Indeed they are. The equally insane Prop 8 in California won (sadly) by a relatively narrow margin. In the black community it had a huge margin. Just goes to show, the ex-smokers are the most fanatic anti-smokers. The ex-oppressed are the most fanatic oppressors.
Soon we will see an African American leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
Please dude, try to find a single posting where I said something to imply that everyone in Gaza are terrorists. Just one. Your comment "So which terrorist are you talking about anyway? Everyone in Gaza?" was offensive, off the mark and utterly retarded. Please try to grow up. Remember, it has nothing to do with age.
Bad economy, increasing nationalism. Sound familiar?
Yes. The problem is that the Nazism never left the Arab world. When Israel arrested Eichmann, the Arab world and media were up in arms at how badly the "Zionist" treated the "martyr". If you don't know who Eichmann is, please read about him.
And actually, the Arabs have taken part in plenty of cease-fires
Yes, they have. What they have never done is seriously sign an agreement about peace. The closest we got was the Oslo accord, and Arafat was pretty blunt about how much that meant. He stated repeatedly in Arab media that it meant nothing. That the PLO 1974 plan for the extermination of Israel was still in effect and that the Oslo accord was just a way to catch some breathing room before continuing.
DO you think if america was attacked
You seem to be a little more than just dense. The Arab nations were never attacked. They attacked. Yes, I would expect the US to control its military if it illegally attacked another country and lost the war. Most countries can. Germany attacked, was defeated. Do you see German suicide bombers in London? Germany lost a significant portion of its territory after the war. Do you see German rockets raining over Warsaw? Do you see Japanese soldiers blowing up cafes in New York? Do you see them attacking US embassies in Europe, killing the people who work there? When did the last Japanese terror group take over a dorm for athletes at the Olympics and kill all of the athletes?
17 years of martial law, and other forms of oppression to this day.
Yeah, it must be hard. That must be why they, when polled by Arab media, with a huge margin prefer Israel to any other place to live. Must be terrible to be so oppressed by your government that you consider all of your friends in all of the neighboring countries worse off.
Yes, I agree, the Israeli policy towards the Israeli Arabs is not perfect, but it is not genocide. Hamas wants genocide. Hezbollah wants Genocide. Fatah wants to erase Israel from the face of the earth.
You are backing a bunch of Nazi lunatics and you are criticizing someone for trying to defend themselves from these lunatics.
Your post almost makes it sound like you're saying the european Jews started their whole "take over Israel" thing because the Arabs there attacked them
I am not saying that, and it would be a good thing for you to try to actually read what is written before you comment.
The Jewish immigration to Palestine in the years preceding 1939 was completely legal. There was no "take over Israel" going on anywhere. It was a bunch, and not a lot actually, the vast majority of Jews emigrated from Europe to the US, of Jews who bought land and moved to Palestine. Nothing sinister. Nothing illegal. Nobody stole anything.
At the same time there was also a significant Arab migration to Palestine. From 1880 to 1939 the population grew from a couple of hundred thousand to several million. Immigrants accounted for the vast majority of the increase, Jewish and Arab. The ratio of Jews to Arabs in the region did not change materially.
Due to the economic down-turn from 1929 through the 1930s, there was a significant unrest in the area, and the Arab population turned seriously nationalistic. This paralleled the development in Europe and other places. Sadly the unrest in Palestine led to a significant amount of violence towards the Jewish population regarded by the Arab immigrants as inferior and as not deserving the right to live in the region.
By 1939 you had a decent sized population in the area, all of the with an equal right to live in the area, legally and morally. The two major population groups were Arab and Jewish. Both population groups consisting mostly of first, second and third generation immigrants.
Due to the antagonistic relationship between the Jews and the Arabs, the UN commission for Palestine decided in 1947 that the only viable solution was a two-state solution. This was a solution for the people already in place in Palestine. Not for European immigrants post WWII. This was the only viable solution. A one-state solution would have guaranteed the forced expulsion of the Jewish population combined with a genocide. I don't think any of us would support another genocide against any larger population group.
So, in 1947 the UN did the right thing. Britain didn't approve and sided with the Arabs who also didn't approve. Didn't matter. Israel was born. Then the wars started. All of them started by the Arabs. They have continued for more than 60 years. The Arabs can have peace any time they want. They can just stop the fighting. They have never tried.
So in your opinion the number of militants is a static number that will never change
As I said, you really should lay off the drugs. I have never said something like that. Why did you think I said something like that? Did a small green man whisper it in your ear? Why not try to relate to what I actually say? I mean, like an adult.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to attack civilian centers and blaming Hamas for "hiding" among civilians.
Blaming? And you talk about cool aid? So far we have confirmed reports of weapons stashes in Mosques, Hospitals and Schools. We have Hamas fighters telling Arab reporters that they take refuge in civilian homes after shooting at Israeli soldiers. This particular Hamas soldier also pointed out that in his opinion, anyone killed when the IDF had to hunt him down in a regular city dwelling should consider themselves lucky to be "martyred" in such a manner.
I understand that it is difficult for you to read things that go counter to your own superstitions, but this is from a Hamas soldier as reported by Arab journalists. Re-printed in New York Times if you do not understand Arabic. It must be hard to have your drug-induced illusions crushed by your Nazi hero in Hamas.
I'll start with the bottom here, since that is the more interesting part.
As every sane person knows, we have the best shot of solving it with a two state solution based on the 1967 borders
I totally agree. That would be the only reasonable solution at this point in time. Sadly the Arab side in this conflict have never signed an agreement to do this in good faith. When Arafat signed the Oslo accord he turned around and said that it was worth about as much to him as a piece of used toilet paper. He had no intention of living by its letter, spirit or ideals.
So, what do you propose is done to bring the Arab side to the table with a mindset where they actually intend to solve the problem?
To the rest of your post - what specifically do you feel is wrong?
only owned a very small portion of the land, and yet were given 55% of the territory of Palestine in the partition.
I didn't forget it, and yes I do know about it. The reason is rather simple though, the vast majority of the British protectorate was already given to the Palestinians. They got sovereignty in 1946. It is called Jordan today.
As to the difference in population size, it was somewhere between 2:1 and 3:1 Arab - Jew as far as I can remember. Both in 1880 and also in 1947. Might be a slight error here, would have to get the numbers again. Been a while since I looked at those. Thew Jewish portion rose slightly, but not that much.
You conveniently forgot the fact that there were very few Jews in Palestine circa 1920 and the only reason there were more in 1948
No, I don't. Both sides in this conflict were in 1947 highly immigrant. The population swelled from a couple of hundred thousand in 1880 to several million in 1947. The immigration of Arabs and Jews to the region didn't significantly alter the Arab-Jew ratio. It did somewhat, but not significantly.
And there's the Jewish terrorism and collusion with the British in the 30s to suppress the Arab revolt
So, the Arab side revolts. In their revolt they originally target the British only. After messages come down from Damascus, they start targeting Jews. Hundreds of Jews die relatively rapidly. This makes Irgun stop hunting the British, remember, Irgun was a Jewish terrorist organization targeting the British mostly, and Irgun starts retaliating against the Arab using of Jews as target practice. In this revolt significantly more Jews are killed than Arabs. It was the first and only time that happened.
How was that a British-Jewis conspiracy?
Also, you are wrong about the reason for the revolt. The Arab population in the area was to a significant degree un-skilled manual laborers who immigrated to work. The British protectorate offered significantly higher living standards from 1918 to 1929 than the surrounding areas. How do you think that the un-skilled Arab immigrant population fared in the post 1929 world? That is the reason for the revolt. People don't revolt because "their land is sold from underneath them". People revolt when they have no work, no prospects, no food.
so that Europeans could recompense Jews for a crime that Europeans committed.
I would recommend you read a little about the process that created the two-state solution. You clearly speak out of ignorance here. I would recommend checking up on the Canadian justice who led this work. Find out why he changed his mind.
Also, please explain to the world how, if this was a European conspiracy against the Arabs, why did the British refuse to implement this solution and side with the Arabs? I mean, that would seem to completely contradict your fantasies, wouldn't it?
Look, it is extremely unlikely, even given the truth about the past, that any eventual settlement will constitute a full right of return for the Arabs to their lands (and they are theirs under any reasonable interpretation of
It is nationalism. Very prevalent in the Arab world. Now turning into extreme Islamism since the world is going more global. In this way the Arab world is rapidly regressing from 1933 Germany backwards towards the Spanish Inquisition. Sad to watch really.
Check what Goering said on how to use it:
Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country
So which terrorist are you talking about anyway? Everyone in Gaza?
Do you act retarded on purpose or were you hit repeatedly over the head with a hammer by your father when you were a child? Here is a clue for you:
The terrorist is the dude with the gun and the rocket.
In the future, don't try to pretend you are a stupid child. Pretend that you are an adult and keep to what people are actually talking about, not what your LSD induced fantasies lead you to believe that people think. Assuming that your opponent in this debate considers everyone in Gaza is a terrorist is to assume that he is like you, a mentally handicapped thirteen year old on LSD. Grow up.
Please try to understand the difference between what happened before the war of 1948, where nobody stole anything, and what happened to the people who attacked Israel. If you don't understand the difference, please ask an adult to explain.
Explain how what happened to his family home was NOT theft, please?
It was theft. No need to explain anything. It was. Did I say nobody lost their property? Nope, I did not. Problem is, in war people lose their property. Millions of Germans were driven out of Germany, more than one million of them died on the way, and the land was annexed by Poland. That is because Germany attacked Poland.
Should Israel have let the Arabs who fled in 1948, many of them to fight Israel, back into the country? Absolutely not. How could they?
So there's the parallel. It's okay to deny this theft, but it's not okay to deny the holocaust.
I think it is OK to deny both, I am very much in favor of free speech, but I also it is a little absurd to deny it. Did you get the impression that I thought that no Arab ever lost property because of this? From where did you get that impression?
The UN decision to create two states in the area was not theft however. Nobody lost anything as a result of that decision. Nobody would have lost anything if it wasn't for the fact that the Arabs went to war.
As Germany lost significant land mass to Poland after the war, so did the Arabs lose land mass to Israel when they went to war. Fair? Not for the individual, but it is just how things are when you start a war. The grandfather in your story should take his grievances to the people who started the war, not the ones who defended themselves against the aggressor and dealt with the aftermath of that war.
The jews became the new nazis
This is both childish and seriously retarded. There is a significant, and growing, Arab population in Israel. This population is significantly better off than the average Arab in the surrounding region, even if you take the refugee camps out of the equation. Israel doesn't employ, and have never employed, anything that resembles genocidal ethnic cleansing. That on the other hand is not the case for the other side.
Hezbollah has stated that the conflict will not be over until every single Jew in the entire world is wiped out. That is Nazism. Hamas stated recently that every Jew in the world is a legitimate target for killing by Muslims. That is also Nazism. There is nothing equivalent in Israel. The Arabs in Israel are not being treated 100% fairly, but to say that that is Nazism is childish in the extreme. I would recommend you grow up before you continue making a fool out of your self.
They took they're land,
No, they didn't. They occupied some of the territory of an attacking force. In the same way that the allied occupied Germany and Japan after the war. That is the parallel. Israel never attacked anyone. Not even this time.
Yes, there is a very strong relationship between being on the left and supporting the Palestinian Cause in Europe. In the US this has not been the case to some degree, where, for example, Dems traditionally have been the strongest supporters of Israel, not the Reps.
Why is it so? Probably because the PLO and similar organizations in the area generally were leftist organizations, not religious ones. Them turning to religion is quite new. The Arab xenophobia was fueled not by Islam but by leftist nationalism in the first decades. The extreme religious aspect is relatively new.
But yes, generally the extreme left in Europe has been very supportive of the Palestinian cause, and the moderate Right have been a little more balanced.
Considering you managed to follow that absurdity up with: "Arabs, Jews and Christians lived happily in the area of Palestine for almost 20 centuries" I have to conclude that you are on some daily dosage of heavy hallucinogenic drug. Please read a history book and then get back to us.
You do realize that's not possible without genocide, right?
You do realize you shouldn't take LSD before breakfast right? That is a comment only someone who is on some heavy hallucinogenic drugs could make. The alternative is that you are insane. The Hamas soldiers are a very small subset of Hamas, and Hamas is a very small subset of the Gaza population. You can take out Hamas with no actions that even look half like genocide.
Do you want to consider a serious discussion or do you want to continue hallusinating?
Some time in the future, absolutely. Not now however. It won't work. Not until the extreme Arab xenophobia ends. Since the early 1930s the Arabs have wanted to make the region a pure Muslim region. This is the reason that the UN went with a two-state solution. The UN was convinced that the Jewish minority would be violently oppressed in a one-state solution. In 1947 one-state would have been insane. In 2027 it might work. Maybe.
What solution would work in the interim? Honestly? An Israeli annexation of the entire region, a significant re-work of the Israeli constitution removing any favorable treatment of any particular population group. In 10-15 years full citizenship for a (then hopefully well-educated) new Palestinian population.
She was liberated from a Nazi labor camp by my grandfather who was a Sergeant in 1st Infantry Division and stormed Normandy
Very interesting. Also very interesting that the parallels escape you entirely.
The aggressor in this conflict is, given the history you claim is relevant, the Arabs. The Arabs attacked in the same way that Nazi Germany attacked. Thankfully for those of us in Europe, and for your grandmother, and through her, you, the likes of you were not around at the time.
You see, if we were to take your stand, the European defeat of Germany in WWII was utterly immoral and should never have happened. We stopped German aggression with violence. The same way that Israel is trying to stop Arab aggression with violence. When we won we occupied Germany, in the same way that Israel, after successfully defending herself occupied Arab territory.
What is the difference? Germans stopped fighting after losing the war. Even after being occupied. Millions of Germans were thrown out of their homes in what you now call Poland. More than one million Germans died marching from Poland to Germany. After the war had ended. Do you see Germans firing rockets at Warsaw? Did/Do you see German suicide bombers in London? How many Japanese attacks have there been on Los Angeles since the US occupied them?
It was a lot easier for the allied fighting against the German and Japanese aggression. They fought a rational and thinking enemy, one that understood when it had lost. One that could be reasoned with. Israel should be so lucky.
People like you are a joke. You just posted a comment on slashdot saying it's okay to kill innocent people if some people in their country have twisted thinking.
Eh, no, he didn't. He said that it was OK for IDF to martyr every one of the twisted terrorist fucks. Not the innocent civilians. Please try to read before you respond.
Interestingly you don't seem to get what the Hama "soldier" said. Basically he said that they fire at IDF, then they hide in houses. Given that Gaza is fairly over populated, do you think these houses are empty? No, they are full of civilians.
What this terrorist nutcase was saying can be summarized as follows:
We shoot at the IDF and hide behind civilians afterwards.
We think that the civilians who die due to our hiding amongst them are lucky to be martyred so.
He is a sick fuck this terrorist, and as a rabid dog he needs to be put down.
As long as I see 10 to 100 Palestinian casualties reported for every Israeli casualty, I will continue to view Israel as the aggressor
Oh how I love morons when they open their dumb mouths and speak what they think is deep insight. By your retarded definition the US was the aggressor in its 1942-45 war against Japan. England and France were the aggressors in their 1939-1940 war with Germany.
Why is it that thinking is so hard for these people? Were they born with no brains?
That would happen sooner than later if the US would get out of the way
I see this very often, and it is wrong. When the US first intervened in the region they did so on the Arab side in the Suez conflict. The US slapped the British, the Israelis and the French pretty good.
Since then the US has tried on a number of occasions to assist the Arabs in the region, mostly to the detriment of the US. The attempt to protect the Palestinians in Lebanon being a good example. When the Arabs managed to get rid of the US protection, we had Sabra and Shatila.
The US isn't in fact overly pro-Israeli, or they weren't until 2001. The US government send far more support to Arab countries than to Israel. Egypt alone typically gets as much as Israel.
The US is one thing though, and consistently so. The US is pro any nation trying to defend themselves, and they are pro this to a realistic extent, not rosy-eyed nicey-wisey the way most Europeans are (I am European, not US). The US knows that when you wage a war in a city against an enemy willing to use women and children as shields, you will have casualties. Europeans thinks that dead children is a horror (it is) in all circumstance, and that nothing that could harm children should ever happen. Maybe the US should have listened to such sentiment 60 years ago and said "fuck you" to a Europe under German attack. How many German children do you think were maimed and killed to liberate Europe? Hundreds of thousands of children.
It is the attackers responsibility to stop the war. The Arab side is the attacker. Once they stop there may be peace. They never have.
Actually, if you check your history, when Israel illegally stole the country from the people who had lived their their whole lives
You really need to read the history your self. This is often repeated by the supporters of the Arab aggression against Israel, it isn't true however. If you want to stop looking like an idiot you should stop posting nonsense like this before you actually check the facts.
Here are some facts for you:
UN decided on the creation of two states, it was in line with the wishes of the Jewish population in the area, but nobody stole anything.
The state was created for the population already living in the area, not for European immigrants.
The Jewish population in the area had lived there at least as long as the Arab. The vast majority of both these were relatively recent immigrants. From 1880 and onward. In total numbers the Arab immigration to the area post 1900 was vastly larger than the Jewish, in relative numbers the Jewish immigration from 1880 was about equal to the Arab immigration from 1900, to be entirely accurate, the Jewish immigration was slightly larger.
So far, non-violence hasn't worked.
It has in some cases, notably in India. It also worked a lot better in South Africa than violence did. Nobody has ever tried it on the Arab side of this conflict so we have no idea if it would work or not. Clancy wrote a nice book about such a scenario however, and I would recommend it even though the geopolitical situation has changed slightly since.
BTW, regarding "how is... different from" scenarios. How is the way Israel treats the Arabs different from how we treated Germany and Japan after the war? Given the fact that the behavior of the Arabs and the Germans/Japanese is incredibly different, the Arabs have never stopped their violent actions, how do you think we would have treated the Japanese if they had started bombing civilian targets in the US post 1945? Every day until now? Do you think they would be a free country today?
Personally I think making the israeli state to begin with was a stupid idea.
What was the alternative? There was a large Jewish population in the area, a population that the Arabs had started trying to exterminate back in 1936. Do you really think that, given the experience we had from Europe at that time, leaving the Jewish population of Palestine to be butchered by the Arabs would have been a good idea? How would you have prevented it?
BTW, these were not Holocaust refugees, these were Jews who had lived in the region at least as long as their Arab and Christian neighbors.
The two-state solution was the only reasonable solution. If you want to read more about why, I suggest you read about the Canadian judge who lead the UN commission that came to that conclusion. He has been quite clear on their thinking.
So the occupation, colonization, and annexation aren't violent?
Israeli occupation of Arab territory has always been a result of Arab aggression. Every single war was started by the Arab side. Even the six-day war was, even though the Israeli fired the first shot. A million men marching towards your border, you are going to shoot first or die.
If the Arabs had stopped fighting for a little while, and if they had signed peace treaties that accepted the state of Israel and kept them in good faith, then we might have peace. As long as the Arab side refuses to end the violence, that is not going to happen.
They started it every time. They have to end it.
Oh, and about ethnic cleansing. If the Arab population is being cleansed, why do the Arabs in Israel much prefer living there to anywhere else in the region. Don't tell me it's the occupation, they can, for example, migrate to Jordan if they are persecuted. For some weird reason it seems like the "persecuted" Arabs of Israel prefer to stay there. Perhaps Israel is one of the few places in the are where it is actually nice for a human being to live. Oh, Lebanon is quite nice too now that most of the Arab violence in the area has abated.
Believe what? That Hamas has been firing rockets at Israel? From within populated areas? From behind the shields of the civilian population? If you don't believe that you need help.
Israel has expanded every decade since its inception.
So, when Israel is attacked and they occupy the territory of the attacker, that is bad? So when the allied forces occupied Germany after WWII that was wrong? Was the liberation of Europe wrong too since we killed a lot of German children?
If Germany had kept fighting, with terror, the way the Arabs have after losing a war, Germany would still be occupied. Thankfully Germany is a place where reasonable thinking people live however, so they didn't.
Arab attacks on Israel started in 1948 and they have continued unabated since.
The Palestinians might currently wish Israel was gone (who would blame them with so many of them dying every day), but that's a far cry from trying to wipe the country out let alone being able to.
Hamas has stated in the past few days that Jews all over the world are legitimate military targets. That is not a war on Israel, that is an attempt at ethnically cleansing the world of Jews. The fact that Hamas doesn't currently have the capability to do so doesn't make it less terrible.
Now, does Hamas accept a two-state solution? Officially they have said they do. I doubt they actually do. What grounds do I have for doubt? Well, Fatah is somewhat more moderate than Hamas, and when Arafat returned from Washington after officially accepting a two-state solution, he returned to the tell Arab media that he in fact had no intention of honoring what he had just signed. I have no doubt that Hamas can read about Muhammad and his breach of peace treaties just as well as Arafat can.
Basically, Palestine underwent mass immigration of Jews, starting with the growth of anti-Semitism in Europe
Actually, this isn't really true. Yes, there was a significant migration to the region from 1880 (when Zionism was "invented") through the 1930's. In the same time period there was also a massive Arab immigration to the area.
If you look at the census taken in the area in 1880 and in the late 1930s, you'll see that the population size relative to each other didn't change much. In 1880 there was slightly less than one Jew for every three Muslim in the area, in the late 30s it had risen to slightly more than one for three. So no, there wasn't, relatively speaking, a massive immigration to the area. If it was massive it would have resulted in a much grater shift due to the small population there in 1880.
The reason there was no major shift was that from the early 1900s there was a massive Arab immigration to the same area. This was due to the fact that it became significantly more wealthy then the surrounding areas. This had two causes, the Jewish immigration and the British investments.
In 1947 you consequently had several population groups with equal right to live in the area. Legal and moral right. The Arabs had no more claim to the area than the Jews and vice versa.
This is why the UN commission originally favored a one-state solution. Very much favored in fact. That is, until the commission traveled to the area and started interviewing the population. It became clear to the UN commission that it would become impossible for non-Muslims to live in the region in a one-state solution. The local Arab population was massively nationalistic (it was the vogue at the time, can't blame them) and they wanted to clean the area of Jews and other non-Muslims. They had in fact started such cleansing during the general strike of 1936.
Not being able to protect the Jewish minority the UN did the only sensible thing, they went for the two-state solution. They had no choice. Nobody thought the Jewish state would survive, but at least the commission would have done what they could.
Israel survived the Arab aggression. Several times. Sadly the Arabs never accepted defeat and never signed a peace accord with Israel (two notable exceptions). They have since never done so in good faith. When Arafat signed the Oslo accord he made it clear that he considered it nothing more than a piece of toilet paper and he made it abundantly clear in Arab media that he had no intention whatsoever of following it.
If the Arabs wants peace, they can just stop fighting.
Slashdot Mirror
most blacks are very conservative
Indeed they are. The equally insane Prop 8 in California won (sadly) by a relatively narrow margin. In the black community it had a huge margin. Just goes to show, the ex-smokers are the most fanatic anti-smokers. The ex-oppressed are the most fanatic oppressors.
Soon we will see an African American leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
Please dude, try to find a single posting where I said something to imply that everyone in Gaza are terrorists. Just one. Your comment "So which terrorist are you talking about anyway? Everyone in Gaza?" was offensive, off the mark and utterly retarded. Please try to grow up. Remember, it has nothing to do with age.
Bad economy, increasing nationalism. Sound familiar?
Yes. The problem is that the Nazism never left the Arab world. When Israel arrested Eichmann, the Arab world and media were up in arms at how badly the "Zionist" treated the "martyr". If you don't know who Eichmann is, please read about him.
And actually, the Arabs have taken part in plenty of cease-fires
Yes, they have. What they have never done is seriously sign an agreement about peace. The closest we got was the Oslo accord, and Arafat was pretty blunt about how much that meant. He stated repeatedly in Arab media that it meant nothing. That the PLO 1974 plan for the extermination of Israel was still in effect and that the Oslo accord was just a way to catch some breathing room before continuing.
DO you think if america was attacked
You seem to be a little more than just dense. The Arab nations were never attacked. They attacked. Yes, I would expect the US to control its military if it illegally attacked another country and lost the war. Most countries can. Germany attacked, was defeated. Do you see German suicide bombers in London? Germany lost a significant portion of its territory after the war. Do you see German rockets raining over Warsaw? Do you see Japanese soldiers blowing up cafes in New York? Do you see them attacking US embassies in Europe, killing the people who work there? When did the last Japanese terror group take over a dorm for athletes at the Olympics and kill all of the athletes?
17 years of martial law, and other forms of oppression to this day.
Yeah, it must be hard. That must be why they, when polled by Arab media, with a huge margin prefer Israel to any other place to live. Must be terrible to be so oppressed by your government that you consider all of your friends in all of the neighboring countries worse off.
Yes, I agree, the Israeli policy towards the Israeli Arabs is not perfect, but it is not genocide. Hamas wants genocide. Hezbollah wants Genocide. Fatah wants to erase Israel from the face of the earth.
You are backing a bunch of Nazi lunatics and you are criticizing someone for trying to defend themselves from these lunatics.
Your post almost makes it sound like you're saying the european Jews started their whole "take over Israel" thing because the Arabs there attacked them
I am not saying that, and it would be a good thing for you to try to actually read what is written before you comment.
The Jewish immigration to Palestine in the years preceding 1939 was completely legal. There was no "take over Israel" going on anywhere. It was a bunch, and not a lot actually, the vast majority of Jews emigrated from Europe to the US, of Jews who bought land and moved to Palestine. Nothing sinister. Nothing illegal. Nobody stole anything.
At the same time there was also a significant Arab migration to Palestine. From 1880 to 1939 the population grew from a couple of hundred thousand to several million. Immigrants accounted for the vast majority of the increase, Jewish and Arab. The ratio of Jews to Arabs in the region did not change materially.
Due to the economic down-turn from 1929 through the 1930s, there was a significant unrest in the area, and the Arab population turned seriously nationalistic. This paralleled the development in Europe and other places. Sadly the unrest in Palestine led to a significant amount of violence towards the Jewish population regarded by the Arab immigrants as inferior and as not deserving the right to live in the region.
By 1939 you had a decent sized population in the area, all of the with an equal right to live in the area, legally and morally. The two major population groups were Arab and Jewish. Both population groups consisting mostly of first, second and third generation immigrants.
Due to the antagonistic relationship between the Jews and the Arabs, the UN commission for Palestine decided in 1947 that the only viable solution was a two-state solution. This was a solution for the people already in place in Palestine. Not for European immigrants post WWII. This was the only viable solution. A one-state solution would have guaranteed the forced expulsion of the Jewish population combined with a genocide. I don't think any of us would support another genocide against any larger population group.
So, in 1947 the UN did the right thing. Britain didn't approve and sided with the Arabs who also didn't approve. Didn't matter. Israel was born. Then the wars started. All of them started by the Arabs. They have continued for more than 60 years. The Arabs can have peace any time they want. They can just stop the fighting. They have never tried.
So in your opinion the number of militants is a static number that will never change
As I said, you really should lay off the drugs. I have never said something like that. Why did you think I said something like that? Did a small green man whisper it in your ear? Why not try to relate to what I actually say? I mean, like an adult.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to attack civilian centers and blaming Hamas for "hiding" among civilians.
Blaming? And you talk about cool aid? So far we have confirmed reports of weapons stashes in Mosques, Hospitals and Schools. We have Hamas fighters telling Arab reporters that they take refuge in civilian homes after shooting at Israeli soldiers. This particular Hamas soldier also pointed out that in his opinion, anyone killed when the IDF had to hunt him down in a regular city dwelling should consider themselves lucky to be "martyred" in such a manner.
I understand that it is difficult for you to read things that go counter to your own superstitions, but this is from a Hamas soldier as reported by Arab journalists. Re-printed in New York Times if you do not understand Arabic. It must be hard to have your drug-induced illusions crushed by your Nazi hero in Hamas.
I'll start with the bottom here, since that is the more interesting part.
As every sane person knows, we have the best shot of solving it with a two state solution based on the 1967 borders
I totally agree. That would be the only reasonable solution at this point in time. Sadly the Arab side in this conflict have never signed an agreement to do this in good faith. When Arafat signed the Oslo accord he turned around and said that it was worth about as much to him as a piece of used toilet paper. He had no intention of living by its letter, spirit or ideals.
So, what do you propose is done to bring the Arab side to the table with a mindset where they actually intend to solve the problem?
To the rest of your post - what specifically do you feel is wrong?
only owned a very small portion of the land, and yet were given 55% of the territory of Palestine in the partition.
I didn't forget it, and yes I do know about it. The reason is rather simple though, the vast majority of the British protectorate was already given to the Palestinians. They got sovereignty in 1946. It is called Jordan today.
As to the difference in population size, it was somewhere between 2:1 and 3:1 Arab - Jew as far as I can remember. Both in 1880 and also in 1947. Might be a slight error here, would have to get the numbers again. Been a while since I looked at those. Thew Jewish portion rose slightly, but not that much.
You conveniently forgot the fact that there were very few Jews in Palestine circa 1920 and the only reason there were more in 1948
No, I don't. Both sides in this conflict were in 1947 highly immigrant. The population swelled from a couple of hundred thousand in 1880 to several million in 1947. The immigration of Arabs and Jews to the region didn't significantly alter the Arab-Jew ratio. It did somewhat, but not significantly.
And there's the Jewish terrorism and collusion with the British in the 30s to suppress the Arab revolt
So, the Arab side revolts. In their revolt they originally target the British only. After messages come down from Damascus, they start targeting Jews. Hundreds of Jews die relatively rapidly. This makes Irgun stop hunting the British, remember, Irgun was a Jewish terrorist organization targeting the British mostly, and Irgun starts retaliating against the Arab using of Jews as target practice. In this revolt significantly more Jews are killed than Arabs. It was the first and only time that happened.
How was that a British-Jewis conspiracy?
Also, you are wrong about the reason for the revolt. The Arab population in the area was to a significant degree un-skilled manual laborers who immigrated to work. The British protectorate offered significantly higher living standards from 1918 to 1929 than the surrounding areas. How do you think that the un-skilled Arab immigrant population fared in the post 1929 world? That is the reason for the revolt. People don't revolt because "their land is sold from underneath them". People revolt when they have no work, no prospects, no food.
so that Europeans could recompense Jews for a crime that Europeans committed.
I would recommend you read a little about the process that created the two-state solution. You clearly speak out of ignorance here. I would recommend checking up on the Canadian justice who led this work. Find out why he changed his mind.
Also, please explain to the world how, if this was a European conspiracy against the Arabs, why did the British refuse to implement this solution and side with the Arabs? I mean, that would seem to completely contradict your fantasies, wouldn't it?
Look, it is extremely unlikely, even given the truth about the past, that any eventual settlement will constitute a full right of return for the Arabs to their lands (and they are theirs under any reasonable interpretation of
It is nationalism. Very prevalent in the Arab world. Now turning into extreme Islamism since the world is going more global. In this way the Arab world is rapidly regressing from 1933 Germany backwards towards the Spanish Inquisition. Sad to watch really.
Check what Goering said on how to use it:
Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country
So which terrorist are you talking about anyway? Everyone in Gaza?
Do you act retarded on purpose or were you hit repeatedly over the head with a hammer by your father when you were a child? Here is a clue for you:
The terrorist is the dude with the gun and the rocket.
In the future, don't try to pretend you are a stupid child. Pretend that you are an adult and keep to what people are actually talking about, not what your LSD induced fantasies lead you to believe that people think. Assuming that your opponent in this debate considers everyone in Gaza is a terrorist is to assume that he is like you, a mentally handicapped thirteen year old on LSD. Grow up.
People like you who act like this didn't happen.
Please try to understand the difference between what happened before the war of 1948, where nobody stole anything, and what happened to the people who attacked Israel. If you don't understand the difference, please ask an adult to explain.
Explain how what happened to his family home was NOT theft, please?
It was theft. No need to explain anything. It was. Did I say nobody lost their property? Nope, I did not. Problem is, in war people lose their property. Millions of Germans were driven out of Germany, more than one million of them died on the way, and the land was annexed by Poland. That is because Germany attacked Poland.
Should Israel have let the Arabs who fled in 1948, many of them to fight Israel, back into the country? Absolutely not. How could they?
So there's the parallel. It's okay to deny this theft, but it's not okay to deny the holocaust.
I think it is OK to deny both, I am very much in favor of free speech, but I also it is a little absurd to deny it. Did you get the impression that I thought that no Arab ever lost property because of this? From where did you get that impression?
The UN decision to create two states in the area was not theft however. Nobody lost anything as a result of that decision. Nobody would have lost anything if it wasn't for the fact that the Arabs went to war.
As Germany lost significant land mass to Poland after the war, so did the Arabs lose land mass to Israel when they went to war. Fair? Not for the individual, but it is just how things are when you start a war. The grandfather in your story should take his grievances to the people who started the war, not the ones who defended themselves against the aggressor and dealt with the aftermath of that war.
The jews became the new nazis
This is both childish and seriously retarded. There is a significant, and growing, Arab population in Israel. This population is significantly better off than the average Arab in the surrounding region, even if you take the refugee camps out of the equation. Israel doesn't employ, and have never employed, anything that resembles genocidal ethnic cleansing. That on the other hand is not the case for the other side.
Hezbollah has stated that the conflict will not be over until every single Jew in the entire world is wiped out. That is Nazism. Hamas stated recently that every Jew in the world is a legitimate target for killing by Muslims. That is also Nazism. There is nothing equivalent in Israel. The Arabs in Israel are not being treated 100% fairly, but to say that that is Nazism is childish in the extreme. I would recommend you grow up before you continue making a fool out of your self.
They took they're land,
No, they didn't. They occupied some of the territory of an attacking force. In the same way that the allied occupied Germany and Japan after the war. That is the parallel. Israel never attacked anyone. Not even this time.
Yes, there is a very strong relationship between being on the left and supporting the Palestinian Cause in Europe. In the US this has not been the case to some degree, where, for example, Dems traditionally have been the strongest supporters of Israel, not the Reps.
Why is it so? Probably because the PLO and similar organizations in the area generally were leftist organizations, not religious ones. Them turning to religion is quite new. The Arab xenophobia was fueled not by Islam but by leftist nationalism in the first decades. The extreme religious aspect is relatively new.
But yes, generally the extreme left in Europe has been very supportive of the Palestinian cause, and the moderate Right have been a little more balanced.
No sir, you have your facts wrong.
Considering you managed to follow that absurdity up with: "Arabs, Jews and Christians lived happily in the area of Palestine for almost 20 centuries" I have to conclude that you are on some daily dosage of heavy hallucinogenic drug. Please read a history book and then get back to us.
You do realize that's not possible without genocide, right?
You do realize you shouldn't take LSD before breakfast right? That is a comment only someone who is on some heavy hallucinogenic drugs could make. The alternative is that you are insane. The Hamas soldiers are a very small subset of Hamas, and Hamas is a very small subset of the Gaza population. You can take out Hamas with no actions that even look half like genocide.
Do you want to consider a serious discussion or do you want to continue hallusinating?
One state, one country for the whole region.
Some time in the future, absolutely. Not now however. It won't work. Not until the extreme Arab xenophobia ends. Since the early 1930s the Arabs have wanted to make the region a pure Muslim region. This is the reason that the UN went with a two-state solution. The UN was convinced that the Jewish minority would be violently oppressed in a one-state solution. In 1947 one-state would have been insane. In 2027 it might work. Maybe.
What solution would work in the interim? Honestly? An Israeli annexation of the entire region, a significant re-work of the Israeli constitution removing any favorable treatment of any particular population group. In 10-15 years full citizenship for a (then hopefully well-educated) new Palestinian population.
It might work. It might not.
She was liberated from a Nazi labor camp by my grandfather who was a Sergeant in 1st Infantry Division and stormed Normandy
Very interesting. Also very interesting that the parallels escape you entirely.
The aggressor in this conflict is, given the history you claim is relevant, the Arabs. The Arabs attacked in the same way that Nazi Germany attacked. Thankfully for those of us in Europe, and for your grandmother, and through her, you, the likes of you were not around at the time.
You see, if we were to take your stand, the European defeat of Germany in WWII was utterly immoral and should never have happened. We stopped German aggression with violence. The same way that Israel is trying to stop Arab aggression with violence. When we won we occupied Germany, in the same way that Israel, after successfully defending herself occupied Arab territory.
What is the difference? Germans stopped fighting after losing the war. Even after being occupied. Millions of Germans were thrown out of their homes in what you now call Poland. More than one million Germans died marching from Poland to Germany. After the war had ended. Do you see Germans firing rockets at Warsaw? Did/Do you see German suicide bombers in London? How many Japanese attacks have there been on Los Angeles since the US occupied them?
It was a lot easier for the allied fighting against the German and Japanese aggression. They fought a rational and thinking enemy, one that understood when it had lost. One that could be reasoned with. Israel should be so lucky.
People like you are a joke. You just posted a comment on slashdot saying it's okay to kill innocent people if some people in their country have twisted thinking.
Eh, no, he didn't. He said that it was OK for IDF to martyr every one of the twisted terrorist fucks. Not the innocent civilians. Please try to read before you respond.
Interestingly you don't seem to get what the Hama "soldier" said. Basically he said that they fire at IDF, then they hide in houses. Given that Gaza is fairly over populated, do you think these houses are empty? No, they are full of civilians.
What this terrorist nutcase was saying can be summarized as follows:
He is a sick fuck this terrorist, and as a rabid dog he needs to be put down.
As long as I see 10 to 100 Palestinian casualties reported for every Israeli casualty, I will continue to view Israel as the aggressor
Oh how I love morons when they open their dumb mouths and speak what they think is deep insight. By your retarded definition the US was the aggressor in its 1942-45 war against Japan. England and France were the aggressors in their 1939-1940 war with Germany.
Why is it that thinking is so hard for these people? Were they born with no brains?
That would happen sooner than later if the US would get out of the way
I see this very often, and it is wrong. When the US first intervened in the region they did so on the Arab side in the Suez conflict. The US slapped the British, the Israelis and the French pretty good.
Since then the US has tried on a number of occasions to assist the Arabs in the region, mostly to the detriment of the US. The attempt to protect the Palestinians in Lebanon being a good example. When the Arabs managed to get rid of the US protection, we had Sabra and Shatila.
The US isn't in fact overly pro-Israeli, or they weren't until 2001. The US government send far more support to Arab countries than to Israel. Egypt alone typically gets as much as Israel.
The US is one thing though, and consistently so. The US is pro any nation trying to defend themselves, and they are pro this to a realistic extent, not rosy-eyed nicey-wisey the way most Europeans are (I am European, not US). The US knows that when you wage a war in a city against an enemy willing to use women and children as shields, you will have casualties. Europeans thinks that dead children is a horror (it is) in all circumstance, and that nothing that could harm children should ever happen. Maybe the US should have listened to such sentiment 60 years ago and said "fuck you" to a Europe under German attack. How many German children do you think were maimed and killed to liberate Europe? Hundreds of thousands of children.
It is the attackers responsibility to stop the war. The Arab side is the attacker. Once they stop there may be peace. They never have.
Actually, if you check your history, when Israel illegally stole the country from the people who had lived their their whole lives
You really need to read the history your self. This is often repeated by the supporters of the Arab aggression against Israel, it isn't true however. If you want to stop looking like an idiot you should stop posting nonsense like this before you actually check the facts.
Here are some facts for you:
So far, non-violence hasn't worked.
It has in some cases, notably in India. It also worked a lot better in South Africa than violence did. Nobody has ever tried it on the Arab side of this conflict so we have no idea if it would work or not. Clancy wrote a nice book about such a scenario however, and I would recommend it even though the geopolitical situation has changed slightly since.
BTW, regarding "how is ... different from" scenarios. How is the way Israel treats the Arabs different from how we treated Germany and Japan after the war? Given the fact that the behavior of the Arabs and the Germans/Japanese is incredibly different, the Arabs have never stopped their violent actions, how do you think we would have treated the Japanese if they had started bombing civilian targets in the US post 1945? Every day until now? Do you think they would be a free country today?
Personally I think making the israeli state to begin with was a stupid idea.
What was the alternative? There was a large Jewish population in the area, a population that the Arabs had started trying to exterminate back in 1936. Do you really think that, given the experience we had from Europe at that time, leaving the Jewish population of Palestine to be butchered by the Arabs would have been a good idea? How would you have prevented it?
BTW, these were not Holocaust refugees, these were Jews who had lived in the region at least as long as their Arab and Christian neighbors.
The two-state solution was the only reasonable solution. If you want to read more about why, I suggest you read about the Canadian judge who lead the UN commission that came to that conclusion. He has been quite clear on their thinking.
So the occupation, colonization, and annexation aren't violent?
Israeli occupation of Arab territory has always been a result of Arab aggression. Every single war was started by the Arab side. Even the six-day war was, even though the Israeli fired the first shot. A million men marching towards your border, you are going to shoot first or die.
If the Arabs had stopped fighting for a little while, and if they had signed peace treaties that accepted the state of Israel and kept them in good faith, then we might have peace. As long as the Arab side refuses to end the violence, that is not going to happen.
They started it every time. They have to end it.
Oh, and about ethnic cleansing. If the Arab population is being cleansed, why do the Arabs in Israel much prefer living there to anywhere else in the region. Don't tell me it's the occupation, they can, for example, migrate to Jordan if they are persecuted. For some weird reason it seems like the "persecuted" Arabs of Israel prefer to stay there. Perhaps Israel is one of the few places in the are where it is actually nice for a human being to live. Oh, Lebanon is quite nice too now that most of the Arab violence in the area has abated.
Do you really believe that? That's so sad.
Believe what? That Hamas has been firing rockets at Israel? From within populated areas? From behind the shields of the civilian population? If you don't believe that you need help.
Israel has expanded every decade since its inception.
So, when Israel is attacked and they occupy the territory of the attacker, that is bad? So when the allied forces occupied Germany after WWII that was wrong? Was the liberation of Europe wrong too since we killed a lot of German children?
If Germany had kept fighting, with terror, the way the Arabs have after losing a war, Germany would still be occupied. Thankfully Germany is a place where reasonable thinking people live however, so they didn't.
Arab attacks on Israel started in 1948 and they have continued unabated since.
The Palestinians might currently wish Israel was gone (who would blame them with so many of them dying every day), but that's a far cry from trying to wipe the country out let alone being able to.
Hamas has stated in the past few days that Jews all over the world are legitimate military targets. That is not a war on Israel, that is an attempt at ethnically cleansing the world of Jews. The fact that Hamas doesn't currently have the capability to do so doesn't make it less terrible.
Now, does Hamas accept a two-state solution? Officially they have said they do. I doubt they actually do. What grounds do I have for doubt? Well, Fatah is somewhat more moderate than Hamas, and when Arafat returned from Washington after officially accepting a two-state solution, he returned to the tell Arab media that he in fact had no intention of honoring what he had just signed. I have no doubt that Hamas can read about Muhammad and his breach of peace treaties just as well as Arafat can.
Basically, Palestine underwent mass immigration of Jews, starting with the growth of anti-Semitism in Europe
Actually, this isn't really true. Yes, there was a significant migration to the region from 1880 (when Zionism was "invented") through the 1930's. In the same time period there was also a massive Arab immigration to the area.
If you look at the census taken in the area in 1880 and in the late 1930s, you'll see that the population size relative to each other didn't change much. In 1880 there was slightly less than one Jew for every three Muslim in the area, in the late 30s it had risen to slightly more than one for three. So no, there wasn't, relatively speaking, a massive immigration to the area. If it was massive it would have resulted in a much grater shift due to the small population there in 1880.
The reason there was no major shift was that from the early 1900s there was a massive Arab immigration to the same area. This was due to the fact that it became significantly more wealthy then the surrounding areas. This had two causes, the Jewish immigration and the British investments.
In 1947 you consequently had several population groups with equal right to live in the area. Legal and moral right. The Arabs had no more claim to the area than the Jews and vice versa.
This is why the UN commission originally favored a one-state solution. Very much favored in fact. That is, until the commission traveled to the area and started interviewing the population. It became clear to the UN commission that it would become impossible for non-Muslims to live in the region in a one-state solution. The local Arab population was massively nationalistic (it was the vogue at the time, can't blame them) and they wanted to clean the area of Jews and other non-Muslims. They had in fact started such cleansing during the general strike of 1936.
Not being able to protect the Jewish minority the UN did the only sensible thing, they went for the two-state solution. They had no choice. Nobody thought the Jewish state would survive, but at least the commission would have done what they could.
Israel survived the Arab aggression. Several times. Sadly the Arabs never accepted defeat and never signed a peace accord with Israel (two notable exceptions). They have since never done so in good faith. When Arafat signed the Oslo accord he made it clear that he considered it nothing more than a piece of toilet paper and he made it abundantly clear in Arab media that he had no intention whatsoever of following it.
If the Arabs wants peace, they can just stop fighting.