Does Israel have a right to exist?

[bush_cheney2004]

That's the biggest irony of all....the British (including their Canadian subjects - not citizens until 1947) and French were directly responsible for carving up the whole damn place to begin with, but Israel is the bad guy for occupying a postage stamp's worth for self defense and access to resources ?

[Rue]

I agree, one good reason to remove the illegal Israeli settlements from the West Bank.

Those illegal settlements are the tip of the iceberg. The damage to the ecosphere is drastic. Toxic garbage sits in the open air polluting the water tables. Wlidlife is becoming extinct.

The population of Palestinians as well as Jews on the West Bank far exceeds its capacity. In all the talk on politics its lost there is a natural disaster going on. Because of the politics supeceding all other issues, things such as preserving the environment are lost.

That is an apolitical issue. No human can live on toxic land.

[GostHacked]

Military action and bombing campaigns sure help that situation too. right Rue? That security barrier is also preventing wildlife from naturally migrating from one area to another. Wait, when you talk about wildlife are you referring to the Palestinians or actual real wildlife?

[Rue]

That's the biggest irony of all....the British (including their Canadian subjects - not citizens until 1947) and French were directly responsible for carving up the whole damn place to begin with, but Israel is the bad guy for occupying a postage stamp's worth for self defense and access to resources ?

Which is also precisely why I piss on piss on Americans on this board. The US has been preseted as a bad guy for trying to clean up the mess left behind by Britain, France, Italy, Germany, on and on. The only colonial power I say has a legitimate right to criticize in the Middle East is the US. I hate Obama but I am talking of the past. The US used to maintain a balance between Saudi Arabia, Egypt on one side, and Israel on the other. It balanced teh Societ Union's attempt to turn the Middle East into a puppet theatre for its own interests. There is no doubt in my mind the US prevented at least two nuclear wars in the Middle East that would have wiped out Israel.

I want the US to get back to being the go to neutral all sides can turn to, not this weasel in disguise Muslim Brotherhood puppet Obama embraced.

We need a strong US back there to again undo the damage of Obama as well as Erdogan, Iran, et al.

[Rue]

Military action and bombing campaigns sure help that situation too. right Rue? That security barrier is also preventing wildlife from naturally migrating from one area to another. Wait, when you talk about wildlife are you referring to the Palestinians or actual real wildlife?

See if you want to bait me and engage in insipid remarks I simply ignore them. That security barrier by the way is not preventing natural migration.There are no caribou on the West Bank.

Go find out what the wildlife is and stop trying to bait.

[GostHacked]

See if you want to bait me and engage in insipid remarks I simply ignore them. That security barrier by the way is not preventing natural migration.There are no caribou on the West Bank.

Go find out what the wildlife is and stop trying to bait.

I asked what you meant by wildlife. I won't assume you are referring to Palestinians, more or less looking for some clarification from you. It's not baiting, it's asking you to be clear on things without long diatribe rants.

You gonna mention the oil spill? http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Arava-oil-spill-under-control-despite-rainfall-says-Netanyahu-384154

You agree the settlements need to go, but keep blaming the Palestinians for the condition that the land is in.

http://rt.com/news/israel-palestinian-homes-demolish-323/

The Catholic Church has lashed out at the Israeli government, after its property in East Jerusalem was bulldozed to the ground. Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinian flats were marked for demolition just before US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit.

Last week Israeli security forces arrived with bulldozers at a piece of property owned by the Catholic Church in east Jerusalem, close to the West Bank city of Bethlehem. They said it had been built without a permit and proceeded to destroy it.

You need permission/permits from Israel to do anything in the occupied territories. And it's not even a Muslim thing since this was a Catholic church.

This comes amid rumors of Israel mulling its biggest demolition plans in years, as over 15,000 Palestinian flats in east Jerusalem are under threat.

The demolition of flats in the Ras Hamis area, which is next to the Shuafat refugee camp, was announced by posters put up on the apartment buildings themselves last week.

Israel says the homes are illegal and were built without the correct permits.

Not only displacing current residents, but allowing settlement building to increase in the West Bank. Rue, you agree 100% that the settlements are counterproductive to the peace process. But yet the Palestinians are to blame for it all.

Your notion and concern about the ecosystem in the West Bank is to me is quite fake.

[eyeball]

First off I challenged Eye as to his comments about Jews being manipulative and coercive not you.

Could you please post a link to those comments.

Thanks

[GostHacked]

Could you please post a link to those comments.

Thanks

Weird, right? I talk about coercion of people in power and Rue attributes that to you (not me) saying all Jews are manipulative. How am I to follow any of Rue's 'logic' when it comes to these matters?

[Rue]

You agree the settlements need to go, but keep blaming the Palestinians for the condition that the land is in.

Your notion and concern about the ecosystem in the West Bank is to me is quite fake.

In regards to your first comment, I have never blamed Palestinians in any post for anything. The damage to the ecosystem is a joint failure of Isaelis and Palestinians and non Palestinian Muslims who came to live there. Its a failure but I don't blame. Blame is a word you use and infer.

In regards to your second comment you again bait. I again ignore it.

[eyeball]

Weird, right? I talk about coercion of people in power and Rue attributes that to you (not me) saying all Jews are manipulative. How am I to follow any of Rue's 'logic' when it comes to these matters?

Maybe his posts are like some sort of puzzle game where the real messages are hidden amongst them. I've never had much patience for those things. I usually just turn to the answers at the back.

[Rue]

Oh Rue, this repetitive misrepresentation of dre (and me ... and others) is getting old and tired.

Dre said:

If Israelis want Israel to be a Jewish state then that is their right, and nobody should interfere with it. They can define themselves however they want to, but they do not have the right to compell anyone else to recognize anything at all.

And that's my position too.

Your continual misrepresentation of this position is disingenuous propaganda, imo.

.

Israel has the right to defend itself from Hamas, Intifada Palestine, Palestinian Jihad, Fatah, Fatah Hawks, Fatah Eafles, Al Asqa Martyr Brigade, Abbas, Hezbollah, ISIL, Al Quaeda, the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Iran, and anyone else who feels their refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state includes turning it into a Muslim state, or killing Jews worldwide to achieve a world Muslim caliphate.

That is the issue. That was the issue. That remains the issue. The only disingenuous position Jacee was yours and remains yours trying to draw a distinction between Hamas and ISIL. They come from the Muslim Brotherhood and have the exact same constitution.

Your position is blatantly disingenuous in that you support Hamas and defend it. In so doing, you blatanly contradict your otherwise stated opinion.

As for Dre, I have responded to her/his inconstencies and contradictions alredy.

[Big Guy]

Just watched a TVO Agenda program on this issue. I found it very informative and would recommend it to those who are VERY interested in the current Israeli/Palestinian conflict;

http://feeds.tvo.org/tvo/TxZN

Video of "One, Two or Three State Solution?"

It is an intelligent, objective and insightful discussion by experts on this area.

[GostHacked]

Maybe his posts are like some sort of puzzle game where the real messages are hidden amongst them. I've never had much patience for those things. I usually just turn to the answers at the back.

Reminiscent of Oleg Bach in a way.

[jacee]

Israel has the right to defend itself from Hamas, Intifada Palestine, Palestinian Jihad, Fatah, Fatah Hawks, Fatah Eafles, Al Asqa Martyr Brigade, Abbas, Hezbollah, ISIL, Al Quaeda, the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Iran, and anyone else who feels their refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state includes turning it into a Muslim state, or killing Jews worldwide to achieve a world Muslim caliphate.

That is the issue. That was the issue. That remains the issue.

The only disingenuous position Jacee was yours and remains yours trying to draw a distinction between Hamas and ISIL. They come from the Muslim Brotherhood and have the exact same constitution.

Your position is blatantly disingenuous in that you support Hamas and defend it. In so doing, you blatanly contradict your otherwise stated opinion.

As for Dre, I have responded to her/his inconstencies and contradictions alredy.

Israel has a right to call itself whatever it wants.

Israel does not have a right to defend itself (militarily?) against how others "feel".

.

[Rue]

Jacee don't be absurd. Israel does not engage in the counter strikes or military moves it does because of feelings.

You even know an Israeli? You ever met one? You ever met a person who has had to serve in the IDF and defend the country and why they did it?

Well?

You come on this forum with this romantic quaint notion of what Hamas is about and yet you want to refer to the IDF as fighting Hamas because of "feelings".

Ask me. Here I am. Ask anyone else who has had to fight in Israel. You think we have feelings? You think when I or someone witness a terror attack we can afford to have feelings? Is that what you think? Really? You think people who place kidneys and pieces of flesh in body bags have feelings?

Feelings are for poets and people who live in sheltered countries where they walk and drive down the street to MacDonald's an Tim Horton's and get pissy when someone cuts them off or they think they are hard done by because their price of vegetables went up 5 cents.

Come on just for once get real with a response.

You know what is frightening Jacee? What is frightening is what war does to someone so that they can not feel and when they return from war their head is all upside down. Some people call it post traumatic stress syndrome. They had to live in an environment where they could not have feeling. They had to turn it off and go into a world where they went from boring routine to immediate life threatening state of alert where they can die at any second and so they are in hyper drive.

When they return to your world of feelings their own have been turned off so long they have no idea how to turn them on. So when they walk down a street and smell something, or hear a sudden noise, or see something, it can trigger what you call feelings only they have been detached from them so long they overwhelm. So they drink, they do drugs, they commit suicide, they can't fight over simple things for fear of the anger in them that might come out.

Feelings? Feelings are not things Palestinians or Israelis can afford to have when they are being shot at with missiles, fearing their children being taken away by Hamas at night to be used as couriers and bomb carriers.

Stop trying to talk like you understand what Israelis or Palestinians feel. You don't. They both suffer if I may use that word from the same state of prolonged siege and what it does to feelings.

As for soldiers, until you go to a vet's hospital and sit and talk with vet's you won't get it. You won't get why I do and why I sit in silence and listen to what they DO NOT say. Its in the eyes. Its a fatigue. Its a world where there are no feelings-just grey-grey as far as the eye can see. Catholics call it purgatory,

[jbg]

Israel has a right to call itself whatever it wants.

Israel does not have a right to defend itself (militarily?) against how others "feel".

.

What's important is that Israel also have the right to defend itself as a Jewish state. If its Jewish identity causes kidnappings, shootings and the latest, the automobile attack, Israel surely has a right to repulse and prevent those.

[PrimeNumber]

What's important is that Israel also have the right to defend itself as a Jewish state. If its Jewish identity causes kidnappings, shootings and the latest, the automobile attack, Israel surely has a right to repulse and prevent those.

Does a Muslim state have the same rights to defend themselves against the same things you listed?

[jbg]

Does a Muslim state have the same rights to defend themselves against the same things you listed?

Does the IDF suicide-bomb in those countries? Do Israeli soldiers rape Arab women? Does Israel fly planes into Arab buildings. Do Israeli troops pilot cars onto crowded sidewalks in Arab cities?

[marcus]

Does the IDF suicide-bomb in those countries? Do Israeli soldiers rape Arab women? Does Israel fly planes into Arab buildings. Do Israeli troops pilot cars onto crowded sidewalks in Arab cities?

If they want to terrorize and kill innocent people, they'll just press buttons from a distance like they have been doing. How many innocent men, women and children did they kill in the last cowardly attack on Gaza? Over a 1000? Why should they use suicide bombers, homemade rockets or fly planes into buildings when they have one of the most advanced militaries in the world, which is heavily funded by the US ($3 billion/year).

[PrimeNumber]

If they want to terrorize and kill innocent people, they'll just press buttons from a distance like they have been doing. How many innocent men, women and children did they kill in the last cowardly attack on Gaza? Over a 1000? Why should they use suicide bombers, homemade rockets or fly planes into buildings when they have one of the most advanced militaries in the world, which is heavily funded by the US ($3 billion/year).

That's exactly right.

133 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 2060 Palestinian children have been killed by Israel since September 29, 2000. But the right will claim that is self defence.

During the Fiscal Year 2014, the US has providing Israel with at least $8.5 million/day in military aid. 0 Israeli homes have been taken over and demolished over by Palestinians and at least 28,000 Palestinian homes have been illegally taken over and demolished by Israeli forces. These illegal demolitions are a violation of the 4th Geneva Convention. Israel also has 262 Jewish-only settlements and outposts on confiscated and occupied Palestinian land, which also violates the 4th Geneva Convention.

As of July 2014 dated back to 2001, Palestinian rocket attacks have killed 33 people and wounded another 1971. Palestinians have killed 540 Israelis in terrorist bombings. The reality of the situation is most civilians in this long standing feud agree with ending it. But Hamas and the Israeli government have no interest in doing so.

[guyser]

You even know an Israeli? You ever met one? You ever met a person who has had to serve in the IDF and defend the country and why they did it?

I do.

He and I posted on Triathlon forum and he was quite vocal about his experience in the IDF . He went over to serve aftrer being raised (mostly) the US.

He wonders why more violence occurs considering the way his fellow officers treated the Palestinians at the checkpoints. He was always bothered by the treatment of mothers who would be going shopping or taking kids back and fro school, women they saw more than once a day. How his IDF brothers used to make the women and children stand in the rain while they played cards in the hut, or laughed at them freezing .....or refuse them entry/exit if they knew the person really needed to be somewhere fast .

It was laughs all around.

His take on it? The Israelis were pretty pathetic in what they did, none of which any of them could justify even though he knew the other side had blood on their hands. Kill the perps, but let the innocent complete their day in peace.

His words when he left, None of them should hold their head up. He will never go back.

[GostHacked]

Does Israel have a right to perform airstrikes in Syria?

[jbg]

Does Israel have a right to perform airstrikes in Syria?

Has Syria ever rescinded its declaration of war against Israel?

[Big Guy]

I look at Israel as just another nation with approx. the same population as Belarus and Switzerland. It has the right to exist the same as all others. I also think that the Canadian relationship with this country with a population about that of the GTA is creating many problems for Canada. I would like to see Canada cut ties with this country which is moving more and more to the right through Netanyahu and his agenda.

Israel is becoming a stone around Canada's neck. The government appears to be as corrupt as any other nation and determined to continue to create problems through land acquisition and suppression of Palestinians.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/12/israeli-politicians-arrested-over-corruption-2014122510398592350.html

We are much better off establishing dialogue with other nations in the ME starting with Iran and looking at Jordan and Syria. With the ISIS crisis, Assad is gaining ground and getting more support from Russia as the West tries to isolate Russia.

Our trade with Israel is about the same as that with Ireland and Austria and would not be missed. Remember that Israel used false Canadian passports to assassinate people around the world.

The major support for Israel in Canada is the Jewish population. It represents only about 1% of our population and should not be leading foreign policy. The Muslim population of Canada is three times that of Israel - why then are we supporting this country which is the focus of the problems in the ME.

I think it is time for Canada to review its affiliations with the different nations in the ME.

[jbg]

I look at Israel as just another nation with approx. the same population as Belarus and Switzerland. It has the right to exist the same as all others. I also think that the Canadian relationship with this country with a population about that of the GTA is creating many problems for Canada. I would like to see Canada cut ties with this country which is moving more and more to the right through Netanyahu and his agenda.

Israel is becoming a stone around Canada's neck.

See this post on related thread (link).

The government appears to be as corrupt as any other nation and determined to continue to create problems through land acquisition and suppression of Palestinians.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/12/israeli-politicians-arrested-over-corruption-2014122510398592350.html

Thank you for posting that. See the beginning of the article, emphasis supplied:

Israeli police have arrested more than two dozen current and former officials in a corruption investigation, including several from the party of Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister, according to a police spokesperson.

Local media reported on Thursday that the investigation was one of the most "important" anti-corruption operations in the country's history and could strike a blow to Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu party just three months away from a general election.

Two things for emphasis: 1) Israeli police conducted the arrests; and 2) the target is a likely coalition partner for Netanyahu should he be forming the next government. In which Arab country would this happen?

In short, Israel strongly resembles other Western states.

We are much better off establishing dialogue with other nations in the ME starting with Iran and looking at Jordan and Syria. With the ISIS crisis, Assad is gaining ground and getting more support from Russia as the West tries to isolate Russia.

Our trade with Israel is about the same as that with Ireland and Austria and would not be missed. Remember that Israel used false Canadian passports to assassinate people around the world.

The major support for Israel in Canada is the Jewish population. It represents only about 1% of our population and should not be leading foreign policy. The Muslim population of Canada is three times that of Israel - why then are we supporting this country which is the focus of the problems in the ME.

I think it is time for Canada to review its affiliations with the different nations in the ME.

The "Jewish population" leads nothing except by force of its education and accomplishments. The Arab world means little in a day and age of low oil prices.