Zion & Babylon.

Zion and Babylon. On the subject of Israel/Palestine, Thomas Friedman, a columnist for the New York times states that people go temporarily insane over the issue, with opinions for and against the state of Israel. The Israel/Palestine issue is one in which opinions are fraught with personal bias, often influenced by the cultural and religious identities of the person expressing their subjective opinion.

Documented below is a quick summation of LOUD SPACE'S standpoints on the Israel/Palestine issue, with attention given to Israel's raid on the Mavi Marmara, the ship that as charged with bringing aid to Gaza.

*Israel has a right to exist. Whether a person likes it or not the state of Israel is here to remain for the foreseeable future.

*Palestinians are entitled to basic human rights denied currently to them.

*It is unfortunate that Jewish people, victims for so long of hate and injustice, now perpetrate their own injustices on another.

*The blockade on Gaza must end.

*New Jewish settlements must end.

*The use of violence on the Mavi Marmara towards IDF soldiers was inappropriate and counter productive.

*Calls for the destruction of Israel must end.

And this is enough for now. The subject is too divisive. Filled with blood and history. There are too many extremists/fundamentalists that have hijacked the debate. There is too much fear and hate. As a Jew I see the faults of my own people but understand our fears and standpoints. As a human I see the plight of the Palestinian people but wonder if the two sides can ultimately get along. Below is a Wiki entry on Joe Slovo's opinion on Zionism.

A committed Marxist internationalist, Slovo was outspoken as a South African critic of Israeli policies, both highlighting the cooperation between Israeli administrations and apartheid-era South Africa and noting the irony of a nation of dispossessed refugees establishing a state founded on the idea of exclusion.

Remembering his brief visit to a Jewish kibbutz in Palestine during his trip back to South Africa from Europe after the Second World War, Slovo, in an unfinished autobiography published following his death, wrote:

"Within a few years the wars of consolidation and expansion began. Ironically enough, the horrors of the Holocaust became the rationalization for the preparation by Zionists of acts of genocide against the indigenous people of Palestine. Those of us who, in the years that were to follow, raised our voices publicly against the violent apartheid of the Israeli state were vilified by the Zionist press. It is ironic, too, that the Jew-haters in South Africa – those who worked and prayed for a Hitler victory – have been linked in close embrace with the rulers of Israel in a new axis based on racism."