if that is the case - then the problem does not continue ... the problem would stop if we could get israel to withdraw ...
:roll: I know I know. Hamas can do no wrong.
who says that? ... again - secondary to the crux ... we could point at western compliance as another factor but in the end - israel needs to withdraw and that's what the focus should be ...
if that is the case - then the problem does not continue ... the problem would stop if we could get israel to withdraw ...
:roll: I know I know. Hamas can do no wrong.
Why do you do that? We are having a reasonable discussion and you pull bullshit like that.
You know and i know that the occupation is brutal, and a violation of the palestinian peoples basic human rights. The problem wouldn't continue if the israelis give back to the palestinians what is rightfully theirs. It would stop. At least that's how i see it. Do you not see that If Israel does that and completely improves the lives of Palestinians, Hamas will be helpless to do anything but watch as their support dwindles?
if that is the case - then the problem does not continue ... the problem would stop if we could get israel to withdraw ...
:roll: I know I know. Hamas can do no wrong.
Why do you do that? We are having a reasonable discussion and you pull bullshit like that.
You know and i know that the occupation is brutal, and a violation of the palestinian peoples basic human rights. The problem wouldn't continue if the israelis give back to the palestinians what is rightfully theirs. It would stop. At least that's how i see it. Do you not see that If Israel does that and completely improves the lives of Palestinians, Hamas will be helpless to do anything but watch as their support dwindles?
absolutely, I agree. and if Hamas renounces violence and agrees to recognize Israel, then support for Israel would most certainly dwindle if they continued to do what they do. works both ways. is it completely fair? no. but neither is life.
Do I think its right to target civillians on either side. Clearly no. Both sides do it. Make it right? No. But the atrocities are on both sides. And if you excuse that than you are just a biased apologist for palestinian violence, no matter what the cost.
You make it sound like a level playing field, which it isn't. You're forgetting - or choosing to ignore - the occupation. The suicide bombings didn't begin until 1994. The rocket attacks came a lot later. The illegal Israeli occupation began in 1948 and has continued unabated ever since. In fact illegal Jewish-only settlement expansion accelerated immediately after the Oslo Accords in 1993.
The Israeli's have recently shown that they have no intention of dismantling the illegal settlements. This is a land grab, pure and simple. It's Zionist ethnic cleansing. Is this something you support?
You make it sound like a level playing field, which it isn't. You're forgetting - or choosing to ignore - the occupation. The suicide bombings didn't begin until 1994. The rocket attacks came a lot later. The illegal Israeli occupation began in 1948 and has continued unabated ever since. In fact illegal Jewish-only settlement expansion accelerated immediately after the Oslo Accords in 1993.
The Israeli's have recently shown that they have no intention of dismantling the illegal settlements. This is a land grab, pure and simple. It's Zionist ethnic cleansing. Is this something you support?
by not completely agreeing with you, word for word, on this entire issue..... yes...he supports Zionist ethic cleansing, as do I. 110%
if Hamas renounces violence and agrees to recognize Israel, then support for Israel would most certainly dwindle if they continued to do what they do. works both ways. is it completely fair? no. but neither is life.
Calling for the Palestinians to renounce violence and recognize Israel are just diversionary tactics used by Israel and the U.S to prolong the occupation, and the land grab.
Israel recently carried out a massacre in Gaza and murdered over 900 civilians, and your response to that is that the Palestinians must renounce violence. This takes us into the realm of Alice in Wonderland.
Regarding the call for Palestinians to recognize Israel, this is just pure bullshit, as I've pointed out before, and as the following article makes clear:
'AS SOON AS certain topics are raised," George Orwell once wrote, "the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse." Such a combination of vagueness and sheer incompetence in language, Orwell warned, leads to political conformity.
No issue better illustrates Orwell's point than coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the United States. Consider, for example, the editorial in The Times on Feb. 9 demanding that the Palestinians "recognize Israel" and its "right to exist." This is a common enough sentiment — even a cliche. Yet many observers (most recently the international lawyer John Whitbeck) have pointed out that this proposition, assiduously propagated by Israel's advocates and uncritically reiterated by American politicians and journalists, is — at best — utterly nonsensical.
First, the formal diplomatic language of "recognition" is traditionally used by one state with respect to another state. It is literally meaningless for a non-state to "recognize" a state. Moreover, in diplomacy, such recognition is supposed to be mutual. In order to earn its own recognition, Israel would have to simultaneously recognize the state of Palestine. This it steadfastly refuses to do (and for some reason, there are no high-minded newspaper editorials demanding that it do so).
Second, which Israel, precisely, are the Palestinians being asked to "recognize?" Israel has stubbornly refused to declare its own borders. So, territorially speaking, "Israel" is an open-ended concept. Are the Palestinians to recognize the Israel that ends at the lines proposed by the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan? Or the one that extends to the 1949 Armistice Line (the de facto border that resulted from the 1948 war)? Or does Israel include the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which it has occupied in violation of international law for 40 years — and which maps in its school textbooks show as part of "Israel"?
For that matter, why should the Palestinians recognize an Israel that refuses to accept international law, submit to U.N. resolutions or readmit the Palestinians wrongfully expelled from their homes in 1948 and barred from returning ever since?
If none of these questions are easy to answer, why are such demands being made of the Palestinians? And why is nothing demanded of Israel in turn?
Orwell was right. It is much easier to recycle meaningless phrases than to ask — let alone to answer — difficult questions. But recycling these empty phrases serves a purpose. Endlessly repeating the mantra that the Palestinians don't recognize Israel helps paint Israel as an innocent victim, politely asking to be recognized but being rebuffed by its cruel enemies.
Actually, it asks even more. Israel wants the Palestinians, half of whom were driven from their homeland so that a Jewish state could be created in 1948, to recognize not merely that it exists (which is undeniable) but that it is "right" that it exists — that it was right for them to have been dispossessed of their homes, their property and their livelihoods so that a Jewish state could be created on their land. The Palestinians are not the world's first dispossessed people, but they are the first to be asked to legitimize what happened to them.
A just peace will require Israelis and Palestinians to reconcile and recognize each other's rights. It will not require that Palestinians give their moral seal of approval to the catastrophe that befell them. Meaningless at best, cynical and manipulative at worst, such a demand may suit Israel's purposes, but it does not serve The Times or its readers.
And yet The Times consistently adopts Israel's language and, hence, its point of view. For example, a recent article on Israel's Palestinian minority referred to that minority not as "Palestinian" but as generically "Arab," Israel's official term for a population whose full political and human rights it refuses to recognize. To fail to acknowledge the living Palestinian presence inside Israel (and its enduring continuity with the rest of the Palestinian people) is to elide the history at the heart of the conflict — and to deny the legitimacy of Palestinian claims and rights.
This is exactly what Israel wants. Indeed, its demand that its "right to exist" be recognized reflects its own anxiety, not about its existence but about its failure to successfully eliminate the Palestinians' presence inside their homeland — a failure for which verbal recognition would serve merely a palliative and therapeutic function.
In uncritically adopting Israel's own fraught terminology — a form of verbal erasure designed to extend the physical destruction of Palestine — The Times is taking sides.
If the paper wants its readers to understand the nature of this conflict, however, it should not go on acting as though only one side has a story to tell.'
by not completely agreeing with you, word for word, on this entire issue..... yes...he supports Zionist ethic cleansing, as do I. 110%
:roll:
This isn't about me. Try taking me out of the equation.
Do you know anything about Zionism? Do you know what their aims are? I suggest you go do some reading.
o goodie, the same cut and paste for the 47th time.
if Hamas had the capabilities to kill 900 Israelis, it would. they are a violence organization. that said, should Israel renounce violence, stop settlements, give back land, yes absolutely.
by not completely agreeing with you, word for word, on this entire issue..... yes...he supports Zionist ethic cleansing, as do I. 110%
:roll:
This isn't about me. Try taking me out of the equation.
Do you know anything about Zionism? Do you know what their aims are? I suggest you go do some reading.
Yup , I know all about them. and since I do not agree with you in 100% supporting Hamas, we get asked if we support "ethic cleansing"
o goodie, the same cut and paste for the 47th time.
if Hamas had the capabilities to kill 900 Israelis, it would. they are a violence organization. that said, should Israel renounce violence, stop settlements, give back land, yes absolutely.
why do you waste your time with things like "if Hamas had the capabilities" ? They fucking don't. Israel does, however, and they DO kill thousands of Palestinians. That's why we say that the problem is Israel, not Hamas. Think of it this way: do you support the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza? Those areas were occupied in 1967. When was Hamas founded? In the late 1980s. jlew, if you claim you agree, as we do, that Israel needs to end its occupation, then you are wasting your time arguing anything else. You don't need to prove Hamas is also bad because that's not the point. This conflict has started long before rocket attacks, suicide bombings, and Hamas. Yes, Hamas became an important player when it was founded, but the fact of the matter is that even if Hamas were to shut down their organization tomorrow, this conflict would not stop. If Hamas were to "renounce violence" tomorrow, this conflict would not stop. However, if Israel were to abide by international law, perhaps diplomacy might be able to come into play.
People say the Palestinians don't want peace because they elected Hamas. Hamas has called for the same thing the entire world called for: a two-state solution. On the other hand, Israel has a guy like Netanyahu who refuses to halt illegal settlement expansion. Who is really preventing peace?
why do you waste your time with things like "if Hamas had the capabilities" ? They fucking don't. Israel does, however, and they DO kill thousands of Palestinians. That's why we say that the problem is Israel, not Hamas. Think of it this way: do you support the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza? Those areas were occupied in 1967. When was Hamas founded? In the late 1980s. jlew, if you claim you agree, as we do, that Israel needs to end its occupation, then you are wasting your time arguing anything else. You don't need to prove Hamas is also bad because that's not the point. This conflict has started long before rocket attacks, suicide bombings, and Hamas. Yes, Hamas became an important player when it was founded, but the fact of the matter is that even if Hamas were to shut down their organization tomorrow, this conflict would not stop. If Hamas were to "renounce violence" tomorrow, this conflict would not stop. However, if Israel were to abide by international law, perhaps diplomacy might be able to come into play.
how do you know it wouldnt stop? it certainly would hurt if Hamas did those things. they could only lead to positive results. International support is already starting to fade and would quickly accelerate if Israel continued after Hamas made such concessions.
People say the Palestinians don't want peace because they elected Hamas. Hamas has called for the same thing the entire world called for: a two-state solution. On the other hand, Israel has a guy like Netanyahu who refuses to halt illegal settlement expansion. Who is really preventing peace?
o goodie, the same cut and paste for the 47th time.
if Hamas had the capabilities to kill 900 Israelis, it would. they are a violence organization. that said, should Israel renounce violence, stop settlements, give back land, yes absolutely.
why do you waste your time with things like "if Hamas had the capabilities" ? They fucking don't. Israel does, however, and they DO kill thousands of Palestinians. That's why we say that the problem is Israel, not Hamas. Think of it this way: do you support the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza? Those areas were occupied in 1967. When was Hamas founded? In the late 1980s. jlew, if you claim you agree, as we do, that Israel needs to end its occupation, then you are wasting your time arguing anything else. You don't need to prove Hamas is also bad because that's not the point. This conflict has started long before rocket attacks, suicide bombings, and Hamas. Yes, Hamas became an important player when it was founded, but the fact of the matter is that even if Hamas were to shut down their organization tomorrow, this conflict would not stop. If Hamas were to "renounce violence" tomorrow, this conflict would not stop. However, if Israel were to abide by international law, perhaps diplomacy might be able to come into play.
People say the Palestinians don't want peace because they elected Hamas. Hamas has called for the same thing the entire world called for: a two-state solution. On the other hand, Israel has a guy like Netanyahu who refuses to halt illegal settlement expansion. Who is really preventing peace?
how do you know it wouldnt stop? it certainly would hurt if Hamas did those things. they could only lead to positive results. International support is already starting to fade and would quickly accelerate if Israel continued after Hamas made such concessions.
Because history shows it wouldn't. the PLO did that in the 90s, settlement expansion only continued, the Palestinian economy suffered tremendously, and tensions only rose until the second intifada broke out in 2000. International support clearly doesn't mean shit to Israel if they have the US on their side, and they will always have the US on their side. Not just that, but like I said, this conflict has been going on before Hamas existed and will continue even if Hamas were to make those "concessions."
how do you know it wouldnt stop? it certainly would hurt if Hamas did those things. they could only lead to positive results. International support is already starting to fade and would quickly accelerate if Israel continued after Hamas made such concessions.
Because history shows it wouldn't. the PLO did that in the 90s, settlement expansion only continued, the Palestinian economy suffered tremendously, and tensions only rose until the second intifada broke out in 2000. International support clearly doesn't mean shit to Israel if they have the US on their side, and they will always have the US on their side. Not just that, but like I said, this conflict has been going on before Hamas existed and will continue even if Hamas were to make those "concessions."
you still dont know that. Israel has clearly said they do what they do because Hamas is violent and refuses to recognize them. I'm merely suggesting Hamas stop giving Israel excuses.
if Hamas does those things and Israel continues killing and taking more land...the American people will stop supporting Israel. the problem is every time we hear of Hamas shooting rockets into Israel, support for Israel is reconfirmed. sad reality, but thats what it is. If Hamas takes violence out of the equation for their side, you'd see changes.
just look at Britian. they are close to cutting off all support to Israel. I bet you said that would NEVER happen.
you still dont know that. Israel has clearly said they do what they do because Hamas is violent and refuses to recognize them. I'm merely suggesting Hamas stop giving Israel excuses.
if Hamas does those things and Israel continues killing and taking more land...the American people will stop supporting Israel. the problem is every time we hear of Hamas shooting rockets into Israel, support for Israel is reconfirmed. sad reality, but thats what it is. If Hamas takes violence out of the equation for their side, you'd see changes.
just look at Britian. they are close to cutting off all support to Israel. I bet you said that would NEVER happen.
So you base your support for Israel on a supposition?
If Israel was interested in peace it could have it tomorrow. It could simply dismantle the illegal settlements and pull back to the 1967 border - or more properly in line with international law, the 1949 border - and then fortify that border. Instead it continues to build more illegal settlements.
Now then, what does this behaviour tell you? It tells me that Israel is acting in accordance with the aims of the Zionists messianic mission to conquer all of Palestine from the Jordan to the Mediterranean.
"The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized .... Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever." -- Menachem Begin, the day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine.
"[Israel will] create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the west Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein and not with Yasser Arafat." -- Yitzhak Rabin (a "Prince of Peace" by Clinton's standards), explaining his method of ethnically cleansing the occupied land without stirring a world outcry. (Quoted in David Shipler in the New York Times, 04/04/1983 citing Meir Cohen's remarks to the Knesset's foreign affairs and defense committee on March 16.)
"The past leaders of our movement left us a clear message to keep Eretz Israel from the Sea to the River Jordan for future generations, for the mass aliya (=Jewish immigration), and for the Jewish people, all of whom will be gathered into this country." -- Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declares at a Tel Aviv memorial service for former Likud leaders, November 1990. Jerusalem Domestic Radio Service
"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands." -- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.
"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours...Everything we don't grab will go to them." -- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998.
If you think the Israeli's are interested in peace then answer this one question: Why are illegal Jewish-only settlements still being built?
you still dont know that. Israel has clearly said they do what they do because Hamas is violent and refuses to recognize them. I'm merely suggesting Hamas stop giving Israel excuses.
If Hamas wasn't giving Israel "excuses", someone else would. Like I said, Israel has been terrorizing the Palestinians since long before Hamas existed. Any change to this situation HAS to come from Israel and not Hamas. People said the same thing about the PLO. Finally, the PLO gave in to the Israeli demands without getting anything in return (something Israel wants Hamas to do). Look at the PLO now and look at Israel now. Not just that, but Hamas is barely in the West Bank and we still see Israel building more settlements without needing any justification.
if Hamas does those things and Israel continues killing and taking more land...the American people will stop supporting Israel.
Well, YOU don't know that.
the problem is every time we hear of Hamas shooting rockets into Israel, support for Israel is reconfirmed. sad reality, but thats what it is. If Hamas takes violence out of the equation for their side, you'd see changes.
Again, in the 1990s, the PLO did this. What did that achieve? Israel's settlement expansion increased by three fold and the Palestinians suffered one of the worst economic disasters ever. I wrote an entire research paper on the Oslo years, and I know that what Israel is asking Hamas of right now is the same as what they asked the PLO in the 90s. Hamas knows not to make the same mistake into accepting Israeli demands without receiving anything in return. Not just that, but it's one thing for you to be asking Hamas to do this when Olmert was in power, but will you look at Netanyahu? have you seen his most recent speech on "peace" with the Palestinians? It's absolutely disgusting. And look at what happens when everyone - even the US - calls for Israel to halt settlement expansion. They simply say "no" and continue.
just look at Britian. they are close to cutting off all support to Israel. I bet you said that would NEVER happen.
lol, they are definitely not close to cutting off all support. It was five contracts. And the fact of the matter remains that peace cannot be achieved unless Israel truly seeks it. Or the US actually forces them to. Whichever comes first.
If Hamas wasn't giving Israel "excuses", someone else would. Like I said, Israel has been terrorizing the Palestinians since long before Hamas existed. Any change to this situation HAS to come from Israel and not Hamas. People said the same thing about the PLO. Finally, the PLO gave in to the Israeli demands without getting anything in return (something Israel wants Hamas to do). Look at the PLO now and look at Israel now. Not just that, but Hamas is barely in the West Bank and we still see Israel building more settlements without needing any justification.
Israel seems to be able to work well with the Palastinian Authority no?
I can't say it as fact, no. but I strongly believe that to be the case. There is a loud voice of opposition for Israel in America. that would accelerate based on what I said, IMO.
Again, in the 1990s, the PLO did this. What did that achieve? Israel's settlement expansion increased by three fold and the Palestinians suffered one of the worst economic disasters ever. I wrote an entire research paper on the Oslo years, and I know that what Israel is asking Hamas of right now is the same as what they asked the PLO in the 90s. Hamas knows not to make the same mistake into accepting Israeli demands without receiving anything in return. Not just that, but it's one thing for you to be asking Hamas to do this when Olmert was in power, but will you look at Netanyahu? have you seen his most recent speech on "peace" with the Palestinians? It's absolutely disgusting. And look at what happens when everyone - even the US - calls for Israel to halt settlement expansion. They simply say "no" and continue.
yea I hear ya and its wrong. but you think Hamas's current path is productive?
lol, they are definitely not close to cutting off all support. It was five contracts. And the fact of the matter remains that peace cannot be achieved unless Israel truly seeks it. Or the US actually forces them to. Whichever comes first.
5 contracts is a start. it proves that western nations will not give Israel undivided support forever.
I am calm. you are new around here. bold red words, usually from wiki, seem to be the only thing Byzine can read. maybe its some sort of eye condition, I'm not really sure.
You've been defending Israel for as long as I've been posting on this message board.
Making excuses for any and all of Israel's crimes for the past 3 years and regarding the Palestinians as incapable of anything but killing Jews and each other doesn't qualify as not supporting Israel in my book. If you couldn't use Hamas as an excuse to justify Israeli aggression and intransigence then you'd find something else.
You've been defending Israel for as long as I've been posting on this message board.
Making excuses for any and all of Israel's crimes for the past 3 years and regarding the Palestinians as incapable of anything but killing Jews and each other doesn't qualify as not supporting Israel in my book. If you couldn't use Hamas as an excuse to justify Israeli aggression and intransigence then you'd find something else.
I've never defended Israel's crimes. everything you said here is an outright lie.
do I think Israel has a right to exist? yes. do I support Israel building and increasing settlements? no. do I support Hamas? no. do I support Hamas targeting civilians? no. my position is very clear and always has been.
Comments
yes of course. I've said this NUMEROUS times on this board. yet, since I do not support Hamas, that translates to me 100% supporting Israel.
if that is the case - then the problem does not continue ... the problem would stop if we could get israel to withdraw ...
:roll: I know I know. Hamas can do no wrong.
who says that? ... again - secondary to the crux ... we could point at western compliance as another factor but in the end - israel needs to withdraw and that's what the focus should be ...
You know and i know that the occupation is brutal, and a violation of the palestinian peoples basic human rights. The problem wouldn't continue if the israelis give back to the palestinians what is rightfully theirs. It would stop. At least that's how i see it. Do you not see that If Israel does that and completely improves the lives of Palestinians, Hamas will be helpless to do anything but watch as their support dwindles?
absolutely, I agree. and if Hamas renounces violence and agrees to recognize Israel, then support for Israel would most certainly dwindle if they continued to do what they do. works both ways. is it completely fair? no. but neither is life.
You make it sound like a level playing field, which it isn't. You're forgetting - or choosing to ignore - the occupation. The suicide bombings didn't begin until 1994. The rocket attacks came a lot later. The illegal Israeli occupation began in 1948 and has continued unabated ever since. In fact illegal Jewish-only settlement expansion accelerated immediately after the Oslo Accords in 1993.
The Israeli's have recently shown that they have no intention of dismantling the illegal settlements. This is a land grab, pure and simple. It's Zionist ethnic cleansing. Is this something you support?
Hamas weren't in charge before 2006. How did you make excuses for Israel's crimes before 2006?
by not completely agreeing with you, word for word, on this entire issue..... yes...he supports Zionist ethic cleansing, as do I. 110%
:roll:
I dont make excuses for Israel crimes. never have, never will.
Calling for the Palestinians to renounce violence and recognize Israel are just diversionary tactics used by Israel and the U.S to prolong the occupation, and the land grab.
Israel recently carried out a massacre in Gaza and murdered over 900 civilians, and your response to that is that the Palestinians must renounce violence. This takes us into the realm of Alice in Wonderland.
Regarding the call for Palestinians to recognize Israel, this is just pure bullshit, as I've pointed out before, and as the following article makes clear:
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0311-26.htm
March 11, 2007 by the Los Angeles Times
Why Does The Times Recognize Israel's 'Right to Exist'?
by Saree Makdisi
'AS SOON AS certain topics are raised," George Orwell once wrote, "the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse." Such a combination of vagueness and sheer incompetence in language, Orwell warned, leads to political conformity.
No issue better illustrates Orwell's point than coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the United States. Consider, for example, the editorial in The Times on Feb. 9 demanding that the Palestinians "recognize Israel" and its "right to exist." This is a common enough sentiment — even a cliche. Yet many observers (most recently the international lawyer John Whitbeck) have pointed out that this proposition, assiduously propagated by Israel's advocates and uncritically reiterated by American politicians and journalists, is — at best — utterly nonsensical.
First, the formal diplomatic language of "recognition" is traditionally used by one state with respect to another state. It is literally meaningless for a non-state to "recognize" a state. Moreover, in diplomacy, such recognition is supposed to be mutual. In order to earn its own recognition, Israel would have to simultaneously recognize the state of Palestine. This it steadfastly refuses to do (and for some reason, there are no high-minded newspaper editorials demanding that it do so).
Second, which Israel, precisely, are the Palestinians being asked to "recognize?" Israel has stubbornly refused to declare its own borders. So, territorially speaking, "Israel" is an open-ended concept. Are the Palestinians to recognize the Israel that ends at the lines proposed by the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan? Or the one that extends to the 1949 Armistice Line (the de facto border that resulted from the 1948 war)? Or does Israel include the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which it has occupied in violation of international law for 40 years — and which maps in its school textbooks show as part of "Israel"?
For that matter, why should the Palestinians recognize an Israel that refuses to accept international law, submit to U.N. resolutions or readmit the Palestinians wrongfully expelled from their homes in 1948 and barred from returning ever since?
If none of these questions are easy to answer, why are such demands being made of the Palestinians? And why is nothing demanded of Israel in turn?
Orwell was right. It is much easier to recycle meaningless phrases than to ask — let alone to answer — difficult questions. But recycling these empty phrases serves a purpose. Endlessly repeating the mantra that the Palestinians don't recognize Israel helps paint Israel as an innocent victim, politely asking to be recognized but being rebuffed by its cruel enemies.
Actually, it asks even more. Israel wants the Palestinians, half of whom were driven from their homeland so that a Jewish state could be created in 1948, to recognize not merely that it exists (which is undeniable) but that it is "right" that it exists — that it was right for them to have been dispossessed of their homes, their property and their livelihoods so that a Jewish state could be created on their land. The Palestinians are not the world's first dispossessed people, but they are the first to be asked to legitimize what happened to them.
A just peace will require Israelis and Palestinians to reconcile and recognize each other's rights. It will not require that Palestinians give their moral seal of approval to the catastrophe that befell them. Meaningless at best, cynical and manipulative at worst, such a demand may suit Israel's purposes, but it does not serve The Times or its readers.
And yet The Times consistently adopts Israel's language and, hence, its point of view. For example, a recent article on Israel's Palestinian minority referred to that minority not as "Palestinian" but as generically "Arab," Israel's official term for a population whose full political and human rights it refuses to recognize. To fail to acknowledge the living Palestinian presence inside Israel (and its enduring continuity with the rest of the Palestinian people) is to elide the history at the heart of the conflict — and to deny the legitimacy of Palestinian claims and rights.
This is exactly what Israel wants. Indeed, its demand that its "right to exist" be recognized reflects its own anxiety, not about its existence but about its failure to successfully eliminate the Palestinians' presence inside their homeland — a failure for which verbal recognition would serve merely a palliative and therapeutic function.
In uncritically adopting Israel's own fraught terminology — a form of verbal erasure designed to extend the physical destruction of Palestine — The Times is taking sides.
If the paper wants its readers to understand the nature of this conflict, however, it should not go on acting as though only one side has a story to tell.'
This isn't about me. Try taking me out of the equation.
Do you know anything about Zionism? Do you know what their aims are? I suggest you go do some reading.
if Hamas had the capabilities to kill 900 Israelis, it would. they are a violence organization. that said, should Israel renounce violence, stop settlements, give back land, yes absolutely.
Yup , I know all about them. and since I do not agree with you in 100% supporting Hamas, we get asked if we support "ethic cleansing"
classic move.
People say the Palestinians don't want peace because they elected Hamas. Hamas has called for the same thing the entire world called for: a two-state solution. On the other hand, Israel has a guy like Netanyahu who refuses to halt illegal settlement expansion. Who is really preventing peace?
how do you know it wouldnt stop? it certainly would hurt if Hamas did those things. they could only lead to positive results. International support is already starting to fade and would quickly accelerate if Israel continued after Hamas made such concessions.
both sides
:roll:
you still dont know that. Israel has clearly said they do what they do because Hamas is violent and refuses to recognize them. I'm merely suggesting Hamas stop giving Israel excuses.
if Hamas does those things and Israel continues killing and taking more land...the American people will stop supporting Israel. the problem is every time we hear of Hamas shooting rockets into Israel, support for Israel is reconfirmed. sad reality, but thats what it is. If Hamas takes violence out of the equation for their side, you'd see changes.
just look at Britian. they are close to cutting off all support to Israel. I bet you said that would NEVER happen.
And you'll no doubt ignore it for the 47th time because it conflicts with the logic behind your support for Israel.
so I make a wiki page of my personal beliefs? is this the only way you are going to understand?
So you base your support for Israel on a supposition?
If Israel was interested in peace it could have it tomorrow. It could simply dismantle the illegal settlements and pull back to the 1967 border - or more properly in line with international law, the 1949 border - and then fortify that border. Instead it continues to build more illegal settlements.
Now then, what does this behaviour tell you? It tells me that Israel is acting in accordance with the aims of the Zionists messianic mission to conquer all of Palestine from the Jordan to the Mediterranean.
"The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized .... Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever."
-- Menachem Begin, the day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine.
"[Israel will] create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the west Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein and not with Yasser Arafat."
-- Yitzhak Rabin (a "Prince of Peace" by Clinton's standards), explaining his method of ethnically cleansing the occupied land without stirring a world outcry. (Quoted in David Shipler in the New York Times, 04/04/1983 citing Meir Cohen's remarks to the Knesset's foreign affairs and defense committee on March 16.)
"The past leaders of our movement left us a clear message to keep Eretz Israel from the Sea to the River Jordan for future generations, for the mass aliya (=Jewish immigration), and for the Jewish people, all of whom will be gathered into this country."
-- Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declares at a Tel Aviv memorial service for former Likud leaders, November 1990. Jerusalem Domestic Radio Service
"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."
-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.
"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours...Everything we don't grab will go to them."
-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998.
If you think the Israeli's are interested in peace then answer this one question: Why are illegal Jewish-only settlements still being built?
Well, YOU don't know that.
Again, in the 1990s, the PLO did this. What did that achieve? Israel's settlement expansion increased by three fold and the Palestinians suffered one of the worst economic disasters ever. I wrote an entire research paper on the Oslo years, and I know that what Israel is asking Hamas of right now is the same as what they asked the PLO in the 90s. Hamas knows not to make the same mistake into accepting Israeli demands without receiving anything in return. Not just that, but it's one thing for you to be asking Hamas to do this when Olmert was in power, but will you look at Netanyahu? have you seen his most recent speech on "peace" with the Palestinians? It's absolutely disgusting. And look at what happens when everyone - even the US - calls for Israel to halt settlement expansion. They simply say "no" and continue.
lol, they are definitely not close to cutting off all support. It was five contracts. And the fact of the matter remains that peace cannot be achieved unless Israel truly seeks it. Or the US actually forces them to. Whichever comes first.
I made this red for you. how could you miss it?
calm down
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Israel seems to be able to work well with the Palastinian Authority no?
I can't say it as fact, no. but I strongly believe that to be the case. There is a loud voice of opposition for Israel in America. that would accelerate based on what I said, IMO.
yea I hear ya and its wrong. but you think Hamas's current path is productive?
5 contracts is a start. it proves that western nations will not give Israel undivided support forever.
I am calm. you are new around here. bold red words, usually from wiki, seem to be the only thing Byzine can read. maybe its some sort of eye condition, I'm not really sure.
You've been defending Israel for as long as I've been posting on this message board.
Making excuses for any and all of Israel's crimes for the past 3 years and regarding the Palestinians as incapable of anything but killing Jews and each other doesn't qualify as not supporting Israel in my book. If you couldn't use Hamas as an excuse to justify Israeli aggression and intransigence then you'd find something else.
I've never defended Israel's crimes. everything you said here is an outright lie.
do I think Israel has a right to exist? yes. do I support Israel building and increasing settlements? no. do I support Hamas? no. do I support Hamas targeting civilians? no. my position is very clear and always has been.