Talk Elections

Discuss.

Neutral, technically. I opt for a two-state solution, but rather think we should stay the buggery out of it.

The Israeli's. I'm usually against reverse discrimination but in the case of the Jews it may possibly be justified in order to stop another holocaust or anti-Semitic reign of terror. Its not like non-Jews don't have the other 99% of Arabia to share with their Islamic brothers.
Israel has always been the side that has acted with the greatest civility, the greatest sense. They have tried everything go get peace. They are a secular, free, democratic republic with high levels of prosperity. They deserve the support of the first world.
They are not perfect, and they have many flaws, but on balance, they have the least.

Undecided, lean Palestine.
Thats propaganda. If anyone has committed any atrocities (recently speaking), its Israel. The Palestinians are in no condition to commit such crimes, as they lack the population and wealth.


Yes, they are a rich democracy. Lets support them and look the other way on the USS Liberty Incident, the Gaza flotilla, and the fact that it is illegal for Christians to do any proselytizing. Yes, Israel land of the free!

Neutral.  I tend to blame both sides.

Palestine. I support Hamas. The state of Israel should be phased-out.

I favor peace. Both sides are responsible for the continuation of war, therefore I can't "favor" any of them.

Neither, both sides are douches.

Palestine would have a much better case if they stopped lobbing rockets, of course.

It's clear the root problem again is religion.

What is the reason Israelis and Palestinians will not come together and live under one country? Because they have different religions and this small difference to them means living together is impossible. They favor irrational beliefs and land over people.

Pathetic. Sometimes I think the best solution given the religious realities is to evacuate all the people from that area and sink the land into the ocean.

Palestine (normal).

^^

the Moderate Hero cries of 'Neither, they're both responsible for continuation of war, now give me my candy and flowers and PepsiCo products' fall flat on their face: "principles are for the well-fed"

I have a positive opinion of and to some extent sympathize with Israelis and Palestinians alike, but think they both have to compromise and acknowledge their respective roles in dragging out the conflict. I favor the Palestinians somewhat more than the Israelis. Still, it would probably be more accurate for me to express favor for moderate advocates of a two-state-solution on both sides.

Relatively pro-Israel.

Neither in toto. I support the secular socialist elements among the Palestinians, not Hamas....

Which they do so often there is no point in posting about them.  I'd feel like I was piling on every time I did it.  The sh**t heads firing the rockets from a family's backyard (that Miles supports for some reason) don't have this problem.

I support a three state solution for the record - Egypt should annex the Gaza Strip and Jordan should get the West Bank. Oh, and Golan should be returned to the Syrians.

If you don't want someone to kill you, then don't steal their sh**t.  You do not have the right to steal a group of people's property, put them into ever-shrinking ghettoes, periodically go on mass murder campaigns of several thousand of them, and then expect them to be totally docile.  Although effectively I guess I'm "neutral" since I don't favor the US government having anything to do with the conflict.

The people who lob rockets at civilians? Ah yeah, supporting them should be SO obvious.

Write-in: Greater Syria

Sanchez, it's nice seeing another sensible conservative on this forum. However you neglected to mention them being caught spying on the us multiple times, (http://www.alternet.org/world/130891/breaking_the_taboo_on_israel's_spying_efforts_on_the_united_states/) their vicious ad campaign against american jews (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/netanyahu-cancels-anti-diaspora-ad-campaign/249404/) or their recent insult of our President for DARING to ask the same thing every other President has. (http://www.juancole.com/2011/05/netanyahu-humiliates-obama-lies-about-israeli-policy.html) The US "special relationship" with Israel is an abusive one. They need to be kicked to the curb before they waste more of the taxpayer's money and drag us into yet another bogus war.

There's hardly one Palestinian "side" in this conflict, just as there's no one Israeli "side" either.

I support both nations to live in peace and freedom. And that means I have no sympathy for Israeli hawks, as well as groups like Hamas.

If my Congressman had his way (Allen West BTW), you would be jailed for challenging Israel :p

Neither, they're both as bad as each other. Make a two-state solution and make it more policed than it currently is. The current war has gone on 60 years too long.

I have a little more sympathy for the Palestinians though.

I may be a little fuzzy on my history, but IIRC, land was promised to both Israel and Palestine by Britain after WWI (I think it was WWI) but the only reason Israel got the land was because Europe sympathized the Jews after WWII. Therefore, it is my belief that there should be a two-state solution though peaceful means.

You are fuzzy.

Problem is, that in addition to the Arabs who want to extinguish the State of Israel, there are also Zionists who want to implement the original version of the two-state solution in which British Palestine was divided into an Arab Transjordan and a Jewish Cisjordan.

This is a side effect of the promises the Allies made to everyone while trying to win the Great War.  They made all sort of promises, a few of which they even kept.

Both sides have acted like asses in the conflict but if forced to choose a side I suppose I am moderately pro-Palestine.

uhhh, Arabs got land too.  Then they (Palestinians and their Arab "friends") promptly tried to remove their new neighbors.  And lost.  Waited a few years and tried again.  And lost again.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

Pretty much yes. But I voted Palestinians just because Zionism is easily one of the most f**king stupid ideologies that has ever existed in the history of mankind (OMG OUR ANCESTORS LIVED HERE THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO, THIS IS OUR LAND!!!!!!!111!!!!!

Try to spent at least one day without making a reference to Allen West, please.

It's not a meaningful question, but of course my sympathies lie with the victims and my coreligionists.

One of the arguments for the German Lebensraum policy, was that Germanic tribes had lived in much of eastern Europe before the Slavish expansion as such the land belonged to the German nation. That turned out badly for everybody. As such I don't like the argument that ones ancestors has lived in a area centuries or milleniums ago gives you a right to ethnic cleanse the local population and take their land.
As for pure practical corcern I support a two state solution, which need to leave Palestinia a viable state (as much as a state split in two exclaves can be viable). As such I'm open to that the borders do not follow the 1967 border.
 

Ah intresting, I thought I was the only one who favoured that solution.

When I'm in a mean attitude I tend to support the forced relocation of both the Israeli and the Palestinian populations to different continents. Because it would be the fair and just thing to do.

When I'm not I simply don't care anymore.

And I thought I was the only one who did! Hooray! :P

I've mentioned a three state solution at least a half dozen times (if not a full dozen) around here.  Occasionally it gets poopoo'd, mostly it's ignored.

Hmm. I think it'd be the best way of ensuring a good standard of living for the Palestinian people, plus it would place two powers that have peace treaties with Israel in control of those areas.

I was looking for past comments of mine on the subject (of course they are all in 30 page threads..le sigh...and just three of them) and found this gem....
eeeegads man

     I support peace. I know that that would be very difficult to achieve, but the words and actions of both sides would make actually supporting either of them something beyond the pale.

What I favour, above all else, is less utterly stupid discussions on the internet about the topic. It's an extremely complicated situation involving several extremely complicated societies and without any obvious solutions, not a bloody football game.

Not in Israel's long term interests.  Israel needs to keep the Arabs divided.  If the Arabs ever reunite under a second Saladin, then the days of the State of Israel are numbered.

Egypt certainly has no desire to take the Gaza Strip.

And Jordan doesn't want the West Bank.

King Hussein renounced his claims to the West Bank in favor of the "future Palestinian state".

And Palestinians wants their own state. Not to be a part of Egypt or Jordan.

I'm just saying what would work best, not what people want. The Palestinian desire for a state really is a bit silly though considering Jordan is practically a Palestinian state as is, and any independent "Palestine" would be much poorer.

Israel. Also, I agree with Windis' post above me.

According to this logic, Israel should have been formed in Africa.

Explain.

Thanks everyone for clearing me up with the history :P I only started learning this stuff a few months ago :P

Today, in the Palm Beach Post "Letters to the Editor" section, I was treated to a slew of pro war, pro Israel letters. One referred to Israel as "the 51st state" and that "if they go, we go". What is it with this “Israel is infallible” stuff that the so called "right" spreads?

I am, to stay somewhat within the very limited framework of the question, very pro-Palestinian, without necessarily being in love with the leaders of the Palestinian people.

One of the most idiotic things I've read just a little too often about this, is the suggestion that the state Israel is justified based on some promises by the British during WWI, or on some UN resolution. The land was not the UK's to give away, nor did the UN have the authority to do so. Honestly people, does anyone actually think fuzzily enough to not be able to make that distinction?

If I was feeling mindlessly mischievous, I probably ask whether that means that Turkey (as the successor to the Ottoman Empire and all that) should have had the final decision.

Slightly (?) more seriously, it's obviously silly to attempt to 'justify' anything based on waving conflicting pieces of paper around. The 'justification' for Israel is its existence, the 'justification' for some kind of functioning Palestinian state is the existence of the Palestinian people. Which is also why internet discussions of the general issue tend to be so utterly depressing, because this is not generally appreciated...

Well we're never getting a solution that will make all sides happy, might as well make them all unhappy. I still believe that'd be the best solution to maintain peace.

I don't think it'd be a great solution precisely because the Jordanians are deeply hostile to the idea of annexing the West Bank and taking on millions more Palestinians as charity cases.  The West Bank is far poorer than Jordan and Jordan has no interest in turning a big chunk of its economy to subsidizing the West Bank.  Same goes to a lesser extent for Egypt and Gaza.

Do you apply that logic the other way around as well?

Anyway, I favour Israel. Which of course does not mean that I favour everything they have done or opposes a Palestinian state. I'm not like the fanatic pro-Palestine hipsters...

I support the Palestinians, as they are victims of Israeli imperialism. The fact that they lob a couple of (more or less) harmless missiles over the border every now and again while they are being murdered en masse and having their homes bulldozed and their land stolen and illegally given to Israeli colonists is a pretty ridiculous reason to throw one's hands up and label them just as bad.

They lob a "couple" of missles while Israelis murder Arabs "en masse".  Dude, your facts are strange.  Let me guess, you think the people of Gaza are "starving" too?

()

With regards to the rockets, 28 Israelis have died from rocket attacks (though many more have been injured of course). Fatah has condemned the rocket attacks and polls taken since 2010 show that majorities of Palestinians oppose the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel.

I supported the peace process, the Israeli Labour party, the PLO, and the Camp David talks. In other words, my position is the absurd, the pathetic, the defeated.

Nice copy and paste graph.....what percentage of the red bars are terrorists?...what percantage of the blue columns are civilians minding their own buisness?  Israel doesn't randomly send the Army into an Arab village to kill 50 Arabs at a time.  They usually have an excuse, like 40 rockets being fired (not a "couple") and they usually try to avoid civilian casualties (instead of, ya know aiming at civilians...that I'll remind us all again Xahar is in favor of).

Idea of Palestinians deserving their state is stupid as Jersey Shore. Also, both needs to be stopped RIGHT NOW.

About 1/3 of the Palestinians were known to have been taking part in hostilities when they were killed. About half were known not to have been taking part in hostilities when they were killed (this does not included those who were "collateral damage" in targeted killings). Meanwhile, about a quarter of the Israeli deaths are Israeli soldiers who were killed. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a breakdown of how many of the killed Israeli civilians were participating in hostilities at the time of their death.

source: http://old.btselem.org/statistics/english/Casualties.asp

Ah, I see what you did there.

You can add a couple more to your list Lief.  link (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4200651,00.html)

+8 (http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=261173)

I'm not sure what the point you're making is, dead0. Of course many Palestinian combatants are going to be killed. And of course those combatants are going to use tactics that have proven effective in the past for vastly out-gunned and out-manned groups, such as terrorism. Generally when an imperial power colonizes a territory, there is resistance from the natives, resulting in casualties on both sides, though generally much, much more on the side of the conquered peoples. Have you seen Zulu? It's a very good film and illustrates this point well.

How are their current tactics effective in any way?  Unless their goal is to get their own people killed for the PR.

But my point is that there is a reason for the lopsided looking numbers.  The Israelies don't want people to die, they have alarms and defensive shields and drill drill drill saftey.  They don't put military targets in neighborhoods.  The people they are fighting don't freaking care if people die, their own or Israelies, they just don't care.

....and again, the tactics they are using are not working, haven't worked and will never work.  I suggest (again) they look to MLK Jr or Gandhi for inspiration on effecting change in a system they don't like.  Or they can keep dying, it's up to them, not me or you or the people of Israel.

See, we agree on that. I musn't be as bad as you made me out to be....

A "couple" more rocket attacks today aimed at civilians...and by "couple" we mean 64.  Which is a lot more than 39 yesterday or 30ish the day before that.  Thank Science for the Iron Dome heh?!  These are not fired by HAMAS (but are allowed by HAMAS), but the Iranian backed Popular Resistance Committee (PRC).  Palestinians are dying "en masse" and by that we mean 21 (of which at least 18 were terrorists).  Why?  Well last summer the PRC did that cross border raiding thing which killed 6 Israeli civilians and 1 soldier and they were planning another, bigger one for this week when the guy in charge was killed, thus sparking the "outrage".

Of course Egypt doesn't see it that way and their People’s Assembly voted unanimously to recall their ambassador and force out the Israeli one.

Sweet, a ceasefire brokered by Egypt has taken place....well for a couple of hours.  Guess who broke it (http://www.jpost.com/VideoArticles/Video/Article.aspx?id=261674)?

Meanwhile, Syria has had enough (http://www.timesofisrael.com/syrian-chutzpah-assad-government-condemns-israel-for-gaza-attack/).  This brutality by the Isrealies has been too much for the peaceful rulers in Damascus. 
In yet another shocker, the NGOs that care about human rights have failed to condemn the the terrorist acts (http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/rockets-and-ngos/).Indeed.

I agree on Jersey Shore at least....why is Israel always right in your views?

I have read all of the posts here and have enjoyed this discussion- I chose Israel wich I never would have done 40 years ago. Some one mentioned the USS Liberty- that incident happened when I was in the Navy and shook many of us... our ships are very clearly identified as being ours and there is almost no chance that was done by mistakte- I resented the Isrealis for many years afterwards

Over the years I have changed... some of it due to involvement in my church and some of it following the conflict over the years- and some considerin what the Jews have gone thru...they have undergone persecution unlike any other ethnic group in the world and having a strong Jewish state can protect them from harm
Politically- I find the notion of porpotional response to be not realistic... it is a repeated example but if Quebec lobbed rockets into Vermont we would not respond proportionally...the rocket attacks are constant from Gaza even though the West Bank is a completely different story

But moreso I come as a Christian...I know this will put me in disagreement with many of you. I ask myself who will let me visit and worship in Jerusalem and who will let the Jews...the highways in Saudi Arabia divide exits for Muslims and Infidels and only Muslims can enter Mecca...will Jerusalem become the same? Christians and Muslims have full democratic and religious rights in Isreal right now- I do not believe it would be the same if the Palestinian s were in control.

This issue is much like Afghanistan- we are involved in something which has a history ten times as long as our nation's history. I support Israel bcause I believe it is by far more democratic and accepting of other faiths.

Let the salvo commence...

No, of course Jerusalem wouldn't be the same because it's not a holy city. Don't be ridiculous.

Clarence, entirely setting aside for a moment any views that you might have on the UN as an institution, how would you feel about making Jerusalem in some way international or a 'treaty city', as was called for by the original 1947 plan?

I do not have a problem with that at all- though if we were to consider the UN and how this would be acheived it might not be as practical... another idea could be to split Jerusalem excluding the Old City and make only the Old City an international zone with the rest being able to serve as the capital of Israel and- if they wanted- Palestine...this could include the area fought over for settlements

Land swaps in outer Jerusalem with the Old City and immediate environs (perhaps Bethlehem as well) being internationalized seems like it could work. Israel certainly doesn't seem likely to give up the Knesset site, for instance, and besides, where else could a permanent capital of Palestine possibly go?

Israel, of course.  That includes, however, the establishment of a Palestinian State.  I fully reject the notion that one must oppose Palestine to support Israel.

Indeed.

I support an independent Zululand.  I reject the notion that to be pro-white one must be anti-black.

Considered using Romans and Jews to avoid the cliche, but figured the cliche is the the most accurate comparison, even though there are crucial difference such as that the Afrikaners were there first and also weren't quite so fond of bombing civilians and funding terrorism.

Claims that the Afrikaners were there first are kind of sketchy at best, since they were played up quite a bit by whites in order to assert their indigenous claim to the land.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "there". South Africa is a big place.

Well, whatever the case, the Dutch were there first, certainly in the cities.  Of course, the Khoi-San/Bushmen were there first, first.

Unequivocably Israel. Could the Israeli government expand civil liberties towards the Palestinian communities? Absolutely. But the understanding needs to be that Jerusalem (including the Temple Mount) belongs to the Jew. Add to that id still end foreign aid.

The Bantu were in the northern and eastern (currently most heavily populated) parts of South Africa first, whereas the Dutch do seem to have been in the Cape Province before them. South Africa is unique in that relatively few people currently there are really 'indigenous', they all just sort of collided.

Of course that doesn't justify the history of apartheid, especially considering there were people in the Cape Province before the Dutch, they just weren't Bantu.