Hezbollah night-vision gear manufactured in Britain

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Hippikos

Then why all these "quotes" in your above messages? Didn't you forgot Faux News in your reference list?

No, I didn't forgot anything; if I were to quote Fox News I'd attribute it.

VBulletin provides quote markeup that essentially wraps the HTML blockquote tag, although the formatting is actually accomplished though CSS rather than <blockquote>. I use quotes when I'm quoting...are those scare quotes you've put around the word "quotes"? If so, why?

[headsplice]

Originally Posted by Hippikos

Then why all these "quotes" in your above messages? Didn't you forgot Faux News in your reference list?

Hip, you're being an ass. Drop it. You're attacking Maggie, rather than the arguments that she's making.
Neither side 'caused' this particular flareup. Hezbollah kidnapped some Israeli soldiers. Israel didn't negotiate this time. You could argue that they didn't because the Bush administration pushed them not to, but that's out of the realm of what I want to get into in this post. Both sides of this are f'ups. Hezbollah for being militant a'holes. Israel for being stupid enough to be bated into military action by this nonsense.
Rmemeber: this conflict has literally been raging for thousands of years. What do you think the Old Testament is about? One particluar tribe (the Jews) in the region that goes around getting its ass kicked or kicking ass, depending on which side of the Universe YHWH woke up on that day. None of it is going to make any damn sense.

[Hippikos]

Did I hit a nerve Head? I'm just asking for arguments, not quotes.

The Jews are claiming a piece of land because of the 80 years of the David Kingdom in the last 2500 years, some claim...

[headsplice]

Originally Posted by Hippikos

Did I hit a nerve Head? I'm just asking for arguments, not quotes.

The Jews are claiming a piece of land because of the 80 years of the David Kingdom in the last 2500 years, some claim...

You were, and are, resorting to ad hominem attacks and outright dismissal of an opposing viewpoint without providing a counter-argument.
No, you didn't ask for arguments, you complained about the style in which Maggie responded to you. You implied that you were looking for a rational argument, but couched it in personally attacking terms. The stupidest part is, you completely missed the point of the quote. It, in and of itself, was an argument and then you were an dick about being ignorant.
So, in direct reponse to your question: Yes. You hit a nerve. I hate it when people argue like you just have. In counterpoint: do you have a problem with me calling when I see it?

Back on topic: yeah, that's the claim. Deal with it. Conversely, the state of Israel has to deal with the fact that there will/be is a Palestinian state, otherwise everyone's going to die.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Hippikos

I'm just asking for arguments, not quotes.

The quotes support the arguments. It's not my fault if you feel disadvantaged by that.

Seems to me that by erecting walls and withdrawing behind them, Israel was accepting the existance of a Palestinian state. In fact, they'd been collecting taxes for them. (But when a party took power that has the annihilation of Israel as a platform plank, they stopped providing that service. Boo hoo.)

The PA may not have been happy with the de facto boundaries...but even Arabs don't get to dictate terms after they've been defeated. It's just amazing to watch them time after time attack, get pushed back, and then when they've lost enough ground, suddenly the bazzar opens, the rug-merchantry starts, and it's time for the other side to back up to the status quo ante, and then start making concessions to soothe the wounded Arab egos.

Then, having negotated something vaguely resembling peace, the attacks start again, this time perhaps from the new splinter group du jour. If peace ever were to be achieved, it would probably have to include welfare payments to all the poor unfortunate unemployed terrorists who must find new careers.

[Hippikos]

You were, and are, resorting to ad hominem attacks and outright dismissal of an opposing viewpoint without providing a counter-argument.
No, you didn't ask for arguments, you complained about the style in which Maggie responded to you. You implied that you were looking for a rational argument, but couched it in personally attacking terms. The stupidest part is, you completely missed the point of the quote. It, in and of itself, was an argument and then you were an dick about being ignorant.
So, in direct reponse to your question: Yes. You hit a nerve. I hate it when people argue like you just have. In counterpoint: do you have a problem with me calling when I see it?

Take 2 Prozac and call me in the morning. Again there were no viewpoints, only quotes. Go back and read. In the meantime Maggie has made her point as you can see.

Conversely, the state of Israel has to deal with the fact that there will/be is a Palestinian state, otherwise everyone's going to die.

I agree with you on this point.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

The problem could maybe be solved by making Israel, with the West Bank, and Jordan a single political entity again, but no involved party is interested, and neither is any external party.

[Ibby]

Maggie wouldnt wait for them to get past the word 'family', she'd have 'both guns drawn' and firing. Well, drawn at least.

[Hippikos]

Originally Posted by Ibram

Maggie wouldnt wait for them to get past the word 'family', she'd have 'both guns drawn' and firing. Well, drawn at least.

Maybe in that case they would have to build a wall?

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Ibram

Maggie wouldnt wait for them to get past the word 'family', she'd have 'both guns drawn' and firing. Well, drawn at least.

Probably not even to the word "family".

Of course the analogy is false in multiple dimensions, as UT has enumerated.

[Undertoad]

Your little analogy is flawed. Allow me to correct.

"complete strangers" - the Jews were already there and a substantial majority

"would take over her house" - have the UN partition the area previously partitioned by everyone else because it was useless and unwanted

"exiled her to the backyard shed" - because she refuses to share the area peacefully

"and even there has to give up half of that living space" - after she unilaterally attacks them from her area scores of times and loses


And let me finish your story with the words you keep leaving off the end of every post you write:

"...and that's why international terrorism is justified."

[MaggieL]

Can somone offer a plausible description of an end state to all of this that:

1) would be acceptable to Israel's enemies, and would not be followed by further terroristic attacks to see what further could be gained, and

2) leaves something recognizable as Israel in existence?

I remain unconvinced there is such a thing. Certainly Iran + surrogates seem to preclude such a possibility.

[headsplice]

Actually, I do think that's possible. Look at Lebanon in the past five years (I mean besides the past 5 weeks): they'd managed to almost completely rebuild the city and start to make it a major metropolitan center again.
So, where is the actual problem?
Lack of REAL US interest in the region. Specifically, this Administration's complete lack of involvement in anything that isn't killing people and blowing shit up. Progress was being made betweent the Palestinian's and the Israeli's before 2001. And then, *POOF!* no more US involvement (anyone remember the Roadmap for Peace? Where'd that go?). America might have not been everyone's favorite country, but at least we were respected enough for warring factions to listen to us when we sat them down at a table like the Camp David Accords.
So, could I tell you what the plan would actually be? I could give you a general idea: more aid to countries where terrorist groups with domestic political wings are thriving. Co-opt the domestic wing through direct, low-interest loans (since the domestic and foreign policies of these groups are often wildly different, Hamas and Hezbollah are great examples) and you'll tame the wilder, more militant foreign wing by undercutting their base of support.

Originally Posted by Hippikos

Take 2 Prozac and call me in the morning.

You're still an ass. I'm not sure if English isn't your first language or what, but I really wish you'd actually read what other people write before responding to it.

[headsplice]

stupidity on my part...feel free to ignore.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by headsplice

So, could I tell you what the plan would actually be? I could give you a general idea: more aid to countries where terrorist groups with domestic political wings are thriving. Co-opt the domestic wing through direct, low-interest loans (since the domestic and foreign policies of these groups are often wildly different, Hamas and Hezbollah are great examples) and you'll tame the wilder, more militant foreign wing by undercutting their base of support.

Ah...so that would be the "give them enough US money and maybe they'll stop attacking Israel" plan? It's not clear to me that there's any amount of money that the enemies of Israel would take in return for abandoning their principles. Which apparently can be summarized as "Death to The Great Satan and The Little Satan".

But I wasn't asking for a "plan to make things better" (which always somehow seems to involve giving US money away)...I referred specifically to an end state meeting two criteria. Because if there is no such end state, all the rest of this is just political masturbation.

I do think the fact that you'd rather describe a plan to get somewhere rather than describing the actual destination is telling. "It's not the destination, it's the journey", of course...and it's no coincidence that every leg of the journey ( you know, the one that used to be called "the peace process") seem to have toll booths where the players get paid off on a regular basis.

So don't tell me how to get there (and how we haven't gotten there yet because not enough people have been paid off yet). Just describe the destination in a way that might convince me that there is such a place.