Unfortunately, I see nothing but more violence and terror. The whole region is overpopulated, and there isn’t enough water . A Palestinian state (Gaza plus the West Bank) will not be economically viable-nobody will invest in such a place. And, ominously, the Israelis have been overpumping the underground aquifers-and salt water is beginning to infiltrate into the aquifer. Meanwhile, as the violence continues, young people with an education are leaving.
Not a pretty picture, but I an see the “Peace Talks” continuing into, say 2107! :smack:
The over population problem is … well a problem
- mainly inside Ghaza
The Israelis are worried about rainfall, I’ve heard that they were thinking about some interesting solutions.
ralph124c, interesting claims.
Interestingly enough, there actually is enough water. As usual the problem lies in the regional politics of getting water to where it is needed. Thus my point through the years that Palestinian interests would be served best by trading on some hot-button issues for larger concessions on issues such as water supply and infrastructure development.
Which relates to your next opinion:
Well, others’ opinions differ:
and in fact there were many such investments starting up just before the Clinton initiatives collapsed.
The obstacles are not insurmountable and the solutions are political. If the regional actors could work together then there is enough water. If Israel and a nascant Palestine could cooperate in some minimal way then economic growth would be substantial and both would benefit. Greater cooperation would provide greater benefits yet.
Kill a bunch of people and you get a reputation as somebody that kills people. It may be unfair but that’s life.
Thus that which was argued is demonstrated. Patience, Tomndebb, brings your evidence. As anticipated, revised propaganda is submitted in response to the expiry of the early versions. To be fair though, two posts isn’t too bad, which suggests there’s still life in this forum. Venceremos.
Hamas is like the IRA, the Tamil Tigers or the Basque Separatists; a resistance group opposing an occupying [pace] power. A comparison to Hitler is absurd and button-pushing of the worst sort, a shameless manipulation of the American Jewish community’s embedded fears. Works a treat though, got to give it that.
I originally brought up the Hitler comparison because neither he nor Hamas cared much for democracy - yet used it to get into power.
Thinking about it, they do share a bit more in common, both are violently anti Jewish - and both are on record for stating that they want to kill them.
The IRA were a pretty nasty bunch, they were not much concerned with democracy, and ironically were more of a threat to Southern Ireland than anyone else. Fortunately 9/11 shut off their main and naive source of funds.
The Tamil Tigers are also pretty nasty, I’m not keen on the kidnapping of kids to turn them into child soldiers.
So. Everything said that is in agreement with your views is pure facts. Everything in favor of Israel is shameless propaganda.
Noted.
Neither are true. It’s Israelis Hamas aren’t keen on. Total indifference is the Hamas attitude to Jewish people as such.
Another way to look at it is through a thought experiment: How would Hamas react if every Israeli Jew were to up stumps and depart those lands this week?
As many times as you are told, you still don’t get it, do you?
From the Hammas charter
Many more similar ideas at the source. Also Israeli propaganda?
Much as you probably like, not an experiment to be conducted soon.
F/ck me - have you ever been to Israel ?
Have you ever looked at the Hamas ‘constitution’, even better just listen to what they say.
Have you ever thought what would happen if every Israeli (including the 20% non Jewish) upped stumps and started moving towards Jordan, Cairo or Syria.
It would look like 1973 again.
My impression is that they are moderately civillized, probably with the tolerance level of the UK in 1942.
Normally I ignore Sev’s posts for reasons that have been discussed in many a Pit thread, but this is an interesting thought experiment. My WAG is that they’d continue to find a way to demonize Jews and to blame them for any failings of their society, or failing that find someone else to demonize (“The West”, America, etc.). Hamas needs their “Goldberg”.
It is, I must admit, difficult for me to imagine this scenario, even as a * Gedankenexperiment*. I cannot see any plausible method in which every single Jew would pack and leave. However, it is very easy for me to imagine a partial departure (the size of which may vary from a small sub-percentage to nearly 100%).
Lucky for me, a small-scale experiment was already conducted (in the Gaza strip). From that, I may induce the results of a larger-scale departure: Hammas will be more than happy to grab the free lands (probably using the chance to kill as many of us as it possibly can), and than use those lands as a springboard for the elimination of the rest of the Israeli Jews. If the percentage of the Jews left behind is small enough, I can imagine a success of the Hammas in eradicating all Jewish presence from Israel.
How would they react after, once they have the whole country? Well, one thing is clear (to me): the will need an antagonist. Who will take that role is up for grabs.
The Hamas charter you provided was from 1988. Have Hamas updated their charter since then? Or is it the same?
Your first paragrpah is mere posturing, to which there is no point in responding. Certainly I see no “evidence” for what you claim.
Your second paragraph is pretty dumb. There are any number of legitimate comparisons between Hamas and Hitler, (not least because the Hamas leadership was veru much shaped by an old mullah who brought their grandfathers a copy of Mein Kampf which those old men used to shape most of the discussion regarding Jewish-Arab relations from the 1920s through the early 1950s, after which their “philosophy” was sufficiently “developed” to allow them to expand on their hatred without an appeals to Hitler’s odd book. But a call for death to all Jews (a point you keep whistling past as if it had not been repeatedly demonstrated) is quite Hitlerian.
It would seem to me that a resistance group that was attempting to remove an occupying power would work rather harder to get sympathetic assistance from the outside world to have the Israelis pack up and leave the occupied West Bank. By continuing their campaign of terror and refusing to even consider removing the anti-Jewish language in their establishing document, and continuing to insist that the 6.35 million Jews depart and leave the entire area to the 3.9 million Palestinians, they are clearly not following the paths of the Basques, Tamils, or IRA.
This is just silly. There is far too much rhetoric from Hamas about the evil Jews than would allow for this particular spin.
I agree that they are probably more focused on Israelis Jews and I doubt that they would send out death squads to kill Jews all over the world if the Israelis departed, but the reason they hate the Israelis is that that society is primarily Jewish.
I am more than a bit sympathetic to the plight of the people displaced and held nationless in 1967. I see travesties of justice carried out on both sides. However, your monomaniacal insistence that it is all the Israelis’ (code word for Jews’) fault, repeated over and over as though repeating hatred made the claims true, do nothing to persuade me that you are actually arguing a serious point.
I don’t like using wiki as a source, especially neutrality-disputed articles. However, its entry on Hamas says:
Bolding mine.
As far as I know, it wasn’t changed. I am willing to learn otherwise.
I was just going to add that what prompted me to start this thread was viewing some of the videos on youtube that appear to show Israeli civilians harassing Palestinian school children and others that live in occupied areas, while Israeli soldiers do nothing.
Vids like this one:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FqvLtoWBpTU
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zkVDyfuvhDE&mode=related&search=
Some videos have text that appears throughout the video though I’m not sure on the truth of the text shown, while other videos show no text and give little context.
The entire text of the Hamas Charter. No amendments or revisions since 1988. FWIW.
Y’know, I had never read the whole charter before.
Wow.
That’s much worse than I had thought. What antisemitic bile.
Ah. Must be alright though. Because
So while I suspect that Sev feels that Hamas is a just resistance movement and that anything that says anything other than kind things about them is victim of the Zionist propaganda machine (damn those Rotary clubs, Lions and Freemasons!) but I suspect that you, Honesty may be less accepting of Hamas’ “truths” (couldn’t be slander, they don’t allow that).
Should the world’s economies support this organization? Or is economic isolation more appropriate?
pool,
I think your post may deserve a serious answer. Other posters seems to have all the answers… you seem to seek the truth.
Now, the two videos you linked to are isolated from context, so it’s hard to address them in full. I will try to give you a few pointers from my POV.
-
Both videos depict settlers from Tel-Rumeida, which is in Hebron. The Hebron settlers are among the most extreme people you will find in Israel. From what I hear, they are racists of the worst kind. By comparison, they are probably equal to the suicide bombers of the Palestinian side. I’ll let you decide which is worst. As for me, I care not about the other side. This behavior from the Israeli side fills me with shame. I will not try to defend their actions in the least… but maybe provide a wider viewpoint.
-
The first video (with the girls) is completely devoid of any context. It seems the girls were hanging around looking for trouble (although, without knowing the background it’s hard to tell). Do note these points, though:
- At first contact, an Israeli girl approaches the Palestinian parade (?), and seem to kick sand at one of the women. As a response, several Palestinians approach her and start to shove her. The IDF soldier removes the girl away.
- The IDF soldiers try (and seem to have some success) to remove the Israeli girls away.
- The second video was filmed on 2003. At the beginning, you can hear the settlers chant “Nekama, Nekama” (revenge, revenge). This is a chant usually used following terrorism against the Israelis. From the date, I would dare give a WAG that the incident was following the suicide attack of May 17, 2003, in which a Palestinian terrorist (Fuad Kawasma) blew himself in Habron, killing a pair of settlers (Gaddi and Dinna Levy).
Once more, I do not justify any of the actions depicted in these videos. But they are very far from representative of anything that actually goes on here.
[hijack]
I was shocked to read some of the comments to the videos. Here are a few samples (sic):
- another reason to hate isreal
- israel is full of pigs
- Truly, there is no creature so vile as the jew.
- correct me if om wrong… i think Hitler was correct in killing those jews in the WWII… ye ha! hehehe
- I think hitler new what jews were all about. Bastards
- True, hitler supported zionism, zionist jews collobarated with nazis to scare away other fellow jews to palestine.
- u are a kike ,evil SOB ,you belong in the OVEN you and those jew bitches… maybe make some soap out of u…you wont jewmedown would u ?
- that’s the satan’s seed for you …evil basterds,IsraeLie future leaders.that little bitch looks like sharoon’s basterd child. <snip>
[/hijack]
Look what GoogleAds dragged in…
Israeli - Palestinian ProCon, including what they describe as Read a summary of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in about 10 minutes.
I only briefly looked at it. They seem to force themselves not to give opinion, or even filter for truth. They focus on opposite views. It does, however, give a concise summery of the conflict, as seen from both sides.