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General Israel/Palestine discussion thread

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The British design of Iraq. The original three provinces from the Ottoman empire, which were more logically grouped according to ethnic and religious divisions, was transformed into Iraq, which was designed to be a tame part of the British Empire, with the requisite oil needed for the new British Navy, that used a far more efficient fuel for it's new breed of super battle ships.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/mar/12/iraq.jamesbuchan

The woman is Gertrude Bell, who is as responsible as anybody for the rickety national state first known as Mesopotamia, and now as Iraq. As a powerful official of the British administration in Baghdad after the first world war, Bell ensured that an Arab state was founded from the three Ottoman provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra, but one which was too weak to be independent of Britain. "I had a well-spent morning at the office making out the southern desert frontier of the Iraq," she wrote to her father on December 4 1921.
One of Oxford University's most brilliant students, the greatest woman mountaineer of her age, an archaeologist and linguist, passionate, unhappy and rich, Bell saw in Arab male society, and what US President Woodrow Wilson called "the whole disgusting scramble" for the Middle East after the first world war, opportunities that were unthinkable at home.
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This was done using a tame "King" who was not even from that country, but was kicked out of Syria by the French.



The account of the creation of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia is even more bizarre.

"The negotiations over the boundary lines went on for five days and nights while Cox, dressed in his suit, bow tie and felt fedora, served as a mediator between the robed representatives of Iraq, Kuwait and Arabia. Ibn Saud demanded that the borders be based on tribes, not territory, and according to his scheme, two groups — Fahad Bey's Anazeh and part of the Shammar — would belong to Arabia, regardless of how far north they traveled. The two tribes would become a movable border, expanding and contracting, adjusting as they searched for grazing grounds; the border would change according to their nomadic needs. "East is East and West is West," Kipling had written, and the two were never farther apart. To Cox and the British, the notion of property revolved around territory, but for Ibn Saud and the Bedouin, the idea of property was tied to people.
"No progress could possibly be made, and by the sixth day Sir Percy lost his temper. With only Major Dixon at the meeting, he berated Ibn Saud as if he were a schoolboy. At the rate both sides were going, he told the perfumed Arabian ruler, nothing would be settled for a year. Ibn Saud was on the verge of tears; Sir Percy Cox was his father and mother, he cried, the one who had made him and raised him from nothing to the position he held. He would surrender "half his kingdom, nay the whole, if Sir Percy ordered."
With that, Sir Percy took hold of the map. Carefully drawing a red line across the face of it, he assigned a chunk of the Nejd to Iraq; then to placate Ibn Saud, he took almost two thirds of the territory of Kuwait and gave it to Arabia. Last, drawing two zones, and declaring that they should be neutral, he called one the Kuwait neutral zone and the other the Iraq neutral zone. When a representative of Ibn Saud pressed Cox not to make a Kuwait neutral zone, Sir Percy asked him why. "Quite candidly," the man answered, "because we think oil exists there." "That," replied the High Commissioner, "is exactly why I have made it a neutral zone. Each side shall have a half-share." The agreement, signed by all three sides at the beginning of December 1922, confirmed the boundary lines drawn so carefully by Gertrude Bell. But for seventy years, up until and including the 1990 Gulf War involving Iraq and Kuwait, the dispute over the borders would continue."
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http://theava.com/04/0526-gertrude-bell.html
 
WildCat said:
Over 1 million Israeli-Arabs, all of whom have the same civil rights as any other Israeli. That is not apartheid.
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oh reallllllyyyyyyyy?

do Israeli Arabs have the benefits of Jews who have made Aliyah to Israel?

no, no they do not.

housing discrimination is LEGAL in the Jewish State. Arabs suffer from this discrimination all the time.

Arab students are often forbid from enrolling in schools with a majority Jewish population.

Arab students get 50% as much funding as Jewish students.

Israeli citizens can sue for lost property in East Jerusalem and the West Bank confiscated from 1949-1967...but for some reason, Israeli citizens & Permanent Residents CANNOT sue for lost property in Israel confiscated from 1949-1967.
Why is this? I wonder. ;)

No Palestinian citizen who marries an Israeli citizen, can obtain Israeli citizenship. This is the only nationality that faces such discrimination.

Arab citizens face constant attacks and threats against their civil and political rights, by right-wing Zionists in the Knesset on almost a daily basis.
 
a_unique_person said:
I am referring to the West Bank. The issue of the status of Palestinian Israelis is different, since they have Israeli citizenship.
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How can it be apartheid then? Oh right, because you're trying to jam a square peg into a round hole.
 
a_unique_person said:
I am referring to the West Bank. The issue of the status of Palestinian Israelis is different, since they have Israeli citizenship.
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Terrorists waged a campaign of suicide murder from the West Bank so security measures were imposed to safeguard Israel.

Instead of waging a campaign of suicide murder, they shouldn't have waged a campaign of suicide murder.
 
Virus said:
Terrorists waged a campaign of suicide murder from the West Bank so security measures were imposed to safeguard Israel.

Instead of waging a campaign of suicide murder, they shouldn't have waged a campaign of suicide murder.
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Israel has drawn it's border like that since 1966, long before any suicide bombings. The current Israeli political direction is either a formal apartheid solution as proposed by Likud, or even worse solutions proposed by groups such as Kach YESHA, which propose complete ethnic cleansing. The Palestinians are stateless in their own homes.
 
Doesn't look like outside to me. All the maps have the West Bank in side the border, the armed forces patrol that border, Netanyahu made it clear the current border is essential to security, the settlers can build houses there, the Palestinians have to defer to Israel for movement in and out of the area.
 
a_unique_person said:
Doesn't look like outside to me. All the maps have the West Bank in side the border, the armed forces patrol that border, Netanyahu made it clear the current border is essential to security, the settlers can build houses there, the Palestinians have to defer to Israel for movement in and out of the area.
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More circular, fictional arguments.

This argument of 'all maps' showing the WB/Judea/Samaria inside Israel is pure rubbish. The MFA for one, doesn't show this, the retail maps at home doesn't show this, yet, you still claim that 'all' maps do.

As for building houses in the WB, as stated before, there are legal documents (ie mandate for Palestine) that permitted Jewish settlement in Judea/Samaria before Jordan carved out the fictional '1967 borders' being peddled today as some sort of official border delimiter.

Decades of Palestinian terrorism prior to any occupation of the WB and decades after, made the WB and the Palestinians within it a security issue. Just as Kashmir is a security issue for the Indians and Pakistanis.

Bring on the 1-liners.
 
a_unique_person said:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/feb/06/southafrica.israel
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Well, at least Mandela was dropped from that fictional list of comparing the plight of the Palestinians under Israel as comparable to apartheid South Africa.

And why is Demond Tutu still being used as a reputable source? Even after his CT drivel of the Jewish lobby on top of the Zionism equals racism skit?

Worth a read: Franchising "Apartheid": Why South Africans Push the Analogy
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Proponents of the analogy used it to appeal to black South Africans, drawing links between Palestinian suf- fering and their own. But most black South Africans dismiss the analogy. Outside the small Muslim community (1.5 percent of the population), anti-Israel sentiment is largely an elite phenomenon. However potent the Israel-apartheid analogy, few of those who directly suffered from apartheid directly have bought into it.
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The Prophets of Prejudice

Not only has the ANC begun to distort the history of its relations with Israel, but several former anti-apartheid activists in the party have joined a cottage industry that exploits the Israel-apartheid analogy for personal and political gain. Troublingly, their anti-Israel diatribes are sometimes barely distinguishable from antisemitism. Foremost among these prophets of apartheid is Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has energetically supported the campaign to demonize Israel as an apartheid state.
...
These three detractors—Tutu, Kasrils and Dugard— share two traits. One is their neglect of human rights elsewhere. They behave as though human rights violations and terror do not matter unless there is an Israeli nearby on whom the crime can be blamed. Indeed, Tutu was present last year when Carter declared that the word “genocide” had a narrow “legal definition" which the Sudanese government-sponsored onslaught in Darfur did not meet.
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a_unique_person said:
Look at a map of Israel. Look at where the West Bank is inside that border.
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How about you compare/contrast the rights of Israeli Arabs to the rights of black South Africans during apartheid?

Do you have any similarities at all? Didn't think so. It is a transparently dishonest tactic to point out differences in the rights of citizens with those of non-citizens living outside the country in order to shreik "omfg apartheid!1!!!!!!!!1!!111!".

It's not apartheid, it's not even close. And your continued use of this thoroughly dishonest debate tactic leads me to believe you have ulterior motives, such as a deep irrational hatred of Jews. No other explanation makes any sense. At least Matt Giwer is honest about his hatred of Jews, you try to sugar coat yours but you aren't fooling anyone with the possible exception of yourself.

Sorry, but I call it like I see it.
 
JudeBrando said:
What compromises are ever expected and/or demanded to be made by the Palestinians?
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Somewhat slower killing of Jews. Hence Abu Mazen ("let's destroyed Israel using the 'staged plan'") is a moderate, while Hamas ("let's destroyed Israel right now") is an extremist.
 
WildCat said:
How about you compare/contrast the rights of Israeli Arabs to the rights of black South Africans during apartheid?

Do you have any similarities at all? Didn't think so. It is a transparently dishonest tactic to point out differences in the rights of citizens with those of non-citizens living outside the country in order to shreik "omfg apartheid!1!!!!!!!!1!!111!".

It's not apartheid, it's not even close. And your continued use of this thoroughly dishonest debate tactic leads me to believe you have ulterior motives, such as a deep irrational hatred of Jews. No other explanation makes any sense. At least Matt Giwer is honest about his hatred of Jews, you try to sugar coat yours but you aren't fooling anyone with the possible exception of yourself.

Sorry, but I call it like I see it.
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Are you calling me a liar?

I don't hate Jews. It's that simple. If it wasn't for my Jewish great grandfather, I wouldn't even be here. Anne Franke was a brave and intelligent girl who did nothing to deserve her awful death. Are you calling me a liar. Albert Einstein was a brilliant and sensitive scientist who single handedly advanced science by many years in the field of physics. Are you calling me a liar? Sir John Monash was a brilliant general who saw through the failing strategies used in WWI and saved the lives of many Australian soldiers. Are you calling me a liar.

This opinion by Jew in Haaretz might be appropriate, since the opinion of a black man wasn't.

Yes, it is apartheid

There is no hint of similarity between South Africa and Israel, and only a sick mind could draw such shadowy connections between them; stilll, it is entirely clear why the word apartheid terrifies us so.


There is no hint of similarity between South Africa and Israel, and only a sick mind could draw such shadowy connections between them. Roadblocks and inspections at every turn; licenses and permits for every little matter; the arbitrary seizure of land; special privileges in water use; cheap, hard labor; forming and uniting families by bureaucratic whim - none of these are apartheid, in any way. They are an incontrovertible security necessity, period.
The white Afrikaners, too, had reasons for their segregation policy; they, too, felt threatened - a great evil was at their door, and they were frightened, out to defend themselves. Unfortunately, however, all good reasons for apartheid are bad reasons; apartheid always has a reason, and it never has a justification. And what acts like apartheid, is run like apartheid and harasses like apartheid, is not a duck - it is apartheid. Nor does it even solve the problem of fear: Today, everyone knows that all apartheid will inevitably reach its sorry end.
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http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/yes-it-is-apartheid-1.244643
 
About the demand for evidence that the Arabs started the war of 1948: try here:

Two weeks pre-attack, on May 1, 1948, Arab League Secretary-General Abdul- Rahman Azzam Pasha declared: “If the Zionists dare establish a state, the massacres we would unleash would dwarf anything which Genghis Khan and Hitler perpetrated.”

Lest any doubt linger, Azzam reiterated his message the day seven Arab armies attacked: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”
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...just to give something from, er, last week. Numerous sources could be given.

About the partition borders of 1947 -- according to which Israel would be a narrow strip along the coast, some of the Galilee, some of the Negev, and that's it -- being the next Arab demand if they get the 1967 being a "zionist strawman", try here:

Now he [Obama] refers to the 1967 borders as sacred," A-Zahar told the Dubai-based Al-Emarat al-Youm website, "but who says we accept them, and that we won't speak of the '48 lines?"...
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These are just two top google results after two minutes of searching. A much stronger case could be made for both claims if one bothered, of course.

Reality continued to ruin the "poor Arabs / Palestinians just want peace" line.

The Palestinian goal is simple: Israel's destruction, immediately if possible, gradually by the "staged plan" if necessary. That is way no Palestinian leader will accept the legitimacy of the Jewish state, give up the "right of return", or agree that any sort of "peace" deal will officially be the end of the conflict and the Arab demands, however dishonestly.
 
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a_unique_person said:
Are you calling me a liar?
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Are you unable to find a single example of how Israeli Arabs are treated similarly to black South Africans during apartheid?

"I'm not an anti-semite, my grandfather was a jew"... sounds like "I'm not a racist, some of my best friends are black and I love Stevie Wonder albums".
 
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