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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Dealing with bigots
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Of course not. It was completely deaerted before 1948 wasn't it?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Of course it wasn't deserted!
It belonged to the Ottoman Empire and then the British.
It never belonged as a sovereign state to anyone called Palestinians (in the way they are called that today)
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Part of the problem of asserting the nature of the state of Israel is that it lacks a Constitution in which the principles are systematically set-out. Consequently, a joint committee formed by the Knesset and the Jewish Agency for Israel embarked on an attempt in 2003 to construct a constitution. Its work has not been completed, though it has published an interim report. (http://knesset.gov.il/constitution/ConstMJewishState.htm).
As mr cheesy indicated, it states that Israel is both Jewish and Democratic as its ‘ethos’, but also recognises the difficulties in reconciling two very different traditions. “The one is rooted in religion faith, the other is secular in nature; one is a nationalistic tradition, focused on the preservation of a particular people, the other focuses on the equal worth of all human beings; one is exclusive and communal, the other inclusive and universal.” Furthermore, there are two practical problems, “ first, non-Jewish ethnic groups, most notably Israeli Arabs, make up one fifth of Israel’s population. Second, even among Jews, the meaning of Judaism, Jewish heritage, and Jewish values is highly controversial. The question then arises: Can a state that explicitly defines itself as a Jewish state also respect the fundamental democratic value of equal citizenship to all? How does the Jewish national identity and collective ethos of the state affect the individual identities of citizens who cannot or do not share in this identity? Who will define what Judaism is and means in modern-day Israel?” The report also points out that “Israel's two official languages are Hebrew and Arabic, and all ordinances, official government forms and documents must be presented in both languages. The state broadcasts radio and television news in both languages, and a Member of Knesset may address the plenum in either language. The educational system is divided as well, with some schools taught in Arabic, and other schools taught in Hebrew.”
On the question of minority rights, the report states:
quote:
The Israeli Declaration of Independence promises that:
" “The State of Israel will maintain complete social and political equality for all its citizens, without distinction on the grounds of religion, race or sex’’
……….. As Chief Justice Aharon Barak stated in the Ka’adan case in which the Supreme Court ordered the Israel Lands Authority to treat Arabs equally in land allocations:
“Equality is among the fundamental principles of the State of Israel. Every authority in Israel, beginning with the State of Israel, its institutions and employees, must treat the various elements in the state equally. This is requisite from the Jewish and democratic character of the state and it is a function of the principle of rule of law, which is in force here. Thus, the state must honour and protect the fundamental right of every individual in the state to equal treatment”
Nevertheless, the discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel constitutes one of the most severe infringements of equality in the State of Israel. The repeated instances of discrimination cover all aspects of life, from the inadequacy of educational facilities to discrimination in the work force to insufficient government services and resources allocated to Arab areas. Israeli land planning authorities show insufficient regard for the needs of Israel’s Arab citizens, and, despite their representation in the population, it was only recently that the Supreme Court ordered the appointment of an Arab representative to the Israel Lands Authority.
The proposed constitution will reiterate the state's commitment to equal rights for all, including minorities. The constitution will emphasise universal human rights, and forbid state discrimination among its citizens on the basis of race, religion, or ethnicity.”
If the work of this committee is highlighting the major issues confronting Israel is correct then they arise from the dialectic between its tribalist and universalistic traditions. It is a pity that religion, including fundamentalist Christianity, is deployed in the service of the former when it need not be so.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Ask yourself one question: In the covenants between YHWH and Abraham and YHWH and Moses - those covenants that are basically 'Judaism' - what was the central feature?
"Be good, and I'll take care of you, and make you prosper." (Paraphrase and summation.)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Of course it wasn't deserted!
It belonged to the Ottoman Empire and then the British.
It never belonged as a sovereign state to anyone called Palestinians (in the way they are called that today)
Neither did North America belong to a sovereign state before the Europeans started claiming it for their own. So what?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Of course it wasn't deserted!
It belonged to the Ottoman Empire and then the British.
It never belonged as a sovereign state to anyone called Palestinians (in the way they are called that today)
Good. There were people there. We agree on that. Now tell me why they should have been displaced by the Deir Yassin and the ensuing Naqba?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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wild haggis
Shipmate
# 15555
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Posted
This thread is called "dealing with bigots" and it is very interesting to read some of the comments, especially on the Israel question.
Israel was set up as a secular Jewish state in 1948. I had to do some work on the history of Israel for material I was teaching in school. Whatever the present Israeli government is trying to do, it was originally a secular Jewish state. Jew is a bit of a problematic word. For instance my husband is ethnically Jewish but by religion a Christian. Not every Jew follows the Jewish religion.
To be totally logical, if we follow the idea that this piece of land should only be for Jewish people because they lived there thousands of years ago, maybe we should sweep across the whole world and chase out anyone from a country that isn't it's original inhabitants. Now that's just plain silly.......isn't it?
But to get away perhaps from a subject that is becoming somewhat polemical and go back to the original thread.
I was in N Ireland during the troubles. I came to the conclusion, living among the people and listening to both sides that it had nothing really to do with religion, but as most wars and uprisings are, but to do with land and who owns it.
We seem to have hit a place in history where nationalism is becoming popular again. The lead up to the First War War was about people trying establish or re-establish their national identities.If you look at a great many wars in history that is exactly what it is about - land and who owns it.
We are having lots of discussion about the problems bigotry creates but what do we do about it? Is legislation the answer or education and if so what?
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wild haggis
Posts: 166 | From: Cardiff | Registered: Mar 2010
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Holy Smoke
Shipmate
# 14866
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
[QUOTE]Wanting something doesn't give you the right to take it. Is your message to the Palestinians really "tough shit, they can take your lands and you just have to put up with it because they're Jewish and you're not"?
The original Zionist pioneers bought their land either from rich Ottoman Turks or from rich Arabs, they didn't 'take' it.
Posts: 335 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2009
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
You cannot legitimately take political control of a territory by buying land. Were that so, half of London would probably belong to China and the UAE from what I understand. I own my house and the land on which it stands, but it remains part of the UK and UK law is still in force. Land ownership doesn't even grant a right of residence.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
So, who 'owned' the land where Israel now exists?
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
The important question is who lived there and why are they now refugees in occupied teritories?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
It appears that the ideology of terra nullius is alive and well. (That is, land that isn't registered in a Western-style land registry isn't owned at all and can just be taken.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It appears that the ideology of terra nullius is alive and well. (That is, land that isn't registered in a Western-style land registry isn't owned at all and can just be taken.)
Yes, rather depressing. It reminds me of those old Westerns, where the Injuns could be dispossessed and treated like shit, since after all, they were shit.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Millions of Jewish people were expelled from the neighbouring and non neighbouring countries at the time of Israel's formation. They didn't go willingly either. It was during a general time of expulsion and ethnic cleansing where in Europe Poles, Ukrainians, ethnic Germans and others were forced out and new borders based on ethnic or presumed ethnic lines were drawn.
Frankly the focus on Israel as offender in chief on mistreatment on minorities is puzzling unless there is some special point about their specialness.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Ah, good old whataboutery!
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
No. The question comes to whether there's an excess focus on one country and people and what that means. As we may say profanely, the world has a hard-on for Israel and before it for the Jews.
And still Palestinians have rejected land for peace every time it has been offered. I wish they would not.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Instead, there were passionate, fashionable, persistent and well-organised protests against sporting competition with South Africa, but practically bugger-all interest in preventing athletic and sporting contact with repressive dictatorships such as China.
Speaking as someone with white South African parents, the obvious difference is that there was a reasonable chance that a boycott of South Africa would succeed.
Okay, so if a regime is evil, but also big and strong, then don't say or do anything about it.
quote:
I'll note that two of the groups you mentioned are secular rather than Islamist.
Ostensibly
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Does THIS help?
Or THIS perhaps?
[ 07. January 2018, 19:39: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
No, I do not need a history lesson. People were there, they fled or were forced to leave. That is bad. I am aware of the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries. That was also a great wrong, and were there hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees wanting to return to their homes there, I would support them. Do you know of such communities?
Point is, there are hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians, and I don't see what hope for them there is in your vision. It seems to be "it's theirs now, get over it." I'm sure you'd happily take the same view were you forced into exile in Denmark as ten million Welshmen from around the world tipped up in England and declared the New Wales in the former England must be no more than 20% English on the basis that they were forced out in the 600s and had historic ties to the land.
[ 07. January 2018, 22:13: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Speaking as someone with white South African parents, the obvious difference is that there was a reasonable chance that a boycott of South Africa would succeed.
Okay, so if a regime is evil, but also big and strong, then don't say or do anything about it.
The reasonable chance of success is part of the standard criteria for a just war. I would think it applies to any other measure that might cause hardship or suffering to innocent populations.
The purpose of campaigning is to effect meaningful change; not to give oneself a hard-on at the thought of one's own self-righteousness.
quote:
quote:
I'll note that two of the groups you mentioned are secular rather than Islamist.
Ostensibly
And your evidence for saying that is?
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
So, who 'owned' the land where Israel now exists?
Largely, absentee landlords in Istanbul, who got it from the native Palestinians due to intentionally confiscatory taxation. The Palestinians were unable to pay the new rate of taxes (as designed), and lost their land. The new landlords then sold it to Zionists. I don't think that buying land from such people exonerates Zionists from "stealing" the land.
It's like buying stolen goods. If the cops catch you, the goods still go back to the legitimate owners, and "but I bought it fair and square" gets you exactly fuck-all.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Re what mt just said about land:
I'm curious. Does anyone know if a) the Turkish sellers were Muslim, and b) whether they knew the buyers were Jews who wanted to come home and start a country?
Thx.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
So, who 'owned' the land where Israel now exists?
Largely, absentee landlords in Istanbul, who got it from the native Palestinians due to intentionally confiscatory taxation. The Palestinians were unable to pay the new rate of taxes (as designed), and lost their land. The new landlords then sold it to Zionists. I don't think that buying land from such people exonerates Zionists from "stealing" the land.
It's like buying stolen goods. If the cops catch you, the goods still go back to the legitimate owners, and "but I bought it fair and square" gets you exactly fuck-all.
That's the traditional way to get land out of people, other than just killing the fighters and enslaving the rest. Is it fair to compare the actions of the Turkish Landlords to the banking system in America today? In Australia, people lose their property in bad times when interest rates go up on their variable rate loans. The bank repossesses the house and sells it to the next person.
Australia was expropriated largely by warfare and disease, most of the Americas too. I don't know your background MT, but your judgement certainly condemns my ancestors. It condemns my Norman ones who settled in the Pale, it condemns their dispossessors during Cromwell's destruction of the Catholic Lords, and it condemns my ancestors who immigrated to Australia. I'm not sure yet whether my ancestors dispossessed the Yorta Yorta (I think) directly, or whether they got it from someone who had done the messy work already. That was the second half of the nineteenth century. Is that about the same time as the first Zionists arrived in Palestine?
I'm not accusing you of antisemitism MT, but I wonder how you can say that the Jews should give back their stolen land without calling for every colonial people, Australians, Americans, Brazilians and all the rest to do the same. If all you are saying is that the land was stolen and let's leave it that way, fine. But let's remember the history of the ground we tread too.
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What you need to "find" is some sort of sense of proportion.
Might I suggest that you go and do likewise?
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
...I'm not accusing you of antisemitism MT, but I wonder how you can say that the Jews should give back their stolen land without calling for every colonial people, Australians, Americans, Brazilians and all the rest to do the same. If all you are saying is that the land was stolen and let's leave it that way, fine. But let's remember the history of the ground we tread too.
One difference is that the Palestinian lands have always been called "occupied," and Israel has been negotiating (sort of) a peace agreement that would return some or all of those lands for half a century. But the United Nations had no authority to take lands from Palestinians in the first place, and Israel has no authority to build settlements on occupied land.
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
MT was talking about the first Zionists, I thought. They arrived at some time in the nineteenth century, at roughly the same time as my ancestors arrived in Australia. Did you ancestors emigrate to the New World? Should you be packing your bags?
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
I'm not accusing you of antisemitism MT, but I wonder how you can say that the Jews should give back their stolen land ...
I'm not accusing you of not reading for content, but I wonder where I said that. I think that Zionism is inherently racist and morally unsupportable. But the situation on the ground in the Levant is clearly not going to be solved by all the Jews getting up and moving away somewhere.
My ancestors, of course, stole a whole continent from a number of independent and interdependent already-there people groups, mostly via subterfuge and murder. Needless to say I feel very conflicted about that.
But every people group in the world that we know of came from somewhere else, and many migrated/invaded (say it how you will) to places where there were already people living. How far back shall we go to send people back to their native land? Olduvai?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
mt--
I hear Olduvai is gorgeous ![[Biased]](wink.gif) this time of year.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
When would you like to go back to, MT, in terms of righting wrongs about land seizures? 1940, to give a round figure? Think about the Greeks expelled from Turkey at the time of the Cyprus Crisis. A friend's husband's family come from there on his mother's side. Another friend, a Gulanist as it happens, emigrated from Turkish Cyprus.
If Palestinians and Israelis continue to fight about questions of who is historically entitled to own Palestine, it will delay peace, as it does right now to the fault of both sides and the agony of their peoples. Peace requires a focus on what the parties have in common, of how they are going to live together in the future and yes the difficult question of who gets what. Once peace is achieved, it will then I hope be time to look at the competing truths, and to seek justice and reconciliation. Without peace I fear that the Palestinians will be ground into nothing.
Even truth is yet to happen in my country. Hell, I was taught a different truth about my country's beginnings as a child than the one beginning to emerge now. Stolen land is the land beneath my feet. What can I do? I choose to try and discover what happened as a first step. The scholarship is available I think (I'm dipping my toe at the moment), and I'm starting, at fifty fucking one, to pay attention to my past and my responsibility to contribute to justice within my capacity.
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
My ancestors, of course, stole a whole continent from a number of independent and interdependent already-there people groups, mostly via subterfuge and murder. Needless to say I feel very conflicted about that.
As did ours here, from people who had been here at least 50,000 years and probably another 10,000 on top of that. And in my case, it was not just that the ancestors arrived to a land which the original occupants had already lost: both in what is now suburban Sydney and in country areas it was they who did the taking and stealing.
60 and more years ago when I was at primary school, we were not taught that. We were taught that our ancestors had settled the land and made farmlands from it to feed the infant colony, land that until then had had no use. It's now too late to reverse those events but not too late to direct taxation towards reparations.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
simontoad--
Re your second paragraph above:
Hasn't worked, in all the decades that the people there and elsewhere have been seeking peace for Palestinians and Jewish Israelis, or some kind of livable resolution.
They're not likely to see or admit that they have things in common.
Did you ever see the episode of the original Star Trek that had a man from our universe and a double from an anti-matter universe? They couldn't both be present in the same place, or the universe would be destroyed. They wound up in a sort of hyper-space tunnel between universes, fighting each other, at each other's throats for eternity.
That's what's going on in the Palestinian/Jewish-Israeli situation.
It's also like one of those "Chinese" finger puzzles. It's a woven, stretchy tube, open at both ends. A person puts a finger in each end. When they want to remove the puzzle, they usually try to pull out both fingers at the same time--and *can't*. The tube stretches, and there's something like suction (probably incorrect!), and neither finger can be removed. The person has to relax, stop pulling, and remove one finger at a time. IMHO, the Palestinians and Jewish are still pulling at both ends.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
When would you like to go back to, MT, in terms of righting wrongs about land seizures?
I'm not sure the land-seizure wrongs can be righted at this point. If I were to pick a point, I'd say all the land stolen in 1948 during Operation Clean Sweep (something I never learned about in the sanitized history of the beleaguered Jews getting their own empty homeland that I learned in school) would be a good start. But then we'd have a Swiss cheese Israel, and that wouldn't work for anybody's peace or security.
There really is no easy answer. It's hard to see a difficult answer. It seems clear that to the current government of Israel, the only answer is to eventually annex all of the West Bank, and keep the Gaza Strip in perpetual terror and subhuman conditions. Which I should think any sane person would realize is a no-go. But clearly I'm wrong there.
quote:
If Palestinians and Israelis continue to fight about questions of who is historically entitled to own Palestine, it will delay peace, as it does right now to the fault of both sides and the agony of their peoples. Peace requires a focus on what the parties have in common, of how they are going to live together in the future and yes the difficult question of who gets what.
Cart before horse.
quote:
Once peace is achieved, it will then I hope be time to look at the competing truths, and to seek justice and reconciliation.
Without justice there is no peace. What you are asking is total capitulation by the Palestinians, in the hope that the Israelis will give them some crumbs. "Peace" on these terms --
i.e. peace first then justice -- is equivalent to accepting the status quo, and trusting the stronger party to deal fairly with the weaker. Historically that is not a recipe for justice.
quote:
Without peace I fear that the Palestinians will be ground into nothing.
With peace, as you define it, they will be ground into nothing.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
Yes, peace looks hopeless at the minute. We came close though in the 1990's. People bicker about fault there too.
I disagree with you if you say that most Israelis don't want peace, or are not prepared to compromise. If you haven't looked at the Israeli newspaper Haaretz yet you should. It paints a much different picture of Israel. It is I think liberal Israel appalled at the suffering and repression and killing of Palestinians ostensibly to benefit them. Australians have a taste of what that feels like with long-term detention of people seeking asylum. Americans might have a taste because of Guantanamo Bay.
While Israel is ruled by Netenyahu and his allies, peace is very problematic. I don't think those Israelis want peace. I think they reckon they can win, but I have no idea how they think they can achieve that. Netenyahu is in trouble though. The police interviewed him on nine separate occasions over corruption last year, and the investigation continues. Trump may need to go via the ballot box, but Netenyahu might not.
A shipmate has given me a link to a journal called 972mag, which I am following. I do want to see if there are Palestinians too who want peace and are prepared to compromise. I fervently hope that there are. I'm looking. There have been in the past.
One positive sign in Palestinian politics is a recent agreement between Hamas and Fatah. It can only be ABSOLUTELY BLOODY BRILLIANT if the Palestinian factions can agree than the number one priority is statehood for the Palestinians, and that comes before jockeying for power.
My firm contention is that Palestinian statehood must come in the form of an agreement with Israel, as distinct from imposed by an unenforceable UN declaration. But that is yet another issue.
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
MT I'm thinking in part about the way apartheid ended in South Africa and their Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I'm also thinking about something I saw on telly about reconciliation with Aborigines. Obviously its a really different situation, but you do have to put the soldiers in their barracks, put the stones and the kitchen knives away and feel safe about that before you can really work out how to achieve closure for two peoples who have fought for what, 70 years? The first step isn't justice. The first step is to gain the courage and confidence to stop the bloodshed.
I think you're right about Netenyahu and the bastard settlers. I think their vision is total victory. They are delusional, I hope and pray. Certainly one settler I met was a freaking fruitloop of the highest magnitude, who wasn't even prepared to concede there was a difference between sunni and shiite, and alleged that the Palestinian homeland was anywhere they wanted but here. But then I met another settler, an Australian, who was an ordinary bloke who just wanted to live his life. But however many racist and crazy bastards there are in the settler movement, Israeli Soldiers dragged struggling fanatical settlers from their homes when stage 1 of the Oslo Peace Accords was implemented, and I'm told they left the houses and farm equipment too for the Gazans to claim. Israelis will compromise for peace. Many of them yearn for it. We just need these sorts of Israelis in charge again. That will change things, I hope.
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
And still Palestinians have rejected land for peace every time it has been offered. I wish they would not.
I don't believe they've ever had a serious offer of contiguous land for peace. The offers I've heard about have excluded inter alia all the main highways running across Palestinian lands.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
I still don't see who these so-called palestinians were though.
Until WWI the area was part of the Ottoman Empire.
Then it was ruled by the British.
Then the UN decided on a two state solution which 'the Arabs' rejected.
In the area we now know as the internationally recognised state of Israel, there were Jews, Muslims and Christians.
They were called Palestinians - but not in the way that Palestinians are termed today.
If the UN recommended the creation of the state of Israel why are people so against its existence?
It is quite evident that from day one the Arabs have not wanted the state of Israel to exist. They would rather drive it into the sea and the Arabs have the whole area.
That's why there is no peace.
[ 08. January 2018, 12:41: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
I disagree with you if you say that most Israelis don't want peace, or are not prepared to compromise.
Well, I did refer to the leadership of Israel. On the other hand how did they get to be the leaders? They were elected, weren't they? Just as in this country, the nutcase right clearly represents enough people (or can hoodwink them) to win elections.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Sioni Sais
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# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
I disagree with you if you say that most Israelis don't want peace, or are not prepared to compromise.
Well, I did refer to the leadership of Israel. On the other hand how did they get to be the leaders? They were elected, weren't they? Just as in this country, the nutcase right clearly represents enough people (or can hoodwink them) to win elections.
(I'm pretty sure this is the latest election) As usual this Israeli government is a coalition. Likud has 30 seats of the 120 in the Knesset but relies on partners, some of whom are considerably more extreme.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
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Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
'So-called Palestinians' - blimey, could anyone be more offensive if they tried?
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Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
'So-called Palestinians' - blimey, could anyone be more offensive if they tried?
Of course I could - because my phrase is not in the slightest way offensive. Can you tell me by what right some of today's Palestinians have to call themselves such a thing?
It is true that pre-1948 the whole area was called Palestine and even the Jews who lived there called themselves Palestinians. It is entirely possible that some very elderly Jewish people who are now Israelis once called themselves Palestinians, under the old British Mandate.
What right therefore does anyone who was not part of the old Palestine have to call themselves exclusively 'Palestinians'?
Indeed, on what basis are they Palestinians?
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Sioni Sais
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# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
'So-called Palestinians' - blimey, could anyone be more offensive if they tried?
Of course I could - because my phrase is not in the slightest way offensive. Can you tell me by what right some of today's Palestinians have to call themselves such a thing?
It is true that pre-1948 the whole area was called Palestine and even the Jews who lived there called themselves Palestinians. It is entirely possible that some very elderly Jewish people who are now Israelis once called themselves Palestinians, under the old British Mandate.
What right therefore does anyone who was not part of the old Palestine have to call themselves exclusively 'Palestinians'?
Indeed, on what basis are they Palestinians?
If it offends people it is offensive. Who are you to tell people such a thing?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Indeed, on what basis are they Palestinians?
They live in Palestine. See how easy this is?
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
Ye gods, I hate discussions about Israel/Palestine. How many inanities do we have to deal with in one conversation?
First we have false equivalences. Yes, it is absolutely true that Jews were turfed out of Arab countries and Europe. But that doesn't change the reality that people were turfed out of their homes (and which they have documented evidence of living in) for hundreds of years in 1948 and 1967. Some families have evidence of continuous habitation for more than a thousand years.
And then we have the false claims of anti-Semitism. That somehow stating a reality (people were turfed out of their homes and land by force in 1948 and 1967 to create a new nation of which they were never a part) is anti-Semitic. It isn't. It isn't even to say that Israel shouldn't exist. It exists. It isn't going away. But equally there is a stark reality that the creation of Israel led to the displacement of many people, some of whom are still refugees living in unsuitable housing several generations later.
And then we have these claims that "everyone needs to compromise" (meaning both Israelis and Palestinians). This is particularly inane. A population is under a heavy military occupation where a significant proportion of the population survive on food handouts, where movement is severely restricted and where the life-chances are very limited. Some of the population are legally classed as refugees and have zero chance of ever being anything else. One of the two areas in which they live is a prison. Nothing goes in nothing goes out of Gaza without the occupiers say-so. The other area is being salami-sliced by the occupier and their settlers (who, in case anyone has forgotten, were encouraged to settle in the West Bank by the Israeli government) to the extent that having a continuous contiguous state is impossible.
What else are they supposed to compromise? They can't have an airport or a deep-sea port. They can't have proper roads. They can't move freely - even if they're not going to "Israel proper". Goods can't move freely. They can't generate their own electricity (solar projects are routinely destroyed by the occupiers military). Houses are routinely destroyed when the occupier decides to signify that certain places are "closed military zones". Children are routinely imprisoned - often without trial, and when they are tried it is in a military court in a different language by a legal military power they don't recognise. They're often charged with throwing stones - at a nuclear-wielding military power, as their homes are being ransacked in the middle of the night in occupied land. The military shouldn't be there, period. And yet the "law" as it is says that they can arbitarily put children into prison for throwing stones.
And they're supposed to compromise. Yeah, ok.
I dunno what else there is to say. If you think that it is wrong to call a population what they want to be called (I mean, seriously, hello?), if you think that your Holy Book says that you can burst into someone's home (that has been in their family for hundreds of years) in the middle of the night to take away your children because of a state being created that they don't support or want or accept - then I've got nothing else to say to you and have no interest in whatever snakeoil religion you're pushing.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
I think Golda Meir used to say that Palestinians don't exist. I suppose some right wing Israelis still say it, and presumably right-wing Christians.
It's certainly a radical approach to peace talks - you don't exist.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
quote:
Mudfrog: What right therefore does anyone who was not part of the old Palestine have to call themselves exclusively 'Palestinians'?
Indeed, on what basis are they Palestinians?
Mudfrog, you need to recognise the distinction between nationality and ethnicity. In a multi-ethnic state one is considered to be, for example, a German whilst being ethnically a Jew, Aryan, Chinese, African, or however one describes oneself. Being a German, is simply a function of being a citizen of a particular state: a legal entity, normally internationally recognised, that governs a specified territory. Some states, however, regard nationality as confined to membership of a particular ethnic group, as did the Nazis, with the result that Jews living in Germany lost their rights of citizenship and eventually their lives. Had multi-ethnic Palestine become an independent state, its citizens would have been Palestinian as to nationality and Jew, Arab, etc. as to ethnicity. A major problem has arisen, of course, due to the difficulty of realising both the Jewish and Democratic aims of Israel because the former makes it difficult for the latter to achieve. It is virtually impossible to see how any democratic state can be other than multi-ethnic and, therefore, effectively secular as well, unless for some reason the country is ethnically homogeneous by accident rather than design.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Interesting post, Kwesi. I've noticed that right wing people tend to call Palestinians Arabs, which over-rides nationality by ethnicity, well, that is, for Palestinians, who are conveniently erased.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Interesting post, Kwesi. I've noticed that right wing people tend to call Palestinians Arabs, which over-rides nationality by ethnicity, well, that is, for Palestinians, who are conveniently erased.
Well, to be fair they speak Arabic, which is one definition (certainly the simplest) of "Arab."
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
I had a Lebanese neighbour who hated being called an Arab, although her first language was Arabic. She used to say that she was a Christian! She was a nice lady.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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