On-Topic 5 Nations Condemn Israel's Settlement" Plan

[Kulindahr]

The Jews have Israel now. So the question is whether anyone has a superior right to it. It is not the case that they are asking to get it based upon some ancient right. They do have it. Remember, much of the disputed land was Jordanian until Israel was attacked and gained possession of it. I don't think Jordan wants it and the troublesome Palestinians back. H

Exactly. It's irrelevant that ancient Israel at one time owned almost all of present-day Lebanon, or a piece of Syria, or anything else; it only matter what the current situation is.

As for Jordan, the current administration/regime is more likely to accept the Palestinians than any in a while. Personally I'd like to see the Gazan move into Egypt -- a move to be paid for for them along with brand new homes and institutions provided -- and the same for the West Bank folks to move into Jordan. I think that would be best for long-term stability in the region, but it ignores the personal wishes of the people involved. This is no longer an age of empire where moving populations for the convenience of political entities is accepted practice, so that's not an option.

 

[kallipolis]

What the frak does that have to do with my pointing out some facts????

Facts that imagine one time ownership of a strip of land, some thousands of years ago are grounds for reasserting ownership, today?

 

[iwantbig]

You are right. We should all leave and give the Indians back their land. In an orderly fashion, now, most recent arrivals leave first.

no you wont have to leave just squeeze into little concentration camps and reservations , on the land that the native americans dont want ( untill they want it later ) be blockaided so you cant import anything unless aproved by them , only be allowed into the mainstream when they want cheap labour for dirty jobs , etc,

 

[Laufey]

I like the idea of Palestine merging with Jordan and Egypt. It would be much more simple than creating a new state and probably have more peaceful results.

 

[xbuzzerx]

No one here has said that. But it seems implicit in the pro-Palestinian position: forget that the Jews once owned it and were driven out, the real wrong was by the Jews in taking it back.
The "changed standards" argument would be more persuasive if the Jews had found a safe homeland in the meantime. It it not persuasive to say "tough luck, it is wrong for you to take back your sacred homeland because "we" have higher standards". The Jews are not bound by your higher standards, Roly. How high are the standards, when they leave a people with no safe homeland?

Not being massively one-sidedly pro-Israel =/= "Pro-Palestine." I consider both states/peoples to have the right to exist, equally. I do not think Israel's actions from behind a first world military apparatus supported by the U.S. has been inherently more above board than "terrorism." They've engaged in collective punishment and any number of unsavory behaviors we would condemn if done by virtually anyone else, and which the U.N. categorizes as war crimes and crimes against humanity. That said, the Palestinians absolutely have dirty hands as well-- the main difference I would make is that most pro-Israel people seem to completely synonymize Hamas and the entire people of Palestine and use the actions of one to make a judgment about the worthiness of the second to have a state or to exist as a people or to have their interests considered whatsoever.

If that's the logic in use, then I don't see on what ground Americans ever have to complain or even raise a word of protest when someone else in the world hates us because of something Americans did, or American foreign policy did. Americans love to say "well WE didn't know/have anything to do with that!" if our government put a dictatorship in place in some other country 40 years ago and wash the hands of their conscience of any responsibility, particularly if those actions have led to people in the present-day hating us or wanting to commit violent acts against us. I doubt very much that the people defending Israel's actions "because of bad things the Palestinians did" would defend the 9/11 attacks or Pearl Harbor or all the instances where Americans abroad were abducted or beaten or killed in countries our foreign policy has dicked over at some point, and that's where the double standard comes in. On the same logic I don't see how anyone should be surprised or even bothered when desperate Palestinians decide to lob a grenade at the wall or blow up a bus, because Israel has hardly done nothing to provoke desperation on the part of the Palestinians.

Criticize Israel = Pro-Palestinian? Where is that written?

What a binary world Ben must live in.

Thank you. Agreed.

So really you have no idea of the situation between Israel and America. The Europeans were uncivilized people trying to create a genocide on the civilized Native Americans. The Israelis are a civilized people trying to defend themselves against an enemy who wants them dead. So really the Pallys are the Europeans and the Israelis are the Native Americans. The Pallys are a bunch of anti gay, woman, hating, genocidal racists like the Christian Europeans and the Israelis are religiously tolerant, pro gay, pro female people who are merely trying to defend themselves. In fact many Native Americans would be insulted if you compared them to the Pallys.

Maria, your typical everday white person during the settlement of North America thought of Indians as heathen, devil worshipping savages with no laws, no civility, no respect for life and dangerous criminals who'd either rob or scalp you if given half the chance.

NOTHING you are saying makes distinct the case of Natives or Palestinians. The calm and retrospect of 200 or 300 years since the conflict ended gives the illusion that Natives were never so bad only because we've had this much time to rationally and calmly think about the subject without Native bands coming near houses along the frontier and killing whole families because they were on land whites had settled illegally in violation of tribes' lands and sovereignty. The substantive differences you're trying to say are there are not in fact there.

Point in fact I have a question to you. Hypothetically if the Pallys or some other Islamic junta got to America first. How do you think they would have dealt with the Pagan, feminist and gay friendly Native Americans. Just like what the racist Arabs have done to the Black Africans they would have wiped them out and would have been far more brutal then the White European Christians. Think about this before you defend these people.

Let me throw one back at you. What if Natives were all intolerant of homosexuals? Would you then completely ignore their "right" to their land "because they owned it" and instead have supported the white conquerors? Because that's what you're doing in the case of Israel.

The difference is the Jews were the original inhabitants of Israel and still had a large presence there. The Arabs were not the original inhabitants there but displaced many Jews in the Middle Ages forcing them to flee elsewhere. The Native Americans were the original inhabitants of the Americas but were diaplced by the White Christian Europeans. The treatment of the White Americans of the Native Americans was vastly different then the treatment of the Israelis to the Palestinians

I support giving the Native Americans more land because they are a civilized Pagan people. The Palestinians could have had their land long ago but Jew hatred prevents that.

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Even in the Old Testament there were people in Palestine before the Jews who were not Jews. I have no idea where you're making up this claim that Jews were there first and owned it before anyone else.

 

[Kulindahr]

Facts that imagine one time ownership of a strip of land, some thousands of years ago are grounds for reasserting ownership, today?

That's your idea -- it wasn't in my post anywhere.

BTW, facts don't "imagine"; they just are.

 

[Kulindahr]

Point of information: Hamas is the government of Gaza. They were chosen by the people. By the so-often-offered reasoning here by Canadians and others, that means Hamas is the people and the people are Hamas.

Note: by accepting the UN designation as a state, Hamas is now the official government of Gaza in the eyes of all nations. Any further rockets launched toward Israel will be an act of war by one state against another, and Israel will be justified in whatever response they make to ensure their own safety -- including following the US lead of conquering and occupying.

 

[xbuzzerx]

Point of information: Hamas is the government of Gaza. They were chosen by the people. By the so-often-offered reasoning here by Canadians and others, that means Hamas is the people and the people are Hamas.

Note: by accepting the UN designation as a state, Hamas is now the official government of Gaza in the eyes of all nations. Any further rockets launched toward Israel will be an act of war by one state against another, and Israel will be justified in whatever response they make to ensure their own safety -- including following the US lead of conquering and occupying.

a) I fail to see how this is ANY different from how Israel behaved before. (Doing basically whatever it wanted or felt was 'necessary' in the name of 'self-defense.')

b) I fail to see how this is ANY different from how Zionists including the ones in this thread would have viewed the situation before ("oh well it's okay bad things are done to the Palestinians because HAMAS IS BAD.")

c) I fail to see how Israel's problem being with Hamas as a government/entity or with the Palestinians as a whole has any distinction when their actions affect Palestinians as a whole.

So kinda like I said in my previous post, if this is how anyone views it I don't see why they act like 9/11 was anything bad or shocking. It was just people reacting to us the way that it is being implied Israel is 'justified' in reacting to Palestine.

 

[kallipolis]

That's your idea -- it wasn't in my post anywhere.

BTW, facts don't "imagine"; they just are.

I note that you are in denial,

 

[xbuzzerx]

I note that you are in denial,

The only people here who have made the argument that existence on a piece of land x thousand years ago entitles people today to pure, unquestioned, exclusive right to be there and everyone else deserves a military boot off are the people defending Israel.

In my mind both have ancestral claims there but if we're going to talk about who got more screwed in the timeframe relevant to the present, Palestinians were not the people who committed the holocaust or had anything to do with the "reason" that the UK "had" to make a homeland for Jews somewhere. It's ridiculous for people to ignore that aspect of the picture but then to come back and say "well poor Jews got thrown off a thousand years ago and it was terrible and bad and they have the actual exclusive right to that area." It's a double standard to say the least to prioritize what happened 1000 years ago over what happened 60 years ago.

 

[Kulindahr]

I note that you are in denial,

Try reading the thread.

And stop making crap up either as far as people's posts or their emotions.


And BTW, there's no possibility of being in denial about the facts I stated: they're facts. I stated them to counter a claim which was false.

 

[Kulindahr]

The only people here who have made the argument that existence on a piece of land x thousand years ago entitles people today to pure, unquestioned, exclusive right to be there and everyone else deserves a military boot off are the people defending Israel.

In my mind both have ancestral claims there but if we're going to talk about who got more screwed in the timeframe relevant to the present, Palestinians were not the people who committed the holocaust or had anything to do with the "reason" that the UK "had" to make a homeland for Jews somewhere. It's ridiculous for people to ignore that aspect of the picture but then to come back and say "well poor Jews got thrown off a thousand years ago and it was terrible and bad and they have the actual exclusive right to that area." It's a double standard to say the least to prioritize what happened 1000 years ago over what happened 60 years ago.

If kalli had actually read the thread, he would have seen that I said the same thing: all that crap long ago doesn't really matter a whit. Yes, ancient Israel owned most of what is now Lebanon, but so what? King Hiram's ancestors no longer hold a throne there, and you have to go back a long ways before the Romans to find a Jewish presence, for that matter, so what does such a claim mean? Nothing. Nor does the fact that modern Israel holds lands where ancient Israel didn't; that's not an argument for them giving those up -- after all, none of the other people who lived there are still around, either.

I'm not even convinced that what happened in 1948 or possibly even '67 matters. What we have to deal with is what's there. And both sides need to face that.

 

[xbuzzerx]

I'm not even convinced that what happened in 1948 or possibly even '67 matters. What we have to deal with is what's there. And both sides need to face that.

And Israel is plopping down settlements decade by decade so that when the final ultimate discussion happens and people have to deal with "today, what's there", we'll see a landscape effectually exclusively owned and controlled by Israel, all of which Israel will say "is Israel", and the Palestinians have nothing.

That's the endgame I see with the policy of the last several decades. Breed, push, squat them out over the border into elsewhere.

But let's just be clear that this is effectually a method of genocide. If Israel has real, meaningful dedication to a peace process I've yet to see it-- we see plenty of condemnation of the "un-seriousness" of the Palestinians to make peace, but I haven't seen a serious offer from Israel yet either which reflects they prioritize resolving the situation over shrugging and continuing to benefit from the status quo in the big picture.

 

[Kulindahr]

And Israel is plopping down settlements decade by decade so that when the final ultimate discussion happens and people have to deal with "today, what's there", we'll see a landscape effectually exclusively owned and controlled by Israel, all of which Israel will say "is Israel", and the Palestinians have nothing.

That's the endgame I see with the policy of the last several decades. Breed, push, squat them out over the border into elsewhere.

But let's just be clear that this is effectually a method of genocide. If Israel has real, meaningful dedication to a peace process I've yet to see it-- we see plenty of condemnation of the "un-seriousness" of the Palestinians to make peace, but I haven't seen a serious offer from Israel yet either which reflects they prioritize resolving the situation over shrugging and continuing to benefit from the status quo in the big picture.

Is why I prefer an honest and far more honorable approach: build new housing for the Palestinians in Jordan and in Egypt, with all-modern infrastructure, parks and recreation facilities, and more. Pattern these after what they already have, but make them spread out, almost into separate towns. Pay their moving expenses, and give each a debit card with $2k US to buy desired consumer goods (UN would handle the debit cards so Hamas wouldn't be able to do extortion.

The Israelis would get their wish, along with a much more defensible border. The Palestinians would be far better off, in newer and better homes and school and hospitals and all, without debt, and not sitting where Israeli tanks can come rolling over them or the Israeli air force doing precision bombing in areas so crowded that "collateral damage" is guaranteed. They could even have thir own states within Jordan and Egypt: east and west Palestine.

And the rest of us could no longer have to suffer from the BS shoveled at us by the media every time some Palestinian farts.

 

[kallipolis]

Try reading the thread.

And stop making crap up either as far as people's posts or their emotions.


And BTW, there's no possibility of being in denial about the facts I stated: they're facts. I stated them to counter a claim which was false.

You can continue denying your often stated position, on this matter until the cows come and still not reverse the position that you have taken, and always taken over the years that of being an apologist for the Zionist viewpoint.

I may add that I have always supported Israel's right to self defence, as evidenced by my many posts over the years despite rejecting the Zionist argument that their right to a homeland is God given.

 

[xbuzzerx]

You can continue denying your often stated position, on this matter until the cows come and still not reverse the position that you have taken, and always taken over the years that of being an apologist for the Zionist viewpoint.

I may add that I have always supported Israel's right to self defence, as evidenced by my many posts over the years despite rejecting the Zionist argument that their right to a homeland is God given.

The thing that leaves me agog is how the discussion is always about Israel's right to self defense... what about the Palestinians? They don't have a first-rate military the U.S. is financing through massive foreign aid to defend themselves.

 

[kallipolis]

The thing that leaves me agog is how the discussion is always about Israel's right to self defense... what about the Palestinians? They don't have a first-rate military the U.S. is financing through massive foreign aid to defend themselves.

There are no angels in this long raging human tragedy....but, militant Palestinian organisations financed, and supplied by Iran are dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and are evidently not prepared to work on a long term political solution, preferring to use extreme violence to further their objectives...that of destroying Israel and the deaths of many innocent civilians on both sides of the divide.

My input on this thread is simply to counter the often stated Zionist position, claiming a divine right to ownership of a strip of land now known as Israel also based on alleged ownership up to 2000 years ago.

When one day a sufficiently powerful Palestinian political movement develops which is not influenced by anti Israel sentiments there might well be grounds for the Arabs, and Jews to begin trusting one another sufficiently to cease all violence and work towards developing an economy that benefits the peoples of both states.

In the short term I am pessimistic that peace between both communities will break out without the removal of Syrian, and Iranian financing of Palestinian militants. I appreciate that the current Syrian regime is near to collapse but we are still faced with an Iran dedicated to Israel's absolute destruction.

 

[Kulindahr]

You can continue denying your often stated position, on this matter until the cows come and still not reverse the position that you have taken, and always taken over the years that of being an apologist for the Zionist viewpoint.

I may add that I have always supported Israel's right to self defence, as evidenced by my many posts over the years despite rejecting the Zionist argument that their right to a homeland is God given.

Now you're not only making stuff up but lying.

 

[iwantbig]

okay so now that no one is interested any more , what hasn't been addressed is the current issue which is , i believe , israels constant encroachment on palestinian land , new settlements where ever they feel like it .

 

[xbuzzerx]

okay so now that no one is interested any more , what hasn't been addressed is the current issue which is , i believe , israels constant encroachment on palestinian land , new settlements where ever they feel like it .

I basically stated my position on what I believe it tells us about Israel's gameplan in my last few posts. For the most part though you're right, people are completely obsessed with a meaningless game of place the blame.

Israel grabbing land and settling it does not indicate they're dedicated to any kind of peaceful resolution, they're making the case against them stronger, not weaker, which is why I default to presuming Israel does not care about what the world thinks or how long Palestinian terrorism will go on.