Now, why, may I ask, would you not be too happy about the idea of a Palestinian state? I would assume that most people would respond to that with, “Well, terrorism, silly.” And doing a little research I see that more Palestinians support suicide bombers than I thought- around (60% or higher according to some polls.)
So, my question is, are you unhappy with the idea of a Palestinian state because you think you would be less safe in some way, or because you don’t wish to cede any land and/or give Palestinians any rights? Given that the vast majority support a mutual cessation of violence, and only support these attacks because they feel it is their only way of resistance (not that I in any way condone the deaths of civilians), why shouldn’t Palestinians have their own state?
I know I’d fight tooth and nail for my country and a voice in the political process, although I certainly hope I’d never feel justified in blowing myself up on a bus full of school girls and little old ladies. The horrendous attacks on civilians only harm the Palestinian cause, but to ask a people to stop fighting for what they believe is rightfully theirs is foolhardy, because they won’t. I wish they would take a leaf out of Gandhi’s book, though.
Israel is the one in control here, and the onus is on them to make concessions. They’ve been illegally occupying territory for years in the name of “security” but what they fail to realize is that they’d be a lot more secure if they stopped oppressing the Palestinians in the first place.
If the Palestinians did get a state of their own, that would remove most of the support the terrorists currently have, and make it a hell of a lot easier to deal with security. I can’t imagine it’s very easy fighting terrorism now when so many people are willing to aid and abet them.
Mostly because many, many Palestinians view a state in the pre-1967 borders as a first step towards total annihilation of Israel.
There are many examples of Palestinian and other Arab speakers openly voicing this plan – but I don’t think I need to do more than point out the the PLO was founded in 1964 – 3 full years before the 1967 war. It has never been about two states. It has always been about annihilating Israel.
ETA: Don’t get me wrong – I’m not as dead set against a Palestinian state as you may think or expect. I used the term “not thrilled” judiciously – I realize it’s probably inevitable, I can see why it has to happen. I’m just extremely wary of the consequences.
One of the things I envy about whites is their ability to use all kinds of rhetoric to justify the continued disenfranchisement and ill-treatment of the “evil brown people”. Indeed, the abrogation of civil rights in America, the internment of Japanese-Americans, the atrocities in South Africa, and, of course, the plight of the Palestinian people attest to this.
Is my moral compass broken? Help me understand how a Western country, in 2006, could cluster bomb civilian targets send 1,000,000 Lebanese into exodus? How can anyone tell me the justice in Israel punishing the Palestinian people because they happened to vote for the wrong party?
I reject the idea that Israel’s problem is somehow different or unique. Israel has silenced the will of the Palestinian people and, because of that, the burden of peace lies squarely on its shoulders. One cannot reasonably expect a puppet government which isn’t internationally or regionally respected to have clout in orchestrating real social change.
@Red Roses - I would be wary of opinion polls - they are seldom representative and quite easily slanted.
@Honesty - the Palestinians are not that different in appearance from a lot of Israelis, partly because a lot of Israelis (or their ancestors) came from Iraq, Morrocco, Tunisia etc also because the British Army spent some time out there
I’ve heard (from friends) that when going under cover, Israeli guys use spray on beard stubble.
Also one Palestinian trick is to dress in IDF (army) uniform and blow themselves up at a bus stop.
@RedRoses - I forgot to mention that anti-semitism was not that uncommon in Europe in say the 1930s - things like getting into tennis clubs in the UK.
It was pretty mild - but by today’s standards totally unacceptable.
Also Israel and the Palestinians have enjoyed periods of peace, one of the current problems is that Palestinians who used to work in Israel cannot do so - well not easily.
People in the West have short memories.
Palestinian ,(and those representing them) terrorists hijacked airliners regulary in the second half of the 20thC tormenting and murdering civilian passengers,kidnapped and murdered athletes at the Munich Olympics,machine gunned men ,women and children queueing at an airport check in desk ,planted bombs in European cities,held hostage representatives at an O.P.E.C. conference…
I havent the space or time to make a comprehensive list of their atrocities but most of them were aimed at the citizens of countries who had absaloutley nothing to do with Palestines situation one way or the other.
On top of that they trained up European terrorists to kill their own citizens.
Alot of the money donated by the rich M.E. oil states to Palestine seems to have disappeared
Allegedly Ararafats death was kept a secret until P.L.O. money was transferred to private accounts .
Try going from Israel into the West Bank and see for yourself the difference in standard of living caused by embezzlement.
And now a different band of terrorists are in charge of Palestine claiming poverty but they seemed to have had more then enough money to carry out an extensive military building programme in Lebanon until quite recently and then cold bloodily construct civilian housing on top of the bunkers ,crying crocodile tears for the residents when for survivals sake the Israelis were forced to attack those installations.
If even without their totally corrupt ,gangster type governments and their cynical willingness to sacrificetheir own women and childrens lives (Plucks at Western Heart strings more then adult men) for no other then propaganda reasons ,any moral rights they had on any political question at all vanished with the terrorism.
It genuinlly angers me when the naive and ill informed take it on themselves to preach to the rest of us ,more I think to prove "how caring "they are, or so they can pretend to be dangerous radicals to the goodlooking members of the opposite sex,then through any heartfelt outrage at the situation.
I saw the same kinds of people playing at politics in the past who are responsible for the progressive and Western friendly Shahs regime being toppled and replaced with todays Iranian government (At the time the Oxford University Students Union voted Ayatollah Khomeni Man of the Year !I kid You not )
And we mustnt forget their brave championing of the Heroic freedom fighters batttling against the brutal Smith regime in the then Rhodesia, todays enlightned government of Zimbabwe.
Yes I bet the average Zimbabwean today is really greatful for all their hard work.
But just as todays ,Palestinian supporting ,Western Liberals will disappear in a few years they are now nowhere to be seen “Its shocking whats going on in Iran/Zimbabwe etc.today why doesnt somebody do something Im not responsible ?”
But its not really very important now is it ?after all theyre too old to score chicks/guys anymore.
Just to demonstrate my lack of secret agenda ,I am not Jewish or even as far as I am aware even know any Jews.
I have no connection with Israel in any commercial,legal , political or any other sense.
Indeed towards the end of my visit there Iwas treated with suspicion by the Israeli authorities ,detained ,searched ,questioned and then hurried out of the country for no given
reason.
I have been to a number of Islamic countries.
I take offense to the idea that (some) Western liberals are only supporting Palestine because of some sort of ulterior motives, like getting laid. I think if I met a guy in a bar who pretended to be concerned about a political issue only for the purposes of getting me to come home with him, I’d throw a drink on him. Or punch him in the face. Somehow, capitalizing on the suffering of hundreds of thousands of refugees in order to attain sexual satisfaction strikes me as an incredibly disgusting thing to do.
I also take offense to the idea that somehow, supporting Palestine = approving of terrorism. I don’t think anyone in this thread has made any comments to that effect, and I think several have made comments along the lines of, "I wish they wouldn’t blow people up to bring attention to their plight. " I think it’s important to remember, and it’s something that is often forgotten, that Palestinian =/ terrorist. Yes, a lot of Palestinians support the terrorists. It’s unfortunate that they feel like they are driven to do that. However, the Palestinians that I am referring to are the peaceful ones sitting in refugee camps or in exile in another Arab country.
Because one of the major points of contention is the Right of Return. Correct me if I’m wrong, but can’t any Jew come to Israel and be given citizenship, regardless of whether his ancestors (by this term I mean both, say, grandparents, and distant ancestors) lived there or not? Yet Palestinians who fled to surrounding countries to avoid the fighting have no right to return, even though some of them still have the deeds to their land and the keys to houses that no longer exist? But the problem is, to allow Palestinians to return would make them no longer a small minority, but almost equal to the number of Israelis (I don’t recall the exact numbers, but if someone asks I will go find them and provide a cite). And, given their higher birthrate, they will soon become the majority. And therein lies the problem.
Israelis don’t want to allow Palestinians to return, fearing that they would soon overrun all of Israel. And they don’t want to allow a Palestinian state for the same reasons, because with strength in numbers, they might be able to launch a concerted attack on Israel. Personally, I don’t foresee it being such a problem, because allowing Palestinians to return and creating a Palestinian state would pacify all but the most ardent terrorists.
Surely, your mother should at least have an actual nervous breakdown before displacing 2 million people?
Bad jokes aside, while it’s perfectly human to be selfish (care about yourself, family, friends, clan, country first), it’s no excuse to be shortsighted. You may not care whether Israel’s policies are unethical but you should care about them being counter-productive in the long run.
What’s better?
100 israelis and 300 palestinians a year die using current tactics and current conflict lasts for the foreseeable future.
50 israelis and 15 palestinians a year die. (assuming a great effort to minimize collateral damage on Israel’s part) and the current conflict peters out over the course of a few generations (not in our lifetimes., I don’t think.).
In both cases, I’m assuming death of innocents on both sides. I’m also assuming more violent extremists are spared in the second scenario. So it’s ratios vs. absolute numbers in a sense.
I believe playing the ratio game is stupid. Too many arabs around Israel for it to make a difference. And their population growth is faster too.
Then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Israel’s current policies are what’s best for the country. It sure doesn’t seem that way though.
A question for you - how many Palestinian refugees have been allowed to settle in surrounding countries? I have always heard that this number is extremely low, which explains the persistence of refugee camps.
Information on whether a projected Palestinian state in the West Bank territory could support all the Palestinians and their descendants who might want to settle there, would also be appreciated.
Well, it beats replacing it with a worse situation.
Please show me any place where I or any other Israeli / supporter of Israel said anything about race in this thread. Israelis and Palestinians are, in fact, genetically extremely close to each other – the Palestinians are likely a mixture of Jews who stayed in the area and converted, and the Arab conquerers. It’s a religious/cultural war, not a racial/ethnic one. And I strongly resent your insinuations in this regard.
First, how does this have anything to do with the Palestinian problem? You do realize that Hizballah are a completely different group – they are ethnically Lebanese and religiously Shi’ite (the Palestinians are overwhelmingly Sunni). In fact, Hizballah, while paying lip service to the Palestinian cause, bacially f***ed them over last summer – writ large – when they started the hostilities on the Lebanese border.
As for what happened in Lebanon – there were nearly 1,000,000 displaced Israelis in this war, too. Except we in other parts of the country took them in so that it never made world media. It’s a small-scale parallel of the birth of the “Refugee Problem” – Arab refugees from newly-formed Israel kept, sometimes by force, from settling down, so that they can become tear-jerkers and bargaining chips; Jewish refugees in equal numbers being taken in and helped as much as possible, so that the problem essentially disappeared within 10-15 years. You may not know this, but many, many hundreds of thousands of refugees from Arab countries lived in refugee camps in Israel during most of the 1950’s, until they were finally settled in proper housing.
Every people gets the government they vote for. The Palestinians voted for Hamas. You can’t even claim the elections were rigged, because they probably really *were * almost completely clean… They knew Hamas stood for military conflict and for bloodshed, and they voted for them anyway. Hamas is not a puppet regime (and the Palestinians may be many things, but they are not a backward group of “natives,” as you seem to be suggesting, on which a puppet regime could be forced. And you were accusing me of racism. Sheesh.)
I never bothered with OUSU - a right bunch of plonkers
I thought only a few of us understood what was going on in 1979
sadly we were right.
How different things would have been if Carter had a spine and the USA et al had supported Russia (oops the USSR) in keeping Afghanistan moderately civilized.
So most have been able to settle, get jobs, etc, they just don’t have citizenship, and in some cases, have restrictions like they aren’t allowed to own property. There are still a million in refugee camps, which shouldn’t be taken lightly, but the majority apparently lead somewhat normal lives, they are just denied citizenship by Arab countries in order to preserve their right of return. (I still think that sucks, but I sorta understand the logic)
But the UN (and other groups like Amnesty International) has supported the rights of Palestinians to return to their homes since day 1.
I haven’t been able to find hard and fast numbers from reliable sources about whether a Palestinian state would be able to accomodate the 4 million Palestinians currently living elsewhere, but it seems that it would be difficult to do even if all of those Palestinians chose not to return. The Palestinian territories have much higher population densities (about 4x as high as Israel) and they are such small areas it seems almost impossible to accomodate an influx of Palestinians from surrounding countries.
I favor a one state solution with rights for everyone and no discrimination on the basis of religion. I can see why Israelis would want to keep the “Jewish-ness” (for lack of a better term) of Israel, but they can’t ignore the millions of non-Jews who live in Israel or lived in Israel until the middle of the last century.
Well thats strange isnt it ? It almost seems as if Israel doesnt want to welcome with open arms a people who have vowed to drive them into the sea,who routinely praise Hitlers policy of mass extermination of the Jews even today,who never keep a promise (its always a splinter group who use ceasefires to kill Israeli civilians !convenient isnt it?)
They talk peace and love unto all men and anything else that makes them sound good to the western media but the minute they’re out of the gunsight its back to normal.
Oaths arent binding because they’re fighting a holy war.
Palestinian parents (and we are talking rank and file here not the fanatics)openly encourage their own children to become suicide bombers to kill such vital military targets as
teenagers flirting in coffee bars ,school kids on buses and poor old sods sunning themselves on park benches.
And afterwards publicly celebrate their childrens actions.
Celebrate that is until a Guardian reporter turns up on the scene and then its "he was only going to the shop and the I.D.F. murdered him cos he s an arab"with much wailing and lamenting but if that comes across as a little unbelievable to even Guardian reporters eg, pics of partially detonated bombs still attached to the “Martyrs” body then
they knew nothing about it ,it must have been militants poisoning their kids minds and of course they always tried to discourage them from political activity.
Yes except that they had a little celebratory tea party with some of the neighbours in as guests before their little innocents set out to murder people.
For those who think a solution to the Palestinan problem will bring an end to their international terrorism against the truly innocent and mostly helpless(but nice easy targets,no courage required) up to and including the complete destruction of the Israeli state its bad news Im afraid .
Palestine is only the rallying banner for militant Islamists(not the same as Muslims generally)
before it was known as Pan Arabism for a good many years .
Its not about race or even religion its all about culture.
The Islamic culture as a matter of course educates its school agers as to the superiority of that culture over all others (and centuries ago it nearly was but it stagnated).
Even to the quite young its pretty obvious that Western culture ,venal,lacking in morals and greed driven holds the power,runs the world ,is top dog.
For all their posturing many Islamists who actually arent under some sort of totalitarian regime (which doesnt narrow the field that much) tend to vote with their feet for the lifestyle of mammon.
It makes for a very,very big chip on their cultural shoulders,its not Israel they hate ,not even
the great Satan America its the West .
Its ironic that even though thay have billions in oil revenues (extracted oil, field maintenance
exploration ,cracking you name it almost all carried out by expat yanks and Europeans) they are still going backwards ,they know it and so does everybody else.We’re an EMBARASSMENT or nearer the truth the source of humiliation to them.
I doubt they’[ll rest until as a society we’re dead and buried.
Lust4Life, do you have any proof to your claim that rank and file Palestinians, not fanatics, send their children out to be suicide bombers and have little tea parties celebrating? If that’s true, what do the fanatics do? Plant bombs on their infants and leave them in public places?
I think this is another case of overgeneralization and stereotypes. And as for your “clash of civilizations” argument, I have always rejected such arguments. There is nothing inherent in Islam that makes it incompatible with Western society (at least, not any more so than Catholicism or Buddhism or Hinduism). If there was, why do so many observant, conservative Muslims move to places like England and France and America? It’s a ridiculous statement.
The simple answer to that is yes.It angers me that racists use skin colour to justify a non tenable position and yes racists come in all colours .If a white person had expressed your views but from the opposite perspective there would have been outraged western Liberals pouring out of the woodwork everywhere to condemn the views that seem incredibly similar to those of Hitlers 3rd reich .
Now where are they all I wonder?not a peep !
If youd ever actually been to the area but you obviously havent one of the things
that might stand out would be the number of BLACK not brown skinned I.D.F soldiers in Jerusalem.
As another poster pointed out the skin colour of most Israelis is the same as that of the Arabs most probably because apart from some dilution caused by the diaspora they are ethnically the same ,even the languages are as similar as English and German.
But that doesnt really fit in with the "poor hard done by oppressed Ethnic theory does it? "
Ive never met a brown skinned Israeli whos been ashamed of his race or wallowed in self pity.
Pity we cant say that for all ethnic groups though no doubt thats all the fault of the Whites .Its in their genes you know!Bad to the bone.
There is nothing THEORETICALLY incompatible with Western Civilisation and Islamic culture though some Muslim populations believe that Islam has been highjacked by extremists and even perverted .
In some quarters there is disagreement over wether alcohol is totally banned by the Quiran(though in my experience when they’re not on show it doesn’t stop them drinking) or wether it actually is a taboo on intoxication from any recreational drug.
Many Kurds I have spoken to for example honestly believe that parts of the circulating Quiran have been blotted out by Militant Islamists and other sections fabricated,not being a Quiranic Scholar you might very well think so but I couldnt possibly comment.
What were some of the threats sent to European media quite recently?
Islam means peace and we will kill anyone who says it isnt so.
Generalisations ?most Brits eat French Fries several times a week,but not all .
But if I had a bet on to ask people in the street if they ate fries Id bet on Fry eaters every single time.
My opinions are not based wholly on media reports or my view from a 5 star hotel in the local trouble spot but on wandering around back alleys chatting to ordinary
Muslims when they’re NOT acting for the cameras in my endless quest for souvenir bargains…
I have been to many N.African,M./est and East african Muslim countries.
I dislike people setting themselves up as experts on an area when they have probably never left Hicksville in the Mid Westin their lives.
Yes, having travelled abroad and spoken to a handful of locals certainly qualifies one as an expert. Obviously those folks in Hicksville, OH can’t be well-educated and have an informed opinion.
Lust4life, you’re spewing garbage by the truckload and trying to demonize untold amounts of people. Replace arabs/muslims/palestinians/terrorists (which you so conveniently amalgamate) by jews and you have yourself some Hamas propaganda. Congratulations on “rising” to their level.
What do you expect? A hivemind to form and agree on everything? Of course there are going to be splinter groups. If you want to condemn palestinian hypocrisy, use a sound argument.
And the israelis don’t? If anything, they’re much better at making themselves look good to the western media, especially in the U.S.
Uh, what? Why wouldn’t they be binding? What oaths? Are you saying that Israel always keeps its word?
I also heard they eat kittens and throw virgins in volcanoes every full moon.
No doubt, no doubt. Whenever I see one of those mothers crying because their 8 year old daughter/son was killed, I’m always amazed by her awesome acting skills. Maybe they’re actually robots and don’t have any emotions. And yes, absolutely, dead palestinians ALWAYS have bombs strapped to them. In fact, they might be born with said bombs. Not people at all really, just living missiles.
Yes, tea and kittenheads. Don’t forget the kittenheads.
You’re saying it takes more courage for a suicide bomber to explode near a civilian bus than it is to explode near a military jeep? Surely you jest.
Islamic culture doesn’t educate squat. Government funded schools educate. Private schools educate. Each country glorifies itself and its culture in their history/geography classes. Read a french or american history schoolbook and you’ll see. And speaking of superiority, don’t jews consider themselves the chosen people?
What young are you talking about? Palestinians? Pakistanis? Indonesians? Moroccans? Egyptians? Lebanese? There you go amalgamating again.
Newsflash! Human beings like money and the things they can buy with it! Communism all but extinct! More at 11!
And what do you mean by “many islamists hate the west”? What’s many? 0.1%? You’re just making stuff up as far as I can tell. In fact, how about using MEANINGFUL numbers, percentages, country names instead of vague, misleading words like “many”, “they” and so forth? If you’re not going to provide cites, then at least be concrete enough so other people can debunk your wacky claims.
Who is they? Dubai? Koweit? Saudi arabia? Iran? Venezuela? What do you mean by going backward? Can you provide concrete examples?
By some, do you perchance mean 99.9% ? Because the word “some” evoques a much lower percentage.
Religious people sinning! Breaking news! Utterly irrelevant too! Seriously, what are you thinking when you write these things?
Offtopic and about as likely as IRA having a bible version featuring harry potter and unicorns. Really, this is laughable.
Who’s “we”? Use words and, if necessary, percentages. Don’t forget to differentiate between peaceful, good people who don’t like their prophets portrayed as terrorists and actual murderers. I know, I know. Those stupid details sure get in the way of good hate speech.
Goddamn fry eaters! shakes fist angrily at the sky. I hate fries too. That was your point right?
You chat with ordinary muslims? REALLY? Because it sounds like you’ve been chatting with Ahmadinejad .
And have you noticed the thriving jewish communities there? Seriously. Both Our neighbours were jewish. We went to the bar mitzvah of the grandson of downstairs neighbour. She passed away a while ago. Perla Knafo, our upstairs neighbour for 18 years had a spare of our house key and is my mom’s friend. Great lady, makes really tasty pies. Hell, the first 2 girls I’ve had crushes on were jewish Hannah and Martine assayag (not sisters). 3 of my friends were jewish.
So, no intermarriages (both muslims and jews are too religious for that in Morocco and the children’s religion is a huge deal)but I’d say jews and arabs get along better than protestants and catholics in some ways. Think about it for a bit. Also think about the way jews were treated by arabs () and contrast it with the way they were treated by europeans.
But this goddamned israelo-palestinian conflict is poison everywhere and has a negative impact on jewish-muslim relations worldwide. We really don’t need any more hatred flowing. So please stop it.
Gozu, thank you. You articulated all the points I would have made had I not been too lazy.
Lust4Life, you do, as Gozu pointed out, make sweeping generalizations and often ridiculous statements with nothing to back them up.
And as for accusing people who think differently from you of being from Hicksville in the Midwest, and are therefore somehow unqualified to express an opinion or make an argument on the subject, how about this? I live in a thriving metropolitan area, I’ve never set foot in the Midwest, and I am taking a class at university this term called Crusades and Jihad. Not to mention personally knowing some Palestinians, an Israeli or two, and a lot of Jews.
Your last post smacks of hate speech, and I bet the good people of Hicksville are glad they don’t think like you.
