Palestine

[Stavros]

Actually, the Washington Post corrected their article:
Hamas has been pushing for a ten year truce under certain conditions that are mostly impossible without compromising Israel's security. What happens after ten years? Hamas has clearly stated that they wouldn't recognize Israel even if they went back to the 1967 lines. The conditions are in the following link with analysis:

The following quote is from the leader of Hamas stating their view on Israel if they went back to the 1967 lines:

One of the main goals of Hamas is to combine Israel with the West Bank and Gaza Strip forming an Islamic country. Hamas isn't a viable partner for peace.

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.

[broncofan]

When it comes to politics I lack intelligence or the ability to use big words. I fail in all discussions because I am out of my debt however THIS situation is I will say barbaric.

I have been following on the news this week…

There was an interview on BBC News where a Jewish woman/mother as interviewed. She mentioned that she was frightened because a bomb went off a few miles from her home, she went on to say that she gets to see some images via the news and the internet of what is going on the other side.

When asked did she feel sorrow or sadness for the mothers war torn burying their children who have been killed in a direct explosion on their house and do you know what she scared around the answer! she didn't say 'my heart bleeds with sorrow for that grieving mother!'
I was disgusted! There have been a number of interviews and accounts like this that have horrified me!
Now as I said previously I know nothing about political arguments and wars BUT what I do know is these acts of violence and cruelty are continuing by the day yet we stand back and do nothing! Why aren't we helping!?

And why is nobody saying what most people are thinking and that is that in this case the Jews are bang out of order!! or do I speak what I know nothing about?

Is it acceptable to blow up children, mothers, old people, the innocent!? has Hitler come again!?

Im just so appalled that this being allowed to continue!

x Bella

Big words aren't required, but consistency and thoughtfulness would be helpful. You are right to be appalled by the carnage, but the Jewish woman who was interviewed is only one person. If she does not care for the children of other people that does not mean other Jews are impervious to the feelings, well-being, or humanity of non-Jews. You cannot condemn a nation, much less a people by one person's (or even several people's) responses.

The second thing is that while there may be some Israelis and Jewish people who are callous when it comes to Palestinians, there are also many people in the Middle East who not only do not care if and when harm comes to Jewish people but call out for it. And when it comes to pass, though less frequent, will celebrate it and continue to carry on a campaign of demonization against Jewish people. The capabilities for carrying out such atrocities may be less, but the desire to carry them out is just as strong.

Finally, I have been very critical of Israel's conduct during the war even though there is a lot to be said for Hamas, but I think the comments about Hitler are out of order. This type of comment shouldn't even be dignified with a response but here goes: The final solution was an attempt to spare not a single Jewish person in all of occupied Europe. They were rounded up, sent to gas chambers and then incinerated. The ones who were not were nearly and often successfully starved to death. Others on the Eastern front in the Soviet Union were executed by the einsatzgruppen and buried in mass graves.

By contrast, the operation in Gaza is not a systematic attempt to wipe out an entire group based on ethnicity or religion. Thousands of rockets have been fired into Israel and the response has unfortunately been to bomb civilian areas from which the rockets are fired. This has led to an unconscionable number of civilian dead, but is in no way an attempt at extermination or the systematic murder of an entire population.

Finally, with all of the other conflicts in the world, including what seems like something much closer to systematic murder taking place under the command of ISIS, it strikes me as odd that the comparison to Hitler would be reserved for Israel. It also strikes me as strange that while ISIS is literally pulling people out of cars, questioning them about whether they are shi'ites or not, and executing them, there is no demand that the world NOT remain silent. Take a good look at the picture in the article below. This is a mass execution in Iraq....there can be no argument of intent or the identity of who is killed.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...n-isis-3947382

And no I am not saying that the fact that ISIS is executing people in mass graves makes Israel's actions less objectionable. However, it does make the selective outrage all the more puzzling.

[broncofan]

When asked did she feel sorrow or sadness for the mothers war torn burying their children who have been killed in a direct explosion on their house and do you know what she scared around the answer!

x Bella

I also want to note that this is a question that is almost designed to make the person answering it appear callous. You go to a zone of conflict and ask someone how they feel about the innocent loss of life on the other side and you are rarely going to get the proper response, which is "it is horrible. Nobody should have to bury their child. Any loss of innocent life is tragic. I deplore and condemn the killing of civilians."

I guarantee if you put the question to Palestinian individuals what they think of the Israeli kidnapping victims, you would be more likely to get a defensive response than a humanistic one. This is not proof that Palestinians dislike Israelis or Jewish people but rather that if you ask someone who is absorbed with their own position during a conflict about the loss of life on the other side, you will not get an objective and even-handed response.

[broncofan]

And just in case anyone thinks I am being sensitive about the genocide comparisons and Hitler commentary, I want to point one thing out. In a 35 page thread about Syria, a conflict where over 100,000 people have been killed, including some by a toxic gas that causes convulsions and painful death, the word genocide was used one time. The person who used the word genocide, used it to say a genocide was NOT taking place, and that we should not intervene.

In this thread, on the other hand, the first post posits that Israel is a genocidal nation. We have questions about the first recorded genocide, whether one predated the one described in the Old Testament perpetrated by the Jews, and now a comment about the possible resurrection of Hitler. Again, I think terrible atrocities are taking place in Gaza, but it is amazing how this always seems to come up.

[iluvtscock]

[Charly Spoons]

I just stumbled upon this...

This Land Is Mine on Vimeo

[broncofan]

Perhaps Israel says these things because they come up in conversation. Bombs are often stored in civilian areas and fired from civilian areas. Anti-semitism is frequently a problem, as I can link to dozens of outrageous examples of it since the fighting began, often done in the name of protesting Israel in countries thousands of miles from the conflict zone.

I have said other countries are worse but only when Israel is compared to Nazi Germany or accused of genocide. And yes, point seven on your list frequently comes to mind here. If you don't think it's relevant I can point you to the comments sections of the Guardian or the Daily Mail. And yes, obviously a Jewish person is going to think you have an axe to grind if you talk about this subject but say nothing when any other issue in Middle Eastern politics comes up.

If you're going to serve up propaganda like this, what do you think about gratuitous comparisons to Hitler and genocide? Are those alright for you?

[iluvtscock]

I'm sorry to say, but, our views differ so much on this issue there is probably no common ground.

Personaly, I don't blame any particular naion for the extermination of the palestinians, it's just human nature.

Anyway, back to what we both love.. ha

[fred41]

broncofan...many of your comments are spot on. The reality is that anti-Semitism is alive and thriving, but the words are couched differently. This is the only conclusion I can come to when people hold a country such as Israel to a much higher standard than almost any other country and their people in the region.
A country would be insane, not to use the weapons at their disposal, to defend themselves. It is easy to sit back,safely in our western homes, and criticize a country and it's people for defending themselves.
YES,we can be horrified by the deaths and human suffering and wish an end to this tragedy...but this is NOT an extermination.
I would be willing to bet my life savings, that many who criticize Israel for what they are doing now, would hope their own governments do the same if rockets were to start falling in their own neighborhoods...unless they had a ridiculous suicidal bent.

[buttslinger]

They have these courses in Kollidge called POLITICAL SCIENCE...(a.k.a. Polysci) and basically they teach you to bend the truth to suit your own needs. Everybody does it. I would love to kill those yapping little dogs next door, but that would make ME look like the bad guy.
Israel and and Palestine DESPISE each other. The Contempt is familiar, and close to 100% on both sides, I would guess. One side builds walls, the other side digs tunnels. And with Israel having Nuclear weapons, ugliness might be the good news, ending the entire Middle East Conflict might be the unbelievably terrifying bad news.