• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

General Israel/Palestine discussion thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
trustbutverify said:
Near the end of November, Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal told CNN that Hamas accepts a two state settlement based on the 1967 borders, and is prepared to proceed in their struggle without the use of weapons or violence.

However, in yesterdays self-congratulatory chest beating festival, he promised to never recognize Israel, establish a Palestinian state consisting of the entire territory (including Israel) and indicated that kidnappings would be used to free all Palestinian prisoners... which, i get the feeling, would probably involve weapons and violence.

So Chief Mashaal tells the West what it wants to hear, while feeding his constituents the opposite. I wonder what the actual truth is?
Click to expand...

Good post.

It's somewhat amusing when Western supporters of Hamas purposefully ignore those aspects.
 
HoverBoarder said:
Internationally, they are some of the most important countries in regards to this issue since they are in the region where the conflict is occurring.

Plus, when you add in the South America (i.e. Venezuela), there is International support.


Mostly it comes down to giving those who choose the path of violence a free pass.

Palestinians who choose violence over working towards peace are given the most money and support (largely because dead Palestinian babies are great for Iranian PR).
Click to expand...
a_unique_person said:
The Palestinians who weren't firing rockets were rewarded with an expansion of settlements, and international warnings, with ambassadors being called in for a long lecture.
Click to expand...

Plus their tax revenues were withheld to repay prior energy supply debts. A rather childish and counterporductive action from the rather childish and counterproductive Likud party.

Though the increased economic activity and improvements in the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank should also be taken into account.

As childish as the Israeli leadership is being about it, recognition at the UN and pursuance of nonviolence does give Abbas a better hand as opposed to Hamas or Islamic Jihad if negotiations ever do occur.
 
a_unique_person said:
I thought so. Galloway does not = International Respect in any sense. It has long been the case that the extremes on both sides can stop the urge for peace from the middle.
Click to expand...

Maybe the real issue is that you refuse to acknowledge that the "extremes on both sides" are not the same. Hamas may correctly be labeled "extreme", but that does not mean marginalized and with little support. They were, in fact, voted in with a majority vote, they do enjoy international support as well as support from far leftists such as Galloway and like minded people, even on this board.

Hand-waving away the influence of Hamas is a form of denial.
 
However, in yesterdays self-congratulatory chest beating festival, he promised to never recognize Israel, establish a Palestinian state consisting of the entire territory (including Israel) and indicated that kidnappings would be used to free all Palestinian prisoners... which, i get the feeling, would probably involve weapons and violence.

So Chief Mashaal tells the West what it wants to hear, while feeding his constituents the opposite. I wonder what the actual truth is?
Click to expand...
The truth is that HAMAS is a bunch of misunderstood little puppies, and that there shall be negotiations, Israeli seccessions, and Peace in Our Time:3.
 
The politically correct media never quoted the whole speech or the radical, extremist parts of it:

 
Virus said:
The politically correct media never quoted the whole speech or the radical, extremist parts of it:

Click to expand...

Good video, thanks for posting it.

He took quite a few jabs at Abbas and was extremely opposed to the idea of a Palestinian State that any neighboring Israeli State beside it (9:00 and elsewhere).

He continually emphasized that the only legitimate form of resistance was armed resistance, and that any move towards peaceful reconciliation (the Abbas route) was illegitimate, and was only possible because of the violent resistance.


I agree that more of this should have been in the news. This is why there is a conflict in Israel and Palestine at all. If Hamas and other similar violent groups were not given a free pass, there would be a viable Palestinian state today.



All of the posts that include pictures of dead Palestinian children, and purposefully ignore these actions and statements from Hamas are only encouraging more dead Palestinians and Israelis. People need to get real and stop giving Hamas a free pass if they want a serious solution to this problem.
 
I can say from first hand experience, the progressive Israeli peace camp has been absolutely decimated in the last 10-15 years; the hard right has had a field day with the vile rhetoric of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
 
So long as several countries continue to use Palestinians as a proxy for waging war against Israel, there won't be peace. Until these tactics are brought to the center of attention, those countries will continue to fight this proxy war that allows them to put all the blame on Israel while they supply the weapons.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
:plays world's smallest violin:

Israel and HAMAS are at war. In wars, things get built, people get yelled at, and ambassadors are called in for lectures. Such is the nature of human conflict, I'm afraid.
Click to expand...

As I pointed out earlier, the rockets come from Gaza, so Israel expands settlements into the West Bank. I can't see the logic there.

The perpetual war?

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4392088.html

The vote in the UN may help you understand. The rest of the world, including Israel's friends, are saying that Israel has to demonstrate a desire for peace. Countries such as Australia that have a long history of voting in favour of Israel have abstained from the vote, or voted against Israel's wished.

The Building settlements just indicates they really don't care about the war, or peace. Just expanding the area they control. As Bob Carr says, that is inevitably going to prolonged instability in the region, and the rest of world appears to be tiring of it. The best way to defeat Hamas is to create a viable Palestinian state, which is growing economically, and make Hamas completely irrelevant. The settlement drive will make that impossible.

Smallest violin? You don't understand what the war is about. The settlements are what it is all about, the land they are built on. Bob Carr knows what it's all about.
 
Jonnyclueless said:
You mean the ones who aren't getting rocket fire in return but are refusing to negotiate unless a precondition of all their demands is first met? You mean the Palestinians who instead of negotiating on the borders decided it would be better to strong arm Israel through the use of the UN?

What a shocking surprise!
Click to expand...

What a load of rubbish! "Strong arm" indeed! LOL!
 
a_unique_person said:
As I pointed out earlier, the rockets come from Gaza, so Israel expands settlements into the West Bank. I can't see the logic there.
Click to expand...

Why would you think one had anything to do with the other? Perhaps there was some other event such as one side taking a further step back from negotiating where to create the borders between the two groups and going to the UN to strong arm the other? Perhaps seeing as one party clearly has no intention what so ever of sitting down to negotiate that there's no longer any reason to keep from building settlements since there won't be any negotiating on where to build them?

Not really sure where rocket fire comes into the equation.
 
So long as several countries continue to use Palestinians as a proxy for waging war against Israel, there won't be peace. Until these tactics are brought to the center of attention, those countries will continue to fight this proxy war that allows them to put all the blame on Israel while they supply the weapons.
Click to expand...
But what if Israel just developed a missile shield so the rockets wouldn't be a problem in the first place? What if they built a wall along the border to funnel traffic through checkpoints so that HAMAS couldn't import weapons? What if they sent massive amounts of aid for the Palestinians to live better lives? What if they gave up land, even territories given to them by the UN?

Oh, wait, that's right -- Israel does all these things, and the world either turns a blind eye or calls it "terrorism".
:(

You don't understand what the war is about.
Click to expand...
Oh. Let's get up to date, then. Here's what HAMAS has to say on the matter:

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3657.htm

You watched these films when they were uploaded, right, since they're so important to understanding the conflict and all?

The settlements are what it is all about, the land they are built on.
Click to expand...
Oh. Guess you didn't.

But if today's campaigns to kill Jews is about them building houses to live in (the nerve!), what about the Jews who faced threats and violence in the area before Israel was even founded? Or the six million who died in the Holocaust? Or the untold Jews who were persecuted and killed before then?

To pretend that Israelis are hated today because of something they've done recently is to ignore most of European and Middle-Eastern history.

As I pointed out earlier, the rockets come from Gaza, so Israel expands settlements into the West Bank.
Click to expand...
What an odd statement to make. Israel is building "settlements" (strange how that word seems to never be used for any building project elsewhere in the world, such as Russian housing in occupied Finnish areas:confused:) in areas they intend to hold onto. They're not "expanding" anything, they're making use of land they won't ever give up anyway, as anyone else would.

The Arabs started a war to wipe Israel off the map, and they were defeated, and lost territory in the process. Sad for them, but that's how the world goes. Lots of other countries have gained and lost land in the meantime (such as Germany to Poland and Finland to Russia), but funnily enough, it seems most of them manage to move on and let bygones be bygones.

Might be because Finland, say, isn't ruled by a bunch of crazed terrorists who swear to wipe Russia off the map...

The vote in the UN may help you understand.
Click to expand...
It doesn't.

The rest of the world, including Israel's friends, are saying that Israel has to demonstrate a desire for peace.
Click to expand...
As they have, countless times. They make recessions, they give up land, they make peace proposals, they build infrastructure in Gaza, they send massive amounts of aid...

They're rewarded by hatred and murder.

The Building settlements just indicates they really don't care about the war, or peace. Just expanding the area they control.
Click to expand...
Can you read minds now?

As Bob Carr says, that is inevitably going to prolonged instability in the region, and the rest of world appears to be tiring of it.
Click to expand...
I don't know who Bob Carr is, and I don't give a damn what he says.

The best way to defeat Hamas is to create a viable Palestinian state, which is growing economically, and make Hamas completely irrelevant.
Click to expand...
Poppycock.

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/About+the...li_humanitarian_lifeline_Gaza_25-May-2010.htm

Read.

The settlement drive will make that impossible.
Click to expand...
How are settlements in Israel making life harder in Palestine? I don't understand.
 
Last edited:
PhantomWolf said:
So in 1948 (actually probably before that) the Palestinians attacked the Jews because they knew that 19 years into the future Israel would take control of the West Bank?
Click to expand...

The Palestinians wanted their own state, the Zionists wanted a state right where the Palestinians did. The Likud extremists are still intent on a Greater Israel, which means settlements, which they are in the process of expanding. People like Bob Carr, a long time supporter of Israel, don't think that's too smart. Once again, it could have been Indonesians seeking to create a state there, the Palestinians didn't pick on Jews specifically, it was the Zionists who thought it would be a good idea. The reasons and the history behind that is a whole other area of thought.
 
Jonnyclueless said:
Why would you think one had anything to do with the other? Perhaps there was some other event such as one side taking a further step back from negotiating where to create the borders between the two groups and going to the UN to strong arm the other? Perhaps seeing as one party clearly has no intention what so ever of sitting down to negotiate that there's no longer any reason to keep from building settlements since there won't be any negotiating on where to build them?

Not really sure where rocket fire comes into the equation.
Click to expand...

Abbas does want to negotiate a Palestinian State. However, the last time a negotiation was done with the Israeli PM, he deliberately made sure the negotiations were not made in good faith, as he has said himself. IIRC, Abbas wants a negotiation to be short and to the point. Any protracted process or complex outcome is not going to be good enough. The result has to be pretty well understood by both parties when they begin that they are going to have a result.

Expanding settlements is just another sign of bad faith of any intention to negotiate. That is why the rest of the world, including many long time Israeli allies and friends, want it to commit to something tangible itself.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom