(Reprinted to Blog from email list of 7/9/05)
*** Bob’s Insider’s Message ***
In 1871 France was crushed and humiliated in the Franco-Prussian War. Germany took the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, which were German-speaking areas France had conquered centuries earlier.
In Paris there was a government museum with a statue representing each of the provinces of France. The French did not take out the statues representing Alsace and Lorraine in 1871 when they ceded them to Germany. They just covered them over with sheets.
France had not forgotten.
In 1919 when France was part of the coalition that had defeated Germany in World War I, it took back Alsace and Lorraine. Amidst wild celebrations, the sheets were taken off of the statues of Alsace and Lorraine.
No one blamed France for keeping those sheets on and never forgetting it felt that those provinces were part of France. Everybody thought it was great and showed patriotism and determination.
If France had not gotten those provinces back, the statues would still be there today almost a century and a half later.
When America is dealing with the Arabs, we always want them to worry about terrorism and so forth. We want them to forget that we helped take Palestine from Arabs who had lived there for at least two millennia and given Palestine to outsiders who had no connection to that land at all except our version of the Bible.
When Germany took Alsace they did not drive the Alsatians out. We helped drive the Arabs off their own land.
Arab spokesmen are always bringing that up and our reply is, “Forget it. That’s all in the past.”
It is not in the past and it will never be in the past for a patriotic Arab.
Bob
Recent Comments