Freaky coincidence... my Grandma's name was Edith, and she's from Saskatoon. That wierds me out...
I've gotten myself in the middle of this Israeli/Palestinian debate before, and, well, I'll do it again. (I'm going to sort of look at this from a chronological perspective as I understand and interpret it - if there are innaccuracies, biases, or it comes off as condensending, I apologize, feel free to correct me)
I feel the creation of the state of Israel by the United Nations was a mistake. With the strength of Zionism fueled by the outrage of the holocaust, the notion of Jewish reoccupation of Jerusalem and the area anciently known as Israel was at it's strongest.
The Jewish people have been fucked over by everyone for pretty much of history - no other demographic has been screwed over so much for so long for no reason, and I feel strongly about that and empathize strongly with that. However, like Affirmative Action, I believe that you can't "make up" for historical injustice by tipping the scales the other way... and after World War II, when the predominantly Christian allied nations (the descendants of the people guilty of attacking the Jewish for the past 2 millennia - if you look at history, most events that had weapons in the hands of Christians resulted in Jews dead "just because"...) were feeling their most sympathetic for the Jewish people (again, following history's greatest disgrace to humanity - the ends of Hitler's scapegoat-prejudice hatred), the idea of turning the "holy land" back over to the Jewish people was appealing.
HOWEVER! That area was occupied (yes, also by a lot of Jews who had emigrated there, but,) mostly by Arabs - the nation of Palestine. The U.N. then came in and said "Yeah, your country? Well, it's theirs now" and present-day Israel was formed. Then, the americans and others provided Israel with all of the military technology it would need to defend itself, and of course, end up expanding their territory even more. So, the Palestinians are sorta pissed off and I can understand their perspective. They got wronged in the U.N.'s little trip of imposing the consequences of their own guilt upon others, and they want their country back.
Does this condone terrorist acts on Israeli citizens? Of course not. But they have to fight for their homeland and they can't take on the entire U.N., so outlashes at Israel are, well, quite expected, in my observation. Can they take their land back? No, I don't forsee that ever really happening, and they have to wake up and realize that, just like Israel has to wake up and understand that the Palestinians really have a right to be pissed. The situation has been clouded and buried under so many instances, issues, circumstances, mistakes, propaganda, and just general SHIT for the past 40+ years. Can both sides ever just stop, and see it from the perspective of the other? The bottom line is that they're going to have to live together and make the best if it. Of course it's not that easy, but goddamn... something has to give here.
