outback to jungle

Musings on experiences of volunteering in Papua New Guinea with some gratuitous domestic social and public comment

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

I am trying to differentiate

between the Australian Aborigines situation and the Israeli land situation. The Jews had been displaced of a homeland for centuries until finally in 1948 the UN mandated the homeland state of Israel.
The Aboriginal people of Australia were displaced during the nineteenth century and they are still having to prove their cases for land rights by right of "continuous settlement" in Australia's civil courts.
Ben Gurion said (Dowty, 2005, p77) "We and they want the same thing. We both want Palestine."
The British Peel Commission (1937) prompted a response (Dowty p79): "Palestinian Arabs resisted partition or even autonomy for the Jewish minority. Palestine had been Arab and Muslim for centuries; was one to reward trespassers by surrendering even a part of what they illegitimately laid claim to? If your home is invaded and the invaders agree to occupy only the ground floor, is this truly a fair and just 'compromise'?"
The minority-majority dualism and dilemma. Robert mailed me in response that "democracy can be defined as the tyranny of the majority."

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home