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[Virex]

The problem here is that the Palestinians were wronged by the creation of Israel, that more than sixty year of realpolitic have passed since, and that they have to work on peace now.

It wasn't just the Palestinians that were wronged. Need I remind you that in the decades prior to the founding of Israel (and for several years after, up until Israel started to take things serious), many Jewish immigrants were brutally murdered by Palestinian rioters? Or that the last time Israel was prepared to make concession, the Palestinians responded by starting the second intifada?

[Africa]

Isn't demanding people to stop building settlements going directly against the right of people to settle where they want?

Huh? People don't have the right to settle whereever they want if that involves confiscating land and keeping its native population under military rule for the convenience of the settlers.

They're already constantly being attacked by rockets and suicide bombers.

Once again, if you're going to talk about the Middle East, you should have some vague notion of what you're talking about. Tell me, when was the last suicide bomber?

I fail to see how things would improve if the Palestians would be allowed to buy tanks and howitzers? Plus, rewarding terrorists with their own country (you can hardly deny that a significant amount of the future Palestinian politicians is currently very occupied with blowing up innocent Israelites Palestinians Civilians) isn't going to spell much good for Spain, Turkey and Iraq...

Well, you could hardly expect Palestinians to accept that, given that it comes from the assumption that only Israel's security matters. You constantly hear people talking about Israel's security this, Israel's security that, but it's bizarre, because the thing is, Israel HAS security. Palestinians don't. Security is a thing that they might someday hope to achieve, and security comes from the ability to, to some degree, defend yourself if needed. That's why, being surrounded on three sides by their former occupier and colonizer (many of whose politicians would still be frothing at the mouth to reclaim the land and empty it of its inhabitants), they couldn't even have a semblance of security if they were forced to be unarmed. What about an international force stationed there to protect them? Well, again, when Palestinians look at what the international community does for them, they see all talk, no action, so there's no reason they'd trust some UN force to stand up to the IDF if for whatever reason the Israeli PM decided to re-invade.

Also, got to love "rewarding terrorists with their own country." Yup, four million terrorists! I mean, when things are that clear-cut, why not just kick all those millions of terrorists out and let Israel have the land?!

Get real man. Name me a country whose struggle for independence didn't involve what we would today call terrorism. The tactics used by some Kurds, Basques or Palestinians doesn't have any effect on the basic right of self-determination.

@ Virex: You don't want to dig up the pre-1948 history of who brutally murdered who. Believe me, both sides have enough grievance from that period to justify a whole couple decades of conflict. And believe me, they have no problem dragging it out whenever peace threatens to break out.

Anyway, Obama apparently let it be known that he doesn't think Netanyahu will ever do what it takes to make peace. They're meeting later today. I can't wait to hear what comes out of this meeting.

[LoSboccacc]

Get real man. Name me a country whose struggle for independence didn't involve what we would today call terrorism. The tactics used by some Kurds, Basques or Palestinians doesn't have any effect on the basic right of self-determination.

ditto. terrorism is defined by the winner, and is what the loser does. otherwise, they're called patriots.

just look at italian partisan in ww2, they were fighting against nazis so they were the good guys, but they were guerrilla. and terrorist, to an extent. they usually avoided harming civilians but make no mistake: nazis civilian collaborators were hanged when possible

[Virex]

There's a clear difference between Hamas and the Partisans you already indicated. The partisans tried not to kill civilians, while Hamas tries to target them explicitly. The first, while close to terrorism could conceivably be seen as an independence war. The second is just bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed. No country has ever gained freedom by targeting civilians and those that gained independence that way even lost most of their freedom.

Also, got to love "rewarding terrorists with their own country." Yup, four million terrorists! I mean, when things are that clear-cut, why not just kick all those millions of terrorists out and let Israel have the land?!

The idea t move the Palestinians somewhere better is appealing and it would've been a valid solution if the Palestinian-supporting countries were actually prepared to accept the Palestinians instead of dumping them in detention camps that in the case of the western world are far worse then the situation in the Gaza strip (and don't get me started on what goes on in Arabian countries)

Get real man. Name me a country whose struggle for independence didn't involve what we would today call terrorism. The tactics used by some Kurds, Basques or Palestinians doesn't have any effect on the basic right of self-determination.

If the basic right of self-determination involves the basic right to blow up your fellow citizens, then I can hardly argue against that, no... But I think Gandhi and the current Egyptian population would have liked to have a word with you about this.
Besides, what value is a struggle for independence when it's being led by people who have made it clear that they have no interest in the independence of their people? Would you have supported the Bolsheviks, Fidel Castro or the Tamil tigers? Do you support the Lords Army?
First thing that needs to be done is that the Palestinian leaders are brought to trail for their crimes. You can't have peace talks with someone who's idea of peace involves dead Jews...

[Nikov]

Once again, if you're going to talk about the Middle East, you should have some vague notion of what you're talking about. Tell me, when was the last suicide bomber?

This is a disgusting red herring. Please tell me you're not trying to pretend that because the last successful "suicide" bombing attack was in 2008 that shit like this doesn't count, nor the hundred rockets fired a few days later.

[Africa]

Once again, if you're going to talk about the Middle East, you should have some vague notion of what you're talking about. Tell me, when was the last suicide bomber?

This is a disgusting red herring. Please tell me you're not trying to pretend that because the last successful "suicide" bombing attack was in 2008 that shit like this doesn't count, nor the hundred rockets fired a few days later.

Um, his original comment was that Israel was "constantly being besieged by suicide bombers and rocket attacks" or something to that effect. Clearly the remarks of someone who doesn't follow events in the region at all, because it hasn't been true for years.

There's a clear difference between Hamas and the Partisans you already indicated. The partisans tried not to kill civilians, while Hamas tries to target them explicitly. The first, while close to terrorism could conceivably be seen as an independence war. The second is just bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed. No country has ever gained freedom by targeting civilians and those that gained independence that way even lost most of their freedom.

All of those groups I mentioned have targeted civilians intentionally, and as part of the same reason Hamas does. "Bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed?" Do you have any idea of the history behind Hamas? And as for a country gaining independence by attacking civilians...well, the original borders of Israel encompassed land that had 800,000 less Arab civilians than before the war. Read up on that history and you'll also start to understand why groups like Hamas might exist.

Once again, digging up historical events of who did what atrocious thing to whom gets you nowhere, because both sides have enough atrocities the other side did to them that they can construct a whole narrative of victimhood consisting entirely of the other one's evil deeds and ignoring their own. People should know about history, but they also have to ignore it in order to make forward progress.

The idea t move the Palestinians somewhere better is appealing and it would've been a valid solution

Wait, I'm pretty sure you just advocated ethnic cleansing as "appealing and would have been a valid solution." I'd love to see how you explicate on this.

First thing that needs to be done is that the Palestinian leaders are brought to trail for their crimes. You can't have peace talks with someone who's idea of peace involves dead Jews...

Which Palestinian leaders? Also, you know what Palestinians are saying right? "First thing that needs to happen is that Israeli leaders are brought to trial for their crimes. You can't have peace talks with someone whose idea of peace involves ethnically cleansing our entire nation."

You see how it goes? Everybody wants to be the victim, everybody has legitimate stories of how they've been victimized, and everybody is horribly threatened by the idea of the other guy having his own victimhood stories. Sometimes I meet people who seem to be more attached to the victim role than they are eager to move on and make peace.

Incidentally, one thing I would always try to tell Israelis (to no avail usually, unless they were already thinking that way) is that a big part of their image problem comes from the fact that they do hold onto said victim role. They do have all these horrendous stories, but the fact is, from the perspective of the entire rest of the planet, they just cannot out-victim the Palestinians. The fact that they try to - and often, as a response to people pointing out the godawful things their government has done - just makes them look more and more like the bad guy. Unfortunately, the ones who understand this are a small minority and can't elect an effective proportion of the Knesset; the rest are either apathetic or else locked into a biblical fantasy-land where nothing else counts because God is on their side and will fight for them.

[LoSboccacc]

There's a clear difference between Hamas and the Partisans you already indicated. The partisans tried not to kill civilians, while Hamas tries to target them explicitly.

yeah sure. 

because petacci was totally not a civilian.


warning: strong content.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Leafsnail]

Isn't demanding people to stop building settlements going directly against the right of people to settle where they want?

This almost made me spit out my drink, goddamn.  I don't see how forcing people off their land, demolishing their houses and building on it yourself is defensible in any way.

They're already constantly being attacked by rockets and suicide bombers. I fail to see how things would improve if the Palestians would be allowed to buy tanks and howitzers? Plus, rewarding terrorists with their own country (you can hardly deny that a significant amount of the future Palestinian politicians is currently very occupied with blowing up innocent Israelites Palestinians Civilians) isn't going to spell much good for Spain, Turkey and Iraq...

To be fair, a significant amount of current Israeli politicians are currently occupied with blowing up...

I guess you could respond with "Hamas aim for civilians", but that could just be a matter of technology (it's hard to aim rockets at military targets).  And Israel does ultimately kill more civilians (although again, I guess it could just be technology)... I'd say both sides share the blame.

[Africa]

Hamas does aim for civilians. Or did. The other thing people miss whose picture of the middle east is from 2005 is that, although it's hard to tell what's going on, they seem to be moving toward moderation. It'll take a while, and their rhetoric is still inflammatory (although getting a lot less so), but keep in mind that what people say publicly and what they do in that part of the world are often radically different. And keep in mind all the other violent groups that eventually made peace with each other. The PLO, an ex-terrorist group, ended up signing peace deals with members of the same pre-state Zionist terror groups that had destroyed some of the villages their families game from. Israel's ex-terrorist prime minister, Menachem Begin, signed a peace deal with the president of Egypt, a country that had just attacked his four years previously. So Hamas' charter calls for the destruction of Israel? OK, but their leaders have recently come out saying they could accept the 1967 borders. And Likud's charter says no Palestinian state, ever, but Netanyahu's one sort-of accomplishment this time in office was to make a speech where he accepted exactly that concept. Of course he's still been fighting it tooth and nail, but the point is, he contradicted his own party's founding document. Why would we expect Hamas to be unable to do the same?

If the Israeli administration knew what was good for them, they'd try to encourage Hamas to become moderate. As I was saying earlier, a Palestinian state might mean a chance of rocket attacks and other stuff against Israel, but surely that's better than the absolute certainty of Israel ceasing to exist because of demographics? The right wing is out of touch with reality though. They seem to think that by refusing to acknowledge that truth, and, in the case of some of them, by clinging to their 3000-year-old fairy tales, everything will come out OK if they just hold fast.

[scriver]

The idea t move the Palestinians somewhere better is appealing and it would've been a valid solution if the Palestinian-supporting countries were actually prepared to accept the Palestinians instead of dumping them in detention camps that in the case of the western world are far worse then the situation in the Gaza strip (and don't get me started on what goes on in Arabian countries)

Now, what the fuck? First you state that Israeli people should be allowed to take whatever land they want because of their "right to settle where they want", and now you advocate forcefully expelling all Palestinians from their rightfully owned land?

You're such a damn hypocrite.

[Virex]

There's a difference between the killing of Petacci and the structural targeting of civilians. Hamas has never offered their targets the opportunity to flee for that matter.

Once again, if you're going to talk about the Middle East, you should have some vague notion of what you're talking about. Tell me, when was the last suicide bomber?

This is a disgusting red herring. Please tell me you're not trying to pretend that because the last successful "suicide" bombing attack was in 2008 that shit like this doesn't count, nor the hundred rockets fired a few days later.

Um, his original comment was that Israel was "constantly being besieged by suicide bombers and rocket attacks" or something to that effect. Clearly the remarks of someone who doesn't follow events in the region at all, because it hasn't been true for years.

There have been plenty of suicide bombings on Israel. They stopped around the same time Israel erected that big wall. Coincidence much?

There's a clear difference between Hamas and the Partisans you already indicated. The partisans tried not to kill civilians, while Hamas tries to target them explicitly. The first, while close to terrorism could conceivably be seen as an independence war. The second is just bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed. No country has ever gained freedom by targeting civilians and those that gained independence that way even lost most of their freedom.

All of those groups I mentioned have targeted civilians intentionally, and as part of the same reason Hamas does. "Bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed?" Do you have any idea of the history behind Hamas? And as for a country gaining independence by attacking civilians...well, the original borders of Israel encompassed land that had 800,000 less Arab civilians than before the war. Read up on that history and you'll also start to understand why groups like Hamas might exist.

And that justifies structural terrorism against innocent civilians because? At least the ETA usually warns people before they attack them and prefers to target high-value targets and police offices instead of buses of school children.
Besides that, Hamas isn't really all you seem to think it is. Remember the recent infighting? the wars with Fatah? The corruption amongst Hamas leaders? I don't think the fate of Palestine is what they're fighting for. More likely their own wallet, filled by the cash of the people who think sending aid to Palestine is going to do anything, combined with firework displays involving Israelite civilians to impress the populace.

Once again, digging up historical events of who did what atrocious thing to whom gets you nowhere, because both sides have enough atrocities the other side did to them that they can construct a whole narrative of victimhood consisting entirely of the other one's evil deeds and ignoring their own. People should know about history, but they also have to ignore it in order to make forward progress.

I was trying to point out that the proposed plan is playing with the lives of Israeli AND Palestinian civilians. I know just as well as you do that the Palestinians killed more Palestinians then they killed Israelites. Giving them their own country would throw them to the mercy of the same people that seem to think shooting rockets at school children is a good PR move. I can only shudder at the things they could do with real military equipment.

The idea t move the Palestinians somewhere better is appealing and it would've been a valid solution

Wait, I'm pretty sure you just advocated ethnic cleansing as "appealing and would have been a valid solution." I'd love to see how you explicate on this.

You yourself have said multiple times that both sides of the conflict have enough to grieve over for several more decades of war. The only way to prevent that from happening is by forcibly separating both sides. Currently that happens via a big wall, but that solution is far from ideal, especially if you take into account that Egypt is letting people import millitary equipment into Gaza again.

A better solution would be to find another place to live for the Palestinians, a place where they do have a future and a place where their leaders can't practice "Remote whack-a-mole" with missiles and school buses.

First thing that needs to be done is that the Palestinian leaders are brought to trail for their crimes. You can't have peace talks with someone who's idea of peace involves dead Jews...

Which Palestinian leaders? Also, you know what Palestinians are saying right? "First thing that needs to happen is that Israeli leaders are brought to trial for their crimes. You can't have peace talks with someone whose idea of peace involves ethnically cleansing our entire nation."

I know that they have been demanding that, but let's face it, there are very few Israelite politicians that have ever pointed an RPG at innocents. If any Israelites are responsible for war crimes, it's the generals in charge of retaliation operations and while I am for a tribunal for them, I don't think convicting the Israelite president is going to have much effect.

You see how it goes? Everybody wants to be the victim, everybody has legitimate stories of how they've been victimized, and everybody is horribly threatened by the idea of the other guy having his own victimhood stories. Sometimes I meet people who seem to be more attached to the victim role than they are eager to move on and make peace.

That's exactly the problem. Especially the Palestinian "freedom fighters" have made a living out of victimizing their fellow Palestinians and I have no doubt that they're going to try and provoke Israel in many more "creative" ways given the chance. If there's a chance the free state of Palestine is going to get more aid if Israel reacts to a bombing campaign, you can bet your neck that said bombing campaign is going to come.

[Knight of Fools]

The right wing is out of touch with reality though. They seem to think that by refusing to acknowledge that truth, and, in the case of some of them, by clinging to their 3000-year-old fairy tales, everything will come out OK if they just hold fast.

That's unfair.  Most people don't understand the scope and two-sidedness of the situation - It's plain ignorance if most of what you're saying is true, ignorance brought on by misinformation and smoke screens planted by others who aren't even Americans.  And you don't have to go throwing anti-biblical rhetoric into this.  Scripture may be used as an excuse for an action, but that action would have taken place regardless of whether the scripture existed in the first place.

Try and keep the focus on the Israeli Border thing and less on whether or not the bible is a fairy tale or not - It's clearly not part of the discussion.

[de5me7]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12512732

remember Obama used, what i think was his first veto on the un security council to say the exact opposite to what hes now saying only a few months ago

actions speak louder than words

it will be interesting to see if this current retoric turns in to action or is just saber rattling / pandering to Arabic nations post Bin Laden /  mid Arab spring

another South Africa.

Plus, rewarding terrorists with their own country (you can hardly deny that a significant amount of the future Palestinian politicians is currently very occupied with blowing up innocent Israelites Palestinians Civilians) isn't going to spell much good for Spain, Turkey and Iraq...

id be careful about making mass antagonist generalisations like this Virex or the thread may get closed.

just to further convelute the arguement

Terrorism has no universally agreed definition. I think there is a UN definition but its some what flawed if my memory serves me.

[LoSboccacc]

There's a difference between the killing of Petacci and the structural targeting of civilians.

no there isn't, but I think you need some more history basic about partisans reprimands after the war:

oderzo massacre: 113 random execution amongst civilian sympathizer of the fascist party.

mignagola massacre: 83 body found, some military and lot of civilian

codevigo massacre: actual number unknown, a hundred confirmed and more than 350 supposed, mostly civilians

vercelli massacre: around 60 prisoner of war (military already surrendered) summarily executed.

argelato massacre: 17 politician of the fascist party, tortured and choked to death.


should I go on? history is wrote by the winner, but if you scratch a bit...

[Africa]

Why do you keep saying "Israelites?"

Anyway, about the big wall: Commonly pointed to as the cause in the decrease in suicide bombings. Which, as I noted, has decreased to nothing in the past several years, which is what I'm talking about when you display how out of touch you are. So the wall's purpose is to keep suicide bombers out of Israel right? So why is there a big huge gap in it, right around the Beit Shemesh area, through which anybody can just waltz? I didn't even realize this until I saw an editorial in Haaretz by one of the guys who originally lobbied for the barrier, telling Netanyahu he needed to finish building it. The West Bank's not a big place; if somebody really wants to blow themself up in Israel, they can get to where that barrier is. I'd be a lot more ready to believe that the wall stopped the suicide bombings if it weren't so dang easy to get through it. In any case, correlation=/=causation; the gapful wall didn't stop the bombings any more than an umbrella stops the rain from falling.

In any case, I'm fairly certain I never said attacking civilians was justified. I'm contradicting your assertion that it's never a part of a fruitful independence struggle. And Hamas wants to cling to power? Sure, I'm not part of their freaking fan club. But why do they have their stated goal of destroying the state of Israel? Because their main appeal is to refugees who were driven out of what's now Israel and want to go back and live as first-class citizens in their own homeland rather than as subjects under martial law. In any case, if you knew anything about Palestinians, you'd know that support for violence against Israel is so low that it's absurd to assert their state would turn into some kind of military launching pad, and if you knew anything about basic sociology, you'd know that if they had a free state, that support would become even less, not to mention how suicidal it would be. Abbas and Fayyad aren't stupid and hell, neither are Hamas' leaders.

I know that they have been demanding that, but let's face it, there are very few Israelite politicians that have ever pointed an RPG at innocents. If any Israelites are responsible for war crimes, it's the generals in charge of retaliation operations and while I am for a tribunal for them, I don't think convicting the Israelite president is going to have much effect.

Well, I could argue that in fact the entire Israeli electorate is guilty of its war crimes, given that in every one of their elections since 1967 they've chosen governments that perpetuated the occupation and settlements instead of stopping them...but again, that's not productive. Getting hung up on the past never is, whether it's 60 years ago or 3000.

A better solution would be to find another place to live for the Palestinians, a place where they do have a future and a place where their leaders can't practice "Remote whack-a-mole" with missiles and school buses.

Wow, so you really are advocating ethnic cleansing. Nice to know who I'm talking to.