# airstrikes on Gaza **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 11, 2014, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856 "2014-07-11T14:55:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 33
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/641 "2014-07-24T16:22:08Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Then your “impression” was wrong. I stated exactly what actions each reporter was alleged to have been “punished” for. Neither could reasonably be interpreted as supporting or opposing either side. Your statement of the actions is incomplete. There were many other factors surrounding Ayman’s reassignment. Just as the tweet was not just about some punks threatening to destroy a journalist’s car. Ayman was reassigned right after a story detailing the tragic deaths of three young boys and then tweeting that the state department plced the blame for those deaths on Hamas despite the fct that they were killed by israeli missiles. The last one I posted seemed to pretty clearly imply that at least the journalist felt that she may have been targetted for her criticism of how the US media covers the conflict. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/642 "2014-07-24T16:24:48Z")
> [@dba\_Fred](#): > > Hamas may not represent the _will_ of the people there but Hamas exercises the _power/authority_ there. Robert Columbia was jsutifying the shitty treatment fo palestinians because of Palestinian support of Hamas. You are simply saying that Hamas is in power. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/643 "2014-07-24T16:36:41Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > If you want people to show “equally convincing” examples of a “problem” from the other perspective, first you have to show there actually exists a problem. > > How about this: Ayman Mohyeldin was removed because the network was concerned about his safety, after he tweeted that Hamas was to blame for civilian casualties. He was removed, in other words, for being critical of Hamas - score one for the “other side”. > > It is at least as convincing a narrative as “Ayman Mohyeldin was removed for being too pro-Palestinian”, for which, as far as I can see, there is no evidence whatsoever. You’re asking for definitive proof or some sort of admission from the punishers that they werpunishing people for being too critical of israel or sympathetic to the palestinians. :dubious: Ayman was removed amidst specualtion that “the removal had to do with Mohyeldin’s coverage of the civilian casualties or a couple of deleted posts on social media.” and he felt the need to tweet "“Im returning to #Gaza to report,” he wrote. “Proud of NBC’s continued commitment to cover the #Palestinian side of the story.” upon his return to the area. He was seen as being sympathetic to Palestinians. The tweet in question doesn’t blame palestine, it says taht the state department blames palestine for the dath of children casused by israeli missiles because Hamas didn’t accept a ceassefire. So no its not at least as convincing to say that Ayman was punished for being too pro-israeli. Sure all of these things could be coincidence but coincidence seems to almost exclusively on one side of the coin. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/644 "2014-07-24T16:47:17Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Are you claiming America has no right to exist? No, I said we have a right to exist by right of conquest and now after all the treaties we have in place we have a legitimate right to exist. Let me know when they have a treaty with the Palestinians. > [@](#): > > The fact is, pretty well every country in the world has been created, or its borders defined, by wars - often involving major displacements of populations. Yes and we have treaties for almost all of that and like I said, standards have changed since imperialism and colonialism were acceptable methods of nation building. > [@](#): > > For example, at the very same time as Israel was being created, so was India and Pakistan - the partition of which and subsequent conflicts created a human tragedy of displacement that dwarfs the Arab-Israeli one by an order of magnitude. Do India and Pakistan have the right to exist? Once again, done largely by agreement between representatives of the two prospective nations. Was Israel formed by an agreement between the zionists and representatives of the palestinians? > [@](#): > > See, the problem with your position is a complete lack of historical perspective - an apparent desire to see the Arab/Israeli thing as unique. It isn’t. Yet it has lead to a unique situation - people questioning a whole country’s very right to exist. Of course its unique. Where else has a minority declared a nation carved out of a land populated mostly by others in the face of oposition of all its prospective neighbors? ---
**Author:** ![1224rattusrattus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/ec9cab/32.png) [@1224rattusrattus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1224rattusrattus)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/645 "2014-07-24T17:06:33Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > My opinion is that they would accept it joyously, and even abide by it for a period of time. But…little by little, the pressure would mount, and demands would increase. They would always be looking for a reason to protest. As time went by the protests would be more vigorous. > > The Right of Return wouldn’t be enough; they would start to demand restoration of property. > > Shared control of Jerusalem wouldn’t be enough; they’d start to demand sole control. Truthfully I don’t see how the right of return is being banded around here like it’s an outrageous demand. By 1949 750,000 Arabs had been displaced from their homes. The reason for them leaving their villages- whether it be intimidation by the IDF or voluntary movement- is entirely irrelevant. Once the war was over they should have been allowed to return without harassment from the state. This is why we have UN resolution 194. It’s not a hard concept to get your head around. Not too sure if this has been addressed by someone else as I’ve only ready up to page 9, but… As to Martin Hyde’s cite from the Jewish Virtual Library that Arabs made up a mere 18% of the population in '48- I was unaware till now that anyone, even staunch Zionists, claimed that Jews formed a demographic majority during the Palestinian Mandate. Page five of this text illustrates that Jews were a mere third of the population west of the River Jordan in 1947, and I suspect this is the consensus throughout the world. [http://www.archive-iussp.org/Brazil2001/s60/S64\_02\_dellapergola.pdf](http://www.archive-iussp.org/Brazil2001/s60/S64_02_dellapergola.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/646 "2014-07-24T18:06:15Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > You’re asking for definitive proof or some sort of admission from the punishers that they werpunishing people for being too critical of israel or sympathetic to the palestinians. :dubious: > > Ayman was removed amidst specualtion that “the removal had to do with Mohyeldin’s coverage of the civilian casualties or a couple of deleted posts on social media.” and he felt the need to tweet "“Im returning to #Gaza to report,” he wrote. “Proud of NBC’s continued commitment to cover the #Palestinian side of the story.” upon his return to the area. He was seen as being sympathetic to Palestinians. The tweet in question doesn’t blame palestine, it says taht the state department blames palestine for the dath of children casused by israeli missiles because Hamas didn’t accept a ceassefire. So no its not at least as convincing to say that Ayman was punished for being too pro-israeli. > > Sure all of these things could be coincidence but coincidence seems to almost exclusively on one side of the coin. Or, to put it another way, one ‘side of the coin’ is coinsistent in making completely unsubstantiated ‘speculations’ about how the media is biased against them - and you are interpreting that noise as ‘evidence’ on the ‘no smoke without fire’ principle. I’m afraid the burden lies on you to demonstrate the existence of a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/647 "2014-07-24T18:06:30Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I don’t know where you are getting this retarded idea that I ever put myself forward as an expert on everything Arab. I make fun of people who insist that I be an expert on the middle east before I can criticize Israel but thats really not the same thing as saying I’m an expert on everything Arab. It’s quite clear that you aren’t an expert on all things Arab, or on much of anything in the region. I was engaging in sarcasm. As far as I can tell, no one has ever insisted that one be an expert before discussing a topic, but trying to hide blinding ignorance of the most basic of facts like the 35 year old peace between Egypt and Israel by claiming people are persecuting you for not being an expert isn’t scoring you any points. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And yes, I’ve heard of the three no’s and you do realize that every arab nation has signed the arab peace initiative and that more or less means that the three no’s are dead letter law. Its been dead letter law since the fall of the soviet union as far as I can tell. In fact its so dead that Israel doesn’t seem particularly interested in recognition anymore seeing as they already have de facto peace with everyone except a rag tag bunch of militant fereedom fighters/terrorists in Gaza and negotiation with the Palestinians ona fairly regular basis. Way to completely miss the point. You’re aware of the Three Nos, presumably you are aware of what the second one is - “no recognition of Israel” - yet you see no connection between this and that > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Not honoring Israeli passports is diplomatic because some countries simply don’t recognize Israel as a country (they’re not all muslim). And as has been pointed out to you all of the countries are in fact Muslim. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/648 "2014-07-24T18:16:26Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > No, I said we have a right to exist by right of conquest and now after all the treaties we have in place we have a legitimate right to exist. Let me know when they have a treaty with the Palestinians. It is a treaty that creates a legitimate right to exist? :dubious: > [@](#): > > Yes and we have treaties for almost all of that and like I said, standards have changed since imperialism and colonialism were acceptable methods of nation building. Many of these examples occured at exactly the same time as the foirmation of Israel - for example, many nations in Europe had their borders settled after WW2, which was a mere three years before Israel was formed. So the ‘every one else is really ancient and so okay’ excuse does not fly. > [@](#): > > Once again, done largely by agreement between representatives of the two prospective nations. Was Israel formed by an agreement between the zionists and representatives of the palestinians? No, it was done by a UN partition plan that the Israelis accepted and the Arabs rejected. And you are simply historically wrong about Indian partition. It was accomplished by the British, without the “agreement between representatives” you find so necessary. > [@](#): > > Of course its unique. Where else has a minority declared a nation carved out of a land populated mostly by others in the face of oposition of all its prospective neighbors? Firstly, you are wrong in your characterization. The original nation of Israel contained a majority of Jewish Israelis. It is only because of the wars - instigated by the Arabs in rejection of the UN partition plan - that the nation came to own lands “populated mostly by others”. Second, nations carving their own destiny on ethno-nationalist lines and incurring the emnity of their neighbours is as old as ethno-nationalism. ---
**Author:** ![1224rattusrattus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/ec9cab/32.png) [@1224rattusrattus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1224rattusrattus)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/649 "2014-07-24T19:48:00Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Firstly, you are wrong in your characterization. **The original nation of Israel contained a majority of Jewish Israelis**. It is only because of the wars - instigated by the Arabs in rejection of the UN partition plan - that the nation came to own lands “populated mostly by others”. Can you expand upon that. Are you referring to the Jewish half of the Palestinian Mandate? And for the sake of argument could you explain why you feel the Arabs were wrong to reject the partition plan. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/650 "2014-07-24T19:58:40Z")
> [@1224rattusrattus](#): > > Can you expand upon that. Are you referring to the Jewish half of the Palestinian Mandate? And for the sake of argument could you explain why you feel the Arabs were wrong to reject the partition plan. If they’d decided to accept it rather than trying to “push the Jews into the Sea” they’d have a vastly larger state than they have now. Unfortunately, they were strongly convinced they’d win because they were used to the idea of Jews being subservient weaklings and wound up getting spanked. Truth be told, that’s the major reason there’s so much more hatred of Israel than other non-Muslims who’ve committed vastly worse crimes. Getting not just beaten but utterly humiliated by people they’d always seen as their inferiors was a huge psychological rebuke. Also, yes it’s pretty clear he was referring to the Jewish area assigned by the UN. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/651 "2014-07-24T20:10:17Z")
> [@1224rattusrattus](#): > > Can you expand upon that. Are you referring to the Jewish half of the Palestinian Mandate? And for the sake of argument could you explain why you feel the Arabs were wrong to reject the partition plan. Yes - which was designed, in fact, to create majority-ethnic countries both Arab and Jew. The Arabs were clearly wrong to reject the partition plan for a number of reasons. First, they were morally wrong to choose war, when a peaceful solution was available. Second, they were wrong in fact when they believed that they had the strength to win. Starting a war of aggression - and losing - is just about the definition of “wrong”. Third, the Palestinains in particular were wrong to reject a plan that would have given them a country in 1948. They were wrong to rely on theor brother Arabs to look out for their interests. That wrong was the worst wrong of all, as their fellow Arabs have done nothing for them. The difference in treatment between the Arab and Jewish populations in the ME is striking. The war eventually caused huge population transfers throughout the ME, much the same as “partition” did in India/Pakistan (albeit on a smaller scale and with less bloodshed). The historic Jewish populations throughout the ME mostly vanished - most of them, to Israel. In point of fact, they are around equal in numbers to the Palestinians displaced by the violent formation of the state of Israel - but there, the similarity vanishes. You don’t hear about the “Syrian Jew refugee problem” or the “Iraqi Jew refugee problem”, because there is no such problem - unlike the Arabs, the Jews did not keep their “refugees” penned up in squalid camps fof 60+ years. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/652 "2014-07-24T20:27:53Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > The Arabs were clearly wrong to reject the partition plan for a number of reasons. > > First, they were morally wrong to choose war, when a peaceful solution was available. > > Second, they were wrong in fact when they believed that they had the strength to win. Starting a war of aggression - and losing - is just about the definition of “wrong”. > > Third, the Palestinains in particular were wrong to reject a plan that would have given them a country in 1948. They were wrong to rely on theor brother Arabs to look out for their interests. That wrong was the worst wrong of all, as their fellow Arabs have done nothing for them. Wasn’t it Abba Eban who said the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity? And that was even before the Camp David negotiations. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/653 "2014-07-24T20:57:31Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Or, to put it another way, one ‘side of the coin’ is coinsistent in making completely unsubstantiated ‘speculations’ about how the media is biased against them - and you are interpreting that noise as ‘evidence’ on the ‘no smoke without fire’ principle. > > I’m afraid the burden lies on you to demonstrate the existence of a problem. Well, are you at least acknowledging smoke on one side and clear skies on the other? Or do you have examples of suspicious activity on your side of the coin as well because this is like the third or fourth time i am asking. How is it that all the suspicious activity all seems to go one way? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/654 "2014-07-24T21:07:06Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > It’s quite clear that you aren’t an expert on all things Arab, or on much of anything in the region. I was engaging in sarcasm. As far as I can tell, no one has ever insisted that one be an expert before discussing a topic, but trying to hide blinding ignorance of the most basic of facts like the 35 year old peace between Egypt and Israel by claiming people are persecuting you for not being an expert isn’t scoring you any points. Where do I show blinding ignorance of the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, I was alive when it was signed and i was alive when they assassinated Sadat (in part) for signing it. I think it is pretty silly to pretend that Egyptians suddenly put aside their hostility towards israel because sadat signed a peace treaty.:rolleyes: > [@](#): > > Way to completely miss the point. You’re aware of the Three Nos, presumably you are aware of what the second one is - “no recognition of Israel” - yet you see no connection between this and that And as has been pointed out to you all of the countries are in fact Muslim. We’re getting far afield here mostly because everyone want to spend their time trying to undermine my credibility rather than deal with my arguments but the three nos are basically dead letter. All of the signatories (with a little waffling from Lebanon) have agreed to recognize Israel if they can reach an agreement along the lines of the arab peace initiative. I can’t imagine anything short of an actual peace treaty and recognition that would go further towards putting the three no’s into the dustbin of history. And Cuba’s (and a few others) recognition of israel is relatively recent (at least relative to the article that I had read a while back). ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/655 "2014-07-24T21:17:53Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Well, are you at least acknowledging smoke on one side and clear skies on the other? Or do you have examples of suspicious activity on your side of the coin as well because this is like the third or fourth time i am asking. How is it that all the suspicious activity all seems to go one way? Are you asking me to make baseless accusations on the other side? What, exactly, would that accomplish? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/656 "2014-07-24T21:57:15Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > It is a treaty that creates a legitimate right to exist? :dubious: Yes, how do you think a usurper nation gains the legitimate right to exist without being attacked by the usurped? Israel has no right to expect peace from the Palestinians or its neighbors. > [@](#): > > Many of these examples occured at exactly the same time as the foirmation of Israel - for example, many nations in Europe had their borders settled after WW2, which was a mere three years before Israel was formed. So the ‘every one else is really ancient and so okay’ excuse does not fly. Of course it does. The India Pakistan partition is nothing like Israel, which Palestinian representatives were at the table negotiating the terms and the borders like there was with India/pakistan? No, it was done by a UN partition plan that the Israelis accepted and the Arabs rejected. > [@](#): > > And you are simply historically wrong about Indian partition. It was accomplished by the British, without the “agreement between representatives” you find so necessary. I’m not an expert on the India partition but: > **[Partition of India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India)** > > The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India\[c\] into two independent dominion states, the Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India and the Dominion of Pakistan, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The partition involved the division of two provinces, Bengal and the Punjab, based on district-wise Hindu or Muslim majorities. It also involved the division of the British Indian Army, the R... “The Indian political leaders accepted the Plan on 2 June.” “The Muslim league’s demands for a separate state were thus conceded.” > [@](#): > > Firstly, you are wrong in your characterization. The original nation of Israel contained a majority of Jewish Israelis. It is only because of the wars - instigated by the Arabs in rejection of the UN partition plan - that the nation came to own lands “populated mostly by others”. I think a closer reading of what I wrote will show that I said that the land from which Israel was CARVED was majority non-jew. What percentage of the newly formed Israel was Jewish? How many of those Jews were immigrants? IIRC the Jewish population in what would become Palestine was about 5%. [Demographics of the State of Palestine - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Palestine#British_control_1918.E2.80.931948) > [@](#): > > Second, nations carving their own destiny on ethno-nationalist lines and incurring the emnity of their neighbours is as old as ethno-nationalism. Yeah but when that ethno-nationalism is practiced by a group composed almost entirely by a group of minority immigrants we can also call it something else, can’t we? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/657 "2014-07-24T22:03:39Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > If they’d decided to accept it rather than trying to “push the Jews into the Sea” they’d have a vastly larger state than they have now. > > Unfortunately, they were strongly convinced they’d win because they were used to the idea of Jews being subservient weaklings and wound up getting spanked. > > Truth be told, that’s the major reason there’s so much more hatred of Israel than other non-Muslims who’ve committed vastly worse crimes. > > Getting not just beaten but utterly humiliated by people they’d always seen as their inferiors was a huge psychological rebuke. So they felt like the bully that was beaten up by a girl? I’ve heard this theory before and so far it seems to be mostsly armchair psychology and pure theory. You don’t think that they could have taken offense at a bunch of people coming in and creating a jewish state in the middle of a majority muslim population? > [@](#): > > Also, yes it’s pretty clear he was referring to the Jewish area assigned by the UN. And I was not. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/658 "2014-07-24T22:11:05Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Yes - which was designed, in fact, to create majority-ethnic countries both Arab and Jew. Except the arabs side was like 99% Arab and the jewish side was like 60% Jewish and 40% arab. > [@](#): > > The Arabs were clearly wrong to reject the partition plan for a number of reasons. > > First, they were morally wrong to choose war, when a peaceful solution was available. Hey, Malthus, i’m going to move into your house tomorrow and offer to peacefully share your home with you. I’ll only take half the kitchen half the master bedroom and two of your other bedrooms. It would be morally wrong of you to reject my proposal because I am offering a peaceful solution to our mutual desire to live in your house. > [@](#): > > Second, they were wrong in fact when they believed that they had the strength to win. Starting a war of aggression - and losing - is just about the definition of “wrong”. Well, yes and this is the only claim that Israel has to existence. > [@](#): > > Third, the Palestinains in particular were wrong to reject a plan that would have given them a country in 1948. They were wrong to rely on theor brother Arabs to look out for their interests. That wrong was the worst wrong of all, as their fellow Arabs have done nothing for them. You’re right, the moving trucks should be there in the morning. > [@](#): > > The difference in treatment between the Arab and Jewish populations in the ME is striking. The war eventually caused huge population transfers throughout the ME, much the same as “partition” did in India/Pakistan (albeit on a smaller scale and with less bloodshed). The historic Jewish populations throughout the ME mostly vanished - most of them, to Israel. In point of fact, they are around equal in numbers to the Palestinians displaced by the violent formation of the state of Israel - but there, the similarity vanishes. You don’t hear about the “Syrian Jew refugee problem” or the “Iraqi Jew refugee problem”, because there is no such problem - unlike the Arabs, the Jews did not keep their “refugees” penned up in squalid camps fof 60+ years. The theory seems to be that because Jews took land from Palestinians and gave it to fellow Jews the arab nations that subsequently took land from Jews should give it to the displaced palestinians? And that somehow makes the taking of land from palestinians justified. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/659 "2014-07-24T22:16:27Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Are you asking me to make baseless accusations on the other side? What, exactly, would that accomplish? 😕 Do you have any smoke to point out or not? I’m guessing not. I wasn’t making a big deal of this other than to post (without comment) another link to a post that already posted two links. Why wasn’t there as much scrutiny of the original posters? hrmmm… ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/660 "2014-07-24T22:24:39Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > The Jews are a nation. . . . A nice idea, but physically unworkable. Where are the borders? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856.md?page=32) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856.md?page=34)