Very cool video regarding Israel's defensible borders and territory negotiations.

[Kev]

And about the 800 000 Jewish refugees. They also have the absolute right of return to their former properties and land too. The right of return of refugees is international law.

Oh that makes it alright then. Both sides got fucked, and both sides can legally claim but in reality do nothing about it.

To me the Palestinian plight was brought about by the Arabs. The Jews had agreed to the mandate and two nation state. It was the Arabs who rejected it and went to war. The Jews wanted (and still want) nothing more but to live in their land in peace.

The conflict persists because the Arab world will only be happy when the Jews are driven out of the middle east.

Until then there will never be peace. They will never agree to Israel being there and Isreal will never agree to commit suicide and cease to exist.

On the contrary they will do whatever they need to do to defend themselves.

Answer me this honestly, if Britian, America or indeed any other nation would be in the same place as Israel, would they act any differently?

They do what's necessary to survive in a continent where they are universally despised, not because of what they have done, but because of what they represent. The Arab world hates the Jews, they are sworn enemies as long as the human race continures.

There is no solution, or peace plan that would ever be sufficient for the Arab world other than Jewish annihilation.

[Kev]

I said I wouldn't be starting threads on controversial issues for a while (Ralph Nader and my body don't count) so I wasn't going to go and start a thread on that and regardless today is my busy day so my posting time is limited. There will be no thread starting from me today. Anyway, of course Britain was to blame and we had absolutely no right to be in Northern Ireland. Show me a thread about it and of course my views would be laid out bare.

You keep on harking back to the flotilla which we have more than covered. You have today gone into the creation of Israel a little which we have dicussed. What about the numerous and many violations commited by the Israeli's?

How about...

1. Forging international passports to commit international terrorism?
2. Destroying Palestinian farmland and infrastructure?
3. Denying planning permission for Palestinians in Israel?
4. Trying to sell nuclear weapons to apartheid South Africa?
5. Building settlements on illegally obtained lands?
6. The denial of sufficient aid shipments?
7. The denial of Gazan rights to export?
8. The routine murder of Palestinians by Israeli forces

The list could probably go beyond 20 if I could be bothered.

When I asked you about your background reading I wasn't asking you about a report on the flotilla. I was asking you about your actual knowledge of Israeli acts of aggression and resistance to peace. Nameless already recommended Finkelstein to you. The other name I would add is Chomsky. It sounds to me like you have absorbed a whole heap of Dershowitz, Israeli state propaganda and the Bible and put them into a great big melting pot. If this is how you really feel on the issue then fair enough, but if you haven't read more then you should. Likewise, I'm always open for intelligent suggestions too.

I guess this is the thread you meant. Fair enough I shall look when I have time.

I don't expect the Israeli's to be blameless in every area though, that is unrealistic of an nation including the ones we live in.

The thing is you seem to have a hatred of Isreal that exceeds every other nation on this earth, in fact you think they are the greatest threat to world peace, which to me is utterly ridiculous.

They have no aggressive intentions, they are not after military conquests or land expansion. On the contrary they are smallest nation in size in the whole middle east. They are not a tryanny or run by an evil dictator. They don't deny citizenship to any of its people, including Arabs. They don't put homosexuals to death, they don't stone women adultresses, they don't terror bomb our lands. But to you they are the worst nation on the earth because they are blockading a regime that until the blockade was shelling them with 100 rockets per day.

If you can admit that Israel, whilst having faults, are still a valuable people who have contributed much to the world, who have a vibrant healthy democracry and who treat it's citizens well, than I will concede they may have sometimes got it wrong and acted badly.

It's the irrational hatred that you and Laing have that I can't understand.

There are so many atrocities being committed all the time around the world by so many countries, but to you the Jews are worst of all. This I just cannot agree with, not even a little.

[Kirkland Laing]

And about the 800 000 Jewish refugees. They also have the absolute right of return to their former properties and land too. The right of return of refugees is international law.

Oh that makes it alright then. Both sides got fucked, and both sides can legally claim but in reality do nothing about it.

To me the Palestinian plight was brought about by the Arabs. The Jews had agreed to the mandate and two nation state. It was the Arabs who rejected it and went to war. The Jews wanted (and still want) nothing more but to live in their land in peace.

The conflict persists because the Arab world will only be happy when the Jews are driven out of the middle east.

Until then there will never be peace. They will never agree to Israel being there and Isreal will never agree to commit suicide and cease to exist.

On the contrary they will do whatever they need to do to defend themselves.

Answer me this honestly, if Britian, America or indeed any other nation would be in the same place as Israel, would they act any differently?

They do what's necessary to survive in a continent where they are universally despised, not because of what they have done, but because of what they represent. The Arab world hates the Jews, they are sworn enemies as long as the human race continures.

There is no solution, or peace plan that would ever be sufficient for the Arab world other than Jewish annihilation.

Whoever brought about the plight of the Palestinians, they still have the right to return to their homes and land. And they were ethnically cleansed from them in the first place. The people who didn't flee the Jewish terrorist groups, massacres, killings, and various other tactics to get them to flee were removed from their homes and land at gunpoint anyway, so even if they had been advised to flee and remained where they were they would have still ended up being ethnically cleansed anyway.


The conflict persists because Israel are carrying out an illegal half century military occupation of another people while they colonise the 20% of historic Palestine that they didn't ethnically cleanse previously. Here's the former Israeli Attorney Genral to explain :

The Six-Day War was forced upon us; however, the war's seventh day, which began on June 12, 1967 and has continued to this day, is the product of our choice. We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities. Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems: one - progressive, liberal - in Israel; and the other - cruel, injurious - in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.

The war's seventh day - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News


The Arabs have zero say in any peace plan. They've already offered a comprehensive peace plan to Israel but Israel won't discuss it, they're continuing the plan laid out by the Israeli AG.

Arab Peace Initiative - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Israel aren't defending themselves. They're the aggressor here. They're carrying out a half-century-long illegal military occupation of another people, like the AG also points out. They're defending themselves against the Palestinians in the same way that Germany defended itself against Poland in 1939. We did not call the Polish people resisting them terrorists, we called them freedom fighters or resistance. The right of resistance to military occupation is another right enshrined in international law. Surely the right of defence isn't only allowed to military aggressors, right? The aggressees surely should be able to defend themselves againstr aggression? International law says they have the right.

Britain and America have both carried out various military occupations over the years. Britain actually carried one out in America at one point. Obviously they've all ended with the occupied eventually booting out the occupier, as will happen eventually in Palestine.

[Kev]

And about the 800 000 Jewish refugees. They also have the absolute right of return to their former properties and land too. The right of return of refugees is international law.

Oh that makes it alright then. Both sides got fucked, and both sides can legally claim but in reality do nothing about it.

To me the Palestinian plight was brought about by the Arabs. The Jews had agreed to the mandate and two nation state. It was the Arabs who rejected it and went to war. The Jews wanted (and still want) nothing more but to live in their land in peace.

The conflict persists because the Arab world will only be happy when the Jews are driven out of the middle east.

Until then there will never be peace. They will never agree to Israel being there and Isreal will never agree to commit suicide and cease to exist.

On the contrary they will do whatever they need to do to defend themselves.

Answer me this honestly, if Britian, America or indeed any other nation would be in the same place as Israel, would they act any differently?

They do what's necessary to survive in a continent where they are universally despised, not because of what they have done, but because of what they represent. The Arab world hates the Jews, they are sworn enemies as long as the human race continures.

There is no solution, or peace plan that would ever be sufficient for the Arab world other than Jewish annihilation.

Whoever brought about the plight of the Palestinians, they still have the right to return to their homes and land. And they were ethnically cleansed from them in the first place. The people who didn't flee the Jewish terrorist groups, massacres, killings, and various other tactics to get them to flee were removed from their homes and land at gunpoint anyway, so even if they had been advised to flee and remained where they were they would have still ended up being ethnically cleansed anyway.


The conflict persists because Israel are carrying out an illegal half century military occupation of another people while they colonise the 20% of historic Palestine that they didn't ethnically cleanse previously. Here's the former Israeli Attorney Genral to explain :

The Six-Day War was forced upon us; however, the war's seventh day, which began on June 12, 1967 and has continued to this day, is the product of our choice. We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities. Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems: one - progressive, liberal - in Israel; and the other - cruel, injurious - in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.

The war's seventh day - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News


The Arabs have zero say in any peace plan. They've already offered a comprehensive peace plan to Israel but Israel won't discuss it, they're continuing the plan laid out by the Israeli AG.

Arab Peace Initiative - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Israel aren't defending themselves. They're the aggressor here. They're carrying out a half-century-long illegal military occupation of another people, like the AG also points out. They're defending themselves against the Palestinians in the same way that Germany defended itself against Poland in 1939. We did not call the Polish people resisting them terrorists, we called them freedom fighters or resistance. The right of resistance to military occupation is another right enshrined in international law. Surely the right of defence isn't only allowed to military aggressors, right? The aggressees surely should be able to defend themselves againstr aggression? International law says they have the right.

Britain and America have both carried out various military occupations over the years. Britain actually carried one out in America at one point. Obviously they've all ended with the occupied eventually booting out the occupier, as will happen eventually in Palestine.

So you think the Israeli's should allow the Palestinians back to their homes and land? You don't think that would just lead to Israel's destruction within months, inviting in a horde of 1 million plus people who hate you and want you destroyed?

It would be one of the worst decisions I can imagine personally.

As for your other points, I think they have some merit, I don't think Israel have acted perfectly on all occasions. I do think they they have generally treated the Arab world better than the Arab wold has treated it, which is probably true of the world as a whole as well.

I'm not sure Israel even occupies Gaza any more, I thought they withdrew in 2005?

The blokcade is becoming an international crisis point now. I saw today Isreal have lifted several restrictions and are allowing more items in than before, although most nations still think this is not enough.

It seems that progress is being made, albiet slowly. I'd like to see Israel withdraw completely, we will see what happens I guess.

I saw the President of Syria is getting itchy trigger fingers today saying this could ignite another war in the middle east. The worst thing about this from Israel's point of view is that they are allowing the most despicable terror groups to take the moral high ground in the eyes of the world.

I don't understand your position regarding terrorism though, in that you regard these groups as the inevitable result of oppression, yet make no concession for Israel's actions, being that they are, the most oppressed and persecuted nation that have ever existed by far. Is it hardly suprising that they don't trust many nations or neighbours when you consider how the world has treated them since around 1500 bc?

[Gandalf]

I said I wouldn't be starting threads on controversial issues for a while (Ralph Nader and my body don't count) so I wasn't going to go and start a thread on that and regardless today is my busy day so my posting time is limited. There will be no thread starting from me today. Anyway, of course Britain was to blame and we had absolutely no right to be in Northern Ireland. Show me a thread about it and of course my views would be laid out bare.

You keep on harking back to the flotilla which we have more than covered. You have today gone into the creation of Israel a little which we have dicussed. What about the numerous and many violations commited by the Israeli's?

How about...

1. Forging international passports to commit international terrorism?
2. Destroying Palestinian farmland and infrastructure?
3. Denying planning permission for Palestinians in Israel?
4. Trying to sell nuclear weapons to apartheid South Africa?
5. Building settlements on illegally obtained lands?
6. The denial of sufficient aid shipments?
7. The denial of Gazan rights to export?
8. The routine murder of Palestinians by Israeli forces

The list could probably go beyond 20 if I could be bothered.

When I asked you about your background reading I wasn't asking you about a report on the flotilla. I was asking you about your actual knowledge of Israeli acts of aggression and resistance to peace. Nameless already recommended Finkelstein to you. The other name I would add is Chomsky. It sounds to me like you have absorbed a whole heap of Dershowitz, Israeli state propaganda and the Bible and put them into a great big melting pot. If this is how you really feel on the issue then fair enough, but if you haven't read more then you should. Likewise, I'm always open for intelligent suggestions too.

I guess this is the thread you meant. Fair enough I shall look when I have time.

I don't expect the Israeli's to be blameless in every area though, that is unrealistic of an nation including the ones we live in.

The thing is you seem to have a hatred of Isreal that exceeds every other nation on this earth, in fact you think they are the greatest threat to world peace, which to me is utterly ridiculous.

They have no aggressive intentions, they are not after military conquests or land expansion. On the contrary they are smallest nation in size in the whole middle east. They are not a tryanny or run by an evil dictator. They don't deny citizenship to any of its people, including Arabs. They don't put homosexuals to death, they don't stone women adultresses, they don't terror bomb our lands. But to you they are the worst nation on the earth because they are blockading a regime that until the blockade was shelling them with 100 rockets per day.

If you can admit that Israel, whilst having faults, are still a valuable people who have contributed much to the world, who have a vibrant healthy democracry and who treat it's citizens well, than I will concede they may have sometimes got it wrong and acted badly.

It's the irrational hatred that you and Laing have that I can't understand.

There are so many atrocities being committed all the time around the world by so many countries, but to you the Jews are worst of all. This I just cannot agree with, not even a little.

I have an extreme dislike for most elites and Israeli elites are no different. The elites I have the biggest issues with are planted firmly in Washington. The US is a far bigger terrorist state than Israel and I regard Obama and most other presidents as war criminals. Of course they will never be tried as such and that's the way the power game goes. The UK is another despicable country with a history of attrocities. The thing with Israel is that it is currently on a very hot streak of despicable form and that is why it has my ire. It is only natural that all of these countries are allies.

Stop talking about 'the Jews' Bilbo and let's start referring to them as the 'elites'. I couldn't care less if they are Arab, Jew, Christian or zoo gorilla, but if the elites amongst any of them are causing problems then I will observe and potentially comment. I don't hate 'the Jews' and I am quite content with the existence of Israel, but it would be nice if the elite in Israel would simply move away from the draconian policies that have led to the current state of revulsion many are now beginning to feel about it. It is not the citizens within a country that one loathes it is the attitudes and policies of the elite. Most Israeli's are just living their lives and are no different to people in other countries, I harbour no resentment to such people. But I do resent an elite who deny Arabs living within Israeli borders planning permission and the same access to rights as other Jewish citizens. That's how apartheid comes about. A class system based upon ethnicity and religion. That's not cool. Furthermore, If they have no expansionist desires then they should push for a two state solution and allow Palestinians to control all of their own resources without fear of any consequences. Ever wondered why they resist this?

Even now after agreeing to reduce the blockage, aid agencies are saying it goes nowhere near far enough. Seems like even agreeing to a non independant enquiry is not enough to make the elite half way civilised. It's give and take and with the Israeli elite it is take, take, take and throw a little bone back in return.

[Kev]

I have an extreme dislike for most elites and Israeli elites are no different. The elites I have the biggest issues with are planted firmly in Washington. The US is a far bigger terrorist state than Israel and I regard Obama and most other presidents as war criminals. Of course they will never be tried as such and that's the way the power game goes. The UK is another despicable country with a history of attrocities. The thing with Israel is that it is currently on a very hot streak of despicable form and that is why it has my ire. It is only natural that all of these countries are allies.

Stop talking about 'the Jews' Bilbo and let's start referring to them as the 'elites'. I couldn't care less if they are Arab, Jew, Christian or zoo gorilla, but if the elites amongst any of them are causing problems then I will observe and potentially comment. I don't hate 'the Jews' and I am quite content with the existence of Israel, but it would be nice if the elite in Israel would simply move away from the draconian policies that have led to the current state of revulsion many are now beginning to feel about it. It is not the citizens within a country that one loathes it is the attitudes and policies of the elite. Most Israeli's are just living their lives and are no different to people in other countries, I harbour no resentment to such people. But I do resent an elite who deny Arabs living within Israeli borders planning permission and the same access to rights as other Jewish citizens. That's how apartheid comes about. A class system based upon ethnicity and religion. That's not cool. Furthermore, If they have no expansionist desires then they should push for a two state solution and allow Palestinians to control all of their own resources without fear of any consequences. Ever wondered why they resist this?

Even now after agreeing to reduce the blockage, aid agencies are saying it goes nowhere near far enough. Seems like even agreeing to a non independant enquiry is not enough to make the elite half way civilised. It's give and take and with the Israeli elite it is take, take, take and throw a little bone back in return.

I do agree with that sentiment to a degree, but only to a degree. First of all yes I think both the US and Great Britain have acted very badly at times out of self interest but probably no more so than other countries.

I certainly don't think Isreal have ever behaved as badly however. They didn't wipe out an entire continent or carve out a world empire, on the contrary they have been under threat of extinction and being wiped out wherever they have lived on this earth.

If you want to talk about the Israeli's ethnically cleansing the Palestinians then you HAVE to also admit to the Arabs ethnically cleansing 800,000 Arab Jews. You also HAVE to admit it's been the Arabs who have consistently attacked Israel in the past.

I'm not sure if you are aware but the Palestinians were massacering Jews before they even had a Jewish state.

You could argue they started it by massacring in cold blood 69 Jews in Hebron in 1929 and another 18 at Safed the same year. This was 20 years before the Israel was created.

A commision of enquiry at the time led by Sir Walter Shaw found amongst other things that this was ' from the beginning an attack by Arabs on Jews for which no excuse in the form of earlier murders by Jews has been established.'

In fact it goes back even further, to 1834 when again in Safed the Palestinian Arabs brutally ethnically cleasened the entire city of several thousand Jews causing them to hide in caves for a month and left destitute and homeless. Safed plunder 1834 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So the kinds of charges you are laying against Isreal, were committed upon them by the very people you say are the 'victims' now.

I guess after the Safed pogrom of 1834, the Hebron massacre of 1929, the Arab riots of 1936-39, and then the five nation combined attack in 1948 by Egypt, Syria, Lebonnon, Jordan and Iraq, the Jews were probably thinking the Arabs didn't like them very much and that trying to resaon with them probably wasn't to going to help much.

By the time the Arabs invaded again in 1967,, again with the combined forces of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, with Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria all providing arms and military assistance the Jews were in no real mood to negotiate at all.

Of course the Arabs were not done yet and in 1973 launced yet another suprise attack, violating cease fire lines, on Yom Kippor, the most holy day of Judaism, when everyone was fasting.

Once again Israel repelled the attack and since then has pretty much accepted that the whole Arab world hates them, that they will never recognise their right to exist and will only continue to seek to destroy and gain revenge for the previous 'great catastrophes' as they call them.

Given the level of hatred and persecution these people have had to endure, and all this after coming straight from the concentration camps I think they should be cut some slack in all honesty.

You talk about apartheid but in reality this is just not true. There are many Israeli Arabs in the Knesset, also soldiers and police force. Arab citizens get full legal rights. Meanwhile no Jews are allowed to live in Jordan or Saudi Arabia and in Egypt, Egyptians actually lose their citizenship if they marry an Isreali, that sounds more like apartheid to me!

As for the Israeli's not offering a two-state solution. It was offered to Palestine in 1936 and 1947. They were offered the West Bank and Gaza in exchange for peace after 1967 and were met with the famous 'three noes', and again more than 90 percent of the territories were offered them in 2000, to which the Palestinians responded by launching the 'Second Intifada' campaign against the Isreali's

Even as recently as 2008 Ehud Olmert tried to offer them a deal and was rejected.

Going back further into history actually Palestine used to be much bigger, incorporating most of what is now Jordan. But Winston Churchill sold 80% of the land to King Abdullah. So Jordan is actually East Palestine, and thus the Arabs WERE given a state of Palestine.

Anyway I just think your bias is incredibly short sighted. Israel have face war against the Arabs on 4 occasions and understandably want to hold onto certain territories for defence purposes as that video I put at the start of the thread clearly demonstrates.

They CANNOT concede that territory because it will just become a hotbed of terror and a launchpad from which the Arabs can attack straight into Tel Aviv itself.

The more I study about the history the more I think the Israeli's have acted with great restraint.

They now face a new rising terror campaign, this time under the guise of humanitarian aid, which that document I showed you conclusively proves, and is completely independent of the Israeli's as well.

In conclusion, the Israeli's are not elites, they are a tiny, tiny nation in the midst of an entirely hostile Arab world that seek only to see it destroyed. They will not oblige and instead choose to defend themselves, and for that you hate them.

[Gandalf]

Since the 2nd world war the US has overthrown or isolated practically dozens of regimes for the crime of not allowing US business interests a central role in the system. Many of these regimes have advocated democracy or a socialist model and instead the US has chosen to support either a military coup or support totalitarian alternatives just so long as the elite allow US investors to make their share of the wealth. The US have acted above all other nations in terms of invasion or else trying to restrict the independance of nations through subversive means. Having just read Understanding Power by Chomsky, it is astonishing how long the list of countries actually is. Give it a read, it is quite shocking. Little old Britain falls way behind in the list of shame, as does Israel too for that matter. Though Israel was used quite often by the American's as a go between for illicit arms dealing in the 3rd world in countries where America wanted to keep it's name out. Apparently this was one of the reasons America continued to fund Israel so heavily. Israel has done a lot of America's dirty work over the years, so is looked upon very favourably.

For sure I admit that the Arabs have attacked Israel in the past. Does that make it right? Absolutely not, but you have to understand that in the eyes of many the sudden appearance of a state in the middle of Palestine after how many hundreds of years, was not a natural state of affairs. It was a horribly planned mess. Look at how big America is today. Why not just give the Jews half of Texas instead or put them in Wyoming? Plenty of space and a system that supports their existence. It was bound to lead to trouble saying "right!. The Jews can have all of this land here in Arab territory and all shall be dandy!". It was always going to end in disaster.

It's all well and good going back to less civilised times and talking about isolated incidents of anti-Jewish aggression. I'm not going to defend that. It's not about being on any one side. Wrong doing is wrong doing no matter who does the wrong doing. Yes, the Arab nations have done kamikaze things, yes, the Israeli's have been nutters in return. But in the past 40 years the Israeli's have been pumped up militarily, been given the bomb and even with all the advantages they have in the region are clearly the bullies in the region. It's like the elite has become the head boy armed with a stick and actually quite likes it. I made a simple list of RECENT bully boy activities commited by the Israeli's in RECENT years and you keep going back to 80 years ago. It isn't 80 years ago, Bilbo. Times have changed, when was the last time that Arabs were a serious threat to Israel? Certainly not now. There is no good reason to be keeping the Gazan people down and referring back to a massacre commited before the state was created is no justification for the blatant oppression going on today. Two wrongs don't make a right. The Israeli elite should know better, but obviously couldn't give a damn.

I talk about apartheid and it is absolutely true. In fact your denial of this is somewhat astonishing. It's a little bit like the Israeli claim that in Gaza "there is no humanitarian problem". Quite laughable. Why would anyone follow that corny line?

Ratner on Israeli apartheid Pt.1

Ratner on Israeli apartheid Pt.2

As for the two state solution. Again you are heading way back into times long gone. Let's talk of the here and now and please don't mention any corny proposals where the Palestinians must cede all land built on illegally by Israel and further accept broader changes in the borders in Israel's favour. There has been no serious talk of a two state solution in many a year. Any solution must fall back on the maps and conditions going back to 1967. This is the only fair way to solve things. And Israel must cede all rights to Palestinian water supplies (unless they want to pay good money for them that is. And even that should be determined by the Palestinians.)

[Gandalf]

An article showing the Israeli policy of apartheid. There's even a nice list of sources for you to check to if you are interested.

Our South Africa Moment Has Arrived

[Gandalf]

And stop saying I hate them, you are twisting it. I have already made the point that I despise the right wing elite who maintain control and dominate and nothing more. By using such blanket terms you are trying to make it as though I hate everyone in Israel and that is blatantly false.

[Kirkland Laing]

Britain and America have both carried out various military occupations over the years. Britain actually carried one out in America at one point. Obviously they've all ended with the occupied eventually booting out the occupier, as will happen eventually in Palestine.

So you think the Israeli's should allow the Palestinians back to their homes and land? You don't think that would just lead to Israel's destruction within months, inviting in a horde of 1 million plus people who hate you and want you destroyed?

It would be one of the worst decisions I can imagine personally.

As for your other points, I think they have some merit, I don't think Israel have acted perfectly on all occasions. I do think they they have generally treated the Arab world better than the Arab wold has treated it, which is probably true of the world as a whole as well.

I'm not sure Israel even occupies Gaza any more, I thought they withdrew in 2005?

The blokcade is becoming an international crisis point now. I saw today Isreal have lifted several restrictions and are allowing more items in than before, although most nations still think this is not enough.

It seems that progress is being made, albiet slowly. I'd like to see Israel withdraw completely, we will see what happens I guess.

I saw the President of Syria is getting itchy trigger fingers today saying this could ignite another war in the middle east. The worst thing about this from Israel's point of view is that they are allowing the most despicable terror groups to take the moral high ground in the eyes of the world.

I don't understand your position regarding terrorism though, in that you regard these groups as the inevitable result of oppression, yet make no concession for Israel's actions, being that they are, the most oppressed and persecuted nation that have ever existed by far. Is it hardly suprising that they don't trust many nations or neighbours when you consider how the world has treated them since around 1500 bc?

What you've got to understand here is that you've read and are just repeating the kind of nonsense that the bedwetting faction of the Israeli media keep repeating, that Israel is at threat from a bunch of civilians or Arab armies. There is zero threat from any number of Palestinian civilians other than at the ballot box*. And there's no threat whatsoever from any Arab army. Syria are getting an "itchy trigger finger"? Syria don't have any military capability, they've got ancient old Soviet-era hardware and Israel are a scaled-down version of the US army with billions of dollars of the latest US equipment given to them every year by America. If Syria bump-started the few dozen Soviet-era tanks that they haven't cannibalised for spare parts and headed for the Israeli border, an Israeli satellite would see them coming, F-16 jets would fly over and bomb them to buggery before they even got to the border. There is zero chance of any threat from any Arab army because put together they don't have and offensive military capability and never have, since oil got discovered there in 1907 Britain and America haven't sold them any useful stuff. The Soviets sold the some WW2-era stuff in the sixties but that's it. Here's how threatening the Palestinian civilians are for israel. Scroll down halfway to FACING A CROWD :

Pictures of the Week: May 9 - May 14 - Photo Journal - WSJ

The fuckers are still ethnically cleansing in 2010.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Israel withdrew from Gaza to prevent any movement in the peace process :

A top Israeli official has claimed that Ariel Sharon's Gaza withdrawal plan was deliberately formulated to block peace negotiations with Yasser Arafat. "The significance of the plan is the freezing of the peace process," Dov Weisglass told Haaretz newspaper, adding the US had given its backing.
Palestinian statehood, refugees and the status of Jerusalem had effectively been dropped off the agenda, he said.



BBC NEWS | Middle East | Sharon plan 'blocked peace talks'




Weisglass, who was one of the initiators of the disengagement plan, added,
"And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a
Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the
borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the
Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely
from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a
presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress."

"The disengagement is actually formaldehyde," he said. "It supplies the
amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political
process with the Palestinians."

Asked why the disengagement plan had been hatched, Weisglass replied:
"Because in the fall of 2003 we understood that everything was stuck. And
although by the way the Americans read the situation, the blame fell on the
Palestinians, not on us, Arik [Sharon] grasped that this state of affairs
could not last, that they wouldn't leave us alone, wouldn't get off our
case. Time was not on our side. There was international erosion, internal
erosion. Domestically, in the meantime, everything was collapsing. The
economy was stagnant, and the Geneva Initiative had gained broad support.
And then we were hit with the letters of officers and letters of pilots and
letters of commandos [refusing to serve in the territories]. These were not
weird kids with green ponytails and a ring in their nose with a strong odor
of grass. These were people like Spector's group [Yiftah Spector, a
renowned Air Force pilot who signed the pilot's letter]. Really our finest
young people."

Weisglass does not deny that the main achievement of the Gaza plan is the
freezing of the peace process in a "legitimate manner."


Yahoo! Groups




So faced with international pressure to make peace, or at least faced with the erosion of the usual blind pro-Israel support, the Israelis withdrew to maintain the status quo. And immediately instituted a blockade of Gaza, slightly less unpleasant than the current one but a blockade nevertheless. And Israel control all three entry/exit points to Gaza and the sea border too so Gaza is basically the world's largest open-air prison. And Israel steal half the water supply in Gaza and pump it out for their own use, don't let the Palestinians fish off the coast, fire shells at any Palestinians who go on the beach, etc. etc. Which is why the Gazans resist their imprisonment, which will continue long after the world forgets about the flotilla.






* Demographically Israel are fucked and eventually Israel will end up like South Africa did with the natives in charge, something I'll explain when I've got more time.

[Kirkland Laing]

You talk about apartheid but in reality this is just not true. There are many Israeli Arabs in the Knesset, also soldiers and police force. Arab citizens get full legal rights.

Four decades later, the increasingly complex world of Israel's system of classification deems Said Rhateb to be a resident of the West Bank - somewhere he has never lived - and an illegal alien for living in the home in which he was born, inside the Jerusalem boundary. Jerusalem's council forces Rhateb to pay substantial property taxes on his house but that does not give him the right to live in it, and he is periodically arrested for doing so. Rhateb's children have been thrown out of their Jerusalem school, he cannot register a car in his name - or rather he can, but only one with Palestinian number plates, which means he cannot drive it to his home because only Israeli-registered cars are allowed within Jerusalem - and he needs a pass to visit the centre of the city. The army grants him about four a year.
There is more. If Rhateb is not legally resident in his own home, then he is defined as an "absentee" who has abandoned his property. Under Israeli law, it now belongs to the state or, more particularly, its Jewish citizens. "They sent papers that said we cannot sell the land or develop it because we do not own the land. It belongs to the state," he says. "Any time they want to confiscate it, they can, because they say we are absentees even though we are living in the house."

Worlds apart | World news | The Guardian


Also. If a bunch of militant Muslim immigrants started migrating to Britain in 1880 with the stated intention of setting up a Muslim state and set up terrorist groups to kill and threaten the natives while trying to expand over as big an area as possible, with ongoing killings etc., how do you think the natives would react? That's why some Palestinians killed some Jews pre-1948.

[Nameless]

I didn't reply to this thread by lack of time but in a nutshell: Kirklang and Miles are 100% right. Bilbo, digging out from 1830 when Israel was not even existing is extremely silly, it's like if i would dislike english Canadian and would dig out the Patriot Revolts from the 1876 to justify that, it's just... a non sense.
If Israel would stop stealing lands and building their own houses on it an going back to the 1967 borders, it would be all good in a matter of a few years (because when you pile shit for half a century long, you can imagine, I hope, that you're giving incredible roots to hate). After all the arguments I, Miles and Kirkland gave you with proofs in various topic about it, I wonder why you continue your non sense crusade for Israel, either you like to stir up controversy hobbit style or you have a bit of a loose screw when it touches political-religious matter touching indirectly the bible (which doesn't make you less charming, by the way )

[amat]

(which doesn't make you less charming, by the way )

Nameless, out of you, Miles and Laing, you're the one who acts like he's trying to seduce Bilbo Very bizarre.

[Gandalf]

I am adding nothing new to the thread here, but just adding a video for Bilbo to watch. I think we both agree that Finklestein carries himself in a most unique way. For me not only does he talk a lot of sense, but he is never in a dull interview.

[Gandalf]

Here's another classic. I'm working my way through all available stuff on You Tube. Finkelstein is my new favourite academic. I'm going to have to buy his new book.