[Hawkeye_a]

Durban II refers to the UN World Conference Against Racism to be held in Geneva on 20th April 2009.

Currently being dominated by Muslim nations and being used to stage their agenda:
-to equate Zionism with racism
-to single out Israel as a racist nation(despite Israel being one of the nations with the biggest Muslim minority by percentage)
-promote anti-semitism
-limit free speech by condemning, what they regard as, 'blasphemy'

Nations currently boycotting this joke of a conference include Canada, Israel, United States and Italy.

Nations considering boycotting this conference include U.K., France, Australia(which i personally hope boycotts this event) and Netherlands.

Discuss.

[nonhuman]

Not really sure what there is to discuss. Everything you've said jives with what I know of the conference, and I don't think anyone here would be hard-pressed to figure out where I fall on this issue.

I don't really see that there's going to be much controversy here. Though some are going to take a different position than I on Israel and Zionism, I doubt even the staunchest critics of Israel (at least here on MacNN) are likely to support the anti-free speech nonsense that's been going on in the UN lately. And our Muslim members, I suspect, are likely to agree.

I really do hope that those four countries do boycott, especially the U.K. and Holland. Given recent events in those countries it would be, in my opinion, an important statement for them to make.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

Nations currently boycotting this joke of a conference include Canada, Israel, United States and Italy.

Hey, me, too.

Oh wait, I'm not a nation. Nevermind

-t

[Hugi]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

Durban II refers to the UN World Conference Against Racism to be held in Geneva on 20th April 2009.
-to equate Zionism with racism

And? Exactly how is zionism not about race?

-to single out Israel as a racist nation(despite Israel being one of the nations with the biggest Muslim minority by percentage)

Heh, yeah, they've got that "biggest muslim minority" pretty well walled in. By the same argument, Nazi Poland was not so racist - after all, they had a huge jewish minority.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Hugi 

And? Exactly how is zionism not about race?

Well there are Jews of many different races including Arab and African Jews (Mizrahim and Habashim)... But ignoring that and considering Jews as a whole to be a single race, just because Zionism is about race doesn't mean that it's racist. Some Zionists are racist, certainly, but Zionism is not, in itself, necessarily racist.

Heh, yeah, they've got that "biggest muslim minority" pretty well walled in. By the same argument, Nazi Poland was not so racist - after all, they had a huge jewish minority.

There are Muslim MKs seated in the Knesset. I'm pretty sure that alone differentiates Israel from any comparision you might want to make to try and paint it as a racist nation. Muslims, in general, are not 'walled in' as you say. The issues in Gaza and the West Bank are far from representative of the rest of Israeli society.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

There are Muslim MKs seated in the Knesset. I'm pretty sure that alone differentiates Israel from any comparision you might want to make to try and paint it as a racist nation. Muslims, in general, are not 'walled in' as you say. The issues in Gaza and the West Bank are far from representative of the rest of Israeli society.

<serious question time>
Are all the Muslims in Israel, apart from in Gaza and the West Bank, given the same legal recognition and citizenship rights as Jewish people in Israel? For legal purposes, can a Muslim have the exact same citizenship rights as a Jewish person? I was under the impression they could not. I was under the impression that only Jewish persons could have full legal and citizenship rights in Israel and that non-Jews could get most of the same rights as a Jewish person but never the full, equal rights as a Jewish person. Please correct me if I am wrong.
</serious question time>

[nonhuman]

I am not an authority on this, but it is my understanding that non-Jewish citizens are just as much citizens as the Jews and have all the same rights and responsibilities. Legally all citizens are equal regardless of race or religion.

As far as i know, the only real difference is that all Jews have a right to Israeli citizenship and can claim it if they make aliyah, a situation which has its analogues in a number of other countries around the world.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

I am not an authority on this, but it is my understanding that non-Jewish citizens are just as much citizens as the Jews and have all the same rights and responsibilities. Legally all citizens are equal regardless of race or religion.

As far as i know, the only real difference is that all Jews have a right to Israeli citizenship and can claim it if they make aliyah, a situation which has its analogues in a number of other countries around the world.

Thanks for the reply. Maybe we can get BigMac or vmarks to chime in with an answer. They are both very knowledgeable on matters of Israeli history and government policy.

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally Posted by Hugi 

Heh, yeah, they've got that "biggest muslim minority" pretty well walled in. By the same argument, Nazi Poland was not so racist - after all, they had a huge jewish minority.

I am referring to Israeli citizens who are Muslim; not Gazans or people in the West Bank.

Also... "Zionism is the international Jewish political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People"

Now compare that to Saudi Arabia and other Arabian nations... what are their policies towards non-muslim citizens(if any).... are their politics/laws 'racist'; or do we chalk that up to a 'difference in culture' ?

[vmarks]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...,2362924.story

is going to be instructive and relevant.

Zionism is not racism. It simply is the belief that Jewish people share a common bond and possess the right of self-determination to create safe haven in the world as a country, especially in light of fact that historically every other nation in the world has failed to provide this safe haven at one time or another.

"Anti-Zionism earns its discriminatory character by denying the Jewish people what it grants to other historically bonded collectives (e.g. French, Spanish, Palestinians), namely, the right to nationhood, self-determination and legitimate coexistence with other indigenous claimants." - Judea Pearl, from the editorial linked above.

Within Israel, citizens of any religion, or no religion at all, have the same rights as any other person. This is shown in many ways, including the fact that there are members of the highest elected body, the Knesset (parliament) who are Muslim and actively speak about the destruction of the state with impunity.

Citizens can travel anywhere within the country equally. This is in contrast to places like Saudi Arabia, where specific roads are marked with signs saying "Muslim only".



According to wikitravel, http://wikitravel.org/en/Mecca , Non-Muslims are strictly prohibited from entering the holy city of Mecca. The penalty is deportation from the country. Documentation will be checked upon entry and anyone not showing proof of being Muslim will be denied entry. As a solitary exception, the Mecca bus terminal (outside city limits) is open to all.

Israel has no such restriction.

Israel handles marriage by recognizing whatever the various religious communities recognize, has no civil marriage, so this has the interesting side effect that non-orthodox Jews tend to leave the country in order to get married, because Israel recognizes marriages that take place in other countries, taking that other country's word for it. In that sense, non-Jews in Israel may have an easier time of marriage than some Jews. In this way, the state is acting with equality by simply leaving it up to the various religious authorities rather than getting into the direct business of defining what is and is not a marriage, unlike the US. As with all countries, government is imperfect and there's room for improvement.

As for schooling, there is government schooling provided for all citizens. These tend to be separated by religious practice, not by policy as much as by desire of the citizens taking advantage of the education. That is, religious orthodox Jews wish their children to be schooled with religious orthodox children, Muslims desire their children to be schooled with other Muslims, and so on. There are schools like those at Givat Haviva which school all children together regardless of religion. Any citizen who can meet admissions requirements can attend a university in Israel. I've known Arabs who attended Hebrew U in Jerusalem.

As for property, rights to own a business, and so on, the Maxim (Maksim, Maqsim, transliteration being what it is) that was bombed in Haifa by Palestinians was owned by Arabs who are Israeli citizens. As a country, there's a strong entrepreneurial bent and non-Jews are no exception. Contrast this with Japan, where all foreign businesses have to have a Japanese officer by law in order to operate in Japan.

Is Israel perfect? No. Is any government? No. At the same time, is Israel the worst among the nations, worthy of being singled out for talk that at its root is discriminatory and advocates the end to the country? No.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by vmarks 

Is anti-Zionism hate? - Los Angeles Times

is going to be instructive and relevant.

Do you think the other Zionism-focused Op-Ed published in yesterday's paper will be equally "instructive and relevant"?
Zionism is the problem - Los Angeles Times

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy 

Do you think the other Zionism-focused Op-Ed published in yesterday's paper will be equally "instructive and relevant"?

If you have the capacity for critical thought, you can come to a rational opinion on the subject. If not, please disregard this message.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

If you have the capacity for critical thought, you can come to a rational opinion on the subject. If not, please disregard this message.

Since the question was addressed to vmarks, why don't we wait and see if he has the capacity for critical thought and can come to a rational opinion on the subject?

[OAW]

I would suggest that Arab citizens of Israel have equal rights de jure ... but they are de facto second-class citizens. The very concept of a "Jewish state" .... which is at the core of Zionism .... reinforces that at a fundamental level. Factor in the Arab permanent residents of Israel ... such as the residents of East Jerusalem, many of whom are not citizens. Then factor in the perceived demographic threat of this Arab minority (citizens and permanent residents) that is approximately 20% of the population. Declining Jewish birth rates. Increasing Arab birth rates. Even Benjamin Netenyahu, the former and soon to be again Prime Minister, has characterized this as a "demographic bomb" and noted that Israel wouldn't be able to maintain a Jewish demographic majority if the Arab population increased beyond 20%. This is why Israel will not simply annex the West Bank and Gaza and grant full citizenship to its Arab residents as part of a "one state solution". This is why Israel will not recognize the Right of Return of the Palestinians who were expelled or fled in 1948 as part of a "two state solution". Because either of those choices threatens the very concept of a "Jewish state". It doesn't threaten the concept of a "Jewish homeland". But that would require a fundamental change in outlook among the Israeli population. One where the goal is to peacefully co-exist in the Holy Land as opposed to dominating and controlling it.

In any event, it appears that "democracy" only goes so far in Israel. Is Zionism = racism? I would say no but only in the strictest sense of the term. Judaism is a religion. So Jews are an ethnic group organized primarily around religion, language, and culture ... not a race. Similarly, Arabs are an ethnic group that is organized primarily around language and culture. Now having said that, I would say that racism factors into the equation in Israel. Clearly there is stratification in the society based on race. Ashkenazi Jews of European descent run the show. Dark-skinned Arabs and even dark-skinned Jews (i.e. the Falashas from Ethiopia" routinely experience discrimination. But name one diverse country where whites are in control where that is not the case to one degree or another? I mean let's keep it real ... that's a worldwide phenomenon. So IMO it wouldn't be fair to equate Zionism with racism because the latter is much bigger and older than the former.

OAW

[nonhuman]

I disagree, OAW. I would suggest that it is the nature of Israel as a Jewish State that prevents it from being a racist state. The purpose of the state of Israel and of modern Zionism is to provide, not just a political entity or homeland to Jews, but a safe haven. Because Israel is a democratic state, this can only be reasonable considered a realistic goal so long as the majority of the citizenry is Jewish. All indications are that were the Palestinians to be granted the same right of return it could not be guaranteed that Israel would remain safe for Jews. As it is, those parts of Israel that are in range of Palestinian rockets are not safe regardless of the tack that Israel takes. Every move Israel makes, whether it's giving concessions to the Palestinians and trying to work towards a lasting peace, or bombing Palestine in retribution for attacks is answered by rockets. Peace is answered by rockets; no way forward is possible unless the Palestinians change this, and nothing is further proof that Israel's internal policies are necessary.

This is not, I would suggest, significantly different from the Republic of Ireland. People of Irish descent are able to claim Irish citizenship in much the same way that people of Jewish descent are able to claim Israeli citizenship. Do we call this a racist policy on the part of the Irish because Arabs don't have the same right? Do we fault Ireland for wanting to protect her culture and her people?

[OAW]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

I disagree, OAW. I would suggest that it is the nature of Israel as a Jewish State that prevents it from being a racist state. The purpose of the state of Israel and of modern Zionism is to provide, not just a political entity or homeland to Jews, but a safe haven. Because Israel is a democratic state, this can only be reasonable considered a realistic goal so long as the majority of the citizenry is Jewish. All indications are that were the Palestinians to be granted the same right of return it could not be guaranteed that Israel would remain safe for Jews. As it is, those parts of Israel that are in range of Palestinian rockets are not safe regardless of the tack that Israel takes. Every move Israel makes, whether it's giving concessions to the Palestinians and trying to work towards a lasting peace, or bombing Palestine in retribution for attacks is answered by rockets. Peace is answered by rockets; no way forward is possible unless the Palestinians change this, and nothing is further proof that Israel's internal policies are necessary.

I understand where you are coming from. But in all fairness, Israel is far from innocent in the situation. It does its share of dirt to provoke the violence that comes its way. Assassinations, destruction of homes, F16 and gunship attacks on crowded civilian areas in the middle of the night, and a blockade of Gaza which in and of itself is an act of war. This is not to say that there aren't those on the Palestinian side that have done their share of dirt too. They have. But let's say for the sake of discussion that all Palestinian civilian deaths are "unintentional" and all Israeli civilian deaths were "intentional". The fact remains that Israel kill ratio dwarfs that of the Palestinians.



Source

So I submit that given the current approach of its government, Israel is far from a safe haven. It will never know peace until it resolves the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And that will be next to impossible as long as Zionism is embraced because at its basic level it de-legitimatizes the rights of a pre-existing population (that still has significant numbers, quite unlike Native Americans) in favor of the interests of immigrants. That is a recipe for continuous conflict .... all day, every day any way you slice it.

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

This is not, I would suggest, significantly different from the Republic of Ireland. People of Irish descent are able to claim Irish citizenship in much the same way that people of Jewish descent are able to claim Israeli citizenship. Do we call this a racist policy on the part of the Irish because Arabs don't have the same right? Do we fault Ireland for wanting to protect her culture and her people?

The significant difference is the fact that the Republic of Ireland is presently populated by, and has always been populated by the Irish. There are no other people who have any reasonable claim to Irish land other than the Irish. The same simply cannot be said for Israel/Palestine. Now there are some who feel that the Germans, Russians, Poles, Americans, etc. who comprise the Ashkenazi Jewish population that recently emigrated to and now run Israel have a greater claim to that area of the world than the people who have lived there for centuries. And this claim is fundamentally based on religious affiliation. Never mind the fact that Israel ceased to exist as a nation-state in 70 A.D. At the hands of the Roman Empire ... not the Palestinians I might add. The entire history of that region and the people who lived there is just conveniently ignored from that time until 1948 from the Zionist viewpoint. So therein is the critical reason why this situation is not in any way comparable to Ireland.

OAW

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by OAW 

I understand where you are coming from. But in all fairness, Israel is far from innocent in the situation. It does its share of dirt to provoke the violence that comes its way. Assassinations, destruction of homes, F16 and gunship attacks on crowded civilian areas in the middle of the night, and a blockade of Gaza which in and of itself is an act of war. This is not to say that there aren't those on the Palestinian side that have done their share of dirt too. They have. But let's say for the sake of discussion that all Palestinian civilian deaths are "unintentional" and all Israeli civilian deaths were "intentional". The fact remains that Israel kill ratio dwarfs that of the Palestinians.

Certainly Israel has done some things that I think were ill advised. And Israel certainly shares some responsibility for the state of things. However, think about what you just said. Israel is, by all accounts, more than a match for the Palestinians. If Israel wanted to completely and definitively destroy Palestine, Palestine would be gone. I'm not trying to say that we should be giving Israel special credit for not engaging in the wanton slaughter of innocents, but certainly we can draw a moral distinction here. Are all the actions of IDF soldiers completely moral? Of course not, and especially in such an emotionally charged conflict as this it's far less rare that it should be that a soldier steps over the line and gets away with it. This is deplorable, and I sincerely wish it didn't happen.

But what is the alternative? There are only two options at this point: 1) the state of Israel is dissolved and the land is given to the Palestinians (completely untenable at this point, even if you thought it was desirable), and 2) the Palestinians make a genuine attempt at peace, something they simply haven't done (as a political entity, there are individuals who have).

If you search the archives of this forum you'll see that I used to be a pretty vehement critic of Israel. I used to think it was largely the Israelis who were to blame for the continued conflict and for egging on the Palestinians. But the more deeply I look into the issue, and the more complete a picture I have of it, the more I've come to realize that, even granting that Israel has been less than perfect in conduct, Israel has done far more to indicate a genuine desire for a peaceful resolution than Palestine. Looking at the facts and the history, while I understand the anger that those the British uprooted in the Palestinian Mandate to allow for the creation of the stat of Israel and sympathize with them in that regard, I'm forced to conclude that the Palestinians hold the lion's share of the blame for the continuing hostilities.

So I submit that given the current approach of its government, Israel is far from a safe haven. It will never know peace until it resolves the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And that will be next to impossible as long as Zionism is embraced because at its basic level it de-legitimatizes the rights of a pre-existing population (that still has significant numbers, quite unlike Native Americans) in favor of the interests of immigrants. That is a recipe for continuous conflict .... all day, every day any way you slice it.

I agree. But what would you have them do? Rocket attacks on Israel are ongoing. At every step towards peace, at every show of good faith that Israel has made, there have been more rocket attacks. Saying that we need to cease hostilities is all well and good, but it is the Palestinians, not the Israelis, who are prolonging those hostilities and making it impossible for Israel to make any concessions, relax their borders, or anything along those lines because it will just open up more of Israel to attacks.

The significant difference is the fact that the Republic of Ireland is presently populated by, and has always been populated by the Irish. There are no other people who have any reasonable claim to Irish land other than the Irish. The same simply cannot be said for Israel/Palestine. Now there are some who feel that the Germans, Russians, Poles, Americans, etc. who comprise the Ashkenazi Jewish population that recently emigrated to and now run Israel have a greater claim to that area of the world than the people who have lived there for centuries. And this claim is fundamentally based on religious affiliation. Never mind the fact that Israel ceased to exist as a nation-state in 70 A.D. At the hands of the Roman Empire ... not the Palestinians I might add. The entire history of that region and the people who lived there is just conveniently ignored from that time until 1948 from the Zionist viewpoint. So therein is the critical reason why this situation is not in any way comparable to Ireland.

I'm sure I'm in a minority among Zionists when I say this, but I could care less where the state of Israel is located. It's really too late now to do anything about it, but I think things would have worked out much better of Israel had been established somewhere else where there wasn't a large, hostile native population that needed to be forced off their land. This of course raises all sorts of other questions like where that would be, to which I have no answer. In the hypothetical situation where we could move Israel, I would have no problem with choosing a different location. But, things being what they are, this question is now irrelevant. We can't, and I would never agree with, the forced relocation of the Jews who now reside in Israel. I'm the first to admit that this is unfair to the Palestinians, and that through a quirk of history Israeli Jews are being given preferential treatment in this regard, but there is no realistic or acceptable alternative.

[Dakar V]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

CI'm sure I'm in a minority among Zionists when I say this, but I could care less where the state of Israel is located. It's really too late now to do anything about it, but I think things would have worked out much better of Israel had been established somewhere else where there wasn't a large, hostile native population that needed to be forced off their land. This of course raises all sorts of other questions like where that would be, to which I have no answer. In the hypothetical situation where we could move Israel, I would have no problem with choosing a different location. But, things being what they are, this question is now irrelevant. We can't, and I would never agree with, the forced relocation of the Jews who now reside in Israel. I'm the first to admit that this is unfair to the Palestinians, and that through a quirk of history Israeli Jews are being given preferential treatment in this regard, but there is no realistic or acceptable alternative.

I think that pretty much sums the reality of the situation up. This will only be resolved through the passage of time, and likely on a scale that means no one here will be around to see it.

[Chuckit]

I'm curious: What percentage of the Palestinian population ever had any actual claim to Israel's territory? It can't be that many, because Israel has existed for more than 60 years.

The fact that other people of your race had a claim to the land is pretty specious. You know how racism and racial profiling are wrong because members of a given race are individual people rather than one homogeneous mass? Same deal. And yes, I realize this argument would have worked against Israel back in the early 20th century, but it's not the early 20th century anymore, and the Palestinians don't have any more right to the land because they used to sit on it than Israel did because it owned the land in the first century.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I'm curious: What percentage of the Palestinian population ever had any actual claim to Israel's territory? It can't be that many, because Israel has existed for more than 60 years.

Let me address that question in this manner. Using a comment I've made previously in other threads (that has yet to be refuted I might add):

While I agree that they will have to learn how to peacefully co-exist, I disagree with the notion that neither side has more claim to the land than the other. As I've mentioned previously, that out of the 5000 year recorded history of Palestine , the Jews have only ruled the land for 533 years (not including the rule of the European Jews starting in 1948). Ever. And they didn't even show up until 2000 years after the recorded history of Palestine began. Now contrast that to the Palestinians whose ancestry goes all the way back to the original Canaanite inhabitants ! 5000 does not equate to 533 by any stretch of the imagination.

OAW

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by OAW 

Never mind the fact that Israel ceased to exist as a nation-state in 70 A.D. At the hands of the Roman Empire ... not the Palestinians I might add.

Yeah, because there was no such thing as an Arab Palestinian in 70 A.D.. Nor was there any in 700 A.D. or even 1700 A.D.. There was no recognized Arab Palestinian identity even within the Arab world until after the Arabs lost their wars of annihilation and Arafat (post 1967), YM"SH, decided that creating an illegitimate Arab Palestinian identity and furthering it through Arab terrorism was the way to achieve the goal of destroying Israel, not conventional warfare.

The entire history of that region and the people who lived there is just conveniently ignored from that time until 1948 from the Zionist viewpoint.

Uh no. You are the one who lies and denies the continual 3000 Jewish presence in the land, not us. I don't know where you get your history from, but the First Commonwealth of Israel was established around 1400 BCE, and it was conquered in 586 BCE - that's 814 years. The Second Commonwealth of Israel existed from around 530 BCE to 70 AD - another 600 years. Granted, there was foreign domination during much of that period, but it was still a Jewish country. The United States has only existed as a sovereign country for 233 years, but you don't call it illegitimate.

Now contrast that to the Palestinians whose ancestry goes all the way back to the original Canaanite inhabitants !

It is an utter falsehood that the Arabs are the descendants of the Canaanites. The Canaanite nations weren't Arab - they weren't even Semitic; the Canaanite nations died out long ago. All of those who are unfamiliar with the history of the land should know that this hateful ignoramus OAW (yes, please do report me) has been duped by ludicrous Arab propaganda - propaganda Arabists are desperate to perpetuate in order to try to deny the truth of Jewish ownership over the land. OAW has proven without a doubt that everything he says on the Arab-Israeli Conflict should be viewed very skeptically because any of his claims on the subject are most likely to be false.

Those who are interested in learning about the legal arguments for modern Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel should look at this PDF:

http://www.mythsandfacts.com/Conflic...07-English.pdf

[OAW]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

But what is the alternative? There are only two options at this point: 1) the state of Israel is dissolved and the land is given to the Palestinians (completely untenable at this point, even if you thought it was desirable), and 2) the Palestinians make a genuine attempt at peace, something they simply haven't done (as a political entity, there are individuals who have).

I guess I don't accept those as the only two alternatives. The first is simply not going to happen as you indicated. The second was done in 1993 with the Oslo Accords.

To understand what actually happened at Camp David, it's necessary to know that for many years the PLO has officially called for a two-state solution in which Israel would keep the 78 percent of the Palestine Mandate (as Britain's protectorate was called) that it has controlled since 1948, and a Palestinian state would be formed on the remaining 22 percent that Israel has occupied since the 1967 war (the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem). Israel would withdraw completely from those lands, return to the pre-1967 borders and a resolution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees who were forced to flee their homes in 1948 would be negotiated between the two sides. Then, in exchange, the Palestinians would agree to recognize Israel (PLO Declaration, 12/7/88; PLO Negotiations Department).

Source

Now bear in mind that Palestinians owned 80+% of Palestine in 1948 when Israel was formed and many fled or were expelled.

This offer was extended in 2002 with the Arab Peace Initiative where the same basic offer was made but in addition Israel would be recognized and have normalized relations with not just Palestine ... but the entire Arab world.

Even Hamas has offered a 10 year truce with Israel with implicit recognition of Israel's right to exist in exchange for a return to the 1967 borders.

But the fact remains that Israel simply will not accept it. 78% of Palestine apparently is not enough. This is what Ehud Barak offered Yasir Arafat at Camp David:

Although some people describe Israel's Camp David proposal as practically a return to the 1967 borders, it was far from that. Under the plan, Israel would have withdrawn completely from the small Gaza Strip. But it would annex strategically important and highly valuable sections of the West Bank--while retaining "security control" over other parts--that would have made it impossible for the Palestinians to travel or trade freely within their own state without the permission of the Israeli government (Political Science Quarterly, 6/22/01; New York Times, 7/26/01; Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories, 9-10/00; Robert Malley, New York Review of Books, 8/9/01).

The annexations and security arrangements would divide the West Bank into three disconnected cantons. In exchange for taking fertile West Bank lands that happen to contain most of the region's scarce water aquifers, Israel offered to give up a piece of its own territory in the Negev Desert--about one-tenth the size of the land it would annex--including a former toxic waste dump.

Because of the geographic placement of Israel’s proposed West Bank annexations, Palestinians living in their new "independent state" would be forced to cross Israeli territory every time they traveled or shipped goods from one section of the West Bank to another, and Israel could close those routes at will. Israel would also retain a network of so-called "bypass roads" that would crisscross the Palestinian state while remaining sovereign Israeli territory, further dividing the West Bank.

Israel was also to have kept "security control" for an indefinite period of time over the Jordan Valley, the strip of territory that forms the border between the West Bank and neighboring Jordan. Palestine would not have free access to its own international borders with Jordan and Egypt--putting Palestinian trade, and therefore its economy, at the mercy of the Israeli military.

Had Arafat agreed to these arrangements, the Palestinians would have permanently locked in place many of the worst aspects of the very occupation they were trying to bring to an end. For at Camp David, Israel also demanded that Arafat sign an "end-of-conflict" agreement stating that the decades-old war between Israel and the Palestinians was over and waiving all further claims against Israel.

For pretty pictures of what this all entailed, see here

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

I agree. But what would you have them do? Rocket attacks on Israel are ongoing. At every step towards peace, at every show of good faith that Israel has made, there have been more rocket attacks. Saying that we need to cease hostilities is all well and good, but it is the Palestinians, not the Israelis, who are prolonging those hostilities and making it impossible for Israel to make any concessions, relax their borders, or anything along those lines because it will just open up more of Israel to attacks.

I would have Israel take yes for an answer. How about actually withdraw to the 1967 borders? Give up Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Not the BS it did in Gaza where it removed soldiers but retained control of the borders (and imposed a blockade). I mean actually withdraw. Soldiers. Settlements. Border control. Everything. No "checkpoints". No "bypass roads". No "security control". None of that. Take the official recognition by Palestine and the rest of the Arab world. Justly compensate the Palestinian refugees for the land they lost in 1948. Call Hamas' bluff and see if they will actually observe a 10 year truce. They observed the 6 month truce last year, and yes, it was Israel that broke it which led to Hamas retaliation which Israel used as a pretext for the Dec. 2008 war on Gaza. All to bolster the Kadima party in the run up to the Israeli elections. But I digress. My point is either accept the peace offer on the table ... which is a full and complete return to the 1967 borders. Or simply annex the occupied territories and grant full citizenship to its residents.

Let's say that they go with a true two-state solution? What's the worst that could happen? Israel would still have a vastly superior military. And a larger, more developed economy. There might be an occasional rocket attack from one rejectionist Palestinian group or another ... but that's no worse than the situation is today. And they would have a moral high ground in a military response to such an attack because there's no way a Palestinian militant group could argue that it is firing rockets as "legitimate resistance to occupation". And if push came to shove and everything went to hell in a handbasket Israel could always re-invade and take control of the area again. Again, with the moral high ground of being able to say "we gave you true self-determination, completely ended the occupation, and you chose to attack us instead of going on about your business."

So what would I have Israel do? Accept and implement a true two-state solution.

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

I'm sure I'm in a minority among Zionists when I say this, but I could care less where the state of Israel is located. It's really too late now to do anything about it, but I think things would have worked out much better of Israel had been established somewhere else where there wasn't a large, hostile native population that needed to be forced off their land. This of course raises all sorts of other questions like where that would be, to which I have no answer. In the hypothetical situation where we could move Israel, I would have no problem with choosing a different location. But, things being what they are, this question is now irrelevant. We can't, and I would never agree with, the forced relocation of the Jews who now reside in Israel. I'm the first to admit that this is unfair to the Palestinians, and that through a quirk of history Israeli Jews are being given preferential treatment in this regard, but there is no realistic or acceptable alternative.

The Zionist movement actually considered creating a Jewish homeland in Uganda. Now imagine how that would have been viewed by the Ugandans? Here's the fundamental problem with establishing a Jewish homeland. All the livable areas on the planet are already populated! So to do this properly one would need to obtain a region of land from nation(s) willing to give it up. For compensation or whatever. Maybe that could have been done. Maybe not. But here's a thought. This entire issue of a Jewish homeland is a European problem. Israel was created in response to the Holocaust. And centuries of European Christians otherwise persecuting European Jews. So why resolve an European problem on the backs of non-Europeans? People who were not even a party to the conflict? Why not establish a Jewish homeland in Europe for European Jews? Of course, that would have been too much like right! In any event, what's done is done now. On that, you and I definitely agree.

OAW

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Yeah, because there was no such thing as an Arab Palestinian in 70 A.D.. Nor was there any in 700 A.D. or even 1700 A.D.. There was no recognized Arab Palestinian identity even within the Arab world until after the Arabs lost their wars of annihilation and Arafat (post 1967), YM"SH, decided that creating an illegitimate Arab Palestinian identity and furthering it through Arab terrorism was the way to achieve the goal of destroying Israel, not conventional warfare.

Recognized by who? As usual you resort to legalistic arguments. The fact of the matter is that the REGION was known as Palestine since the Roman era. So it's true that there was no nation-state called Palestine. No one was running around with a "Palestinian passport" so to speak. But there were, in fact, people who LIVED in and were NATIVE TO the region called Palestine. This area has been under some form of foreign domination for most of its history. But again, that doesn't negate the fact that it has been POPULATED for that entire time.

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Uh no. You are the one who lies and denies the continual 3000 Jewish presence in the land, not us. I don't know where you get your history from, but the First Commonwealth of Israel was established around 1400 BCE, and it was conquered in 586 BCE - that's 814 years. The Second Commonwealth of Israel existed from around 530 BCE to 70 AD - another 600 years. Granted, there was foreign domination during much of that period, but it was still a Jewish country. The United States has only existed as a sovereign country for 233 years, but you don't call it illegitimate.

Reading comprehension clearly is not one of your strong suits. At no point did I ever deny Jewish presence in Palestine. In fact, I didn't say anything about that one way or the other. What I did say was "in the 5000 year recorded history of Palestine , the Jews have only ruled the land for 533 years (not including the rule of the European Jews starting in 1948)."

Let me break out the stick figures for you.

I did not say that Jews have only LIVED in the land for 533 years prior to 1948. I said they only RULED in the land for that time. And when you say "Granted, there was foreign domination during much of that period" that only serves to make my point. Furthermore .... and this is the point that you seem loathe to accept ... is that the Jews were not the only residents of Palestine. They never were! In fact, there were people who lived there for thousands of years before they invaded, uh I mean, "settled" there themselves.

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

It is an utter falsehood that the Arabs are the descendants of the Canaanites. The Canaanite nations weren't Arab - they weren't even Semitic; the Canaanite nations died out long ago.

Really?

Various Canaanite sites have been excavated by archaeologists. Canaanites spoke Canaanite languages, closely related to other West Semitic languages.

Much of the modern knowledge about the Canaanites stems from excavation in this area. It is generally thought that they originally migrated from the Arabian Peninsula[2][3], as that is the most generally accepted Semitic urheimat. More recently Juris Zarins has suggested that Canaanite culture developed in situ from the Circum Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex, which in turn developed from a fusion of Harifian hunter gatherers with PPNB farming cultures, practicing animal domestication, during the 6,200 BC climatic crisis.[4]

Source

First of all, when did I say that the "Arabs are descendants of the Canaanites"? I didn't. But despite all that BS you are talking the Canaanites spoke a Semitic language, and they originally migrated from the Arabian Peninsula. And furthermore, just what constitutes the "Canaanite nations dying out long ago"? Sure Canaan doesn't exist as a COUNTRY anymore. But what happened to all the PEOPLE? Did they all just pack up and leave? Did they all just keel over and die one day? Were they completely exterminated in some mass genocide that the history books fail to mention? Is all Canaanite DNA simply gone from the face of the Earth? Or were the Canaanites absorbed into the populations that came to rule after them in the region?

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

All of those who are unfamiliar with the history of the land should know that this hateful ignoramus OAW (yes, please do report me) has been duped by ludicrous Arab propaganda - propaganda Arabists are desperate to perpetuate in order to try to deny the truth of Jewish ownership over the land. OAW has proven without a doubt that everything he says on the Arab-Israeli Conflict should be viewed very skeptically because any of his claims on the subject are most likely to be false.

No I don't need to report you. I'll just keep dropping facts. I'm more than content to let the readers decide on whether or not my arguments are sound. And they can judge what you say as well. Because so far I see you arguing points that were not in dispute and making claims about the Canaanites that a minute of research could easily reveal to be patently false.

But you are rather amusing. I'll give you that.

OAW

[Big Mac]

It is truly counterproductive attempting to debate with someone like OAW who only wants to read his own propaganda and call it truth. I have much better things to do with my time than to correct you all day and then to see you not even admit to being wrong. Have fun in your own little deluded, Jew-hating world.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Those who are interested in learning about the legal arguments for modern Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel should look at this PDF:

http://www.mythsandfacts.com/Conflic...07-English.pdf

The whole premise of this piece is based on the "rule of law" and how the Mandate for Palestine gave the founders of Israel legal right to all the land of Eretz Yisrael. How does this attitude of respect for the "rule of law" and of legal documents established by the League of Nations not get applied to the successor organization of the League of Nation, namely the United Nations? Because there have been numerous UN resolutions directed towards Israel that the state of Israel has ignored. So, why is respect for "rule of [international] law" so important before the founding of Israel but treated as irrelevant after the founding of Israel?

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by OAW 

I would have Israel take yes for an answer. How about actually withdraw to the 1967 borders? Give up Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Not the BS it did in Gaza where it removed soldiers but retained control of the borders (and imposed a blockade). I mean actually withdraw. Soldiers. Settlements. Border control. Everything. No "checkpoints". No "bypass roads". No "security control". None of that. Take the official recognition by Palestine and the rest of the Arab world. Justly compensate the Palestinian refugees for the land they lost in 1948. Call Hamas' bluff and see if they will actually observe a 10 year truce. They observed the 6 month truce last year, and yes, it was Israel that broke it which led to Hamas retaliation which Israel used as a pretext for the Dec. 2008 war on Gaza. All to bolster the Kadima party in the run up to the Israeli elections. But I digress. My point is either accept the peace offer on the table ... which is a full and complete return to the 1967 borders. Or simply annex the occupied territories and grant full citizenship to its residents.

Let's say that they go with a true two-state solution? What's the worst that could happen? Israel would still have a vastly superior military. And a larger, more developed economy. There might be an occasional rocket attack from one rejectionist Palestinian group or another ... but that's no worse than the situation is today. And they would have a moral high ground in a military response to such an attack because there's no way a Palestinian militant group could argue that it is firing rockets as "legitimate resistance to occupation". And if push came to shove and everything went to hell in a handbasket Israel could always re-invade and take control of the area again. Again, with the moral high ground of being able to say "we gave you true self-determination, completely ended the occupation, and you chose to attack us instead of going on about your business."

So what would I have Israel do? Accept and implement a true two-state solution.

Excellent post. What you suggested would make Israel and Palestine two sovereign states side-by-side with equality of rights as independent nations. And as you say, if the various anti-Israel Palestinian factions continued to attack Israel from the state of Palestine then Israel would be totally within its right to retaliate and attack or re-invade the state of Palestine as Israel would be under attack from another sovereign nation. I think this is an excellent solution to the problem but it is a solution that necessitates Israelis giving up on the idea of Eretz Yisrael, of their biblically inspired homeland from the Sinai to the Dead Sea and on up to the Syria/Lebanon border. And I don't think there are enough moderate Israelis willing to do that. (Just look at the election of Netanyahu and Lieberman to get a sense of the Israelis attitude to the "land for peace" idea. They elected two leaders who are openly opposed to a) giving up any land and b) wanting to take more land, in the case of Avigdor Lieberman.)

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

It is truly counterproductive attempting to debate with someone like OAW who only wants to read his own propaganda and call it truth. I have much better things to do with my time than to correct you all day and then to see you not even admit to being wrong. Have fun in your own little deluded, Jew-hating world.

Wow, using all sorts of logical arguments, aren't you?

As least you got your epithet correct and called him Jew-hating instead of anti-semitic. I cringe every time I here some uninformed person use the term "anti-semitic" as synonymous with anti-Jewish when the Arabs in the Middle East are of semitic origin just as much as the Israelis (not too mention semitic is the linguistic term used to describe almost all of the historic and current languages spoken in the Middle East).

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

It is truly counterproductive attempting to debate with someone like OAW who only wants to read his own propaganda and call it truth. I have much better things to do with my time than to correct you all day and then to see you not even admit to being wrong. Have fun in your own little deluded, Jew-hating world.

And Big Mac is a prime example of the IRRATIONALITY of the "criticism of Israel = Jew hating" mentality. So please do everyone a favor and go occupy yourself with your "better things to do. " We'll leave the debate to those that have more skills at it than you.

OAW

[Big Mac]

Hey dcmacdaddy, out of curiosity, is OAW your sockpuppet? The two of you appear to be cut from the same cloth.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Hey dcmacdaddy, out of curiosity, is OAW your sockpuppet? The two of you appear to be cut from the same cloth.

I thought you said you had something to do? Run along now. This thread is for the grown ups.

OAW

[Big Mac]

Btw, did anyone else notice that my response to OAW was dismissed simply as a "legalistic" argument? How does OAW expect me to argue, if not from the facts? Or are we not supposed to be using facts in these discussions? And what about him denying that he said that the "Palestinians" were the descendants of the Canaanites? Did he not quote his own words: "Now contrast that to the Palestinians whose ancestry goes all the way back to the original Canaanite inhabitants !" After I embarrassed him, somehow he changed that claim retroactively to an assertion about the Canaanite language. I find it all quite humorous.

More and more artifacts from the ancient Jewish commonwealths are being unearthed all the time:

New evidence surfaces of David's kingdom (from last November)

Ancient Seals Unearthed From Jerusalem Dig (from February)

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy 

Excellent post. What you suggested would make Israel and Palestine two sovereign states side-by-side with equality of rights as independent nations.

And here i thought that thats what the original plan in 1947 called for... the one the Arabs rejected because they wanted it all. how stupid of us all... this is 'obviously' Israel's fault</end sarcasm>.

Then came the 1990s ... once again they were offered almost all of the original plan... and they refused it.... once again, we have to obviously fault Israel for Arab incompetence.

The most humorous thing of it all is the actual protocol of war that the Arabs expect, which is as follows...
-do not recognize the sate nor it's right to exist
-threaten to eradicate a sovereign nation
-build up military strength to destroy the state or support groups with that intention
-start a war
-fight a war
-loose a war
(and here's the punch line)
-expect no repercussions for said hostilities, and have the audacity to demand pre-war borders.

In all the wars that Israel has had to fight with the Arabs, they could have taken Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan. They've reached Beirut, Damascus and Cairo .... and then they withdrew. if i were those Arabs i'd be grateful for still having a nation after starting a war on such premisses.

So after the 7 wars and 2 intifadas ..... Israel gives back all territory to Egypt and Jordan and surprisingly Gaza in order to try to attain peace. What have the Arabs/Muslims given up for peace ? and after loosing all the wars they started ?

The Palestinians were handed a state twice... it was their unwillingness to compromise that cost them their state, and thats no one else's fault.

Peace was given a chance with Kadima, it obviously didnt work.... now we'll see how it goes with a different approach.

[Hawkeye_a]

On the issue of Durban II, i wonder if the Arabs/Muslims will have anything to say about the ethnic cleansing going on in Darfur. or is that not racially motivated ?

[Big Mac]

Great points Hawkeye. As far as Darfur goes, that's apparently not racism. It's just a genocidal assault on ethnically African Muslims from an Arab Muslim government. No, that's not racism, right?

I have dcmacdaddy on ignore, so I just wanted to address a portion of text you quoted from him:

Excellent post. What you suggested would make Israel and Palestine two sovereign states side-by-side with equality of rights as independent nations.

If you had an appreciation for even the modern history of the region, you would know that there already is an independent, sovereign Arab state that exactly fits the bill you desire. It is named Jordan. It lies east of the Jordan River and occupies 77% of the "Palestine Mandate" land. 80% of Jordan's inhabitants consider themselves "Palestinians." The international powers had previously set aside 100% of the Mandate for a future Jewish country, but Great Britain reneged on that promise in order to reward the Hashemite family for its service to the allies during WWI. The remaining 23% of the Mandate was then to be partitioned a second time in 1947, with the Arabs getting all the fertile and precious areas and the Jews getting mostly the desert. The Jews voted to accept that second, highly inequitable and untenable partition, but the Arabs weren't content and thankfully went to war to "push the Jews to the sea." The Arabs lost. And lost. And lost again. Until they realized that terrorism and propaganda would be more efficacious than conventional wars.

The Arabs already have far more than their fair share. They already have multiple sovereign states extending over most all of Eretz Yisrael. They have 22 sovereign Arabs states in total, and thirty more (give or take) which are predominately Islamic. There is only one Jewish state on a tiny portion of our land, and that is too much for people like you (dcmacdaddy, OAW) to bear.

[Hawkeye_a]

I guess 200k-500k murdered, 2.5m displaced doesn't constitute war crimes and genocide motivated by racial difference in Arab/Muslim eyes.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

The Palestinians were handed a state twice... it was their unwillingness to compromise that cost them their state, and thats no one else's fault.

Okay, ONCE, just ONCE, I'd like to see the pro-Palestinian side address this fact. JUST ONCE!

Honestly, never in all the various Israel/Palestinian debates have I ever seen any of them go anywhere near it. Not once.

So how about it?

Any takers? Of will you try and tiptoe around it, rewrite history, or simply pretend it was never brought up, as always?

Anyone?

[Big Mac]

I'll spoil it and tell you the elements of their illegitimate responses to that question: "Occupation," "thieving Jews stole the land," "the whole middle east should belong to Arabs or Islam," "Occupation," "Colonialism" "Occupation," "Jews never existed there," "Occupation," "Jews own the media/control the world," "Go back to the ovens," "Go find another homeland," "Examine the root causes of the conflict (read as Occupation)" "Occupation" and the like.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

The Palestinians were handed a state twice... it was their unwillingness to compromise that cost them their state, and thats no one else's fault.

On which of those two occassions did the Israeli government offer to give the Palestinian Authority FULL control over their lands? On which of those two occassions did the Israeli government do the following to treat the Palestinian Authority as a sovereign entity equal in status to the Israeli government?

--offer to dismantle the Green Line border
--offer to remove alll settlements established after 1967
--offer to stop patrolling the air-space and sea-lanes of the Palestinian lands


You see, you guys (I am including Big Mac in this assertion along with you) are so pro-Israel that you can't see the actions Israel has taken to scuttle a true two-state solution. You all talk about the Palestinians not being amenable to a true peace but I think Israel is just as much at fault here because I don't think Israel has ever wanted a two-state solution and in their offers of "land for peace" they aren't willing to fully commit to their part of the bargain. I think Israel has always wanted the whole territory for itself. (Just look to the words of David Ben-Gurion, the "father" of the state of Israel, for confirmation of this.) And there is nothing wrong with wanting that but, like I have said a million times before, they need to fight to make that happen. Israel needs to have a full out battle with the Palestinians (and their Arab neighbors for which the Palestinians are proxies) and either be
--decisively victorious, claiming all the land for their nation, forcibly kicking out any non-Jewish citizens, and forcing their Arab neighbors to recognize their right to exist
--decisively defeated, losing much more or all of their land and being forced back into the diaspora
(This is a much less likley scenario due to Israel being a nuclear power but it is still a slim possibility.)

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE 

Okay, ONCE, just ONCE, I'd like to see the pro-Palestinian side address this fact. JUST ONCE!

Honestly, never in all the various Israel/Palestinian debates have I ever seen any of them go anywhere near it. Not once.

So how about it?

Any takers? Of will you try and tiptoe around it, rewrite history, or simply pretend it was never brought up, as always?

Anyone?

See above.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Btw, did anyone else notice that my response to OAW was dismissed simply as a "legalistic" argument? How does OAW expect me to argue, if not from the facts? Or are we not supposed to be using facts in these discussions?

Since you seem to be such a big fan of the "legalistic" approach to addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, would you mind answering the question I posed in this post?

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy 

The whole premise of this piece is based on the "rule of law" and how the Mandate for Palestine gave the founders of Israel legal right to all the land of Eretz Yisrael. How does this attitude of respect for the "rule of law" and of legal documents established by the League of Nations not get applied to the successor organization of the League of Nation, namely the United Nations? Because there have been numerous UN resolutions directed towards Israel that the state of Israel has ignored. So, why is respect for "rule of [international] law" so important before the founding of Israel but treated as irrelevant after the founding of Israel?

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Btw, did anyone else notice that my response to OAW was dismissed simply as a "legalistic" argument? How does OAW expect me to argue, if not from the facts? Or are we not supposed to be using facts in these discussions?

Oh so you want to play some more huh?

I do believe I did a lot more than "dismiss" your response. Again, you demonstrate that reading comprehension isn't one of your strong suits. Let's look at what I said again .....

Recognized by who? As usual you resort to legalistic arguments. The fact of the matter is that the REGION was known as Palestine since the Roman era. So it's true that there was no nation-state called Palestine. No one was running around with a "Palestinian passport" so to speak. But there were, in fact, people who LIVED in and were NATIVE TO the region called Palestine. This area has been under some form of foreign domination for most of its history. But again, that doesn't negate the fact that it has been POPULATED for that entire time.

You see that right there? It's called a counter-argument. You made the assertion, as you often do, that there is no such thing as a Palestinian. You base this on legalistic arguments rooted in whether or not a nation-state called Palestine existed. The same Western oriented, legalistic mindset that created this clusterf*ck in the first place I might add. You see I actually conceded that there was no nation-state called Palestine in the Western sense of the term. However, my counter argument was that this was beside the point. The fact remains that the region has a native population. Period. Dot. End of sentence. The rights of the native population to their land ... as human beings .... is not predicated on recognition of their region as a nation-state by the colonizer ... or the colonizers descendants. Do the PEOPLE not exist? Do they not LIVE THERE? Have they not lived there for CENTURIES? Is their claim to their homes and farms and businesses and property simply NEGATED because they don't have a Palestinian "passport"?

How about you address those facts?

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

And what about him denying that he said that the "Palestinians" were the descendants of the Canaanites? Did he not quote his own words: "Now contrast that to the Palestinians whose ancestry goes all the way back to the original Canaanite inhabitants !" After I embarrassed him, somehow he changed that claim retroactively to an assertion about the Canaanite language. I find it all quite humorous.

You really are "Hooked on Phonics" aren't you? You embarrassed me? Really now? Let's replay the tape shall we?

I said .....

Originally Posted by OAW

Now contrast that to the Palestinians whose ancestry goes all the way back to the original Canaanite inhabitants!

To which you replied ....

Originally Posted by Big Mac

It is an utter falsehood that the Arabs are the descendants of the Canaanites. The Canaanite nations weren't Arab - they weren't even Semitic; the Canaanite nations died out long ago.

And then I responded to that with ....

Originally Posted by OAW

First of all, when did I say that the "Arabs are descendants of the Canaanites"? I didn't. But despite all that BS you are talking the Canaanites spoke a Semitic language, and they originally migrated from the Arabian Peninsula.

Now pay attention and you might learn something. All Palestinians are Arabs. But not all Arabs are Palestinians. Can you grasp that concept? Are you following me?

Palestinians are Arabs who are native to the region called Palestine. So I was very specific in what I said. I never said that Arabs ... that is ALL of them .... are descendants of Canaanites. I said that Palestinian ancestry goes all the way back to the original Canaanite inhabitants. That's not their only ancestry, but it is one of many because many peoples (not just the Hebrews as you would have us believe) have lived in Palestine over the millennia. Further facts on that point ....

Palestinians, like most other Arab-identified Arabic-speakers today commonly called "Arabs", are said to combine ancestries from those who have come to settle their respective regions throughout history and the pre-existing ancient inhabitants; a matter on which genetic studies described below has begun to shed some light.[68]

American historian Bernard Lewis writes:
"Clearly, in Palestine as elsewhere in the Middle East, the modern inhabitants include among their ancestors those who lived in the country in antiquity. Equally obviously, the demographic mix was greatly modified over the centuries by migration, deportation, immigration, and settlement. This was particularly true in Palestine..."[69]

Ali Qleibo, a Palestinian anthropologist, explains:
"Throughout history a great diversity of peoples has moved into the region and made Palestine their homeland: Jebusites, Canaanites, Philistines from Crete, Anatolian and Lydian Greeks, Hebrews, Amorites, Edomites, Nabateans, Arameans, Romans, Arabs, and European crusaders, to name a few. Each of them appropriated different regions that overlapped in time and competed for sovereignty and land. Others, such as Ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Persians, Babylonians, and Mongols, were historical 'events' whose successive occupations were as ravaging as the effects of major earthquakes ... Like shooting stars, the various cultures shine for a brief moment before they fade out of official historical and cultural records of Palestine. The people, however, survive. In their customs and manners, fossils of these ancient civilizations survived until modernity—albeit modernity camouflaged under the veneer of Islam and Arabic culture."[70]

Kermit Zarley writes that "the early ancestors of some of today's Palestinians are no doubt the Canaanites, Philistines, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Idumaeans, Nabateans and Samaritans. In later periods, their intermarriage with conquering peoples, such as Greeks, Romans, Arabians and Turks, merely added to the genetic mix in Palestine."[71] Much of the local Palestinian population in Nablus, for example, is believed to be descended from Samaritans who converted to Islam.[72] Even today, certain Nabulsi family names including Muslimani, Yaish, and Shakshir among others, are associated with Samaritan ancestry.[72]

Source

Now what was that again about you embarrassing me?

OAW

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy 

See above.

Sorry, you just did more of the same.
Nothing you said even applies to 1948, in particular.

Why is it that you can't just say it like it is, without the focus being on something Israel did?

You'd have a point if Israel was the one that started this entire thing by rejecting the UN mandate and attacking the Palestinian side, but we all know it was the exact opposite. I understand why you'll never just outright own up to it... "The Palestinians were handed a state... and it was their unwillingness to compromise that cost them their state, and thats no one else's fault."


But really, you can't deny that that's exactly what happened, and what kicked off the entire conflict, and that it can't be brushed aside who started off on the attack FIRST, and who demonstrated they were more about destroying the other side than having their own state right from the START. If you side would simply OWN UP TO THAT basic fact, and go from there, you might make a little ground.

Outright denying it, trying to ignore it, trying to sweep it aside, starting off with "But Israel did... blah de blah.." is only an obvious smokescreen.

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy 

On which of those two occassions did the Israeli government offer to give the Palestinian Authority FULL control over their lands? On which of those two occassions did the Israeli government do the following to treat the Palestinian Authority as a sovereign entity equal in status to the Israeli government?

--offer to dismantle the Green Line border
--offer to remove alll settlements established after 1967
--offer to stop patrolling the air-space and sea-lanes of the Palestinian lands


You see, you guys (I am including Big Mac in this assertion along with you) are so pro-Israel that you can't see the actions Israel has taken to scuttle a true two-state solution. You all talk about the Palestinians not being amenable to a true peace but I think Israel is just as much at fault here because I don't think Israel has ever wanted a two-state solution and in their offers of "land for peace" they aren't willing to fully commit to their part of the bargain. I think Israel has always wanted the whole territory for itself. (Just look to the words of David Ben-Gurion, the "father" of the state of Israel, for confirmation of this.) And there is nothing wrong with wanting that but, like I have said a million times before, they need to fight to make that happen. Israel needs to have a full out battle with the Palestinians (and their Arab neighbors for which the Palestinians are proxies) and either be
--decisively victorious, claiming all the land for their nation, forcibly kicking out any non-Jewish citizens, and forcing their Arab neighbors to recognize their right to exist
--decisively defeated, losing much more or all of their land and being forced back into the diaspora
(This is a much less likley scenario due to Israel being a nuclear power but it is still a slim possibility.)

The first occasion(1947) would have afforded them(Arabs) a state of their own.... completely (unless i've missed something). And not just that, initially the ENTIRE area that was the british mandate was to be the 'Jewish state'. Then everything west of the Jordan River. Then fragments of the land west of the Jordan River. Seems to me the group of people who went from having it all to having merely a fraction, and still willing to accept that to form a state made compromises. On the Arab side of the equation they got all of Jordan, then parts of what lay west of the Jordan River, but that was unacceptable... obviously.

Wars were launched with specific goals... the Arabs were ALWAYS defeated(despite conventional military wisdom). but winner or looser is not right and wrong, for this particular argument. After 2-3 wars... and no sign of compromise from the Arabs, why should the Israelis have 'given back everything' ? this isnt a game of tick-tack-toe, where if you loose, you start over from the beginning.

Why should the green border line or 1967 borders even matter ?!?! if you want to make peace...make peace, make a state, start with compromises. The Arabs have the man power and area to start a state today if they wanted to. sign the deal with the world making peace, defending borders, renouncing violence. keep the land they have today and that's it.

You have to be clear with what your intentions in negotiations are.... is it peace or land ?

Like i said...if Israel only wanted land it could have gotten it all a very long time ago. they didnt. why should the Arabs who want it all and are willing to compromise peace to get it get anything back? What message does that send if they are given it all back ?

Personally, i prefer:
-start war...then loose war..pay the price
as opposed to:
-start war...then loose war...and get everything you loose back.

As far as 'open' borders.... you've got to be joking right ? First off... i think every sovereign nation has the right to do what it wills with it's borders. For example... if Mexico all of a sudden comes sunder a political/terroristic group committed to destroying the U.S. by any mans necessary and not willing to even recognize the U.S. as a sovereign nation... why should the U.S. keep it's borders with Mexico 'open' ? or promote trade,etc ? Every nation has the right to monitor was passes through it's borders, Israel is no different. What was the trade/military/economic policies after the world wars towards the nations that lost ? im preety sure there were arms embargoes or some limitations and such.. until relations stabilized. After all.... would you want the Nazis or Japanese rearming after the war ended ? The same thing applies here.

Now speaking of fairness.... Israel permits quite a few Arabs to enter Israel proper to work, and has a significant Arab-muslim population. Whats the situation across the border ?

So why should settlements be dismantled again ? As far as the world is concerned that land was lost when the Arabs lost the wars they started. none of it has to be returned to anyone. if the Arabs, imo, do not pay the price of starting wars, it will encourage more wars and will be counterproductive ..if 'peace' is the goal.

dc... what do you think the situation would be today if the Arabs accepted the partition plan in 1947 or in 1967 before the war or when most of it was being handed back in the 1990's ? would Israel really be the obstacle to peace in those scenarios ? So far in the past 60 years... every year... the Arabs have proved incapable of committing to peace irrespective to the share of land they had. Arms flowed freely and wars were started.... then terrorism, so why should they be afforded the benefit of the doubt so quickly ?

Then you look at the cases of Egypt and Jordan.... Lets be clear about it..... what did israel get at the end of those conflicts ? peace or land?

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Great points Hawkeye. As far as Darfur goes, that's apparently not racism. It's just a genocidal assault on ethnically African Muslims from an Arab Muslim government. No, that's not racism, right?

No. It's not racism. It's tribalism. The conflict in Darfur isn't one between racial groups. It is a conflict between ethnic (or tribal) groups. Trying looking at a picture every once and a while and see for yourself instead of just parroting the simplistic "Arab vs. African" line that the Western media puts out. First of all, all involved in the conflict are African. Sudan (called Nubia in ancient times) is the largest country on the African continent. Some involved in the conflict have Arab ancestry as well, but it would be more accurate to describe them as Afro-Arab instead of Arab.

The Darfur conflict is fundamentally a fight between the nomadic, camel herding Afro-Arab ethnic groups and land tilling non-Arab ethnic groups. The government is backing the former. The root cause of the conflict is water scarcity. Decades of drought that has caused the nomadic tribes to move further south in search of water for their herds into areas occupied by the farming tribes. To describe what's happening in Darfur as some sort of "racial" conflict is simply bogus.

Here's a shot of the Sudanese government soldiers ...



Source

Here's a shot of the President of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir ....



And here's a shot of some Darfur residents ...



Source

These are all "black people" in any sense of the term. Again, this is an ethnic (or tribal) conflict .... not a racial conflict.

OAW

[Hawkeye_a]

So ethnic Africans and Arab-Africans are the same ?

[Chuckit]

Race == skin color? If the KKK were to wear shoe polish when they lynch people, would it not be racism because they would be "black people" in some sense of the term?

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE 

Sorry, you just did more of the same.
Nothing you said even applies to 1948, in particular.

Why is it that you can't just say it like it is, without the focus being on something Israel did?

You'd have a point if Israel was the one that started this entire thing by rejecting the UN mandate and attacking the Palestinian side, but we all know it was the exact opposite. I understand why you'll never just outright own up to it... "The Palestinians were handed a state... and it was their unwillingness to compromise that cost them their state, and thats no one else's fault."

If you are talking about 1948 there was NO Palestinian state established. The day before the British Mandate was to end Israel declared its statehood. Then the surrounding Arab countries attacked Israel. The state of Palestine was never established, and the Palestinian peoples in the British mandate were never given the chance to establish a state of Palestine due to the Arab countries attacking Israel.

If you want to say "The [Arab nations] were handed [land for] a state... and it was their unwillingness to compromise that cost them their state." then I would agree completely. in 1948 when the Arab states surrounding Israel had a chance to form the state of Palestine they chose not to and chose war instead. Absolutely correct. But it is completely false to say the Palestinian people made this choice. They were never given a chance to decide for themselves due to the attack on Israel by their Arab neighbors.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Race == skin color?

Pretty much. There's no other basis besides appearance for the concept of races. Genetically, we're all one race.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE 

Okay, ONCE, just ONCE, I'd like to see the pro-Palestinian side address this fact. JUST ONCE!

Honestly, never in all the various Israel/Palestinian debates have I ever seen any of them go anywhere near it. Not once.

So how about it?

Any takers? Of will you try and tiptoe around it, rewrite history, or simply pretend it was never brought up, as always?

Anyone?

Actually I did address this, though only partially. I haven't said anything about the original partition plan in 1947 in this thread. At least not directly. Certainly I think it was a bad idea. This entire clusterf*ck came about due to European, primarily British, meddling.

In November 1917, as General Allenby was preparing to conquer Palestine, the British Foreign office issued the Balfour Declaration of 1917, a letter from the Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, to Lord Rothschild, head of the British Zionist movement. The declaration stated:

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

This declaration was a compromise, based on a draft telegram that Lord Balfour had asked Weizmann to submit earlier. It did not contain a formal commitment. It reflected the efforts of the British Zionist movement led by Dr.Chaim Weizmann, longstanding British sentiment for restoration of the Jews and British strategic and imperial considerations on the one hand. On the other hand, it reflected concerns of British Jewish anti-Zionists and foreign office personnel concerned about antagonizing the Arab world.[18][19] These conflicting forces were to be reflected in the vicissitudes of British policy, ultimately causing Britain to express a desire to be relieved of its responsibility for administering the mandate, which in turn led to a recommendation for the partition of Palestine.

The Arab leadership (in and out of Palestine) opposed the plan.[65]. The Arabs argued that it violated the rights of the majority of the people in Palestine, which at the time was 67% non-Jewish (1,237,000) and 33% Jewish (608,000). [66] Arab leaders also argued a large number of Arabs would be trapped in the Jewish State. Every major Arab leader objected in principle to the right of the Jews to an independent state in Palestine, reflecting the policies of the Arab League.

Source

So we have a plan designed to cater to the interests of the British that called for the establishment of a new state controlled by foreigners ... without the consent of the native population! And you wonder why there was conflict? You really expected the Palestinians to just accept that because outsiders made an agreement regarding the land that they lived on without their input? And you say it like someone was doing the Palestinians a favor! Like they were supposed to accept the establishment of a state controlled by foreigners on their land! If the UN decided to establish a state in Iowa controlled by immigrant Chinese I daresay the Iowans who live there would naturally have a problem with that.

Regarding the second offer in the 1990s, I already addressed that with this:

Although some people describe Israel's Camp David proposal as practically a return to the 1967 borders, it was far from that. Under the plan, Israel would have withdrawn completely from the small Gaza Strip. But it would annex strategically important and highly valuable sections of the West Bank--while retaining "security control" over other parts--that would have made it impossible for the Palestinians to travel or trade freely within their own state without the permission of the Israeli government (Political Science Quarterly, 6/22/01; New York Times, 7/26/01; Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories, 9-10/00; Robert Malley, New York Review of Books, 8/9/01).

The annexations and security arrangements would divide the West Bank into three disconnected cantons. In exchange for taking fertile West Bank lands that happen to contain most of the region's scarce water aquifers, Israel offered to give up a piece of its own territory in the Negev Desert--about one-tenth the size of the land it would annex--including a former toxic waste dump.

Because of the geographic placement of Israel’s proposed West Bank annexations, Palestinians living in their new "independent state" would be forced to cross Israeli territory every time they traveled or shipped goods from one section of the West Bank to another, and Israel could close those routes at will. Israel would also retain a network of so-called "bypass roads" that would crisscross the Palestinian state while remaining sovereign Israeli territory, further dividing the West Bank.

Israel was also to have kept "security control" for an indefinite period of time over the Jordan Valley, the strip of territory that forms the border between the West Bank and neighboring Jordan. Palestine would not have free access to its own international borders with Jordan and Egypt--putting Palestinian trade, and therefore its economy, at the mercy of the Israeli military.

Had Arafat agreed to these arrangements, the Palestinians would have permanently locked in place many of the worst aspects of the very occupation they were trying to bring to an end. For at Camp David, Israel also demanded that Arafat sign an "end-of-conflict" agreement stating that the decades-old war between Israel and the Palestinians was over and waiving all further claims against Israel.

Source

For a visual look at what this second "offer" entailed, see here.

Having said all that, at this stage in the game I suggest Israel agree to the 1967 borders. Completely. That will leave them with substantially more than what the 1947 partition called for. And it would give the Palestinians a viable state as well.

Or ......

They can keep on doing what they've been doing and keep getting what they've always got.

OAW

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

So ethnic Africans and Arab-Africans are the same ?

I'm not sure what you mean by "ethnic African". My point, on what I think we can all agree is a very tangential topic, is that the conflict in Darfur is between ethnic groups ... not racial groups. "Racially", insomuch as that term even has value, they are the same. "Ethnically" or "Tribally" they are not.

OAW