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[Tyrannical]

I'm actualy surprised that after the '73 war they just didn't expell all the muslims.

It's funny how the extremists are trying to start another arab-israeli war, becuase I don't see many Palestinians survivng that.

 

[Matt]

Bunch of crap

You have no concept of history, are a bigot, and do a disservice to the Jewish faith every time you open you mouth.

 

[Guileless]

It's funny how the extremists are trying to start another arab-israeli war, becuase I don't see many Palestinians survivng that.

I think a sizable number of Palestinians would rather die than go through the reforms necessary to form a government with a monopoly on violence that punishes religious fanatics who take the law into their own hands. That is the only way an Israeli government would have the political capital necessary to make comprehensive peace in a two state solution. Whatever the number of people who think that way actually is, the people full of passionate intensity make the decisions for everybody and control the news organs to bring people around to their view.

I don't understand why smart people with ties to the area, and who now live in Western countries and know how functioning societies work, indulge the behavior of the terrorists. However good it makes you feel in the short term, it's terrible for the people who live there in the long term.

 

[AmMortal]

Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque are built on the Temple Mount which is the holiest site to Jews. The Temple Mount was built 2,300 years before Islam even existed.:lol It also happens to be the holiest site for Judism.

Those two mosques were built ON the holiest Jewish site that had already existed for 2,300 years. If Jews went and built a holy Synagogue somewhere in Mecca, we all know it would've been burned down, long ago. Jews are civilized enough to let Muslims worship there, but those holy sites in there existence are disrespect to Jews(IMO).

I see, but remember this, after the Roman inquisition muslims rebuilt Jeruzalem, because they felt that it was a duty laid unto them from God. The temple mount now where Baitul-Maqdis is, used to be a literal dumpster. Omar, the second right hand man of Muhammad(saw)asked the people if they wanted it. They Jews of that time were people that had been opressed,tortured and colonised. They felt like the muslims were their lost brothers, loving the people they loved and hating the ones they hated.

Now its different, Zionism is a whole lot different from Judaism.


Note how I say muslims and not arabs, because muslims were from all over the world, muhammad (saw) hated racism, so much so that he would make the person who made an insult in a racial way, feel so guilty that they would literally kiss the feet of the individual they degraded.

 

[Azih]

If you are going to make an argument, do not do it with bull shit like this. That is like showing a chart of North and South America, attributing it all to being Pueblo land, and then showing both continents controlled completely by the free masons 50 years later.

It's a completely valid map from 1967 to 2000 at least.

 

[Azih]

I think a sizable number of Palestinians would rather die than go through the reforms necessary to form a government with a monopoly on violence that punishes religious fanatics who take the law into their own hands.

You would think wrong.

The problem is that you're expecting a Palesteniang government to be formed that can provide security (police force essentially) before anything else happens.

For a government to be able to provide that kind of law enforcement it requires credibility.

For credibility a government needs to have power and/or provide prosperity.

The Palestenian 'government' does not control its own borders, it cannot run or regulate an economy and thus cannot provide its people with an environment that produces jobs and a livelihood. Hell it doesn't even have any control over forces. The democratically elected government of Palestine had to fight a civil war to gain control of security forces and only does in a small part of the country.

 

[John Bombo]

It's amazing how many people are so clueless about Palestine history and Islam.

I've read muslims have no historical ties with the land. Well I guess the last 1400 years didn't count. And well before Prophet Muhammed as Muslims believe in and respect almost all Prophets revered by Judaïsm and Christianity. So Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple are seen by muslims as a Mosque and not a Temple because Islam believes that all prophets conveyed the same message and prostrated to Allah during prayers. (for people who still don't know it, Allah means God. Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word "Allah".)

 

[AmMortal]

It's amazing how many people are so clueless about Palestine history and Islam.

I've read muslims have no historical ties with the land. Well I guess the last 1400 years didn't count. And well before Prophet Muhammed as Muslims believe in and respect almost all Prophets revered by Judaïsm and Christianity. So Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple are seen by muslims as a Mosque and not a Temple because Islam believes that all prophets conveyed the same message and prostrated to Allah during prayers. (for people who still don't know it, Allah means God. Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word "Allah".)

Truth right there.

 

[speculawyer]

??? I am trying to stay polite, but if we are going to justify territory based on historical relevance, the Jews do have a stronger claim in that regard.

My only point was to point out that he lies. And as someone else pointed out, he does the Israelis a disservice with his over-zealous lies in their defense.


Historical relevance? Are all Americans prepared to hand over their homes to Native Americans? Are all Australians prepared to give the continent back to Aborigines? Historical relevance is not a source of law.

Everyone knows the end-game . . . '67 borders with some modifications, Jerusalem is an international shared city, no right of return . . . the Economist magazine has a good summary of it. But what sucks is that both sides have hard-liners that refuse to accept such a negotiated peace deal. If I were an Israeli or a Palestinian, I'd probably just move the fuck out of there. Who wants to live in an area filled with dangerous fundamentalist militants?

Props to Israel for resuming negotiations despite Hamas' some unknown extremist's pathetic attempt to derail things with this cowardly attack on unarmed students.

 

[Azih]

But what sucks is that both sides have hard-liners that refuse to accept such a negotiated peace deal.

The bigger problem is that normal people on both sides are swayed by their respective hard-liners moronic arguments and justifications.


Edit:
Hamas did not claim responsibility for this BTW.

 

[speculawyer]

Hamas did not claim justification for this BTW.

Justification? Do you mean responsibility?

Lots of Hamas people in Gaza sure celebrated the shooting.

 

[Azih]

Justification? Do you mean responsibility?

Lots of Hamas people in Gaza sure celebrated the shooting.

Yeah Responsibilty.

Lots of *Palestenians* in Gaza celebrated the shooting. It's an entrenched problem. Far from intractable though.

 

[speculawyer]

Yeah Responsibilty.

Lots of *Palestenians* in Gaza celebrated the shooting. It's an entrenched problem. Far from intractable though.

I dunno . . . it has been a problem for a long time and many efforts have failed. But despite that, people really do need to keep trying. Even when efforts fail, things generally seem to be a little better during negotiations and when they are trying to fulfill terms of a proto-deal.

 

[Azih]

The responsibility is claimed by http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23505907/

Might be a Hezbollah retaliation and nothing to do with Palestine oddly enough.

Two years of peace and prosperity and suddenly the millitants find themselves on the wrong side of public opinion. Guaranteed. Five more years and they're well on the way to being on the fringe where they belong.

Edit: Important bit from that article

In southern Lebanon, celebratory gunfire erupted in the Ain al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp, the country's largest, as people poured into the streets upon hearing about the attack and handed out sweets.

Officials from Hamas and Fatah in the camp both applauded the attack, without claiming responsibility.

 

[Wraith]

The responsibility is claimed by http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23505907/

Might be a Hezbollah retaliation and nothing to do with Palestine oddly enough.

Two years of peace and prosperity and suddenly the millitants find themselves on the wrong side of public opinion. Guaranteed. Five more years and they're well on the way to being on the fringe where they belong.

Edit: Important bit from that article

I really hope this is true. It would be amazing.

 

[Guileless]

It doesn't matter if it's wrong, that's the appearance to a majority of the Israeli electorate. Terrorism like this, the resulting celebration, and the inevitable excuses from people who should know better makes it a reasonable viewpoint. We can talk about what happened 1400 years ago and compare body counts until Duke Nukem Forever comes out and that won't change. There won't be a negotiated settlement until a central government has the will and ability to stop it.

 

[Azih]

It doesn't matter if it's wrong, that's the appearance to a majority of the Israeli electorate.

No doubt and it's a misconception that is encouraged and spread by Israeli hawks.

You have to realize that there are equivalent appearances/misconceptions about Israelis among Palestenians fanned by Palestenian equivalents of Israeli hawks.

There won't be a negotiated settlement until a central government has the will and ability to stop it

And there won't be a central government with the ability to stop it until there is a central government that has the power to run a functioning economy. The Palestinan government does not control its borders, does not have an economy, does not have the credibility required to enforce law and order. Hell it barely has a system set up to *legislate* laws.

And 'Stopping Terrorism' is as impossible and vague a benchmark to hit as winning the "War on Terrorism".

Setting a baseline for negotiations that is impossible to achieve merely means that there will never be any negotiations.

 

[Guileless]

If it is a misconception, the Israeli hawks don't have to work very hard to perpetuate it since that work is done for them.

I think the typical Israeli voter, knowing the amount of aid that has gone and continues to go to Palestinians annually, would not be sympathetic to your argument that reform is impossible because there is no economy. Maybe that's another misconception, but I don't think it will change without undertaking reform on their own initiative.

 

[Azih]

If it is a misconception, the Israeli hawks don't have to work very hard to perpetuate it since that work is done for them.

As the work is done for Palestenian hawks by dint of body count and destruction caused by Israeli missiles, and the complete blockade of goods.

I think the typical Israeli voter, knowing the amount of aid that has gone and continues to go to Palestinians annually, would not be sympathetic to your argument that reform is impossible because there is no economy.

Considering that
1) aid does not provide a livelihood or a living
2) aid to the Gaza strip has been completely blocked and shut off in any case

I would say that it takes a fair bit of spin to see that unless a country can control its own imports and exports and its own borders it cannot run an economy.

And also a fair bit of spin to see that if a government can't provide the basics for its citizens (for which aid is not enough) it won't be able to enforce any laws.

without undertaking reform on their own initiative.

What possible reform could Palestine undertake when all of its borders are controlled by Israel? No imports. No exports. No trade. No economy. Nobody with the authority to run the police force required for security.

 

[KarishBHR]

You sort of contradict yourself. You say America have the right to keep Texas because they won it in war, but did Israel not win land it occupies today won from war as well?

I'm saying Israel is not obligated to, but I wish they would because I want peace. It is rightfully Israel's, just to make my position clear

 

[Guileless]

If there's always an excuse, there will never be any progress. It must be very tempting for Palestinian leaders to blame failures on conditions beyond their control and ask for more handouts when they have such a receptive audience. Even if they are right in some cases, this is self-destructive behavior. Aid provides the foundation for building an economy, provided it's not siphoned off into Swiss bank accounts and used for weapons. People throughout history have done a lot more with a lot less.

This isn't going to change in my lifetime so I'm going to quit arguing about it.

 

[Azih]

If there's always an excuse, there will never be any progress. It must be very tempting for Palestinian leaders to blame failures on conditions beyond their control and ask for more handouts when they have such a receptive audience.

I haven't been talking about handouts or Aid at all. You're the one who brought them up. I'm talking about the Palestenian government actually having the tools necessary to build a viable state. Then you get law enforcement.

Aid provides the foundation for building an economy

No it doesn't. Producing goods and services and selling them for a profit is what provides the foundation for building an economy. That requires being able to control flow of goods across the border.

People throughout history have done a lot more with a lot less.

Actually no, a people without freedom of movement don't historically have a lot of options.