georgeob1 wrote:Ireland suffered under severe political, economic and religious oppression at the hands of the English for several Centuries. For years they suffered under a regime that taxed them to support the established Protestant Church, and at the same time discriminated against them if they remained Catholic. Property held by Irishmen was required by law to be divided up equally among all the patrimony. At the same time property held by English owners and Protestants was required by the same law to be passed on to the first born son. In this largely agricultural land there were severe limits on the right of Irish farmers to own the livestock needed to operate a farm of more than a few acres.
The result of all this was the gradual passage of land ownership from the native Irish to English landowners, many absentee. During the mid 19th century potato famines Ireland remained a net exporter of food while approximately 500,000/year starved to death - precisely because the best and most productive lands exported the grains and cattle they produces for cash for their usually English owners, while the native population subsisted only on the failing potato yield of the hillsides and bogs.
Finally, every church in the center of every village in Ireland was taken and turned into a Church of Ireland (Protestant) facility and the Catholic population was taxed to support its Canon who usually had no parishioners. In fact the whole thing was a scam operated in effect as the retirement system for Church of England.
When the Irish Republic was declared in 1919, amazingly no retribution whatever was inflicted on the 15% of the population that was English or Protestant. Instead uniform and equal standards and laws were established for the whole population. Indeed, they didn't even take the churches back. St Patricks cathedral in Dublin and the church in the square in every small village in Ireland are still Protestant institutions, as is Trinity College in Dublin.
Today the Irish are among the most prosperous people in Europe. Their GDP/capita is higher than every European nation save only Litchtenstein, Switzerland, and Norway - and a good deal higher than the UK.
Northern Ireland, which is perhaps an even better model for Israel in that the opposing groups are more equal in numbers and the conflict is at least 300 years old, has finally abandoned government exclusively in the hands of the Protestant portion of the Population. The IRA has finally disarmed, and the terror and death squads on both sides (that have practised their trades for over a century) have dissolved. Economic growth for both parts of the population has resumed.
You should consider studying the recent history of the island: it might help you find a model for the future of Israel.
A) Didn't you forget the Red and Tans that came into Irish Catholic villages and conscripted the males into the British navy?
B) I have no need/interest in discerning a "model for the future of Israel." Israel is for Israelis to cogitate over. Judaism is only a religion that I don't have interest in. My concern is only empathy for Israel's existence, in context of a world that tends towards Judeophobia.
C) The persecution of the Catholc Irish by the British was, I thought, around 900 years, not a few centuries.
D) The only parallel I agree with in your analogy is that the British, I thought, engineered the migration of Scotch Presbyterians to Northern Island, and also engineered the Jewish displaced persons to Israel. In both instances it seems Britain thought there was a good reason to move these people where an indigenous majority population was going to clash with the arrivals. Perhaps, you should ask the British to find a solution, since they instigated the problem.
E) The Irish Catholics are Celts, and so are the Scotch Presbyterians. The only difference is their respective religions. The Ashkenazi Israelis are a hybrid Semite at best, in many instances. The Middle Eastern Israelis are ethnically as Arab as the Moslem Arabs, except the Jews never had to convert to Islam like the Arab pagans had to. So, the Israelis feel they are a people with a right to that land. The Palestineans feel they are a people with a right to that land. I just question if the Palestineans claim to being a people, is as similar to people in one state in the U.S. claiming to be a people. The Palestineans are the same Arabs as elsewhere in the neighboring countries. Since they never had a government, I thought, the claim to the land is based on wishful thinking. If I'm incorrect, tell me where.
