-24 01:53:25)

=OBS= EstebanRey wrote:

Isn't it just as bad when Historians "forget" the evil actions his country has carried out?  When I was taught history at school I can't remember Britain ever been shown in a bad light despite our colonial past; but I can certainly remember learning a distrust of Germans from my teacher.  It wasn't until I went abroad and actually met some that my views changed. 

To me, this story is no different to how I was told how evil Germans are for WW2 when I was at school.

We were never taught about "Evil Germans", we were taught about the evil Nazis and their leaders. Even less than that with the USSR, onlt that they existed and the history of the cold war. Fact based only, events dates and people, I do not remember any editorials by my teachers.

=OBS= EstebanRey wrote:

Isn't it just as bad when Historians "forget" the evil actions his country has carried out?  When I was taught history at school I can't remember Britain ever been shown in a bad light despite our colonial past; but I can certainly remember learning a distrust of Germans from my teacher.  It wasn't until I went abroad and actually met some that my views changed. 

To me, this story is no different to how I was told how evil Germans are for WW2 when I was at school.

Maybe there are biased teachers everywhere.  But this is different.  The two countries are in the middle of a 60 years conflict.  They should seek solutions.  They should not teach kids the other side is evil, because kids become adults and throw rockets and fly F-16's.

=OBS= EstebanRey wrote:

OK I may have painted my old teacher as some kind of anti-German, reverse Nazi.  Let me clairfy, we were taught the facts (as they were presented from the perspective of the books that is) but when you're young and naive, all you know is that the Germans started a war that killed 6 million innocent jews, when you then go home and your parents (although not racist against the Germans) make jokes about them and WW2 it does leave a young, impressionable mind pretty closed to what the people of Germany today are like. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my Grandad would not hold the Germans in that higher regard after he fought against them and a small element of this undoubtably trickles down to my dad and then me. 

I'm sure if any of those Pallestinian kids go an meet the actual people in Israel minds would be changed in a flash.

P.S There are lots of things you are taught at school hwich aren't true but are there to try to influence behaviour.  Anyone have their science teacher tell you if you leave a tooth in a glass of coke overnight it will disolve?  That is bollox btw.

I agree.  Humans are biased, and usually we are taught the wrong facts, or exaggerations or generalizations.  But my point is, you had the possibility to learn by yourself that Germans were normal people not the evil ones your teacher taught you.  What if those kids in Palestine or Israel never have the chance.