If you wanna boycott Israel get off your fucking computer!!

[fractionMan]

I disagree. Fundamentalism is the hallmark of an underachiever. Look at the UK's extremists, all people who have been left behind by the economic miracle happening around them and instead of allowing the change to happen they fight it and intimidate those who just want to get on with a peaceful normal existence.

If ordinary palestinians stood up to these thugs and told Israeli security forces where they were, chances are they'd have a leadership Israel could talk with by now.

*points and laughs*

You're a muppet

 

[bluestreak]

If ordinary palestinians stood up to these thugs and told Israeli security forces where they were, chances are they'd have a leadership Israel could talk with by now.

i was under the impression that fundamentalism in palestine comes and goes in waves as successive generations reject the failures of the previous leaders to succeed. i.e., that it has made not an iota of difference to the palestinian people whether their leaders are reasonable human beings or crazed jew-haters because they are fundamentally a second class people who ahve been given absolutely no options other than to do as they're told and accept their lot.

you know as well as i do that violence justifies violence justifies oppression jusitifies violence justifies recriminations etc etc. it's called a vicious circle and it will carry on, no matter who leads the palestinians or the israelis until palestinians are equal and integrated members of society, with more to gain from allying themselves with an integrated israel than with a palestinian movement.

 

[Peet]

*points and laughs*

You're a muppet

Boring.

 

[fractionMan]

Boring.

but accurate

 

[Peet]

i was under the impression that fundamentalism in palestine comes and goes in waves as successive generations reject the failures of the previous leaders to succeed. i.e., that it has made not an iota of difference to the palestinian people whether their leaders are reasonable human beings or crazed jew-haters because they are fundamentally a second class people who ahve been given absolutely no options other than to do as they're told and accept their lot.

Depends on what you define reasonable leadership as.

you know as well as i do that violence justifies violence justifies oppression jusitifies violence justifies recriminations etc etc. it's called a vicious circle and it will carry on, no matter who leads the palestinians or the israelis until palestinians are equal and integrated members of society, with more to gain from allying themselves with an integrated israel than with a palestinian movement.

All this talk of integrating palestinians into israel is all rot I'm afraid. For a start the demographics of the matter would end Israels status as a jewish state and then when the arab majority "integrate" all you'll get is a systematic ransacking of anything jewish and once the Iranian petrodollars come rolling in you get another Lebanon style permanant civil war.

 

[Peet]

but accurate

Pointless. If you disagree, make an effort.

 

[ZAMB]

The thread title has nothing to do with the claims made in the op.

Shit thread.

I think it was started so that warren could have a pro-Israel/anti boycott thread of his own in which he wasn't getting his arse kicked. That was why he started it with all those spurious claims about Israel and how wonderful it is - he'd rather not deal with knotty problems like its record on ethnic cleansing and human rights.

But you're right - we already have a serious thread on boycotting Israel - we don't need his made-up 'facts'.

 

[moono]

All this talk of integrating palestinians into israel is all rot I'm afraid. For a start the demographics of the matter would end Israels status as a jewish state

Ahhhhhh. I just can't help that smug feeling when I think of the inevitability of it.

But you're right - we already have a serious thread on boycotting Israel - we don't need his made-up 'facts'.

It's li'l warren's 'counter' to reality. Bin it.

 

[Peet]

Ahhhhhh. I just can't help that smug feeling when I think of the inevitability of it.

Unless of course the Gaza government collapses in which case Its administration may just fall to Egypt.

So it pleases you to think a country which is essentially a world heritage site would become yet another despotic, corrupt Islamic state and jews are routinely butchered?

But of course it does.

 

[bluestreak]

All this talk of integrating palestinians into israel is all rot I'm afraid. For a start the demographics of the matter would end Israels status as a jewish state and then when the arab majority "integrate" all you'll get is a systematic ransacking of anything jewish and once the Iranian petrodollars come rolling in you get another Lebanon style permanant civil war.

so basically it's a two state system or nothing? in which case do you really fault those palestinians who feel their land has been taken? can't you have empathy for them? see, i'm an atheist so i don't believe god gave that land to anyone, and i believe in free migration so i don't begrudge anyone going to israel to make a better life for themself but i certainly wouldn't be very happy if i could stand on a spot that was once a farm owned by my grandad until some soldiers told me to push off. i think unfortunately a two state solution wouldn't help the situation much either, but there you go. and if the arabs are a majority, then they should ahve more land than the jewish minority. but then that means taking land back... is it right to take land legally bought, even if it was legally bought from thieves... it's very complicated.

but i suspect that, unlike me, you're approaching this from a bias.

oh, and i was under the impression that lebanon had been fairly peaceful until some country attacked it last year for no good reason.

 

[ZAMB]

All this talk of integrating palestinians into israel is all rot I'm afraid. For a start the demographics of the matter would end Israels status as a jewish state

Why is it all rot? Are the Israelis afraid of becoming a REAL democracy - rather than this bogus farce which the US arms to the teeth and tries to sell to the rest of the world? What is so wrong with not being a 'jewish' state - if all people in the country are given the same rights and opportunities guaranteed under international law.

At present it is just an artificial police state protected by the US.

 

[ZAMB]

is it right to take land legally bought, even if it was legally bought from thieves... it's very complicated.

Only a very small proportion of that land was 'legally bought' - the rest was seized by ethnic cleansing. Not really that complicated.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Pointless. If you disagree, make an effort.

It's a bit rich you expecting others to "make an effort" when you yourself are trotting out the same trite nationalist-Zionist lines that every Zionist and his uncle has spewed in defence of the state of israel for the last 5 decades.

 

[moono]

peet;

So it pleases you to think a country which is essentially a world heritage site would become yet another despotic, corrupt Islamic state and jews are routinely butchered?

Our visions of the One State diverge, yours into a cowering future wherein Zionists pay the bloody price for their rape and brutality and mine into a cultured and respected democracy which takes its rightful place in the Middle Eastern Union.

Naturally, you'll still be able to find a Zionist or two in the taxidermy shops. Cheap, probably.

 

[Peet]

so basically it's a two state system or nothing? in which case do you really fault those palestinians who feel their land has been taken? can't you have empathy for them?

I have a degree of sympathy that many have been so mislead into believing the concept of palestinian nationality.

see, i'm an atheist so i don't believe god gave that land to anyone, and i believe in free migration so i don't begrudge anyone going to israel to make a better life for themself but i certainly wouldn't be very happy if i could stand on a spot that was once a farm owned by my grandad until some soldiers told me to push off.

I don't think that land was given by god either. I just think that settlers who have developed brush and scrub land into a thriving nation have every right to hold on to what they built. I don't buy that the orginal settlers threw anyone off their land.

And since when was ancestral heritage (if indeed there is a palestinian ancestral heritage there (given that the presence of most arabs in the madate were migrants themselves because of economic opportunities provided by Jewish settlers)) any baring on ownership. My Grandad was a Tennent farmer in North Yorkshire. Does that mean I can claim All the houses that were built on it as my own?

Actually, I like the way you think. Maybe I should be allowed to own a Barret estate.

i think unfortunately a two state solution wouldn't help the situation much either, but there you go.

Why? Sovereign democracies don't go to war as a rule. Give them a state and give them the means to put a leash on their maffia style gangs and you have the makings of a prosperous country in the West bank..

and if the arabs are a majority, then they should ahve more land than the jewish minority.

But then that defeats the point of Israels existence. The point of a jewsish state is so that Jews could be free of persecution. Namely by arabs!!

And looking at other arab states in the region, the resultant singler state would, as I said, become another lebanon and would probably pave the way for another holocaust. If you really want to rail at the butchery of arabs, try Egypt or Jordan or Syria (or lebanon for that matter).

There are plenty places for arab muslims to go in the middle east. Where is there for jews?

but then that means taking land back... is it right to take land legally bought, even if it was legally bought from thieves... it's very complicated.

And what would they do with that land if they got it? My bet is they would ransack it and be no better off for posessing it. It would be another basketcase arab economy which exports nothing and produces nothing.

Islamist respect for artefacts of other religons in Israel is not exactly their strong point. IT's better Israel is governed by Jews, that way, all the faiths who have a vested interst in the heritage of the land (including christians) have access to it.

but i suspect that, unlike me, you're approaching this from a bias.

Of course I am. And you are bias. Everybody is. Your bias is betrayed by your perceptions from a seemingly shallow or distorted knowledge of the history of Israel.

oh, and i was under the impression that lebanon had been fairly peaceful until some country attacked it last year for no good reason.

Hmm... crack open a book on Lebanon. And Israel for that matter.

 

[Peet]

Only a very small proportion of that land was 'legally bought' - the rest was seized by ethnic cleansing. Not really that complicated.

To paraphrase a friend of mine...

A good deal of palestinians who fled the fighting were not allowed to return home and were neither compensated for their loss nor resettled by the countries they fled to (who preferred to keep them in squalid camps as a political weapon).

360,000-711,000 palestinians fled (UN estimates).

and right after the war in 1948, the arab countries like egypt, jordan, syria, the two yemens, etc. began kicking out jews who had lived there for millenia, approximately 758,000-900,000 (UN estimates again).

so there you have it. each side can claim a horror story of displacement.

but let's also put this in perspective.

in 1922, for example, greece and turkey "exchanged" populations to the tune of several million each. the community of greeks in turkey, at least 3,000 years old, was now gone. the community of turks in greence, several hundreds of years old, was gone as well.

in 1945 as many as 3 million ethnic germans were expelled from czechosovakia, poland, yugoslavia, hungary and romania. hundreds of thousands were killed. while this was ostensibly as punishment for nazi excesses, there was no effort to determine which germans were collaborators and which were not, nor were any of them allowed to leave with any possessions and all had to give up rights to land, etc. thus the german presence in central europe, many hundreds of years old, ended in one of the largest--and largely forgotten--instances of ethnic cleansing.

so what's my point? israel was indeed created with SOME ethnic cleansing, but not just its own, also that of its neighbors. in historical perspective, there are worse instances, thus neither the ethnic cleansing of israel nor of its arab neighbors deserves the ridiculous attention it gets at the expense of every other issue in the world.

 

[Peet]

peet;
Our visions of the One State diverge, yours into a cowering future wherein Zionists pay the bloody price for their rape and brutality and mine into a cultured and respected democracy which takes its rightful place in the Middle Eastern Union.

I see arabs ransacking and destroying that which was built by Israel to the point where the economy no longer functions, where Islamism is rife and where any Islamist regime can destabilize whatever passes for a government any time it likes. Oh yeah and the usual horrific persecution of jews by arabs in that time honoured tradition.

 

[warren]

peet;


Our visions of the One State diverge, yours into a cowering future wherein Zionists pay the bloody price for their rape and brutality and mine into a cultured and respected democracy which takes its rightful place in the Middle Eastern Union.

Naturally, you'll still be able to find a Zionist or two in the taxidermy shops. Cheap, probably.

That's a yes, then.

 

[ZAMB]

Peet and warren - you two deserve each other - you have both bought into the whole zionist mythology about the creation of Israel - and to hell with the facts. Do you even read anything beyond the lies written by the likes of Dershowitz and the other many apologists for Israel's war crimes.

 

[Peet]

Zamb, even if I didn't believe in the "zionist mythology" I still prefer to live in the now. The world is not as we all would wish it to be and so certain realities must be accepted. And like it or not the reality is that Israel exists and is recognized by arab states and the rest of the world as existing.

Now Palestinians in the west bank and have two choices. The first is to either accept Israel and work in partnership with them so that one day the walls can come down or continue to deny reality and suffer from their piss poor choice of leadership.
The corruption and infighting serves no-one, the Islamist propagandizing of children only perpetuates the violence and bitterness and the terrorism only invites Israeli reprisals. If they are sincere about peace then ultimately there must be compromises. The abolition/destruction of Israel is not on the table and never will be which means that something has to give.

Young Palestinians increasingly repudiate the right of return because it refers to land they have never seen and have no wish to occupy. It is a stick with which to beat the Israelis to avoid making any real progress in negotiations and serves no real purpose other than to prolong the suffering. It isn't going to happen.

We are even at a state where Abbas admits and even the palestinian "man on the street" admits that the Israeli occupation of gaza was preferable to the the free running of Islamists and maffia style gangs. Even senior Hamas spokesmen have denounced the internal situation and have admitted that much of it is not only not the fault of Israel but also outside of its sphere of control. In effect there needs to be a massive social shift of attitudes and they need to embrace leadership that will co-operate in exchange for a helping hand out of the meekrob.

For the moment, Israel is merely trying to keep a lid on a situation it would prefer to have nothing to do with whatsoever in Gaza but is forced to mount security operations for the peace of mind and security of its own citizens as any responsible nation would.

You may bleat all you like about the tough economic conditions but when the chosen leadership prefer to spend aid donations on weapons rather than social infrastructure there is very little point. What Palestininas do with aid finance when they get it is there choice. However, with choices there are consequences. They chose Hamas to lead them who have openly declared their unwillingness to make any realistic commitment to peace and as a result few are surprised that the developed world wants little to do with them.

The current policy is one of carrot and stick in that assisting Abbas who has at least made some pragmatic noises in the dirction of talks demonstrates to Palestinians who do want peace that voting for moderates will alleviate their poverty.

But of course peace is not an acceptable outcome for many outside influences. In the arab and persian states there are those who make significant political gain from ensuring Israel continues to be demonized, largely because it detracts form their own failings and in some cases outright butchery and strengthens their grip on power by appealing to Islamists worldwide with an inherent hatred of Jews.

For this reason they continue to fund the terrorists and the gangs of thugs thugs with no regard for the wellbeing of Palestinians.

Personally I find the widespread condemnation of Israel to be grossly hypocritical as those who indulge in it for a hobby to demostrate their right on credentials remain blissfully unaware of a historic arab persecution of jews and a recent historci persecution of palestinians by arab states, namely Jordan and to some extent Syria Lebanon and Egypt.

In fact while many of your ilk are bleating on about the Lebanese massacres of Palestinians back in 82 (and blaming Israel) virtually nothing is said of the Syrian massacres of their own citizens totaling over 30,000 peolpe and very little is said of the reason those same Palestinians were in Lebanon to begin with (ie the expulsion form Jordan)

There is more than enough blame to go round everyone and what is needed now is an acceptance of the status quo (except maybe their third album) and some realistic assessments of internal Palestinian affairs which could move toward a pragmatic gesture of peace.

Whether Jews have a legitimate claim to the land or not, what is now there was built by Jews and the prosperity that drives Israel and much of the region is a result of Jewish settlement because of the vast diversity of knowledge and skills and culture brought by the diverse mix of immigrants. Palestinians can either accept it and work toward sharing that prosperity or continue to hold onto unrealistic demands which guarantee nothing other than a perpetuation of the last forty years of misery.

Gaza is a prison of their own making as a result of the choices they made at the ballot box.

 

[ZAMB]

1/ I never even mentioned Lebanon and the crimes committed there by Israel. Read my posts!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2/ Someone close to me lives in Gaza - so I do have a personal interest in his well-being. stuff your 'hobby' speech. You are the one who is 'bleating on'.

3/If you build on stolen land, it doesn't make the land any less stolen.

 

[Peet]

3/If you build on stolen land, it doesn't make the land any less stolen.

Perhaps someone should tell the "palestinians" that.

 

[Peet]

2/ Someone close to me lives in Gaza - so I do have a personal interest in his well-being. stuff your 'hobby' speech. You are the one who is 'bleating on'.

Is this a "some of my best friends are gay" thing?

 

[ZAMB]

Is this a "some of my best friends are gay" thing?

Are you sick in the head?????

 

[ZAMB]

Perhaps someone should tell the "palestinians" that.

This is a totally daft statement that does not deserve a reply.

Are you really that stupid???

 

[ZAMB]

considering that this thread was started with totally spurious information - its only purpose seems to be to provide a forum for warren and peet to bash the Palestinians. It should perhaps be deleted. Just my opinion, of course.

 

[Genghis Cohen]

Seeing as warren has dodged the small issue that his initial post now looks to be untrue the thread doesn't seem to serve any real purpose that one titled "Deir Yassin, ace" wouldn't.

 

[moono]

peet;

So it pleases you to think a country which is essentially a world heritage site would become yet another despotic, corrupt Islamic state and jews are routinely butchered?

Our visions of the One State diverge, yours into a cowering future wherein Zionists pay the bloody price for their rape and brutality and mine into a cultured and respected democracy which takes its rightful place in the Middle Eastern Union.

Naturally, you'll still be able to find a Zionist or two in the Arab Quarter taxidermy shops. Cheap, probably.

 

[bluestreak]

so what you're saying peet is that is basically palestinians and arabs simply aren't as cultured and civilised as good honest jews.

my bias is wanting a peaceful, fair and equitable world, by the way. sadly i don't think you fit into it.

 

[Peet]

so what you're saying peet is that is basically palestinians and arabs simply aren't as cultured and civilised as good honest jews.

No. I am recognising the need for a Jewish state and recognising that an Israel free of the Palestinian problem could be the liberal democracy it aspires to be. The only obstacle to this is the unwillingness of Palestinian leadership to recognise certain basic realities. This stubborn refusal may or may not have legitimacy but in the end it accomplishes nothing.

I would like nothing more than to see a properous homeland for the palestinians but that requires a degree of state building and international co-operation. While palestinian leadership is more interested in fighting among themselves and waging a pointless terror war on its neighbors there can be no other policy than containment.

So far as I can see, all that has been achieved by funding different groups to stop fighting is a stalemate. In effect the world is bribing the palestinians not to have a civil war. My view is that the world should turn its back and let them have that war so that the emerging victor speaks with authority when speaking for the palestinians. From that point you can then have an honest discourse. If the winner of any palestinian civil war is still dedicated to the destruction of Israel then Israel is still justified in doing only the bare minimum to avoid a humanitarian catastrophy and even that is more than is expected of other nations where their blood enemies are concerned.

Palestinians could learn a lot from the early jewish settlers. They never expected much from the oputside world who had abandoned them and asked for little. They built a state and they co-operated with each other. Is the same behavior evident in Palestinians?

I really feel sorry for the ordinary palestinains that they have been lead so badly and deceived by arab states for use as a political tool against the West but at some point, as with individuals, societies have to look to themselves for salvation.

Aid alone will not build a society and bringing the walls down now will only serve to wreck the one country in the region not in the grip of tyrants, despots and zealots.