Palestine was a mandate, you are correct Adam. However, maybe you do not know this (and I know it’s been half a year since your discussion here, but feel compelled to post), nonetheless, one of the proposed plans of dividing the Palestinian mandate was the work of the Peel Commission, which proposed not only dividing the land into two states, but also proposed retaining Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth under the Mandate with a territorial link between the coast and Jerusalem-Bethlehem area without a day to relinquish it. In addition to that, guess where in modern Israel there’s an end to an old oil pipe running from Iraq? Haifa. There is a refinery there, which the Brits used to get Iraqi oil. So, suggesting that the Mandate was different than a colony is imho historically inaccurate (although you get credit for being close and saying Iran).

As for the Firas’ remark about Lloyd George’s government, that’s a riot in itself. He was actually in government from 1916-1922, after that date pretty much sitting in Parliament (not the Cabinet), but even that with a break. And it’s interesting also, how a number of British White Papers are also completely excluded from this conversation, the White Papers, may I add, which doomed a large part of European Jews to certain death in ghettos and concentration camps, because they limited Jewish immigration into the mandate territory. For example, the White Paper of 1939 limited Jewish immigration to 75,000 over the next 5 years.

@Adam re: Czech Republic being civilized – have you ever asked Czech Roma what they think about Czech Republic being civilized?

@Elianah and Sarah, as an American, who was in Paris in the beginning of January, I was simply appalled at the number of attacks against Jewish Centers and synagogues that were reported to have taken place all over France over my week-long stay in Paris. I mean are Molotov cocktails what the Jews should be expecting in Europe? And in general, walking by a synagogue in Paris was depressing – it had a cement front, with ridiculously thin windows (like in the Medieval castles, to be used for shooting at the outsiders) and a set of fences in front. Such a contrast to the way American synagogues are. It was scary and sad, as a general testament of what Jews in France have to think about when they build their synagogues.

Only the totally insane eat Marmite (which is what I assume you are talking about)… and as for white bread…

; )

Rebecca, apologies but Firas indeed sunk your battleship with this one.

I’m not a lawyer, but Palestine under a League of Nations’ Mandate didn’t qualify as a colony in the traditional (read: British Imperial, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, or German — pre-WWI) sense. Bolstering Palestine’s case as a non-colony non-occupied state was that the Redcoats were not in Holy Palestine to plunder, rape, and pillage its land, although the Poms’ proximity to both Arabia’s and Iran’s oil fields might take the wind out of my argument’s sails.

As for the beat-ons going on in the Disunited Kingdom — I’m sure it’s not a widespread phenomenon (@Elianah), but it kind of makes me thank Providence that I live in an enlightened, civilized EU Member State known to many as the Czech Republic and to some as former Czechoslovakia. Who would have thunk it that a post-Communist nation would qualify for such an honour?

More pragmatically, all this shows how myopic (there’s that word again!) and capricious Western Europeans have been with their ill-conceived immigration policies, and how the Eastern European countries are looking at their western cousins in shock and dismay, doing everything in their political power to delay the day when they, too, will be required to shoulder their burden of the EU migration and asylum load. New migrants to my part of the world might eventually include newcomers from the Muslim world, and perhaps then the protests won’t be limited to the UK, France, Germany, etc.

Lisa, as for your poster’s referencing her “Canadian-ness” as the reason for her tendency toward “hyper political correctness” — I dunno, the both of us are Canadian and we’re not politically correct at all, so what gives?! Since Israelis and Jews don’t like pernicious stereotypes made about themselves, I’m now officially going to take issue with your poster’s sweeping generalizations about Canadians, citing potential discrimination against my people. It offends my Canadian sense of fairness that she’d lop me into some amorphous mass known as the “Canadian hyper politically correct” crowd.

There, I said it.

As for the Tesco matter, that’s just wrong, although you hear it a lot that Tesco’s, like Marks & Spenser’s who have Jewish origins support Israel, but that doesn’t mean of course that the Tesco’s driver should be beaten!

I think something had to be done about the rockets, but I question the wisdom of what was done. It doesn’t appear to have been effective. However, the people here don’t stop to ask you for your opinion before they start harassing you or, in some cases, beating you.

A Tesco delivery van driver was beat up. Tescos commits the crime of selling Israeli fruits and veggies when they’re in season. For this, their delivery driver…who probably wasn’t Jewish and who might not even have been delivering Israeli fruits and veggies…was beaten. This is what the UK has come to.

Palestine *was* a British colony – from the end of WWI until 1948! Are you joking, or do you simply not know that Palestine was under the British Mandate for that period?