I dunno. I honestly don’t think many Zionists “rely so heavily” on the UN.
You have answered my questions, thanks. It is obvious that these settlements represent israeli overnment policy-since they are financed by Israeli banks and pay taxes.
So these settlers are not a bunch of crazies-they are doing what they are doing because they have been paid to do so.
Tha is why i have a good laugh when Netanyahu or somebody else decries the settlers-he knows exactly what is going on, and is directing it. Then we have these little bsurd incidents when Obama calls of the Israeli Government to halt the settlements, and Netanyahu says “we really can’t do anything-these people are doing this on their own”.
What a joke!
So is this really how it works?
The Israeli government just appropriates the land and sells it at auction or something?
Does anyone here approve of that practice?
I’ve pretty much lost interest in the thread but I wanted to quickly comment that you guys are reading WAY more into what I said than, well, what I said. You are putting your own spin on them as well…FTR and all that.
That is not at all what I said. While I was speaking in generalities I was pretty careful to emphasize that the situation varies. SOME settlements are sponsored by the Israeli government…some are completely illegal (by Israeli law) and are essentially being done without government approval. In any case, the Israeli government doesn’t pay people to settle in the OT, regardless. Again, think in terms of the US movement west during, say, the 1800’s.
Again, there are many settlements in the OC that ARE illegal (by Israeli law) and are not sponsored or endorsed by the government. SOME of the settlements are endorsed by the government…some are not.
And he would have been right. As I said, you are reading a lot more into my post, and you are putting your own spin on things. And, to be honest, my own post wasn’t exactly a paragon of a fact filled post…I was speaking from memory and I have zero doubts that some of the things I said only had a passing familiarity with the facts. It should certainly not be taken as gospel…even without the spin you guys are putting on it.
The Israeli government is the occupying authority in the OT. It’s debatable whether this gives them the ‘right’ to manage and dispose of the land. Obviously Israel feels they have that ‘right’, and frankly I mostly agree. I could wish they had formally annexed the land decades ago, and not chosen to go this sort of back door annexation…but that’s probably for another thread.
Context is everything in evaluating whether one approves or does not approve. As I’ve said previously, I actually would have wanted Israel to FORMALLY annex the OT…so, I suppose I at least tacitly ‘approve’ of their settlements, at least in the short and medium term. That said, my own stance on this is a bit more nuanced than categorical approval or disapproval. At this point in history I think that the Palestinian’s, such as they are a people at all, are going to have to settle for less than half a loaf. The train has left the station LONG ago for anything else to be reasonable. Decades ago at this point. And it’s not like even now anything substantial has changed wrt the Palestinian’s position towards Israel…they still have a small but fanatically motivated percentage of their population that is bent on lashing out at Israel, and who have almost a vested interest in keeping the cycle of violence going.
Until that changes, IMHO and FWIW, Israel will continue to hold the high moral ground…and they will continue to occupy the territory they captured in a war of aggression against them. And, frankly, every year that goes by that the rest of the Palestinian’s continue to allow this situation to remain will continue to erode whatever deal they finally end up with. Eventually they may be relegated to no national identity at all, either being absorbed by the other countries in the region, absorbed by Europe, or relegated to small enclaves in places like Gaza or isolated villages in the OT. I HOPE they wake up before that happens, and try to do a Gandhi on the Israeli’s…but I seriously doubt that will happen.
And with that I think I’ll bid everyone ado. Have fun storming the castle!
-XT
Well, I don’t want to keep you in a thread you don’t want to devote time to. I just don’t understand how you reconcile your respect for human and property rights with Israeli actions in building settlements.
The only comment I can make about this is like wow.
Its ok to illegally settle land?
I’d also like to pose to you two questions
- What is / should the Israeli government do about Israeli citizens that by your own admission are breaking Israeli law?
- Are you at all surprised, that for as long as Israeli citizens are (again by your own admission) breaking the law by building in the OT there are others that are willing to take on the role of a (in their view) heroic resistance?
With these attitudes it is no wonder the conflict has not yet reached a resolution. And by the way, its an attitude thats present on BOTH sides.
Don’t you see? It’s all the Palestinians’ fault that the Israelis are taking their land. And as long as the Palestinians can’t get their act together to xtisme’s satisfaction, the Israelis will just have to keep doing it. Simple, really, even regrettable, but what choice do they have?
A pretty ironic outcome for a state founded the way Israel was, isn’t it? Now let’s hear no more twaddle about moral high ground.
Daniel Gordis shows a little more understanding of the need for honesty in this Jerusalem Post editorial.
The problem with the WB is that Israel now has the wolf by the ears. It wasn’t Israel’s fault that it grabbed the wolf in the first place - that’s the end result of a war of aggression against it, you may recall - but now the issue is whether it is right to keep on holding on to that wolf, let it go and suffer the consequences, adopt it as one of the household, or kill it for good.
Well, they tried letting the wolf go in Gaza. They did exactly what everone wants them to - cleared out the Israeli settlers, by force in some cases, packed up and left. How well did that little experiment turn out?
They are unlikely to kill the wolf - that would mean in essence ethnically cleansing the area of Palestinians who have always lived there. Call that the “Greece-Turkey” solution, or the “India-Pakistan” solution, because that is exactly what happened in those countries when faced with similar problems. The world has moved on since then, and it would hardly be considered moral or acceptable. World would not stand for it.
They will not adopt the wolf (the “one state” solution) for the obvious reason that they do not wish to commit collective suicide.
Thus, by default, they are left hanging onto the wolf, seemingly forever. Whether you wish to label them moral or immoral is irrelevant, since there is no obvious solution that anyone can come up with that is both moral and sensible. The one that people want to see succeed (including it should be said many Israelis) is a viable Palestinian state on the west bank. If this was possible I do believe the Israelis would make many concessions, including removing settlements, to achieve it: they have before in other situations (Siani, Gaza). But there is little evidence that it is possible, and the Gaza situation was not an encouraging portent.
While the continuing expansion of settlements is certainly regrettible it is not the cause of the problem - it is a symptom of a larger problem: the lack of options or “end game”.
Yes, the Palestinian state in Gaza worked out great! The Israelis turned over productive farms, houses, and businesse-which were proptly destroyed! I wonder if the palestinians have some kind of deathwish? How do explain a farm left by an Israeli settler-fruit trees torn up, greenhouses smashed, houses burned? And what happened to the billions they received? the place resembles a huge slum today.
Part of the problem is seeing their neighbors, their fellow human beings, as “wolves”, innit? :dubious: What kind of response can they expect from that?
It’s all well and good to point out the difficulties in finally achieving the two-state solution that has seemed so obvious and necessary ever since the partition, but not, as you seem to be implying, as making it impossible. Statecraft tackles the hard problems, it does not merely wring its hands and claim there is “no end game”. Statecraft first starts by dropping the antagonisms that underlie such things as thinking of the people with whom you have to deal wild animals who have to be kept behind a wall.
Honesty first, yes, of course, as Obama says and Gordis concurs, among many others. But then acceptance of responsibility must follow. That has to include dropping the settlements, not simply calling them “regrettable” and inventing excuses to continue them anyway.
With quite a lot of help from Israeli bulldozers, as you’ll recall.
It’s too soon to tell.
It’s a metaphore for the situation, not a commentary on their humanity. :rolleyes: Further, I’m not addressing the Palestinians in person and I’m not an Israeli.
Then “statecraft” has a lot of work to do. Pie in the sky optomism pales when confronted with real-life problems involving actual humans. How exactly do you propose that the Israelis go about “dropping antagonisms”?
Honesty involves honestly facing the situation. We agree that dropping the settlements is a good idea, they are an impediment to any proposed solution, but unlike you I am under no illusions that it will “solve” anything.
That has to be the epitomie of optomism. By any rational measure, the decision to tear up the settlements and leave (which I fully agreed with at the time BTW) has proven a catestrophic failure.
Not so fast with the rolleyes, please. You offered it as a metaphor for the Israeli POV, and that POV is what I’ve been trying to address and that you, among others, have instead been trying to rationalize.
Damn right statecraft involves a lot of work. It requires, among other things, dropping the attitude that it can only be “pie in the sky”. :dubious: That constitutes a choice to fail before even beginning. Perhaps Begin and Sadat could be examples to the contrary for you.
Be serious, please.
You offer no solution of your own, only curt dismissals of the notion that there even can be any. Convenient, huh?
It is a commonly used metaphore descriptive of the situation, not of the “Israeli POV”. I am not an Israeli and I do not claim to speak for Israelis.
Unless you are claiming I am really “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”. 
But you wouldn’t do that, right? It would deny my human status. 
Sadat famously “went to Jerusalem” (and was assassinated for his trouble). If there was a prominent Sadat-like figure on the Palestinian side, I have yet to hear of it.
I do not think it is impossible to have peace or a solution - far from it; I merely think it is impossible to achieve a solution without a genuine willingness on the part of a credible Palestinian leadership - which is not in evidence.
Wishing it were otherwise will not make it so.
I could reply likewise.
I take it you are accusing me of arguing in bad faith.
Yet you’ve only provided a metaphor for one side, unless you think the Palestinians think of *themselves *as “wolves”. Is that the case?
Yet again from you, it’s always all the other guys’ responsibility. Do you not think that one side’s actions affect the other’s in most situations, that a change of attitude on one side can promote a responding change on the other?
Apparently not. It’s all the other guys’ responsibility, once again.
Wishing you had a reasoned response will not make it so.
Nyah, nyah. :rolleyes:
I accuse you of nothing that you are not demonstrating for yourself.
Give me a metaphore that is equally apropos for the situation and casts Israelis in the “animal role” and I’d happily adopt it.
Or, conversely, be offended. Frankly I don’t care. 
I think it most unlikely in this situation for the simple reason that it was tried before and has failed in practice - in Gaza.
It is you who are demanding unilateral actions - from the Israelis. I do not think “it is all the other guy’s responsibility” at all - clearly Israeli goodwill will be necessary; but without Palestinian goodwill, nothing will happen.
If you want to continue in this vein, Pit me. Otherwise, confine your bile, please.
How about a metaphor that casts *both *peoples is the *human *role? Could you adopt one of those instead?
Again with the excuses.
If neither party starts the process, the process will not get started. Nor, since this thread is nominally about the settlements, do they get to be dismissed as not having been “unilateral action by the Israelis”. The fact that reversing that action would also have to be unilateral does *not *constitute a reason not to do it. To claim it, as you seem to do, is not acceptance of responsibility for one’s own actions, much less one’s relations with one’s neighbor. The same can be said about walls and bulldozers too, by the way.
You have said nothing whatever to support that position, and quite a bit seemingly to the contrary, but it’s a relief to know you hold it anyway, I suppose. Now where are we to find that “good will”?
Mine? Scroll up and reread, if you will.
Perhaps I could grab the bull by the horns. But given how you are crying wolf over the issue … I think you are like the dog in the manger on the subject of metaphores.
If you assume a willingness to learn from recent history is an “excuse”.
The “process” has been “started” for years.
How exactly did you come to the conclusion that I believe Israeli goodwill isn’t necessary for peace?
Please point out where I have accused you of arguing in bad faith.