Thread: Boot it out!!!

Originally Posted by A Humble Sinner

Just because the term "Jewish State" doesn't intrude much on daily life doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

Israel was created as a haven for Jews. So they have a country of their own, which is important. Every race should have homeland, or at least a base. Without it they would be international nomads.

Because it was created for Jews to live in that means you live in the comfort of your religion. You have a culture - your own festivals, the state language is the Jewish language, names, Jewish memorials, generally Jewish funerals wddings and stuff like that, a history, Jewish organizations a flag...all these things stand for so much. It's just the concept of your place, basically. Having a country! Every culture needs a place to call it's own or it's culture stands for nothing and it's people are a lot of eanderers.

I see what you are saying, but I don't think it has to evelope the entire country. If the connection you feel to other people of your particular culture is very important to you, I don't see a problem with that alone. But I don't agree that an entire country has to exist for that purpose. You could live in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and lots of other countries and be around people of your culture and have festivals, parties, parades, and whatever you like without having to have an entire country about that. I don't have a religion, but there are definitely subcultures where I feel much more connected and fitted in than others. I don't feel the need to have a country where people like me call it an anything state. I am a major believer in democracies of equality. I think Israel should be one. It can be a place for tons of Jews to live and have cultural celebrations and communities, but I think Muslims should be able to have the same rights and on an equal level.

You and Half/Dreaming are probably right that Islamofascists hate Jews because Islamofascists are so hateful that they need an enemy and need somebody to rival to impress God. That's probably true. But it's probably not the entire reason. What I was asking earlier was what the Palestinian side of the argument is. I think that side of the argument probably does have tons of them pissing fire. All I know is that they want a "Palestinian state". As long as Jews demand a "Jewish state" and Muslims demand a "Palestinian state", the war will continue until humans no longer live on Earth. Neither side will ever EVER go along with what the other side is demanding. It has a 0% chance of ever happening. The only solution is to call the "holy land" a "state" and let everybody live there equally. Until that happens, the nightmare will continue, and it will have a drastically terrible effect on the entire world.

Even if an entire Jewish state is necessary, which I don't believe it is, I really don't think the "holy land" is the place for it. That is guaranteed to stir up tremendous trouble. If you must have a Jewish state, it needs to be anywhere but the spot of land in the world that has been at the root of more killing than any other. That is the last place a religious state should exist. Even just having the government call it a Jewish state is going to have entire armies of terrorists going out for blood, not that they are the least bit justified in handling things that way. They don't have my support on any level whatsoever when they mindlessly target the innocent just to spew hate and supposedly impress God. But there is another major world religion that thinks they are entitled to the land for their state. The land needs to be shared. That is the only solution. I'm not saying the Palestinians would necessarily ever agree to that, but if the Jews would start pushing for it, you would come out clearly looking like the good guys and getting much more support in the world, and it would have a considerable chance of leading to such a state. The stalemate that exists right now and has for many ages is looking more and more like it could result in drastically terrible events on a global scale, and it has to stop.

True. The war between the two groups is the largest case of stubborness in history. And you're right, Universal, the problem is much deeper than "hate", but in todays world I think their hate is so deep that they don't know the reason why. There was a fight for the land for SOME REASON, that doesn't even really matter anymore.

Because this hate is so deep seeded, I don't believe coexistence of middle eastern Jews and Islam is possible. Even a large population of non radical Muslims have prejudice against Jews. The only way coexistence would be possible would be to get a large group both people who are willing to live in peace with the other race, and let that philosophy grow. I am all for that.

OK, UM I agree with what you said pretty much. I agree that the key to solving the Islamic terror is peace between Israel and Palestine. I believe that after this peace will be made, the Islamic terrorism will gradually fade away (not right away of course, but gradually over a few decades )

Let me try to explain where the origin of the hatred started.
I will extremely briefly narrate the historical background, because I think it's essential to understand this dispute:
About 2000 years ago the Jews were booted out of the land of Israel by the Romans.

They were persecuted, and by the 19th century they decided they had enough of it, and the European Jews decided to go were they can be masters of their own fate, so they started to come back to this land, that was called by this time Palestine.

Palestine was not empty, parts of it was populated by Palestinian Arabs. The Jews bought land from them and built villages.

During the first quarter of the 20th century the persecution in Europe gotten worse, and lots of Jews started to immigrate to Palestine. Some Palestinian Arabs nationalists felt that the land was being overtaken gradually by the Jews, and started to do some terror attacks. The Jews defended themselves from such attacks with their own militia.

When the Nazis rose, many more Jews escaped to Palestine. There was more aggression by Arabs, fueled by the Arabic nations surrounding Israel, that started to fantasize on taking over after the British leave. ( By that time the value of the land was high, because of the rapid development done by the Jews, and the British )

It was clear by this time that the Jews are determined to built their home in the land, and that the Arab Palestinians and the Arabic nations wouldn't let them do it without full scale war. The UN suggested to divide the land into 2 states, one for the Arab and one for the Jews (The Devision Plan). The Jews agreed even though their area was very small. The Arabs didn't agree to this plan, and it was suspended.

After WW2, the world was shocked by the discovery of the horrors of the holocaust, and the UN agreed on giving the Jews their independent state according to the Devision Plan, even though the Arabs were against it.

The minute the state of Israel was founded on 1948, the Arabic nations, aided by some of the Palestinian Arabs invaded, wanting to wipe this new state. They failed, Israel won, and occupied a lot more land then the Devision plan had given it. Also many Palestinian Arabs, who were afraid of the war and of the retaliation of the Jews, fled from their homes, and out of the areas occupied by Israel. These are the Palestinian Refugees.

Israel was still at risk of getting wiped out as it was surrounded by enemies: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Irak.
so Israel decided to stay in these new borders, and not let the refugees come back.

On 1967 the same thing happened, the Arabic nations Egypt, Jordan, and Syria tried to fight Israel, but Israel won the war, and this time took much more land: The west Bank from Jordan, Gaza Strip and Sinai from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria.

This time Israel occupied land populated my many Palestinians, many of them are refugees from the 1948 war, who still want to come back to their old homes, and hate Israel for that.

The PLO was founded to fight for the right of the Palestinians for their own state, making terror attacks against Israel.

Eventually Israel decided to agree to give up the areas occupied on 1967, and the peace process between Israel and the PLO began.

But the peace process was slow. It was slow for several reasons:
The Israeli people was still suspicious of the Palestinians, because of a century of hostility, and it agreed only on slow and gradual advancement of the peace process.
The Palestinian extremists such as Hamas, did not agree on any peace, and continued to make terror attacks against Israel even during the peace talks. This gave support to the Israeli nationalist parties, that wanted to slow down the peace process further.
Also the Palestinian leader Yasser Araffat had a problem signing a peace treaty fearing that he will give up on a few of the Palestinian demands. He decided to start the Second Intifada, in hope of applying pressure on Israel to give up more on the final treaty. This Second Intifada, was much worse than the first, because by then the Palestinians had thousands of guns, given to them by Israel during the first part of the peace process. They turned these guns on Israel, with devastating results to both sides.

Israel suspended the peace talks until this terror will stop.

While this was going on, Israel tightened it's rule over the Palestinians, to try to stop the terror attacks of both Hamas and Fatah ( PLO ). This increased more and more the hatred of the Palestinians towards Israel.

When Arafat died, the Second Intifada was over, in the Fatah stopped attacking Israel. But by then the hatred of the Palestinians towards the Israelis was so bad, that Hamas won the elections of the parliament of Palestine. Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and does not want peace, so the peace talks were suspended to this day.

This year there is a breach between Hamas and Fatah, after Hamas took over Gaza, killing all the Fatah officials there.
So now Israel has began to continue the peace process with Fatah, which controls the West Bank, while the Gaza strip and Hamas are ignored for now.

Wow, that took a long time to write...

So you see the hatred of the Palestinians towards Israel was created by a gradual process, involving the mass immigration of Jews into the country and buying the land of the Arabs, the intervention of the Arabic countries with their own agenda's, the cold war- that I didn't mention - as the Soviets supported the Arabs, and the US supported Israel, (as it is a free-market democracy), the fear and paranoia of the Jews because of 2000 years of persecution, the clash between religions ( For example The Muslim 3rd most sacred place is located on top of the Jewish 1st most sacred place ),
And hate give power to the extremists on both sides, which cause further hate etc etc.

In retrospect my personal opinion is that it was a mistake to built the home of the Jews in Palestine. But if I lived 100 years ago I probably would have thought otherwise...

How to untangle this mess? Actually it's possible, all that it takes is that the sane people from both sides keep striving for peace, and that the international community help by influencing both sides to support the parties that strive for peace and to give no support to the extremists.

THANK YOU dodbird! Well, I was goiing to say pretty much exactly what dodo saiod, but he does it better.

I was doing a lot of historical research on the subject. There was one thing that caught my eye. This is mentioned in Wikipedia, in the part of it's "Israel" article that is about the Jewish kingdoms in the early Iron Age:

"The term "Palestine" derives from the word Philistine, the word in Hebrew is פְּלְשְׁתִּים Pelishtim, this word is derived from the word פְּלִישָׁה Pelisha, meaning invasion or incursion.

The name was given to the non-Semitic ethnic group, originating from Southern Greece, closely related to early Mycenaean civilization. Inhabiting a smaller area on the southern coast called Philistia, whose borders approximate the modern Gaza Strip, Philistia comprised a confederation of five city states: Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod on the coast and Ekron, and Gath inland.

Egyptian texts of the temple at Medinet Habu, record a people called the P-r-s-t (conventionally Peleset), one of the Sea Peoples who invaded Egypt in Ramesses III's reign. This is considered very likely to be a reference to the Philistines. The Hebrew name Peleshet (Hebrew: פלשת‎ Pəléshseth), usually translated as Philistia in English, is used in the Bible to denote their southern coastal region"

Edit: I just want to say something to Imran.

I don't know what your problem with Israel is, but in any of your posts that see, you use some kind of petty excuse to make blind, idiotic, random assumptions and wild accusations about Israel, usually with nothing to back it up except a lot of hate and it's really starting to piss me off. It's just mindless shit. Now, it's unbelievable tiring to see morons like you make such stupid statements regularly as clockwork, so I would be more than happy to debate this with you in a new thread you and show that you are an ignorant fool, but you will probably reject that offer. But if you ever get any balls, please consider it.

I'll be back in about 2 weeks.

Dodobird, thank you very much for that information. Thanks to you too, A Humble Sinner. That really helps me understand the situation better. I actually took a course on the conflict when I was in college, but it was more like a book survey course on several books and different very specific events and issues. You really helped me get a big picture outlook on the situation. I can totally see where Israel is coming from in in it. I hope the pro-peace people involved will eventually win out so the fighting will stop.

I would be interested in reading a Palestinian perspective also. I have seen people in this forum act extremely opinionated about the Palestinian side of things, but it always comes from somebody who does not live in the region, and the posts always come in the form of very hateful messages about Israeli violence against Palestinians, with no mention of where the Israelis might be coming from. Could somebody who really knows about this stuff and sides with the Palestinians give a calm, rational analysis of the Palestinian perspective?

Originally Posted by dodobird

Let me try to explain where the origin of the hatred started.
I will extremely briefly narrate the historical background, because I think it's essential to understand this dispute:
About 2000 years ago the Jews were booted out of the land of Israel by the Romans.

They were persecuted, and by the 19th century they decided they had enough of it, and the European Jews decided to go were they can be masters of their own fate, so they started to come back to this land, that was called by this time Palestine.

Palestine was not empty, parts of it was populated by Palestinian Arabs. The Jews bought land from them and built villages.

During the first quarter of the 20th century the persecution in Europe gotten worse, and lots of Jews started to immigrate to Palestine. Some Palestinian Arabs nationalists felt that the land was being overtaken gradually by the Jews, and started to do some terror attacks. The Jews defended themselves from such attacks with their own militia.

When the Nazis rose, many more Jews escaped to Palestine. There was more aggression by Arabs, fueled by the Arabic nations surrounding Israel, that started to fantasize on taking over after the British leave. ( By that time the value of the land was high, because of the rapid development done by the Jews, and the British )

It was clear by this time that the Jews are determined to built their home in the land, and that the Arab Palestinians and the Arabic nations wouldn't let them do it without full scale war. The UN suggested to divide the land into 2 states, one for the Arab and one for the Jews (The Devision Plan). The Jews agreed even though their area was very small. The Arabs didn't agree to this plan, and it was suspended.

After WW2, the world was shocked by the discovery of the horrors of the holocaust, and the UN agreed on giving the Jews their independent state according to the Devision Plan, even though the Arabs were against it.

The minute the state of Israel was founded on 1948, the Arabic nations, aided by some of the Palestinian Arabs invaded, wanting to wipe this new state. They failed, Israel won, and occupied a lot more land then the Devision plan had given it. Also many Palestinian Arabs, who were afraid of the war and of the retaliation of the Jews, fled from their homes, and out of the areas occupied by Israel. These are the Palestinian Refugees.

Israel was still at risk of getting wiped out as it was surrounded by enemies: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Irak.
so Israel decided to stay in these new borders, and not let the refugees come back.

On 1967 the same thing happened, the Arabic nations Egypt, Jordan, and Syria tried to fight Israel, but Israel won the war, and this time took much more land: The west Bank from Jordan, Gaza Strip and Sinai from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria.

This time Israel occupied land populated my many Palestinians, many of them are refugees from the 1948 war, who still want to come back to their old homes, and hate Israel for that.

The PLO was founded to fight for the right of the Palestinians for their own state, making terror attacks against Israel.

Eventually Israel decided to agree to give up the areas occupied on 1967, and the peace process between Israel and the PLO began.

But the peace process was slow. It was slow for several reasons:
The Israeli people was still suspicious of the Palestinians, because of a century of hostility, and it agreed only on slow and gradual advancement of the peace process.
The Palestinian extremists such as Hamas, did not agree on any peace, and continued to make terror attacks against Israel even during the peace talks. This gave support to the Israeli nationalist parties, that wanted to slow down the peace process further.
Also the Palestinian leader Yasser Araffat had a problem signing a peace treaty fearing that he will give up on a few of the Palestinian demands. He decided to start the Second Intifada, in hope of applying pressure on Israel to give up more on the final treaty. This Second Intifada, was much worse than the first, because by then the Palestinians had thousands of guns, given to them by Israel during the first part of the peace process. They turned these guns on Israel, with devastating results to both sides.

Israel suspended the peace talks until this terror will stop.

While this was going on, Israel tightened it's rule over the Palestinians, to try to stop the terror attacks of both Hamas and Fatah ( PLO ). This increased more and more the hatred of the Palestinians towards Israel.

When Arafat died, the Second Intifada was over, in the Fatah stopped attacking Israel. But by then the hatred of the Palestinians towards the Israelis was so bad, that Hamas won the elections of the parliament of Palestine. Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and does not want peace, so the peace talks were suspended to this day.

This year there is a breach between Hamas and Fatah, after Hamas took over Gaza, killing all the Fatah officials there.
So now Israel has began to continue the peace process with Fatah, which controls the West Bank, while the Gaza strip and Hamas are ignored for now.

Wow, that took a long time to write...

So you see the hatred of the Palestinians towards Israel was created by a gradual process, involving the mass immigration of Jews into the country and buying the land of the Arabs, the intervention of the Arabic countries with their own agenda's, the cold war- that I didn't mention - as the Soviets supported the Arabs, and the US supported Israel, (as it is a free-market democracy), the fear and paranoia of the Jews because of 2000 years of persecution, the clash between religions ( For example The Muslim 3rd most sacred place is located on top of the Jewish 1st most sacred place ),
And hate give power to the extremists on both sides, which cause further hate etc etc.

In retrospect my personal opinion is that it was a mistake to built the home of the Jews in Palestine. But if I lived 100 years ago I probably would have thought otherwise...

How to untangle this mess? Actually it's possible, all that it takes is that the sane people from both sides keep striving for peace, and that the international community help by influencing both sides to support the parties that strive for peace and to give no support to the extremists.

First let me admit that my knowledge on this topic is far lesser than yours as I have no firsthand expeirence, however, I do bleieve that some of this can be expanded on.

For instance, when the waves of immgration began, it was not so much a problem, Jews were migrating to the land of there forefathers in small numbers. However, the later waves of immigration brought many more Jews, this time secular rich jews, not orthodox religoous Jews, these Jews brought land and refused to lett it out to the arabs. This is the beggining of political Zionism and in my eyes a form of subtle racism. Jews would only lett land to Jews, thus they took land bit by bit.
Of coruse the Arabs hated it, we all would if it was happeneing to our country, so they organised riots and yes they attacked Jews. The Zionists created there own miltias to fight the Palestinians. At this point the British mandate was issued and restrictions were place on how many people, mainly Jews, could migrate into Palestine.
Due to the Nazi movement, the mandate did not do much, Jews fled to Palestine in great numbers. I think, during the holocaust most countries refused to accpet dsipalced Jews, so they fled to Palestine. In 1947 Britain withdrew the mandate.

The part where you mentioned the partition plan confused me, because the partion plan was suggested by the General Assemply, suggestion from the Assembly are not binding. They are merely that, suggestions. So anyway, the ISraelis were in favour of said partion plan, Im sure they were given about half the land. The arabs rejected it, oviously, as any of us would.
It just seems to me that it was European Jewry and Westerners calling out for a Jewish State maybe it should of been created somewhere in Germany as punishment for the Holocaust, or somewhere else in the West.

So yeah, the State of Israel was formed even though the Arabs rejected it, britain had left. Then came all the attacks on th enewly formed state of israel. During the hotislites many Arabs fled Israel, but not only ddi they flee but they were also persecuted by the miltas we spoke of earlier. At this point I get kind of lost, but its my udnerstanding that many Jews were persectued in Arab lands also causing an exodus. In the end the Jews won the war and occupied further terrorities, leaving many Arabs dsipalcd.

Now the biggest injsutice to me, is the LAw of entry, these arab cannot return but any Jew in the world can go to ISrael. Is that hoenslty right?

From then on there ahve been inredibly amounts of hositsilty on both sides, and suspicion.
Peace has never worked because of the very vocal radical portions of both the Jews and the Arabs.
Some Jews reject the idea of Arabs returning to ISrael as this would create an Arab majority, which would mean the State of ISrael would no longer be a Jewish State. Some Arabs refuse the JEwish States legitmiacy.

I left large gaps, but its my udnerstanding of the crisis.

Imran

Originally Posted by imran_p

First let me admit that my knowledge on this topic is far lesser than yours as I have no firsthand expeirence, however, I do bleieve that some of this can be expanded on.

For instance, when the waves of immgration began, it was not so much a problem, Jews were migrating to the land of there forefathers in small numbers. However, the later waves of immigration brought many more Jews, this time secular rich jews, not orthodox religoous Jews, these Jews brought land and refused to lett it out to the arabs. This is the beggining of political Zionism and in my eyes a form of subtle racism. Jews would only lett land to Jews, thus they took land bit by bit.
Of coruse the Arabs hated it, we all would if it was happeneing to our country, so they organised riots and yes they attacked Jews. The Zionists created there own miltias to fight the Palestinians. At this point the British mandate was issued and restrictions were place on how many people, mainly Jews, could migrate into Palestine.
Due to the Nazi movement, the mandate did not do much, Jews fled to Palestine in great numbers. I think, during the holocaust most countries refused to accpet dsipalced Jews, so they fled to Palestine. In 1947 Britain withdrew the mandate.

The part where you mentioned the partition plan confused me, because the partion plan was suggested by the General Assemply, suggestion from the Assembly are not binding. They are merely that, suggestions. So anyway, the ISraelis were in favour of said partion plan, Im sure they were given about half the land. The arabs rejected it, oviously, as any of us would.
It just seems to me that it was European Jewry and Westerners calling out for a Jewish State maybe it should of been created somewhere in Germany as punishment for the Holocaust, or somewhere else in the West.

So yeah, the State of Israel was formed even though the Arabs rejected it, britain had left. Then came all the attacks on th enewly formed state of israel. During the hotislites many Arabs fled Israel, but not only ddi they flee but they were also persecuted by the miltas we spoke of earlier. At this point I get kind of lost, but its my udnerstanding that many Jews were persectued in Arab lands also causing an exodus. In the end the Jews won the war and occupied further terrorities, leaving many Arabs dsipalcd.

Now the biggest injsutice to me, is the LAw of entry, these arab cannot return but any Jew in the world can go to ISrael. Is that hoenslty right?

From then on there ahve been inredibly amounts of hositsilty on both sides, and suspicion.
Peace has never worked because of the very vocal radical portions of both the Jews and the Arabs.
Some Jews reject the idea of Arabs returning to ISrael as this would create an Arab majority, which would mean the State of ISrael would no longer be a Jewish State. Some Arabs refuse the JEwish States legitmiacy.

I left large gaps, but its my udnerstanding of the crisis.

Imran

Yes, I pretty much agree with what you said.
The only part that wasn't precise is that you did not mention the role of the Arabic nations, which is very important.
Sure the Palestinians had a reason for bitterness for the reasons that you outlined, but the Arabic nations attacked Israel from their own selfish reasons, wishing to take over a land that has become very valuable.
The Palestinians, in spite of their terror attacks were never a threat to Israel. The threat was the large, organized armies of the Arabic nations, that were later equipped with Soviet weapons, and these armies Israel had to face.
The militarism of Israel, and its stubbornness to stay in the areas it occupied in 1948 and 1967, was caused by the hostility of the Arabic nations, and by the fear that Israel will be totally wiped out by these armies.

About the Law of Entry. This is actualy a smaller problem to peace than is portraid by those that use it to claim that peace is not possible. There is already agreement about ways to solve this, that would satisfy both Israelis and Palestinians. Look at the Jeneva Treaty ( Which is a simulation of a possible peace treaty between Israel and Palestine ) for more information about the possible ways this issue can be solved.

Can I just ask you what your view is on the Law of Entry, do you bleieve it is jsut because Jews deserve a homeland, or it is a unjust and a form of dsiscrimination?

And Also, just wondering, what direction do you think both sides should take now?

I agree that some of the Arabic nations motives may have been selifsh, but isnt it psosible that they saw the injustice of Zionism and were merely trying to help out there Muslim neighbours?

Originally Posted by imran_p

I agree that some of the Arabic nations motives may have been selifsh, but isnt it psosible that they saw the injustice of Zionism and were merely trying to help out there Muslim neighbours?

It's my opinion that they did it out of selfish reasons. They wanted to take over. Also there was internal political reasons, such as strengthening their own regimes. and later it was also influenced by the Cold War. The Arabic nations never given much sympathy to the Palestinians. For example, the rich Saudi-Arabia could easily have helped the Palestinians living in the poor Refugee camps, but they chose not to help them. This is because these poor refugees were used as a symbol for the war against Zionism, and they wanted to keep them as a symbol.

Originally Posted by imran_p

Can I just ask you what your view is on the Law of Entry, do you bleieve it is jsut because Jews deserve a homeland, or it is a unjust and a form of dsiscrimination?

I think it is not just, but I think thats not so important now, I think and hope that this issue can be resolved with partial entry and compensations, which is something both sides seems to agree upon ( see the Geneva treaty ).

Originally Posted by imran_p

And Also, just wondering, what direction do you think both sides should take now?

Now is a weird situation because the Palestinians are now divided to two entities. Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza strip.
Negotiation for the establishment of a Palestinian state should be started between Israel and Fatah ( a process which is starting ). I don't know what will happen with Hamas in Gaza. Hopefully they will lose support from the Palestinian people once it it becomes evident like they are the only thing that stands between the Palestinians and an independent state.

Also the Arabic nations should be involved because these days they provide a positive force: Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi-Arabia should be involved in helping Israel and Palestine to reach a treaty. And perhaps also start a channel based on the Arab Peace Initiative. The same goes with Syria, I believe it's possible for Israel to reach a peace treaty with them, and later with Lebanon.

I think many more innocent people will die because of this stupid dispute, but inspite of that I am optimistic. I think that in a few years there will be finnaly peace in the Middle East.

Now I know the topic of settlements has already been mentioned in this thread or the other one started by Imram.

But freedom of movement continues to be a problem in the west bank (don't know about Gaza)

If you where to take a map of the west bank and you put a dot on it for every Israeli settlement then drew in the roads that connected the settlements with each other and Israel. And following that added the checkpoints that the IDF uses and you have essentially butchered up the
west bank into many areas.

Making traveling within the small territory extremely tedious and difficult.

So for the conditions in the west bank to get better there has to be a removal of the settlements to make life easier and for employment opportunities for Palestinians to increase.

Or have the majority of the settlements been removed from the west bank? (not being sarcastic,The place where i got my info might not be to recent)

Now is a weird situation because the Palestinians are now divided to two entities. Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza strip.
Negotiation for the establishment of a Palestinian state should be started between Israel and Fatah ( a process which is starting ). I don't know what will happen with Hamas in Gaza. Hopefully they will lose support from the Palestinian people once it it becomes evident like they are the only thing that stands between the Palestinians and an independent state.

The Gaza strip is only about the size of the USA capital city and has a population of something in the order of 1 million people.

Since all aide from the international community is cut of? (correct me if im wrong) and gaza is such a small semi desert/urban area the living condition's there can only get worse.

And anyway the Palestinian territories as they are now should be in the control of HAMAS.

People seem to overlook this but HAMAS won the election so the west bank should be under there control unless i'm looking over something (probably am).

Why should the FATAH be getting aide and political support when they are Illegitiment ?

Or was the elections just a sham to make it look like there was progress?

As to your co-existence proposal, I'm not too sure. I mean Shi'as and Sunni Muslims kill eachother, so I'm not too sure Arabs and Jews could live nextdoor to eachother. The conflict between the two has been ongoing for over a millenium and a half. Healing that relationship just doesn't seem plausible.

Sunni's and Shia's are killing each other in Iraq because there was to much of disproportion amount of power given to the minority group and when thing's shifted there was retrubution.

Much like in Rwanad when the Belgian's left they gave power to the more "elegant" Tutsi's and left the Hutu's in the dust.

We'll the Hutus wheren't happy about that so they did what humans do...................
Now the situation is like that in a way the area of Israel/Palestine.

The Israeli's are a minority surrounded by Arab's who outnumber them greatly.
Now the way things happen there may be a "shift of power" in which the Arabs get the upper hand and then Israel's nuclear weapons come into play. (israel is estimated to be the 5th or 4th largest nuclear power)

And in that case there will be "Nuclear War" and that scenario which i presented could very well happen if history serves me right in the cases of Iraq and Rwanda.

Nah there's been alot of nuclear hard talk, but to actually use a nuclear weapon would be to expect to recieve them back within no time so there's no REAL threat really. To fire a Nuke simply means the destruction of your own Country. It's nothing but bluff. Eversince Hiroshima and Nagasaki people have become so terryfied of these weapons that nations have them, but soully as a means of bluff that will never actually be used.

Now I've seen alot of negativity and accusations, but by accusing one another endlessly Israëlis nor Palestinians are ever going to be served.

The hatred needs to die first and it's still very much alive. I've seen Imran mention Fatah being an acceptable government-candidate in the other Israël/Palestine-topic, but Fatah, Hamas, Al Aqsa and Al Quds are in fact all militant-groups. Fatah and Hamas are now FIGHTING eachother for power. Now that Combative sentiment needs to die out first.

Believe me as soon as that happens and these organisations get replaced by a responsible Government who's main motivation is Care for their people, not Hate for their neighbors, Israël and Palestine will soon come to reasonable agreements and establish a stabile, peacefull nation. Israël is allready doing their part by removing provocative Orthodox jewish settlers from Arab-Palestinian areas.

Right now it would mean mass murder and Chaos to just open up the borders and let the arabs back into Israël. You donnot only let innocent civilians in, but also terrorists amongst them. It's like inviting Hamas-members into an Israëli Shopping Mall; bad idea. First the hate needs to cool down and the Militants need to be replaced by a Responsible Government. That means no more Hamas or Fatah as authority. And a good start would be to take them from power and immediately stop their systematic, racist/religiously fanatic hatred indoctrination of Palestinian people and School-children against Jews. Certainly don't underestimate the intense hatred that militant groups like Hamas and Fatah spread amongst the Palestinian people. Very succesfully alas.
Israël would be glad to resume negociations, but it's gunna take time since this servere hatred will not disappear overnight.

Agreed?

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

Now I know the topic of settlements has already been mentioned in this thread or the other one started by Imram.

But freedom of movement continues to be a problem in the west bank (don't know about Gaza)

If you where to take a map of the west bank and you put a dot on it for every Israeli settlement then drew in the roads that connected the settlements with each other and Israel. And following that added the checkpoints that the IDF uses and you have essentially butchered up the
west bank into many areas.

Making traveling within the small territory extremely tedious and difficult.

So for the conditions in the west bank to get better there has to be a removal of the settlements to make life easier and for employment opportunities for Palestinians to increase.

Or have the majority of the settlements been removed from the west bank? (not being sarcastic,The place where i got my info might not be to recent)

Unfortunately the Israeli settlements in the West Bank are still there. Only the settlements in the Gaza strip have been removed. The settlements were a grave mistake by Israel. Hopefully most or all of them will be removed when the peace treaty is signed.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

The Gaza strip is only about the size of the USA capital city and has a population of something in the order of 1 million people.

Since all aide from the international community is cut of? (correct me if im wrong) and gaza is such a small semi desert/urban area the living condition's there can only get worse.

Thats true, but Gaza is not completely cut off, and humanitarian aid has access.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

And anyway the Palestinian territories as they are now should be in the control of HAMAS.

People seem to overlook this but HAMAS won the election so the west bank should be under there control unless i'm looking over something (probably am).

Why should the FATAH be getting aide and political support when they are Illegitiment ?

Or was the elections just a sham to make it look like there was progress?

Here you are mistaken. Palestine currently have a presidential regime, similar to the US and France. There are separate elections for Parliament and Presidency.
The government and prime minister are elected by the Parliament. The president has authority over matters such as defense. Hamas won the elections for Parliament , but Mahmud Abas from Fatah is still the president. According to Palestinian law, Hamas has no right to keep it's own army.
At first Hamas and Fatah tried to get along, making a joint government.
Hamas is against peace, want to destroy Israel, and is pro-terrorism, so the Hamas government was shamed by the international community, and by Israel.
The Palestinian authority is supposed to be a democracy, and so even the government is not above the law. But the Hamas government broke Palestinian law by organizing a military coup to take over the Gaza strip, brutally killing the Fatah officials in Gaza and in many cases their families as well.

According to Palestinian law, Hamas has no right to keep it's own army.

By that logic then Democracy in Palestine was always doomed to fail because both political organizations started as an armed militia and even today they are very much so militias.

it looks like conflict was inevitable, hmm I wonder if anyone saw that coming

accusations, Accusations, Accusations.

What about SOLUTIONS? Anybody any good ideas that serve both parties in this conflict?
Why didn't the Palestinian Militias agree with the 2-state-solution plan? Seemed like a perfect, make shift solution for peace to me. In the meantime the long-term solution could be discussed and agreed uppon in a peacefull, stabile, secure situation.

the Palestinian Militias' uncompromising additude have always been a barrier to such a solution. Why don't they just take that chance?
This is something I never understood.

Solution? UN action.

I feel Israel makes rash decisions because they feel all alone, surrounded by enemies on all sides except the sea.

accusations, Accusations, Accusations.

What about SOLUTIONS? Anybody any good ideas that serve both parties in this conflict?
Why didn't the Palestinian Militias agree with the 2-state-solution plan? Seemed like a perfect, make shift solution for peace to me. In the meantime the long-term solution could be discussed and agreed uppon in a peacefull, stabile, secure situation.

the Palestinian Militias' uncompromising additude have always been a barrier to such a solution. Why don't they just take that chance?
This is something I never understood.

__________________

For solution talks to even begin the current pressing problems need to be addressed first is Hamas they are absolutely un co-operative and refuse dialogue. They call for death to israel when by ignoring israel they are merely pro-longing the conflict and suffering of palestinians.
Also they have split palestine into 2 entities although they where already split geographically from the beginning.

2nd is Settlements. There are to many settlements in the West Bank which essentially butcher the West bank and you can see with that comes the soldiers/check points, you get the point. Enough said on that.

3rd: Militias in General: They fire rockets into Israel whoever they are and don't really do much except to provoke Israel which ultimately does little for them and creates civilian casualties.

4th: Israel's military: They only serve to demolorize the Palestinians by keeping them prisoners in there own land with checkpoints and force a feeling of inferiority onto them. Which makes them bitter and angry. I also heard reports of Israeli aircraft flying low over Palestinian towns. Which obviously does what i mentioned above.

5th problem is Arabic Countries: They always talk about helping Palestinians and criticize Israel When in reality they do very little to help there situation. Despite what Humble sinner says the Adage everyone cares about Palestine but not the Palestinians hold true. The Israelis/jews have a large lobbying firm in Washington I've heard the largest in the US but what do the Palestinians have? words?

I think Half/Dreaming would agree with me that
The Arab League is worse then the UN in that it does very little and talks alot.

maybe once all those things are addressed there can be a final soloution.....

@ half-Dreaming:
Allright. So what do you suggest the UN do? Experience teaches the UN isn't very capable of doing anything at all; The UN failed to stop the Serbs of murdering 1000nds of Muslim men in Srebrenica, yet they were watching passively as this genocide took place right in front of their eyes. So I don't have a whole lot of confidence in the UN. They've proved to be pretty inable to do anything, talk alot, but do very little like dragonoverlord mentioned.

But sure if they can assist Israëlis and Palestinians by forming a militairy Buffer-zone between the Israëli land and the Palestinian land to stop militairy actions from both sides so that the peaceprocess can continue and make progress undisturbed that would be more than welcome.

As long as the UN doesn't fail as massively as they did in Srebrenica.

Also know that the UN has formed a Militairy Bufferzone on the Israëli/Lebanese border before, keeping both sides seperated from eachother. That went pretty well I believe, but untill they left. However Hizbollah was well able to continue their attacks on Israëli cities and towns just over the Lebanese border as soon as the UN left.

I'm wondering what they're waiting for. It sounds like a good thing to do.

@dragonoverlord:
I totally agree with all of your points Dragonoverlord. Well said. Alot of Orthodox jewish provocative settlers still need to be removed. These people, like Hamas and friends on the other side, are only prolonging the conflict and fueling the mutual hatred between both sides. Very sabotaging of the peace-efforts. They need to get the hell out of there. And fast too if you ask me. These people are completely crazy, just like Hamas and friends.

However considering your 4th point: That wall and it's checkpoints, as ugly and demoralising as it is, are the only thing Israël currently has to stop Palestinian Suicide bombers from crossing the border and creating megadeth in Israëli crowded public places. Perhaps you would have an idea for a good alternative for the wall and it's checkpoints? preferably something that also keeps suicide bombers from crossing the border and isn't as demoralising. You gotta hand it to Israël: The current situation is very complicated and doesn't leave them with much other options for now.

And considering your 5th point:
Yeah Israëlis and American Jews do have their influence on the US with pleading for militairy & economical support and it's good they do: Israël would not have been able to have overcome the Arab invaders in the past without that help. Now if the Palestinians would unite as a people to gather militairy & economical support, like Israël has done, in order to kick out renegade troublemakers like Hamas and friends and to establish 1 responsible Palestinian Government which can resume unhindered peace-negociations with Israël the Palestinian people would be much better served than it currently is under Militant authority.

Yes alot still needs to happen, but I am confident it will eventually work out that way.

Allright. So what do you suggest the UN do? Experience teaches the UN isn't very capable of doing anything at all; The UN failed to stop the Serbs of murdering 1000nds of Muslim men in Srebrenica, yet they were watching passively as this genocide took palce right in front of their eyes. So I don't have a whole lot of confidence in the UN.

But sure if they can assist Israëlis and Palestinians by forming a militairy Buffer-zone between the Israëli land and the Palestinian land to stop militairy actions from both sides so that the peaceprocess can continue and make progress undisturbed that would be more than welcome.

As long as the UN doesn't fail as massively as they did in Srebrenica.

Also know that the UN has formed a Militairy Bufferzone on the Israëli/Lebanese border before, keeping both sides seperated from eachother. That went pretty well I believe, but untill they left. However Hizbollah was well able to continue their attacks on Israëli cities and towns just over the Lebanese border as soon as the UN left.

I'm wondering what they're waiting for. It sounds like a good thing to do.

sounds like a good plan.

You're probably right SKA. My post was more of an petty insult to the UN than anything.

In this day and age of globalization there has to be a world order. I think the UN needs to step up and take the job, becaue as of now it is left to the United States. Say what you will about the US, but it can't continue that way.

Originally Posted by Half/Dreaming

You're probably right SKA. My post was more of an petty insult to the UN than anything.

In this day and age of globalization there has to be a world order. I think the UN needs to step up and take the job, becaue as of now it is left to the United States. Say what you will about the US, but it can't continue that way.

I despise the U.N. for making us do their jobs for them. I think we should pull out of that worthless (at least these days) organization. So much could be done with an organization like that that actually does things.

Yes the UN are Worthless and incapable of making any decisions or taking any actions. But since they exist let them serve a purpose.
Even if they fail: That would show the International Community that, no matter how hard they critisize Israël, it is not that easy as they think and sitting on the side line and making smartass comments on how things should be done is rediculous and not going to help anyone.

Sure let the impotent UN form a buffer zone. Let them shut up and do something instead. And if they're not going to do anything, like we're all used to from the UN, then at LEAST let them shut up and stop being (hypo)critical of countries far away with complicated conflicts.

But if a bunch of guys on a forum can come up with this briljant solution, then why can't "intelligent world leaders"?

However considering your 4th point: That wall and it's checkpoints, as ugly and demoralising as it is, are the only thing Israël currently has to stop Palestinian Suicide bombers from crossing the border and creating megadeth in Israëli crowded public places. Perhaps you would have an idea for a good alternative for the wall and it's checkpoints? preferably something that also keeps suicide bombers from crossing the border and isn't as demoralising. You gotta hand it to Israël: The current situation is very complicated and doesn't leave them with much other options for now.

All the check points (atleast within the palestinian territories) wouldn't be needed if it where not for the settlements.

Each settlement brings with it walls/check points and soldiers.

Not to mention the settlements are deemed illegal.

as for the walls i understand they are to protect israeli citizen's from the bombers and soforth but often they are made to include those settlements (in the westbank,gaza) that have been deemed "illegal". Effectively annexing even more palestinian territory. and including more territory into Israel proper.

I once heard in a documentary (though i think it is outdated now) that there was a minor settlement in Gaza (i think it has been removed now) with 5000 people in it.

For those 5000 people they required 30 000 soldiers to have checkpoints set up and soldiers potrolling those areas.

Now think of the good it would do for israel/Palestine and there soldiers if more of those settlements where removed?

Yeah Israëlis and American Jews do have their influence on the US with pleading for militairy & economical support and it's good they do: Israël would not have been able to have overcome the Arab invaders in the past without that help.

ya i agree, the american's military/fianancial aide was and is a big driver for Israel's military supremacy in the region.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

I once heard in a documentary (though i think it is outdated now) that there was a minor settlement in Gaza (i think it has been removed now) with 5000 people in it.

For those 5000 people they required 30 000 soldiers to have checkpoints set up and soldiers potrolling those areas.

ha I think it was 500 people. but they were removed by the prime minister Ariel Sharon a couple of years ago.
yea the settlements are the stupidest thing ever. they were created mostly in the seventies and eighties, by the influence of ( guess who ) Ariel Sharon.
crazy crazy middle east. why was I not born in Australia?