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[Zangi]

Israel exists, therefore I think it has a right to continue existing. And Israelis have a right to act in their own interest. Are we trying to abolish Communist China because of their human rights abuses? Are we trying to partition Turkey and Iraq because of their persecution of ethnic Kurds? I don't understand why Israel is some kind of special case when it comes to this. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians, but I think Israel should be left to figure this out for themselves.

I think its the fact that the US has backed Israel since whenever despite all the human rights abuses....  The US does not back China or any others with millions in aid money and using their veto powers to prevent such accountability.

So yea, you can say that Israel has already been left to deal with its 'problem' for a long time now... which they decided the best course of action is to push out the Palestinians and making it hard for any who choose to stay in Israel to socially/economically function....

[nenjin]

In the end its the hardliners that prevent any progress from going forward. Hardliner Israelis keep pushing for more settlements, and hardliner Palestinians refuse to respect cease fire agreements. Parties on both sides continually sabotage the process, and that's even before moderates start dickering over historical territorial boundaries and division of services and such.

Basically I think it will take a new generation that is more sick of the violence and the troubles than anything else, before real change will come about. But if the hardliners have their way, the same things they've suffered will be passed on to the next generation, so no one gets to escape the vendetta.

[Svarte Troner]

Israel has been on the defensive against belligerent arab nations right on their doorstep from the day after their independence. The Israelis are bombarded almost daily by Palestinian rockets and mortars, and their terrorist organizations vow to wipe Israel off the map completely. If I were an Israeli, I'd be just a little hesitant to give these people a voice in the Israelis government.

[nenjin]

Israel has been on the defensive against belligerent arab nations right on their doorstep from the day after their independence. The Israelis are bombarded almost daily by Palestinian rockets and mortars, and their terrorist organizations vow to wipe Israel off the map completely. If I were an Israeli, I'd be just a little hesitant to give these people a voice in the Israelis government.

No one is saying they haven't had reasons. But you cannot use that excuse to continue fucking over the entire Palestinian nation. Palestinians =/= the whole Arab world and Al-Qaeda.

This is why support for Israel plays so well over here. You just tell an American to picture someone pointing a gun at their family and you get total agreement that they should use any means necessary. Even when, domestically, not all Americans agree on that premise.

[Loud Whispers]

Israel has been on the defensive against belligerent arab nations right on their doorstep from the day after their independence. The Israelis are bombarded almost daily by Palestinian rockets and mortars, and their terrorist organizations vow to wipe Israel off the map completely. If I were an Israeli, I'd be just a little hesitant to give these people a voice in the Israelis government.

And Palestinians get rounded up, imprisoned and tortured. Daily. Worse happens still. It's no wonder why the Israelis wouldn't want to give power to the Palestinians.

[Zangi]

Israel has been on the defensive against belligerent arab nations right on their doorstep from the day after their independence. The Israelis are bombarded almost daily by Palestinian rockets and mortars, and their terrorist organizations vow to wipe Israel off the map completely. If I were an Israeli, I'd be just a little hesitant to give these people a voice in the Israelis government.

@Palestinians: The main problem is they've fostered that particular situation for themselves with the Palestinians...  sure, they might have had some crazy fanatics to deal with in the beginning... but they've helped perpetuate the problem to something they could not help but shaft more of them... continuing the cycle.

And when dealing with its neighbors... meh, they seem as crazy as the crazy Arabs who want their heads...

[G-Flex]

Honestly, I'm not sure why the Palestinians shouldn't have gotten upset that the Israelis wanted the entire area to themselves as their own Jewish state.

[Svarte Troner]

Israel has been on the defensive against belligerent arab nations right on their doorstep from the day after their independence. The Israelis are bombarded almost daily by Palestinian rockets and mortars, and their terrorist organizations vow to wipe Israel off the map completely. If I were an Israeli, I'd be just a little hesitant to give these people a voice in the Israelis government.

But you cannot use that excuse to continue fucking over the entire Palestinian nation.

I'm not sure why I'm trying to debate this since it seems you all are against Israel (and I'm mainly just playing "Devil's advocate"), but everyone seems to think Israel is the only entity "fucking over" the Palestinians. Palestinians are barred from entering most of the states surrounding Israel. And as long as there's a lot of poor, angry Palestinians stuck in limbo between Israel and the Arab world, there's pressure for ending Israel and a lot of poor angry people people who have nothing better to do than to kill Israelis. Which is just what the Arab states want. It's not all Israel's fault for fucking over the Palestinians.

[RedKing]

I don't see why it HAS to be impossible that there could be a single joint state of Israel-Palestine, ruled by political parties composed of Jews and Arabs together with Jerusalem as the capital of a unified state. The main obstacles are the people on either side who absolutely refuse anything less than total victory for their side.

The Israeli parliament does have one kinda legit argument against this, namely that if all the Palestinians in "their" territory had weight in the Israeli government, they'd vastly outnumber the Israelis, and we can be sure that wouldn't end well either.  So they pretty much have to pretend that Palestine is actually a separate country squatting on their land, because if they admitted Palestine into its governance and wanted to protect their control over the process, then it would be abundantly obvious how screwed up the situation they've engineered is.

Yeah, kinda like how the white South Africans couldn't possibly let the blacks vote because there were so many more of them, and it would end in mass slaughter of the whites. Except that it didn't.

I mean, I know that *is* the argument that people use in the Knesset. I'm just saying it's not necessarily a given that Palestinian majority would be a horrible thing.
Sinn Fein got brought into the political system in Northern Ireland. There was no genocide of Protestants.
The ANC got brought into the political system in South Africa. There was no genocide of white South Africans.
A Palestinian majority brought into the Israeli political system doesn't inherently mean a genocide of Jewish Israelis.

At the end of the days, politics is politics. Give your constituency what they want, they'll vote for you. The vast majority of Palestinians want food, water, electricity, a decent place to live, and a job. If an Israeli Jewish politician can offer them that (and they have good reason to believe him/her), they'll vote for him.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Fun Fact: I'm Jewish and I hate Israel. One of the very very few of us that actually gives a damn about equality, I guess. I feel bad for the Palestinians. We abandon land for thousands of years after fighting tooth and nail over it, and then expect them to give it back with no qualms. While we bombs their houses. And torture their relatives.

But yes, the majority of the oppression of the Palestinian people in this current day and age is caused mainly by Israel and her policies, sorry. Any other statements are mere speculation and to be ignored. [Also blocking of Palestinian refugees is to prevent a crisis with Israel in most bordering countries' cases] You'd actually find that to be a political death sentence in most Arabic countries. They are rather anti-Israel, if you don't recall. It's not a case of them seeing it as an "Enemy of my enemy is my friend" it's more along the lines of "My brothers are being oppressed by Zionists" and helping the oppressors wouldn't be a good idea.

Israel is a failed state. They need to stop their cultural genocide and take a hint from medieval Islam- Accept the different people, for fuck sake. They're easier to tax that way.

[Kilroy the Grand]

The ANC got brought into the political system in South Africa. There was no genocide of white South Africans.

The ANC Youth League has warned white South Africans their safety cannot be guaranteed if they refuse to give up their land voluntarily.

Don't click the second link unless you're okay with gore, you've been warned.
World’s top genocide expert and founder of Genocide Watch, Prof. Gregory Stanton, visits South Africa to investigate violence against whites (Afrikaners). He warns them at a press conference on July 26 2012: “Don’t give up your guns.”

[RedKing]

The ANC got brought into the political system in South Africa. There was no genocide of white South Africans.

The ANC Youth League has warned white South Africans their safety cannot be guaranteed if they refuse to give up their land voluntarily.

It's been how many years since the end of apartheid? I never said derpitude can't creep back into the system given bad conditions and enough time (and the ANC Youth League has been a recent source of problems, if you look at the swirl of controversy surrounding its former head).

Likewise, there's still remnants of the IRA and Ulster Unionists causing problems from time to time, but it's a far cry from a crisis situation.

[nenjin]

Svarte, you seem to be implying that Palestinians should just leave and "go find somewhere else to live" if only the other Arab nations would let them. Do I have the gist of that correct?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The ANC got brought into the political system in South Africa. There was no genocide of white South Africans.

The ANC Youth League has warned white South Africans their safety cannot be guaranteed if they refuse to give up their land voluntarily.

It's been how many years since the end of apartheid? I never said derpitude can't creep back into the system given bad conditions and enough time (and the ANC Youth League has been a recent source of problems, if you look at the swirl of controversy surrounding its former head).

Likewise, there's still remnants of the IRA and Ulster Unionists causing problems from time to time, but it's a far cry from a crisis situation.

And it is worth noting that ever since the peace agreements the IRA and Ulster Unionists have found themselves seriously lacking in the kind of mass support they need to cause genocidal harm. Successful peace dealings weaken extremists because it gives people the impression that their "anything necessary" approach isn't necessary at all. Sharing power goes a long way in convincing people you don't want to destroy them.

[Flying Dice]

I think pretty much every candidate aside from Ron Paul publicly backs Israel in American politics. The Jewish lobby is quite strong, very wealthy, and are politically and socially connected. I don't think you can survive in American politics saying we need to cut Israel off financially or that they're oppressing the Palestinians. Or at the very least, you can't get elected and run the risk of being labeled an anti-Semite.

Personally, I think American and general international support and sympathy for Israel has emboldened them to the point where they're becoming a problem for the region. They're agitating for war against Iran and pulling the whole world into that conflict, and they're immune to criticism on the Palestinian issue because the countries that would normally decry this kind of stuff are in their corner.

So yeah, I feel like Israel has long been shielded from the consequences of its political decisions, mainly by us. I have all the sympathy for them still living in a warzone, but that conflict has long since cut both ways. It isn't the one-sided aggression that Israel tries to present it as.

This is a perfect representation of pretty much everything I have to say on the issue. I'd support a politician willing to take a firmer stance with Israel, but they'd never get elected, even without the predictable tarring with the "anti-Semite" brush. There's a critical lack of understanding of the difference between being anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist, and it is (ab)used to prevent any real opposition to US support for Israel.