Israel/Palestine Conflict: Open Discussion

[AzSkinsFan63]

[AsburySkinsFan]

I know i'm not there, but i'd suck up the 300 houses to get the statehood, because with statehood comes all kinds of benefits you don't currently have..

I'm all for Palestinian statehood but here's the problem with it; the areas that are populated by the Palestinians are a fairly well segregated and the Jewish settlements are not in just random places, but instead they are strategically being located in order to surround the various Palestinian areas, not to mention the fact that some of the Palestinian areas on the border of the West Bank are completely surrounded by the wall of separation meaning that there are Israelis surrounding them. This doesn't even address how Gaza and the West Bank are supposed to operate together.

[Ryman of the North]

The problem here is that I have done more research and seen more first hand then most people in this country. I have read from all sources both pro Israel and pro Palestine. The evidence leads me into the same direction everytime. The problem I see is that the average joe isn't aware of the evidence that I am aware of. Are you stating that if I don't come to a Pro Israeli conclusion then I must be blind and missing something?

No the reason I think you are blind and missing something is that you have an obvious pro arab bias.

Let me enlighten you although I doubt it will mean anything to you as you had your mind made up long before you posted.

1-The chief difference between the Israelis and the palestinians is simple, The Israelis try to minimise civilian casualties while the Palestinians try to maximise them.

2-The extremists dont control Israel but they do control Palestine. Even the Lebanese have stated openly that they do not wnat hamas in their country, yet hamas is the so called "voice" of palestine.

3-Other Arab Nations instigated a lot of the violence and kept the refugee camps as breeding grounds for groups like Black september, for decades any Arab leaders who attempted to even make peace with Israel were assasinated. (go read up on the king of jordan and the egyptian president who both were killed by zealots.

4- a large amount of the arab migration after 1948 was simply abandonment of their property, there was a lot of propaganda but in reality the jews did not force that many people out except in areas they deemed of military value.

5- the Arabs had overwhelming superiority in almost every facet in all 3 wars yet got handled and the Palestinians did nothing.

You claim to have read the issues from both sides but your obvious bias shows me that you did not. I studied it for 5 years in university and have debated and spoken to several experts from the ME and the consensus has always been that until recently Israel wanted peace but the arab nations did not until they regained "face" and land. that has only VERY recently changed.

also any American who even thinks of talking about this situation BEFORE learning their own history should be slapped. YOUR country and mine both have nothing to say about stealing land.

[Ryman of the North]

some facts that some of you dont seem to know.

1- the arabs pissed off the brits by allying themselves with the germans so no they werent on the winning side, meanwhile the jews had a brigade in the british army. yes the arabs were right to be mad as the brits had screwed them over in ww1.

2-The Brits tried to stop israelis expansion and so did the americans, as a matter of fact an american hero who flew a bomber to israel was only recently pardoned for it lol. The brits even refused jews from europe asylum in israel as a way to stem the growth, thats why the jews bombed the king david hotel.

3-Its actually even more complex than people think, the arabs and jews in the region have always had low level conflict but it never got open until after ww1.

4- a large majority of ME experts agree that the arab mindset worked against them, their concept of face meant that they simply could not abide losing to israel and their refusal to accept israeli statehood stemmed in large part from that.

5- Israel is finally in the dominant position, for decades they survived on the razor edge and now people suddenly expect them to negotiate as though they had no decisively won all 3 wars, thats just stupid.

[Jrew1223]

1882 - Beginning of 1st Aliyah

Theodore Herzl

• Theodor Herzl – lived as secular Jew, was not fluent in Hebrew nor Yiddish, and assimilated Jew. Noted possibility of a Jewish state in Argentina.

Diary Entry June 12 1895

“The removal of Arabs bodily from Palestine is part of the Zionist plan to spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment… Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried away discreetly and circumspectly.”

1896 - Publication of Der Judenstaat

• Written by Theodor Herzl, subtitled: proposal of a modern solution for the Jewish question. Originally called” Address to the Rothschilds” the family baking dynasty influential in the realization of a Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael.

1904

• The fourth Zionist congress decided to establish a national home for Jews in Argentina.

1906

• The Zionist congress decided the Jewish homeland should be Palestine.

November 2nd, 1907

• British government issued the Balfour Declaration (Arthur Balfour) promising the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour replied to a letter from Lord Rothschild, the head of the Zionist Federation in Great Britain on November 2nd, 1917

• “His majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

1920

• San Remo Conference granted Britain a mandate over Palestine.

1947

• Britain decided to leave Palestine and called UN to make recommendations.

• The UN adopted a plan calling for the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states with Jerusalem as an international zone under UN jurisdiction.

1948 – David Ben Gurion – Israel’s first prime minister

• “We must do everything to ensure they (the Palestinian refugees) never do return.” – David Ben Gurion in his diary July 16 1948. Quoted in Michael Bar Zohar’s “Ben Gurion the Armed Prophet, (Prentice-Hall 1867, p.157)

• “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true god promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our god is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” Quoted y Nahum Goldman in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp. 121-122.

1956 Ariel Sharon interview with Ouze Merham

• “I don’t know something called international principles. I vow that I’ll burn every Palestinian child that will be born in this area. The Palestinian woman and child is more dangerous than the man, because the Palestinian child’s existence infers that generations will go on, but the man causes limited danger. I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him. With one strike I’ve killed 750 Palestinians (Rafah in 1956). I wanted to encourage my soldiers by raping Arabic girls as the Palestinian woman is a slave for Jews, and we do whatever we want to her and nobody tells us what we shall do but we tell others what they shall do.”

April 1976

• “We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.” – Israel Koenig, “The Koenig Memorandum.”

Menachem Begin – Israeli Prime Minister 1977-1983

• “The Palestinians are beasts walking on two legs.” – Speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the ‘beasts,’” New Statesman, June 25, 1982.

December 17, 1982 – Ariel Sharon – Israeli Prime Minister

• Amos Oz interview with Ariel Sharon, originially published in the Israeli daily Davar on 17 December 1982: “I don’t mind if after the job is done you put me in front of a Nuremberg Trial and then jail me for life. Hang me if you want, as a war criminal. What you don’t understand si that the dirty work of Zionism is not finished yet, far from it.”

April 14, 1983 – Raphael Eitan – Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces

• “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be scurry around like drugged ****roaches in a bottle.” – New York Times

• “We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel… Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours.”

October 1983 – Shlomo Lanat – Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election

• “We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves.”

Moshe Dayan – Israeli General

• “Our strategy was always to provoke the Arabs and get an appropriate response so we could attack and smash them.”

October 3rd, 2001 – Ariel Sharon – Israeli Prime Minister to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisreal radio.

• “Every time we do something you tell me American will do this and will do that… I want to tell something very clear: Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and they Americans know it.”

July 17 2006

• At a heavy artillery position near Kiryat Shmona, in Northern Israel, next to the Lebanese border, little Israeli girls are taught to write messages on an artillery shell. Those shells were used in Israeli airstrikes that killed at least 50 Lebanese, all of whom are innocent civilians. Hundreds have been killed since July 12th, 2006.

• Since 2000 there have been 122 Israeli children killed by Palestinians and 836 Palestinian children killed by Israelis.

• The cost to United States taxpayers in aid to Israel is over $15 Million dollars per day.

• There are less than 10 Israeli prisoners being held by Palestinians and almost 10,000 Palestinians being held by Israelis.

• Ehud Barak, 10th Prime Minister of Israel, when asked what he would have done had he been born a Palestinian, “I would have joined a terrorist organization.”

• The number of Palestinians arrested in connection with the September 11th attacks… Zero.

• The number of Israelis arrested in connection with the September 11th attacks… 60.

• The financing of Israel comes primarily from American taxpayers. Israel receives more US taxpayer’s money than someone in their own American state.

Quotes

• "[The Jewish settlers] treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly, beat them shamelessly for no sufficient reason, and even take pride in doing so. The Jews were slaves in the land of their Exile, and suddenly they found themselves with unlimited freedom, wild freedom that only exists in a land like Turkey. This sudden change has produced in their hearts an inclination towards repressive tyranny, as always happens when slave rules." 'Ahad Ha'Am warned: "We are used to thinking of the Arabs as primitive men of the desert, as a donkey-like nation that neither sees nor understands what is going around it. But this is a great error. The Arab, like all sons of Sham, has sharp and crafty mind . . . Should time come when life of our people in Palestine imposes to a smaller or greater extent on the natives, they will not easily step aside." – Ahad Ha’Am 1891.

Joseph Weitz – Head of the Jewish Agency’s Colonization Department

• “Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours… Everything we don’t grab will go to them”

Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg – Head of the Kever Yossev Yeshiva in Nablus

• “The blood of the Jewish people is loved by the lord; it is therefore redder and their life is preferable.”

• “The killing by a Jew of a non-Jew, i.e. a Palestinian, is considered essentially a good deed, and Jews should therefore have no compunction about it.”

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef – Sermon preceding the 2001 Passover holiday.

• “May the Hily Name visit retribution on the Arab heads, and cause their seed to be lost, and annihilate them. It is forbidden to have pity on them. We must give them missiles with relish, annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones.”

David Ben Gurion 1978

• “Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”

Ariel Sharon 1998

• “It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to the public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.”

Michael Ben-Yair – Attorney General of Israel, 1993 – 1996

• “The Intifada is the Palestinian’s people’s war of national liberation. We [israel] enthusiastically chose to become a colonialist society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the Occupied Territories, engaging in theft and funding justification for all these activities… We [israel] established an apartheid regime.”

Eitam

• “Palestinians are creatures who came out of the depths of darkness who were collectively guilty and who could be indiscriminately killed not only if they had blood on their hands but because of the evil in their heads. We will have to kill them all.” – A Reporter at Large: Among the Settlers New Yorker, 31 May 2004.

• “The day will come when we will banish you from this house… and from the national home… You… should be expelled to Gaza where your people, who are fighting us, dwell; that is where you belong” – Addressing the Arab Knesset members.

• Eitam advocated mass transfer of Gaza civilians and turning the strip into a free hunting zone.

[Jrew1223]

Radicals don't have control in Israel eh?

David Ben Gurion - 1st Israeli Prime Minister 1949 - 1954,

1955 - 1963

"We must expel Arabs and take their places."

-- David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."

-- David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99.

"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country."

-- David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

Golda Meir - Prime Minister 1969 - 1974

"How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to."

-- Golda Meir, March 8, 1969.

"Any one who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen."

-- Golda Meir, 1961, in a speech to the Knesset, reported in Ner, October 1961

Yitzhak Rabin - Prime Minister of Israel - 1974 - 1977, 1992 - 1995

"[israel will] create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the west Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein and not with Yasser Arafat."

-- Yitzhak Rabin (a "Prince of Peace" by Clinton's standards), explaining his method of ethnically cleansing the occupied land without stirring a world outcry. (Quoted in David Shipler in the New York Times, 04/04/1983 citing Meir Cohen's remarks to the Knesset's foreign affairs and defense committee on March 16.)

Yizhak Shamir - Prime Minister of Israel 1983 - 1984, 1986 - 1992

"(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls."

-- Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988

Ariel Sharon - Prime Minister of Israel - 2001

"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."

-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.

"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial."

-- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001 quoted in BBC News Online

Benjamin Netanyahu - Prime Minister of Israel - 1996 - 1999, Present

"Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories."

-- Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, speaking to students at Bar Ilan University, from the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989.

[Prosperity]

5- Israel is finally in the dominant position, for decades they survived on the razor edge and now people suddenly expect them to negotiate as though they had no decisively won all 3 wars, thats just stupid.

this is wrong

It used to be that countries went to war and absorbed their newly conquered territories. Israel is free to annex the territory, it doesn't want to, because it wants to annex the territory without all the pesky Palestinians. If Israel were to annex the land like other countries have done when they won wars they would have to deal with a bunch of Palestinians living and working along side them and one day becoming citizens... Israel wants none of that. Israel's ultimate goal requires ethnic cleansing. But they won't do it overnight like the Serbs tried to do in Kosovo. They'll do it over many years by doing everything they can to make life **** for the territories until the Palestinians give up or die out. People want Israel to negotiate because they want Israel to either act like they won, or act like they lost, this limbo is not acceptable.

[Burgold]

If Israel were to annex the land like other countries have done when they won wars they would have to deal with a bunch of Palestinians living and working along side them and one day becoming citizens... Israel wants none of that. Israel's ultimate goal requires ethnic cleansing.

hey'll do it over many years by doing everything they can to make life **** for the territories until the Palestinians give up or die out.

Ummm... no. The goal of Israel has nothing to do with ethnic cleansing. Good grief. It's reverse bull like that this that helps prolong and promote the strife. The stated goal of Hamas is to wipe Israel off the map, not the stated or implied goal of the Israelis... or even the Israeli government.

[Jrew1223]

“1-The chief difference between the Israelis and the palestinians is simple, The Israelis try to minimise civilian casualties while the Palestinians try to maximise them. “

• See Operation Cast Lead

“2-The extremists dont control Israel but they do control Palestine. Even the Lebanese have stated openly that they do not wnat hamas in their country, yet hamas is the so called "voice" of palestine.”

• See Extremist Quotes I posted from Israeli leaders which prove that the intention was to ethnically cleanse the area long before Israel was declared a nation.

3-Other Arab Nations instigated a lot of the violence and kept the refugee camps as breeding grounds for groups like Black september, for decades any Arab leaders who attempted to even make peace with Israel were assasinated. (go read up on the king of jordan and the egyptian president who both were killed by zealots.

• You leave out the context of the instigated violence. This did occur but when you look at the greater scheme of history these actions are done in retaliation not in aggression for the sake of aggression.

• I’m very aware of the Arab leaders who were assassinated. Religious Zealots are everywhere in every religion and the Muslims that killed them did so because they didn’t want to make peace with a group of people “AFTER” all the atrocities that they committed towards fellow Muslims.

4- a large amount of the arab migration after 1948 was simply abandonment of their property, there was a lot of propaganda but in reality the jews did not force that many people out except in areas they deemed of military value.

• Disgustingly untrue.

5- the Arabs had overwhelming superiority in almost every facet in all 3 wars yet got handled and the Palestinians did nothing.

• Haha superiority my!@#$... The reason the Arabs lost the first war was because they worked to their own national interests. The only thing the Arabs had that was superior at the time was the population count. Israel has always had military superiority against its Arab neighbors.

You claim to have read the issues from both sides but your obvious bias shows me that you did not. I studied it for 5 years in university and have debated and spoken to several experts from the ME and the consensus has always been that until recently Israel wanted peace but the arab nations did not until they regained "face" and land. that has only VERY recently changed.

also any American who even thinks of talking about this situation BEFORE learning their own history should be slapped. YOUR country and mine both have nothing to say about stealing land.

• Okay, Okay… #1 I used to be just like you and most of the other posters here that supported Israeli self defense against the Arabs. After hearing another side to the story I decided to stop believing what I was “TOLD” and start searching for information on my own. I have heard the arguments from both sides and I agree that both sides had opportunities to reach out for peace and did not. The problem is that after surveying in detail the history of the region since the first Jewish migration in the late 1800’s I can pin point the steps the occurred by Jewish instigation of the native population that has led to the conditions we have today.

#2 – It’s irresponsible to make a claim that because we live in the USA and Canada (which I am Nova Scotian fyi) that because of our national history, that we ourselves had nothing to do with, we somehow have no legitimacy to question a nation doing the same thing currently. I say this because we ourselves can’t change the past, but we are seeing this happen right before our eyes and we can do something about what’s happening now before all the Palestinians are killed.

[Prosperity]

Ummm... no. The goal of Israel has nothing to do with ethnic cleansing. Good grief. It's reverse bull like that this that helps prolong and promote the strife. The stated goal of Hamas is to wipe Israel off the map, not the stated or implied goal of the Israelis... or even the Israeli government.

ummmmmmmmmmmm yes

yes the goal of Israel is to expand, especially into the West Bank. The goal of Israel is also to maintain a majority (BIG majority) Jewish population.

ethnic cleansing is the only way to reconcile those two.

[Jrew1223]

Burgold:

I don't agree that every single Israeli is on board with what is going on right now over there and supports this genocide. I have a lot of friends living in Tel Aviv that I talk to reguarly. The problem is that the party in power currently that has no interest in stopping expansion and that a lot of them don't consider Palestinians to be human beings.

[Jrew1223]

FYI - The nation-state is a Western Concept that was brought to the Middle East. I hate it when people justify what happened over the semantics of what a "state" is... It's about a people displaced violently from their lands to make way for foreigners.

"Israelis didn't steal Palestine because there is no such thing as the State of Palestine" = Garbage

[Burgold]

Burgold:

I don't agree that every single Israeli is on board with what is going on right now over there and supports this genocide. I have a lot of friends living in Tel Aviv that I talk to reguarly. The problem is that the party in power currently that has no interest in stopping expansion and that a lot of them don't consider Palestinians to be human beings.

We talk to different people then.

I think based on what I've been told that the biggest obstacle to peace from the Israeli side is fear (and for some anger). Fear because so many peace agreements have been sabotaged and betrayed. Anger because there has been a daily pattern of murder executed against innocent civilians.

If the U.S. decided to daily launch a hundred or so missiles randomly into Nova Scotia and then sneak bombs into cars or have human bombs go into crowds as often as they could (often during cease fires) wouldn't you have a trust issue?

This is why I say it's chicken and the egg though. The Palestinians believe that they are retaliating against Israeli atrocities and the Israelis believe they are retaliating against Palestinian atrocities. For me, the most telling difference is that I've seen Israelis tried and sent to jail for doing harm to a Palestinian whereas there seems to be no effort whatsoever to police or stop acts of terrorism from the Palestinian side. When has the Hamas government sent their police into the street to arrest terrorists? When have they apologized for attacks against the Israeli nation when children have been murdered?

Israel has blood on its hands and has several times acted quite villainously. I think that's undeniable and Jews in Israel will admit that. Palestine has actively and violently and continuously tried to defeat peace.

[Jrew1223]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2451908450811690589&ei=VJUrS7_RG57cqALRvoTKBQ&q=occupation+101&hl=en#

If you want to learn about the history of the Occupation I suggest you watch this.

[Burgold]

The fact that you two seem to believe that Israel is engaging in a systematic attempt at genocide and ethnic cleansing really tells me all I need to know. You are victims.

[Prosperity]

The fact that you two seem to believe that Israel is engaging in a systematic attempt at genocide and ethnic cleansing really tells me all I need to know. You are victims.

why should I even write if you put down the words you want for me?

Don't be a baby, when confronted with an argument you don't like explain why you think its wrong. Don't just shake your head and assume its wrong because you automatically assume the conclusions are false. Are my premises false? Is the logic connecting them to the conclusion false?

[Jrew1223]

We talk to different people then.

I think based on what I've been told that the biggest obstacle to peace from the Israeli side is fear (and for some anger). Fear because so many peace agreements have been sabotaged and betrayed. Anger because there has been a daily pattern of murder executed against innocent civilians.

If the U.S. decided to daily launch a hundred or so missiles randomly into Nova Scotia and then sneak bombs into cars or have human bombs go into crowds as often as they could often during cease fires... wouldn't you have a trust issue?

This is why I say it's chicken and the egg though. The Palestinians believe that they are retaliating against Israeli atrocities and the Israelis believe they are retaliating against Palestinian atrocities. For me, the most telling difference is that I've seen Israelis tried and sent to jail for doing harm to a Palestinian whereas there seems to be no effort whatsoever to police or stop acts of terrorism from the Palestinian side. When has the Hamas government sent their police into the street to arrest terrorists? When have they apologized for attacks against the Israeli nation when children have been murdered?

Israel has blood on its hands and has several times acted quite villainously. I think that's undeniable and Jews in Israel will admit that. Palestine has actively and violently and continuously tried to defeat peace.

I do agree with you...

My opinion is that the idea of the chicken and the egg metaphor can actually be pin pointed to a specific time in history which started this snowball effect of violence. From the Israeli side there are those who just want to live normal happy lives in the land that is special to them religiously, but there are also those who are hardcore extremists that see life as their biblical mission to rid the land of all non-jews. The problem is that both sides never see the people that are moderate humanitarian human beings, they just see the extremists that want them dead. The point I am trying to make in this whole thread is that what we have today is the result of extremist zionists pushing out the indigenous population and the resulting conflict is of retaliation to regain the land for which they have the deeds.

I know that today there is nothing to go back to for the Palestinians because their land has been long changed into something else so that isn't a viable solution for peace. The main obstacle I see for peace is the refusal to stop building settlements.

Honestly I think that if peace isn't the result of the wiping out of all Palestinians, it will only come after and Israeli civil war between the moderates and the extremist settlers.

[Prosperity]

Who cares who started it? (ok the Israelis and Arabs do) But we shouldn't. The whole conflict corrupts everyone involved regardless of who has the initial blame. Both the state of Israel and various Palestinian organizations have already done unspeakable atrocities.. Best we untangle ourselves from the whole mess.

[Burgold]

The point I am trying to make in this whole thread is that what we have today is the result of extremist zionists pushing out the indigenous population and the resulting conflict is of retaliation to regain the land for which they have the deeds.

And what I would argue is that that is far too black and white a point of view. You can pick a point in time from the biblical days to the 1800's or from WWII to modern days and find legitimate catalysts from multiple perspectives.

More, I have seen too many honest efforts at peace scoffed and literally blown up to believe it is entirely the fault of extremist zionists. The difficulty you have in your arguments in terms of truth... is that you tend to not only see one side of the story, but want to place a 100% of the blame.

Anyone who's lived or experienced any kind of history knows that can't be true and so the person saying it is either a crusader or a victim of propaganda.

Finally, should the goal have been ethnic cleansing and always was ethnic cleansing that would have been relatively easy to attempt especially during the early wars and would make Israel the most inept nation in the history of the world which we know is not the case.

[Thiebear]

So there's no chance of say moving Israel to North Dakota: Give them 5% of the Bakken profits recovered if they help get it.

Plenty of room.. and close enough to the Gitmo in Chicago to keep them balanced until they can adjust.

Then move Palestine into the edge of Iraq since they helped set the Palestianians up for failure.

Donate Israel to Archaeologists and don't allow occupation of the land ever...

[Jrew1223]

And what I would argue is that that is far too black and white a point of view. You can pick a point in time from the biblical days to the 1800's or from WWII to modern days and find legitimate catalysts from multiple perspectives.

More, I have seen too many honest efforts at peace scoffed and literally blown up to believe it is entirely the fault of extremist zionists. The difficulty you have in your arguments in terms of truth... is that you tend to not only see one side of the story, but want to place a 100% of the blame.

Anyone who's lived or experienced any kind of history knows that can't be true and so the person saying it is either a crusader or a victim of propaganda.

Finally, should the goal have been ethnic cleansing and always was ethnic cleansing that would have been relatively easy to attempt especially during the early wars and would make Israel the most inept nation in the history of the world which we know is not the case.

The reason I point to the late 1800's as the starting point of this issue is because this is the time frame that we have physical evidence of. Before this time there is evidence of a skirmish here and there but nothing on the grand scheme of what we have today. The reason I argue that going back to biblical times with the chicken and egg scenario is not the best is because of how much religion has changed to suit political needs since it's creation. Also because of the nature of Germanic nationalism's influence over early zionist thinkers.

I always enjoy our back and forths on this message board and I don't intend on being disrespectful. All I am doing is stating my theory and backing it up with evidence straight from the mouths of the leaders and ideologists that shaped the nation of Israel to what we have today.

[Burgold]

Then move Palestine into the edge of Iraq since they helped set the Palestianians up for failure.

Donate Israel to Archaeologists and don't allow occupation of the land ever...

The real problem with this is that none of the Arab states want anything to do with the Palestinians except to use them. If they did, they would have been integrated and absorbed long ago.

[Prosperity]

Finally, should the goal have been ethnic cleansing and always was ethnic cleansing that would have been relatively easy to attempt especially during the early wars and would make Israel the most inept nation in the history of the world which we know is not the case.

One could argue that the refusal to let the refugees return was an excellent example of exactly that sort of thing. But I don't want to continue this discussion much farther because its bound to get more heated than I care for on a Friday morning.

For clarity's sake, I don't think you should view ethnic cleansing as a black and white issue either. It's a charged term, but it doesn't mean the same thing as genocide, which I think was why you responded the way you did previously.

[JMS]

What do you see as the root causes and what do you think needs to happen for lasting peace in the region?

-Jrew

Root cause. Largely displaced European Jews post WWII entered a populated region (aka Palistine) and through force of arms and fear displaced about 80% of it's population... Once those folks were pushed off their land, or fled for fear of their lives; The modern state of Israel has refused to let them return... confiscating their homes and lands for it's own use.

Those displaced people never have been totally absorbed by Israel's neighbors and continue to live under Israeli occupation; and in total the un absorbed people and now their decendents along with the non Jews who remained in Israel today total a greater population than Jews. Yet because they are denied representation in Israel, they have no political portfolio to influence Israeli policy. So they fight. When they fight, they justified Israeli responses which are as bad or worse than whatever they dish out to the Israeli's. Which has become a perpetual cycle of attacks and responses from both sides.

The continued confiscation and displacement of Palistinians has continued for about six decades. It continues today with every country in the world standing in oposition to it.

That's the root cause.

[JMS]

Finally, should the goal have been ethnic cleansing and always was ethnic cleansing that would have been relatively easy to attempt especially during the early wars and would make Israel the most inept nation in the history of the world which we know is not the case.

Clearly the goal was ethnic cleansing to some extent. What else do you call displacing and wearhousing about 80% of the population of a country?

Now you can claim wearhousing isn't the same as murdering them... I would argue Israel has done both.

I mean The former Prime minister of Israel, Sharon was accused of three different ethnic cleansing crimes. He was convicted in Israeli Courts of being responsible for two separate ethnic cleansing atrosities against civilians decades appart... Both occured BEFORE he was elected to PM office. Clearly the pleurality of folks in Israel who supported his long tenure in PM office were comfortable with his documented ethnic cleansing attrocities, which their own courts found him responsible for.