posted
I was watching some of the footage on CNN earlier today and yesterday. I had to turn it off fairly soon after I started watching. There's only so many crying soldiers and people you can watch before it drains you emotionally.
I think it's for the best that they are leaving, but I wish they didn't have to go through the anguish they are suffering.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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What's crazy is that it all seems to pretty much be for nothing. All the Palestinians interviewed effectively said,"Well, it's a nice first step, but they still hold the West Bank." The West Bank holding 250,000 people and being much more built up than Gaza, I just don't see how Israel can pull out. So, if the 9,000 people being kicked out of their homes isn't going to achieve peace, and the Palestinians are just going to continue to be angry until they get everything that they want, what's the point?
Someone else last night mentioned that the real problem isn't land, it's that the Jews and the Palestinians are going to have to learn to live together or they'll forever be at war. I think this is true.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I have a few questions, and please correct me if I'm wrong.
It is now ILLEGAL for an Israeli to live in Gaza. ILLEGAL by Israel's law or illegal by Palestinian law?
Is it Illegal for a Jew to live, own land, buy land, build a synagogue or work in Palestine?
Is it Illegal for a Muslim to live, own land, buy land, buidl a synagogue or work in Israel?
Can Jews legally cross over to Palestine when they wish? Can Palesinian Muslims cross over to Israel?
And my biggest "what if"?
What if Israel decided to treat Jerusalem the same to NON-Jews (or at least Muslims as they seem to be the ones they have the problems with) as Muslims treat Mecca AND Medina to NON-Muslims?
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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It's illegal for Israelis to live in Gaza based on the recent disengagement plan put forth by Sharon, so I'd guess it's illegal on both sides.
Palestinian Muslims can only cross into Israel if they are issues a work permit, which more often than not are revoked and the border is closed to workers.
As for acceptance, to adam613 - Most Palestinians know that there will be an Israeli state, and most, the grand majority, accept that. They don't expect everyone in Israel to pack up and leave, the whole "Drive them into the ocean" mentality hasn't been the main dominating force of their minds for years.
But what they fear now is that the Israelis are trying to drive THEM into the sea. They have nothing, they don't want everything, they want something. Israelis have everything, and to Palestinians it doesn't look like they want to give up anything. How would that effect your mentality?
I'm still confused as to why everyone refers to the occupation as "illegal" in quotations. What makes it legal or illegal to people here? The UN thinks it's illegal, or so say resolutions calling on them to pull out.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I think it's mighty unfair of you to call them 'contested territories' without mentioning where the contention came from.
quote:As far back as Mohammed, Islam hasn't had a problem with another believer in the god of Abraham. Despite the rhetoric of many, there is a big difference between a Jew and an Israeli.
Are you serious? Have you ever examined even a bit of the history of Islam? Look at the status to which People of the Book are relegated, and tell me again that Islam has no problem with other People of the Book.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I just want to say a few things, since I don't want to open up a whole thing about the legalities - which, mind you, I can do very well - but it's too tiring. And I'll be quite obscene here. Feel free to tell me to censor it later, but I've got to get this out in the first place.
EDIT: I'll only be able to censor it when I wake up. Good night (my time).
[anger]
I just want to state that when those teenage wretched bastards call the soldiers Nazis - aside from begging me to slam a knife through their throats - they are being so ****ing stupid that I can't even stand watching them. I can stand stupidity, sure, but not this human-right-depriving arrogance by those sons of bitches.
"They are pulling us out of the house like dogs", cried one woman (that crying was phoney, mind you). Hey, you know why? BECAUSE YOU'RE A DAMN ****ING BITCH! Don't you go comparing the evacuation to Birkenau. Don't start talking about how you remember the gas chambers, you stupid 25-year old. You don't know how it was, and neither do I - so stop the damn pretence. Stop being a ****ing phoney.
Hey, and while we're at it - STFU! You've had two years to protest. That's over, now shut your wretched mouth and comply with the law. You've been biting, kicking and screaming at soldiers who're just the messengers. You've been garrisoning in a synagogue and what you've been doing there has been illegal by Israeli law, unethical in so many by international cultural norms, and desacrational by fundamentalist Jewish law (which you must be, judging by your "stated ideological belief"). You have the right to STFU - anything you say can and will be used against you and your kind of people by me.
And don't you ****ING DARE call those soldiers Nazis. Tell your son, your daughter, and all their Samarian ****ing friends to do the same. My 86 year-old grandmother doesn't need to suffer all this shit and relive everything just because you feel the right to make some faked-up ****ing protest that's irrational and inappropriate and too late. She doesn't need to have you making all sorts of obscene speeches that want the rest of the rational world spit in your jackal face. The irony is that you are the fascist, right-wing extremist. You're more like the Nazis than I. You're more like the Nazis than almost all of the soldiers. You, you little bitch, are one little, arrogant, zealous piece of shit.
You've been living on our taxes for 38 years, you've been sticking your tongue up the government's arse getting out of the army service illegally, and you've been living like the Lord of the Land. If you learned anything from the Holocaust - which you, as you seem to state, know all about - it's that who once was an oligarch is next the underdog.
It's your turn now, bitch. I'm sick of your arrogance, so if you don't put your nose back down you're begging for a punch. So stop fake-crying about being deprived of privileges; if it were up so me - you'd have never been this fanatical and out of prison. You'd be in the shackles, jackal.
quote:Lyrhawn, so you support the rise of the Native American to drive all White, Blacks and Orientals off the continent?
Well, good luck to them. It's what, 50,000 against 300 million? On the other hand, we aren't denying the rights of the Indians to live on the lands they are currently on. Did we make mistake over the last 200 years? Yes, I don't think anyone with even a passing knowledge of America's Native American policy of the past 200 years would deny that. But we made amends, or at least we attempted to. The indoctrination schools that attempted to stamp out their way of life are over. The evangelicals roming the plains aren't government backed anymore (if they are allowed there at all, I don't know).
We realized we were wrong, we tried to fix it. I have a small amount of Native American blood in me, but I'm also distantly related to John Smith (yes, the real John Smith at the Jamestown colony). We deal with the situation we are in now, and we try to fix it.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Are you serious? Have you ever examined even a bit of the history of Islam? Look at the status to which People of the Book are relegated, and tell me again that Islam has no problem with other People of the Book.
Apparently more than you have. I may not have worded what I said correctly, I didn't mean to imply that no Muslim anywhere has ever had a problem with Christianity or Judaism, or that it's always been supported by all the religious icons of the faith, but historically, Islamic ruled empires have been far kinder to Christians and Jews when they have been conquered than with conquered peoples of other faiths. There's a reason there aren't many Zoroastrians around today, even though it was at one time the dominant faith of what is today Iran.
Religions have become far more polarized in the last three hundred years than they ever were even during the time of the Crusades. Christians were far more ferverent in their attempts to convert people of other faiths to their ways than Muslims were. Muslims, many times, and even before Muslims, Arabs in general (discounting the Assyrians) were usually pretty good about letting the people they conquered continue to practice their faith, because they worshipped the God of Abraham.
If Islam were that much against the faith of Judaism, then why and how does it exist today? Islam was the dominant military force in the all of the holy lands for almost a thousands years, and still Christians and a large Jewish minority thrived and worshipped their faiths. This is long before mass migrations of Jews to Europe.
I think you are speaking more from ignorance than I am. Either that or you are focusing entirely on recent history, and not the entire history.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote: The illegal occupation refers to that land which was taken in 1967, because the UN says it's illegal
Well, I think it's more than just the UN saying it's illegal. What makes it legal? Might makes right? They took and and the Palestinians can't take it back so legally it's theirs? They want it, so they get it?
I don't get the arguments I've seen thus far on what Israel still needs the territories it seized in 67. I'm okay with them having everything they took before then. And I think the Palestinians, in the long run, would probably accept it too, if it meant long term stability.
Other than that, we seem to agree on much of the other stuff.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Depending on whose history you believe, the lands that are now Israel proper (not only the disputed territories captured in 1967) were peaceful before the creation of the Israeli state by the British and US.
I don't know how true that is, but it does appear that Rakeesh has a point about Arabs and Jews living peacefully side by side for a long time before WWII. Or at least showing some measure of tolerance and acceptance toward one another.
Part of the problem, however, is that the situation of Jews throughout Europe was untenable and the particular horrors of WWII that rested almost uniquely on the Jews of Europe made it plain that something needed to be done. (I almost uniquely because the Germans also gave the similar treatment to Gypsies, homosexuals and retarded individuals, but the Jews were the prime target.)
So...in the context of not believing that segregated enclaves in Europe were tenable, that a Jewish state within the borders of Europe would not be tolerated, and that the ancestral homeland was in the region then referred to as Palestine, the Brits and Americans worked out a plan. In that plan, they explicitly left unsettled the so called "Palestinian Question."
What they did was right a horrible wrong by perpetrating another one.
And in so doing, they destroyed what peaceful "balance" there was in the region.
It also did something wonderful for the Jews of the world.
I'm not sure how much better a war-weary Allied command could have done. The tendency at the time was to think globally -- brokering entire countries' populations into this or that "camp." They weren't even capable of thinking of the long term consequences of those actions, I don't believe. Or, if they were thinking of them, they lacked the will go do much about it.
In that context, Israel became a country and created a vast sea of resentment in the Arab world, plus sowed the seeds for discord between the Palestinians and the Jews in Israel.
I think the only people who can solve this are the people of Israel and Palestine. They first need an overwhelming majority in favor of peace. On both sides. Then they need leaders who are going to commit to peace and who have and retain the backing of the people. Once that type of leaderhip is in place, they need stability, not new reformation of governments every time the wind changes.
Then...they need time.
Sadly, a portion of both populations need to get old and die. For some, at least, the wounds will not heal and, really, who can blame them? But there are those among them who cannot and will never accept peace. And eventually they will die. In their place, one hopes, younger generations will grow up either with a commitment to peace, or if nothing so passionate, maybe with apathy toward war and hate.
To make this happen, however, the provocation and recruitment to hatred has to stop. Retaliation has to be no longer acceptable.
And I think both countries' people are not quite there yet.
Jonathan...your post was tough to read. I'm so sorry your country is having such a hard time. And I'm sorry there is such pain there.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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Interestingly enough, while I do think the UN is a very valuable organization with many important roles, I also think it is a very bad failure at being a world government.
I don't think the UN has the proper structure to be able to legislate international criminality.
I do think what Israel did in that case was wrong, though.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:I don't get the arguments I've seen thus far on what Israel still needs the territories it seized in 67. I'm okay with them having everything they took before then. And I think the Palestinians, in the long run, would probably accept it too, if it meant long term stability.
Israel certainly did need the territories in 1967 for strategical reasons. Those reasons aren't really valid anymore.
Some of them still have importance like the Old City in Jerusalem. And by the way, the reason those territories are illegal to settle in is not because the UN said so, but because all the people had to leave the Gaza Strip (and Northern Samaria) by law. The problem by those teritories is simply that Israel is settling them before they are annexed - for 38 years.
So there are limitations on that, and certain "unregistered" settlements are illegal, and do not qualify for various reasons.
quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: I watched some footage of the pullout last night. The Palestinians had their usual collection of dorks spouting off about Zionists, however I thought the settlers use of children to confront the soldiers was not cool.
I found that very disturbing, as well.
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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quote:Israel is no longer seriously threatened by anyone in the region because they took action to ensure they wouldn't be by occupying and annexing strategic territories that would ensure their security, including Gaza and the West Bank. If they let these territories go to the Palestinian Arabs, they would be threatened again, now wouldn't they?
Would Israel feel better about withdrawing if they were allowed to join NATO? Or, at the very least, sign a clearly-worded mutual defense treaty with the United States and Great Britain?
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Beren, experience has taught Israel that while they can (sometimes) rely upon their allies for weapons, when the chips are down they can only rely on their own people.
So, no. NATO membership or the like will reassure little or not at all.
And for the record, while I think the Holocaust references by settlers are offensive, obnoxious, and useless, I think this pullout is WORSE than useless, and will make things worse.
*sigh* Not that I would at all mind being proven wrong . . .
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quote:Beren, experience has taught Israel that while they can (sometimes) rely upon their allies for weapons, when the chips are down they can only rely on their own people.
That's sad but not unexpected.
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: And for the record, while I think the Holocaust references by settlers are offensive, obnoxious, and useless, I think this pullout is WORSE than useless, and will make things worse.
*sigh* Not that I would at all mind being proven wrong . . .
I also think that the Holocaust and pogrom references that I have seen made by the settlers are very obnoxious and an insult to people who actually went through these things. What the Gaza settlers are experiencing has very little in common with a pogrom or the Holocaust.
I do hope the pullout will make a difference, but over the years I have become quite pessimistic about the possibility that there will ever be a peaceful settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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I apologize, I was not specific enough. You're right that Islam has been kinder towards Judaism than many Christian empires have been.
But by no means does that mean 'they don't have a problem with it', either. If you were a Jew in an Islamic state back in the day, you had to pay-literally-for it.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Lyrhawn I was joking about the Native American thing.
That aside, your view of Islam very much appears to be tainted by large amounts of Political Correctness.
Islam very much as been since the end of it's creation a Militaristic religion. The only NON-Militaristic means of it's establishment happened during the very early years of Muhammed's Prophetship. When his teachings were rejected and not accepted his ministry turned military and it has been ever since then.
The politically correct term used today is "United" when speaking of the Arabian peninsula and Muhammed's effect on it. We are afraid today to use the term that also describes it as "Ethnic Cleansing".
And I highly recommend anyone research fully the spread of Islam to Africa, especially Egypt, Ethiopia, Spain, Turkey for sure, India, Afghanistan/Pakistan and Indonesia and the attempted Islamization of Italy, Cyprus and Greece and the so called "Bloodless" TWO year siege of Jerusalem and conquering of Jordan and Syria.
If you give a pass to Islam's History you really have to give a pass to the Conquest/Colonization of the Americas as they are pretty much the same.
Also keep in mind that the Military Islamization (not prosylited conversion) of Italy is still an unfulfilled prophecy of Islam that is considered the official duty of Muslims to fulfill (as was Turkey and Jerusalem).
All 3 major religions have checkered pasts in their establishments and spreading. Islam appears to the the one currently has is having the hardest time making the final transition to 20th century thinking on many fronts. Particularly because there are small percentage but sizable group (in the 10's of millions) who believe and act/support the military installation of a world Islamic Caliphate and the fulfillment of any outstanding military Muhammed prophecies. Also unfortunately you have a "lay member" Islamic majority that is theologically afraid to oppose their view. This is due in large part to the abundance of Muhammedic writings teachings and history affirming such beliefs and scarce to none in how to deal specifically with MUSLIMS that claim to do this in the name of Islam that others may disagree with. There is no official leader or interpreter of Islam outlined which leads to this allowance (as does in other religions).
It's this internal struggle within Islam (with no end in sight) that the world has to decide wether to stand back and let them work out and NOT react to it's effects which spill out and affect the NON-Muslim world or whether to take an active role in determining the future direction in the world that Islam takes (if that is possible).
Islam is pretty much like all religions. Don't let Dr. Badawi or Karen Armstrong put a PC spin on it.
Mithraism and Zoroastrian teachings as well as the small but ancient Mandaens are worthy of research as well. Awsome ancient history on an almost microscopic scale.
Also please read and weith the "Pact of Omar".
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I wasn't so much trying to defend Islam, as I was trying to place it with Christianity on the scale of militarism. Christian conquerers, especially since the end of Muslim power, have descended on every continent on the planet, and in many cases have actively proselytized and committed genocide.
Muslims are no better, but neither are they any worse. But since they have yet to come to grips with how their religion should play out in a 21st century world, they are viewed as the most violent of the three major religions.
Jews too were a militaristic people at one point in history. The land we think of as Israel now was ruled by another people (several actually) before the Isarelites arrived and conquered it for themselves.
Painting Islam as a religion of violence, compared to the passive relgions of Christianity and Judaism is misleading, and dangerously so I think. They pasts of all the world's major relgions are steeped in militaristic ventures and attitudes. Islam is no exception, but neither is it the worst offender.
Christians, historically, have been far less tolerant of other religions living in their midsts than Muslims have been.
Don't mistake my posts as trying to whitewash the history of Islam, that isn't my attempt. I'm merely attempting to temper all the posts I see on here that unfairly misinform on Islam's history.
I wish Zoroastrianism hadn't been systematically eradicated, the area would be far more peaceful now if it hadn't been.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I feel the need to repeat something that has seemingly been ignored over and over again. In 1948 there was no "Palestinian question" because there were no Palestinian people, it wasn't a term created until after 1967 and prior to that those people were simply Arabs living in Egypt, Jordan, or Israel without citizenship in any of those countries. In 1967 Israel did not take land from the Palestinians or even from those aforementioned Arabs. Israel did occupy land that was formerly illegally occupied by Jordan and Egypt. They also took over control of the Golan Heights from Syria, but its Syria that wants that land back, not the Palestinians.
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Technically they weren't Arabs living in Israel, as before the Balfour thing, there hadn't been an Israel for more than a thousand years. And Palestine isn't a new term, it's a very very old term that was readopted to name the people that inhabit the area once inhabited by the Philistines, who were there before the Israelites I might add.
If the land was illegally occupied by Egypt and Jordan then whose land was it? Before Israel was created, all those people were still living there. Was it just wild, unclaimed land that a couple million random Arabs happened to inhabit?
Either way, isn't this argument rather a moot point? The Palestinians, or 'random Arabs' if you prefer, are there, and they aren't going anywhere else. If you want to make the point just for the sake of being correct, alright, but it doesn't really have much bearing on what is to be done now, does it?
We can split hairs over history until the end of time if we want. But before the end of time comes, we still have Palestinians, and Israelis, living on a small strip of land, struggling to exist. Understanding history helps us understand the current problem, but more often than not, history is used as a method to accuse one party or the other as being the greater offender, rather than being used as an engine to achieve understanding.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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*shrug* Deciding for whom one should have sympathy depends in large part upon an understanding of history.
It is worthwhile to understand that just as there hasn't been an Israel for more than a thousand years, there hasn't been a Palestine, either. Until-like Israel-very recently.
Your post about Islam, Lyrhawn, most definitely made the implication that Islam was better at treating Jews than other religions, and that they didn't have a problem with Jews (that second part you stated plainly). BUt now we shouldn't 'split hairs' about history?
And anyway, history only plays a part in things. Palestinians and those who support them have made Israel's position nearly impossible. They have successfully forced Israel to submit to terrorism, with the blindingly obvious reaction that terrorists will (rightly) claim responsibility for the submission.
My sympathy lies with the Israelis over the Palestinians because while I recognize the Palestinians are oppressed, impoverished, and without much hope, many other populations have dealt with that-and worse-without murdering lots of kids and old people and cheering about it.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Honestly, I think you'd find that from the year one until today, the religion of the region of the world that treated jews best, longest, would be Islam. They had a very long, very successful period where jews were treated pretty darn well, whereas Europe didn't have even that until the late twentieth century.
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quote: Technically they weren't Arabs living in Israel, as before the Balfour thing, there hadn't been an Israel for more than a thousand years.
From 1948 until 1967 they were and that is the time period I was referring to.
quote: And Palestine isn't a new term, it's a very very old term that was readopted to name the people that inhabit the area once inhabited by the Philistines, who were there before the Israelites I might add.
I never said "Palestine" was a new term, I said "Palestinian people" was a new term. Palestine was the name the Romans gave Israel as essentially punishment for the revolts. This is why the Arabs living in Palestine weren't considered Palestinians anymore than the Jews or Christians living their until after 1967 when they decided to create a brand new national identity.
quote: If the land was illegally occupied by Egypt and Jordan then whose land was it? Before Israel was created, all those people were still living there. Was it just wild, unclaimed land that a couple million random Arabs happened to inhabit?
The UN in 1948 divided Britian's mandate for the land called Palestine into two sections with Jerusalem to become an international city. Israel accepted the proposal while Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab countries invaded and seized the land was allocated to either what would have been international Jerusalem, Israel, or the new Arab state. I don't see how people can be willing to call Israel's occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and Golan Heights illegal, but be willing to call what Egypt and Jordan were doing just as illegal.
quote: Either way, isn't this argument rather a moot point? The Palestinians, or 'random Arabs' if you prefer, are there, and they aren't going anywhere else. If you want to make the point just for the sake of being correct, alright, but it doesn't really have much bearing on what is to be done now, does it?
Its not moot, because it has a direct impact on any historical claim the "Palestinians" can make on the land. If you want to argue that it doesn't matter whether they have a historical claim to the land, but that since they are living their they deserve their own nation, that's fine, but then you have to accept that Israel should have a bit more say over their own borders and how they go about withdrawing the land since in reality they're the only country with any real legitimate claim to the land at the present time.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Um...I think some people need to go back and read the documents about the creation of Israel. Hmm...the word "Palestine" appears. And, oops, there were people living there! I figure if Americans can be called that by virtue of living and having been born in America, Palestinians could be called that by virtue of living and having been born in America. But hey, why take my word for it?
To all those who try hard to believe there were no such people as Palestinians before 1948, I gues the problem is where did all those refugees come from? Gosh, it's all right there. And the UN, realizing it might've made some mistakes, starts urging the fledgling state to recognize PROPERTY RIGHTS of the displaced people. Wow...pretty impressive for a bunch of folks who don't exist and couldn't have actually lived there.
I don't mind if people want to buy into the false history of their nation (or of any nation they happen to love and support). We all do it. But at least realize that the possibility exists that 30 seconds of checking on the Internet might prove you false.
I have a lot of problems with the Palestinians, but their claims to legitimacy aren't among them.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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This is where I get annoyed, because you're not listening and reading the whole post. Yes there was a Palestine. That name was created by the Romans about 2000 years ago. The problem with the whole "Palestinian indentity" is that prior to 1967 Palestinians didn't refer to the Arabs living there any more than it referred to the Jews are Christians living their. The Palestinian national identity was not created until a Jewish nation occupied the lands that Egypt and Jordan formally occupied.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Quoting a section selected partly at random from the 1948 document:
quote:1. Citizenship Palestinian citizens residing in Palestine outside the City of Jerusalem, as well as Arabs and Jews who, not holding Palestinian citizenship, reside in Palestine outside the City of Jerusalem shall, upon the recognition of independence, become citizens of the State in which they are resident and enjoy full civil and political rights.
You seemed to be rewriting history without reference to the actual documentation available freely online. I guess I got a little annoyed myself.
Given that the UN documents from 1948 refer to both an Arab state and a Jewish state, it appears pretty clear that the intention WAS to create both simultaneously. And to impart the rule of government and law to the region, including property rights which before that time were apparently not disputed.
The deal is that people were living there and had lived there for many generations. You seem to want to imply that Jordan and Egypt cooked up a scheme to create property claims for people who were actually residents of those countries, not of what was called "Palestine."
The fact that there were refugees, that the UN was urging recognition of their right of return, and of property rights seems to argue against your version of events.
Maybe I'm missing something in your posts, but you seemed to be trying to deny that anyone other than Jordanian and Egyptian Arabs were living in the region just prior to 1948's resolutions were put in place.
If that's the case, you are wrong.
If you were making a different point, I didn't quite understand what it was and I'd be willing to read an explanation of what your real point was if you'd care to make one.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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You may well be right. There's certainly a compelling case to be made for that. But first it's, "Islam has no problem with Jews," then it's, "Islam is better than everyone else at treating Jews fairly," etc.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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The Palestinians have, I'd say, more a claim to where they are now than the Israelis do. I hear the biblical claim, that it's their land because of all their holy places, except Islam has the same claim. I hear the historical claim, that Israel was there before, and it's the land of their ancestors, except so were the ancestors of Arabs living there now, and as the Israelites haven't been there for a thousand years, and only emigrated there in the last 100, I give more credence to the people who have actually been living there for the last few hundred years.
As far as legality goes, the Palestinians have the exact same legal right to exist as a state as Israel does.
I personally give preference to the Palestinians, for the reasons you stated earlier Rakeesh. I don't accept that just because others have suffered in povery before, the Palestinians should be content with it as well. That's bullshit. Do I think they should be murdering women and children? No, of course not. But I don't think the Israelis have done much of anything recently (short of the pullout) to help the Palestinian people, and they are rightfully angry about that.
Also, in my opinion it's hard to claim moral superiority for the Israelis when in response to the killing of women and children, they go and kill Palestinian women and children. Just because they use tanks and F-16s doesn't make it right. Or bulldozing suspected terrorists homes with no trial or any resemblence of the rule of law. Or murdering children who throw rocks at Israeli tanks and soldiers.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Lyrhawn, the Jewish diaspora didn't end up with a land devoid of Jews. They didn't just immigrate in the last 100 years.
Since prior to written history of the region (depending on when you believe the Torah was written) there have been Jews in what is now Palestine. Continuously.
There have been other people there too.
The cycle of violence and retribution among the Jews and Palestinians is tough to watch. It's hard to say which atrocity was in response to which prior atrocity at this point. The bottom line is that some day they will decide together that there's a better way and it will end. Or...one side or the other (or both) will be wiped out.
What I pray for is a Ghandi to be born on both sides simultaneously.
Wouldn't that be great?
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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What I don't understand is why the European nations--especailly Germany and Great Britain, which are the most responsible for the mess in Israel--aren't held accountable to do more in that region to solve its problems.
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Why would Germany and Great Britain be held responsible? Britain should be held responsible more critically for Africa, and why are you blaming Germany? For the Nazi regime?
If so, you'd be surprised at what Nazis' grandsons and granddaughters do - they come here, to Israel, and help the old Holocause survivors.
But it's a different government now, why blame it?
[ August 21, 2005, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: Jonathan Howard ]
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I agree that originally the Palestinians had a better claim to the land...even though most governments that 'represent' Palestinians nearby didn't much care beforehand.
I did not say the Palestinians should be content with their lot, which is clearly intolerable and unjust.
But I don't care much that Israel hasn't been as helpful as they could be to the Palestinians. I don't care that the Palestinians original claim was greater. The Palestinians pretty much pissed any support they could've had from me-not that it matters much-when they decided that terrorism and the targetted murder of civilians was a viable way to redress their grievance.
Not only because it's abhorrent, but because it's stupid.
Israelis aren't the ones who send troops into busses, malls, restaurants, and crowded streets to blow up civvies. Israelis aren't the ones cheering in the streets when Palestinian children are killed by the Israeli military. Israelis aren't the ones who decided Yasser Arafat should be their leader for so long. Israelis aren't the ones who decided that the path to a solution to their problem needed to be painted with the blood of innocent civilians. You know how I know the Israelis should get my sympathy over the Palestinians? Because the norm for Israeli civilian casualties is when Palestinian terrorists (or those allied with them) do things like shooting rockets into houses with women and children in them, and then hide in their own neighborhoods.
The people who made those decisions were Palestinians, Lyrhawn. Not Israelis. My point in bringing up other oppressed populations was to demonstrate that this disgusting response is not inevitible.
Being oppressed doesn't mean you get to do whatever the hell you want.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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And yet, the estimates I've seen put the total number of Palestinian civilians killed as several times the number of Israeli civilians killed.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Sure - the IDF is very discriminatory, it has killed "suspicious" Palestinians in the same way that a Londoner might look with suspicion at a dark-skinned person with Middle-Eastrn facial features, and it [the IDF] oppresses some of them [Palestinians]. But Major R., who killed a 13 y.o. Palestinian girl (deliberately), was imprisoned extremely quickly. While I'm not saying that the IDF is overly humane, it discriminates Palestinians - after all - it does not launch rockets to destroy a neighbourhood and openly supports an ideology of complete Palestinian annihilation.
Especially not out in the open.
Posts: 2978 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:The Palestinians pretty much pissed any support they could've had from me
I'll be honest, I feel pretty much the same about both sides. I can't bring myself to defend one side or the other in these debates because both are so overwhelmingly wrong.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Yes, their terrorism is stupid, and it does nothing to further their cause. So far as I'm concerned though, your argument is semantic. When Israel launches missiles into an APARTMENT COMPLEX they KNOW is full of families, just because they want to take out ONE guy, they can hardly be surprised when there are casualties. So I'm sorry, but your fine degrees of which people are more bloodthirsty or inhumane seem incredibly arbitrary to me.
Why have so many more Palestinian civilians died than Israeli? I fully expect you to come back with either the "it's their own fault" defense, or the "they were in the wrong place at the wrong time" defense. Both are crap, sorry to say.
Every day I hear about something else that moves them toward peace, and then I hear there was another suicide attack, I lose a little more support given from myself to the Palestinian cause. But I'm not as blinded as you are to what the Israelis have done, or haven't done, for the Palestinians, and for that matter, themselves.
If the majority of Palestinians came out tomorrow and yelled "PEACE" at the top of their lungs, but one crazy bomber took out a busload of people in Tel Aviv, the Israeli military would still launch a blood missile attack, or tank attack, or some kind of attack on the terrorist group that supported it. A dozen innocent people would be killed, and they'd probably miss the leader they were aiming for.
Every argument you make against Palestine and for Israel can be turned right back around and used the other way.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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