Palestinian Christians Refuse To Be Pushed Off Their Land

[Al B. Sure!]

Israel doesn't use its army to attack civilians.

Are you ****ing kidding? Holy ****.

Here's a game! Everyone join in! Let's post cases of the IDF killing civilians!

I'll start:

Gaza flotilla raid.

[Bereta_Eder]

There are many such instances, I'm sure.
However, deliberately targeting civilians (soft targets) is reprehensible from a moral point of view, I think everyone will agree.
One can say it is "tactically efficient" (but is it, really?), or "unavoidable" or "everyone does it" (collateral damage) or, or but it IS morally reprehensible.

Also I think hamas and other palestinian elite, benefit from a state of perpetual warfare. Let's not get them off the hook totally.

[Dinner]

They had lots of options including options which didn't involve terrorism but the sticking point was always that the Arab side wouldn't give up the idea that they might some how be able to conquer the Israel and kill all of the Jews. If they were willing to put down their weapons and accept Israel's right to exist then they would have had their own country decades ago but they won't do it. They can't do it because they've been trapped into their own circular propaganda and anyone who actually does sign a peace deal would just be assassinated or lose power to be replaced by someone who wants to keep up the endless war.

[Ben Kenobi]

Apparently we're not supposed to connect the dots between an Arabic person who named himself Albert Speer and his failure to recognize national self-determination of Jewish people.

[Al B. Sure!]

The bombing/shelling of Beirut in 1982 and 2006.

[AAAAAAAAH!]

Apparently we're not supposed to connect the dots between an Arabic person who named himself Albert Speer and his failure to recognize national self-determination of Jewish people.

Who is this "Albert Speer" of whom you speak?

[Berzerker]

It blesses converting everyone.

Then Catholicism obviously rejects everyone else's beliefs

Is your argument that Jesus requires pacifism, and that Christians cannot serve in the military?

Yes...these people described in the OP are more Christ-like than the people signing up to kill others, or bulldoze orchards.

America stripped loyalists of property after the revolution. Again, America did not consider itself bound by the agreements of England.

Then why were Loyalists dispossessed?

These people aint loyalists, they're just landowners with a legal title predating the state of Israel. That gives them a moral claim to the land...

[Dinner]

Just two months ago the PLO and Hamas entered into a so called Palestinian unity government so you have a Palestinian Authority half controlled by a self described terrorist organization which embraces violence, continues to carry out terrorist attacks, and refuses to even agree that Israel has a right to exist.

How can Israel negotiate with such people? It can't.

[Ben Kenobi]

Then Catholicism obviously rejects everyone else's beliefs

Judaism says the exact same thing about itself.

Yes

Then why does Jesus bless the Centurion and affirm him as having greater faith than anyone else in Israel, even as he is still a Centurion?

these people described in the OP are more Christ-like than the people signing up to kill others, or bulldoze orchards.

Your belief that Christianity is obligate pacifist is incorrect. Some are, but it is not required and it is permissible for Christians to serve in the armed forces.

These people aint loyalists

What's the difference between a loyalist who refuses to acknowledge the authority of congress and a Palestinian who refuses to recognise the authority of Israel?

It is one thing to refuse to serve because one is a pacifist. Entirely different is to refuse to serve because you reject their authority.

That gives them a moral claim to the land

This is no different from the loyalists whom the United States dispossessed. Having a claim on the land with English title.

[Hauldren Collider]

Gaza flotilla raid.

You have a fascinating definition of civilian.

[Ben Kenobi]

I personally find his claim that 'self-determination has an expiration date', to justify the destruction of Israel as even more interesting.

[regexcellent]

You have a fascinating definition of civilian.

Yeah besides that, it was also the Israeli Navy, not the Israeli Army that did the raid.

[C0ckney]

Also I think hamas and other palestinian elite, benefit from a state of perpetual warfare. Let's not get them off the hook totally.

this is true of course, however there is a key difference.

nobody defends hamas, or other groups in gaza, launching rockets at israel, saying they should launch more, or that it's a shame that so few israelis are hit by such rockets; yet the e-idf, never ceases to mention it, while completely ignoring the far more serious problems of the collective punishment of all gazan citizens by israel or the airstrikes, which invariably kill civilians (or they'll use another famous zionist trope, that those civilians deserve to die because they are "human shields" and thus absolve israel of any and all responsibility). to give another example, three israeli teenagers were kidnapped recently near their west bank settlement, you won't see anyone here supporting the kidnappers, the most you'll hear are complaints about the heavy handed israeli search operation, which saw mass arrests and the killing of a 15 year old boy by israeli troops.

we can contrast this with the reactions from western zionists to every theft of land, every murder, every act of violence, every humiliation of the palestinians. these, as we can see in this thread, range from simple denial, to the dishonest, right up to their use as an excuse to spew racist bile.

[C0ckney]

sometimes the zionists are so ignorant, or so dishonest, depending on how charitable we want to be, as to respond to criticism of the constant and ongoing theft of palestinian land in the west bank by bringing up a few rockets launched from gaza, ignoring, or being ignorant of, the fact that they are two different places run by different groups.

there are lots of others, which have even been posted in this thread, such as 'the palestianians don't recognise israel'; it's as if they've never heard of the 1994 oslo accords.

[Bereta_Eder]

some time ago i had a girlfriend that was very involved in helping immigrants etc. also through her work (she was kind of an amateur artist/theatrical) she went to palestine from time to time.
she was a good, good person but her life style was too unconventional for me (I guess i love my small-bourgeois upbringing sometimes) and we split.
however the time we were together i came into contact with people i would otherwise not have.
in no way are they uncivilized or whatever other bull**** (american mainly, sorry) mainstream consciousness would want someone to believe.
they are thinking people with passions.
of coruse most of them were artists or wanted to be. or some immigrants that had such tendencies.


being palestinian, in those circles was something like, i dont know, it was something honorable from the onset.
now, i didnt frequent a lot but the little time i was there, it seems there is a paralel universe.

i cant fathom the possibility of them sitting down with someone like ben and talking abut things.
the overall idea was that they were living under threat always, they HATED israel with a fervor that is rare.
it was such their deterministic focus, that i said i'm going to come to a party with a t-shirt with the start of david and i want to see what's going to happen. (always a spirit of dissidence in me)

the conclusions i came up with all that is
_they truely suffer, their lives ARE in danger
_they are "blind" as all people would be if found themselves in the thick of a battle, as they perceive it

in short, they truely suffer and they are monolithic against israel, period