ISRAEL AND PALESTINE: WHAT DO YOU THINK?

[ER]

The Palestinians never agreed to be displaced by the movement known as Zionism. so what should be done?

Same thing I say to the Catholics in Northern Ireland: get over it. Your ancestors got displaced in Ulster, not you yourselves, the Prods have been there for half a millennium,  it's their land too, so get over it.

I doubt even 1% of the population of Gaza or Palestinians in Israel were alive to own land to be displaced by the Jews in 1948, so this is self-perpetuating anger over an impossible goal of turning back a clock that will NEVER be turned back again, not when Israel has nukes and is into about its fifth native-born generation.

You don't see Germans firing rockets into Poland to get back land taken from them after WWII, just the Palestinians, who act like absolute and utter barbarians, baking babies in ovens, raping women, firing rockets indiscriminately for years, using human shields, Hamas conducting itself like the mafia in Gaza, then weeping to the world about how miserable life is under their own self-rule.

[RCMerchant]

Right now its Netenyahu being the barbarian.

[indianasmith]

What the Israel- Palestine conflict IS is there were people living in the area and other people came from Europe and later other places and displaced them.

Random moments in the subsequent or current history are not what the conflict is about. There was an Israel Palestine conflict before the group known as Hamas existed. Many of us are old enough to remember when it was called the Arab Israeli conflict and Yassir Arafat was the bad guy.

The Palestinians never agreed to be displaced by the movement known as Zionism. so what should be done?

Grow up and deal with it.  Israel is not going away.  And, FWIW, the vast majority of the land that was the original Israeli state in 1948 was either already owned by Jews or was PURCHASED from its Arab owners.  But when Israel declared its independence, ALL of its neighbors immediately declared war and invaded.  And lost.  And lost territory.  You start a war, you lose a war, you lose territory.   It's one of the truths of history.

If the Palestinians invested HALF of the international aid they get into hospitals, schools, and infrastructure, their economy might be the envy of the Arab world.  But 90% of it is spent digging tunnels into Israel, firing rockets into Israel, buying weapons to attack Israel, and funding the luxurious lifestyle of Hamas executives who live in penthouses in Dubai.

[lester1/2jr]

Indiana - do unto others as they say. If you were Palestinian born whenever you were born, your family had lived there for generations growing olive trees and so forth, how would you feel if a foreign empire and the UN said "get over it, we're taking your land" ? Would you be like " Yes, I'm not as advanced as them they are better than me, kill any of my neighbors who resist"

Am I the only one who saw Red Dawn? sheesh

You don't see Germans firing rockets into Poland to get back land taken from them after WWII, just the Palestinians, who act like absolute and utter barbarians, baking babies in ovens, raping women, firing rockets indiscriminately for years, using human shields, Hamas conducting itself like the mafia in Gaza, then weeping to the world about how miserable life is under their own self-rule.

If they don't like the neighborhood they can leave. It's not our job to rearrange the Earth for the likes of Israel Ukraine and Taiwan. We aren't God.

[indianasmith]

It's been 80 years.  Every assault on Israel has failed.
All the Palestinians are doing (to be precise, all Hamas is doing) is bringing more death and misery on their own people.
Time to move on.

[lester1/2jr]

What does " move on" mean? leave their homes and go somewhere? die?

It's been 80 years but there hasn't been a solution. Israel has the stronger hand but instead of saying "you get this half we get this half" they just keep expanding. Gaza is the mot densely populated area in the world. Again, what would you do if you were a Palestinian Christian? What would Jesus do?

[ER]

What does " move on" mean? leave their homes and go somewhere? die?

It's been 80 years but there hasn't been a solution. Israel has the stronger hand but instead of saying "you get this half we get this half" they just keep expanding. Gaza is the mot densely populated area in the world. Again, what would you do if you were a Palestinian Christian? What would Jesus do?

If you were a Palestinian Christian, there is a very good chance you'd have been ethnically-cleansed by the Moslems in the West Bank and Gaza, who do not enshrine the basic human rights we take for granted. Look at the numbers of Christians in the West Bank and Gaza before Israel pulled out compared to today. A Christian would have to love persecution and fear and seek martyrdom to stay under the conditions there. As for Jews...there are none, zero, zip, who live under the Palestinian Authority. It'd be worse than suicide. On the other hand, almost 1/5th of Israel's population is Moslem, and they are constitutionally guaranteed the same rights as Jews.

People have overthrown tyrannical governments before, and I suppose my best advice to the Gazans for their own betterment would be to rise up against Hamas, not Israel, uproot Hamas' exploitation, and form a democratically-elected government, then live in peace in the land given you for self rule. I'd tell them most of all to quit picking fights with Israel, because they will never win a conflict against their much-stronger neighbor.

Also the only land Israel has taken came as a result of territories seized in war, and except for the Golan Heights, previously divided Jerusalem, and parts of the West Bank, most of that has been given back. (Sinai, the majority of the West Bank, Gaza.)

Pity is all well and good, and Israel is not immune from criticism for things it has done, but, lester, you're taking up for the wrong side in this war. One country allows everyone human rights, is a democracy, is pro-western, follows the Geneva Convention, and the other murders civilians, is a pseudo-state run by a terrorist mob. In war sometimes you have to harden your heart and recognize people die. That's the major reason war should never be fought where other options exist. War is terrible in the extreme, but who started the war, and in what manner?

Wrong side, man, wrong side.

[lester1/2jr]

A Christian would have to love persecution and fear and seek martyrdom to stay under the conditions there.

that's not true at all. There are more than a thousand Christians there and of course there are many in Lebanon and Syria. The west Bank is 2.5% Christian.

and form a democratically-elected government, then live in peace in the land given you for self rule.

Israel are gradually taking all of the land for themselves

Also the only land Israel has taken came as a result of territories seized in wars

whose point are you trying to make here?

One country allows everyone human rights, is a democracy

so I can go into any country I want and take over and it's okay if it's a western style of government?

This is the same thing people try to say about the Native Americans. Oh they were primitive and did this and that.

[RCMerchant]

Agin- I agree with Lester.

[ER]

Last post on the matter.

Lester, your 1940s map is misleading because at that time Britain controlled the area, having taken it from the Ottomans after World War One.  There was no independent Palestine.

The number of Christians fell by eighty-percent between the 1990s, when Israel controlled the area and today. I'd post a link but I'm busy and it's easy to verify.

Israel took the land in wars started by Arabs with one exception, the Six Day War of 1967, which was a pre-emptive strike by Israel against countries preparing to attack it.

How many times since this war started has Hamas been caught in lies, spinning civilian casualty figures, blaming Israel for its own friendly fire. I don't know what Hamas has to do before world opinion turns on it. Misuse a pronoun?  Tell a gay joke? Turn Jewish?

I guess there is no reaching someone who tolerates what Hamas does to its own people and to its neighbors, but it reinforces my long held view that people are crazy. Uninformed, closed-minded, and crazy.

But then again, didn't you always post last year as an apologist for Putin?

PS: I'm not specifically calling you crazy, Chris, it's my blanket puzzlement over world opinion that seems to overlook atrocities and lies, and takes the side of terrorists. So you're more indicted by a collective charge of craziness, not an individual one. Not singling you out.  

[lester1/2jr]

Lester, your 1940s map is misleading because at that time Britain controlled the area, having taken it from the Ottomans after World War One.

They didn't colonize it though. there weren't big communities of British people walking around intermarrying and so forth.

and again, you are arguing an entirely different issue: that Israel is morally better and/ or more modern than Palestine or other of it's neighbors. I'm talking about the conflict itself. the land issue.


My neighbor teaches at MIT. He is a thousand times smarter and adds more to the world than me. Does that mean he can have my house if he wants it?

Every says Palestinians should "move on " and "deal with it" what does that mean? 9 times out of ten it means they should leave the region or just drop dead.