Palestine

A'salamu a'likom!

Okay so I know Palestine is not somewhere we would really want to go because of how dangerous it is there, but I wanted to talk about it anyway.  Due to the United States' close relationship with Israel, many Americans see Palestine as simply a small section of land that should belong to Israel and is filled with terrorists.  Just like my last post about Mexico I am going to prove that stereotype wrong.

The Palestinian people were living in the area currently occupied by Israel for centuries before the UN Partition Plan broke it up into Israel and Palestine.  They argued that Jewish people needed a homeland because they had been kicked out over 1000 years ago from that area; however, in those 1000 years the Palestinians had settled down and with the UN Partition Plan they were kicked out of the homes that their families had been living in for 1000 years.  The creation of Israel by the UN was just going to cause more tension and violence in the area and the UN should have seen that.  Here is a link to the wiki for the UN Partition Plan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Partition_Plan

So, while Palestine was not right in kicking the Jewish people out of the area back in 970 CE, two wrongs don't make a right.  Now, all the Palestinian people who have been displaced by the creation of Israel are living in refugee camps all over the Middle East.  This should not have been a huge problem since the camps were supposed to be temporary but it has been over 60 years since they moved into them.  I don't know about you but 60 years doesn't sound temporary to me.

<-- Can you imagine living in these conditions your whole life?  These are actually good conditions for Palestinian refugees!



http://www.cjournal.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/PalestinianRefugeesLebanon.jpg

Besides the fact that the Palestinians have been kicked out of their homes by the Israeli, the Palestinians who stayed in the territory that was supposed to be Palestine are constantly being attacked.  Israel keeps encroaching on Palestinian land and displacing more and more people.  They are determined to take over all of Palestine despite the actual United Nations decided borders in the original Partition Plan.  The Palestinian people in Palestine (not in refugee camps) are constantly being invaded by the Israeli army.  Imagine a whole line of tanks rolling down a neighborhood street and you are starting to get the picture.  The Israeli troops are not invading rebels, these people being attacked are families in their homes with children.

<-- Just your average day in the life of a Palestinian child.




http://pinterest.com/pin/247416573248864840/

Israel slowly taking over Palestine

http://images.alarabiya.net/israel-palestine_map_19225_2469.jpg


I think that Americans also see many of the Middle Eastern/Arab countries as under-developed or just desert which is not true.  There are some parts of Palestine that have remained beautiful even throughout the violence and bombings.  For example, here is a five star hotel located in Bethlehem, Palestine:

http://www.southtravels.com/middleeast/palestine/jacirpalaca/gifs/hotelview.jpg

Well I hope you learned something on this trip and that it wasn't too much of a rant.  I know it wasn't quite as happy as my other posts but I felt like it needed to be discussed since I feel so strongly about the issue.  Thanks for reading!

Your travel advisor,
Kinley

P.S. If you would like to read about something else that I feel strongly about check out this blog post:

http://yawpingmylifeaway.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-hundred-years.html

P.P.S. Here is a song to lighten the mood: