Oh Israel..

[PLATO]

Honestly don't care. It's not my business.

If Israel wants to commit genocide, then I'm sure the Good Folks in Amurica would nuke them for it.

Go Amurica! "We got us some nukes, boys! Let's use 'em! Hey...haven't dem librawls up north found 'em some oil? Yeehaw!! Fire 'em up!"

We don't attack countries for committing genocide...only for committing the crime of having oil. I thought you knew that.

[notyoueither]

I don't know about that. 65 years of conflict could be solved. It is unlikely that there will be peace without the Palestinians having East Jerusalem as there Capital.

I believe that this is one of those rare conflicts that being "in no position to have to do so" is not really applicable. Sure, the Israeli's have the power on the ground and have some heavy weight political support in the U.S., but if the really want a chance for peace then they are going to have to negotiate with the Palestinians as if they were equal.

I see the deal as being East Jerusalem for the Palestinians giving up their claim of a "right to return". It is a fact that the vast, vast majority of Palestinians have never lived a day in Israel proper...regardless of where their grandparents lived.

The Palestinians are already doing without East Jerusalem. They lose nothing by giving it up as part of a deal that will give them their own state and the ability to get on with their lives.

I don't think it's reasonable to insist that the Israelis give on these issues (Jerusalem, Right of Return).

[snoopy369]

What are the Isralis giving in that deal, though?

[PLATO]

The Palestinians are already doing without East Jerusalem. They lose nothing by giving it up as part of a deal that will give them their own state and the ability to get on with their lives.

I don't think it's reasonable to insist that the Israelis give on these issues (Jerusalem, Right of Return).

I think it is reasonable IF it will lead to a lasting peace. The West Bank is already pretty much self governing. East Jerusalem and right of return seems to me to be the sticking points.

[kentonio]

Hence my questioning your rationale behind supporting them in the other thread before this even came out...

Perhaps you're open minded enough to understand that what you're finally seeing really is the tip of a very large and very nasty iceberg that's been plying the seas for the last 65 years at least...

Note: B'Tselem is an Israeli human rights organisation. Um, AKA traitorous turncoats that should be executed against the nearest wall in HC's book...

Seriously, Kent, open your eyes!

It's not that simple and it never was. If you want to understand Israel/Palestine then you have to be willing to put yourself in both sets of shoes, not just one sides. Think about the mental state of the newly arriving Jewish immigrants after the second world war for a second. Hundreds of thousands of people, many who had just gotten out of the death camps having suffering indescribable tortures and cruelties and who had almost all lost family members in the genocide. This after millenia of being an oppressed and abused peoples.

They finally have a land that they can call their own, and within days of its creation they are under attack from all sides by nations that want to drive them into the sea and finish off the job that the Nazis had so recently attempted. They beg, borrow and steal for aid from the west, and narrowly prevent the annihilation of their new nation. They then spend the next 60 odd years under constant guerrilla attack, faces repeated existential threats to their nation from their neighbours. Constant attack, constant threat, constant fear.

You can certainly view it from the Palestinian perspective and come away with a whole different set of sympathies, but unless you acknowledge it from the Israeli perspective too then you aren't seeing the whole picture. The Jews in 1945 didn't have the luxury of picking between lots of safe spots for a homeland, they fled to the place their religion told them was home, and they carved out a nation to protect them from a world that had despised, attacked and murdered them for two thousand years.

My problem with Israel is that despite my sorrow at their plight, their actions largely just perpetuate the endless violence. Yet how are we supposed to ask them to trust that an enemy that has tried to exterminate them since the day after their independence is suddenly going to act in good faith? We're talking about a nation that has been under attack pretty much every day for the last 65 years. Can you really expect them to think the see things in the same way as we are able to in the west?

[notyoueither]

What are the Isralis giving in that deal, though?

On those issues, not much. However, the Palestinians aren't giving up much if anything that they actually have.

[Rasputin]

I think before Israel gives Palestine its territory the US government should give back all the territories of the Native Americans. If they don't give it back is it ok if the Natives form militia and terror groups and blow up children and shoot citizens.

many nations have occupied other peoples lands and not given them back, it wasn't only Hitler that conquered lands, The English did it more so. They created nations all over the world that never existed before they pulled out.

Palestine itself was a Mandate of England since End of world war 1 that included all the land around the Jordan an area known as Trans-Jordan, the Palestinians don't seem to be claiming any of Jordans territories back but only Israeli lands.

If this was simply about needing land for the Palestinians to live in then get the other Arab nations around Israel to give back the land that was historically part of Palestinian history too.

of course history shows that the surrounding nations have no interest in palestines, at the end of the initial war in 1948 after declaration was made and peace was signed, The west bank was controlled by Jordan, but never given to the Palestinians for a state, the egyptains controlled the Gaza strip again never given to the Palestinians as a state, jsu think how different things could have been if back in 1948 that land had been created as a PAlestinian state...

[dannubis]

Delicate point of view...

[snoopy369]

Eh, i'm pretty sure the people living in Jordan were okay staying there. The issue is the folks living in the Israeli area but are not Jews are not happy living in Israel...

[giblets]

I think before Israel gives Palestine its territory the US government should give back all the territories of the Native Americans. If they don't give it back is it ok if the Natives form militia and terror groups and blow up children and shoot citizens.

many nations have occupied other peoples lands and not given them back, it wasn't only Hitler that conquered lands, The English did it more so. They created nations all over the world that never existed before they pulled out.

Palestine itself was a Mandate of England since End of world war 1 that included all the land around the Jordan an area known as Trans-Jordan, the Palestinians don't seem to be claiming any of Jordans territories back but only Israeli lands.

If this was simply about needing land for the Palestinians to live in then get the other Arab nations around Israel to give back the land that was historically part of Palestinian history too.

So it's alright if we invade your nation of criminals and take your land?

[Rasputin]

So it's alright if we invade your nation of criminals and take your land?

obviously it is as history shows....

[dannubis]

It's not his land. In this light you can understand his point of view...

[Rasputin]

Eh, i'm pretty sure the people living in Jordan were okay staying there. The issue is the folks living in the Israeli area but are not Jews are not happy living in Israel...

the jews living in Jordan and Egypt controlled areas had to leave too. some people forget that Jews were there before the declaration

[Rasputin]

yes not my land here either really, the English came to Australia and took the land from the aborigines. Again history shows we should be allowed to keep the land ...

[regexcellent]

Eh, i'm pretty sure the people living in Jordan were okay staying there. The issue is the folks living in the Israeli area but are not Jews are not happy living in Israel...

haha I'm dyin here.

You honestly think Israeli arabs would rather live in the West Bank or Gaza? Wooooow.