Invented peoples

That I am not a great fan of Islam should be obvious to any reader of this blog.

That I agree with Sam Harris, a far more prominent atheist than I ever could be, that Islam is potentially a very dangerous belief system, would also be obvious if you read what I have written.

But it is time to come back to the situation in the Middle East, and look once more at the Palestinian situation - not in a religious context (some of the Palestinian people support the extremist Sunni Islamic fundamentalist group, Hamas, but Hamas are not all of the Palestinian people!).

Newt Gingrich, who fortunately will not be the next American President the way things are headed (we might though end up with the equally ignorant Rick Santorum), stated recently that the Palestinians are an "invented people".

Fine.

Quick check of the world map in 1500. Find the United States. Read its constitution. Check out the ethnic origin of its people. Hmmmm. Where are they?

Quick check of the world map in 1700. Find Australia. See what people lived there. Anything like its inhabitants now?

Or closer to home (for me, at least). Quick check of the world map in 1800. Find Germany and Italy ....

Quick check now. Go to Berlin wearing typical Bavarian garb, or go to the Oktoberfest in Munich mouthing off in a typical Berlin accent and displaying stereotypical Prussian attitudes .... All Germans together?

Invented peoples - the world map is full of them. As I have pointed out before I am from ethnic Danish Viking stock. Much as I might ask Odin and Thor for help, I am still not allowed to vote in Danish elections! So what's 1100 years anyway since my ancestors left - a Danish Viking is a Danish Viking, right? Ah well, back to pillage duties .....

So we have the "invented" Palestinian people. Living alongside the not-so-invented Israelis? Quick check of the (obviously dangerously left-wing) Encyclopedia Britannica. Jewish population of what is now Israel in 1938? Approximately 300,000.

Population of Israel now? 7,624,000 (give or take a few - figure extracted from Google just now, by typing in "Israel population").

Even given nearly a million Israeli Arabs, that is a massive increase between 1938 and now right. Most of this population growth originated from immigration (allowing for the fact that many Israelis now are descended from those immigrants and have never lived anywhere else).

But by any stretch of the imagination that also makes them an "invented people". This is, boringly, not the first time that I have said this on this blog, but the only justification for them being there is this phoney myth that their ancestors were the "chosen people" thousands of years ago, so on that principle the "promised land" belongs to them.

Sadly, as a result of the horrendous behaviour of Hitler and the Nazis, it is seemingly not possible for a logical rationalist to criticise Judaism, its mythical, nonsensical, superstitious origins and its consequences in the same way that we can criticise Islam and Christianity. Hence the occasional double standard on the subject

And as some Islamic extremists (the likes of Hamas) often indulge in behaviour that is almost on a par with the Nazis is the 1930s (Islamofascism, I will again repeat, is a justifiable term for them), the Israelis can rightly point out that you cannot negotiate with such people.

For all that though we should face the situation pragmatically (i.e. no kicking millions of people out, or starting a new holocaust), take religion out of the situation (and apart from Hamas on the Palestinian side, we should also recognise that Jewish fundamentalist parties are part of the current Israeli government coalition) and try and resolve the situation for the good of all the people in the neighbourhood.

Eventually the rights of all the people in the area ("invented" or otherwise) need serious examination and a serious solution that works for all!