Dear Editor:
RE: What of Palestinians, May 27.
T. Patrick Doyle’s letter is rather simplistic in view and does not show an understanding of history. Both situations, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) versus the Uyghur Muslims and Israel versus the Palestinians involve intractable religious conflict. Each person has to decide whether he will support freedom of religion or might-makes-right.
In the Uyghur Muslim situation the CCP has the religious view that materialistic atheism is right and they rule by might. The CCP also persecutes Christians and Falun Gong adherents in the same way they persecute the Uyghurs; our media doesn’t say much about that. The western world generally thinks each person has the right to their own religion and their constitutions protect that right. This is why the west generally condemns the CCP’s persecution of the Uyghurs.
In other situations, Muslims are the abusive power over people who hold to a different religion. OpenDoors, an organization which tracks the most dangerous countries for a Christian to live in, reported this year that 33 out of the 50 most dangerous were Muslim dominant countries.
In the Israel/Palestine conflict there are other issues involved in who supports which side. Modern Israel exists as a result of the Fascist Germany-caused Holocaust; western people tried to make up for that horror by wanting to give Jews a homeland to be safe in so they encouraged them to go to the Biblical land of Israel. Unfortunately, they didn’t think about the people who were already living there for 2,000 years since the Roman Empire destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD, killed many Jews and removed the rest into slavery.
These Palestinians justifiably hate those who pushed them out of their homeland. Another wrinkle is that some denominations of Christianity believe that Jesus will not return unless the Jews rebuild the Old Testament temple, along with other Israel-centric happenings, and so they support the state of Israel. These Christians, especially in the U.S., vote for Israel-friendly candidates, which is why the USA gives mega-bucks to Israel. Of course, religion is mixed in with this conflict too; none of the three religions are going to change their tenets of belief. In this case, Israel has the might but is it right? Can this history be undone? Shall we throw out some other people somewhere to make a homeland for the Palestinians or a different one for the Jews? It is an impossible situation to solve and the best minds have repeatedly failed to do so.
Canadian governments and politicians also have no solution and the best they can do is try to stop each side from killing each other, which I think is what Mr. Chong is trying for.
Of course, it would be best if Mr. Chong states his own position and I hope he will do that in this newspaper.
Jane Vandervliet,
Erin