[BeaverFever]

Thanos Thanos:

Might makes right in these situations. Always has, always will. Israel isn't going to give up anything anytime in either the near or far futures. Getting stung by Hamas taking over Gaza won't ever be allowed to be repeated in the West Bank.

Hamas in Gaza was foreseeable and if the likelihood was not outright ignored by Israel then wa mismanaged.

If Reagan could arrange for phased nuclear disarmament with USSR then Israel can arrange for phased implementation of a palestinian state, with plenty of safeguards and project checkpoints in the event things aren't developing as expected.

But Israels only intention is to expnd settlement indefinitely and then eventually use the settlements as pretext to formally annex the territory in the future.

[martin14]

The Russians weren't busy launching rockets on a daily basis.

Comparing the USSR and Hamas in this situation is irrelevant and idiotic.


So you are wrong again.

[Thanos]

The Soviets, as bad as they were, weren't insane and didn't have an urge to genocide the way the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah do. Just because they can't match Israel's armed might doesn't make them the plucky underdogs either, the type of romantic revolutionaries that leftists of the 1960's/70's vintage still love to fantasize over. They're a bunch of religion-driven kooks who'd kill every Jew they could if they had the ability to do so. Their own words and charters state that they'll never accept the existence of any Israel, not even one that was confined to the original 1948 borders.

[BeaverFever]

The Soviets were fighting proxy wars vs the west in any number of countries.


Hamas and hezbollah do not represent the totality of the palestinian leadership. There are plenty of moderates around to do business with.

Ironically by refusing to pursue a peace process and address grievances through bilateral sanctioned channels you guarantee that radicals will address their grievances through unilateral unsanctioned channels (ie terrorism and radicalism).

Funny how military occupation and radical terrorist resistance go hand in hand. No different than Northern Ireland as but one example. People have this funny knack for wanting to resist these things by force. And how did Peace finally come to Northern Ireland? By one side refusing to address the many valid grievances just to spite the radicals on the other side? No. By one side refusing to speak with any political party or public figure that had direct or indirect relations with radicals on the other? No. They did it through a multi phase plan, gradual trust building and perhaps most importantly with international support and cajoling on both sides.

Were you under the impression that outside of Palestine, people resisted through letter writing campaigns or something?

[martin14]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Hamas and hezbollah do not represent the totality of the palestinian leadership. There are plenty of moderates around to do business with.

Not in Gaza, and the West Bank will never do a separate deal.

There is simply no one worth talking to.

[N_Fiddledog]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

All that matters is that in yhe 20th century you cannot seize land by military conquest. Period. And you cannot colonize it with settlers. Period. It doesn't matter that some current or historical Israelis think they're entitled to it and have been demanding it. Putin thinks he's entitled to Ukraine. Doesn't matter.

Arguments about Egypt and Jordan are red herrings, this has nothing to do with either of them as they are not Palestinians.

Nothing red about those herrings.

If you say you "cannot seize land", then Egypt and Jordan had no right to it. So nobody owns it.

Again it becomes "Disputed Territory". No matter which angle you twist and turn to go at it it's still "Disputed Territory". Nobody has superior claim.

Doesn't make it finders keepers for Israel. They have no business occupying it,

They have as much right as anybody else does.

[BeaverFever]

I'll fix it for you:

$1:

They have as much right as other current country does.

...which is none.

They don't have as much right as the people who actually live there currently. Those people have a right to self-determination and not to live under unwanted military rule. They have right not to have their homes bulldozed while settlers move in from outside.

Like if the world discovers an inhabited island in international waters that nobody knew about and is not recognized as a nation, we are not free to just militarily invade and colonize it. The Island would have the right to be recognized as a new country.

Similarly, if China dissolves as a country tomorrow, we are not free to invade and conquer it provinces because the provinces don't belong to anyone at the moment.

[N_Fiddledog]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

They don't have as much right as the people who actually live there currently.

Jews are among those who live there currently and always have.

Jews have as much right to administer to the disputed territories as the Muslims do or did.

[BartSimpson]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

They don't have as much right as the people who actually live there currently. Those people have a right to self-determination and not to live under unwanted military rule. They have right not to have their homes bulldozed while settlers move in from outside.

No, they do not have these rights.

When Germans voted in a despotic regime they lost their right to live in peace when that regime waged war against its neighbors.

When the so-called Palestinians living around Israel freely elected known terrorist organizations to be their governments and then those governments made war and continue to make war on Israel then those Palestinians do NOT have the right to live safely in their homes while Israelis sleep in bomb shelters.

When the West Bank and Gaza residents renounce both war and the genocide of the Jews then we can talk. Until then they deserve whatever they provoke.

[ShepherdsDog]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

They don't have as much right as the people who actually live there currently.

Jews are among those who live there currently and always have.

Jews have as much right to administer to the disputed territories as the Muslims do or did.

The Jews never fully disappeared....the diaspora didn't see every man woman and child booted out of Judea, only the wealthy and powerful. The big problem with what's going on in Israel and occupied Judea/Samaria is that quite a few of the 'Palestinians' are the descendants of the Jews that stayed. Most converted to Christianity under Rome and later Constantinople's rule, and many later converted to Islam after the Arab conquest. These people intermarried with the waves on new invaders. Then there were Jewish settlements in Jerusalem and throughout the Levant that remained throughout, facing persecution from Christian and Musklim alike.

Today, about 25% of the 'Palestinians' share more DNA with Jewish Israelis than the surrounding Arabs. The right of return is based on matrilineal descent(what determines who is a Jew), which is why you can find Russian Christians and atheists(Jewish converts) in Israel. Israel has to come to terms with the fact that many Palestinians are in fact their own people, and if we are to accept Jews are an ethnicity as well as a religious group, these Palestinian Hebrews have to be accepted by the Israeli government as the Children of Isaac as well.....not as foreign invaders. Persian Jews were accepted into Israel, and they had been separated almost a thousand years longer than the Palestinian Hebrews.

[BeaverFever]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

They don't have as much right as the people who actually live there currently.

Jews are among those who live there currently and always have.

Jews have as much right to administer to the disputed territories as the Muslims do or did.

The Jews never fully disappeared....the diaspora didn't see every man woman and child booted out of Judea, only the wealthy and powerful. The big problem with what's going on in Israel and occupied Judea/Samaria is that quite a few of the 'Palestinians' are the descendants of the Jews that stayed. Most converted to Christianity under Rome and later Constantinople's rule, and many later converted to Islam after the Arab conquest. These people intermarried with the waves on new invaders. Then there were Jewish settlements in Jerusalem and throughout the Levant that remained throughout, facing persecution from Christian and Musklim alike.

Today, about 25% of the 'Palestinians' share more DNA with Jewish Israelis than the surrounding Arabs. The right of return is based on matrilineal descent(what determines who is a Jew), which is why you can find Russian Christians and atheists(Jewish converts) in Israel. Israel has to come to terms with the fact that many Palestinians are in fact their own people, and if we are to accept Jews are an ethnicity as well as a religious group, these Palestinian Hebrews have to be accepted by the Israeli government as the Children of Isaac as well.....not as foreign invaders. Persian Jews were accepted into Israel, and they had been separated almost a thousand years longer than the Palestinian Hebrews.

Palestinians (whether Christian or Muslim) are certainly related to Hebrews. Whether one is descended from the other, or more
likely both are descended from a common Canaanite ancestor.

But NFs post is still irrelevant because there is nothing in international law that permits a country to annex territory beyond its own internationally recognized borders. Period

Furthermore Jews were only 20% of population according to Brritsh surveys of the Palestinian mandate. that is not the same as saying the occupants of that territory.

And lastly even if there was a substantial jewish presence in the occupied territories, an Israeli invasion doesn't by any stretch equal self determination of the occupied territories. That Israeli determination.

[ShepherdsDog]

$1:

Palestinians (whether Christian or Muslim) are certainly related to Hebrews. Whether one is descended from the other, or more
likely both are descended from a common Canaanite ancestor.

That's possible but not really relevant, as my point in time is even more recent and you're talking about a people who were conquered by the Israelites around 1000 BCE. It's like claiming the Philistines were the progenitors of the Palestinians. Both groups had disappeared from the books, or been absorbed long before the time I'm referring to. I'm not talking about tenuous ties....I'm talking about hard DNA evidence. Discussions about Canaanites are only relevant if we're discussing links between Phoenicia and Carthage.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

The Soviets were fighting proxy wars vs the west in any number of countries.


Hamas and hezbollah do not represent the totality of the palestinian leadership. There are plenty of moderates around to do business with.

Ironically by refusing to pursue a peace process and address grievances through bilateral sanctioned channels you guarantee that radicals will address their grievances through unilateral unsanctioned channels (ie terrorism and radicalism).

Funny how military occupation and radical terrorist resistance go hand in hand. No different than Northern Ireland as but one example. People have this funny knack for wanting to resist these things by force. And how did Peace finally come to Northern Ireland? By one side refusing to address the many valid grievances just to spite the radicals on the other side? No. By one side refusing to speak with any political party or public figure that had direct or indirect relations with radicals on the other? No. They did it through a multi phase plan, gradual trust building and perhaps most importantly with international support and cajoling on both sides.

Were you under the impression that outside of Palestine, people resisted through letter writing campaigns or something?

Did the leadership of Ireland declare a perpetual war of extermination on Britain? No? Then your analogy does not work. You can't do shit at the bargaining table when the otehr side's view is that you should not exist, period.

[andyt]

The usual bullshit:

$1:

How Many Times Must the Palestinians Recognize Israel?
Netanyahu’s new 'Jewish state' mantra negates the fact that Palestinians recognized Israel more than twenty years ago. They’re still waiting for Israel to recognize Palestine.

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/beta/.premium-1.579701

I was gobsmacked when I found out that while Israel whinges about the Palestinians recognizing their right to exist, they adamantly refuse to do the same for Palestine.

Yet people keep repeating the same bullshit over and over. If recognizing right to exist is the issue, how about demanding it from Israel too? The usual double standard.

[N_Fiddledog]

Really? Gobsmacked were you?

Unfortunately I was denied a good gobsmacking by the opinion piece at the left wing Haaretz.

They were demanding a subscription and only had the story description you posted above.

Seeing as you were so thoroughly gobsmacked I'm going to assume you subscribe. Cool. Post at least the bits you think are most persuasive will you? I love a good op-ed from a lefty anti-zionist.

In the meantime I'm going to have to guess what Hussein Ibih's opinion piece is about.

I'm guessing it's about the claims of Yasser Arafat accepting Israel's right to exist in, I think it was 1993.

There are contradictory claims. Here's a different opinion piece from Israel's former Ambassador to Canada. He "participated in the negotiation and drafting of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, as well as agreements and peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon."

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Artic ... aspx/14701

One of the big problems with the whole Arafat thing is he made some claims, but they never actually changed the Palestinian Charter where they promised not to accept Israel's right to exist.

They only offered an intention to amend at some future date.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/plocov.asp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestini ... t_to_exist

So where that leaves things currently is here.

$1:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said there is "no way" he will recognize Israel as a Jewish state and accept a Palestinian capital in just a portion of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, rebuffing what Palestinians fear will be key elements of a U.S. peace proposal.

with this from the Israeli side:

$1:

"I am ready to proceed, I am ready to reach the end of the conflict, but it must be the end of the conflict," Netanyahu told Channel 10 TV. "We won't allow the establishment of a Palestinian state so that it will continue the conflict, so it needs to recognize the state of the Jews just like they are demanding from us that we recognize the state of the Palestinians."

http://news.yahoo.com/abbas-no-recognit ... ntentstory

Abbas has offered a conflicting statement, but read the beginning of this one and see what happens at home in the West bank when he does.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1126 ... e-solution

Basically they don't like it. They don't allow it, and Abbas backs down.


Basically