[thechat] "I guess we'll buy them"

[deke]

On 19 Sep 2001, at 12:36, Sean German posted a message which said:

> 1.  A good number of the Jews in Israel were born in
> USA, and most of those are not just there to avoid
> prosecution.  So why would they turn around and come
> back?

Over the past 30 years, there have been three times as
many jews moving from Israel to the US as from the US 
to Israel. Maybe you could ask them.
 
> 2.  We insist Israel give equal right to
> everyone...but Jews can't own land?  If you ever
> wonder if Jews overreact to antisemitism, re-read that
> statement.  Your idea of "equal rights to everyone" is
> equal right to everyone BUT Jews?

That's not what I said. 

If everyone in Israel put up their property for sale at once,
the price would drop. Given that situation, I would *jump*
at the chance to sell my land at full price, accept a free
vacation in a foreign land, and then return to buy back
equivalent property at the lower price. 

So that's the reason for the restriction. No merry-go-round
trips. If you want to move from a war zone to Bloomington,
Indiana, we'll buy your property at a decent price so you
don't take a loss, and we'll pay relocation expenses as well.
But only for people that are really accepting the offer.

If you want to stay in Israel, fine. This isn't a matter of forcing
people to move. It's a contractual arrangement.

> 3.  These aren't your lawyers, CPAs, and agents. 
> There are exceptions, but in the USA we think of the
> Jew as the last kid picked in gym class and first to
> be picked as a lab partner.  In Israel the Jews have
> uzis and know how to use them.  You'll get Israel away
> from the Jews when you pry it from their cold, dead
> hands.  And I mean that in a good way.

Nah, the jew isn't the last kid picked in gym class. The
fat boy is. And I'm not talking about *taking* Israel away
from the Jews. I'm talking about asking them to end any
religious discrimination or else see an end to US aid. It's 
no different than our demands for human rights to other
countries.

> Maybe I'm over reacting, and your suggestion to buy
> out Israel has nothing to do with the stereotype of
> jewish greed.  (I realize this wasn't the start of the
> "buy out" thread, but why would Israel be more
> receptive to a buy out than other countries?) I give
> you the benefit of the doubt and presume you deeply
> regretted sending that message after realizing what it
> said.

If you think jews are greedy, you've never seen a scottish
presbyterian - and *they* think methodists are tight. I
think Israelis would be more receptive to a buyout because
most of them haven't been there very long. Almost half of
them were born in another country, and there were only 
about 25,000 in Palestine about a century ago, so even
the ones born there don't have very deep roots.

It's also a fairly well-educated, high-income country. Those
are the people who move from city to city over here for
employment; you don't often see punch press operators in 
Wisconsin getting transferred to Michigan.

It's a small country. Frankly, you are going to have to pay
some sort of premium to people to convince them to disrupt 
their lives. It's a lot cheaper to do this with one small country
than many highly-populous countries.

The people of Israel already have a largely-westernized 
lifestyle. It's not as big a shift for them to move here as it 
would be for an Afghani or a Kurd.

Finally, it would be less disruptive to *us* to have all those
Israelis move here than an equivalent number of Iranians or
Syrians. When you threaten the jobs of unskilled American
workers, you get the Klan all hot and bothered. While they
are hardly pro-jew, they tend to stereotype jews as being 
people who *create* jobs rather than *take* jobs.  The *last*
thing I want to do is see Klan membership swell. 

Do I expect *all* the jews to move here? No, of course not.
But if Israelis figure they have a place to jump to for safety if
it gets hot, they'll be more receptive to opening their state up
to include *all* the people who live there. And if the Palestinians
feel less threatened by the Jews, that should lower the tensions
there considerably.  My goodness, every time the Israeli army
sneezes, armies in the surrounding countries have to change
their underwear!

> I don't think anyone is (realistically) suggesting a
> buy out as in we buy all your land and you move.  It's
> more along the lines of the post-WWII buy outs--we
> give the former bad guys lots of money to rebuild
> economies and discover it's much more fun to conquer
> us with dependable cars and cheap stereo components
> than with bombs and bullets.

I used to go to a lot of auctions when I was growing up.
You could always tell whose grandfather had owned that 
farm and lost it during the depression. He would bid 20%
per acre for that land than for equally productive land
across the road. I don't know why people have such deep 
feelings for the old family homestead, but it's definitely 
there.

After WWII, we were dealing with people who'd lost their
livelihood. In this case, Palestinians are people who want 
to go home. Be it ever so humble, there's no place....

deke



------------------------
 "The church is near but the road is icy; 
  the bar is far away but I will walk carefully." 
                            -- Russian Proverb