Chutzpah: Palestinian logic

In as much as this blog is fairly new, I will most likely be posting thoughts regarding past events before I start commenting on current events.
In any event...

Last summer, as many remember, Ariel Sharon finally went through with the pullout from the Gaza strip (which is now a terror state run by a terrorist orginization, Hamas, but more on that later). In doing so, he evicted roughly 8,000 jews from their homes. The decision was made that the buildings that these settlers had erected (such as homes, synagouges, and greenhouses) would not be demolished but would rather be left in tact. Sharon felt that if we left the Palestinians with a well developed territory instead of a barren wasteland it might raise the world's opinion of us. Needless to say this decision vexed the settlers as well as Jews worldwide. After all, why should terrorists and userpers benifit from our hard labor.

We need not have worried.

As soon as the disengagement had been completed, the Palestinians came in to "settle" the land. The first thing they did was demolish the homes, shatter the greenhouses, and burn the synagouges that we had built and left in tact. But isnt that just like Arabs, sensless destruction of anything usefull.

But here is the funny part. After all was said and done, the Palestinian Authority accused Israel of intentionally leaving the buildings there, knowing that the Palestinians would destroy them, with the sole intention of making the Palestinians look bad.

CHUTZPAH!

Chutzpah (most likely the first of many)

Chutzpah (for those of you who are Judaically challanged) is a Yiddish word meaning gall or obstinancy. I had always thought that the classic deffinition of Chutzpah was a man who murders his parents and then asks the judge for mercy on the grounds that he is an orphan. Recently however, I learned a new and better definition. (more than likely I will learn still more in the future, but this will do for now).

Durring the 19th century pretty much all the European powers wanted a piece of the Ottoman Empire. For example, in 1882 Russia declared that it had the right to interfere in Ottoman affairs in order to protect Russian citizens living in the Ottoman Empire.

The question is, what Russian citizens were living in the Ottoman Empire?

Well, in 1881 Tzar Alexander II was assasinated and the Russian government blamed the Jews. Early in 1882 Russia instigated a series of pogroms against Russian Jews known as the Kishinev Prgroms (a pogrom, for those who are unaware, is an orginized riot against Jews meant to terrorize them, usually involving murder and rape, and often sponsered, organized, or instigated by the government). After the Kishinev pogroms, thousands of Jews simply packed up and left Russia. Most went to America, but some (a good 30,000 or so) went to Eretz Yisrael (modern day Israel) in a huge migration known as the first Aliya.

So in short, Russia kills off its Jews who in turn flee to Israel which, at the time, is under Ottoman rule, and the Russians now declare themselves to be the protecttors of these Jews.

CHUTZPAH!!!