I've just been listening to an interview with a refugee now living in the UK who recalls her family fleeing their house in fear of approaching gunmen, and not being allowed back weeks later or decades later.
It's hard to be on the losing side of a war, especially if it's an attempt at ethnic cleansing. The best solution for the problem is not to start such a war.
If the Arabs would've accepted the 2-state solution, instead of trying to wipe out Israel completely, nobody would've been evicted from his home at gunpoint, there would be no refugees, and the Palestinian state would celebrate its 60th birthday today.
Any normal observer looks at the Nakba and sees an injustice.
The Nakba was a tragedy. However, it was completely self-inflicted.
To see it as justice, it is necessary to subscribe to an idea according to which a specific religious group that has had virtually no connection to the land for a couple of millennia can turn up and take it from the natives.
The Jews are a nation with a unique religion, and not a religious group. The Land of Israel is a very important part of Jewish culture, throughout the ages. Any Jew who's not in Israel, is considered to be living in exile.
I'm sure you would not appreciate losing New York that way.
Are you denying that the original owners were defrauded, and have a moral right to the land? You mean that the Native Americans lost their right to it because they didn't "claim" it for a century or two? Or are you reversing your claim when it's rhetorically convenient?
If we're on the subject, can you deny that the existence of the US (and Australia) is much more of an outrageous injustice than that of Israel?
And no one would accept an Arab state in, for example, the US or Japan, no matter how tiny it is.
The Arab ancestral home is not in the US, or Japan (it's in the Middle East), so no. If the Arabs were exiled from a part of the US/Japan, yearned to return to their homeland for centuries, persecuted all of that time because they refused to mingle with the other nations (and lose their nationhood), then yes, they would have a complete moral right to that tiny chunk of the US/Japan.
It's funny you use the US and Japan as examples. Japan has parts (such as Okinawa) that were taken by an imperialist war, and the US... well, it a nation based on colonization, massive land theft, and disenfranchising/massacring the native population. The only reason that they "wouldn't allow" a foreign country to be created on their lands is because they have the military might to prevent it, and not because they have a moral right to the land.
You make no effort to explain why it could not be seen the opposite way: the Arab natives simply couldn't accept Jewish colonists ethnically cleansing them, so they had a right to ethnically cleanse the colonists.
Very simple. The Jews weren't trying to ethnically cleanse the Arabs. They accepted the partition plan.
Again, it all comes down to the mistaken premise that it was OK to come to steal someone's country in the first place
That land was the ancestral homeland of the Jews. They have a full moral right to it.
But European and American colonists didn't have the right to come and steal a big chunk of it
No, but the original inhabitants (the Jews) did have a right to it.
For example, in Jan 2006 they removed their rhetorical call for the dissolution of Israel from their manifesto, and replaced it with a call for an "independent state whose capital is Jerusalem", which is fully compatible with Israel remaining almost entirely intact.
They never changed their charter. That ambiguous claim comes from their election campaign. In any case, HAMAS officials had many opportunities to say that they accept Israel's existence. That declaration would've lifted the blockade and st
The topic in this subthread is the current political landscape between the Israelis and Palestinians. What did you think it was about? My original comment was in response to a comment about the concept of Palestinian nationality (versus the concept of Israeli nationality). Read it again, if you don't believe me.
You responded to my comment with a bizarre non-sequitur.
Anyway, seeing as you seem intent on avoiding the issues What issues was I avoiding? The fact that "people change their minds" or that "shit happens"? You didn't make a single coherent point in the whole thread.
I'll ask again - what does the "original" intent of establishing either an Israeli or Palestinian state have to do with what is happening today? It means that the concept of "Palestinian nationality" is as new as of "Israeli nationality", as opposed to what ChameleonDave claimed. It's a small issue, but it was the topic of the debate.
I haven't at any point in time claimed it is a country. Your interpretation shows how little you know of the English language Uhm...
it's not independent, but being invaded doesn't make it a non-country. (Emphasis mine)
OK, I guess I'm a stupid foreigner, so please enlighten me, what's "not a non-country" then?
And it's indisputable that whatever the Palestinian territory is, country or otherwise, has been invaded by Israel. You mean I can call it a non-country now?
The claim that it's "indisputable" simply comes from your ignorance. First of all, Palestinians claim that "Palestinian territory" includes Israel. Second, the area now called "the occupied Palestinian territory" was part of Jordan and Egypt when it was taken. In fact, the original PLO charter relinquishes any claim for that area, acknowledging that it belongs to Jordan and Egypt (they wanted to take over Israel instead).
Really? Since you've seem to misunderstand most of what I've said, I thought you wanted an explanation.
Now a large chunk of that has been stolen, and most of them have been ejected from it.
It was not "stolen" in any way. Before the British mandate, Arabs didn't own any of the land. The Western powers corrected that historical injustice, while correcting another - by allowing the Jews the right of self-determination in their ancestral homeland.
Of course, Arab nationalists wouldn't accept any non-Arab state in Arabia, no matter how tiny it is. So they started a war, an attempted ethnic cleansing, which they've lost. As a result, many of the the Arabs who lived in the area fled or were expelled. This is unfortunate, but entirely the Arabs' fault. After all, the Jews couldn't have neighbors that were trying to kill them.
In fact, they have the right to actually go back to their homes and eject the American and European immigrants currently squatting them
The Jews have a moral and a historical right to that tiny piece of land. The Arabs who lived there have a right to that land as well, so the land was justly divided between the Jews and the Arabs who lived there. However, they do not have to right to deny Jews of theirs.
You complained about a lack of permission for an independent Arab (Arab, because the Palestinians are Arab) state, and I pointed out that permission is not a moral requirement.
The point is that I wasn't talking about permission at all. The whole "permission" argument exists only in your head.
I was pointing out that the Arabs living under the British mandate didn't claim to have "Palestinian" nationality. Depending on their political affiliations, they claimed to have "Arab" or "Southern Syrian" nationality. The idea of Palestinian nationhood started only after they've lost the 1948 war, which is the time where Israeli nationhood was born as well.
One officially supports that idea, and the other is rhetorically against it (because it is indeed unjust) whilst realising that it's probably all they will get.
Like it or not, the HAMAS's opinions represent the will of the majority of Palestinians. The whole "realizing that it's probably all they will get" thing is nothing but your own naive idea.
Calling the two-state solution "unjust" because it gives a tiny piece of Arab land to a persecuted people is both laughable and morally reprehensible.
No, you tried to present Palestinian nationality and new and artificial (in contrast with Israel), and I pointed out that the supreme example of new and artificial nationality is in fact the State of Israel.
First of all, it wasn't me, but another poster. Second, I'm not saying that Israeli nationality isn't new as well. I was just pointing out that "Palestinian" nationality was born at the same time as "Israeli" nationality, as opposed to what you've implied.
Btw, I haven't heard Palestinians claim that Palestinian nationality isn't new. Palestinians usually talk about "Arab" and "Muslim" historical rights. After all, if the 1948 war was successful, there would be no "Palestinians" today.
Palestinians have one which is three decades older (if we look no further than the British Mandate), centuries older (if we look at the Ottoman empire) or ancient (if we look at inhabitation).
As I pointed out earlier, you're wrong when it comes to the British mandate. When it comes to Ottoman or "ancient" nationality, it just becomes weird. Why do I have to keep reminding you that we're (well, at least I am) talking about Palestinian nationality, and not Ottoman citizenship or the moral rights to the land?
. But they decided to appease both Zionists ("We demand a homeland!") and anti-Semites ("Yeah, ship the Jews off to Palestine!") by creating a colonia
What's important about that point? Circumstances change, and people change their minds. And it's not as if the people living in the area today are all the same people, or the people living in the area all had the same opinion on the topic, anyway. Basically, your "important point" is totally irrelevant to the topic. Uhm. I wonder what do you think the topic is?
It's not independent, but being invaded doesn't make it a non-country. It was never invaded. In fact, that statement reveals how little you know about the whole thing.
Btw, the fact that there never was a country called Palestine, and the fact that there is no sovereign state by that name today does make it a non-country.
OK, let's just admit that the IDF most likely covered it up deliberately. Hmm, let's not.
Even if the bulldozer driver wanted to kill Rachel Corrie, he couldn't have done so intentionally, simply because it's impossible to see the place she was in from the giant bulldozer's cabin. That's why you need soldiers on the ground to guide the bulldozer. IDF fucked up, because the soldiers who were supposed to keep stuff like that from happening weren't there. If you want to assume it was a deliberate murder, you have to assume that there a soldier hiding somewhere, guiding the bulldozer to hit Rachel Corrie, and that's ridiculous.
Simply put, there are much easier ways to kill a person. They could've shot her in the head, say it was a stray bullet and that would be it.
There's no evidence that it wasn't an accident, and there's absolutely no evidence of a cover-up. The version provided by the IDF is completely plausible, and the claim that it was a deliberate murder is (at least with the information we have today) nothing more than conspiracy theory.
What's your point? My point is that Palestinian nationhood is a new concept, because there was no Palestinian nation before the British mandate, and even then, the people that now call themselves "Palestinians" didn't claim to be part of the "Palestinian nation" either. In fact, they wanted to be southern Syrians or Western Jordanians.
Therefore, it was never a "national term" as you claim.
Furthermore, you really have to realise that they, as the native inhabitants, had an inherent right to citizenship of that land or an empire including it
So they were "citizens of the Ottoman empire". How does that make them "Palestinians"?
First you try to de-legitimate the native population's nationality by linking it with colonial whims, and now you try to limit their rights to a national based on lack of imperial permission for such a nation. You can't have it both ways.
Uhm... what are you talking about? Jordan didn't have a "imperial permission" to annex Palestine. The partition plan did include an independent Arab Palestinian nation. It was the Arabs who rejected the idea of a separate Palestinian nationality.
You can argue for that if you like, but the Palestinians have humbler aspirations: independence and freedom in their land. In fact, they even generally accept that the Zionists can hang on to half the land they stole, call it Israel, and let the Palestinians govern themselves in the other half.
Wrong.
The HAMAS, an organization that officially rejects such that idea, won the Palestinian elections by a landslide.
When you wanted them to sound bad, you said "British colonists". Now that you want them to sound legit, you said "UN partition plan". You presented Palestinian nationality as an ancient concept, as opposed to the new, and supposedly artificial concept of Israeli nationality. I pointed out that Palestinian nationality is also new and even more artificial.
I have no problem with the British colonists, btw. All they wanted (at least officially) was to create viable and independent countries for Arabs and Jews, as opposed to the Turks that were simply oppressive imperialists. My only problem is when people present the British mandate as anything but a brief and officially temporary period in the history of the region.
world powers do not have the right to take someone's home and country from them.
Before the British mandate, the Arabs lived under a foreign occupation. What the "world powers" did is to free them from that occupation, and give them their own nation. The only reservation was that they also wanted to give a tiny piece of the land to a small, persecuted nation.
Mention of the 1948 war is utterly irrelevant unless you believe in the mediaeval right of conquest. I have no idea what you thought I meant, but I'm pretty sure you've misunderstood me. I only wanted to point out that you made the whole conflict sound like some frivolous whim.
the problem is that it is a loaded political statement that recognizes the existence of people that Zionists would rather we all forgot about.
Bullshit. Israel recognizes the Palestinian's right to their own state. The main obstacle to the creation of such a state is the HAMAS's demand that Palestine would include all of Israel as well.
The problem with omitting Israel and putting Palestine, a country that does not yet exists (it's called the Palestinian Authority, or The Occupied Palestinian Territories, depending on your political opinions), is that it implies that the owners of the site embraced the "one big Arab state" (as opposed to the two-state) solution.
Since this wasn't the case, the ensuing outrage is a bit moronic, but it's pretty obvious why the Israelis would be upset about it.
Palestine was probably included in the list because it is recognised by the UN The Palestinian Authority is recognized by the UN. There is no independent country called "Palestine".
and is included in ISO 3166-1. The link you provided calls it "Palestinian Territory, Occupied", and that's the whole point.
Israel doesn't recognize Palestine's right to exist, now does it.
It does, and it (or, rather, its leaders) stated it many times. The problem is that HAMAS believes that "Palestine" includes Israel as well. Obviously, Israel cannot accept that claim.
Palestine has its own telephone code (970), its own top level domain (.ps), and snail mail sent from anywhere in the world, addressed to "Palestine" arrives there.
When people say "Palestine" they usually mean The Palestian Authority (that's when they don't mean "The land currently called Israel, occupied by the godless Jews").
There's nothing particularly pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli in calling the PA "Palestine" (in fact, it's mildly anti-Palestinian because it hides the occupation). It just isn't factually correct.
Israel, like Palestine, is recognised by some countries and not by others. If Israel happens to be recognised by your country and Palestine not, that doesn't make it more a country than Palestine.
Israel is recognized by the UN as an independent country. Nobody claims that Palestine is an independent country. Not even the Palestinians.
Btw, I think that using the name "Palestine" instead of "Palestinian Authority - Occupied Territory" should bother Palestinians much more than Israelis. After all, if an independent Palestinian state already exists, then there's no "occupation", is there?
"Palestinian", before that, was a national (like "British" or "American") rather than an ethnic term.
A national term used by the British colonists since they captured the area from the Turks in WWI. Before that, the area was simply a part of the Ottoman empire. There was no independent Palestinian nation, ever.
And by the way, Palestine was never supposed to become an independent nation under modern Arab rule either. It was first supposed to be a part of southern Syria, and later, a part of western Jordan. AFAIK, the Arabs who lived in British Palestine simply called themselves "Arabs" and didn't have any nationalistic Palestinian aspirations.
When Jewish Palestinians (in numbers swelled by massive immigration whose stated aim was to take over the country) started to claim that Palestine was actually a country called "Israel" and that they were citizens of it called "Israelis"
"Started to claim"? How about the UN partition plan, the 1948 war? You make the whole thing sound like a Jewish whim.
Israeli troops have destroyed community irrigation and drinking water wells
I've heard a lot about it (especially from Palestinian propagandists), but I've never heard concrete examples. Could you please point me to a reliable source that details those incidents?
"Every effort"? Does making "every effort" to minimise the effects of a horrific act somehow mean said act is OK? "Horrific act"? You mean, killing known terrorist leaders?
There is a war between Israeli and Palestine (or, to be precise, some Palestinian factions). There's nothing immoral in killing enemy generals. There is something deeply immoral in hiding within the civilian population, effectively using them as a human shield.
The only moral duty Israel has in this situation is to minimize the damage to civilians as much as possible.
If a bank robber hides behind a hostage, and a cop kills that hostage while trying to shoot the robber, then the bank robber is the one to blame.
IDF killing innocent people, such as Rachel Corrie Rachel Corrie was killed in an accident. The bulldozer driver couldn't have killed her on purpose even if he wanted to. He simply couldn't see her. There was some negligence the IDF's part, but the fact is that Rachel Corrie intentionally put herself in a dangerous situation to make a point, while many safe options were available.
Being able to vote and run for office doesn't mean anything when you can't travel to the next town because the checkpoint That statement unfortunately reveals your basic ignorance on the subject*. I would study a little about it before making inflammatory comments.
* Arab Israelis (or Israeli Palestinians) don't suffer from checkpoints, and Palestinians from the occupied territories don't get to vote. Granted, it doesn't necessarily present Israel in a better light, but the difference between Arab Israelis and Palestinians is a very basic concept in the Israeli/Palestinian discourse.
That's ridiculous. Palestinians outnumber Israelis. So why is the Israeli government so anti-Palestinian? The only answer, of course, is that there is no Palestinian representation.
Israeli Palestinians (or Arab Israelis) do not outnumber Jewish Israelis. They are outnumbered 1:5. Palestinian who live in the PA don't get to vote in the Israeli elections because...
Also, Israel holds key members of the Palestinian government on gaol. ... that's right, they have their own government.
It even holds some Jews prisoner. You don't say.
So... you object the ideas of jails in general, then?
Remember that brave man who blew the whistle on your weapons-of-mass-destruction program? He was thrown in gaol for telling the trust and branded a traitor.
He breached several government NDAs and revealed sensitive military secrets. There's no country in the world that wouldn't have thrown him in jail.
Don't be moronic. Israel is THE definition of an apartheid state. Are Palestinians allowed to vote? No. Are they allowed to travel? No ( sure, then can wait for days to go through 'checkpoints', but in effect, no, they can't travel ). Are Palestinian refugees allowed to return home? No. Are Palestinians treated as equals? Most certainly not.
Iraqis don't get to vote in American (or British) elections either.
Israeli Arab citizens (20% of Israelis) do get to vote, to travel, and are mostly treated as equals.
Arab & Muslim citizens of Israel can vote, run for office, say anything they want, print anything they want, follow any religion they choose, work in any profession they choose, serve on the supreme court, and sue the government (and sometimes win). Doesn't sound like apartheid to me. The problem is that all of that is a lie.
Do you have any proof for that outrageous claim? As far as I know, the GP is completely correct (with some minor reservations).
Also, your emphasis doesn't show what you think it shows. I didn't state that poor people are lazy - only that they didn't earn MY money. Read it again and pay attention to the whole sentence this time.
According to what you've written, a poor person is
someone who apparently wants to "continue to suck up resources" but can't, so the government unjustly gives the moocher your "hard-earned money".
Your feelings towards poor people aside, the context of this conversation is a moral one. After all, you were talking in terms like "heartless" (which is kinda ludicrous when it refers to you paying taxes, btw).The problem is, you're assuming that because you've got a certain paycheck, you've earned the moral right to that money.
That is (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm extrapolating here), a person's got money not because he benefits from a certain socio-economic system, and thus can be manipulated by the same system, but because he earned the moral right to it (probably via some personality trait or choice). There's a problem with that assumption. It leads to the conclusion that both Paris Hilton and single mother cleaning lady have exactly the money they deserve.
The reason I think you're argument naive is because it's a gross simplification that ignores both history and some obvious moral dilemmas.
The reason I think it's self-serving, because you're basically arguing that you deserve to have more money, while making yourself feel just fine about taking it from the poor.
It's quite a bit more heartless to take my hard-earned money through the threat of government force, just so someone who hasn't earned it can continue to suck up resources.
(Emphasis mine)
So poor people are poor because, unlike you, they're lazy, and therefore don't deserve anything?
Don't you find that world-view a tad naive and self-serving?
I agree there are countries that call themselves communist countries, but neither they get to decide what is communism.
The point is that the issue has been already decided. There's simply no debate within the general public as to what is meant by "communist country". Whether this is an accurate description or not is completely irrelevant.
The only thing you get by using that term in the "correct" manner, is confusion. There's no reason for anyone else to know, or to care about your personal definition.
Anyway, IIRC, communist countries were called that way because they were striving for Communism, which was considered to be a utopic state, a sort of paradise on earth. So in a sense, Communism was never "implemented", but "communist countries" were, and they all were oppressive dictatorships.
I used to be able to download quicktime videos from them directly, and they sure didn't look like flash
What do you mean by "directly"? They didn't have an embedded player at all? Maybe it was a Flash player streaming QT files? In any case, I've been using Google Video before they bought Youtube, and the interface has been Flash-based for some time now.
In any case, you can still download videos directly. They're just in a different format (SWF) now.
Slashdot Mirror
Look at the stage 2 submissions as well - there are some cool videos that didn't make it to the finals.
I've just been listening to an interview with a refugee now living in the UK who recalls her family fleeing their house in fear of approaching gunmen, and not being allowed back weeks later or decades later.
It's hard to be on the losing side of a war, especially if it's an attempt at ethnic cleansing. The best solution for the problem is not to start such a war.
If the Arabs would've accepted the 2-state solution, instead of trying to wipe out Israel completely, nobody would've been evicted from his home at gunpoint, there would be no refugees, and the Palestinian state would celebrate its 60th birthday today.
Any normal observer looks at the Nakba and sees an injustice.
The Nakba was a tragedy. However, it was completely self-inflicted.
To see it as justice, it is necessary to subscribe to an idea according to which a specific religious group that has had virtually no connection to the land for a couple of millennia can turn up and take it from the natives.
The Jews are a nation with a unique religion, and not a religious group. The Land of Israel is a very important part of Jewish culture, throughout the ages. Any Jew who's not in Israel, is considered to be living in exile.
I'm sure you would not appreciate losing New York that way.
Are you denying that the original owners were defrauded, and have a moral right to the land? You mean that the Native Americans lost their right to it because they didn't "claim" it for a century or two? Or are you reversing your claim when it's rhetorically convenient?
If we're on the subject, can you deny that the existence of the US (and Australia) is much more of an outrageous injustice than that of Israel?
And no one would accept an Arab state in, for example, the US or Japan, no matter how tiny it is.
The Arab ancestral home is not in the US, or Japan (it's in the Middle East), so no. If the Arabs were exiled from a part of the US/Japan, yearned to return to their homeland for centuries, persecuted all of that time because they refused to mingle with the other nations (and lose their nationhood), then yes, they would have a complete moral right to that tiny chunk of the US/Japan.
It's funny you use the US and Japan as examples. Japan has parts (such as Okinawa) that were taken by an imperialist war, and the US... well, it a nation based on colonization, massive land theft, and disenfranchising/massacring the native population. The only reason that they "wouldn't allow" a foreign country to be created on their lands is because they have the military might to prevent it, and not because they have a moral right to the land.
You make no effort to explain why it could not be seen the opposite way: the Arab natives simply couldn't accept Jewish colonists ethnically cleansing them, so they had a right to ethnically cleanse the colonists.
Very simple. The Jews weren't trying to ethnically cleanse the Arabs. They accepted the partition plan.
Again, it all comes down to the mistaken premise that it was OK to come to steal someone's country in the first place
That land was the ancestral homeland of the Jews. They have a full moral right to it.
But European and American colonists didn't have the right to come and steal a big chunk of it
No, but the original inhabitants (the Jews) did have a right to it.
For example, in Jan 2006 they removed their rhetorical call for the dissolution of Israel from their manifesto, and replaced it with a call for an "independent state whose capital is Jerusalem", which is fully compatible with Israel remaining almost entirely intact.
They never changed their charter. That ambiguous claim comes from their election campaign. In any case, HAMAS officials had many opportunities to say that they accept Israel's existence. That declaration would've lifted the blockade and st
You responded to my comment with a bizarre non-sequitur.
Anyway, seeing as you seem intent on avoiding the issues What issues was I avoiding? The fact that "people change their minds" or that "shit happens"? You didn't make a single coherent point in the whole thread. I'll ask again - what does the "original" intent of establishing either an Israeli or Palestinian state have to do with what is happening today? It means that the concept of "Palestinian nationality" is as new as of "Israeli nationality", as opposed to what ChameleonDave claimed. It's a small issue, but it was the topic of the debate.OK, I guess I'm a stupid foreigner, so please enlighten me, what's "not a non-country" then?
And it's indisputable that whatever the Palestinian territory is, country or otherwise, has been invaded by Israel. You mean I can call it a non-country now?The claim that it's "indisputable" simply comes from your ignorance. First of all, Palestinians claim that "Palestinian territory" includes Israel. Second, the area now called "the occupied Palestinian territory" was part of Jordan and Egypt when it was taken. In fact, the original PLO charter relinquishes any claim for that area, acknowledging that it belongs to Jordan and Egypt (they wanted to take over Israel instead).
That was a rhetorical question.
Really? Since you've seem to misunderstand most of what I've said, I thought you wanted an explanation.
Now a large chunk of that has been stolen, and most of them have been ejected from it.
It was not "stolen" in any way. Before the British mandate, Arabs didn't own any of the land. The Western powers corrected that historical injustice, while correcting another - by allowing the Jews the right of self-determination in their ancestral homeland.
Of course, Arab nationalists wouldn't accept any non-Arab state in Arabia, no matter how tiny it is. So they started a war, an attempted ethnic cleansing, which they've lost. As a result, many of the the Arabs who lived in the area fled or were expelled. This is unfortunate, but entirely the Arabs' fault. After all, the Jews couldn't have neighbors that were trying to kill them.
In fact, they have the right to actually go back to their homes and eject the American and European immigrants currently squatting them
The Jews have a moral and a historical right to that tiny piece of land. The Arabs who lived there have a right to that land as well, so the land was justly divided between the Jews and the Arabs who lived there. However, they do not have to right to deny Jews of theirs.
You complained about a lack of permission for an independent Arab (Arab, because the Palestinians are Arab) state, and I pointed out that permission is not a moral requirement.
The point is that I wasn't talking about permission at all. The whole "permission" argument exists only in your head.
I was pointing out that the Arabs living under the British mandate didn't claim to have "Palestinian" nationality. Depending on their political affiliations, they claimed to have "Arab" or "Southern Syrian" nationality. The idea of Palestinian nationhood started only after they've lost the 1948 war, which is the time where Israeli nationhood was born as well.
One officially supports that idea, and the other is rhetorically against it (because it is indeed unjust) whilst realising that it's probably all they will get.
Like it or not, the HAMAS's opinions represent the will of the majority of Palestinians. The whole "realizing that it's probably all they will get" thing is nothing but your own naive idea.
Calling the two-state solution "unjust" because it gives a tiny piece of Arab land to a persecuted people is both laughable and morally reprehensible.
No, you tried to present Palestinian nationality and new and artificial (in contrast with Israel), and I pointed out that the supreme example of new and artificial nationality is in fact the State of Israel.
First of all, it wasn't me, but another poster. Second, I'm not saying that Israeli nationality isn't new as well. I was just pointing out that "Palestinian" nationality was born at the same time as "Israeli" nationality, as opposed to what you've implied.
Btw, I haven't heard Palestinians claim that Palestinian nationality isn't new. Palestinians usually talk about "Arab" and "Muslim" historical rights. After all, if the 1948 war was successful, there would be no "Palestinians" today.
Palestinians have one which is three decades older (if we look no further than the British Mandate), centuries older (if we look at the Ottoman empire) or ancient (if we look at inhabitation).
As I pointed out earlier, you're wrong when it comes to the British mandate. When it comes to Ottoman or "ancient" nationality, it just becomes weird. Why do I have to keep reminding you that we're (well, at least I am) talking about Palestinian nationality, and not Ottoman citizenship or the moral rights to the land?
. But they decided to appease both Zionists ("We demand a homeland!") and anti-Semites ("Yeah, ship the Jews off to Palestine!") by creating a colonia
Btw, the fact that there never was a country called Palestine, and the fact that there is no sovereign state by that name today does make it a non-country.
I meant that it was the original plan of the people we now call "Palestinians". I think it's a pretty important point.
Even if the bulldozer driver wanted to kill Rachel Corrie, he couldn't have done so intentionally, simply because it's impossible to see the place she was in from the giant bulldozer's cabin. That's why you need soldiers on the ground to guide the bulldozer. IDF fucked up, because the soldiers who were supposed to keep stuff like that from happening weren't there. If you want to assume it was a deliberate murder, you have to assume that there a soldier hiding somewhere, guiding the bulldozer to hit Rachel Corrie, and that's ridiculous.
Simply put, there are much easier ways to kill a person. They could've shot her in the head, say it was a stray bullet and that would be it.
There's no evidence that it wasn't an accident, and there's absolutely no evidence of a cover-up. The version provided by the IDF is completely plausible, and the claim that it was a deliberate murder is (at least with the information we have today) nothing more than conspiracy theory.
Therefore, it was never a "national term" as you claim.
Furthermore, you really have to realise that they, as the native inhabitants, had an inherent right to citizenship of that land or an empire including itSo they were "citizens of the Ottoman empire". How does that make them "Palestinians"?
First you try to de-legitimate the native population's nationality by linking it with colonial whims, and now you try to limit their rights to a national based on lack of imperial permission for such a nation. You can't have it both ways.Uhm... what are you talking about? Jordan didn't have a "imperial permission" to annex Palestine. The partition plan did include an independent Arab Palestinian nation. It was the Arabs who rejected the idea of a separate Palestinian nationality.
You can argue for that if you like, but the Palestinians have humbler aspirations: independence and freedom in their land. In fact, they even generally accept that the Zionists can hang on to half the land they stole, call it Israel, and let the Palestinians govern themselves in the other half.Wrong.
The HAMAS, an organization that officially rejects such that idea, won the Palestinian elections by a landslide.
When you wanted them to sound bad, you said "British colonists". Now that you want them to sound legit, you said "UN partition plan". You presented Palestinian nationality as an ancient concept, as opposed to the new, and supposedly artificial concept of Israeli nationality. I pointed out that Palestinian nationality is also new and even more artificial.I have no problem with the British colonists, btw. All they wanted (at least officially) was to create viable and independent countries for Arabs and Jews, as opposed to the Turks that were simply oppressive imperialists. My only problem is when people present the British mandate as anything but a brief and officially temporary period in the history of the region.
world powers do not have the right to take someone's home and country from them.Before the British mandate, the Arabs lived under a foreign occupation. What the "world powers" did is to free them from that occupation, and give them their own nation. The only reservation was that they also wanted to give a tiny piece of the land to a small, persecuted nation.
Mention of the 1948 war is utterly irrelevant unless you believe in the mediaeval right of conquest. I have no idea what you thought I meant, but I'm pretty sure you've misunderstood me. I only wanted to point out that you made the whole conflict sound like some frivolous whim.Bullshit. Israel recognizes the Palestinian's right to their own state. The main obstacle to the creation of such a state is the HAMAS's demand that Palestine would include all of Israel as well.
The problem with omitting Israel and putting Palestine, a country that does not yet exists (it's called the Palestinian Authority, or The Occupied Palestinian Territories, depending on your political opinions), is that it implies that the owners of the site embraced the "one big Arab state" (as opposed to the two-state) solution.
Since this wasn't the case, the ensuing outrage is a bit moronic, but it's pretty obvious why the Israelis would be upset about it.
It does, and it (or, rather, its leaders) stated it many times. The problem is that HAMAS believes that "Palestine" includes Israel as well. Obviously, Israel cannot accept that claim.
Palestine has its own telephone code (970), its own top level domain (.ps), and snail mail sent from anywhere in the world, addressed to "Palestine" arrives there.When people say "Palestine" they usually mean The Palestian Authority (that's when they don't mean "The land currently called Israel, occupied by the godless Jews").
There's nothing particularly pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli in calling the PA "Palestine" (in fact, it's mildly anti-Palestinian because it hides the occupation). It just isn't factually correct.
Israel is recognized by the UN as an independent country. Nobody claims that Palestine is an independent country. Not even the Palestinians.
Btw, I think that using the name "Palestine" instead of "Palestinian Authority - Occupied Territory" should bother Palestinians much more than Israelis. After all, if an independent Palestinian state already exists, then there's no "occupation", is there?
A national term used by the British colonists since they captured the area from the Turks in WWI. Before that, the area was simply a part of the Ottoman empire. There was no independent Palestinian nation, ever.
And by the way, Palestine was never supposed to become an independent nation under modern Arab rule either. It was first supposed to be a part of southern Syria, and later, a part of western Jordan. AFAIK, the Arabs who lived in British Palestine simply called themselves "Arabs" and didn't have any nationalistic Palestinian aspirations.
When Jewish Palestinians (in numbers swelled by massive immigration whose stated aim was to take over the country) started to claim that Palestine was actually a country called "Israel" and that they were citizens of it called "Israelis""Started to claim"? How about the UN partition plan, the 1948 war? You make the whole thing sound like a Jewish whim.
I've heard a lot about it (especially from Palestinian propagandists), but I've never heard concrete examples. Could you please point me to a reliable source that details those incidents?
There is a war between Israeli and Palestine (or, to be precise, some Palestinian factions). There's nothing immoral in killing enemy generals. There is something deeply immoral in hiding within the civilian population, effectively using them as a human shield. The only moral duty Israel has in this situation is to minimize the damage to civilians as much as possible.
If a bank robber hides behind a hostage, and a cop kills that hostage while trying to shoot the robber, then the bank robber is the one to blame.
IDF killing innocent people, such as Rachel Corrie Rachel Corrie was killed in an accident. The bulldozer driver couldn't have killed her on purpose even if he wanted to. He simply couldn't see her. There was some negligence the IDF's part, but the fact is that Rachel Corrie intentionally put herself in a dangerous situation to make a point, while many safe options were available. Being able to vote and run for office doesn't mean anything when you can't travel to the next town because the checkpoint That statement unfortunately reveals your basic ignorance on the subject*. I would study a little about it before making inflammatory comments.* Arab Israelis (or Israeli Palestinians) don't suffer from checkpoints, and Palestinians from the occupied territories don't get to vote. Granted, it doesn't necessarily present Israel in a better light, but the difference between Arab Israelis and Palestinians is a very basic concept in the Israeli/Palestinian discourse.
Israeli Palestinians (or Arab Israelis) do not outnumber Jewish Israelis. They are outnumbered 1:5. Palestinian who live in the PA don't get to vote in the Israeli elections because...
Also, Israel holds key members of the Palestinian government on gaol. ... that's right, they have their own government. It even holds some Jews prisoner. You don't say.So... you object the ideas of jails in general, then?
Remember that brave man who blew the whistle on your weapons-of-mass-destruction program? He was thrown in gaol for telling the trust and branded a traitor.He breached several government NDAs and revealed sensitive military secrets. There's no country in the world that wouldn't have thrown him in jail.
Because it proves that your claim is false.
You can try and defend your position, but instead you just dismiss the whole argument (apparently, we should just trust you).
Not incredibly convincing.
Iraqis don't get to vote in American (or British) elections either.
Israeli Arab citizens (20% of Israelis) do get to vote, to travel, and are mostly treated as equals.
Arab & Muslim citizens of Israel can vote, run for office, say anything they want, print anything they want, follow any religion they choose, work in any profession they choose, serve on the supreme court, and sue the government (and sometimes win). Doesn't sound like apartheid to me. The problem is that all of that is a lie.Do you have any proof for that outrageous claim? As far as I know, the GP is completely correct (with some minor reservations).
According to what you've written, a poor person is someone who apparently wants to "continue to suck up resources" but can't, so the government unjustly gives the moocher your "hard-earned money".
Your feelings towards poor people aside, the context of this conversation is a moral one. After all, you were talking in terms like "heartless" (which is kinda ludicrous when it refers to you paying taxes, btw).The problem is, you're assuming that because you've got a certain paycheck, you've earned the moral right to that money.
That is (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm extrapolating here), a person's got money not because he benefits from a certain socio-economic system, and thus can be manipulated by the same system, but because he earned the moral right to it (probably via some personality trait or choice). There's a problem with that assumption. It leads to the conclusion that both Paris Hilton and single mother cleaning lady have exactly the money they deserve.
The reason I think you're argument naive is because it's a gross simplification that ignores both history and some obvious moral dilemmas.
The reason I think it's self-serving, because you're basically arguing that you deserve to have more money, while making yourself feel just fine about taking it from the poor.
(Emphasis mine)
So poor people are poor because, unlike you, they're lazy, and therefore don't deserve anything?
Don't you find that world-view a tad naive and self-serving?
The point is that the issue has been already decided. There's simply no debate within the general public as to what is meant by "communist country". Whether this is an accurate description or not is completely irrelevant.
The only thing you get by using that term in the "correct" manner, is confusion. There's no reason for anyone else to know, or to care about your personal definition.
Anyway, IIRC, communist countries were called that way because they were striving for Communism, which was considered to be a utopic state, a sort of paradise on earth. So in a sense, Communism was never "implemented", but "communist countries" were, and they all were oppressive dictatorships.
Actually there were communist countries. There still are. There's no real debate on that issue.
What you mean is that there were no countries you would call "communist". But, frankly, you don't get to decide.
What do you mean by "directly"? They didn't have an embedded player at all? Maybe it was a Flash player streaming QT files? In any case, I've been using Google Video before they bought Youtube, and the interface has been Flash-based for some time now.
In any case, you can still download videos directly. They're just in a different format (SWF) now.