Re No Peace in the Holy Land

[Sukerkin]

As to why there wasn't an Israel for a large number of centuries, well, on this one I don't think you quite have the historical 'ducks in a row', so to speak.

The origins of the Muslim faith post-date the destruction of a Jewish nation by about half a millenia; or as far as I know anyhow i.e. no guarantees. It was, I think, in fact the Romans who were the architects of the beginning of that dismantling.

I only quickly Googled these two links up so please feel free to shoot holes in them if they prove sub-par and I'll dig deeper.


http://www.important.ca/origins_of_islam.html

http://wsu.edu/~dee/HEBREWS/DIASPORA.HTM

 

[elder999]

Now, now, TF, you might want to phrase your responses a little more respectfully when the views of someone who actually lives with this dangerous situation day in and day out are given? Or am I misinterpreting your brevity ?

Nah-he's a Texan, that's all. :lol:

Modern Israel's history, as Loki can no doubt tell us, has been a battle from day one. I mean no disrespect to the people who live there but the reason for that is that we, the West, 're-invented' a vanished nation by stealing the land of those who have been there for quite some time.

It is not a surprise that the Palestinians have never ceased in their resistance and even less that the extremists amongst them are the ones that have risen to the top as a consequence. It would have been no different if the attempt to give back a homeland to the Jews had been to carve out a New Jerusalem here in Staffordshire, uprooting people who have lived here for millenia. We too would never cease in fighting to repel what was, to us, an invasion - no matter what the odds.

It is how to deal with the consequences of that wrong-headed decision that is the problem. I for one cannot see a way to a solution that is not 'final' in the Third Reich meaning and that, to me, is morally unacceptable.

I don't know how "wrong headed" it was-I've my own opinions, but they're mostly based on a bias against "colonialism," for lack of a better word. Growning up, my best friends up the street were a wonderful Dutch family. They had ties to South Africa, and I was, like many Americans, against apartheid. In the end, to remain friends-and I'm speaking of Mr. and Mrs. van den Berg here, and they think the world of me-we simply agreed not to discuss it. I find myself in the same place with Israel. Very often, in many people's minds, to speak against Israel is to be anti-semitic, which I'm not. Or to be pro-Arab, or pro-Palestinian, which I'm not. In fact, I largely confine my distaste to U.S. policy towards Israel, which is another, convoluted and ridiculous matter altogether.

There can be no doubt about the right, after 60 years, for the nation of Israel to exist, though its coexistence with its neighbors is always in doubt. There can be no doubt about the right of the Palestinians-or whatever one wants to call the Arabs who have lived within the borders of Gaza, the West Bank and Israel itself-to exist and have, as the U.S., the U.N., and Israel themselves have asserted, to a state of their own.

It has been over a week now. Over 700 Palestinians and 11 Israelis have been killed (seven of them soldiers), and more than 3,000 Palestinians have been injured. 25 percent of the dead are non-combatants: women, children, and the old. Today, the U.N suspended humanitarian aid to Gaza, in the wake of a U.N. truck being shelled by an Israeli tank, and the death of the truck's driver. In the fog of war, the only certainty is that these numbers will rise.By now every major organization and nation has issued a position statement on the violence, and the pundits have been practicing their craft on the news channels for some time.

At the end of the day there will be an agreement, so why do they have to go through this process of killing and shedding blood first? Why can’t they stop? Why do they need for each other to suffer so terribly?

In Sderot, like in other cities in the Israeli South, the rockets fall as they have for some time now. There, hatred surely grows, and rockets cannot extinguish it.The sirens wail at random, and residents are urged to run to their shelters in hopes they will make it in time. Sderot is a little over a mile from Gaza. A rocket can reach Sderot in nine seconds.Meanwhile, young Israeli men and women are on the way to or already in Gaza. They are actors in a stage not of their making, victims of the past. The basest of them take vengeance in their anger, sharing feelings, no doubt, like those expressed by TF, and the compassionate amongst them are caught between sympathy and duty.

In Gaza, hatred surely grows, and bombs cannot extinguish it. The old bury the young, the young watch the old whither, dignity is a memory, and peace but a forgotten shadow. The scale of the destruction and death is beyond my imagination.

Hamas blames Israel for breaking the cease-fire by sending troops into Gaza on November 4th and for not complying with the conditions of the cease-fire or allowing significant levels of goods and humanitarian aide to flow into Gaza. How long, Hamas asks, can they show restraint while Gazans starve in the dark? Cease-fire or no cease-fire, the conditions are the same; what is the difference between a swift death or a slow one?
Israel cannot be asked to live with an organization whose history includes dispatching suicide bombers to kill its citizens. Israel blames Hamas for the blockade and points out-correctly that Hamas that has been firing rockets at civilians.

Around the world, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups echo these arguments louder and louder every day. No one ever wins the rhetorical battles because no one can. It is wrong for an occupying power to starve a population and force it to live in poverty, and it is wrong to fire rockets at civilians forcing them to live in fear. Deep down each side acknowledges its culpability, but cannot show mercy. Both are blind in one eye while the other eye only looks in the mirror to see its own pain. Each side claims it must act because it, after-all, is the victim.

Fear, hatred, death, uncertainty and fanaticism rule the day. The battle for Gaza will continue, long after the last round is fired, and we, who are "outside" of all this, can only watch on, in horror, or cheering, not knowing what consequences these events may hold for our own homes, and our own people in the weeks and months to come.

 

[Sukerkin]

At the end of the day there will be an agreement, so why do they have to go through this process of killing and shedding blood first?

I don't believe there can. That's why I said that the only solution I can see, that ends this treadmill of violence, is the effective removal of one of the 'sides'.

In Gaza, hatred surely grows, and bombs cannot extinguish it. The old bury the young, the young watch the old whither, dignity is a memory, and peace but a forgotten shadow. The scale of the destruction and death is beyond my imagination.

Absolutely. The reflection on the Israeli side is equally vivid for they too are fighting for their very survival, as they see it (tho' I'd dearly like to hear what Loki has to say on this as my last long-term close contact with an Israeli was a Sgt. who studied Economics with me in the '80's).

Deep down each side acknowledges its culpability, but cannot show mercy. Both are blind in one eye while the other eye only looks in the mirror to see its own pain. Each side claims it must act because it, after-all, is the victim.

Fear, hatred, death, uncertainty and fanaticism rule the day.

Oh so very true.

 

[Twin Fist]

roman aggression then

when have the jews EVER started the fight?

 

[elder999]

roman aggression then

when have the jews EVER started the fight?

Yer kidding, right?

 

[Sukerkin]

Now that is an interesting question, John.

Supposedly it (the dissolution of Israel) has it's real roots in biblical times and the destruction of the Jewish nation was a terminal result of actions of theirs that offended God.

I wouldn't like to comment further on that as it'd drag this thread off it's course of discussing the present problems.

In recent decades, there have been examples of where Israel instigated conflict - sometimes very successfully indeed in terms of military results (as Egypt, amongst others, will confirm). The whys and wherfores of whether such attacks were pre-emptive is another discussion.

It's well out of date nowadays but a book I could suggest as a good thumbnail of the military situation that pertained a few decades ago is "The Israeli War Machine" by Ian V. Hogg, published in 1983 by Book Club Associates for Hamlyn (I don't have an ISDN number for it I'm afraid (it might be that the CN 5621 on the back cover is a useful reference))

 

[Twin Fist]

wow, eloquent

Nah-he's a Texan, that's all. :lol:




I don't know how "wrong headed" it was-I've my own opinions, but they're mostly based on a bias against "colonialism," for lack of a better word. Growning up, my best friends up the street were a wonderful Dutch family. They had ties to South Africa, and I was, like many Americans, against apartheid. In the end, to remain friends-and I'm speaking of Mr. and Mrs. van den Berg here, and they think the world of me-we simply agreed not to discuss it. I find myself in the same place with Israel. Very often, in many people's minds, to speak against Israel is to be anti-semitic, which I'm not. Or to be pro-Arab, or pro-Palestinian, which I'm not. In fact, I largely confine my distaste to U.S. policy towards Israel, which is another, convoluted and ridiculous matter altogether.

There can be no doubt about the right, after 60 years, for the nation of Israel to exist, though its coexistence with its neighbors is always in doubt. There can be no doubt about the right of the Palestinians-or whatever one wants to call the Arabs who have lived within the borders of Gaza, the West Bank and Israel itself-to exist and have, as the U.S., the U.N., and Israel themselves have asserted, to a state of their own.

It has been over a week now. Over 700 Palestinians and 11 Israelis have been killed (seven of them soldiers), and more than 3,000 Palestinians have been injured. 25 percent of the dead are non-combatants: women, children, and the old. Today, the U.N suspended humanitarian aid to Gaza, in the wake of a U.N. truck being shelled by an Israeli tank, and the death of the truck's driver. In the fog of war, the only certainty is that these numbers will rise.By now every major organization and nation has issued a position statement on the violence, and the pundits have been practicing their craft on the news channels for some time.

At the end of the day there will be an agreement, so why do they have to go through this process of killing and shedding blood first? Why can’t they stop? Why do they need for each other to suffer so terribly?

In Sderot, like in other cities in the Israeli South, the rockets fall as they have for some time now. There, hatred surely grows, and rockets cannot extinguish it.The sirens wail at random, and residents are urged to run to their shelters in hopes they will make it in time. Sderot is a little over a mile from Gaza. A rocket can reach Sderot in nine seconds.Meanwhile, young Israeli men and women are on the way to or already in Gaza. They are actors in a stage not of their making, victims of the past. The basest of them take vengeance in their anger, sharing feelings, no doubt, like those expressed by TF, and the compassionate amongst them are caught between sympathy and duty.

In Gaza, hatred surely grows, and bombs cannot extinguish it. The old bury the young, the young watch the old whither, dignity is a memory, and peace but a forgotten shadow. The scale of the destruction and death is beyond my imagination.

Hamas blames Israel for breaking the cease-fire by sending troops into Gaza on November 4th and for not complying with the conditions of the cease-fire or allowing significant levels of goods and humanitarian aide to flow into Gaza. How long, Hamas asks, can they show restraint while Gazans starve in the dark? Cease-fire or no cease-fire, the conditions are the same; what is the difference between a swift death or a slow one?
Israel cannot be asked to live with an organization whose history includes dispatching suicide bombers to kill its citizens. Israel blames Hamas for the blockade and points out-correctly that Hamas that has been firing rockets at civilians.

Around the world, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups echo these arguments louder and louder every day. No one ever wins the rhetorical battles because no one can. It is wrong for an occupying power to starve a population and force it to live in poverty, and it is wrong to fire rockets at civilians forcing them to live in fear. Deep down each side acknowledges its culpability, but cannot show mercy. Both are blind in one eye while the other eye only looks in the mirror to see its own pain. Each side claims it must act because it, after-all, is the victim.

Fear, hatred, death, uncertainty and fanaticism rule the day. The battle for Gaza will continue, long after the last round is fired, and we, who are "outside" of all this, can only watch on, in horror, or cheering, not knowing what consequences these events may hold for our own homes, and our own people in the weeks and months to come.

 

[Ramirez]

screw public opinion, screw the "innocent palistinians" there is no such thing. For one thing, they are in fact JORDANIAN by and large, and they harbor the fanatics, so they aint innocent.

Including the 4 year old girl whose body was lying in the rubble of that UN school? Nice.

 

[elder999]

roman aggression then

when have the jews EVER started the fight?

9 Joshua said to the Israelites, "Come here and listen to the words of the LORD your God. 10 This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. Joshua 3:9-10

Then the LORD said to Joshua, "See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. 3 March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. 4 Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams' horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. 5 When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in."

20 When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city. 21 They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys Joshua 6

Of course, these were the Hebrews. They weren't "Jews" until the fall of Jerusalem, and the rise of rabbinical Judaism, from 70 AD onward, but you get the idea.

Pretty sure you'd read the Bible, TF-it's full of stuff like this: God says, "Go down there and KILL EVERYBODY," .......and they do.

I'm only going to mention the terrorist actions of Ben Gurion and the like, that lead to what the British called "Palestine" becoming the modern state of Israel, but I think that's a fight they started as well......

 

[Ramirez]

this: God says, "Go down there and KILL EVERYBODY," .......and they do.

I'm only going to mention the terrorist actions of Ben Gurion and the like, that lead to what the British called "Palestine" becoming the modern state of Israel, but I think that's a fight they started as well......

That deserves more than a mention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(group)

 

[Twin Fist]

so either 70AD, or pre 1948

yeah, those bastards..............

you know, talking about a modern problem and bringing up biblical era examples might just be silly..........

 

[elder999]

so either 70AD, or pre 1948

yeah, those bastards..............

you know, talking about a modern problem and bringing up biblical era examples might just be silly..........

Perhaps, but not nearly as silly as speaking in absolutes:

roman aggression then

when have the jews EVER started the fight?

...especially when you consider the Biblical reasons used by so many to support the modern state in the first place.

:lfao:

 

[Ninjamom]

Lest we forget:

Attack on the USS Liberty in international waters during the 1967 Six Days War: 34 US dead and 170 wounded.

 

[elder999]

double post, sorry-damn big fingers.....

 

[elder999]

Lest we forget:

Attack on the USS Liberty in international waters during the 1967 Six Days War: 34 US dead and 170 wounded.

Can 'o worms there. Can't say anything. Let's chalk it up to thread drift.

I can't say anything else.

 

[Carol]

* closes can of worms *

 

[Twin Fist]

the biblical reasons for giving it to them was just the excuse, the reason it happened was a profound sense of GUILT for letting the holocaust happen.

that being said, since since israel has been under constant attack for DECADES, I am not gonna second guess them this time.

 

[Makalakumu]

Can 'o worms there. Can't say anything. Let's chalk it up to thread drift.

I can't say anything else.

Are you talking about the plot to intentionally draw the US into war with Egypt? That would be thread drift...

 

[sgtmac_46]

Simply thinking deep intellectual thoughts about war, and how awful it is, and how you would give EVERYTHING to avoid it, ironically enough, actually INVITES ATTACK! You can have no PEACE without VICTORY!

Well, unlike you hawk guys, I prefer to think with my mind and not with my hormones. I had family who grew up in war zones. My family came over from Belfast from a very hard life. We had family who stayed and still have family over there. We had to worry about their safety throughout the year and especially during the Orangemen Marching times during July. I have family who have been killed by the British, who were captured by them during the second world war. They have PTSD and cannot talk about the experiences they had. My grandmother who is in her eighties is just starting to talk and I think it is because she wants peace before she dies. My family came here to America to escape that daily hell and to live a decent life. They did not want their kids to be full of hate of others. If someone attacks us here, you better believe I'll fight to the end. But I don't want to encourage it. As for the comment for thinking too deeply about it, I study history and focus mainly on totalitarian governments. I have studied many wars and many horrific events that have taken place on this earth, especially in the 20th century. You think what the press shows you is bad? That's the tip of the iceberg. That is why I have the attitude I have. Not to push our country down, I never would, our people always will come first no matter what the situation is. In fact, I don't think the government does enough for Americans. But, America needs to look at the facts before taking an action. If you don't it backfires.

Allow me to explain my comment on pondering too deeply both sides.....KNOWING and EMPATHIZING are two different things.....I thoroughly study both sides of an issue......that's a good thing. I don't find any benefit, however, to empathizing with both sides of a situation.....that much analysis creates paralysis......and often times what people call 'thinking' is really feeling.

As for studying history.....i'm a long time student of history well.....not just the 20th century, but the entirety of human history. Mankind was born of conflict, conflict was what seperated the chimpanzee from the bonobo, and the ability to use tools in conflict is what allowed our ancestors to grow, evolve and spread throughout the planet. Conflict is part of our genes, and that's not going to change any time in the near future.

There is a common misbelief among those of the wishful thinking variety that believe that human evil is some new phenomenon of governments, or organizations, or religions, of ways of thinking.....and if we return to some earlier model everything will be better......man is, at his core, a killer! The irony is that what civilization and peace we DO have was purchased at the point of a sword with the blood of other people.

 

[sgtmac_46]

Now, now, TF, you might want to phrase your responses a little more respectfully when the views of someone who actually lives with this dangerous situation day in and day out are given? Or am I misinterpreting your brevity ?

Modern Israel's history, as Loki can no doubt tell us, has been a battle from day one. I mean no disrespect to the people who live there but the reason for that is that we, the West, 're-invented' a vanished nation by stealing the land of those who have been there for quite some time.

It is not a surprise that the Palestinians have never ceased in their resistance and even less that the extremists amongst them are the ones that have risen to the top as a consequence. It would have been no different if the attempt to give back a homeland to the Jews had been to carve out a New Jerusalem here in Staffordshire, uprooting people who have lived here for millenia. We too would never cease in fighting to repel what was, to us, an invasion - no matter what the odds.

It is how to deal with the consequences of that wrong-headed decision that is the problem. I for one cannot see a way to a solution that is not 'final' in the Third Reich meaning and that, to me, is morally unacceptable.

Given the duplicity of Grand Mufti of Palestine (Arafat's uncle) with the REAL Third Reich, and his pressing of Hitler to come up with a final solution, the whole thing is rather ironic.

As to homelands, this conflict is REALLY about the Islamic world being insulted at a non-Islamic state existing in the midst, and the use of the Palestinians as proxies to resolve that insult.


As proof.....there are numerous states in the middle east arbitrarily created in the 20th Century, each with ethnic populations claiming independence.....YET since all of those states are ISLAMIC most folks have never heard of those conflicts......the only one of interest is the sole non-Islamic state that offends the Islamic world. There is no push for a Kurdish homeland by the Arab League, or a discussion of how the mythical Palestine includes a portion of Jordan.




At the end of the day.....Israel EXISTS! And since there isn't a spot on this planet that is occupied that wasn't previously occupied by someone else, the arguments of folks that Israel is some exception that should cease to exist out of 'fairness' is disingenuous.......the British and Americans certainly have no business arguing that Israel doesn't have a right to exist because it was previously called 'Palestine' (actually, it was only called Palestine by the League of Nations after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, when it was put under British control......other than that no such nation of 'Palestine' ever existed.....it was a region).