Meanwhile in Palestine

[Malcador]

Not sure how accurate but the list of states doing that on Wikipedia's larger than I thought it would have been. Interesting.

Edited December 17, 2012 by Malcador

[JFSOCC]

"If I am a proponent of employing peaceful means, that just means I'm a modern, intelligent, civilized, decent person."

 

I'm all for peace but both sides need to be open for peace and Hamas is not open for peace. You cannot negoiate with a side who entire goal is built on destroying the other side. As long as that is part of Hamas' 'manfiesto' they and their supporters (that includes you) cna't be taken seriously. By supporting Hamas you cna't pretend to be pro peace.

You keep coming back to that argument. The only way forward is with negotiations. (unless you find genocide an acceptable alternative)

Hamas has it in it's charter, when it was started up. So they'll have to come down from that. Not talking to them isn't going to make that happen. It's just such a perfect excuse to vilify the other side and use it as an excuse for measures that don't harm Hamas but all of Palestine.

[Malcador]

You keep coming back to that argument. The only way forward is with negotiations. (unless you find genocide an acceptable alternative)

Hamas has it in it's charter, when it was started up. So they'll have to come down from that. Not talking to them isn't going to make that happen. It's just such a perfect excuse to vilify the other side and use it as an excuse for measures that don't harm Hamas but all of Palestine.

 

Doesn't seem like much of a starting point. Trying to talk down Hamas from that will involve what degree of capitulation from Israel ? I guess they could threaten brutal reprisal if Hamas reneges on a deal they win from that, but still can't see that as politically possible.

[JFSOCC]

You keep coming back to that argument. The only way forward is with negotiations. (unless you find genocide an acceptable alternative)

Hamas has it in it's charter, when it was started up. So they'll have to come down from that. Not talking to them isn't going to make that happen. It's just such a perfect excuse to vilify the other side and use it as an excuse for measures that don't harm Hamas but all of Palestine.

 

Doesn't seem like much of a starting point. Trying to talk down Hamas from that will involve what degree of capitulation from Israel ? I guess they could threaten brutal reprisal if Hamas reneges on a deal they win from that, but still can't see that as politically possible.

if a truce can be negotiated then so can a peace.

[Volourn]

"You keep coming back to that argument. The only way forward is with negotiations. (unless you find genocide an acceptable alternative)

Hamas has it in it's charter, when it was started up. So they'll have to come down from that. Not talking to them isn't going to make that happen. It's just such a perfect excuse to vilify the other side and use it as an excuse for measures that don't harm Hamas but all of Palestine. "

 

Because, you can't negoiate with someone whow ants tod estroy you. before any true peace talks can be had, Hamas has to seriously and mkenaingful step down from one of their key components of their faith.

 

 

There is no truce. there is only Hamas biding its time while it builds more rockets for the enxt round of attacks.

 

At least with the PA there is an actual real chance of negotiating soemthing meaningful but as long as Hamas has power, influence, and the support of Palestinians to wipe Isreal of the map, it will always be a losing cause.

 

 

Rosteres' link is disgusting.

[Malcador]

if a truce can be negotiated then so can a peace.

 

Between those two ? I doubt it.

[Rostere]

Meanwhile in Israel: http://www.thedailyb...-in-israel.html

 

A law put in place by extreme-right Israeli government party Shas (essentially like Hamas, only they're in the Israeli government) leads to two British young women being arrested. For those who are entirely unfamiliar with the subject, it is not forbidden by Israeli law for women to visit the Western Wall. On the other hand, wearing a prayer shawl or holding the Torah while you're there is - if you're a woman. The article in question discusses how Shas uses the "ghost" of secular diaspora Jews to scare people into voting for them in the upcoming election.

 

if a truce can be negotiated then so can a peace.

 

Between those two ? I doubt it.

 

Actually, Hamas' Jabari was carrying an Egyptian- brokered peace agreement that Hamas had agreed to when he was assassinated by Israel, which sparked all the recent conflicts.

 

Because, you can't negoiate with someone whow ants tod estroy you. before any true peace talks can be had, Hamas has to seriously and mkenaingful step down from one of their key components of their faith.

 

You know, there are parties who are in or have been in Israeli governments who don't want to see a Palestinian state as well. And certainly, a majority of past Israeli governments have been for the continued land grab of occupied Palestinian land. How should you treat those?

 

Every time you say diplomacy isn't the answer, you're being a hypocrite.

Edited December 22, 2012 by Rostere

[Jasede]

There will never be peace until all that is left is ashes.

[Volourn]

"You know, there are parties who are in or have been in Israeli governments who don't want to see a Palestinian state as well. And certainly, a majority of past Israeli governments have been for the continued land grab of occupied Palestinian land. How should you treat those?"

 

Those Isrealis tend to lose Isreali elections and are no threat in the long run. Hamas is. theya re supported by the very palestinains that they have no problem murdering.

[Rostere]

Those Isrealis tend to lose Isreali elections and are no threat in the long run. Hamas is. theya re supported by the very palestinains that they have no problem murdering.

 

"We do not seek an agreement with the Israelis in order to secure the peace. Of course we regard peace as an essential thing. It is impossible to build up the country in a state of permanent warfare. But peace for us is a means, and not an end. Only for this reason do we need peace, and do we need an agreement."

 

"The Palestinian people have unchallengeable, eternal, historic right to the Land of Palestine, the inheritance of their forefathers"

 

I'm curious... Let's be more specific, if Hamas came up with something like the above for their official policy, would it justify not negotiating with them? Do you REALLY think they would not be willing to negotiate based on those quotes? Would it be enough if the leader of Hamas was a known terrorist with many lives on his conscience, would that justify not negotiating with them?

[Volourn]

Hamas's charter is quite clear - they want Isreal destroyed. Until that fundamental belief and stated goal of theirs is changed they can't be taken seriously. It's why Fatah despite that its nnot squeaky clean or Isreal itself even though they've done horrible things themselves can be taken more seriously when it coems to negoitating.

[Orogun01]

There will never be peace until all that is left is ashes.

You can always force a standstill, while on the meantime you treat the base problem that's causing them to go to war. It won't solve everything immediately but once you cut off support you begin gaining gradually.

[JFSOCC]

There will never be peace until all that is left is ashes.

'let's hope you are wrong. Let's never work under that assumption. I believe a peace is possible, one that benefits all.

[Rostere]

Hamas's charter is quite clear - they want Isreal destroyed. Until that fundamental belief and stated goal of theirs is changed they can't be taken seriously. It's why Fatah despite that its nnot squeaky clean or Isreal itself even though they've done horrible things themselves can be taken more seriously when it coems to negoitating.

 

But what are the Palestinians to do when their counterpart is not interested in completing negotiations? After all, what they're doing is grabbing the Palestinians' land settlement by settlement while pretending to be willing to negotiate.

 

As you probably guessed, the examples were in reality the policies of Israeli governments:

 

"We do not seek an agreement with the Palestinians in order to secure the peace. Of course we regard peace as an essential thing. It is impossible to build up the country in a state of permanent warfare. But peace for us is a means, and not an end. Only for this reason do we need peace, and do we need an agreement."- David Ben-Gurion, former Prime Minister of Israel

 

"The Israeli people have unchallengeable, eternal, historic right to the Land of Israel, the inheritance of their forefathers" - Menachem Begin, former Prime Minister of Israel

 

The known terrorist leader who later became prime minister of Israel is of course extreme-right Yitzhak Shamir, who was responsible for ordering the assassination of the UN diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte while he was negotiating a return of Palestinian refugees. An ironic turn of events - the Count was also a Swedish diplomat during WW2 where he negotiated the release of 31000 concentration camp interns, some of which probably went to Israel and later voted for Shamir in Israeli elections.

 

There will never be peace until all that is left is ashes.

You can always force a standstill, while on the meantime you treat the base problem that's causing them to go to war. It won't solve everything immediately but once you cut off support you begin gaining gradually.

 

One real obstacle here is the unconditional US military aid to Israel. During the last decade, Israel recieved about $27,000,000,000 of American taxpayer money in military aid, all this in spite of the massacres of Palestinian civilians conducted with American missiles in retaliation for Palestinian terrorist activity. Israel has such a military advantage that it is virtually unthreatened by any of it's neighbours - it has no reason to stop the construction of settlements and the destruction of Palestinian property at all, if somebody would just say they should. The only thing which could possibly change their mind would be if the US would threaten to withdraw their support, and that is not likely to happen anytime soon.

 

Like a famous person once said (really, bear with me for having so many quotes in one post ): "No ruler will consider the peace process seriously so long as he is able to toy with the idea of achieving more by the way of violence."

[Jasede]

Have you ever played the game Nier? The whole game is based on the tragedy of things you can't change. Of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Life is a lot like that. People doing things they believe in, doing the only thing they possibly can do from their perspective and sowing misery and suffering in their wake.

 

They don't mean to. They really genuinely just do what they can to protect those they love; they do what they believe in. Doing anything else would be a betrayal of their own beliefs and convictions.

 

The true tragedy of the human condition.

[JFSOCC]

Hamas's charter is quite clear - they want Isreal destroyed. Until that fundamental belief and stated goal of theirs is changed they can't be taken seriously. It's why Fatah despite that its nnot squeaky clean or Isreal itself even though they've done horrible things themselves can be taken more seriously when it coems to negoitating.

 

But what are the Palestinians to do when their counterpart is not interested in completing negotiations? After all, what they're doing is grabbing the Palestinians' land settlement by settlement while pretending to be willing to negotiate.

 

As you probably guessed, the examples were in reality the policies of Israeli governments:

 

"We do not seek an agreement with the Palestinians in order to secure the peace. Of course we regard peace as an essential thing. It is impossible to build up the country in a state of permanent warfare. But peace for us is a means, and not an end. Only for this reason do we need peace, and do we need an agreement."- David Ben-Gurion, former Prime Minister of Israel

 

"The Israeli people have unchallengeable, eternal, historic right to the Land of Israel, the inheritance of their forefathers" - Menachem Begin, former Prime Minister of Israel

 

The known terrorist leader who later became prime minister of Israel is of course extreme-right Yitzhak Shamir, who was responsible for ordering the assassination of the UN diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte while he was negotiating a return of Palestinian refugees. An ironic turn of events - the Count was also a Swedish diplomat during WW2 where he negotiated the release of 31000 concentration camp interns, some of which probably went to Israel and later voted for Shamir in Israeli elections.

 

There will never be peace until all that is left is ashes.

You can always force a standstill, while on the meantime you treat the base problem that's causing them to go to war. It won't solve everything immediately but once you cut off support you begin gaining gradually.

 

One real obstacle here is the unconditional US military aid to Israel. During the last decade, Israel recieved about $27,000,000,000 of American taxpayer money in military aid, all this in spite of the massacres of Palestinian civilians conducted with American missiles in retaliation for Palestinian terrorist activity. Israel has such a military advantage that it is virtually unthreatened by any of it's neighbours - it has no reason to stop the construction of settlements and the destruction of Palestinian property at all, if somebody would just say they should. The only thing which could possibly change their mind would be if the US would threaten to withdraw their support, and that is not likely to happen anytime soon.

 

Like a famous person once said (really, bear with me for having so many quotes in one post ): "No ruler will consider the peace process seriously so long as he is able to toy with the idea of achieving more by the way of violence."

Switching the quotes was a dirty trick... well done.

[Rostere]

Meanwhile in Israel: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/02/israeli-right-chooses-between-ultra-nationalists.html

 

The upcoming elections look to favour several extreme-right parties (of which the supporters of one apparently shockingly favour ethnic cleansing of the West Bank).

 

Don't get me wrong, a proper Israeli annexation of the West Bank would be great, because Israel would finally be forced to give the Palestinians equal rights and the right to vote. Currently they live walled-up in ghettoes in miserable poverty, where the most stable source of income is working with construction at the Israeli settlements, the very same settlements whose walls cut them off from their own old farmlands and travel to other regions. The apartheid is only made worse by the Israeli- only roads and the frequent arbitrary destruction of Palestinian houses.

 

I would think that a country which treats it's own citizens in such an unequal way would be subject to international condemnation and isolation as long as these atrocities occur.

 

Unfortunately, the notion of giving all Palestinians equal rights to the Israeli settlers is unacceptable to these extreme- right wing parties (just as the right of return of Palestinian refugees who were evicted from their homes by ultra-nationalist Jewish militias in 1948) because it would challenge Israel's Jewish "ethnic identity". Really, with the current radicalization of Israeli politics we can only brace ourselves for the worst before the axis of religious fundamentalist and ultra-nationalist parties eventually take power, and then we are going to ask ourselves why we, the international community, did nothing. As before with the racist regime in South Africa, the US is the only roadblock in the international arena - some things never change, do they?

[Rostere]

It seems I can't edit the above post, but I found another article in the Guardian dealing with the precise same issue: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/04/israel-shift-right-alienate-need-most

[Malcador]

Does make sense though, those being attacked by rockets will like to hear a party promising to stomp heads of those firing them. I'm surprised the EU doesn't to sanction Israel somehow if they really care about this.

[Orogun01]

I don't think anybody cares enough about Palestine to sanction Israel.

Global public opinion is still unfavorable against Middle Eastern nations and I don't think that's going to change soon.

[Rostere]

Does make sense though, those being attacked by rockets will like to hear a party promising to stomp heads of those firing them. I'm surprised the EU doesn't to sanction Israel somehow if they really care about this.

 

Well, that would kind of explain how Hamas got into power in the first place. Like we've already stated, a peace seems farther away than ever. In many ways, it's a vicious circle. Israel builds settlements on Palestinian land, Hamas (or really, Islamic Jihad) responds with rocket attacks, Israel counter-attacks with rockets again. The winners are only the extremist parties on both sides, who will have an easier time agitating the masses to violent action towards the other side. In many ways, it's similar to how you train fighting dogs.

 

I don't think anybody cares enough about Palestine to sanction Israel.

Global public opinion is still unfavorable against Middle Eastern nations and I don't think that's going to change soon.

 

I don't think global opinion is unfavourable against Middle Eastern nations. American opinion, on the other hand...

 

Still, the entire issue is about human rights. I don't think you would suggest the police not to investigate crimes against people below a yearly income of $100000 because they're unimportant?

 

EDIT: To continue to sow the seeds for a debate about the future of Israel, here's a quote from one of the prominent members of the new Israeli extreme- right explaining the racial problems of a "Jewish state" in Israel/Palestine: "Why should non-Jews have a say in the policy of a Jewish state?" Feiglin said to me. "For two thousand years, Jews dreamed of a Jewish state, not a democratic state. Democracy should serve the values of the state, not destroy them." In any case, Feiglin said, "You can't teach a monkey to speak and you can't teach an Arab to be democratic. You're dealing with a culture of thieves and robbers... The Arab destroys everything he touches."

Edited January 5, 2013 by Rostere

[Calax]

According to Roomie, much of what she gets (in norway) is very pro-Palestine. It's never actively against Israel, but it does Love it some Palestine.

[Rostere]

According to Roomie, much of what she gets (in norway) is very pro-Palestine. It's never actively against Israel, but it does Love it some Palestine.

 

I think much of the opinion in Sweden and Norway is centered around pragmatism and sympathy for the weak, and since Palestinians have taken the overwhelming majority of the casualties in the recent conflict (the last 20 something years), the numbers speak for themselves.

 

There used to be a strong actual pro-Palestine movement (which as you might guess was as ridiculous as any "pro-Israeli" group) in connection with the Swedish Left in the 70s, 80s and 90s, but they don't seem to be up to much lately. These days, you don't read a lot of in-depth news about settlements, or about Israeli and Palestinian politics, which is what the conflict is really about. Maybe it's connected somehow to the (legal) barriers that have been put in place for journalists entering the West Bank, but I don't know.

 

So, here's the latest from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/preserving-the-two-state-solution/2013/01/04/c155b58e-569c-11e2-bf3e-76c0a789346f_story.html

 

We're seeing dramatic changes in this conflict which I don't feel are getting enough coverage. We're looking towards a future self-described ultra-nationalist government in Israel, meanwhile the latest settlement plans look to make the two-state solution impossible. The Arab spring has tilted many nations in the Middle East towards democracy and therefore indirectly a more hostile attitude towards Israel. What will Obama do? These are interesting times indeed

 

Just kidding, Obama will likely do nothing. But the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict is rapidly drawing closer towards a climax, which I must honestly say I would never have thought even one year ago.

[Orogun01]

 

Just kidding, Obama will likely do nothing. But the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict is rapidly drawing closer towards a climax, which I must honestly say I would never have thought even one year ago.

I get the feeling that will only remain as long as Israel keeps winning, were the tables to be turned and they asked for help we'd probably enter the conflict. After all the West has much to gain from securing an ally in the area, even if that ally bombs our ships and tries to pretend it was by "accident".

[Rostere]

Just kidding, Obama will likely do nothing. But the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict is rapidly drawing closer towards a climax, which I must honestly say I would never have thought even one year ago.

I get the feeling that will only remain as long as Israel keeps winning, were the tables to be turned and they asked for help we'd probably enter the conflict. After all the West has much to gain from securing an ally in the area, even if that ally bombs our ships and tries to pretend it was by "accident".

 

Well, I don't really think the tables are going to turn. What I meant is that I don't think the shift to the extreme- right in Israeli politics is a temporary fluke. Having Israel surrounded by democracies will only serve to build up pressure from outside, which will only further radicalise Israeli politics again.

 

Really, Israel is of no use as an ally to any Western country (note: I'm not suggesting that the US should make any other allies in the region). On the other hand, it is hardly really an ally in any practical sense either. It benefits from American research programmes and the US have a radar station there, and that's it. The prime allies of the US in the region are Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Israel is more like a black hole sucking in billions of taxpayer money in military aid. To me this is entirely inexplicable. American politicians talk about cutting the budget and are keen to cut domestic healthcare, education and infrastructure spending, but recklessly pour billions of dollars so that a tiny, insignificant (for the common American) state in the Middle East can have a "military edge" over rebels from the native peoples.

 

EDIT: I was just going to add that Israel would have been a very valuable ally during the Cold War days, but the allegations of how the intelligence one of their spies Jonathan Pollard (still in prison in the US) stole was sold to the Soviet Union, maybe they were more of a liability... Gee, I wonder how much of the technology that the US shares with Israel today they sell to China.

Edited January 6, 2013 by Rostere