| QUOTE (gronne @ Nov 18 2004, 02:51 AM) |
| Israel sure is a catastrophe, but it's WAY too late to dissolve it now. |
On May 14, 1948, when Israel declared independence despite the best efforts of the British and despite the fact that they guaranteed it with the Balfour Declaration in 1917. The UN while was in favour of Jewish state, as usual did absolutely nothing either way. The British went a bit further and actually tried to keep them from getting weapons, and gave weapons to the surrounding Arab states, opened up land entry from all the other arab states to israel and gave covor to them, obstructed Jewish defenses on the ground, blocked Jewish reinforcements and aide from both the mediteranean and land, and bombed the Jewish fighters from the air. The This was the first time that the Israelis survived a massive attack from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria (and arguably Britain). The stated purpose of this invasion was to "push the Jews into the sea" or genocide. This is not mere speculation; the Arabs of the former British Mandate of Palestine (that never came to be) were led by a Nazi collaborator, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, and was up for charges at Nuremberg before escaping in 1946. He was a well known supporter of the "The Final Solution". They also mowed down and irrecoverably destroyed all the Jewish settlements in Jordan and Egypt killing most of the Jews in the process. So the rest of the world DID TRY TO DISSOLVE IT right from the getgo. But the Israelis won despite the amazing odds.
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| The only thing to do is to give back key areas to the palestinians. |
Israel did offer to give 90% of the land they won in the war to Yasser.
I already posted this earlier, but it fits better here . . .
First off it never belonged to the palestenians. It belonged to Jordan and Egypt. And in case you have forgetten - this is how the palestenians came into this predicament:
May 14, 1967: Egypt's President Gamal Nasser demands the withdrawal of United Nations force--established in 1957 as an international "guarantee" of safety for Israel--from the Sinai peninsula. The UN meekly obeys; the United States and Britain fail to rouse the Security Council to take action.
May 15: Three Egyptian army divisions and 600 tanks roll into the Sinai. World community does nothing.
May 17: Cairo Radio's Voice of the Arabs: "All Egypt is now prepared to plunge into total war which will put an end to Israel."
May 18: Voice of the Arabs announces: "As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more. We shall not complain any more to the UN about Israel. The sole method we shall apply against Israel is a total war which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence."
May 18: Nasser announces blockade of Straits of Tiran in the Red Sea, severing Israel's southern maritime link to the outside world. Israel considers the closure an act of war. (US President Lyndon Johnson later says: "If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision that the Straits of Tiran would be closed.")
May 20: Syria's defence minister (now president) Hafez el-Assad says: "Our forces are now ready not only to repulse the aggression but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united ..."
May 27: Nasser: "Our basic objection will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight."
May 30: Nasser : "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel."
May 30: Jordan's King Hussein signs a five-year mutual defence pact with Egypt and the two set up a joint command, making clear its stance in any future conflict.
My 31: Egyptian newspaper Al Akhbar reports: "Under terms of the military agreement signed with Jordan, Jordanian artillery, co-ordinated with the forces of Egypt and Syria, is in a position to cut Israel in two ..."
May 31: Iraqi President Rahman Aref announces: "This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear--to wipe Israel off the map."
June 4: Iraq joins Nasser's military alliance against Israel.
June 5: Six Day War begins: Israeli Airforce commits a pre-emptive strike on the airfields in Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq.
If it had not been for their own aggression, they would not be in this situation. Hell, they would probably still be called Egyptians and living in refugee camps. And yet if they had won, the world wouldnt even care.
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| The muslims can stand the idea of living with jews, but they can't stand to have them steal their country. That's a huge difference. They lived together before Israel was a reality, so I don't think that's a big problem. |
Lived together in the loosest sense of the term. The so called "Golden Age of Arab-Jewish Co-Existence", is basically a lie. Sure the Jews could live there so long as they were willing to put up with special taxes levied against them, agreed to not build any places of worship, wore marks on there clothes so that all Arabs would know they were jews, and agreed to only work certain jobs and stay out of govornment. Then of course there was the periodic killing of all the males and enslavement of the females and children in a single town for population control (this also happened to the christians). Occasoinally, they would kill all the jews including the women and children as a reward for a failed upraising. Not to mention the fact that if any jew started doing too well, they would burn down his crops or kill all of his live stalk. In places like libya and parts of egypt, Jews could only live there if they had an Arab master and were considered his property. In Morocco, the only job jews were aloud to have was cleaning the latrines, had to sell items at half price, and could not refuse counterfitt coins. Other pass times of the Arabs during this erra were beard pulling, spitting, or just starting a good old fashion jewish stoning in the market place.
The worst arab/muslim offendors were the Moors in Spain, and Almoravids in Morrocco where their attrocities were far worse then mentioned above. So while the Jews did fair better in the middle east then in Europe (ie. no mass genocide attempts), it could harldy be called peacefule co-existence.
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| You're so blind it hurts. We often hear about Israeli counter-attacks where innocents ARE the targets. Retaliation feeds retaliation. Sure, the palestinians shouldn't have started attacking innocents in the first place, but does that mean you should completely stand on Israels side? As I've said, far more palestinians(civilians) have been killed than Israelis, and they are the ones illegally occupying others soil. |
While the BBC is generally speaking a pretty unbiases news source, they have proven themselves to be very biased when comes to Israel. Your statement exemplifies that and if you want examples just ask. Every time an Israeli kills a palestenian it is considered civillian by most simply because you cant tell who is what. I am not saying I support everything that the Israeli's have done, some of Sherones work in the mid 70's was very questionable, but I do support their right to return fire when fired upon, to do pre-emptive strikes when attack is emminent, to retaliate, and to occupy land won in a war that was eminent.
As far as "illegally occupying soil . . . thats a whole other subject that I also disagree with. but this post is too long as it is
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| And as I've said, just because there are palestinian terrorists, doesn't give Israel ANY right at all to act like they do. I feel a lot of people choose the israelian side ONLY because of the terrorists. But then we're talking about individuals, and individuals shouldn't affect your whole opinion about the situation. |
Do you think the average 16 year old Palestenian just inherently knows how to make a bomb strap it to their body, and detonate it? Or that so many of them just decided independently that this is a good thing to do? These are not just random outlier individuals working alone. Hamas and the PLO are not individuals. They are well organized and funded by the surrounding arab states.
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| In a modern society it can never be accepted for someone to take over a country because it was important to them 2000 years ago. I mean seriously, two thousand years ago. |
That assumes that it had some how lost meaning to them, they left, or they ever stopped trying to regain there state. The Jews never left Israel. Sure some migrated away, but there has been a continual jewish presence there for over 3000 years. And from the occupation of Rome on, the Jews have tried several times to regain control. 1948 was just the first time they succeeded.
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| ANYONE would act like the muslims if it was your soil being stolen. Tell me how sick it would be if someone said "Sure, go ahead. Take my land and call it something else. That would be hilariuos". |
Thats pretty funny coming from a subject of her majesty. Thats exactly what your country did. They took over the entire middle east, then arbitrarily drew lines in the sand and appointed leaders. None of these countries existed until they came along. Not only that, Britain spent 50yrs doing it. Yet, none of them cared how they were split up and divided so long as a Jewish state did not exist.
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| That's what the problem really comes down to, basic rights. Americans, if any, who'd fight every possible war to defend their lovely rights, ought to understand this. But no, you choose to support Israel, because of religious reasons?!?!? It's time to take a deep look in the mirror, my friends. |
Israel has been far kinder to the palestenians, than the arabs ever were to the Jews. Also far kinder than Egypt or Jordan were to the palestenians. Unlike Egypt or Jordan, Israel has offered the palestenians full intigration if they put down there arms. Hell, Israel even offered Palestine 90% of the land they were asking for to setup their own state. Israel currently has a 22% arab population who work, vote, and are afforded all the same freedoms as the jews. Their are even Arabs in Parliment. You talk of basic human rights. Well they are there for the taking, they simply have to learn how to live with a jewish neighbor.
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Topic: Yasser Arafat Is Dead. (Read 341 times)