My post was addressing the statement “at no time has Israel significantly suspended the settlement process in the occupied Palestinian territories”.
From your own cite:
I guess the meaning of “significantly” leaves enough wiggle room to ignore the quoted info for those who wish to do so.
Oh, I think I can see who’s being pathological. :rolleyes:
Well, it might help your credibility if you can say a positive thing about Israel, even if it’s an obvious thing like how women having the right to vote is good. Heck, I can casually drop a few serious criticisms of Israel and I guess I could say something positive about the surrounding Arab nations, if I put my back into it.
I daresay the Palestinians have had ample opportunity to work toward a situation where they’re no longer under the Israeli jackboot and if this happens, the Israeli economy will not collapse.
Hitler really, really loved his dog.
It doesn’t make me a Nazi to observe that he was apparently a really good pet owner, any more than it makes him any less of a mass-murdering fuckhead.
Extreme absolutism is irrational and makes it impossible to take your argument seriously. Might want to look into that, chief.
Haven’t I thrown you a bone here 87? There’s no need to go calling me absolutist. It’s quite a hurtful thing to put in writing for everybody to see.
A straight answer was always a long shot. I knew that. Nothing ventured…
So… is women’s suffrage good or not?
Happy Birthday Isreal! Many wishes of peace and success wishes to you.
oh and that reminds me…
Go USA!
Not when Jews do it, apparently.
Matters to me, not to whether Israel has a right to exist …
w.
I’d be hard-pressed to think of a country that didn’t have bloodshed in its past, either by displacing a native population or fighting a revolution or suppressing rebellions or waging war on neighbors… It’d have to be a colony somewhere without contentious neighbors or a pre-existing population. Pitcairn Island might be it, and arguably not even them.
Heh, in fact …
It depends. It is good when female suffrage is progress towards universal suffrage and equality under the law for all people. Otherwise, it is a travesty.
It maybe a coincidence but the latest from the LA Times does resonate with our discussion of late:
How about literacy? Or does that have a qualifier, too?
At least the writer acknowledges the Palestinians have played a role in continued Palestinian suffering, though his later response is somewhat amusing:
He’s trying to argue for a single-state solution which, to be perfectly blunt, is comparable to asking for mass suicide among Israeli Jews. There are few better examples of inherently discriminatory “ethnic states” than Israel’s neighbors, and if “Greater Palestine” ever came to exist and the majority population became Muslim, I have little doubt they will cheerfully and democratically declare it an officially Muslim state. It might actually work out for the best, though. Israeli Jews will stage a horrifically violent rebellion, they will wildly succeed as they always have, every Muslim will be killed or expelled and the author’s dream of:
…will be realized.
Do you have a comparison of the respective countries? That is what we are discussing.
Paranoia.
Again, the South Africa comparison is apposite.
“Succeed has they always have”? You are referring to Iraq & Saddam Hussein.
Well, there’s always wiki:
Rank/Country/Literacy Rate
56 Israel 97.1
72 Kuwait 93.3
76 Brunei Darussalam 92.7
80 Palestinian Authority 92.4
84 Jordan 91.1
94 United Arab Emirates 88.7
97 Lebanon 88.3
101 Turkey 87.4
105 Bahrain 86.5
111 Libya 84.2
113 Saudi Arabia 82.9
114 Iran 82.4
117 Oman 81.4
120 Syria 80.8
129 Tunisia 74.3
132 Egypt 71.4
135 Algeria 69.9
155 Yemen 54.1
I may have missed a few - I just went down the list quickly.
Really. As FinnAgain points out, the intent to establish Islam as a state religion is written right into the Hamas charter. Do you assume the promise of a one-state solution is enough to make them drop this? Do you assume they’re only kidding and they wouldn’t really declare an Islamic state? Please enlighten me.
It is?
I am? Not consciously, I assure you. Rather, my confidence in Israeli military success stems not from some ability to cow a population through mass slaughter, secret arrests, family massacres, rape rooms, etc. (Saddam SOPs) but their demonstrated record of battlefield prowess from 1948 onward.
Of course, the kind of all-out urban civil war I described as the result of a “Greater Palestine” is quite different and considerably messier than just clobbering Egyptian or Syrian armies. I’d still bet on the Jews to win, but a great many people will be killed. Israel would be foolish in the extreme to put itself on that road. If you have any ideas of how to establish a one-state solution where all citizens can live in freedom and safety, please share. Alternately, if there are to be two states (or three), please share your ideas for a disengagement that lets all parties stand down with a minimum of violence. What demands should Hamas drop as a requirement of statehood and what should they keep? What concessions must Israel make and what should they not? What should Israel’s response be if they continue to be attacked by suicide bombers from the newly-independent West Bank or rockets from the Golan?
Please, please, enlighten us.
Not only that, but their rampant and pathological Jew-hatred makes it highly unlikely that peace would result, even under their planned one-state theocracy. Of course, Sevasty has previously ignored their anti-Semitism with the bizarre handwaving that it was “in the context of anti-Zionism”, whatever exactly he thinks that means.
Anyways, from the same cite as earlier:
Of course, having done this dance before, I can predict that Sevasty’s evasion will be something along the lines of how Hamas just hates Israelis, or just hates “Zionists”, or just hates Israeli Jews, or what have you. Ignoring, of course, that it’d still be rampant bigotry and prejudice in any of those cases… the fact of the matter is that Hamas is perfectly capable of delineating between Jews, Israelis and Judaism.
When they say they are waging a holy war against the Jews, they mean it.
Speaking of “resonating with our discussion of late”, here’s a nifty couple of takes on celebrating Israel’s 60th anniversary.
A lot of it sounds very familiar, both from this thread and in its use of themes commonly expounded upon in Dope threads on Israel and the Middle East.
Wonder how much of it Wildfire and Sevastopol would have to read before finding something with which they disagreed. :dubious:
I find it interesting that the entry titled Sixty Years of Bloodshed, Treachery and Terror ends with:
…which is pretty much identical to some of the sentiments expressed in this thread (familiar, indeed). On its face, doesn’t this sentiment pretty much rule out any kind of peaceful resolution? It’s a call for Palestinians to bide their time until some vague future when they can have their revenge. It’s not an encouragement for them to seek a stable peace with Israel within this lifetime, let alone that of the next generation.
If Sevastapol has (or knows of anyone who has) a plan in mind that could actually be implemented without slaughter, I beg him to share.