I have never understood, nor will I probably ever understand the conflict over land that seems near worthless to me.  I guess, if comparing it with an ocean of sand it might seem like milk and honey.

That said, ecowper is right when he says that there is no such indigenious group known as the Palestinian people.  These folks are Jordianian.  In 1967 they attacked Israel along with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.  Supplying aid to the Arab nations were Iraq, Kuwait, Saudia Arabia, Sudan, and Algeria.  Israel won and occupied a sizeable chuck of land as a result.

Of the land that Israel occupied after this war, a very large percentage was returned.  The Israelis returned it in exchange for an agreement in which you publicly state you don’t want to exterminate us anymore.  That seems pretty damn reasonable to me, when one could legitimately claim the land via the right of conquest, Article 2 of the U.N. be damned.

From my perspective, if the arabs in the West Bank have a bitch, it is with the Jordanian government for an ill advised war.  Yet, I never hear about that. 

What I do hear about is a culture that oppresses women and treats them as second class citizens, uses terrorist tactics as a means to an end, extols the Koran as a legislative agenda, and preaches a culture of hate towards the U.S.

Where will I come down on the issue?  Must be a rhetorical question.

Regards,

This is another issue we can argue about till the cows come home.  No solution is going to be “just”.  I understand that the Jews need a nation, given their history.  I agree that the Israelis are in a horrible postion.  I also think that they are in a position to behave better than they have so far.  Of course, it’s not easy to be surrounded by sworn enemies, but hate works both ways and escalates, epecially when fuelled by religion, if people don’t take the initiative and do the hard thing- compromise.  Hardline positions on one side beget hardline positions on the other side.

ecowper, some of your points are good ones, others not so good.  For instance, you say

The point of this comment is that the establishment of an Israeli state was not because an outside group came in and conquered the area and called it theirs.

Oh? That’s pretty much what happened, as far as I understand.  750,000 people were driven out of Palestine in 1948 to create Israel.  And saying that the “Palestinian people” don’t exist ethnically is moot.  You could justify driving Americans out of America with exactly the same argument.

Of course, the Palestinians and other Arab nations have behaved badly too.  I think it’s fruitless to attempt to say who is “better” or “worse” in this situation.  As I said, all we can hope for is to gradually disarm the conflict, and support the cooler heads on both sides.

Actually there is quite a bit of evidence to show that the “redâ€? men pushed each other here and there on the continent, and all of us other colors just joined in with the program.  You say red man as if there was only one type of native american. And that is just not so.  All the rest of us leaving would just allow the “nativeâ€? americans to return to pushing each other here and there.

Mr.Death, you don’t need to tell me that.  I’m part Native American (a rather small part, admittedly), and I know a fair amount of pre-Columbian history.  Of course the reds fought one another.  I’m not saying they didn’t.  My point was simply that there’s no justice in such situations.

I’m late to this love fest, but there are a few issues that may have gone unmentioned.

To begin with, it is a mistake to speak of Isreal as a homegenuous nation. The interaction between Palestinians, Jews, Arab Christians, Arab Muslims and the Druze is interesting, to say the least.

Let’s not forget another religious component of the conflict; not between Islam and Christianity, but between secular and ultra-orthodox Jews (witness the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the best hope for peace both sides had).

Consi, here’s a question to you. The ultra-orthodox males are full-time religious students, literally couldn’t feed themselves without government handouts, are exempt from military duty, but say that without their prayers the situation would be a lot worse, and at the magic age when they are not eligible to be drafted into the military anymore, a lot of them give up their religious devotion and (try to) take on regular jobs. As voters, they support an agenda hostile to Palestinians and thus keep the conflict brewing. Given all that and your position on state-sponsored welfare, where you do come down on that issue?

Following the US, Germany is almost certainly the close second contributor to Israels continued survival, not that this gets a lot of coverage even over there. However, the events surrounding the attack on the USS Liberty has not endearned Israel to me.

At the end of the day, I simply want these idiots to live in peace. Perhaps Germany should build up its armed forces, occupy Israel, and evenhandedly enforce peace?

Perhaps Germany should build up its armed forces, occupy Israel, and evenhandedly enforce peace?

Gute Idee, Elwed!

consi,

I have never understood, nor will I probably ever understand the conflict over land that seems near worthless to me.  I guess, if comparing it with an ocean of sand it might seem like milk and honey.

Well there is some evidence that crime rates and temperature are positively correlated (especially violent crime like assault and murder).  Moreover, the middle east is a very hot place.  Maybe that has something to do with it.  It could be just that people in the region are just pissy and irritable because they’re overheated.  Combine the heat with oppression from one side and suicide bombing from the other, its not surprising that things get a little out of hand from time to time.  You know, now that I think about it, the conflict between Palestine and Israel might not be so hard to resolve.  Perhaps we should just send a whole whack of air conditioners over there.  Let everyone cool down, maybe drink some lemonade, it might work.

On a more serious note, the following really made me laugh:

extols the Koran as a legislative agenda, and preaches a culture of hate towards the U.S.

How is this different from the Christian fundamentalists in our neck of the woods?  Replace “Koran” with the bible, and “U.S.” with “U.S. popular culture” and you have a great description of Jerry Falwell.  Now if you add in anti-abortionists and extremist religious groups like those wacky Christian Identity people, then there’s more reason to think that your description fits for Christian fundamentalists as well (they do seem to hate the U.S. simpliciter, they do think that women are second class citizens, and finally they like to kill people and blow stuff up too).

Perhaps we should just send a whole whack of air conditioners over there.

porker-

...there’s more reason to think that your description fits for Christian fundamentalists as well

Not to mention the Jewish fundamentalists such as Baruch Goldstein, and the plot to bomb the Dome of the Rock, which only failed because they couldn’t find a rabbi who would bless them… Yes, religious fervor is a wonderful thing…

when one could legitimately claim the land via the right of conquest, Article 2 of the U.N. be damned.

consi, that certainly puts a whole new spin on the idea of legitimacy.  Maybe we should cede Ground Zero to Al Qaeda for the same reason.

An earlier post mentioned MEMRI. Here’s a link to an interesting discussion on MEMRI (with further links for those with the time and interest):

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103

And as to the issue of whether a Palestinian people lived on what is now Israel - let’s see what some Israelis said in this regard:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/palestinians.html

(quotes aside, http://www.whatreallyhappened.com has a somewhat ... non-mainstream view of things, heh)

left wing supporters of arab terrorism deserve death! “palestinian” is a MADE UP TERM!  drop dead asswads!

A.L.I.C.E. replies:

My brain uses AIML to format responses to your inputs, but I don’t have one for that. I think “palestinianâ€? is more than that. I only hear that type of response less than five percent of the time.

t=d,

Well if you really think about it, every single word is a MADE UP TERM!  At some point in history someone had to coin the term for it to come into common usage.

t=d is probably a made-up term too. Or do you think God gave it to him? Kinda hard on the kid at school:

“Hey terrorists, you didn’t clean the board like I requested!”

“Young Mr. Death isn’t really a team player.”

“So you middle name is equal? Equal to what?”