JB Globe

Because of course, the people who are the most xenophobic tend to be the people who have the least amount of contact with people who are different from themselves. And that's not a cliche, that's a truism.

JBG, you were accused of taking pleasure in watching Muslims kill Muslims in Lebanon, then you defended yourself here . . . However then WarBicycle said this . . . To which you responded with this . . . Do you have anything to say for yourself? I mean - I'm starting to think you're not trying to deny you do these things to us, because this isn't the first time you've blatantly contradicted yourself in the same post. I'm starting to think it's more about not admitting it to yourself that you enjoy when human beings killing other human beings.

Let me summarize that for you: "I hate Jews and Muslims" There, I saved everyone some time.

Giving any one side a blank cheque in a morally ambigious conflict just translates into a longer conflict. Let's hope that the hardliners on both sides finally come to their senses when they realize that the tit-for-tat has gotten their respective sides nowhere. That's why it's called a cycle of violence - that road doesn't lead anywhere.

He's right you know. What you're doing is wrong. Pesach wasn't that long ago - remember the part in the Haggadah where it says we shouldn't take joy in the pain of the ancient Egyptians after the plagues happened? Even after all that happened - we prayed for them then and we pray for them now. Even if you see all Muslims as your enemy, which they aren't, than even you have to admit you're not being a very good Jew by gloating about a situation that involves such things as someone's child getting shot in a crossfire, or an apartment collapsing from a stray RPG and killing an entire family except for one pour soul who spends the rest of their lives wondering why they didn't die too. That's the totality of the situation - why don't you post some of the descriptions of the civilian deaths so far and see if you can take pleasure out of that?

Personally I prefer to celebrate Canada on national holidays, not a foreign monarch.

I guess this is where I retort with an example of Israel being unpragmatic. Isn't it poetic the way this back-and-forth mirrors the tit-for-tat of the actual conflict? What are we? Sadists? I know the stories you were raised on that Israel is the good guy that does no wrong. That there's something noble about what it's doing in Palestine. I remember briefing my class about the growth of Israel, marking out the areas it "gained" all happy like I was building up hotels in Monopoly. And I know it's hard when you find out your hero isn't what you though it was, I've been there, but I dealt with that a long time ago. Fact is, the first step towards peace is for folks like yourself, and your equivalents on the other side, to stop looking at the situation as us vs. them, good guys vs. bad guys. After that, you can be honest with what's going on on both sides - that there's enough blood on everyone's hands to go around, and that both parties should really spend more time looking in the mirror instead of pointing fingers.

You know, half my Zaida's family didn't die in the Ha-Shoah so that Likhud-party hacks like yourself can call anyone who disagrees with their political ideology a Nazi. Using those references casually is an insult to our people. Stop being an intellectual coward - if you don't have the capacity to respond to my arguments (you've been avoiding them for weeks) then don't say anything at all. Hurling one-liners instead just makes you look pathetic.

That may be true in theory, but in reality political Zionism has in fact resulted in denying another group their own self-determination. Often times things don't work out in real life they way they were intended in theory. Palestinians were never given a real choice prior to the creation of Israel. Put yourself in their shoes - how would you feel if colonial powers (Britain) decided amongst themselves that they were going to create a new state in your homeland whose laws and institutions would be centred around a religion which was a minority in the region (Judaism) and would allow millions of immigrants with a different culture than your own (mainly folks from Germany, Poland, etc) to come and become citizens? You'd feel threatened, disempowered, and angry and probably would want nothing to do with whatever "choices" were being offered if THAT was the starting point ("They just refused to make a choice - I gave them two bad options and told them the good one wasn't on the table, it's THEIR fault for not participating!) As I've said earlier though, right now Palestinians are practical and reasonable people and studies have shown again and again that they would accept a two-state solution. I never said Arab states didn't deserve much criticism. In fact, I didnt' say anything about Arab states in this thread? Why? Because it's about Zionism & self-determination. If you want me to talk about the fact that Palestinians are still living in refugee camps in Lebanon & Jordan 60 years later, than I can - I just didn't think it was on-topic. Show me how the creation of Israel didn't disenfranchise Palestinians? I don't care about the words that someone wrote in a declaration, I care about their actions after that declaration was signed. And the reality on the ground is that political Zionism has resulted in denying self-determination to the Palestinians.

That may be true in theory, but in reality political Zionism has in fact resulted in denying another group their own self-determination. Often times things don't work out in real life they way they were intended in theory. Palestinians were never given a real choice prior to the creation of Israel. Put yourself in their shoes - how would you feel if colonial powers (Britain) decided amongst themselves that they were going to create a new state in your homeland whose laws and institutions would be centred around a religion which was a minority in the region (Judaism) and would allow millions of immigrants with a different culture than your own (mainly folks from Germany, Poland, etc) to come and become citizens? You'd feel threatened, disempowered, and angry and probably would want nothing to do with whatever "choices" were being offered if THAT was the starting point ("They just refused to make a choice - I gave them two bad options and told them the good one wasn't on the table, it's THEIR fault for not participating!) As I've said earlier though, right now Palestinians are practical and reasonable people and studies have shown again and again that they would accept a two-state solution. I never said Arab states didn't deserve much criticism. In fact, I didnt' say anything about Arab states in this thread? Why? Because it's about Zionism & self-determination. If you want me to talk about the fact that Palestinians are still living in refugee camps in Lebanon & Jordan 60 years later, than I can - I just didn't think it was on-topic. Show me how the creation of Israel didn't disenfranchise Palestinians? I don't care about the words that someone wrote in a declaration, I care about their actions after that declaration was signed. And the reality on the ground is that political Zionism has resulted in denying self-determination to the Palestinians.

That's not true. Earlier in this thread I posted survey data (one of the many surveys that prove this) that shows a majority of Palestinians want a two-state solution, meaning - they recognize Israel's right to exist. Most Palestinians aren't Hamas fanatics - they're quite practical, they know there's no way in hell that Israel will ever not exist, which is why their realistic & ideal future is one in which a Palestinian state exists alongside an Israeli one.

Was that directed at me or the original poster?

That's entirely because the streetcars don't have priority on the roads. They're given the same rights on the road as a car, even though one is carrying a single driver and the other might have 100 people (or 250 if it's a double car). In Holland you just fly through the city because the streetcars (or, trams) are given priority - the streetcar approaches an intersection, flips a switch on the track, the light changes and the driver doesn't even have to slow down - the only thing the streetcar stops for is to pick up and drop off people. In my experience, waiting for lights is what takes the most time, because you have to make a stop before the light to wait for a change, then after to pick up people at the stop. If Toronto never caved in to driving lobby groups (yes, they exist) than it would take 5 minutes to get from Spadina/Bloor to Union Station, instead of the 15 it takes now. But that's a short distance - imagine how quick all of these lines that stretch for 50 KM will be if they get transit priority?

You're comparing a chemical addiction to a habitual one - they're not the same thing. One's a hell of a lot easier to break than the other. And I think you're over-estimating the amount of people who are "addicted" to driving. Most folks would rather not spend on 10-15 hours a week driving - they'd rather have what amounts to an extra day to spend with their families. If we give transit priority on roads and in funding, than it will cut travel times dramatically, meaning people will spend less time stuck in traffic. - That's the carrot (along with subsidizing transit passes with carbon taxes and other things I mentioned earlier). The stick comes in the form of the taxes on carbon, and on gas-guzzling car models. I'd also suggest that this "status" of SUVs and cars in general will dwindle as more and more people start to become personally active in reducing carbon emissions. I don't think they'll be many people driving SUVs at all in 25 years.

South Asia covers Pakistan, India, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka, all of which are linked in terms of culture and history. Think of it as being on-par with "European" It's a shorthand, and as long as folks recognize the difference within that group is about the same as within the "European" label, than it's fine. Generally it's an official term, folks will never refer to themselves as "South Asian"

To re-iterate an earlier point I made, that really hasn't been rebuked - is that you can't call something Self-Determination if it involves denying another group it's own self-determination. There's another word for that, it's called colonialism.

The thing is though, I tend to not compare Israel's behavior to the bad behaviour of dictatorships, even if they are in the region. I tend to compare Israel's behaviour to the good behaviour of other democracies, I believe that's a better goalpost than Syria. I believe that the situation of Muslim Israelis, Felashim, Russian immigrants, and others in Israel illustrate has a long, long way to go before it catches up with the US, Canada or Europe in terms of extending its democratic rights to all citizens. I could care less if it's "better than Syria" - because that should be a given if your a nation that proclaims itself to be a democratic state.

Considering that current factors (ie - the Occupation, in-fighting between Hamas and Fatah) have obliterated any sense of a hopeful future, it's not surprising that Palestinians have latched onto the past. It's the only way they have to maintain their identity in the face of decades of various forms of oppression. Quite frankly, I think any group would do the same if it had the same limited set of options the Palestinians have.

It's the same thing in Toronto, transit development has been lagging in general, but almost nothing has been done to link all the suburbs together and as a result it can take you 2 hours to travel from a western suburb to a northern one. In the city it's getting better, there are 5 new east-west and 2 north-south high-speed light rail lines that will be built outside the downtown core that will service the "inner suburbs" inside the actual Toronto city limits. Right now you have to ride buses that have no bus lanes and it usually takes an hour or more to go anywhere within the inner suburbs. They have the room to develop inter-suburb transit - there's plenty of hydro corridors with room to build a bus-only road, light rail or another Go track on. I've always though that Go should build a big transit hub at Pearson airport that connects to all the suburbs and downtown, something like they have in Amsterdam.

1 - End subsidies to the oil and gas industry - no one can argue they need the money anymore. Or else to be fair we should start subsidizing the gold and diamond industry as well. 2 - Get rid of the gas tax and replace it with a carbon tax, with the money dedicated for carbon-reduction schemes like transit (which should get most of that money) improvements to the freight-rail system, and other initiatives. 3 - Use the carbon tax to pay down the cost of things like transit passes. 4 - After years of investment in transit through the carbon tax (say, 5-10) when most Canadians have an alternative to taking their car to work, and most businesses have another option than trucking their products long-distance to market, than start raising the carbon tax so that it acts as a real inhibitor. 5 - Offer rebates on the carbon tax or do away with it altogether in areas where driving is a necessity (remote/rural areas).

Well, now you seem to be making a distinction between the official aims of Hamas and the opinion of the Palestinian public, but you weren't earlier in this post, which is what I was responding to . . . This sounds neither academic nor reality-based. But as for my argument, the fact that most Palestinians prefer the peaceful establishment of a Palestinian state to the current violence is important. It means that given an LEGIT chance, they'll stop supporting groups like Hamas. The problem being that the political alternatives to Hamas have been corrupt (Fatah), or alternatives to armed conflict have been stymied for decades (both by people like Arafat, as well as a portion of Israelis and politicians who REALLY don't want to give up the West Bank and its water resources).

Har, Har. Read your OP again - the article mentions Johnson describing black people as having "watermelon smiles" My point is, you have to be damn inept if you can't capitalize on your opponents outright bigotry and win an election.

Palestinians started asserting their national rights at the turn of the last century. This of course was a response both to Zionism AND the fact that ethnic-nationalism across the Arab world didn't develop until that time anyway. They started asserting their national rights along with other Arab nations at the same time when more political options became available to the masses. As Bernard Lewis notes, just because Palestinian nationalism didn't exist before 1900 doesn't mean that a Palestinian society didn't exist, (Did a Jewish society exist prior to political Zionism?) or that their claims to their homeland aren't valid (Were native landclaims in Canada not valid because they didn't have a national government?). Modern Palestinian society goes back as far as the 17th century, and Palestinians see themselves as the ancestors of the people who inhabited the land before then, stretching back millennia. It's no surprise that those who claim that there is no such thing as Palestine, and that the Palestinian identity doesn't exist, are the same people who DON'T want a two-state solution, who don't want an independent Palestine. It's self-serving "scholarship" by ultra-zionists and Jewish extremists who want to establish an Israel that runs from "The sea to the Jordan" - thus wiping Palestine off the map. That's a lot easier to do if you make people believe that the land "doesn't belong to anyone, because there is no Palestine" - Whereas, those people who do recognize Palestine come from all camps, even Israel supporters like Lewis. And you really, really don't want to address why you left out the Palestinian issue to your original arguement for Zionism as self-determination, do you?

Here's hoping that the successes and failures of the first 60 years of Israeli history will be learned from and help to contribute to a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

You're just a regular genius, aren't you? Anyways - after reading Tom Friedman's book on the civil war (which I highly recommend), I don't even want to think about the folks there having to endure another brutal conflict, especially after the summer of 2006. I don't think Hezbollah would be so brave if they weren't getting so much support from Iran's regime.