I support Israel

Who do you support?

  • Israel

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Hezbollah / Hamas (Syria, Lebanon, Iran)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0

Semperfi_dani

Electoral Member
Nov 1, 2005
482
0
16
Edmonton
Okay Master Yoda...I would debate with you more about this, but some of us have jobs and a life and must depart this board for a bit. I am intrigued by your thoughts on the conflict in general. I would like to see your justification for the loss of life on both sides because grown men cannot play fair in the sandbox.

So please share your thoughts and justifications.
 

Kreskin

Doctor of Thinkology
Feb 23, 2006
21,155
149
63
Re: RE: I support Israel

SaintLucifer said:
Kreskin said:
Most in the world don't want it to have more power than it does. What it does do is provide a collective voice and a framework for international conduct. If one cannot see the benefit of having a means of communication, debate, a collective framework and plan etc then one should tell Bush to screw the six-party talks as well. Even the Bozo in Chief is starting to see why a collective voice is more effective than unilateralism.

We do not need the UN. We do not need NATO. Time for a complete withdrawal from both of them. If we do this then we will not beholden to anything in the United Nations charter. This is called freedom. We would answer to no one but ourselves. While we are at it let us withdraw all of our military forces from around the world and bring them back home. The only thing our military should give a *censored* about is Canada. The rest of the world can kiss my *censored* ass.

You want to become a new North Korea? SL defiantly off firing missiles while he stokes up the concentration camps. You and the other 12 guys pushing the agenda have lost touch with the other 30 million. I don't see you winning an election anytime soon.
 

LittleRunningGag

Electoral Member
Jan 11, 2006
611
2
18
Calgary, Alberta
members.shaw.ca
Re: RE: I support Israel

SaintLucifer said:
Semperfi_dani said:
My point was that if you are going to present a poll, at least give real legitimate options. You do understand right..this whole concept of fair and open and unbiased debate. This poll does not give one any other option.

So to answer your question..yes..i did feel the need to tell you this. Its just sad that you're wee little brain necessitated the need for me to explain why i wasn't participating. I thought that would have been clear.

Sure it does. It asks whose side you are are, that of the Israelis or that of the terrorists. What more do you need? Shall I draw a map for you?

*yawn*

The tired, "Your either with us, or against us," eh? There are in fact shades of grey.
 

SaintLucifer

Electoral Member
Jul 10, 2006
324
0
16
Re: RE: I support Israel

Kreskin said:
SaintLucifer said:
Kreskin said:
Most in the world don't want it to have more power than it does. What it does do is provide a collective voice and a framework for international conduct. If one cannot see the benefit of having a means of communication, debate, a collective framework and plan etc then one should tell Bush to screw the six-party talks as well. Even the Bozo in Chief is starting to see why a collective voice is more effective than unilateralism.

We do not need the UN. We do not need NATO. Time for a complete withdrawal from both of them. If we do this then we will not beholden to anything in the United Nations charter. This is called freedom. We would answer to no one but ourselves. While we are at it let us withdraw all of our military forces from around the world and bring them back home. The only thing our military should give a *censored* about is Canada. The rest of the world can kiss my *censored* ass.

You want to become a new North Korea? SL defiantly off firing missiles while he stokes up the concentration camps. You and the other 12 guys pushing the agenda have lost touch with the other 30 million. I don't see you winning an election anytime soon.

You see? You just made my point for me. As soon as anyone utters the word 'fascist' you automatically think North Korea or concentration camps. Have I ever said anything about missiles or concentration camps? No I have not. I simply wish to save this entity we all know and love called Canada. You are attacking my nationalism and that in itself is wrong. You are lying at the very same time you commit those attacks upon my person.
 

Kreskin

Doctor of Thinkology
Feb 23, 2006
21,155
149
63
You must realize that most of your agenda involves a confrontation in one way or another. Do you not have the foresight to anticipate that there would be resistance to just about everything in your agenda? Are we on the same page yet? OK, in order for you to carry the agenda out you will need to either let the resistance run you into another country (that won't help you) or you'll have to find a place for everyone who is dangerous to you. Everyone being approximately 30,000,000 less the 12 of you. Your choice will be lock up everyone or have them string you up.
 

Finder

House Member
Dec 18, 2005
3,786
0
36
Toronto
www.mytimenow.net
Re: RE: I support Israel

SaintLucifer said:
Kreskin said:
SaintLucifer said:
Kreskin said:
Most in the world don't want it to have more power than it does. What it does do is provide a collective voice and a framework for international conduct. If one cannot see the benefit of having a means of communication, debate, a collective framework and plan etc then one should tell Bush to screw the six-party talks as well. Even the Bozo in Chief is starting to see why a collective voice is more effective than unilateralism.

We do not need the UN. We do not need NATO. Time for a complete withdrawal from both of them. If we do this then we will not beholden to anything in the United Nations charter. This is called freedom. We would answer to no one but ourselves. While we are at it let us withdraw all of our military forces from around the world and bring them back home. The only thing our military should give a *censored* about is Canada. The rest of the world can kiss my *censored* ass.

You want to become a new North Korea? SL defiantly off firing missiles while he stokes up the concentration camps. You and the other 12 guys pushing the agenda have lost touch with the other 30 million. I don't see you winning an election anytime soon.

You see? You just made my point for me. As soon as anyone utters the word 'fascist' you automatically think North Korea or concentration camps. Have I ever said anything about missiles or concentration camps? No I have not. I simply wish to save this entity we all know and love called Canada. You are attacking my nationalism and that in itself is wrong. You are lying at the very same time you commit those attacks upon my person.


Actually I don't think North Korea when I think of a fascist state, as North Korea is more of a Stalinist State. No Fascist states like Nazi Germany, Franco's Spain, Fascist Italy, Vichy France and perhaps in many regards Apartheid South Africa.

The reason some see your views as being those of the same as North Korea is because North Korea is an isolationist country, yet has joined the United nations. What you wish to do is beyound the insanity of North Korea, to new levels of insanity.

You really should take your meds.
 

Freethinker

Electoral Member
Jan 18, 2006
315
0
16
I agree there needs to be one more option.

C: I come from the land of cute fluffy bunnies and everyone just needs more hugs and everything will be all better.

BTW I support Israel fully. People are confused if they think a cease fire is a good thing right now. That solves nothing. Hezbollah would just continue the buildup and attack again in a year or two.

There needs to be decisive action and it is better to remove Hezbollah now, rather wait for them to dig in more and get even more powerful weapons, maybe even a Nuke from Iran.

Even without the nuke threat, with Hezbollah in place, this cycle will repeat endlessly and Lebanon will be torn apart endlessly.

The best thing that can happen is that Israel dismantles them and they are killed or expelled. Even better if as the Israelis drive the north, the Lebanon army starts to move south to keep them out of north Lebanon.

Terrorist Militants destroy every country they reside in (seldom the one they attack), google "black september" and "damour massacre" to get some idea what the PLO did in Jordan and Lebanon, Jordan paid the price to eject these madmen and has been peaceful ever since.
 

Maggiemygosh

New Member
Jul 17, 2006
37
0
6
Kanata
:D

Whose fault is it? No question about it, it is Hammas and Hezbollah's fault. Seven Canadians are dead because of Hezbollah and Hammas and the idiot Unions in Canada who support these Shiite Muslim Terrorist organizations. Hezbollah and Hammas are Shiite Muslim Organizations supported with $20MillionUS per month by the Governments of Iran amd Syria. The President of Lebanon is a puppet of the President of Syria both of whom are Shiites.

FYI here is a copy of this mornings editorial from the Ottawa Sun.

It best describes the history and the current results in the middle east.

Mon, July 17, 2006 Ottawa Sun Editorial

Get peace for land

Contrary to myth, the key issue in the Mideast has never been whether Israel is willing to trade land for peace.

Israel has traded land for peace many times. The real issue, as George Jonas first wrote in the Sun 15 years ago, is whether its enemies will ever give Israel peace for land.

This is what lies at the heart of the latest outburst of violence

between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel withdrew from Lebanon six years ago in a process approved by the United Nations. What did it get in return?


Continued shelling and attacks from inside Lebanon, courtesy of Hezbollah terrorists -- the so-called "Party of God" -- backed by Syria and Iran.

Last year, Israel withdrew from Gaza through a painful process of forcing out Israeli settlers by sending in its own army.

What did it get in return? Continued attacks and shelling by Hamas terrorists -- the so-called "Islamic Resistance Movement" -- backed by Iran and other terror groups.

Then, in recent days, first Hamas and then Hezbollah staged raids from their Gaza and Lebanon forward bases on Israeli military outposts, kidnapping one soldier in Gaza, and two in the Lebanese attack, while killing eight others.

Those describing the subsequent Israeli assaults on Lebanon and Gaza as "disproportionate" either ignore or refuse to acknowledge the facts on the ground.

That is, experience shows giving up land does not bring Israel peace. Worse, the land that it gives up is then used as forward staging posts for continued attacks against it.

This negates any point to Israel giving up more land for peace -- most notably the West Bank -- until it is guaranteed, either by the UN, the G8, the Arab League or some other body that, in the future, when it gives up land for peace, it will receive peace -- not more rockets and attacks -- for land.

If the world community -- and we applaud Prime Minister Stephen Harper's support of Israel in the latest crisis -- wants to stop the confrontation in the Mideast, the way to do so is not complicated. It must force Israel's enemies to abide by the principle of peace for land. Otherwise, the Palestinians will never get the land they deserve for peace, and Israel will never get the peace it deserves for land.

.....

The lefty's in Canada will have a huge problem with these facts and truth.

To conclude the United Nations Organization is a complete farce.
It is loaded with corrupt ex-politicians and they ever do is pas resolutions that really have no meaning because there is no teeth in any of them.
 

gopher

Hall of Fame Member
Jun 26, 2005
21,513
66
48
Minnesota: Gopher State
Israel bombs Christian city in Lebanon:




http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=74024

Israelis intensify bombardment of Lebanon's civilian infrastructure

By Nada Bakri Daily Star staff Monday, July 17, 2006

BEIRUT: Israel intensified its bombardment of Lebanon's infrastructure over the weekend, striking power stations and the fuel depots that feed them. Israel also targeted Beirut's seaport and lighthouse, the Northern port of Tripoli and the port in the predominantly Christian city of Jounieh.

Israel's bombing of Lebanon's roads, bridges, ports, airports and Hizbullah targets for the fifth straight day was the most destructive onslaught since its 1982 invasion of the country.

Black smoke rose from a power plant in Jiyyeh on the coastal highway, 25 kilometers south of Beirut, after it was hit hard by an Israeli air strike Sunday afternoon. Electricity was cut in many areas of Beirut and South Lebanon.

Firefighters pleaded for help from residents, saying they didn't have enough water to put out the blaze.

Earlier Sunday, a series of loud explosions, at least 18 in total, shook the capital and destroyed large parts of the southern suburbs, plunging the area into darkness. Air-to-ground missiles and naval artillery shells began their strikes after midnight Saturday and continued intermittently until about 5 a.m.

On Saturday, Israel's gunships attacked a lighthouse located in central Beirut, radar installations and grain silos at the capital's port, as attacks by Israeli forces inched closer to the heart of the city. http://www.dailystar.com.lb

Israel also destroyed radar installations in the ports of Jounieh and Tripoli. There were no reports of casualties in any of the strikes on infrastructure.

In a further escalation of the Israeli onslaught, fighter-bombers fired four missiles about 200 meters beyond Masnaa, the main crossing point between Lebanon and Syria, prompting Russia to warn that there was a "real threat" that the fiercest conflict between the two neighbors in a decade could engulf other nations.

"There is a real threat of the involvement of other states in this conflict," Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov said ahead of a G-8 summit of world leaders in St. Petersburg.

However, Israel's head of military operations, General Gadi Azincot, said later that Syria was "not an objective of our operation."

The five days of raids have left near-apocalyptic scenes of power stations burning, black smoke billowing from the paralyzed airport, roads riddled with craters and collapsed bridges.

Israel has said that it is planning to hit more targets and bridges, including a newly built bridge linking the Hazmieh area - close to the Presidential Palace in Baabda - to the road leading to the airport.



Imagine if it had been Saddam who carried on this act of aggression - what would the right wingers be saying today?
 

BitWhys

what green dots?
Apr 5, 2006
3,157
15
38
so

uh

what exactly is the Israellis going to accomplish with all of this, anyways?

PS: no vote. the poll is loaded
 

sanch

Electoral Member
Apr 8, 2005
647
0
16
Arab countries have a responsibility in that they have used—as well as helped perpetuate --the Palestinian situation to distract their citizens from internal problems. The Israelis as well have used the Palestinians for decades as cheap labour thereby creating an underclass that is economically dependent on Israel.

Neither Israel nor the Palestinians have shown any attempt to restrain from taking civilian casualties.

Now Israel has killed 7 Canadians including 4 children. Israel has not formally apologized to Canada or to the families of the Canadians. If Canada had somehow caused the death of Israelis and not apologized Israeli would have been outraged.

Harper should immediately ask the Israelis to shut their embassy in Ottawa and for their staff to leave Canada.
 

#juan

Hall of Fame Member
Aug 30, 2005
18,326
119
63
In my opinion if Israel has the means, they should completely occupy Gaza and Lebanon to the point of also being their government. I am sure after a long period of sustained and TOTAL occupation the Palestinians and Lebanese will realize that life really is better under a more Western / Israeli form of law and life.

Israel already controlls all of Palestine, part of Jordan, par of Egypt. and part of Lebanon. Israel has driven hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of their home amd the bulldozed those homes or burned them down so the Palestinians couldn't return. Didn't you ever wonder where the Palestinian refugees came from?

This latest responce to the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier is so over blown and out of proportion, it is completely without justification. The Israelis wanted another reason to kill Arabs, It looks like they found one, however shallow it is.
 

Freethinker

Electoral Member
Jan 18, 2006
315
0
16
#juan said:
Israel already controlls all of Palestine, part of Jordan, par of Egypt. and part of Lebanon. Israel has driven hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of their home amd the bulldozed those homes or burned them down so the Palestinians couldn't return. Didn't you ever wonder where the Palestinian refugees came from?

This latest responce to the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier is so over blown and out of proportion, it is completely without justification. The Israelis wanted another reason to kill Arabs, It looks like they found one, however shallow it is.

A totally clueless post. The kidnapping is obviously a flashpoint dealing with larger issues. Proportionate response is the response of a dead idiot. This is all about removing the Iranian funded threat on the northern border. Until it is removed this cycle will continued endlessly.

In your own words, how were these hundreds of thousands driven from their homes? If you actually read the history there was only one major exodus and it was caused by the Arabs making up stories of Israeli massacres/rapes to exhort their people. It had the opposite effect and they fled en masse. So it was Arab lies that drove people from their homes.

Israel has fought the combined Arab Armies in three wars, not of it's choosing and the borders did shift. Today Neither Egypt nor Jordan claims any of it's territory is held by Israel, and neither does Lebanon for that matter.

Only "Palestinean" territory is at issue.

Practically all of your claims are complete unmittigated BS.
 

Jo Canadian

Council Member
Mar 15, 2005
2,488
1
38
PEI...for now
:roll: After watching much of the news and reading etc... etc... the whole mess down there is just plain fucked up. Nobody's acting as the better at this (besides at who's better at blowing things up)

You can post away until you're blue in the face with examples of "Who did what, which somehow justifies the actions..." Israel has the bigger guns all right, and I'm finding it safe to say that they wanted it to go this way, and really the one mantra I hear in the news is that of the kidnapped soldier.

Why?

Think of it man, a soldier gets Kidnapped and THIS is their reaction?!?! Israels's bombastic reaction to this kidnapping is not logical for his safe return. The way they're pounding at everything in site GUARANTEES that that soldier is coming back all right....In itty bitty bits. It doesn't matter on what conflict you're in around the world. IF a soldier gets taken prisoner and the opposition reacts like that. He's fcuked!

Don't tell me that the highly educated and experienced commanders of the Israelie forces overlooked that little fact. That soldier was a bloody excuse to do a little cleaning.

And before anyone moans that I'm not supporting Israel, well the "other side" hasn't had thier heads screwed on well either. Parentally speaking, both sides need a good spanking and time-out in the corner.
 

Freethinker

Electoral Member
Jan 18, 2006
315
0
16
Jo Canadian said:
Israel has the bigger guns all right, and I'm finding it safe to say that they wanted it to go this way, and really the one mantra I hear in the news is that of the kidnapped soldier.

Actually if you actually read any of the analysis, no one who actually studies this issue, thinks this is about the soldiers. This was a coming conflict that was forseen, this was just the flashpoint trigger.

Here is a decent piece of analysis that show the inevitability of this conflict on both sides:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,1821573,00.html

This cycle will repeat every few years until Hezbollah is removed or there is a UN buffer zone in the south. Of the two having Hezbollah return to Syria that created it would be the Ideal solution.
 

#juan

Hall of Fame Member
Aug 30, 2005
18,326
119
63
Published by
Jews for Justice in the Middle East





As the periodic bloodshed continues in the Middle East, the search for an equitable solution must come to grips with the root cause of the conflict. The conventional wisdom is that, even if both sides are at fault, the Palestinians are irrational "terrorists" who have no point of view worth listening to. Our position, however, is that the Palestinians have a real grievance: their homeland for over a thousand years was taken, without their consent and mostly by force, during the creation of the state of Israel. And all subsequent crimes - on both sides - inevitably follow from this original injustice.

This paper outlines the history of Palestine to show how this process occurred and what a moral solution to the region's problems should consist of. If you care about the people of the Middle East, Jewish and Arab, you owe it to yourself to read this account of the other side of the historical record.



Introduction

The standard Zionist position is that they showed up in Palestine in the late 19th century to reclaim their ancestral homeland. Jews bought land and started building up the Jewish community there. They were met with increasingly violent opposition from the Palestinian Arabs, presumably stemming from the Arabs' inherent anti-Semitism. The Zionists were then forced to defend themselves and, in one form or another, this same situation continues up to today.

The problem with this explanation is that it is simply not true, as the documentary evidence in this booklet will show. What really happened was that the Zionist movement, from the beginning, looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the indigenous Arab population so that Israel could be a wholly Jewish state, or as much as was possible. Land bought by the Jewish National Fund was held in the name of the Jewish people and could never be sold or even leased back to Arabs (a situation which continues to the present).

The Arab community, as it became increasingly aware of the Zionists' intentions, strenuously opposed further Jewish immigration and land buying because it posed a real and imminent danger to the very existence of Arab society in Palestine. Because of this opposition, the entire Zionist project never could have been realized without the military backing of the British. The vast majority of the population of Palestine, by the way, had been Arabic since the seventh century A.D. (Over 1200 years)

In short, Zionism was based on a faulty, colonialist world view that the rights of the indigenous inhabitants didn't matter. The Arabs' opposition to Zionism wasn't based on anti-Semitism but rather on a totally reasonable fear of the dispossession of their people.

One further point: being Jewish ourselves, the position we present here is critical of Zionism but is in no way anti-Semitic. We do not believe that the Jews acted worse than any other group might have acted in their situation. The Zionists (who were a distinct minority of the Jewish people until after WWII) had an understandable desire to establish a place where Jews could be masters of their own fate, given the bleak history of Jewish oppression. Especially as the danger to European Jewry crystalized in the late 1930's and after, the actions of the Zionists were propelled by real desperation.

But so were the actions of the Arabs. The mythic "land without people for a people without land" was already home to 700,000 Palestinians in 1919. This is the root of the problem, as we shall see.
 

#juan

Hall of Fame Member
Aug 30, 2005
18,326
119
63
Early History of the Region


Before the Hebrews first migrated there around 1800 B.C., the land of Canaan was occupied by Canaanites.

"Between 3000 and 1100 B.C., Canaanite civilization covered what is today Israel, the West Bank, Lebanon and much of Syria and Jordan...Those who remained in the Jerusalem hills after the Romans expelled the Jews [in the second century A.D.] were a potpourri: farmers and vineyard growers, pagans and converts to Christianity, descendants of the Arabs, Persians, Samaritans, Greeks and old Canaanite tribes." Marcia Kunstel and Joseph Albright, "Their Promised Land."

The present-day Palestinians' ancestral heritage

"But all these [different peoples who had come to Canaan] were additions, sprigs grafted onto the parent tree...And that parent tree was Canaanite...[The Arab invaders of the 7th century A.D.] made Moslem converts of the natives, settled down as residents, and intermarried with them, with the result that all are now so completely Arabized that we cannot tell where the Canaanites leave off and the Arabs begin." Illene Beatty, "Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan."

The Jewish kingdoms were only one of many periods in ancient Palestine

"The extended kingdoms of David and Solomon, on which the Zionists base their territorial demands, endured for only about 73 years...Then it fell apart...[Even] if we allow independence to the entire life of the ancient Jewish kingdoms, from David's conquest of Canaan in 1000 B.C. to the wiping out of Judah in 586 B.C., we arrive at [only] a 414 year Jewish rule." Illene Beatty, "Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan."

More on Canaanite civilization

"Recent archeological digs have provided evidence that Jerusalem was a big and fortified city already in 1800 BCE...Findings show that the sophisticated water system heretofor attributed to the conquering Israelites pre-dated them by eight centuries and was even more sophisticated than imagined...Dr. Ronny Reich, who directed the excavation along with Eli Shuikrun, said the entire system was built as a single complex by Canaanites in the Middle Bronze Period, around 1800 BCE." The Jewish Bulletin, July 31st, 1998.

How long has Palestine been a specifically Arab country?

"Palestine became a predominately Arab and Islamic country by the end of the seventh century. Almost immediately thereafter its boundaries and its characteristics - including its name in Arabic, Filastin - became known to the entire Islamic world, as much for its fertility and beauty as for its religious significance...In 1516, Palestine became a province of the Ottoman Empire, but this made it no less fertile, no less Arab or Islamic...Sixty percent of the population was in agriculture; the balance was divided between townspeople and a relatively small nomadic group. All these people believed themselves to belong in a land called Palestine, despite their feelings that they were also members of a large Arab nation...Despite the steady arrival in Palestine of Jewish colonists after 1882, it is important to realize that not until the few weeks immediately preceding the establishment of Israel in the spring of 1948 was there ever anything other than a huge Arab majority. For example, the Jewish population in 1931 was 174,606 against a total of 1,033,314." Edward Said, "The Question of Palestine."

How did land ownership traditionally work in Palestine and when did it change?

"[The Ottoman Land Code of 1858] required the registration in the name of individual owners of agricultural land, most of which had never previously been registered and which had formerly been treated according to traditional forms of land tenure, in the hill areas of Palestine generally masha'a, or communal usufruct. The new law meant that for the first time a peasant could be deprived not of title to his land, which he had rarely held before, but rather of the right to live on it, cultivate it and pass it on to his heirs, which had formerly been inalienable...Under the provisions of the 1858 law, communal rights of tenure were often ignored...Instead, members of the upper classes, adept at manipulating or circumventing the legal process, registered large areas of land as theirs...The fellahin [peasants] naturally considered the land to be theirs, and often discovered that they had ceased to be the legal owners only when the land was sold to Jewish settlers by an absentee landlord...Not only was the land being purchased; its Arab cultivators were being dispossessed and replaced by foreigners who had overt political objectives in Palestine." Rashid Khalidi, "Blaming The Victims," ed. Said and Hitchens

Was Arab opposition to the arrival of Zionists based on inherent anti-Semitism or a real sense of danger to their community?

"The aim of the [Jewish National] Fund was `to redeem the land of Palestine as the inalienable possession of the Jewish people.'...As early as 1891, Zionist leader Ahad Ha'am wrote that the Arabs "understood very well what we were doing and what we were aiming at'...[Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, stated] `We shall try to spirit the penniless [Arab] population across the border by procuring employment for it in transit countries, while denying it employment in our own country... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly'...At various locations in northern Palestine Arab farmers refused to move from land the Fund purchased from absentee owners, and the Turkish authorities, at the Fund's request, evicted them...The indigenous Jews of Palestine also reacted negatively to Zionism. They did not see the need for a Jewish state in Palestine and did not want to exacerbate relations with the Arabs." John Quigley, "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice."

Inherent anti-Semitism? - continued

"Before the 20th century, most Jews in Palestine belonged to old Yishuv, or community, that had settled more for religious than for political reasons. There was little if any conflict between them and the Arab population. Tensions began after the first Zionist settlers arrived in the 1880's...when [they] purchased land from absentee Arab owners, leading to dispossession of the peasants who had cultivated it." Don Peretz, "The Arab-Israeli Dispute."

Inherent anti-Semitism? - continued

"[During the Middle Ages,] North Africa and the Arab Middle East became places of refuge and a haven for the persecuted Jews of Spain and elsewhere...In the Holy Land...they lived together in [relative] harmony, a harmony only disrupted when the Zionists began to claim that Palestine was the 'rightful' possession of the 'Jewish people' to the exclusion of its Moslem and Christian inhabitants." Sami Hadawi, "Bitter Harvest."

Jews attitude towards Arabs when reaching Palestine.

"Serfs they (the Jews) were in the lands of the Diaspora, and suddenly they find themselves in freedom [in Palestine]; and this change has awakened in them an inclination to despotism. They treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, deprive them of their rights, offend them without cause, and even boast of these deeds; and nobody among us opposes this despicable and dangerous inclination." Zionist writer Ahad Ha'am, quoted in Sami Hadawi, "Bitter Harvest."

Proposals for Arab-Jewish Cooperation

"An article by Yitzhak Epstein, published in Hashiloah in 1907...called for a new Zionist policy towards the Arabs after 30 years of settlement activity...Like Ahad-Ha'am in 1891, Epstein claims that no good land is vacant, so Jewish settlement meant Arab dispossession...Epstein's solution to the problem, so that a new "Jewish question" may be avoided, is the creation of a bi-national, non-exclusive program of settlement and development. Purchasing land should not involve the dispossession of poor sharecroppers. It should mean creating a joint farming community, where the Arabs will enjoy modern technology. Schools, hospitals and libraries should be non-exclusivist and education bilingual...The vision of non-exclusivist, peaceful cooperation to replace the practice of dispossession found few takers. Epstein was maligned and scorned for his faintheartedness." Israeli author, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, "Original Sins."

Was Palestine the only, or even preferred, destination of Jews facing persecution when the Zionist movement started?

"The pogroms forced many Jews to leave Russia. Societies known as 'Lovers of Zion,' which were forerunners of the Zionist organization, convinced some of the frightened emigrants to go to Palestine. There, they argued, Jews would rebuild the ancient Jewish 'Kingdom of David and Solomon,' Most Russian Jews ignored their appeal and fled to Europe and the United States. By 1900, almost a million Jews had settled in the United States alone." "Our Roots Are Still Alive" by The People Press Palestine Book Project.
 

#juan

Hall of Fame Member
Aug 30, 2005
18,326
119
63
The 1967 War and the
Israeli Occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza


Did the Egyptians actually start the 1967 war, as Israel originally claimed?

"The former Commander of the Air Force, General Ezer Weitzman, regarded as a hawk, stated that there was 'no threat of destruction' but that the attack on Egypt, Jordan and Syria was nevertheless justified so that Israel could 'exist according the scale, spirit, and quality she now embodies.'...Menahem Begin had the following remarks to make: 'In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.' "Noam Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."

Was the 1967 war defenisve? - continued

"I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to The Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it." Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's Chief of Staff in 1967, in Le Monde, 2/28/68

Moshe Dayan posthumously speaks out on the Golan Heights

"Moshe Dayan, the celebrated commander who, as Defense Minister in 1967, gave the order to conquer the Golan...[said] many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland...[Dayan stated] 'They didn't even try to hide their greed for the land...We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot.

And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was...The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.'" The New York Times, May 11, 1997

The history of Israeli expansionism

"The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan; one does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today. But the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them." David Ben-Gurion, in 1936, quoted in Noam Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."

Expansionism - continued

"The main danger which Israel, as a 'Jewish state', poses to its own people, to other Jews and to its neighbors, is its ideologically motivated pursuit of territorial expansion and the inevitable series of wars resulting from this aim...No zionist politician has ever repudiated Ben-Gurion's idea that Israeli policies must be based (within the limits of practical considerations) on the restoration of Biblical borders as the borders of the Jewish state." Israeli professor, Israel Shahak, "Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of 3000 Years."

Expansionism - continued

In Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharatt's personal diaries, there is an excerpt from May of 1955 in which he quotes Moshe Dayan as follows: "[Israel] must see the sword as the main, if not the only, instrument with which to keep its morale high and to retain its moral tension. Toward this end it may, no - it must - invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the method of provocation-and-revenge...And above all - let us hope for a new war with the Arab countries, so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire our space." Quoted in Livia Rokach, "Israel's Sacred Terrorism."

But wasn't the occupation of Arab lands necessary to protect Israel's security?

"Senator [J.William Fulbright] proposed in 1970 that America should guarantee Israel's security in a formal treaty, protecting her with armed forces if necessary. In return, Israel would retire to the borders of 1967. The UN Security Council would guarantee this arrangement, and thereby bring the Soviet Union - then a supplier of arms and political aid to the Arabs - into compliance. As Israeli troops were withdrawn from the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank they would be replaced by a UN peacekeeping force. Israel would agree to accept a certain number of Palestinians and the rest would be settled in a Palestinian state outside Israel.

"The plan drew favorable editorial support in the United States. The proposal, however, was flatly rejected by Israel. 'The whole affair disgusted Fulbright,' writes [his biographer Randall] Woods. 'The Israelis were not even willing to act in their own self-interest.'" Allan Brownfield in "Issues of the American Council for Judaism." Fall 1997.[Ed.-This was one of many such proposals]

What happened after the 1967 war ended?

"In violation of international law, Israel has confiscated over 52 percent of the land in the West Bank and 30 percent of the Gaza Strip for military use or for settlement by Jewish civilians...From 1967 to 1982, Israel's military government demolished 1,338 Palestinian homes on the West Bank. Over this period, more than 300,000 Palestinians were detained without trial for various periods by Israeli security forces." Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation," ed. Lockman and Beinin.

World opinion on the legality of Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza.

"Under the UN Charter there can lawfully be no territorial gains from war, even by a state acting in self-defense. The response of other states to Israel's occupation shows a virtually unanimous opinion that even if Israel's action was defensive, its retention of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was not...The [UN] General Assembly characterized Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as a denial of self determination and hence a 'serious and increasing threat to international peace and security.' " John Quigley, "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice."

Examples of the effects of Israeli occupation

"A study of students at Bethlehem University reported by the Coordinating Committee of International NGOs in Jerusalem showed that many families frequently go five days a week without running water...The study goes further to report that, 'water quotas restrict usage by Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, while Israeli settlers have almost unlimited amounts.'

"A summer trip to a Jewish settlement on the edge of the Judean desert less than five miles from Bethlehem confirmed this water inequity for us. While Bethlehemites were buying water from tank trucks at highly inflated rates, the lawns were green in the settlement. Sprinklers were going at mid day in the hot August sunshine. Sounds of children swimming in the outdoor pool added to the unreality." Betty Jane Bailey, in "The Link", December 1996.

Israeli occupation - continued

"You have to remember that 90 percent of children two years old or more have experienced - some many, many times - the [Israeli] army breaking into the home, beating relatives, destroying things. Many were beaten themselves, had bones broken, were shot, tear gassed, or had these things happen to siblings and neighbors...The emotional aspect of the child is affected by the [lack of] security. He needs to feel safe. We see the consequences later if he does not. In our research, we have found that children who are exposed to trauma tend to be more extreme in their behaviors and, later, in their political beliefs." Dr Samir Quota, director of research for the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, quoted in "The Journal of Palestine Studies," Summer 1996, p.84

Israeli occupation - continued

"There is nothing quite like the misery one feels listening to a 35-year-old [Palestinian] man who worked fifteen years as an illegal day laborer in Israel in order to save up money to build a house for his family only to be shocked one day upon returning from work to find that the house and all that was in it had been flattened by an Israeli bulldozer. When I asked why this was done - the land, after all, was his - I was told that a paper given to him the next day by an Israeli soldier stated that he had built the structure without a license. Where else in the world are people required to have a license (always denied them) to build on their own property? Jews can build, but never Palestinians. This is apartheid." Edward Said, in "The Nation", May 4, 1998.

All Jewish settlements in territories occupied in the 1967 war are a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions, which Israel has signed.

"The Geneva Convention requires an occupying power to change the existing order as little as possible during its tenure. One aspect of this obligation is that it must leave the territory to the people it finds there. It may not bring its own people to populate the territory. This prohibition is found in the convention's Article 49, which states, 'The occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.'" John Quigley, "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice."

Excerpts from the U.S. State Department's reports during the Intifada

"Following are some excerpts from the U.S. State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices from 1988 to 1991:

1988: 'Many avoidable deaths and injuries' were caused because Israeli soldiers frequently used gunfire in situations that did not present mortal danger to troops...IDF troops used clubs to break limbs and beat Palestinians who were not directly involved in disturbances or resisting arrest..At least thirteen Palestinians have been reported to have died from beatings...'

1989: Human rights groups charged that the plainclothes security personnel acted as death squads who killed Palestinian activists without warning, after they had surrendered, or after they had been subdued...

1991: [The report] added that the human rights groups had published 'detailed credible reports of torture, abuse and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees in prisons and detention centers." Former Congressman Paul Findley, "Deliberate Deceptions."

Jerusalem - Eternal, Indivisible Capital of Israel?

"Writing in The Jerusalem Report (Feb. 28, 2000), Leslie Susser points out that the current boundaries were drawn after the Six-Day War. Responsibility for drawing those lines fell to Central Command Chief Rehavan Ze'evi. The line he drew 'took in not only the five square kilometers of Arab East Jerusalem - but also 65 square kilometers of surrounding open country and villages, most of which never had any municipal link to Jerusalem. Overnight they became part of Israel's eternal and indivisible capital.'" Allan Brownfield in The Washington Report On Middle East Affairs, May 2000.
 

Freethinker

Electoral Member
Jan 18, 2006
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Juan. Was there a point to the massive cut n paste.

Anyone can find a site that is biased and post bomb(posting endless text text from a cut n paste). I can't be bothered to sink to that level. I post my own words and a link to back it up. Perhaps a few lines as an exerpt.

If this is how the moderators behave, no wonder freaks like Aeon have found a home here.