This is why the Israeli side is morally superior to the Palestinians.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I suppose so if the murder of Palestinian children isn't to be mourned. **** it, it's not like Arabs are deserving of human rights anyway. They're just animals.

They are to be mourned but intent makes all the difference in the world. I agree that in the end both are dead but if you kill someone by accident it's different then if you planned on killing civilians. Intent is what seporates them and makes one worse then the other.

[Nubclear]

The American peoples intention in Iraq is evil.

Obviously Saddam Hussein is better than the people of America.

[Berzerker]

I agree that in the end both are dead but if you kill someone by accident

That was quite an "accident(s)". Gee whiz guys, we keep causing these "accidents" with our missiles and guns. If your
family was wiped out in an "accident", you'd probably be seeking revenge. So that brings us back to who started the mess...and we know the answer to that...

[Japher]

So that brings us back to who started the mess...and we know the answer to that...

George Bush?

I blame the British!

[Ming]

Who started it, or who is to blame no longer really matters.

The real question is, who is going to stop it.

[pchang]

Who indeed?

This action gives me hope that the Israeli government may still have the will to take the necessary risks to stop this. The inaction of the Palestinian Authority has caused me to give up on them.

[Catfish]

I don't have time wade through all these posts, but I stumbled on this:

Originally posted by Berzerker
Oh yeah, he was involved with that slaughter (oops, "adventure"). So, which PM was bombing British soldiers a few decades ago?

David Ben-Gurion is the one you're thinking of - responsible for the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946, amongst other things.

[GePap]

How, well typical an ME thread. Do these rulings show a moral superiority of the Israeli side? No. They show that the rule of law is followed in the Israeli side more often than the Palestinians side: only if you define following the law as inherently moral, regardless of the law does this conjure any sort of "moral superiority". Both sides commit criminal acts:different criminal acts yes, both both criminal.

Oh, and on Sharon: what first made his famous was a 1953 incident: a group of pas infiltrated into Israel (common enough back in 1953) and they ambushed a car, killing a woman and her two children. In retaliation, the Israelis launched a raid into the west bank, held by jordan then, to discourage further attacks. Sharon and his unit went inot the village and blew most of the hosues up. They did not particualrly give the inhabitants the time to leave though..over 60 inhabitants of the village were killed (67 people I believe). This lead to widespread international condemnation.

Finally, to say the land was British is incorrect. Britain held a "tusteeship": in essence, Britian was the designated the legal guardian of the land util the people of it were ready for self-rule. This does not make the land English though. Of course, the problems inherent in trying to create a Jewsih homeland delayed the end of the trusteeship beyond the end of all the other ones in the ME (sych as Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, lebanon)

[The Templar]

Of course there is no moral equivalence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is no morality in evidence whatsoever in the region.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Berzerker
So you guys will "compensate" for stolen land if other thieves will do the same? Gee, I'll stop murdering people if someone else does too.

Most of the land belonged to the Ottoman Sultan since most of the land was uninhabited and, in the Treaty of Versailles, the Ottomans ceded the land to the British. Clearly if the recognized sovereign of a land cedes the land to another sovereign then they are the legitamite owners. This legitamacy was further sanctified by the League of Nations reaffirming British ownership.

[GePap]

Man how wrong can you be?

1. read Ben gurion and his early works and bipography to see how "empty" the land was. read the trasncripts of the meeetings of Zionists in the 10's to see how "empty" the land was. The fact is that without even going into a single non-zionist source the contention that this land was empty falls apart quickly.

2. The Treaty of Lussane (spll), which finally brough peace between the Allies and Turkey was not signed till 1923, by which the Sultanate was no more. The British were NOT (NOT, NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT...how many more nots?) given soveriengty..they were given trusteeship..again, a legal guardianship of the land until the people in it were ready for self-rule. Same arrengement given over in Iraq..the brist quickly ended that trusteeship to buy off the Hashemites whom they screwed. The French got trusteeship fo Syria and Lebanon, and they were far more direct rulesr and centralizers than the Brist were.

The problem in this area was the british decision to make part of the trusteeship regime the creation of a jewish homeland.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


So a council of thieves gave the biggest thief the land. There was a revolution. The Arabs had overthrown the Turks with Brit help. To take their "Leage" alloted protectorates, though, they had to invade, and bomb, and conquer these aeras from the Arab people.

The Allies had promised the Arabs independence, the Jews Palestine, and themelves the oil. They only kept one of those promises.

I'd take the history presented in the movie "Lawrence of Arabia" with a grain of salt. The British were responsible for the overwhelming majority of the victories in Palestine, Transjordan, Syria and Iraq. The portrayal of Lawrence's Arabs as taking al Aquaba and then fighting their way northward in parallel with the British Army is total bunk. Al Aquaba wasn't taken from the south by the Arabs, but instead fell to a British column coming from the norhteast. The British took Damascus
weeks before Lawrence's Arab League arrived. The British then made Transjordan, Syria and Iraq into puppet kingdoms doled out to various Arabian families, some of whom were relatives of the house of Saud, others of whom were rivals. All of them were given their posts as a means of getting them out of the hair of the Saudis so that the Saudi royals could go about their business of consolidating their grip on all of modern Arabia in order to provide a safe comfy environment for the British to drill oil in.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Ming
Who started it, or who is to blame no longer really matters.

The real question is, who is going to stop it.

You're volunteering? Wow! Will you use your death ray?

[orange]

The Israelis arrest their militants and give them long jail sentences while the Palestinians cheer terrorists as heros and train their children to blow themselves up (ever seen the pictures of children as young a 3 dressed as suicide bombers?).

I love the assertion that all Israelis love Palestinians and all Palestinians want to kill all the Isrealis. It's bull****

As for not knowing your history, Oerdin you show absolutely no knowledge of Sykes-Picot, Balfour, or the McMahon correspondence. Before you even attempt to get into a battle about Israeli soverignty due to the UN's declaration, why not do a little reading on at least those three very crucial parts of the story.

[Berzerker]

David Ben-Gurion is the one you're thinking of - responsible for the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946, amongst other things.

Sorry Catfish, the name just doesn't ring a bell although the incident sounds familiar. I thought it was Begin, but I'm not up on recent history over there.

Oerdin -

Most of the land belonged to the Ottoman Sultan since most of the land was uninhabited and, in the Treaty of Versailles, the Ottomans ceded the land to the British. Clearly if the recognized sovereign of a land cedes the land to another sovereign then they are the legitamite owners. This legitamacy was further sanctified by the League of Nations reaffirming British ownership.

Sorry, but dictators laying claim to a land via force doesn't create legitimacy (the scene of Dennis explaining this to King Arthur in Monty Python & the Holy Grail comes to mind ).
And I seriously doubt most of the land was uninhabited, but the people who were there had the best claim of legitimacy, not some Turkish Sultan and not the Brits... While the past is past, resentment over these sovereign powers playing chess with other people's lands doesn't die easy. Too bad the west (and the US) was so anti-Jew following WWII even after what the Nazis did, there was plenty of room for European Jews wanting to leave Europe for the US and the mess created over there could have been avoided.