|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Purgatory: Israel's troubles
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
This is a case of what Rod Dreher calls the Law of Merited Impossibility.
Nobody is threatening the existence of Israel and when Israel gets pushed into the sea and ceases to exist, boy, will they have it coming.
--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
|
Posted
I should have thought it pretty clear as to why the State of Israel was reinstated in the Middle East . I mean let's face it, Biblical sentimentality aside , you're looking at a pretty fat Western finger pointing at a very juicey oil-filled pie.
I'm not saying Palestinian grievances aren't legitimate, no doubt they are too many . But is it really sensible to be in a constant state of war over an objective that is totally unwinnable ?
--------------------
Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
One, you are begging the question. Two, fighting an unwinnable war is in fact immoral according to just war theory.
--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
I should have thought it pretty clear as to why the State of Israel was reinstated in the Middle East . I mean let's face it, Biblical sentimentality aside , you're looking at a pretty fat Western finger pointing at a very juicey oil-filled pie.
I'm not saying Palestinian grievances aren't legitimate, no doubt they are too many . But is it really sensible to be in a constant state of war over an objective that is totally unwinnable ?
I would have thought the opposite - when you realize that your land has been stolen, your people atomized, your crops bull-dozed, and you are locked in a prison, guarded by another people, with vast military hardware at their disposal - that's when your rage and despair might become unbearable. What do you do? I suppose the wise ones will flee; some in the ghetto will fight, no doubt.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
One, you are begging the question. Two, fighting an unwinnable war is in fact immoral according to just war theory.
But just war theory is just philosophical sleight of hand, rationalism.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
deano
princess
# 12063
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
I should have thought it pretty clear as to why the State of Israel was reinstated in the Middle East . I mean let's face it, Biblical sentimentality aside , you're looking at a pretty fat Western finger pointing at a very juicey oil-filled pie.
I'm not saying Palestinian grievances aren't legitimate, no doubt they are too many . But is it really sensible to be in a constant state of war over an objective that is totally unwinnable ?
I would have thought the opposite - when you realize that your land has been stolen, your people atomized, your crops bull-dozed, and you are locked in a prison, guarded by another people, with vast military hardware at their disposal - that's when your rage and despair might become unbearable. What do you do? I suppose the wise ones will flee; some in the ghetto will fight, no doubt.
Would that prison be Auschwitz or Belsen? The land stolen and crops bulldozed... would that be on Kristalnacht?
Etc?
--------------------
"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
Oh, well in that case, enough with the talk of Israel violating the rules of war.
--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
deano
princess
# 12063
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Oh, well in that case, enough with the talk of Israel violating the rules of war.
I agree, enough with it. I frankly don't care what Israel does to the Palestinians provided Israel survives as a country.
--------------------
"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Oh, well in that case, enough with the talk of Israel violating the rules of war.
I agree, enough with it. I frankly don't care what Israel does to the Palestinians provided Israel survives as a country.
Really? Wow!
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Oh, well in that case, enough with the talk of Israel violating the rules of war.
You don't need a just war theory to have rules of war.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
|
Posted
deano - that is the West's guilt isn't it? That the Jews suffered in the Holocaust, so therefore we have to support Israel?
But Israel is a country that was created in 1948 following settlement of Arab lands by Jewish settlers from 1916 following the Sykes Picot redrawing of Middle Eastern boundaries. And since 1916 and again since 1948 Israel as an entity has been annexing lands, some of which were given back in subsequent treaties, but not all, and not all in a way that can be used. The Gaza strip and West Bank being two such pieces of land that have been begrudgingly returned, but without access to water, the sea, exit and entry points.
And to enforce the boundaries of the West Bank there is a "fence" - not the only "fence" enforcing the Israeli chosen boundary between the two states. That so called fence is a 7-9m tall concrete barrier. And those walls have been built on lines that have continued to encroach to take more land from the Palestinian lands as given by the 1967 agreement.
xpost - that was in response to the comments about Kristallnacht a few posts back.
deano - so determined to give Israel a home that you'll give up part of Britain to give the Jews a homeland? or a part of the USA?
[ 25. July 2014, 17:46: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
--------------------
Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Oh, well in that case, enough with the talk of Israel violating the rules of war.
You don't need a just war theory to have rules of war.
All rules of war are just philosophical sleight of hand, rationalizing.
--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
deano
princess
# 12063
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
deano - that is the West's guilt isn't it? That the Jews suffered in the Holocaust, so therefore we have to support Israel?
But Israel is a country that was created in 1948 following settlement of Arab lands by Jewish settlers from 1916 following the Sykes Picot redrawing of Middle Eastern boundaries. And since 1916 and again since 1948 Israel as an entity has been annexing lands, some of which were given back in subsequent treaties, but not all, and not all in a way that can be used. The Gaza strip and West Bank being two such pieces of land that have been begrudgingly returned, but without access to water, the sea, exit and entry points.
And to enforce the boundaries of the West Bank there is a "fence" - not the only "fence" enforcing the Israeli chosen boundary between the two states. That so called fence is a 7-9m tall concrete barrier. And those walls have been built on lines that have continued to encroach to take more land from the Palestinian lands as given by the 1967 agreement.
xpost - that was in response to the comments about Kristallnacht a few posts back.
deano - so determined to give Israel a home that you'll give up part of Britain to give the Jews a homeland? or a part of the USA?
I know the history, but why stop at the convenient 20th Century? Why don't you want to keep going back to before the diaspora? To the first century, or the fifth century BC?
I don't need to give up part of England to give the Jews a home. They are back in the part of the world they started out in. Or is that not a convenient point for you to work from?
I am a zionist sympathiser. I make no bones about it and don't feel the need to apologise for that position.
--------------------
"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
|
Posted
quote:
Beeswax Altar: All rules of war are just philosophical sleight of hand, rationalizing.
I know people who have been the victims of warring parties not respecting the rules of war. This isn't even something you joke about. I find it inhumane and despicable what you are saying. And what deano is saying here too.
--------------------
I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
Well...now...we are all being honest.
--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Beeswax Altar: All rules of war are just philosophical sleight of hand, rationalizing.
I know people who have been the victims of warring parties not respecting the rules of war. This isn't even something you joke about. I find it inhumane and despicable what you are saying. And what deano is saying here too.
One, I couldn't care less. Two, I'm just using the same logic Ad Orientem used upthread. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
|
Posted
You're not even close, pal. The rules of the game and the reasons for playing it are completely different. If I say that the reasons for playing are dodgy, the same reasons don't apply for ditching the rules.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
It occurs to me that a more effective use for the tubing that is used for those useless rockets would be to do bent drilling under the borders from Gaza to access the water before the Israeli date growers get at it.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
|
Posted
Because there were no Jewish settlements in Jerusalem or the Holy Lands from 638 following the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem until the 1860s when a small settlement was founded in Jerusalem following the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The Jewish settlements didn't start until 1917 and the big Jewish settlement was from 1929-1939 and again after the Second World War, all within the last 100 years.
You are suggesting that we go back to the situation before 610 when the Jews were driven out of the Holy Land by the Visigoths or 638 when Islam drove the Jews out and attempting to reverse that change so long after the event is harking further back than any other dispute we have ongoing.
We had Jewish settlements in UK cities in Mediaeval times, from the 691 to 1290 and again from 1494 to now. I'm just suggesting that we should find places in the UK as we have had a longer history of Jewish settlements which runs to recent times, rather than just one of the last 100 years. (And yes, I do know that there are Jewish areas of north London, I have travelled through them.)
--------------------
Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
There are rules governing when the game can be played as well as how the game should be played. You can fight an unjust war following the rules of war and fight a just war ignoring the rules of war. Once you've decided that the rules are worthless then the rules are worthless. Once one side stops playing by the rules, the other side would be foolish to keep doing so.
The Palestinians have ignored the rules of war for decades and then cried foul when others did the same and not just against Israel either. They did the same thing in Jordan and again in Lebanon. From the way Sabra and Shatilla are often described, you would think the Palestinians were just minding their own business in Lebanon until some Christians with the aid of the Israelis just killed a bunch of Palestinians for no reason. The Damour Massacre of Christians by the PLO happened a few years before that. How often is that ever mentioned?
--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Prester John
Shipmate
# 5502
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
The UN, having taken over the old League of Nations mandate from Britain, should have looked at where there already were substantial Jewish populations and set the Jewish National Homeland there, allowing for all the Jews in the world.
Who knows, that might just have been Brooklyn.
Here is a possibility that may have worked out if Stalin wasn't..well Stalin.
Posts: 884 | From: SF Bay Area | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
|
Posted
Some good comments on R4 Any Questions this evening
--------------------
"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
rolyn, why is Palestine un-winnable? Is that moral and just?
Sorry, think I jumbled the last paragraph . I meant the objective of 'driving Israel into the sea' is unachievable . Israel will always receive Western support , it also has nukes in the locker so I can't see it going anywhere in a hurry .
As much as we wish it otherwise the Mid-East is alas a simmering cauldron , a complex one at that, with many different interest groups bent on violence . There is however only one question open to a war-mongering country, -- do you want peace or not ? When the answer continuously comes in the form of suicide bombers and rockets what can the response be other than retaliation ?
--------------------
Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Callan
Shipmate
# 525
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Reading some comments on here I wonder whether a broader question should be asked: do SoF posters think the State of Israel has the right to exist?
For historical reasons a "Jewish national homeland" is essential. Placing it in Palestine and naming it Israel were mistakes.
It's a long time since I read up on the subject but my distinct recollection is that parts of the world that were hospitable to Jews fleeing persecution after 1933 were fairly thin on the ground. What were they all supposed to do? Bugger off back to Mitteleuropa and hope for the best?
--------------------
How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Oh, well in that case, enough with the talk of Israel violating the rules of war.
I agree, enough with it. I frankly don't care what Israel does to the Palestinians provided Israel survives as a country.
deano, I find that a very worrying attitude. To me a human life is a human life, is a human life - we are all equally valuable, no matter where we come from. My prayer is for the fighting to cease, because that will benefit everyone, but maybe Israel most of all. If your enemy feels that they have nothing to lose, that they are so desperate that suicide bombing becomes a realistic option, how can you ever be secure? Given the geography of this conflict it seems to me that a peaceful and prosperous Palestine is necessary for a peaceful and prosperous Israel.
--------------------
Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Oh, well in that case, enough with the talk of Israel violating the rules of war.
I agree, enough with it. I frankly don't care what Israel does to the Palestinians provided Israel survives as a country.
deano, I find that a very worrying attitude. To me a human life is a human life, is a human life - we are all equally valuable, no matter where we come from. My prayer is for the fighting to cease, because that will benefit everyone, but maybe Israel most of all. If your enemy feels that they have nothing to lose, that they are so desperate that suicide bombing becomes a realistic option, how can you ever be secure? Given the geography of this conflict it seems to me that a peaceful and prosperous Palestine is necessary for a peaceful and prosperous Israel.
I'm particularly concerned that deano seems to think that Palestinian Christians, probably the most ancient Christian community in the world, are disposable. I don't get why Zionist Christians put a Zionist agenda above the actual lives of their siblings in Christ. Obviously, the other Palestinians are just as valuable, but Christians are always going on about how Christians are persecuted in the Middle East - yet strangely Palestinian Christians don't seem to count here...? Why?
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
|
Posted
I thought that was obvious - the persecution of Christians is an excuse for hating Muslims.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
|
Posted
Jade Constable aasks:
quote:
Obviously, the other Palestinians are just as valuable, but Christians are always going on about how Christians are persecuted in the Middle East - yet strangely Palestinian Christians don't seem to count here...? Why?
First, they don't fit within the religious / political scheme of the Xn Zionists and, second, most of them are Orthodox, which is very foreign to US evangelicals. The Palestinian Xns are inconvenient to many folks' worldview.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
Israel bombs UN school.
That's a bit misleading. When used as a verb "bombs" implies either ærial bombardment or planted explosives. It would be more accurate to say "Israel shells UN school", since they apparently used an artillery barrage. Wouldn't want you to be accused of biased reporting.
--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
|
Posted
I would have liked to have seen a thread which sought a way for our Muslim and Christian brothers and sisters in Gaza and the West Bank, and our Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze and atheist brothers and sisters in Israel to move towards productive healthy and prosperous lives of coexistence and dignity.
A thread which treated all our brothers and sisters as individuals worthy of love and capable of moral autonomy, which honestly recognised the complexity of the problem they all face.
Instead we have a thread about Israel, and almost Israel alone. Israel which is portrayed in almost gleeful terms in the worst possible light - illegitimate, genocidal (and if that won't fit, 'culturally genocidal'), stealer of water, deliberate murderer of children. Israel whose multiethnic multireligious reality is reduced to 'they' and 'them' with mutterings about how 'they' should have learnt from 'their' history. Israel who we expect better of.
And the Palestinians are likewise robbed of their humanity, becoming the eternal passive childlike victims. They are mentioned only to highlight how evil Israel is. Nothing they do is wrong, and nothing is praiseworthy. Even Hamas, whose intent is genuinely genocidal and who want a Jew free Palestine from the river to the sea, are treated as though they were children. "They have half a point", "I might fire a rocket myself" - for shame!
This is not a good place to start. This is not a good road to be on. This way leads only to more pain, more violence, more separation, more entrenchment of positions. This is a narrative that binds us in the dark and rules us.
--------------------
They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
quote:
originally posted by Jade Constable:
Obviously, the other Palestinians are just as valuable, but Christians are always going on about how Christians are persecuted in the Middle East - yet strangely Palestinian Christians don't seem to count here...? Why?
We have persecution of Christian threads on Ship of Fools from time to time. Let's see if I can recall some of the reasons for that not being all that big a deal. Oh...how about this one...
Not a single one of those Palestinian Christians is in danger for acting like Jesus. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
The Christians in Iraq are truly in danger of genocide or being ethnically cleansed. I think ISIS killed like 200 Iraqi Christians in a day. And, yet, the eyes of the world are focused on Palestine. Unfortunately for the Iraqi Christians, they aren't a left wing cause celebre.
--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Unfortunately for the Iraqi Christians, they aren't a left wing cause celebre.
And God knows the right wing don't give a fuck about them.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
|
Posted
quote:
Israel whose multiethnic multireligious reality is reduced to 'they' and 'them' with mutterings about how 'they' should have learnt from 'their' history. Israel who we expect better of.
If Israel is "multiethnic" and "multireligious", why does it refuse to allow the Palestinian refugees expelled in the 1948 War to return home?
Israel cannot claim to be a Jewish State AND a multiethnic State.
[ 26. July 2014, 03:07: Message edited by: Anglican_Brat ]
--------------------
It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
Pat Buchanan and others have written about the genocide of Iraqi Christians for years. And even if they hadn't. I recall a quote from a few pages ago.
quote:
Rearrange these words to make a famous saying:
a, don't, make, right, wrongs, two
Now, who posted that?
--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Pat Buchanan and others have written about the genocide of Iraqi Christians for years.
Pat Buchanan has also written about how America is being destroyed by non-whites for years. While the Iraqi Christians are having a pretty horrible time right now, I'm not sure enlisting the opinion of America's most prominent white supremacist provides any special insight.
--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
originally posted by Jade Constable:
Obviously, the other Palestinians are just as valuable, but Christians are always going on about how Christians are persecuted in the Middle East - yet strangely Palestinian Christians don't seem to count here...? Why?
We have persecution of Christian threads on Ship of Fools from time to time. Let's see if I can recall some of the reasons for that not being all that big a deal. Oh...how about this one...
Not a single one of those Palestinian Christians is in danger for acting like Jesus.
The Christians in Iraq are truly in danger of genocide or being ethnically cleansed. I think ISIS killed like 200 Iraqi Christians in a day. And, yet, the eyes of the world are focused on Palestine. Unfortunately for the Iraqi Christians, they aren't a left wing cause celebre.
Actually I am fully-aware of ISIS' ethnic cleansing of Iraqi Christians, and their being targeted as 'Nazarenes'. I wasn't talking about the Ship specifically though, re Christian persecution.
Also, I'm not really getting the by 'Palestinians aren't in danger for acting like Jesus'. Are you suggesting they are being un-Christlike? Also, why does it matter that they're not being targeted for being Christians? They're still an ancient Christian community being wiped out, and conveniently forgotten by Zionists. That's quite bad enough.
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
[...] @Byron: Expecting those they have expelled and their descendants to accept the Bantustans on offer at Camp David in 2000 is outrageous. [...]
How exactly is a negotiated sovereign state (which the Palestinians want) analogous to a bantustan?
We're crying out for Godwin's to be extended to calling Israel an apartheid state. It isn't. It's not segregated; regardless of the discrimination they face, Arab-Israelis have enjoyed equal civil rights since the 1960s; and Israel's offered citizenship to every Druze in the Golan Heights. This creates far more heat than light.
quote:
As for the agreement between Fatah and Hamas, Israel and the international community were saying until recently that there was no point negotiating with Fatah because it wouldn't be binding on Hamas, now they've solved that problem they make up a new one. If the British government can negotiate with Sinn Fein/IRA then Israel can negotiate with Hamas.
It's not a binary choice between getting Hamas to agree (or getting them out of power) and Fatah setting up shop with a group whose avowed purpose is to drive Israel into the sea.
If the aim is a final peace, would you not agree that it's valid to demand that all Palestinian governments are on board?
[ 26. July 2014, 07:44: Message edited by: Byron ]
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
I don't profess to much expert knowledge in this field, but I just spotted "An Absurd Peace Plan That Might Work" by a United Church of Christ minister.
In a nutshell, his suggestion is quote:
if the National Council of Churches called together our interfaith partners with a nearly impossible task: to develop a set of principles to bring about peace between Israel and Palestine. Such discussions would have to include, of course, religious leaders from the region. Why take adversarial positions if instead together religious leaders from the United States -- where so much of the aid to both Israel and Palestine comes from -- and Israel and Palestine could come together and forge a peace plan to be presented to government leaders who have thus far failed to come to a diplomatic resolution?
Despite what he says about funding, I'm not sure the way forward is a US-brokered peace plan, and I don't think the religious issues are really any more than a pretext for what is essentially a struggle over land (plus lots of other proxy interests).
However, religious leaders did play a role in ending apartheid and bringing the Northern Ireland Troubles to a close. They are perhaps less beholden to political considerations and possibly more in touch with grassroots concerns. Is the idea absurd?
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
|
Posted
Demas is right. Those who deplore the sins of Israel yet ignore those of the Palestinians are wrong.
Likewise, those who say they don't give a toss about the Palestinians just as long as Israel are ok are equally reprehensible.
To dismiss the plight of the Palestinians as a left-wing cause-celebre is equally insensitive.
There should certainly be more coverage of the ISIS persecution of Christians in Iraq. Granted.
--------------------
Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Callan
Shipmate
# 525
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
quote:
Israel whose multiethnic multireligious reality is reduced to 'they' and 'them' with mutterings about how 'they' should have learnt from 'their' history. Israel who we expect better of.
If Israel is "multiethnic" and "multireligious", why does it refuse to allow the Palestinian refugees expelled in the 1948 War to return home?
Israel cannot claim to be a Jewish State AND a multiethnic State.
Why ever not? Lots of states based upon the national principle claim to be a national state and a multi-ethnic state. Including those based on population transfers at the end of the Second World War.
--------------------
How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
|
Posted
To frame it in medical terms instead of the usual legal ones, in psychiatry, safety is considered an essential prerequisite to treatment, since treatment started while trauma is ongoing can do more harm than good.
So long as the conflict is ongoing, attributing blame just escalates. There's no healing. Brutal as it may be, all focus should be on negotiating a final settlement, a question of realpolitik.
Only when that's done can the rest move forward.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
deano
princess
# 12063
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
To dismiss the plight of the Palestinians as a left-wing cause-celebre is equally insensitive.
It may be insensitive but it is true. It has been for decades now. Ignoring the fact because it is inconvenient or "unhelpful" isn't going to bring peace.
Left wing sympathises with Palestine, right wing sympathises with Israel and the right wing as ever has all the power and will prevail.
The Palestinians will have to accept they have lost and will need to come to the best terms they can with Israel and that means not falling for the easy solutions offered by Hamas and the like.
--------------------
"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Demas is right. Those who deplore the sins of Israel yet ignore those of the Palestinians are wrong.
Likewise, those who say they don't give a toss about the Palestinians just as long as Israel are ok are equally reprehensible.
To dismiss the plight of the Palestinians as a left-wing cause-celebre is equally insensitive.
There should certainly be more coverage of the ISIS persecution of Christians in Iraq. Granted.
I think the first bit - ignoring the sins of the Palestinians - partly flows from the perception in Europe, that our governments are totally complicit with Israel's crimes, and are barely critical of them. I think Hamas are listed as a terrorist group, so there is not much equivocation there! (But then the Brits did a deal with the IRA, who fired mortars into Downing St and killed Mountbatten (separate occasion)).
Also, probably a sense that this is another ghastly consequence of Western colonialism, although that is probably an exclusively left-wing preoccupation.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
I would have liked to have seen a thread which sought a way for our Muslim and Christian brothers and sisters in Gaza and the West Bank, and our Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze and atheist brothers and sisters in Israel to move towards productive healthy and prosperous lives of coexistence and dignity.
A thread which treated all our brothers and sisters as individuals worthy of love and capable of moral autonomy, which honestly recognised the complexity of the problem they all face.
Instead we have a thread about Israel, and almost Israel alone. Israel which is portrayed in almost gleeful terms in the worst possible light - illegitimate, genocidal (and if that won't fit, 'culturally genocidal'), stealer of water, deliberate murderer of children. Israel whose multiethnic multireligious reality is reduced to 'they' and 'them' with mutterings about how 'they' should have learnt from 'their' history. Israel who we expect better of.
And the Palestinians are likewise robbed of their humanity, becoming the eternal passive childlike victims. They are mentioned only to highlight how evil Israel is. Nothing they do is wrong, and nothing is praiseworthy. Even Hamas, whose intent is genuinely genocidal and who want a Jew free Palestine from the river to the sea, are treated as though they were children. "They have half a point", "I might fire a rocket myself" - for shame!
This is not a good place to start. This is not a good road to be on. This way leads only to more pain, more violence, more separation, more entrenchment of positions. This is a narrative that binds us in the dark and rules us.
I'd definitely go for that. Well said.
--------------------
"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
To dismiss the plight of the Palestinians as a left-wing cause-celebre is equally insensitive.
It may be insensitive but it is true. It has been for decades now. Ignoring the fact because it is inconvenient or "unhelpful" isn't going to bring peace.
Left wing sympathises with Palestine, right wing sympathises with Israel and the right wing as ever has all the power and will prevail.
The Palestinians will have to accept they have lost and will need to come to the best terms they can with Israel and that means not falling for the easy solutions offered by Hamas and the like.
Piecing it together as best I can (few admit to biases, let alone examine them), the left is against Israel 'cause it's viewed as a colonial theocracy, two honking great red flags.
This falls down even on left-wing terms: Israel is a good deal more secular than many Arab states, and Arab nationalism every bit as conservative as Jewish nationalism.
The crude version runs something like "European Zionists stole the Palestinian's country!" Which ignores the fact there was no independent Palestine to steal (it was a province of the rotting Ottoman Empire) and Jewish communities had lived in Ottoman Syria for centuries.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
[...] @Byron: Expecting those they have expelled and their descendants to accept the Bantustans on offer at Camp David in 2000 is outrageous. [...]
How exactly is a negotiated sovereign state (which the Palestinians want) analogous to a bantustan?
When your supposed state is subject to Israeli roads dividing it up, peppered with Israeli settlements and effectively subject entirely to the whims of the Israeli government it doesn't look very sovereign. The Palestinians were willing to accept the West Bank and Gaza only, and not demand any previously Palestinian land within Israel. Israel not only wanted to keep everything inside the 1948 borders, they wanted to keep a quarter of the West Bank too, as well as the aforementioned control over key roads. The Palestinian state offered in 2000 was also not allowed its own military, nor to make alliances, nor to refuse access to its airspace, nor to refuse access to Israeli troops, nor to control its own borders without Israeli supervision. The offered state was about as "sovereign" as Scotland currently is.
[ 26. July 2014, 10:26: Message edited by: Arethosemyfeet ]
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Admittedly none of us is Beeswax Altar.
The persecution of people for what they do on a Sunday morning rather than a Friday afternoon is IRRELEVANT.
Reporting on the 50 Christians driven out of Mosul (the entire Christian population) by ISIS is IRRELEVANT.
The fact that Jewish communities have existed in the region for 4000 years is IRRELEVANT.
The evil empire of US Jewish-Christian theocapitalism, as a continuation of Crusader-imperialist Christendom, is responsible for Israel, Egypt, the entire Arab spring (a CIA plot), Iraq, Syria.
Christians were not disadvantaged in Saddam's Iraq or Assad's Syria. On the contrary they were willing supporters of those establishments. I.e. not wisely and subtly Christian in that regard like those who were defeated by defeating the Roman empire.
Too left wing? The 'only' thing wrong with the left is their support of violence in any shape or form. Unlike the right's institutionalization of it.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
