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[burningpet]

The point is, they didn't live in this country. their great grandfather might and fled for various reasons, but that doesn't mean anything. if anyone truly cared about palestines, as in, cared about the people, the human beings, they would have tried to give them a realistic home, a decent life, instead of using them as a political and military leverage. by perpetuating those ridiculous claims, you are only prolonging their actual suffering.

Considering the only reason Israel exists as a state is a 2000 year old claim getting precedence over both all the people who had lived there in the meantime and the people who were living there at the time, I don't really think there's grounds to claim "let the past be past and move on" without turning it into a cynical "let the past be past and move on because the current positions are favouring my people and you should just put everything bad we did to you to get here behind you already".

We are more than willing to forgive and let go of the past when it comes to the germans, the greeks, the italians and the spanish. we are also willing to forgive and let go of the past when it comes to arabs trying to exterminate us a mere three years after the germans tried and failed.

Seems we are very much prone to forgiveness and letting go of the past i'd say.

[Helgoland]

The point is, they didn't live in this country. their great grandfather might and fled for various reasons, but that doesn't mean anything. if anyone truly cared about palestines, as in, cared about the people, the human beings, they would have tried to give them a realistic home, a decent life, instead of using them as a political and military leverage. by perpetuating those ridiculous claims, you are only prolonging their actual suffering.

Considering the only reason Israel exists as a state is a 2000 year old claim getting precedence over both all the people who had lived there in the meantime and the people who were living there at the time, I don't really think there's grounds to claim "let the past be past and move on" without turning it into a cynical "let the past be past and move on because the current positions are favouring my people and you should just put everything bad we did to you to get here behind you already".

Because in 1948 no Jews were living in the region at all.

Riiight.

Why is it so difficult to treat the Palestinian refugees just like any others? Why is it that the Middle East conflict is the one case where we won't accept that bad things happened half a century ago? My grandparents were expelled from what is now western Poland, there's even the story of my mum's cousin almost being left at the train station because they thought he had frozen to death, only to be saved my my granfather's stubbornness, yet I don't go around claiming a right to the land that was theirs before the war. There have been innumerable German atrocities all over Europe, but nobody gets worked up about that or tries to claim reparations. No-one in what used to be Czechoslovakia would try to exact revenge upon Russia for the events of 1968.
Why is Israel special?

[LordSlowpoke]

* LordSlowpoke slaps helgo

you'd have a right to that sure (and some actually believe they do - steinbach ring any bells?)

but the powers that be decided that we are not fucking with land anymore as in ever

there was no such declaration in the middle east, or anywhere else for the latter, otherwise we'd still have colonies out of the wazoo down there

and if you're saying that people weren't pissed at germans following the events at ww2, you simply show your ignorance regarding societal attitudes of the post-war era

same goes with hungarians and czechoslovaks after their respective friendly interventions happened

also, israel is taking material compensation for one of the atrocities you mentioned, funnily enough - though truth be told they did find the idea of doing so revolting when it began

thing being: shit was seven decades ago, the people - both responsible and the victims - are dying off if they aren't dead already, and the world is moving on

you should do so too

[BlindKitty]

The point is, they didn't live in this country. their great grandfather might and fled for various reasons, but that doesn't mean anything. if anyone truly cared about palestines, as in, cared about the people, the human beings, they would have tried to give them a realistic home, a decent life, instead of using them as a political and military leverage. by perpetuating those ridiculous claims, you are only prolonging their actual suffering.

Considering the only reason Israel exists as a state is a 2000 year old claim getting precedence over both all the people who had lived there in the meantime and the people who were living there at the time, I don't really think there's grounds to claim "let the past be past and move on" without turning it into a cynical "let the past be past and move on because the current positions are favouring my people and you should just put everything bad we did to you to get here behind you already".

Because in 1948 no Jews were living in the region at all.

Riiight.

Why is it so difficult to treat the Palestinian refugees just like any others? Why is it that the Middle East conflict is the one case where we won't accept that bad things happened half a century ago? My grandparents were expelled from what is now western Poland, there's even the story of my mum's cousin almost being left at the train station because they thought he had frozen to death, only to be saved my my granfather's stubbornness, yet I don't go around claiming a right to the land that was theirs before the war. There have been innumerable German atrocities all over Europe, but nobody gets worked up about that or tries to claim reparations. No-one in what used to be Czechoslovakia would try to exact revenge upon Russia for the events of 1968.
Why is Israel special?

Well, I will give you a little heads-up; in Poland we have recently had a document that states that we can ask for 850 billions $ in reparations from Germany, and there is a serious consideration to go ahead and try to get them.

[Helgoland]

Uh... That's pretty much precisely what I'm saying. People were pissed immediately afterwards, but aren't anymore now. Somehow, this process of acceptance is not taking place in the Middle East. 1945 and 1948 are pretty close.

And no, I don't have a right to that land - simply because there's probably a very happy Polish family who has been living there for seventy years now and considers it their own, and by claiming that land I'd be displacing them. In law, there's such a thing as the statute of limitations, and the reasons for its existence are reasons for introducing such a mechanism to international law as well.
There are some obvious exceptions, such as war crimes or genocide, but even for these some mechanism of acceptance should be established.

E: Greece had something like that as well. There's no way in hell it'll go through. If you have any evidence to the contrary, please post a link - it would produce quite a stir in the German public.

[LordSlowpoke]

* LordSlowpoke shrugs

reading is hard m8

now that i have a decent idea of what you meant consider the following: is israel in its 1948 borders now?

if no, why

afterwards i'd request you hop a few pages back (or into ye olde zion discussion threadas) and ask whenever israel is meant to be a jewish-only state or not, and what this means for the non-jewish population of the territories israel holds or would like to hold

additionally you should stumble upon what happens to the non-jewish population that does not happen to be in israel but originates from it in the neighboring countries (this is literally a page ago, on 15ppp)

this should explain pretty well why the process of acceptance is not happening

[BlindKitty]

Well, I don't really have details at the moment (but I'm pretty sure some will surface soon), but the general idea is that we have apparently never waived our right for such reparations effectively. Right after WW II, with all the Commies running around and shooting patriots, somebody up there decided that we don't want the money, but it was ineffective in the light of international law, due to stuff (there's the details I don't have access to ). There is of course no way our current government does anything with it, but after next elections (2015) and change in power, it might actually make some waves.

There was some kind of investigation being conducted privately, which led to those implications above, and it surfaced recently, which is why I'm writing about this, even though I do not have all the information.

[smjjames]

Uh, it's not like the Israel area has been barren of people for the last 2,000 years, the people had to come from SOMEWHERE.

Of course though, the main difference here is that in Europe, the violence pretty much stopped (aside from the Balkans and the Soviet sattelites), while in the MidEast, it's been a never ending cycle of violence, which brings the whole thing to square one every dang time.

As for colonies, wasn't the MidEast region mostly British controlled anyway?

[LordSlowpoke]

france had lebanon and syria, turkey, saudis and iran were independent, rest was british

whole place was theirs for circa 40 years, and ottoman beforehand

[smjjames]

Yeah well, the British Empire dissolved and whatever France did with Lebanon and Syria, so, we don't have colonies out the wazoo anyway.

[LordSlowpoke]

i know i admitted to reading being hard, but i never claimed this was the case?

we would have these if things that were introduced in europe were extended to the rest of the world

[smjjames]

Maybe I'm just having a bit of a hard time following you plus I'm tired.

we would have these if things that were introduced in europe were extended to the rest of the world

Like what for example? The reparations after WWII? I'm having trouble connecting what you're connecting with the aftermath of WWII and Israel.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Spoiler: I guess there are will be no green men in Estonia (click to show/hide)

 

I think it is a great "success" for Russian diplomacy to get tanks right near his borders. No one bothered to place serious forces in Baltic States

[Helgoland]

* LordSlowpoke shrugs

reading is hard m8

now that i have a decent idea of what you meant consider the following: is israel in its 1948 borders now?

if no, why

1967 war, sure. Considering that the majority of displaced Palestinians are descendants of Palestinians displaced during the Israeli war of independence, that's hardly an issue.
And there's already ethnic Arabs with Israeli citizenship. I do not understand what point you're trying to make.

[Sergarr]

Spoiler: I guess there are will be no green men in Estonia (click to show/hide)

 

I think it is a great "success" for Russian diplomacy to get tanks right near his borders. No one bothered to place serious forces in Baltic States

More tanks near our border? Great, we don't have to go across half the world to destroy them!