ISRAEL - IRAN - SYRIA - HAMAS - HEZBOLLAH - WWWIII?

And CI still has a problem keeping up with the discussion. But that's okay.

I'll rephrase it just for him.

And our anti-Israel folks are still dodging the greater issue. Must we OR ANYBODY accept the kidnapping, murder, rocket attacks, and wholesale bombings of women and children or other innocents rather than retaliate militarily in any form if there is any chance than an innocent be amongst the enemy?

Note, "atrocities" are committed by Palestinians, while Israel "responds militarily".

Meanwhile, Israel sits on Palestinian land, and tries to strangle its neighbours, while ignoring all UN resolutions which require it to behave otherwise.

In my reply to your post, I was referring to Israel's response to Palestinian terrorism, and Israel's oppression which is its cause. Israel has defacto control over the Gaza Strip. It has removed its armed forces from the territory, but exerts absolute control its airspace, territorial waters, and passages on the Israeli border. The Gaza Strip does not pertain to any other sovereign state, nor is it one itself. The Gaza Strip is Israel's abandoned infant.

We or anybody must own up to, and redress our actions against people that incite reactions from them like the ones you describe. In the case of Israel, political repression, and outright oppression and discrimination of an entire people for the sake of the perpetuation of an ethnocentric state is the cause of Palestinian violence against that state. That is the crux of the matter, and until that state redresses its tort against those peoples, those peoples will continue to react against that state's injustice. Bombing the reactionaries and killing many innocents in the process merely perpetuates the enmity, and completely ignores the very crux of the matter which I've described above. It is this that is the greater issue.

One of those unreasonable demands I listed was to expect Israel to unilaterally capitulate to Palestinian demands without Palestine being required to make any concessions of any kind in return. Every time Israel has tried to do the 'right thing' and concede anything to the Palestinians, they have been rewarded with renewed efforts of Palestinian terrorists to hurt Israel. Those walls are not walls of Apartheid as some so much want to make them. The ONLY reason those walls exist is to keep Palestinians from kidnapping and murdering Israeli citizens and blowing up crowded markets and busses full of school children.

As long as the Palestinians refuse to stop firing rockets into Israel, as long as Israelis are in danger of kidnappings, bombings, and rocket attacks ordered by Palestinian terrorists who operate with no fear of the Palestinian leadership, Israel is fully within its rights to deny all Palestinians access to Israel. It isn't like the Palestinians have TERRORIST tattooed on their foreheads and a peaceful Palestinian can be distinguished from one intending to commit mayhem.

At such time as the Palestinian leadership acknowledges Israel's right to exist, denounces terrorism, does what is necessary to arrest the terrorists and confiscate their means of making war on Israel, and helps Israel with security, THEN and only then will Palestinians be in a position to judge Israel morally re Israel's actions. If Palestine does that and Israel does not reciprocate by being good and peaceful neighbors to the Palestinians, I will join you in condemning the Israelis.

Until that time, the Israelis are not the aggressors and they have complete right to defend themselves in any manner they deem necessary to protect their own innocents from an enemy determined to destroy them.

Fox wrote: And CI still has a problem keeping up with the discussion. But that's okay.

I'll rephrase it just for him.

And our anti-Israel folks are still dodging the greater issue. Must we OR ANYBODY accept the kidnapping, murder, rocket attacks, and wholesale bombings of women and children or other innocents rather than retaliate militarily in any form if there is any chance than an innocent be amongst the enemy?


Your rephrasing doesn't change the meaning; it's still a) Palestinians does not have equal protections of our laws, b) we control your movements, and c) we will respond with our military might to kill innocents to control the Palestinian population in our country.

When you talk about "wholesale bombings of women and children or other innocents," you probably haven't seen the statistics of which side suffers more from "wholesale bombings." You also probably don't understand math or the value of numbers when your "enemy" suffers more.

Don't worry about Foxfyre. For her, principles are more important than the killing of innocent civilians, and she'll label anyone "anti-Israel" merely for pointing out that there are innocent people suffering and dying on both sides. For her, it's a black-and-white kind of situation, where only one side is right - and that is Israel.

Any casualties on "the other side" are acceptable, because they are on the "wrong side". It's a With Us Or With The Terrorists kind of approach.

I'm glad to see that even Israel has abandoned that course for the moment.

And OE is just as dishonest as CI is in reciting what "Foxfyre thinks" or what "Foxfyre says". Don't you guys have any shame? I at least had tried to give OE credit for not being CI's toady. But oh well. . . .

<shrugs>

Apart from pointing out the facts from his point of view, I have not seen c.i. make any irrational anti-Israel comments. Sure, he disagrees with you, and sometimes fiercely so - but that's pretty much it.

Yet you seem to think that it's apt to refer to him (and others) as "our anti-Israel folks".

Your choice. If you want to have an objective discussion, it seems that's hardly a way of going about it.

I gave up attempting to have an objective discussion with CI a long time ago and have recently pretty well given up trying to have an objective discussion with you OE. Both of you refuse to present your own arguments based on much of anything other than your own prejudices if you bother to make an argument at all. And he has long thought that personal insults and taunts and misstating somebody's point of view was rational debate instead of the silly schoolyard taunts that those are.

After he insults somebody he then refuses or ignores questions to support his comment. And lately so do you, but here you think his arguments are just fine and you haven't seen anything he has said that is irrational about Israel.

That's what a toady is for you know. To back up the stupid things a bully says. But as you said....shrug. He's harmless. And I suppose so are you. But I personally find that sort of interchange quite unsatisfying and will choose not to engage in it further.

Well, I do not always agree with c.i.'s style of posting on the politics forum. However, I have not, during the last couple of posts here (or, to be fair, even in his posting history regarding Israel, as much as I've followed it), noticed any kind of irrational anti-Israel feelings displayed. In fact, he and e.g. georgeob seem to pretty much agree on this issue - yet you decide to refer to him as "anti-Israel".

You, on the other hand, seem to have a habit of labelling people who simply disagree with you on the issues as, say, "anti-Israel folks", or as "AGW religionists", etc.

Which is a nice and easy way to put people down, while working off of the false premise that there are only two sides to any issue. We've had this discussion re: Israel before, and you've pretty much stated that yes, in your opinion, there are two sides. One is right. One is wrong. You picked the side which, in your opinion, is right.

<shrugs again>

When you can show me anything of any kind that the UN has done to seriously protect Israel for any length of time--when you can show me going in to confiscate the rockets and rockets launchers and condemn Iran and Syria and other despotic terrorism exporting nations for supplying such armaments to the terrorists, when you can show me how anybody has given much other than lip service to help Israel deal with the problem--okay Egypt does have a peace treaty with Israel and helps maintain the fence protecting Israel and the USA provides financial help--
however. . . .

Israel is pretty much on her own to defend her citizens against rocket and morter attacks, kidnappings, and bombings.

CI thinks because Israel is militarily stronger and therefore capable of inflicting more damage on the Palestinians than they can inflict on Israel seems to be a serious issue, no matter how odd that is. Since when is war a case of keeping score other than to determine winner or loser? I guess if Japan attacks the USA and the USA subsequently kills or wounds or captures more Japanese than the Japanese are able to kill or wound or capture Americans, then America is the aggressor and the one in the wrong? What kind of idiotic logic is that?

It does not matter how mad the Japanese were at the Americans. They were wrong to attack.

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict goes back well before 1948 and the Palestinians--not the Israelis, the PALESTINIANS--have rejected every effort to resolve the situation or broke the agreements almost as soon as they were passed. That isn't Israel's fault either.

Israel would be killing NO Palestinians at all if the Palestinians would cease and desist killing and attempting to kill Israelis.

That is the situation we are dealing with. And any other point of view whatsoever does not trump that.

Israel has the right to defend its citizens against terrorist attacks whatever it needs to do that.

Once that is accomplished, THEN any other grievances can be addressed.

If you can show me anything CI or you have posted that is complimentary about the Jews or about Israel, I'll rethink my label of anti-Israel. If you or he have posted anything suggesting that Israel is or has ever been right about anything, I'll rethink my position. All I have seen is negative adjectives, adverbs describing Israel, and insulting posts directed at those who defend Israel.

If you are not anti-Israel, a simple explanation of why you are not would have generated a quick and honest apology from me. I label those as anti-Israel who are consistently anti-Israel in their remarks. You can honestly label me anti-Palestinian terrorist or anti-anyone who supports them because I am consistently anti-Palestinian terrorism/terrorists in my remarks.

Georgeob1 and I also disagree about Israel and yes, I believe he too is anti-Israel though he has also argued that he is not, and I accept that his perception is different from mine. But he argues with solid history, facts, and a reasoned approach and he does not think it appropriate to put words in my mouth or misstate my position as you and CI apparently think is appropriate to do.

And therein is the difference. I get along just fine with everybody who can argue a point of view on its own merits and I highly respect worthy opponents who can do that. I have never required anyone to agree with me in order to be interesting and/or have a meritorious opinion.

I take a much different view of those who dishonestly represent me and/or my argument and who think that throwing out words and prhases as well as outright lies to discredit, or insult, or hurt, or belittle me or anybody else is valid debate. That kind of stuff used to bother me. It doesn't any more. It just disgusts me.

But that's just me.

Who's demanding unilateral capitulation from Israel? You have a habit of positing straw men arguments in order to give yourself something to rail against.
In case you didn't read my earlier post:
Concessions have been rammed down the Palestinian's throats ever since the encroachment of the Zionists from Central and Eastern Europe to Palestine beginning as early as the late 19th century, continuing on to Britain's abetment in repressing Palestinian self-determination after the establishment of its Palestine Mandate, through to the USA's complicity in its patronage of the state of Israel. What has Israel conceded? What is this "right thing" that Israel has tried to do?


It isn't all of the Palestinians that are firing rockets and committing mayhem. You are condemning all of the Palestinian people for the actions of a few militants.


The Palestinian leadership backed by your beloved Bush Administration acknowledges Israel's right to exist, has denounced terrorism, has done what it is capable of to arrest the terrorists and confiscate their means of making war on Israel, and helps Israel with security. These pretexts that you put up, however, completely ignore the fact that the militants are responding to Israel's oppression of the Palestinian peoples.


So you say, pulling this assertion from out of who knows where. The only reason Israel gets away with its oppression of the Palestinian people is because it can, and enjoys the complicity of the world's only superpower. Your argument amounts to the belief that might makes right. Sorry sister, but it doesn't.

Israel has the complicity of the USA which arms its military with weapons that it uses in its ham-handed reaction to terrorism which slaughters many innocent lives.

Oh yeah? Where are your references to back up your assertions,or is this another assertion that you've pulled from out of who know where?
I know you didn't read this the first dozen times I've posted this, but I post this yet again for the benefit of those less obtuse:

Since the time when the first Ashkenazi colonizers, Zionists, arrived in Palestine (which was then still under Ottoman control) with their European chauvinism based on the racist nationalist ideologies of the times, the mid to late nineteenth century, the Zionists have been the oppressors in that land.

One of the handful of Zionists who bothered to take notice of the potential for strife between the European colonizers and the Arab natives, and the oppression visited upon the Arabs by those first Zionist colonists was Ahad Ha'am, the pen name of Asher Ginsberg, a Ukrainian Ashkenazi of whom the Jewish Virtual Library says was "the central figure in the movement for Cultural or Spiritual Zionism."

In an 1891 essay Ha'am wrote:

"We abroad are used to believe the Eretz Yisrael is now almost totally desolate, a desert that is not sowed ..... But in truth that is not the case. Throughout the country it is difficult to find fields that are not sowed. Only sand dunes and stony mountains .... are not cultivated."

In another essay written in that same year he wrote:
"If a time comes when our people in Palestine develop so that, in small or great measure, they push out the native inhabitants, these will not give up their place easily."

In an article published in the Hebrew periodical Hameliz that year he wrote:
"[the Zionist pioneers believed that] the only language the Arabs understand is that of force ..... [They] behave towards the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly upon their boundaries, beat them shamefully without reason and even brag about it, and nobody stands to check this contemptible and dangerous tendency."

Again that year, in his pamphlet "Truth from Eretz Yisrael"he expanded on the previous article writing,
"[The Jewish settlers] treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly, beat them shamelessly for no sufficient reason, and even take pride in doing so. The Jews were slaves in the land of their Exile, and suddenly they found themselves with unlimited freedom, wild freedom that ONLY exists in a land like Turkey. This sudden change has produced in their hearts an inclination towards repressive tyranny, as always happens when slave rules." 'Ahad Ha'Am warned: "We are used to thinking of the Arabs as primitive men of the desert, as a donkey-like nation that neither sees nor understands what is going around it. But this is a GREAT ERROR. The Arab, like all sons of Sham, has sharp and crafty mind . . . Should time come when life of our people in Palestine imposes to a smaller or greater extent on the natives, they WILL NOT easily step aside."

In 1914 in perhaps his most prophetic words he stated:
"'[the Zionists] wax angry towards those who remind them that there is still another people in Eretz Yisrael that has been living there and does not intend at all to leave its place. In a future when this ILLUSION will have been torn from their hearts and they will look with open eyes upon the reality as it is, they will certainly understand how important this question is and how great our duty to work for its solution."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the time after the first world war that the British began to implement its promise to the Zionists to establish a national homeland for Jews in Palestine through their mandate, Palestinian endeavors to build national democratic institutions as the preliminary steps to statehood were systematically thwarted by the British as the latter gave precedence to the Zionists' nationalist endeavors in Palestine. The British had hardly considered Palestinian nationalist aspirations at all, merely referring to them in its Balfour Declaration as "existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine," and in its Palestine Mandate simply as "other sections of the population." The thrust of Britain's involvement in Palestine was from the start detrimentally prejudiced against the very peoples indigenous to Palestine in favor of a people from Central and Eastern Europe.

Palestinian efforts to establish a parliament along democratic electorial lines were rebuffed by the British colonial secretary Lord Passfield who in a May 1930 meeting with Palestinian delegates responded thusly:

Of course, this Parliament as you call it that you ask for, would have to have as its duty the carrying out of the Mandate . . . the Mandatory power, that is the British government, could not create any council except within which the terms of the Mandate and for the purpose of carrying out the Mandate. This is the limit of our power . . . Would you mind considering our difficulty that we cannot create a Parliament which would not be responsible and feel itself responsible for carrying out the Mandate?

In effect Passfield was asking the Palestinian majority to put aside its own nationalist aspirations for the nationalist aspirations of the tiny minority of Zionist immigrants in Palestine.

In terms of external support for Palestinian efforts to build pre-state institutions, the colonialist powers in the area largely thwarted the efforts of the Arab populations under their control from supporting and contributing to the Palestinians. Rashid Khalidi in his book, "The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood," describes how France through its Foreign Ministry in Paris and its colonial officials in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia prevented the sending of funds from these countries' peoples to the people of Palestine. France also prevented the travel of emissaries from the Maghribi community in Palestine to North Africa to request aid for the Palestinians such as after the 1929 Wailing Wall disturbances. In contrast, France enabled the flow of large sums of capital to the yishuv from the Jewish communities of those selfsame North African countries whose non-Jewish populations it had blocked from sending aid to the Palestinians, and it facilitated the traveling of Palestinian Zionists to these North African countries under its control.

Another aspect of colonialist repression of the Palestinian's quest for self-determination was Britain's time worn policy of divide and conquer that it would implement against the peoples in the lands it would subjugate. Britain created al -Majlis al-Islami al-A'la or the Supreme Muslim Council to which was given unprecedented authority over the traditional religio-political offices in Palestine such as the qadis--the judges in the sharia court of appeal; the local muftis--Islamic scholars who are interpreters or expounders of Islamic law; and the employees of various other institutions such as schools, orphanages and religious centers. Britain also created the title of mufti filastin al-akbar or Grand Mufti out of the traditional office of mufti for Jerusalem of the Hanafi rite which, as Khalidi explains, "of the four Sunni legal and religious rites had the largest following in Palestine, and had been the official rite of the Ottoman state). The new position of 'Grand Mufti' was given authority over other religio-political offices which had until then been either of equal standing such as the na'ib or the chief secretary of the shaira court of appeal, or superior to the position of mufti such as the qadis. As a requisite of these various positions, all of the appointees were obligated to refrain from opposing Britain's Mandate in Palestine and it's goal of creating a Zionist homeland at the expense of Palestinian self-determination. Britain played these institutions newly created by itself against organizations formed by other Palestinians of their own volition such as the Palestine Arab Congress which was a countrywide movement organized to oppose Britain's occupation of Palestine, and it's plan to impose a Zionist state therein. Needless to say, Britain refused to recognize the legitimacy and representative nature of that congress. This playing of Palestinians against each other was a major factor in the infighting that plagued the early Palestinian leadership and kept it weak and ultimately ineffective and ineffectual.

By the time the British dropped the problem it had created in Palestine onto the lap of the UN, and the latter's infamous recommendation to partition the country along ethnic lines, the Palestinians had no real or firm state structures through which to operate as a polity. After the 1948 war the territory that the UN recommended for allotment to the Palestinians was divided between Israel, Jordan and Egypt. After the 1967 war Israel arrogated and occupied the territories that Jordan and Egypt had previously controlled (the West Bank and Gaza Strip respectively). Today the Palestinians have a weak, quasi-national jurisdiction, the Palestinian National Authority, which operates under the utter stricture of the state of Israel.


Once again you've demonstrated that you have the causal relationship of this conflict ass-backwards. Until the Zionist regime redresses the tort it is committing against the Palestinian peoples, the Palestinians will never back away from their grievances against the Zionist regime.

Infrablue, nothing you posted....or reposted, assuming it is true and fairly represented by the writer which I somehow doubt...changes anything I have said. Yes, the Israeli Zionist considers Israel to be the land God (yhwh) gave them. That's why Great Britain, who held the land at the time, agreed to give that particular land for a new Israel and why the UN tried mightly immediately after the end of WWII to broker a deal that would be satisfactory to everybody so the Jews, especially those Jews displaced in the war, would have one place on Earth they finally, after almost 1900 years, could call their own.

The Jews accepted the deal, meager as it was. The Palestinians did not and most left so that the surrounding Arab peoples could kill or drive out the Jews. The Arabs were unable to do so and those Palestinians who had wanted that to happen of course were not welcomed back with open arms by the Jews. Those Palestinians who did not flee have become prosperous citizens of Israel with full citizenship rights as would have those who left if they had chosen to stay instead.

That was the beginning of the New Israel no matter what the history prior to that time.

Now whether or not it was wrong for the Great Britain and the UN to offer the land to the Jews, it was done, properly and legally. And for the 60 years since, the Arabs, mostly the Palestinians but occasionally others, have been trying to drive the Jews out. If they had put that much time and energy into bettering themselves and their own people, they could have been a people so prosperous they could have put Israel to shame by the time of the 1967 war when those tracts of ground--Gaza, West Bank, Golan Heights were captured by Israel and have been a subject of controversy ever since.

The Israeli people have a right to live their lives in freedom and peace as they choose to do. The Palestinians have a right to live their lives in freedom and peace if they choose to do. The Israelis have no duty toward those who want them dead and gone. The Palestinians may have justifiable grievances but they have no right to kidnap, murder, bomb, and shell innocent peoples out of hatred for a particular race/ethnic group.

Again, as soon as the Palestinians cease and desist their hatred of Jews and their attempts to destroy and murder them, then Israel will have a duty to to be a good and peaceful neighbor. Until then, Israel has every right to use whatever means are necessary to defend and protect its citizens from terrorist attacks. And no other issue or grievance trumps that.

You seem to have ignored the evidence that the police in this country ARE committing bombings of neighborhoods.

Where is the anarchy you claimed would happen because of it?

Or ar you now going to forget what you said?

The "we" was a rhetorical we that went right over CI's head, MM. OE and CI seemed to think that Israel's military response to Palestinian morter and rocket attacks, kidnappings, bombings etc. is unwarranted and such should rather be handled as a police matter. I used the analogy of similar kinds of attacks coming from Canada or Mexico should those governments adopt a policy of destroy the USA. Would we think a police response adequate in that case? Or would we send in the Air Force, Army and Marines?

Just in the post before the one you quoted right now, I sad I was glad that Israel has, for the moment, abandoned its militaristic approach to the situation. In fact, I wholeheartedly compliment Israel on the decision to talk to Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria.

I believe it is an approach that has more potential to safe the lives of Israeli and other civilians than what we've seen in recent years - most notably, in the military attack on Lebanon which resulted, amongst other casualties, in the death of more than 40 Israeli civilians and more than 120 soldiers. Hezbollah certainly is to blame for those deaths. However, they are also a direct consequence of Israel decision to launch a full-out military attack. I do believe that those lives would have been saved if Israel had chosen a different strategy at the time. I do not rule out the possibility that a different strategy might even include a very limited cross-border raid to pursue Hezbollah militants, similar to what we have seen in Ecuador recently.

At any rate, I'm glad that Israel is using a different approach now. I hope very much that this will help resolve tensions between the parties involved - including Hamas and Hezbollah - even though it would be a very long process that would still be ahead of us. I do believe, though, that Israel's future depends on cooperation with its neighbors rather than on military power and confrontation alone. It would certainly be unfair to blame only Israel for conflicts in the past, but it would just be as unfair to only blame the Palestinians or Israel's other neighbors. Once people on both sides start seeing this and act accordingly rather than believing that their side is always right and the other side is always wrong, we might, in fact, see significant progress.

Actually, Zionism began and by and large continues to be a secular ethnonationalist ideology. The state of Israel is explicitly secular.

Actually, the UN inherited the problem caused by Britain's importation of Ashkenazim, and it's stop-gap decision to divide Palestine along ethnic lines even though the populations were thoroughly mixed throughout the entire land, all the while the Palestinian Arabs were the majority population in the land.

Actually, the Zionists ethnically cleansed most of the Palestinian Arab population out of the areas the former controlled beginning with the civil conflict that broke out before the start of the 1948 war, and continuing on through that war.
But we've already discussed this earlier.
I'll post my response yet again for the benefit of those less obtuse.

In an interview with Ha'aretz in 2004 when asked about the number of massacres the Israeli military had committed in 1948 Morris responded:

"Twenty-four. In some cases four or five people were executed, in others the numbers were 70, 80, 100. There was also a great deal of arbitrary killing. Two old men are spotted walking in a field - they are shot. A woman is found in an abandoned village - she is shot. There are cases such as the village of Dawayima [in the Hebron region], in which a column entered the village with all guns blazing and killed anything that moved.

"The worst cases were Saliha (70-80 killed), Deir Yassin (100-110), Lod (250), Dawayima (hundreds) and perhaps Abu Shusha (70). There is no unequivocal proof of a large-scale massacre at Tantura, but war crimes were perpetrated there. At Jaffa there was a massacre about which nothing had been known until now. The same at Arab al Muwassi, in the north. About half of the acts of massacre were part of Operation Hiram [in the north, in October 1948]: at Safsaf, Saliha, Jish, Eilaboun, Arab al Muwasi, Deir al Asad, Majdal Krum, Sasa. In Operation Hiram there was a unusually high concentration of executions of people against a wall or next to a well in an orderly fashion.

"That can't be chance. It's a pattern. Apparently, various officers who took part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of murder. Ben-Gurion silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who did the massacres."

Even earlier, beginning in April of 1948 during the Civil War in Mandatory Palestine the Zionist forces engaged in Plan Dalet which they carried out to empty the areas controlled by them of their Arab populations. Scores of villages were ethnically cleansed and oftentimes razed to the ground as the various operations were carried out under Plan Dalet. In April of 1948 Operation Nachshon cleared villages in a swath between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Operation Harel was a continuation of Operation Nachshon that attempted to ethnically cleanse areas near Latrun of its Arab villages. It was only partially successful after the Zionist forces relocated the Harel brigade to Jerusalem. Operation Misparayim ethnically cleansed Haifa (the Mayor's beseeching notwithstanding) of its Arab population. Operation Chametz ethnically cleansed areas around Jaffa. Operation Jevussi attempted to isolate Jerusalem by destroying the Arab villages that surround the city, but was thwarted. Operation Yiftach cleansed eastern Galilee of its Arab population. Begining in May of that same year Operation Matateh razed the Arab villages between Tiberias and eastern Galilee. Operation Maccabi attempted again to cleanse areas near Latrun of its Arab villages, and to reach Ramalah district but was foiled. Operation Gideon cleansed Beisan of its Bedouin population which had been semi-sedentary. Operation Barak was partially successful in razing the Arab villages in the area of Bureir to the Negev desert. Through Operation Ben Ami the Zionist forces occupied Acre and cleansed Western Galilee of its Arab population. All of this occurred before the start of the war immediately following Britain's withdrawal and the surrounding Arab states' rush to assist the beleaguered Palestinian Arab population.

What's closer to the truth about the Arab initiated flight is that Arab commanders instructed the Arab populations to clear areas of fighting, and ethnic cleansing that was being carried out by the Zionist forces.


Legally? Sure. Slavery and segregation were carried out legally in the US under the laws of the nation and states. Properly? Sure. By and large slavery and segregation were carried out "properly" within those laws. Israel improperly ignores those UN resolutions that inconvenience their ends (e.g. resolution 181, part 1. a.; resolution 194, article 11). Were slavery and segregation moral? Absolutely not. Neither was the repression of the Palestinian Arabs' right to self-determination, and their continued oppression for the benefit of creating the ethnocentric Zionist state in Palestine after Great Britain and the UN offered the land to "the Jews."

They do not have the moral right to oppress the Palestinian people in order to perpetuate an ethnically purified state as they choose to do.

Agreed.

Agreed.

The Palestinians do have justifiable grievances. Agreed.

Agreed. However, peoples do have a right to violence as a means to address their grievances against another people (e.g. the US' invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq).

Hatred ,shmatred. Emotions don't hurt anyone. It is actions that can hurt people.

What Israel is defending is its continued oppression of the Palestinian people, and using the terrorism of a militant minority as a pretext to perpetuate that oppression. That is the trump of the matter.

So I have a right to blow up my neighbors car and burn his house down because I dont like him?