Idf... Wtf?

Very Quick reply to Mr Boogie Juice.

I don’t have the time to reply in lengh right now but I do want to mention a few things here.

If you don’t know about all of the North African Jews who were expelled from Tunisia, Libia, Egypt and Algeria or Oriental Jews who were expelled from Syria, Yemen, and Iraq after Israel recieved it’s Statehood from the United Nations. Then you are not at the root of the problem. There used to be huge Jewish populations in all of the forementioned countries. All of those peoples were driven out and had thier property confiscated. Those refugees were taken in by the land of Israel and became integrated.

Keep in mind that if the Palestinians have accepted the UN resolution splitting present day Israel in half as the Jews did the Palestinians would have had theier State over 60 years ago.

Israel has fostered growth and democratic priciples. It is a member of the OECD. Arab States have fostered Monarchies, Dictatorships, Represive Regimes and terrorism. Just look at how many Homosexuals are in Egyptian prisons just because they are homosexuals.

I would like to see how many muslims that live in Israel would be willing to relocate to the surrounding Arab countries or would like to become future Palestinian citizens. Not to many

You say that American States have the right to leave the Union. What happened last time that a few tried? The bloodiest war in American History. More American Soldiers died in the Civil war than in all the rest of American wars combined. (And America has had it’s share of wars!) Not only that but the suffering inflicted upon the Southern states population was horrendous. Just read about Sherman’s March and Butlers occupation of New Orleans!

If you want to talk about Palestinian civilians killed by Israel then lets ask why they died. Because thier terrorist fire thier rockets and hide among thier own families!

I think that you should also ask how many German Civilains Great Briton killed Durring WW2. I know that in just one night over 100,000 German Civilians were killed in Dresden!

Read Mark Twains account of his visit to Palestine about 130 years ago. He claims that the land was empty Barren and devoid of population except in a few cities such as Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Safed and Tiberius. Where was the Palestinian Nation then?

In the early 1800’s Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt states the same, Explaining how Isreal was covered in thick forest(That the Turks cut down to build Railroad tracks durring WW1.) He even tells how he was chased by a bear in what is present day Tel-Aviv. Where was the Palestinian Nation then.

Below I am quoting some Japanese guy who sums up the situation nicely.

Talk about one picture being worth a THOUSAND words. (The picture being talked about is the map of the middle east showing how much land Muslims occupy compared to tiny Israel that can be driven accross in 40 minutes.)
Is the world just plain stupid?
An interesting questionnaire for Palestinian Advocates
By Yashiko Sagamori

If you are so sure that " Palestine , the country, goes back through most of recorded history," I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine :

  1. When was it founded and by whom?

  2. What were its borders?

  3. What was its capital?

  4. What were its major cities?

  5. What constituted the basis of its economy?

  6. What was its form of government?

  7. Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat?

8… Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation?

  1. What was the language of the country of Palestine ?

  2. What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine ?

  3. What was the name of its currency? Choose any date in history and tell what was the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against the US dollar, German mark, GB pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese Yuan on that date.

  4. And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur?

You are lamenting the “low sinking” of a “once proud” nation… Please tell me, when exactly was that “nation” proud and what was it so proud of?

And here is the least sarcastic question of all: If the people you mistakenly call “Palestinians” are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over – or thrown out of – the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic identity that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat in the Six Day War?

I hope you avoid the temptation to trace the modern day “Palestinians” to the Biblical Philistines: substituting etymology for history won’t work here.

The truth should be obvious to everyone who wants to know it. Arab countries have never abandoned the dream of destroying Israel ; they still cherish it today. Having time and again failed to achieve their evil goal with military means, they decided to fight Israel by proxy. For that purpose, they created a terrorist organization, cynically called it “the Palestinian people” and installed it in Gaza , Judea, and Samaria . How else can you explain the refusal by Jordan and Egypt to unconditionally accept back the “West Bank” and Gaza , respectively?

The fact is, Arabs populating Gaza, Judea, and Samaria have much less claim to nationhood than that Indian tribe that successfully emerged in Connecticut with the purpose of starting a tax-exempt casino: at least that tribe had a constructive goal that motivated them. The so-called “Palestinians” have only one motivation: the destruction of Israel , and in my book that is not sufficient to consider them a nation" – or anything else except what they really are: a terrorist organization that will one day be dismantled.

In fact, there is only one way to achieve peace in the Middle East . Arab countries must acknowledge and accept their defeat in their war against Israel and, as the losing side should, pay Israel reparations for the more than 50 years of devastation they have visited on it.

learning something there: did not know that confederation mean ethnic cleansing (being from the spanish border we’ve not seen refugees since the spanish civil war)… are you serious?
for sure there has been property snatching and population moves when Israel was created or when jews were expelled from some arab countries (your list is not exact btw). But this is unfortunate history and we should build the future from the lessons of history not the resentments of history -thanks Mandela-.
So my question is: are you willing to live in a confederate state where adopting a religion would not confer you more rights than those of others who don’t? Would you accept as president someone who is competent and honest and also a muslim?

What do you mean by “ethnic cleansing”? I may be narrow minded (or ignorant) but that sounds like a politicaly correct term for genocide to me.

Yes, a lot of jews in Arab countries who’d lived peacefully together until the creation of Israel were expelled. A lot heeded the call of Zion and went of there own accord. It’s difficult to know exactly how many were driven by which motivation.

It was wrong behaviour to expel people from their homes.

However, it can be seen as a direct result of the imperialism the West has been guilty of in the Middle East for a good couple of centuries, and which has largely been to the detriment of the native arabs, and often to the advantage of the state of Israel.

When the West imposed the creation of Israel on a tight-knit muslim-arab population it was bound to create conflict.

I’m not trying to justify expulsions by either side, I’m trying to get to the root causes.

Be more specific.

And when democracy and self-determination has begun to flourish it’s often been subverted by the UK and United States. Read up on the history of BP, the CIA and British secret service in Iran as a prime example.

Western imperialism has been the biggest hindrance to peace and democracy in the Middle East - not some innate inability of Muslims to run their own affairs. That thinking smacks of racism.

And if Israel cares so much for the welfare of homosexual Egyptians, then why is Israel such a close ally of Egypt?

Unfounded supposition.

Provide evidence or retract.

[quote=“Unicorn,post:21,topic:111137”]

You say that American States have the right to leave the Union. What happened last time that a few tried? The bloodiest war in American History. More American Soldiers died in the Civil war than in all the rest of American wars combined. (And America has had it’s share of wars!) Not only that but the suffering inflicted upon the Southern states population was horrendous. Just read about Sherman’s March and Butlers occupation of New Orleans!

Let’s keep the discussion on the Middle East. I can’t see another American Civil War kicking off in the near future.

Between the beginning of the second intifada (2002), and 2005 five Israeli’s were killed by Palestinian rockets. That’s about on par with the weekly average number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, a huge proportion of which were women and children.

Hiding among their own families? That may be what your armed forces and reactionary press tell you, but they have been reapeatedly caught lying.

I have read countless accounts of people with absolutely no ties to rocket firing or other violence who’ve been targeted by the Israeli military. I’ve even listened to first hand accounts, and there are many videos, documentaries and other sources that show that civilians are regularly targeted.

Of course if you have the IDF mindset, which you seem to have, that every Palestinian is a terrorist then of course no civilians have been harmed at all, and those that have been must’ve been being used as human shields by those dastardly Hamas fighters.

[quote=“Unicorn,post:21,topic:111137”]

I think that you should also ask how many German Civilains Great Briton killed Durring WW2. I know that in just one night over 100,000 German Civilians were killed in Dresden!

Your point being?

That was a terrible action, and something often described as an act of state terror… In the same way that many Israeli actions in the occupied territories are described as state terror.

That ‘land without people for a people without land’ crap doesn’t wash with many folks other than zionists.

Yeah, it was a stupid idea, dreamt up by imperialists and political zionists, to plonk a country in the middle of a hostile region.

Now the situation exists what’s the best way to go about making folks get on as peacefully as possible? Is it through dialogue and reconciliation, or is through continuing with a persecution complex that justifies limitless violence with just about every other country around you?

I’m not going to answer all that because I’ve already addressed the point by saying: That the British and Ottoman empire’s denied statehood to a people is no excuse to continue the practise.

The world is awash with countries who, until the wave of post-war nationalism, were denied most of the things you mention above.

Rather than proving the illegitimacy of the people under imperial rule to run their own affairs, it proves the illegitimacy of forcing governance from outside on an unwilling people.

Are you saying that what the Palestinians are currently experiencing is all they deserve and are capable of?

Again, I call racism on that.

Who said you need to have en ethnic identity to have a right to self determination? Again, there’s undertones of racism/appeals to ethnic purity in there

Nope, I avoid using the Bible for backing up nearly any kind of argument.

That way danger lies… Danger and weird stories about kings demanding the foreskins of slain enemies as a dowry, amongst other weird shit.

Read this and be quiet.

Have you actually read any of the links I’ve posted?

Arafat and the PLO got closer than ever to bringing about a peaceful solution and it was stymied by Israel. If you read an honest, non-zionist account of the (de)evolution of the peace process you’ll see the concessions from the Palestinians have been offered again and again, yet the right wing nutters that have maintained control of the knesset and military of Israel have scuppered things.

It’s well depressing.

And you’ve personally met and asked them all have you? Or have you swallowed the claptrap of the hardcore zionists in whose interests such lies are told.

I know which one I find more likely.

$300 billion in free money & arms from the US isn’t enough for you?

Israel is thbe biggest recipient of foreign aid in the world. I know of no other ‘liberal democracy’ whose existence depends on handouts from the US.

You and many of your fellow Israeli nationals really need to look at the broader picture to understand the tensions between Israel, the Arab world and the US. Only then will peaceful solutions be possible.

And to answer again why I refer to Israel as an apartheid state I refer you to the Israeli human rights and advocacy organisations called Gisha and Mossawa who do good work in documenting some of the worst actions of the Israeli state.

For a bit of context here’s a report showing the demographic history of Palestine.

Good questions.

Would also like to hear more on the original topic… The killings on the Mavi Marmara with reference to my responses to Unicorn’s initial attempts at justification.

Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide

Genocide means killing off a whole group of people like what happened in the Holacoust in Europe durring WW2 to the Jews. Or what happened to the Armenians in Turkey during WW1 or what happened to the tribes in Rwanda about 15 years ago. Genocide is a politically correct term.

Ethnic cleansing does not neseccarily mean killing off. What Slobodon Miloshovich (I hope that I didn’t butcher his name to badly!) of Serbia did to the Kosovars was Ethnic cleansing. He drove them out of the territory of Kosovo. He did not kill them. When all of the Jews who where living in Gaza were removed from thier homes 4 years ago. Gaza was ethnically cleansed of Jews even though noone died.

To answer Wobbling Bear - Israel is not a confederated state and can not be one because the populations are so mixed. (There are no autonomous zones of just Moslem or just Jewish Population.) We do have over a dozen muslim members of Kenneseth (Parlament) that help make laws and if a moslem prime minister was elected I would have no problem with that. That is how our democracy works. I would prefer a good honest Muslim prime minister over an Ultra orthadox Jew any day.

One thing that bothers me about your writing is your way of saying when bad things happen to the Jews it is an unfortunate circumstance of history.

Most Israeli’s including myself feel that if Iran nukes us or if we ever do get overrun by an Arab army and slaughtered, the world would just say what an unfortunate circumstance of history.

I’m sory it took me so long to reply. Too little time for this kind of thing

I’m glad you replaced “appartheid”. IMHO the word didn’t fit.

Hopefully, some day, there will be a free viable Palestinean state that with enough willingness and power to make and keep an effective cease fire. One which isn’t dependent on Israel and doesn’t have settlements all over it.

One part of the problem is that such a state is unlikely to appear if Israel withdrew now. The other part of the problem is that such a state is unlikely to appear while Israel is occupying Palestine.

I don’t think hope and freedom for Palestine does the trick yet. There’s work to be done to make Palestine ready to become a peaceful state, and that fact is often overlooked.

To me it doesn’t seem like the Palestinean side of the story is hidden from us. On the contrary I often see the story presented with a distinct pro-palestinean bias (my choice of news media
may be leaning a little to the left, but there’s still quite a bit of mainstream in there).

To sit still while being shot at is alot to ask from people, just like putting up with occupation is. As long as Palestineans can’t stop the rockets etc. there’s going to be pressure on the Israeli government to do something about it. Still it doesn’t justify the Israeli response.

This is the disengagement policy I was talking about earlier. Basically, Israel were suffering the most losses and attacks in the Gaza strip - the 25 x 5 mile bit of land inhabited by 1.5 million pretty pissed off people. They had nothing to gain by being there so shifted their bases a few miles out to the border and began the open-air internment of Gazans we see today. This disengagement gave the illusion of a concession to the outside world whilst in the West Bank and Jerusalem illegal settlements increased along with the material suffering of those left to fester in Gaza.

Neat trick.

And how many arab israeli MK’s (Member of Knesset, same as our MP’s or american congressman/women) hold ministerial portfolio’s? What happened to the arab-israeli MK who was aboard the Mavi Marmara when she tried to give her account of the flotilla attack in the Knesset? She was shouted down, a fight broke out and several people had to be escorted out.

Really vibrant democracy that, innit.

Also, how many attempts have their been to ban arab-israeli political parties in recent years? There is real political inequality 'twixt the ethnic groups of Israel. I may be a bit hardline on these things but I think if you’re not fighting obvious injustice on your doorstep then you’re offering tacit support.

The whole history of imperialism and zionism in the Middle East has been unfortunate for all involved. What I’m trying to do is give a wider perspective than the one you get spoon-fed by your media, military and political leaders with the hope it might open your eyes to how Israeli actions are viewed outsied of Israel. There’s nothing anti-jewish in what I’m saying…

If I wanted I could claim Israeli nationality due to my heritage.

OK, so what’s the best means of averting such an attack? Is it through a committment to equal treatment under the law for all involved, and an open process of dialogue with concessions from all sides?

Or… Is it through Israel’s continuing strategy of killing and subjugating a shed-load of muslims?

Israel’s actions are counter-productive to its stated aims.

Have you heard about the Turkish/Brazilian effort to swap Iran’s enriched uranium for low-grade uranium suitable only for medical reactor use that the US and Israel dismissed? It was a great piece of diplomacy which has potential for ratchetting down tensions in the region. One of the video’s I linked to earlier discusses it - I suggest you watch it to get an idea of the alternative strategies available to bring about a peaceful future for Israel and its neighbours.

why are you suddenly forgetting the arabs who were also the victims cited in my argument?
what I was saying it that you cannot build a future upon resentment.
It’s a little known fact of history that even Switzerland endured civil war.
Germany and France have had a bloody history together but arguing over the faults of each other (starting with the 30 years war 1635-1648) won’t prepare the future.
I would have gladly voted for Willy Brandt as president.
The difference between realist and idealist is that voting for Hitler would have been a mistake. The risk there is to justify oneself by christening everything the other side of the machine-gun as “fascist”.

Then why trot out justification for their arguments and actions that further solidifies the position of their ideology?

By the way if you ever want true peace in the middle east region try to work on fixing the Palestinian school corriculum!

Read below links for more info.

http://www.eufunding.org/Textbooks/Marcus.html

From one of the lonks you posted:

"2000 Nathan Brown’s study

Since 1994 the Palestinian Authority had been replacing older textbooks, and in 1999 and 2000, Nathan Brown, Professor of Political Science at George Washington University, published a study on this subject.[22] Regarding the Palestinian Authority’s newer textbooks, he states:

"The new books have removed the anti-Semitism present in the older books while they tell history from a Palestinian point of view, they do not seek to erase Israel, delegitimize it or replace it with the "State of Palestine"; each book contains a foreword describing the West Bank and Gaza as "the two parts of the homeland"; the maps show some awkwardness but do sometimes indicate the 1967 line and take some other measures to avoid indicating borders; in this respect they are actually more forthcoming than Israeli maps; the books avoid treating Israel at length but do indeed mention it by name; the new books must be seen as a tremendous improvement from a Jewish, Israeli, and humanitarian view; they do not compare unfavorably to the material my son was given as a fourth grade student in a school in Tel Aviv".

In a February 2004 interview Brown stated that reports of Palestinian textbooks inciting violence can all be traced back to “the work of a single organization, the ‘Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace’” which he claims “rely on misleading and tendentious reports to support their claim of incitement”.[23]"

That foot is going to hurt.

@unicorn: whatever the source we know there is hate litterature (even in govt. material). (about the sources avoid “betar” this org is in very bad repute here)

now the questions we cannot avoid:
- why is there hate ?
- how could we respond ?

by blowing the bastards into smitherens? what’s the Return On Investment? (as businessmen say :D).
again don’t forget my post about the evolution of civil society in arab countries and the extraordinary change in newpapers. May be you could find some hope and could mix caution and empathy.

@GILD: could you explain to Unicorn how the things evolved in SA from paranoia to a make-do situation.

You should also see the Hamas version of Sesame Street. Pretty bad stuff.

Linked is a pretty interesting article:

Looking through the rest of that guy’s site he seems to write solely on Islam and how crap it is, and does a crap job of referencing where he gets his statistics from.

I don’t think he can be trusted to as anything like a balanced source.

Remember what I said about critically analysing the information you base your ideas on?

the late Edward Saïd was a well founded critic of Palestinian governance.
so what? Is it to imagine that “arabs” are “genetically” corrupt?
I’ve heard that one before … for every ethnic underdog! (name one: jews, blacks, and so on…)

You know I’ve heard that kind of argument before …
one grand-father of my grandfather was a frenchman living in Algeria (bluntly : a “colonist”). My grand-father was there too and he pretended to have conservative opinions (just to enrage his father-in-law who was a noted communist :p) but when hearing arguments about Algerians being more well-off under french rule he claimed (in 1930!) “you know what? they are going to kick us out! and that would be justice!”. As a young boy in North Africa I witnessed how warped were all those arguments about equal rights and good governance of colonists. How blind they were! They stuck to it and in the end they were kicked out!
whatever the shortcomings of the opposite side you cannot escape the burden of human fundamental rights! “all humans are created equals …”

this said Unicorn has made a very encouraging statement about the future so he should be encouraged!

Unicorn has the best view of reality on this thread.

Humanitarian mission, :roll_eyes: Sounds like the best way to get weapons to hamas. History says, hamas likes to rain down bombs from gaza. Maybe these humanitarians should have Israel inspect the cargo before shipping. Fascist? Maybe. But lets keep Israel safe. And let hamas prove that they can be way nicer.

Yes, some times people make mistakes(Don’t know if this is one), but Israel is the most humane nation in that part of the world. Think about it …and don’t forget it. :o:D:o:D I got that from Glen Beck.

<tongue in cheek continuation>
right: brick and mortar … that may help to throw bricks and is not “mortar” a lethal weapon?
for sure: food … those tricky people are going to throw banana peels to law abiding soldiers :roll_eyes:
</tongue in cheek>
Did I hear the word “ghetto” ???