Palestine: Peace or Apartheid

[ScottSA]

... Four people have already told you they don't need or want your help.

So?

For my part I can't possibly make it more abundantly clear that I personally don't want or need your help.

You may not want it. But I disagree with you about you needing it.

Please stop.

I've told you numerous times already, the remedy is to learn and follow the rules. You may as well drop these pointless objections. This forum operates a certain way, and I am simply acting within it. Whetehr you like that or not makes no bones whatsoever.

If you must run around reporting posts, please report all my posts quietly and unobtrusively,

In fact, in this case I didn't report the post, I merely cited a rule you had seemingly overlooked.

Anyway, No, I will not accede to your request. You might as well stop disrupting threads with your groundless objections.

... so that it doesn't intrude upon the thread.

It is the initial rule breach that disrupts the thread.

Please just quietly file your little reports. Please don't help me anymore.

[Figleaf]

... If you must run around reporting posts, please report all my posts quietly and unobtrusively,

In fact, in this case I didn't report the post, I merely cited a rule you had seemingly overlooked.

Anyway, No, I will not accede to your request. You might as well stop disrupting threads with your groundless objections.

Please read the portion I have put in boldface above.

[DogOnPorch]

Oh DOP, you sure love to call folks Nazis eh? One of your fave slurs!

The Grand Mufti was a Nazi...sorry if you think that I'm ruining his 'good name'. I think he did a bang-up job himself.

The Stern Gang...a tiny terrorist group...actually wanted (for about 2 seconds) to make a deal with the Nazi's in 1940 well before the Final Solution started. The deal was to attack British holdings in the Mandate in exchange for Jews being alowed to escape Germany. The Germans never replied to their offer.

The Jewish people of the area formed a brigade of soldiers that fought with honor in the Italian campaign. The Arabs either ignored the war or went to Yugoslavia to join their leader in the fun much like today's Iraq. If the 13th SS Handschar and other similar divisions were an elephant, the Stern Gang was an ant.

Now - what is your point again?

Revisionism like yours needs to be met at the source. Your "anti-Zionist" stance seeks to turn the tables on the Jews making them out to be Nazis...just like Mr Dinnerjacket's Holocaust cartoon contest. You claim to have lost family in the Holocaust yet still defend the stinking corpse of Nazism in the form of today's terrorist government of HAMAS. I find this quite incredible.

Maybe we should start sharing Holocaust stories...I have them from both sides of the fence. You first.

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Since we cannot defeat Israel in war; we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.

---Yasser Arafat

[ScottSA]

... If you must run around reporting posts, please report all my posts quietly and unobtrusively,

In fact, in this case I didn't report the post, I merely cited a rule you had seemingly overlooked.

Anyway, No, I will not accede to your request. You might as well stop disrupting threads with your groundless objections.

Please read the portion I have put in boldface above.

Reported. With an explaination to Greg that you have been repeatedly asked by several people not to disrupt threads with this useless announcement of your reportage. Just please do it quietly. If you must alert people to their doom, please do it in pms. What's so hard about that?

[M.Dancer]

Just please do it quietly. If you must alert people to their doom, please do it in pms. What's so hard about that?

That would be like asking a girlguide not to sew her badges on her sash.....

[Rue]

Rue,

"What about Fatah? What about the supplying of weapons to them - condoned both by the US and Israel? "

Fatah, or in fact Fatah and about 10 off-shoot terrorist cells that have since come out of it, has never been financially supported by either the US or Israel. In fact Fatah's support has come from China, North Korea, the KGB when it was the Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia, and France.

Israel is still very much involved in an on-going war with both Fatah and Hamas.

"What about the original topic here, the occupation?"

The point is-to describe the problem as simply an "occupation" buys into the notion there is a good guy and a bad guy. My point is there has never been a good and a bad guy. What has happened is that as a result of a series of political events, Britain decided to take 80% of Palestine and create Jordan with it and then try prevent Jews from starting a nation to placate its Arab allies. It didn't work.

What I am saying is the Arab League gambled and lost. It tought in 1948 and 1949 it could engage in q quick war, kill bunch of Jews and send the rest packing. It didn't happen. Those Jews are still there and going nowhere.

As much as you would like to blame those Jews for refusing to leave its not that simple. You have to look at the role Britain and France played. You have to look at the role the Arab League played. You have to seriously take the time to find out why Palestinian refugee camps were created and why to this day Arab countries will not resettle Palestinians.

You have to take the time to ask yourself why Hamas and Al Fatah and oevr 128 other terrorist cells not including Hezbollah and Al Quaeda as well as the Iranian government, truly believe Israel must be wiped out and replaced with a Muslim theocracy.

You have to ask yourself, as long as these egroups exist and follow a fundamentalist brand of Islam that thinks terror and war is Islamic -why the conflict will continue.

You have to ask yourself, why was it Israel was able to fund 19,000 Palestinians, 11,000 of whom were teachers and social workers, why was it able to support village councils, create water delivery systems, build roads, hire Palestinians and live with them peacefully and then this came to an end.

You have to ask yourself, what has terrorism achieved for the Palestinian people.

You have to ask yourself, what Arab country has a democracy and does not have a political police and does not have internal wars vetween different Muslim factions.

You have to ask yourself was Israel responsible for the civil war in Algeria, the thousands who have been killed in Egypt for questioning Mubarak, for the secret terror police in Syria and their war against the Muslim Brotherhood, for the slaughter of Muslims who stood up to Hezbollah in Lebanon, for the civil war in Iraq, for the massacre of Bahaiis and Zoroastreans and gays in Iran, for the civil war in Chechnya, for the genocide in Sudan, for the civil war in Somalia? Is it Israel's fault Amidyah Muslims have been persecuted and slaughtered by Sunnis or for the war between Sunnis and Shiites?

Ask yourself, does Israel broadcast on its t.v. and radio each day, stories and alleged documentaries calling for the extermination of Muslims and suggesting Muslims pluck the eyes out of Jews or makes bread from the blood of Jewish children? Does Israel's media pass off anti-semitic literature proven to be fabricated as truth? Does Israeli t.v. deny genocides and hold seminars to discuss how Muslims are evil and manipulate the world?

Yah there are two sides to this equation. You call it occupation because you have not obviously been there.

Its not occupation. Palestinians live there, they have no where to go. They are stuck in a cycle of unemployment because Hamas and Al Fatah will not let them work in Israel and will not put down the guns.

You call it occupation, but if you are Israeli faced with terrorists trying to wipe you out everyday and every day on t.v. across the Middle East calling for the end of Israel violently- you don't call it occupation-you call it trying to stop terrorists from killing you.

It really is as simple as this-of there is no terrorism, there is no need for the Israel Defence Force to be anywhere other then in their barracks.

"I thought that Carter raised some very valid points about the occupation and what it has meant to over a generation of Palestinian people."

With due respect I did not because his comments directly contradict what he has written and stated in the past and have led many to believe he wrote his latest piece in a snit. The scuttle butt is, that he feels Bill Clinton has taken credit for things in the Middle East, he believes he should be given credit for. Carter's book is in fact an attack against what Clinton has said in speeches about Camp David, and various peace initiatives and the failures of Arafat. Carter staked his reputation on Arafat being a peace broker while Clinton is telling the world Arafat was a bold faced liar and was always and never stopped being a terrorist.

Its a hige difference. Clinton's version of the Middle East is remarkably similiar to Gerald Ford's, the President Carter replaced. with due respect, Carter lost it. He wrote a book full of subjective comments but with no objective data and he admitted that after the fact.

"If the Israelis really want to keep breeding terrorism then keep doing what they have been, if they really want peace - which does mean sacrifice - then get off the pot. "

Its childish comments like the above that lead me to engaging in the tone I do with you. You have never been to Israel. You have never lived with terrorists constantly coming at you trying to kill you. So lecturing Israel on breeding terrorism is childish. It shows you are sheltered and think you understand something you are too far removed from. Yes every time Israel fights back the cycle of violence contininues but you are very wrong if you think a nation will simply sit back and do nothing as terrorists try destroy it. Its army has a moral responsibility to defend its citizens from being killed.

The terrorism is being bred by Muslim fundamentalists teaching their young that Jews are demons and evil and need to be wiped out. Its being bred by fundamentalists who have their young dying for them and have their children being sacrificed as decoys or carrying out terrorist attacks or have their women, especially pregnant ones engaging in terrorist acts.

You lecture but you have no clue what a terrorist is, where they are actually bred and most importantly how they kill more Muslims then they do Israelis for the same reasons of hatred and intolerance.

"Often I think that alot of this has to do with scarce resources in the alotted lands of Israel proper (within the green line)."

Yes. Both inside and outside the green line the rsources are scarce and in particular fresh water. However before Hamas and Al Fatah forbid it, Israel had funded a network of village councils whereby Palestinians were able to get fresh water and grow vegetables and fruit in open markets that were then sold in Israel.

Hamas destroyed all that.

"The wall itself has taken a decidedly nasty turn by looping into Palestinian lands for their watersheds - this even the Israel Courts see and have tried to make a small difference."

Now you are fabricating. The wall is being set up but has nothing to do with the water-sheds and everything to do with shutting terrorists out. The water-shed story was a deliberate propaganda piece started by Hamas and Al Fatah-why don't you trace it back to wear it started and try understand why it was started. Once the wall is up Fatah and Hamas incursions into Israel become impossible. Then what? No there will be no Israel army to blame. There will be no occupation to blame. You can't have it both ways. You don't want the IDF in the West Bank, you don't want occupation then the wall will go up to prevent the terrorists from coming. It is that simple.

"Coupled with all the checkpoints and illegal settlements one can easily see why the native Palestinians are a little miffed."

Again the childish and naive comments from someone who never has been to Israel. Did it ever occur to you that Israel is also miffed at the terrorist attacks that are constantly part of its life? Do you think they set up check-points because they have nothing better to do?

As for these settlements, it is only a matter of time once the wall is up, they are dismantled. At one point they served as a series of early warning posts against terrorist attacks. They have done nothing but exasperate the situation and were ill advised.

"There are many Israelis who also feel ashamed of their governments actions with respect to the occupied territories - I have cited B'Tselem to you and not a peep."

Not a peep. I was a member of the Israel peace network that protested certain actions. You are not in the position to lecture me. Why not a peep? For the same reason the only words I hear coming from you are anti-Israeli and you never not once have made an effort to find any moderate Muslim voices that protect the terrrorist actions of Hamas and Al Fatah and are against Islamic fundamentalism.

When you balance your comments with something other then the usual anti-Israel mantra and show me you can see more then one side to this conflict, I will have no need to constantly have to represent the other side. My comments are in direct response to your mantra.

"Leaves me wondering why you post the way you do -"

Because quite frankly unlike you I have lived in the Middle East and I have seen people die and I find arm-chair critics such as yourself pretentious and so far removed from the reality of what is going on I try amuse myself.

"are you here pretending to be a Jew and acting so rude as to give other Jews a bad name?"

Your comments although probably not thought out, were patronizing to Jews. DOn't pretend to speak on behalf of Jews or engage in feigned attempts at using Hebrew words or pretending you know how Jews feel. You don't. I also think it is fair to say you probably have a family history with unresolved conflicts with Jews in Europe from what you earlier mentioned and thus your attempt to use victimhood from the holocaust to justify your comments about Israel. That is my subjective impression.

"Or are you simply a very angry individual?"

Not angry, sarcastic. Believe me you do not anger me. Higgly or Figleaf do because their words are deliberate, yours are not. You don't anger me. I am not Alec Baldwin with you. Not quite yet.

"I'll await your usual non-response."

Again I challenge you to stop blurting out the usual Israel bad bad bad mantra. I challenge you to read articles and see both sides of the equation and look at this conflict as two people who no fault of either, have been forced into a cycle of violence that can be ended if people like you butt out and stop engaging in this pretense that you know what is going on and its all Israel's fault.

It is no one's fault-but each time you buy into this Israel bad bad bad nonense you fuel the terrorists and ironically you become the worst enemy of the Palestinians and prevent them from gaining freedom.

[Figleaf]

... If you must run around reporting posts, please report all my posts quietly and unobtrusively,

In fact, in this case I didn't report the post, I merely cited a rule you had seemingly overlooked.

Anyway, No, I will not accede to your request. You might as well stop disrupting threads with your groundless objections.

Please read the portion I have put in boldface above.

Reported. With an explaination to Greg that you have been repeatedly asked by several people not to disrupt threads with this useless announcement of your reportage. Just please do it quietly. If you must alert people to their doom, please do it in pms. What's so hard about that?

Okay, I'm going to briefly rescind my dictum of not responding to you on matter since you have done what I suggested. I'm glad you've taken this issue to Greg. Maybe he will have some success in telling you about how the forum works where I have clearly not.

Just to be clear, unless advised otherwise by Greg, I will NOT go along with your personal rule changes. I WILL continue to advise posters if I report their posts. And YOU have no basis for complaining about that. If you don't want to be reported, FOLLOW THE RULES.

[Rue]

prior to WWII, Palestine was occupied by the Turks then the British -- during WWII Palestine traded hands

but it was not until after WWII that Palestinians had their personal farms stolen and if they resisted, their lives taken

Abu Nidal, at age six, watched Israeli tanks butcher his grandparents. So, yes, Abu Nidal turned into a vile terrorist but he had a reason to be one.

All this Nazi talk is beyond hypocritical, in light of other discussions, moreover, it overlooks the glaring fact that all the Palestinian people ever wanted from any European power was help gaining freedom from some other European power.

the neo-con rewrite of history is convenient for Israel but a pile of lies

Guthrie can you please make an effort to find out what happened. The Turks did NOT occupy "Palestine".

The area of what today is Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan was NOT occupied by the Turks. In fact it was quite empty. The places where there were farms were run by landowners who sent taxes to the Ottoman Empire.

Your comments that Palestinian farms were stolen is a misrepresentation of what happened. To understand what happened may I suggest you try find out first what the French and British did, and then who were given the farms and how they exploited titleless vagrant Muslims before you try simplify it as simply a Jew v.s. Palestine issue as to the land-that is a crock.

Upir talk about abu Nidal is absolute bull. Thousands, millions of people have been born to poverty, trauma, suffering and hardship and did not choose terrorism. You insult the millions if not billions of humans who chose other methods to try make their lives better. Your attempt to portray terorists as victims and terrorism as an understandable and justifiable option is b.s.-absolute b.s.

The Nazi tie in to the Arab world is NOT neo-con. It is a fact. The Muslim world chose to align itself with Nazi Germany.It deliberately got into bed with Hitler, and after world war two, Syria was a safe haven for thousands of Nazis who operated the Syrian secret police and controlled its government. Why don't you find out which Nazi became a leading police chief in Egypt and the role the Nazis played in the Middle East after world war two. That has nothing to do with neo cons and everything to do with the Arab League's decision to back a loser because it shared the same anti-semitic hatred.

[Rue]

Oh DOP, you sure love to call folks Nazis eh? One of your fave slurs!

The Grand Mufti was a Nazi...sorry if you think that I'm ruining his 'good name'. I think he did a bang-up job himself.

The Stern Gang...a tiny terrorist group...actually wanted (for about 2 seconds) to make a deal with the Nazi's in 1940 well before the Final Solution started. The deal was to attack British holdings in the Mandate in exchange for Jews being alowed to escape Germany. The Germans never replied to their offer.

The Jewish people of the area formed a brigade of soldiers that fought with honor in the Italian campaign. The Arabs either ignored the war or went to Yugoslavia to join their leader in the fun much like today's Iraq. If the 13th SS Handschar and other similar divisions were an elephant, the Stern Gang was an ant.

Now - what is your point again?

Revisionism like yours needs to be met at the source. Your "anti-Zionist" stance seeks to turn the tables on the Jews making them out to be Nazis...just like Mr Dinnerjacket's Holocaust cartoon contest. You claim to have lost family in the Holocaust yet still defend the stinking corpse of Nazism in the form of today's terrorist government of HAMAS. I find this quite incredible.

Maybe we should start sharing Holocaust stories...I have them from both sides of the fence. You first.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since we cannot defeat Israel in war; we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.

---Yasser Arafat

Ah its nice to take a rest and sick the Dog on them.

[Figleaf]

The point is-to describe the problem as simply an "occupation" buys into the notion there is a good guy and a bad guy.

To deny the fact of the Occupation is to deny that a group of people are being denied self-determination by another group, contrary to the rules of Human Rights, and seemingly for the purpose of adding conquered territory to the state of the Occupier.

What I am saying is the Arab League gambled and lost.

Whatever losses you wish to ascribe to the Arab League has nothing whatsoever to do with the right of Palestinians to self-determination.

You have to look at the role Britain and France played. You have to look at the role the Arab League played.

No. That is all irrelevant to the core point. Israel is conducting an illegal Occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. It is actively denying the Palestinians their human rights. This must stop.

... why to this day Arab countries will not resettle Palestinians.

They have no obligation to do so.

[Guthrie]

the most recent occupation of Palestine began almost 60 years ago - it can't continue forever

[ScottSA]

They have no obligation to do so.

No one does.

[DogOnPorch]

the most recent occupation of Palestine began almost 60 years ago - it can't continue forever

Occupation is such a misleading word.

The 6 Day War resulted in the "occupation". The Arabs and other assorted Warsaw Pact proxy states had massed on the Israeli border with Nasser screaming for their destruction. The Israelis struck first in one of the most brilliant military campaigns in history. Had Israel lost the war, I doubt there'd be any talk of handing land back to the Jews. I also doubt the Pallys would have had a country via a Israeli defeat. Greater-Syria, more likely. But that's just my speculation...

The Arab/Egyptian solution to this mess of their own making was to build back up their military strength (thanks to the Soviet Union) and attempt the same violent trick again in 1973's Yom Kippur War. Destroy Israel. They lost AGAIN.

So...what right does any Arab have to this land other than what the Israelis say? None. Again...had 1967 or 1973 worked out for the Arabs and Israel been destroyed...would all these "friends of Palestine" be instead the "friends of Israel? Arabs "occupying" Israeli land and such. Would they be screaming for the Arabs to leave like they do to the Israelis? I really, really doubt it.

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Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has appeared int he world.

---Sir Winston Churchill

[Guthrie]

the most recent occupation of Palestine began almost 60 years ago - it can't continue forever

Occupation is such a misleading word.

...

No word is misleading. They are only used in misleading ways.

but, "occupied," is the proper word to apply to both Palestine and Iraq

[ScottSA]

the most recent occupation of Palestine began almost 60 years ago - it can't continue forever

Occupation is such a misleading word.

...

No word is misleading. They are only used in misleading ways.

but, "occupied," is the proper word to apply to both Palestine and Iraq

So you think the Jews should leave Woody? What's your solution to "Palestine"?

[Guthrie]

the most recent occupation of Palestine began almost 60 years ago - it can't continue forever

Occupation is such a misleading word.

...

No word is misleading. They are only used in misleading ways.

but, "occupied," is the proper word to apply to both Palestine and Iraq

So you think the Jews should leave Woody? What's your solution to "Palestine"?

The solution to you is education.

[Figleaf]

The Israelis struck first in one of the most brilliant military campaigns in history.

Well, it was well timed and devastatingly effective. On the other hand, it hardly involved any strategic or tactical virtuousity.

Had Israel lost the war, I doubt there'd be any talk of handing land back to the Jews.

Certainly not among the Palestinians and other Arab states that opposed the establishment of Israel in the first place.

I also doubt the Pallys ...

What? Who?

So...what right does any Arab have to this land other than what the Israelis say?

Ummm...

Not one single thing you have said changes the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination in their territory.

[DogOnPorch]

No word is misleading. They are only used in misleading ways.

Sure it is.

There wasn't a place called Palestine on any map from 1967. Back then it was Jordan and Egypt. There only became this notion of "Palestinians" in the modern sense after the Arabs lost the 1967 war. By modern sense I mean post-Holocaust. The Palestinian cause had been nattered-on about by nationalists like the Grand Mufti for years inside the Arab world before WW2 without much more than passing sympathy from the various monarchies/dictatorships/theocracies/banana republics.

Had the "Palestinian Cause" been so gosh-darned important to the Mulslim World, Jordan would have forked over the West Bank for them after losing the 1948 War. They didn't. They annexed it, instead. It only became a sudden huge issue when the Israeli's kicked everyone's collective rear-ends in 1967 upsetting everyone's plans re: driving the Jews into the sea.

Losers weepers...literally. Had they won their little wars back then according to plan they're wouldn't be an Israel...and I seriously doubt that there'd be a Palestine. They didn't fight those wars to create Palestine...

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Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil.

---Golda Meir

[Figleaf]

There wasn't a place called Palestine on any map from 1967.

So?

It only became a sudden huge issue when the Israeli's kicked everyone's collective rear-ends in 1967 upsetting everyone's plans re: driving the Jews into the sea.

Even if that were correct -- So?

[jbg]

the most recent occupation of Palestine began almost 60 years ago - it can't continue forever

Occupation is such a misleading word.

...

No word is misleading. They are only used in misleading ways.

but, "occupied," is the proper word to apply to both Palestine and Iraq

So you think the Jews should leave Woody? What's your solution to "Palestine"?

The solution to you is education.

Why don't you answer rather than duck the question?

[DogOnPorch]

Even if that were correct -- So?

Describe in your words the following:

The 1948 War.

The 1956 War.

The Six Day War.

The Yom Kippur War.

I await your response.

Then we can get into the 'so' of the matter.

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Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can be vice president.

---Johnny Carson

[DogOnPorch]

Well, it was well timed and devastatingly effective. On the other hand, it hardly involved any strategic or tactical virtuousity.

lol...wtf is 'strategic or tactical virtuousity'?

A small elite army took on several massive armies on multiple fronts and won. Similar to Hindenburg & Ludendorff's decisive victory at Tannenberg.

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How can I face the Tsar?

---General Alexander Samsonov

[Figleaf]

Even if that were correct -- So?

Describe in your words the following:

...

I await your response.

Noooo, it is I who is awaiting your response.

You said:

"There wasn't a place called Palestine on any map from 1967."

and "It only became a sudden huge issue when the Israeli's kicked everyone's collective rear-ends in 1967 upsetting everyone's plans re: driving the Jews into the sea."

I asked you to articulate what consequences you think flow from those observations.

Do you intend to respond?

[Figleaf]

Well, it was well timed and devastatingly effective. On the other hand, it hardly involved any strategic or tactical virtuousity.

... A small elite army took on several massive armies on multiple fronts and won.

Israel had a much better armed and trained force, attacking with the advantage of surprise. Winning under those conditions was the expectation, not a great triumph.

[ScottSA]

Well, it was well timed and devastatingly effective. On the other hand, it hardly involved any strategic or tactical virtuousity.

... A small elite army took on several massive armies on multiple fronts and won.

Israel had a much better armed and trained force, attacking with the advantage of surprise. Winning under those conditions was the expectation, not a great triumph.

Nonsense. It was quite close at times. It's fun being an armchair general in hindsight, isn't it?