If there's a particular assertion you'd like to discuss then point it out. I'm not going to engage in an argument with whatever opinion pieces you can find to cut and paste into the thread. If you'd like to speak for yourself I'll respond to what you have to say.
I have spoken for myself, and I've supported what I've said with source material based on factual information.
Though I can see why you'd prefer to avoid such things and simply engage in swapping personal opinions instead.
JERUSALEM - Israel's prime minister on Monday accused the international community of "deafening silence" in response to recent vows by the head of the Hamas militant group to fight on until the Jewish state is destroyed, and appeared unmoved by the gathering storm of global condemnation of his government's plans to continue settling the West Bank.
Benjamin Netanyahu's tough words were likely to deepen the rift between Israel and some of its closest allies, particularly in Europe, that has emerged since the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted in favour of Palestinian independence last month. In a sign of the tense relations, European Union foreign ministers were gathered in Brussels to condemn new settlement construction that Netanyahu has authorized in response to the U.N. decision.
Speaking to foreign reporters, Netanyahu accused the international community of having double standards, condemning not-yet-built settlements in the West Bank while standing quiet during a historic visit to the Gaza Strip by Hamas' exiled leader, Khaled Mashaal.
Making his first trip to the Hamas-ruled territory over the weekend, Mashaal delivered a series of speeches to throngs of supporters vowing to wipe Israel off the map. The visit underscored Hamas' rising clout and regional acceptance since its eight-day conflict with Israel last month.
Netanyahu also directed his ire at Hamas' rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, for not speaking out.
"This weekend the leader of Hamas, sitting next to the Hamas leader of Gaza, a man who praised Osama Bin Laden, this weekend openly called for the destruction of Israel. Where was the outrage? Where were the U.N. resolutions? Where was President Abbas?" Netanyahu said.
"Why weren't Palestinian diplomats summoned to European and other capitals to explain why the PA president not only refused to condemn this but actually declared his intention to unite with Hamas. There was nothing, there was silence and it was deafening silence," he added.
Netanyahu has long complained that the world unfairly singles out Israel for criticism. In Monday's address, he accused the United Nations of passing an unbalanced resolution that supported Palestinian independence but did not address Israeli security concerns.
The U.N. resolution recognized a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. Just eight countries sided with Israel in opposing the vote.
Although it does not end Israel's occupation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, the resolution gave an international endorsement to the Palestinian position on the borders between Israel and a future Palestine. It also amounted to a broad condemnation of Israeli settlements in the two areas. Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005.
Netanyahu, who rejects a return to Israel's 1967 lines, responded to the U.N. resolution with plans to build thousands of new homes in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The most contentious plan is to develop a corridor linking east Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim, one of the largest Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The Palestinians say this project, known as E1, would deal a death blow to any hopes for peace since it would separate the West Bank from east Jerusalem, their hoped-for capital, and drive a deep wedge between the northern and southern parts of the West Bank by creating a string of settlements jutting nearly halfway across the West Bank.
Israeli officials say construction on the E1 project is years away. But the country has come under fierce criticism by its closest allies, the U.S. and major countries in Western Europe.
Last week, a string of Israeli ambassadors were summoned for official reprimand in European capitals, and on Monday, EU foreign ministers gathered in Brussels to discuss a response to the plan.
Sweden's foreign minister, Carl Bildt, said the Israeli construction plans have caused "extreme concern" in the 27-nation EU. "What the Israelis did on E1 has shifted opinions in Europe," Bildt said as he arrived for the meeting. "I don't think the Israelis are aware of this."
The Palestinians say they turned to the U.N. in frustration after a four-year freeze in peace efforts under Netanyahu. The Palestinians say they will not resume talks unless Netanyahu halts settlement construction and accepts the 1967 lines as the basis for talks.
Netanyahu played down the international criticism and blamed the Palestinians for the impasse. He noted that a 10-month partial settlement freeze he imposed in 2010 had failed to restart negotiations.
"The reason why the Palestinians avoided negotiations for the past four years is a very simple one. They avoided negotiations because they were willing to take concessions from Israel but they were not prepared to make concessions to Israel," he said.
Netanyahu said that negotiations should resume without any conditions, and even held out the possibility of abandoning the E1 plan.
"We remain committed and this is what we prefer, a bilateral negotiation without preconditions in which all these questions can be raised, that is our preference and I hope the Palestinian Authority will go that route because it is better for them and it is better for us," he said.
While Netanyahu's term has been characterized by tensions with Israel's allies, he remains popular at home and appears set to win a new term as head of a hard-line coalition in parliamentary elections next month.
Netanyahu told the audience he had made great gains during his term. He claimed he had helped draw attention to Iran's suspect nuclear program, beefed up Israel's cybersecurity and missile defences, and fortified Israel's southern border with Egypt to prevent militant attacks and waves of African migrants from entering the country.
Yet in a moment of candour, he signalled that his sometimes rocky relations with President Barack Obama could have been handled better. "Who doesn't have regrets?"
Gimli 1993
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
JERUSALEM - Israel's prime minister on Monday accused the international community of "deafening silence" in response to recent vows by the head of the Hamas militant group to fight on until the Jewish state is destroyed, and appeared unmoved by the gathering storm of global condemnation of his government's plans to continue settling the West Bank.
...Making his first trip to the Hamas-ruled territory over the weekend, Mashaal delivered a series of speeches to throngs of supporters vowing to wipe Israel off the map. The visit underscored Hamas' rising clout and regional acceptance since its eight-day conflict with Israel last month.
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Ob ... c-2012.htm "The West Bank, Gaza, the 1948 territories [Israel] - these are Palestinian lands, they are all Palestine. Not one part will be separated from any other part, and whoever thinks that Gaza can be separated from the West Bank is mistaken. Gaza and the West Bank cannot surrender Haifa, Jaffa, Beersheba and Safed [Israeli cities]."
"The right of return of all the refugees, the uprooted and the expelled, to Palestinian land - in Gaza, in the West Bank, in the 1948 territories [Israel] - the right of return is sacred to us, and we will not give it up...In this context I would like to say that this is an unshakable principle of Hamas. There will be neither a permanent settlement for refugees nor an alternative homeland. There is no substitute for Palestine..."
Interesting that the four towns mentioned in the above piece in the 'Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs' webpage all have the parenthesis 'Israeli cities' placed after them.
Whereas, according to Wiki:
Haifa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haifa#British_Mandate
Under the British Mandate, Haifa [...] was then home to approximately 20,000 inhabitants 96 percent of them Arabs (82 percent Muslim and 14 percent Christian), and four percent Jews.
(Can't see what the town's proposed status was under the mandate)
Jaffa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa#1947 ... d_1948_War
'In 1947, the UN Special Commission on Palestine recommended that Jaffa be included in the planned Jewish state. Due to the large Arab majority, however, it was instead designated as part of the Arab state in the 1947 UN Partition Plan.'
Beersheba http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beersheba# ... andate_era
'The 1947 UN Partition Plan included Beersheba in the territory allotted to the proposed Arab state as the city's population of 4,000 was primarily Arab.'
Very nice B. Totally in form. You're confronted with a clear statement indicating a refusal by Hamas to abandon its intention to reconquer all of Israel, and in response you try to muddy the waters by citing wikipedia to the effect that some of these cities would have been part of Palestine under the proposed UN plan in '47, or that during the mandate they had majority Arab populations, ALL OF WHICH HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT ALL FOUR OF THESE CITIES ARE INSIDE ISRAEL PROPER, I.E., THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE OCCUPATION. :nono:
BOOYAH!
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Very nice B. Totally in form. You're confronted with a clear statement indicating a refusal by Hamas to abandon its intention to reconquer all of Israel, and in response you try to muddy the waters by citing wikipedia to the effect that some of these cities would have been part of Palestine under the proposed UN plan in '47, or that during the mandate they had majority Arab populations, ALL OF WHICH HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT ALL FOUR OF THESE CITIES ARE INSIDE ISRAEL PROPER, I.E., THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE OCCUPATION. :nono:
BOOYAH!
So much anger. Were you literally frothing at the mouth when you typed that?
Does your anger stem from learning that the whole World - except the U.S - supports a Palestinian state, and is opposed to the Israeli occupation?
Where have I tried to muddy the water? The above article claimed that the Hamas spokesman wished to see Israel wiped off the map. He didn't. And I pointed that out, point by point, by referring to the fact he referred repeatedly to the '1948 territories', and those cities that were a part of the '1948 territories' which legally belong to the Palestinians.
As for those places being inside 'Israel proper', how do you come to that conclusion? If the legitimacy of Israel rests on the Partition Plan, then how do you suppose the areas that fall outside of the territory allotted to Israel, and that Israel captured in 1948, constitute 'Israel proper'?
What are your thoughts on the following? And feel free to use bold type in your response if you think it will bolster your argument:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n16/henry-sieg ... ocess-scam 'UN General Assembly Partition Resolution 181 of 1947, which established the Jewish state’s international legitimacy, also recognised the remaining Palestinian territory outside the new state’s borders as the equally legitimate patrimony of Palestine’s Arab population on which they were entitled to establish their own state, and it mapped the borders of that territory with great precision. Resolution 181’s affirmation of the right of Palestine’s Arab population to national self-determination was based on normative law and the democratic principles that grant statehood to the majority population. (At the time, Arabs constituted two-thirds of the population in Palestine.) This right does not evaporate because of delays in its implementation.'
...In the course of a war launched by Arab countries that sought to prevent the implementation of the UN partition resolution, Israel enlarged its territory by 50 per cent. If it is illegal to acquire territory as a result of war, then the question now cannot conceivably be how much additional Palestinian territory Israel may confiscate, but rather how much of the territory it acquired in the course of the war of 1948 it is allowed to retain. At the very least, if ‘adjustments’ are to be made to the 1949 armistice line, these should be made on Israel’s side of that line, not the Palestinians’.
...The problem is not, as Israelis often claim, that Palestinians do not know how to compromise. (Another former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, famously complained that ‘Palestinians take and take while Israel gives and gives.’) That is an indecent charge, since the Palestinians made much the most far-reaching compromise of all when the PLO formally accepted the legitimacy of Israel within the 1949 armistice border. With that concession, Palestinians ceded their claim to more than half the territory that the UN’s partition resolution had assigned to its Arab inhabitants. They have never received any credit for this wrenching concession, made years before Israel agreed that Palestinians had a right to statehood in any part of Palestine. The notion that further border adjustments should be made at the expense of the 22 per cent of the territory that remains to the Palestinians is deeply offensive to them, and understandably so.
Nonetheless, the Palestinians agreed at the Camp David summit to adjustments to the pre-1967 border that would allow large numbers of West Bank settlers – about 70 per cent – to remain within the Jewish state, provided they received comparable territory on Israel’s side of the border. Barak rejected this.'
You also do very well fostering an environment of respectful debate by implying that any agreement or moderation in view by your interlocutor is actually just a ruse, and by suggesting that he is simply parroting a bunch of centrally disseminated talking points.
Did the Hamas spokesman tell you to say that?
NO, because Hamas does not have a massively funded network of propagandists, disseminating talking points in the way Hasbara does for Israel. Ive spent a bit of time perusing both the 2002 Hasbara Handbook,and the 2009 Global Language Dictionaryconcocted by Frank Lutz for the Israel Project.....but I wasn't aware that Hamas had such a network, and such handy propaganda references? I was kind of under the impression that the bulk of recent western support for Palestine has been born of human compassion from watching a couple million unarmed people get bombed on tv for long enough that they began wondering what they weren't being told...but maybe I'm wrong.
B, you can't have it both ways. If you're going to say that Hamas is really only concerned with the occupation then you can't turn around and defend a statement that declares a desire to recapture cities lost in '48 (and therefore not part of the "occupation," which began in '67). Conversely, if you're going to defend the legitimacy of Hamas laying claim to cities that fall squarely within Israel's '48 boundaries then you can't turn around and argue, as you repeatedly have done, that Hamas is really only concerned with ending the occupation.
The fact that in a single thread you have now argued both of these mutually exclusive points really makes me doubt the sincerity of your statements. You seem more interested in defending the Palestinian "side" in any argument, regardless of what proposition is being put forward, than in being even minimally consistent.
Drowned, did the Hamas spokesman tell you to deny that the Hamas spokesman has been telling you what to say? Is the first rule of being a Hamas mouthpiece that you don't talk about being a Hamas mouthpiece?
In all seriousness, I don't think you're taking your marching orders from Hamas. I just wish you would extend me the same courtesy of engaging with what I write with an open mind rather than suggesting that I'm being told what to say by someone else. Believe it or not I have no idea what the Iine of the Israeli government is, nor, I think, do any of the many other people I know who tend to view this issue similarly to me.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
B, regarding Resolution 181, it was a non-binding resolution, the implementation of which rested on its acceptance by both parties. Since the Palestinians squarely rejected the resolution it became a nullity. To argue that 181 renders certain territories falling within Israel's '48 borders "legally" Palestinian territory is simply rubbish. UN Resolution 242, which you are so fond of citing as a definitive statement of International Law, is premised on a recognition of the legitimacy of Israel's pre-'67 borders.
So, yet again, we have a situation where you are variously arguing two mutually exclusive propositions. :fp: I have to cover my eyes. Your inconsistency is too much to bear. :fp:
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Very nice B. Totally in form. You're confronted with a clear statement indicating a refusal by Hamas to abandon its intention to reconquer all of Israel, and in response you try to muddy the waters by citing wikipedia to the effect that some of these cities would have been part of Palestine under the proposed UN plan in '47, or that during the mandate they had majority Arab populations, ALL OF WHICH HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT ALL FOUR OF THESE CITIES ARE INSIDE ISRAEL PROPER, I.E., THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE OCCUPATION. :nono:
BOOYAH!
Booyah? I prefer yeeeeeeaaaaa boooooooiiiiii as my 1994 victory cry
Anyway....
I honestly think that Mashaal's emboldened speeches are not very helpful...any display of bravado is easily flipped to aggression by Israel, so it's somewhat ill-advised....still, Hamas feel they've won a couple of major victories of late, they'd be foolish not to use it for political gain in Gaza. The turnout for their celebrations show pretty solid support....and honestly, I can't blame the people for feeling a bit uppity about their leaders right now. But Israel would have you think that Hamas is a major threat to it's existence, as shown by the conjecture you used earlier to extrapolate what will happen when Hamas influence on the West Bank results in missiles raining down on every corner of Israel :roll:
We're to believe that it is Israel's existence being threatened by the West Bank.....while Israel begins going ahead with plans to further carve up the West Bank with the E1 settlement (some say cut it in half)....and are still pushing to delegitimize a Palestinian state, going so far as alter passport stamps for travel in the occupied West Bank from saying "Palestinian Authority only", to "Judea and Samaria only" as of late November. http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali ... -judea-and ....
.....sounds like Israel's hardline MK's are feeling the heat from the international community and are doubling up their efforts to destroy any hope of a two state solution.
Israel’s annexation moment has arrived
by Allison Deger on December 6, 2012
Earlier this week the Electronic Intifada (EI) published two articles on Israel's "creeping annexation" of the West Bank supported by pictures of an entry visa on a passport that read "Judea and Samaria only," which EI argued re-classified the West Bank as part of Israel. For travelers entering through Jordan since 2009 Ali Abunimah noted some have received restricted visas that only permit entry to the West Bank, barring visitors from Jerusalem and Israel. Before this week those visas were known to have stamps that stated, "Palestinian Authority only." By using the language of "Judea and Samaria," a reference to the biblical heartland of Eretz Yisrael and the name of the current Israeli administrative district in the West Bank that serves the settlements, the Jewish state is de facto claiming sovereignty over occupied Palestinian land. This change in status is accompanied by increasing calls from within the government to formalize Greater Israel, and it just may indicate that Israel is finally planning to formally annex the West Bank.
While the idea of annexation has floated through the Israeli government since 1969, after last year’s Palestinian UN bid the call to pass legislation to absorb the West Bank jumped from whispers to policy. In September 2011 Knesset party leaders from Likud, Shas and the National Union sent a letter to Netanyahu demanding he annex the West Bank as a punitive measure for the Palestinian "unilateral" statehood bid, as well as cut aid the Palestinian Authority (PA), cancel PA visa privileges and prohibit any Palestinian construction in areas under Israeli security control. "The PA's UN bid on unilateral recognition is a blunt breach of those agreements, which have, in the last 18 years, taken their severe toll on us," said the letter. Continuing, if Israel does not annex the West Bank it will "completely lose its deterrence, thus stimulating the Palestinians to continue their actions against it in the international arena," and:
In fact, the international damage that Israel could suffer in the wake of the UN vote is significantly smaller than that it would suffer if it doesn't follow up on the principle you set a decade ago – 'If they give, they'll get; if they don't give, they get nothing.'
That same month Danny Danon (Likud) introduced a Knesset bill to officially annex the West Bank and cut Israeli funding to the PA. "If the Palestinian Authority wishes to proceed on this reckless path and bring further instability to the region, Israel cannot continue to pour funds into this sinking ship of failed leadership," said Danon in September 2011 after proposing the bill. For Israeli officials, the 2011 bid was viewed as a breach of the Oslo Accords, which bars any change in the legal status of the West Bank until final status negotiations are reached. In light of what Israel considered to be the Palestinians sandbagging the negotiations process, a block of hard-liners then in turn backed Danon's proposal, however the Knesset did not pass the resolution.
In addition to acquiring new territory, annexation would also relieve Israel of its financial obligations as an occupying power under international law. In Danon's bill, the fiscal benefits of annexation were listed as a major coup. "The funding agreements with the PA were reached with the hope that their leaders would work to create an environment of lasting peace and security with Israel. Given that it is clear that the Palestinians have no such desire, Israel must no longer be required to stand by these arrangements," said Danon again in September 2011 as reported by Haaretz. This same logic was then echoed in the United States when Tea Party representative Joe Walsh (R-Ill) introduced a resolution endorsing annexation also in 2011. Aptly titled, "Supporting Israel's right to annex Judea and Samaria in the event that the Palestinian Authority continues to press for unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations," HR 394 mimicked Danon's rhetoric. It argued that because the Palestinian leadership is abandoning the peace process, Israel is no longer required to abide by its tenets. In essence, Walsh pitched that because the Palestinians were the first to drop Oslo, Israel now had a legal window to annexation.
But because the Oslo accords prohibit either party from initiating "any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," Israel is also guilty of abandoning the interim agreement. Apart from the continual expansion of existing settlements, earlier this year Israel effectively annexed new territory in the West Bank by retroactively legalizing three new outposts, an outright change in the status of three West Bank localities and a flagrant breach of the Oslo Accords. At the time Mondoweiss's Annie Robbins reported in April 2012, "The outposts, Sansana, Rechelim and Bruchin, were never formally authorized when founded in the 1990s and are still considered illegal under international law," yet the Israeli government still re-classified them—unilaterally—ending a ten-year freeze on new settlement construction. Concurrent to regularizing the outposts, Robbins also noted inside of Knesset, ministers overrode a high court ruling on a different illegal settlement, Ulpana, which was slotted for demolition in May 2012. But right-wing Knesset members reached an agreement with the government to stay the eviction and in turn extrajudicially reversed a High Court ruling. Around the same time, while Knesset was out of session a group of 25 ministers met and drafted a series of pro-settlement legislation that allowed for the legalization of another illegal outpost, Migron. The resolution did not pass, but like Ulpana, the ministers flexed their power and made agreements with the government on behalf of the settlers that were in direct contradication to the High Court's orders. Ulpana and Migron therefore marked the pro-settlement bloc's ability to strong arm the Israeli government into annexing swaths of the West Bank.
A few weeks later both Ulpana and Migron were evicted, but right-wing Knesset ministers re-grouped that July, meeting in Hebron to map out the practical steps to reach a "one-state" solution during the second annual Conference for the Application of Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, organized by the "Women in Green," a settler group founded by a mother and daughter originating from Belgium. From the group's website, the conference debated the details of a future Knesset bill for annexation, or "an application of sovereignty":
[A] number of people spoke, including the Chairman of Habayit Hayehudi (the New National Religious Party), the government minister, Rabbi Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz, who called for the application of sovereignty over the entire territory, and not only over the communities or over Area C. According to Minister Hershkowitz, the application of sovereignty over a part of the territory will be interpreted by the other side as the beginning of a surrender of the rest of the area; accordingly, things must be made crystal-clear, and action must be taken for the comprehensive application of sovereignty.
MK Uri Ariel also participated in the Conference, and set forth his political philosophy regarding the future of the area, as he presented a political program that also includes changing the structure of Knesset elections, so that even if the Arabs of Judea and Samaria were to receive citizenship, they could not bring about a dramatic change in the Israeli political map.
The speakers also included Adv. Yitzhak Bam of the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, who analyzed the legal reality in Judea and Samaria, and stated that the issue of the application of sovereignty is not a legal question, but purely political, since there is no other sovereign authority that demands the return of the territory to it, and, in practice, there is a sort of 'sovereignty vacuum' in Judea and Samaria.
Cumulatively, the Hebron "one-state" conference, combined with Israel's legalization of new outposts and policies like the one EI uncovered suggest that, similar to the Palestinians, Israel is exploring new options outside of the Oslo framework. Although unlike the Palestinians who put their UN bid to an international vote, Israel is taking actions that are truly unilateral on the ground, and may again attempt to annex the West Bank through a Knesset bill. While Israeli calls for annexation can be scoffed off as the agenda of a rogue hard-right coalition, when taking into consideration that this group already managed to legalize three new settlements, the plans they outlined in the Hebron one-state conference should not be ignored. Just this past September "the Land of Israel Lobby," an assembly of 40-50 Knesset members "toured the West Bank and called on the government of Israel to adopt the Levy ('Israel is not an occupying power') Report," as Robbins reported.
While on the tour MK Aryeh Eldad linked the loss of Ulpana and Migron to his plight for annexation. Arutz Sheva reported, "Recently we witnessed the destruction of the Ulpana [neighborhood in Beit El] and we saw the Israeli government destroying Migron and we understand that if the Netanyahu government would adopt the legal recommendations of the Levy Report, all these obstacles that prevented the preservation of Migron and the Ulpana could be prevented. We could have saved these settlements," said Eldad.
Palestinian human rights activist Omar Barghouti often says in lectures, "our South Africa moment has arrived," referencing the sea change in international grassroots support for the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. But at the same time there is a quiet, yet public directive from high-ranking members of Israel's ruling coalition outright stating they want to annex the West Bank, and they are building support and strategic plans to make it happen. And so although the Israeli visa stamps that now read "Judea and Samaria only," may not indicate actual Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, it does demonstrate that for Israel, it's annexation moment has arrived.
Drowned, did the Hamas spokesman tell you to deny that the Hamas spokesman has been telling you what to say? Is the first rule of being a Hamas mouthpiece that you don't talk about being a Hamas mouthpiece?
In all seriousness, I don't think you're taking your marching orders from Hamas. I just wish you would extend me the same courtesy of engaging with what I write with an open mind rather than suggesting that I'm being told what to say by someone else. Believe it or not I have no idea what the Iine of the Israeli government is, nor, I think, do any of the many other people I know who tend to view this issue similarly to me.
Extend you the same courtesy of engaging with an open mind? If you go back and look at our exchange, I was engaging an ad hominem attack on B....there was nothing at all of substance in your post, so I replied in kind with satire - that's where the hasbara reference came from. But thanks for engaging me and giving me the opportunity to post those manuals
Ok, if you meant it satirically then you have my apologies. I took the accusation seriously because it's been made seriously on this forum before, and because I have some trouble recognizing satire when the tone doesn't come through in the writing.
As for ad hominem attacks on B, I try to avoid them as a rule, but B sometimes just brings out the worst in me. I'm sure we disagree on this point, but I think my most recent comments regarding the manner in which his arguments progress really make my point well. He just quite often seems less concerned with having a thoughtful discussion, and much more concerned to argue his "side," even when doing so means taking a logically opposite position from the position he's taken ON THE SAME THREAD! That kind of disregard for logic, reason, consistency, sincerity, etc. is worthy of ad hominem attack in my book.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
B, you can't have it both ways. If you're going to say that Hamas is really only concerned with the occupation then you can't turn around and defend a statement that declares a desire to recapture cities lost in '48 (and therefore not part of the "occupation," which began in '67). Conversely, if you're going to defend the legitimacy of Hamas laying claim to cities that fall squarely within Israel's '48 boundaries then you can't turn around and argue, as you repeatedly have done, that Hamas is really only concerned with ending the occupation.
The fact that in a single thread you have now argued both of these mutually exclusive points really makes me doubt the sincerity of your statements. You seem more interested in defending the Palestinian "side" in any argument, regardless of what proposition is being put forward, than in being even minimally consistent.
I am primarily interested in supporting an end to the occupation vis-a-vis the 1967 borders and U.N 242, although I also realize that there's a sound legal argument for Israel's legitimate borders being those on which the 1949 armistice lines stood. Therefore, when a spokesman for Hamas draws attention to this aspect of the issue I won't dismiss his words out of hand, though I do acknowledge he has a point, despite regarding it as unhelpful in helping to end the occupation as it pertains to 242 and the will of the international community.
B, regarding Resolution 181, it was a non-binding resolution, the implementation of which rested on its acceptance by both parties. Since the Palestinians squarely rejected the resolution it became a nullity.
So then, considering that 181 'established the Jewish state’s international legitimacy', and considering that you regard 181 as 'a nullity', where does this leave Israel's legitimacy?
Anyway, let's say for arguments sake that 181 was a nullity. Does this change the fact that 'Resolution 181’s affirmation of the right of Palestine’s Arab population to national self-determination was [not] based on normative law and the democratic principles that grant statehood to the majority population'?
Also, does it change the fact that the whole World 'recognised the remaining Palestinian territory outside the new state’s borders as the equally legitimate patrimony of Palestine’s Arab population on which they were entitled to establish their own state'?
Or are you suggesting that the opinion of the whole World is irrelevant, much as Netanyahu and his thugs recently declared the opinion of the whole World as an irrelevance after the whole World voted to recognize Palestine as a state?
B, you can't have it both ways. If you're going to say that Hamas is really only concerned with the occupation then you can't turn around and defend a statement that declares a desire to recapture cities lost in '48 (and therefore not part of the "occupation," which began in '67). Conversely, if you're going to defend the legitimacy of Hamas laying claim to cities that fall squarely within Israel's '48 boundaries then you can't turn around and argue, as you repeatedly have done, that Hamas is really only concerned with ending the occupation.
The fact that in a single thread you have now argued both of these mutually exclusive points really makes me doubt the sincerity of your statements. You seem more interested in defending the Palestinian "side" in any argument, regardless of what proposition is being put forward, than in being even minimally consistent.
I am primarily interested in supporting an end to the occupation vis-a-vis the 1967 borders and U.N 242, although I also realize that there's a sound legal argument for Israel's legitimate borders being those on which the 1949 armistice lines stood. Therefore, when a spokesman for Hamas draws attention to this aspect of the issue I won't dismiss his words out of hand, though I do acknowledge he has a point, despite regarding it as unhelpful in helping to end the occupation as it pertains to 242 and the will of the international community.
I'm sorry, I'm confused by your response. You say that you recognize that there's a sound legal argument for Israel's legitimate borders being those on which the 1949 armistice lines stood. Then you pivot to Hamas' position regarding this issue, WHICH IS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU JUST SAID. By claiming title to cities that fall within Israel's borders as they stood following the 1949 armistice Hamas is REJECTING the legitimacy of these borders. But then you seem to pivot again by saying that you regard such statements as unhelpful. You seem to be taking 3 different positions in the same paragraph, and I really have no idea what to make of this. I'm not making fun of you; I really don't understand what you're trying to say (although I appreciate what I take to be the overall tone which seems to convey a general rejection of positions that would maintain the conflict based on grievances from '48, rather than seeking to establish peace based on an end to the occupation).
Again, though, you seem to be twisting yourself into ever more convoluted knots simply to avoid agreeing with anything said by anyone you perceive to be "pro-Israel." If your primary interest is in ending the occupation and you believe that doing so should be the basis for a permanent peace settlement, then I think you should be willing to swallow your pride and condemn, without qualification, statements by Hamas that serve to actively maintain grievances that predate the occupation.
And just so I'm not misunderstood, I'm not saying that all such grievances are unfounded, only that Hamas goes much further than mourning past injustices; they actively perpetuate violent conflict based on those grievances. That is precisely why many Israelis don't believe that ending the occupation would bring peace, because Hamas has repeatedly made clear that the grievances that drive their resort to violence predate the occupation, and would therefore continue even after an end to the occupation.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
B, regarding Resolution 181, it was a non-binding resolution, the implementation of which rested on its acceptance by both parties. Since the Palestinians squarely rejected the resolution it became a nullity.
So then, considering that 181 'established the Jewish state’s international legitimacy', and considering that you regard 181 as 'a nullity', where does this leave Israel's legitimacy?
Anyway, let's say for arguments sake that 181 was a nullity. Does this change the fact that 'Resolution 181’s affirmation of the right of Palestine’s Arab population to national self-determination was [not] based on normative law and the democratic principles that grant statehood to the majority population'?
Also, does it change the fact that the whole World 'recognised the remaining Palestinian territory outside the new state’s borders as the equally legitimate patrimony of Palestine’s Arab population on which they were entitled to establish their own state'?
Or are you suggesting that the opinion of the whole World is irrelevant, much as Netanyahu and his thugs recently declared the opinion of the whole World as an irrelevance after the whole World voted to recognize Palestine as a state?
I think Israel's legitimacy is unaffected. The effect of 181 having been rejected, as I see it, was that the specific resolution to the conflict it envisioned (including borders) was rendered null. I don't think that negates the recognition by the International community of the general legitimacy of the Israeli state, i.e., the general legitimacy of the Zionist project, namely a Jewish state within the general territory encompassed by the British Mandate. The same is true, by the way, for the legitimacy of a Palestinian state. Even if this is not the case, however, it's very clear the independant recognition of the State of Israel by individual governments around the world, in addition to subsequent act and statements by international organs, such as the UN, establish Israel's legitimacy beyond doubt.
Regarding the specific borders envisioned, it seems clear to me that 181 concerned the situation as it existed at the time. The rejection of 181 by the Palestinians and the other Arab states, and the resort to war, altered those circumstances. This shift in circumstances was recognized by the international community and has become the basis for what is now considered a just and legitimate resolution of the conflict. This is evident, for example, in the assumptions embodied in Resolution 242, which very clearly recognize the 49' armistice lines as the basis for final borders. To argue, therefore, that 181 establishes the "fact that the whole World recognised the remaining Palestinian territory outside the new state’s borders as the equally legitimate patrimony of Palestine’s Arab population on which they were entitled to establish their own state" is true only insofar as circumstances stood at the time. It no longer remains true (with respect to particular borders).
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
No, I emphatically do not believe that the only way there can be peace is with the abandonment of the Zionist agenda. I am a Zionist, and I'm proud to say so. You (and many others on this forum) have wrongly conflated Zionism with racism/colonianism/expansionism etc. Zionism isn't inherantly any of these things, any more than any other nationalism is inherantly these things.
Zionism is simply the belief in the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination. I firmly believe that peace is possible based on a two state solution that recognizes the legitimate rights of both peoples to national determination within a state of their own.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
No, I emphatically do not believe that the only way there can be peace is with the abandonment of the Zionist agenda. I am a Zionist, and I'm proud to say so. You (and many others on this forum) have wrongly conflated Zionism with racism/colonianism/expansionism etc. Zionism isn't inherantly any of these things, any more than any other nationalism is inherantly these things.
Zionism is simply the belief in the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination. I firmly believe that peace is possible based on a two state solution that recognizes the legitimate rights of both peoples to national determination within a state of their own.
if you want to claim it means otherwise ... so be it ...
then i rephrase the question ...
do you or do you not believe that the only way to peace is the abandonment of the expansionism/colonialism/racist agenda that is currently being perpetrated by the israeli gov't?
No, I emphatically do not believe that the only way there can be peace is with the abandonment of the Zionist agenda. I am a Zionist, and I'm proud to say so. You (and many others on this forum) have wrongly conflated Zionism with racism/colonianism/expansionism etc. Zionism isn't inherantly any of these things, any more than any other nationalism is inherantly these things.
Zionism is simply the belief in the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination. I firmly believe that peace is possible based on a two state solution that recognizes the legitimate rights of both peoples to national determination within a state of their own.
if you want to claim it means otherwise ... so be it ...
then i rephrase the question ...
do you or do you not believe that the only way to peace is the abandonment of the expansionism/colonialism/racist agenda that is currently being perpetrated by the israeli gov't?
When rephrased like that, then yes, with the sole qualification that I don't believe that this is the sole requirement for a peaceful settlement - it's certainly necessary, but I don't think it's sufficient.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
When rephrased like that, then yes, with the sole qualification that I don't believe that this is the sole requirement for a peaceful settlement - it's certainly necessary, but I don't think it's sufficient.
you really think that if israel stopped its current behaviour ... removed it's hold on gaza ... reigned in the extreme settlers ... and were committed to a peace deal that involves a 2 state solution as deemed appropriate by the int'l community that we wouldn't have peace!?? ...
i am guessing that there will still be people that are bitter/vengeful from the past but that - this scenario is 1,000 times better than the conditions by which they live now ... soo ... anyone who's going to mess that up (say Hamas) is not going to be popular amongst palestinians ...
Oh, I agree that things would be much better. I just think that anyone who thinks that there aren't people in Palestinian society who would pursue violence against Israel even after an end to the occupation are seriously misjudging the degree of hatred for Israel that exists among the Palestinians. I agree that this element would likely be a minority, and that if their actions retarded the progress of a tangible peace accord that they would likely become ever less popular. That said, in today's world a small number of people can cause a lot of damage, and if for whatever reason the Palestinian government isn't able to adequately control this element there will come a point at which Israel will feel compelled to take matters into its own hands. The occupation should absolutely end; I'm just pointing out that that won't be a panecea that will instantly bring peace.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
B, you can't have it both ways. If you're going to say that Hamas is really only concerned with the occupation then you can't turn around and defend a statement that declares a desire to recapture cities lost in '48 (and therefore not part of the "occupation," which began in '67). Conversely, if you're going to defend the legitimacy of Hamas laying claim to cities that fall squarely within Israel's '48 boundaries then you can't turn around and argue, as you repeatedly have done, that Hamas is really only concerned with ending the occupation.
The fact that in a single thread you have now argued both of these mutually exclusive points really makes me doubt the sincerity of your statements. You seem more interested in defending the Palestinian "side" in any argument, regardless of what proposition is being put forward, than in being even minimally consistent.
I am primarily interested in supporting an end to the occupation vis-a-vis the 1967 borders and U.N 242, although I also realize that there's a sound legal argument for Israel's legitimate borders being those on which the 1949 armistice lines stood. Therefore, when a spokesman for Hamas draws attention to this aspect of the issue I won't dismiss his words out of hand, though I do acknowledge he has a point, despite regarding it as unhelpful in helping to end the occupation as it pertains to 242 and the will of the international community.
I'm sorry, I'm confused by your response. You say that you recognize that there's a sound legal argument for Israel's legitimate borders being those on which the 1949 armistice lines stood. Then you pivot to Hamas' position regarding this issue, WHICH IS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU JUST SAID. By claiming title to cities that fall within Israel's borders as they stood following the 1949 armistice Hamas is REJECTING the legitimacy of these borders. But then you seem to pivot again by saying that you regard such statements as unhelpful. You seem to be taking 3 different positions in the same paragraph, and I really have no idea what to make of this. I'm not making fun of you; I really don't understand what you're trying to say (although I appreciate what I take to be the overall tone which seems to convey a general rejection of positions that would maintain the conflict based on grievances from '48, rather than seeking to establish peace based on an end to the occupation).
Again, though, you seem to be twisting yourself into ever more convoluted knots simply to avoid agreeing with anything said by anyone you perceive to be "pro-Israel." If your primary interest is in ending the occupation and you believe that doing so should be the basis for a permanent peace settlement, then I think you should be willing to swallow your pride and condemn, without qualification, statements by Hamas that serve to actively maintain grievances that predate the occupation.
And just so I'm not misunderstood, I'm not saying that all such grievances are unfounded, only that Hamas goes much further than mourning past injustices; they actively perpetuate violent conflict based on those grievances. That is precisely why many Israelis don't believe that ending the occupation would bring peace, because Hamas has repeatedly made clear that the grievances that drive their resort to violence predate the occupation, and would therefore continue even after an end to the occupation.
There are members of Hamas who've stated they support U.N 242 as it pertains to the June '67 borders. There are also members of Hamas who point to the legalities preceding 1967, as in U.N 181, and even the original partition resolution.
I won't dismiss these grievances out of hand, because as far as I can tell they carry plenty of weight. This doesn't mean I'm a hypocrite, or am simply confused, as I can see you're so desperate to make me appear. It means there are legal arguments related to pre-'67 that deserve to be addressed/discussed.
Either way, I think it was unhelpful to bring these issues up in his speech, especially just after the Palestinians had managed to gain some substantial ground with the U.N vote. (Not that this was the first time the whole World had voted in favour of the Palestinians and against the occupation - every year a vote is cast on the basis of 242 and every year the results are the same: Israel and the U.S on one side and the whole World on the other).
My main concern is with the Israeli's ending the occupation and abiding by U.N 242, as I've already stated.
You (and many others on this forum) have wrongly conflated Zionism with racism/colonianism/expansionism etc. Zionism isn't inherantly any of these things, any more than any other nationalism is inherantly these things.
Zionism is simply the belief in the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination. I firmly believe that peace is possible based on a two state solution that recognizes the legitimate rights of both peoples to national determination within a state of their own.
Ethnic nationalism. Big difference.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/10/14/fearsome-words/
Hitler 'understood' that peoples had a right to their homeland. The 'national' part of National Socialism was not civic nationalism, the nationalism that calls on French, German, American, Italian or Spanish *citizens* to cherish and defend their countries. It was ethnic nationalism, the nationalism of 'peoples', races, who did not have a homeland, or who had suffered a diaspora or historic wrongs. Hitler held that the German people had suffered both and was threatened with extinction. The Germans wanted their homeland back, all of it. Every other people had its homeland; why not the Germans?
Of course this was nonsense. The 'German people' was a bit of a fiction, and the borders of their 'homeland' were founded largely on historical myths irrelevant to contemporary rights and wrongs. But despite the most awful and obvious fulfilment of Lansing's worst nightmare, we have never abandoned Wilson's and Hitler's endorsement of ethnic nationalism. It infects even our condemnations of 'the Germans' for the Nazi era.
To condemn 'the Germans' means this: even if you'd spent the war in an orphanage because your parents had died in street battles with the Nazi black shirts, you would share in Germany's collective guilt. You share in it not because of anything you have done, but because you were, by birth, a German. We might call this 'collective responsibility', but that's just a respectable name for racial guilt, the guilt of a 'people'. From the rubble of the Nazi empire, the rubbish of ethnic nationalism rises up and takes an honoured place among our orthodoxies. From this rubbish comes the right of a fictitiously collective 'Jewish people' to a 'homeland'.
That link is explicit. The Nazi conception of a Jewish people lies at the heart of Israel's famous right of return. Don't take my word for it. Listen instead to the AMERICAN-ISRAELI COOPERATIVE ENTERPRISE (AICE), which describes itself as "a nonpartisan organization to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship by emphasizing the fundamentals of the alliance - the values our nations share". To explain in what sense 'Jews' have a right to return to their homeland, the AICE states that "At present, the definition is based on Hitler's Nuremberg Laws: the right of Return is granted to any individual with one Jewish grandparent, or who is married to someone with one Jewish grandparent. As a result, thousands of people with no meaningful connection to the Jewish people theoretically have the right to immigrate." AICE neglects to mention that such persons also have the actual right to immigrate, and to obtain citizenship. On the other hand, a stateless Palestinian refugee, perhaps living a precarious existence in France, has no such right of return, even if his ancestors inhabited Palestine itself for a thousand years. Palestine, it seems, is not is the 'homeland' of Palestinians, but only of the Jews.
'Jew', in other words, does not refer to those who espouse Judaism or embrace Jewish culture. 'Jew' means 'of Jewish ancestry'. In virtually every Canadian jurisdiction, ancestry is explicitly cited as a prohibited ground of discrimination. Ancestry is just a contemporary stand-in for the older notion of race and is generally used in references to racial discrimination.(**) Like skin colour, it's something you cannot change, and therefore a particularly repugnant basis for determining civic status.
For the homeland to *belong* to the Jews is for them to have *sovereignty* there. Thus Article 7(a) of Israel's Basic Law stipulates that "A candidates' list shall not participate in the elections to the Knesset if its objects or actions, expressly or by implication, include... negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people." The Jewish people, in other words, are sovereign, and hold the power of life and death over all non-Jewish inhabitants under state control. Lest this seem overdramatic, note how the Israeli ministry of justice commented on a court case in March 2009: "The State of Israel is at war with the Palestinian people, people against people, collective against collective."(***)
So a miracle appears among us. The very ideology of homelands and peoples under whose auspices the Jews were all but exterminated has become the sustaining ideology of Israel, a state devoted to Jewish ethnic sovereignty. This is why we always hear that Israel - not Israelis - has a right to exist. What matters are not the citizens of a state, but the state itself, the totemic icon of 'the Jewish people'. The fatal confusion that legitimized ethnic nationalism at the Paris Peace Conference now legitimizes Israel itself. When Zionists suggest that the French and Germans have a right to their states, they conveniently forget that this means the *inhabitants* of France and Germany, not those of some French or German *ancestry*, not a 'people' in the sense of an ethnic group. (The world was outraged when it suspected that Britain's 'patrial' immigration laws were designed to favor those of ethnically British ancestry.) But 'the Jewish people' have a right to their state, and this is supposed to be some lofty ideal. Why? Because ethnic nationalism has taken on the cloak of civic nationalism, and we are too stupid to notice. Had ethnic nationalism not shed a single drop of blood, we should still be ashamed for crediting its mystique of peoples, historical wrongs, collective vices and virtues, ineluctable destinies. Abstractions and myths that could not even gain entrance to a university's ivory towers flow daily from the lips of supposedly practical people.
...We are so bemused by the lovely vision of peoples determining themselves, we cannot see that ethnic self-determination is, in the real world, a quest for racial sovereignty, not a bid to enter some international folk dancing festival. We take the Zionist adoration of Israel, its commitment to racially Jewish rule of Palestine, as a paean to freedom and human rights. We look up to Israel for precisely what should make us abhor it. The 'self-determination of peoples' is a poison set in the very heart of our humanitarian ideologies. Neutralize it and Israel will lose its moral ascendency.
Ok, so let me see if I've got the gist of this right. You seem to be implying that the first priority should be ending the occupation in accordance with Resolution 242, but that once that happens you would be open to the legitimacy of arguments that explicitly undermine the fundamental presumptions of 242 in that they question the legitimacy of Israel's claim to the territories within it's '49 borders. In short, if I'm understanding you right, you seem to be saying that first lets end the occupation, and then lets just keep on going.
So let me ask you a question? Resolution 242 envisions a permanent peace accord based on the pre-'67 borders. How exactly is it legitimate to hold out a permanent peace with one hand, and then suggest pulling that peace back once you've gotten the concessions you want, i.e., by pulling back its military forces from the territory of a hostile neighbor Israel is inherantly risking its security. Under the 242 framework they would do so in exchange for permanent peace. But what you seem to be saying is that they should do so in exchange for nothing, because once the occupation is ended then everyone can just move on to the next grievance.
Again, it's simply inconsistent to argue for an end to the occupation based on 242, and at the same time accept the validity of purportedly legal arguments premised on the negation of the assumptions underlying 242. Either 242 has it right or it doesn't. You can't have your cake and eat it too. :nono: (I really like this "nonono"! Gets me in touch with my inner Mutombo. )
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Oh, I agree that things would be much better. I just think that anyone who thinks that there aren't people in Palestinian society who would pursue violence against Israel even after an end to the occupation are seriously misjudging the degree of hatred for Israel that exists among the Palestinians. I agree that this element would likely be a minority, and that if their actions retarded the progress of a tangible peace accord that they would likely become ever less popular. That said, in today's world a small number of people can cause a lot of damage, and if for whatever reason the Palestinian government isn't able to adequately control this element there will come a point at which Israel will feel compelled to take matters into its own hands. The occupation should absolutely end; I'm just pointing out that that won't be a panecea that will instantly bring peace.
And this works both ways. But for some reason you've neglected to mention it.
You claim that even if Israel suddenly ceases being a rogue state, and begins abiding by international law by withdrawing to the '67 borders, that the Palestinians - even only a minority of Palestinians - will continue using violence against the Israeli's. And that somehow this 'fact' (insert 'conjecture') is what's preventing a peaceful settlement. Although you fail to mention that the biggest percentage of violent incidents hasn't come from the Palestinians, but it's come from the Israeli's.
Even if you take the IDF out of the equation, the settlers have carried out more acts of violence than the Palestinians. viewtopic.php?f=13&t=194387&hilit=+SETTLERS#p4577643 Settler violence is a daily occurrence. Beatings, stabbings, shootings, destruction of property - this stuff goes on every day. And yet you want us to believe that it's the Palestinians who will likely upset any peace between the two parties?
Once again, trying to turn reality on it's head.
Ok, so let me see if I've got the gist of this right. You seem to be implying that the first priority should be ending the occupation in accordance with Resolution 242, but that once that happens you would be open to the legitimacy of arguments that explicitly undermine the fundamental presumptions of 242 in that they question the legitimacy of Israel's claim to the territories within it's '49 borders. In short, if I'm understanding you right, you seem to be saying that first lets end the occupation, and then lets just keep on going.
So let me ask you a question? Resolution 242 envisions a permanent peace accord based on the pre-'67 borders. How exactly is it legitimate to hold out a permanent peace with one hand, and then suggest pulling that peace back once you've gotten the concessions you want, i.e., by pulling back its military forces from the territory of a hostile neighbor Israel is inherantly risking its security. Under the 242 framework they would do so in exchange for permanent peace. But what you seem to be saying is that they should do so in exchange for nothing, because once the occupation is ended then everyone can just move on to the next grievance.
Again, it's simply inconsistent to argue for an end to the occupation based on 242, and at the same time accept the validity of purportedly legal arguments premised on the negation of the assumptions underlying 242. Either 242 has it right or it doesn't. You can't have your cake and eat it too. :nono: (I really like this "nonono"! Gets me in touch with my inner Mutombo. )
I said there are legal arguments pertaining to 181 that deserve to be heard. Nothing complicated about that. You can read my words above again if you're having difficulty understanding them.
What's that law about internet arguments always coming down to a resort to Hitler?
I really don't feel like getting into this argument with you. Israel is certainly not the only state on earth that envisions itself as a democratic state with a majority population defining the character of the state and a legal regime that respects the rights of the minority. If you've got a problem with all such states, fine. But I suspect that there are many such states that you have no problem with. Israel is certainly not a perfect democracy, but that doesn't mean that it can't in theory be a democratic state defined by a Jewish majority that respects the rights of its various non-Jewish minorities. I simply fail to see why this state of affairs is inherantly objectionable.
And I'm telling you that 242 supercedes 181. If you're arguing for the one you can't also be arguing for the other.
I'm not trying to turn reality on its head. I'm responding to the conversation as its progressed. The discussion has centered around Hamas, therefore I've discussed Hamas. I don't deny that there is settler violence; in fact I'm appalled by it, and think that Israel's failure to properly deal with it is fundamentally undermining the rule of law in the country. That said, within it's borders (that is excluding the occupied territories, which are governed by a different legal/police regime) Israel has a much better record than do the Palestinians at controlling fringe elements. Based on that record I'm assuming that in the context of a peace accord, once there is no longer an occupation and all the former settlers are living under the regular Israeli legal regime, Israel will be the party that will continue to do a better job of controlling its violent fringe. Perhaps I'm wrong about that. It's possible. Point is, I'm not trying to conceal anything or obfuscate reality. Unlike you I'm just not fixated on a single point (ISRAEL IS HITLER'S EVIL STEP-MOTHER WHO EATS PUPPIES FOR BREAKFAST LUNCH AND DINNER!!!), so I don't feel the compulsive need to mention that point in every one of my posts.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
B, let's face it. I've gotten you involved in an argument that actually requires you to think for yourself rather than just regurgitating articles ad nauseum, and you evidently don't quite know how to respond. Take some time. Think it through. Read up some. Either you're for 242 or you're not. You decide.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
B, let's face it. I've gotten you involved in an argument that actually requires you to think for yourself rather than just regurgitating articles ad nauseum, and you evidently don't quite know how to respond. Take some time. Think it through. Read up some. Either you're for 242 or you're not. You decide.
I've already stated that I am - twice on the previous page.
Comments
I have spoken for myself, and I've supported what I've said with source material based on factual information.
Though I can see why you'd prefer to avoid such things and simply engage in swapping personal opinions instead.
Benjamin Netanyahu's tough words were likely to deepen the rift between Israel and some of its closest allies, particularly in Europe, that has emerged since the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted in favour of Palestinian independence last month. In a sign of the tense relations, European Union foreign ministers were gathered in Brussels to condemn new settlement construction that Netanyahu has authorized in response to the U.N. decision.
Speaking to foreign reporters, Netanyahu accused the international community of having double standards, condemning not-yet-built settlements in the West Bank while standing quiet during a historic visit to the Gaza Strip by Hamas' exiled leader, Khaled Mashaal.
Making his first trip to the Hamas-ruled territory over the weekend, Mashaal delivered a series of speeches to throngs of supporters vowing to wipe Israel off the map. The visit underscored Hamas' rising clout and regional acceptance since its eight-day conflict with Israel last month.
Netanyahu also directed his ire at Hamas' rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, for not speaking out.
"This weekend the leader of Hamas, sitting next to the Hamas leader of Gaza, a man who praised Osama Bin Laden, this weekend openly called for the destruction of Israel. Where was the outrage? Where were the U.N. resolutions? Where was President Abbas?" Netanyahu said.
"Why weren't Palestinian diplomats summoned to European and other capitals to explain why the PA president not only refused to condemn this but actually declared his intention to unite with Hamas. There was nothing, there was silence and it was deafening silence," he added.
Netanyahu has long complained that the world unfairly singles out Israel for criticism. In Monday's address, he accused the United Nations of passing an unbalanced resolution that supported Palestinian independence but did not address Israeli security concerns.
The U.N. resolution recognized a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. Just eight countries sided with Israel in opposing the vote.
Although it does not end Israel's occupation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, the resolution gave an international endorsement to the Palestinian position on the borders between Israel and a future Palestine. It also amounted to a broad condemnation of Israeli settlements in the two areas. Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005.
Netanyahu, who rejects a return to Israel's 1967 lines, responded to the U.N. resolution with plans to build thousands of new homes in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The most contentious plan is to develop a corridor linking east Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim, one of the largest Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The Palestinians say this project, known as E1, would deal a death blow to any hopes for peace since it would separate the West Bank from east Jerusalem, their hoped-for capital, and drive a deep wedge between the northern and southern parts of the West Bank by creating a string of settlements jutting nearly halfway across the West Bank.
Israeli officials say construction on the E1 project is years away. But the country has come under fierce criticism by its closest allies, the U.S. and major countries in Western Europe.
Last week, a string of Israeli ambassadors were summoned for official reprimand in European capitals, and on Monday, EU foreign ministers gathered in Brussels to discuss a response to the plan.
Sweden's foreign minister, Carl Bildt, said the Israeli construction plans have caused "extreme concern" in the 27-nation EU. "What the Israelis did on E1 has shifted opinions in Europe," Bildt said as he arrived for the meeting. "I don't think the Israelis are aware of this."
The Palestinians say they turned to the U.N. in frustration after a four-year freeze in peace efforts under Netanyahu. The Palestinians say they will not resume talks unless Netanyahu halts settlement construction and accepts the 1967 lines as the basis for talks.
Netanyahu played down the international criticism and blamed the Palestinians for the impasse. He noted that a 10-month partial settlement freeze he imposed in 2010 had failed to restart negotiations.
"The reason why the Palestinians avoided negotiations for the past four years is a very simple one. They avoided negotiations because they were willing to take concessions from Israel but they were not prepared to make concessions to Israel," he said.
Netanyahu said that negotiations should resume without any conditions, and even held out the possibility of abandoning the E1 plan.
"We remain committed and this is what we prefer, a bilateral negotiation without preconditions in which all these questions can be raised, that is our preference and I hope the Palestinian Authority will go that route because it is better for them and it is better for us," he said.
While Netanyahu's term has been characterized by tensions with Israel's allies, he remains popular at home and appears set to win a new term as head of a hard-line coalition in parliamentary elections next month.
Netanyahu told the audience he had made great gains during his term. He claimed he had helped draw attention to Iran's suspect nuclear program, beefed up Israel's cybersecurity and missile defences, and fortified Israel's southern border with Egypt to prevent militant attacks and waves of African migrants from entering the country.
Yet in a moment of candour, he signalled that his sometimes rocky relations with President Barack Obama could have been handled better. "Who doesn't have regrets?"
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Ob ... c-2012.htm
"The West Bank, Gaza, the 1948 territories [Israel] - these are Palestinian lands, they are all Palestine. Not one part will be separated from any other part, and whoever thinks that Gaza can be separated from the West Bank is mistaken. Gaza and the West Bank cannot surrender Haifa, Jaffa, Beersheba and Safed [Israeli cities]."
"The right of return of all the refugees, the uprooted and the expelled, to Palestinian land - in Gaza, in the West Bank, in the 1948 territories [Israel] - the right of return is sacred to us, and we will not give it up...In this context I would like to say that this is an unshakable principle of Hamas. There will be neither a permanent settlement for refugees nor an alternative homeland. There is no substitute for Palestine..."
Interesting that the four towns mentioned in the above piece in the 'Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs' webpage all have the parenthesis 'Israeli cities' placed after them.
Whereas, according to Wiki:
Haifa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haifa#British_Mandate
Under the British Mandate, Haifa [...] was then home to approximately 20,000 inhabitants 96 percent of them Arabs (82 percent Muslim and 14 percent Christian), and four percent Jews.
(Can't see what the town's proposed status was under the mandate)
Jaffa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa#1947 ... d_1948_War
'In 1947, the UN Special Commission on Palestine recommended that Jaffa be included in the planned Jewish state. Due to the large Arab majority, however, it was instead designated as part of the Arab state in the 1947 UN Partition Plan.'
Beersheba
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beersheba# ... andate_era
'The 1947 UN Partition Plan included Beersheba in the territory allotted to the proposed Arab state as the city's population of 4,000 was primarily Arab.'
Safad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safed
'Safed remained a mixed city during the British Mandate for Palestine...'
BOOYAH!
So much anger. Were you literally frothing at the mouth when you typed that?
Does your anger stem from learning that the whole World - except the U.S - supports a Palestinian state, and is opposed to the Israeli occupation?
Where have I tried to muddy the water? The above article claimed that the Hamas spokesman wished to see Israel wiped off the map. He didn't. And I pointed that out, point by point, by referring to the fact he referred repeatedly to the '1948 territories', and those cities that were a part of the '1948 territories' which legally belong to the Palestinians.
As for those places being inside 'Israel proper', how do you come to that conclusion? If the legitimacy of Israel rests on the Partition Plan, then how do you suppose the areas that fall outside of the territory allotted to Israel, and that Israel captured in 1948, constitute 'Israel proper'?
What are your thoughts on the following? And feel free to use bold type in your response if you think it will bolster your argument:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n16/henry-sieg ... ocess-scam
'UN General Assembly Partition Resolution 181 of 1947, which established the Jewish state’s international legitimacy, also recognised the remaining Palestinian territory outside the new state’s borders as the equally legitimate patrimony of Palestine’s Arab population on which they were entitled to establish their own state, and it mapped the borders of that territory with great precision. Resolution 181’s affirmation of the right of Palestine’s Arab population to national self-determination was based on normative law and the democratic principles that grant statehood to the majority population. (At the time, Arabs constituted two-thirds of the population in Palestine.) This right does not evaporate because of delays in its implementation.'
...In the course of a war launched by Arab countries that sought to prevent the implementation of the UN partition resolution, Israel enlarged its territory by 50 per cent. If it is illegal to acquire territory as a result of war, then the question now cannot conceivably be how much additional Palestinian territory Israel may confiscate, but rather how much of the territory it acquired in the course of the war of 1948 it is allowed to retain. At the very least, if ‘adjustments’ are to be made to the 1949 armistice line, these should be made on Israel’s side of that line, not the Palestinians’.
...The problem is not, as Israelis often claim, that Palestinians do not know how to compromise. (Another former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, famously complained that ‘Palestinians take and take while Israel gives and gives.’) That is an indecent charge, since the Palestinians made much the most far-reaching compromise of all when the PLO formally accepted the legitimacy of Israel within the 1949 armistice border. With that concession, Palestinians ceded their claim to more than half the territory that the UN’s partition resolution had assigned to its Arab inhabitants. They have never received any credit for this wrenching concession, made years before Israel agreed that Palestinians had a right to statehood in any part of Palestine. The notion that further border adjustments should be made at the expense of the 22 per cent of the territory that remains to the Palestinians is deeply offensive to them, and understandably so.
Nonetheless, the Palestinians agreed at the Camp David summit to adjustments to the pre-1967 border that would allow large numbers of West Bank settlers – about 70 per cent – to remain within the Jewish state, provided they received comparable territory on Israel’s side of the border. Barak rejected this.'
The fact that in a single thread you have now argued both of these mutually exclusive points really makes me doubt the sincerity of your statements. You seem more interested in defending the Palestinian "side" in any argument, regardless of what proposition is being put forward, than in being even minimally consistent.
Drowned, did the Hamas spokesman tell you to deny that the Hamas spokesman has been telling you what to say? Is the first rule of being a Hamas mouthpiece that you don't talk about being a Hamas mouthpiece?
In all seriousness, I don't think you're taking your marching orders from Hamas. I just wish you would extend me the same courtesy of engaging with what I write with an open mind rather than suggesting that I'm being told what to say by someone else. Believe it or not I have no idea what the Iine of the Israeli government is, nor, I think, do any of the many other people I know who tend to view this issue similarly to me.
So, yet again, we have a situation where you are variously arguing two mutually exclusive propositions. :fp: I have to cover my eyes. Your inconsistency is too much to bear. :fp:
Anyway....
I honestly think that Mashaal's emboldened speeches are not very helpful...any display of bravado is easily flipped to aggression by Israel, so it's somewhat ill-advised....still, Hamas feel they've won a couple of major victories of late, they'd be foolish not to use it for political gain in Gaza. The turnout for their celebrations show pretty solid support....and honestly, I can't blame the people for feeling a bit uppity about their leaders right now. But Israel would have you think that Hamas is a major threat to it's existence, as shown by the conjecture you used earlier to extrapolate what will happen when Hamas influence on the West Bank results in missiles raining down on every corner of Israel :roll:
We're to believe that it is Israel's existence being threatened by the West Bank.....while Israel begins going ahead with plans to further carve up the West Bank with the E1 settlement (some say cut it in half)....and are still pushing to delegitimize a Palestinian state, going so far as alter passport stamps for travel in the occupied West Bank from saying "Palestinian Authority only", to "Judea and Samaria only" as of late November. http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali ... -judea-and ....
.....sounds like Israel's hardline MK's are feeling the heat from the international community and are doubling up their efforts to destroy any hope of a two state solution.
Israel’s annexation moment has arrived
by Allison Deger on December 6, 2012
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/12/israels-a ... rived.html
Earlier this week the Electronic Intifada (EI) published two articles on Israel's "creeping annexation" of the West Bank supported by pictures of an entry visa on a passport that read "Judea and Samaria only," which EI argued re-classified the West Bank as part of Israel. For travelers entering through Jordan since 2009 Ali Abunimah noted some have received restricted visas that only permit entry to the West Bank, barring visitors from Jerusalem and Israel. Before this week those visas were known to have stamps that stated, "Palestinian Authority only." By using the language of "Judea and Samaria," a reference to the biblical heartland of Eretz Yisrael and the name of the current Israeli administrative district in the West Bank that serves the settlements, the Jewish state is de facto claiming sovereignty over occupied Palestinian land. This change in status is accompanied by increasing calls from within the government to formalize Greater Israel, and it just may indicate that Israel is finally planning to formally annex the West Bank.
While the idea of annexation has floated through the Israeli government since 1969, after last year’s Palestinian UN bid the call to pass legislation to absorb the West Bank jumped from whispers to policy. In September 2011 Knesset party leaders from Likud, Shas and the National Union sent a letter to Netanyahu demanding he annex the West Bank as a punitive measure for the Palestinian "unilateral" statehood bid, as well as cut aid the Palestinian Authority (PA), cancel PA visa privileges and prohibit any Palestinian construction in areas under Israeli security control. "The PA's UN bid on unilateral recognition is a blunt breach of those agreements, which have, in the last 18 years, taken their severe toll on us," said the letter. Continuing, if Israel does not annex the West Bank it will "completely lose its deterrence, thus stimulating the Palestinians to continue their actions against it in the international arena," and:
In fact, the international damage that Israel could suffer in the wake of the UN vote is significantly smaller than that it would suffer if it doesn't follow up on the principle you set a decade ago – 'If they give, they'll get; if they don't give, they get nothing.'
That same month Danny Danon (Likud) introduced a Knesset bill to officially annex the West Bank and cut Israeli funding to the PA. "If the Palestinian Authority wishes to proceed on this reckless path and bring further instability to the region, Israel cannot continue to pour funds into this sinking ship of failed leadership," said Danon in September 2011 after proposing the bill. For Israeli officials, the 2011 bid was viewed as a breach of the Oslo Accords, which bars any change in the legal status of the West Bank until final status negotiations are reached. In light of what Israel considered to be the Palestinians sandbagging the negotiations process, a block of hard-liners then in turn backed Danon's proposal, however the Knesset did not pass the resolution.
In addition to acquiring new territory, annexation would also relieve Israel of its financial obligations as an occupying power under international law. In Danon's bill, the fiscal benefits of annexation were listed as a major coup. "The funding agreements with the PA were reached with the hope that their leaders would work to create an environment of lasting peace and security with Israel. Given that it is clear that the Palestinians have no such desire, Israel must no longer be required to stand by these arrangements," said Danon again in September 2011 as reported by Haaretz. This same logic was then echoed in the United States when Tea Party representative Joe Walsh (R-Ill) introduced a resolution endorsing annexation also in 2011. Aptly titled, "Supporting Israel's right to annex Judea and Samaria in the event that the Palestinian Authority continues to press for unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations," HR 394 mimicked Danon's rhetoric. It argued that because the Palestinian leadership is abandoning the peace process, Israel is no longer required to abide by its tenets. In essence, Walsh pitched that because the Palestinians were the first to drop Oslo, Israel now had a legal window to annexation.
But because the Oslo accords prohibit either party from initiating "any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," Israel is also guilty of abandoning the interim agreement. Apart from the continual expansion of existing settlements, earlier this year Israel effectively annexed new territory in the West Bank by retroactively legalizing three new outposts, an outright change in the status of three West Bank localities and a flagrant breach of the Oslo Accords. At the time Mondoweiss's Annie Robbins reported in April 2012, "The outposts, Sansana, Rechelim and Bruchin, were never formally authorized when founded in the 1990s and are still considered illegal under international law," yet the Israeli government still re-classified them—unilaterally—ending a ten-year freeze on new settlement construction. Concurrent to regularizing the outposts, Robbins also noted inside of Knesset, ministers overrode a high court ruling on a different illegal settlement, Ulpana, which was slotted for demolition in May 2012. But right-wing Knesset members reached an agreement with the government to stay the eviction and in turn extrajudicially reversed a High Court ruling. Around the same time, while Knesset was out of session a group of 25 ministers met and drafted a series of pro-settlement legislation that allowed for the legalization of another illegal outpost, Migron. The resolution did not pass, but like Ulpana, the ministers flexed their power and made agreements with the government on behalf of the settlers that were in direct contradication to the High Court's orders. Ulpana and Migron therefore marked the pro-settlement bloc's ability to strong arm the Israeli government into annexing swaths of the West Bank.
A few weeks later both Ulpana and Migron were evicted, but right-wing Knesset ministers re-grouped that July, meeting in Hebron to map out the practical steps to reach a "one-state" solution during the second annual Conference for the Application of Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, organized by the "Women in Green," a settler group founded by a mother and daughter originating from Belgium. From the group's website, the conference debated the details of a future Knesset bill for annexation, or "an application of sovereignty":
[A] number of people spoke, including the Chairman of Habayit Hayehudi (the New National Religious Party), the government minister, Rabbi Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz, who called for the application of sovereignty over the entire territory, and not only over the communities or over Area C. According to Minister Hershkowitz, the application of sovereignty over a part of the territory will be interpreted by the other side as the beginning of a surrender of the rest of the area; accordingly, things must be made crystal-clear, and action must be taken for the comprehensive application of sovereignty.
MK Uri Ariel also participated in the Conference, and set forth his political philosophy regarding the future of the area, as he presented a political program that also includes changing the structure of Knesset elections, so that even if the Arabs of Judea and Samaria were to receive citizenship, they could not bring about a dramatic change in the Israeli political map.
The speakers also included Adv. Yitzhak Bam of the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, who analyzed the legal reality in Judea and Samaria, and stated that the issue of the application of sovereignty is not a legal question, but purely political, since there is no other sovereign authority that demands the return of the territory to it, and, in practice, there is a sort of 'sovereignty vacuum' in Judea and Samaria.
Cumulatively, the Hebron "one-state" conference, combined with Israel's legalization of new outposts and policies like the one EI uncovered suggest that, similar to the Palestinians, Israel is exploring new options outside of the Oslo framework. Although unlike the Palestinians who put their UN bid to an international vote, Israel is taking actions that are truly unilateral on the ground, and may again attempt to annex the West Bank through a Knesset bill. While Israeli calls for annexation can be scoffed off as the agenda of a rogue hard-right coalition, when taking into consideration that this group already managed to legalize three new settlements, the plans they outlined in the Hebron one-state conference should not be ignored. Just this past September "the Land of Israel Lobby," an assembly of 40-50 Knesset members "toured the West Bank and called on the government of Israel to adopt the Levy ('Israel is not an occupying power') Report," as Robbins reported.
While on the tour MK Aryeh Eldad linked the loss of Ulpana and Migron to his plight for annexation. Arutz Sheva reported, "Recently we witnessed the destruction of the Ulpana [neighborhood in Beit El] and we saw the Israeli government destroying Migron and we understand that if the Netanyahu government would adopt the legal recommendations of the Levy Report, all these obstacles that prevented the preservation of Migron and the Ulpana could be prevented. We could have saved these settlements," said Eldad.
Palestinian human rights activist Omar Barghouti often says in lectures, "our South Africa moment has arrived," referencing the sea change in international grassroots support for the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. But at the same time there is a quiet, yet public directive from high-ranking members of Israel's ruling coalition outright stating they want to annex the West Bank, and they are building support and strategic plans to make it happen. And so although the Israeli visa stamps that now read "Judea and Samaria only," may not indicate actual Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, it does demonstrate that for Israel, it's annexation moment has arrived.
As for ad hominem attacks on B, I try to avoid them as a rule, but B sometimes just brings out the worst in me. I'm sure we disagree on this point, but I think my most recent comments regarding the manner in which his arguments progress really make my point well. He just quite often seems less concerned with having a thoughtful discussion, and much more concerned to argue his "side," even when doing so means taking a logically opposite position from the position he's taken ON THE SAME THREAD! That kind of disregard for logic, reason, consistency, sincerity, etc. is worthy of ad hominem attack in my book.
I am primarily interested in supporting an end to the occupation vis-a-vis the 1967 borders and U.N 242, although I also realize that there's a sound legal argument for Israel's legitimate borders being those on which the 1949 armistice lines stood. Therefore, when a spokesman for Hamas draws attention to this aspect of the issue I won't dismiss his words out of hand, though I do acknowledge he has a point, despite regarding it as unhelpful in helping to end the occupation as it pertains to 242 and the will of the international community.
So then, considering that 181 'established the Jewish state’s international legitimacy', and considering that you regard 181 as 'a nullity', where does this leave Israel's legitimacy?
Anyway, let's say for arguments sake that 181 was a nullity. Does this change the fact that 'Resolution 181’s affirmation of the right of Palestine’s Arab population to national self-determination was [not] based on normative law and the democratic principles that grant statehood to the majority population'?
Also, does it change the fact that the whole World 'recognised the remaining Palestinian territory outside the new state’s borders as the equally legitimate patrimony of Palestine’s Arab population on which they were entitled to establish their own state'?
Or are you suggesting that the opinion of the whole World is irrelevant, much as Netanyahu and his thugs recently declared the opinion of the whole World as an irrelevance after the whole World voted to recognize Palestine as a state?
Do you or do you not believe that ultimately - the only way there can be peace is with the abandonment of the zionist agenda?
I'm sorry, I'm confused by your response. You say that you recognize that there's a sound legal argument for Israel's legitimate borders being those on which the 1949 armistice lines stood. Then you pivot to Hamas' position regarding this issue, WHICH IS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU JUST SAID. By claiming title to cities that fall within Israel's borders as they stood following the 1949 armistice Hamas is REJECTING the legitimacy of these borders. But then you seem to pivot again by saying that you regard such statements as unhelpful. You seem to be taking 3 different positions in the same paragraph, and I really have no idea what to make of this. I'm not making fun of you; I really don't understand what you're trying to say (although I appreciate what I take to be the overall tone which seems to convey a general rejection of positions that would maintain the conflict based on grievances from '48, rather than seeking to establish peace based on an end to the occupation).
Again, though, you seem to be twisting yourself into ever more convoluted knots simply to avoid agreeing with anything said by anyone you perceive to be "pro-Israel." If your primary interest is in ending the occupation and you believe that doing so should be the basis for a permanent peace settlement, then I think you should be willing to swallow your pride and condemn, without qualification, statements by Hamas that serve to actively maintain grievances that predate the occupation.
And just so I'm not misunderstood, I'm not saying that all such grievances are unfounded, only that Hamas goes much further than mourning past injustices; they actively perpetuate violent conflict based on those grievances. That is precisely why many Israelis don't believe that ending the occupation would bring peace, because Hamas has repeatedly made clear that the grievances that drive their resort to violence predate the occupation, and would therefore continue even after an end to the occupation.
I think Israel's legitimacy is unaffected. The effect of 181 having been rejected, as I see it, was that the specific resolution to the conflict it envisioned (including borders) was rendered null. I don't think that negates the recognition by the International community of the general legitimacy of the Israeli state, i.e., the general legitimacy of the Zionist project, namely a Jewish state within the general territory encompassed by the British Mandate. The same is true, by the way, for the legitimacy of a Palestinian state. Even if this is not the case, however, it's very clear the independant recognition of the State of Israel by individual governments around the world, in addition to subsequent act and statements by international organs, such as the UN, establish Israel's legitimacy beyond doubt.
Regarding the specific borders envisioned, it seems clear to me that 181 concerned the situation as it existed at the time. The rejection of 181 by the Palestinians and the other Arab states, and the resort to war, altered those circumstances. This shift in circumstances was recognized by the international community and has become the basis for what is now considered a just and legitimate resolution of the conflict. This is evident, for example, in the assumptions embodied in Resolution 242, which very clearly recognize the 49' armistice lines as the basis for final borders. To argue, therefore, that 181 establishes the "fact that the whole World recognised the remaining Palestinian territory outside the new state’s borders as the equally legitimate patrimony of Palestine’s Arab population on which they were entitled to establish their own state" is true only insofar as circumstances stood at the time. It no longer remains true (with respect to particular borders).
No, I emphatically do not believe that the only way there can be peace is with the abandonment of the Zionist agenda. I am a Zionist, and I'm proud to say so. You (and many others on this forum) have wrongly conflated Zionism with racism/colonianism/expansionism etc. Zionism isn't inherantly any of these things, any more than any other nationalism is inherantly these things.
Zionism is simply the belief in the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination. I firmly believe that peace is possible based on a two state solution that recognizes the legitimate rights of both peoples to national determination within a state of their own.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism
if you want to claim it means otherwise ... so be it ...
then i rephrase the question ...
do you or do you not believe that the only way to peace is the abandonment of the expansionism/colonialism/racist agenda that is currently being perpetrated by the israeli gov't?
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/12/11/ ... -in-kuzaa/
israel upholding the ceasefire
http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/ ... s-in-gaza/
palestianian terrorist fisherman trying to build aquatic military installation
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/12/israel-vi ... table.html
When rephrased like that, then yes, with the sole qualification that I don't believe that this is the sole requirement for a peaceful settlement - it's certainly necessary, but I don't think it's sufficient.
you really think that if israel stopped its current behaviour ... removed it's hold on gaza ... reigned in the extreme settlers ... and were committed to a peace deal that involves a 2 state solution as deemed appropriate by the int'l community that we wouldn't have peace!?? ...
i am guessing that there will still be people that are bitter/vengeful from the past but that - this scenario is 1,000 times better than the conditions by which they live now ... soo ... anyone who's going to mess that up (say Hamas) is not going to be popular amongst palestinians ...
There are members of Hamas who've stated they support U.N 242 as it pertains to the June '67 borders. There are also members of Hamas who point to the legalities preceding 1967, as in U.N 181, and even the original partition resolution.
I won't dismiss these grievances out of hand, because as far as I can tell they carry plenty of weight. This doesn't mean I'm a hypocrite, or am simply confused, as I can see you're so desperate to make me appear. It means there are legal arguments related to pre-'67 that deserve to be addressed/discussed.
Either way, I think it was unhelpful to bring these issues up in his speech, especially just after the Palestinians had managed to gain some substantial ground with the U.N vote. (Not that this was the first time the whole World had voted in favour of the Palestinians and against the occupation - every year a vote is cast on the basis of 242 and every year the results are the same: Israel and the U.S on one side and the whole World on the other).
My main concern is with the Israeli's ending the occupation and abiding by U.N 242, as I've already stated.
Ethnic nationalism. Big difference.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/10/14/fearsome-words/
Hitler 'understood' that peoples had a right to their homeland. The 'national' part of National Socialism was not civic nationalism, the nationalism that calls on French, German, American, Italian or Spanish *citizens* to cherish and defend their countries. It was ethnic nationalism, the nationalism of 'peoples', races, who did not have a homeland, or who had suffered a diaspora or historic wrongs. Hitler held that the German people had suffered both and was threatened with extinction. The Germans wanted their homeland back, all of it. Every other people had its homeland; why not the Germans?
Of course this was nonsense. The 'German people' was a bit of a fiction, and the borders of their 'homeland' were founded largely on historical myths irrelevant to contemporary rights and wrongs. But despite the most awful and obvious fulfilment of Lansing's worst nightmare, we have never abandoned Wilson's and Hitler's endorsement of ethnic nationalism. It infects even our condemnations of 'the Germans' for the Nazi era.
To condemn 'the Germans' means this: even if you'd spent the war in an orphanage because your parents had died in street battles with the Nazi black shirts, you would share in Germany's collective guilt. You share in it not because of anything you have done, but because you were, by birth, a German. We might call this 'collective responsibility', but that's just a respectable name for racial guilt, the guilt of a 'people'. From the rubble of the Nazi empire, the rubbish of ethnic nationalism rises up and takes an honoured place among our orthodoxies. From this rubbish comes the right of a fictitiously collective 'Jewish people' to a 'homeland'.
That link is explicit. The Nazi conception of a Jewish people lies at the heart of Israel's famous right of return. Don't take my word for it. Listen instead to the AMERICAN-ISRAELI COOPERATIVE ENTERPRISE (AICE), which describes itself as "a nonpartisan organization to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship by emphasizing the fundamentals of the alliance - the values our nations share". To explain in what sense 'Jews' have a right to return to their homeland, the AICE states that "At present, the definition is based on Hitler's Nuremberg Laws: the right of Return is granted to any individual with one Jewish grandparent, or who is married to someone with one Jewish grandparent. As a result, thousands of people with no meaningful connection to the Jewish people theoretically have the right to immigrate." AICE neglects to mention that such persons also have the actual right to immigrate, and to obtain citizenship. On the other hand, a stateless Palestinian refugee, perhaps living a precarious existence in France, has no such right of return, even if his ancestors inhabited Palestine itself for a thousand years. Palestine, it seems, is not is the 'homeland' of Palestinians, but only of the Jews.
'Jew', in other words, does not refer to those who espouse Judaism or embrace Jewish culture. 'Jew' means 'of Jewish ancestry'. In virtually every Canadian jurisdiction, ancestry is explicitly cited as a prohibited ground of discrimination. Ancestry is just a contemporary stand-in for the older notion of race and is generally used in references to racial discrimination.(**) Like skin colour, it's something you cannot change, and therefore a particularly repugnant basis for determining civic status.
For the homeland to *belong* to the Jews is for them to have *sovereignty* there. Thus Article 7(a) of Israel's Basic Law stipulates that "A candidates' list shall not participate in the elections to the Knesset if its objects or actions, expressly or by implication, include... negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people." The Jewish people, in other words, are sovereign, and hold the power of life and death over all non-Jewish inhabitants under state control. Lest this seem overdramatic, note how the Israeli ministry of justice commented on a court case in March 2009: "The State of Israel is at war with the Palestinian people, people against people, collective against collective."(***)
So a miracle appears among us. The very ideology of homelands and peoples under whose auspices the Jews were all but exterminated has become the sustaining ideology of Israel, a state devoted to Jewish ethnic sovereignty. This is why we always hear that Israel - not Israelis - has a right to exist. What matters are not the citizens of a state, but the state itself, the totemic icon of 'the Jewish people'. The fatal confusion that legitimized ethnic nationalism at the Paris Peace Conference now legitimizes Israel itself. When Zionists suggest that the French and Germans have a right to their states, they conveniently forget that this means the *inhabitants* of France and Germany, not those of some French or German *ancestry*, not a 'people' in the sense of an ethnic group. (The world was outraged when it suspected that Britain's 'patrial' immigration laws were designed to favor those of ethnically British ancestry.) But 'the Jewish people' have a right to their state, and this is supposed to be some lofty ideal. Why? Because ethnic nationalism has taken on the cloak of civic nationalism, and we are too stupid to notice. Had ethnic nationalism not shed a single drop of blood, we should still be ashamed for crediting its mystique of peoples, historical wrongs, collective vices and virtues, ineluctable destinies. Abstractions and myths that could not even gain entrance to a university's ivory towers flow daily from the lips of supposedly practical people.
...We are so bemused by the lovely vision of peoples determining themselves, we cannot see that ethnic self-determination is, in the real world, a quest for racial sovereignty, not a bid to enter some international folk dancing festival. We take the Zionist adoration of Israel, its commitment to racially Jewish rule of Palestine, as a paean to freedom and human rights. We look up to Israel for precisely what should make us abhor it. The 'self-determination of peoples' is a poison set in the very heart of our humanitarian ideologies. Neutralize it and Israel will lose its moral ascendency.
So let me ask you a question? Resolution 242 envisions a permanent peace accord based on the pre-'67 borders. How exactly is it legitimate to hold out a permanent peace with one hand, and then suggest pulling that peace back once you've gotten the concessions you want, i.e., by pulling back its military forces from the territory of a hostile neighbor Israel is inherantly risking its security. Under the 242 framework they would do so in exchange for permanent peace. But what you seem to be saying is that they should do so in exchange for nothing, because once the occupation is ended then everyone can just move on to the next grievance.
Again, it's simply inconsistent to argue for an end to the occupation based on 242, and at the same time accept the validity of purportedly legal arguments premised on the negation of the assumptions underlying 242. Either 242 has it right or it doesn't. You can't have your cake and eat it too. :nono: (I really like this "nonono"! Gets me in touch with my inner Mutombo.
And this works both ways. But for some reason you've neglected to mention it.
You claim that even if Israel suddenly ceases being a rogue state, and begins abiding by international law by withdrawing to the '67 borders, that the Palestinians - even only a minority of Palestinians - will continue using violence against the Israeli's. And that somehow this 'fact' (insert 'conjecture') is what's preventing a peaceful settlement. Although you fail to mention that the biggest percentage of violent incidents hasn't come from the Palestinians, but it's come from the Israeli's.
Even if you take the IDF out of the equation, the settlers have carried out more acts of violence than the Palestinians. viewtopic.php?f=13&t=194387&hilit=+SETTLERS#p4577643 Settler violence is a daily occurrence. Beatings, stabbings, shootings, destruction of property - this stuff goes on every day. And yet you want us to believe that it's the Palestinians who will likely upset any peace between the two parties?
Once again, trying to turn reality on it's head.
I said there are legal arguments pertaining to 181 that deserve to be heard. Nothing complicated about that. You can read my words above again if you're having difficulty understanding them.
I really don't feel like getting into this argument with you. Israel is certainly not the only state on earth that envisions itself as a democratic state with a majority population defining the character of the state and a legal regime that respects the rights of the minority. If you've got a problem with all such states, fine. But I suspect that there are many such states that you have no problem with. Israel is certainly not a perfect democracy, but that doesn't mean that it can't in theory be a democratic state defined by a Jewish majority that respects the rights of its various non-Jewish minorities. I simply fail to see why this state of affairs is inherantly objectionable.
And I'm telling you that 242 supercedes 181. If you're arguing for the one you can't also be arguing for the other.
I'm not trying to turn reality on its head. I'm responding to the conversation as its progressed. The discussion has centered around Hamas, therefore I've discussed Hamas. I don't deny that there is settler violence; in fact I'm appalled by it, and think that Israel's failure to properly deal with it is fundamentally undermining the rule of law in the country. That said, within it's borders (that is excluding the occupied territories, which are governed by a different legal/police regime) Israel has a much better record than do the Palestinians at controlling fringe elements. Based on that record I'm assuming that in the context of a peace accord, once there is no longer an occupation and all the former settlers are living under the regular Israeli legal regime, Israel will be the party that will continue to do a better job of controlling its violent fringe. Perhaps I'm wrong about that. It's possible. Point is, I'm not trying to conceal anything or obfuscate reality. Unlike you I'm just not fixated on a single point (ISRAEL IS HITLER'S EVIL STEP-MOTHER WHO EATS PUPPIES FOR BREAKFAST LUNCH AND DINNER!!!), so I don't feel the compulsive need to mention that point in every one of my posts.
I've already stated that I am - twice on the previous page.