Israeli airstrike into Gaza kills fighter
 

http://www.twincities.com/national/c...nclick_check=1

Another one of the "he started it, no he started it" debates from Israel and Palestine.

I just blame the kind of Palestinian who can't think of anything better to do about it all than to be at feud with the Jews.

Presumably there are some other Palestinians who are smarter than that, and I wish they'd get busy shooting the other ones. Then the survivors can start making a ton of money trading with the Israelis. Shekels spend as well as dinars...

Was anyone paying attention to that portion of the British Mandate (or the Ottoman empire) before a bunch of Jews moved in and made a success of the place?

The root of the Palestinian problem is that Syria and Jordan won't allow them to be or to live in Syria and Jordan. Instead, these regrettable Middle Eastern Entities require the Palestinians to fester in their current condition.

Peoples have been shoved out of old territories before by the migrations of others; the Palestinians are in no unique case. Here, though, they have been forcibly prevented from resettling in some friendlier place by agencies external both to them and to Israel. That's about all the difference I can find.

I blame the Zionists who can't think of anything better than do then settle Palestinian land and kick them out of their home because they think they are more worthy of the land than they are.

Or maybe everyone should work together to combine Israel and Palestine into one country.

By raping the Palestinian people? Maybe there are reasons for this sudden economic improvement? Oppression?

No, the root of the Palestinian problem is that Israel won't allow them to be or to live in their home country. Instead, these regrettable Israelites require the Palestinians to fester in their current conditions.

Israel should open its borders to Palestinians and use the one-state solution. It is the only one that will work and help both sides. It is obvious you like Israel more than Palestine but you have to take the interests of both countries or the country, either one, you ignore will start strapping bombs to themselves and cause even more problems.

Seems you have a little problem here with doing right by the Jews, as the great bulk of your solutions to the problem will shortchange them. You do comprehend, do you not, just why doing right by the Jews is something we want to do? You do comprehend, do you not, just how offended decent Christians were at the excesses European antisemitism had created? The death camps, the ovens? After the death camps' proof that inhuman savagery is the lot they could expect for being stateless outsiders in Europe, just what do you think they ought to have done?? If it were up to me, I'd find a permanent, yes a final, solution! And how should I behave if I find someone determined beyond life itself to impede it, do you think?

And how about doing right by a democracy, eh? Have you a mustard seed's faith in democracy? Most of the people who bitterly dispute with me on this point have no faith in democracy as a social order at all -- their posts evidence this. That manifests a want of thought, a want of morals, a want of human decency, and with it, a surplus of fascist sympathies. I have no fascist sympathies whatsoever -- none, that is, beyond such sympathy as is needed to choose for them and their lackeys a swift death over a slow one. Look, sometime, into the fascist roots of the Ba'athist Party -- these guys modeled their ideology on the examples of Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany, and that was how they invented their party. Such things offend my libertarian sensibilities.

I take my stance as a decent man who is offended by pogroms -- and I lash out at any who would give pogroms slack.

In Europe, statelessness is, long-term, dangerous. Were not the Jews harried from pillar to post by varying levels of prejudice among Europe's rulers? And were they not being punished for -- well what? -- being Jewish? Sheeyit.

Back in the nineteen-teens, British Prime Minister Balfour offered Europe's Jews a choice for land in which to reestablish a state: the Holy Land or a swatch of Uganda. The Jewish representatives discussing the matter with him -- this had to do with getting Europe's Jews generally allied with England in WW1 -- said thanks but no thanks to Uganda: in effect, promise them the Holy Land or promise them nothing. I think the desires of the Jews for a homeland, a state, do rather come into this for consideration.

The one-state solution, a reversion to the borders of the British Mandate, would perhaps be a stable one -- if anyone on either side actually wanted it. I keep in mind that politics is the art of the possible, not the Graustarkian: I say it's bootless to even say that they should, when absolutely no such thing will happen unless they want it, and there isn't enough motivation for those there on the ground to even start wanting it. For differing reasons, neither side does, and no visible bloc in either Israel or Jordan wants such a union. The situation is this: the Israelis do not want to be put in a minority, and the Jordanians and other Arabs prefer being aggrieved to sharing in the wealth that could make the entire Eastern Mediterranean bloom. Culturewide, the Arabs underperform at generating wealth, and equally culturewide, the Israelis overperform. Guess which side I think is likely to be the better.

The one Arab response to the return of the Jews to their ancient home has been murder, and only murder. Mass murder. This was going on long before 1948. The Arabs cannot cry to me that they are the victims when their invariable behavior is that of the perps! They have utterly deceived you, Pierce, and you've been made a fool of. Never, never come down on the side of the perps, unless your life's goal is solely to be a perp. I, for one, cultivate better ambitions, uncontaminated by such nastiness.

I see the evils of Israel's opponents just a little too clearly to be fooled. The Jews are NOT the ones feuding with the Arabs: it's all one way.

If you're going to blame the Zionists -- and that's too close to antisemitism to be palatable, and Jewish antizionists strike me as a lot of culturally suicidal misplacers of priorities -- I should hope you'd lay equal opprobrium on the Huns for pushing the Lombards and Vandals west and south, pushing the Visigoths into Iberia, et cetera, in the fourth and fifth centuries, and the Celts going west beginning about in the fifth century BC, absorbing or displacing previous occupants, until eventually they set up shop in the British Isles -- which weren't empty then either. And while you're at it, want to reprehend the Cro-Magnon replacing the Neanderthal population?

Nah, to me that line of thought is all hooey. Remember that some ideas are so bad that only left-wing intellectuals can hold them.

What a pathetic argument. Yes, what happened to the Jews in the holocaust was beyond horrible but it doesn't give them any excuse to do the same thing to the Arab people. Choosing them over Arabs is racist (or the equivalent term for discrimination by religion), which is borderline doing what Hitler did. We need to learn from our mistakes and not pick a certain race or religion over another. That is racism or whatever the fuck discrimination of religion is called and it should never be tolerated.

How does a faith or lack of faith in democracy have anything to do with this? I am calling for equal treatment of both Jews and Arabs, nothing more nothing less.

I can't tell but if you are calling me a fascist, you might as well hang it up right now because you are losing it. What the Zionists are doing right now is one of the closest things to fascism we have now and you are sympathizing with them making you a hypocrite.

I am just as against prejudice against Jews as I am prejudice against Palestinian Arabs. Putting all the Zionists in one place will only cause, and it already happened, one thing, racism and a feeling of supremacy. By having a one-state solution we get rid of that racism. I don't think any religion should have its country but a country should be for the people that have lived there. We can not force all the Jews out of Israel just as we can not force all the Europeans and Mexicans out of the United States so we will have to learn to deal with the problem with integration of the two different cultures.

Do you see a pattern in history? Which modern political figure used "you are with us or against us" and "my way or the highway" and what did that get him? That way of thinking can only cause problems and it is clearly evident now.

I'm sure a lot of people on both sides want it but we just don't hear from them. The one-state solution is the only one that doesn't promote racism, controversial borders, and everything that comes with that.

Yes there is. The Palestinians are living in extreme poverty and no way to get out because all their resources are taken from them by the Israelites.

You are getting borderline racism here and you know just as well as I do that race has nothing to do with the economic boom but outside resources. America and the west have never helped an Arab nation like we have Israel, don't even go there.

Maybe you should look at yourself the same way with the Israelites. Both sides have committed genocide on each other and now it is time to stop.

What the fuck are you talking about?!?!?! Israel has been expanding its border and occupying its surrounding countries, kicking the local Palestinians out of their homes forcing them into poverty. Yes, Israel did get attacked first but that is because the western nations illegally put a nation in their neighbors land kicking out the neighbor population. It is both ways and you are either in denial or too stupid to realize that.

No, I don't hate the Jews or most forms of Zionism (even though I disagree with it), just the extreme form we have now. The Zionists in control are racist and are killing the Palestinians just as Hitler did to them. I can say I hate Hitler and the Nazi regime without saying I hate Germans. Stop using that pathetic argument.

Haha, you are putting words in my mouth now, another one of your pathetic argument styles. I do not want to displace the Israelites but just let Israel-Palestine to become one state. If I lived back then I would want the two societies to live together peacefully just like I want both Israel and Palestine to do now.


I can just say the same thing about right-winged neocons.

PROOF! cold, hard PROOF that UG simply is tw!

the jews just need to give the palestinians Palestine back to them and stop calling it Isreal. The western world needs to stop taking the side of the jews all the time just because they put them there in the first place. Jews are not bad people they just need to accept that they are in the wrong in this situation.

but of course its not that simple and both sides have wankers that need to stop blowing shit up

They aren't, though the Arabs will incessantly tell you they are -- but again, you can't convincingly claim you're the victim when you're so busy killing Jews in bunches. Arab propaganda sways you, but not me. I'll say this just once: the Arabs are the ones indulging in genocidal ideas for Israel; the Israelis are not indulging in genocidal ideas towards any Arabs. Understandably.

Oh really. For your information, Israel is a democracy, and there is not a single democracy among Israel's foes. I choose to support a democracy, and the undemocracies can all go hang, for all of me. Neither race nor religion enters into this. You're attempting to find fairness in neutrality, but between these two ways, I'll pick the better one -- according to my experience of which way is the better. Remember that I've had both. Too, if you're unable to make a value judgement, you're largely unable to really live -- because you don't count for anything. I should think not counting for anything would at least offend your ego.


I think it has everything to do with it; see the remark on value judgements above. I am calling for choosing the best, and nondemocracy isn't it. The neocons you rave against (ever so ignorantly, I think) have one idea that is so right, so magnificent, so transcendental, that nothing can stand against it morally: democratic republics prosper best in a world full of other democratic republics. (Was it not PNAC that gave this idea expression?) When these republics prosper, the peoples prosper. You prosper. I prosper. Who would speak against prosperity?


Then I'll be blunt: you're a fascist sympathizer, and I'm not. Your own words condemn you, and they hang you up, all right -- nailed to the cross.


Let's see if I have this straight: the Arabs have been screaming genocide and reading Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, in translation, under the impression it's nonfiction. They've launched war after war after war, and lost every one of them, without paying very much of a penalty in territory or anything else that can't be rebuilt or replaced. I see in this that the weed of bigotry is bearing toxic fruit, and it's keeping the failing states of Araby in a condition of social wreckage.

And you call Israel's defensive efforts to deal with this menace one of the closest things to fascism we have now? Boy -- you're less than half my age and of far less experience of this world -- are you quite certain you know anything at all of fascism?


This would be defensible were all else being equal. Unfortunately for this we have one side full of enthusiasts for genocide, and another side that suffered genocide and is quite allergic to it. Which side is then on the higher moral plane? And if they're on the higher moral plane, wouldn't I like them better? You see, I make value judgements confidently: eschew moral relativism; it's popular with the young (and the careless) but it's a snare and a delusion.

The supremacy is more than a feeling: it's engendered by winning all the wars, not by assembling the Zionists. They've done that both without and with our aid, remember. We're a mighty ally and nice to have, but Israel doesn't necessarily need us to keep itself propped up: the Jews have turned tough and they've turned heroic. In the face of their enemies who know no restraint, the Jews keep such restraint as they can. When the Arabs cease their genocidal madnesses, the Jews will take no revenge upon them. Such is their character, and you are most reluctant to admit it. Now picture yourself surrounded by chronically murderous foes. Are you going to like these peoples? Let's just understand that any attitude the Israelis cop is pretty understandable.


In this case, it is not we who must learn to deal, but they. The Israelis were always willing to deal. The Arabs: conspicuously not. Read Israel's history, particularly in its early days.

Who could be sympathetic to the unwilling ones? I sure can't.


I can't be anywhere near so sure until I do hear from them. They've had sixty-nine years to speak up, and in Israel they actually could. As for the other, one state -- or perhaps three states. But we can both think of how either solution could collapse into yet another war -- the one-state into a civil war, the three-state into a general war.


You're blaming the wrong party here: Jordan could have resettled every displaced person, either in Jordan or elsewhere, AND helped them to prosperity. There is absolutely no effort by any Arab state, far or near, to succor their displaced coreligionists, either by government programs or private charitable ones. Zero. Zip. Nada. They'd rather have their cats-paw to fight proxy wars with. The Arabs are the warmongers, and my sympathy for these warmongers is, well, scant. Yours is too great.


The Israelis started without us, and they can continue on their own initiative. They are not the American economy's sock puppet, you know. The Arabs never showed the same degree of initiative. Our foreign aid to Egypt, for one example, is of the same order of magnitude as our foreign aid to Israel. It is less, yes, but two billion dollars annually isn't pocket change.

It's always time to stop genocide, but the Israelis, knowing restraint, don't think genocidally, and the Arabs, based on the evidence of their own literature and newspapers, clearly do. The Israelis are allergic to genocide and will remain so. It's ingrained in the culture, I believe ineradicably.


Ask why the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan does nothing to eradicate or alleviate their poverty, but keeps them right there on the Middle Eastern equivalent of reservations. No Palestinian is allowed to seek his betterment in friendlier climes, is he? There, I say, is the problem.

We expanded our borders in a mighty migration of smallholders. Are we in the wrong by reason of migration from a worse situation to a better? If your ancestors didn't figure it was all to the good to come here, you'd be writing from Europe. If Cro-Magnon early modern humans didn't migrate into Europe, we'd all be ... miffed at GEICO.

There's a law forbidding the establishment of new nations? New one on me! Maybe it's only against the law in the Arab states.

Oh yeah? What's better? How do I distinguish the foundations of your views from outright antisemitism, then?

{Cont'd next post}

{Continued from previous post}

I don't think that stands up well to close examination: Hitler reduced the Jewish population by five or six million and there's no reduction of the Palestinian population, is there? Nor are the Israelis allocating national resources to industrial-scale killing-off of the Palestinian population. You have been listening to those screeching genocidal Arabs again. Wise up!

I'm not putting words in your mouth; I am putting ideas in your head. I'm not here to steer you wrong, Pierce, but to call you to repent from fascist sympathies. Surely this is right.

And you'd be 102% wrong, too. Those guys are smart. Read The Neocon Reader and see. I did, and now I am well inoculated against believing the slanging the fascists of the Left give them. You could be cured too. Plenty of room over here on the side of the angels.

My god, hes almost as bad as Ann Coulter.

Seriously, UG, you're a fucking joke. "plenty of room over here on the side of the angels"? Could you possibly be any more of a ridiculous, unthinking, arrogant prick of a buffoon?

A total joke, not even worth any sort of rebuttal. Just like Coulter, youre past the point of argument and into the realm of ridicule.

And its all the more pity that youre wrong on every count, politically. At least if you were stupid and liberal there'd be some hope for you; instead, youre stupid and backwards too.

My salvation lies in the fact that I have become rather right of center, sonny. You haven't the arguments to bring me to the side you say is yours (but then you say a lot of stuff), whereas I am secure in the belief that over about the next ten years, you're going to realize just how good at this I am. I can wait. I've earned my arrogance, which is of course what the weak or untried call the activities and initiatives of the strong and well founded.

I disagree with you on some things, Ibbie, precisely because I think. Precisely because I seek knowledge, and understanding. Understanding, by the way, is not necessarily approval.

As for Ann Coulter, hey, smart is sexy. But according to something you once mentioned, you wouldn't know. But it's good not to hide in the closet; closets are dark and narrow. Ann's smart enough to put the apostrophe in a contraction, too.

After having 6,000,000 of your friends and family turned into air pollution, you might be a little quick on the trigger. Not to mention that every week or so, some bunch of jealous idiots is blowing up a bus, or restaurant.
If the Arabs would leave the Jews alone, the Jews would leave them alone.

So, no matter what the Zionists do, regardless how brutal, aggressive, dehumanising or cruel, they can never carry blame?

They gave back Gaza. They gave back the sections of Lebanon they had occupied. Then they were attacked on exactly those fronts. Can you explain?

Q: How many days after the UN declared the borders of Israel were they attacked?
A: One.
Q: How did most Jews wind up in Israel?
A: They were forced/coerced out of the surrounding Arab countries.

Can you explain?

Bizzaro tw. He posts and yet never makes a single point.

Urbane Guerrilla promised to read Thomas P.M. Barnett's Blueprint For Action: A Future Worth Creating ... since November 2006. "So far, I'm fascinated. I'll probably be talking about this book's ideas from time to time. ." Then he discovered reality is a wee too complex - especially when reality dismembers his "political agendas".

Asked why he stopped reading a book that contradicts his "political agendas", Urbane Guerrilla responded, "Tw, shut your yap. I checked Barnett back out of the library". Two months later means either the book is still too difficult (Barnett is a comprehensive military analyst) or that Urbane Guerrilla learned how erroneous his "political agendas" really are.

Demonstrated in UG’s long post is his problem. He knows only because he can post long. His long post is irrelevant to his conclusion. His conclusion is that one side is good; the other is evil. The "decent UG" (as he defined himself) can easily judge what is good and evil because UG is decent and therefore knows. His proof? That long irrelevant history of how Israel got created.

Obviously how Israel got created proves nothing about "good and evil". Since he cannot grasp that, then UG also had no idea that Thomas Barnett was also discussing stupidity and incompetence in George Jr's administration. Urbane Guerrilla said he would be discussing Barnett's book because UG had no idea what he was reading. UG again could not associate the long and complex logic with a conclusion. So UG assumes Barnett's conclusion is UG's "political agenda".

Barnett also discusses the foolishness of 'big dic' thinking; their inability to think strategically. Barnett defined UG: a person who confuses tactical perspectives with strategic thinking. 'Big dics' such as UG are a classic example of myopic thinking. Barnett's points are long, complex, and too difficult for UG to understand. UG even confuses historical stories as proof of "good vs evil". So UG applied his biases (ie he always knows what is good and what is evil), reads the conclusions he can understand, and then assumed what Barnett was saying.

No wonder UG confuses the numbers killed in the holocaust with justification of zionism in the Middle East. That simplicity demonstrates why UG could not understand even Chapter One from Thomas Barnett - who is also critical of UG types that use a simplistic 'big dic' political agenda as if that were logical proof.

Like Bizzaro Superman, UG believes superhuman long posts means he is smart. His conclusions have little relation to his posts. He could not even see that Barnett was criticizing UG's thinking. UG simplistically believes that UG is decent and therefore UG can always tell the difference between 'good and evil'.

UG, when do you discuss Thomas Barnett’s book? But you promised?

First, what propaganda? The media takes a pro-Israel side and I don't really read far left newspapers so I don't know what propaganda you are talking about. Israel wants every Arab out of their homeland and will kill them to do it. By your standards, the US never committed genocide on the Native Americans.

Your blinded by the thought that democracies are all good and all non-democracies are bad. Israel is the most violent country in the world right now followed closely by America. They are both democracies in your opinion, which doesn't fit with your "democracies = good" childish thought. Democracies tend to be more moral than non-democratic countries but that isn't a guarantee, and America and Israel is the exception right now.

I will speak against prosperity when these democratic countries keep other countries in dictatorship and poverty to take advantage of them. If we are trying to spread democracy, then why did we take away Iran's democracy in the 50's, or why are we trying to take away Venezuela’s right now? Why do we trade with non-democratic countries? Why are we allies with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the two most oppressive regimes in the Middle East? Shouldn't we be fighting them since they are not democracies?

Ummmm....how?

That is because the Israelites have been committing genocide on the Arabs. They have kicked them out of their home and left them to starve. It isn't a holocaust or a Darfur, but it is still genocide.

No, we are keeping the failing states of "Araby" in a condition of social wreckage by taking their resources. Why do you think we attacked Iran when they decided to nationalize the oil fields in the 50's? We obviously never put any effort into helping the Arabs so you can not say that they are not able to keep a strong economy because there are too many outside conditions to make an accurate judgment.

I see Israel expanding their borders which goes with Fascism. I see Israel attacking countries for no legitimate reason (Lebanon). I see Israel considering their citizens better than the Arabs that once lived there. I see Israel building walls to keep the people that once lived there out of Israel, keeping them in poverty and then complaining when they fight back.

Give proof that Israel is on a higher moral plane. Everything the Arabs have done is out of retaliation from what Israel has done.

Please, you refuse to see that the Israelites have started everything in this conflict. If the Arabs start committing genocide on the Jews, then I will quickly switch sides but right now, it isn't that way. Both sides are prejudice against each other, but Israel is the one with the power so they are committing the genocide.

I have. They did not go to Uruguay when they were told that the Middle East would cause major problems. They did not deal with the Palestinians living there, they kicked them out. They are not compromising with the Palestinians now, they are building a wall to keep them out of the country. They are refusing to give up the Gaza Strip and West Bank which was not given to them in 1948. I don't think it is me that is blind, but you.

Yes, there will be conflict no matter what solution we use but even the though the one-state will probably have the most initial violence, it will hopefully go away after a generation or two. If we have a two-state solution, then the rivalry will stay with them for how ever long they are rivals.

You can expect Jordan to take care of all the people that don’t live there. The United States can house all the Mexicans but you seem reluctant to do that. Israel can also house all the Arabs. You are making a double standard by forcing Jordan to take the Palestinians when Israel can. Why don’t you want Israel to take the Palestinians?

They steal resources from the Palestinians and I find it hard to believe that they aren’t the western economy’s sock puppet. Outside forces, lack of education, etc, are likely to be most of the cause of this lack of initiative.

You are talking stupid. I have given many more examples of how the Israelis are genocidal than you have given me how the Arabs are genocidal.

Once again, why can’t Israel take in the Palestinians?

Yes we did and even though we can’t do anything about it, it is still technically wrong. We committed genocide on the Native Americans and I will admit it and Israel is doing the same exact thing. Also, I just want Israel-Palestine to become one state so your argument does bear any weight with this since it has no place.

Ok, I call for a new Mexican state, since it was first their land, in California, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico. It is not illegal so I can do it. Also, all non-Mexicans will be forced to leave. That includes you buddy.

I am not calling for the death of the Jews or revenge on Jews. I just want them to stop killing Palestinians and live peacefully with them.

It is genocide nevertheless because they are deliberately killing Palestinians, even forcing them to stand in front of tanks when other Palestinians are throwing rocks at them, and they and they are still displacing them, leaving them homeless and in poverty. They are building walls to keep them out of Israel.

Since we are calling each other names that don't make any sense I will start calling you a commie, or maybe an anarchists.

This is why I hate your side.

Most of the terrorist organizations against Israel is because of Israel's occupations. Hezbollah was started by Israel's occupation of Lebanon. If we put in the one-state solution then a neighboring country can't just blindly attack Israel because there would be an equal number of Palestinians in there as well.

Once you explain about the 380,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0514-04.htm

1. The neighboring countries already knew of the Israeli state and were not going to accept it from the beginning. How many days before they attacked doesn't mean anything since this conflict has been going on for a half century. The British knew a conflict was coming and the British tried to compromise with the Zionists but they refused to go anywhere else. It does not justify the Arab attack on Israel but it means we could have done something to avoid it.
2. I might go a little off-topic with this but right now, but the Jewish immigration was in the best interests of the Jews for obvious reasons but it is the part of them kicking everyone out and keeping them in poverty is what I extremely disagree with. A single Israeli state will only cause conflict because both sides will never accept the other but if we join them together, it leaves room for compromise and a new step forward. Not all Arabs want the Israelis dead, it is just an extreme view taken by few. These few are the ones committing the crimes against Israel so they get more attention.

Can you explain?

You can't explain. Got it.

You can't explain. Got it.

This is an extremely complicated situation and you appear to know dick about it, yet you want to make sweeping suggestions about what should happen. Let's continue, more homework.

1) 10% of Israel's government is made up of Arab Israelis. What percent of the surrounding Arab countries' governments are made of Jews?

2) Why did Israel invade and occupy the West Bank?

3) In a 2003 poll, 76% of Israelis would give up the West Bank in exchange for lasting peace. What would similar polls in Palestinian territories find?

4) When Jordan was created in 1923, what happened to the Jews who lived there?

5) Why do Palestinians demand a single state solution? Why don't Israelis want that? (Hint: same reason)

are people still using that as an excuse? i think the jews have done quite well for themselves. one group of people attacks them (that havent been for centuries) and suddenly every fucking one of them needs special treatment. so what happens? they get given someone else country!

It could be many reasons. They may want to make themselves look better in the world community, they may want peace, or they may want to encourage Gaza terrorist groups to come into Israel to attack instead of attacking the soldiers stationed in Gaza. The ten year truce probably had some influence with it too.

There was racism against the Jews.

0%, there are no Jews in Jordan and a very very small amount of Jews in Syria and Egypt. Why would Jews want to live as a minority when they can live in Israel? I don't see the relevance of this.

They were attacked by an Egyptian-Syrian-Jordan alliance and they used it as a chance to expand their borders.

I couldn't find any polls on it but I also couldn't find the poll you were talking about it. Could you lead me to it?

They closed all migration and settlements to Jordan and all the Jews probably migrated to Israel but I didn't find anything on that.

There is not one reason for the single-state solution just as you said, this is a very complex situation. A single-state potentially gets rid of Zionism, which started most of the trouble in the first place, presents the Palestinians and Israelis as equals instead of an almost caste system, and will show the world that two very different groups can work together and find peace.

I'm not sure what reason you are going at but by same reason do you mean that Israelis would be expelled? If a single-state solution happened then we would have to work to avoid that at all costs if it ever presents itself as a problem.

Israel is not looking for special treatment, just peace with their neighbors.
All they have ever wanted is to live in peace, in the the land God gave them, so many years ago. It is in the book of Exodus, "So it be written, so it be done".

maybe they should give their neighbours house back. that would be a start

The question was, when they gave back the land, why were they attacked on precisely those fronts? The answer is, the people who attacked them saw land give-backs as a sign of Israeli weakness.

But 10% of Israel's government is Arab. Why would Arabs want to live as a minority in Israel when they can live in Arabic lands?

Right, they won wars in which they were attacked to expand the area from which they cannot be attacked. Followup question, is that wrong? How?

Actually I don't know that they've been asked. But in 2000 Arafat was basically offered it at Camp David and his answer was to reject it and start the Second Intifada.

The Jews were unceremoniously kicked out. They don't want "right of return" and nobody protests for it on their behalf.

That is incorrect. Correct answer: Arabic peoples would, through sheer demographics, soon outnumber Jewish peoples in Israel, leading to the practical end of the state.

They gave back Gaza. They gave back the sections of Lebanon they had occupied. Then they were attacked on exactly those fronts. Can you explain?

These terrorist groups are going to attack Israel no matter how much land they take or give back. They stated that they will not stop until Israel is destroyed so I don't think it has to do with a showing of weakness.

Many reasons. One, they have no where to go. Two, because they lived there before Israel was created and they still think that they land it theirs. Three, even though they are discriminated against and work very shitty jobs, they still have jobs and can avoid poverty this way. I would be supportive of forcing Jordan and Syria to take back Jews if it ever came to that but I doubt that will happen.

It technically isn't wrong. It just shows about their goal to take over their entire dream Israel no matter who lives there now. It isn't a smart international move even though there isn't anything wrong with it since many imperialistic countries have done it in the past.

This doesn't represent the Palestinian people, but the Palestinian extreme. Yasser Arafat is the leader of PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), which was created in response to Israel's occupancy in West Bank, Gaza Strip, etc, to destroy the state of Israel. Of course he would deny peace but that doesn't mean the Palestinian people wouldn't.

If the Jews want to go back to Jordan I will support them 100% but as long as they have Israel they will most likely stay there.

As I said before:
Of course the one-state solution is going to have its initial problems and we will have to work with both the Jews and Palestinians to make sure we don't repeat what has happened to both the Jews and Arabs in the past century .


As I said before (even though this question isn't directed towards me) that Palestinian terrorist groups, founded by Israel's occupancies, will not stop until Israel is destroyed. In order to stop these groups you have to help the Palestinians and get them to stop hating Israel, which doesn't mean Israel's destruction, and make the terrorist groups hated and outcasts within Palestine.

UG, I hold almost exactly the same views on this topic as those so elequently argued by Pierce. I know a fair amount about fascism. I know that it is still a problem smouldering at the heart of Europe. I know that the current breed have substituted the word 'Jew' in most of their propoganda, for the words 'arab' or 'moslem'. I also know that this does not mean those groups have ceased their hatred of Jewish people; it merely means that in today's political and social climate, 'moslem' and 'Arab' are more likely to inspire the kind of parochial racism which fascism so readily turns to its cause.

I spend a good portion of every year along with a bunch of other activists, working against the spread of fascism in England, where we have fascist parties polling approximately 7-10 % of the electorate. In Europe's mainland, they do a little better. Fighting fascism has been my main political issue since I was 18 years old. I've known good friends hurt during those years, by Combat 18, the paramilitary wing of the British National Party (the 1 and 8 refer to A and H, for Adolf Hitler. They used to be called Combat 88, with the two 8s corresponding to H and H, for Heil Hitler) I have, over the years gained some understanding of the history of fascism in Europe: the trends they exloited; the methods they used; the manner in which they were able to turn a large percentage of the population to tacit acceptance of widespread slaughter, a willful blindness to what was occurring.

But by all means, call me a fascist sympathiser for not supporting Israel's right to commit it's own set of war crimes, merely because they suffered so greatly. That they were victims of one of the worlds greatest massacres, does not give them carte blanche to commit new crimes. To equate disagreement with Israel, the nation state, as anti-semitism is ludicrous. Your labelling people as fascistic for not agreeing with Israel's stance is both ludicrous and crass. Your assumption, meanwhile, that anybody who disagrees with Israel must have a lack of either education, or age is frankly laughable having seen the cogent arguments pierce put forward, as compared to the ideological ranting you seem to favour on this topic.

Good Shot, but damm they could have done it cheaper.

UG, not being a Zionist does not mean one is an anti-Semite.
I personally know Jews that are not Zionists.
The two have nothing to do with each other at all.
Why not give US homes in modern cities, randomly, to Native Americans? If someone tried, I would kill them. I am not exaggerating or making a point... I would kill them.

It IS the same thing that happened in Israel and, though I hope I would not, I would probably react the same way Palestinians and others have to Israel's treatment.
If I did not have Blackhawks and tanks and generations of my and my neighbor's schoolchildren were constantly murdered, eventually I may come to the conclusion that the only way to make it stop is to show them what it feels like.
I truly hope not... but, thank goodness, I don't have to find out what that feels like. But, I can understand how.
Israel needs to give Palestine their land back, get the fuck out in ALL ways, it is not theirs to "monitor" they need to get out of Lebanon, yes they stole that land too in the sixties and need to give it back, ALL of it (they only "gave back" a portion).
There is no god and no one promised them shit.
Religion... this is what it gives us, steaming piles of shit and death.

I dunno, rkzen. Pierce's position is not easily distinguished from antisemitism, and antisemites invariably try and draw over themselves a veil of anti-Zionism.

I can't see it for sour owl shit. He's compromised, and terribly.

To be a good human being, one should be in sympathy with the democracy there, not the un-democracies. The undemocracies are inherently oppressive, and they insist upon being at feud with the chosen people. Stupid and destructive. No one should sympathize with such.

It's also too much to expect for anyone to be civilized in war. Were you Israeli, would you submit to what the Arabs explicitly have in mind? Of course not. Thus, there is no point in further discussion. You either support the people of decency, or you fail to, and whore along with the indecent! Something I never do, and thus I'm on the side of the angels. Join me there, and give up all this fascistic bull.

I was wondering about that. It seems the term anti-zionist is just a more PC way of saying anti-semite.

NO! nonono, duck2, dont start listening to UG.

Trust me. Just don't.
Anti-zionism means you think that the jews have no more right to kick people off their land for their own country than the christians or the sikhs or the bokonists do.

Note that I'm not saying I'm an anti-zionist -- or a pro-zionist either.

The whole anti-zionist movement is a ruse. Anti-semites, anti-zionists, anti-settlement, they are all sheep from the same flock. People like to quote anti-zionists who are Jews as if that bolsters their argument. It is no different than the varied views we have in this country over any issue that people like to argue over. The most vocal anti-zionists are often traced back to some serious conspiracy theory groups who are wrapped up in Illuminati stuff and fears about Jewish domination of money, diamonds, the world, or whatever. Read it all with a grain of salt....

What's a Zionist, then?

Look it up, your fingers broken?

No, I want your definition. If Anti-Zionist has all those connotations that don't rise from the name, what's a Zionist?

Look it up. Make up your own definition. Everyone does it, so can you. Or you can just keep looking til you find one that suits you and refutes one position or supports another.

Better you should listen to someone with fifty years of world experience, over half of which has been spent studying and opposing despotism -- it's why I'm a libertarian in spite of any naysaying the likes of Kitsune or Radar can come up with -- than to two callow youths, one of college age, the other not yet out of high school, who are in the perfect demographic to be seduced by fascism's blandishments -- this type of philosophy has kid-appeal. Heck, I've been in the world longer than both of them put together, and I've a good memory of what undemocracy has wrought over the last century. It's good memory, but the memories themselves aren't nice.

Nondemocracies don't stop misbehaving, and defending and rationalizing the misbehavior is merely disgusting.

Here's a little something citing the fascist model the Baathist Party uses. Some more from the same source right here.

Academic Anatol Lievin gives ammunition to several views of the conflict in this interview, which I will quote one paragraph from in support of my understanding of things:

He does however offer something for just about everyone on that page alone, and I suppose on the other pages of the interview as well. It ought to be interesting reading.

It should also be noted that the Ba'athist record on providing those modern services isn't very successful. It takes big piles of nice capitalist capital to make a successful socialist regime, and the best way to make a small fortune in socialism is to begin with a large one.

A little reading on what Zionists themselves say of Zionism will help, I'm sure, to cut down on inaccurate statements.

Here you go:

A Jewish movement that arose in the late 19th century in response to growing anti-Semitism and sought to reestablish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Modern Zionism is concerned with the support and development of the state of Israel.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/86/Z0018600.html

This point of view utterly ignores a historical fact: the Jews were in Palestine centuries before the current batch of competitors were. The Bible's account is in some considerable measure confirmed by other sources, such as Roman Imperial history, of which sources it appears Ibbie knows nothing. There's archaeology, too, of which Ibbie ought to know something.

Of course you're not; you're afraid of being tarred with the antisemitism brush. :eyebrow:

I am NOT. (Makes me happy.)

But you, little bro, have got a taint, and I'm not talking about the one back of your balls. It's up to you to get rid of it.

No... it means there is no god, no one said that Jews deserve shit more than anyone else. That they get to steal shit from anyone else, that they already own, because the magic sky pixie said so. That is what anti-Zionism is.
It means the Palestinians deserve to protect themselves and retaliate exactly as much as Israel and Israel does not deserve arms and funds from the US more than any other nation.
It means Israel is not fucking special, never has been and never will be. Religion needs to be ignored.
As a true libertarian, we need to stay out of it and never should have been involved in the first place.

Just to be clear, UG is a Neo-Con not a libertarian. I'd hate to see the young people get confused. I wonder if the neo crowd is going back to their Trotskyite roots? Having destroyed the GOP, maybe they want to squish the tiny LP as well.

What propaganda? --asks Pierce from his ostrich pose.

Well, we could start with something the Holocaust Museum has to say about The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (let this title stand for the several it's been published under -- try the Wikipedia entry for a summary) :

Actually, the great difference between Griff and Radar and myself is that I'm not a pacifist. They object to that. I ignore the objections.

I simply cannot be a pacifist; it's not a sustainable philosophy of life.

That Griff and Radar can't understand a libertarian who isn't a pacifist is not -- not directly anyway -- my problem. I don't think people who are that into freedom should be narrow-minded about it, for this seems to me exclusive of any possibility to be into freedom.

Griff, where the hell are you getting this "Trotskyite roots" idea?

Rkzen, when you understand that it's truer to libertarianism to promote, defend, and support the more libertarian society against the less libertarian, then I think you'll be a real libertarian. Otherwise, what you've got is passivism, to coin a term.

This is fast becoming the convenient redefinition thread. Not initiating force does not make one a pacifist.

Not helping bullies does.

"I regard myself to have been a young Trostkyite and I have not a single bitter memory."- Irving Kristol

"From the anti-Stalinists who became conservatives – including James Burnham, Whittaker Chambers, and Irving Kristol – the Right gained a political education and, in some cases, an injection of passion. The ex-radicals brought with them the knowledge that ideological movements must have journals and magazines to articulate their perspectives. In 1955, for example, William F. Buckley, Jr., launched National Review at the urging of Willi Schlamm, a former German Communist. In its early years, National Review was largely written and edited by the Buckley family and a handful of former Communists, Trotskyists, and socialists, such as Burnham and Chambers. It played a major role in creating the Goldwaterite and Reaganite New Right and in stimulating an anti-Soviet foreign policy."- Seymour Martin Lipset

I have actually read what it means to be a libertarian and our philosophy on foreign wars.

But there seems, does there not, a crippling unwillingness to -- actually win?

And I'd read from your quote not a Trotskyite root -- but an anti-Trotskyite one. These thinkers matured enough to drop Trotskyist philosophy and come up with something better -- and antithetical.

If actually attacked, you fight to win in a way that is productive.

The problem with advocating the Neo Con position initiating violence is that is was borne of the Trotskyite desire for international socialist revolution. It is incompatable with the Western ideal of self-determination.

Not our fight.

So how do you get that someone who opposes that == antisemite == opposition to aggressive settlement of disputed territories?

How so? I think that Israel should be combined with Palestine to make one united state. I do not want to kick out the Jews.

There are a lot of conspiracists that are anti-Zionist but not all anti-Zionists are conspiracy theorists. I am actually not a true anti-Zionist either. A separate Jewish state will not work in the Middle East but I am not against a non-violent Zionist state that would be placed somewhere that peace is possible.

There are many different types of Zionists. That is why you can't give one definition. They all believe that the Jews should have its separate state but then they views usually split from there.

Or, you could pick the best argument which is subjective. There are many aged people with doctorates that are pro-Zionists and there are many aged people with doctorates that are anti-Zionists.

I am also curious on how I live in the perfect demographic to be seduced by fascism's blandishments. Could you explain?

So we should just kick them out? How about we bet them both live there since no one group deserves a piece of land over any other group especially when both groups have been there for the past 1,500 years.

I know both sides of the argument and I have picked my side. I accept other sides and agree with them on some issues like I did with Undertoad. You on the other hand will never even look into the other side making you bias.

Most people, IMHO, who claim to be anti-Zionist are in fact also anti-Semitic. They just don't want to be accused of something else so they hide behind this other idea while appearing not to be associated with tacit support of the terrorist policy of the Arabs. The only group of people who support the "Jewish movement that arose in the late 19th century in response to growing anti-Semitism and sought to reestablish a Jewish homeland in Palestine" and hence support the modern notion of "the support and development of the state of Israel" are Jews or those who would profit off of such establishment of a Jewish homeland. Hence they are in fact anti-Semitic. The policy of "aggressive settlement of disputed territories" is a policy being pursued by the more radical elements of the Jewish religion and was supported and encouraged by the mainstream government of Israel. Hence they are all related. You cannot divide the issue up because you don't want to appear anti-Semitic (a term which has been oft abused and used). It sounds so much more PC to be anti-Zionist.

I would like to see one state created with no special treatment for either group. All former borders returned to UN specifications. All land stolen by Israel from their neighbors in the name of "god promised", ever, is returned.
Not a bit at a time, not with concessions, just returned.

That might have been possible at one time, but that little '67 war thingy and the one that followed a few years later, now followed by Iran going after a nuke, I doubt that will ever happen. But I bet you that the Persians would be willing to sacrifice the Arabs just to drop the big one on Israel. :3eye:

Exactly. So if you oppose that, you are opposing radicals and a particular governmental policy of Israel. No connection to antisemetism there. And it's only partially linked to anti-Zionism, in that if you don't support Israel then you most likely don't support its expansion. But it doesn't go the other way.
"Related" is pretty loose language. Sure, they're related. But antisemetism is also "related" to Zionism, in the same way that plenty of racists were fans of the "back to Africa" movement. "Sheep from the same flock" is wrong, however.
No, but you can divide "the issue" up because it is more than one issue in the first place.

Ok, I think you are wrong and it does go both ways. That has been my experience. I have been to Israel. I have been to the Middle East. The people over there don't just hate the presence of the Jewish State.... They hate Jews. The rest of that is a ruse by anti-Jewish supporters of the Arab cause.

(note I have not taken a side on the issue so don't paint me into this picture)