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General Israel/Palestine discussion thread

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Unique, the UN proposed a partition. The Jews accepted, the Arabs didn't. The Arabs chose war, assuming a little Jewish state would be a pushover if they all ganged up. Why compromise when you could just push them all into the sea and take the whole lot?

For a long time, it was their whole lot. They just had no rights because it was a feudal system run by colonialists. Then people who had never lived there (the new people who turned up, not their ancestors) start arriving and telling the Palestinians who lived there that this will now be the new arrivals land land, a Jewish State. To a Palestinian, this would be threatening. To have lived under a dictator, then to be dispossed by new arrivals. I don't know how it could be seen any other way.
 
Unique, the UN proposed a partition. The Jews accepted, the Arabs didn't. The Arabs chose war, assuming a little Jewish state would be a pushover if they all ganged up. Why compromise when you could just push them all into the sea and take the whole lot?
Virus....rarely is the world as simple as a couple of sentences of chant. what you are saying is basically the Israel creation mythology.....every nation has one.

do you know if the Israeli forces were within their own allocated areas when the "arabs chose war" or was the war already happening when the "arabs chose war"...because the Israeli forces had already "defensively attacked" or whatever they choose to call it when they need to say the other side started it all....


The partition plan was a farce it was destined to guarantee fighting. Everyone knew it was going to end in war. If you think that if only those pesky arabs had not attacked then Israel would today look like the partition map and Jerusalem a neutral "international city" then good luck to you.....
 
The Zionist terms appear to have been we will make a Jewish State here. Where does that leave Palestinians who live there. We can see the proposal a non-state for them, no self determination, with a new definition of the word 'free'.
Autonomy was provided. As it was prior to the break-up of the Ottoman empire by the Allies. Even the Likud platform that's being waved around constantly makes this assertion.

Again, democracy, autonomy and 'free' are not interchangeable.

The Zionists were gearing up for war well before the declaration of independence. This was not something unexpected, Ben Gurion said that he understood exactly why they would fight. All people in that situation would.
Gearing up for war where?

You pulling out the Ben Gurion quote that was commented on earlier and which you refused to acknowledge was a hack-job to begin with?

Perhaps you can get with this debate and actually follow it.
 
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For a long time, it was their whole lot. They just had no rights because it was a feudal system run by colonialists. Then people who had never lived there (the new people who turned up, not their ancestors) start arriving and telling the Palestinians who lived there that this will now be the new arrivals land land, a Jewish State. To a Palestinian, this would be threatening. To have lived under a dictator, then to be dispossed by new arrivals. I don't know how it could be seen any other way.
Where do you get this claim that it was 'not their ancestors'? (Wishful thinking on your part) How do you think ethnic Arabs got to this region in the first place? By invasion. Jews arrived en masse during the 'aliyah' periods in the mid 19th century and primarily bought land to live on from the people, predominantly from Arabs living in absentia. The Arab leadership, Arab league, etc, saw this as a threat to their hegemony in the area during the period of Arab nationalism, and decided to thwart the founding of Israel by war. They lost several times.

There was no 'their lot' since a good deal of those who resided in the area didn't own the land to begin with but were fellahin.

This again, circles around to the argument of an entire continent being taken over by colonialists who had absolutely no connection to the land in question.

How many times are we going to go through with this?
 
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Back on topic:

Arab League chief backs Palestinian UN statehood bid
...
Moussa said a vision presented by Netanyahu in a speech to the US Congress this week had amounted to a series of "no's".

"I believe that negotiations have become futile in light of all of these no's. What will you negotiate on?" Moussa said, referring to the Netanyahu speech which the Palestinians said put more obstacles in the path of the moribund peace process.

Netanyahu said he was willing to make concessions for peace but repeated terms long rejected by the Palestinians, including an insistence that they recognise Israel as a Jewish state and accept Israel keeping settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank

Bolding mine. Khartoum resolutions of 1973 anyone? And no, no interest in the apologist Avi Shlaim's interpretation of the '3 no's'. The Arab league/PLO/Hamas/Hezbollah/etc.'s position has been consistent.

Bit more hypocrisy on the part of the Arab league.
 
For a long time, it was their whole lot. They just had no rights because it was a feudal system run by colonialists. Then people who had never lived there (the new people who turned up, not their ancestors) start arriving and telling the Palestinians who lived there that this will now be the new arrivals land land, a Jewish State. To a Palestinian, this would be threatening. To have lived under a dictator, then to be dispossed by new arrivals. I don't know how it could be seen any other way.

And of course that is a fictional claim you are making and has nothing to do with Palestine. It is certainly a popular fictional tail, but not a true one. I am sure that if I believed such a fictional tail, I would certainly have more sympathy for the Palestinians. It sounds much more like a Star Wars plot. But I have to live in reality and go by actual facts, not a fictional story.

This notion that there was land that Palestinians lived on and one day Jews came along and kicked them out and abused them sure makes it easy to support those Palestinians, but it's simply fiction and there isn't an ounce of truth to it. The biggest problem with this issue is people thinking that this is what actually happened when it did not.

It can be seen any other way easily when you stop using fiction.
 
Since when is a nonsensical question an answer to a question? But if you decide to answer and explain to us why they don't just create a state just like Israel did, let us know.

It didn't come out right. You assumed that anyone critical of Israeli aparthied policies is not critical of any Arab states and their treatments of Palestinians. That question has been raised already in this thread, and answered, at least on my part. The creation of Jordan and it's handing over to "King" Faisal was an act of political bastardry on the part of the British, not to mention other Colonial powers. But it was only one more in a long line of Colonial decisions that made no recognition of existing ethnic and cultural ties in lands they ruled. The creation of Iraq was a more striking example, which was apparently intended to create an unstable state. So before you loaded questions, to which you do not even know an answer, it might be better to ask honest questions.

Where they wanted there state was where Israel had already just proclaimed a state.

This could also be a reason

Declaration of a State A unilateral Palestinian declaration of the establishment of a Palestinian state will constitute a fundamental and substantive violation of the agreements with the State of Israel and the scuttling of the Oslo and Wye accords. The government will adopt immediate stringent measures in the event of such a declaration.


http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections/knesset15/elikud_m.htm


They already have to do with IIRC 20% of the water that Israelis get, for example. What would 'stringent' mean to daily survival.
 
We also have a good test of the situation now. Egypt has opened the border crossing. If Hamas is generally interested in peace and not attacking Israel, then there should be no change in fighting and Gaza will have more resources to survive. If they actually do support their own charter, then more rockets will flow into Gaza and rocket attacks will start increasing greatly in the next 6 months or so.

This is an opportunity for Hamas to prove itself. They can use it to help the people of Gaza, or they can use it to attack Israel. Let's keep an eye on this over the next year and see if attacks increase or decrease. The mortar attack from Gaza on the night of the opening didn't help, but we shall see...
 
It didn't come out right. You assumed that anyone critical of Israeli aparthied policies is not critical of any Arab states and their treatments of Palestinians.

No, I don't assume that. But I have pointed out clear cases of it here in this thread. I won't play dumb. Of course no one wants anyone treated badly. Yet the bad treatment by some is worthy of posting about, while that of others is not. And when the side not being mentioned is far worse, that's hypocrisy. You calling Israel's policy apartheid is being a hypocrite. Funny because their policy is simply protecting themselves. Yet in your own response, you don't refer to Arab states as having apartheid policies when they outright slaughter people publicly for simply protesting.

And you want me to sit here and pretend that you look at this with an honest and unbiased view? Seriously?

That question has been raised already in this thread, and answered, at least on my part. The creation of Jordan and it's handing over to "King" Faisal was an act of political bastardry on the part of the British, not to mention other Colonial powers.

No, it was not. First of all the land belonged to the British. It was rightfully theirs, just like it was rightfully the property of the Ottoman empire, and the people before that, and the people before that. There was nothing bastardy about it. It was given to the arabs, it had to become a country. What exactly should have been done with it?


But it was only one more in a long line of Colonial decisions that made no recognition of existing ethnic and cultural ties in lands they ruled. The creation of Iraq was a more striking example, which was apparently intended to create an unstable state. So before you loaded questions, to which you do not even know an answer, it might be better to ask honest questions.

WTF? It was intended to be an unstable state? What nonsense. Please show us the exactly how the land should have been divided into countries in a way where there would be perfect ethnic and cultural unities. You can't do it. It's impossible. It's an argument that anyone can make and has no value. That's like me saying that America was intentionally set up to be unstable so that there would not be 100% racial equality. It's impossible to do such things and absurd to expect such things.

Where they wanted there state was where Israel had already just proclaimed a state.

That makes no sense.

This could also be a reason


http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections/knesset15/elikud_m.htm

They already have to do with IIRC 20% of the water that Israelis get, for example. What would 'stringent' mean to daily survival.

Part of the problem is I have no understanding of your syntax. Israel has built an infrastructure for building water and generating electricity. They left such infrastructures in Gaza, which were destroyed by Hamas because Jews had created them. So now they depend on Israel for such things since they chose to use their resources to build weapons instead of helping the people of Gaza. So please don't go blaming Israel for that.

If not for the constant attacks their borders would be open, their shipping ports would be open, their airport would be open, they would have access to supplies from around the world. Anything they wanted. But it's more important to Hamas to attack Israel.
 
If not for the constant attacks their borders would be open, their shipping ports would be open, their airport would be open, they would have access to supplies from around the world. Anything they wanted. But it's more important to Hamas to attack Israel.
Exactly. And now Hamas has been welcomed into the PA.
 
what kind of governments are free, independent, and respect the will of the people?

democratic ones.
There was the case of the dictatorship in Singapore. Even if you don't accept that it was free, independent, and respected the will of the people, that does not preclude such a situation in a non-democratic society.
 
There was the case of the dictatorship in Singapore. Even if you don't accept that it was free, independent, and respected the will of the people, that does not preclude such a situation in a non-democratic society.

I'm sorry, but any reading of the Anglo-French Declaration of 1918 that does NOT see it as a call for freedom & democracy in the Arab world, is a silly & retarded one.
 
Exactly. And now Hamas has been welcomed into the PA.

Israel could have prevented the rise of Hamas, by accepting the Jordanian peace offer in 1984. But Israel refused, because Shamir saw it as American meddling in Israel's affairs.

So now, we have Hamas in power, and no hope for a two-state solution.
 
I'm sorry, but any reading of the Anglo-French Declaration of 1918 that does NOT see it as a call for freedom & democracy in the Arab world, is a silly & retarded one.
So all you've got are ad-homs.

Nevertheless, I can agree that the colonial powers failed the Arab world, by promising something that couldn't be delivered. If there's anything we've seen over the last 100+ years, you cannot force a government on what are essentially tribal societies.
 
Israel could have prevented the rise of Hamas, by accepting the Jordanian peace offer in 1984. But Israel refused, because Shamir saw it as American meddling in Israel's affairs.

So now, we have Hamas in power, and no hope for a two-state solution.
Evidence?
 
No, I don't assume that. But I have pointed out clear cases of it here in this thread. I won't play dumb. Of course no one wants anyone treated badly. Yet the bad treatment by some is worthy of posting about, while that of others is not. And when the side not being mentioned is far worse, that's hypocrisy. You calling Israel's policy apartheid is being a hypocrite. Funny because their policy is simply protecting themselves. Yet in your own response, you don't refer to Arab states as having apartheid policies when they outright slaughter people publicly for simply protesting.

And you want me to sit here and pretend that you look at this with an honest and unbiased view? Seriously?

You haven't seen me say I don't approve of pedophilia either, does that mean I approve it, by default. Their own policy is not simply protecting themselves, Bibi says so.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=180680&highlight=bibi

It is about illegal expansion, taking all of the West Bank, then constraining the existing Palestinians to a token state.

That is my honest and unbiased view. I think that your view is also honest and unbiased, yet we disagree fundamentally. That is not at all an unusual state to reach in regard to matters of politics. The call of hypocrisy I find offensive. This is the umpteenth time that someone says that because their imagination is in adequate in producing an explanation for some opinion they disagree with, they will go for the explanation that is most convenient for them. This is the Israel/Palestine thread. If you want to start a thread on what is wrong with the state of Syria, I will probably agree with a lot of it. Not much of a debate, thread over quickly. This topic, though, never seems to come to any sort of agreement.
 
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/feb/06/southafrica.israel

As far back as 1961, Hendrik Verwoerd, the South African prime minister and architect of the "grand apartheid" vision of the bantustans, saw a parallel. "The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state," he said. It is a view that horrifies and infuriates many Israelis.

............

Desmond Tutu, the former archbishop of Cape Town and chairman of South Africa's truth and reconciliation commission, visited the occupied territories three years ago and described what he found as "much like what happened to us black people in South Africa".
 
No, it was not. First of all the land belonged to the British. It was rightfully theirs, just like it was rightfully the property of the Ottoman empire, and the people before that, and the people before that. There was nothing bastardy about it. It was given to the arabs, it had to become a country. What exactly should have been done with it?
Colonialism is not 'rightful', it is about having the military might to impose your will on other people. There are varying levels how benevolent that imposition is. It is still not 'rightful' to impose your will on others.
 
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