And I hate to tell you, but but the Kingdom of Asturias – where I hail from – was never under Muslim rule and we have no beef with the Visigoths. Beyond that, you ‘logic’ is about as twisted as a pretzel if only half as tasty.
Why? Because if we were to follow it, in the same way Christian Kingdoms in Spain united and engaged in a bloody war of Reconquista to earn back their original land, so too, would the Palestinians be justified in engaging in one. Yet that is not what they want as a collective. Nor would I agree with them if they did.
Besides, injecting AQ into the IP conflict is nothing but well-poisoning.
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So, what do you suggest?
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At this point in history? Gods know. I guess if I could command the Palestinians, I’d say to try the Gandhi Gambit…no armed resistance, look as pathetic and forlorn as they could (it won’t be hard…they ARE pathetic and forlorn), toss out Hamas and be seen to actively be hunting them down like the rabid dogs they are, and appeal to the international community for aid and succor, especially wrt the blockade. Use similar tactics in the OT, and put pressure on Jordan to give up some of it’s territory towards a Palestinian homeland (not that this is likely to happen, but you might as well shoot for the moon).
That’s what they have been doing for decades now. Wake up. Every time the Palestinians have used suicide bombers to blow the crap out of some cafe or mall in Israel, every time they use mortars or rockets, every time they openly attack Israel, their cred goes down and it gives Israel that much more of an excuse to take another bite. What’s in it for Israel to NOT start taking over and using the territory they captured from other states through force of arms?? What does Israel get out of holding back? Answer…nothing. And about a decade or so ago they finally came to that realization. There was no gain in it for them to not expand into the OT. Giving up Gaza and the subsequent events has ONLY REINFORCED THAT THINKING IN ISRAEL. It’s justified it…and, hell, it’s justified it outside of Israel. In the US, polls run about 60% in sympathy with Israel and it’s actions, with the rest being split between a few Palestinian sympathizers and folks who are undecided.
They would have ceased to exist decades ago if the situation were reversed because they would have been wiped from the face of the earth. That was the plan, after all. So, it’s ridiculous to ask because under no circumstances would or could the roles be reversed in our universe.
It’s moot anyway. What you have to think about now is: what could the Palestinians actually do to make the best deal they could? Answer…not a lot. Even their other, supposedly more sympathetic (snort) non-Israeli neighbors look at the Palestinians as rabid dogs…or at least as loose cannons. Iran has the luxury of not actually being near the Palestinians, so it’s a bit easier for them to support Hamas from a distance.
You are deluding yourself. Israelis are not Brits. It wouldn’t work. The only benefit would be is you would have hard time doing sh!t.
You know what Brits did once - in war of 1812 with US as a part of peace agreement they planned an independent territory for Natives. Little did they - both Brits and Natives - knew that dealing with radical religious extremists is proven to leave you hanging so nothing ever came out of that plan. And not only that, Americans went on to decimate Natives in the next 50 years.
As for Gandhi, you chose wrong reference - I’d suggest you Google it to see why.
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Only one thing in an otherwise blank response…
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Ah…the irony…
No thanks. If you can’t make a coherent point on your own, I’m certainly not going to flail around doing your research for you and trying to figure out what the hell you are talking about.
That sound rushing by over your head? It was the point. Sadly, you missed it. Rather than give you some cryptic horseshit about going to Google to see why you missed it, I’ll simply explain…I wasn’t talking about Israel, at least not directly. Nor was it meant to be an analogy about the ‘Brits’/India = Israel/Palestine. What I was saying is they should take the non-violent route to change their image and put pressure on the international community. It’s easier for Israel to bomb the crap out of Palestinians in response to rocket attacks or suicide bombers than it is in response to non-violent protest and looking pathetic and starving while making a good faith effort to go after the rabid dogs in their midst. THAT will get international sympathy, which will go a long way towards pressuring Israel to modify it’s current policies.
Ok, so explain this to me: if Palestinians “cannot cause any serious harm to Israel”, why are they causing harm? What is the purpose of causing “unserious” harm?
Red, you need to work on your reading comprehension skills.
I wasn’t referring to La Reconquista to make analogy to the Palestinians but to the Israelis who also justified it by saying they were taking back “their original land”(to use your term) as well. The difference of course is the Israelis weren’t nearly as ruthless in accomplishing this task.
Sorry dude, but Spain is Israel. Don’t worry though, it’s not the only western nation that’s also Israel.
Except that is the official position if Hamas and was the position of Al Fatah until it became obviously impossible.
Er…AQ used the same justification for the Madrid bombing that you used for Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Anyway I think it’s hysterically funny that you squeal about the Christians trying to reclaim “their original land” but froth at mouth at the evil Jews living on “stolen land”.
Both sides have had bad actors doing bad actions for political gain since day one. One side just happens to outnumber the other, and both sides’ ostensible religious and cultural allies see fit to inflame the conflict since day one for no good reason other than regional politics.
Right. Which is why I’m not morally opposed to blockades and checkpoints in the medium term, either.
Right, I agree. The problem is that Palestinian grievances are A) very culturally ingrained, B) not without merit but not completely meritorious, and C) being deliberately inflamed by other Arab nations for political reasons of their own.
Given that climate, Israel cannot hope to do anything to make “the terrorism go away completely, forever” except by dealing with those reasons in a mature and reasonable fashion or by engaging in a war of annihilation. I don’t condone the latter, and no sane person should. The clearest path to long-term peace for Israel is in giving the Palestinian people reasons, over a long term, to believe that trusting Israel gives better results than trusting Hamas or any other terrorist groups. This is not the work of a year or even a single generation, IMHO.
You can frame your argument anyway you wish – doesn’t mean I have to accept said framing for my response in order for you to “score points.” Hasbara 101.
Point being, my own framing uses La Reconquista as a justification for Palestinians. Which is a perfectly acceptable historical analogy as well.
Anyway, glad I amuse you – would that I could return the complement but alas, even at that, you fail. Epically.
That said, if you could stay off of the personal comments, that’d be swell. Thanks.
If Palestinians kicked out Hamas and peacefully sat around asking for change, do you know what would happen? Israel would GLADLY help them hunt down whoever remains of Hamas, provide more humanitarian aid than anyone else in the world, and remove the blockade. Israel doesn’t treat Gaza like an enemy because it doesn’t like Gaza; Israel treats Gaza like an enemy BECAUSE GAZA IS ACTING LIKE AN ENEMY.
Well yeah…I agree. Gaza was sort of a trial balloon for the Israelis. To see what would happen if they turned over territory for peace. It hasn’t exactly been a glowing success story of what the Israelis can expect if they turn over territory to the PA.
Sadly, the Palestinians are unlikely to take any of this advice…especially kicking out and hunting down Hamas like the rabid jackals they are, so it’s just pie in the sky. What will happen is status quo…Israel will agree to yet another cease fire, Hamas will once again lay low and lick their wounds, rebuild their stocks of missiles and faithful followers, and sometime in the future we’ll go through all of this again. And again. And again.
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Point being, my own framing uses La Reconquista as a justification for Palestinians. Which is a perfectly acceptable historical analogy as well.
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So, since you disagree with Ibn Warraq (or do you? your logic is indeed dizzying), that would mean that in your analogy the Palestinians are the Spanish?? How does that make sense to you?
Okay, I’m going to ask since nobody else has: Why exactly is this in GD? It’s pretty clear that Red’s ranting. His cites are a bit deficient on accuracy and objectivity, also. So, it’s a biased rant. Doesn’t it belong in The BBQ Pit?
Try reading my post sitting down – might help with your dizziness.
It’s very simple actually. The exact same claim over original ownership of the land is made by the two sides, using both historical and religious arguments. Depending on who you (chose to) believe, either side would have the “right” of Reconquista. So his is not the only framing of the issue from that particular historical perspective.
Now see? That’s amusing. Please provide a link to a single GD thread involving Israel/Palestine that is NOT biased in favor of Israel. You are welcome to go back as far as the search function allows.
Secondly, I have not just provided cites, I have argued for their veracity and provided as many facts as possible in support of my position. Which is obviously disconcerting to some of the more grizzled Israel supporters in these normally one-sided threads.
Result: derision & scorn. To be expected of course. But winds of change are coming and all the mocking in the world won’t stop them.
Just my impression-but it seems that the Palestinians are realizing that nobody is paying much attention to this latest publicity stunt. They are already expressing an interest in negotiation-I guess this ploy didn’t pay off. Talk about cynical-but Hamas has never cared much for the lives of Palestinians.
So far, the Winds of Change appear to be limited to Turkey and Egypt making disapproving noises … and the hacker collective “Anonymous”.
For the record, though, the OP does have a Great Debate of sorts, though it has gotten somewhat lost in the sturm und drang - being, how will other ME and Muslim states react to the latest incidents in Gaza?
To be honest, I don’t think he even understood my point. He was going into a rant in which he said, or at least strongly implied, the Israelis had no right to complain when rockets rained down on them because they were living on “stolen land.”
I pointed out that by this logic terrorist attacks against Spain were justified because Spain was on land that had been “stolen” from Muslims.
When the Muslims were finally thrown out of Spain in 1492 following near genocidal attacks and massive ethnic cleansing, they’d been in Spain for 8 centuries. Or, to put it another way, about 6 centuries longer than the US has been in existence and about 4 centuries longer than Muslims had been in Jerusalem when the Crusaders first tried to take back land that had been “stolen” from Christians.
That’s why I said “Spain is Israel”.
Red, seemed to misunderstand this and think that I was bringing up La Reconquista to justify Israel’s actions with comments like:
Of course, I don’t think La Reconquista was justified. It was a horrific atrocity and a huge stain on western civilization.
Red, on the other hand with his rantings about them trying to retake “their original land” seems to think it was somewhat justified though it went too far.
Of course he fails to note that both the Crusades and the Zionist Jews claimed to be taking “their original land.”
I also, for the record don’t think Israel should have been created and that the Balfour decleration was wrong and led to other wrongs, though nothing as sickening as La Reconquista.
As Monty already noted, at this point Red doesn’t seem to be arguing so much as ranting and using strawmen and absurdly biased sources in place of argument.
Oh, and good job on keeping on with the personal attacks – I mean for someone’s who’s openly admitted to losing his cool rather quickly when debates are not going his way, you have some gall telling me that I am “ranting.” So please stop with the fake ‘apologies’ already and have at it.
