Bonam
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Posts posted by Bonam
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jbg - kuzadd hails from Canada. She is Canadian.
Unlike you, who are American. (Or is that Israeli? - or both??)
Wth is that supposed to mean? That sounds sick coming from a so called Canadian.
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In principle, why should Israel be allowed to keep ANY of the West Bank?
As has already been said, they keep it cause they won it in a war. That's how the borders of most countries in history have been drawn. Look at Europe, for example, and remember that just about every single international boundary in it was determined through war after war over many centuries. And yet, despite this history of violence, today most of Europe is pretty calm and future war between European powers seems unlikely. They fought and fought until everyone was either satisfied that they got what they wanted or came to accept what they had, or just got plain tired of fighting.
If current international law chooses to deny this simple historical reality, then the problem is with the law.
Now as for the specific issue of the West Bank... in its generosity, Israel has offered to cede much of the West Bank to the Arab population there, if this can be done in a way that leaves Israel reasonable secure. If they want to keep some small parts of the territories that they won in the 1967 war (i.e. East Jerusalem), then that is their right, just as keeping the entire thing would also be their right, if they wanted to do so (which they don't).
In fact, the simplest thing would be to return the territories in the West Bank that they don't want to Jordan. Remember that prior to the 1967 war, the West Bank was Jordanian territory, and the reason that Israel attacked it was to defend itself against Jordanian attack from that area. Unfortunately for Israel, Jordan chose to make peace with Israel without demanding that land back, leaving the millions of Jordanian Arabs living there in Israeli hands.
The fact that these people, when attempting to flee from the West Bank back to Jordan after the new international boundary between Jordan and Israel was drawn in 1967 were massacred by the Jordnian Army and forced to stay in the West Bank is the reason that the any such thing as a "Palestinian" exists now. Jordan and other Arab nations deliberately decided to prevent the Arabs in the newly Israeli West Bank from emigrating to other Arab nations, so that they would forever remain a problem for Israel. They knew they couldn't defeat Israel militarily, but they realized that by leaving a population there that couldn't go anywhere else, and would be prone to terrorism against Israel, they could slowly wittle away at Israel.
Why do you think that those Palestinians that did manage to leave the West Bank still live in "refugee camps" in Lebanon and Jordan 40 years later? These countries refused to let these fellow Arab brothers of theirs integrate, and forced them to live in overcrowded, lawless refugee camps. Why? To discourage other Arabs from the West Bank from also emigrating there, so that they could continue to trouble Israel.
That's the reason that the Arabs of Palestine are still suffering 40 years down the road, not because of Israeli malevolance, but because they were abandoned and forsaken by their own countries.
You can be fairly sure that if Egypt offered to take back Gaza and Jordan offered to take back the West Bank (except for East Jerusalem), that Israel would probably agree, as they know it would be their best bet for peace and security, now that they have peace treaties and relations with Jordan and Egypt. But of course neither Jordan nor Egypt want to have to deal with the Palestinians any more than Israel does.
And the Palestinians themselves, never having been a nation, have no idea how to run one, as can be seen by the fighting between their two factions (Hamas and Fatah) in the past week or two over political disagreements. How is Israel supposed to discuss terms of peace with people that are too busy throwing each other off buildings? While the Palestinians continue to be unable to follow a common unified policy, Israel is unable to negotiate effectively with them. What good does a ceasefire or peace agreement with a "Palestinian government" do if the rockets from various Palestinian militia groups just keep coming anyway (as they did during the last ceasefire)?
At this point, Israel WANTS to get rid of all relations, interactions, and responsibilities for Gaza and most of the West Bank. And they want to do it as fast as they can without jeopardizing their own security. The reason that these lands aren't completely independent of Israel already is not because of Israel, but because the Palestinians are just unable to unite, accept that Israel exists, and take the lands that are being offered to them.
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Are they all 'self-haters'?
Naw, what they are is trying to fit in with their surroundings. When you're a minority in a country, it's a lot easier to just echo what is being said, even if it's against your own people, then to try to stand up against it. By going along with the condemnation of Israel, whether or not they themselves actually agree, they divert the discrimination away from themselves. If those same Jewish academics expressed the outrage that many of them likely feel, they may have reason to fear that their security at their jobs or just their social interactions with their fellow non-Jewish academics could suffer as a result.
When any people are being discriminated against, there are always those among them that are willing to go along with and even help the discrimination, if it means that they themselves will be spared it.
So no, they're not self-haters, but if you seek a label they could perhaps be called collaborators.
Anyway, that's probably some of them. Besides that, Jew or not, living in the UK they all experience the same constant bombardment of anti-Israeli propaganda (i.e. from the Guardian), and some of them may actually believe it. After all, just because someone is a Jew doesn't mean they're any more resistant to media influences than any other type of person. Whatever someone's religion, ethnicity, or nationality might be, if they took what media such as the Guardian says about Israel at face value, they would of course conclude that Israel is a force of terrible evil.
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Does anyone here think that Canada should ban it, not fund it, or but any restraints on it at all or let it go on as is?
Nope. If anything, we need to encourage more. The payoffs of stem cell research will save lives.
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And wasn't Jordan one of the original attacking countries?
Yes it was. I'd definitely want to see what the statement:
"King Abdullah of Jordan met with Golda Meir on the eve of the 1948 war and promised that he would not attack Israel's borders, as defined by the UN. He kept his promise. During the 1948 war, Israel attacked Jordan and took land. Golda of course made no promises."is based on.
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That is absolute nonsense. HRW has condemned on numerous occassions the use of suicide bombers who target civilians.
You know not of what you speak.
Take a read through this article:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...9efeoa.asp?pg=2
and tell me if you still think Human Rights Watch condemns war crimes of all sides equally. The fact is, HRW is at best reluctant to condemn the actions of various extremist/militant groups in the middle-east while ever eager to condemn any possible wrongdoing by Israel. The above article discussing their treatment of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war is a typical example of the double standard.
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They would have lost sooner or later. Even if they had held off against the US for longer, the Soviet Union was poised to invade Japan shortly after they defeated Germany, and that woulda been the end of Japan.
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Dion was a terrible choice. I don't know how the liberals managed to hamstring themselves so completely by picking him instead of one of the much stronger candidates.
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"Human Rights Watch condemns Hamas, Fatah for war crimes"
Too bad it's only a war crime when they're killing each other. Apparently, according to Human Rights Watch, killing Israeli civilians is all fine and dandy.
Peace in Occupied Palestine
in The Rest of the World
Posted
Just because something is a "law" doesn't mean it is right, or realistic. There are many examples of unjust or non-functional laws. If a law is either unjust or unrealistic, then it should be changed. This situation is not specific to Israel.
They aren't "due" anything from Israel, so they are being offered much more than they are due, thus generosity.
Right within a historical context of what has happened in countless prior confrontaints, many of which resulted in more stable borders. Defining something as "right" or "wrong" based on unrealistic, arbitrary international law is a flawed way of defining morality.
Yeah I think Israel would agree, or at least seriously consider it. As for Egypt and Jordan setting up Palestinian states there, sure if they could then that'd be up to them. Wouldn't be Israel's responsibility any more though, and so Israel would be happy about that. Do you know that presently what little economic viability Gaza and the West Bank have all comes from Israel? Israel would love to stop having to spend money and resources there if someone else took up responsibility for those areas.
Because, as you well know, they get rockets launched at them and suicide bombers coming in across the border. Perhaps try reading the next sentence after the one you quoted.
They shouldn't. However, they are being offered more than their due from Israel, and thus should eagerly accept it. The only nations that owe something to the Palestinians are those that used the areas of the West Bank and Gaza to attempt invasion of Israel, then got defeated and lost those lands, and then refused to allow the Arabs living on those lands from coming within their new borders. These nations (Jordan, Egypt etc) are the ones that should be offering Palestinians land, not Israel.