Palestine

[buttslinger]

Who authorized the latest shipment of arms to Israel from the USA if it was not President Obama?
I'm talkin outta my ass, Stavros, I have not read one book on the Middle East, the whole thing makes me want to vomit. Obama doesn't decide arms shipments to Israel, there are lots of contracts and deals left over from old administrations that have to die a natural death before they can be changed. Bush not only stole everything he could lay his hands on, he borrowed every cent he could, stole it, and left Obama to pay the bill.

What was it, Paul Newman and Sal Mineo started the State of Israel in 1946? I don't know. Clinton tells a story of having to physically maneuver the two guys to shake hands at some summit. For the cameras. It's all for show.
In fact, most of what goes on in the World has nothing to do with World Leaders. But the ILLUSION of control keeps things calm, in a way.
Not in the Middle East of course.

[Odelay]

Broncofan, as I stated before, I appreciate the thoughtfulness and intelligence you bring to any debate on this forum, so that's the reason I continue to engage.

But I think a lot of Jewish people think developing in the West Bank is stupid and has no upside.

Yes, but where are these people? They don't seem to vote in Israel in any significant numbers, and they don't seem to sucessfully run and win office.

I have no idea why anyone rational would support that policy.

The policy of either maintaining all existing settlements or increasing them seems to be supported by moderate, conservative and ultra-conservative Israeli parties. Together, these 3 factions represent a huge supermajority of the voting population. Now granted, we might not be able to characterize all of these voters as irrational as, 1) they might be voting the least of several evils, and 2) they probably aren't all one issue voters. However, it should be noted that this is a pretty damn big issue for Israelis. That's a lot of smaller issues that seem to collectively outweigh this one big irrational policy issue.

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!!!"

Fair enough. But I think an argument can be made that the racheting up of pro-Palestinian noise is met by a racheting up of noise by the friends of Israel. I believe friends of Israel too often take the bait instead of trying to argue the rational course. Man I've read some stupid pieces these last few weeks, and god help you if you are a Jew arguing for peace because you will be labeled a self loathing Jew.

There are quite a lot of people who don't believe the Holocaust took place, or that it was exaggerated

No argument here that these people exist, but you can't eliminate radical, paranoic, conspiracy oriented groups from a democratic, pro-free-speech society. The fringe will always exist where laws allow them to exist. It would be dangerous for Jews to completely ignore the fringe. But it's equally counterproductive to overreact and meet every wild accusation with a counter accusation of anti-semitism because by doing so, you give them more credit than they deserve.

Nationalism is a real thing and I believe it's driving a lot of what's going on right now in Gaza and greater Israel. We saw the same thing here in the US after 9/11, or even today at the US-Mexico border. Somehow the sane voices need to be heard to avoid catastrophe or stop it in its tracks. I'm losing hope not only for Israel, but also the US, that these sane voices will somehow prevail.

EDIT: I deleted the quotes around self-loathing Jew. It is not broncofan who is labeling his fellow Jews, but others who have prominent voices in national and international publications.

[yosi]

Hamas as a political organisation

Hamas is a TERROR organisation .


"The destruction of the state of Israel is not Hamas' final destination. Hamas' final destination is building an Islamic caliphate - an Islamic state on the rubble of every other civilization."

http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/barbar...gy-way-worship

Why They Fight: Hamas’ Too-Little-Known Fascist Charter

http://www.the-american-interest.com...scist-charter/

“Killing Jews is worship that brings us closer to Allah.”

http://blog.godreports.com/2014/08/h...nate-the-jews/

6,000 were killed in Syria since the Hamas/Israel war began , but who cares?

[Stavros]

Hamas is a TERROR organisation .
"The destruction of the state of Israel is not Hamas' final destination. Hamas' final destination is building an Islamic caliphate - an Islamic state on the rubble of every other civilization."

“Killing Jews is worship that brings us closer to Allah.”

Hamas is a political organization -that doesn't mean I agree with it, but it is the reality and it did win an election in 2006. Arafat's Fateh movement was dismissed as a 'terrorist' movement, yet became the principal organ through which the PLO negotiated a Peace Treaty with Israel, the same Israel that said it would never talk to terrorists. The ANC was 'terrorist' at one time, as was the Provisional IRA, not to mention, in Palestine under the British Mandate the Stern Gang and the Irgun, organisations which not only carried out terrorist attacks on British soldiers and officials and buildings in Palestine, but also planned to fly an aeroplane loaded with bombs into the Houses of Parliament in London in 1946.

Yes, the Charter of Hamas is a chilling document; but how can politics deal with such a grandiose utopian vision? My argument is that the leadership of Hamas cannot go on for years pursuing an empty vision, that the realities of politics will -as I believe they have in the past- induce them to be pragmatic and negotiate some means of living with Israel -after all, before 2006 many Gazan's worked in Israel, it didn't seem to be such a problem at the time.

Moreover, if you consider the constitution of the Likud, the party represented by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, you will find that it states (Article 2.1)

The Likud is a national-liberal party which advocates the ingathering of the exiles, the integrity of the Jewish homeland, human freedom and social justice, and it strives to achieve these goals:

a. Bringing together the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, ingathering its dispersed people, cultivating love of the country in the hearts of the people, and recognizing the shared destiny of all of the Jewish people.

b. Safeguarding the right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel as an eternal, inalienable right, working diligently to settle and develop all parts of the land of Israel, and extending national sovereignty to them.

But where is this 'Land of Israel'? For Netanyahu it is all of the land that was controlled by the British Mandate for Palestine, from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan; and for some 'Eretz Israel' also includes parts of present-day Jordan that were known in Biblical times as Gilead, Moab and Ammon; others would also include parts of present day Iraq.

You may say that this is just rhetoric, yet the reality is that Netanyahu himself at a speech in Bar-Ilan University in 1989 called for the expulsion of Arabs from the West Bank -he says he was only referring to militants as if militants by definition had no rights; and he may have 'mellowed' since 1989, but the whole position of Likud begs the question -what is to happen to the non-Jewish communities in this 'Land of Israel'?

So you see, we are dealing with people with extreme views on both sides.

If you can't bear to compare Netanyahu with Yitzhak Rabin, try Moshe Sharett, Prime Minister of Israel in the mid-1950s. In 1953, after an attack on two Jews in Yahud, Ariel Sharon led a commando raid on the Arab village of Qibya (in Jordanian controlled territory) which had nothing to do with the killings. At Qibya 45 houses were blown up and 69 killed, most of them women and children. Sharett was foreign minister of Israel at the time, and opposed to retaliatory action, as he put it (pages 82-82 in the link below):
It has never been proven that retaliatory action helps in curbing terroristic infiltration in the final balance.
When he was told of what happened at Qibya, he remarked
Indeed, it should be stressed that when I opposed the retaliatory action I did not imagine there would be such bloodshed. I was thinking of a retaliatory action of the earlier variety, which had become routine, and even to that I objected. If I had had any reason to fear such a slaughter, I would have raised hell...
http://www.palestine-studies.org/files/pdf/jps/4337.pdf

Netanyahu has rejected the 1993 Peace Treaty in favour of 'facts on the ground' where those facts do not include Palestinians -be they Muslim, Christian or Atheist. Hamas has rejected the 1993 Peace treaty in favour of their own 'facts on the ground' where those facts do not include Jews or Christians or Atheists. Both are pursing a Utopian dream.

Time for reality to bite both hands.

[Odelay]

Hamas is a political organization -that doesn't mean I agree with it, but it is the reality and it did win an election in 2006. Arafat's Fateh movement was dismissed as a 'terrorist' movement, yet became the principal organ through which the PLO negotiated a Peace Treaty with Israel, the same Israel that said it would never talk to terrorists. The ANC was 'terrorist' at one time, as was the Provisional IRA, not to mention, in Palestine under the British Mandate the Stern Gang and the Irgun, organisations which not only carried out terrorist attacks on British soldiers and officials and buildings in Palestine, but also planned to fly an aeroplane loaded with bombs into the Houses of Parliament in London in 1946.

Yeah, but Guy Fawkes and his gang never made it to political party status.

[Stavros]

Yeah, but Guy Fawkes and his gang never made it to political party status.

This article seeks to develop our understanding of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot by asking a number of elementary questions. Were the plotters terrorists in any meaningful sense? Were they religious fanatics, as the Jacobean state understandably chose to portray them after the event? Was their plan built on a misguided fantasy of widespread support for a Catholic insurrection, or does the Plot perhaps have a practical coherence that lies obscured by the drama of the projected strike against Westminster? How does evidence for coherent planning square with the strong desire for revenge, running through so much of the surviving testimony? Through answers to these questions, we begin to see the Gunpowder plotters as men engaged in a calculated and demonstrably pragmatic attempt to engineer a change in regime. Their planning was robust, and to the point, while the emotional power of revenge was channelled creatively by the ringleaders. The article concludes that the odds against success were long, but not impossible.

-Mark Nicholls, Strategy and Motivation in the Gunpowder Plot.
The Historical Journal, Volume 50 / Issue 04 / December 2007, pp 787-807.

[yosi]

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.

I agree with you , poeple should talk instead of using guns.

BUT

In reality , if Hamas after being elected in 2006 in democratic (???) elections , would have spend the billions of $ on the welfare of the poeple of Gaza instead of spending them on missiles , tunnels etc. the condition of the Gaza poeple would be much better , 40,000 workers for the Hamas government didn't get their salaries for few months because the money went for guns and building underground tunnels.........

their prime minister is sitting in 5 stars hotel in Doha Qatar.........

Israel is not the true tragedy of the poeple of Gaza , Hamas is.

[Stavros]

I am not a supporter of Hamas, so I can't defend the way in which it (mis)-managed Gaza, but corruption is probably the most common feature of government across the world, so it is sometimes necessary to remind ourselves that for all our criticisms of central and local government in the USA and the UK, even in Europe people don't get their salaries paid on time -a chronic problem in Greece and Italy, for example.

The odd thing about Palestinians, and this is something I once talked about with some Arab friends, is that Palestinians have excelled in medicine, engineering, farming and the arts, but when it comes to politics, they seem unable to find a politician to represent them who isn't a crook. If you think Hamas is bent, do some research on Yasser Arafat (eg the biography by Said Aburish) and ask where did all that money go? There used to be, probably still is, a queue every morning outside the PLO office in Shmeisani (in Amman) where 'refugees' would beg for help to pay this bill and that and be sent away with a wad of cash, but it was piffle compared to what Arafat salted away. I think in the 1970s to 1980s the PLO was getting something between $25-30 million a year from their brother Arabs.

Corruption is Israel is as legendary, wikipedia even has a page on it, and Netanyahu himself just managed to avoid being prosecuted for bribery in 1997.
List of Israeli public officials convicted of crimes or misdemeanors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's the Middle East, Yosi, where day is night and night is day, where you can't import a western car without paying a wastah to get you a form that has to be signed by 10 officials before they agree to something that isn't going to happen for three months anyway. Where you can visit Israel and never have to change dollars to shekels because they love the green, where homosexuality is forbidden and shameful and parks after dark a fury of gay sex, be it in Israel, Amman, Beirut or, once, Damascus, a city so famous for its brothels young men used to drive up from Riyadh for the weekend.

But you have not referred to the 'siege' or Israel's 'economic control measures' which have denied Gazans the opportunity to work in Israel or the West Bank, which they did before 2006; measures which have meant that exports of fruit and vegetables if they take place have to conform to the absurd standards Israel imposes precisely so that it can deny most of the produce entry. It is the virtual imprisonment of Gaza by Israel that is a fundamental cause of the conflict, even as Hamas rockets sparked the latest, futile military retaliation.

Had Tony Blair been an effective envoy, he would after seven years -I will repeat that, seven years- have come up with solutions to rival the 'solutions' that were agreed in Northern Ireland. Should Gaza be de-militarized? Yes. Should the West Bank be de-militarised? Yes. Should Gazans be free to travel to the West Bank? Yes.

Confidence building measures are required on both sides, because the anger and the bitterness will not lead immediately to that first step back onto the road to peace that must happen if these cycles of death and destruction are to end. All we need now, is confidence!

[buttslinger]

Back in High School I talked to a girl who had visited Israel, the first thing she did when she got there was buy a big ball of hash. She said she never even touched it, because with bombs exploding unexpectedly down the street, there is a heightened consciousness that goes along with walking on pins and needles at all time. High on Life. I have been in street demonstrations where the crowd gets amped up, then when the cops start busting heads and pushing the crowd back, your fight or flight responses kick in, I was almost crushed to death pinned against a car with my bicycle, and I admit I really panic-ed. It really sets off your emotional glands.

Rational thinking says killing each other is never a smart idea, but once blood is spilled, things change. When they come up with a pill that cures HATRED, we can concentrate on the thousands of children that die from starvation in Africa.

[Odelay]

This article seeks to develop our understanding of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot by asking a number of elementary questions.

About 15 yrs ago, or so, I read a full book length account of the Gunpowder plot. I agree that this gang was committed to some serious mayhem and they weren't far from pulling it off. It was a pretty modern action for its time, and looks remarkably similar to later actions by the John Wilkes Booth gang, the IRA, or even the Boers in South Africa - as guerilla actions against an established and powerful state.

Were the plotters terrorists in any meaningful sense? Were they religious fanatics, as the Jacobean state understandably chose to portray them after the event? Was their plan built on a misguided fantasy of widespread support for a Catholic insurrection, or does the Plot perhaps have a practical coherence that lies obscured by the drama of the projected strike against Westminster?

Probably all of the above.