Israel: Democracy in action.

[Skeptic]

well, at least we get the grudgingly considered token compensation eh?......something you don't seem to be able to consider for Arabs...

You can afford to offer compensation; having killed off 99% of the Aboriginies, it's cheap to offer compensation to the remaining 1%, under the "the more we killed, the less we pay" principle.

israel hasn't killed off nearly as many palestinians, so there are more of them demanding compensation than israel could in good consciousness afford.

 

[a_unique_person]

well, at least we get the grudgingly considered token compensation eh?......something you don't seem to be able to consider for Arabs...

You can afford to offer compensation; having killed off 99% of the Aboriginies, it's cheap to offer compensation to the remaining 1%, under the "the more we killed, the less we pay" principle.

israel hasn't killed off nearly as many palestinians, so there are more of them demanding compensation than israel could in good consciousness afford.

Oh, well that's all right then. Silly me. Israel hasn't killed off nearly as many Palestinians. What a joke.

 

[The Fool]

Oh, well that's all right then. Silly me. Israel hasn't killed off nearly as many Palestinians. What a joke.

A_U_P
The racist troll doesn't deserve to be rewarded with a reply. Not even my huge curiosity about why someone needs to post 7 times in a row can bring me to read the garbage.

 

[Mycroft]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
Language is subjective, it is always changing, the world in which it exists is always changing. It reacts to the world, it helps create the world. A tomatoe used to be a love apple.

One should also remember the difference between language and what it describes. The map is not the territory.

Originally posted by a_unique_person
What happened at Abu Graib is torture. You readily call it abuse, but equivocate over torture. That says more about you than anything else, I'm afraid.

Yes, it says that if I am to damn someone, I prefer to get the charges right. Neither exaggeration nor minimization.

Originally posted by a_unique_person
Information by itself is useless. This is the stage that ZN is at. Whenever he is at a loss, he just thows in facts that are not relevant. He knows they must be useful, they are facts.

Actually, his facts tend to be on topic. Not that you would know, you don’t seem to read them.

Originally posted by a_unique_person
I don't just trawl through partisan sites, despite what I am accused of doing. I try to look at the big picture, eg, justice for people, and see read what I have to to validate or disprove that in a given situation. More of a top down approach. ZN is more of a bottom up, collect a mass of facts, then throw the ones that suit you at random at an argument.

Does "top down approach" mean you start with a conclusion and find "facts" to support it?

Originally posted by a_unique_person
A stateless person is just that, all states in the world have an obligation to provide a state to that person. Once again, why only Arab states.

Whoever said only the Arab states? However Arab states do have the advantage of common language and culture, and individual Palestinian-Arabs who have family that are Lebanese, Syrian, Egyptian or whatever should not be denied these support systems. I don’t know how immigration and naturalization works in Australia, but in the United States, it’s expedited for those who already have family that are citizens.

And you haven’t addressed the issue of efforts being blocked to improve the conditions in these camps. You can parrot the excuse of "It’s not their (Arabs) responsibility" all you want, but that’s just inhumane.

Originally posted by a_unique_person
Or again, why doesn't Israel let them go home, where they came from?

Because Israelis are concerned for their safety. It’s disingenuous of you to claim "wisdom" while ignoring this very basic fact. That you consistently ignore it is one of the reasons I think you’re a bigot.

 

[a_unique_person]

Because Israelis are concerned for their safety. It’s disingenuous of you to claim "wisdom" while ignoring this very basic fact. That you consistently ignore it is one of the reasons I think you’re a bigot.

You can say that with a straight face. Congratulations.

 

[a_unique_person]

Yes, it says that if I am to damn someone, I prefer to get the charges right. Neither exaggeration nor minimization.

Hmmm, killing = abuse. Look up your dictionary.

Actually, his facts tend to be on topic. Not that you would know, you don’t seem to read them.

You don't read them, you mean. His favourite random 'fact' has been what are the historical names for the West Bank. WTF that had to do with the topic, I have no idea.

Does "top down approach" mean you start with a conclusion and find "facts" to support it?

OK, I admit it, I am trying to find facts that support justice for people. My bad.

 

[zenith-nadir]

OK, I admit it, I am trying to find facts that support justice for people. My bad.

Well, at least a_u_p admits he forms a conclusion and then finds the facts, however slim, to support it.

 

[Skeptic]

OK, I admit it, I am trying to find facts that support justice for people.

So AUP starts with the wanted conclusion ("justice for people!") and then looks around to find facts to support it.

That would be merely stupid if he was honest about his conclusion, but since what he means by "supporting justice to people" is really "supporting israel's destruction", it's a perfect illustration of the way antisemites think: you start with the conclusion that the jews are evil, and then look around for what can support it.

 

[Esther]

The only one (to my knowledge) presented by Israel is the 1919 map. It was confirmed in evidence to the Peel Commission (1937, 11 years before the war) as the map of Israel. Israel never accepted partition, so the UN proposal is just some lines some people drew up.

According to the recommendations of the http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/peel.html[/url][/url]]Peel Commission[/url] the area you argue about -Judea and Samaria along with Negev were given to the Arabs who rejected the plan.

It's not a secret that the zionist leaders were asking for the great biblical Israel but they didn't get it. Israel is a very young country and it's involved in a terrible war with a part that refuses to declare officially that its goal is not the destruction of Israel. It's too early for us to stop discussing what Israel we want when we cannot accomplish a ceasefire.

The Green Line is just the ceasefire line, not recognised by Israel as a border. If Israel wants peace with its neighbours, it will have to set out its territorial aspirations.

Israel has proved that is interested in peace and it's ready to trade peace for land. The treaty that Israel has signed with Egypt demonstrates that clearly.

Otherwise, who can trust it? Will Israel explicitly give up its claim to Southern Lebanon? To do so would be to antagonise the traditionalists. So, no Israeli map will be presented.

I copy from the "Memoirs" of David Ben-Gurion.
"In this world we can only have two out of three objectives. We are being offered a chance for a Jewish state and a democratic state, but only part of the land of Israel. We could hold out for all the land of Israel, but if we did that we night lose everything. If we have to compromise our objectives, let it be on obtaining all the land of Israel. We will settle now for half a loaf and dream about the rest later"

Israel today is a jewish state with a massive jewish majority and it's a democratic state. Having accomplished two out of the three goals is not a bad score. Yes, there are those who still dream about the rest of the loaf but this is normal in every group. You said that the majority of Israelis want peace and this is true, so when the terror ends and the Palestinians will start to negotiate seriously we will have a border line since this is what we try to negotiate right now but if they want the land they will have to offer peace although, can you seriously imagine the arabic tribes flourishing in peace?

 

[Skeptic]

Israel has proved that is interested in peace and it's ready to trade peace for land. The treaty that Israel has signed with Egypt demonstrates that clearly.

You forgot the one with Jordan, as well.

But that's nit picking. You're right, of course.

 

[Skeptic]

Translation: I can’t figure out how to explain my lack of concern over Arabs keeping Palestinian-Arabs in refugee camps into the fourth generation, so I’ll cough up this red herring and hope it distracts everyone from this issue.

You're wrong, Mycroft; actually, his talk about messianic israel is the VERY CENTER of demon's argument.

His argument is that it is perfeclty justified to kill "zionists" on sight because, deep down, they all "secretly" want a "greater israel" free of Arabs that are to be expelled.

This is, of course, merely a modern version of the age-old idea that it is perfectly justified to kill jews on sight because, deep down, they all "secretly" want to control the world / steal your money / drink the blood of Christian children / support communism / opress the workers / whatever.

To repeat, the excuses change, the hatered of jews remains the same. If AUP or demon lived in the 1930, do you really think for a momeny they would be in FAVOR of the prosecuted jews? Of course not.

Demon would be ranting how all jews really want to control the world's banking system, and that therefore they deserve everything they get, while AUP...

...well, AUP would be busy finding out the "real reason" or the "whole picture" of why the nazis hate jews, concluding that it's all because those evil jews came to colonize Germany (during Roman times), and that therefore the jewish community in Germany has no real historical right to exist.

The jews should realize, he would say with a sigh, that they only themselves to blame for the heroic resistance from the native Germans, who are after all braving the might of the intenational jewish conspiracy that controls the USA while fighting with primitive weapons like stones and torches as they burn down synagogues.

Why don't the jews realize the truth and move to their own country--the holy land of Palestine--instead of colonizing Europe like that? AUP would continue. Why, there are even a bunch of brave jews, called "zionists", who agree with him, only to be savaged by jewish papers for telling the truth. Isn't that proof that deep down most jews know they are right?

You know something? I prefer demon. At least he doesn't have the passive-agressive, sickly "I am just concerned about the truth" mask on, like AUP does, in an attempt to hide his paranoid hatered of jews. Such honestly is refreshing.

 

[Esther]

You forgot the one with Jordan, as well.

But that's nit picking. You're right, of course.

Thanks for the remark, it gives me the opportunity to clarify the point I was trying to make because I didn't forget Jordan. Actually, I should have said that the treaty with the Egyptians is a good example because it demonstrates that Israel responds promptly to serious offers for peace talks.

The Egyptians lost the 6 Days War and it's them that took the initiative to ask for negotiations, why the world expects Israel that was the winner of this war to be interested in taking this initiative when the defeated instead of being interested in negotiating chose to play the card of victimization ?

 

[Ryuken]

....

 

[zenith-nadir]

You don't read them, you mean. His favourite random 'fact' has been what are the historical names for the West Bank. WTF that had to do with the topic, I have no idea.

You can't even type J-U-D-E-A and Samaria. You can't even admit that for 3000 years until 1949 the West Bank was called J-U-D-E-A and Samaria, in fact you dismiss it as "historical names for the West Bank. And that is why some religious jews want to live in the West Bank.

OK, I admit it, I am trying to find facts that support justice for people. My bad.

You want justice? STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING! GAZA'S KILLING SCHOOL...for children - Tuesday July 13, 2004

Children as young as 10 are being recruited to fight for the Palestinian cause. Sky News has gained access to a young people's camp in Gaza, where the only lesson taught is how to kill Israelis.

 

[DialecticMaterialist]

I find it interesting that so many Anti-Israel critics fail to note that more Palestinians have been killed by surrounding Muslim nations then by Israel.

Yet at the same time I must disagree with the idea that Israel has found a proper balance between being democratic and security minded. More precisely, I see too much in terms of both xenophobic and semi-theocratic attitudes. Many Israelis, including leading officials wish the nation to be more of a religious (Jewish) state, instead of being more of a democracy.

And many really don't see the Palestinians as fully human. One reason not mentioned for building the fence for example is that the Israeli government fears the rise of a Palestinian majority.

To this day Israel still has discriminatory anti-Palestinian laws:

http://www.arabhra.org/article26/factsheet1.htm


A poll on Israeli's show that most Israelis actually want the government to start making Arab Israelis leave:

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/441646.html



Now I'm not saying I think both sides are equally to blame, Palestinians are more so imo, especially in light of their inability to come to an agreement at the Camp David.

In 2000, Clinton convened a peace summit between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Stunning both the Israeli right and left, Barak offered the Palestinians approximately 95% of the disputed territories, as well as Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site (also called Haram Ash-Sharif). Unfortunately, Arafat did not only reject this unprecedented offer, he did not make any counter offers. The talks ended without any agreement and, according to Israel, Arafat returned to Ramallah intending to foment violence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli-Palestinian_conflict


This imi is due to many reasons, including an intrinsic culturally bigotry on the Palestinian's part:

Many experts in Islamic society, including Muslims, Christians, and Jews, hold that one of the primary religious reasons for continued Muslim Arab hostility towards Israel is that Islamic law forbids Jews or Christians from being considered equal to Muslims.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab-Israeli_conflict


But such does not justify by any means a theocratic or segragationist attitudes on the part of the Israeli community. Instead of calling for a unique Palestinian state (something sought by the US, Israel and Palestinians), instead they should try more integrationist policies, adopting the Palestinians within their own democracy.

I of course do not believe this should happen at a gross loss of security, for example I still support the building of a non-intrusive Israeli-Palestinian fence, but I think Israelis should start seeing Arabs as their equals, encouraging both integration and citizenship; not a government that "encourages" Israeli Arabs to leave.

 

[E.J.Armstrong]

originally posted by SKEPTICDemon would be ranting how all jews really want to control the world's banking system, and that therefore they deserve everything they get, while AUP...

...well, AUP would be busy finding out the "real reason" or the "whole picture" of why the nazis hate jews, concluding that it's all because those evil jews came to colonize Germany (during Roman times), and that therefore the jewish community in Germany has no real historical right to exist.

Never mind the truth. You just cannot make this stuff up.

Shame on you.

 

[E.J.Armstrong]

originally posted by DialecticMaterialist
I think Israelis should start seeing Arabs as their equals, encouraging both integration and citizenship; not a government that "encourages" Israeli Arabs to leave.

Hear hear.

 

[zenith-nadir]

I think Israelis should start seeing Arabs as their equals, encouraging both integration and citizenship; not a government that "encourages" Israeli Arabs to leave.

19% of Israelis are Arab, and some do experience discrimination. Why? Because for 50 years Arabs have been trying to destroy Israel and kill jews, therefore some Israelis do have an issue with Arabs and some do discriminate against Arabs. That is no great secret. Conversly Sunni muslims discriminate against Shiite, Shiite discriminate against Sunni, both discriminate against Druze. All of them discriminate against women, gays and jews. Crazy world we live in.

 

[DialecticMaterialist]

19% of Israelis are Arab, and some do experience discrimination. Why? Because for 50 years Arabs have been trying to destroy Israel and kill jews, therefore some Israelis do have an issue with Arabs and some do discriminate against Arabs. That is no great secret. Conversly Sunni muslims discriminate against Shiite, Shiite discriminate against Sunni, both discriminate against Druze. All of them discriminate against women, gays and jews. Crazy world we live in.

I realize that, but it doesn't make it right. Heck, I don't even think this helps solve the problem, it intensifies it imo. Many americans right now hate both Iraqis and Arabs. All too often I hear the phrase "We should leave the area and just nuke 'em all." I'm aware of discrimination everywhere, especially among Arabs themselves. Most of the Arab world I believe has even more prejudice views towards Palestinians then Israel does.

And while such sentiments may be universal, they should also be seen as things to be overcome, not overlooked.

 

[a_unique_person]

OK, I admit it, I am trying to find facts that support justice for people.

So AUP starts with the wanted conclusion ("justice for people!") and then looks around to find facts to support it.

That would be merely stupid if he was honest about his conclusion, but since what he means by "supporting justice to people" is really "supporting israel's destruction", it's a perfect illustration of the way antisemites think: you start with the conclusion that the jews are evil, and then look around for what can support it.

I've warned you about this skeptic. Maybe you should go for the $1,000,000 prize. If you go for it, saying just what you think I am really like, I will front up for inspection by JREF to see if I really am what you keep on saying I am.

Clock ticking, day 1, your move Skeptic.

The clock keeps ticking till you either put up, or retract.