No, it’s an excuse for Palestinian atrocities. Please give me a series of cites for other groups that resorted to suicide bombings. The Tamil Tigers come to mind, but I can’t think of any other liberation movement that used suicide bombing.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by JonBodner *
**“poor stupid third-worlders with a rather brownish skin?”
It doesn’t matter who they are. What matters is who they’re perceived to be. A jewish Israeli is perceived as “white westerner”. An arab isn’t. An Israeli is “like us”. An arab is “not like us”. You can point me to as many sephardic Jews whose family lived for centuries amongst arab neighbors, it doesn’t change the overall perception in western countries.
Then you should buy a new sarcasm and irony detector. Though in the case you’re mentionning it’s not exactly sarcasm or irony but a reference to the fact that there’s a significant part of the population in western countries which do despise people living in third-world countries, and look down on said countries (and incidentally couldn’t care less about what’s happening in said countries, as long as it doesn’t result in the death or kidnapping of some westerners).
I’m pretty certain you know perfectly well that if religious or ethnical strife result in the kiling of of dozen people in India or Sri-Lanka, it will barely be mentionned by the medias. If same happens in Israel, it will be all over the the news. How do you explain the difference, if not by a far geater interest in Israeli issues. And how do you explain this greater interest? Or similarily, how do you explain there are on this board so many threads about the situation in Israel, and so few about the situation in, say, Congo?
I didn’t say that these were the reasons why I hold Israel to different standarts, but the reason why people criticize Israel but not as much various other countries which have worse records.
But certainly, I’m not going to compare Israel with a tinpot dictatorship because i don’t expect said dictatorship to act in a way a democratic state should. Remember, the Israli government is elected by the people, in case you didn’t notice. It doesn’t follow the whims of a self-appointed leader.
Beside, the pro-Israel crowd commonly points out that Israel is the only democracy in the region, etc…If one stress this fact, then one must expect to be told that Israel must live up to the standarts which are expected from a democratic country. Yes, that’s definitely higher standarts. But if you prefer Israel to be held by looser standarts, and intend to argue that it only needs to be marginally better than Syria, then go on…
Also, I rarely have to criticize a tinpot dictatorship simply because there won’t be a crowd of posters trying to tell me that whatever they’re doing is rightful and blameless. People have strongly divergent opinions about Israel. Rarely so about Burma. If someone tells me “Jewish people had every right to move in Israel and settle there” I say no. If someone tells me “Chinese people had every right to move in Tibet and settle there”, I also say no. But it happens there are scores of posters supporting Israel, and not much supporting China. If the board was swarmed for some reason by people stating “Tibet historically belongs to China”, you may be sure that there would be plenty of posters contradicting them and criticizing China. But it’s not going to happen.
If it really makes you feel better, I can tell you that North-Korea is way worst than Israel. Is your intent merely to convince people of such a thing? Then, certainly, you won’t find many people arguing against you. But I doubt it’s actually what you hope to achieve.
I don’t particulary respect Israel. There isn’t much in the way of country I respect. Actually, I don’t feel much about countries, though I certainly feel concerned about their policies.
And why, according to you, would I want a reason to demonize Israel? For once, I am going to make assumptions about you. You’re the kind of person who’s so enamored with Israel that you can’t admit any criticism about it, and find convenient to regard anybody who doesn’t share your opinions as being antisemitic, because it’s way easier to point finger and make ad hominem attacks (and build some strawmen in the process) than to actually argue about an issue. Perhaps also it’s conforting because you can tell to yourself : “I’m of course right, and my opponents are all just evil antisemites, I don’t even have to pay attention to what they say”.
If you want to argue about the legitimacy of the creation of Israel , then give relevant arguments, and quit trying to imply that anybody who hold a different view is an evil racist. If you just can’t think otherwise, then maybe you need to buy a brand new worldview, where people aren’t divided in three categories : those who praise Israel, those who are just ignorant, and those who are plain antisemites.
The land wasn’t taken. The original Jewish settlers bought the land from Arabs in the area. I would love for you to provide me a single cite.
Now in 1948, somewhere around 500,000-700,000 Arabs fled. Many of them left because the Arab leaders told them to “temporarily” get out of the way of the invading Arab armies. Some fled from fear of being caught in a war zone. Others were probably forced from their homes by the IDF. Why these Arabs have a right to return to Israel while Sudeten Germans don’t have a right to return to the Czech Republic after their expulsion post-WW II is beyond me. Has the clock run out for the Sudeten Germans, but not for the Palestinians?
Nope, I haven’t forgotten about the Romany. The general consensus of the Romany is that they don’t want a homeland, from what I recall from articles I’ve read about them.
Why does Arafat think that Palestine is his home? He was born in Cairo.
See, you’re hung up on the colonial bit. And I think this is where things are going wrong. To Jews, there is nothing colonial about Israel. Jews see going to Israel as returning home. I know that this is impossible for you to grasp. But your hostility about religion prevents you from even trying to understand the Jewish side. All you can see is brown people and “white” people. You’ve been brainwashed into believing that in any conflict between brown people and people you consider white, especially over land, the brown people are in the right and the “white” people are wrong.
Nope, I don’t hate Arabs a bit. I hate people who murder and I hate people who celebrate murder. I don’t care what their skin color or ethnicity is.
Near as I can tell, your position is “whatever is done is done, except for the Palestinians, who should have a right to go back to Israel”.
If you ignore the religious aspect to the entire conflict, then you miss most of the point.
No, I’m just trying to figure out if there is ANY other country that you hold to the same standard as Israel. So far, I can’t find one.
Any Dutch person who wants to move to the US can do so. People will sell them land and won’t shoot at them or anything. They can live in peace. And if one day the US gets swept up in anti-Dutch hysteria and the mobs are chasing after people in wooden shoes, they can flee back to Holland. That’s because they have a place they can call home.
You are aware that the descendants of those Jews will be thrown out of their homes if a Jew-free Palestinian state is created with East Jerusalem as its capital, right?
And that’s why you’re daft. As a European who feels very guilty about Europe’s colonial past, you think of Israel as a colonial outpost. It isn’t. It is a homeland for Jews. It’s not like they picked the spot at random; that would have been the Uganda plan that was originally proposed. The first Jews returned when the Turks ruled Palestine.
Until you can even consider the possibility that Israeli Jews don’t see themselves as colonists, but rather as people who have finally returned home after 80 generations of exile, you don’t have much of a point.
[quote]
Illegitimate now? No, I don’t. In the same way I don’t consider Israel as illegitimate now, as I stated in my very first post. But european people originally settling in the New World and Australia at the expense of the local people was definitely illegitimate, in the same way that Jews settling in Israel at the expense of the local people was illegitimate.
So the justification of “I killed everyone else up to this here border” is OK in your book, but “God gave it to me” isn’t?
So we can now say that the upper limit on the statute of limitations is around 1300 years. We’re now between 53 years and 1300. That’s progress.
I’m guessing that you haven’t actually read the Bible, and certainly aren’t familiar with it in Hebrew, nor are you familiar with the commentary and history that is associated with it. And given your already-expressed views towards religion, I’m sure you hold nothing but animosity towards the Bible, what it says, and people who live their lives according to it. That’s mighty tolerant of you.
But I digress. I’m going from memory, so I might not get details right. There were two tribes of people who were marked for death in the Bible: Amalekites and Moloch worshipers. The Amalekites did a sneak attack on the Children of Israel right after they crossed the Sea of Reeds. Rather than face the men in the front, they attacked the weak, the women, and the children in the back. For this cowardly attack, Jews are commanded to exterminate them.
Moloch worship involved people burning their children alive so that their crops would be good for the upcoming year. Now, in a multi-cultural world, maybe it’s OK to accept that some people burn babies because they think it makes the wheat grow. For some reason, that stuffy old Bible doesn’t think that such people are fit to live.
Ah, that’s because you are home. It’s like asking a fish what he thinks of water. You’ve never known a place where you are the outsider. You’ve had a place to go back to when you are away. Must be nice that no one condemns you or calls you a Nazi for having such a place.
I’ll make it easier for you. Can you find any other people on the planet who you think have a legitimate complaint along the lines of the Palestinians?
See, you’re ducking all the tough questions, and falling back on a fallicious “colonialism” argument. You don’t want to have an opinion on religious arguments. You don’t want to talk about a statute of limitations, and you don’t want to talk about rights of people (and peoples), even though you keep bringing up rights. So what exactly are you arguing? “Israel is wrong, but I won’t give a intellectually-defensible reason why.”?
That’s because I’m trying to pin down an answer from you, and you won’t give it. You keep falling back on non-deterministic emptiness. If a country is founded illigitimately, how does it magically become legitimate?
The Chechens, actually, are pretty similar to the Jews. They were conquered by Russia in the 1800’s, expelled from their land by Stalin, and they came back, and they’re fighting for it. So, are the Chechens entitled to their land or not?
Because you keep putting colonialism into it. It isn’t. Why not try this story line on: “2000 years of being kicked in the ass is enough. Let’s go back to our ancestral homeland. It’s mostly empty, and we might have to fight for our right to live there, but better to fight for your home than to be chased around the world and live or die at the whims of others.”
If I can’t fight you off, all of it. If I can fight you off, none of it. Or are you claiming that my house is your ancestral homeland?
Without dipping my toe into the rest of this argument ( which I’ve done before ), I’ll just note that the above is largely inaccurate. Both Egyptian Arabs and Egyptian Copts are substantially descended from the same people. Permanent Arab immigration into Egypt was never very significant - far less than into regions like Syria and Iraq ( where it had been an ongoing trend, with significant Arab presense even before the rise of Islam ) and even rather less, possibly, than the Maghreb and al-Andalus. For the most part the early Arab presense was limited to the single garrison city of Fustat. Egypt was predominately Christian until about the 10th century ( though conversions started as early as the 8th ), when a variety of pressures ( most notably perhaps, Fatimid intolerance ) triggered a wave of conversion which in part brought with it an adoption of Arabic. But even before and after this, the use of Arabic as a lingua franca of not just religion, but also literature and governance in many areas of the Caliphate ( it never displaced Persian in those latter spheres for a couple of reasons ), caused many to adopt it, just as many had adopted Latin during the Roman period. In fact Arabic spread faster in the western part of the empire than Islam did.
- Tamerlane
yes, it should…unfortunately we’re being told more than that during the worst atrocities when one faction or another claims responsibility. We’re being told that Jews don’t belong there, that Jews are legitimate targets in Israel, so obviously there’s a huge difference of opinion on what constitutes “their land.” The Palestinians themselves are being told by Hamas et al that martyrdom is a religious duty, that they will be rewarded in heaven for blowing things up. They are recruited. This is different from young boys throwing rocks at tanks in their Gaza neighborhoods. Those boys I can sympathize with, they are “resisting”…the others are pawns used by organized gangs of thugs who have manipulated and deviated a mainsteam religion to suit their need. Which I believe is the destruction of the Jewish state. And their desperation, having to “rely on violence” and having no other options to achieve that, is something I could never sympathize with…on the contrary, here we’re actively throwing people like that in jail where they belong along with people who fund them. Good riddance.
re: Unrepentant Ulster terrorists
(by that I take it you mean Loyalist forces).
If the Loyalists wished to meet with the Irish government, then they would. As it is the Irish government fully supports the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement and all the groups that abide by it (or are at least willing to discuss them).
- You certainly know that the land which was bought was essentially bought from great landlords, rather than from the locals who were, I understand, sort of hereditary tenants for the most part
2)More important : having bought the land doesn’t give the right to install your own state, make your own laws, at the detriment of the already existing population. Especially not when said population has no say in the matter at the first place, since the area is actually ruled by another brand of foreigners (the british). The only ones who could have legitimately allowed the jews to settle, decided under which conditions they could have bought land and created their own state (which wouldn’t have happened, of course) would have been the palestinians, not the british. The process was flawed from the start, since it was imposed on the local population by exterior forces (the zionists, the british, and eventually the major powers aka the UN).
Not entering the issue of why they left, I personnally see no reason for not allowing civilian to come back to their home or land.
IMO, the zionists were rightfully considered as invaders (though using a relatively peaceful form of invasion, with the backing of the colonial power, that’s why I prefer to call them “colonists”). The arabs had every right not to accept a situation (settlement in Palestine, creation of a jewish state, and even the way the land was shared between the jewish and arab state) fully imposed on them by outside forces and to try to send back to where they were coming, wherever that could be. How desesperate the Jews could have been to find a “home” is not relevant.
To put it more clearly, I think the arabs were on the “right” side and the Jews on the “wrong” side in 1948. Hence, that, despite having lost the war, their claims were still legitimate, and that not allowing them to come back was a final step in a process that I would call an invasion. The presence of foreigners was imposed on them, said foreigners were allowed to create a state on these people’s land by outside forces, and finally, they were definitely driven away from their territory following an unsuccessfull but IMO legitimate war to repell them. This whole process i find grossly unjust.
It seems to me I tried to avoid the issue of the “right of return” (as it stands currently, as opposed to 1948, I just done that) except in the post where I wondered about the status of limitation. So, I didn’t state my opinion on this issue. So, why are you responding to a statement I didn’t make?
As it stands now, anyway, though there are some german people who still feel they’ve been wrongfully deprived of their property and deported (and worse…I understand the deplacement was done in exactly ideal conditions), there aren’t any german from the Sudeten living in a refugees camp. So, the issue seems rather secondary to me when compared to the situation of the Palestinians.
OK…then fine…But I’m still not sure why you stated that no ethnicity was deprived of a homeland except for the Jews. Plenty of people don’t. Except if you were thinking about people not having a homeland at all (contrarily to a people living in his homeland, but it not being independant). That’s why I mentionned the gypsies, who were the only one currently in this situation I could think of. There used to be the armenians, and the various people displaced by Staline.
By the way, I’m glad you’re mentionning that they “don’t want a homeland”. Which means that apparently, a people which has been persecuted essentially everywhere too can have no such claim. In other words, you’re saying that the reason why the jews should have had a homeland is that they wanted one. Wanting something doesn’t necessarily means that you can get rightfully get it.
I read everything and its contrary about the links (or lack thereof) Arafat had with Palestine. Anyway :
- I find it’s a disingeneous tactic to focus on Arafat. Even if he were an hinduist from Iceland of african ancestry, he doesn’t change the fact that there was and there are still currently hundred of thousands of palestinian people with a clear direct link with Palestine. Picking one amongst so many and pointing at him saying : “see! this one has no good case” just isn’t a sensible argument.
2)Even if Arafat link with Palestine were really teneous (and I believe they aren’t that teneous), they are certainly stronger than the link of someone whose family has lived during the last ten centuries in a faraway country. Were the russian “Jews” who immigrated in Israel after the fall of the Soviet Union born in Palestine, for instance? Had they stronger links with Palestine than Arafat? If Arafat has to be excluded because he was born in Egyptia, shouldn’t they, too?
It might be possible for me to grasp in some way, but it still doesn’t makes me think that this feeling gives them a legitimate claim on the land. Once again, a claim dating back to 2000 years is totally meaningless to me it could not be meaningless, culturally speaking, for the Jews. Once again, their desire, or their feelings doesn’t make their claim legitimate. Such a claim would be deemed ludicrous if made by essentially anybody else and just shrugged off.
My hostility to religion precisely comes in part from the fact it has a strong tendency to complicate things a lot and to lead to a lot of bloodbaths. That’s written in this book! That’s mine! i just can take it! Actually, I must take it! when there are no other rationally acceptable reasons not only doesn’t give any validity to the claim but is likely to make things much worse (I guess I don’t need to point out how religious extremisn is making the situation worse in Israel and Palestine?)
Funny enough, I feel the same about you. No surprise.
Actually, I wasn’t really thinking that you hated the arabs, but it was only a response in kind to you implying again and over again that I must be antisemitic.
I must stop responding to your post because it’s now very late here. Perhaps tomorrow if I can gather the courage to write another kilometric post…
well, this thread has gotten way off base from the subject matter of the europeans. rather than go through a history lecture, or supplementing the earlier posts w/the balfour declaration and the expulsion of jews by the romans, suffice it to say that israel exists, was established by international law, and a palestinian state is currently forming w/a lot of fits and starts.
europeans continually displayed antisemitism. actually the last fifty years is the exception, not the rule. apparently antisemitism can now return from the closet. before anyone disagrees, israelis have not routinely raised up the holocaust to throw in anyone’s face.
germans have been acutely sensitive to it, until recently. but why now has there been a change. one reason is the growth of muslim populations in europe who have no sensitivity about judaism and agitate in every country they are residents. this has provided cover for anti-semites.
there are legitimate complaints about israel that can be made w/o being an anti-semite. however, the level of vitriol emanating from the newspapers, cartoonists who use classic antisemitic cariactures in their work, holding unequal standards in criticism are examples of antisemitism.
how do you think nazism got a foothold in germany. one day everyone woke up and say “hey let’s be vicious jew killing nazis?” no, it came over time as each extension was unchallenged and each extreme measure was accepted. that’s the danger of all of this zionist/jewbashing taking place throughout western europe: making it increasingly acceptable to be an antisemite. why else is there a large increase in antisemitic acts like synagogue bombings in france? or i guess it’s just merely a coincidence.
the question that needs to be answered now is how does europe put the genie back in the bottle, or ultimately find a way to purge antisemitism once and for all from its midst.
Stalin deported the Jews to the ends of Siberia and created the Jewish Autonomous Region there long before 1948.
At a European conference, the American speakers recommended zero tolerance for antisemitism.
(cite requires paid subscription)
You didn’t say horribly much (ducked the tough questions again), so I’m only going to respond to one bit of what you said:
As the Great One himself answered about a year ago, the top murderers of all time were all Athiests, and were mainly Communist. I don’t think a religious-based democide made the top 10:
(1) USSR, 62 million deaths, 1917-'87
(2) People’s Republic of China, 35 million, 1949-'87
(3) Germany, 21 million, 1933-'45
(4) nationalist China, 10 million, 1928-'49
(5) Japan, 6 million, 1936-'45
(6) prerevolutionary Chinese communists (“Mao Soviets”), 3.5 million, 1923-'49
(7) Cambodia, 2 million, 1975-'79
(8) Turkey (Armenian genocide), 1.9 million, 1909-'18
(9) Vietnam, 1.7 million, 1945-'87
(10) Poland, 1.6 million, 1945-'48
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/021018.html
So, if anything seems to cause lots and lots of deaths, it’s Communism, not God (Communists are responsible for 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, and 10).
I noticed someone was crying about Israel’s immigration policy. Now this very well may be an assumption on my part, but here goes anyway: they’re crying about the Right of Return, right? IIRC, Jews have the Right of Return; however, anyone of any religion can be admitted as an immigrant. Is that correct or am I misremembering?
Your statement is very broad. Off hand I would say, no, not just anyone can be admitted. Any Jew can immigrate as a religious pilgrim. Anyone else is left to the discretion of Israeli immigration. It would be more realistic to say that anyone can apply but if you aren’t Jewish the odds are against you.
I don’t think this is fair. In many Arab countries, most prominently Yemen, Jews were treated very well and held very nice positions in society. It’s true that they weren’t treated so well in and after 1948, but that was because they were “blamed” for the plight of the Palestinians. Not very fair, no, but there is reason to believe that Mossad agents were indeed active in most Arab countries, and the result (Sephardim being deported and winding up in Israel) is most certainly something they were happy with.
I’m also very curious as to what evidence you have of any sort of widespread murder of Jews in the Arab world at this time- enough to be considered a massacre, by your standard. Your argument suggested, in my opinion, a false pairty between the treatment of Jews in Europe and in the Middle East- and in my opinion, the former is far less excusable than the latter.
As for immigration policies, last I checked the only requirements for immigrating to Canada were financial and language-related. What’s more of note, however, is that Israel’s policy is to only admit Jews, when Palestinians too have an ancestral- and indeed, far more recent- home in the same land. It’s not the admittance of Jews but rather the denial of Palestinians that’s most disturbing. What countries, I ask you, deny recent inhabitants the right to live there, and indeed, what countries require immigrants to be of a certain religion or ethnicity? The only example I can think of off-hand, and I’m not even fully sure, is Saudi Arabia.
Woah, hold on a second here. Talk about a false assumption! Kurds. Romas (Gypsies). Countless Native American tribes. Aboriginal. Countless African tribes- in fact, most of them. Punjabi, and various other central asian ethnicities. Until the fall of the Ottoman Empire and some 80 years later the Soviet Union, most ethnic groups did not have soverign states. The area most commonly cited for its nation-states is Europe, and in the 20th century Europe saw no less than two world wars.
That being said, I believe that the ideal we should be striving for is everyone having the freedom to live anywhere, but as equals. Not as oppressors. Therefore, I have no problem with the Jews in Israel, or continued Jewish immigration. I do have a problem, however, with the resulting Palestinian dispossession, disenfranchisement, and occupation.
Actually, I have little respect for either regime. Personally, the amount it’s worth speaking out against a regime is roughly proportional to the amount of aid they receive from my country (USA). Israel is therefore most susceptible, followed by Egypt. I also don’t care for Egypt’s oppression of peaceful Islamist groups. However, Egypt has not dispossessed millions of people who now live as refugees, have they?
I’ll answer that for him: Both of them, but only if each is willing to live as equals. Arafat’s mother hails from Jerusalem.
**
Then why were they forced out and denied to return in 1948? It’s well documented that the 750,000 refugees of 1948 were either forced out or left in terror, and if there is indeed room for there both- I think there is- why can’t they be allowed back in a shared state between equals?
**
Religious reasons do not have much of a place in politics, justice, and human rights.
**
I do, and if the Jews had wanted to return and I been alive (and informed) at the time, I would have done all that I could have done safely in my power to see them return.
**
Let me put it simply: Anyone should be allowed to live anywhere, especially if they have a personal or historical claim, but only if they’re looking to live as equals and in peace. Occupiers, oppressors, and domination is not welcome.
**
Firstly, I have a problem with most Arab countries. Secondly, most of them that treat Palestinians unfairly do so because they’re either afraid of Israel, do not want to contribute to the destruction of Palestinian identity, or (most prominently) are afraid of nationalist elements in their unpopular (US-backed) regimes. Also, the West Bank was never recognized (except by Pakistan and Britain, if memory serves) Jordanian territory, and Egypt never annexed Gaza.
Countries are legitimate only when they treat their citizens- including those who should be their citizens- fairly. With this definition, essentially no country is fully legitimate (which I’d say is about right) and Israel could be made far more legitimate by restoring the rights of the Palestinians.
**
I don’t think there are many other countries in very similar situations. Let’s not kid ourselves.
I suppose all this goes to show is that Zionist Jews living under the British Mandate felt their lives were worth living, and instead resorted to plain bombing.
Let’s see… the Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in July 1938, killing 28 Britons, 41 Arabs, 17 Jews, and 5 “Others.” In 1938 (counting King David Hotel, I presume) Irgun terrorists killed 76 Arabs by bombing various planting places, and then after the Mandate government arrested an Irgun member, Irgun terrorists killed 52 more Arabs. This is just 1938. Irgun members included Menachem Begin, who later went on to found the Herut party and become Prime Minister of Israel. Begin’s Herut party has become part of Sharon’s Likud coalition. Terrorism was the term used to describe this in the British press at the time.
The Stern Gang, of which Prime Minister Shamir was a member, was actually the last group that I know of to self-identify as a terrorist group. Sternists assassinated UN mediators and all sorts of figures in the Mandate government. Here’s a quote from Israeli Prime Minister Shamir: “Neither ethics nor tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat. First and foremost, terrorism is for us a part of the political battle being conducted under the present circumstances, and it has a great part to play in our war against the occupier.”
So, the difference between the bombings done by Zionists looking for a state and the bombings done by Palestinians looking for a state is that the Palestinians were sucidal. Probably due to the suffering of the occupation: life under the Mandate wasn’t so bad (yet Zionists still blew stuff up…)
Missed this earlier.
*There are now 10 religious and secular terrorist groups that are capable of using suicide terrorism as a tactic against their governments and/or foreign governments. They are: the Islam Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad of the Israeli occupied territories; Hizbullah of Lebanon; the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) and Gamaya Islamiya (Islamic Group - IG) of Egypt; the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) of Algeria; Barbar Khalsa International (BKI) of India; the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka; the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) of Turkey; and the Osama bin Laden network (Al Quaida) of Afghanistan.
There were also four pro-Syrian, Lebanese and Syrian political parties engaged in suicide terrorism in the 1980s, but they are currently inactive in the terrorist front. These groups staged around 25 suicide attacks in Lebanon. As more than one group claimed some of the attacks, perhaps to diffuse the threat to the group, it is difficult to identify the group responsible. The groups engaged in suicide operations in Lebanon alongside Hizbullah were the Natzersit Socialist Party of Syria; the Syrian Nationalist Party; the Lebanese Communist Party; and the Baath Party of Lebanon. *
From here ( perhaps slightly outdated at ~ three years old ):
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/usscole/jir001020_1_n.shtml
- Tamerlane
In other words: Yes.
Why’d you put all that other crap in there? Just as in any immigration policy, ANYONE CAN be admitted; however, there are procedures (laws, rules, regulations) in place to determine who SHALL. Now, as for Israel, one of the procedures in place regarding those not born in the territory of Israel is that those of the Jewish faith MUST be admitted as immigrants–NOT pilgrims. This is not all that different from the United States of America’s procedure in place regarding those not born in the territory of the United States of America: those who are born outside such territory but whose parents have passed their citizenship onto such children per the law MUST be admitted to the United States. The only difference here is that Israel doesn’t consider the Jews born outside the territory (generally) as Israelis until after they immigrate.
But go ahead and use terms like “religious pilgrim” and the like to obscure the facts. Just be aware that I’m not in the market for smokescreens.
Monty, I think what people are saying is that Israel favors any kind of Jewish immigration over any kind non-Jewish immigration. Which the laws reflect, as to ensure a primarly Jewish state. So that means an American (or whatever) Jew would be accepted as Israeli, but a non-Jewish Arab refugee would not. Thus Hank Fescue’s quote:
Once again, stop mispresenting my arguments.
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I told that at some point, what has been indeed done has been done, and you can’t redress all the wrong done during the last 3000 years. I never made any particular exception for anybody.
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I never wrote that the Palestinian should be allowed to return, so you’re just making things up. That’s plain dishonest.
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Yes. Definitely, I think there’s a difference between what happenned 1300 years ago and what happened 50 years ago.
I must be blind. I just understood now that the reason why you keep insisting on this “status of limitation” thing is so that you can tell “since the Jews were expelled from the area in 70 AD, they have the right to take back the land”.
I sure don’t ignore it. I just say that religious belief doesn’t give any valid justification for anything harmful which is done (apart in the mind of the religious person, of course, be it “this land has been given to us by our god” or “our god want us to crash a plane in this tower”)
Absolutely not. The part of your post I was responding to here had absolutely nothing to do with this issue. You were stating I didn’t believe the israelis had a right to stay in Israel, or somesuch and I was pointing out to you that I had stated exactly the contrary in my first post. How do you change that in “I’m just trying to figure out if there’s any country, etc…” , I can’t fathom.
Apart from that, yes, there’s plenty of countries I hold to the same standarts as Israel. As for you not being able to find a country I hold to the same standarts, how would you know? As usual, you have decided all by yourself what I was thinking or not thinking, and respond to these supposed thoughts of mine rather than to what I’m writing.
Either you’re dense, either you deliberatly avoid to understand. I was refering to Dutch people deliberatly moving in the US (and no, they couldn’t just come in…As far as I know, the US don’t allow in anybodody who’s willing to come) and founding an independant state on the US territory (without asking the opinion of the US governement or US people. That was in response to your argument “there was not much people living in Palestine, anyway hence, Jews just could come in”.
As I wrote many times, not having something doesn’t necessarily allows you to take this thing away from someone else (a place to call home, I mean). How strongly you feel about not having it is irrelevant. Assuming that providing some way to protect themselves to the jewish community was a responsability the world community at large had, anyway, all the burden shouldn’t have fallen on the Palestinian’s back (especially since they didn’t have any say in the matter, once again).
So, now, you’re justifying the past action of the zionists by the possible future actions of the Palestinians? May I ask a cite for this future event? Because no, I’ve not been informed it will happen. I can’t read the thoughts of other posters (contrarily to you reading mine) , nor can I predict the future (contrarily to you). You must make a bunch of money as a psychic.
By the way, mentionning the treatment of Jews living in Jerusalem under Jordan’s rule wouldn’t fly, either, since it couldn’t have been a justification before the event happened. It was one of the consequences of the creation of Israel, not a cause. I don’t remember the Jews went to Palestine because the arabs were throwing other Jews out of their Jerusalem’s houses.
I don’t feel guilty. I was never involved in France’s past colonial ventures. I wasn’t even born at this time. Why would i feel guilt?
And once again, how would you know what I feel? Your psychic talents, as usual?
Homeland for the jews or not, and picked at random or not doesn’t change a thing. A bunch of foreigner backed by a colonial power went in, settled down and created their own state on the land against the will of the locals. Doing so in Uganda or in Palestine doesn’t change a thing. I just don’t buy in your assumption that the Jews had any particular right to this land because part of their ancestors were living there 2000 years ago.
These ones at least had some right to do so, since the Turkish governement was more or less accepted as the legitimate ruler in this area (though definitely not by everybody). The ones who came during the british mandate or later : nope.
I would also point out that “returning” isn’t the same thing that “creating your own country there”. For some reason, I strongly doubt the Turkish government would have accepted that.
I can consider that. The problem is that I totally reject the calidity of this concept. Whether or not the Jews felt like they were returning home, the locals thought it was their home. And since they were living there, their stance was way more valid than the stance of people whose only argument was “part of our ancestors were living here 2000 years ago”.
By the way, most probably, part of the ancestors of the palestinian currently living in refugees camp were probably also living in what is now Israel 2000 years ago. The fact they’re “arabs” doesn’t mean than they are actually the descendants of people who were originally living in Arabia.
“I killed everyone else up to this border” isn’t a justification, but a method.
Why should I be able to give a definite answer about this statute of limitations issue? Should I have a definite and precise opinion about everything?
But perhaps you could give your own, since apparently you’ve clear ideas on this issue. Could it be : “claims older than 1300 years (jewish claims on Palestine) are valid but claims more recent than 60 years (palestinian claims on Israel) aren’t”?
People may live according to whatever book or set of rules they want. They just can’t use their arbitrary rules or the content of their old beloved books to justify actions which otherwise wouldn’t be acceptable.
I’m going to ignore this part. I’ve no intent to argue about the content of the bible. Irrelevant.
That’s true. But you’re once again trying to explain me why the Jews wanted a place to call home. And, for the umpteeenth time, the fact that the Jews had no place to call home didn’t give them the right to take over a place against the will of the locals.
Similar to the palestinians? I could find plenty which were somehow similar (as in being driven out of their land while other people took it over), but curently none exactly similar. There aren’t many people living en masse in refugee camps right now. Though there are a big deal of people out there who have a lot of good (or even better) reasons to complain. But in not exactly similar situations. Armenians or Tibetans in exile, Chechens displaced, black south-africans under the apartheid have some similarities, for instance.
What’s your point, exactly? That there are plenty of people around the world who are awfully oppressed, denied a state, etc…I certainly agree. But in what way would it make the current situation of the Palestinian acceptable? You’d need to clarify the meaning of your question…
I have an opinion about religious argument : it’s easy to understand and clear : religious arguments aren’t a valid justification for actions otherwise not acceptable. I can’t see what other explanation you’d want. There are plenty of thread about religion if you want to debate about religion.
I would be willing to talk about the statute of limitations because it’s an interesting qustion, and the Palestine problem is only one of the very numerous issues where this problem has to be adressed. I just don’t have a definite answer about it, like in “anything which happened more than 99 years ago is no longer relevant”. I don’t have an answer to everything. Perhaps you do.
But i still think that 2000 years ago is definitely way beyond the limit , and that “I was alive at this time and it happened to me” is definitely a valid claim.
Nope. Because it’s a way larger issue to which entire threads are dedicaced. You can open one them, a couple are currently running. Beside, it’s a pain in the ass for me to debate complicated theorical or philosophical questions in english (actually, I’m not able to argument about such questions in this language).
I gave my reasons. They don’t need to be highly intellectual, and i don’t need to argue about deep philosophical issues. That’s easy : “people A move in the land of people B without people B having a say in the matter. People A set shop there and made the place their own place, ruled according to their own laws People B is screwed”. My opinion is simple to understand : that’s wrong.
I don’t have the feeling you gave very deep intellectual reasons justifying your own opinion, anyway. Until now you only came up with :
-Ancestors were living there 2000 years ago
-That’s the Jews god-given right
-Jews desperatly wanted a place to call home
Nothing very intellectual, as far as I can see…
I don’t know how and when exactly it becomes legitimate. Do you? I think someone who was born somewhere and lived all this life there, and never had any responsability in the way the place was taken over from other people had a good claim to call the place “home”. That would certainly apply to a large part of the current Israeli population, and it certainly applied to the arabs living in Palestine under the british mandate. It doesn’t apply to the Jews who moved to Palestine at this time.
By the way, just thinking about it…since you’re insisting a lot about people wanting a place to call home…what about the Palestinians currently living in refugees camps and who don’t have any place to call “home”, either? I would really like to get an answer from you about it. Where have they the right to settle, according to you (taking of course into account the fact that they also desperatly want such a place and the fact that they also have a very precise idea of which place this could be)?
Yep, definitely. Most of the Chechens were born in Chenya. The Chechens displaced from their land is a recent enough event for some of them having living through it. So, they have it right on both accounts. And there isn’t even another people claiming that this land is rightfully his (a people as opposed to a government) We’re not talking about a 2000 years old claim, here. I’m certainly going to admit that any Jew who was personnally expelled by the romans in 70 AD had the right to came back under the british mandate .
How many times will I have to say it : that explain the motivations for the Jews wanting to move in palestine. It doesn’t provide a valid justification.
Your first sentence means clearly “might makes right”. If you think this is the principle which should be applied in Palestine, you should probably say so clearly.
As for your house : what if it actually is? What if I can say that, according to the tradition running in my family, or to historical evidence, my ancestors actually lived on the piece of land where your house has been built on at some point in the past?