Middle East Conflict

[domalino]

There was never a self-governing country called Palestine. The territory was part of another empire for nearly 2000 years so nothing got "confiscated". Many countries were formed post WW2 that had far less logic than Israel, where a majority ruled and oppressed a minority. Or even, like in Syria with the Alawites, where the minority oppressed the majority. Look at India/Pakistan, where partition saw the displacement of millions.

There was a land called Palestine that had 2 million people living there whose ancestors had done for centuries. Yeah, it was part of the Ottoman Empire and not a self governing state, just like Ireland was part of the British empire and had never been an independent self governing state called Ireland before 1919.

Then we decided to take away 60% of that land and give it to a group of people that had not lived there for 2,000 years.

Again, I ask you to name a single example of something similar that resulted in peace and prosperity?

 

[inbetween]

There was a land called Palestine that had 2 million people living there whose ancestors had done for centuries. Yeah, it was part of the Ottoman Empire and not a self governing state, just like Ireland was part of the British empire and had never been an independent self governing state called Ireland before 1919.

Then we decided to take away 60% of that land and give it to a group of people that had not lived there for 2,000 years.

Again, I ask you to name a single example of something similar that resulted in peace and prosperity?

So how far do you go? 100 years? 200 years? 356.61 years?

This just proves that it's a fruitless and completely idiotic exercise to try and attribute who the land belongs to. If land ownership was purely based upon who owned it within the last 100 years then 1/4 of the world would be returned to the British Empire? I'm guessing that you don't want that either.

It's obvious that a calm and non-violent common sense approach is required with negotiation towards a two-state solution. The argument on detail with regard to that solution unfortunately comes down to religion and religion is completely baseless so it's extremely difficult.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

So how far do you go? 100 years? 200 years? 356.61 years?

This just proves that it's a fruitless and completely idiotic exercise to try and attribute who the land belongs to. If land ownership was purely based upon who owned it within the last 100 years then 1/4 of the world would be returned to the British Empire? I'm guessing that you don't want that either.

It's obvious that a calm and non-violent common sense approach is required with negotiation towards a two-state solution. The argument on detail with regard to that solution unfortunately comes down to religion and religion is completely baseless so it's extremely difficult.

Think the issue stems around forced movement and annexing of people, rather than land ownership.

 

[domalino]

So how far do you go? 100 years? 200 years? 356.61 years?

This just proves that it's a fruitless and completely idiotic exercise to try and attribute who the land belongs to who. If land ownership was purely based upon who owned it within the last 100 years then 1/4 of the world would be returned to the British Empire? I'm guessing that you don't want that either.

It's obvious that a calm and non-violent common sense approach is required with negotiation towards a two-state solution. The argument on detail with regard to that solution unfortunately comes down to religion and religion is completely baseless.

Go back as far or as recently as you want. No one else in history has ever had a claim to land that neither they nor any of their ancestors has lived on for 2,000 years.

There’s not really any serious argument that the land belonged to the Jewish people or that they had any legitimate claim to it.

Now that doesn’t mean Israel shouldn’t exist, but it is important to be honest about the way we, the British, went about creating it and how all of the subsequent violence has followed that first hostile and violent act of seizing territory.

We started the hostilities. We ignored the violence that followed up to 1948 even when it was so bad that the Americans pulled out of the partition plan because they could see it was never going to work in the way it was suggested.

So for @Prestwich_Blue to pretend that the Palestinians threw the first stone in 1948 so it’s all their fault and they should “get over it” is beyond dishonest.

And it is not just history, it is relevant now because how can we possibly go about healing wounds and division unless we can actually acknowledge that something bad, and violent was done to these people by world powers, even if it was done in pursuit of the noble cause of setting up a Jewish state.


The root of this problem is not religious. There’s almost no recorded history of violence between Islam and Judaism before the late 19th century. People reading, studying and preaching the Quran and Hadiths didn’t find any reason to declare war on Judaism until the modern conflict existed. The Ottoman Empire - an Islamic Caliphate - was the most hospitable place in Europe and Asia for Jewish people who weren’t persecuted like they were in Christian Europe.

It’s a land dispute, and you can fix land disputes, but only when both sides can agree that land was taken, even if giving it back isn’t on the table in negotiations.

 

[inbetween]

Think the issue stems around forced movement and annexing of people, rather than land ownership.

Annexation and forced movement happens all the time. There are literally a billion examples of it in recorded history, the latest happened in Ukraine only 2 years ago. What often happens eventually in its place though is the creation, ratification or even merging of states and the two-state proposal is an example of that.

As it stands there isn't a two-state solution, Palestine is not a formally recognised state internationally so technically there is no actual annexation. What is required is similar to what happened with Germany and the fall of the Berlin wall. It's called a negotiation and the formal ratification by the international community of two independent states, Palestine and the already existing Israel.

Unfortunately folk repeating the same crap is just fuelling the fire because then neither party is going to negotiate a future which includes an acceptable form of the other side. Without acceptance of each other, the end result will always be what's happening and that's violence. However, one side has a relatively limited means of 'doing' violence whereas the other is an advanced nuclear armed country.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Annexation and forced movement happens all the time. There are literally a billion examples of it in recorded history, the latest happened in Ukraine only 2 years ago. What often happens eventually in its place though is the creation, ratification or even merging of states and the two-state proposal is an example of that.

As it stands there isn't a two-state solution, Palestine is not a formally recognised state internationally so technically there is no actual annexation. What is required is similar to what happened with Germany and the fall of the Berlin wall. It's called a negotiation and the formal ratification by the international community of two independent states, Palestine and the already existing Israel.

Unfortunately folk repeating the same crap is just fuelling the fire because then neither party is going to negotiate a future which includes an acceptable form of the other side. Without acceptance of each other, the end result will always be what's happening and that's violence. However, one side has a relatively limited means of 'doing' violence whereas the other is an advanced nuclear armed country.

Well, there literally aren’t a billion examples of it, are there?

Using the Ukraine isn’t the best example given they are in a similar position as Israel at the moment. It highlights the issues of annexation.

 

[inbetween]

Well, there literally aren’t a billion examples of it, are there?

Using the Ukraine isn’t the best example given they are in a similar position as Israel at the moment. It highlights the issues of annexation.

Of course there are a billion examples, the UK is literally the best one because even today the UK exerts sovereign power over 50+ countries. Just 100 years ago the UK held sovereign power for over 30% of the world.

Ukraine is a fully recognised country whereas Palestine is not, it's very different, I mean christ Ukraine is even recognised by Russia and Russia knew itself that it was annexing territory. In the eyes of the world Ukraine was territorially invaded and the eastern regions and Crimean Peninsula today are annexed by Russia.

Look at a map though and compare this to Ukraine, what or where is Palestine? Palestine does not exist as a state, the borders of the Palestinian areas were drawn on agreements and not by the ratification of an independent state. The reason that ratification never occurred is because the Palestinians oppose the creation of Israel and still lay claim to all land including the entirety of Israel. It's for this reason that the west does not recognise Palestine.

Palestine should be recognised of course but that requires compromise and acceptance of Israel which unfortunately will never happen, at least it won't with the Hamas regime.

 

[west didsblue]

Palestinians have a homeland therefore do not need someone to give them a home anywhere.

Jews had homelands right across Europe, North Africa and West Asia going back centuries until they either got murdered, oppressed or kicked out, hence the creation of a Jewish state in the Jews’ ancestral home, which although small compared to practically every one of its neighbours was big enough for the existing residents to carry on living there. If they hadn’t tried to eradicate the new state they would all still be there as either full citizens of Israel like the ones who stayed or in their own Palestinian state following partition. It wasn’t to be because the surrounding countries wanted the whole area to be 100% Arab and weren’t content with just 99% of the land.

Back to the present, there’s no doubt that in the last 15 years the biggest stumbling blocks to a proper settlement have been Netanyahu and Hamas who have used each other to justify ever more extreme measures. In Netanyahu’s case it was all about staying in power and was based on a promise of safety and security for the citizens of Israel, a promise that has been proven once and for all to be a fallacy. I’m reasonably confident that the Israeli electorate will get rid of him in the next election and will hopefully vote in a more progressive government open to dialogue rather than enabling extremist settlers.

The problem is that unless Hamas are eradicated there’ll be no one to talk to because they have Gaza in an iron grip, and a deal with the Ramallah government that excludes Gaza would never happen. I honestly can’t see a solution to this problem because it would seem the only party that can get rid of Hamas is Israel but the collateral damage would be so bad that a whole new generation of Palestinians would want revenge and would take up arms. The opportunity for peace came and went in the late 1990s and I can’t see it coming back as long as Hamas run Gaza with backing from Iran.

 

[inbetween]

Go back as far or as recently as you want. No one else in history has ever had a claim to land that neither they nor any of their ancestors has lived on for 2,000 years.

There’s not really any serious argument that the land belonged to the Jewish people or that they had any legitimate claim to it.

Now that doesn’t mean Israel shouldn’t exist, but it is important to be honest about the way we, the British, went about creating it and how all of the subsequent violence has followed that first hostile and violent act of seizing territory.

We started the hostilities. We ignored the violence that followed up to 1948 even when it was so bad that the Americans pulled out of the partition plan because they could see it was never going to work in the way it was suggested.

So for @Prestwich_Blue to pretend that the Palestinians threw the first stone in 1948 so it’s all their fault and they should “get over it” is beyond dishonest.

And it is not just history, it is relevant now because how can we possibly go about healing wounds and division unless we can actually acknowledge that something bad, and violent was done to these people by world powers, even if it was done in pursuit of the noble cause of setting up a Jewish state.


The root of this problem is not religious. There’s almost no recorded history of violence between Islam and Judaism before the late 19th century. People reading, studying and preaching the Quran and Hadiths didn’t find any reason to declare war on Judaism until the modern conflict existed. The Ottoman Empire - an Islamic Caliphate - was the most hospitable place in Europe and Asia for Jewish people who weren’t persecuted like they were in Christian Europe.

It’s a land dispute, and you can fix land disputes, but only when both sides can agree that land was taken, even if giving it back isn’t on the table in negotiations.

I'm not going to bother with this sorry mate. The Jewish people have a right to self-determination.

Denying the Jewish people their basic human rights, including the right to self-determination, is anti-Semitism. This basic right is fulfilled by the existence of the State of Israel. It is protected and advanced by the political movement to guarantee Jewish self-determination – Zionism. Zionism is about the Jewish people, and does not compete with any other people’s basic human right of self-determination. As anti-Zionism seeks to undermine this basic right of the Jewish, it is anti-Semitic. When anti-Israel rhetoric, advocacy or activity crosses the line beyond which it seeks to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish State, it is anti-Semitic. There is no government whose policies are not legitimately criticized, but when this criticism aims to dismantle that country, it ceases to be legitimate. Disagreeing with French policies does not lead critics to the conclusion that France as a county is illegitimate, or that France should be disbanded. The same respect should be afforded to the State of Israel.

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-182749/

 

[robbieh]

There was never a self-governing country called Palestine. The territory was part of another empire for nearly 2000 years so nothing got "confiscated". Many countries were formed post WW2 that had far less logic than Israel, where a majority ruled and oppressed a minority. Or even, like in Syria with the Alawites, where the minority oppressed the majority. Look at India/Pakistan, where partition saw the displacement of millions.

The fact that they were not self governing doesn't mean it was OK to kick them out of their villages.