Give Gaza to Egypt

[Michael Tee]

<<If the civilian population and the terrorist population gave a shit about the poor little kids and the mums with baby carriages (boo hoo), and grandma and grandpa they would stop killing the Israeli children, the Israeli mothers and children, and the Israeli grandparents today.>>

Let's at least be clear about the numbers.  The Jews have killed many more innocent Arabs than the Arabs have killed innocent Jews.  In addition to having their children maimed and killed before their very eyes, the Palestinians have had their homes and orchards bulldozed, their livelihoods destroyed, their land stolen and for forty years have lived in hovels as refugees on their own land.  And you really expect that these Palestinians, with all they've suffered at the hands of the Jews, are really going to give a shit about the Israeli children and mothers and grandparents?  Brother, it just doesn't work that way on this planet.


<<If there is no army of terrorists and no civilians support them, it would be very simple to make peace and move forward. >>

The fallacy of course is that the "terrorists" and the civilians who support them are not the problem but the reaction to the problem.  The problem is the occupation.  It is a festering sore that is at the root of all the other problems.  40 years they occupy Arab lands, force the Arabs to live under military occupation like no other people on earth have lived; one UN resolution after another tells the Jews, End the Occupation!  and the Jews laugh at the UN and tell them what they can do with their Resolutions.  So much for the way of peace.  So, in answer to your, "If there were no . . . " - - as long as there is an Occupation, there will be what you call "terrorists."  The civilians will never accept the occupation and the "terrorists" are the only means of Resistance that they possess.  These are a people without an army, without guided missiles, without drone aircraft, without F-16s.  But the one weapon they have is the lives of their sons, and they'll fight on with what they have to fight with.

<<But we both know there is only one thing on these people's mind; Kill every Israeli man woman and child.>>

You don't know that and I don't know that.  Unlike you, I actually know Palestinians.  I work with them.  My pharmacist is a Palestinian - - lovely lady.  You are just telling lies and bullshit about people you know nothing about.  Like a Nazi talking about Jews.  They are plenty angry and I don't blame them for being angry.  If what happened to them happened to me, I'd be plenty angry too.  I'll bet if the same things happened to St. Richard, he'd be pissed off as well.  It's true, though, a lot of them have got to the point where they don't care if the Jews live or die.  Why should they?  Who cares if their kids live or die?  Shot to death for throwing stones at soldiers.  Drilled through the forehead sitting in their own living room or gunned down caught after curfew coming home with the milk.   

<<Until they stop teaching their children to be racist genocidal monsters, Israeli has no duty to any of these people. None. >>

You're not even close to the real world.  They teach their kids that the Jews have taken their land and killed their people.  That only war will get back the land and avenge their dead.  That the Jews will pay.  What do you expect?  They are trying to raise a generation of fighters, not a generation of negotiators.  They negotiated, they signed deals, and the Jews broke every one.  When the time came to transfer land, they stalled for months; they raised conditions that were never in the original agreements ("incitement" -- the Arabs were "inciting" their kids to kill Jews - - using the very same textbooks they had been using for years.)   "Incitement" wasn't even mentioned in the agreements, but the Jews had a new excuse to weasel out of their deal.  So they proposed to hand back 50% of what was agreed, and then agreed to 65%.  And all the time, while the parties continued to "negotiate" for the return of the West Bank, through the negotiations and through the months when the parties were supposed to be implementing the agreements, the settlements never stopped for a minute.  Thousands of Jews came pouring into the West Bank to establish settlements on the very land their government was supposedly negotiating to return to the inhabitanst.  OF COURSE they are teaching their kids to fight the Jews, which means to kill the Jews.  How else are they going to get the Occupation off their backs and live as masters of their own lands? 

<<Let Egypt deal with their Arab/Muslim brothers. If they were any kind of Muslim they would do so for no other reason than their religion teaches them to do so.>>

You know that's not gonna happen, Rich.  They're not "any kind of Muslim," they're Muslims at war with the Muslim Brotherhood, and that means they're Muslims like us, Muslims that like to drink alcohol, dance in nightclubs and have fun.  Which the Muslim brotherhood is very much against.  And they don't want to take in a million future members of the Muslim Brotherhood who know all about underground cells and rocket launchers and explosives.  They've got their own problems.

<<No Mike, this is a farce. This war in to deeply embedded into Arab mentality to ever be anything other than an effort to committ genocide about the Jews. >>

Rich, what you call genocide they call war.  The Jews have their land and wont' give it back after 40 YEARS.  What the fuck do they care about killing Jews?  If they have to fight to get their land back, they'll kill Jews.  It's not an end in itself.  That's only in your imagination because you can't admit that they have a reason to hate.   But they do - - treat me like the Jews treated them for 40 years and I'll hate you too.  Negotiations haven't gotten them anything and the Occupation is in its 40th year.  And the settlements are expanding as we speak.  Be honest at least - - would YOU put up with a foreign occupation, living in a refugee slum with no livelihood for 40 years?  PLEASE don't tell me you'd accept it with peace in your heart.

There's no peaceful solution possible any more.  There was once, for a long time.  The Arabs thought they'd at least get the West Bank.  But the Jews are fucking them.  Anyone could see it.  They fenced off parts of the West Bank with a wall, and the rest is being settled, and the settlements are constantly expanding.  Nobody settles land whose future giveaway is being negotiated.  Any idiot can see that the Jews mean to hold the West Bank.  There's only one way to get it back.  The Jews had a chance at a two-state solution, which would have left them with a Jewish homeland.  Now there's only the one-state solution and the Jews are fucked.   Sure, they'll fight to keep what they got, but it's a losing battle.  Even the Americans are gonna desert them, faster if Obama wins, later if it's Hillary, but the Americans are too smart to be jerked around forever, and when it's time to bale out, they'll know.

<<It's up to the mothers pushing around those babies to teach them that all this racism and hate is wrong and maybe then we can have peace in the Middle East and perhaps even the world.>>

Oh, God, Rich, grow up for Christs sake.  It isn't racism when somebody pushes you off your land and into some fucking hell-hole for life.  It's not racism to hate the people who bulldozed your home and tortured your brother in prison and killed your baby sister.  It's not racism to hate the guys who stop you at gun-point at some crossroads and force you and your whole family to wait for six hours in the hot sun while somebody's got to get to a hospital to give birth.  You know what those mothers with baby carriages are really teaching their babies about the Jews?  The same thing that my mum taught me about the Germans.

[The_Professor]

<<Which exchange? The post from the day before that I never answered?>>

Let me start all over again.  I did not understand your post, <<Issues, MT?>>  But I took a chance.  I was referring to the last exchange in this thread between Rich and I.  Sorry I didn't make myself clear.

<<I have a feeling I shouldn't get into the Israeli argument with you.>>

I'm sorry you feel that way.  I'll never go out of my way to be abrasive if I know in advance that the other person bruises easily.  What's the point?  I'll just adjust my debating style to a more gentlemanly level but we could still have an interesting exchange of views.  Believe it or not, I'm a lot more interested in an exchange of ideas than I am in venting, although I have to admit that venting has its attractions.  Go ahead, MB, I won't bite.

Mike is like my podiatrist, a secular Jew. He and I discuss these issues occasionally. He even says what Mike says about synagogue, namely that his wife "drags " him to it occasionally and he has a difficult time staying awake! 


Both support Judaism, just not many of the actions of the Jewish State, e.g. Zionism. Is this your view in summation, Mike?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Are the Palestinians competant in this way that th Egyptans and Israelis are not?
=================================================================
When I said that the Egyptian government was not competent to run Egypt, I did not mean to suggest that any other group was more qualified. Only Egyptians should be running Egypt.

The Palestinians have no country at all, so it really does not matter whether they are competent or not. If there were a Palestine, it should be run, well or poorly, competently or incompetently, by Palestinians.

Hamas has no control over the borders of Gaza. They cannot ship anything, even vegetables out or in by land, sea or air. They have no revenues. There is no way that anyone can provide good government in a Hellhole, other than Satan, a mythical entity who is said to have no interest in good government anyway.

You appear to be good at silly questions these days.

[The_Professor]

<<That's right folks, those mean ole Israelis marched right in and took it. Unprovoked, and just for spite.>>

I think you're missing the point, Rich.  It doesn't really matter much to the Gazans HOW or WHY or WHEN the Israelis "marched right in and took it."  The vast majority of them weren't even born at the time.  They live in absolutely hellish conditions, which everyone, even the Israelis, will admit.

Israel has occupied Gaza for over 40 years.  These people's lives under Israeli occupation have been pure misery.  Even after their "withdrawal," the Israelis still have a stranglehold on the Gazan economy and won't let go any time soon.

The Gazan civilians are entitled to a life.  They don't have to love Israel as a precondition to having a life and they don't even have to accept Israel's existence.  It's their right as human beings to believe whatever they want about Israel's right to exist and still to have a life regardless of what they believe.

If the Gazans cannot or will  not stop the rocket attacks on Israel, then the Israeli defence forces have the right to enter Gaza themselves and try to pacify it within the rules of warfare as embodied in the Geneva Conventions.  But if they invaded they would have the responsibility of securing the welfare of the general civilian population, as for example, the Allies did in Germany.  The Israelis instead have chosen not to assume the responsibility of occupying a land which they claim is attacking them, but instead they are deliberately taking reprisals against the civilian population, which is forbidden by international law and is profoundly immoral and repugnant to most sane and normal people in the world.

Let's move the folks in the Gaza Strip tyo the Sinai then and away from Isreal (with proper infrastructure, etc.). Perhaps a little distance from Isrelis settlements might cool things down?

[Michael Tee]

<<Mike is like my podiatrist, a secular Jew. He and I discuss these issues occasionally. He even says what Mike says about synagogue, namely that his wife "drags " him to it occasionally and he has a difficult time staying awake!  Cheesy

<<Both support Judaism, just not many of the actions of the Jewish State, e.g. Zionism. Is this your view in summation, Mike?>>

That's pretty much it, Professor. 

But it's hard to say I "support" Judaism.  It's a religion I have a lot of problems with - - the dietary restrictions, for example, and the very existence of God.  Even the "Chosen People" concept which I used to think was the flip side of the coin to the "Master Race."  I understand it now to mean that we were "chosen" to carry out God's laws and be an example (the Israelis - - some example!!) to the rest of the world.  Not "chosen" in the sense of favouritism or entitlement.  But even so, it's offensive - - why can't Martin Luther King be an example, instead of Richard Perle? 

What I support is more or less the concept of the Jewish people.  I think we have an attitude that's really distinctive - - we were persecuted so long that most of us have an instinctive affinity for the underdog, an inborn liberalism that defies all attempts to subvert it.  And we're extremely skeptical of authority, any authority, because we know in our bones that the cops, the army, the government can all be our deadliest enemies.  Can lend themselves to oppression much more readily than to the protection of the weak and the vulnerable.  We learned that the hard way and we didn't forget it.  We don't trust kings, Presidents or popes.  We have a cynical distrust of any official bullshit.  And nevertheless, we kept our sense of humour, our love of family, our love of learning, of music, our drive and our ambition.  We had a 2,000-year-old dream that one day we would return to the land of our ancestors, and in my own lifetime, it happened.

[Rich]

>>Let's at least be clear about the numbers. The Jews have killed many more innocent Arabs than the Arabs have killed innocent Jews.<<

No, if we were being clear about the numbers we will have to determine who these ?innocent? Arabs actually are. Who are they? Why were they in a position to be killed by Israeli forces? Who does the reporting? The answer is that terrorists lie. You can?t tell the players without a program, and you can?t tell a terrorist from a civilian. Especially when terrors are writing the program.


>>In addition to having their children maimed and killed before their very eyes, the Palestinians have had their homes and orchards bulldozed, their livelihoods destroyed, their land stolen and for forty years have lived in hovels as refugees on their own land.<<

Once again, pure propaganda. In the interest of clarity, I think we both can agree that killing is something we both wish wasn?t happening. I?m going to assume you believe that when it comes to Arabs, and Jews. The difference, as I see it, is that Arabs living in Gaza take a different view than Israelis. Israel would like to live in peace. Arabs want the Jews either out of the Middle East entirely, or dead. Preferably both.

>>And you really expect that these Palestinians, with all they've suffered at the hands of the Jews, are really going to give a shit about the Israeli children and mothers and grandparents? Brother, it just doesn't work that way on this planet.<<

A Jewish mother is sitting in her kitchen reading the morning paper sipping on her tea. A rockets rips through her apartment and she?s dead. A teenage girl get?s on a bus to visit her friend across town. A crazed homicide bomber boards the bus and rips her to shreds along with everyone else on the bus. A bomb goes off in an Israeli night club killing and maiming hundreds.

What?s the difference here? The difference is the people you defend TARGET CIVILIANS. In Israel, the Israeli army NEVER intentionally targets civilians. Do civilians die from Israeli?s actions? Yes. And when they do, they are held accountable by the Israeli government. Who hold the terrorists accountable? Not you. In fact you defend them.


>>The problem is the occupation.<<

There is no occupation. Israel is a sovereign nation. Had Israel not been attacked by it?s neighbors, and had the Muslims practiced what they preach, there would be no refugee problem. The refugee?s are a manufactured problem. It works for the other Arab nation, so they keep them in the camps and use them as weapons in their on going war against Israel. Syria, Jordon, and other surrounding Arab countries got the Arabs to leave Israel because they started a war and then wouldn't let them in their country. Arabs live in Israel, work in Israel, and occupy important positions in the Israeli government. When Arabs want peace, they get it.

>>You don't know that and I don't know that.<<

I don?t? I can read. I can see. Why can?t you?


>>Unlike you, I actually know Palestinians. I work with them. My pharmacist is a Palestinian - - lovely lady.<<

Appealing to authority doesn?t prove anything. I?m sure your Palestinian pharmacist is a lovely woman, but who cares? What the hell does that prove? Why is she here, and not over their if she?s such an authority on what makes the terrorists tick?

>>You are just telling lies and bullshit about people you know nothing about. Like a Nazi talking about Jews.<<

Right, Your pharmacist is a Palestinian so you know it all. And once again you can?t go 2 minutes without using the word Nazi, or fascist.

Get a fucking clue.

I?m not going to bother addressing the rest of your manic rant. It?s pointless.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Palestinians are people. Most of them are not terrorists, but none of them believe that the Israelis have any right to demolish the homes of Palestinians, or chop down their olive trees, or build huge walls separating them from the rest of their countrymen. Eventually, unless there is a mutually agreed on peace, the Jews are doomed, because their birth rate is much lower than that of the Palestinians and the 'Israeli Arabs' who are the Palestinians who refused to be driven away in 1947, and they will be outnumbered.

This is a fact, and it is well known to all. With or without US aid, with or without a Wall enclosing all of Israel into a voluntary ghetto it will happen, within the next 60 years or so.

Time is on the side of the Palestinians. There is not one damned thing you can do about it.

Israel accomodates, or Israel is doomed, The time for a settlement is running out.

[Rich]

>>Time is on the side of the Palestinians. There is not one damned thing you can do about it. Israel accomodates, or Israel is doomed, The time for a settlement is running out.<<

Yeah, Israel is just shaking in it's boots. Can't you tell?

 

[Xavier_Onassis]

It matters not.

Israel is doomed, shaking in their boots or dancing the hora.
Armed to the teeth or holding a menorah.
 

[Michael Tee]

<<No, if we were being clear about the numbers we will have to determine who these ?innocent? Arabs actually are. Who are they? Why were they in a position to be killed by Israeli forces? Who does the reporting? The answer is that terrorists lie. You can?t tell the players without a program, and you can?t tell a terrorist from a civilian. Especially when terrors are writing the program.>>

The innocent Arabs are children.  They are people killed in their homes.  Farmers in their fields shot and killed by settlers.  Worshipers in a mosque massacred by a Jewish settler.  Kids demonstrating against the occupation and shot to death by soldiers.  Kids in school hit by Israeli rockets.  The numbers don't lie.  Who is doing the reporting?  Every reputable news source in the world acknowledges that the Jews kill many more Arabs than the so-called "terrorists" kill Jews. 

<<The answer is that terrorists lie. >>

The Jews lie too.  They lied about Mohammed al Darra, the 12-year-old they shot to death and it was caught for TV.  Bundled with his father against a wall for protection from Israeli rifle fire, but the Jews killed him and even killed the ambulance driver who had cometo help him.  And now they are lying about it, trying to blame it all on the Arabs.  Of course, they don't mention the ambulance driver in their lies.  That's a little too much to explain away.

<<Once again, pure propaganda. >>

The 40-year military occupation is pure propaganda?  The bulldozed homes, the murdered children propaganda?  The million Arabs living as refugees in Gaza pure propaganda?  Sure, Rich, sure.  It's propaganda.

<<In the interest of clarity, I think we both can agree that killing is something we both wish wasn?t happening. I?m going to assume you believe that when it comes to Arabs, and Jews. The difference, as I see it, is that Arabs living in Gaza take a different view than Israelis. >>

Yeah, that's for God-damn sure.  The Arabs want to live free of the Occupation and the Jews won't let them.

<<Israel would like to live in peace. >>

Yeah on the land they displaced the Arabs from.  Why should they live there in peace while the people they took it from by force want it back?  Is that reasonable?

<<Arabs want the Jews either out of the Middle East entirely, or dead. Preferably both.>>

That is just such bullshit - - you just make up Arab opinion as you go along.  Put whatever words in their mouths that best suits your purposes.  There are obviously many Arab opinions on the subject of the Jews, from "Kill the whole God-damn bunch of them" to co-existence in a one-state or two-state existence.  You have no proof at all - - NONE - - that "Kill them all" is majority Arab opinion on the subject.  It is just not true.

<<A Jewish mother is sitting in her kitchen reading the morning paper sipping on her tea. A rockets rips through her apartment and she?s dead. A teenage girl get?s on a bus to visit her friend across town. A crazed homicide bomber boards the bus and rips her to shreds along with everyone else on the bus. A bomb goes off in an Israeli night club killing and maiming hundreds.>>

That's war.  As long as the Jews occupy Arab lands and won't resolve the situation, Arabs will strike back.  They don't have an army or an air force, so they strike with suicide bombers.  Give them a regular army with regular weapons and equipment if you'd prefer them to wage the same kind of war on the Jews as the Jews wage on their people.

<<There is no occupation. >>

Get real.  Of course there's an occupation.  Even the Jews themselves admit there's an occupation.  See "Finally Israel Admits the Truth - Sharon Uses the Word "Occupation" for the First Time," which was headline news when it happened, because the Jews had been repeating that same "there is no occupation"  lie for years - - http://forums.techguy.org/civilized-debate/135964-finally-israel-admits-truth.html - - and the links in the article to the news sources.

<<Israel is a sovereign nation. Had Israel not been attacked by it?s neighbors, and had the Muslims practiced what they preach, there would be no refugee problem. The refugee?s are a manufactured problem. >>

The refugees are in no way responsible for the actions of Israel's neighbours, they are innocent victims of a war.  Israel wound up in possession of the lands these people live on and for forty years thereafter, their lives have been a living hell.  If they're a manufactured problem, the manufacturer's name is stamped all over the problem - - it's made in Israel.  It's the Israel Defence Force and no other that occupies their land.  It's the Israeli government that orders lands expropriated, houses bulldozed, soldiers to block traffic, and when the protests are met with gunfire, it's the Israeli army that is shooting the guns.

<<It works for the other Arab nation, so they keep them in the camps and use them as weapons in their on going war against Israel. Syria, Jordon, and other surrounding Arab countries got the Arabs to leave Israel because they started a war and then wouldn't let them in their country.>>

That is just pure bullshit.  You are completely misrepresenting the history of the conflict.  Civilians everywhere will leave a war zone and the Palestinian civilians of 1948 were no different.  They had every right to leave a combat zone and every right to return after. International law recognizes a universal right of return when the shooting stops.  The Jews don't.

This talk about Syria and Jordan "getting the Arabs to leave Israel" is just pure fiction.  They did no such thing.

In 1967, the Arabs DIDN'T leave their homes, their homes were occupied by the invading Israeli army.

<<Arabs live in Israel, work in Israel . . .  >>

So what?  Who says they don't?  How does that justify the Jews occupying the West Bank and Gaza for over 40 years?  It's OK becuase they let a few Arabs live and work in Israel?  Your thinking on this subject is really illogical.

<< . . . .and [Arabs] occupy important positions in the Israeli government.>>

They do?  News to me.  What important Israeli government positions are held by Arabs?

<<When Arabs want peace, they get it.>>

Obviously they don't want peace.  They've been occupied for 40 years.  They want the occupiers to leave and they want their land back.  Peace has gotten them nothing but a royal screwing.  The Jews continue to settle on their land, and the more peaceful it is, the more Jews come to settle it.

I think the general problem you have is that you proceed from a bunch of unexamined assumptions, about the nature of the Palestinians, what they really want (although it is true that at this point, some of them just want to kill Jews,) how they became occupied and/or refugees and especially how the Jews got hold of the land.  As long as you continue to accept myth as fact, these discussions are kind of pointless.  I really think you should read a little more broadly than you have been up to now.  Noam Chomsky would be a good place to start.  You seem to have a great grasp of all the Zionist propaganda machine's talking points, but know virtually nothing of the actual facts of the situation.  It wouldn't hurt you to get to know some Palestinians and talk to them as well.  You might not like what you hear, but the scary thing for me is that you don't even seem to have heard any of it before.

[Rich]

>>The innocent Arabs are children.  They are people killed in their homes.  Farmers in their fields shot and killed by settlers.<<

What complete and utter bullshit. You really are manic, aren't you.

[Michael Tee]

<<What complete and utter bullshit. You really are manic, aren't you.>>

Unfortunately there is documentation available for each of those atrocities, each one of which is in fact very real for the victims and their families.  Why anyone would close their eyes to reality and pretend it just didn't happen has always been a mystery to me.  Bob Dylan wrote a line about it in Blowin' in the Wind - - How many times can a man turn his head, pretend that he just doesn't see?  It doesn't matter in the end, it is the victims who know what went down, and it is up to the victims to avenge it.  Not my job and not your job.

[Rich]

Seriously, if you're not seeing someone, you should.

[The_Professor]

This"conversation" has DEvolved. How about some constructive solutions instead of name-calling?

How about Isreal rebuilding the Gaza Strip and working with them there in exchange for hard and fast security guarantees? If those in Gaza want the "goodies", then it is up to them to control the radicals.

Deal?

[Rich]

Sorry professor, I think you can see I was at least trying to have a normal conversation on the subject, but I believe it's impossible for a several reasons so I won't attempt it again.

As for a solution? Time hasn't worked. Concession hasn't worked. War hasn't worked. Maybe starvation will.

What would you do if your neighbor was constantly shooting at you?