General Israel/Palestine discussion thread

[Thunder]

Is this a threat?

yes.

 

[angrysoba]

yes.

Well, it is pretty much what Hamas say all the time. "Israel will have no peace until they accede to our demands."

In other words, they'll fire rockets and blow up bombs in Israel.

Of course, in some parts of the West this is also taken up uncritically:

"There will be no peace until Israel talks to Hamas."
"There will be no peace until Israel retreats to its 1967 borders."
"There will be no peace until Israel agrees to Hamas' demands."
"There will be no peace for Israel."

etc...

 

[The Fool]

guys....The founding of a palestinian nation will not bring peace. But its the first step required in achieving peace.

Do you believe that the zionist movement would ever have stopped fighting the British until Israel was founded? Do you think that american revolutionaries would ever have stopped fighting the British until America was founded? Why would you expect less of Palestinians...

 

[angrysoba]

guys....The founding of a palestinian nation will not bring peace. But its the first step required in achieving peace.

Do you believe that the zionist movement would ever have stopped fighting the British until Israel was founded? Do you think that american revolutionaries would ever have stopped fighting the British until America was founded? Why would you expect less of Palestinians...

So what you're saying is...

There will never be any peace until Hamas recognizes Israel.

 

[Virus]

there will be no peace for Israel until its lives side-by-side with an independent Palestinian State in most if not all of the West Bank and the Arab areas of East Jerusalem.

I agree. Most Israelis agree. Most Palestinians don't. To them, it's a religious war to cleanse the region of Jews.

Do you believe that the zionist movement would ever have stopped fighting the British until Israel was founded? Do you think that american revolutionaries would ever have stopped fighting the British until America was founded? Why would you expect less of Palestinians...

The Palestinians are not the Minutemen. They're Nazis who want to kill Jews and drive them into the sea. But in the meantime content to live off foreign aid.

The Arabs started it remember. And they started the '67 war that got them occupied.

 

[Skeptic]

Is this a threat?

Of course, if Israel were to live side-by-side with a Palestinian State would this guarantee "peace for Israel"?

In another thread, when asked what will happen after Israel withdraws, he replied that he doesn't know and he doesn't care.

Withdrawal is a goal in itself. "It will bring Peace" is just the excuse.

 

[The Fool]

So what you're saying is...

There will never be any peace until Hamas recognizes Israel.

No...thats the normal reply when people say "so what your saying is"...


Hamas does recognise Israel. Show them an apple and Israel and they will correctly Identify Israel every time. I think you mean Hamas will not recognise israel as.....then insert all sorts of stuff they have to acccept. Honestly....who gives a rats arse what Hamas thinks.


If palestine was proclaimed today Hamas would just be one of the regional palestinian powers. why do we allow them so much power in this game by saying nothing happens until they say some words? Why do we do that?

There is a reasonable chance that there will be a violent struggle for the leadership of the new palestinian nation.....Hmmm, do you think Hamas would win if their opponents were properly armed and supported? If you want someone to take care of Hamas then other Palestinians if far and away the best option in my opinion.

 

[angrysoba]

Hamas does recognise Israel. Show them an apple and Israel and they will correctly Identify Israel every time. I think you mean Hamas will not recognise israel as.....then insert all sorts of stuff they have to acccept. Honestly....who gives a rats arse what Hamas thinks.

Don't be too sure:

“We will never recognize Israel,” senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan said before he was killed by an air strike in Gaza during the recent fighting. “There is nothing called Israel, neither in reality nor in the imagination.”

 

[Mycroft]

Meh, not worth it.

 

[Mycroft]

Honestly....who gives a rats arse what Hamas thinks.

I'm trying to fathom the thinking that goes into this. I can think of lots of reasons to care what Hamas thinks, most of them revolve around Hamas being in charge of a good chunk of the Palestinian side of this struggle.

If palestine was proclaimed today Hamas would just be one of the regional palestinian powers. why do we allow them so much power in this game by saying nothing happens until they say some words? Why do we do that?

Because the bottom line is if they don't agree to peace, there is no peace.

That's kinda the way things work. It takes two to make peace, but it only takes one to keep the fight going.

 

[Mycroft]

wow....zombietime.com??
you had to scrape pretty low to find that one, eh?

How is that "low", exactly?

 

[a_unique_person]

A good article on Israel.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/55352.html

The current controversy over the boycott of Israel and the associated and the predictable response of News Limited papers reignited a debate which for me was exemplified when last year I heard Peter Beinart, an American academic, journalist and political commentator, give a talk at the Melbourne Writers Festival.

He spoke with clarity about the danger Israeli democracy faces today and what he calls the “failure of the American Jewish establishment” to recognise this threat, a threat he argues, which comes from within. His hope is to save liberal democracy in the only Jewish state on earth, from the moral abdication which has slowly and insidiously crept into the very heart of what it now means to be Zionist in the diaspora.

The argument Beinart makes is deeply rooted in the tradition of American liberalism. For Beinart, like so many outspoken intellectuals who oppose the actions of the Israeli government but who take their own Zionism as a given, Israel has a moral responsibility, one which is at the very core of their own dilemma, their attachment to an increasingly amoral nation-state.

There is an ever-widening gulf between the aspirations of these liberal Zionists and the contemporary and inevitable reality of Israel as a Jewish State. For these ardent and yet disillusioned self-professing Zionists, the need for a return to the language of liberal Zionism is more urgent than ever. Beinart argues that within the American Jewish establishment this language - with its mantras of human rights, equal citizenship and territorial compromise - has been “drained of meaning”.

He calls for a reinvigoration of the debate with the unerring faith of a Zionist in Israel’s Independence Proclamation promising that the Jewish state would "be based on the precepts of liberty, justice and peace taught by the Hebrew prophets” and with the unerring faith of a democrat in the fundamental principles of liberal democracy.

He does so because he has no choice. The realisation that Zionism is undemocratic, inherently violent, and racist is, for these Zionists, becoming unutterably clear. It is manifest on every level of Israeli society every day, in every act of ‘self defence’. Because what is it that is being defended? The right to a Jewish state. And the notion of a Jewish state, by definition exclusionary, contains within it the necessary negation of the rights of all others within that state.
.......................
It is Israel’s Jewishness which lies at the heart of the paradox faced today by liberal diaspora Jews. The modern justification for the State of Israel is that after centuries of persecution the survival of the Jews depends on nationhood. The nationalist impulse coupled with the long history of exclusion are the underpinnings of the State of Israel. But this solution to centuries of persecution necessitates the persecution of others – a state founded on victimhood survives only by victimisation.

 

[Virus]

The realisation that Zionism is undemocratic, inherently violent, and racist is, for these Zionists, becoming unutterably clear.

But this solution to centuries of persecution necessitates the persecution of others – a state founded on victimhood survives only by victimisation.

The Arabs started all the wars against Israel because they were so racist and xenophobic they couldn't handle the idea of living next to a Jewish state. Even states at peace with Israel like Egypt promote hatred of Jews in schools and in the popular media. (The number one song in Egypt was "I hate Israel")

Arabs started it then abandoned the Palestinians to their fate after they failed to push the Jews into the sea.

 

[DC]

The Arabs started all the wars against Israel because they were so racist and xenophobic they couldn't handle the idea of living next to a Jewish state. Even states at peace with Israel like Egypt promote hatred of Jews in schools and in the popular media. (The number one song in Egypt was "I hate Israel")

Arabs started it then abandoned the Palestinians to their fate after they failed to push the Jews into the sea.

How is the creation if an independent state for Indigenous Australians going on? or are Australians to racist and xenophobic to be living next to an Aboriginal state?

 

[a_unique_person]

The Arabs started all the wars against Israel because they were so racist and xenophobic they couldn't handle the idea of living next to a Jewish state. Even states at peace with Israel like Egypt promote hatred of Jews in schools and in the popular media. (The number one song in Egypt was "I hate Israel")

Arabs started it then abandoned the Palestinians to their fate after they failed to push the Jews into the sea.

They didn't like the idea of an invasion. Historicaly, not many people do. But the article is not about that.

 

[Virus]

How is the creation if an independent state for Indigenous Australians going on? or are Australians to racist and xenophobic to be living next to an Aboriginal state?

What are you driveling about? There's no such thing as a movement for an independent Aboriginal state.

 

[Virus]

They didn't like the idea of an invasion. Historicaly, not many people do. But the article is not about that.

They loved the idea of an invasion. Which is why they repeatedly tried to invade Israel.

 

[The Fool]

Don't be too sure:

“We will never recognize Israel,” senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan said before he was killed by an air strike in Gaza during the recent fighting. “There is nothing called Israel, neither in reality nor in the imagination.”

being dead should make it easy for him to continue to Influence Hamas opinion.

There is plenty of people on both sides who do not want peace. Why give them the deciding vote?

 

[a_unique_person]

They loved the idea of an invasion. Which is why they repeatedly tried to invade Israel.

So you accept the premises of the essay, but think that they are ok because of the Palestinians and other Arabs. I could be wrong, you can clarify this assumption for me.

 

[The Fool]

How is the creation if an independent state for Indigenous Australians going on? or are Australians to racist and xenophobic to be living next to an Aboriginal state?

Ah yes, the good old Australian Aboriginal chestnut.

Firstly. There is no movement or political will that I know of among any groups of Australian Aboriginals for their own state. Do you know of one we can discuss?

Australian Aboriginals are Australian citizens. They also Have land rights entrenched in Law. Are you proposing that Israel adopt a similar policy of land rights for Palestinians?