Elect a gov't that isn't listed as a terrorist organization by the EU, US, Canada, etc.
Denounce and rewrite the 1988 Chater that calls for the destruction of Israel, for starters.
uhhhh ... what does that have to do with anything? ... would there even be a HAMAS if israel wasn't continually expanding illegally and treating palestinians as dirt? ... these are all deflection points ... at the end of the day, israel must not cater to the ultra-orthodox right wingers in parliament ... even our resident israeli on here has said as much ...
Isn't this blaming the victim? Hamas is a terrorist organization that engages in the intentional targeted slaughter of civilians. Such actions are never justifiable. Ever. No matter your grievances. Hamas is responsible for its actions, not Israel.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Hamas is a terrorist organization that engages in the intentional targeted slaughter of civilians. Such actions are never justifiable. Ever. No matter your grievances. Hamas is responsible for its actions, not Israel.
Is the intentional slaughter of civilians by Israel also not justifiable, or is Israel's long history of slaughtering civilians and unarmed demonstrators acceptable?
Are you uncomfortable denouncing Hamas' terrorism as morally wrong? Cause this seems like a clear attempt at deflection. You don't like my condemnation of Hamas so you try to turn it around on Israel (which also serves, by implication, to set up Israel's alleged crimes as justification for Hamas' actions). Or maybe the discomfort is with the idea that the Palestinians should be treated as adults and held to be responsible for their actions. The fact is that your question has nothing to do with my statement. That's the whole point. No matter what Israel does or does not do there is no justification for Hamas' premeditated murder.
In any instance where Israel has knowingly, intentionally targeted and killed a person who is unambiguously an unarmed civilian, then yes, that action is unjustifiable. Are you willing to say the same about Hamas?
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Are you uncomfortable denouncing Hamas' terrorism as morally wrong? Cause this seems like a clear attempt at deflection. You don't like my condemnation of Hamas so you try to turn it around on Israel (which also serves, by implication, to set up Israel's alleged crimes as justification for Hamas' actions). Or maybe the discomfort is with the idea that the Palestinians should be treated as adults and held to be responsible for their actions. The fact is that your question has nothing to do with my statement. That's the whole point. No matter what Israel does or does not do there is no justification for Hamas' premeditated murder.
In any instance where Israel has knowingly, intentionally targeted and killed a person who is unambiguously an unarmed civilian, then yes, that action is unjustifiable. Are you willing to say the same about Hamas?
I don't condone the murder of civilians, but I also refuse to condemn Palestinian violence, just as I would have refused to condemn Jewish and French resistance groups targeting German civilians during World War II, or the Algerian FLN attacking French civilians during their anti-colonial struggle. I don't condone it, but I won't condemn it either. Israel is just as guilty for the deaths of it's civilians as long as it continues the occupation. If the Israeli leadership were really concerned with the security of it's citizens then it would end the occupation and fortify the internationally recognized 1967 border.
And Israeli terrorism against Palestinian civilians has been far greater.
You are really showing a shockingly callous lack of empathy.
Mar 27, 2002 - 30 people were killed and 140 injured - 20 seriously - in a suicide bombing in the Park Hotel in the coastal city of Netanya, in the midst of the Passover holiday seder with 250 guests. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
The victims: Shula Abramovitch, 63, of Holon; David Anichovitch, 70, of Netanya; Sgt.-Maj. Avraham Beckerman, 25, of Ashdod; Shimon Ben-Aroya, 42, of Netanya; Andre Fried, 47, of Netanya; Idit Fried, 47, of Netanya; Miriam Gutenzgan, 82, Ramat Gan; Ami Hamami, 44, of Netanya; Perla Hermele, 79, of Sweden; Dvora Karim, 73, of Netanya; Michael Karim, 78, of Netanya; Yehudit Korman, 70, of Ramat Hasharon; Marianne Myriam Lehmann Zaoui, 77, of Netanya; Lola Levkovitch, 85, of Jerusalem; Furuk Na'imi, 62, of Netanya; Eliahu Nakash, 85, of Tel-Aviv; Irit Rashel, 45, of Moshav Herev La'et; Yulia Talmi, 87, of Tel-Aviv; St.-Sgt. Sivan Vider, 20, of Bekaot; Ernest Weiss, 79, of Petah Tikva; Eva Weiss, 75, of Petah Tikva; Meir (George) Yakobovitch, 76, of Holon.
Chanah Rogan, 92, of Netanya; Zee'v Vider, 50, of Moshav Bekaot; Alter Britvich, 88, and his wife Frieda, 86, of Netanya died of their injuries on April 2-3, 2002.
Sarah Levy-Hoffman, 89, of Tel-Aviv died of her injuries on April 7, 2002.
Anna Yakobovitch, 78, of Holon died of her injuries on April 11, 2002.
Eliezer Korman, 74, of Ramat Hasharon died of his wounds on May 5, 2002.
Clara Rosenberger, 77, of Jerusalem died of her wounds on June 25, 2003.
You'll notice that virtually all of these people were elderly. That you don't consider them to be victims reflects very poorly on the state of your moral judgement. You should be ashamed.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
You are really showing a shockingly callous lack of empathy.
Mar 27, 2002 - 30 people were killed and 140 injured - 20 seriously - in a suicide bombing in the Park Hotel in the coastal city of Netanya, in the midst of the Passover holiday seder with 250 guests. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
The victims: Shula Abramovitch, 63, of Holon; David Anichovitch, 70, of Netanya; Sgt.-Maj. Avraham Beckerman, 25, of Ashdod; Shimon Ben-Aroya, 42, of Netanya; Andre Fried, 47, of Netanya; Idit Fried, 47, of Netanya; Miriam Gutenzgan, 82, Ramat Gan; Ami Hamami, 44, of Netanya; Perla Hermele, 79, of Sweden; Dvora Karim, 73, of Netanya; Michael Karim, 78, of Netanya; Yehudit Korman, 70, of Ramat Hasharon; Marianne Myriam Lehmann Zaoui, 77, of Netanya; Lola Levkovitch, 85, of Jerusalem; Furuk Na'imi, 62, of Netanya; Eliahu Nakash, 85, of Tel-Aviv; Irit Rashel, 45, of Moshav Herev La'et; Yulia Talmi, 87, of Tel-Aviv; St.-Sgt. Sivan Vider, 20, of Bekaot; Ernest Weiss, 79, of Petah Tikva; Eva Weiss, 75, of Petah Tikva; Meir (George) Yakobovitch, 76, of Holon.
Chanah Rogan, 92, of Netanya; Zee'v Vider, 50, of Moshav Bekaot; Alter Britvich, 88, and his wife Frieda, 86, of Netanya died of their injuries on April 2-3, 2002.
Sarah Levy-Hoffman, 89, of Tel-Aviv died of her injuries on April 7, 2002.
Anna Yakobovitch, 78, of Holon died of her injuries on April 11, 2002.
Eliezer Korman, 74, of Ramat Hasharon died of his wounds on May 5, 2002.
Clara Rosenberger, 77, of Jerusalem died of her wounds on June 25, 2003.
You'll notice that virtually all of these people were elderly. That you don't consider them to be victims reflects very poorly on the state of your moral judgement. You should be ashamed.
You are really showing a shockingly callous lack of honesty.
Would you really like me to list all of the Palestinian civilians murdered by Israeli terrorism since the year 2000? Because if you did, then I'd be here all day.
Like I said above, I don't condone it, but I also refuse to condemn it. And I also believe that people like yourself are largely responsible.
I don't think there's anything dishonest in what I've written. Admitting that there are Israeli victims does not entail a denial of Palestinian victimhood. It's exactly that kind of zero-sum thinking that causes so many people to be unable to productively and honestly discuss this conflict.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
whilst i understand why the palestinians use violence, in reality it is getting them nowhere. brilliant spin by the israelis paints them as terrorists attacking the victim israelis wihtout shining any light on the fact that the israel government violate human rights every single day.
if the palestinians wanted the eyes and ears of the uninformed of the world, who see them very simply as terrorists intent on the annihilation of israel then they have to renounce the violence the western press loves to draw attention to and highlight. but its not only the minds of the west they need to show, its the israeli government. by passively resisting, and the majority of palestinians do passively resist and do not condone the violence, the israeli govt will have no justification for its own violence against those it oppresses. it will have to find another way and that way is peace through reconciliation, not occupation.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
I don't think there's anything dishonest in what I've written. Admitting that there are Israeli victims does not entail a denial of Palestinian victimhood. It's exactly that kind of zero-sum thinking that causes so many people to be unable to productively and honestly discuss this conflict.
Israel is not the victim, it's the occupier. Just as Germany could not honestly claim to be the victim when it's cities were being bombed during World War II.
If the Israeli leadership wanted an end to the violence then it would end the occupation and disband the illegal settlements. But Instead it chooses to steal more land and to kill more unarmed protestors, to carry out more illegal extra-judicial assassinations, bulldoze more Palestinian homes, and evict more Palestinian families from the homes.
You are not the victim, you are the aggressor, and the blood of any Israeli civilians as a result of this intransigence lies with the Israeli leadership and with Israel's apologists who frequent message boards and chat rooms in a disgusting attempt to excuse and justify the murder and dispossession of a people.
I don't believe that anything I've written here has been an attempt to condone or justify the murder and dispossession of the Palestinian people. In fact I'm pretty sure that you just quoted me testifying to the victimhood of the Palestinians. That's ok though, it's subtle, and I know nuance doesn't sit well with you.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
I don't believe that anything I've written here has been an attempt to condone or justify the murder and dispossession of the Palestinian people. In fact I'm pretty sure that you just quoted me testifying to the victimhood of the Palestinians. That's ok though, it's subtle, and I know nuance doesn't sit well with you.
Ah, your favourite word again. When an argument doesn't go as you'd like just accuse the other person of a lack of nuance. Good tactic.
I wonder why Schopenhauer didn't include that in his list of 38 ways to win an argument?
38 Ways To Win An Argument - Arthur Schopenhauer
1 Carry your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it.
The more general your opponent’s statement becomes, the more objections you can find against it.
The more restricted and narrow your own propositions remain, the easier they are to defend.
2 Use different meanings of your opponent’s words to refute his argument.
Example: Person A says, “You do not understand the mysteries of Kant’s philosophy.”
Person B replies, “Oh, if it’s mysteries you’re talking about, I’ll have nothing to do with them.”
3 Ignore your opponent’s proposition, which was intended to refer to some particular thing.
Rather, understand it in some quite different sense, and then refute it.
Attack something different than what was asserted.
4 Hide your conclusion from your opponent until the end.
Mingle your premises here and there in your talk.
Get your opponent to agree to them in no definite order.
By this circuitous route you conceal your goal until you have reached all the admissions necessary to reach your goal.
5 Use your opponent’s beliefs against him.
If your opponent refuses to accept your premises, use his own premises to your advantage.
Example, if the opponent is a member of an organization or a religious sect to which you do not belong, you may employ the declared opinions of this group against the opponent.
6 Confuse the issue by changing your opponent’s words or what he or she seeks to prove.
Example: Call something by a different name: “good repute” instead of “honor,” “virtue” instead of “virginity,” “red-blooded” instead of “vertebrates”.
7 State your proposition and show the truth of it by asking the opponent many questions.
By asking many wide-reaching questions at once, you may hide what you want to get admitted.
Then you quickly propound the argument resulting from the proponent’s admissions.
8 Make your opponent angry.
An angry person is less capable of using judgment or perceiving where his or her advantage lies.
9 Use your opponent’s answers to your question to reach different or even opposite conclusions.
10 If your opponent answers all your questions negatively and refuses to grant you any points, ask him or her to concede the opposite of your premises.
This may confuse the opponent as to which point you actually seek him to concede.
11 If the opponent grants you the truth of some of your premises, refrain from asking him or her to agree to your conclusion.
Later, introduce your conclusions as a settled and admitted fact.
Your opponent and others in attendance may come to believe that your conclusion was admitted.
12 If the argument turns upon general ideas with no particular names, you must use language or a metaphor that is favorable to your proposition.
Example: What an impartial person would call “public worship” or a “system of religion” is described by an adherent as “piety” or “godliness” and by an opponent as “bigotry” or “superstition.”
In other words, insert what you intend to prove into the definition of the idea.
13 To make your opponent accept a proposition, you must give him an opposite, counter-proposition as well.
If the contrast is glaring, the opponent will accept your proposition to avoid being paradoxical.
Example: If you want him to admit that a boy must to everything that his father tells him to do, ask him, “whether in all things we must obey or disobey our parents.”
Or , if a thing is said to occur “often” you are to understand few or many times, the opponent will say “many.”
It is as though you were to put gray next to black and call it white; or gray next to white and call it black.
14 Try to bluff your opponent.
If he or she has answered several of your question without the answers turning out in favor of your conclusion, advance your conclusion triumphantly, even if it does not follow.
If your opponent is shy or stupid, and you yourself possess a great deal of impudence and a good voice, the technique may succeed.
15 If you wish to advance a proposition that is difficult to prove, put it aside for the moment.
Instead, submit for your opponent’s acceptance or rejection some true proposition, as though you wished to draw your proof from it.
Should the opponent reject it because he suspects a trick, you can obtain your triumph by showing how absurd the opponent is to reject an obviously true proposition.
Should the opponent accept it, you now have reason on your side for the moment.
You can either try to prove your original proposition, as in #14, maintain that your original proposition is proved by what your opponent accepted.
For this an extreme degree of impudence is required, but experience shows cases of it succeeding.
16 When your opponent puts forth a proposition, find it inconsistent with his or her other statements, beliefs, actions or lack of action.
Example: Should your opponent defend suicide, you may at once exclaim, “Why don’t you hang yourself?”
Should the opponent maintain that his city is an unpleasant place to live, you may say, “Why don’t you leave on the first plane?”
17 If your opponent presses you with a counter-proof, you will often be able to save yourself by advancing some subtle distinction.
Try to find a second meaning or an ambiguous sense for your opponent’s idea.
18 If your opponent has taken up a line of argument that will end in your defeat, you must not allow him to carry it to its conclusion.
Interrupt the dispute, break it off altogether, or lead the opponent to a different subject.
19 Should your opponent expressly challenge you to produce any objection to some definite point in his argument, and you have nothing to say, try to make the argument less specific.
Example: If you are asked why a particular hypothesis cannot be accepted, you may speak of the fallibility of human knowledge, and give various illustrations of it.
20 If your opponent has admitted to all or most of your premises, do not ask him or her directly to accept your conclusion.
Rather, draw the conclusion yourself as if it too had been admitted.
21 When your opponent uses an argument that is superficial and you see the falsehood, you can refute it by setting forth its superficial character.
But it is better to meet the opponent with a counter-argument that is just as superficial, and so dispose of him.
For it is with victory that you are concerned, not with truth.
Example: If the opponent appeals to prejudice, emotion or attacks you personally, return the attack in the same manner.
22 If your opponent asks you to admit something from which the point in dispute will immediately follow, you must refuse to do so, declaring that it begs the question.
23 Contradiction and contention irritate a person into exaggerating their statements.
By contradicting your opponent you may drive him into extending the statement beyond its natural limit.
When you then contradict the exaggerated form of it, you look as though you had refuted the original statement.
Contrarily, if your opponent tries to extend your own statement further than your intended, redefine your statement’s limits and say, “That is what I said, no more.”
24 State a false syllogism.
Your opponent makes a proposition, and by false inference and distortion of his ideas you force from the proposition other propositions that are not intended and that appear absurd.
It then appears that opponent’s proposition gave rise to these inconsistencies, and so appears to be indirectly refuted.
25 If your opponent is making a generalization, find an instance to the contrary.
Only one valid contradiction is needed to overthrow the opponent’s proposition.
Example: “All ruminants are horned,” is a generalization that may be upset by the single instance of the camel.
26 A brilliant move is to turn the tables and use your opponent’s arguments against himself.
Example: Your opponent declares: “so and so is a child, you must make an allowance for him.”
You retort, “Just because he is a child, I must correct him; otherwise he will persist in his bad habits.”
27 Should your opponent surprise you by becoming particularly angry at an argument, you must urge it with all the more zeal.
No only will this make your opponent angry, but it will appear that you have put your finger on the weak side of his case, and your opponent is more open to attack on this point than you expected.
28 When the audience consists of individuals (or a person) who is not an expert on a subject, you make an invalid objection to your opponent who seems to be defeated in the eyes of the audience.
This strategy is particularly effective if your objection makes your opponent look ridiculous or if the audience laughs.
If your opponent must make a long, winded and complicated explanation to correct you, the audience will not be disposed to listen to him.
29 If you find that you are being beaten, you can create a diversion--that is, you can suddenly begin to talk of something else, as though it had a bearing on the matter in dispute.
This may be done without presumption if the diversion has some general bearing on the matter.
30 Make an appeal to authority rather than reason.
If your opponent respects an authority or an expert, quote that authority to further your case.
If needed, quote what the authority said in some other sense or circumstance.
Authorities that your opponent fails to understand are those which he generally admires the most.
You may also, should it be necessary, not only twist your authorities, but actually falsify them, or quote something that you have entirely invented yourself.
31 If you know that you have no reply to the arguments that your opponent advances, you by a fine stroke of irony declare yourself to be an incompetent judge.
Example: “What you say passes my poor powers of comprehension; it may well be all very true, but I can’t understand it, and I refrain from any expression of opinion on it.”
In this way you insinuate to the audience, with whom you are in good repute, that what your opponent says is nonsense.
This technique may be used only when you are quite sure that the audience thinks much better of you than your opponent.
32 A quick way of getting rid of an opponent’s assertion, or of throwing suspicion on it, is by putting it into some odious category.
Example: You can say, “That is fascism” or “Atheism” or “Superstition.”
In making an objection of this kind you take for granted
1)That the assertion or question is identical with, or at least contained in, the category cited;
and
2)The system referred to has been entirely refuted by the current audience.
33 You admit your opponent’s premises but deny the conclusion.
Example: “That’s all very well in theory, but it won’t work in practice.”
34 When you state a question or an argument, and your opponent gives you no direct answer, or evades it with a counter question, or tries to change the subject, it is sure sign you have touched a weak spot, sometimes without intending to do so.
You have, as it were, reduced your opponent to silence.
You must, therefore, urge the point all the more, and not let your opponent evade it, even when you do not know where the weakness that you have hit upon really lies.
35 Instead of working on an opponent’s intellect or the rigor of his arguments, work on his motive.
If you success in making your opponent’s opinion, should it prove true, seem distinctly prejudicial to his own interest, he will drop it immediately.
Example: A clergyman is defending some philosophical dogma.
You show him that his proposition contradicts a fundamental doctrine of his church.
He will abandon the argument.
36 You may also puzzle and bewilder your opponent by mere bombast.
If your opponent is weak or does not wish to appear as if he has no idea what your are talking about, you can easily impose upon him some argument that sounds very deep or learned, or that sounds indisputable.
37 Should your opponent be in the right but, luckily for you, choose a faulty proof, you can easily refute it and then claim that you have refuted the whole position.
This is the way in which bad advocates lose good cases.
If no accurate proof occurs to your opponent, you have won the day.
38 Become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand.
In becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack on the person by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character.
This is a very popular technique, because it takes so little skill to put it into effect.
Despite its great length your response seems to lack, well, an actual response. I'm not throwing out the big, bad NUANCE word as some sort of debating deus ex machina. I'm using it because I believe that this conflict is vastly more complicated than your simplistic and one-sided depiction of it. Your issue, again, seems to be that you are under the mistaken assumption that that this conflict is some sort of zero-sum game. It is no game, and it is not zero-sum. It is a tragedy because everyone is a victim, and everyone loses.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Despite its great length your response seems to lack, well, an actual response. I'm not throwing out the big, bad NUANCE word as some sort of debating deus ex machina. I'm using it because I believe that this conflict is vastly more complicated than your simplistic and one-sided depiction of it. Your issue, again, seems to be that you are under the mistaken assumption that that this conflict is some sort of zero-sum game. It is no game, and it is not zero-sum. It is a tragedy because everyone is a victim, and everyone loses.
I understand perfectly well that it's in every Israel apologists interest to paint the conflict as deeply complicated. Isn't this #75 in 'The Israel apologists handbook of bullshit excuses and jutifications for land grab and ethnic cleansing'?
I understand perfectly well that it benefits supporters of Israel to pretend that the occupation of Palestinian land post 1967 is so vastly complex and labyrinthine that it's almost impossible to even begin to consider all of it's cobweb like intricacies. But what I'm saying is that this is bullshit.
The whole of the international community - excluding the U.S - is in agreement on what needs to be done to end the conflict. They are in no doubt or confusion on this at all. International law as it pertains to Israel's obligations is perfectly unambiguous.
I'm sorry, did you just change the topic?! Wow, I am so utterly shocked and surprised!!!
Our discussion has been about victimhood, hence my comment regarding complexity related to the fact that elderly Israelis who are blown up while having the passover meal with their grandkids at a hotel inside Israel's recognized boundaries can properly be considered victims, a judgement that you, based on your absurdly simplistic understanding of the conflict, dispute.
In point of fact I do think that the history and current reality of the conflict is far more complicated than you give it credit for. That doesn't mean that I do not also think, as I've stated repeatedly, that the occupation must end, the sooner the better.
Let me point out a bit of historical complexity for you. You reduce the reasons for the conflict to the Israeli occupation, and suggest that if the occupation ended the conflict would end with it. The occupation began following the Six Day War in 1967. But Palestinian terrorism against Israel, carried out by the Palestine Liberation Organization, began in 1964. Isn't that strange?! How could it be that the Palestinians were trying to liberate the occupied territories three years before there was an occupation?! Because they were trying to "liberate" Israel from the Israelis, or in other words, get rid of Israel. So when Israelis talk about Palestinian desires to destroy Israel, and say that Palestinian rejectionism is also a cause for the failure to reach a peace deal, and wonder whether ending the occupation would really bring peace, or whether doing so would only bring them more violence (as the evacuation of the Gaza settlements did) they aren't simply making shit up. They are talking about an historical reality.
Now I'm not saying that I agree entirely with this reading of history. But it is one side of the story, and there is truth to it. So yes, things are more complex and NUANCED than how you present them.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Let me point out a bit of historical complexity for you. You reduce the reasons for the conflict to the Israeli occupation, and suggest that if the occupation ended the conflict would end with it. The occupation began following the Six Day War in 1967. But Palestinian terrorism against Israel, carried out by the Palestine Liberation Organization, began in 1964. Isn't that strange?! How could it be that the Palestinians were trying to liberate the occupied territories three years before there was an occupation?! Because they were trying to "liberate" Israel from the Israelis, or in other words, get rid of Israel.
Palestinian resistance goes back a lot further than 1967. The Palestinians rightfully resisted the unfairly proportioned carve-up of their land by the U.N Partition Plan in 1947.
Michael Neumann:'Zionism always was, despite strategically motivated denials and brief flirtations with other objectives [e.g., bi-nationalism], an attempt to establish Jewish sovereignty over Palestine. This project was illegitimate. Neither history nor religion, nor the sufferings of Jews in the Nazi era, sufficed to justify it. It posed a mortal threat to the Palestinians, and it left no room for meaningful compromise. Given that the Palestinians had no way to overcome Zionism peacefully, it also justified some form of violent resistance.'
That was one period of resistance. Another period of resistanc followed the 1967 war and the beginning of the settlement project.
http://www.swans.com/library/art11/ga201.html
'The outcome could have been quite different. In the wake of the Six-Day War, the Palestinians hoped for an independent state and regarded the Israeli victory as a means to free themselves from Jordanian rule. This is not a well-known historical fact, but Neumann documents that for a short flimsy period the Palestinians felt that the Israelis were their liberators. The Palestinians let the Israelis know that they were ready to negotiate an immediate settlement to establish their own sovereign state alongside Israel. Their calls were not answered or, to put it slightly differently, the answer was loud and clear. Israel annexed East Jerusalem and started its settlement policy. It's worth quoting a citation from a speech by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan:
"This is what used to be called 'Jew after Jew'... It meant expansion, more Jews, more villages, more settlements. Twenty years ago we were 600,000; today we are near three million. There should be no Jew who says 'that's enough,' no one who says 'we are nearing the end of the road.' ...It is the same with the land. ...there will be complaints against you if you come and say: 'up to here.' Your duty is to not stop; it is to keep your sword unsheathed, to have faith, to keep the flag flying. You must not call a halt - heaven forbid - and say 'that's all; up there, up to Degania, to Musfallasim, to Nabal Oz!' For that is not all."
Michael Neumann - 'The Case Against Israel' P107-108
Some Israeli's may have seen the first Post-1967 settlements as outposts, advance warning stations guarding the new frontiers against possible attack. This never made a lot of sense: why not just have real advance warning stations, military positions, instead? No one has ever explained why a sprawl of civilian subdivisions and enclaves was required when, to all appearances, a few purely military outposts would have fulfilled any defensive functions at least as well, and at far less cost to both Israeli's and Palestinians. Dayan himself stated that "from the point of view of the security of the State, the establishment of the settlements has no great importance." Other officials shared his assessment:
"We have to use the pretext of security needs and the authority of the military governor as there is no way of driving out the Arabs from their land as long as they refuse to go and accept our compensation..."
In 1969 moreover, Dayan had emphasized that the settlements were eternal: "the settlements established in the territories are there forever, and the future frontiers will include these settlements as part of Israel." In private, he had already in 1967 made it quite clear how the Palestinians were not, in fact, to have a secure and tolerable existence: "there is no solution," he said, "and you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever prefers shall leave..."
...The settler movement's messianic notions of racial destiny have been amply documented. Yehoshafat Harkabi, a former Major General and intelligence chief in the Israeli Defense Forces, describes how they interpret the "halakha - the body of religious laws designed to encode a unique and binding lifestyle." Harkabi, like others, considers Rabbi Zvi Yehudah Kook to be the mentor of the Gush Emunim settler movement and cites him as saying at a public meeting that:
"I tell you explicitly that the Torah forbids us to surrender even one inch of our liberated land. There are no conquests here and we are not occupying foreign lands; we are returning to our home, to the inheritance of our ancestors. There is no Arab land here, only the inheritance of our God - and the more the world gets used to this thought the better it will be for them and for all of us..."
Despite its great length your response seems to lack, well, an actual response. I'm not throwing out the big, bad NUANCE word as some sort of debating deus ex machina. I'm using it because I believe that this conflict is vastly more complicated than your simplistic and one-sided depiction of it. Your issue, again, seems to be that you are under the mistaken assumption that that this conflict is some sort of zero-sum game. It is no game, and it is not zero-sum. It is a tragedy because everyone is a victim, and everyone loses.
plenty of conflicts around the world are quite complex, there is no single solution for many of them, there is no clear cut solution.
the Israel/Palestine issue is not one of them.
An agreement was signed by most of the Arab world, an agreement along the 1967 borders. Hamas and Iran have both agreed to its terms. Its very simple.
Israel no longer has the moral platform to stand on and play the victim if (and when) they are attacked. The world, including Israel's enemies, agreed to a peace. Israel refused.
You are really showing a shockingly callous lack of empathy.
Mar 27, 2002 - 30 people were killed and 140 injured - 20 seriously - in a suicide bombing in the Park Hotel in the coastal city of Netanya, in the midst of the Passover holiday seder with 250 guests. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
The victims: Shula Abramovitch, 63, of Holon; David Anichovitch, 70, of Netanya; Sgt.-Maj. Avraham Beckerman, 25, of Ashdod; Shimon Ben-Aroya, 42, of Netanya; Andre Fried, 47, of Netanya; Idit Fried, 47, of Netanya; Miriam Gutenzgan, 82, Ramat Gan; Ami Hamami, 44, of Netanya; Perla Hermele, 79, of Sweden; Dvora Karim, 73, of Netanya; Michael Karim, 78, of Netanya; Yehudit Korman, 70, of Ramat Hasharon; Marianne Myriam Lehmann Zaoui, 77, of Netanya; Lola Levkovitch, 85, of Jerusalem; Furuk Na'imi, 62, of Netanya; Eliahu Nakash, 85, of Tel-Aviv; Irit Rashel, 45, of Moshav Herev La'et; Yulia Talmi, 87, of Tel-Aviv; St.-Sgt. Sivan Vider, 20, of Bekaot; Ernest Weiss, 79, of Petah Tikva; Eva Weiss, 75, of Petah Tikva; Meir (George) Yakobovitch, 76, of Holon.
Chanah Rogan, 92, of Netanya; Zee'v Vider, 50, of Moshav Bekaot; Alter Britvich, 88, and his wife Frieda, 86, of Netanya died of their injuries on April 2-3, 2002.
Sarah Levy-Hoffman, 89, of Tel-Aviv died of her injuries on April 7, 2002.
Anna Yakobovitch, 78, of Holon died of her injuries on April 11, 2002.
Eliezer Korman, 74, of Ramat Hasharon died of his wounds on May 5, 2002.
Clara Rosenberger, 77, of Jerusalem died of her wounds on June 25, 2003.
You'll notice that virtually all of these people were elderly. That you don't consider them to be victims reflects very poorly on the state of your moral judgement. You should be ashamed.
You are really showing a shockingly callous lack of honesty.
Would you really like me to list all of the Palestinian civilians murdered by Israeli terrorism since the year 2000? Because if you did, then I'd be here all day.
Like I said above, I don't condone it, but I also refuse to condemn it. And I also believe that people like yourself are largely responsible.
from B'tselem.
for those that don't know, they are the Israeli Information centre for Human Rights in the OccupiedTerritories.
Israel no longer has the moral platform to stand on and play the victim if (and when) they are attacked. The world, including Israel's enemies, agreed to a peace. Israel refused.
Peace under everyone else's terms. Israel is always expected to just go along with it.
What's a "resident Israeli"? Your tone is offensive, and Polaris-X, I'm well acquainted w/ your views on Israel, and frankly, am not interested in debating w/ someone who holds the contemptable views that you do.
No offense intended, but no respect reserved.
Peace.
how is my tone offensive? ... our "resident israeli" is Yosi - a board member who you can find in pretty much all the israeli threads ...
you seem to resort to this strategy of crying foul when it is clear you don't want to answer any questions ... why is that? ...
i guess triumphantangel has pegged you as a member who has been banned before ... so, if that being the case, i wonder who is the one who cannot have a reasoned debate?
Isn't this blaming the victim? Hamas is a terrorist organization that engages in the intentional targeted slaughter of civilians. Such actions are never justifiable. Ever. No matter your grievances. Hamas is responsible for its actions, not Israel.
objectively speaking, israel is a terrorist state ... the same goes for the USA ... i don't support the violent actions of HAMAS ... never have ... but to expect palestinians to sit there and continually be oppressed without reprisal is not very realistic ...
sooo ... yes, Hamas is responsible for their actions - what about israel then?
Israel no longer has the moral platform to stand on and play the victim if (and when) they are attacked. The world, including Israel's enemies, agreed to a peace. Israel refused.
Peace under everyone else's terms. Israel is always expected to just go along with it.
this is obviously a myth ... since when did israel go along with anything? ... they continue to do things to the objections of even their most loyal supporters (USA) ... and continue to get away with it ...
Israel no longer has the moral platform to stand on and play the victim if (and when) they are attacked. The world, including Israel's enemies, agreed to a peace. Israel refused.
Peace under everyone else's terms. Israel is always expected to just go along with it.
those of us who are passionate about the situation and are genuinely committed to a fair and just peace for the people of Israel and Palestine have thoughts on the best way peace could be achieved.
when does Israel go along with anything? what are you actually referring to?
israel is above the international law, and will always be as long as the united states acts on their behalf at every turn. israel could be offered the world and would never capitulate. remember last week when the US offered them 20 F-22s, a boatload of cash and other weapons, to slow down and not even stop construction in the settlements. what more do they want or need?
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Comments
That's not debate. That's Youtube level shit-slinging.
Talking of terrorism, did you happen to notice what Israel did to the civilian population of Gaza last year?
Ah, that old chestnut! Is that #99 in the Israel apologists handbook of 100 bullshit excuses for Israel's ongoing land-grab and race war?
Isn't this blaming the victim? Hamas is a terrorist organization that engages in the intentional targeted slaughter of civilians. Such actions are never justifiable. Ever. No matter your grievances. Hamas is responsible for its actions, not Israel.
Is the intentional slaughter of civilians by Israel also not justifiable, or is Israel's long history of slaughtering civilians and unarmed demonstrators acceptable?
In any instance where Israel has knowingly, intentionally targeted and killed a person who is unambiguously an unarmed civilian, then yes, that action is unjustifiable. Are you willing to say the same about Hamas?
I don't condone the murder of civilians, but I also refuse to condemn Palestinian violence, just as I would have refused to condemn Jewish and French resistance groups targeting German civilians during World War II, or the Algerian FLN attacking French civilians during their anti-colonial struggle. I don't condone it, but I won't condemn it either. Israel is just as guilty for the deaths of it's civilians as long as it continues the occupation. If the Israeli leadership were really concerned with the security of it's citizens then it would end the occupation and fortify the internationally recognized 1967 border.
And Israeli terrorism against Palestinian civilians has been far greater.
Frankly, I find your position disgusting. Morally repugnant and deformed.
The Israeli's aren't the victims, they're the occupiers. The occupation itself is an act of terrorism - 24 hour, constant terrorism.
Frankly, I couldn't give a fuck.
Mar 27, 2002 - 30 people were killed and 140 injured - 20 seriously - in a suicide bombing in the Park Hotel in the coastal city of Netanya, in the midst of the Passover holiday seder with 250 guests. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
The victims: Shula Abramovitch, 63, of Holon; David Anichovitch, 70, of Netanya; Sgt.-Maj. Avraham Beckerman, 25, of Ashdod; Shimon Ben-Aroya, 42, of Netanya; Andre Fried, 47, of Netanya; Idit Fried, 47, of Netanya; Miriam Gutenzgan, 82, Ramat Gan; Ami Hamami, 44, of Netanya; Perla Hermele, 79, of Sweden; Dvora Karim, 73, of Netanya; Michael Karim, 78, of Netanya; Yehudit Korman, 70, of Ramat Hasharon; Marianne Myriam Lehmann Zaoui, 77, of Netanya; Lola Levkovitch, 85, of Jerusalem; Furuk Na'imi, 62, of Netanya; Eliahu Nakash, 85, of Tel-Aviv; Irit Rashel, 45, of Moshav Herev La'et; Yulia Talmi, 87, of Tel-Aviv; St.-Sgt. Sivan Vider, 20, of Bekaot; Ernest Weiss, 79, of Petah Tikva; Eva Weiss, 75, of Petah Tikva; Meir (George) Yakobovitch, 76, of Holon.
Chanah Rogan, 92, of Netanya; Zee'v Vider, 50, of Moshav Bekaot; Alter Britvich, 88, and his wife Frieda, 86, of Netanya died of their injuries on April 2-3, 2002.
Sarah Levy-Hoffman, 89, of Tel-Aviv died of her injuries on April 7, 2002.
Anna Yakobovitch, 78, of Holon died of her injuries on April 11, 2002.
Eliezer Korman, 74, of Ramat Hasharon died of his wounds on May 5, 2002.
Clara Rosenberger, 77, of Jerusalem died of her wounds on June 25, 2003.
You'll notice that virtually all of these people were elderly. That you don't consider them to be victims reflects very poorly on the state of your moral judgement. You should be ashamed.
You are really showing a shockingly callous lack of honesty.
Would you really like me to list all of the Palestinian civilians murdered by Israeli terrorism since the year 2000? Because if you did, then I'd be here all day.
Like I said above, I don't condone it, but I also refuse to condemn it. And I also believe that people like yourself are largely responsible.
whilst i understand why the palestinians use violence, in reality it is getting them nowhere. brilliant spin by the israelis paints them as terrorists attacking the victim israelis wihtout shining any light on the fact that the israel government violate human rights every single day.
if the palestinians wanted the eyes and ears of the uninformed of the world, who see them very simply as terrorists intent on the annihilation of israel then they have to renounce the violence the western press loves to draw attention to and highlight. but its not only the minds of the west they need to show, its the israeli government. by passively resisting, and the majority of palestinians do passively resist and do not condone the violence, the israeli govt will have no justification for its own violence against those it oppresses. it will have to find another way and that way is peace through reconciliation, not occupation.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Israel is not the victim, it's the occupier. Just as Germany could not honestly claim to be the victim when it's cities were being bombed during World War II.
If the Israeli leadership wanted an end to the violence then it would end the occupation and disband the illegal settlements. But Instead it chooses to steal more land and to kill more unarmed protestors, to carry out more illegal extra-judicial assassinations, bulldoze more Palestinian homes, and evict more Palestinian families from the homes.
You are not the victim, you are the aggressor, and the blood of any Israeli civilians as a result of this intransigence lies with the Israeli leadership and with Israel's apologists who frequent message boards and chat rooms in a disgusting attempt to excuse and justify the murder and dispossession of a people.
Ah, your favourite word again. When an argument doesn't go as you'd like just accuse the other person of a lack of nuance. Good tactic.
I wonder why Schopenhauer didn't include that in his list of 38 ways to win an argument?
38 Ways To Win An Argument - Arthur Schopenhauer
1 Carry your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it.
The more general your opponent’s statement becomes, the more objections you can find against it.
The more restricted and narrow your own propositions remain, the easier they are to defend.
2 Use different meanings of your opponent’s words to refute his argument.
Example: Person A says, “You do not understand the mysteries of Kant’s philosophy.”
Person B replies, “Oh, if it’s mysteries you’re talking about, I’ll have nothing to do with them.”
3 Ignore your opponent’s proposition, which was intended to refer to some particular thing.
Rather, understand it in some quite different sense, and then refute it.
Attack something different than what was asserted.
4 Hide your conclusion from your opponent until the end.
Mingle your premises here and there in your talk.
Get your opponent to agree to them in no definite order.
By this circuitous route you conceal your goal until you have reached all the admissions necessary to reach your goal.
5 Use your opponent’s beliefs against him.
If your opponent refuses to accept your premises, use his own premises to your advantage.
Example, if the opponent is a member of an organization or a religious sect to which you do not belong, you may employ the declared opinions of this group against the opponent.
6 Confuse the issue by changing your opponent’s words or what he or she seeks to prove.
Example: Call something by a different name: “good repute” instead of “honor,” “virtue” instead of “virginity,” “red-blooded” instead of “vertebrates”.
7 State your proposition and show the truth of it by asking the opponent many questions.
By asking many wide-reaching questions at once, you may hide what you want to get admitted.
Then you quickly propound the argument resulting from the proponent’s admissions.
8 Make your opponent angry.
An angry person is less capable of using judgment or perceiving where his or her advantage lies.
9 Use your opponent’s answers to your question to reach different or even opposite conclusions.
10 If your opponent answers all your questions negatively and refuses to grant you any points, ask him or her to concede the opposite of your premises.
This may confuse the opponent as to which point you actually seek him to concede.
11 If the opponent grants you the truth of some of your premises, refrain from asking him or her to agree to your conclusion.
Later, introduce your conclusions as a settled and admitted fact.
Your opponent and others in attendance may come to believe that your conclusion was admitted.
12 If the argument turns upon general ideas with no particular names, you must use language or a metaphor that is favorable to your proposition.
Example: What an impartial person would call “public worship” or a “system of religion” is described by an adherent as “piety” or “godliness” and by an opponent as “bigotry” or “superstition.”
In other words, insert what you intend to prove into the definition of the idea.
13 To make your opponent accept a proposition, you must give him an opposite, counter-proposition as well.
If the contrast is glaring, the opponent will accept your proposition to avoid being paradoxical.
Example: If you want him to admit that a boy must to everything that his father tells him to do, ask him, “whether in all things we must obey or disobey our parents.”
Or , if a thing is said to occur “often” you are to understand few or many times, the opponent will say “many.”
It is as though you were to put gray next to black and call it white; or gray next to white and call it black.
14 Try to bluff your opponent.
If he or she has answered several of your question without the answers turning out in favor of your conclusion, advance your conclusion triumphantly, even if it does not follow.
If your opponent is shy or stupid, and you yourself possess a great deal of impudence and a good voice, the technique may succeed.
15 If you wish to advance a proposition that is difficult to prove, put it aside for the moment.
Instead, submit for your opponent’s acceptance or rejection some true proposition, as though you wished to draw your proof from it.
Should the opponent reject it because he suspects a trick, you can obtain your triumph by showing how absurd the opponent is to reject an obviously true proposition.
Should the opponent accept it, you now have reason on your side for the moment.
You can either try to prove your original proposition, as in #14, maintain that your original proposition is proved by what your opponent accepted.
For this an extreme degree of impudence is required, but experience shows cases of it succeeding.
16 When your opponent puts forth a proposition, find it inconsistent with his or her other statements, beliefs, actions or lack of action.
Example: Should your opponent defend suicide, you may at once exclaim, “Why don’t you hang yourself?”
Should the opponent maintain that his city is an unpleasant place to live, you may say, “Why don’t you leave on the first plane?”
17 If your opponent presses you with a counter-proof, you will often be able to save yourself by advancing some subtle distinction.
Try to find a second meaning or an ambiguous sense for your opponent’s idea.
18 If your opponent has taken up a line of argument that will end in your defeat, you must not allow him to carry it to its conclusion.
Interrupt the dispute, break it off altogether, or lead the opponent to a different subject.
19 Should your opponent expressly challenge you to produce any objection to some definite point in his argument, and you have nothing to say, try to make the argument less specific.
Example: If you are asked why a particular hypothesis cannot be accepted, you may speak of the fallibility of human knowledge, and give various illustrations of it.
20 If your opponent has admitted to all or most of your premises, do not ask him or her directly to accept your conclusion.
Rather, draw the conclusion yourself as if it too had been admitted.
21 When your opponent uses an argument that is superficial and you see the falsehood, you can refute it by setting forth its superficial character.
But it is better to meet the opponent with a counter-argument that is just as superficial, and so dispose of him.
For it is with victory that you are concerned, not with truth.
Example: If the opponent appeals to prejudice, emotion or attacks you personally, return the attack in the same manner.
22 If your opponent asks you to admit something from which the point in dispute will immediately follow, you must refuse to do so, declaring that it begs the question.
23 Contradiction and contention irritate a person into exaggerating their statements.
By contradicting your opponent you may drive him into extending the statement beyond its natural limit.
When you then contradict the exaggerated form of it, you look as though you had refuted the original statement.
Contrarily, if your opponent tries to extend your own statement further than your intended, redefine your statement’s limits and say, “That is what I said, no more.”
24 State a false syllogism.
Your opponent makes a proposition, and by false inference and distortion of his ideas you force from the proposition other propositions that are not intended and that appear absurd.
It then appears that opponent’s proposition gave rise to these inconsistencies, and so appears to be indirectly refuted.
25 If your opponent is making a generalization, find an instance to the contrary.
Only one valid contradiction is needed to overthrow the opponent’s proposition.
Example: “All ruminants are horned,” is a generalization that may be upset by the single instance of the camel.
26 A brilliant move is to turn the tables and use your opponent’s arguments against himself.
Example: Your opponent declares: “so and so is a child, you must make an allowance for him.”
You retort, “Just because he is a child, I must correct him; otherwise he will persist in his bad habits.”
27 Should your opponent surprise you by becoming particularly angry at an argument, you must urge it with all the more zeal.
No only will this make your opponent angry, but it will appear that you have put your finger on the weak side of his case, and your opponent is more open to attack on this point than you expected.
28 When the audience consists of individuals (or a person) who is not an expert on a subject, you make an invalid objection to your opponent who seems to be defeated in the eyes of the audience.
This strategy is particularly effective if your objection makes your opponent look ridiculous or if the audience laughs.
If your opponent must make a long, winded and complicated explanation to correct you, the audience will not be disposed to listen to him.
29 If you find that you are being beaten, you can create a diversion--that is, you can suddenly begin to talk of something else, as though it had a bearing on the matter in dispute.
This may be done without presumption if the diversion has some general bearing on the matter.
30 Make an appeal to authority rather than reason.
If your opponent respects an authority or an expert, quote that authority to further your case.
If needed, quote what the authority said in some other sense or circumstance.
Authorities that your opponent fails to understand are those which he generally admires the most.
You may also, should it be necessary, not only twist your authorities, but actually falsify them, or quote something that you have entirely invented yourself.
31 If you know that you have no reply to the arguments that your opponent advances, you by a fine stroke of irony declare yourself to be an incompetent judge.
Example: “What you say passes my poor powers of comprehension; it may well be all very true, but I can’t understand it, and I refrain from any expression of opinion on it.”
In this way you insinuate to the audience, with whom you are in good repute, that what your opponent says is nonsense.
This technique may be used only when you are quite sure that the audience thinks much better of you than your opponent.
32 A quick way of getting rid of an opponent’s assertion, or of throwing suspicion on it, is by putting it into some odious category.
Example: You can say, “That is fascism” or “Atheism” or “Superstition.”
In making an objection of this kind you take for granted
1)That the assertion or question is identical with, or at least contained in, the category cited;
and
2)The system referred to has been entirely refuted by the current audience.
33 You admit your opponent’s premises but deny the conclusion.
Example: “That’s all very well in theory, but it won’t work in practice.”
34 When you state a question or an argument, and your opponent gives you no direct answer, or evades it with a counter question, or tries to change the subject, it is sure sign you have touched a weak spot, sometimes without intending to do so.
You have, as it were, reduced your opponent to silence.
You must, therefore, urge the point all the more, and not let your opponent evade it, even when you do not know where the weakness that you have hit upon really lies.
35 Instead of working on an opponent’s intellect or the rigor of his arguments, work on his motive.
If you success in making your opponent’s opinion, should it prove true, seem distinctly prejudicial to his own interest, he will drop it immediately.
Example: A clergyman is defending some philosophical dogma.
You show him that his proposition contradicts a fundamental doctrine of his church.
He will abandon the argument.
36 You may also puzzle and bewilder your opponent by mere bombast.
If your opponent is weak or does not wish to appear as if he has no idea what your are talking about, you can easily impose upon him some argument that sounds very deep or learned, or that sounds indisputable.
37 Should your opponent be in the right but, luckily for you, choose a faulty proof, you can easily refute it and then claim that you have refuted the whole position.
This is the way in which bad advocates lose good cases.
If no accurate proof occurs to your opponent, you have won the day.
38 Become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand.
In becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack on the person by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character.
This is a very popular technique, because it takes so little skill to put it into effect.
I understand perfectly well that it's in every Israel apologists interest to paint the conflict as deeply complicated. Isn't this #75 in 'The Israel apologists handbook of bullshit excuses and jutifications for land grab and ethnic cleansing'?
I understand perfectly well that it benefits supporters of Israel to pretend that the occupation of Palestinian land post 1967 is so vastly complex and labyrinthine that it's almost impossible to even begin to consider all of it's cobweb like intricacies. But what I'm saying is that this is bullshit.
The whole of the international community - excluding the U.S - is in agreement on what needs to be done to end the conflict. They are in no doubt or confusion on this at all. International law as it pertains to Israel's obligations is perfectly unambiguous.
Our discussion has been about victimhood, hence my comment regarding complexity related to the fact that elderly Israelis who are blown up while having the passover meal with their grandkids at a hotel inside Israel's recognized boundaries can properly be considered victims, a judgement that you, based on your absurdly simplistic understanding of the conflict, dispute.
In point of fact I do think that the history and current reality of the conflict is far more complicated than you give it credit for. That doesn't mean that I do not also think, as I've stated repeatedly, that the occupation must end, the sooner the better.
Let me point out a bit of historical complexity for you. You reduce the reasons for the conflict to the Israeli occupation, and suggest that if the occupation ended the conflict would end with it. The occupation began following the Six Day War in 1967. But Palestinian terrorism against Israel, carried out by the Palestine Liberation Organization, began in 1964. Isn't that strange?! How could it be that the Palestinians were trying to liberate the occupied territories three years before there was an occupation?! Because they were trying to "liberate" Israel from the Israelis, or in other words, get rid of Israel. So when Israelis talk about Palestinian desires to destroy Israel, and say that Palestinian rejectionism is also a cause for the failure to reach a peace deal, and wonder whether ending the occupation would really bring peace, or whether doing so would only bring them more violence (as the evacuation of the Gaza settlements did) they aren't simply making shit up. They are talking about an historical reality.
Now I'm not saying that I agree entirely with this reading of history. But it is one side of the story, and there is truth to it. So yes, things are more complex and NUANCED than how you present them.
Palestinian resistance goes back a lot further than 1967. The Palestinians rightfully resisted the unfairly proportioned carve-up of their land by the U.N Partition Plan in 1947.
Michael Neumann:'Zionism always was, despite strategically motivated denials and brief flirtations with other objectives [e.g., bi-nationalism], an attempt to establish Jewish sovereignty over Palestine. This project was illegitimate. Neither history nor religion, nor the sufferings of Jews in the Nazi era, sufficed to justify it. It posed a mortal threat to the Palestinians, and it left no room for meaningful compromise. Given that the Palestinians had no way to overcome Zionism peacefully, it also justified some form of violent resistance.'
That was one period of resistance. Another period of resistanc followed the 1967 war and the beginning of the settlement project.
http://www.swans.com/library/art11/ga201.html
'The outcome could have been quite different. In the wake of the Six-Day War, the Palestinians hoped for an independent state and regarded the Israeli victory as a means to free themselves from Jordanian rule. This is not a well-known historical fact, but Neumann documents that for a short flimsy period the Palestinians felt that the Israelis were their liberators. The Palestinians let the Israelis know that they were ready to negotiate an immediate settlement to establish their own sovereign state alongside Israel. Their calls were not answered or, to put it slightly differently, the answer was loud and clear. Israel annexed East Jerusalem and started its settlement policy. It's worth quoting a citation from a speech by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan:
"This is what used to be called 'Jew after Jew'... It meant expansion, more Jews, more villages, more settlements. Twenty years ago we were 600,000; today we are near three million. There should be no Jew who says 'that's enough,' no one who says 'we are nearing the end of the road.' ...It is the same with the land. ...there will be complaints against you if you come and say: 'up to here.' Your duty is to not stop; it is to keep your sword unsheathed, to have faith, to keep the flag flying. You must not call a halt - heaven forbid - and say 'that's all; up there, up to Degania, to Musfallasim, to Nabal Oz!' For that is not all."
Some Israeli's may have seen the first Post-1967 settlements as outposts, advance warning stations guarding the new frontiers against possible attack. This never made a lot of sense: why not just have real advance warning stations, military positions, instead? No one has ever explained why a sprawl of civilian subdivisions and enclaves was required when, to all appearances, a few purely military outposts would have fulfilled any defensive functions at least as well, and at far less cost to both Israeli's and Palestinians. Dayan himself stated that "from the point of view of the security of the State, the establishment of the settlements has no great importance." Other officials shared his assessment:
"We have to use the pretext of security needs and the authority of the military governor as there is no way of driving out the Arabs from their land as long as they refuse to go and accept our compensation..."
In 1969 moreover, Dayan had emphasized that the settlements were eternal: "the settlements established in the territories are there forever, and the future frontiers will include these settlements as part of Israel." In private, he had already in 1967 made it quite clear how the Palestinians were not, in fact, to have a secure and tolerable existence: "there is no solution," he said, "and you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever prefers shall leave..."
...The settler movement's messianic notions of racial destiny have been amply documented. Yehoshafat Harkabi, a former Major General and intelligence chief in the Israeli Defense Forces, describes how they interpret the "halakha - the body of religious laws designed to encode a unique and binding lifestyle." Harkabi, like others, considers Rabbi Zvi Yehudah Kook to be the mentor of the Gush Emunim settler movement and cites him as saying at a public meeting that:
"I tell you explicitly that the Torah forbids us to surrender even one inch of our liberated land. There are no conquests here and we are not occupying foreign lands; we are returning to our home, to the inheritance of our ancestors. There is no Arab land here, only the inheritance of our God - and the more the world gets used to this thought the better it will be for them and for all of us..."
the Israel/Palestine issue is not one of them.
An agreement was signed by most of the Arab world, an agreement along the 1967 borders. Hamas and Iran have both agreed to its terms. Its very simple.
Israel no longer has the moral platform to stand on and play the victim if (and when) they are attacked. The world, including Israel's enemies, agreed to a peace. Israel refused.
from B'tselem.
for those that don't know, they are the Israeli Information centre for Human Rights in the OccupiedTerritories.
these numbers are just horrific.
Fatalities
29.9.2000 - 30.11.2010
http://www.btselem.org/English/statisti ... alties.asp
Peace under everyone else's terms. Israel is always expected to just go along with it.
how is my tone offensive? ... our "resident israeli" is Yosi - a board member who you can find in pretty much all the israeli threads ...
you seem to resort to this strategy of crying foul when it is clear you don't want to answer any questions ... why is that? ...
i guess triumphantangel has pegged you as a member who has been banned before ... so, if that being the case, i wonder who is the one who cannot have a reasoned debate?
objectively speaking, israel is a terrorist state ... the same goes for the USA ... i don't support the violent actions of HAMAS ... never have ... but to expect palestinians to sit there and continually be oppressed without reprisal is not very realistic ...
sooo ... yes, Hamas is responsible for their actions - what about israel then?
this is obviously a myth ... since when did israel go along with anything? ... they continue to do things to the objections of even their most loyal supporters (USA) ... and continue to get away with it ...
when does Israel go along with anything? what are you actually referring to?
what's your thoughts here? do you have any?
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Peace under the terms of the whole of the international community - excluding the U.S.
Seems pretty conclusive to me.