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--- Moved from here into is own thread, by request. --- "land theft and ethnic cleansing in Palestine" You can't seriously believe that this is a fair description of the Israel-Palestine conflict. PS: The only event in modern history in the region of Palestine which actually fits the definition of "ethnic cleansing", was when the Kingdom of Jordan - having annexed the Westbank and East Jerusalem in 1948 - expelled all (!) Jewish inhabitants from those territories per official decree and destroyed the Synagogues and Jewish buildings. (Before that, East Jerusalem was known as the "Jewish Quarter" and had been predominantly Jewish for many centuries - since long before Zionism. That Antizionists now histrionically call for recognition of East Jerusalem as "the capital of the Palestinian state" and slur Jews who have returned to the Jewish Quarter as "settlers", is just one of the many absurdities in this conflict.) "if Arabs would declare an Islamic State in New York, declare race laws" is a ridiculous comparison. A more sensible one would be to imagine an alternative timeline where:: The USA fought on the wrong side of a world war lost, ceasing to exist as a country in its known form and re-establishing itself as a much smaller country around Washington, while leaving the remaining territories - which are very sparsely populated in this timeline - under the oversight of the UN with the objective to establish new countries there. --> cf. the downfall of the Ottoman Empire after WW1 Ethnic Mexicans for some reason don't have Mexico in this hypothetical timeline, but used to have a country in nowadays' South Texas, and have been longing to return there for a long time. So they started a movement to immigrate there while the US still existed. Some even dreamed of establishing a Mexican country there again someday - but for now they were contend to just live there under US rule. --> cf. the start of Zionism Imagine, further, that these Mexicans immigrated legally into Southern Texas, and legally bought land (or cultivated unclaimed desert land) there in accordance with US law - and then after the fall of the US, in accordance with the laws of the UN Mandate for South Texas. --> cf. Palestinian Jews However, racial tensions arise. While South Texas was mostly empty before the Mexicans started immigrating, the few inhabited communities that did exist, were mostly, ...say, German Americans. They were all the descendants of immigrants of previous centuries, who - just like the Mexicans now - had legally immigrated from elsewhere in accordance with US laws. --> cf. Palestinian Arabs When the UN allows multiple new ethnic German countries to be established in North and East Texas, the German Americans in South Texas want the same for their region, and the idea of Pan-German Nationalism for the whole region gains traction. Of course, this requires getting rid of the ethnic Mexicans. --> cf. Pan-Arab Nationalism The Mexican Americans, in turn, also want to fulfill their dream of their own state. However, in contrast with their German neighbors, they don't demand exclusivity in the region - even a small state would be fine with them, as long as they can live in peace. However, agreeing on borders becomes difficult. Because while South Texas used to be mostly empty and underdeveloped before all of this, it is not anymore now, a few decades after the fall of the US. The many Mexican immigrants had caused an economic boom and established an infrastructure of roads and hospitals etc. that was far superior to the surrounding regions, which had in turn caused many German Americans from surrounding regions to migrate to South Texas as well. The German Americans declare themselves the legitimate people of South Texas, and start to label the Mexican Americans as "intruders". They claim that they "were there first", which is however only true on average - the detailed demographics are complicated:The oldest family lines in the region are in fact ethnic Mexicans. --> cf. Old Jews About half the ethnic Germans immigrated 100 to 500 years ago. --> cf. pre-Zionist Palestinian Arabs Most of the ethnic Mexicans immigrated during the last 60 years. --> cf. Zionist Jews The other half of the ethnic Germans immigrated during the last 30 years. --> cf. the many Arab immigrants from Egypt etc. who are now also part of the "Palestinians" Racial violence erupts, incl. terrorist attacks. But there is a difference: The attacks on Mexicans are officially supported and coordinated by the highest leaders of the German community, while attacks on Germans are carried out by fringe radical groups on the Mexican side and not supported by the Mexican community leaders. When the UN realizes that getting them all to live together peacefully is not going to happen, it comes up with a partition plan. The ethnic Mexicans accept it, and declare their new state on their allocated territory. --> Israel The leaders of the ethnic Germans, however, cling to their racist fantasy of getting the entire region exclusively for themselves (something which was never the case before) and wanting all South Texas to become a German nation state (something which never existed there before). So, together with all of the surrounding German nations, they declare war against the new Mexican state. The goal: Total extermination. To the world's surprise, the Mexicans win the war. --> The Israeli "War of Independence" The Mexican State follows up on its victory by closing its borders. Ethnic Germans residing inside that territory at the time when the war ended, are allowed to stay and get full citizenship. However, those who had lived there previously but had fled the turmoil of the war, are not allowed back in. --> The "Nakba" On the other side of the border, all ethnic Mexicans are expelled. The surrounding German countries also force most of their Jewish inhabitants out. --> The Jewish refugees displaced by the same war, which don't have a catchy name like "Nakba" but were actually greater in number. The Mexicans refugees find new homes - many in the new Mexican state, others in other parts of the world. The German refugees, however, are put in refugee camps by their leaders, and the surrounding German states refuse to give them citizenship and allow them to find new homes. Even German refugees who, prior to the war, had lived in areas now under German control, are prohibited from returning there. They are held in limbo as political bargaining chips by said nations in their continued quest to try to defeat the Mexican state. A few decades later, after yet another failed attempt to defeat the Mexican state militarily, the German Americans of South Texas start to embark on a new strategy of getting the world to believe their narrative of "Germans-Americans = legitimate natives, Mexican-Americans = foreign intruders": They re-brand themselves as a new ethnicity, separate from the surrounding German nations, and start to refer to themselves as "The Southtexans". That's right, they're now using what was previously a neutral name for the region, as the name for their ethnicity. The Mexicans think such semantic games are silly and do not need much attention. After all, who would be fooled by that? ...Boy o boy were they wrong: Fast forward another few decades, and now we have tens of millions of college students and left-wing MPs and Internet commenters all around the world, who have swallowed the Anti-Mexican narrative hook like and sinker: The region is called South Texas, so "obviously" it belongs to the Southtexans by right! The Mexicans are "obviously" foreign invaders and "land thieves"! --> Modern Antizionism And so it comes that hordes of Antizionists in the Western World, believe that they are advancing Peace and Justice™ by willingly participating in the (now a century old) quest to bring about the racist fantasy of a Jew-free Middle East and a "Palestinian state" that encompasses the entire geographic region of Palestine minus the part now inhabited by the Kingdom of Jordan (even though such a state has never existed before and has no moral or legal justification for "needing" to exist).

More truths in 8 minutes here than you'll find in any 8 minute segment of any mainstream media claiming to be a news source, and Mel Gibson.

http://peacemakergame.com/ About: "PeaceMaker challenges you to succeed as a leader where others have failed. Experience the joy of bringing peace to the Middle East or the agony of plunging the region into disaster. PeaceMaker will test your skills, assumptions and prior knowledge. Play it and you will never read the news the same way again." I am currently downloading it so I can't review it yet. There is a different agenda with this game.

If you all have been following news recently, you will have noticed that the US has been trying to resume talks on a two-state solution. That means that at the same time, a lot of stuff is happening and a lot of stuff will likely not be happening at all. Israel has offered to release a bunch of prisoners, while at the same time increasing government subsidies to several illegal settlements (likely as a quid-pro-quo aimed at the extreme-right parties in government). Technically Israel promised to release these prisoners already in the Oslo accords, so however pointless the release of less than a hundred prisoners might seem to the process, it was basically a prerequisite for talks so that the Palestinian leaders can still uphold the self-deception that they have any real power at all. I'm sure the Palestinian leaders in Fatah would be keen to reach an agreement themselves, but the people in both Gaza and the West Bank have become wary and sceptical of any "peace process", and Fatah has become increasingly unpopular. It's almost certain the current West Bank leadership would be voted out of office if elections were held. The longer these discussions take place, the more support Fatah will lose among the people. Thus commences a kind of chicken race in front of the international community where neither part wants to reach an agreement, but both sides want the other to derail the negotiations in order to look good themselves. It's unthinkable that the US would ever touch the fat aid packages to Israel or in general use the "stick" instead of the "carrot" and the status quo is currently ideal for the Israeli right-wing government, so in contrast to the Palestinians the Israelis could reasonably let the negotiations go on indefinitely. So my bet is that discussions will drag on for a long time, and will end with the Palestinian leadership either voluntarily resigning or being forced down by protests (if Kerry does not give up first!). In the eventual, unlikely case of an agreement, it will have two prime characteristics: 1. Concrete changes are scheduled to take place in years from now and 2. The Palestinians make a very firm commitment not to involve the international community in any way. What do you think will happen? Let's place our bets and see who is the most professional political prognosticator on the Obsidian forum.