Exploding Grandma's

The Palestinians blow themselves up in order to kill Israelis. The Israelis drop bombs from the safety of airplanes, killing grandmothers and other innocent people along with the "bad guys." Are the Palestinians worse, because a grandmother is willing to die to exact revenge on those she hates? Or are the Israelis worse because they kill from a distance, at virtually no risk whatsoever to their bombers?

If there is a difference, it is merely that the Palestinisn fighters are more willing to die than the Israeli fighters. I say, a curse on both their houses! Note also that the state of Israel was born in the terrorist bombing campaign of the Stern gang who, after WW II, in reaction to the holocaust perpetrated by the Germans, decided to begin murdering Palestinisns to terrorize them off their land.

There will be no peace in the Middle East until both sides are willing to share the land: One secular state for Palestinisns and Jews alike. Right now there is too much hate on both sides, and plenty of blame for both.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Dec 4 2006, 01:06 PM) [snapback]357377[/snapback]</div>

I would like to re-state:

Daniel for President.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Dec 4 2006, 11:21 AM) [snapback]357385[/snapback]</div>

I 2nd that!

 

Please, define a legitimate target. Is it one that a nation deems to have strategic importance? If so, i'd say any target a group decides to have is legitimate - someone clearly thought it had a strategic importance, even if that importance only goes so far as to inspire fear in your enemies populace. Daniels comments are perfectly valid - which is worse, being willing to die for a cause, or sitting back and safely pushing buttons that results in your enemies deaths? Which is more honorable, flying a plane against an enemy that has no anti-aircraft capabilities, bombing the sh*t out of them, or storming that same enemy by ground? One method, while more effective, definitely comes off as more cowardly, as there is no risk to you.

You apparently seem to strongly believe that democratic nations cannot rule by fear - and yet our good president has done a lot of ruling by fear during his term. We're in Iraq because he and his spinsters were able to use the fear of another terrorist attack for their political reasons. We have terror watch lists and invasions of privacy because of the fear the administration has been able to inspire. Don't just assume that a democratic nation is always in the right.

You say one honors life while the other doesn't. This is a clearly false statement. They both bomb each other, taking lives. neither side can say it hasn't taken life in the struggle. The fact that one side appears to honor the lives of it's own citizens more is really what you were getting at. Is not all life equal? Or should we care more about the lives of the side we support than those of the side we don't? (i'm thinking here about some of the comments you've made in regards to Iraq as well.)

You're counter argument to Daniel's statement about sharing the land is pretty much non-sense. He stated that in order for their to be peace, both sides would have to be willing to share the land. You counter this by saying the Palestinians haven't made any concessions... well, it's a good thing no one ever made that argument! Instead, it was a forward looking statement theorizing about what would need to happen. No one suggested that Israel keep making concessions, or that Palestine make concessions - just that a mutually acceptable agreement for sharing the land be reached.

Please, argue against what other people say, not the easy canned response that doesn't quite apply to the actual argument at hand. It's pretty clear that you have a very one sided view of the conflict - Israel good, Palestine bad. You see the situation as very black and white, good and evil, democracy versus fear. Nothing is ever that simple.

 

Oh, this is going to be fun...

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Dec 4 2006, 11:03 AM) [snapback]357415[/snapback]</div>

So, where's the Iraqi that shot a missile into America? Oh wait, thats right... there wasn't one (and 9/11 doesn't count, since there wasn't a confirmed link there, despite what the administration would have you believe...). Then you go on to contradict yourself... saying not civilians in military garb, then describing the military garb of the Palestinians. Strategic targets can be both people and structures - which is where your confusion is. Strategy is defined as "A strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal" - plan of action: bomb civilian targets to instill fear. seems like a strategy to me, in which case those targets (civilians) are strategic targets.

Oh, and the Palestinians haven't "convinced" me of anything. in fact, i haven't listened to propaganda from either side of the argument, which is perhaps why i can see both sides, while you're blinded.

Lets try completing one train of thought before jumping tracks, shall we? The fact is, the Israel military utilizes relatively safe methods of launching their bombs - no one ever said it was perfect, or that people haven't died. The Palestinians, on the other hand, are willing to sacrifice themselves in suicide missions. Thats what we're talking about here, not their choice of targets.

I think it was pretty clear that that particular section of my post was theoretical in nature, and not specific to any one conflict. I was simply showing the two extremes of what we're discussing here, and the clear difference between them.

Once again, you clearly state that democratic nations aren't capable of being fear societies. I challenge you that any nation, under any form of rule, can be a fear society. Any nation can also be a peaceful society. Like i said, things are not black and white, good and evil, fear and democracy.

Did i say i liked the way Palestinians treated life? Quite putting words in my mouth, please. I was simply asking you if all life was equal, because you were displaying a clear bias towards Israeli life versus Palestinian life.

As for how to share the land... i don't have a solution. I'm not afraid to admit that. I also never claimed i did. instead, i simply supported Daniel's stance that there won't be peace until both sides are willing to consider it.

I do have hope that, someday, you'll listen to a sane argument, not dismiss it out of hand, and not base your rebuttals on putting words in peoples mouths. it may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, but hopefully someday...

 

To answer your question: No, I don't believe I will see peace between Isreal and its neighbors in my lifetime.

Now, I have a lot of Jewish friends but since this is a touchy subject, I have a question I've always wondered but have been afraid to ask:

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?

I'm not supporting one side or the other. It's just a question.

 

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

 

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.

 

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....

 

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.

 

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

issue...

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

h34r:

 

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.

 

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

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

 

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.

 

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

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>

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