Quote Originally Posted by Bilbo View Post
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.

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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.