Palestine

[fred41]

Everybody does it. I would love to kill those yapping little dogs next door, but that would make ME look like the bad guy.

lol...I can sympathize...one of my neighbors has one of those now. People don't realize, when they get them, that lapdogs are needy - you have to be there for them. You can't leave them alone all the time. That's when they bark.

[TSBootyLondon]

I was not condemning any nation. I am merely stating that as a westerner I have no comprehension of this behaviour on either side of the fence.

My heart is broken to see News bulletins of children with arms and legs blown off, faces cut to shreds from shrapnel.
Screaming mothers, wives, husbands, sons and daughters lining the streets and hospital hallways with nowhere else to turn or run!

I watch in utter disgust and dismay that this is going on and we are all helpless in the defines of either side!

Its barbaric regardless of why it is happening

As I stated previously I know nothing of politics, all that I know is in my opinion its genocide!

I generally hand on heart want to open my front door and offer shelter to every single one of those affected!

Its barbaric, we can scoot around it but that is the bottom line.

What ever happened to settling scores with a game of conquers hey!

Serious note, may peace find its way and offer light to all concerned

[notdrunk]

Quotes and counter-quotes reinforce ideological positions, Hamas has not always stuck to its stated goals, but neither has Israel. Hamas was prepared to negotiate some years ago, I just don't have the reference handy, but as to sincerity, there is a lack of it on both sides. In the current climate neither side is willing to change.

And yet, in reality, politics is about compromise, of the kind that both Israel and the PLO accepted in 1993. There is no reason to suppose Hamas would not be amenable to compromise if it was presented with alternative political arrangements to the fixed positions that it and Israel is currently obsessed with. Israel's current leadership has locked itself into the same one-dimensional view that Hamas takes, both sides believing that any compromise is in effect a step towards disintegration and therefore a threat to their very existence. If there was a more vocal and coherent political alternative to the military options adopted by both Israel and Hamas, we might be moving towards a practical arrangement that suits both sides, but it does require change.

Similarly, there has been no serious alternative proposed by the Special Envoy of the Quartet. Tony Blair should have admitted years ago either that he could not proceed because neither side wanted to talk; or that he had no idea how to end the siege of Gaza, and resign to enable someone else with new ideas to come forward.

Israel's occupation of the West Bank since 1967 has been a disaster, it is that simple; it has undermined the humanitarian concept of Israel that its Zionist founders believed in, and has distorted the debate on Israel so that debate is filtered through 1967 and the illegal occupation rather than 1948 even though the majority of Israelis don't live on the West Bank and have little to do with it. But it has also distorted Palestinian political economic and social development, while the failure of politically moderate force in both Israel and Palestine to take 1993 forward has created extreme fringes -fanatical settlers in the West Bank, political Islamists in Gaza- who believe that violence has been the primary force that has shaped politics in that region -precisely that violence that the 1993 Peace Treaty sought to end. Neither Hamas nor Israel's current leadership believe in that Treaty, even though there is now no alternative but to revive that process. And until that happens, the killing will go on.

I will make my opinion short and sweet: Compromise how? The compromise is the ten year truce laid out by Hamas. Additionally, Hamas doesn't support the Oslo Accords. You can't truly compromise with Islamists. The PLO actually made compromises. Hamas has only made demands for a "truce". Hamas has repeatedly stated their end goal and the formation of Hamas was for that end goal: The creation of an Islamic state that encompasses the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Israel. Hamas wouldn't exist if they didn't hold that point of view. You can't compromise with nutty people. You have to marginalize those people until they don't exist or they lose influence. Or, make them turn their backs from more their nutty views (e.g., what the PLO did). I am being a broken record but it must be repeated. I would like to see the so-called negotiations offered by Hamas that you have mentioned too.

Or, we can just blame the British for making this mess and call it a day...

[Bark]

I been pondering long on this, its a two way unyielding street. Hamus isn't organized so they cant really be called the true army of the Gaza strip because they're work outside the government yet the government doesn't do anything about or against Hamus and they're stupid brainless angry actions. Basically this does fall under Terrorism because the government isn't in control in Palestine.

Israel is a government and they do address terror with reaction and if allowed takes a few yards more action to completely disable they're enemy. They are a dog sleeping in a nest of serpents that constant snap and bite at it, so they retaliate like a dog in pain and will bite and kill as meany biting serpents as he can before he tires out. Sure they have all the advantages but its because they worked for it, they never asked for handout like other terrorists do, they saved and worked and even developed they're own defense.

Stop saying its an unfair, uneven battle. They're enemy hides among the innocent, stash they're weapons among children and put everyone in danger. But the Palestinians are just as bad too. They will condemn Israel for defending themselves yet enjoy seeing the simpleton idiots that is Hamus antagonize danger and retaliation upon themselves letting these assholes speak in they're behalf with unreasonable demands of all out slaughter of Israel.

Palestine needs to push Hamus out or control them, They need a government. Someone held completely accountable for they're actions and have complete control of they're defense, not random imbeciles launching rockets at anyone sneeze. Keep going as they are something will give and who pays for it, the innocent children of both Palestine and of Israel.

[Stavros]

I will make my opinion short and sweet: Compromise how? The compromise is the ten year truce laid out by Hamas. Additionally, Hamas doesn't support the Oslo Accords. You can't truly compromise with Islamists. The PLO actually made compromises. Hamas has only made demands for a "truce". Hamas has repeatedly stated their end goal and the formation of Hamas was for that end goal: The creation of an Islamic state that encompasses the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Israel. Hamas wouldn't exist if they didn't hold that point of view. You can't compromise with nutty people. You have to marginalize those people until they don't exist or they lose influence. Or, make them turn their backs from more their nutty views (e.g., what the PLO did). I am being a broken record but it must be repeated. I would like to see the so-called negotiations offered by Hamas that you have mentioned too.

Or, we can just blame the British for making this mess and call it a day...

I understand your hostility to Hamas, but I would ask you to consider the view that it is the weakness of their current position that has been a prime motivation in the rocket launches that began this latest military non-solution. It was this weakness which led them in April this year to mend their quarrel with Fateh and lead to the formation of a 'Unity Government'. Hamas in effect 'went solo' in 2007 after their 2006 election victory and an inability to work with Fateh, but as I say, since then Hamas has lost its main backers. Moreover, Hamas would have known that Mahmoud Abbas supports the 1993 Peace Treaty and wants to 'move it forward' so you have the apparent dilemma of a Unity Government containing an important faction that claims it doesn't believe in the peace process. My spin on this, which you are free to dismiss, is that Hamas would in fact be prepared to be part of a negotiating team. If that team then goes too far, Hamas can then withdraw and accuse Fateh of selling out the Palestinians, but I don't know that this is a trick. At some point, Hamas leaders must be asking themselves how much longer they can carry on without any significant lifting of the siege by Israel, it is the key issue that the population wants dealt with, and as I said in an earlier post, nobody is tackling this issue, and it is the underlying cause of the conflict with Gaza.

If you then look at Israel's reaction to the Unity Government, Netanyahu denounced the Unity Government, prevented three of the designated Ministers from Hamas from travelling to Ramallah to be sworn in, and announced the approval of 3,320 new settler homes on the West Bank. Moreover, he also claimed that if Hamas in Gaza attacked Israel this would justify an Israeli attack on Fateh in the West Bank, which has yet to happen. Compromise is not a word in Netanyahu's lexicon, or so we are led to believe. He has called on Abbas to de-militarise Gaza, which on paper is a reasonable demand, but it would be just as reasonable for Abbas to demand the de-militarisation of the West Bank where Settlers walk around with guns on their hips and regularly shoot at Arabs.

As I have said before, as long as the Netanyahu-led government is opposed to the 1993 Peace Process, and as long as it lays siege to Gaza, there can be no real advance. Abbas is clearly prepared to open meaningful talks on the Peace Process, Hamas will tag along reluctantly, but this now is the only option left because the military option is literally dead. The most apparently inflexible groups have shown they will compromise when the situation demands it. The Taliban offered open talks with the government of Hamid Karzai and the USA in 2012, talks that were said to have the blessing of Mullah Omar.

So I think it is wrong to dismiss a call for compromise and negotiations, even when it seems so futile, because that only cements the positions of those who don't want to talk, and think guns can do their talking instead.

[Odelay]

The reality is that anti-Semitism is alive and thriving

Yes, but so is racism associated with skin color. So is misogyny based on gender. So is homophobia based on sexual orientation. So are many other forms of discrimination.

You ask any Armenian of their culture's history of being oppressed by Greeks and they'll give you an earful. But how much of the world knows about it? Probably less than 5%.

Compare that to how much of the world knows about anti-Semitism.

And broncofan, no, none of the Israeli military actions of the last 65 years equate to genocide. But you have to admit that's a pretty low bar to clear in avoiding evil.

What boggles my mind is how Jews can have such a huge legacy in intellectualism and downright genius, and then turn around and not collectively understand the devastatingly stupid idea of announcing yet thousands of new settlement homes in the West Bank. I simply don't understand how Jews around the World, including in Israel, don't condemn these policies and actions. Human mistakes were made, post-1967, allowing mass settlement of the West Bank. But we're 47 years past that and Israel is still doing the same thing. It can no longer be characterized as a mistake. It's a willful, antagonistic act.

I'm your average ex-Catholic atheist white American, but I have traveled quite a bit and have Muslim friends from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Palestine. These are professional, family oriented people, not radicals. The one view I hear from all of them is that Israel is out of control which continues to fuel regional sentiment against Israel and the US.

I think Stavros is correct. Somehow Israel has to accept some group of representative Palestinians to the negotiating table, in addition to ending stupid, antagonistic policies. Otherwise it's stalemate or worse, now and forever.

[buttslinger]

In the sense that seeing is believing, then I understand completely the hatred between Israel and Hamas, and Syria, and Iran, Iraq, etc,
In the sense of being able to explain it, I have no clue. As an American, we killed Indians, Redcoats, each other in the civil war, in WWII we incinerated Tokyo in one night. Attacked Iraq for no reason other than oil. The history books are full of conflicts.
I'm glad Homeboy Obama is not getting sucked into this. Send Kerry over there, go through the motions. American Presidents have looked stupid trying to attain peace in the middle east since 1967. A piece of paper means nothing, we've got Mexican drug runners tunneling into our country, and those murdering bastards are as bad as Hamas. If we want a problem with no solution, let's concentrate on our border with Mexico.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=buttslinger;1516653]

Attacked Iraq for no reason other than oil.
--Regime change in 2003 was intended to launch Iraq into the world of democracy, a utopian vision that has, last time I looked, not turned out as George Bush and Tony Blair expected it to.

I'm glad Homeboy Obama is not getting sucked into this. Send Kerry over there, go through the motions.
--Who authorised the latest shipment of arms to Israel from the USA if it was not President Obama?

American Presidents have looked stupid trying to attain peace in the middle east since 1967.
--President Carter, and the Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979?
--President Clinton, and the Peace Treaty between Israel and the PLO in 1993?

[broncofan]

What boggles my mind is how Jews can have such a huge legacy in intellectualism and downright genius, and then turn around and not collectively understand the devastatingly stupid idea of announcing yet thousands of new settlement homes in the West Bank. I simply don't understand how Jews around the World, including in Israel, don't condemn these policies and actions. Human mistakes were made, post-1967, allowing mass settlement of the West Bank. But we're 47 years past that and Israel is still doing the same thing. It can no longer be characterized as a mistake. It's a willful, antagonistic act.
.

I mildly disagree with other parts of the post but don't want to hijack the thread too far. But I think a lot of Jewish people think developing in the West Bank is stupid and has no upside. I have no idea why anyone rational would support that policy. I also think the siege has been ineffective, has crippled the Palestinian economy and anyone with common sense would realize that imposed poverty promotes radicalism.

I suppose I always end up torn. I think Israel's policies have been stupid, but then I look around them and see other countries behaving worse and being condemned less. And I think the rhetoric and vitriol from many in the Middle East towards Israel is selective and based on tribalism.

So, given that I established in the first paragraph I am not devastatingly stupid I would like to prove it further. The guy who posted the newspaper article said he thinks he can find no common ground with me. That's amazing:

I support a two state solution
I think firing rockets at civilians is a war crime
I think dropping bombs in civilian areas knowing you will kill non-combatants is also.

So is he saying he thinks he can find no common ground with me because he doesn't agree with any of these things or because I don't like Hitler references?

What I find is that supporters of the Palestinians feel they need to ratchet up the noise level to prove they are not soft on Israel or they have not been pushed around by the Jews. I can see eye to eye on every issue with them but when I say you know you are falsely accusing Israel of genocide, they will scream "ZIONIST!!". Or you know, perhaps the swastika next to the star of David is too much. "Fucking Zio-NAZI!!!"

And when Israel is accused of genocide, the relevant bar is whether they have committed it. That's how honest discourse works. You don't say, "well I think they're in the wrong, so any condemnation is acceptable, whether descriptively accurate or not".

[broncofan]

Compare that to how much of the world knows about anti-Semitism.

It depends what you mean by "know". They have heard of it and heard about the Holocaust (perhaps feeling certain they have been inundated with talk of it and can hear no more). There are quite a lot of people who don't believe the Holocaust took place, or that it was exaggerated, was a ploy to extract money or who simply respond to comments about anti-semitism with a collective eye roll.

I do know about the Armenian genocide, and used to subscribe to the Armenian weekly and was interested in reading about the Armenian people's quest to get recognition for the previously ignored atrocities committed by the Turks.

What is disappointing is that people routinely underestimate the amount of anti-semitism there is. They will insist that it is less pervasive than other types of prejudice but then when confronted with hate crime numbers will then feel certain Jewish people over-report (ask them what compels them to feel this way). I think by know most people mean hear about it and feel generally nauseated by having to. Just my view on it.