Israel

[GMantis]

No sh**t!  Nobody irrationally hates the Jews like Arabs do.  You're right Xahar, the Jews shouldn't have moved from one group of monsters to a BIGGER group of monsters.

If you had bothered to read some real history, you would know that the Arabs were generally less Anti Semitic than the Europeans until the start of the 20th century. And what is your definition of irrational, it seems to completely deviate from the commonly accepted.

I don't consider attacks on the IDF terrorism. Never said I did.

It's not just Nazi Germany who persecuted Jews. Virtually every country in Europe has at one point. The UK expelled them for about four centuries.

So you dump them among the Arabs?

It's their homeland, so it's not like there's anywhere better. The Arab population need to accept this too. Speaking of "right of return", that needs to extend to the Jews kicked out of Arab countries as well.

This is not the homeland of the Jews, they invaded, forced out and killed the native population:
see here.
I don't think the Arabs would be against a "right of return" solution that was two sided. Few Jews would return and they couldn't overwhelm demographically the countries they arrived in, unlike the Arabs in Israel.

[GMantis]

This is not the homeland of the Jews, they invaded, forced out and killed the native population:
see here.

After 3,000 years, it becomes our homeland.  And besides, G-d promised it to us.

It this a joke?
Anyway, why is Israel the only country that is permitted to make claims upon a territory, because they inhabited it a long time ago? No other nation is usually allowed to get away with it: there would be endless wars everywhere over the world if this argument was accepted.

If you say that Jews don't deserve the land because they "invaded" it, then how do you explain the Arabs there. They invaded the region too. Why don't we just give the land back to the biblical Canaanites, the first people there? Wait, they don't exist! Israel has fought for that land and it is only half of the land that originally belonged to Jews in the bible. Israel is the only homeland for the Jews. Muslims have many countries for themselves. There are plenty of Christian majority countries as well. Israel does have many problems and they need to be fixed, but the Jews need a country of their own!

I'm not saying that they don't deserve it because they invaded. I'm just saying this to illustrate the absurdity of making claims to a country just because your distant ancestors lived there a very long time ago.

[GMantis]

Lots of arrogance and stupidity in this thread...a couple of posters have lost some of my sympathy.

Israel is not perfect, and it might not have been the best idea, the way it was formed, but that's history now.

As long as arabs are firing rockets at civilians in Israel, and are walking into shopping malls blowing things up, I have to side with Israel.

And anybody that knows me will confirm that I am in no way neo-conservative.


Of course, some of the posters defending Israel, trying to claim that God gave them the land, and seriously want to use that as an argument, have lost their marbles too.

A thoughtful and reasonable position, but while the Israeli are killing hundreds of Palestinians in retaliation, I can't sympathize with them.

[GMantis]

ottermax, that post is far too reasonable for an interent discussion of Israel. 

And greatly contrasts with his previous posts in this topic.

[GMantis]

Israel has nuclear weapon, so a better analogy would be an elephant attacked by many sharp-toothed rabbits.

[GMantis]

Minor disagreement? The Jews made up about a 3rd of the population before the creation of the Israel state, so the first map suggesting they were 5% of the population is not "minor." I'd say it is basically a complete lie. Then, the Palestinians were the ones who rejected the UN proposal and opted for war, attacking the newly-founded Israel state. THey lost the war and thus some of the land. Then they tried to destroy Israel again in 1967 but lost again and lost more land.

So it is misleading in the sense that it suggests that Israel expanded into these territories when it was rather failed expansion attempts from the Arab side.

Israel has actually ceded land peacefully, and enormous chunks at that  (Sinai, Gaza and parts of the West Bank) something which the Palestinians have never done.

The map doesn't suggest that, it indicates that they had a high population density and lived in a few concentrated areas. WHich is confirmed by other sources:

The 1947 proposal unfair was blatantly unfair to the Palestinians. In only made sense after the expulsion of most Arabs from the Israeli area and the settlement of immigrant Jews.
In 1967 Israel attacked first, unless your definition of agressor is different than mine.
What area could the Palestinians cede? They have already lost most of the land that once was theirs.

[GMantis]

"Aw.. poor Palestinians your not evil, you just elect terrorists to office and let them throw missiles and bombs into Israel for no good reason. Your not bad, society made you bad!  Israel is bad  beucase they stole so much land!"

This Stupid liberal foreign policy will not bring peace, It'll bring more oppression on the Jews and Israel.

If Muslims can't let Jews have a tiny strip of land, then the Muslims don't deserve any land!

That land is not the land of all Muslims, but of its local inhabitants and for them it's not a tiny strip of land - it's all the land they have.
And what right do the Jews have on the land, anyway? Beside the "promised land" nonsense.

[GMantis]

Yeah, Israel made the first official move.

Here is a quote from the Syrian Minister of Defence from May 1967:

"Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian Army, with its finger on the trigger, is united... I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation."

President Nasser of Egypt said: "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight."

So it isn't as if it was a random act of aggression. The Arab countries said they were going to destroy Israel, expelled UN peacekeepers from Sinai, mobilized their armies and positioned them at the border. Then Israel decided to strike first. I really don't think that makes them the agressor of the war. 

That is true to an extent. Then again, Israel wasn't exactly peaceful before the war:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_day_war#Background

But since the Palestinians started out with a lot more land they have had the opportunity to cede it.

Why should they cede land?

Besides, there were a lot of immigration expected to come to Israel from Jews, meaning that they would need more land than their part of the population indicated at the time. In addition, a large part of the Jewish land was desert land that wasn't of much use to anyone and was sparsely populated.

Anyway, it is amusing how the left, normally so pro-immigration, thinks that it was ok for Palestinians to demand an end to immigration and expulsion of all Jews from their territory. Or that the harassed immigrants should not have had any right to land outside of the ghettos where they had been forced to concentrate by a hostile indegenous population.

Nice for admitting that the Partition plan was unfair to the Arabs. It was supposed to be a division to accommodate the current population division, not what population there might be in the future. Using the same argument, it could be argued that Israel should cede to the Palestinians not only the whole West Bank, but also parts of Israel to accommodate their much higher birth rates.
As for immigration, you shouldn't generalize. I might have left wing views, but I believe that a country should have the right to determine who has the right to immigrate. Especially if the immigrants plan on taking over the country. Palestine, not being a sovereign country, was not given the opportunity to do this, which is why the Jewish settlement was such a great injustice.
Of course, I'm certain that you have nothing against a Muslim takeover of Sweden by the same method.
Finally, considering that Israel occupies (according to all international organisations) Palestinian territories, I don't think there could be any doubt in the rightfulness of the Palestinian demand for independence.

[GMantis]

I know why...and I bet we disagree.  It's funny though.  Clearly blowing sh**t up isn't working..in fact, it's constantly made things much worse for them.  Yet they keep blowing sh**t up.  The West Bank has gotten the message (for the most part), but not the dumbasses on the strip.  Everybody's friend Iran is still trying to send them more sh**t to blow up, thankfully they have been blowing up in route lately.

Clearly more violence will solve all their problems.

You know of another reason for the sympathy of the Palestinians, other than the massive civilian casualties, especially in comparison with Israel, they have suffered in this and other wars? Why don't you state it then?

[GMantis]

You know of another reason for the sympathy of the Palestinians, other than the massive civilian casualties, especially in comparison with Israel, they have suffered in this and other wars?

They've suffered more civilian casualties because the terrorists deliberately insert themselves in densely populated areas.  Israel has done so much to minimize civilian casualties among the Palestinians; but you don't care, you'll just continue blaming Israel no matter what they do.

The Gaza strip is extremely densely populated. There was no way for Israel to avoid inflicting (nor were they that bothered, as you claim: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8128210.stm) massive civilian casualties with the means used in the war.

[GMantis]

The Gaza strip is extremely densely populated. There was no way for Israel to avoid inflicting (nor were they that bothered, as you claim: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8128210.stm) massive civilian casualties with the means used in the war.

Amnesty International has consistently applied a different standard to Israel than toher nations.  It always looks to blame Israel, regardless of the facts.  Israel tries to minimize civilian casualties, despite what some groups will say.

Any evidence to back up these claims?

[GMantis]

It's interesting that the writer takes it as a given that the government isn't representative of the people and that the majority are to the right of the government.

Of course, if there is a majority for an agreement, the same majority could simply get rid of this law first to avoid a referendum.

The author probably thinks that the people would be less malleable to foreign pressure than the government, which is surprising considering that this is the Israeli government he's talking about.
And no doubt the law could be easily removed, but can there be an Israeli government which could survive such an action?