Wall a huge failure

[davefoc]

no

 

[zenith-nadir]

no

So why do you think there would be peace if all the settlements magically went away? Perhaps there is another cause for the conflict than the excuse du jour....ie:settlements.

There was a time when Palestinians worked on settlements instead of shelling them. There was a time when over 120,000 Palestinians went inside Israel every day to work, now it is only a handful. There was a time when Arab Israelis built their factories in the West Bank and Gaza to help employ Palestinians, that's basically gone as well. Why did all that change? It all changed when the Tunisians arrived in December 1993 and started promising "A million martyrs to Jerusalem".


Settlements are not the reason for the conflict this is;

(images courtesy of homepage.mac.com)

 

[zenith-nadir]

Palestinians, Israelis Meet Over Arafat - Sun, Oct 31, 2004

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Senior Palestinian and Israeli leaders held separate meetings Sunday to plan a path forward in the absence of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who was being examined in a French hospital for an unknown ailment.

Despite the spate of official meetings, it was clear that if Palestinians are now facing the post-Arafat era, there is no one with his stature ready to step in and rule.

Arafat has been the Palestinian leader since 1969 and has steadfastly refused to appoint a successor, preferring one-man rule.

Arafat has been out of the picture for three days and already negotiations have resumed without his usual interference. A good sign.

 

[Jim Bowen]

There was a time when over 120,000 Palestinians went inside Israel every day to work, now it is only a handful.

You might find that building a great big wall makes it a bit tricky for Palestinians to get to work in Israel, or hadn't you thought that one through?

Jim Bowen

 

[Elind]

You might find that building a great big wall makes it a bit tricky for Palestinians to get to work in Israel, or hadn't you thought that one through?

Jim Bowen

You think the wall is for that purpose, or that is the reason there are less of them working in Israel? Perhaps I misunderstood, or had you not thought that one through?

 

[Jim Bowen]

You think the wall is for that purpose, or that is the reason there are less of them working in Israel? Perhaps I misunderstood, or had you not thought that one through?

Sorry, Elind, I was being sarcastic to ZN , considering the title of this thread, I thought it pretty ironic that he is mentioning the lack of Palestinians managing to work inside Israel...

Jim Bowen (cursed with a sarcastic mind)

 

[Elind]

Sorry, Elind, I was being sarcastic to ZN , considering the title of this thread, I thought it pretty ironic that he is mentioning the lack of Palestinians managing to work inside Israel...

Jim Bowen (cursed with a sarcastic mind)

Oh. Sorry I didn't follow the thread backwards enough. I appreciate the clarification.

 

[Jim Bowen]

no worries, mate. With 6 pages and a load of posts, I don't think I'd follow it backwards if I hadn't been with it from the start

Jim Bowen

 

[davefoc]

ZN asked:

So why do you think there would be peace if all the settlements magically went away? Perhaps there is another cause for the conflict than the excuse du jour....ie:settlements.

ZN, I do not know if all Palestinian violence by terrorists against Israel would have ended if the colonization started in 1967 hadn't happened. I doubt it.

Do you have some reason to believe that it wouldn't have been reduced substantially? Colonization efforts are often accompanied with violence that gradually fades away after the colonization effort has ended. This process of healing, acceptance and forgiving has been delayed by 37 years because of the continuation of a biblically inspired dream of founding a country on land that was occupied by somebody else. Someday peace will happen in Israel (if the world hasn't blown itself up by then) but now thanks to a crazy and unjust settlement policy the peace may not happen in my lifetime.

Israel, for those 37 years has taken advantage of their superior military power and their skill at manipulating the American political process to extract subidies to drive their settlements into Palestinian land. To what end? What many in Israel have known all along is that Israeli success and security will not come by the unjust treatment of the Palestinians.

Each of these thread involves ZN telling us how misguided or evil the Palestinians are because some of them resist the Israelis with violence and others of them don't condemn the violence. What in all that time you have failed to acknowledge is the quid pro quo that has developed between the Palestinian extremists and the Israeli extremists to continue the violence. The Israeli extremists use the violence to justify the expansion and the Palestinians use the expansion to justify their violence.

 

[zenith-nadir]

You might find that building a great big wall makes it a bit tricky for Palestinians to get to work in Israel, or hadn't you thought that one through?

Jim Bowen

It is stupid sarcastic remarks like that that leads me to believe you are just a mouth piece and not really knowledgeable about the issue Jim. It became too hard to weed out the fundamentalist suicide bombers from the workers who went to work in Israel every day. Palestinians do not work in Israel anymore Jim because of islamic fundamentalist terrorism not because of the security barrier.

I do not know if all Palestinian violence by terrorists against Israel would have ended if the colonization started in 1967 hadn't happened. I doubt it.

Thats correct. Palestinian violence by terrorists against Israel exsisted before 1967 and after 1967. Why? Islamic fundamentalism and it's xenophobic nature. See: Haj Amin Husseini, Nasser, Fateh and the PLO...today see the Hamas, Islamic Jihad or Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Do you have some reason to believe that it wouldn't have been reduced substantially?

No I do not buy the terrorism is resistance B.S. Dave. There were terror attacks before Israel exsisted and there were terror attacks after Israel exsisted. There were terror attacks before 1967 and after 1967.

Colonization efforts are often accompanied with violence that gradually fades away after the colonization effort has ended. This process of healing, acceptance and forgiving has been delayed by 37 years because of the continuation of a biblically inspired dream of founding a country on land that was occupied by somebody else.

So what better way to bring justice to the 800,000 Palestinians who lost their homes in 1948 - and the ones who became occupied because of another failed Arab war - than continue a losing 60-year guerilla campaign which has killed untold thousands in Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Brilliant plan. Sounds like a lesson from the "Mother of All Battles" Military school. What I find weird Dave is you tend to blame it all on "biblically inspired dreams" and not the failure of Arafat, the only Palestinian leader since 1969, to negotiate a just solution.

Someday peace will happen in Israel (if the world hasn't blown itself up by then) but now thanks to a crazy and unjust settlement policy the peace may not happen in my lifetime.

What a load. The Palestinian Authority under Arafat has had ten years of negotiations with Israel and the terrorism has not stopped. And you call the settlement policy "crazy and unjust". I think that says everything about you we need to know.

Israel, for those 37 years has taken advantage of their superior military power and their skill at manipulating the American political process to extract subidies to drive their settlements into Palestinian land. To what end? What many in Israel have known all along is that Israeli success and security will not come by the unjust treatment of the Palestinians.

Yes Israel is evil we all know that already from a_u_p and crew.

Each of these thread involves ZN telling us how misguided or evil the Palestinians are because some of them resist the Israelis with violence and others of them don't condemn the violence.

Blowing up buses is misguided and not resistance, blowing up restaurants is misguided and not resistance, blowing up shopping malls, discos, pool halls and seders is misguided and not resistance. Terrorism against Israeli civilians is not resistance it is terrorism Dave. When a Palestinian killed RFK was he resisting the settlements? When Palestinians killed U.S. Ambassador Cleo A. Noel was that resisting the settlements? When planes were hijacked during Black September by Palestinian terrorists was that resisting the settlements? When Jordanian Prime Minister Wash Tel was killed by Palestinians was that resisting the settlements? When the athletes were killed at the Munich Olympics by Palestinian terrorists was that resisting the settlements? Enough with the terrorism is resistance crap.

What in all that time you have failed to acknowledge is the quid pro quo that has developed between the Palestinian extremists and the Israeli extremists to continue the violence. The Israeli extremists use the violence to justify the expansion and the Palestinians use the expansion to justify their violence.

The violence exsisted before "Israeli extremists use the violence to justify the expansion" ,....and not all Palestinians are evil Dave that is ridiculous ad hom towards me that would expect from the likes of E.J. or the fool.

 

[davefoc]

ZN worte:

No I do not buy the terrorism is resistance B.S. Dave. There were terror attacks before Israel exsisted and there were terror attacks after Israel exsisted. There were terror attacks before 1967 and after 1967.

So your view is that a bunch of antisemitic, Islamofacist Palestinians are blowing themselves and others up for no other reason than they hate Jews and or Israel and there is nothing that Israel will ever be able to do about it.

OK, then Israel could build a wall on land which is widely recognized to be theirs and prevent these people from coming into Israel.

But Israel doesn't do that. Do they? Israel builds a wall through Palestinian villages on Palestinian land. Why? Could it have anything to do with the fact that Israel wants Palestinian land? You repeatedly blame the Palestinians for their problems. Have you ever thought about how incompetent or just intentionally antagonistic Israel has been that after all these years that it has not been able to make peace with the Palestinians. Sure some of it is because of skapegoating by local Arab leaders, but what has Israel done to so inflame the local population that many of them die willingly to attack Israel?

Well Israel has bombed the Palestinians with fleschettes, it has bulldozed down Palestinian orchards and homes, it has maintained a brutal occupation and all the while it has built more settlements on Palestinian lands. That sounds like stuff that would piss me off if I was a Palestinian even one that wasn't an evil, antisemitc Islamofacist Maybe Israel should experiment with not doing that stuff for awhile. Of course if there was peace would Israel be able to keep building on Palestinian land, would Israel continue to be able to extract billions of dollars from the US? Maybe Israeli leadership doesn't want peace at the cost of eliminating that.

 

[Mycroft]

Originally posted by davefoc
ZN worte:

So your view is that a bunch of antisemitic, Islamofacist Palestinians are blowing themselves and others up for no other reason than they hate Jews and or Israel and there is nothing that Israel will ever be able to do about it.

I think the fundamental flaw in your logic here is the assumption that it is up to Israel and only Israel to "do something about it".

I used to think that way too. A couple years ago I didn't really know squat about the Israeli/Palestinian-Arab conflict except what I heard on NPR. The impression I had was that it was a "cycle of violence" and if one side would just turn the other cheek once, peace could be achieved. Because I identified more with the Israelis, because their culture and government is more like the western cultures and governments I'm familiar with, I thought they should be the ones to make the first move.

Then when I learned more about the conflict, I realized how wrong that was. I realized that on many occasions Israel had made the first moves, they paid to build up infrastructure in the territories, they provided assistance in setting up government institutions, they provided tax money to Arafat, they recognized the PLO, they armed and trained their security forces...time and time again and the violence didn't stop and often increased.

Then I also realized my attitute of expecting Israel to solve the problem despite the Palestinian-Arabs was founded in racism. Anti-Arab racism. My expectation that Israel should "turn the other cheek" was based on a fundamental assumption that the Arabs were less civilized and thus less capable of civilized behavior.

And that's wrong. Whatever the realities of their leadership and their culture, to expect less of them just because they are Arabic is racism. They are human beings, just like the Israelis, just like Europeans or Americans, and they are capable of reason and compromize. Just like Germans turned away from Nazism, just like the Japanese turned away from their Emperor worship, and just like the nations of the former Soviet Union are turning away from communism and oppression, so too are the Palestinian-Arabs capable of turning away from violence and xenophobia.

But not if we pander to it and pretend it's normal.

 

[davefoc]

Mycroft,
In the end I don't know that it is possible to prove what is just and what is unjust. They may be terms that are based more on feelings than cold logic.

But, for me the colonization of what remained of Palestinian land by Israel after the 1967 war was unjust.

Many arguments can be made for and against the justice of the founding of the state of Israel. Clearly great injustices had been done to the founders and maybe the founding of Israel could be partially justified as a move to mitigate some of that injustice. But no matter that, the inidigenous population of Palestine suffered greatly as a result of the founding of Israel, some of them were massacred, some of them lost land and homes that they and their ancestors had lived on for thousands of years.

If you think that this could happen to an indigenous population and not have people within that population resist it with violence then your understanding of the nature of human beings is very different from mine.

But in 1967, regardless of whatever injustices had been done to the Jews and the Palestinians Israel was a fact and a great many of the original inhabitants of Palesintine had been shoved on to a much smaller area than they had origininally. Zionism had won and the native Palestinians had lost. Israel justified its existence at least partially by referring to the UN resolutions that had authorized its existence, but now it embarked on a program of the colonization of the remaining Palestinian land in violation of what legal justification existed for the founding of Israel. It did this because its leaders valued the Zionist dream of an expanded Israel more than the rights of the Palestinians or peace.

You and ZN seem to believe that this colonial activity by Israel should be ignored while any violence by Palestinians against Israel remains. I truly can not imagine how you justify an idea like that. People who are victims of massacres and forced expulsions will never en mass peacefully submit to those who have conquered them and to use the violence of some as an excuse to continue the violence against the many in that circumstance is nothing but rationalization of an unjust colonization policy.

Israel has a great opportunity to contribute to the middle east with its culture, its democracy and the industry of its people. Israel is squandering that opportunity because its leadership is driven by dreams of expansion. And while it squanders that opportunity Israel suffers itself not only from terrorist attacks but the division within its own country as it struggles under the weight of its own immoral actions.

 

[zenith-nadir]

So your view is that a bunch of antisemitic, Islamofacist Palestinians are blowing themselves and others up for no other reason than they hate Jews and or Israel and there is nothing that Israel will ever be able to do about it.

Yes. There are islamic fundamentalists that hate non-muslims, especially "the zionist entity". F.Y.I. I don't hate Palestinians, I don't think they are evil. Palestinians are people who by a cruel stroke of fate have been led into a dark deadly corner because they have been led there by dictators. These dictators, Haj Amin Husseini and Yasser Arafat, were and are islamic fundamentalists and frankly, hard-core racists.

Additionally, doesn't it strike you as problematic that every Palestinian on earth is beholden to Yasser Arafat and his every wish? Isn't 30 years of failure enough to convince you that Arafat has been bad for the Palestinians?

OK, then Israel could build a wall on land which is widely recognized to be theirs and prevent these people from coming into Israel.

Israel tried recognizing the PLO and the terror didn't stop. Israel tried negotiations with the PLO and the terror didn't stop. Israel let The Tunisians return from exile and the terror didn't stop. Israel tried cooperative security measures with the Palestinian Authority and the terror didn't stop. Israel tried several peace treaties with the Palestinian Authority and the terror didn't stop. Israel tried bulldozing Palestinian suicide bombers homes and the terror didn't stop. Israel tried building a security barrier and still the terror doesn't stop. The wall is a desperate measure to stop people who decide that it is their duty to Allah to kill Kafirs.

If the terror groups are fighting "for the cause" why don't they stop when Arafat and the Palestinian Authority tell them - repeatedly - to stop? Because they seek matyrdom and not peace with "the zionist entity".

But Israel doesn't do that. Do they? Israel builds a wall through Palestinian villages on Palestinian land. Why? Could it have anything to do with the fact that Israel wants Palestinian land?

Yes Israel does. It ruins homes and olive groves to build a security barrier to stop terrorism. Israelis don't care anymore they just want the terrorism to stop and will do anything they have to do stop it. Terrorism predates the security barrier , the security barrier does not predate terrorism.

You repeatedly blame the Palestinians for their problems. Have you ever thought about how incompetent or just intentionally antagonistic Israel has been that after all these years that it has not been able to make peace with the Palestinians.

Lets get something straight. The Palestinians do not get the choice to make peace, only Yasser Arafat speaks for every Palestinian on earth. America has tried, Europe has tried, Israel has tried, the U.N. has tried to make peace with Arafat since 1993. All have failed. So how is that Israel's fault again?

Sure some of it is because of skapegoating by local Arab leaders, but what has Israel done to so inflame the local population that many of them die willingly to attack Israel?

Islamic fundamentalism.

But no matter that, the inidigenous population of Palestine suffered greatly as a result of the founding of Israel, some of them were massacred, some of them lost land and homes that they and their ancestors had lived on for thousands of years....But, for me the colonization of what remained of Palestinian land by Israel after the 1967 war was unjust.

No one had to suffer greatly as a result of the founding of Israel.

The Arab league rejected UN resolution 181 and on May 15th 1948 the combined forces of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon invaded the former Mandate of Palestine. I dunno how many times I have to post that well- recorded historical fact and it still goes unrecognized when the sentence seems to contain "the founding of Israel".

That invasion led to the Palestinians - the enemy - to get their proverbial butts kicked, because they sided with the invading forces.

But in 1967, regardless of whatever injustices had been done to the Jews and the Palestinians Israel was a fact and a great many of the original inhabitants of Palesintine had been shoved on to a much smaller area than they had origininally.

Fast forward 20 years while the Arabs occupied Gaza and the West Bank as no Palestinian state was formed. Now it's 1967, Nasser - arch enemy of Israel - orders the UN troops out of the Sinai, blockades Israeli shipping and forms an alliance with Jordan. Their combined forces mobilize as Syrian aircraft bomb Israeli towns from the north.

This time Israel - which is outnumbered- strikes first and guess what? The Arabs lose again. Another injustice for the Palestinians cuz now they are occupied. So what do they do? Hook their nationalistic cart to the Osama Bin Laden of the 60's and 70's, Yasser Arafat. Great idea, another injustice for the Palestinians.

Now Palestinians live under Israeli occupation, while others are kept as hostages in Lebanon, Syria or Jordan in 50-year-old refugee camps like human pawns ready to move on the chessboard once Israel is destroyed, (see: Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran). Why else would Palestinians who have lived on Lebanese, Syrian or Jordanian soil for 50 years now - and two generations - be denied work or citizenships? Another injustice for the Palestinians.

I agree Dave. So many injustices. The Palestinians haven't had a break since 1900. But unlike you I feel the 10th century machinations of a handful of Arab dictators has been far more unjust to the Palestinians than the foundation of Israel ever was.

 

[E.J.Armstrong]

originally posted by zenith-nadir
Additionally, doesn't it strike you as problematic that every Palestinian on earth is beholden to Yasser Arafat and his every wish?

Quack alert. zenith-nadir claims to know what every single Palestinian on earth is beholden to. How does he do it?

Did he

a/ interview each and every one of them so that his claim would be factually accurate.
b/ not have that much spare time so he used a medium (perhaps he actually is a medium?) to do look into their minds magically
c/ make it up

 

[Elind]

Then I also realized my attitute of expecting Israel to solve the problem despite the Palestinian-Arabs was founded in racism. Anti-Arab racism. My expectation that Israel should "turn the other cheek" was based on a fundamental assumption that the Arabs were less civilized and thus less capable of civilized behavior.

And that's wrong. Whatever the realities of their leadership and their culture, to expect less of them just because they are Arabic is racism. They are human beings, just like the Israelis, just like Europeans or Americans, and they are capable of reason and compromize. Just like Germans turned away from Nazism, just like the Japanese turned away from their Emperor worship, and just like the nations of the former Soviet Union are turning away from communism and oppression, so too are the Palestinian-Arabs capable of turning away from violence and xenophobia.

But not if we pander to it and pretend it's normal.

Is this what they call an epiphany? A trivial epiphany, if there is one?

Has it ever occured to you that you are using your revelation of your self-definition of a word, namely "racism", to define your position on an issue?

Arabs are largely, like American or Europeans, caucasians. Do you really think that by simply reclassifying an issue according to a word like "racism", you can suddenly achieve a deep understanding?

Why don't you instead focus on the cultural, or even religious, issues that actually do define how people behave? Race doesn't!

Racial bias does exist in the world and you belittle it by assigning the same label to any conflict. Some cultures, or significant portions of them, worship death, macho honor at the expense of their children and the overriding belief that there is no goal in life except to defeat or convert the infidels, for example. You think that being critical of that is racist; just because you say so?

I would also like to point out, in your comments above, that Germans did not exactly turn away from Nazism through their internal conviction (ever hear of WWII?), nor did communism simply collapse without any outside influence (ever hear of the Cold War?), barring of course Cuba thanks to European tourists, and North Korea thanks to UN respect for rights of nations, regardless of what rights they give their citizens.

 

[Atlas]

Why don't you instead focus on the cultural, or even religious, issues that actually do define how people behave? Race doesn't!

Elind, I don't think Mycroft has trivialized the cultural and religious gulf between the parties involved. I think you trivialize the race effect involved. Do you think the Jews think of themselves as a race distinct from Arabs? Do you think that the Arabs think they are distinct from Palestinians? Do you think the Persians feel distinct from them all?

I liked Mycroft's point and I even thought it had relevance in the way various American races perceive themselves.

When we begin to accept the hype that some peoples just can't do it, maybe it's because they are stupid or victims or women or disadvantaged, we are not being realistic or true to what we believe about humanity. We can expect more of the muslim peoples and we should.

 

[Elind]

I agree Dave. So many injustices. The Palestinians haven't had a break since 1900. But unlike you I feel the 10th century machinations of a handful of Arab dictators has been far more unjust to the Palestinians than the foundation of Israel ever was.

I shortened the above quote for brevity, but appreciate the concise synopsis of this sorry history. I notice that you missed quoting the classic "never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity", but perhaps that is simply lost on most who run on a 3 month, or 4 year, timeline these days. Mycroft, I notice thinks he woke up two years ago; but on the wrong side of the bed it seems.

Nevertheless, you did omit mentioning the disastrous settlement policy of Israel (in this post anyway), which has given the Palestinians and their multitude of apologists most of their ammunition for all these years. The Israelis could have built new land in the Meditteranean, on stilts or the Queen Mary, to house the same number of settlers, for far less than it cost to secure their lebensraum housing outside of the borders they were given (yes given).

On the other hand the Palestinians could have taxed the settlers worse than any Scandinavia socialist would have, if they had accepted them them as dumb ass settlers willing to pay to live in "their" god's land under any circumstance.

For sucking us all into this crap, a pox on all their houses.

 

[Elind]

Elind, I don't think Mycroft has trivialized the cultural and religious gulf between the parties involved. I think you trivialize the race effect involved. Do you think the Jews think of themselves as a race distinct from Arabs? Do you think that the Arabs think they are distinct from Palestinians? Do you think the Persians feel distinct from them all?

I liked Mycroft's point and I even thought it had relevance in the way various American races perceive themselves.

When we begin to accept the hype that some peoples just can't do it, maybe it's because they are stupid or victims or women or disadvantaged, we are not being realistic or true to what we believe about humanity. We can expect more of the muslim peoples and we should.

Either you didn't understand my point, or you insist on redefining the English language; or perhaps both. Race has meaning if you use it correctly, but when you turn into a feel-good catch-all for differences that have nothing to do with race, then you trivialize the real racist issues, and muddy the others into something that nobody any longer has the same words to describe as the person they are talking to. Ever read George Orwell?

As to how people perceive themselves; all jews I know think of themselves as white (caucasian) and they know the difference between their race and their culture and their religion. You and Mycroft apparently don't.

The black jews in Israel, and elsewhere I am sure, also know the distinction between their skin color and their religion and culture. You and Mycroft apparently don't.

 

[Atlas]

Either you didn't understand my point, or you insist on redefining the English language; or perhaps both. Race has meaning if you use it correctly, but when you turn into a feel-good catch-all for differences that have nothing to do with race, then you trivialize the real racist issues, and muddy the others into something that nobody any longer has the same words to describe as the person they are talking to. Ever read George Orwell?

As to how people perceive themselves; all jews I know think of themselves as white (caucasian) and they know the difference between their race and their culture and their religion. You and Mycroft apparently don't.

The black jews in Israel, and elsewhere I am sure, also know the distinction between their skin color and their religion and culture. You and Mycroft apparently don't.

I don't know Elind, your dictionary will say something like: Race - people who are believed to belong to the same genetic stock.

The Aryans considered themselves a race. Would you have argued with them that they are the same as Jews? (If so, I'll bet not for long.)

I think there's more to it than you're admitting.