The Palestinian / Israeli Conflict

[ZBomber]

14. Do not hound current moderators or admins. This is namely referring to a past influx of unwanted moderator applications, but also includes nit-picking moderator decisions.

 

and......

 

Spam: I will typically delete spam, that is to say, those posts that add nothing to the discussion of the thread, particularly if they get out of hand. A single, well-intended off-topic post is one thing, but a series of them from one or more users in succession is bad for the overall discussion. The Senate Singularity will be fed. However, as harm is not usually intended, I see no reason to issue specific warnings, though I might mention it in the thread in general sense.

 

Thats why your posts are being deleted.

 

I don't think that there will ever be peace between these two people. Pherhaps for a little bit, but it certaintly will not last.....

[toms]

About 1001 Israelis were killed by Palestinian attacks in the al-Aqsa Intifada.

Most of them (more than 75%) are civilians.

Palestinians sources claim that 2,736 Palestinians were killed in the intifada. The Shin Bet is knowing about 2,124 Palestinians killed, and it has their names.

Out of the 2,124 dead, 1414 were combatants (armed men and\or terrorists), this is about two thirds (66%).

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Intifada

 

So it is running at about

Israel Deaths: (soldiers) 250 (civilians) 750

Palestine deaths: (soldiers) 1800 (civilians) 900

 

All pretty senseless deaths IMHO.

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hey tFighterPilot, don't get so defensive. This started out as a perfectly reasoned, interesting debate.

 

The problem you have is that in any group you are going to have extremists (and even more extremists).

 

There was a lull and peace talks and a solution was near-enough agreed, the PLO was turning from terrorism to politics and it was all going OK (not great but OK). Then some idiot killed Rabin, everyone got all het up and it all started to escalate again.

 

So, the vast amjority of both sides supported peace, but by responding to the actions of a small group of extremists on both sides, they gave the power to the extremists and allowed them to wreck the whole thing.

 

Each side has gotten more and more extreme as things have gotten worse and worse, and they are now further apart than ever.

 

In Northern Ireland the WORST bombing ever happened AFTER the peace talks, by a tiny really-extreme group. This could easily have wrecked the whole thing... but the politicians didn't want to let a few people with a bomb get that kind of power... so they carried on.

 

Sharon was considered extreme when he came into office, his extreme policies haven't worked - but the rhetoric has gone to such a level that he is now considered liberal. Doesn't that just prove what i (we?) have been saying about polarisation to extremes on both sides? Unfortunately the Israeli political system means that tiny fringe groups are NEEDED to keep power, giving them massively disproportionate amounts of power and veto.

 

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Almost all the international press is blaming RUSSIA for the chechen problem... what are you reading?

Of course, most of the RUSSIAN press is more hardline and more pro putin, so attitudes are just hardening in russia. Sound familiar?

 

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If the US stayed out of the whole thing and stopped supporting israel.

(a) Israel would get more sympathy and less hatred.

(b) Palestine would get less sympathy.

© The arab would wouldn't unite against the US/Israel "unfairness"

(d) The US would get less hatred and terrorism

(e) The UN would be able to intervene and help

 

hmmm... i can see why people support US involvement... not.

 

PS/ The UN can't intervene because the US won't let them... because the Israeli lobby groups in congress are nearly as powerful as the NRA ones...

[Elijah]

Im so tired of hearing people religiously say that all religions are evil. Your bias view only makes you look foolish, and hypocritical. Im not pointing any fingers, but people constintly freaking out about religion makes them no better then the extreamists.

[lukeiamyourdad]

Please, keep it out. No religious debates here. Look at the thread title before you post.

 

 

Looks like toms made most of the research for me. It backs up almost all of my claims, especially the one about israeli politics and Sharon being stuck with smaller more extreme parties.

[Elijah]

Originally posted by lukeiamyourdad

Please, keep it out. No religious debates here. Look at the thread title before you post.

 

 

Looks like toms made most of the research for me. It backs up almost all of my claims, especially the one about israeli politics and Sharon being stuck with smaller more extreme parties.

Please read all posts before you assume that I am bringing anything anywhere. I was replying to a statement:

Originally posted by tFighterPilot

Itzak Rabin. He was killed by a religious man. As I said before, all raligions are evil.

[lukeiamyourdad]

I know about that post, I was one of the first poster and has been following this thread since the beginning.

 

It was a simple comment, if you want a religious debate against him, please keep it out of this place.

[Elijah]

Originally posted by lukeiamyourdad

I know about that post, I was one of the first poster and has been following this thread since the beginning.

 

It was a simple comment, if you want a religious debate against him, please keep it out of this place.

I dont want a debate, I was simply stateing a fact, one which you are proveing, in more ways than one.

[lukeiamyourdad]

Your fact stating might create an unwanted debate in a thread that has nothing to do with it.

[Elijah]

Originally posted by lukeiamyourdad

Your fact stating might create an unwanted debate in a thread that has nothing to do with it.

This war is based on religion.

[Kain]

Neutron bomb the place. Kill em all with nuclear fallout, leave all those little religious places standing *don't want any psycho groups brewing here* and move back in in a decade.

 

Problem solved.

[Spider AL]

This war is based on religion.

 

Don't fall for that. This is a war about power and territory. Territory is power. Religion is the EXCUSE they're using.

[Elijah]

Originally posted by Spider AL

Don't fall for that. This is a war about power and territory. Territory is power. Religion is the EXCUSE they're using.

This war goes back as far as Isaac and Jacob.

[SkinWalker]

Originally posted by ZDawg

This war goes back as far as Isaac and Jacob.

 

No... I'd argue that the hostility in this region goes back much farther than that. Probably beyond the Neolithic period. The Nartufian culture in the region is, after all, the most likely origin of agricuture. When the Younger-Dryas period occured following the end of the Pleistocene, the drop in temperatures caused a drought in the region, causing wild cereals like rye to lose ground to desert scrub.

 

The Nartufians cleared the scrub and planted seeds, beginning a practice of agriculture in the region. Once this occured, it was only natural that populations fight over scarce resources of water and soil.

 

The Levant and Mesopotamia have changed hands many, many times. A common practice was to force the occupants to leave after overpowering them, and replace them with your own culture. This practice occured before god, allah, and even el or yawheh were monotheistic deities of judeism, christianity, and the recent islam.

 

Amazingly, the cultural practices have endured beyond the religious indoctrinations. Perhaps even in spite of them.

 

The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is fairly recent, but the fight over scarce resources is ancient. Amazingly, both Israeli and Palestinians are genetically very close. Both are Semitic "races" and have DNA that are fewer generations separated than either would care to admit.

 

If not for differences in religion and religious practices, as well as language, the two ethnic groups would be indistinguishable. But its the religious differences that divide them and create an excuse for the insanity.

[Spider AL]

This war goes back as far as Isaac and Jacob.

Heh. And no doubt they were only interested in the land as well. Ahh biblical justification for war, gotta love it.

 

Religion is regarded as true by some, false by some, but useful by those in power. I really don't believe for one moment that I'll be able to convince you of this... but religion is the EXCUSE that government has used since who knows when to get the common folk to go to war for them. How many Crusades, how many Jihads have been waged to provide leaders with land, power and comfort, all in the name of religion? How many silly, impressionable people have killed on command, on the promise of a great afterlife?

 

I shouldn't be so temperate really. I'll be more hard-hitting.

 

If any, ANY of the people on either side were truly spiritual, they wouldn't go around killing each other, or if they haven't killed, SUPPORTING those that DO kill on either side. If god exists, I'm sure he'd consider it a rather big sin, either way.

[Elijah]

Do you know the story of Isaac and Jacob?

[Spider AL]

Do you know the story of Isaac and Jacob?

ERGH!

 

*shuts the front door in ZDawg's face and runs away*

 

And I thought he was selling encyclopaedias.

 

Seriously though, I've heard a lot of biblical tales, and have absolutely zero desire to hear any of them again. My comment about Isaac and Jacob "also just wanting the land" was my little joke. No doubt you'll get it now.

[Elijah]

Funneh no doubt, but your simply being close minded... your choice.

[Spider AL]

Hmm, personally I think that belief in dogma is indicative of a closed mind. Not wishing to read dogma more than once is merely indicative of good sense.

[Elijah]

brushing off history over 9000 years old as"dogma" is close minded.

 

please, let us begin our cirular reasoning. let us go on for hours about the same thing, let us say it 5 different ways, let us find the law in eachothers reasonin, which will go on for ever

[SkinWalker]

Originally posted by ZDawg

brushing off history over 9000 years old as"dogma" is close minded.

 

Not for nothing, but the judeo-christian dogma isn't nearly that old. That was what he was referring to in response to the Issac & Jacob story reference (the stolen birthright blessing? From Esau? I need to look that one up.. haven't read it in years.)

 

Evidence for Judeism only goes back max about 4000 years BP.

[Spider AL]

They attack, we defend,

While I sympathise with those who have faced the carnage caused by bombs on buses and the like, only a zealot or a fool would call the Israeli responses proportionate enough to be termed self-defence in any legal or moral respect.

[ShadowTemplar]

Having skimmed the thread and feeling no particular need to get embroiled in any of the flame wars raging, I'll get straight to the point:

 

I don't care who's 'fault' it is. I don't care which side has had the most civilian casualties. And I certainly don't give a damn who's got the biblical right to the land. What I do care about is which side can do something to stop the conflict. And that side is Israel.

 

The Palestinian Authority can not stop the bombings. Because there is no longer a Palestinian Authority, and there hasn't been for a long time. No single Palestinian entity can control all of the armed forces fighting for the liberation of the West bank and the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, if Israel would lay down their arms - unilaterally - then all of the shooting from the Israeli side of the border would stop.

 

Would that be a solution? In the short term, it would most certainly not. There are too many religious fanatics, lunatics, political extremists, disgruntled widows, fatherless children, etc. on the palestinian side of the border for a unilateral ceasefire - or indeed any ceasefire - to have any immediate effect. But past experience has shown that shelling Palestinian cities, using 1000kg bombs in densely populated areas, tank-shocking civilian apartment buildings and bulldozing hab blocks are not the way to make friends within the Occiupied terretories. It only makes the problem worse.

 

And then we have to look at the causes of this sad conflict. One of them is the fact that the Palestinian terretories are in a legal limbo. They are occiupied, but not annexed, meaning that there is no independent Palestinian civilian government - and there hasn't been one for a long time - and the Palestinians living in the occiupied terretories are not technically part of Israel, and so are not protected by Israeli law. The result is a state of anarchy.

 

Another problem is the settlements. These are clearly illegal, and serve as a way to divide Palestinian land into tiny, isolated enclaves, as well as a means to deport people and steal their land. And they 'happen' to be sited just above the biggest freshwater resources in the region.

 

In short: Israel should stop shooting, withdraw their troops (replace them with a UN force that could be trusted by both parties) and dismantle the settlements. Maybe then build a high wall around Israel (but definitely on their own side of the border).

 

But why should they do that? After all, Israel seems to hold the upper hand in the conflict. In fact Israel does not. More Palestinians are born than die. That simple fact leaves Israel with a simple choice: Reach for the moderate Palestinians (yes they exist) and get a compromise, or be pushed into the Mediterranian by the unfavorable demographics of the situation. Or revoke the laws of Math.

[SkinWalker]

Originally posted by ModAbuse-(tFP)

From the Israeli side, it's a war for survival. They attack, we defend, simple as that.

 

From the perspective of the remainder of the world, it appears that they attack and Israeli military retaliates. That is a bit different from defending. If firing a missile into an apartment building of sleeping people in order to assassinate one Palestinian who may, or may not, have been responsible for a given terrorist attack isn't in itself terrorism, then I suggest to you that the word is valueless and has no meaning.

 

Originally posted by ModAbuse-(tFP)

So do you ask why do I have to be in Israel? Cuz that's our country, simple as that. Just like you wouldn't leave your country if it was attacked by terrorists.

 

From the first millenium CE to the early 20th century, the Jewish population in the region occupied by the recently created nation of Israel was about 11%. By 1940, it increased to 30%.

 

In 1948, the UN Partition Plan divided the region into two states, one Arab the other Jewish, and Israel was proclaimed in 1948.

 

For some reason, the local Arab nations had a hard time accepting that the land of their Palestinian relatives could simply be taken and went to war. Israel said "screw the UN" and took more land. The Arabs, stayed pissed. The United States supported Israel with weapons and resources. The Arabs stayed pissed.

 

So when you say, "cuz that's our country, simple as that. Just like you wouldn't leave your country if it was attacked by terrorists," are you saying you're Jewish or Arab? I'm confused.

[SkinWalker]

Originally posted by ModAbuse-(tFP)

They shouldn't have attacked us in 48. They thought that the gathered might of all arab countries could win, they thought wrong, and now they pay for that by having less land.

 

Ah! Okay... You're Jewish. So you're saying that if a society lives in land for centuries and is displaced by an invading society, then they don't have the right to resist?

 

Originally posted by ModAbuse-(tFP)

The arabs didn't even want a county until we arrived in the 19th century.

 

And yet they lived there. Your ethnocentric concept of nation aside, the Arabs in the region did live there and did make efficient use of the scant resources there.

 

The Jewish people are much like a virus in that they've invaded a healthy system, propagated, and, unless innoculated, will kill the system and themselves in the process.

[SkinWalker]

I've actually argued that the European invasion of the over 500 nations that existed in the N. American continent was wrong. And if we lived in a society where the Am. Indian was still posing a militant threat to the security of the nation, I would argue that they deserve consideration.

 

I'm not saying that the Israeli people should move out, I think it's far too late for that. But something has to be done, otherwise the entire region will fall and fail. The current method of fight terror with terror is not working. It hasn't now for decades. I have to agree with ShadowT. that only the Israeli side of the conflict is capable of dealing with it.

 

Like it as not, both sides call the region home. And that home has limited resources, particularly in water.