SpankyMcFarland

To whom exactly will ‘we look’ foolish for sitting this hare-brained disaster out? To the thousands of Iraqi families whose loved ones were killed or maimed in the invasion or in the chaos since? Will Canadian soldiers protest that they should have had the chance to lose their lives over there? Even US Republicans have turned their backs on the neoconservatives. BTW that comparison with the kingdoms on the Arabian peninsula is a stretch for multiple reasons. Most of Iraq is not part of the peninsula.

It was an excellent decision by Chrétien, correct and consequential. Politicians don’t get enough praise for the disasters they avoid. By contrast, Tony Blair’s reputation has never recovered among Labour voters in the UK - for that and a few other reasons.

I’m not sure I agree that atheism on its own will greatly improve the quality of leadership around the planet. For example, the prime threat to global freedom, the PRC, is governed by a man who appears to be an atheist. In the past, religion may have exacerbated our conflicts and given us added excuses for them but we seem programmed to fight with each other. Like the struggle against autocracy, pacifism seems to be an unnatural human state that each generation must, well, fight to preserve.

I’m heading out anyway. I was talking about a future Palestinian state. A popular tactic among Israeli extremists these days is to claim that Palestinians are a made-up people, partly because they don’t have their own unique language etc. The bizarre thing is that some North Americans support this stance, unaware of the implications it might have for countries like ours that are recent, multiethnic and without a unique language either.

BTW lads, the US and EU support a two-state solution so you should show them the error of their ways too. This is a trolling thread.

What do you mean so-called? Are Palestinians figments of my imagination?

Sorry, where would the Palestinians live and what passports would they have?

Security is a legit issue for Israelis to consider but not an excuse to hide a land grab that makes a Palestinian state impossible. The alternative to a two-state solution EVENTUALLY is future Palestinians never being citizens of a country. Even in a totalitarian dystopia like China the Uighurs are citizens. In conclusion, Israel-Palestine has become a proxy fight for our Canadian tribes. It’s a good idea not to get too excited about it.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on that. No, I’m not doing that, as I have explained to you already. Again, I don’t support Hamas. Not everyone who disagrees with you has the same opinion on everything. I don’t support those rockets and I oppose terrorism wherever it hails from (although I’ve already demonstrated how definitions vary on that). Hamas do not serve their people’s interests well at all. But let’s leave Gaza aside for a second. Imagine if peace broke out in 2035 and the rockets ended. What would you propose for West Bank Palestinians then? Do you think they might deserve a country at that point? Or a vote? Or are they going to be caged into shrinking and disconnected Bantustans for eternity with no say even over their own water? I think every human deserves better than that.

Destroying houses is one of the many tactics the Israelis have used since 1948 to move Arabs out. It’s part of an overall, and undeclared, strategy that has had a huge effect over decades. Let’s get one thing clear about history which I know from Ireland. Everybody involved in the conflict has their own version and will share it at great length. There is no single, objective, agreed account of what has happened. How ‘reasonable’ should people be who are losing their land? The fact of the matter is that Israel is now moving quickly to eradicate the possibility of a Palestinian state in the West Bank for all time. They see the possibility of future Palestinian politicians who are more reasonable than Hamas and Fatah as a risk they want to prevent. The Israelis want the world to forget about the story because they can then impose apartheid forever on the Palestinians. It’s the same desire that the Indians have in Kashmir and the Americans and Chinese everywhere; strong nations prefer bilateral negotiations where they hold all the cards.

I think war is innately chaotic and very difficult to write rules for. And I don’t want to defend Hamas either because I don’t agree with their goals. What I am saying is that this area is more ambiguous than it seems. BTW destroying homes is deliberate collective punishment of an entire family and is completely unacceptable conduct. Its primary goal is vengeance. It also may assist in ethnic cleansing. Regarding the title, we should remember that a two-state solution is the preferred outcome held by most nations, including even the US, officially at least.

Have a look at these actions. Do none of them qualify for your definition of terrorism? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(militant_group) This is how their own newspaper justified their campaign: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing British PM Clement Attlee had this to say about the King David bombing: Future Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir’s code name in the organization was Michael, an apparent reference to Michael Collins, a key figure in the Irish Republican Army. Yes, one can talk about legitimate military targets, collateral damage etc. All I’m saying is that this is a grey area.

As Republicans are finding out, if you gerrymander districts you end up with lunatics from one party who are only interested in out-weirding and primarying each other.

Hard to know what to make of this story about TD: One negative take: https://financialpost.com/fp-finance/banking/toronto-dominion-bank-biggest-short And a nothing to see here view: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/markets/inside-the-market/article-should-we-worry-about-the-canadian-banks-when-it-comes-to-short/ I find reassuring stories about banks anything but. There were similarly bullish yarns about Irish banks in 2008 just before they collapsed. We’ve a strong sector here but I would prefer that our banks operated only in Canada. If one of them ever goes bust they’ll come straight to us for a bailout.

Were the Jews who fought the British government in Palestine terrorists? Ditto the Irish before 1921? Is every Kurd that Erdogan wants back from Sweden a terrorist? It’s in the eye of the beholder a bit, isn’t it? How often is George Washington described as a traitor? Very few Brits or Canadians do that because it might cost them business but he was. The key thing is to be a successful traitor or terrorist - then you can change how your previous actions are characterized.

I think how much recognition has been given by each side to the other is a matter of contention, as is everything else on the subject. On some forums, posters will present a full history of the Middle East to justify their side’s exclusive claim to the land. I just don’t have the time or inclination to get that involved in any foreign news story. The Arab states around Israel have struggled to accommodate the refugees they received. To its credit, Jordan has given most of them citizenship even though that upset the demographic balance in the country. Lebanon was a sectarian powder-keg already and hasn’t done that. Syria is, well, Syria. I knew a Palestinian who was born and educated there. Her first passport in life was a Canadian one. I’ve heard that Arabic varies so much from country to country that it is more like a family of languages. Apparently, some of the dialects are not mutually intelligible. Even when speaking English, Egyptians sound different from Palestinians.

In fairness, dissent is dangerous in Gaza. You can hear it when people have lost relatives and don’t give a damn any more. Years ago, one man whose mother was killed in an Israeli strike criticized the enemy, naturally, but then wanted to know why Hamas were firing missiles across the border so close to his house. Were I Gazan, I’d be asking those in charge, perhaps under my breath, what have you done for us lately?

The number of violent crimes this young person committed in two provinces is alarming. You’d think it would be possible to detect someone who has breached a probation order in one province as soon as they commit an offence in another. Instead he was just allowed to go on causing havoc. It’s not clear what this person’s mental issues were and whether he was in any way treatable or not. In any event, he clearly should not have been at large.

In some jurisdictions, e.g. Ireland, UK, a lawsuit of this type would cause concern for anyone moderating a forum like we have here.

I am not disputing Israel’s right to exist or defend itself.

Well, I see one state out there and it ain’t Palestine so I’ll have to take your and Israel’s word for it that they’re keen on a Palestinian state. In the actual negotiations, this has been a thornier matter than portrayed with both sides being cagey about accepting the other. I also think one should be cautious about swallowing one side’s version of events in a tribal conflict. It’s hardly ever ‘we good, they bad’ when you drill down into it.

Fine, but there was absolutely no need for Netanyahu to meet Pollard on the airport tarmac, a decision made three years ago. That was a deliberate, public insult to the US and typical of Bibi.

Israel has rejected the one-state solution for demographic reasons. It is very clear it doesn’t want West Bank (let alone Gaza) Arabs changing the sectarian balance. Which is one reason why the two-state solution makes more sense. Conflict tends to harden positions. Both sides are intransigent at the moment and I think any person putting up with current conditions in the West Bank would not be well disposed to Israel. There’s a letter written by Arab businessmen in Jaffa in the Thirties complaining to British administrators about uncontrolled immigration to their city. They knew things would not work out well for them and they were right. However, change is possible. Look at Europe since WWII. Look at Ireland. A century ago, many in Britain thought the Irish were incapable of running their own country and thirty years ago few would have predicted a peaceful settlement in Northern Ireland but that’s what happened.

The two publicly declared solutions are two-state and one-state. Instead, Israel has for years quietly pursued a 1.1 state path, land minus people, whereby Palestinians will never be citizens of a country and will have zero rights in their shrinking West Bank enclaves, subjected to Chinese-style state surveillance in perpetuity. Alternatively, there’s no reason why Israel can’t leave the current borders in place, halt settlement building and wait to see whether an interlocutor arises on the other side for an eventual two-state solution. People change and cultures change, especially today. On the question posed, I think Canada is right to be vaguely neutral on this issue and suggest a two-state solution eventually. We don’t need to get too involved here. Given the increasingly illiberal direction of Israeli politics, working for the welfare of Palestinians on the ground is probably all we can do to help.

What exactly is false in that Jeff Stein article about Pollard, a notorious traitor? To add insult to injury, PM Netanyahu personally met this enemy of America on his arrival in Israel at Ben Gurion airport. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/29/jonathan-pollard-spy-israel-452235 Here’s a link from the NP which you might believe: https://nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-gives-former-spy-jonathan-pollard-who-was-jailed-in-u-s-warm-but-low-key-homecoming Although how they describe the welcome as ‘low-key’ is completely beyond me. No PM has ever met me at an airport.