What if the current state of Israel had never been created

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hwalker911 @ Aug 2 2006, 07:14 AM) [snapback]296168[/snapback]</div>

He would also find a number of supporters here on this BB for his "solutions".

 

First comes the education.

I'll be making some posts... there is knowledge that all self-respecting Americans MUST to know about the world. Then people like Subversive, others, and I can actually even attempt to offer a better way. First, I suggest you look at the thread June 8, 1967. Long live the ideals of the Founding Fathers!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Devil's Advocate @ Aug 1 2006, 09:00 PM) [snapback]295996[/snapback]</div>

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mirza @ Aug 2 2006, 05:48 AM) [snapback]296226[/snapback]</div>

So, what you are saying is that the average American is to ignorant to understand the principles of your alternatives?

What do we need to know?

That the world can be a dark vile place full of all types of evils? that one mans evil is another mans salvation? Black and white don't exist, but shades of grey should temper our actions to the point of inaction????


Our founding father's would roll up what ever Navy we had and sail it over to the middleeast and kick the livin crap out of groups like Hezbollah! They did it before, when the empires that these groups descended from existed as "legitimate" seats of power.

"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!"

 

My list of ignored users... just so you don't get all cocky when you see that I don't respond to your posts:

Devil's Advocate
Dbermanmd

I don't have any need to defend my said decision... my reasoning was justified in the respective threads.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jul 26 2006, 01:19 PM) [snapback]292639[/snapback]</div>

GREAT point! Here is an undeniable truth...proven throughout history.

If Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Al-Quaeda, and all terrorist groups would stop killing today, then the killing would pretty much stop (This does not include individual hate killing that will NEVER stop- re Cain and Abel)

If Israel, America, or any peaceful democracy stopped killing today, the killing would continue. (until ALL the world would be subjugated by terrorists, dictators, etc...and even then until only ONE remained victorious.

Simple as that!!!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mirza @ Aug 2 2006, 06:49 PM) [snapback]296745[/snapback]</div>

Awww, I sad to see this, I love responding to your posts and defending MY positions, since if your position isn't challenged forcing you to defend it how can you truly be sure it is correct?!

Sorry the logic challenge is to much. Notice I said logic, I am not arguing most of the "facts" that you state. (maybe some) but instead I argue your interpretation of them, or at least your reasons for believing your chosen sources over other similar sources.

By the way are you saying all Italians are racist pigs?!?!?!?!?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(loveit @ Jul 26 2006, 07:59 PM) [snapback]292958[/snapback]</div>

Thank you for that but one item I would like to raise.

Many people are willing to accept His forgiveness and too often it is a false acceptance. Few are willing to submit to the gift of His character changing power

God Bless

Wildkow

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mirza @ Aug 2 2006, 07:49 PM) [snapback]296745[/snapback]</div>

I tried that once and realized that it reflected a closed mind on my part. I look forward to your enlightenment in this regard.

Wildkow

p.s. Cause I just love the way they annoy you when they challenge your "Moral Double Standards." :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Devil's Advocate @ Aug 1 2006, 09:00 PM) [snapback]295996[/snapback]</div>

Most (but certainly not all) violence springs from poverty. The more extreme the poverty, the more worthless the value of human life, the more savage the violence and the more likely as well.

You want a better way to eliminate violence from the world? Instead of propping up dictators to keep the world's poor under bloody domination, instead of stripping away natural resources and replacing them with corporate ownership and dependency, instead of saturating the third world with guns, instead of making it very clear to the rest of the world that we feel that WE are the elite and that NOBODY else matters at all, not even a little, how about we try something else? How about we share our wealth and our freedom and our sense of hope with ALL of the people of the world? It wouldn't work 100%, and it would be expensive, but it would work just as well as and be no more expensive than, for example, the United States occupation in Iraq. And it would be a BETTER way.

There will always be terrorists. Long after the all the crazy religious fundamentalists for the various incarnations of that angry desert god of the Middle East have passed away into history, there will still be terrorists. But there would be a lot less of them in the world today if everybody had a way to provide themselves and their families with a good job, a good life, and an earned feeling of self-worth. And it would also help if Israel and the United States could stop shitting on poor people around the world for more than a few months or years at a time.

Sure, Israel is in a tough spot, but when they place "settlements" in the Palestinian Territories, steal virtually all of the water supplies and farmable land, subject the people there to daily abuse and humiliation, surround them with instruments of violence, and then murder their children while claiming that it is "self-defense"--of course there will be terrorism! Do you really expect the Palestinians to simply twiddle their fingers and say "yessa, Massa!" while they slowly starve to death in a pool of stench?!

How could Israel do better? Well for starters, how about very heavily investing in Palestinian businesses? How about strongly promoting cultural exchanges? How about promoting a sense of equality with non-Jews? How about taking the higher ground instead of taking out their rage at some defiant explosion in the night upon the children of Palestinians? How about making sure that even the lowliest of Palestinians has something better to do with their life than strapping bombs to their chest and sticking it to the Man the only way they can?

And by the way, I don't believe that you really answered my question, what if both sides of a conflict are using terrorism? You said something about either fighting the terrorists or succumbing to their beliefs, but I'd like to suggest that fighting terrorism with terrorism IS succumbing to the beliefs of terrorism. There can be no excuse for the blanket bombing of civilians. That's NOT "self-defense" and it doesn't matter which side fired or what side fired first or what their political beliefs are. It's never ok.

 

Well said, Subversive.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Subversive @ Aug 4 2006, 03:38 AM) [snapback]297547[/snapback]</div>

Your first statement is wrong and then it goes downhill from their.
YOur feelings towards homocide bombings?
How about giving back Gaza and in return get 1,000 missiles launched into Israel for a thank you?
How did arafart get $1billion + in his bank accounts when he died?
Palestinians starving to death - then ask the UN which runs their terrortories - but then how could their population be exploding over the pas 30 years???? I mean with all that starvation????
How many Arabs live peacefully in Israel? How many Jews live in the surrounding countries peacefully?
And try digesting this - when Israel kills innocent civilians they mourn those deaths - when the Palestinians do they celebrate - remember how they danced in the street after 9/11?
Why is it Israels problem to provide for the Palestinians - why cant they with all the support they have from the UN, from the world??? How about a little brotherly love from their arab bro's?
And you have a very distorted view of the world.

forget it - if you can not see the HUGE differences - then so be it.

 

How Washington speaks to Muslims
By Dominic Casciani
BBC News community affairs


In the dark: Does Washington underestimate Muslims?
In the midst of a war in Iraq and domestic fear of Islamist-inspired terrorism - how should western governments approach their Muslim minorities and the Arab world?
Perhaps a good place to start is to listen to the views of top lobbyist Hady Amr. He was probably the highest ranking Arab-Muslim American in the Clinton Administration - and has spent his years since trying to work out how the US government and Muslims talk to each other.

Last week, the Lebanese-born policy analyst came to London to speak to the City Circle, an influential London-based organisation which promotes the development of a distinctive British Muslim identity.

The big issue for Muslims in the western world, he says, is not whether they should engage in the political process - but how quickly they can organise.



Western governments need to go into the most conservative communities they can stomach if they are going to find ways of building bridges
Hady Amr


"The American political system is like a big rugby pitch. You don't just have two teams playing out there, you have 100 teams. If there are all these teams out there on the pitch, and you're sitting on the sidelines smoking your water pipe, you're not going to get anywhere. The other teams have been working out at the gym."

At the heart of the question of how much political influence Muslims can exert are the hard numbers.

Historically Europe has seen generally low levels of political participation. It's higher in the US however.


Muslims in the US tend to be more educated than their European co-religionists, with six out of 10 having a college degree.

More than 80% are registered to vote and in surveys they register high levels of participation in civic life, such as through volunteering in local schools.


MUSLIM VOTING IN THE US
1996: 56% for Clinton
2000: 46% for Bush
2004: 63% for Kerry (Arab Americans)
2004: 76% for Kerry (all Muslims)
Source: Project MAPS, Zogby
The past decade has also seen Muslims in the US tend to follow the national political mood in presidential elections. They voted Clinton and then marginally backed Bush over Gore. However, in 2004, they tended to back the eventual loser John Kerry.

When you combine all these facts and figures, says Hady Amr, it should tell Washington policy makers a lot about a constituency they have failed to keep on side.

"What the numbers tell me is that Arab Muslims were pretty much like any other American, until 2004," he says.


"You don't see massive disparities where they vote en masse for Democrats or Republicans. It's only in 2004 that things change and that is very much down to the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act [the major piece of post-9/11 anti-terrorism legislation].

"On the one hand you have a community that is integrated, or integrating, very well into American life, but ... highly critical of foreign policy. These are people who are happy to be part and parcel of American and feel very comfortable with it - except on one big issue."

Middle East polling

Since leaving administration life, Hady has conducted exhaustive focus groups and polling through the Arab world to try to work out exactly what people think of America.


Flag burning: Dramatic but not representative
He has found enormous levels of respect in the Arab world for the US education system and what the nation does in science and technology. But people report mixed feelings about American democracy and have the expected critical view of its foreign policy.

Hady Amr argues that all of the data from inside America and across the Arab world points to a missing link between Muslims and the West, rather than the so-called clash of civilisations and the regular scenes of flag burning that we see on the television screens.

"What do these figures mean? Do they mean that these people [Arabs in the Arab world] are schizophrenic about America? No, it means there are people in the Muslim world who are quite sophisticated in what they like and dislike about America."

The big problem, says Hady Amr, is Iraq, where he believes there will be "no happy ending". So what are the remedies?


You have to get these people to understand who we are and what we stand for
He says there has to be a long-hard look by western governments over who they really talk to.

"After 9/11 there was this refrain in America that we needed to reach out to 'moderate Muslims' because they would be our allies against extremism. I think this is wrong," says Hady Amr.

"You cannot of course go start a casual dialogue with people who use violence. But I think that [western governments] need to go into the most conservative communities they can stomach if they are going to find ways of building bridges.

"You have to get these people to understand who we are and what we stand for. Giving $100m to your friends does not necessarily help because they are your friends already.

"What are our fundamental western values? Pluralism and dialogue. Anyone who has worked in politics knows that the quickest way to alienate people is to not invite them to dinner.

"Extremists will always be extremists because when you hate and are active in that hate, you will continue to be so, no matter what the evidence the world presents.

"But if we can pull the rug from beneath the likes of al-Qaeda, those who cheered and said that America had it coming on 9/11, well, they may be swayed. But it's going to be tough."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5187008.stm

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(wstander @ Aug 4 2006, 12:03 PM) [snapback]297695[/snapback]</div>

That national uprising was the birth of terrorism. It was because of their terrorist inclinations that the Jews were scattered around the world in the first place by the Romans, who were just trying civilize and bring peace to the region.

Who is to say? Perhaps if this united Arab world had not been radicalized by one Crusade after another, if their people's freedom had not been raped for oil profits, perhaps this scientific-technological glory would lead the world in pursuit of medicine and literature.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Subversive @ Aug 4 2006, 11:50 AM) [snapback]297805[/snapback]</div>

Surely you jest? You cannot be serious or, on the other hand, you don't know the history of ancient civilizations.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Aug 4 2006, 12:15 PM) [snapback]297705[/snapback]</div>

The reason you have trouble with basic and undeniable fact I suspect is that you are far too close to and indeed part of the problem. You may find it more comfortable to be living here in the United States, but in your heart I suspect you are just another bloodthirsty Middle East terrorist (in your case, for Israel), who dreams at night about driving tanks over over Arab babies and so forth. Someone suggested earlier that you would hold your nose in disgust at Israeli violence done to Arab children and rush to provide medical treatement just as quickly as you would for Israeli children subjected to Arab violence, but I'm not convinced. And I think that it is clear you can only the problem in the Middle East from very far to one side.

So, really the only question I think is whether the warmongers will outlast the peacemakers or vice-versa, and unfortunately only time will tell. You may think the world has tried and failed and that's the end of it. Personally, I think that the world is growing increasingly weary of these collective Middle-East-including-Israel national temper tantrums. We are too old for this and if we don't put a stop to it, someone's going to lose an eye. I don't care who started it, both sides need to be swatted on their nice person and sent to bed without dinner. In my opinion, occasional international peace summits aside, the peacemakers haven't even started to put their foot down yet in hopes that the warring siblings in the Middle East could sort this out for themselves. But the peacemakers of the world may yet have to get the old leather belt off the shed door and teach both sides to behave.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Aug 4 2006, 03:07 PM) [snapback]297811[/snapback]</div>

Well, ok, true enough, the Romans did like to militarily dominate areas before spreading their civilization and its stability. And there was plenty of terrorism and general cruelty toward civilians throughout history to go around (including by the Romans themselves). However, I'm going to stick with the fact that out of the entire empire that the Romans built, the only significant population to be kicked out of their homeland was that of the Jews, and that it happened largely because the Romans could simply no longer abide all the Jewish terrorists hiding among the population who refused to stay conquered. The Romans felt the only way to defeat the terrorism against Romans civilians was to drive them all from their homeland and scatter them around the world, but in the end an offshoot of the Jews, the Christians, "converted" a Roman emperor and thereby the Empire, so I guess in a way the Jews got the last laugh after all. Still, it's an irony of fate, how the role of Israelis in the Middle East seems reversed today.

 

Subversive...I challenge your premise that poverty is the major cause of terrorism. That is the mantra of the capitalist haters. Since we have so much and they so little...it is our fault.

I propose the major cause of terrorism is IGNORANCE combined with despotism.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Aug 4 2006, 11:19 PM) [snapback]298082[/snapback]</div>

Well, I am hardly a capitalism-hater (like most things, it has positive and negative aspects), nor do I think that the well off are automatically to blame for someone else's poverty (any more than the educated are responsible for the ignorance of others). But I acknowledge your counter perspective on the relationship between poverty and violence. Would you care to explain your theory further? Does your experience as a police officer contribute to your perspective?

 

By the way, which one of these two is the Israeli and which one is the Arab?



From here, they pretty much look the same.

 

Wildkow, I understand what you mean. I for one have attended church just about all my life. There certainly is a difference between head knowledge and living the way that Christ would have us too.

The power of the Holy Spirit was given to those who receive Jesus not only as Saviour but as Lord too. The Holy Spirit the way I understand it is the actual Spirit of God ocming into a person so that a person may be reborn spiritually; and that it is the power of God who resides in a person. The problem then is there, according to Romans, it the battle that goes on between the person's flesh & the his spirit.

Like a baby learning how to live life, in eating & drinking & walking & talking so it is with one who is born again. But the Word of God, (bible), exhorts His followers to work out our salvation with trembling & fear.

The Word of God also tells us that man should not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. In essence it means that one should be spending time in reading the bible, thinking about what he has read, and then put into practice what it is that he has read. He also needs time to spend talking with God and doing twice as much listening as talking, as to what He is telling them. (I always like to remember the ratio: 2 ears to 1 mouth. )

Most times, man needs to remember that Jesus came to serve, not to be served. I think that if everyone would just remember to think more highly of others than themselves, (this in no way implies that one is any less than another), but then, if they think highly of others they would also treat them that way.

Unfortunately, it is not just believing in something or someone, it is in living the beliefts that one has that identifies the type of person one is.

Unfortunately for many believers, the church has preached much but not shown how to live what it is that they preach. But on the other hand, many do not read God's Word, which is God inspired and able to equip the believers for EVERY GOOD WORK. Those good works are to help mankind, not hurt him.

The bible also says that it is the goodness of God that leads men to repentance. That being said, you can remember when the Lord admonish Peter for cutting off the ear of the servant of the high priest when He was betrayed in the Garden. Jesus was actually showing that His way was not the way of violence.

But we also know that the Lord said that there will always be war and rumors of war.

All I know in my heart & spirit is that I am called to be obedient. The Lord says if you love me you will obey me. On the other hand He also says, why do you call me Lord and do not obey me? Depart from me you workers of evil.

That is a lot of food for thought.

The time is short.

Like I said it is the goodness of God that leads men to repentence.

One more thing, if man could only love God with all that he is, and love his neighbor as he, himself wants to be loved, the world would be a much better place to live in.

How one lives their life will reveal their true belief and character. But I also know that though man looks at the outward appearance of another, only God sees the heart of a person.

Well, enough.

I will continue to pray for God's mercy for all of mankind.