Exploding Grandma's

[dragonfly]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Dec 4 2006, 10:38 AM) [snapback]357460[/snapback]</div>

Interesting in how you would not obey a ruling from the UN in this instance but in other instances you would like global warming.
[/b]

This needs to stop. I never said anything about not obeying a ruling from the UN. Why do you insist on putting words in my mouth?

[daniel]

First off, I am not a candidate for president. I'd be assasinated within 5 minutes of being elected. But I thank you for your expressions of support.

Now, on to the Israel-Palestine issue.

1. Sharing the land does not mean giving a small amount of undesirable land to the other side. Sharing the land means one state shared by both peoples. Nobody seems to like the one-state solution, but it's the only way we'll ever see peace there.

2. In this conflict, far more Palestinians than Israelis have been killed. Mostly civilians on both sides. I think the ratio is something like ten to one, but I am not sure of the figure.

3. In the tit-for-tat violence it is no longer possible to distinguish provocation from retialiation. But it was the Stern gang that initiated the use of terrorist bombings in the modern struggle for control of what is now Israel. Jews and Palestinians were living together in the region. The Stern gang began murdering Palestinians to drive them out.

Under the Ottoman Empire, Moslems, Jews, and Christians lived side-by-side in that region, in a relative state of law and order. It was only after the West defeated the Ottomans, drew artificial national boundries, and installed puppet monarchs that tensions arose. Then, after the Germans murdered six million Jews along with millions of Romani and other folks they classified as "undesirable" the world decided the Jews should have a land of our own, but rather than taking land from the offending country, they took it from a conveniently weak people, the Palestinians. Why should the Palestinians pay for the crimes of the Germans??? Apparently because the Bible says that a few thousand years ago god gave that land to the Jews. And why didn't the Romani people get a country? The Germans mudered millions of them, too.

The Palestinians have made no concessions for peace, but Israel has made no good-faith concessions either. Giving back some of the land it stole is hardly a concession, and even those land give-backs have never been whole-hearted, as Israel continues to exercise control, and continued incursions.

What opened my eyes happened something like 35 years ago, give or take. I was in my early 20's. I bought the line that the Jews were a besieged race, and that the Palestinians wanted to exterminate us. Then there was an incident: Some Palestinian thugs snuck into Israel and bombed a kibbutz, killing 3 or 4 innocent Israelis. In retaliation, Israel bombed a Palestinian school, killing some 30 or 40 palestinian schoolchildren. They claimed it was an accident. But the Israeli air force is the best in the world. Once there was a fluke happening: a dogfight between U.S. and Israeli fighter planes, and the Israelis won. Israeli intelligence (the Mossad) is so much more competent than the CIA it's pathetic. It was plain to me that Israel knew what it was doing: this was vengeance pure and simple. After that I began to pay attention. Israeli retribution for Palestinian attacks were entirely out of proportion, and often the victims were all civilians. Typically ten to one. I was forced, against all my prejudices in favor of my own people, to admit that Israel was not a victim in this: it was and is equally responsible.

To those Jews who support Israel and who believe in god (which of course I do not) I ask you:

Did god give us this land so that we could keep it all for ourselves and rain fire down upon the heads of those we took it from? Or did god give us this land to see if we could act like true Jews, and share it with our cousins, the Palestinians? Forgiveness and generosity are as much a part of the Jewish religion as of the Christian religion (and as seldom practiced). Whether by god or by chance, we have been given the chance to show our character, and we have failed that test. The palestinians are no better than we are, but we hold all the power, so we have the obligation to share. And that does not mean giving a bit of stolen land back. It means a grand act of forgiveness and contrition, and admitting our Palestinian cousins back into the land we once shared with them. The Jews and the Palestinians are the best-educated peoples in the region, and united we would be a truely great and powerful nation.

But as long as vengeance is more important than life, on both sides, it cannot happen.

We have a choice, and we cannot have both: We can exact vengeance for our grandparents, or we can create peace for our grandchildren. That fact that both sides clearly prefer the former is a great shame to us both.

[Chuck.]

If there were a habitable planet we could easily go to, I'd be tempted to go there until those fighting kill each other off....

[eagle33199]

Dragonfly,
I think there are very, very few reasons a body (like the UN) should act to divide up or award ownership of a country. One of the ones that comes to mind is Nazi Germany - when a country conquers half the world, its understandable that the victors that ultimately defeat them have some say in what happens and in dividing up some of the territory.


First, a brief history for those who don't know it:

The issue with Palestine, the Gaza strip, etc. is a rather long and convoluted history. In the early 1900's (1917, i believe) great Britain took over the whole area, including Israel, Jordan, and a bit more. At various times, they promised to give all the land back to local control, ended with the Palestine Mandate in 1922 by the League of Nations.

during the 1920's, many Jews were immigrating, mostly from Europe, into the Palestine area. The Palestinians (then Arabs) didn't have a problem with this at first, but later grew to oppose the immigration.

Fast forward to WWII. The area was split in who too support. Many supported Britain, while others supported the Axis, seeing them as a way to oust British control. During the war, Britain maintained an immigration ban on Jews fleeing persecution from the death camps. This ban continued after the war, despite pressure from the US and others to allow the displaced Jews to immigrate. It was at this point where Britain saw the situation spiraling out of control and announced their desire to terminate the mandate and get out.

Now, with control of the country voluntarily withdrawing, it would basically leave a power gap in an unstable part of the world, where there was much religious significance for many. Thats when the newly created UN (successor to the League of Nations) decided what to do, leading to the situation we have here today.


The answer to your question is very difficult. The immigration allowed by the British was fine - We have immigration here in the US and no one cries foul about them "taking over" the land (well, no one but the original inhabitants, but that situation is pretty much taken care of now). So i think the question really comes down to whether or not the way the UN split up the area was correct. Yes, there were conflicting interests in the area, making a single government tricky - would one party (Palestinian or Jewish) want to be ruled by the other? Also, by that point most of the immigrants had been there for 20 years or more - who's to say it wasn't as much their home as the Palestinians?

So i guess i'm asking the same question you are, but from the other direction... the Jews immigrated there legally, when the whole area was controlled by the British and then later were granted status as an independent nation by a different governing body. They've been there for 80 years now. why shouldn't they have an area to call their own? And lastly, why wouldn't a joint controlled democratic government for the area have worked? Two party lines, Arab and Jewish, duking it out in the court of public opinion much like the Democrats and Republicans do here.

[dbermanmd]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Dragonfly @ Dec 4 2006, 01:45 PM) [snapback]357471[/snapback]</div>

This needs to stop. I never said anything about not obeying a ruling from the UN. Why do you insist on putting words in my mouth?
[/b]

"What, fundamentally, gave the Jews the right to take over the Palistinians' land over the past century? I know, it was a couple of declarations by the English and the UN, but I'm asking, from the point of view of a Palistinian, why should the Palistinians be content to give up their land, other than that they were forced to? IOW, why would you expect any other reaction from them than what they are doing?"

You by your own words seem to minimize the UN's authority - and the fact that you brought it up in the first place is prima facia evidence that you minimized the UN's actions. So it is you who present the evidence.

And you ignored my other questions - interesting....

[quote]
First off, I am not a candidate for president. I'd be assasinated within 5 minutes of being elected. But I thank you for your expressions of support.

Now, on to the Israel-Palestine issue.

1. Sharing the land does not mean giving a small amount of undesirable land to the other side. Sharing the land means one state shared by both peoples. Nobody seems to like the one-state solution, but it's the only way we'll ever see peace there.

2. In this conflict, far more Palestinians than Israelis have been killed. Mostly civilians on both sides. I think the ratio is something like ten to one, but I am not sure of the figure.

3. In the tit-for-tat violence it is no longer possible to distinguish provocation from retialiation. But it was the Stern gang that initiated the use of terrorist bombings in the modern struggle for control of what is now Israel. Jews and Palestinians were living together in the region. The Stern gang began murdering Palestinians to drive them out.

1. wrong - there would be no Israel - unless of course that is your goal.
2. of what import is that?
3. Why do you not travel further back in history? Interesting.

I am glad you are not running for anything.

[Mystery Squid]

The core issue goes well beyone that, it's a religious issue...

issue...

I say attempt the fix at the religious core....

[eagle33199]

Doberman, you're an idiot whose grasp of the English language is limited to repeating whatever stupid party line you listen to. it's called reading for comprehension, try it sometime.

He was acknowledging that the UN and Britain were responsible for the situation, for giving the land to the Jews. There was nothing in it about minimizing their actions. He was merely asking why they had the right to do that. try answering the question, not picking away at something that only exists in your mind.

[dragonfly]

Thanks Daniel and Eagle. It leaves a lot to think about.

db, I didn't answer your questions because you didn't answer mine.

[Stev0]

Basically, the problem is this:

Palestinians: He hit me!
Israel: Well, he hit me first!
Palestinians: No, HE hit ME first!
Israel: Oh, yeah? Well, that's because HE hit ME!

What they both need is for someone to step in and give them both a time-out, and possibly take away their Playstation privileges for a week.

[IsrAmeriPrius]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Dec 4 2006, 11:26 AM) [snapback]357494[/snapback]</div>

The Stern gang began murdering Palestinians to drive them out.[/b]

Please get your history in perspective.

The first massacre of civilians in the Arab-Jewish conflict took place in Hebron in 1929, when Arab rioters on orders of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem slaughtered 67 Jews including a dozen women and three children under the age of three.

The survivors of the mass murder were forced to flee the community, and their property was occupied by Arabs until after the Six Day War of 1967.

Wikipedia® - 1929 Hebron massacre

The same year, in the Safed massacre, 18 Jews were killed and 80 wounded. The main Jewish street was looted and burned. 17 Jews were killed in August of that year in the Jerusalem area.

(some consider the 1921 Jaffa riots where 45 Jews were murdered by Arab mobs to have been the first instance of unprovoked murder of civilians)

In the 1938 Tiberias massacre, Arab extremists murdered 20 Jews. The British mandate reported that: "It was systematically organized and savagely executed. Of the 19 Jews killed, including women and children, all save four were stabbed to death.

Wikipedia® - 1938 Tiberias massacre

I am sure that I have left out a few incidents from the pre statehood days.

In the years between the partition of Palestine by the United Nations into an Arab and a Jewish state and the 1967 war, there were at least fifty Palestinian-Arab terror attacks on Israeli civilians.

Wikipedia® - List of terrorist attacks against Israel before 1967

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Dec 4 2006, 11:41 AM) [snapback]357512[/snapback]</div>

They've been there for 80 years now.[/b]

My family has been there for over 200 years and they paid for the land they bought from willing Arab sellers.