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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: If you could travel back in time to 1948....
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Hell, my grandmother was sold from England to America. Do I have a right to go back to Yorkshire? It's my ancestral homeland.
Of course you do. It's not North Korea!
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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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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Xifer:
When i lived in Eastern California in Inyo county, i had noticed certain similarities to the land of Palestine such as a river that ended in a salt sea and Hollywood filming sites for religious films. One of the thought fantasies i had at the time was to take one of the sides of the conflict, probably the Jews and build them a new Jerusalem in the Sierras and give by treaty five hundred miles of eastern California to include San Diego. Or we could give them Los Angeles and give San Diego to Arizona.
Inyo Country, sure. But if you give away any portion of L.A., Orange, San Bernardino, or San Diego counties you're going to have far more displaced persons than you had in Palestine.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
The point is this: for more than two thousand years the Passover Seder has ended with the words Next year in Jerusalem; granted, this refers more to the coming of the Messiah and the new Jerusalem, but it also, for Jews of the diaspora, articulated a longing to return to the land of the twelve tribes.
So the longing not just for a homeland but for the homeland has always been out there.
Whether or not Christians and Muslims regard Jerusalem as one of their holy cities is irrelevant - for Jews it is their holy city, the only one: you could be mischievious and argue that since Judaism is the oldest of the three religions then they get the city and land by right.
For myself, I still think Jerusalem should belong to no state but rather be a world city, administered by the UN. For the rest, go back to the 1947 partition borders as a starting point and negotiate from there.
But nothing can be done to sort it all out while people build tunnels under borders and fire rockets into towns and settlements. While Hamas wields any influence in the Palestinian territories there can be no hope of peace or security for any Jewish Israeli - how else to interpret this (from Article 7 of the Hamas Charter:
quote:
The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim).
or this from Article 13 quote:
[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion; the nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its faith, the movement educates its members to adhere to its principles and to raise the banner of Allah over their homeland as they fight their Jihad.
Have any of the people who lobby for peace talks, the politicians who press for (and get) meaningless votes to 'recognise' a Palestinian state actually read this?
Just in case they fall for the old line that this is a 'historical' document so can be taken as empty rhetoric, try the thoughts of the current Chairman of Palestinian Hamas, Khaled Meshaal quote:
Palestine – from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, from its north to its south – is our land, our right, and our homeland. There will be no relinquishing or forsaking even an inch or small part of it, ...we shall not relinquish the Islamic waqf on the land of Palestine, and Jerusalem shall not be divided into Western and Eastern Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a single united city, and Palestine stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, and from Naqoura [Rosh Ha-Niqra] to Umm Al-Rashrash [Eilat] in the south.
These people repeat nonsense from The Protocols of the Elders of Sion because they believe in it and they're not alone, sharing their belief with people as diverse as the present Mufti of Jerusalem, the Saudi Education Minister and Kent Hovind - and the latter is still respected by organisations such as Living World Church (with a branch in Portsmouth), Oxford Bible Church, Light & Life Church, etc.
Like it or not, the nation of Israel exists; moreover it has a population that includes other religions and the state accepts the right of people to practise a religion other than Judaism, which puts it head and shoulders above all of the surrounding states; the Jews of Israel aren't going anywhere because they have nowhere else to go and the sooner the muslims of the middle east recognise that fact and stop trying to wipe them off the face of the earth the better for everyone.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Whether or not Christians and Muslims regard Jerusalem as one of their holy cities is irrelevant - for Jews it is their holy city, the only one
Not so irrelevant to non-Jews perhaps.
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
For myself, I still think Jerusalem should belong to no state but rather be a world city, administered by the UN. For the rest, go back to the 1947 partition borders as a starting point and negotiate from there.
agreed. (see the wonderful West Wing for details).
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
But nothing can be done to sort it all out while people build tunnels under borders and fire rockets into towns and settlements.
or for that matter, building walls to ghettoize an entire people group and remove them from access to employment, agriculture, and commerce, thus creating a permanent dependent underclass.
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
the Jews of Israel aren't going anywhere because they have nowhere else to go and the sooner the muslims of the middle east recognise that fact and stop trying to wipe them off the face of the earth the better for everyone.
and vice-versa.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Have any of the people who lobby for peace talks, the politicians who press for (and get) meaningless votes to 'recognise' a Palestinian state actually read this?
Not all Palestinians are Hamas. Fostering conditions where Hamas withers on the vine are paving the road to peace. Slowly crushing the Palestinians only strengthens Hamas.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Agreed we should do all to foster peace.
How about making a start by banning all text books produced by the Saudi Education Ministry (certainly pre-2006) and those produced by the Palestinian Authority that were described thus by Palestinian Media Watch quote:
The teachings repeatedly reject Israel's right to exist, present the conflict as a religious battle for Islam, teach Israel's founding as imperialism, and actively portray a picture of the Middle East, both verbally and visually, in which Israel does not exist at all.]
As Hillary Clinton put it quote:
I believe that education is one of the keys to lasting peace in the Middle East... Ever since we first raised this issue some years ago there still has not been an adequate repudiation of incitement by the Palestinian Authority. It is even more disturbing that the problem appears to have gotten worse. These textbooks don't give Palestinian children an education, they give them an indoctrination.
While Israeli textbooks aren't perfect, there is a willingness to accept the right of people of religions other than Judaism to exist and to live within the borders of Israel.
Yes, I agree that the internal 'security wall' is dehumanising (I've seen it up close and personal and it is vast and frightening) but you have to face the truth which is that since it was built attacks on smaller jewish settlements have almost entirely ceased, other than those by rocket from the Gaza strip, and other attacks, particularly by sniper, have more than halved. So until the Palestinian Authority acts on the things it agreed to in the Oslo accords - dismantling terrorist networks, confiscating illegal weapons, etc - it is likely to stay because the view on the Israeli ground is that it works and the figures of killed and injured back up that view.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Yes, I agree that the internal 'security wall' is dehumanising (I've seen it up close and personal and it is vast and frightening) but you have to face the truth which is that since it was built attacks on smaller jewish settlements have almost entirely ceased, other than those by rocket from the Gaza strip, and other attacks, particularly by sniper, have more than halved. So until the Palestinian Authority acts on the things it agreed to in the Oslo accords - dismantling terrorist networks, confiscating illegal weapons, etc - it is likely to stay because the view on the Israeli ground is that it works and the figures of killed and injured back up that view.
Well, by that reasoning, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima worked. It pretty much eliminated Japanese aggression.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Sorry, meant to add this:
The ultimate irony is that those insurgents who attempt to infiltrate Israel from Gaza are usually caught - because the elite trackers in the army units stationed in the Negev are all Bedouin. After a brief hiatus when recruitment almost entirely stopped in the early 2000s, the number of Bedouin in the IDF is now back at pre intifada levels. Moreover the number of arab Christians enlisting in the IDF has been rising steadily and is now at a record high.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
posted by cliffdweller quote:
Well, by that reasoning, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima worked. It pretty much eliminated Japanese aggression.
Actually no - on both counts.
1. The first bomb wasn't dropped to eliminate Japanese agression, it was dropped because of the enormous loss of life in the invasion of Okinawa, particularly the thousands of civilians either forcibly taken as cannon fodder by the Imperial Army or who became entombed in the caves where they were sheltering, their towns and villages being between the two armies. In fact the number of civilian deaths in Hiroshima was roughly two-thirds of those in Okinawa.
2. It was also dropped in the hope that the Japanese high command would be so appalled that they would capitulate: that bit didn't work, hence the second bomb three days later.
Even then it took another 5 days for the surrender to be agreed by Hirohito and the high command, and they made clear to Mountbatten (who took the formal surrender) that it was only the Soviet invasion of Manchuria with its threat to the Japanese islands that forced them to surrender.
Not quite the same, I think you'll agree.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Philip Charles
Ship's cutler
# 618
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Posted
quote:
My (late) aunt Sarah would have just loved to be described as being of "an arab cultural background"! Yes, she was born in Gaza, brought up in Hebron, moved back to Gaza; yes, her family had moved between Gaza, Hebron and points in between for at least 500 years, but in no way did she consider herself, or her ancestors, "culturally arab" - she was Jewish!
Thanks for this. I suspect that most people are like me and are well informed of the Ashkenazi and European antisemitism and the Holocaust, but have little knowledge the history of the Mizrahi and Sephardi. However, I would still say the latter two were part of the indigenous population of Palestine despite their persecution.
However, despite all the rhetoric, the Ashkenazi moved into an already settled territory and displaced large sections of the indigenous population while doing so. This is colonisation.
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There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Posts: 89 | From: Dunedin, NZ | Registered: Jun 2001
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Jonah the Whale
Ship's pet cetacean
# 1244
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Moreover the number of arab Christians enlisting in the IDF has been rising steadily and is now at a record high.
Do you have a source for this?
We had an Arab Israeli Christian staying with us recently, and he is studying medicine in Germany. He can't study medicine in Israel because he has not served (and does not want to serve) in the IDF. His sister is studying in Australia for the same reasons. This is one of the ways where Israel claims to be be non-prejudicial in terms of student intake, but in practice the reality is different.
Posts: 2799 | From: Nether Regions | Registered: Aug 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Not quite the same, I think you'll agree.
Sorry, no, I don't. You seem to be missing the whole point of the analogy, which still stands.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jonah the Whale:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Moreover the number of arab Christians enlisting in the IDF has been rising steadily and is now at a record high.
Do you have a source for this?
We had an Arab Israeli Christian staying with us recently, and he is studying medicine in Germany. He can't study medicine in Israel because he has not served (and does not want to serve) in the IDF. His sister is studying in Australia for the same reasons. This is one of the ways where Israel claims to be be non-prejudicial in terms of student intake, but in practice the reality is different.
There's a wikipedia article on this, but I had seen an article on this in the Canadian Jewish News about 5 years ago (can't find the reference, sorry). More anecdotally, an Israeli Arab (Presbyterian, from the 1880s US missionary push into the eastern churches in the Holy Land) acquaintance (now an artisanal baker in Toronto) told me that her brother had enlisted to get training in electronics and had stayed on as they had put him in officer training. Another cousin had recently signed up as a nurse. She said that it is a good deal and has made things easier for the family, although she notes that things are not getting easier generally.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
so not substantially different to what I said
Yes it is. Even if we accept the Arab population growth between 1915 and 1948 was entirely due to guest workers and illegal immigrants, we are still saying that half of the 1915 population was displaced. The 1967 Arab population is half that of 1915.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Something I've long wondered: are the Palestinians (and/or whoever else was on the land) descendants of those local people that the ancient Israelites were told to kill off?
(And my point is NOT that they didn't do it effectively enough.)
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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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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Jonah the Whale
1. If you live in a country where there is conscription and you refuse to serve then there usually are consequences - this is as true for Norwegians as it is for Israelis.
2. Conscription in Israel isn't only to the IDF - you can state an objection to armed service and then be deployed in another capacity.
However, I fear you've been taken in because there is NO conscription of Arab Israeli citizens, either muslim or Christian, into the IDF. They can choose to enlist but it is not mandatory.
As for education, the biggest concern for Arab Israelis at the moment is the attempt by the Taxas A&M University (run by self-described Christian Zionists) to take over the Nazareth Institute: Arab Christians have one of the highest rates of participation in tertiary education in Israel so spaces can be at a premium but not because of people being wilfully excluded because of race or creed, rather because so many are eligible.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron
I note an underlying hostility to immigration here. Is this specific to Palestine, or general? If it's not general, but specific to Jewish immigration to Palestine, why single that out?
It's a question of scale.
According to the census data I posted earlier, between 1915 and 1967 the Jewish population increased by a factor of 28, moving from 31% of the population to 86%, while the Muslim population halved.
If you are aware of any comparable situation in the modern world, do tell.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Jonah the Whale
Ship's pet cetacean
# 1244
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Jonah the Whale
However, I fear you've been taken in because there is NO conscription of Arab Israeli citizens, either muslim or Christian, into the IDF. They can choose to enlist but it is not mandatory.
I think I didn't explain very well. He wasn't fleeing conscription - I know that Arab Israelis aren't conscripted. It was more that he couldn't get a place in a (good) university without having a record of military service. Or something. It seemed to make sense when he told me anyway.
Posts: 2799 | From: Nether Regions | Registered: Aug 2001
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Something I've long wondered: are the Palestinians (and/or whoever else was on the land) descendants of those local people that the ancient Israelites were told to kill off?
(And my point is NOT that they didn't do it effectively enough.)
I think it is more likely that the Palestinians are descendants of inhabitants of Judea who converted to Islam in the 7th century.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
As I understand it, during the various Jewish uprisings through the first two centuries there wasn't a wholescale eviction of Jews from the region. Hadrian came the closest evicting most of the Jews from Judea (but not Galilee). The Christian community largely didn't participate in the revolts and stayed put. The collapse of the western empire resulted in a large number of Christian refugees settling in the east, with many settling in Palestine. Islamic rule resulted in an increasing Muslim community slowly displacing the Christian minority, quite possibly bolstered by the Crusades which seemed to be very counter productive as a rule. The Crusader wars severely reduced and impoverished the population of the region, with a long rule from Egypt.
The population of Palestine by the turn of the 20th century was a mixture of people descended from the Christians and Galilean Jews of the first few centuries, western Christian refugees from the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, immigrants from other parts of the Byzantine Empire, Arabs and Egyptian muslims repopulating the region following the Crusades.
The Jewish community and some of the Christians would be the only groups with any ancestry back to the Roman era. Though the vast majority of the population would be able to show ancestry living on the land for at least 500 years.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jonah the Whale:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Jonah the Whale
However, I fear you've been taken in because there is NO conscription of Arab Israeli citizens, either muslim or Christian, into the IDF. They can choose to enlist but it is not mandatory.
I think I didn't explain very well. He wasn't fleeing conscription - I know that Arab Israelis aren't conscripted. It was more that he couldn't get a place in a (good) university without having a record of military service. Or something. It seemed to make sense when he told me anyway.
Curious about this, I spent a jolly hour googling and the best information I could come up with was this:
quote:
Israeli-Arabs, like haredim, will be given the option to postpone service from age 18, and “personal, negative financial incentives” will only be implemented if goal numbers for those doing civilian service are not met.
Arab local authorities with more residents doing civilian service will receive greater funds than those with less. If goal numbers are not met, the government will consider decreasing funds in proportion to the number of residents who serve.
As far as I can gather, this policy proposal (I don't think it's been implemented) was directed toward increasing the participation of ultra-Orthdox Jews (haredim) into the Israeli Defence Force and Israeli society, Israeli Arabs being an afterthought. Most of the existing incentives apply to those who have served in the IDF, and appear to fall primarily under the veterans preference which we are familiar with in Canada for government jobs and homesteading. I can't find anything about reserved places or preference in universities but there is a fair bit on the informal social and employment networking which military service brings.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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Saul the Apostle
Shipmate
# 13808
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Agreed we should do all to foster peace.
How about making a start by banning all text books produced by the Saudi Education Ministry (certainly pre-2006) and those produced by the Palestinian Authority that were described thus by Palestinian Media Watch quote:
The teachings repeatedly reject Israel's right to exist, present the conflict as a religious battle for Islam, teach Israel's founding as imperialism, and actively portray a picture of the Middle East, both verbally and visually, in which Israel does not exist at all.]
As Hillary Clinton put it quote:
I believe that education is one of the keys to lasting peace in the Middle East... Ever since we first raised this issue some years ago there still has not been an adequate repudiation of incitement by the Palestinian Authority. It is even more disturbing that the problem appears to have gotten worse. These textbooks don't give Palestinian children an education, they give them an indoctrination.
While Israeli textbooks aren't perfect, there is a willingness to accept the right of people of religions other than Judaism to exist and to live within the borders of Israel.
Yes, I agree that the internal 'security wall' is dehumanising (I've seen it up close and personal and it is vast and frightening) but you have to face the truth which is that since it was built attacks on smaller jewish settlements have almost entirely ceased, other than those by rocket from the Gaza strip, and other attacks, particularly by sniper, have more than halved. So until the Palestinian Authority acts on the things it agreed to in the Oslo accords - dismantling terrorist networks, confiscating illegal weapons, etc - it is likely to stay because the view on the Israeli ground is that it works and the figures of killed and injured back up that view.
L'organist
I wholly endorse what you've outlined here. Education is a key area.
In addition, sadly, in parts of the Arab world, in Arabic, you get a wholesale acceptance of ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' document. You also get programmes similar to ''Sesame Street'' which basically describe Jews as ''dogs'' to be killed.
It is only when the Arab world gets rid of this filth and begins to see Jews as fellow human beings, that we'll have a chance of peace and reconciliation.
Incidentally, the Arab Christian population in the Middle East has suffered. Not only in Syria and Iraq, but persecution takes place in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza is positively toxic for Arab Christians, as Hamas, does not want Arabs to be other than Muslim.
Saul
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"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."
Posts: 1772 | From: unsure | Registered: Jun 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
If you added
Until the Israeli's treated the Palestinians with a modicum of humanity, respected the agreements they made, etc.
Pretending the Israeli's are reluctant aggressors is naive at best.
The problems are far from one-sided.
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Perhaps this is true in Europe. It certainly is not in the US. Rather, the default political position is that Israel is given a free pass to create what, despite the ironic historical allusions, really cannot be called anything other than a ghetto. This side of the pond the rhetoric is very much the other way 'round.
These opinions transcend borders.
You'll find plenty conservatives in Europe defending Israel, and plenty progressives in the U.S. condemning it. (Take this NYT article, "How Israel Silences Dissent," which dismisses Arab threats to Israel's sovereignty.) Successive presidents have pressured Israel to adopt a "peace process" with folk who espouse the kind of genocidal antisemitism described on this thread, giving us The Oslo Syndrome.
Yes, Israel enjoys significant American support, but many are fundies who use it as a means to an end, ditto many conservatives who view it as a useful toehold in the Middle East.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
I'm willing to accept that antisemitism isn't to blame, but if so, what is?
justice?
Justice is blind. Why aren't progressives attacking the Arab states for treating their fellow Arabs as strangers in a strange land, a land the vast majority are born in?
It's been suggested that Israel's held to a higher standard 'cause it's an open democracy. To me, that's whack.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If you added
Until the Israeli's treated the Palestinians with a modicum of humanity, respected the agreements they made, etc.
Pretending the Israeli's are reluctant aggressors is naive at best.
The problems are far from one-sided.
Israel handed the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in return for peace, a chunk of land comparable in size to Israel itself. It was the Louisiana Purchase in reverse. Israel in effect halved itself to end war with its southern neighbor.
Israel also dismantled its settlements pulled out of Gaza in '05. Its thanks? Rocket attacks.
Yes, the settlements are wrong, and Israel can be criticized for them. But the evidence suggests that when peace is on offer, Israel is willing to take it, at cost to itself. Problem is, many insist that peace is on offer when it ain't.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Um, Israel returned the Sinai peninsula to Egypt as part of a peace deal. Israel had annexed the Sinai peninsula in the Six Day War in 1967. (It's in the link you gave in your post)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If you added
Until the Israeli's treated the Palestinians with a modicum of humanity, respected the agreements they made, etc.
Pretending the Israeli's are reluctant aggressors is naive at best.
The problems are far from one-sided.
Israel handed the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in return for peace, a chunk of land comparable in size to Israel itself. It was the Louisiana Purchase in reverse. Israel in effect halved itself to end war with its southern neighbor.
That would be the same Sinai peninsular that Israel took in the 1967 war, IIRC. Moreover, it's dirt poor, even in comparison with Israel and Egypt.
quote:
Israel also dismantled its settlements pulled out of Gaza in '05. Its thanks? Rocket attacks.
Gaza was Egyptian territory too, so they were illegal occupations. How many have been killed by those rocket attacks in comparison to those killed in Gaza and the West Bank by bombing and bombardment by the Israeli armed forces?
quote:
Yes, the settlements are wrong, and Israel can be criticized for them. But the evidence suggests that when peace is on offer, Israel is willing to take it, at cost to itself. Problem is, many insist that peace is on offer when it ain't.
The best spin that could be put on that is that Israel took Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights as bargaining chips. Remember too that many members of Netanyahu's party are entirely opposed to any Palestinian state whatsoever.
You're going to have to try much harder.
(x-p with Curiosity Killed ...)
[ 15. November 2014, 07:23: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
Sioni Sais, I've no interest in comparing piles of bodies, we all know that Israel has a modern army and Iron Dome. Of course the side with greater ability will do more damage (although a fraction of what Israel's capable of doing if it went total war).
What I do have an interest in is illustrating that it's not so simple as "make peace." For peace, both sides must, at a minimum, recognize the other side's right to exist. So long as Hamas plays a substantial role in Palestinian politics, that prerequisite doesn't exist.
How d'you think Israel should move forward?
Curiosity killed ..., yes, Israel took Saini in '67 (when it fought a war for its survival). It could've put its engineering abilities to work in improving the land, instead, it handed it back for peace. There can be peace, but only when both sides want it on terms acceptable to the other.
[ 15. November 2014, 07:44: Message edited by: Byron ]
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Justice is blind. Why aren't progressives attacking the Arab states for treating their fellow Arabs as strangers in a strange land, a land the vast majority are born in?
They are. The human rights abuses across the Middle East are wide and vast, fuelled almost but not entirely by pre-post Cold War real politik and the need for oil. Up until now, almost every Arab county has been run by autocratic military governments or despotic monarchies. Further afield with have barmcake theocracies. They oppress their own populations far more than they cause problems outside their own borders.
But as soon as someone criticises Israel, then there's a tendency to go deaf to everything else.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
OK, fair point, I could've phrased that better. Yes, Arab states are criticized by progressives, particularly in their treatment of women and LGBT people.
Specific to the question of how Palestinians are treated, however, all focus seems to be on Israel and the occupation. How many folk even know that Jordan and Egypt occupied the West Bank and Gaza for 20 years?
Every report that highlights Israel's wrongs (and, yes, they're many, we all agree on that score) ought also to highlight the Palestinians denied basic civil rights in Arab countries. Worst of all, denying citizenship to generations of "refugees" who're born there.
If the focus was spread more evenly, accusations of antisemitism would, I think, decrease.
[ 15. November 2014, 10:56: Message edited by: Byron ]
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Philip Charles
Ship's cutler
# 618
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Posted
quote:
Byron How d'you think Israel should move forward?
As a NZer I know something about this. For the last 50 years or so we as a nation have been coming to terms with our colonial past and the effect it has had on the indigenous Maori. Two essential elements are.
Acknowledgement of colonisation and what it did. In NZ's case it included land grabs by war, fraud, theft and beach of contract. The imposition of a British style of government is another example.
Not resolving one injustice by creating another injustice. The land our house is on could have theoretically be returned to Maori to solve an injustice they suffered, but that would be unjust to us and others in a like position. So some other form of compensation needed to be found.
Our institutions have changed. Parliamentary protocols are different- a haha (Maori dance) being performed while in session. Government departments have changed. Law now takes into account Maori values. The courts routinely make judgments against the Crown on compensation and rights issues of concern to Maori. Our nation has evolved and changed, but we still have a long way to go.
Israel needs to acknowledge its colonial past and all that that implies.
Israel needs to accept that it will change and that its institutions and values will evolve and that the Israel of tomorrow could be very different from the Israel of today.
Israeli citizens need to be assured that an historical injustice will not be resolved by creating another injustice that will directly affect them.
I would consider it helpful if some South African shipmates could comment from their experience.
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There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
SFAIK, Philip Charles, there doesn't exist, amongst a large proportion of New Zealand's Maori citizens, a desire to drive the descendents of European settlers into the sea.
All you say is positive, but won't happen until Israel's right to exist is accepted by all. Education is absolutely key to this. So, too, are Arab governments unequivocally condemning Hamas, and unequivocally supporting Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.
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Philip Charles
Ship's cutler
# 618
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Posted
quote:
Byron There doesn't exist, amongst a large proportion of New Zealand's Maori citizens, a desire to drive the descendents of European settlers into the sea.
Things were rough in the past and some Maori would have wanted that.
quote:
All you say is positive, but won't happen until Israel's right to exist is accepted by all. Education is absolutely key to this. So, too, are Arab governments unequivocally condemning Hamas, and unequivocally supporting Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.
Education will have a part to play, but action will be far more important.
"Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state." Is a show stopper. An inflexible stand which does not include the colonial aspect of Israel..
An Israel (may even be with a different name) where Jews can live out their lives as Jews in peace and harmony, a harmony that includes other religions. This is what we need to work towards.
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There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Posts: 89 | From: Dunedin, NZ | Registered: Jun 2001
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Philip Charles:
[...] "Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state." Is a show stopper. An inflexible stand which does not include the colonial aspect of Israel.. [...]
Well then, so long as that remains the case, there'll be no peace, 'cause yes, it's inflexible, and it's non-negotiable.
Do the (non-secular) Arab countries regularly get demands that they no longer exist as Islamic states? Not that I've noticed. Ditto Norway, Denmark, England, and all the other nations with state churches.
Why must Israel, the world's only Jewish state, sacrifice the core of its identity to survive?
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Does Britain "sacrifice the core of its identity" by peacefully allowing other religious and ethnic groups to exist within its borders?
Inflexible. See, you point out the problem. The reed moves with the wind, but does not give up its roots.
Israel's apologists resort to terrorism as a justification. Terrorism is a fire fueled from without. Deprive it of that fuel and the fire will wane instead of wax.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Does Britain "sacrifice the core of its identity" by peacefully allowing other religious and ethnic groups to exist within its borders? [...]
No, and neither does Israel, which has freedom of religion. Were you under the impression that it didn't?
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Philip Charles:
quote:
Byron There doesn't exist, amongst a large proportion of New Zealand's Maori citizens, a desire to drive the descendents of European settlers into the sea.
Things were rough in the past and some Maori would have wanted that.
quote:
All you say is positive, but won't happen until Israel's right to exist is accepted by all. Education is absolutely key to this. So, too, are Arab governments unequivocally condemning Hamas, and unequivocally supporting Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.
Education will have a part to play, but action will be far more important.
"Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state." Is a show stopper. An inflexible stand which does not include the colonial aspect of Israel..
An Israel (may even be with a different name) where Jews can live out their lives as Jews in peace and harmony, a harmony that includes other religions. This is what we need to work towards.
The difficulty with this approach is that is not acceptable (or even a possible topic of discussion) to the great majority of Israeli Jews, who will always (not unreasonably) point out that most of the surrounding states happily identify themselves as Islamic in their identity and that their Jewish communities no longer exist. I would prefer that states identify on civic values, but I really am not sure that this is on anyone's radar.
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
It's been suggested that Israel's held to a higher standard 'cause it's an open democracy. To me, that's whack.
Why?
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
No, and neither does Israel, which has freedom of religion. Were you under the impression that it didn't?
IMHO, freedom of religion includes the right to marry a person of a different religion from yours. So, yes, I am under the impression that Israel does not have full freedom of religion. It may be better than Saudi Arabia or Sudan but that is not saying much.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
It's been suggested that Israel's held to a higher standard 'cause it's an open democracy. To me, that's whack.
Why?
Maybe not because it's an open democracy, but how 'bout because Israel has received more than $120 billion in US aid? At the very least, that should give us cause for a public debate about where that $$ is going.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
It's been suggested that Israel's held to a higher standard 'cause it's an open democracy. To me, that's whack.
Why?
Maybe not because it's an open democracy, but how 'bout because Israel has received more than $120 billion in US aid? At the very least, that should give us cause for a public debate about where that $$ is going.
Most of it goes to Gaza and the West Bank ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
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Tukai
Shipmate
# 12960
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
.... after the Shoa the largest population of Jews in the world was either in what is now Israel or one of the north american cities....
The focus on '48 isn't the best way to frame it.... And, yes, the rest of humanity owed the Jewish people for not preventing the Holocaust. Borders should've been thrown open the moment the Nazi Party came to power. They weren't....
It is still true that there are far more Jews in north America there are in Israel. And as far as I can see , the vast majority of them are happily getting on with their educated professional lives as respected doctors, scientists, businesspeople, musicians, etc without much sign of any desire to migrate to what their ancestors may or may not have regarded as their spiritual homeland (though it's certainly not where those ancestors migrated from).
The same is true of most of the Jewish folk in Melbourne, Australia including those I went to school with.
So in my books, rather than turning the clock back to 1948, I'd go for the 1930s and pray that the "west" was more accepting of forced migrants then than was actually the case.
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A government that panders to the worst instincts of its people degrades the whole country for years to come.
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tukai:
So in my books, rather than turning the clock back to 1948, I'd go for the 1930s and pray that the "west" was more accepting of forced migrants then than was actually the case.
You only have to look at the papers from that time to see why the 'West' was not accepting of migrants.
Then it was Jews, Now it is Syrians, Iraqis and many, many others. Same papers though.
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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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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Interesting that no-one has mentioned this largely-failed alternative experiment
In the 1930s, there was a lot of support from Canadian Jews who disagreed with the Zionist project or who were associated with the CPC or the Arbeiter Bund. Most of the money went to buying farming machinery which was sent to the Region. There was some emigration from (depression-struck) North America to the Region but I gather that many got caught up into the Gulag at one point or the other. When I passed through on the Trans Siberian in the 1970s, all one could really see was the Yiddish lettering on railway station signs, although my Jewish Intourist guide in Khabarovsk mentioned that her family came to the region in the 1930s, then smiled, and said that her father came voluntarily.
For the OP, one of my friends thought that the point in time should have been to get a few cancer specialists in to see the Emperor Frederick so that he could have overcome his throat cancer and continued to reign for another 40 years, preventing his son Wilhelm II from ascending to the German throne where he facilitated the warmongering of the generals. With no WWI, Hitler would have remained a struggling artist, Germany would not have had the postwar fiscal collapse which eased the rise of the Nazis, and there would have been no Bolshevik threat to excuse them.
Evidently, no holocaust, and no massive flight to Palestine. The Zionist community would have continued to exist in Palestine, buying property and developing farms and universities, and becoming another part of the Ottoman mosaic.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Interesting that no-one has mentioned this largely-failed alternative experiment
mentioned by another shippie upthread
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Ah, yes, Prester John. Missed that. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Xifer
Apprentice
# 17819
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Posted
quote:
Inyo Country, sure. But if you give away any portion of L.A., Orange, San Bernardino, or San Diego counties you're going to have far more displaced persons than you had in Palestine.
Well Cliffdweller, the reasoning on my part to give them a seaport is that it would be beneficial for them in the 1940's were they shipping goods. They would only need a strip of land about 20 miles wide, but reaching almost to Carson City. It might even work to give them Las Vegas so they would have a Sodom/Gomorrah angle they would have to work. In the forties a lot of Jewish entertainers such as the Marx brothers were already settling in LA and a lot of influential positions in the movie business were managed by Jewish people. I think that California would have been a more laid back place for them and they would not need to exclude the persons already living there in the forties, because the religious conflict would not be so strong and people knew how to cooperate. Harpo Marx had a Catholic wife for goodness sake and they celebrated the entire set of Catholic and Jewish holidays. And the Northern Paiutes and Shoshones could be brought into the deal as long lost tribes. The gold miners might not like it so much but they could go dig on the other side of the sierras. If we had ceded eastern and a chunk of southern California to them, they could be dealing with the border tunnels without worrying so much about cheap rockets.
Posts: 7 | From: Missoula | Registered: Sep 2013
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Xifer:
quote:
Inyo Country, sure. But if you give away any portion of L.A., Orange, San Bernardino, or San Diego counties you're going to have far more displaced persons than you had in Palestine.
Well Cliffdweller, the reasoning on my part to give them a seaport is that it would be beneficial for them in the 1940's were they shipping goods. They would only need a strip of land about 20 miles wide, but reaching almost to Carson City. It might even work to give them Las Vegas so they would have a Sodom/Gomorrah angle they would have to work. In the forties a lot of Jewish entertainers such as the Marx brothers were already settling in LA and a lot of influential positions in the movie business were managed by Jewish people. I think that California would have been a more laid back place for them and they would not need to exclude the persons already living there in the forties, because the religious conflict would not be so strong and people knew how to cooperate.
Do you imagine the existing resident Californians in the 40s would be content to be a part of Nuevo Israel instead of the US?
I do like to think of my native state as laid back, inclusive and welcoming. But Japanese Americans living here in the 40s saw another side of our Californian ethos...
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
THIS is quite interesting.
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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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