Most people sympathise with the Zionist Jewish state objective but a great number, including many Jews, object to Palestine as its location. The justification behind that is it was the Jews' original homeland, although it was never a Jewish state but part of the Roman Empire. But, for God's sake, that was 2000 years ago.
As Israel persistently shows, it can't be done. I saw the dark side of this in Lebanon in the 1960s with thousands of displaced Palestinians locked behind high wire concentration camp enclosures, these incidentally, a British innovation originating in the utterly immoral Boer War, although again, that's an easy judgment which ignores the then prevailing values.
The principal Zionist movement founder, Theodor Herzl, was sensibly open-minded on locations, indeed for a time he favoured Argentina. For him, the important thing was creating a Jewish state and its actual location a lesser consideration.
Ignoring Masai objections Britain offered the Zionists 4000 square miles (half the size of today's Israel) in Eastern Uganda. This was considered by the Zionists and fortunately rejected.
But here's the sad thing, among many with this matter.
Following a typically farcical 19th century South American war, mainly and extraordinarily foolishly against Brazil, Paraguay, a lush and empty land, one and a half times the size of New Zealand, by 1870, saw its adult male population almost totally decimated. Thereafter with little success it actively sought migrants, the exception being a now sizeable and prospering Korean community.
Readers may recall I described a few years ago in the Herald, the quite extraordinary tale whereby the Australian eastern seaboard Trade Union movement, fed up with the appalling harshness of their members' lives, in the late 19th century, typical of Australian have-a-go spirit which prevails to this day, endeavoured to upsticks en masse and shift the entire Australian working class to Paraguay.
The Paraguayan government was delighted and gave them land and meaningful assistance and I have no doubt they'd have done the same for the Zionists. Ultimately the Aussie effort failed, but given better management it need not have done.
Had that occurred with the Zionists it's reasonable to conclude, given Jewish initiative, enterprise and energy and without the appalling current military cost, Paraguay today would probably be a thriving economic powerhouse.
Here's another interesting facet to the Jewish state objective story. It always amazes me how when I, a non-Jew, mention this to Jewish folk, they say "nonsense" then look it up and can't believe it.
That is that Israel is not the first Jewish state, rather credit for that belongs to Russia in creating one. In the early 1930s Russia established the Jewish Autonomous Region centred on the pleasant Siberian city of Birobidzhan.
At the time the J.A.R. was created there were already numerous Jewish communities across Siberia and they eagerly shifted to it. In fact, a Siberian Zionist movement had existed since the early 19th Century, thus the creation of this state was in accord with their wishes.
Unlike Hebrew-speaking Israel they speak Yiddish, the traditional language of European Jews, childishly rejected by Israel for precisely that reason.
The J.A.R. still exists but the Jewish population dwindled following the collapse of the Soviet Union as many fled to Israel, understandably fearful of the anticipated chaos, albeit outside of Chechnya seeking full independence, surprisingly that never eventuated.
That said there was a semi-civil war blow-up in Georgia in 1991 but Georgia was a separate state within the Soviet Union and not Russia. With the nightly items on television of the factions' farcical tanks standoff on the Georgian parliament steps in Tbilisi, my sense of humour was tickled and I decided to have a look. How best to get there was the question?
It transpired via Israel as daily flights from Tbilisi to Jerusalem were now on tap for the sole purpose of taking Russian Jews to Israel, many from the J.A.R. So that's what I did, needless to say on a near empty flight back to Georgia from Jerusalem. The subsequent events I experienced there, humour-wise, certainly didn't disappoint.
One final comment. A few years ago in Moldova, I chatted to an Israeli businessman. The standard bombing and killing crap was going on at the time. "How do you put up with it?" I asked.
"The same as you do," he replied nonchalantly, pointing out that every day Kiwis are killed on our roads but we still all get in to our cars, certain in the belief it will be someone else who cops it. "That's how we handle it," he said. "It's no problem."
