Israel

[bgwah]

God gave us this land, now we want to give it away to these monsters?

God given land my arse!  You know for well that land actually belongs to the Palestinians, and if anything its the Israeli government who're the monsters for being arrogant enough to deny that!

But, seeing as Israel isn't going anywhere soon, its government could have the good sense to withdraw back to the intended 1948 boundaries and accept and recognise the presence of a fully independent Palestinian state.  For one thing, Israel's Arab neighbours might be somewhat less pissed off at the aforementioned.

That makes as much sense as defending Andrew Jackson's removal of the Indians because there were plenty of other places to go to.

He was talking about the "Unjust Occupation of Palestinian Land," not Muslim land, and merely mentioned that it might improve relations with Arab (not Muslim) neighbors, but good job being an idiot.

Here's a much better map:

[bgwah]

That map is extremely dishonest as there was no "Palestinian land" (a term that's a little too emotionally loaded for my tastes, but it's the one used) in the period 1949-1967; the Gaza strip was occupied by Egypt, while the West Bank and East Jerusalem was occupied by Jordan. And the first map is misleading as well; it's either land-ownership or estimates of the largest group, not formal boundaries.

But, of course, the point is not to enlighten, the point is propaganda.

I noticed that as well and would have preferred a simple 1967 borders map. Nevertheless the general idea--the increasingly diminishing Palestinian land--is shown well by the series of maps.

[bgwah]

Yeah, you may know it's dishonest propaganda, but the general idea of the propaganda is what you were after here.

A minor disagreement I may have with the description of one of the four maps is hardly enough for me to warrant it as "dishonest propaganda" and waste my time trying to find or create a similar series of maps without the minor problem to please a bunch of know-it-all, self-righteous douchebags on the internet.

[bgwah]

If Gaza were to become independent, perhaps it could use Singapore as a model.*



*yes I realize this is hopeless dreaming, just sayin'

[bgwah]

Hence the "use Singapore as a model" comment. Gaza is actually a lot less densely populated than Singapore. Import raw goods and export finished goods.

Also, tiny countries are awesome.

[bgwah]

Gaza, the next tax haven!

[bgwah]

They're pretty good at exporting sympathy despite constantly blowing sh**t up, is there any value in that?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Graph_for_dead_and_wounded_Gaza_conflict.png

I wonder why...