MT, your anti-Israeli stance is mindboggling. You remind me of Chomsky. You both suffer the same thing: "All Israeli actions bad, no responsibility of Palestinians or other Arab countries allowed!" As I have stated and maintained from the get-go: ISRAEL IS NOT FAULTLESS. They have committed many inhumane acts in their fight for survival and safety, and those acts have not always been in the best interest of their own people. HOWEVER, to understand their behaviour one cannot analyse Israel alone; the neighbouring Arab states' behavior must be taken into consideration as well.
I am also keeping all points made as from the 1967 war & on, or this debate could get ugly.
Also, for the sake of clarification and so nothing further can be missappropriated: WHEN I AM DISCUSSING THE FUNDAMENTALIST ISLAMIC MINDSET, which *is* overwhlemingly most of the MidEast Arab's mindset, don't presume some superiority by talking about your not-fundamentalist, non-militant, reasonable palestinian neighbour in the west as if their open-minded, accepting perspective is exemplary of the mindset of the majority of MidEast Arabs.
So, play-by-play for the sake of ease:
<<I'm amazed that:
1. No one aside from Rich seems to be willing to confront the atrocities of the Arab world on their supposed Muslim "brothers" . . . >>
Well, the topic is the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. The "atrocities" committed by Arabs "on their supposed Muslim brothers" is a red herring, because logically, what Arabs do to each other can't possibly justify anything the Jews do to the Arabs. If I am fighting with my neighbour about ownership of a piece of land, I don't think any court in the world would want to hear how mean my neighbour is to members of his own family. It would have absolutely no bearing on the dispute whatsoever.
However, if your point in introducing this element into the discussion is to prove that the Arabs are collectively a bunch of degenerate savages who don't even have the decency to respect the lives of their co-religionists, I would say, firstly shame on you for stooping to such a blatantly racist smear of an entire race and religion and secondly, when it comes to committing atrocities on one's co-religionists, the Europeans and the Americans take a back-seat to nobody, if you consider the carnage of the two world wars and the U.S. civil war alone. Ms. Kettle, meet Mr. Pot. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
How are the actions of Arab nations a "red herring"? I will need more than your opinion that the "Jews were worse". The example you used after that is in keeping with Western thoughts and traditions and perspectives, which in
no way relates plausibly to traditional Islamic perspectives.
The Arabs do NOT respect the lives of their "co-religionists", as you call them, most certainly, and even moreso they have NO respect for the lives or outlooks of any other religion, race, etc. Palestinians have been
forcibly maintained by their Arab brothers in an artifical refugee status, leading to legal apartheid in Lebanon and to an extent, Syria, via a U.N. rule that gives Palestinians permanent refugee status due to lack of a soveriegnty.
As for America and Europe: If you wish to discuss that, go right ahead and start a new thread for it. I'll be glad to discuss things like Germans being forced out of East Prussia, among others. Their conflicts are not what this thread is about.
2. No one aside from Rich seems to be willing to confront . . . the fact that the Palestinians are not innocent and have brought much of this on themselves.>>
First of all, "innocence" and "guilt" are not FACTS, as you claim, but merely OPINIONS. Hopefully, opinions based on facts. Second, I think most sane and normal people, if they can agree on nothing else, would have to agree that "guilt" and "innocence" are, in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, purely relative terms.
Since you don't bother to state what facts you base your opinion on, I will have to assume that it is suicide bombings which make the Palestinians "not innocent" and lead you to conclude that they "have brought "much of this" on themselves.
Your conclusions are, of course, patently absurd on their face. First of all, the Palestinians had absolutely nothing to do with the occupation by the Jews of the West Bank of Palestine. They happened to be living (many of them after being expelled from their original homes in what is now Israel) on land caught between the armies of Israel and Jordan, occupied by Israel, and then in complete defiance of international law, settled by Israeli settlers, many of them arriving from Europe and America after the war. So it is virtually impossible to see, in any reasonable view of the situation, how the Palestinians can be said to have "brought much of this" or indeed any of "this" on themselves.
Possibly, however, you are referring to the suicide bombings. Again, your argument would make sense only to one who is completely ignorant of the history of the situation. Suicide bombings are a relatively recent response to the Occupation. The Palestinians suffered a military occupation for about 20 years until the first intifada broke out, when crowds of child demonstrators, some as young as 10 or 11 years old, throwing pebbles at Israeli soldiers, were gunned down in the streets. Yitzkhak Rabin gave the orders to his soldiers to "break the bones" of the demonstrators. In response to the brutality of the Israeli forces and the murders of their children, some Palestinians, driven to desperation by the never-ending oppression of the Occupation, turned to the only weapons they had, their own bodies, to bring the struggle back to the enemy. Suicide bombings are the only weapon of a people which lacks the weapons of war possessed in deadly abundance by their enemy.
You might want to at least glance at the actual facts, however, before coming to your conclusions of "guilt" or "innocence" - - for example, that since 2000, more than 4,500 Palestinians have been killed as opposed to only 1,100 Israelis. It should be pretty clear from these numbers (a 4-to-one ratio) where most of the violence is coming from. In 2007 alone, 373 Palestinians were killed by the Jews, as against only 13 Israelis, a ratio of almost 30-to-one. It is absolutely ludicrous to claim that the Israelis are the "innocents" in this lop-sided carnage against a defenceless civilian population. Further, <<[of] the Palestinians killed this year, 131 were not engaged in fighting at the time of their death, according to the report. That number includes bystanders, militants killed during arrest raids, Palestinians killed trying to infiltrate Israel from Gaza, and armed members of Palestinian security forces who were not actively involved in hostilities when they were killed.>> And, finally, <<[of] the Israelis killed by Palestinians, seven were civilians and six were security personnel.>>
http://www.sunherald.com/311/v-print/story/270946.html for the above death-toll summary
*Sigh* I have stated several times that neither parties are innocent, and they both have their faults. When I can see an acceptance of this notion in your arguments, I'll respond further. As it stands, Palestinians are as much victims as Israelis are, as much perpetrators as Israelis are, and I see no acknowledgement of that simple notion in any of your arguments.
<<2. That after mentioning the Six Day War, you *still* view it as simply "Israel took it over". You condemned me for a sweeping broad summation of the conflict, yet: Pot, meet Kettle. Wikipedia can be your friend>>
So what details of the Six Day War do you think I left out that would have favoured the case of the Occupation against the Palestinians?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War see: Israel and Jordan specifically. "Israel took it over" is a very poor way of describing Israel capturing territories in an effort to safeguard themselves against the Arabs.
<<That Israel is consistently claimed to be the bad guys despite their damndest efforts to reach agreements. To pull the quote out again: "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity";>>
You know that is just total bullshit. What "damndest efforts" have they actually made? They stall for years "negotiating" agreements that it is obvious they never intend to keep (all the time pouring settlers as fast as they can into the land they are supposedly "negotiating" to give away) and then when the agreements are finally signed, they stall, delay and renege, using phony excuses ("the Arabs are 'inciting' violence") which were never even mentioned in the original "agreements." No real Palestinian leader has any faith left in the Israelis' intentions. Abbas, a corrupt puppet leader, is the only one who will even pretend that there is any point to negotiating with them.
You trotted out that old wisecrack about the Arabs never missing an opportunity, coined by a cynical and morally corrupted Israeli Foreign Minister as if it were proof of anything except his clever tongue. Of course, the Israelis are adept at pouring out lies and bullshit, not enough to fool the Europeans but certainly more than adequate for the dumbass Amerikkkan public.
Haha! Whats the point of anything they(Israel only) have signed, when they consistently face attack and threats from neighbouring nations?! As Abbas points out in the first public statement(sofar as I know) that Palestine has to compromise: "We will be flexible," said Abbas. "But before 1947, we had 95% of Palestine. In 1937, the partition plan gave the Israelis only part of Palestine. And they were very happy at that time. [David] Ben-Gurion was very happy with it. It didn't work. After that [came] the 1947 partition plan - we rejected this, so we lost... Now, we accept [the pre-'67 borders]." Of course, this is pointless now. Hamas so thoroughly controls Gaza that there *is* no point in attempting resolution as there is no Palestine in Gaza. There is a significant break in PA ideas and perspectives and those of the militant Hamas. I was amazed to find out that the PA accuses Hamas of acting with Israel to wipe out Islamic Jihad!!!
And you expect these people to make sense???<<That NO ONE gives credibility to the fact that the poor refugee Palestinians could solve their own plight, and are in large part responsible for it, because heaven forbid their twisted-religious minds allow them to recognize Israel>>
More bullshit. Where is the evidence of any Jewish commitment to end the occupation as soon as the Palestinians recognize Israel? There is no such commitment. All Israel has committed to is to negotiate more. That's not good enough but it certainly gives the lie to your claim that a simple recognition of Israel would solve all their problems. Nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense.
It wouldn't happen as soon as Palestine recognized Israel; thats like requesting all U.S. troops in Iraq come home overnight. There would have to be continuing and hopefully U.N.-forced and backed withdrawal of Israel as Gaza's "support system" and institution of Arab controlled(with very very tight U.N. oversight) "support" in its place. There would have to be close monitoring for some decades by the U.N. and other "peacekeepers" so as to avoid Israel being attacked by anti-zionist nutcases. There are plenty of reasonable solutions, including the one I referenced addressed by Dubya, but none that are siple unfortunately, due to both the devestated state of Palestine and the security needs of Israel.
<<That comparisons of Palestinians who are not part of the Islamic Fundamentalist mindset are used to discredit the very real and very terrifying and extremely large faction of the MidEast, and Gaza, who *are* thinking in that regard.>>
The Palestinians can be of any "mindset" they choose and would still be entitled to have military occupation lifted off their backs. Who in the hell are the Israelis to dictate to the Palestinians or to anyone else, "You can have the basic human rights provided by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights," but first you must adopt a mindset that is acceptable to us?" This is probably the most outrageous of all your statements in its arrogance and its (obviously unintended) glimpse of the "mindset" of Israel and its supporters.
Well, good. Lets pull all Israeli support of Gaza. Let's allow Israel to bomb 'em to smithereens when their Islamic Jihad lets-reintroduce-the-caliphate mindset rears its ugly head.
And the Israelis didn't buy much of that land, they took it in a war. Under the rules of the UN, they are obliged to return it.
If so, the U.N. would be forcing that issue. Just like they are allowinf the legal apartheid in Lebanon to go on and on. And the latter resolution is non-binding, at that!
