Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124If it were up to me, there would be ONE SECULAR STATE encompassing the entire territory, but then you'd have a problem because the inherently racist and exclusive Jewish state of Israel would no longer exist.
Arabs also live in Israel and have Israeli citizenship and enjoy more freedom and a higher standard of living than just about anyplace else in the Muslim world.
Is having an "inherently racist and exclusive" state necessarily bad if it were being done in a defensive manner? Do you have any understanding at all of how Israel came to be and why Jews felt a need for their own country? Ever heard of a pogrom or the Holocaust, or are you a pogrom and Holocaust denier?
Bullshit.
http://letmegooglethatforyou.c...ation+israel-arabs&l=1
Baruch Goldstein, anyone? Israelis are not a lot of bleeding heart peace lovers, they are just as much a group of terrorist thugs as Hamas are. The more I see them electing Likud members who are CLEARLY warmongers (Ariel Sharon - Sabra/Shatila massacre, grab a history book) the less I feel for their dead.
I am appalled you choose to call me a pogrom and Holocaust denier. Until 1948, that was the single largest tragedy seen by humankind in the 20th century, along with Hiroshima/Nagasaki. I also acknowledge the Holocaust that Israel is inflicting on Gaza right now. To deny 800 deaths, 1/3 of which are confirmed as children, is appealing in its own right.
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124Everything that's blue on that map is Israeli controlled, dark blue means it's a settlement, light blue basically means DMZ. A two state solution would carve the West Bank up, providing Israel with extremely difficult borders to control, and leaving too many Palestinians further enraged over illegal theft of their land. Combine that with how well countries split by another country shoved in between them have done (Kashmir anyone?) and you've got a recipe for disaster.
Wasn't that land originally intended for Israel with the Balfor Declaration and didn't the Jordanians just happen to occupy it at the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, meaning that perhaps they conquered it? Why wouldn't Israel have taken a rightful title to it after having reclaimed it during the Six Days War? Just how is the occupation of that land an "illegal theft" as you allege? That land was taken in a defensive war after the Arabs and Palestinians essentially surrendered all moral claim to it in their attempt to exterminate the Jews.
It's an illegal occupation not by my definition, not even by the UN's definition, but by the United States State Department. Both Gaza and the West Bank are still listed as occupied territories (check the CIA World Factbook, I'm not doing homework for anybody). Had Israel chosen to behave in the democratic and free manner it claims to represent, the people living in its "occupied territories" would have been extended the same rights as its citizens. If you treat all of the inhabitants as possible threats or the enemy, you're only going to create more threats and enemies for your people.
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
The only solution is a one secular state solution. It's absurd to suggest that 5 million Jews who now live in the region or 4 million Arabs holding onto what's left or 1 million Jewish settlers in the West Bank or any large number of people should just pick up and leave at this point. Depose the corrupt leadership both in the PA and Israel, tell everybody to kiss and make up, and most importantly, give both the Arab and the Jew EQUAL HUMAN RIGHTS. That includes the right of return to any unused land lost by '48 or '67 refugees (Israel calls it "state land") and also includes the rights of everyone to peacefully stay where they are.
Does anyone really think that either side can "kiss and make up" at this point? The only solution is a complete separation of these two groups of people. It's going to be painful and expensive in the short term and I don't know exactly who should end up where, but it's the only long-term, permanent solution.
The other problem with your secular state proposal is that throughout history, time and time again, non-Jewish people rise up to attempt to exterminate the Jews, whether it be in Russia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, or Germany. If a secular state were made, how long would it be until the pogroms began again or a second Holocaust were initiated? The Jews need to have their own autonomous country; history has proven this.
They SHOULD kiss and make up. If the Jews have such an incompatibility with Gentiles, then they need to pack up their shit and leave. They displaced the indigenous Arab peoples of that land in 1948 to form their state, and those Arabs hold a grudge. You're not going to solve the problem by starving them, caging them up, stopping them at a checkpoint every time they need to take a shit, or bombing them indiscriminately. I am a 1948 refugee, my grandfather lost his home and his entire village. Until today, the former site of my village is completely empty, devoid of any civilization, perhaps because it holds no historical significance to Judaism. In the early 90s, before Oslo, which was a step BACKWARDS, I visited there once; the home of the village mukhtar was still intact, it's been bulldozed now. I want my right of return.
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124The rocket fire provides an interesting conundrum. Many of the Hamas in Gaza firing rockets are firing them into what was THEIR LAND half a century ago. The majority of Gaza's refugee population come from cities like Ashkelon (Arabic: Askalan) which also happens to be a frequent target of rocket fire.
Are you denying all of the Jewish land purchases and the transformation of much worthless land into worthwhile land?
Why did the Palestinians leave the land in the first place? In the hopes that by getting out of the way Arab armies could slaughter all of the Jews who had purchased nearby land and put them to shame? Might they have morally surrendered any claim to the land by slaughtering Jews in Mufti-inspired pogroms and by attempting to exterminate the Jews in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war?
Are you denying the expulsion and murder of hundreds of thousands of Arabs from their rightful homes in 1948? Are you denying the illegal Israeli theft of more than half the land in the West Bank for settlement building, under the guise of "state land," land which under Ottoman and Jordanian law was the property of THE PEOPLE, to be used for their only source of welfare, farming? Are you denying Israel's indiscriminate bombing of a UNRWA school?
The Palestinians left the land in the face of an advancing Jewish army. The Palestinians who learned their lesson didn't leave in 1967, half my family did, my grandparents did not, and for that I am thankful, because I, at least, still have my right to live in the refugee camp that houses my extended family.
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Originally posted by: shadow9d9
Israel should never have been established in the first place. This is what happens when you invade foreign countries and colonize it. That would be bad enough, but they picked the holy land of the 2 most populous religions. They deserve it.
My whole family is Jewish. You don't need to support stupidity and arrogance because you are "one of them." This is why nonprof-jon won't understand.
You do realize that Israel may be the one place on earth where your family won't be persecuted for being Jewish, right? What happens if the economy collapses in the U.S. and in other Western nations and Jewish bankers are blamed? What if the chants of, "Kill the Jews" return along with the pogroms? Are you ready to move into a Jewish ghetto and to become a ghetto Jew?
Don't think that this stuff can't happen in the U.S.; hatred of the Jews is alive and well. I see this all time on IRC and while playing online multiplayer games. "Jew" is used as an insulting word.
You need Israel and even I as an atheist from a Jewish background need Israel or at least some sort of autonomous Jewish state with nuclear weapons. By the way, if you're Jewish you owe it to yourself and your family to read two excellent historical fiction novels by Leon Uris,
Exodus and
The Haj. I find them very believable.
You do realize that Israel may be the one place on earth where my family will be persecuted for being Palestinian, right?
I find it completely laughable to believe that in the face of a depression, we would all turn against our Jewish bankers. Fuck it, I would be up in arms AGAINST that, because it's not right. To insist that hatred of Jews in the U.S. is alive and well might be true amongst white trash, it certainly is not true where it matters, in Washington. When a Presidential candidate HAS to kiss AIPAC's ass to even consider running, I'd say there's a whole bunch of Jew love with enough to go around for everyone.
I suggest you read
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John J. Mearshimer and Stephen M. Walt and
Palestine: Peace not Apartheid by fmr. President Jimmy Carter. I find them very believable, and neither is historical fiction.
I still assert that these can't be Israeli soldiers, nor can they be some no-teeth international force. They must be willing to shoot and willing to kill.
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