JB Globe

If those were what settles for facts around here, than I'm going to go and set up my own personal weblog stating that pigs can fly and it will be true, because if it's in a personal weblog, than that's good enough for you. Seriously, if someone posted "Israeli atrocities" from some extreme natinoalist Palestinian's website, and they weren't sourced to any independent source, you'd do exactly what I'm doing now and rightly so. Stop being so partisan. Statements on personal weblogs about news events are worthless unless they link to an actual independent source that verifies the claim. And how many of those originated in the West Bank or Gaza? And how many of those were initiated by the PLO in exile, whom were acting with their own agenda? In short - how violent were the citizens of the West Bank or Gaza all those years if 1200 troops were all that was necessary? How radical were they if when issued an arrest warrant, they'd walk themselves to the Israeli army office?

Well, we both know the answer: because Egypt isn't occupying their future state. Don't think for a second that Gazans and West Bankers aren't both equally Palestinian, and don't think that they aren't joined at the hip nationally.

That wasn't the comparison I was making, I'm not talking about actions, I'm talking about worldviews. And the fact is: it's always destructive and ignorant to make any one ethnicity or nationality out to be inherently good or evil.

Negotiate.

I completely disagree with this statement, because it implies that Israel deserves no criticism for the current situation. It fits in the "Jews are angels, Muslims are devils" dichotomy used by people in Western nations with a wide variety of viewpoints (Christian Evangelicals, Neocons, "Clash of Civilization" proponents) , which of course is the other side of the coin to the dichotomy found in the Islamic world "Muslims are angels, Jews are devils" Both are equally as ignorant, wrong, and destructive.

You do realize that under international law, Gaza has a right to exist, right?

1 - It would be terrible for the Indian economy because it would destabilize the country, and stability is what keeps foreign investment flowing. 2 - The US is broke, it can't bankroll it's own wars, much less other country's wars. India is anything but a puppet of the US, it's forging it's own unique foreign policy, as evidenced by the fact it was able to break the non-proliferation treaty and still negotiate a nuclear technology sharing deal with the US. Sorry, so the US has the money for an Iran invasion in addition to war with Pakistan? Iraq was done on the cheap? Are you serious? So this supposed Iran invasion will be even more expensive? Are you not aware of the economic crisis hitting the US? Of the size of the bailouts & tax cuts? Of the fact that America has a debt time-bomb on it's hands? Where on earth is the money for this going to come from? China?

There's hundreds of ways to build an argument against Israeli policies without resorting to bigotry. You don't need to be anti-Semitic.

After checking, I had the wrong figure: it was 300-400 for Gaza, and 1200 soldiers total for Gaza & the West Bank. Source: Friedman, Thomas. From Beirut to Jersualem. Page 328. First Anchor Books. 1990. Please note that the website you posted is incredibly biased. However, my point still remains is that for 20 years Israel maintained a number of active troops in Palestine that is far below what they currently employ. They did this because Palestinians co-operated with the occupation in the hopes of achieving at least some of their aspirations for statehood or political representation. Palestinian professor and president of Al-Quds University notes: "For 95% percent of the contact points (Israeli army offices in Gaza & WB that dealt with Palestinians directly) to be effective . . . They required our consent and cooperation. For example, you were sent an order telling you to come to the military governor's office in Beth El, and you knew that they were going to arrest you, yet you came anyway, on your own, instead of just ignoring the order and forcing the Israelis to send a whole army unit to your village to get you. You were told you needed a building permit to add a wing to your house. Instead of just building the wing and ignoring the Israelis, most people went down and waited in line for a permit, without anyone holding a gun to their heads." Palestinians did this for 20 years because they hoped it would translate into political representation within Israel, or statehood. In fact, the opposite happened - they became completely co-opted by the Israeli economy and in turn dependent on it. This is one of the reasons which lead to the intifada in the first place.

The same way Israel negotiated with Jordan and Egypt, two nations that at one time wanted Israel wiped off the face of the map, and today have peace treaties with Israel. Remember, once upon a time, Fatah was the PLO, and the PLO used terrorist tactics, now Israel has no problem negotiating with them. Also remember that Israel supported Hamas in the 70's & 80's when the PLO/Fatah was the bad guy and when they needed a counter-balance. Contrary to popular belief - in the Middle East, not everything stays the same. Israel can and MUST negotiate with Hamas if it really wants long-term peace. There is no other way, and the long-term failure of this recent campaign will prove this.

Perhaps you can explain to me how for example, an Indian doctor (a profession pretty much considered sacred in India) who is at the pinnacle of Indian society, is a reject for choosing to come to Canada. Or an Indian engineer who trained at IIT, which is harder to get into than MIT for that matter.

I think he's talking about population GROWTH/DECLINE, which is linked to economic prosperity. All the Scandinavian countries have negative natural birth rates, but they use immigration (GASP!) to keep their population from shrinking.

Stop being so partisan (you're pressing me for sources showing the cons looking bad when the other guy gets off free about making the cons look good). http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/compilatio...96-68f985128af9 House of Commons - 2006 - 2008 Political Affiliation Number of Women Liberal 23 Bloc Québécois 18 Conservative 14 New Democratic Party 12 (note that the cons have the most seats, but only 14 women, meaning they have the lowest proportion)

Co-sign

I think it's important for people to remember that from 1967 - 1987, Israel was able to control all of Gaza & The West Bank with 300-400 soldiers. If Palestinians were incapable of living peacefully with Israelis, than there would have been problems on day one, but in fact the general population remained peaceful for 20 years. The reasoning was that by playing by the rules, they would eventually get one of two outcomes prescribed by international law for occupied people: either they would get the rights as a citizens of the occupier (ie - the right to vote), or they would get an independent state, or autonomy.

FYI, something doesn't become true just because you want it to be true REALLY, REALLY, REALLY badly.

They should respond with a response that ACTUALLY WILL WORK. See my previous posts on this topic or the above article.

Brilliant, let's ban all Israeli Profs - even the peace activists opposed to this war. Great idea.

That's just not true. Israel went to war with Egypt and Jordan, several times, and each war didn't prevent another one from occurring no matter if they beat their opponents or not. Then they decided to go the diplomatic route and sign peace treaties with them - and the result is cordial relations ever since. In fact, Egypt now gives Israel a neutral party to moderate talks between them and Hamas. Both Egypt and Jordan recognize Israel, and most Arab states recognize it's right to exist, even if they don't have diplomatic ties with it. It's been 20 years of intifada and so far the military option hasn't provided any results, I think it's time to try a new strategy once it becomes clear how pointless this current operation is. You're confusing Hamas rhetoric with Hamas strategy. Only an idiot would believe it's possible for Palestinians to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, and whatever your opinion of Hamas' leadership is, they're not idiots. As I said in another post on this topic - they distinguish themselves from Fatah by their militancy and nationalism, hence why they say they want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth - that messages appeals to a certain segment of the population. And that segment is greater in Gaza than in the West Bank, precisely because life is so much worse there than anywhere else. Keep in mind that such a sentiment didn't exist en mass in 1987 when the intifada started, but it exists now. If Israel wanted to increase support for Hamas, it couldn't have done a better job than it's currently doing - anyone who wasn't a supporter before this conflict in Gaza, is surely now. Just look at the prestige Hezbollah got after its stalemate with Israel - the same thing will happen here. Diplomacy is the only option available to Israel that will translate into long-term peace.

It's obvious you're here to promote this website, you should know that what you're doing violates board guidelines. If you don't stop doing this you'll be reported.

And what of talking about a strategy that will actually secure long-term peace for Israel? What about a strategy that will actually work? That's what we should be talking about, not the current ground campaign, because that will do nothing long-term.

Why should Canada support a plan that won't work and will kill a thousand or more people in the process? Explain that one to me.

Cosign. I've learned it's best to entirely ignore JBG, he's one of those posters with whom intelligent debate is entirely impossible. There are plenty of people on here with opposing viewpoints from your own whom you can have a discussion without them resorting to troll-like tactics.

Please don't tell me you think that this is all there is to this conflict . . . PLEASE.

Exactly - and in the past two elections the cons have made a clear effort to shut up those xenophobic backbenchers in Parliament and campaign heavily in Chinese, South Asian, etc, communities - and the result is they got more votes. They finally came the realization that multiculturalism and/or immigration is just one of dozens of issues that they care about, and that the majority of the issues they care about are identical to all other Canadians.