Nato is meeting in Berlin today to sort out their differences regarding the situation in Libya. 6 of the 28 member countries have so far got their guns out to help the rebels and the rest are still hesitant; Turkey and Spain being among those who don’t approve of intervening.
There has been more and more concern from the Western media that a) the Libyan rebels could all turn out to be a load of Islamic extremists and/or b) that without Gaddafi ‘keeping them in check’, the whole country will descend into confusion and civil war. Sort of like happens when you leave toddlers unsupervised. Al Jazeera (who can you read more about here) accuses such journalism of being patronizing, which is probably fair.
Given that there is a lot of current debate over the West meddling with the rest of the world, I thought now might be a good time to explain (very generally) the Israeli Palestinian conflict. It’s always cropping up the news, and here’s why…
The area of land that we now know as Israel has been a battle hotspot for centuries. Originally, way back in history, the Jews (and quite a number of Christians) believe that God gave this bit of land to them. After the Romans kicked them out and renamed the land ‘Palestine,’ it became largely populated by Muslim Arabs.
Over time, Jews started filtering back, to the point where the Arabs became nervous. In the early 1900’s, the Zionist movement (made up of mostly Jews and Christians) sent even more of them back to the area, because it was thought they should reclaim their ‘Holy Land.’
Following the holocaust, where millions of Jews were massacred by the Nazis, the Western World felt it really was time to give them a break. So, in 1947, the UN chopped up what used to be Palestine, re-named it Israel and divided it into Muslim and Jewish states.
Obviously the Muslim Arabs were none too pleased. Several bloody wars broke out and eventually the Jewish Israeli’s largely dominated the Palestinian Muslims. These days, the Palestinians have (mostly) agreed that if they can have two chunks of the land back (the West Bank and the Gaza strip) then they will be able to move towards peace. Israel has handed back some of these parts, but violent quarrelling remains – as it tends to do with two religions who despise each other, living right next door, on boundary lines that have been drawn by foreigners. It’s not unlike the situation in Ireland.
In other brief news, Cameron has blamed the former Labour government’s ‘come on in’ approach to immigration, for the "kind of discomfort and disjointedness" which has struck British communities. In other words: Racism has got worse. Cameron says we should cut the number of immigrants we let in and make sure more of them can speak English and “integrate” properly, if we want everyone to play nicely.
Finally, after much anticipation, President Obama has announced his plans for balancing America’s budget deficit. ‘Spend less and tax the rich more’ seems to be the gist of it. Radical.
Until tomorrow…
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