viernes, julio 21, 2006

History revisited

It’s pathetic how history repeats itself in the Middle East but this time in reverse.
Back then the Lehi Lohamei Herut Israel, where the "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel” while British authorities called the group the Stern Gang The Irgun (National Military Organization), was a clandestine militant Zionist group that operated in the British Mandate of Palestine from 1931 to 1948 . The Irgun (or Etzel) was classified by the British authorities and several other Jewish organizations as a terrorist organization, while others considered it to be an independence movement. We have to thank really the British for what ensued. Walter Rothschild a Zionist and Liberal Member of Aylesbury from 1899 to 1910, weird and eccentric (he kept kangaroos in his garden and harnessed a team of zebras to pull his carriage. He also owned many dogs, who dined with him at meals), pushed for the Balfour Declaration, which committed the British Government to supporting the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. The British effectively promised the land of Palestine to two different peoples - for different reasons. They needed the Arabs to revolt against the Turkish, while they also needed to persuade the Americans, through Jewish interest, to join the war in Europe. And now Hammas, Hezbollah and other groups are taking the role once Israel had. The question is, 50 years from now, who will be the villains or the good guys in the history books (or Wilkipedia for that matter)?