# 418 – Los Doppot Unity

Let’s take a step back. Forget that I am pro-Israel at the moment.

Do you know how many countries or states or peoples in the world are fighting for independence from whomever?

There are Basques and Catalans, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Puerto Rican, Süd-Tirolers, Taiwanese, Tibetans, Aborigines, Maoris, American Indians and Sudanese, to name but very few. Just about every tribe in Africa wants independence.

I find out that Libya has never ‘settled’ since Ghaddafi’s departure. And I don’t think the Hong Kong people will ever become proud Chinese.

There was never, to my knowledge, a Palestinian movement towards statehood, let alone something to be compared to Zionism. Up until the Jews were granted the establishment of their own country. Then, the mere thought of being a minority in a Jewish state caused havoc in the local Arab population and the neighbouring countries.

It’s interesting for me that one of the most blatant definitions of a dictatorship, autocracy, theocracy is the non-existence or non-recognition of a minority population. In any ‘normal country’, there are minority groups, sometimes very large (like Coptics in Egypt or Turks in Germany), sometimes very many (like any decent country).

Humans masochistically seek problems. Very rarely does an immigrant decide to be ‘one of the majority’ and stop complaining. (Read the lovely book, ‘Rosenblum’s List’, focusing on this sweet German Jew’s focus on becoming ‘British’).

Since the expulsion from the Land of Israel 2,000 years back, the Jews have lived, survived, suffered as a minority in another country. For 2,000 years, they have openly and loudly yearned to be back in Jerusalem, in the Land of Israel.

It’s terrible to mention this again, but without the Holocaust, the Jews might conceivably still be waiting.

This World is full of man-made ugliness. Whomever I talk to, wherever they may live, they can – and usually do – report the crises befalling their wonderful country. There are not many countries that can claim to be ‘democratic’. Yet hardly one of them is without corruption, poverty, political lies, rampant crime, sexual misbehaviour and stupidity, fired by social media and greed. You name it, you’ve got it.

So why the unbelievable focus on little Israel? Does the World feel so bad at having granted the Jews a homeland?

The settlements? The Palestinians should welcome with open arms the chance of having a strong Jewish minority in their country. Think of how this would boost and benefit the potential of so many sections of their society, as has been the case in most ‘civilised’ countries.

Hey, I think I’ll write a book about the Palestinians: ‘The Los Doppot Unity’.

Stephen