the most important process in achieving any develepmont in the middle east will never be a mass withdrawal of the settlements by the israeli army or even a week long summit and a subsequent signing of a “road map to peace”. The palestinian authority must gain greater control over its own funded organisations. It is unimportant which leader is in control of the palestinian people, the Israeli government , rightly so, will never make a peace agreement while its civillians are under threat by organisations that are not controlled, only funded by the palestinian authority.
No government in the world should set a precedent of having to succemb to terror, despite how legitiamte the claims of the opposition.
As the Israeli right wing moves closer to the centre and a palestinian state seems a certain reality, the only thing stopping the next step forward towards peace in Israel is the lack of control over its own people from the palestinian authority.
And do you honestly think that the Israelis would even be considering a Palestinian state if there hadn’t been constant wave after wave of suicide bombers?
My personal view is that they would still be keeping the Palestinians caged like animals while stealing more and more land from them in the way of either authorised or unauthorized settlements in the West bank and the Gaza strip.
Do you know how much land the Israeli Zionists actually believe is theirs by the grace of their ‘god’ (and I spit with disgust at the notion). It extends far beyond the bounds of their present state. If only the British and UN hadn’t bowed to the pressure from the Jews, it would have saved a lot of death and misery, for all concerned. You ever need an example of why religion is inherently evil, the “Middle East Problem” is a perfect example. Pity the Arabs couldn’t fight for shit back then and America let its guilty conscience and Jewish citizens support the emerging Israel.
Perhaps the Palestinians should gather an army together and fight ‘honourably’ for what the Israelis stole from them by force, deception AND TERRORISM 50 years ago? Perhaps they should do it old school style, form Line and march towards the Israeli lines of defence.
“That’s right lads keep in formation, if you see cavalary give a shout and we’ll form square”,
“Commander what do we do if we see a helicopter?”,
“Die, lad, die”.
Go get a little history on the conflict and some perspective of what the Israeli army has at its disposal thanks to the good old Americans compared to the outdated hardware any Palestinian army could get its hands on.
Oh yeah, what did I say again? How did the Israelis get their state in the first place? Oh yeah! BY TERRORISM! Double standards, it was fine 50 years ago for the nice Jewish boy to commit terrorism cause he’s fighting for his god given right, but naughty arab, bad boy, don’t you know that terrorism doesn’t pay? What, you lived there 50 years ago? No, you’re wrong, this is the promised land. We’ve always lived here, in spirit anyway.
If the Palestinians pull away the pressure now, the Israleis will stall and stall until the opportunity for a Palestinian state to reform is yet again brushed under the carpet as the Zionists steal more and more land. Pity Sharon is’t more like Blair, ohhh, let’s let all the terrorists go!!! What, they’ve still not disrmed? Let’s let some more go!
Ok, bear with me on this, it could become very in depth…
Firstly, Matt, the point you make about the state coming from terrorism is an interesting one. I am in fact researching that very topic at the moment and it may be that at the end I will agree with you. However, that does not justify the Palestinian terrorists of today. If the Jewish military organisations were in fact terrorists, which I do not believe is so clear cut, then they were wrong just as much as the Palestinians terrorists are. Let’s not justify Palestinian suicide bombers by arguing that someone else did it too. The logic doesn’t follow.
I don’t need to think this, I know that Israel DID consider a Palestinian state in July 2000 at Camp David before the waves of sucide bombers. At Camp David, Ehud Barak (the then Israeli prime-minister) and Yasser Arafat (President of the Palestinian Authority) met with Bill Clinton in order to discuss the Middle East problem. In the entirety of 1999 and up until the Camp David talks in 2000, there was not one single Israeli casualty from a terrorist attack. There was no intafada before the Camp David talks, where Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat a Palestinian State. Your argument that the Palestinian State was only considered AFTER the terrorism is flawed.
When Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 it never annexed it and never made it part of Israel. Officially it was occupied with the acknowledgement that it would be held until a solution could be found to give it away. However, unfortunately, the Israel governments subsequently started to fund the building of settlements within the West Bank. This, in my opinion was wrong and was a huge mistake of the Israeli governments. They should have never started building settlements. However, what was done was done, and Ehud Barak agreed to rectify these mistakes at Camp David and offerered Yasser Arafat the equivalent of 100% of land in the West Bank to be created into an autonomous Palestinian State. Yasser Arafat refused and came up with no alternative.
A week or so later, the first suicide bomber blew himself up within the borders of Israel.
The modern Zionist movement of today started off it’s life as a SECULAR, NON-RELIGIOUS movement. It is true that the Biblical Land of Israel stretches from the Nile to the Euphrates. HOWEVER, the Zionist movement which started in the late 19th century did not make any divine claims on the Land Of Israel, that was the whole point. In Jewish doctrine, when the Jews were exiled from the Land of Israel in 70CE after the destruction of the Second Temple, the Bible says that only God could bring them back to Israel via the Messiah. Only when the Messiah comes, will the Jews be brought back to Israel, according to Jewish biblical theology. So anyone religious enough to believe in the divine right of Jews to the Land of Israel WOULD NOT DARE settle it themselves without the return of the Messiah. Secular Zionists like Theodore Herzl didn’t BELIEVE in God and did not want to lay claim to Israel through Divine Right, which is why the State of Israel (note the difference between the State and Land of Israel) was acquired by the Jews by legitimate means and does not span the entire area of the Land of Israel.
What are these legitimate means you ask? Surely the evil wicked Zionists stole Palestine from the Arabs and massacred them all? You can believe your anti-semitic propaganda if you wish, but I would implore you to study the facts instead. In the early 1900’s, the British and French overthrew the Ottoman Turkish Empire which was controlling the Middle East and divided the land amongst themselves. The French took Syria (amongst others) and Britain took Palestine. This was welcome by both the Jewish and Arab population living in Palestine at the time.
In 1917, the British government expressed it’s favour towards creating a Jewish national home in the borders of Palestine, in the Balfour Declaration.
On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations voted with a 2/3 majority to partition western Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. The Zionists had already suffered huge losses in terms of Land. The majority of eastern Palestine had been split off by the British to create Trans-Jordan, an entirely Arab land. Then, what was left of Palestine was ALSO then partitioned between the Jews and the Arabs. Over 75% of the land allocated to the Jews was desert. Desperate to find a haven for the remnants of European Jewry after the Holocaust, the Jewish population accepted the plan which accorded them a diminished state. The Arabs, rejected the partition plan. On 14th May 1948 Israel declared it’s independence within the borders of the UN partition plan. A far cry from your claim that it has anything to do with the ‘Zionist god-given belief’.
For all concerned? The Jews, who had just had a third of it’s entire population wiped out in a mass genocide didn’t need a place to goto? The British shouldn’t have been compassionate towards the Jewish people at their greatest time of need. What you are basically saying here is denying the right of the Jewish people to have a nation state. Why then do you believe that the Palestinians, who only found their identity in the 1980’s, should have THEIR own state? If you are really holding to this double standard, it is nothing short of anti-semitic. Perhaps you could explain further your stand on this?
There is no connection between religion and the middle east conflict for reasons explained above. This is a conflict of land and politics. What are you basing your arguments from? The fact that there are Jews involved? That doesn’t automatically make it a religious issue.
What is your motivation behind these anti-zionist comments? What is your reasoning behind them?
Ok, firstly let’s deal with the identity of Palestinians. During the Mandate period, there was no such thing as a Palestinian. The Arabs themselves defined themselves as Arabs and the Jews, ironically, considered themselves Palestinian Jews. When Trans-Jordan was created, it’s citizens became Jordanians. The population living inside what we now call the West Bank still identified themselves as Arabs. In 1948, when Israel declared it’s independence, the Jordanian government annexed what is now known as the West Bank (that is where it gets it’s name from, the West Bank of Jordan). All citizens inside the the Jordanian West Bank were given Jordanian citizenship and thus became Jordanian. Only in may 1964 did the Palestinian identity come about with the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. And only in the late 1980’s, when Jordan relinquished it’s annex of the West Bank, did the Palestinian identity truly find it’s grounding.
It is unhelpful to say that the Israeli’s stole anything from the Palestinians because they didn’t exist 50 years ago. You are just trying to back up the underdog by claiming an injustice 50 years ago that never happened. Even if it did happen, it didn’t happen to the Palestinians as a nation so your claim is a false one.
With regards to the ‘stealing of land’. When the Zionists came to Israel, they understood that they could not take it by force and in fact, they didn’t want to. The early pioneers BOUGHT land from the Arabs who were living there. The Arabs, of their own free will, sold the land to the Jews. This is well documented on the internet and in archives. This is how the Jews reclaimed the land of Israel, through money. What claim does an Arab have to land that he sold over 50 years ago? None. That is not stealing, that is a fair mutual business agreement. As has been discussed before, the legitimacy of declaring the State came from International Recognition. Therefore, the Jews bought the land, worked the land and administered it fairly and squarely.
Your trivialising of the events that go on here is an indicator of your inability to empathise with either side of this conflict.
I have got my history and I have my perspective. I never have understood the argument that the Palestinians should be supported because they have less weaponry? Surely the fact that Israel has the ability to obliterate the West Bank and the Palestinian Population entirely without losing ONE soldier YET CHOOSES NOT TO DO THIS is some sort of moral indicator. When Israel goes into West Bank settlements, it goes in at the risk of its own soldiers. It does so, because it has an ethical code and wishes only to target those who are causing terror. I still don’t see what your point is in all this? So the Palestinians don’t have as much weaponry or as well an organised army? Does that justify the terrorist actions?
What you are basically saying is that terrorism is an OK way of getting what you want. If that’s truly what you believe, our dialogue is probably futile. However, I hope that others who read this, not only take in what I have to say, but research it themselves and not just take my word from it. In my opinion, the Israeli government should not make a SINGLE concession until there is a complete stop to terrorism. Terrorism can never be justified it must stop before any compromises can be made. Israel’s security, like any other nation, must come first.
the state of israel was established in 1948, In my opinion from 3 very distinct factors:
a) the continual political pressure and efforts of various political institutions pushing the zionist cause and making it an issue on the international agenda.
b) the moral debt the world felt to the jews, after the holocoast.
c) the efforts of the zionist miitant groups
its point c) that i will focus on, but firstly i will stress that many believe that the efforts of the haganah, irgun and lechi (the three zionist militant groups) were the least important factor of the three, that lead to the establishment of the jewish state in palestine.
The haganah were a group that were totally devoted to the defence of the jewish communities of palestine , that were often under threat by the british and the local arab communities. the haganah had a official policy of havlaga (self restraint). the haganah was constructed of the left wing socialist element of the zionists and was by far the most well represented group and along with the irgun aided the british in world war 2.
The Irgun Tzvei Leumi, were a more militant group that prior to World War 2 declered war against all british MILITARY instituitions, and never atempted to kill innocent civillians. as stated priorly, the Irgun aided the british in their war against Nazi germany.
The smallest and most militant the Lechi, were established in 1940 as a result of the Irgun wanting to join the british in their war against the germans. The memebers of the lechi declered war against anything british and often robbed banks (that is why their known also as the stern gang) to fund thier efforts, because they had no support from the Jewish Agency ( the governing body of the jewish people ). Many Zionists now and then believe taht the actions of the lechi were nothing more than the acts of an unorganised terrorist group.
Now with a bit of background information, it is easy to tell the differences between the state of israel being built on terrorism, and the modern day activities of the palestinian militant groups.
Firstly the efforts of the zionist underground groups did not contribue, to the same degree as those of the the palestinian militant organisations in building the immenent palestinian state.
Secondly, there was severe backlash against those involved in the lechi, to the extent that the haganah joined forces with the british and captured and then tried its own people for crimes against the british, which comes in contrast to the footage seen of palestinians glorifing the names of their martyrs in mass celebration on the street.
Thirdly, neither the Jewish Agency or any organisation representing the jewish communities in palestine funded the terrorist actions taken out by the lechi. in contrast to the constant reports of links between the palestinian authority and its militant groups.
I must make a note that i am certainly note glorifing the actions taken out by the zionist group, that killed innocent civillians, any organisation that aims to hurt innocent civillians is a terrorist group. But it is wrong to say that Israel was bulit on terror. and it is wrong to state that any of the Zionist groups are an exact parrelel to the current terrorist organisations. and most of all it is wrong to say that the Jewish People condown any for m of terrorism, weather it be carried out by Israeli, Palestinian or American.
I am by no means as well read on the Israel/Palestine issue as you all seem to be- I enjoyed reading your posts. Ben mentioned how Arafat declined the compromise offered at Camp David. This was Arafat’s greatest folly. I do recall however, that Arafat was in a Catch-22 type situation- if he accepted the compromise, then all of the extreme militants would have have been livid- denouncing Arafat and probably trying to kill him, as they see any compromise with Israel as wrong. This leads me to ask-what the hell else did they want? I am still dumbfounded by that decision. If only Aarfat had not succumbed to the pressure of the militants, I think peace would be manifesting itself in the region. Israel was offering so much in that treaty (I wish I could remember the details) that I was shocked Arafat passed it up. Why did Arafat even show up? He couldn’t even make a counter offer, because the only other option would be to kick out every single Jew from the region. And that is what the Palestinians want- they don’t want peace.
There is a lot of hatred and anti-semiticism boiling in the veins of many Palestinians and Arabs. Its been that way for thousands of years. Why? Because of the continual brainwashing of religion. I think this is the point Matt was trying to make. Why is it that I don’t hate Germans or Japanese, when we fought a war with them only 50 years ago? Because I wasn’t programmed to hate them. The Palestinians and other Arabs are programmed by their religion to hate the Jews. Where else do they get such mindless rhetoric?
I know a lot of my assertions lack the proof to back them up. This is just the general consensus I have arrived at through passively learning about the situation.
Ok, I haven’t fullt digested all of what has been said since my (very angry) post, and I won’t be able to fully reply till Thursday.
The one thing I want to reply to having scanne dthese posts is Matthew E.'s
My intial intuition about that comment is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG!
What on Earth have you been fed? Who has been corrupting your brain so disgracefully? They only started hating the jewish with such vehmenence roughly 50 years ago when some European refugees started turning up in the middle of their lands and proclaimed that Palestine was theirs by right, suddenly changing its name to Israel.
I do not even pretend to deny the holocaust, it was one of the darkest moments in European history. BUT IT WAS WESTERN HISTORY! The hatred, the pain, the anguish spilled over to the Middle East and the tragedy has unfolded there because of WESTERN GUILT. Nothing more, the Israelies are foreign invaders to Arab lands, no better than the crusaders, wearing their suffering at the hands of European tyrants as some sort of badge to kill and destroy the arab, they stole land on the back of a sympathy for their holocaust plight. Should we forgive them for such an act? That is your choice, but to pass suffering on to others is not a solution to evil. The isralei settlers of the late 40s/50s were pawns to the zionist movement to reclaim the ‘promised’ land (whatever you say ben, why the hell did they choose Palestine? Huh? Please answer me that one? That’s one hell of a coincidence that it happens to be their ‘promised’ land. Oh yeah, and remember that the EUROPEAN Jews chose Palestine as their target for land theft in the late 1800s, not in 1945).
The Jews were “thrown” out over 2,000 years ago, they’d be long forgotten, just another defeated tribe, and I use that word without hesitation, lost to the annals of hiostory. The gravest and most unfortunate circumstance was that this defeat so long ago gave rise to a religion that has perpetuated itself in some kind of absurd identity over the millenia that have passed, an unfortunate throwback to an ancient tribe (they wern’t even really a civilization by any meaning of the word). It just happens to be they propgated and prospered in various different cultures. And then all of a sudden in the late 1800s there came the Zionist movement, a call for the establishment of a Jewish state (i.e. religion centred state) in the land of Palestine, owned by the Arabs for over 2,000 years.
------Irrelevant to argument, more of a rant against religion in general, avoid if you have a belief in any religion------- > It is also worth noting at this point that many ‘historical’ events according to the Jewish religion have no archaelogical evidence, even when looking at places specified, many of their ‘myths’ are based on stories that were perpetuated in many pre-Jewish religions and all in all they look like just another Fable story religion just like Christianity, The Roman Gods, the Greek gods, etc. etc. etc. Believe it or not a Jewish religion has about as much a leg to stand on as any of the other popular religions in the world today. And yet it should form the basis to the greatest threat to world stability since the Cold War.
So what we have is some sort of fairy tale of a promised land made up a few thousand years ago leading to the eviction of families from their homes. It’s comparable to a fairy tale about a supreme race who defeated the Romans a few thousand years ago. remember them, the Germanic tribes? Remember Hitler?
Remeber being put into concentration camps, being murdered at will, etc. etc. Oh, no, I’m not talking about the Holocaust, I’m talking about the Palestinians.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Rescanning I just noticed this:
What are you talking about? What on earth do you think that means?
Your claim reminds me of a joke my Malaysian friend makes about British imperialists.
it goes along the lines of:
A British ship turns up on the shore of a country, and the men come ashore. They meet the natives and exchange pleasantries,
“Hello, who are you?”, the natives ask,
“We are the British”, the travellers reply,
“We welcome you to our land!”, the natives enthuse,
“Do you have a flag?”, the British ask
“What is a flag?”, the natives ponder,
The British unroll a flag pole with the British flag on it. Poking it in the ground they say,
“This is a flag, because we’re the first ones to put a flag here, we now own this land”.
Be careful Ben, think what you are saying, just because there was no national Palestinian identity doesn’t mean the land didn’t belong to someone.
I hope someone else can help me with the facts, but I am pretty sure I’m not wrong (maybe once, but not five times 
). Perhaps I have been misinformed, however I do recall people frequently marveling at the survival of the Jewish community throughout time- in fact it’s what they are most famous for (dradles are a close second ). I inductively reasoned that people who are persecuted are also hated. I could be wrong. Although its hard to imagine kicking people out of “your” land when you like them. Also, from memory, I thought the Jews were given one of the crappiest plots of land you could imagine, and that they turned what was otherwise a barren desert into a rather successful country.
I’m not trying to argue that the Jews or Palestinians are right or wrong. Both sides have some claims that are legitimate against the other side. Atleast Israel seems willing to compromise.
Obviously, the only certainty is that I need to do some research, and figure out who’s right.
Well, for a start it can’t be the Palestinians’s religion that has been fanning the hatred for all these years as that didn’t even exist “thousands of years ago”.
One might marvel at the Jewish community’s survival through time, but that’s primarily in Europe, not Palestine, or Iraq or Saudi Arabia or any where in the Middle East.
In 1948 more than 850,000 Jews lived in the Arab world. Today there are fewer than 29,000.And all that has been due to the collapse in relations between the two.
The flooding of Palestine with invading Euopean Jews was the cause of this hatred and not some kind of thousands of years of persecution by Arabs. Whoever told you they’d been persecuted in the arab world for so long is lying to you.
I would like to see some facts of constant repression and persecution of the Jews pre the 1890s cause I don’t think you’ll be finding a terribly large amount. In fact you’ll probably find Roman persecution when they occupied Palestine and perhaps the atrocities commited by the Crusaders, neither of them, obviously, being arabic.
The real persecution was happening in Europe, ever heard of the Russian raiding parties that used to swoop on Jewish villages and raze them to the ground for fun? There’s plenty of evidence of European persecution of the European Jews. The European Jews who decided the best thing to do is go and chuck a bunch of dirty arabs off their land. As I said before, just a transference of their misery on to others, not a solution at all and an evil in itself.
While it may be the crappiest plot of land one can imagine, it was someone else’s crappy plot of land that the Zionists stole through deception, terrorism and playing the holocaust card, leaving others homeless. The reason they happen to have done so well is that they also happen to have been American supported, European Educated and with a point to prove. Its no surprise they did ‘better’ than the arabs, they’re world leaders in certain technologies for ecxample. Why do you think that is? A new state pops into existence and immediatly has R&D program to rival the superpowers? That doesn’t happen overnight unless you’re given a hell of a lot.
Israel, ‘compromise’. Compromise doesn’t include even considering removing its new settlements in the West Bank. So they’ll have all the land they want and in withdrawing their invading murdering armies, they’ll do exactly what for the Palestinians? Oh let them have two tiny bits of seperated land? And keep the rest which they stole 50 years ago. Its crazy! And yet here you are Matthew E., someone I consider a well-informed man in most subjects, almost spouting out the Israeli line word for word. You almost sound as if you think the Israelis are doing the Palestinians some sort of favour. They really do have America in their pocket.
Arafat is a moron. He claims to represent the Palestinian community when he doesn’t. And has anyone read Noam Chomsky’s book (can’t recall the name) which is basically a catalogue of atrocities commited by the Isreali Government towards the Palestinians. It appears to me the Palestinians are suffering a major injustice.
Matt-
From your previous post, let us assume that the Israelis did start their country through terrorist measures- even Ben conceded that this is plausible, so I don’t think it is as out of left field as I originally had imagined. Where do you propose they go now? The Jews need to live somewhere.
Please read what I wrote in my last post Matt. The early zionist pioneers did not just turn up in Palestine and declare a state. No-one had a right to that land, the Arabs who lived their were not autonomous and instead came under the wider Turkish Ottoman rule. When the British came and took over, with international recognition from the UN, it was decided that Palestine would be partitioned into two separate states. Before that time, through buying land from the Arabs who lived their, the early zionists worked the land that was partitioned to them under the 1947 UN partition plan. The land didn’t even belong to the Arabs, let alone the Palestinians who didn’t exist yet. They were not autonomous their and they sold off their land willingly. In the entire history of Israel/Palestine there has never been an autonomous Arab government in control there. If the Palestinians wanted the land so much, why weren’t they complaining when the Turks where there, or the British? Why is it, that only when the Jews came and tried to settle a small part of what was the British Mandate of Palestine, did the Arabs create an uproar and claim it was their land? If we erased any sort of claim to the land, and two people both wish to have a piece of land which they can call their own, what is the obvious decision to be made? Share it between them. The Arabs not only got given the lion’s share, they rejected it and declared war on the fledgling State of Israel, promising to push the Jews into the sea.
Once again, you should read what I have written above and in my last post. I am happy to give you a list of objective sources about the workings of the British Mandate and the history of Israel. At what point did the zionists ever have a policy of killing and destroying the arab population? In what way is buying land of someone considered stealing? Please back up your claims with sources because otherwise they are just inflammatory opinion. It is true that the world had sympathy for the Jews after the Holocaust, however, that doesn’t mean they thought they were justified in ‘stealing land’ which is why no stealing went on. The land in Israel was acquired through legitimitate means and built and worked with Jewish labour. The Crusaders of the 11th century physically went into places and murdered the people who were living there. On what evidence are you comparing these events? There was no crusade, there wasn’t even an army when the early zionists came to Palestine. The Zionist ideology was to resettle the land through peaceful and legitimate means e.g. buying land and internation recognition.
Matt, I implore you to study some Zionist thinkers before you make comments like this. Whatever you may think about what actually happened, you cannot deny what was actually written down by the early Zionists. Theodore Herzl, considered the Father of Zionism, was so unconcerned by the idea of the Promised Land that he put forward Uganda as the initial proposal for a Jewish State to the World Zionist Congress. However, it was rejected. The reason Israel/Palestine was chosen, was due to the historical connection that Jews have to the land. Note this important distinction: THEY DID NOT CLAIM THIS GAVE THEM ANY RIGHT TO THE LAND. They chose Israel/Palestine because of it’s historical connection but did not use that as a reason to have it. Instead they focused their efforts in the ways that I have mentioned above, the first step being the Balfour Declaration in 1917. So as you say, it’s not a coincidence, because the Jewish people do identify with the Land of Israel, but not because they believed God gave it to them.
I’m having difficulty not seeing this statement as racist. What exactly was unfortunate about the Jewish people surviving through their religion?
I shall repeat this point again. As I say Matt, you have to read my argument otherwise I shall just end up repeating myself. Sure, argue with my point but please back up your answer with some sort of reference or source. The Zionist movement at it’s start was an almost entirely secular movement. The dominant schools of thought did not contain any sort of religiously Jewish state. In fact, the first prime minister of Israel was a completely secular Jew. It is true, there were some laws (and still are) which are based on Judaic doctrine, however, this was not the focus of the Jewish State.
Secondly, Palestine was never owned by Arabs. When was it ever owned by Arabs? Before the Jews it was the British and before the British the Ottomans and the Mamelukes and the Ayyubids and the Seljukes and the Moslem Caliphs and the Hashmoneans and the Maccabees and the Persians and the Babylonians all the way back to Israel Rule in the biblical period. Please tell me how the “Arabs owned it for over 2000 years”?
I agree with you on the first bit. I would even go as far as to say that the whole thing was fabricated, just like all religions. However, as I have mentioned before, Israelis do not consider themselves in Israel by divine right (remember the Messiah hasn’t come yet according to mainstream jewish doctrine). This is not a conflict about religion, this is a conflict about land and politics, on both sides.
Comparing the actions of anything to Nazi Germany just belittles the atrocities of the Holocaust. You are saying what the Israeli government is doing today is just as bad what the Nazi’s did in the second world war. This is the sort of cheap trick which anti-semites use to belittle and deny the severity of the holocaust. Taunting the name Hitler at the Jewish people is one of the most vindictive and spiteful things that a human can do. Comparing the biblical reference of ‘a chosen people’ to Hitler’s Aryan race and his committed destruction of jews, blacks, slavs, gays, gypies and communists signifies an ulterior motive to your reasoning. Do you honestly believe this to be true? Or are you saying it because you know that comparing Jews to Hitler is a powerful literary device? In all honesty, it sickens me, but I doubt that will stop you from using it.
Likewise. Comparison of the Israeli government’s actions to the Holocaust is neither academic nor helpful. It is just a cheap tactic to undermine what happened in Nazi Germany, a classic device used by anti-semites. There is no ethnic cleansing, there is no mass genocide, there are no death camps, there are no Nuremberg Laws, there is no final solution. I ask you to refrain from using the example of Nazi Germany in your responses because I find them personally offensive and not conducive to this discussion.
Your analogy of the joke is a false one. The early zionists did not come here and say, here’s our flag, this is our land. When the zionists first came the land was under Turkish Ottoman rule and they were taken over by the British. The Palestinians/Arabs whatever you want to call it, definitely did not have autonomy over the land in terms of government. It is true, a lot of Arabs did own land at the time, however, they sold it freely to the zionists who purposefully and openly wanted to reclaim the land. The Arabs sold it of their own free will. Only after buying the land and getting internation recognition (can you see a theme here?) did Israel put up it’s flag and declare a state. The Arab/Palestinian population were more than welcome to set up their own state in the land that they were promised in the partition. They did not own the entirety of Palestine. It was not taken away from them by the British or by the Jews. They never owned it.
So, you’re right, the land did belong to someone, but not to what we now call the Palestinians, or to what were then called the Arabs. Those who owned land under the British government, sold it of their own free will. That is what my point was. I wasn’t saying that because there was no Palestinian identity the Jews had a right to ‘take someones land’, the fact is the land was controlled by the British and certain parts were owned by Arabs. The Arabs sold it off and the Jews bought it fair and square.
I wasn’t justifying anything by saying the Palestinian identity didn’t exist. I was saying it because I disagreed with your statement about ‘Israel stealing land from the Palestinians’ which you used to support your agenda. The fact is, there was no Palestinian people so your argument was flawed.
Hmmm, not had a chance to read all your post thoroughly yet but a recurring message is coming through and it is one I think is fundamentally flawed and quite absurd. A nation state does not lend legitimacy to a land claim. Ever. Whether it was the British or the ottoman’s who ruled Israel is irrelevant. The coutry was flooded with millions of illegal immigrants by the zionist movement which in turn annexed its own land without any prior claim to it (well, unless you call living there a couple of millenia ago a prior claim, which I don’t. If you do, that’s your opiion, but then you would also have to assert that the Welsh and Scots should throw all those dirty French and Roman descendants out of England and take it back as their own, there is a time limit to claim).
The British had no right to just start doling it out to the European Jews as they did in the (highly controversial, behind closed doors) Balfour declaration just cause some dipshit in the British government had Jewish sympathies/was being paid off/whatever his motivations were. It was stupid and it was wrong.
My analogy isn’t a false one, I wasn’t saying they put a flag up but what they did was analogous. By turning up in a foreign land in which they had no roots or family and establishing settlements to compete with existing locals they were acting in an imperialistic manner. It was just that their state came after the theft. But that makes no difference.
The sham of international recognition on the back of Holocaust sentiments was also another stupid mistake showing you what an irresponsible and flawed organisation the UN is, the imposition of the will of the many on to the few.
You are basically saying it’s fine that the Jews stole arabic land cause they didn’t have a government. You seem to forget that nation states are a modern European invention. The tribes in the area did know what land was theirs because they lived there. You also seem to forget that the sale of land to Jews was made illegal once the OE realised what the Jews were doing, it was just that the British overturned the decision.
You miss the point again and again, and not only that you seem to imply that it was their own fault for not setting up their own state. What you are basically saying is insulting to the Arabs. And you talk about after the partition! How can you partition something that you say didn’t exist?
There was a Palestine, even if there was no government. Then foreign invaders came along and “partioned” their own land in which they could evict arabs and settle with impunity.
And it is analogous to saying “You ain’t got a flag so we can do what the f*** we want”.
Peace doesn’t come about from a piece of paper; it never matters what’s written on a piece of paper. It’s about people living with people, nothing else. So long as the Palestinians feel oppressed they’ll do whatever’s within their power to show their discontent. This now takes the form of terrorism, it’s wrong, but it’s the only way the people feel they can be heard. The fall of Jerusalem in 70CE was a by-product of Jewish terrorism, as the Romans would see it. To some Jews the uprising was seen as a freedom fight, like some Palestinians consider their actions today. I wonder if the Jews had explosives in 70CE would they have been willing to die in such away for their people’s freedom? But this would prove nothing now, as all actions are judged in the eye of the beholder. To one a Terrorist the other a freedom fighter, I know, I’ve lived through the propaganda here in Ireland. You can’t draw a line between the two; they are both at once the same, it’s inescapable as they are the two faces of the same coin.
Land is not owned it’s occupied, I mean this about all land. You can lay claim to land, but unless you or your allies has the force to back up this claim you don’t “own†the land. Meaning all through history land has changed hands either through military combat or the coercion of indigenous people. Many thousands of years ago the Jews didn’t occupy Jerusalem, then after laying siege they won the land through combat, while in the bible it was believe this was done through divine help and it was promised to them. But they later lost this land, like Ben pointed out, because of a fail revolt against the Romans. So the land changed hands again. I think you get the picture. It just so happens that the Jews took the land back.
It should also be noted what the Jewish people have done in their time with power:
The point I’m trying to make is almost every People that at some point in their existence that had the power to commit acts of ethnic cleansing, did! It’s unspeakable cruelty, but the Jews that were killed in the holocaust weren’t the first of this type of crime and aren’t going to be the last, as resent history has shown. While in a more barbaric time the Jews, even in their own history admit to this with pride, because it’s seen as avenging their God. I’m not being anti-semitic with this comment: while it might only have been small cities or villages destroyed. When a people or tribe’s identity is defined by their village or city it could be argued that this is the annihilation of a whole race of people. I realise this could be found offensive but I believe it to be a fair comment on the facts as presented by the historic account in the bible.
Another point I think that has gotten lost in the past is how Sharon, just around this time went walkabouts all over the temple mount! Completely pissing off the Palestinians. If you ask me this single act of Sharon caused massive pressure on Yasser Arafat, as not only were the Palestinians not going to get what they wanted, but by Sharon’s actions it symbolised again how Israel was able to walk all over the them whenever they wished, as while he was there, none of the Palestinians where permitted up to pray. It was the ultimate in non-violent violence.
Just because you buy some land doesn’t mean you can create your own country. If this where the case I could get a big lump of money together go out and buy up a part of America and then rename it to Pax World, creating my own governmental system and then leasing houses to those who wanted to live under my rule. Who would of course have to pay me taxes. 
I haven’t studied much land law, but from my understanding the government always retains ownership to land and it’s only ever leased to individuals. Under the prevision that the individual who owns the lease will always be able to renew it when it expires. But of course this comes back to my first point, no one owns land it’s always just occupied.
If you look at Northern Ireland, where the answer to the problem is much simpler, as the British just blatantly stole the land from the Irish people, it has become more complex because of the occupation of the Unionist (British ex-pats). The logical answer to the problem is: The land once belonged to the now Republic so should do so again. But because of the Unionist occupying the land it can’t happen, even though this is what should happen. Also the presents of People make the whole problem more intricate, while the first group of people where just chased off the land, the attitude that two wrongs don’t make a right is used, so there must be compromise between the Unionist and the Republicans.
The same is inevitably going to happen with the West-bank settlements and any future Palestinian state. Also the idea of having two separate plots of land that are disjointed because of an Israeli border is also not workable. The reason why this is still a conflict, is because America has tied the Israeli hands so they can’t just go in a mix it up and tell all the Palestinian’s to go to hell. Likewise America is also the reason why other middle-eastern countries don’t take a more hands on approach to removing the state of Israel. Because of this its up to American mite to decide what it wants, make the change and then let the people get over it, as whatever happens will really piss some group off. There’s no other way, it’s only when one group is force into submission will it go away. I know diplomacy will become next to impossible then, but if you ask me it’s already that way. Yet as it stands for the Palestinians it’s like waiting to get the results from a medical test, you might have cancer, you might not, but either way you still have to sit and wait along time to find out.
in order to progress with the peace process both sides must attempt to foget the past. If israeli right wingers and haradi refer to biblical lands and the balfour declaration and the palestinians talk about deir yassin and the right of return then a solution will never be found. it was stated earlier that only after terrorism was a palestinian state every considered. this is not true. in the first four years of the first intifada (87-91) only 25 israelis died. the israeli first started talking to the PLO in 1993 under rabin. the hebron accords were only implemented after a significant decrease in terrorism in 1998. Again, Baraks offer to Yasser Arafat was made in 2000 BEFORE the current intifada. Since then, there have been continues human rights abuses by israeli under the guise of the war on terrorism. whilst i am against all sorts of curfews and house destructions by the israeli government, some things, such as the road blocks are necessary for stopping terrorists from coming into israel.
some people may argue that these measures only fuel terrorism, however, the aims of the palestinian terror organisations are NOT the creation of a palestinian state in the west bank and gaza, they are the total destruction of israel. i do agree however that they fuel public support for terrorism. i feel the step forward for the israeli-palestinian problem is the creation of an effective autonomous Palestinian Authority in the west bank and gaza, not unde Arafat. Arafat is one of the most corrupt leaders in the world who continues to support terrorism (the al-aqsa martyrs brigade is directly linked to the tanzim, the armed wing of Arafats Fatah movement) and doesnt give a shit about his own people. israel must also be responsible for economic measures in the terrotories as the billions of dllars given to arafat have not improved the palestinian situation one bit. also, the education system which openly teaches a hatred of israel must be reformed in order to create some form of co-existence between the two societies.
israel must disband the setlements in the west bank, however this is much more difficult than percieved. in Kiriyat Arba for example ( a settlement just out side of hebron) there are 10 thousand settlers. it is unrealistic to expect the israeli government to forcefully remove the some 200 000 settlers in the west bank and gaza strip, just as there are 1.2 millions Israeli- arabs living inside israeli, some of those settlers may have to live under security within a Palestinian state. whilst this can be seen as provocative it is the only real solution, either that or including some of the settlers in an israeli state as suggested in camp david in 2000.
ive started to ramble on but i think that the way forward is for both sides to openly embrass the road map and fight terrorism together as there aim is obviously to disrupt the peace process. however, although i am a left winger i have come to the realisation that as much as i want to give back the West Bank and Gaza this can only be done when a strong Palestinian Authority is created that has the control over the territories and starts giving the Palestinian people a reason to support hte peace process.
This is not a deep political theory, just a very simple statement. Do not forget that the Jews never annexed Palestine in the typical sence. It was done on the back of a majority world vote, and if you think that it is flawed that the Jews need a land of their own, it is for their own safety because there are always people in the world, like you matt, that are intrinsically anti-semetic.
while you may not think that is true - re-read your posts and you will notice that you do not concede anything, in relation to the conflict. as far as your writings show the stealing theiving zionists, who occupy the ENTIRE state of israel on the back of a shamed (namely the holoacaust) cause., are always in the wrong, and while zionists terrosists acts in the 40’s are attrocious crimes, the current acts of the Palestinans are not only excusable but appludiable, because the are retaliiation towards the Zionist Jewish oprresors.
While i agree that both sides of the argument, either pro-Israel or pro-palestinian have valid grounds, you have moved one step away from realism and now in my eyes you are an exact mirror image of the people you hate, namely: the extremist right wing religious jews settling in hebron.
i will never hide my biasness towards Israel and you should never hide yours towards the palestinians, but their is a difference between Pro-Palestinain, and Anti-Zionist.
And you are a anti-zionist, and anti-zionism is anti-semitism
Remmember there is one thing, that differs between an intellectual and a racist who spreads propganda, namely lies…
while it seems like an off the collar remark, it is a blatent lie, with no proof and it shows the pettiness of your anti-semetic propaganda
lol, I am not intrisically anti-semetic. I just think it’s wrong what has happened to the Palestinians. The latter does not necessitate the former in any sense of the notion, I have put many arguments forward to why I feel the palestinians have suffered a great injustice at the hand of imperialistic Europeans (who all HAPPENED to be Jews, if they’d be united by there common love of marshmellows, it wouldn’t have made a difference to my arguments), so don’t start bandying around accusations of racisim.
I’m actually going to say that again, just so you can understand. If, by chance, the reason they had stolen the land from the Palestinians had been because they had been promised it by the big marshmellow in the sky, and they had all been white English people, it wouldn’t have made one iota of difference to my arguments. Do u understand? It’s easy. I don’t care if you are a jew, a nigger or a fucking pale boy, if you’re feminist scum, a chauvenist pig, a slitty eyed yellow skin, a pasty face, you name it, they could all have been substituted for JEW and it wouldn’t have made a difference to my argument or my feeling about the subject.
Understand? So don’t start throwing around baseless insults. I’ve insulted Christianity, I’ve insulted Islam, and I won’t stop at any faith, I don’t believe we should tolerate ignorance. And my views is that the European Invaders of Palestine are ignorant little f*****s who are destabilising the entire world cause some stupid arse wrote down some bullshit a few millenia ago.
What you do also seem to forget is that the Zionist terrorists knew they were stealing someone else’s land and yet the palestinians are just trying to reclaim what is theirs. In easy simple words for you: there was no moral justification for the Zionist attacks, their motivation was greed for someone else’s land, there is a moral justification for the Palestinian one, reclaim their homeland. You have misinterpreted me in that I am not a (general) supporter of terrorist activities, however I tend to wonder when the opposition has an incredible technological advantage what else they could actuially do in response to the foreign invaders of the European Jews. What do you suggest? They form line and walk up, forming square if they see cavalry? Eh? Or just roll over and beg for the scraps off the European Imperialists table? I mean Jews, I mean European Imperialist, I mean Jew, I mean European Imperialist. Oh, it’s so hard to distinguish the two! THEY SEEM TO BE ONE IN THE SAME. I wonder if you’d be so supportive of Israel if they were made up of a bunch of random English people who suddenly decided they’d like a place of their own in the sun. I doubt it.
Anti-Zionism does not equal anti-semitism. Anti-zionism is being against a load of people from a culture that lives in Europe invading and stealing land off a bunch of defenceless arabs and then when they try and stop them rounding them up like animals into ramshackle cages to be tortured and killed at will. Anti-semitism is hating jews in itself. Jews are just people. The movement of Zionism is a movement of theft. There is a big difference so it is logically impossible for one to equal the other. I assume if you hate jews you by defintion hate zionism, but the reverse is NOT true. Check your logic out.
The Great Marshmellow in the sky is coming to get you.
And one final point, do you actually know the reasons behind the Balfour declaration? Cause now I got time on my hands I just found out and they’re even more rediculous than I imagined.
It was one of the last great mistakes of the British Empire, who’s consequeces can still be felt today. Be it a bomb in Saudi Arbia, a plane into the WTC, if the declaration had never been made these events probably would never have happened.
These are various reasons, found on the internet, explaining british motivation in granting the zionists the balfour decleration.
What are the reasons for the Balfour Declaration?
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The British government had a great desire to maintain an open channel through the Middle East to its extensive possessions in India and East Africa. A Jewish homeland, under British sponsorship, could maintain that freedom of access, which had been cut off by the Ottoman Turkish holdings in the region. Jewish control of Palestine, therefore, was in England’s best interest.
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The British government wanted to keep the Russians in the war and persuade the Americans to enter the war. A decision to favor the Zionist cause would encourage both Russian and American Jews to influence their governments to join with Britain and the Allies in the fight against the Germans and Turks. While this probably overestimated the political power of the Russian and American Jews, it is one of the reasons most often cited.
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The British government wanted to reward the brilliant chemist and Zionist leader, Chaim Weizmann, for his help in the war effort when he developed a process to synthesize acetone, an ingredient necessary for producing the explosives that were in extremely short supply. While Weizman certainly did help the British war effort, this tale, later told by Lloyd George, was largely invented.
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there was the moral support from the world at large that they hoped to enlist through the Jewish voices in the foreign lands.
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was the support of the Jewish soldier in the middle east. The British were in a bloody war. If allies could be found in Palestine to fight against their enemy, let the spoils go to the victory. Many Jewish Youth volunteered and enlisted in the Jewish Legion of the British Army.
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The British cabinet members were Christian and believed that the Bible dictated a return of the Jews to Palestine and the establishment of the prophetic restoration of the State of Israel.
This last reason is based on the strong religious beliefs of David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, Jan Christian Smuts, cabinet member and Author James Balfour, Foreign Secretary and others.
Please Matt, you have done it again, a simple, anti-zionist statement with no backing of information. Im sure there is a reason behind your theory that the granting of a Jewish Homeland, is responsiable for the bombing of the World Trade Centre. Please explain?