General Israel/Palestine discussion thread

[Matt Giwer]

And on a sidenote, why all the crickets when this is such a prestigious moment in the Fatah-Hamas unity agreement?

I posted on it. Remember the "turn on a dime" between "we can't deal with only half the Palestinians" to "we can't deal with all the Palestinians"?

 

[Matt Giwer]

Abbas just ruined any chance of the PA being recognized by responsible governments. Joining forces with a terrorist group is not a smart move.

Is this just because Israel refused to join Hamas in a mutual recognition of right to exist?

Or do you have some other reason for siding with the dictatorship?

 

[Pardalis]

Is this just because Israel refused to join Hamas in a mutual recognition of right to exist?

Since when does Hamas recognize Israel?

 

[Matt Giwer]

This is why I like Matt Giwer.

Were I do to find something to like about you it would not be your grasp of the subject.

He makes arguments like this and they're virtually the same as the arguments that proclaim the Mavi Mamara raid to be "piracy",

Blockades are only lawful if war has been declared and pursuant to that state of war, a war zone has been declared.

Israel has done neither. Please produce URLs to the contrary if I am in error.

Gaza to be "occupied"

I cited a decision by the Supreme Court of Israel declaring Gaza is occupied AFTER the squatters were ejected.

Why do you deliberately misrepresent what I have posted?

or Israeli disengagement to be "apartheid".

I have said nothing even remotely like that. Why must you lie?

Find a few superficial similarities, ignore all the differences, and then just repeat the proclamation endlessly. The only real difference is Matt here doesn't have international organizations such as "freegaza.org" or the ISM to back him up.

Part of me wonders if it isn't a brilliantly done parody, but I know it's some unnamed corollary of "Poe's Law".

I have only the plain text reading of Hague V and Geneva IV whereas you have nothing but deliberate lies about me to support your position.

Why is it the only way to defend Israel is do LIE about those who recite the obvious?

That is a rhetorical question.

The only way to defend Israel is to lie.

 

[Mycroft]

Were I do to find something to like about you it would not be your grasp of the subject.

If you do find something to like about me, please keep it to yourself. Being liked by you is not a goal of mine and is something I would find disturbing.

Blockades are only lawful if war has been declared and pursuant to that state of war, a war zone has been declared.

Israel has done neither. Please produce URLs to the contrary if I am in error.

Oh dear, did nobody explain how this works?

You ask people to provide evidence of claims they have made, not just random stuff you think they should look up. Since I have not made any such claim, it is inappropriate for you to ask me to provide any URLs.

You, on the other hand, have just made a whopping claim that, ” Blockades are only lawful if war has been declared and pursuant to that state of war, a war zone has been declared.” Since I am not familiar with any such law, you are now asked to provide evidence that such a law exists and that if it does, that the situation between Israel and Hamas controlled Gaza cannot be described as war.

Why do you deliberately misrepresent what I have posted?

I accept that it may seem that way to someone who is challenged in certain ways, but my actual statement was the logic you used was similar to the logic used by other people to make different claims. You just got confused over who I was attributing the claims to.

 

[funk de fino]

If you do find something to like about me, please keep it to yourself. Being liked by you is not a goal of mine and is something I would find disturbing.



Oh dear, did nobody explain how this works?

You ask people to provide evidence of claims they have made, not just random stuff you think they should look up. Since I have not made any such claim, it is inappropriate for you to ask me to provide any URLs.

You, on the other hand, have just made a whopping claim that, ” Blockades are only lawful if war has been declared and pursuant to that state of war, a war zone has been declared.” Since I am not familiar with any such law, you are now asked to provide evidence that such a law exists and that if it does, that the situation between Israel and Hamas controlled Gaza cannot be described as war.



I accept that it may seem that way to someone who is challenged in certain ways, but my actual statement was the logic you used was similar to the logic used by other people to make different claims. You just got confused over who I was attributing the claims to.

Why did you snip out the part of his post where he says you lied? Does he have a point?

 

[Matt Giwer]

well at least you have moved on from claiming I had none...

Regardless of the apparent intent to redefine the meaning of lame.

Where I want to go is the place where your laughable claim that Netanyahu has dictatorial powers gets well and truly debunked. Can I assume we have arrived there seeing as you appear to want to move on to whining about the occupation?

As long as the victims of the dictatorship cannot end the dictatorship it is a dictatorship. As long as the victims of the dictatorship cannot remove Netanyahu he remains the chief or senior dictator over them.

They have every right to execute him. Too bad they don't have SEALs.

 

[Stout]

As long as the victims of the dictatorship cannot end the dictatorship it is a dictatorship.

But they CAN end it.

All the Palestinians have to do is end the state of belligerency, surrender, if you will, and force Israel's hand under the Oslo Accords.

 

[The Fool]

Regardless of the apparent intent to redefine the meaning of lame.

I'm not redefining anything son....

As long as the victims of the dictatorship cannot end the dictatorship it is a dictatorship. As long as the victims of the dictatorship cannot remove Netanyahu he remains the chief or senior dictator over them.

They have every right to execute him. Too bad they don't have SEALs.

nope...its an occupation. If you hang around long enough you may figure this out. But....I doubt it because you appear to have fallen in love with the term "dictator" Maybe you feel it gets a good reaction.....maybe you are correct, why don't you start calling Netanyahu a polar bear or something? That might get a reaction too.

Dictator...sheesh. Dictator who may be removed on a whim. Some dictator.

 

[Virus]

You know what's funny? How Bin Laden went from a tool of the Zionists to a great Islamic warrior overnight.

 

[Mycroft]

Why did you snip out the part of his post where he says you lied?

Because it was redundant. I had already responded where he asked, "Why do you deliberately misrepresent what I have posted?", both comments were premised on the mistaken belief that I was attributing to him opinions that came from others.

...Does he have a point?

No, but don't take my word for it. You only have to look at two posts to judge for yourself if I told the truth in this event, and I have a post history going back almost 8 years if you want assess how honest I am in general. You will find a lot of people disagree with my opinions and conclusions, but you will be hard-pressed to find anywhere where I have misrepresented any facts.

Thanks for asking, though. It tells me where your heart is.

 

[a_unique_person]

But they CAN end it.

All the Palestinians have to do is end the state of belligerency, surrender, if you will, and force Israel's hand under the Oslo Accords.

It's not that simple. The Israeli extremists are only interested in taking as much of the West Bank as they can, and imposing an apartheid existence on what is left over. Anything less will result in another assassination. That probably isn't, IMHO, what the majority of Israeli's want, but it is the extremists on both sides who can set the agenda. Classic wedge politics, you are are either with us, or or by default helping our mortal enemies.

 

[Skeptic]

It's not that simple. The Israeli extremists are only interested in taking as much of the West Bank as they can, and imposing an apartheid existence on what is left over.

True, true. But that's not what most Israelies want. If an angel from heaven declared that the Palestinian state would in fact be peaceful, about 95% of Israelies would support it. The problem is, both PLO and Hamas agree a Palestinian state is, at most, part of the "staged plan" for Israel's annihilation, which is a good reason for Israelies to oppose it.

Anything less will result in another assassination.

Even if it would, not to put too fine a point about it -- so what? Israel is a democracy, not a dictatorship. If one assassinates the PM that signs some sort of deal it hardly means the deal no longer counts, much like the assassination of Rabin didn't cancel the Oslo accords (morally speaking, if not necessarily practically speaking, they were cancelled by Arafat's terror war, and his open declaration that the Oslo accords were merely a ruse to get a base to kill Jews, but I digress).

That probably isn't, IMHO, what the majority of Israeli's want, but it is the extremists on both sides who can set the agenda.

Not exactly. Assassination, again, doesn't set the agenda in Israel. In fact it didn't. It does, however, set the agenda in the PA: if there is a Palestinian state and Abbas (assuming, contrary to all evidence, that he actually wants peace, despite his constant reiteration of the "right of return" and refusal to recognize Israel as the Jewish state and his unity deal with Hamas, etc., etc., etc.) is assassinated and replaced by Hamas, the peace agreement with Israel is cancelled in that millisecond.

Since Hamas takeover is more or less a given that this is what will happen if the PA becomes a state, as it did in Gaza, that means there is no such thing as a peaceful Palestinian state -- only a Hamastan that would spread to the WB as well as Gaza.

There is simply no comparison between what extremists can do on one side and what they can do on the other.

 

[The Fool]

True, true. But that's not what most Israelies want. If an angel from heaven declared that the Palestinian state would in fact be peaceful, about 95% of Israelies would support it. The problem is, both PLO and Hamas agree a Palestinian state is, at most, part of the "staged plan" for Israel's annihilation, which is a good reason for Israelies to oppose it.



Even if it would, not to put too fine a point about it -- so what? Israel is a democracy, not a dictatorship. If one assassinates the PM that signs some sort of deal it hardly means the deal no longer counts, much like the assassination of Rabin didn't cancel the Oslo accords (morally speaking, if not necessarily practically speaking, they were cancelled by Arafat's terror war, and his open declaration that the Oslo accords were merely a ruse to get a base to kill Jews, but I digress).



Not exactly. Assassination, again, doesn't set the agenda in Israel. In fact it didn't. It does, however, set the agenda in the PA: if there is a Palestinian state and Abbas (assuming, contrary to all evidence, that he actually wants peace, despite his constant reiteration of the "right of return" and refusal to recognize Israel as the Jewish state and his unity deal with Hamas, etc., etc., etc.) is assassinated and replaced by Hamas, the peace agreement with Israel is cancelled in that millisecond.

Since Hamas takeover is more or less a given that this is what will happen if the PA becomes a state, as it did in Gaza, that means there is no such thing as a peaceful Palestinian state -- only a Hamastan that would spread to the WB as well as Gaza.

There is simply no comparison between what extremists can do on one side and what they can do on the other.

what odds would you give me? If I wanted to put money on Palestinians now or in the future annihilating Israel. I would be happy to bet you all I have against a dollar. What are the odds of them achieving that in your view? Does it seem rational to base an intractable position on this being likely?

 

[Mycroft]

what odds would you give me? If I wanted to put money on Palestinians now or in the future annihilating Israel. I would be happy to bet you all I have against a dollar. What are the odds of them achieving that in your view? Does it seem rational to base an intractable position on this being likely?

I don't think the issue is what odds Skeptic would give you, but what odds someone from Hamas would give you.

What do you think he would say?

 

[Mycroft]

...Anything less will result in another assassination...

Pure woo.

 

[The Fool]

I don't think the issue is what odds Skeptic would give you, but what odds someone from Hamas would give you.

What do you think he would say?

I know you don't think its an Issue what Skeptics opinion is....But how about we address it before exploring other things eh?

 

[A'isha]

True, true. But that's not what most Israelies want. If an angel from heaven declared that the Palestinian state would in fact be peaceful, about 95% of Israelies would support it. The problem is, both PLO and Hamas agree a Palestinian state is, at most, part of the "staged plan" for Israel's annihilation, which is a good reason for Israelies to oppose it.

Wait, the two-state solution is part of the "staged plan"? I thought it was the single-state solution, otherwise how would the plan work? A separate, sovereign Arab state formed from the Palestinian territories wouldn't be any more (or less) of a threat than all the other separate, sovereign Arab states that have periodically tried to invade and destroy Israel over the last fifty years or so.

Isn't the threat from the "staged plan" an internal demographic threat in a hypothetical single state where all the Palestinians are full Israeli citizens?

 

[Skeptic]

Wait, the two-state solution is part of the "staged plan"?

Yes, this is what Arafat declared repeatedly.

I thought it was the single-state solution, otherwise how would the plan work? A separate, sovereign Arab state formed from the Palestinian territories wouldn't be any more (or less) of a threat than all the other separate, sovereign Arab states that have periodically tried to invade and destroy Israel over the last fifty years or so.

It would be 200 meters from Jerusalem and 20 km from Tel Aviv, and used as an arsenal, a military base, to kill Jews, as we already saw in the second Intifada.

What's more, and above all, it would be simply a base for more demands -- above all the "right of return" -- which the "moderate" Abbas repeatedly declared is "non-negotiable" -- namely, swamping Israel proper with millions of Palestinians after the establishment of a Judenrein Palestinian state.

Isn't the threat from the "staged plan" an internal demographic threat in a hypothetical single state where all the Palestinians are full Israeli citizens?

That might be a threat, indeed, but not the one Arafat is speaking of.

 

[A'isha]

Hrm, I must have been thinking of something else, then.

Though considering Israel's lack of reticence in the past at striking first whenever one or more of their neighbors were gearing up for a major assault, I'm not sure how or why a Palestinian state would be any more of a threat in this regard (and given the proximity to Jerusalem, I imagine they'd be even less hesitant about acting at the slightest indication of that). And as for its use as a staging area for more covert, smaller attacks on Israel...well, it already is that, isn't it?

I'm not saying that a Palestinian state wouldn't be a threat, I'm just apparently missing how Palestinian areas would represent a bigger and/or more dangerous threat to Israel as a sovereign state than they are right now as territories under the control of a united Hamas/Fatah.