Kuri,
That’s a great point. If Israel would just give the Palestinians back their land, the whole region would be well on the road to peace. Too bad Israelis are under some delusion where they think God gave them this land forever, regardless of who lives on it now (why else would they settle it).
I don’t know if this will ever happen, but I do know that the US shouldn’t fund this atrocity.
Bigarrow,
I agree that middle-class and wealthy people prefer peace and stability, as they are stakeholders in their countries and governments.
Unfortunately, the opposite is going on in the Occupied Territories. These people are poor and desperate (see my earlier post from the US State Department Human Rights Report), so they lash out at their oppressors. Then, Israel turns the screws even tighter, which generates more terrorism, which Israel uses to excuse its continued occupation. While this certainly doesn’t justify the actions of Palestinian militants, it helps us to understand it.
Solving this problem is doable. Israel needs to give the Palestinians back their land, and they need to remove ALL settlements from Palestinian lands. Too bad Israel has an insatiable land lust, and too bad that America buys into this.
I am admittedly ignorant on the subject, so if you can hold back the flames please…
I just see some interesting ironies here. Prior to WWII Nazis kicked millions of Jews out of their homes. They literally just booted entire families out into the streets and occupied their homes, furniture, art and all. It sounds pretty horrible.
Doesn’t it seem like they are doing the very thing that happened to them in Israel? They are basically kicking Palastinians out of their homes. The difference is that the Palastinians are striking back with lethal force.
Doogie mentioned that Palastinians wanted to kill Americans. I disagree with this. But whatever anti-American sentiment there is there goes back to our backing of Israel militarily and financially. I personally think that we should have NEVER gotten involved. If they had the financial and military power to do it on their own, let them at it. At least we wouldn’t have gotten in the middle of this conflict.
What the Nazis did was wrong then; what the Israelis is somehow not wrong now? Of course, the extremist groups like Hammas and Al Quaida are way wrong, and need to be irradicated, but we still should take an honest look at our role in creating some of these problems. Not to say that we shouldn’t hunt them down and rid the world of them, but we should make sure that we take a long view in world politics to prevent these kinds of things from happening in the future.
To read more about the fundamentalist Christian Zionists, check out www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/03/60minutes/main524268.shtml. Seriously scary shit! Here’s some of it:
Zion’s Christian Soldiers
June 8, 2003
This week, Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told President Bush that he would start to dismantle some illegal Jewish settlements on the West Bank as part of an agreement with the new Palestinian Prime Minister.
That news has already alarmed those Jewish settlers – and ultra-Zionist Israelis who believe that the Jewish State should control all of the Biblical Jewish homeland.
But they’re not the only group that feels that way. So do Fundamentalist Christian Evangelicals who make up the largest single religious grouping in the United States.
There is the alliance between America and Israel in the war on Islamic terror. But it goes deeper. For Christians who interpret the bible in a literal fashion, Israel has a crucial role to play in bringing on the Second Coming of Christ.
“It is my belief that the Bible Belt in America is Israel’s only safety belt right now,” says Rev. Jerry Falwell, one of the leaders of the Christian Right. That’s the bulk of Evangelical Christians; Falwell claims to speak for all of them.
“There are 70 million of us,” he says. “And if there’s one thing that brings us together quickly it’s whenever we begin to detect our government becoming a little anti-Israel.”
Falwell began to detect just that in April 2002 when President Bush called on Israel to withdraw its tanks from Palestinian towns on the West Bank. So Falwell shot off a letter of protest to the White House, which was followed by a hundred thousand e-mails from Christian conservatives. Israel did not move its tanks. Mr. Bush did not ask again.
“There’s nothing that would bring the wrath of the Christian public in this country down on this government like abandoning or opposing Israel in a critical matter,” Falwell says. The “Christian public” is, he says, Mr. Bush’s core constituency.
“I really believe when the chips are down Ariel Sharon can trust George Bush to do the right thing every time,” says Falwell.
What propels them? Why do they love Israel so much? The return of the Jews to their ancient homeland is seen by Evengelicals as a precondition for the Second Coming of Christ.
The Christian fundamentalists believe the only Israelis who are really listening to God are the hard line Jewish settlers who live on the West Bank and Gaza and refuse to move. The Christians trudge up to these settlements as if they were making pilgrimages to holy shrines. That?s because they and the settlers share a core conviction.
They believe that God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people. “Every grain of sand, every grain of sand between the Dead Sea, the Jordan River, and, and the Mediterranean Sea belongs to the Jews,” says McAteer. (McAteer is known as the Godfather of the Christian Right. He?s a former Colgate marketing executive from Memphis, and a founder of the Moral Majority.) This includes the West Bank and Gaza.
What about the three million Palestinians who live on the West Bank and Gaza? McAteer suggests the bulk of them could be cleansed from this God-given real estate and moved to some Arab country. Nothing can come between the Jews and their land.
In fact, many fundamentalists believe that when Prime Minister Rabin signed the Oslo accords and offered to trade land for peace, it was not only a mistake, it was a sin.
“They were going against the word of God. You cannot go against the word of God. And I believe that God stopped it … by the things that happened.” says Arthur. She hints that God punished Rabin by assassinating him. “I think that God did not want that Oslo Accord to go through.”
Falwell believes most Muslims want to live in peace but, he says, the lines have been drawn. Christians and Jews are on one side, Muslims on the other and, he says, those lines were drawn more than a thousand years ago.
“You wrote an approving piece recently about a book called ‘Unveiling Islam,’” says Simon (of 60 Minutes) to Falwell. “And you, the authors of that book wrote, ‘The Muslim who commits acts of violence in jihad does so with the approval of Mohammed.’ Do you believe that?”
“I do,” says Falwell. “I think Mohammed was a terrorist. I read enough of the history of his life, written by both Muslims and non-Muslims, that he was a violent man, a man of war.”
“So, in the same way that Moses provided the ultimate example for the Jews and same way that Jesus provided the ultimate example for Christians, Mohammed provided the ultimate example for Muslims and he was a terrorist,” asks Simon.
“In my opinion,” says Falwell. “And I do believe that - Jesus set the example for love, as did Moses. And I think that Mohammed set an opposite example.”
i can’t believe falwell considers himself a peace-loving christian.
i’m sure you’ve heard of this Lt. Gen. Boykin:
“I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”
i cant believe we have people making decisions in our military based on some religious convictions.
decades from now we will look at these past few years as another low point in American history.
JP:
you are no more ignorant then all the oters here, who quote lies and falacies.
but, you are much more stupid if you compare jews and natzis. did the natzis “boot” jews? or did they jsut rape kill burn torture and mass murder them, and other populations?
You sould check yourself.
how to solve the conflict?
there you go again glute, calling people liars with no evidence to back it up. tell me where the lies are and give me a credible source that backs up your claim.
and don’t say something like ‘there are so many lies that it’s impossible to point out all the lies’.
just call me out on one lie and i’ll kiss sharon’s nuts. if you can’t find any lies after all, you need to kiss arafat’s nuts.
Glute Spanker,
You are right… The Nazis were as evil as they come and I didn’t mean to imply that the Israelis are committing the same level of atrocities, but merely pointing out that there are similarities. You would think that a people who had suffered that kind of holocaust would be more conscientious, but it doesn’t seem like they learned from what happened to them. Regardless of any of this, our involvement in it is wrong. Why are we helping them? What do we gain from it? Reparation for the displaced Jews to assuage some guilt on our part? The Jewish-American vote? (I am not suggesting this is the case as I said earlier that I am naive on this matter… merely thinking out loud). And is it a surprise that the enemy of our “friends” ends up becoming our enemy as well? What would have happened if we had just left well enough alone?
Glutespanker,
I checked out the site you referenced. Just so you know, the deal offered to the Palestinians by the Israelis was not a fair deal. It didn’t include a right to return, Israel wanted to keep the best parts of the occupied territories in exchange for poor land, and they wanted to keep the rights to Palestinian airspace.
Also, the site makes a big deal about the Palestinian uniform patches that show Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. So what? That’s the land they’re from. It’s like saying that American Indians shouldn’t wear patches with pictures of America. Besides, the Website author identified the land area shown as ‘Israel’, not as 'Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, so he is guilty of exactly what he’s accusing others of.
“Besides, the Website author identified the land area shown as ‘Israel’, not as 'Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, so he is guilty of exactly what he’s accusing others of.”
The land IS Israel, not Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Just like Texas is no longer part of Mexico. Just like the U.S. is no longer part of England. Wars are fought and won. The winners get stuff. That’s how the world works, especially if you were the ones attacked to begin with.
Israel IS a state. So when it takes over land, that land becomes part of the maps. If you want to complain to someone about it, try Rand McNalley. On the other hand, if you are a group who WANTS a state, and your maps eliminate and consume an entire country for that purpose, that shows you are not sincere about making peace, that you in fact harbor different objectives.
And “the right of return” wasn’t part of the deal because, as everyone knows and has been mentioned on the thread, that would mean NO Israel. So every time the parties come to the peace table (including the Arab League), the issue is how “the right of return” gets exchanged for monetary compensation. And where are you getting this “best land” stuff from? (Or do you mean the land out of range of Syrian mortar fire?) Source, please.
If Mark R. believes in a 2-state solution as he says he does, then Mark R. cannot sincerely support the “right of return.” Perhaps Mark R. does not believe in the 2-state solution after all.
Oh, and the site Mark R. checked out is simply about “stinkin’ badges,” it actually focuses on how the Palestinian maps don’t contain Israel, replacing it with the Palestinian state (in accordance with the PLO charter, which they have yet to change as they promised), and maybe how Dennis Ross, American peace envoy for the Clinton Administration, met with Arafat in his office and saw the same map proudly displayed behind him.
Mark forgot to tell us that.
The whole world, including the US, recognizes the West Bank and Gaza as occupied territories (read my post on the US State Dept Human Rights Report). Wars are won and lost, and winners take land. However, winners also take the people who live on that land, and the winners then integrate them into their society, as we did when we took Texas (which was an independent nation at that time, having declared independence from Mexico on its own).
However, Israel tends to have racist attitudes towards Arabs, so they refuse to allow even Palestinians who used to live in Israel but who were forced to flee in 1948 to return home. Rather, they’re trying to take as much land as they can without taking any of the people, in a blatant ethnic cleansing effort.
Wake up, people. The US is supporting Israel because of some wacky religous types like Pat Robertson, who are trying to set the stage for the second coming of Christ.
Brian,
I really don’t know why you’re whining about me not answering your questions. This is my 12th post addressed sepcifically to you, after all. I believe I’ve addressed every question you’ve asked of me. I can’t really write non-stop about this, of course. I train a lot, so that takes up a lot of my time. Also, I’m a jet engine systems engineer, where I work a lot of overtime, and I’m a working on an MBA full-time. However, this is a topic that interests me, so I don’t mind taking some time to discuss it.
Just because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean I’m not communicating with you. In fact, if it weren’t for the weird religious people out there that have colored the judgement of most Americans about this issue, about 98% of Americans would agree that the occupation is wrong.
I did ask one question of you earlier. I wanted to know why you think it’s okay for Israel to occupy the West Bank and Gaza. Instead of anyone answering this question, everyone here simply recites the Zionist talking points (Palestinians are bad people, God gave Israelis the land, Arabs in general are evil, and anyone that disagrees is anti-Semitic).
In fact, when you couldn’t defend Israel’s occupation of the territories, you implied that my lack of support is racist, when you said “I don’t know if Mark R. is exactly a Jew hater…I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not a Jew-hater but now you make it sound like you don’t like Gypsies…” What do you mean by 'exactly, and why the fuck do I nead the ‘benefit of the doubt’? Because I disagree with the policies of a nation? Why is that? Are people who disagree with the actions of Liberia prejudiced against blacks?
Perhaps it’s time for people to think about this objectively, rather than simply listening to preachers and politicians.
Yep, this or that religion with accompaning illusions of power certainly does have a way of eventually reaking havoc.
Palestinians are being harmed by hardliners in their midst, as certainly are the Israeli people. If it were not for the vocal zealot Israeli population, then I’m sure the situation would not be as bad as it is. Same applies to the Palestinians.
Hell, same goes for the U.S., with idiot “born again” Bush up there and his egg-sucking followers such as Boykin who occasionally let slip that they believe in their warped minds that this is all a titanic struggle against satan.
And their devoted bible-beltists are sure to let 'em know who has the pulpit, and it ain’t the heathen Ay-rabs over there.
If more moderate voices, such as those of the 2 Israeli & Palesinian guys from the Jim Lehrer newshour, promoting a sensible plan could garner enough attention to distract the general public from the raging cries of the religious nutbars,
solid progress would follow.
Not to say that religion is part and parcel a destructive concept, but the way in which it has been politicized should set off alarm bells.
the right of return is a tricky issue. each person’s stance will depend on whether they fundamentally believe that israel has the right to exist as a jewish state.
i sorta think the idea is fucking ridiculous to begin with. so… people who are mostly genetically unrelated, spread out across the world, most likely not direct descendents of some so-called “father of all nations” deserve a state of their own in previously occupied territory? you’ve got to be kidding. are they that special? only a twisted narcissitic mind believes shit like that.
EVEN IF all the jewish people in the world had some relationship to abraham (which extremely doubtful), they also have relationships to ancester #123234 and ancestor #234893… why not create a state of all people who are direct descendents of ancestor #2349403!!! why not??? because the idea is fucking ridiculous.
i can anticipate a response to this… “jewishness is not about genes, it’s about culture.”
well guess what, we have thousands and thousands of different cultures on this planet yet we dont have thousands and thousands of different nation states.
three of the biggest nations, the united states, china, and russia each contain so many freaking ethnic groups and cultures and in each nation these cultures have managed to preserve themseves despite the globalization of economies.
it doesnt make sense for the US to establish and maintain a nation-state for only ONE of its cultures, while sacrificing the economic resouces and national security of all others.
a more legitimate case of a well deserved nation-state is the kurdish populations of turkey, iraq, and iran. unlike the jews in israel, they are more genetically and culturally related to each other. why aren’t we helping them achieve a separate nation-state? probably because they are not lobbying our american lawmakers with their oil wealth (which they no longer have).
nationalism is a tool used by authoritarian leaders to achieve their goals whether they be benign or malignant. (hitler, mao, lenin, pinochet, mussolini, franco, tito, stalin)
if you put things into perspective… a jewish israel just doesn’t make sense.
for those who are too lazy to read the previous posts, i am part jewish so don’t give me any nazi, anti-semitism crap. i’m tired of that shit.
Danh, Stalin was part Jewish too. So was Lenin and Trotsky. Ever heard of the man-made famine of 1932 in Ukraine that wiped out a good number of the Jewish population in the Pale? Don’t give me that “part-Jewish” bullshit. It just makes you sound ridiculous. Why do Jews deserve a Jewish state you asked? Maybe because no other ETHNIC GROUP was nearly exterminated just 60 years ago. Ohh, wait, Holocaust never happened right? Also, maybe because the WON three wars, giving them the right to exist.
Mark R. wrote: “I wanted to know why you think it’s okay for Israel to occupy the West Bank and Gaza.”
I think your mind must be too occupied with jets or whatever, because the answer to this question (at least for the people of this thread) is obvious and goes without saying: security. (But I did allude to it actually: “They only tolerated in the meantime for security.”)
And I can combine my unanswered questions here for you:
(1) Are the nationalist methods of Ghandi and Mandela’s ANC morally equal to those of the Palestinians?
(2) What do you mean by “ethnic cleansing”?
(3) What do you mean by “apartheid state”? Please define “apartheid state” in general terms so that we can decide whether the laws of a particular state fit that definition.
(4) Tell me how you think Jewish settlers got most of their land before the 1948 attack by the Arabs, and how many people lived on it before the Jewish owners.
(5) Why doesn’t the fact that the Palestinian have civil jurisdiction over most all their land make them historically different from other “the occupied territories”?
(6) Why doesn’t the fact that the VAST majority of Israel wants to move ASAP into a situation which their soldiers have NO jurisdiction in the territories and man NO incursions make the issue different from the general model of occupation?
(7) Since Israel does not thrive on the resources, material or human, of the occupied territory, how can it be an imperialist power? (in fact, Palestinian tradesman WANT more interaction with Israelis in order to prosper, and the checkpoints to halt the progress of suicide killers, screw up their opportunities for trade.)
Additionally, if you read what I wrote, and say it’s tantamount to an accusation of “Jew-hater” then you’re hypersensitive. I was saying that the benefit of doubt gets hazy as you covertly pass selective quotations from state department documents and cooly discusses Nazis vs Gypies in terms of who makes “the better neighbor.” This isn’t Mr. Rogers. (Doogie clearly meant who made the better governing power). Just so you don’t freak out, I’m not accussing you of anything, I’m just saying it’s sometimes hard to know who you’re discussing with, and often their comments don’t make it any easier.
For example, dahn’s quotation from Deuteronomy was clearly out of context. He presented a quotation about HOW to fight war as an ADVOCATION TO fight war. This did make him technically, as glute-spanker said, a “liar.” And willfully casting blatant libel about the Jewish religion would generally be considered antisemitic, although dahn could just have easily gotten carried away in trying to make his argument.
dahn, Hitler and Mussolini are “nationalists,” while Ghandi and Jomo Kenyata are not! That’s pretty convenient for you. If Jews were all “closely genetically related,” would you instead contend that the idea of a Jewish state is “racist”?
And Dahn, please defend Pat Buchanon against the essay William Buckley (his former mentor) wrote agreeing with this charge, and please explain why Louis Farrakhan can’t be antisemitic because he says he’s part Jewish.
What’s disturbing to me is that both dahn and Mark R. have sweared by Pat Buchanan, taken the position (his position, BTW) that Israel at least “has the right to exist,” and then come out and speak against that right. Something doesn’t smell quite right, like sulphur maybe…
And dadean, my good brother, it’s not just about the Holocaust that happened in Europe. It’s also about the Jews who loyally served Britain in World War Two (while Arabs were serving the Nazis and Italians), and it’s about giving the Jews who have lived in the Middle East and North Africa sanctuary from the Muslim persecution they faced. Although it is true, that fascism took root in Arabia at the beginning of the century, and collusion began between Totalitarian Europe and Totalitarian Arabia, both obsessed with the annihilation of Jews.
[my point got buried so here it is, slightly adapted:] This is not like cowboys dispossessing the frightened Indians. Jews had always lived in the Middle East in significant numbers (now virtually all evicted and living in Israel). Jews had always formed a large part (by many historical counts, a majority) of the population in Jerusalem. The Arab world had understood the Jewish presence in their biblical homeland, and understood why their tribesman from Europe would come there to join them, but they could not accept it when the desert started to thrive and cities began to be built around the Jews. Thus, they made life even more miserable for their Jewish neighbors who naturally began to head for the Jewish land developments in the British colony. It would compare better to a scenario in which poor white families are getting pissed off because they see that in the poor black neighborhood, middle-class African-Americans from out of state are moving in, buying real estate and developing the ghetto into the good side of town.
dadean. if you are accusing me of being anti-semitic go ahead. go on the record. if you you just stop short of that please backtrack and form a more coherent argument.
are you implying because stalin was jewish that i am antisemitic? what kind of logic is that?
am i calling for the extermination of jews? NO! don’t imply that i’m antisemitic unless you have direct evidence that i hate jews at large.
you know what sounds ridiculous? you have your facts all wrong. jewishness is for the most part not an ethnicity. it is a culture. genocide has happened/is happening in rwanda, yugoslavia, liberia, sri lanka, somalia, india, nigeria, etc. as well.
so all these affected groups deserve a nation state according to your argument? why dont you mention defend these people as well?