You need to learn the definition of ethnic cleansing.
What makes your back yard so valuable that you can’t relinquish some of it and tear down that fence you illegally put up blocking access to my rabid dogs that roam my yard. I’m willing to acknowledge my right to your yard (though of course I fail to see the need to acknowledge YOUR right to your…er, I mean my…yard…is this a problem?)
Just because my doggies (who were just being playful) have attacked your children in the past is no good reason for you to continue to discriminate against them NOW…
Why aren’t you jumping at the chance to bend over backwards (making it easier for me to fuck you over)?? I don’t get it…
(Most of the above wasn’t actually directed at you Gozu…but mainly at the OP and at the attitude represented there)
-XT
I know the definition of ethnic cleansing. I don’t believe it applies to what I said at all. Sending illegal aliens back to their country of origin is not ethnic cleansing either, but I have heard it called that. That doesn’t make it right.
- They are not illegal aliens
- Ethnic cleansing is the removal of an ethnicity from a piece of geography.
You ARE calling for ethnic cleansing, by the strict definition of the term.
They are not. There are many Palestinian citizens in Jordan. Jordan has long since washed its hands of the rest, and of any claim to the WB. The Palestinians there are universally considered stateless persons under international law.
It’s better in that Israel can solve the problem by counter-bombardment, without invading or occupying; better also in that the Palestinians in such situation can more readily give up, i.e., discontinue the attacks, knowing they can do so without danger of losing what they hold, whereas if they persist what they hold will still be theirs but much more heavily damaged.
But a one-state solution would be better still.
First of all, I am not “calling for” anything. Please reread what I actually posted and don’t just believe the way that Sevastopol characterized it. Second, by a strict definition of the term, you are absolutely right and I am wrong. However, I think that the term “ethnic cleansing” gets thrown around entirely too often. The term invokes images of Auschwitz and is frequently used as a pejorative with the intention of invoking those images. I just don’t think that the term, while technically correct, applies very well in this case. SOMEBODY is going to get the OT eventually and the other party is going to have to leave. If Israel winds up incorporating the OT into their country, then the Palestinians living there may have to go back to their own country (which, like it or not, and I know the “oh those poor, poor oppressed Palestinians!” faction doesn’t like to acknowledge it, is Jordan). That would meet the technical definition of “ethnic cleansing”. By the same token, of the OT are eventually incorporated into a state called “Palestine”, then the Jewish settlers will most likely be forced back to their own country, Israel. Once again, by definition, ethnic cleansing. Since what we have here is a situation that is the same for both groups, I don’t think that “ethnic cleansing” is a very useful term. I mean, lets face it, if Israel really wanted to “ethnically cleanse” the OT in the traditional, violent use of the term, there wouldn’t be any Palestinians left in the OT. They have that ability, they haven’t used it. That fact needs to be recognized when talking about the evil, oppressive Israelis.
Actually, it invokes images of Croatia, Bosnia and Rwanda, which are much more recent and plenty horrifying in their own way and show exactly what driving the Pals out of the OTs would entail.
Furthermore, if you’re going to uproot 3.7 million Palestinians and dump them all at once on Jordan, a desert country which at present has a population of only 5.9 million . . . well, just putting it that way shows it is not to be thought of.
The problems in Israel are about land. Jerusalem holds enormous significance in Jewish history. It is the heart of Zion itself. The Israeli Jews aren’t likely to divide the city for peace.
At this point, one state might be the only viable solution since neither side can agree on how to divide the land peacefully. In concept it is ideal, but Palestinian nationalism and Jewish Zionism is the reality. Both sides have to decide if another fifty years of fighting is worth it.
Agreed; and besides that it’s always a bad idea to politically divide a city. But the settlements should be considered negotiable.
Some of the problems there are tactical. Modin Illit, for instance, has 40,000 people living there, Betar Illit, 34,000, Ma’ale Adumim, 32,000, and Ariel, 17,000.
Obviously, the smaller settlements can be disbanded easily, but how do you do that with 4 cities that together have over 100,000 people?
Big claim; cite?
Your sole basis for the claim is talking vegetation? Say it isn’t so.
I know you don’t answer my questions but instead, consider: What is so hard about the Israelis ceasing settlement activity?
Is the will to do evil so central to the identity of the Jewish state? Say it isn’t so.
That is currently what the IDF does. They have co-ordinates for likely launching locations, as as long as they are (I believe) no closer than 200 meters to other populated buildings, the IDF drops artillery as soon as they get inbound rockets.
They only do large scale operations as a response to exceptionally heavy rocket attacks, or other escellations (kidnapping of soldiers, etc.).
If only Hamas would stop launching rockets, the IDF would stop counter-battery fire.
And neither party is interested in a one-state solution.
What’s so hard about the Palestinians acknowledging formally Israels right to exist and formally repudiating the PLO and violence against Israel and seeking a peaceful resolution to this problem? Why exactly should Israel stop their settlements until and unless the Palestinians take these first seemingly small steps?
It aint so. There…are you convinced?
-XT
Hamas might become largely irrelevant if Israel and the PA could only work out a peace settlement . . . but the latest round of talks between Olmert and Abbas appears to have produced almost nothing.
Abbas is planning to announce a Fatah-Hamas power-sharing PA government later this month; it will be interesting to see if they can share the same tent and keep their knives sheathed, and, if so, on what else they can agree.
Is there any (significant) party on the ground that is?
Viewed from the outside, nothing. From the inside, I would suppose decades of built-up resenment among an oppressed populace makes it difficult (not impossible) for Pal pols to win with a reconciliation message.
Because there is no connection between the one and the other. You’re making a “two wrongs make a right” sort of argument. Israel does have a right to exist; Israel does not have any right, save right of conquest, to plant settlements in the WB, now or in 1967.
Sevastopol
Covenant of Hamas
Relevant Sections
Though, if you had bothered to look up the charter yourself you would have found:
in the second paragraph.