The Wonderful State of Palestine

I was working with the Coach today, discussing, as usual politics. As he listens to Rush and the ilk, he was looking for ways to disagree. As I am unbrainwashed, I was looking for ways for us to come together.
For instance, when I mentioned Bush's tax cut, he spewed about how he was rich his brother was rich according to Democrats. I stopped him and simply said, "Let me finish. Instead of giving tax cuts that benefit the wealthier one percent than guys like you, perhaps Bush should have cut some of the taxes businesses have to pay that are forcing them out of business."
This settled him down, as he knew me when I was as much a knee jerk liberal as he is a knee jerk reactionary. Then we found we both agreed on NAFTA (passed by a Democratically controlled Congress and signed by a Democratic president) and CAFTA (passed by a Republican controlled Congress and signed by a Republican president) being bad for the country. In fact with CAFTA, 83% of Americans were opposed to it. And yet, Congress still passed it.
Then we found that we both opposed the war in Iraq, and slowly we both began to realize that the problems with this country are not the Democrats or the Republicans, the problems with this country are the Democrats and the Republicans.
Then we discussed Israel and I stated how wrong it is to give them money to give back the lands thatn they stole from the Palestinians. The coachwondered why they had to give it back to them "dirty Arabs". Then I explained that it was the Palestinians land, it belonged to them.
I collect old books. I don't know why, but I like them The above map is from Collier's World Atlas and Gazetteer. The copyright date is 1949. It clearly lists what we refer to today as Israel as actually being the Wonderful State of Palestine. The map shows many cities and villages, inhabited by Palestinian people. The map is color coded in two parts, Arab areas and the Jewish state Of Israel. If you look closely at the map, the part marked Ghuzzeli or Gaza is clearly in Arab territory.
Ghuzzeli was taken from the Palestinians by the Israelis and the UN, the organization which created the state of Israel, passed a resolution saying that Israel must return it to the Palestinians. As partof the roadmap to peace, Israel agreed and the United States has agreed to pay each settler $250,000 to do so. Kind of makes the $2000 debit cards given to Katrina survivors seem kind of paltry.
And the $3,000,000,000 plus we give to Israel annually makes the money given to those unable to find a sustainable job (one that pays a living wage, or that asking too much?) in the US seem kind of meager. Of course it helps that the people in Israel are "regular people" while those in America, not so "regular"
I'm sure you reactionaries know what I mean, right Coach?