Your arguments are very one sided.
I will not argue that Israel consitutes a terrorist state (althought that may be a "reasonable debate").
That Israel is an occupying power who has consistantly refused to offer a realistic peace is clear. That they have built settlements in occupied terroritory is clear. That they have killed civilians is clear. That they have used political assassination is also clear.
What is also clear (and tragic) is that either side could end this cycle of violence that has gone on now for some 50 years. Israel and the Palestinians are in this together and are both responsible.
I do agree that this thread is aptly named.
and we ought to acknowledge that in both communities, Palestinian and Israeli, there are strong voices arguing against the policies and actions of their present leaders.
That I'll give you Blatham. And with apparent justification on both sides at that; however, dissent among the people does not automatically prove that a leader is wrong. If a leader only follows the dictates of the people, he isn't really leading is he?
foxfyre the fallowing link
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=514691
is the link to the story about the jeep incident. As for the rest just go to google and search israeli attack civilian deaths and I am sure you will find many many recent examples of civilan casualties as a result of israeli military action.
But like I have stated earlier I am not saying one side is moraly better then the other, just that it is better armed and also better regarded by Americans.
also israel is not a civilian society in the way that america is. everyone there, including females have a compulsory military service they must complete, after which they become reservists. They are on active recall until the age of I think it was 45 or so.
So more or less everybody in israel is military, just like almost everyone on the palestinian side is a member of a paramilitary organization
Ok here is another one. How would you like it if britain invaded new york, settled turks there, then pulled out. the turks claimed that the land belonged to them because they have made a pact with their god and he promised new york to them....
Lets not forget that 70 years ago when the jews were migrating from europe, there were arabs in palestine who had been there since the beginning of history..... the non jews of the ancient land of israel, that were not deported by the romans.... who later adopted christianity and islam......
Yilmaz, I said I was sympathetic to the Palestinian situation. The decent Palestinian people are indeed between a rock and a hard place.
It is also a fact that most Palestinians who are in the West Bank and Gaza now migrated there or are descended from people who migrated there after Israel was established as a sovereign nation via U.N. charter. It is also a fact that Arafat is on record as suggesting Israel should be obliterated from the face of the earth. Not to mention most other Arab nations surrounding Israel are decidedly hostile toward it and have been for a long, long time.
Israel is such a tiny country. I do not believe they would bother anybody if the others would just leave them alone. The surrounding countries have hundreds and hundreds of square miles of country nobody is using, but not one has offered a homeland to the Palestinians.
You have to wonder if the only agenda here is equity for the Palestinians.
Having said that, all the items listed in my previous post are valid subjects for debate.
And we are between Iraq and a hard place.
If the story of the Palestinians, etc. being used by the Israelis as human shields is correct, then that would be very wrong and should be condemned. When they don't provide the photo cited, however, and don't give names, and when they don't mention attacks on the Israeli's by the Palestinians, I would like to see more 'proof' I guess.
Here is a link to a U.S. State Dept. report that does support reports of incidents of human rights abuses by Israeli security forces but seems to present both sides of the issue.
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18278.htm
I was also remiss in my previous post in not stating that the International community does not officially recognize the occupied territories as being part of the U.N. charter.
The use of Palestinian sheilds is well documented Foxfyre, even by our government.
The practice is usually to force a Palestinian to approach the door of a house under seige to attempt to negotiate the exit of the individuals and disclosure of booby-trapped entrances.
I don't deny that it happened Craven. And the State Dept. report cited in my previous post does suggest serious human rights violations by some aspects of Israeli security. I'm just not sure that the source cited by Yilmaz made an iron clad clase for the particularly loathsome situation described. I don't know whether it happened or not. If it did it was reprehensible.
foxfyre:
the fact is not only that one case but many like that are happening all the time. The inhuman killing of a pregnant woman and her four children on sunday is just another example of the dirtiness of the whole conflict there.
But the fact remains that the whole mess is a fact on the ground that was created by external forces. In 1948 the state of israel was established.... in palestine, and the justification was the holocaust.... those damned palestinians how dare they try to exterminate the jews.... Oh I forgot it was the germans that gassed them wasn't it, yet somehow they got a state in palestine. Hmm let me try to see the logic of it all.
Yes of course, drive the palestinians out of their land. And foxfyre your brilliant suggestion that the neighboring arab countries should give land to the palestinians so they can set up a state there is brilliant. But I have another suggestion, I am sure that the american west isn't very densely populated, so why not set up a palestinian state there, say in new mexico. It shouldnt be too difficult to settle the 3 million odd palestinians there, after all it was possible to plant 6 million jews into palestinian land from all over the world.
The whole state of israel is set in a place known historically (at least the past 2 millenia) as palestine. There were people living there since god knows when, and for simplicities sake they were called palestine. Bible tells of the house of israel moving from egypt to palestine following moses and setting a state (mind you that in effect is the first invasion) there, and hanging around a while till they transgress their god and get punished in the form of the diaspora. Come 2800 years later they say hey we had a pact with god, those lands are ours. And the whole zionism and zionist bs starts to strengthen and the next thing you know you have jews from europe being transplanted in palestine and the state of israel. And the whole mess associated with it for the past 55 years.
Now here are the oddities. What is jewry, is it a religion or a race. If it's a religion then you have a theocracy over there and the whole west is supporting a theocracy in the name of democracy. If it is a race then you have one of the most racist states being once again supported by the "democracies" of the west. We call that kind of state fascist where I come from.
A few minor things about the so called "jews" of israel and their history. If you do a through research you find that of the original 12 tries of israel most have somehow been either assimilated into other cultures or have preserved themselves in relatively small communities. The modern day jews are mostly descendants of the khazars. the khazars are a very interesting bunch, they are a turkic people (same historic origins over in the central asian steppes with me) who converted to judaism and later on carried that religion to eastern europe and from there the rest of the world.
Jews of europe are mostly of khazar origins. the jewish community in endulisia was maybe the only prospering community in europe during the midevial times, thanks to ironically muslim tolerence. another irony is that when the spanish consolidated the iberian penninsula they were hell bent on erradicating all the moors (muslims and jews of endulisia) and it was the intervention of the turks and their evacuation of iberian jews to turkey that saved them. As a result by the 19th century most of the jews of europe and the US were descendants of the khazars, and it was them that came up with zionism...... the whole idea that it was their god given right to establish a jewish state in israel.... I leave it up to you to believe the validity of such a claim. But eventually with the help of the british they managed to do just that on land confiscated from people living in the british mandate of palestine.
That foxfyre how the state of israel came about, therefore I suggest you research the history of palestine and israel before making suggestions about a palestinian state.
Let us for now lay aside the legitamecy of the state of israel, which would be a very prolonged debate of international law and philosophy, since all the neighboring arab states have by today recognized israels right to exist and fast forward to 1967. In 1967 israel attacked its neighbors in what it claimed was a preemptive move because they figured there was a war brewing up. Routing the egyptian, jordanian, and syrian armies they captured the golan heights in the norh, west bank in the east, and in the west the gaza strip and all of sinai penninsula. They gave the sinai back to the egyptians in return for peace with egypt, even that eppisode is sonfusing enough but lay that aside for now. They ended up accupying the west bank and gaza strip from the palestinians, and the golan from the syrians. Far as I know it is against the geneve accords to settle a population in lands under accupation but israel has been doing just that for decades. Often confiscating private lands belonging to palestinians and sometimes moving entire villages in order to clear land for settlement by jews. Now the whole issue currently subject to the peace plans is the status of the land accupied in 1967. The palestinians want to set up a state in that land that was accupied by israel in a war of aggression (which by the way is a war crime). Israel wants to give them the gaza strip and no one knows what will happen of the west bank. But with US support the israelis are doing their damnest to make sure that there is no coherent palestinian territory in the west bank and the latest sharon plan and the security wall are all solid evidence of that intention. As far as international law is concerned the israeli settlements should not be there in the first place, but they are what the israelis and the americans call facts on the ground.
What the palestinians are currently struggling for now is not the "total annihiliation of israel" as it is sometimes claimed but a homeland for themselves in their own land which was accupied by the israelis in 1967.
Now foxfyre where do you suggest the palestinians go or what should they do. just let more of their land be converted into jewish settlements? In this fight of theirs they are using some very dirty tactics, but they claim that it is the only means avaliable to them. And in my opinion it doesnt matter if it is a suicide bomber or a fighter bomber in either case the dead are just as dead. Or if one side has a state and the other is trying to create a state. In my opinion sharon is as much a terrorist, if not more, than arafat, and the israeli defence forces as terrorist an organization as hamas or any others.
