I think perhaps they need to hear a viewpoint other than their own, and certain rational viewpoints need to be stated, even if some people see red in consequence. Changing people’s attitudes often involves them going through phases of anger, sadness and acceptance, as I understand it. Consequently, if making people angry is not acceptable, change is not acceptable. Change in the region is however probably a good idea.
Let me translate: we’ll accept that a Palestinian State may exist somewhere other than where it’s citizens want to live, as long as they accept that they may not live where we threw them out of by force. Further, I will accept them having half of the city they want, as long as we get the half they want and they get the half neither side wants.
You’re too generous, really.
I assume you merely nod acceptingly and mutter “well, its fair play, after all” after they commit violence against you as part of efforts to get it back, right? Right?
Have any archaeological excavations ever been done on it? What if it turned out to be a Byzantine-era ruin? Also, thedestruction of (Herod’s) Temple is a historical fact-what if the Romans completely destroyed it? Would this site lose all its interest, if it wereproven to be a totally different artifact?
The person suggesting a radical change has the burden of proving that such change is likely to have any benefit, before going through the process of suggesting that others suck it up. The history of UN involvement in the region is not encouraging. One may refer to the use of UN peacekeepers in the '67 conflict as a representative example. Nothing suggests that they are likely to be any more effective in the present or future.
It should be noted for purposes of debate that while the so-called “Wailing Wall” is under Israeli jurisdiction, the Islamic holy sites on the Temple Mount such as the Dome of the Rock remain under Jordanian and Islamic jurisdiction to this day - even though they were taken in battle in '67.
The image of Israelis brutally taking the Islamic holy sites away from the Palestinians isn’t accurate. In fact, when the Prime Minister of Israel so much as dared to set foot on the Temple Mount, it set off rioting.
Not exactly a fair translation. How about 'no nation will ever voluntarily agree to commit collective suicide, even in the cause of peace, no matter how convenient disinterested outsiders would find this ‘solution’ ?
No-one can justify the past history of their nation - all of whom, without exception, are founded on dispossessing others.
If you are Australian, there are some Aboriginal groups who would like a word with you.
The “Wailing wall” is pretty clearly the Herodian retaining wall to the Temple mount - that isn’t in any dispute as far as I’m aware. You can see Herodian constructions all over the country - it uses a very distinctive style of stone-work.
Of the Temple itself, there is no trace left - there is another building built on the same site (the Dome of the Rock).
The Mount is a giant man-made plateau, held in place with huge stones.
While religion does certainly play a part, it doesn’t explain why a fundamentally secular country like Israel cares so much about Jerusalem. If you have to blame something, blame nationalism, not religion.
First of all, might does make right. You may not like it, and neither do I, really, but that’s the world we live in and closing your eyes and wishing otherwise won’t change things.
Second of all, while I despise Saddam for initiating such a useless, mercenary war, and deplore the methods the Serbians employed in fighting their wars (mass murder, rape, torture), the fact of the matter is that they lost. If they hadn’t, 20 years from now the world would have forgotten all about them, and a century from now only historians would remember that nations named “Kuwait” and “Bosnia” once existed. It’s the way of the world.
No country is an island (metaphorically speaking. I mean, obviously). Every nation’s foundation involved other countries both assisting it and hindering it. France, for instance, gave the Americans far more aid on their road to independence than the U.S. or anyone else gave Israel, and yet no-one has ever said that France “gave” the America its freedom.
The Partition Plan, incidentally, was worth less than the paper it was printed on, and its sole purpose was to give the Brits an excuse to tuck their tail between their legs and flee. It was rejected or ignored by virtually all of the parties involved at the time, and it hasn’t become any more valid since
I was merely responding to a loaded, well poisoning question with one of my own. I am all in favor of open, rational discussion, but I insist on hearing it from both sides of the dispute. Yammering on about rights and wrongs is not conductive to proper peacemaking.
(Incidentally, virtually all of that immigration was completely legal. Are you claiming that legal immigrants should have fewer rights than natives?)
I’m all for stopping the cycle of violence. Let’s make the cutoff date 1974, the year I was born - everything that happened before that date doesn’t matter and shouldn’t be fought over; all conquests occuring before that date must be accepted as fait accomplis, all conquests after it rejected. Deal?
When they’re ready to try again, we’ll be here, waiting.
(Honestly - I’m sorry about the macho bullshit. It’s just something we Israelis do reflexively. Our country was founded on one part inspiration, nine parts persperation and ninety parts macho bullshit. It’s one reason we like Americans so much - you guys do it almost as well as we do).
In fact, I hereby declare that I have a right of ownership to both Vatican and Mecca (documentation upon request). These sites are now officially contested. Or is it disputed? I can never tell the two apart.
You know a thing or two about the Arab world. What would it take for a decisive majority of Arabs to accept a Jewish State as a permanent part of the Middle East? Not as colonialists, or as Crusaders, or as a temporary irritant that will disappear in a few decades. What do we have to do to convince them to accept us as natives, with as much a right to be here as theirs?
How do we get them to respect us as equals? Be honest.
It’s religion and nationalism both. I’d not consider Israel a fundamentally secular state - I’d pick Turkey as more secular (but nonetheless religious) state. Israel was, after all, founded as a result of a religio-nationalistic movement to establish a state for Jews in their biblical homeland. Although it is formally secular and its laws codify freedom of religion, in practice Israel was also founded on religious fundamentals. That’s why, for example, imports of non-kosher foods were banned (until quite recently I believe), why entertainment and public transportation services shut down every Sabbath, and why the chief rabbinate was given judicial authority over marital issues.
Please try harder not to automatically mischaracterize what I write. I have at no point stated what I “like” or don’t. The above response is rubbish: by avoiding the real argument (that “might makes right” is not a viable solution, especially for a small state so dependent on International support) you end up being the one “closing your eyes and wishing otherwise”.
Now cool the “macho bullshit” as you call it and go back to revisit what I wrote. Why did the two examples I cited “lose”? They were the clear victors - until foreign (super)powers decided to intervene. Might makes right only in the most myopic terms - as Saddam Hussein and Milosevic found out.
A more contemporary example is needed, maybe even one that does not predate global forums. France is not the League of Nations or the United Nations. France had no voice to claim or deny American independence on an international basis, it could only provide material and diplomatic assistance and offer to recognize independence as one sovereign state speaking to hundreds of other states. Both the League of Nations and the United Nations (and of course their members) devoted years of effort to set up the country that would eventually become Israel.
Incorrect and rather jaded too I might add. Is this “sole purpose” taught in schools or is this your own interpretation? Resolution 181 is right there in the Israeli declaration of independence as one of the items that recognizes the right of the Jewish people to set up a state. Hardly worthless for that reason alone!
Although the plan was never implemented, the efforts at the LoN and UN to find some sort of solution to the problem was a political movement in itself without which Zionism would probably have floundered. It seems exceedingly strange to belittle as you do the years of international work and assistance to the Jewish people that went into making Israel possible.
The point is that Jews did not magically appear in Palestine and heroically carve out a country for themselves using only their wit and brawn and faith. They were aided, assisted, and enabled in their endeavour by the international community.
I couldn’t agree more, but you won’t achieve any of that by providing thread irritants like the ones I objected to. You’ll just end up in the usual OP-busting bias-driven confrontation - which I understand is very popular in Israel
No, legitimacy of immigration up to the declaration of Israeli independence had nothing to do with the point I have been making, although I believe you are incorrect in your claim that it was virtually all legal. Consider as an example Aliyah Bet, between 1934-1948, which was massive Jewish immigration to Palestine in direct breach of British restrictions. Whether you choose to call it “illegal” or “clandestine”, it was not legal.
Which leads us back to the point I have been making about the importance to Israel in particular of the international community. There are international forums, rights, agreements, and laws, all of which can work for or against a nation. This is what strongmen (the hardliners’ choice and chief proponents of Might Makes Right) - routinely fail to understand, and they can end up suffering for it grievously - along with their nations of course. This lengthy point might as well be addressed to both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian problem, of course.
I think this is a joke, but I can’t be sure since it is essentially your debating position. Which, again, just proves to me how utterly hopeless the M.E. situation is and just increases my annoyance that my country ever got involved in this mess.
I don’t think you will be able to convince the rest of the world of the fiction that the Israelis are natives to the M.E.
No you aren’t. You’re full of crap. You seem to be suggesting that the Arab claim over Jerusalem is entirely arbitrary and is being made by people who live far away and have scarcely set foot in the place.
What do they say to you when you ask them? You do ask them, don’t you? And what is their response when you remind them of the Jews’ ancient claim to Jerusalem?
I should expect that you spend about 10 times as much time discussing these sorts of issues with your Arab neighbors face-to-face as you do with American liberals on a message board.
Meh, better than showing why the context of his assertion is silly, we should be pointing out that it’s factually incorrect. While, obviously, Israel contains a large number of immigrants, it also contains a large number of families descended from Jews who never left the region for centuries if not millenia as well as many, many Jews who were expelled from Arab countries and resettled in Israel in 1948.
In very real terms, quite a large percentage of Israelis are indeed native to the Middle East by lineage.
No. Zionism was, for the most part, a secular movement.
Totally wrong. Those things are because the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox swing their votes in the Knesset as a block, and due to Israel’s coalition government format, groups that are disciplined with how their votes are used get to exercise disproportionate political influence on the system. I’m not sure it was ever actually illegal to import non-kosher food, anyways. Especially since the Orthodox generally want a specific rabbi to certify the process rather than simply having kosher ingredients, or what have you.
Also totally false. They ‘set up’ nothing, they did nothing. They mouthed some words and scribbled some declarations that weren’t worth the paper they were written on. The Partition Plan wasn’t what influenced the shape Israel had in 1948, it was the war between them and their neighbors.
How many Arab tanks the Partition Plan destroy?
How many infantry units?
How many airplanes?
Saying that 181 in any way gave Israel its independence is like saying that the Laws of Nature’s God gave the US its independence. It’s just silly. Sure, Israel and the US couched their decelerations of independence with all sorts of images, metaphors, verbiage, etc…
This is just absurd. Zionism was a movement for nearly half a century before the League of Nations said jack about it. It continued on even during the racist White Paper time period and even when it was totally clear that the UN was just offering words, people were still flocking to the country, ready to fight for self determination.
The idea that the Zionists would have simply given up if the UN didn’t make vaguely reassuring noises is gainsaid by all the actual facts.
It is much stranger for you to invent such “work” and “assistance” when even a fairly cursory glance at history shows us that Israel was settled, established and defended almost entirely without the rest of the world actually lifting a finger other than, for the most part, the work of Jews around the world to provide help from afar, largely in monetary terms.
Please, for instance, list the members of the international community who negotiated with the mafia on the New York docks in order for weapons to be shipped to the Zionists in crates marked “used industrial equipment” and such. Or the members of the international community who commanded the Haganah. Or the members of the international community who treated battlefield casualties or ran the schools or the grocery stores or the farms or the…
Or is all you have to point to for all this ‘help’, some words that were nobody even attempted to enforce, ever?
You seem to be arguing that the Israelis didn’t do a good enough job of kicking the asses of the arabs in the area.
Unfortunately for them, it’s now too late to rectify that mistake - unlike when North America and Australia were colonized/conquered, there are now all these pesky superpowers that loom over everyone and smack the hands of anybody who tries to commit a proper genocide. (Pesky superpowers.) So even if Israel wanted to ‘correct’ their problem the macho-bullshit way, which I am not saying they intend to do - either way, the opportunity for that has passed.
