The place for a Roma (Gypsy) homeland is in India and the place for a Jewish homeland is in Iraq.

The Jewish people and the Roma may share similarities and as my opponent says, have a history that shows certain parallels, but that does not in any way dictate where they should call home. My opponent has made the mistake of deciding that a homeland is where a people are said to have originated. A homeland does not have to be an area of origin, but instead can be a place of settlement in the past or even a place of spiritual connection, as Israel has become for the Jews. Because this debate has two separate issues, I will address them as such. First, I argue that Israel is not only the most fitting homeland for today's Jewish nation, is also the most logical. Israel represents the land that the Torah, the holy book of Judaism, states was promised to Abraham and his descendents by Adonai, the Jewish God. Because of this, the Israeli's feel a spiritual connection to the ancient land of Canaan, now current day Israel. This spiritual connection makes Israel the Jewish homeland, not Iraq as my opponent says is the area of origin. I will admit that the creation of Israel was not perfect, but after the tumult of the Holocaust, it was more important to find a safe haven for the Jews that it was to find a perfect solution, which did not exist anyway. Although WWII ended, the Jews were persecuted as before. Signing a treaty will not end anti-Semitic propaganda that had been given to the German people as often as water. A Jewish state was needed and it needed the power to protect its people, hence the establishment of Israel in part of what was the British mandate Palestine. The Jews did not and do not actively destroy Palestinian homes. Of course there are exceptions to moral behavior, but that is not unique to Israel. Every nation in the world has criminals and it is part of a state's duty to condemn and punish these criminals, which Israel is doing to the best of its ability. But Palestine has continued to instigate fights with Israel and Israel is in a different position than any other country in the world. Unlike the US, Israel is surrounded by hostile nations that will jump on any weakness and attempt to destroy it as a state. Mahmoud Achmandinijad has stated that Israel is the Great Satan and he wishes to wipe Israel off the map. In the face off all of this hostility, Israel must protect a strong military front to deter enemy military action. Another point to make is that much of the "victims" of Israeli aggression that my opponent claim as unfair ARE members of recognized terrorist groups. The UN has acknowledged the existence of Hamas and other terrorist groups within Palestine. Israel, along with many other Western nations, recognize the threat terrorism represents and deals with it as necessary. I am not condoning random acts of violence upon Palestinian civilians, but I am arguing that the Israeli government knows more than the average citizen and can much better recognize terrorists that an outside source, namely my opponent. A final contention I would like to bring up is the fact that there is that Iraq is not a logical place for Israeli settlement. Right now, Iraq already has three religious factions fighting each other and the US in an attempt to gain control. It is unstable, unsafe, and not a place to throw in a fourth religious group. Israel has already been settled. The Jewish people have recognized it as a homeland and have created their institutions and government upon the soil of Israel. An entire nation cannot be told to get up and move because a bit of historical analysis shows their four thousand year old mathematical reckoning was off by a few hundred miles. Iraq is a nation of Islam, and throwing in an entire Jewish people would make matters worse, not better. Moving on to the next part of the debate: the Roma. The Roma are similar, but not exact to the Jews in only a few ways. First, they were persecuted in the Holocaust. Second, they were forced from their area of origin. And for the purposes of this debate, those are the only two important similarities. The Roma, although not persecuted nearly as heavily as the Jews, have been subject to discrimination. Unfortunately, so has almost every minority group in the world. The Holocaust also persecuted homosexuals, but they were not given their own homeland. What set the Jews apart was the magnitude of the discrimination, the inability to hide their identities due to religious observances, and the fear that another Holocaust would occur if a Jewish state was not founded. The Roma, however unfortunate and terrible it is that they were persecuted, cannot be given a piece of India as a homeland. The Roma are spread out and dispersed in more areas than the Jews were and have not created a strong enough baselayer to uphold and protect a homeland AT THIS TIME. I wish to stress that I am not saying the Romani do not deserve better treatment, but simply that a Romani homeland in India at this time is not logical. There are not enough Roma to found an entire state, or not enough that would enter such a state. If the time comes when the Romani step forward as a group to ask for a piece of land to call their state and such a place is found in an agreeable spot, then it is logical to create a Romani homeland. But at the current time, it seems that the humanitarians and human rights activists of the world must work from within the current Roma areas to help stop discrimination and better the suffering of the Romani.