Gaza villages Wiped off the map

[gdnp]

So why are the people in Gaza dependant upon Israel so much? Why aren't they getting much more of what they need from Egypt? Why do they need to smuggle non-military items in the tunnels between Egypt and Gaza?

Ranb

Here's a clue for you: the people of Gaza are not dependent on Israel for aid. The aid comes from other sources. It comes through Israel, after they tax it, because they are blockading Gaza. They will not allow aid to be shipped in except through Israel.

HAMAS is probably happy because they continue firing rockets on Israeli towns

I'm sure they are. Hamas will not last long as a military organization if the reach a peace agreement. Every martyr has a brother and a son and a cousin whose hatred of Israel will only increase.

Egypt made peace with Israel over 30 years ago, and Israel hasn't levelled a single Egyptian village, launched any air strikes, or sent in any ground forces since then.

Think there might be a connection, TFT?

Yep. Israel gave Egypt back 100% of the land they had captured and returned to their pre-1967 border with Egypt. They evacuated and left behind their Sinai settlements. Have they made that offer to the Palestinians, a return to the pre-1967 borders? No?

More breathtaking: The fact that you buy it.
Egypt is not "a friend of Israel." Read the official Egyptian press for a few days and you'll be quickly disabused of that fantasy.

Yes, you will note how Egypt immediately came to Hamas' aid when Israel attacked, opening the border to refugees, shipping in aid.

What? you say they didn't?

When really, if Hamas would simply say, "We recognize Israel's right to live in peace, will stop all attacks from Gaza, and are now ready to sign a peace treaty with Israel," they would discover all the complexities - the economic sanctions, the blockades, the border lockdowns, the bombings, everything - would vanish overnight.

If Hamas declared "we will surrender and accept whatever peace terms Israel wishes to propose", as you are suggesting, I'm sure that Israel would sign a peace treaty with them.

Few of the rest of the Palestinians would accept it, however.

Recall that Nelson Mandella and the ANC never renounced the use of violence, and yet the transition to black majority rule in South Africa was not a military one. Any renunciation of violence by the Palestinians will only come as part of a comprehensive peace treaty.

Damn. those Jews. Why don't they just sit back and let themselves be killed like Good Little Jews?

Damn. Those Palestinians. Why don't they surrender and accept whatever settlement that Israel offers them like good little Arabs?

 

[WildCat]

Yep. Israel gave Egypt back 100% of the land they had captured and returned to their pre-1967 border with Egypt.

Nope. Egypt had Gaza until 1967.

 

[gdnp]

Nope. Egypt had Gaza until 1967.

Nope. Egypt administered Gaza until 1967, but it was not part of Egyptian territory. The Sinai, on the other hand, was Egyptian territory and was returned.

 

[WildCat]

Nope. Egypt administered Gaza until 1967, but it was not part of Egyptian territory. The Sinai, on the other hand, was Egyptian territory and was returned.

So whose territory was it?

 

[gdnp]

So whose territory was it?

Palestinian.

 

[WildCat]

Palestinian.

It was?

 

[Thunder]

You guys are aware that the borders of "Palestine" were as arbitrary and irrelevant as the borders of all the African nations. The Negev could have easily become part of Egypt, and the Galilee region part of Lebanon.

 

[peptoabysmal]

We all know how dangerous and accurate those rockets are, don't we?

Neither were V2's

 

[davefoc]

Damn. those Jews. Why don't they just sit back and let themselves be killed like Good Little Jews?

Do you think this is funny or remotely probative?

You are the one that is turning this into an anti-Jewish war. Does it make you happy to perceive it like that? Does it help you justify whatever the Israelis do? Does it make it easier for you to see this as a simple conflict of good versus evil?

Get a friggin clue. Your rhetoric is juvenile and counterproductive. A bunch of Europeans moved an indigenous population out of the way seventy years ago or so based on some fantasyland notions. And in those 70 years of land grabbing and water stealing and fence building on other people's land they still haven't managed to make peace with the indigenous population.

So now the Palestinians don't act in the way that you think they should and the only idea you have is that they act that way because they hate Jews. Well here's a thought. Jews lived throughout the middle east for thousands of years almost always as a minority population and nobody hated them enough to wipe them out. If their neighbors hated them all that much one might have thought that there wouldn't be any Jews left alive in the middle east besides the ones that came from Europe mostly in the twentieth century.

 

[yairhol]

You are the one that is turning this into an anti-Jewish war. Does it make you happy to perceive it like that? Does it help you justify whatever the Israelis do? Does it make it easier for you to see this as a simple conflict of good versus evil?

not wanting to speak on behalf of dudalb but I think by 'Jews' he meant Israelis. I think he used the word 'Jews' because Israel is regarded as the "state of the Jews" and the ones on the Israeli side that got hit by the rocket and martar attacks were Jews.
But I'll ask you this. If the land of Israel was an arab country filled with muslims, do you still think the Hamas would fire rockets at them?

Get a friggin clue. Your rhetoric is juvenile and counterproductive. A bunch of Europeans moved an indigenous population out of the way seventy years ago or so based on some fantasyland notions. And in those 70 years of land grabbing and water stealing and fence building on other people's land they still haven't managed to make peace with the indigenous population.

I bet more historically oriented people could show you that Jews were settled in the land of Palestine since biblical times.
Do you think it is wise to start going back in time and showing that before this population there was that population and before that some other population etc. etc.? There will be no end and no conclusions to this other than the stand that each one currently holds.
Why not look at the current situation and discuss what's happening now rather than 100, 500, 1000, 5000 years ago.
Israel doesn't 'grab' lands for fun. Israel was attacked by arab countries in several wars since its existence and took hold of strategic points in order to avoid future attacks by these arab countries.
Israel doesn't 'steal' water. In fact I remember several years ago it opened a dam on the eastern border with Jordan and let water flow to the Jordanian side.
Israel does not build fences just for the heck of it. Ever thought of the reasons behind building the fence? You want to discuss this particular issue? I suggest you start a thread about it and about all the other accusations you have of Israel.

In general, saying populist demagogic words like "70 years of land grabbing and water stealing and fence building on other people's land they still haven't managed to make peace with the indigenous population. " does not make any point. Anyone can do the same about any nation on earth.

 

[davefoc]

I bet more historically oriented people could show you that Jews were settled in the land of Palestine since biblical times.

There are few people in the world that don't realize that thousands of years ago a people that are perhaps more related genetically related to the Palestinians than most of the Jews of Israel today lived in area that is roughly Israel that practiced some kind of Jewish culture. Did the fact that thousands of years ago a group of people practiced Jewish culture in Israel give European Jews more right to Israel than the actual ancestors of those people or the people who were actually living in Israel at the time? By what possible theory of morality or ethics did a bunch of Europeans get together and carve up a piece of the middle east and give it to the European Jews?

The number of Jews (defined by their culture) living in Israel proper had fallen to less than 5,000 people at one point in time and represented a small percentage of the existing population.

What is done is done. The state of Israel is a fact and it must move to protect itself and its people. It doesn't need to allow wacko settlers to harass Palestinians or to build fences through Palestinian land. And one of the reasons it continues to do crap like that is that people like dudalb use BS rhetoric that ignores the historical reality of Israel and the Palestinian/Israeli conflict to create a simplistic good and evil portrayal of a complex and morally conflicted situation.

 

[Skeptic]

Oliver's objection to Israel's operation in Gaza is that Hamas only tried to kill a lot of Israelies with its rockets but (so far) didn't succeed. So it's no big deal -- he has no idea why the Israelies would be so pissed off and react so disproportionatly.

This is "Sideshow Bob" logic: "I am now in prison for attempted murder. What kind of crime is that? Do they give the Nobel prize for attempted Chemisty?"

Surely putting someone in jail for attempted murder, and for a long time, too, is a wholly disproportionate reaction. I mean, what's the big deal? Nobody actually died -- his aim was lousy and the shots at the intended victim did no serious damage.

Why be so angry over trifles?

 

[BPSCG]

To entice the USA into a costly counter-insurgency war in Afghanistan that would ultimately destroy the west and lead to a new Global Caliphate.

Duh!

 

[webfusion]

davefoc: "A bunch of Europeans moved an indigenous population out of the way seventy years ago or so based on some fantasyland notions. "

No, that is incorrect. The Zionists came to the Mediterranean Coast of the Ottoman Sanjaks (known collectively as "Palestine" -- including parts of Syria, Lebanon, and the Hejaz/Trans-Jordania all the way out to the Iraqi frontier). When these Zionists arrived (and they came, not out of any "fantasyland notions" but in order to establish a safe haven and agrarian domicile, based on secular notions of the worth of human labor), the local indigenous populations of Arabs was around 90,000 individuals, living in the proximate areas where the Zionists established their foothold in the Ottoman Lands.

Furthermore, when the Zionists came, in the late 1800's, they did not move that local population of 90,000 out of the way. The opposite, in fact, occurred, as the Arabs flourished, and derived countless benefits from the efforts of the Zionists.

 

[Oliver]

Oliver's objection to Israel's operation in Gaza is that Hamas only tried to kill a lot of Israelies with its rockets but (so far) didn't succeed. So it's no big deal -- he has no idea why the Israelies would be so pissed off and react so disproportionatly.

No, my objection is that the rockets are an annoying side note in the whole issue and that all the recent radical elements against Israel came about due to the lack to find a solution early on. Also, to deny the elected Government in Gaza isn't a solution for anything, that should be clear to anyone - and to let the Palestinian People suffer as a whole for Hamaz isn't heroic as well. Actually, sometimes I'm reminded to a place once called Warshaw Ghetto.

 

[BPSCG]

Actually, sometimes I'm reminded to a place once called Warshaw Ghetto.

With the Israelis playing the role of the latter-day Nazi exterminators.

And people call me a jerk...

 

[Oliver]

With the Israelis playing the role of the latter-day Nazi exterminators.

And people call me a jerk...

No, but the Palestinians playing the role of the Ghetto Jews. Just imagine they had tunnels and rockets back then!

 

[BPSCG]

No, but the Palestinians playing the role of the Ghetto Jews. Just imagine they had tunnels and rockets back then!

And people call me a jerk.

 

[IDB87]

No, but the Palestinians playing the role of the Ghetto Jews. Just imagine they had tunnels and rockets back then!

If we're talking hypotheticals, do you think they would've gone after German civilians with those rockets over the SS?

 

[yairhol]

This is "Sideshow Bob" logic: "I am now in prison for attempted murder. What kind of crime is that? Do they give the Nobel prize for attempted Chemisty?"

Surely putting someone in jail for attempted murder, and for a long time, too, is a wholly disproportionate reaction. I mean, what's the big deal? Nobody actually died -- his aim was lousy and the shots at the intended victim did no serious damage.

I like this.