More Middle East Fun

[Järv]

The people who were born in Israel/Palestine or however you call that strip of land and have lived their whole life there have as much a right to continue living there IMHO as any person born between New York and Los Angeles has the right to live in the USA. Regardless of whether their grandfathers were right or wrong in occupying this land.

Otherwise, the Native Americans could also demand that all white-faces leave "their" land immediately. Same for the Sami demanding that the Finnish occupants leave the misnomer "Finland".

History is full of land-seizures. Do you want to revert them all?

EDIT: Heh, Saci Targaryen was faster than I ...

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Saci,

So, if the Israelis hold out for another 50 years do the Palestinians lose their claims? What is the Statute of limitations for "homeland theft"?

[Saci Targaryen]

No idea. But going back 3000 years to justify something isn't smart.

[Ser Reptitious]

Does anyone else get a sense of deja vu when reading this thread?

[Arthmail]

I am not an ignoramus.The Pallistu have nothing and absolutely no connection to today's "Palestinians".

They were already extinct when the Roman emperor found that reference, bastardized it and renamed the whole region.

You don't address anything else i said however.

As for your assertion that they were extinct, i can find no reference to this. Can you site anything at all? Because it looks like the Greeks coined the word - or specifically Herodutus, who has something of a name for himself. He employs the name as an ethnonym. The Romans seemed to have normalized it, but it was in use before they started that.

Again, none of which has any bearing on the discussion. And as has been pointed out, becomes something of a protracted and silly argument about who owns what land after how long. The truth remains, and you fail to address this because whatever, that killing civilians is not winning the Israeli's any friends.

I'm not sure how much more i will continue in this topic however. This is a rehash of 2008-2009. See you all again in 2018-2019.

[Robin Of House Hill]

I believe it was the British mandate, after the Balfour Declaration.

I'm not exactly certain what a mandate from a defunct organization had, legally. If it had none, the Balfour Declaration had no validity.

Lorien,

So, Jews should be ejected from Palestine as "illegal immigrants"? What happens to the non-moveable property they've built? What about Jews who's families were in Palestine well before 1948? Where do these people go after they are deported in the millions?

Not suggesting that. We're long past the point where that would have been practical. But since we haven't learned from history, I'm waiting till we have enough illegal immigrants here, that Spanish is declared the official language. But, that is an aside that need not be dealt with here.

I don't think, short of a voice coming out of the sky saying, "You will stop this shit or I will smite and smote your smitten asses until the sun rises in the west and sets in the east", that this problem will be solved.

[The Iceman of the North]

So, it's cool to plant a kaytusha battery next to a block of resiential housing because they can't protect the battery, that they aren't aiming at military targets in the first place, any other way? that's a mighty long leash you're giving to Hamas.

Have you looked at a map of Gaza. Where do you suggest they put their batteries? Whether or not Hamas is aiming at anything but Israel itself is rather irrelevant when considering how IDF is picking their targets.

[shadowbinding shoe]

There's talk about a cease fire agreement negotiated by Egypt and the US to be finalized tomorrow.

[The BlackBear]

There's talk about a cease fire agreement negotiated by Egypt and the US to be finalized tomorrow.

Hamas started the recent round of fighting, they risk looking weak if they back-down after the death of Jabari. Israel on the other hand want to look strong as elections are coming up, and they got fed up with the October Rocket attacks, they'll keep going till they think the message gets through. They also need to look strong seeing how they lost a friendly egyptian government.

edit to summarise I can't see either backing down.

[Shryke]

The people who were born in Israel/Palestine or however you call that strip of land and have lived their whole life there have as much a right to continue living there IMHO as any person born between New York and Los Angeles has the right to live in the USA. Regardless of whether their grandfathers were right or wrong in occupying this land.

Otherwise, the Native Americans could also demand that all white-faces leave "their" land immediately. Same for the Sami demanding that the Finnish occupants leave the misnomer "Finland".

History is full of land-seizures. Do you want to revert them all?

EDIT: Heh, Saci Targaryen was faster than I ...

Yeah, as of now I mean, Israel is there. It's done. The people living there now have as much right to the land as anyone does to the land they live on. (of course, this applies to the Palestinians too, but you know, don't tell that to the Settlers)

The whole "It was our land to begin with" thing is creepy as fuck though. Especially considering the Old Testament is rather clear on "the Jews" slaughtering the fuck out of the natives and taking the land in the first place. The historical record is even less charitable to this farce of an excuse.

[Shryke]

I'm not sure how much more i will continue in this topic however. This is a rehash of 2008-2009. See you all again in 2018-2019.

One would hope someone would figure out this doesn't really work in any way that isn't monstrous. But I have little hope.

I've seen it compared to "mowing the lawn". A disturbingly macabre, but sadly not inaccurate description of the process.

[Shryke]

Did I weasel out of it, or did I repeatedly say it? When you have boots on the ground you do not need to attack from the air. When the UK had no boots on the ground, say, in Serbia, then it bombed the crap out of the country (high level, imprecise bombings, to be precise), and that's when Serbia wasn't even attacking the UK.

Didn't do what, or when? People brought up the NI comparson when it is incomparable. The government has a different ideology, the terror organiztiondoes not control the government, and the UK had boots on the ground. Those same people argued against Israel's actions by showing that the UK acted differentely in a completely different situation. Hence, my response. I will say this, the UKs military actions in countries that did not remotely threaten it (relative to Hamas to Israel), were just as harsh if not harsher than Israel's. Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, the aerial assaults arguaby had a higher civilian/militant ratio, especially when considering that it had the privelage of fighing in far less dense areas, with a lower risk to civilians.

You are weasling again and trying to change the subject:

You claimed the UK would have done the same in the same situation. You've still not backed this up at all. Meanwhile, the UK was getting attacked from places it lacked "boots on the ground". It still didn't start chucking missiles around. When dealing with a terrorist insurgency/neighbor, they chose not to just start bombing the shit out of the irish and "hey, civilian casualties happen".

It's disturbing to watch your attempts to justify this behaviour.

[Arthmail]

But the civilians should know better Shryke. I mean, they live near missiles and deserve in turn to be missiled. Right? Firing hundreds of missiles that get punched down by state of the art weapons, for the most part, is exactly the same as blowing kids to smithereens.

[Fez]

I've said my piece and not going to debate the issue. I would however like to provide this WaPo poll released today which shows exactly why the US will never do anything other completely support Israel (in case any non-US folks were still unclear on why our politicians act as they do):

Fifty-seven percent of Americans said Israel’s current military campaign in Gaza is justified, while a quarter said it isn’t, according to a new CNN/ORC International poll released Monday.

Seventy-four percent of Republicans said the action is justified, compared with 59 percent of independents and 41 percent of Democrats. Overall, nearly one-in-five (19 percent) Americans said they had no opinion.

Nearly six-in-10 Americans polled (59 percent) said their sympathies were more with the Israelis in the situation in the Middle East, while 13 percent said they were more sympathetic to the Palestinians. Eleven percent said they were not more sympathetic to either side, while 13 percent said they had no opinion. The poll was conducted Friday through Sunday.

Last paragraph is key.

ETA: And looking inside the numbers, overall its 59-13, among white people its 65-12 and among minorities its 47-17. So there is a gap, but it looks like current foreign policy here is one area where we as Americans pretty much all agree on.

[ants]

Ants,

Because gaining a slim advantage at the bargining table with human lives is a disgusting position to hold much less advocate.

You call actually getting negotiations a slim advantage? Unfortunately, the threat of or employment of violence is their only source of leverage to get Israel to negotiate. Other than stopping the violence, what reason does Israel have for coming to the negotiating table, lifting sanctions, etc?

I get that both parties are in corners of their own making, and in some cases on both sides they deliberately stepped into those corners. But at the end of the day Israel has both the bigger stick, and the more cards on the table it can sacrifice. The Palestinians only truly have one, stopping the violence (two if you believe the whole destruction of Israel thing isn't a load of rubbish). Israel has a lot more, and if they want peace (I don't really think the powers that be do) they need to make a concession to get it.

For example, Saturday night there were no rockets for 8 hours. Now, I don't know if that was deliberate, re-tooling, coincedence, whatever. But Isreal continued to bomb and shell throughout the period. Would it have killed them after 4 hours of no rockets to cease fire, and just see what happens? Find out if maybe this could be the start of something? And if the rockets begin again, start up themselves as well. Would a few hours of peace, maybe talking to the Egyptians rapidly, try and make it something more have killed them? I doubt it.

[Järv]

I've said my piece and not going to debate the issue. I would however like to provide this WaPo poll released today which shows exactly why the US will never do anything other completely support Israel (in case any non-US folks were still unclear on why our politicians act as they do):

Last paragraph is key.

ETA: And looking inside the numbers, overall its 59-13, among white people its 65-12 and among minorities its 47-17. So there is a gap, but it looks like current foreign policy here is one area where we as Americans pretty much all agree on.

And is there any dependable information available WHY the large majority in the US is so much pro-Israel?

Is the reason really what media sometimes tell us here in middle Europe, that all your evangelical christians believe that "God has given Israel to the Jews, the bible says it so"?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Ants,

So, how many dead Israelis is it worth to get Israel to the negotiating table? How many individuals get to have their lives snuffed out to further Hamas' political goals?

[ljkeane]

I would however like to provide this WaPo poll released today which shows exactly why the US will never do anything other completely support Israel (in case any non-US folks were still unclear on why our politicians act as they do):

That hasn't always been the case though. Truman was probably the major figure in the UN going for a two state solution but after that the US wasn't overly concerned about being unstinting in it's support until Reagan in the 80's. I do wonder why anything but unequivocal support for Israel does now seem to have become the norm for the US, it certainly doesn't seem to be the case for arguably closer allies in Nato for example.

[Arthmail]

I've said my piece and not going to debate the issue. I would however like to provide this WaPo poll released today which shows exactly why the US will never do anything other completely support Israel (in case any non-US folks were still unclear on why our politicians act as they do):

Last paragraph is key.

ETA: And looking inside the numbers, overall its 59-13, among white people its 65-12 and among minorities its 47-17. So there is a gap, but it looks like current foreign policy here is one area where we as Americans pretty much all agree on.

And how many Americans thoughts there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq well after everyone else KNEW there were none.

As much as i try, i don't understand Americans.

[Shryke]

Ants,

So, how many dead Israelis is it worth to get Israel to the negotiating table? How many individuals get to have their lives snuffed out to further Hamas' political goals?

How many dead Palestinians is it worth to get Hamas to the negotiating table? How many individuals get to have their lives snuffed out to further Israel's political goals?

When you get right down to it, Israel has no reason to bargain if the Palestinians stop bombing them because that's all they really want. (Well, there's plenty who want the Palestinian's land too but there's others who disagree and on and on with the arguing. But as a whole "stop bombing us" is probably the closest Israel gets to having a thing everyone agrees on)