Darth Wong's Israel bashing

[beyond hope]

As promised, round two...

So, after voicing criticism of this essay for being "so damn long," you proceed to go through and post the essay in it's entirity, along with several repetitions of the URLs you use from Israel apologist websites in attempted refutation. Do I hear the pot calling the kettle something? This is precisely why I made the comparison to DarkStar: what you're indulging in here is the "Argument from Exhaustion" where you hope that people will get fed up half-way through reading your post and fail to address some point in it. It won't endear you to anyone who's gone through one of DarkStar's long-winded diatribes before.

That was precisely my point, Darth Wong's essay was in fact argument from exhaustion. I attempted to point out the ad nauseam nature of his essay.

Yet, at the same time you clamor "more evidence! more!" for many of your "rebuttals." It's when Mike goes through all of Israel's wars to establish a history of military aggression that you start crying "Ad Nauseum!" Make up your mind already.

If you dislike that analogy, perhaps you'd prefer Apartheid South Africa. 3.3 million Palestinians are crowded into the West Bank and the Gaza strip in a manner highly reminiscient of the Bantus without even the poor joke of "self-rule." As far as the "overwhelming majority," another 1 million of Israel's population of 6.6 million are arabs. Add those to the 3.3 million in territory that Israel likes to claim as its own without claiming the original inhabitants, and arabs are nearly 2/3rds of Israel's population.

Nice way of ignoring my argument. I said, the name of the country, does not predispose how that country treats its ethnic minorities. Regardless if you think Israel abuses its minorities or not (or to what degree), or what territory you think should constitute Israel or not. I'll state what Darth Wong said again: "Before we begin, let me remind you of the definition of Israel. Israel is a Jewish state, which means that it was founded on the premise of racial and religious separatism and apartheid."

Now, there are many examples where a country identifies itself with an ethnic group, or religion. I'll take one, Greece. The Greek flag, has a cross on it, representing the Greek Orthodox Christianity. Greece, is a name identifying the Greek ethnicity, an ethnic and religious identification. Yet there are approximately 2 million Albanians and other non-Greeks, which are not victims of abuse by the Greek government. Therefore, contrary to what Darth Wong said, what a country calls itself, or what is on its flag, does not presume it is a nation founded on the premise of racial and religious separatism. He made the remark (a non-sequiter) to color his argument. That's no longer finding an objective truth, but promulgating idealogy.

You'll take Greece because Apartheid South Africa doesn't look so good to your argument. We could take a few others you mentioned... for a German state, for example, we could take a look at the Third Reich and their policies. For Japan, we could look at Imperial Japan's occupation of nearby asian nations during World War 2. Want to defend those examples of states with an "identification with their predominate ethnic majority." (quote yours)

I didn't ignore your argument. There is no getting around the fact that Israeli law explicitly defines the nation of Israel as being a Jewish state. There can be no true equality in a nation where one religion and/or ethnicity is supported by the government. Whether it be the relatively benign form you claim exists in Greece or the much more virulent religious intolerance of certain Muslim nations, any declaration that a nation's identity is centered around ethnicity or religion relegates all citizens not of that ethnicity or religion to second-class status.

Also keep in mind that Jews lived in this region for centuries, from the Roman Empire through the Ottoman Empire and beyond. Lets not pretend there was never any Jews in the region or that 100 percent of all Jews had fled the region during all this time.

We're talking about the state of Israel here: a state which ceased to have any independant existance since at least the Roman occupation of 63 b.c. I suppose by this logic we should be prepared to hand over most of Europe to re-form the Holy Roman Empire. Not only did the UN decide to resurrect a dead state, but they proposed to give the jewish minority in Palestine over half of the land!

A state does not have to exist for the Jewish people to have existed in this region for millenia. What are you talking about?

I'm talking about the morality (or lack thereof) in confiscating the land of an existing state to recreate one that's been dead for almost 2000 years. Descendants of the Romans exist all over Europe. If the UN decided to re-establish Rome as a nation tomorrow, does that give them the right to re-claim Britannia since it used to be part of the empire, or Gaul? Arabs have also existed in that region for millenia. If one accepts the Bible as a historical source, the Canaanites were there before the Israelis... I guess using your logic we'll have to give the land back to them. Is my point obvious yet or do I have to keep beating you over the head with it for it to sink in?

These are unfair characteristics riddled with name-calling and unsubstantiated claims. Not to mention, the UN is an institution that does not respect individual liberty and freedom, it is an organization comprised of dictators and other totalitarian regimes. Hardly the source of sound
morality and ethics. With nations like China on the UN permanent security council, lets stop acting like the UN is an effective pundit for peace. China is hardly in a position to criticize anyone on human rights. Please read these articles:
http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/columns/rt090301.shtml

http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/columns/rt042902.shtml

http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/columns/rt041502.shtml


Please read the Fourth Geneva convention. Not only does it expressly forbid colonizing foreign lands seized in battle (ie. the settlements in the West Bank,) but it also forbids the wholesale punishment of a conquered population for the actions of a few (by cutting off their power or water, for example.) Israel stands in clear violation of it.

That is a strawman argument. Israel's actions were in self-defense, not colonial conquest, nor should the fact it is Geneva convention rules make it right. As far as the wholesale punishment of Palestinian Arabs, I refer you to Matus's recent post, showing that Palestinian Arabs under Israel have enjoyed far greater growth of wealth and individual rights, than when they were under Arab governments of Jordan, Syria, PLO, et al.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 111#221111

No, your little diversion about "actions were in self-defense, not colonial conquest" is a strawman argument. Israel took that land in war, and the Fourth Geneva Convention spells out what they can and can't do to the indigenous population regardless of whether they can classify the war as "defensive" or not. If Israel finds those provisions inconvenient, they shouldn't have ratified the Geneva Conventions. How you want to characterize the circumstances which resulted in Israel occupying those territories is immaterial to the fact that Israel agreed to abide by the terms of the Geneva Convention when they ratified it. Apparently you do not understand the acts that constitute "collective punishment" and are illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Here they are, as posted by Amnesty International:

Since 21 June most Palestinian towns (except for Jericho) and many villages in the West Bank have been under curfew for up to 24 hours a day forcing Palestinians to live under virtual house arrest. In Nablus the 24-hour curfew has only been lifted once a week for up to six hours. In Tulkarem, the curfew imposed on 20 June has reportedly been lifted only eight times, for up to four hours a day. Even where the curfew has been officially eased it confines inhabitants of towns under curfew to their homes from sunset to sunrise.
More than three million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are living under closures. Nearly every road to a town or village is cut by barriers manned by soldiers or closed by blocks of concrete, piles of earth, and trenches. A journey of 40 kilometres can take several hours. Palestinians are barred from many primary roads and special passes, often unobtainable, are needed for Palestinians to travel from one area to the other.
Denial of freedom of movement for the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories has affected the ability of ordinary Palestinians to access work, education and health care, as well as their ability to conduct business, travel, and maintain family contacts. The impact on the Palestinian economy has been severe. The reoccupation took place at the same time as the final school exams, leaving teachers, students and supervisors unable to reach schools.
Violations of the right to life and medical care continue. Israeli soldiers sometimes appear to consider that the imposition of a curfew authorizes them to shoot at anyone in the street; in addition soldiers have shot at people in streets even when curfews were lifted. In Jenin three children were killed by fire from Israeli tanks, during the temporary lifting of curfew on 21 and 26 June. Also in Jenin, on 11 July 2002, Israeli soldiers on a tank shot two Palestinian journalists wearing jackets clearly marked "Press"; one journalist died from his wounds.
More than 600 Palestinians are now held under administrative detention, mostly in tents in the detention centres Ofer and Ketziot (Ansar III) . Several hundred other Palestinians, many of them arbitrarily detained over the past three months, are also held in pre-trial detention in centres in Israel and the Occupied Territories.
During the reoccupation of the West Bank the IDF have continued to destroy or damage Palestinian homes and property without absolute military necessity. On 22 June 2002 in Jenin the IDF demolished a house on top of a family with five children, killing a 12-year-old boy, Fares al-Sa'adi. In the Nablus area two houses belonging to families of men wanted for organizing attacks on Israelis were destroyed as collective punishment on 19 July; other neighbouring houses were severely damaged by the force of the explosions set off by the IDF.

Got it yet? Collective punishment is illegal because the entire population suffers for the actions of a few criminals.

Rather than directly address that here you indulge in a little UN and China bashing of your own (strawman anyone?)

Not at all. The UN has a poor track record of upholding peace by trying to be inclusive to aggressive totalitarian regimes. I was merely pointing out the initial strawman argument of Darth Wong, just because there are UN resolutions calling for Israel to act in a certain way, does not make it right. That is a strawman.

The UN, which grew out of the old League of Nations, is much more of a discussion forum than it is a governing body. The idea is to give nations a forum in which to discuss their grievances and hopefully come to a peaceful agreement rather than resorting to violence. It would be a pointless endeavor if we excluded every single country with a government we didn't like: note that the Soviet Union had a seat on the security council. China's position there is for the same reason: they're a large and powerful country. The Security Council is a tacit acknowledgment that some nations have more power than others.

That leads us back to Israel. The issue for which they are condemned by some within the UN is that Israel is a signitory to some of the international laws they keep violating. If Israel had no intention to respect the Fourth Geneva Convention, they shouldn't have signed it: by ratifying it they agreed to be bound by its terms. It seems perfectly reasonable to me to expect a nation to live up to laws they sign off on.

You don't like China's civil rights record? Let's see, what do they do... oh yes, they're occupying land (Tibet for one) gained in an invasion, and they put down demonstrations against the government using their military, sometimes in spectaculary bloody fashion. Hmmm... sounds like another nation I know. Too bad for China they don't have Israel's skill at PR.

What do you call that? That is most certainly a strawman argument. Tibet did not lauch attacks against China, it does not launch daily death squads into China, Tibet was not part of a different country oppressed by it, it does not have people in its country that like rule under China than it does under Tibet. And finally, China is a totalitarian regime, Israel is not. Israel is one of the few countries in the middle east that allows Arabs to vote, and the only one in the middle east to allow women to vote.

I'm tempted to use Israel Apologist tactics here and claim you're unfairly defaming China and it proves you're a Chinese-hating bigot. *Instead,* look at the following figures for Arabs and Israelis killed during the Al-Aqsa Intifada (9-29-200 to 12-21-2002):

In the Occupied Territories

1,691 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces' gunfire in the Occupied Territories, of whom 311 were minors under the age of 18.

Ages of the minors killed: Fifty Eight minors were age 17, Fifty were age 16, Forty Five were age 15, Forty were age 14, Thirty Seven were age 13, Seventeen were age 12, Ten were age 11, Eleven were age 10, Five were age 9, Ten were age 8, Four were age 7, Five were age 6, Three were age 5, Three were age 4, Five were age 3, Four were two years old, Two were One year old baby girls, One was a 6 month old baby girl and One was a four month old baby girl.

At least 84 of the palestinians killed were extrajudicially executed by Israel. In the course of these assasinations 40 additional palestinians were killed.

25 Palestinians were killed by Israeli civilians, including Three minors: One was age 17, One was age 14 and One was a Two month- old baby girl.

Six foreign Citizens were killed by Israeli security forces gunfire.

169 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians, 28 of them were minors under the age of 17: Five were aged 17, Five were age 16, Seven were age 14, Two were age 13, One was age 11, Two were age 9, Three were age 5, One was a 10 month-old baby girl and One was a 5 month-old baby boy and one was a one day old baby boy.

Seven foreign citizens were killed by Palestinians.

139 members of the Israeli security forces were killed by Palestinians.

One Palestinian was killed by Palestinians while being force to serve as a “Human Shield” by Israeli Security Forces.

22 Palestinians were killed by Palestinians while in the Palestinian Authority's custody
13 of them were killed by Palestinian civilians on suspicion of being collaborators with Israel
9 of them were killed by Palestinian security forces while in custody on suspicion of being collaborators with Israel
3 of them were executed by Palestinian security forces, two on the grounds that they were collaborators, one was accused of criminal offences

At least 44 Palestinians were killed by Palestinians, not in custody
29 of them were killed by Palestinian civilians on suspicion of being collaborators with Israel
15 of them were killed by Palestinian security forces during demonstrations against the Palestinian Authority, 8 of them were minors.



Within Israel

38 Palestinians, residents of the Occupied Territories, were killed by Israeli security forces gunfire. One of those killed was a minor aged 14.

272 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians, residents of the Occupied Territories. 54 of them were minors under the age of 18. Of them: Eight were age 17, Ten were age 16, Thirteen were age 15, Five were age 14, Three were age 13, One was age 12, One was age 11, One was age 10, Two were age 8, One was age 7, One was age 5, Two were age 4, One was age 3, One was a 14 month old baby, One was a two years old baby, One was a Eighteen month old baby, One was a nine month old baby, and One was a seven month old baby.

20 foreign citizens were killed by Palestinians. One of them was a minor, age 16.

63 members of the Israeli security forces were killed by Palestinians, residents of the Occupied Territories.

Out of those two "extrajudicial executions" mentioned, at least two were helicopter gunships (one firing rockets at an apartment, the other firing two hellfire anti-tank missiles at a BMW) while another was a 2,000 pound bomb dropped from an F-16 into a dense residential neighborhood in Gaza City July 22nd of 2002. Another was performed by wiring the headrest of a suspected Hamas terrorist's car with C-4. Several bystanders were injured when the bomb (yes, that's right... the Israelis planted a car bomb) detonated. I drew the comparison based on the methods both countries use to crush dissent in terroritory they've illegally occupied, and I stand by it.

This line of argument is also a tacit acknowledgement that the charges regarding Israel's conduct have merit. Do you truly have that little confidence in your position?

Not at all. Only that whatever abuses Israel has taken, does not make it a bloodthirsty facist state since biblical times, nor does it take away its right to exist.

They're more socialist than anything... check out this list of nationalized companies, straight off the website of the Israeli government: http://www.info.gov.il/eng/jbrut.asp

Well first of all democracy is not a guarantee for liberty. Democracy means majority rule, and liberty requires that the majority not be able to take away the liberties of the minority through a vote. A constitutional republic, that enumerates the constricted powers of government and the
rights of individuals, is what usually is required for a protection of liberty. But thats for another discussion.


So you're saying you wasted some pixels right here to make a totally irrelevant point? Sounds like a red herring to me.

Uh no, that's not a red herring. It would be a red herring if I said it was relevant to the topic I was discussing, and abandoning the original arguments. Which I clearly said it was not when I said "...that's for another discussion" and when I said "I have some issues with the essay"

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacie ... rring.html

Check this out:

Israel does not grant full liberties to terrorist infested Palestinian territories. Can you blame
them? What would they do? Vote to exterminate the Jews? And again, a democracy is not the ultimate goal to liberty, lets dispel that myth right
away:

http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/meanin ... vote.shtml

http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/pr110702.shtml

That's from later on in the same exact post as the one above... evidently you must have changed your mind about it being an irrelevant little aside.

For many years in Greece the same policy was in practice. All Greek citizens had to carry a card identifying them as Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, but recently this was repealed. (Actually just last year) Point
being, countries that have a greater respect for liberty than say, the entre Arab world, are capable of correcting their mistakes and make efforts to better their liberties. Israeli-Arabs living under Israel enjoy more liberties, better economic opportunities, and more political freedoms than their
Arab cousins in surround Arab territories. Do you think their lives would be better under a totalitarian terrorist thug like Arafat?

Again we return to "everyone else is doing it, so why can't Israel?!" This seems to be a common theme in your "rebuttal."

Do you find it difficult to read? I didn't say that, I said "Point
being, countries that have a greater respect for liberty than say, the entre Arab world, are capable of correcting their mistakes and make efforts to better their liberties"

Other countries do it too, so that makes it okay? Surely you have a better justification than that.

Strawman. I never said it was okay that countries do it too.

You started off this part of your post with an explanation of how Greece supposedly had a similar system to Israel's. In other words you claimed that another country was doing the same thing. If you didn't post that in order to defend Israel's use of a similar system, then the only purpose it serves in this debate is to make your post that much longer. Far from improving, the situation in the occupied territories is at the point where the West Bank has been divided into 8 areas of control and Gaza into 4. Travel from one town to another within each area requires a permit which must be renewed monthly. Goods cannot be moved from one area to another in a vehicle: trucks must stop at the border of the zone and the cargo be transferred by hand to a truck on the other side of the boundary. Needless to say, this hamstrings efforts to distribute relief supplies in the occupied territories. Palestinians have died because their ambulances weren't let through roadblocks and checkpoints. Israel isn't improving: they're becoming more draconian.

Now, let's look at these "better economic conditions." Unemployment is 50% in the West Bank and an appalling 70% in the Gaza Strip. 67% of the Palestinians in the occupied territories live under the poverty line of $2 a day. Compare that to a $20,000 GDP per capita and 9% unemployment within Israel. Oh yeah, let's not forget total government control of the water supply in the West Bank. Drilling a new well or repairing an old one requires a variety of permits which are notoriously difficult to acquire. Arabs in the occupied territories sure have it good. Want to argue that $2 a day is better than the GDP per capita of "the entire arab world" and advance some proof for the point, or would you prefer to stick with our little friend the Unsupported Claim?

Ok, let's talk numbers:

Life expectancy for palestinian people is higher than it has ever been before, the number of Palestinians working in Israel rose from zero in 1967 to 66,000 in 1975 and 109,000 by 1986, accounting for 35 percent of the employed population of the West Bank and 45 percent in Gaza. Close to 2,000 industrial plants, employing almost half of the work force, were established in the territories under Israeli rule. During the 1970's, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world-ahead of such "wonders" as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself. Per-capita GNP expanding tenfold between 1968 and 1991 from $165 to $1,715 (compared with Jordan's $1,050, Egypt's $600, Turkey's $1,630, and Tunisia's $1,440). By 1999, Palestinian per-capita income was nearly double Syria's, more than four times Yemen's, and 10 percent higher than Jordan's (one of the betteroff Arab states). Mortality rates in the West Bank and Gaza fell by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 1990, while life expectancy rose from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000. Israeli medical programs reduced the infant-mortality rate of 60 per 1,000 live births in 1968 to 15 per 1,000 in 2000 (in Iraq the rate is 64, in Egypt 40, in Jordan 23, in Syria 22). And under a systematic program of inoculation, childhood diseases like polio, whooping cough, tetanus, and measles were eradicated. By 1986, 92.8 percent of the population in the West Bank and Gaza had electricity around the clock, as compared to 20.5 percent in 1967; 85 percent had running water in dwellings, as compared to 16 percent in 1967; 83.5 percent had electric or gas ranges for cooking, as compared to 4 percent in 1967; and so on for refrigerators, televisions, and cars. Compare this progress to all neighboring Arab states which are corrupt despotic theocracies.

Hmmm... according to your stats, Palestinians account for 35% of employed workers in the West Bank. Seeing as how they account for 85% of the West Bank's population, that is hardly a ringing endorsement of fairness in employment in the region. The numbers for Gaza are even more absurd: by your numbers, the Palestinians have 45% of the jobs in an area where they are 99.4% of the population. I notice you don't contradict the figures of 70% unemployment in Gaza and 50% in the West Bank... concession accepted. That figure climbs to 100% whenever the IDF shuts down freedom of movement in the area. As for the rest of the numbers:

Infant Mortality: Israel 7.55/1000, Gaza 24.76/1000, West Bank 21.24/1000 (the rate is triple in both occupied territories )
Life expectancy: Israel 78.86 years, Gaza 71.2 years, West Bank 72.47 years
GDP growth rate: Israel -0.6%, Gaza -35%, West Bank -35%

Compare to Jordan: infant mortality rate 19.61/1,000, Life Expectancy 77.71 years, GDP growth rate 2.8%

The industrial plants are Israeli-owned. Electrical power is supplied Israel Electric Company, with only a few Palestinian cities like Jenin and Nablus having any kind of independant generators. Water is likewise controlled by the Israelis. The number of main telephone lines in use in both Gaza and the West Bank combined is 95,729 compared to 2.8 million in Israel. There are a total of 3 ISPs in Gaza and 8 in the West Bank with 60,000 users between them, compared to 21 with 1.94 million users in Israel. Information and communications are another form of power, after all. Israel spends $8.866 billion annually on their military (8% of their yearly budget) while the PNA by law is not permitted to have a military.

You snipped this off when you replied, so I'll restate the point and see if you can address it this time. GDP per capita in the West Bank is $1,000 with an overall unemployment rate of 25.5%. GDP per capita in Gaza is $625 with an overall unemployment rate of 36.5%. So, even factoring in the Israeli settlers in the area neither occupied territory matches Syria's GDP per capita of $3,200 and unemployment rate of 20%. Jordan has a GDP per capita of $4,200 and an unemployment rate of 16%. Egypt's GDP per capita is $3,700 with an unemployment rate of 12%. Lebanon's GDP per capita is $5, 200 with unemployment of 18% (although there it is worth noting that the last unemployment figure available was from 1997.) So, even a country racked by civil war that has been bombed by the IDF on a regular basis in the 80's has better conditions than the Occupied Territories.

It is worth noting that Israel has a GDP of $20,000 with an overall unemployment rate of 9%. Now, when you look at those figures it is also worth noting that between 1949 and 2001 the US has given Israel $84, 854,827,000 in foreign aid, plus absorbed $49,963,680,000 in lost interest on loans to Israel converted to grants. All US loans have in fact eventually been converted to grants by Congress, which explains why Israel has never defaulted on a US loan. That's a total cost to the US taxpayer of $134,791,507,200... or about $23,240 for each man, woman and child in Israel. They account for 1/3rd of all foreign aid yearly, despite having a GDP higher than all their arab neighbors put together and almost as high as most western european nations (Israel is the 16th wealthiest nation in the world, higher than Saudi Arabia.) This year, Israel is asking for another $14 billion in US aid, $4 billion of that military. Also, factor in an annual $1 billion in charitable contributions from US companies and citizens, plus $500 million more in bonds. Add commercial loans from US banks which have been as high as $1 billion in some years. Compare that to the neighboring "despotic fundamentalist muslim regimes" who get almost jack-shit from the US. Gee, wonder why Israel is so prosperous?

Of course you fail to mention this was done AFTER Israelis have been under constant terrorist attacks by Palestinians. You seem to conveniently leave out the heinous acts carried out by Palestinian homicide bombers on Israelis school children in malls, yet you are so ready to condemn everything Israel does without taking a more objective approach as to why they act the way they do. Not to mention, it is far different than Hitlers armband marking schemes for several reasons: 1) Hitler was a totalitarian dictator, Israel, as you admit yourself "It is true that
Israel is nominally a democracy" so again, a dubious analogy 2) Jews were not systematically killing German school children, nor did they initiate a war against Germany. The Jews had not initiated any violence against other German citizens but were simply victims to Hitler's plan for a
pure race.


How did I know this guy was going to use the term "Homicide Bomber" sooner or later?

So what do you call them? Freedom fighter? I'd like to know.

Suicide bomber. What else would you call a maniac wearing a bomb?

You seem to forget the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians their homes in 1948, or the seizure of property in the West Bank after Israel declared that any property which the occupants could not produce title to belonged to the state of Israel.

You seem to forget all Arabs living under Israel's initial borders were given full civil liberties. You also forget to mention over a million Jews were persecuted and jewish communities destroyed all throughout the muslim countries in 1948.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/c ... 120302.asp

Now I'm not saying two wrongs make a right, but let's not kid ourselves and morally equivalize everything Israel has done to what Arab dictators and theocracies have done, which is what you and Darth Wong has done. Assuming what your saying is true or not, and this most certainly does not mean you can generalize on the "True Nature of Israel".


That is misleading. All Arabs who fell under Israel's initial boundaries were granted citizenship. The Palestinians you refer to are those in the West Bank and Gaza strip, territories that were seized after Israel was attacked by surrounding Arab states and the source of non-stop constant terrorist attack.

This is out-and-out bullshit. Tell that to the 750,000 arabs (out of about 900,000 living in the area before Israel declared independence) who were expelled from the country. Tell it to the approximately 25% of those remaining within Israel whose land was seized, causing them to end up as internal refugees. Nice to see you resort to outright lying on this one.

How am I lying? Arabs under the intial boundaries of Israel were granted full citizenship. It's not a lie. You're the one twisting my remarks to mean something else. Why do you ignore the fact Arabs living under Israel prefer that government over the PLO?

Your local community college probably has a course on remedial english comprehension that you would find helpful. I'll spell this out for you. All arabs living within Israel's original borders could not have been given full rights of citizenship, becase 750,000 of them were forced to flee the country. 37,500 more of them were not given full rights of citizenship, because their land was seized (ie. they were denied the right of property.) Right there, your fantasy of full civil liberties falls right on its face. Then you say "well, the arab countries were doing it too." Even if true, this is merely another repetition of your "Israel is just doing what everone else is doing" refrain. It is simply not acceptable as a moral or legal justification for anything.

Quote:
Quote:
Those rights include exclusive rights to most land (more than 90% of Israel's land is earmarked Jewish-only), preferential hiring for both public and private employment, special education loans, home mortgages, and preferential admission to universities.


You must give empirical evidence to support this claim.


Don't forget that 25% of the Gaza strip and 46% of the West Bank are currently controlled by the settlements. That's 25% of a 26 mile stretch of land in the hands of only 7,000 Israeli settlers compared to the 1,100,000 Palestinians: .6% of the people control 25% of the land! The West Bank is the same story: 46% of the land controlled by 376,000 settlers with the scraps left for the 2,200,000 arabs. That's 46% of the land in the hands of 17.1% of the people there.

P.S.: demanding evidence when you've failed to advance much yourself is an amusing bit of hypocrisy.

Territory taken after they were attacked several times, and in the Six Day War in self-defense. Perhaps you feel territory taken when advancing into enemy territory after your enemy attacks you is not sufficient reason for self defense. But the governments who attacked Israel, whom the Palestinians were living under, were totalitarian despotic regimes, and no totalitarian regime has the right to exist. And whatever wrongs that have happened in Jewish settlements in the West Bank does not morally equivalize Israel with her neighbors, when on the contrary, Palestinians (no not all, but definitely a percentage) under Yasser Arafat would rather live under Israel. Yasser Arafat also suppresses his people from free speech and efforts to establish individual rights.

Again with the "other countries do bad things too!" argument I don't know where you're getting the idea that I'm hold up Arafat as some paragon of moral virtue, but it's getting really tiresome.

Quote:
Quote:
Did you know that other special rights are granted for those who serve in the military (shades of Starship Troopers' fictional fascist state!), and that ethnic Palestinians are prohibited from serving?


The first part of your statement is completely laughable, all citizens of Israel, male and female are required to serve in the military. Take that fact and read your sentence again. And as for Palestinians prohibited from serving, who are you referring too? Israeli-Arab citizens or those who live in the terrorist infested Gaza strip and West Bank? If Palestinians were forced to serve in their military like Israelis citizens are, you'd accuse Israel for forcefully conscripting Palestinians, yet on the other hand, they don't, so you accuse them of racism. Damned if they do, damned if they don't. And I'm sure it would behoove Israel to not take Palestinians and put them in their military, since the Israelis are fighting a war against Palestinians that the Palestinians initiated.

This is another bald-faced lie. The ONLY non-jewish group permitted to serve in the IDF are the Druse.

You are lying. Arabs under Israel's borders are permitted to serve.

Conceded. I should have checked the facts more carefully on that.

And while we're on the subject, Israel is a signitory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Despite the fact that it bans punishment of conscientious objectors, Israel still routinely imprisons people who refuse to serve and in at least one case has jailed a man (Victor Sabranski) 5 times for it in further violation of the ban on punishing conscientious objectors more than once. Throwing in the "no matter what they do you'll say it's wrong" part makes it an Ad Hominem attack as well, implying that personal bias is the root of Mike's entire argument while failing to refute the point that "Israeli-Arabs" who may wish to join the IDF are barred from service.

I don't know what to say other than you're wrong. First of all, the Druze are a muslim population. Second, Israeli-Arabs are permitted to volunteer:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDF

Conceded on arabs in the IDF. However, you completely ignore the facts on the ICCPR, which is yet another international law which Israel ratified and stands in violation of.

Quote:
Quote:
Did you know that the economic disparity between Jews and Arabs in Israel makes the black/white economic disparity in America seem downright insignificant by comparison?


If that were true, and again you provide no data or reference to substantiate this, that is no argument for Israel not having the right to defend herself.


See above. Since the title of Mike's essay was "The True Nature of Israel" it's entirely relevant. Stop trying to move the goal posts here.

It's misleading. As my numbers above point out, Arabs under Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have had more economic growth, even in some time periods surpassing Israeli GDP growth, than under Yasser Arafat.

Lumping the Israeli settlers in with the Palestinians is "misleading." See the stats above: every one of those "despotic illegitimate theocracies" you like to rant about has better economic conditions than the Palestinians do in the Israeli-occupied territories.

Quote:
Quote:
Did you know that Arabs in the occupied territories pay taxes to Israel, yet receive no representation in Israel's government?



Provide empirical evidence to this claim. The burden of proof is on you since you made it. People can't just take your word on it.


It's spelled out right in the 1992 Law of Political Parties, which prevents candidates from participating in the elections if their platform suggests the "denial of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people." In other words, any political party whose aim is equality for arabs and jews cannot participate in elections. Taxation without representation. Try and find just ONE damn Palestinian legislator in the Knesset.

First of all, you left out the rest of the law, it states:

A party will not be registered if any of its purposes or deeds, implicitly or explicitly, contains


1. negation of the existence of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state;
2. incitement to racism.
3. reasonable ground to deduce that the party will serve as a cover for illegal actions.

Now the first clause is definitely troublesome. And I agree, is counterproductive to liberty. I would find it acceptable if the first clause left out "Jewish". However, the Supreme Court of Israel has brought up the problems of this law and this does not say "Arabs cannot participate in the democratic process and be candidates for elections", nor does this imply that identification as a Jewish state means a denial of individual rights to Arabs. Yes I agree, the law is bad, but I don't agree with you it means taxation without representation.

And you said: "Try and find just ONE damn Palestinian legislator in the Knesset"

How about Azmi Bishara. There, I found ONE, and there are many more.

Ah yes... Azmi Bishara, whose parliamentary immunity was revoked so he could be tried on charges of violating the 1948 "Prevention of Terror Ordinance." This was for two speeches he made affirming the rights of occupied peoples to resist occupation under international law. He's also charged with violating Regulation 18 (d) of the 1948 "Emergency Regulations (foreign travel)" by arranging reunions between elderly "Israeli-Arabs" and their refugee families in Syria. He faces dual simultaneous trials for those two "offenses." Ahmed Tibi has also had his parliamentary immunity limited, his freedom of movement having been restricted until October of 2003 when the Knesset session ends for similar political statements. I hadn't realized before that Israel would prosecute their own lawmakers so readily... thank you for bringing it to my attention.

There's also a charming quote in Ha'aretz from an MK Yisraeli Katz (Likud party) who describes arab MKs as "leeches who suck the blood of Israeli democracy."

by the way, this is Balad's platform: Attorney General Elyakin Rubenstein is currently trying to get them disqualified from participation in the Knesset:

The National Democratic Assembly: Principals and Aimes

The NDA strongly believes in and advocates for universal human values: democracy, freedom, social justice, human rights, and the right of a people to self-determination. The NDA firmly opposes racial, national, religious and gender discrimination.


1. The NDA seeks to transform Israel from a Jewish state into a democratic state, a state with equality for all of its citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, and to eliminate all state institutions and laws which discriminate against Arabs in Israel.
2. The NDA regards Palestinian Arabs in Israel as part of the Palestinian Arab people; and at the same time they constitute a distinguished national minority in Israel. In keeping with the United Nations Charter, the NDA demands that the government of Israel recognize Palestinian Arabs in Israel as a national minority which is entitled to enjoy the rights granted all national minorities. The NDA demands that the government of Israel recognize the rights of the Arab national minority in Israel to self-rule in matters that distinguish it from the national majority. In particular, the NDA demands autonomy over Palestinian education and media.
3. The NDA supports the establishment and development of Palestinian institutions in Israel, and the NDA pledges to actively promote economic, cultural, and political rights by proposing affirmative action programs.
4. The NDA struggles against the confiscation of Arab lands, and the NDA demands that the government of Israel recognize the unrecognized Arab villages.
5. The NDA struggles for the withdrawal of Israel from all occupied Arab territories and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the 1967 Occupied Territories with East Jerusalem as its capital.
6. The NDA supports full equality between men and women and the elimination of sectarianism and clan prejudices.
7. The NDA pledges cooperation with all Jewish groups and individuals in Israel who work with it in concord with its PRINCIPLES AND AIMS

What an evil bunch

Quote:
Quote:
"...And what about voting rights? Pro-Israel types insist that Arabs can vote in Israel, but that's only because Israel is good at pretending to be a democracy. In reality, the distinction between
;occupied territory&#and the rest of Israel is defined by race; Israeli settlements in the ;occupied territories&; have full voting rights in Israel, while Arabs in those same occupied territories do not.


Israel does not grant full liberties to terrorist infested Palestinian territories. Can you blame them? What would they do? Vote to exterminate the Jews? And again, a democracy is not the ultimate goal to liberty, lets dispel that myth right away:

http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/meanin ... vote.shtml

http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/pr110702.shtml


Nice loaded language in the first sentance. This would be more accurately stated as "Israel prevents the Palestinians in these areas from voting because the most likely act of a conquered people would be to vote for their freedom from Israeli domination." The following 3 sentances are Begging the Question. How's this for an answer: maybe they'd vote to have equal rights under the law (which the Basic Law: Human Diginities and Freedom does *not* specify... in fact it affirms "the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state." - emphasis mine.) Maybe they'd also vote for creation of a Palestinian nation. Israel wants neither.

Alex Epstein wrote:
The right to vote derives from the recognition of man as an autonomous, rational being, who is responsible for his own life and who should therefore freely choose the people he authorizes to represent him in the government of his country. That autonomy is contradicted if a majority of voters is allowed to do whatever it wishes to the individual citizen. The right to vote is not a sanction for a gang to deprive other individuals of their freedom. Rather, because a free society requires a certain type of government, it is a means of installing the officials who will safeguard the individual rights of each citizen.


Did you even read this essay before you pasted the link?! The author clearly disagrees with you on the morality of allowing Israel to disenfranchise 3.3 million Palestinians in the occupied territories. Way to shoot your own rebuttal in the foot.

You're twiting the language, Alex Epstein clearly states:

"That autonomy is contradicted if a majority of voters is allowed to do whatever it wishes to the individual citizen. The right to vote is not a sanction for a gang to deprive other individuals of their freedom."

And the Palestinians under the PLO have elected Yasser Arafat, a known terrorist who has gone on record saying he wishes to annihilate the Jews and drive them into the sea. Clearly, if the Palestinians, under the control of PLO, vote for the PLO, deny the rights of individuals. Way to shoot your own rebuttal in the foot.

You must have missed Arafat having to replace most of his cabinet because they resigned rather than face a vote of no confidence. Arafat's popularity was sagging until the Israelis beseiged his headquarters on two seperate occasions. Right or wrong, people have a tendency to rally around their leadership when they perceive them as being under attack. A casual inspection of the investigations surrounding Clinton will show how it happens: he suffered a dip in popularity right when the story about Lewinski broke, followed by a surge upwards with every effort the Republicans made to remove him. Sharon pursues the same tactic, in my opinion, because he doesn't want Arafat gone: having a man with former ties to the PLO in charge of the PNA gives him a convenient whipping boy when Israel wants to crack down even further on the occupied territories. Yes, Arafat and his cronies are a corrupt pack of bastards: this in no way excuses Israel's continued military occupation of these lands or their efforts to further deny Palestinians living in those territories their freedom.

Further, even given your comment that the statement in the Basic Law that Israel is an explicitly Jewish state, you still don't see how the critcism of the essay you yourself published applies to them?! Let me spell it out *again* for you. For starters, Israel does not even HAVE a written constitution. Government over there is based on the series of Basic Laws passed by the Knesset since 1949, and it was not until 1993 ( ) that they passed the Basic Law: Human Dignities and Freedom. Even then, both political representation and individual liberty are subordinate to maintenence of Israel as an explicitly Jewish state. Right there is where the essay you posted applies to Israel.

Quote:
Quote:
Israel enjoys broad support among nations with a Judeo-Christian background, while its actions have been widely criticized among nations without a Judeo-Christian background. As an example of the audacious spin-doctoring that is common in Israel's supporter nations (including my own), Time Magazine ran a comparison piece between a typical Palestinian family and a typical Israeli family recently; the Palestinian family's home had been destroyed by Israeli shelling and they were living hand to mouth, while the Israeli family was feeling a lot of stress because of Palestinian terrorism; the magazine actually had the temerity to pretend that their situations were equally difficult!


How ridiculous, if a people support a terrorist thug like Yasser Arafat, who the Palestinians freely elected, than of course that means they don’t want peace, they don't want normal relations with Israel, and as a result of this outward support for terrorism against Israel, they suffer their own demise. Aren't these the same Palestinians that celebrated in the streets of the West Bank after al-Qaeda terrorists killed 3000 Americans on 9/11? Sorry, really can't feel bad for the Palestinian cause, they did it to themselves:

http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/columns/rt042202.shtml

And as my friend Moff Jerjerrod put it "This is particularly offensive. Time could've written a piece detailing an Israeli family that lost a loved one to Palestinian hatred. Secondly, he is suggesting somehow that nations with a Judeo-Christian background are inherently more biased than those that do not."


I can play this game too: "if the Israelis really wanted peace, they wouldn't have elected a Likud extremist like Sharon who had his troops stand back and watch while the Christian Phalange slaughtered refugees in Sabra and Shatila. The fact that they did proves they don't want peace and just want to exterminate the Palestinians. As a result they suffer more bomb attacks." How do you like it from the opposing point of view? We can toss those sorts of statements back and forth all day long and they signify nothing. To rebutt your friend's point: Mike is saying that Judeo-Christian nations have a built-in bias in favor of Israel. Keep on beating up that "Judeo-Christians are bigots" strawman, though.

Perhaps they have a bias, I don't know, but again, (you obviously ignored what I said in response to this) there was no proof that linked the IDF, or Ariel Sharon, to being directly responsible for the war crimes committed in Sabra and Shatila. And as I pointed out, the United States supported Stalin during World War 2. Hitler was killing Jews in Poland in his effort to annihilate the Jews, after the United States gave mounds of financial and military support to Stalin in an effort to defeat Germany, Stalin, after marching into Poland, picked up where Stalin left off, and continued the extermination of Jews in Poland. Does that mean the United States was morally responsible for the murders committed by Stalin while they stood by? I can see if you want to say it was a grave tactical error, or that it was a terrible mistake to side with someone like Stalin, or in Israel's case the Lebanese Christian militia, but you cannot say they were morally responsible.

I didn't say he was directly responsible, I said he had his troops stand back and do nothing.

Failure to act is in and of itself an action. If you see a crime being perpetrated, you have the moral obligation to at least attempt to do something about it. More to the point, Sharon was in fact in command at Qibya: there, he had his thugs trap civilians inside buildings and then demolish the buildings with the people still inside. That was 60 or 70 deaths.

Good question. Why don't you ask the Arabs that initiated attacks against Israel?


Good idea: I'd bet they'd tell you they were unhappy with the UN plan for the Jewish minority (many of whom were recent immigrants) to end up with over half of Palestine.

So because the UN partition was unjust, it therefore gave the right to illegitimate governments (illegitimate since they were theocracies and despotic regimes) to launch an effort to annihilate the Jews?

Israel is a state based on the religion of Judaism. It's right in the Basic Laws. You should consider the implications of that (and their treatment of Palestinians in territory they control) before you sling around blanket condemnations about the legitimacy of theocracies. As far as *annihilating the Jews" goes, how about this:

One Israeli diplomat who grew up in the tough East End of London and rose to some prominence in the Israeli diplomatic service used to wear a Stern Gang badge inside his lapel when he was a boy.

He found it was a useful thing to flash at any anti-Semitic roughs that might be giving him trouble - and apparently it worked.

In post-war British-mandated Palestine the words Stern Gang equalled "terrorism" - assassinations, bombings, the full works. Even after independence, mainstream Jews continued to regard these Jewish terrorists as an extremist and ultimately insignificant aberration in the Zionist movement - until that is it was revealed that the Likud foreign minister of the 1970s, Yitzhak Shamir, had been the gang's operations commander.

Avraham Stern formed his Fighters for the Freedom of Israel movement during World War II. A member of the so-called Revisionist wing of Zionism, he rejected any compromises with the British and demanded the creation of a Greater Israel that would occupy all the Jewish territories of the Bible. He regarded Britain as a bigger enemy than Hitler and opposed Jews joining
up in the British army to fight Nazism.

Stern even got a message to the Nazis in which he said his movement was "well-acquainted with the goodwill of the German Reich government and its authorities towards Zionist activity inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans", and added: "Common interests could exist between the establishment of a New Order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the true national aspirations of the Jewish people."

By appointing Shamir Foreign Minister, Prime Minister Menachem Begin had selected the organiser of two famous assassinations: the killing of Lord Moyne, the British Minister representative in the Middle East, in 1944, and that of Count Folke Bernadotte, the UN's special Mediator on Palestine, in 1948. Shamir later went on to become prime minister.

Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan once famously, and wrongly said, that there was no word in Russian for 'peace'. But there is an interesting linguistic twist in Hebrew that neatly captures the dichotomy of a nation which achieved statehood partly through armed action, and then has found itself attacked by the same means.

The word used today in Hebrew to describe a terrorist is 'mekhabbel'. It is used liberally to describe anyone who fights the state with political violence. It is in fact, exactly the same word that Yitzhak Shamir and his clleagues used to describe themselves - with pride - in their armed guerrilla struggle against the British. In those days it was roughly translated as 'saboteur', although the Stern Gang did a lot more than mere sabotage.

The meaning changed from positive 'saboteur' to extremely negative 'terrorist' in the early days of the Israeli state - once the battle for independence had been won and what had been won had to be protected from others seeking to take it away by the same means.

Nice enlightened bunch of people there

Note: red posts mine, to make them stand out from the blocks of quoted text.

[Coyote]

Here's something interesting....

The word used today in Hebrew to describe a terrorist is 'mekhabbel'. It is used liberally to describe anyone who fights the state with political violence. It is in fact, exactly the same word that Yitzhak Shamir and his clleagues used to describe themselves - with pride - in their armed guerrilla struggle against the British. In those days it was roughly translated as 'saboteur', although the Stern Gang did a lot more than mere sabotage.

I am curious if there is any sort of follow up that can be done on that word, 'mekhabbel'. It comes from the verb root "le'khabbel" which means "to receive (something)". It would be used in the stated form as "Ani mekhabbel kesef" or "I receive money".

The Stern Gang, it should be remembered, was recognized as an out-of-control regional militia. They were behind the bombing of the King David hotel which was roundly denounced by Ha'Ganah forces. Ha'Ganah had several English-speaking Jewish informants in the building at the time and the unauthorized bombing by the Stern Gang/Irgun closed off a vital source of intelligence for them (worth far more than the destruction of the building itself).

Later, during the "Altalena Incident", the Stern Gang was caught smuggling in a shipload of arms and ammo unauthorized by Ha'Ganah forces, which were trying to form a legitimate government and army. David Ben-Gurion ordered the destruction of the "Altalena", which sank in the bay with its cargo unrecovered, because he insisted that he Jewish nation must have one voice, one government, and one authority and not be a nation of gangs. The decision almost caused a civil war, with the Irgun and Ha'Ganah ready to fire on one another. The Stern Gang was disbanded soon after the "Altalena Incident" and many of its members absorbed into Ha'Ganah proper.

[Admiral Piett]

Here's something interesting....
The Stern Gang, it should be remembered, was recognized as an out-of-control regional militia. They were behind the bombing of the King David hotel which was roundly denounced by Ha'Ganah forces. Ha'Ganah had several English-speaking Jewish informants in the building at the time and the unauthorized bombing by the Stern Gang/Irgun closed off a vital source of intelligence for them (worth far more than the destruction of the building itself).

To my knowledge the bombing of the King David Hotel was carried out by the Irgun and ,apparently, the Haganah was not totally estraneous to the fact.
http://www.etzel.org.il/english/index2.html

This text for this website is written by a former Irgun member,so I suppose it should be decently reliable although I have not yet done a cross research.

Edit
Well,even us-israel.org lists it as an Irgun action
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Histor ... David.html

The definition of "out-of-control regional militia" may be accurate for an organization like the Stern gang but it is difficult to apply to an organization like the Irgun,with thousands of members and which was able
to field a battalion (emplyed at Jerusalem) during the war.

[beyond hope]

The linguistic thing was part of the article, which I simply posted in it's entirity. Not knowing hebrew, I wouldn't know what the answer would be. I got tired of Nixon trying to portray the violence in the region as a one-sided affair of arab attacks.

[meNNis]

wow.... so very many people getting so very upset about something that so very doesnt affect a single one of us discussing it......
and something we can do so very little (nothing) about either way anyways.......

*note* not bashing anyone . just not seeing the point in arguing 'bout it.

[HemlockGrey]

For the last bloody time; Israel did not take those territories in self-defense! It is clearly an example of colonial expansionism.

1) The Arab nations pose no threat to the IDF.

2) The Six Days War was an unprovoked Israeli invasion and annexation of Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, and eventually Lebanonian territory. There existed no threat, there was no chance the Arabs could drive the Israelis into the ocean, and there was no reason for Israel to annex the territory.

3) Israel has pursued a campaign of aggressive settling in all the annexed regions, thus defeating your claims of 'self-defense'.

[Wicked Pilot]

For the last bloody time; Israel did not take those territories in self-defense! It is clearly an example of colonial expansionism.

1) The Arab nations pose no threat to the IDF.

2) The Six Days War was an unprovoked Israeli invasion and annexation of Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, and eventually Lebanonian territory. There existed no threat, there was no chance the Arabs could drive the Israelis into the ocean, and there was no reason for Israel to annex the territory.

3) Israel has pursued a campaign of aggressive settling in all the annexed regions, thus defeating your claims of 'self-defense'.

4)The Israel air force and navy attacked the U.S.S. Liberty in international waters, killing 34 U.S. servicemen, and injuring 172 more. The ship was in the area to spy on the Egyptians, and its armament of a wopping four 50 caliber defensive guns was no threat to the Israelis.

[beyond hope]

If you're a US taxpayer, it affects you: see the figures for US aid to Israel.

[Oberleutnant]

If you're a US taxpayer, it affects you: see the figures for US aid to Israel.

...or the European Union financial aid to the Palestinians. Even without the aid, the situation and the politics in Middle East affect all of us on a greater scale.

[Wicked Pilot]

If you're a US taxpayer, it affects you: see the figures for US aid to Israel.

If you put gas in your car, it effects you that way too.


As an aside, that's why I like nuclear technology. We can use it both to lessen our need on foreign oil, and we can use it to give asshole nations like Saudi an unscheduled sunrise.

[meNNis]

As an aside, that's why I like nuclear technology. We can use it both to lessen our need on foreign oil, and we can use it to give asshole nations like Saudi an unscheduled sunrise.

LoL i agree haha

[Durandal]

I think the US should at least have some fun with their billions of dollars in aid to Israel. Starting in 2003, the billions of dollars will go to the Palestinians for the next 5 years, and it will not be withdrawn under any circumstances, no matter what the Palestinians do. Yes, we'll keep sending them money even if they gun down rock-wielding children in the streets. I know it sounds crazy, and it's a radical departure from what we've been doing, but hear me out!

After that 5 years, Israel will get the money back for the next 5. This will continue until both countries learn what it's like to be in each other's shoes, and stop fighting each other over a worthless strip of sand.

[Darth Wong]

I think the US should at least have some fun with their billions of dollars in aid to Israel. Starting in 2003, the billions of dollars will go to the Palestinians for the next 5 years, and it will not be withdrawn under any circumstances, no matter what the Palestinians do. Yes, we'll keep sending them money even if they gun down rock-wielding children in the streets. I know it sounds crazy, and it's a radical departure from what we've been doing, but hear me out!

I love this plan. But don't worry; Israeli military duty is very common, so virtually any random rocket attack will probably be in the vicinity of an IDF "terrorist" via simple probability, hence all civilian casualties are acceptable collateral damage. You wouldn't think people would buy this kind of thinking, but the world is a strange place, and if we can get CNN to change its bias every 5 years in co-ordination with this plan, it should work fine.

After that 5 years, Israel will get the money back for the next 5. This will continue until both countries learn what it's like to be in each other's shoes, and stop fighting each other over a worthless strip of sand.

A nation whose political system is dominated by fundies and their three thousand year old religious land claims and "chosen people" bigotry, versus a slave-state whose entire population is dominated by fundies ... are they even capable of learning?

[tharkûn]

Bah not even going to try to read this all. A few things about the infamous "defensive war".

1. Many people think the war began with Israel attacking Egypt, in reality the war is a straight-up continuation of the Suez war (where Israel, the UK, and France kicked Egyptian ass until the USSR/USA said cool it). Egypt agreed to a ceasefire with Israel, this ceasefire had numerous stipulations. Egypt unilaterally broke the ceasefire unilaterally (blockading of Tiran, kicking the UN force out of the Sinia, etc.), in short the ceasefire was declared NULL and VOID by Nasser. In short Egypt and Israel had worked out a deal which said in essence, "If these conditions are met we are not at war", Egypt took that deal and wiped their asses with it. When you violate a ceasefire the firing commences. Nasser publically disavowed any state of peace existing between the two countries.
2. Arab sponsored (as in governmet sponsored in some case) terrorist attacks occurred in the years prior. Dozens of ACTS of WAR (as defined by Geneva) were carried out (like artillerly taking pot shots at Tel Aviv).
3. Nasser flat out said, "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel." Don't spew that inane crap that this is just rhetoric for the cameras, every bloody Arab leader and military planner echos the same line, even in private discussions since related. I have yet to find a shread of legitimate evidence that outweighs the plethora of public comments. If it is rhetoric .. fine prove it.
4. Many people talk about how Tiran is inconsequential. Unfortunately Tiran was Israel's only link to its oil supply, prolonged blockade will result in SEVERE logistical problems for the IDF (which is EXACTLY why the blockade began).
5. The IDF, unlike the Arab armies, could only maintain a semblence of parity if they called up the reserves. Every bloody time Israel calls up the reserves, the economy STOPS. Likewise the production of war materials grinds to a halt. The simple threat of an Arab invasion with the thousands of troops is enough to bancrupt Israel, and given long enough inaction ... Israel finds itself in an untenable position.
6. So finally you come down to the fact that the IDF is looking at numerical disparity of 3:1 or worse in every major category, free flowing Soviet arms shipments to their advesaries (and an arms embargo from both the US and France), and zilch in the way of allies (a flotilla to challenge the closing of Tiran fell through, in spite of the literally dozens of treaties the world community had signed). What the frik do you do?

Now some of you brilliant strategists suggest that the IDF was under no threat, I find that charge to be moronic. With a pre-emptive assualt the IDF lost roughly a quarter of its fighters. How in HELL those planes were to survive in the event that Moked kill HUNDREDS of enemy planes on the ground completely alludes me. Do you honestly think that IDF aviation casualties would not have been ludicriously higher when the targets can fight back?

Israel won the Six Day war through Air superioty. Its planes freely and relentlessly flew support missions for the ground forces, without the ariel support you would NOT see an Israeli steamroll through Arab positions.

Hell in Yom Kippur Arab armies advanced kilometres into Israeli held lands ... that is far enough to cut Israel in half in '67. Militarily I fail to see how any compotent tactician or strategist can say the Arabs posed no threat on June 4th, 1967. They have numbers, their numbers are increasing more rapidly. They have cash (virtually unlimited), the Israeli economy is dying. They have priority access to oil, Israel has zilch incoming. Their artillerly is able to hit every major Israeli city, only Israeli air power can reach into the centres of Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq. Israel wins on quality, but other than that, they are royally screwed.

'67 comes down to the fact that Israel is an untenable position that is getting worse by the day. Outnumbered, economically distressed, and already suffering numerous acts of war Israel asked the US for help, the US was, "Neutral in thought, word, and deed." In which case Israel has two choices:
1. Hope that all the Arab leaders and propoganda are outright lying through their teeth and every single public comment made is an outright lie. Further this requires that you assume your intelligence operatives (who point blank stated war is imment) are wrong.
2. Pre-empt.

So Israel decided to attack Egpyt, and decimated their air force. Nasser allegedly lied to Hussein (about the success of the Moked) and the Jordanians attacked Isreal (Israel even offered to forget a "salvo of honor" otherwise known as artillery shelling).

As far as Israeli expansionism ... BS. After the Suez War Israel HAD the Sinia and Gaza, they withdrew hoping to buy peace. That failed. After Yom Kippur Israel handed land over to Egpyt in exchange for peace. When Sadat was willing to accept a viable lasting peace ... he got the rest of the Sinia. The West Bank was held until Jordan was willing to accept a viable peace, this happened in the '90s ... by which time Jordan renounced its earlier annexation of the west bank. Syria has yet to even put a viable peace plan on the table. A minority of Isrealis advocate settling in the territories, they did it in the Sinai too.

The problem is it is currently impossible to form a dove government in Israel. The opposition is going to get smashed in the next elections, and Palestinian actions/world codemnation have served only to ensure that Likud and those to the right get more votes. If the US pulls out funding I'm betting on a VERY strong Likud showing, and absolutely fruity fringe voting. Most Israelis would sacrifice the settlements for safety and peace, the problem is they don't beleive that sacrificing the settlements will bring either safety or peace.

Lastly Lebannon was NOT part of the Six Day war. It stems from completely different issues and was fought in a completely different time period/manner.

[Durandal]

I think the US should at least have some fun with their billions of dollars in aid to Israel. Starting in 2003, the billions of dollars will go to the Palestinians for the next 5 years, and it will not be withdrawn under any circumstances, no matter what the Palestinians do. Yes, we'll keep sending them money even if they gun down rock-wielding children in the streets. I know it sounds crazy, and it's a radical departure from what we've been doing, but hear me out!

I love this plan. But don't worry; Israeli military duty is very common, so virtually any random rocket attack will probably be in the vicinity of an IDF "terrorist" via simple probability, hence all civilian casualties are acceptable collateral damage. You wouldn't think people would buy this kind of thinking, but the world is a strange place, and if we can get CNN to change its bias every 5 years in co-ordination with this plan, it should work fine.

After that 5 years, Israel will get the money back for the next 5. This will continue until both countries learn what it's like to be in each other's shoes, and stop fighting each other over a worthless strip of sand.

A nation whose political system is dominated by fundies and their three thousand year old religious land claims and "chosen people" bigotry, versus a slave-state whose entire population is dominated by fundies ... are they even capable of learning?

Maybe not, but if the government insists on spending so much damn money, we might as well spruce things up a little.

[Coyote]

wow.... so very many people getting so very upset about something that so very doesnt affect a single one of us discussing it......

Well, the taxpayers of the US are indirectly affected by the foreign aid money, and many places in the Muslim world use the conflict as a justification for various acts of their own... many against the West in general and the US in particular.

And Iactually am personally affected by it, after living, studying, and working there for four years and still having very close ties to a lot of people over there...

But debate is fun, and who knows when a person can learn something? A few years ago I was very hawkish for Israel; I felt there was no reason to hold back kicking out the Palestininans and I saw no reason to be concerned about house bulldozings and other strikes. After living there and talking to others about it (mostly before coming to this board) I have changed my pov drastically.

[Darth Wong]

In reply to Tharkun:

Ah, so if Arabs shoot first, then they are the aggressors even if the Israelis are violating terms (moving into the DMZ) and provoking them. But if Israelis shoot first, then they are not the aggressors because the Arabs are violating terms and provoking them. Funny how the definition of "aggressor" varies ...

[The Duchess of Zeon]

In reply to Tharkun:

Ah, so if Arabs shoot first, then they are the aggressors even if the Israelis are violating terms (moving into the DMZ) and provoking them. But if Israelis shoot first, then they are not the aggressors because the Arabs are violating terms and provoking them. Funny how the definition of "aggressor" varies ...

Well, it really does depending on the circumstances and terms. International Law is a complex beast.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I think we underestimate the influence of religion in world affairs. Historians like to often attribute religious wars and religious events to economic factors; I think we should hesitate in doing this. Economics is big. However, psychological factors can be huge. Psychology is a pseudo-science for the most part, but I think it is very good at mass-manipulation; and, essentially, so are religions.

That is to say, economics is what drives rational War, and psychology (of which religio has been the principle manifestation before the industrial age) drives irrational War.

Therefore, even as people ourselves divorced from religion, we must recognize that the region its self is not, and any solution to this problem must first solve the religious problems of the region before peace in the Levant can be arranged.

Failure to recognize the fact that the religious problems exist as the basically fundamental problems, not as secondary ones, or ones caused by the other problems of the affair, will simply lead to hopeless negotiation without result.

In this I mean that in any peace negotiation the resolution of the status of Jerusalem must be the first thing to be dealt with; it cannot be ignored, it cannot be left for later. Unless you resolve the status of Jerusalem first, the peace will inevitably fail.

We may think that's stupid, and it is. But remember that there are fundamentally irrational people on both sides, and therefore if we want peace we must cater to fundamentally irrational demands to create it.

However, if I dare to say it, I think that Israel is basically a rational State. It is organized on Western lines, and was created by immigrants from the West, after the Age of Reason was already well in place. There is clearly a conservative and hardline edge to it, but in truth it is simply a Western State which is not in the same position as many others.

Some of the settlers, certainly, may by long exposure and the situation of constant war, be in the same position as those they fight; and the State of Israel as a whole is certainly as equally conservative and religious as America, and thus far more than Europe or Canada, but fundamentally it is a nation that can be approached rationally.

The problem, however, is that it is also a democratic nation, and therefore political considerations enter into its diplomacy, in terms of catering to a segment of the voting populace which may not be rational (The settlers, the extreme right, etc). The very fragmented Israeli political spectrum favours extremism and makes this worse.

Also the founding drive of the Israeli State is, and has remained, the goal of establishing its self in certain territories; principle among these including Jerusalem. This was not a religious goal so much as a nationalistic goal (As the settlers of that Zionist movement were of a socialist bent and not as heavily religious as one might think).

Over time this has worn down, but the basic concept of the necessity of Jerusalem as being part of the Israeli State is maintained in the minds of the Israeli people for the most part. These people however, do also want peace.

Now, I see two things to this:

Israeli security needs must be met. They have a right to this, because they are the greatest regional power in that area. It is a simple fact that must be accomadated. At the same time, to meet those security needs, a Palestinian State would have to be so crippled, it would not really be a State.

Therefore, I don't believe in a "Two-State" solution; which would in fact be a Three-State solution. I think that the trans-Jordan Palestine should receive the West Bank, or at least the Palestinian populace areas of it; these zones should be contiguous, and some Israeli territory should be ceded to compensate for annexations for security purposes.

Likewise, the Gaza Strip should be ceded to Egypt, along with an area along the border, which again avoids sacrificing Israeli defensive interests, while providing compensatory territory for the Israeli annexations in the West Bank.

Now, here is the serious point: I think passions have been so inflamed that the people on both sides cannot really live together. So let us not have them; we will move the Palestinians in the Israeli annexed areas into Egypt and Jordan, with compensation to be levied against Israel (In a genuine fashion). Likewise, Israeli Arabs who don't want to live in Israel can also move and receive compensation. The Israelis, no longer fearing their populace being overwhelmed and the nature of their State lost, could then duly face all the international pressure in the world without one complain against it.

It would also require Syrian and Lebanese cooperation; as those borders must be resolved, preferably in the fashion of compensation, and the refugees in their territory dealt with. I'd assume arrange for the Syrians and Lebanese to take them in. Palestinians in other nations could immigrate to the USA; and if Israel couldn't afford the mandated compensations in such a short period of time, the USA could loan the money to them.

But the most important thing that I conceive of in all of this, would be to fix the situation of Jerusalem. And I'd do that by turning the Old City of Jerusalem, and the Holy Precincts, into an independent and sovereign country, like the Vatican is, ruled by a special council and a representative council, and with a triumvirate, of one Jew, one Christian, and one Muslim, invested with the sovereign office on an elective basis from the respective communities; and this nation of Jerusalem would of course have a border with Israel, and another genuine border (as opposed to access road), with the Jordanian possessesions in the West Bank.

And I think that right there would be critical to any peace plan, no matter if you agree or disagree with the rest.

[Darth Wong]

If Israel annexes areas to provide a buffer zone, it will promptly settle them, at which point they will need a new buffer zone to protect the "security" of the former buffer zone which is now settled land. And so on, and so on. Unless one can show that the Israelis would stop using their "invade via settlement" technique, a buffer zone will always be a temporary situation.

I know you feel they can be dealt with rationally, but I disagree. Restoring Israel to its religiously dictated borders is dogma. Secular morality, legality, etc. simply don't enter into their equation, and you cannot expect them to behave reasonably. Every Israeli can cite Arab intentions, and every Arab can cite Israeli intentions. The Israelis may seem rational on many fronts, but there are certain subjects in which they do not collectively behave as a rational people, and expansionism (ie- settlement) is definitely one of those subjects.

As for Jerusalem, I think the best solution would be to pull everyone out of it and raze that fucking shithole (and all of its "holy places") to the ground. It's been the cause of more pain and misery than any other place on Earth, and it would continue to be a festering sore if it were made a sovereign country. I can already see the Israelis illegally moving in waves of immigrants to this new country and building them homes while the Muslim portion of its population protests to the UN with no effect whatsoever, after which tensions flare, violent erupts, and the IDF moves in to "protect the security of their Jewish brethren in Jerusalem".

[The Duchess of Zeon]

If Israel annexes areas to provide a buffer zone, it will promptly settle them, at which point they will need a new buffer zone to protect the "security" of the former buffer zone which is now settled land. And so on, and so on. Unless one can show that the Israelis would stop using their "invade via settlement" technique, a buffer zone will always be a temporary situation.

Well, actually, I'd expect them to settle it. But the regions I was thinking of ceding - The same ones for the most part that Allon wanted originally, though with noticable modifications - Are not the kind which will support a great concentration of population.

The buffer zone, Mike, is specifically to protect the Israeli coastal strip, which is where their real population concentration exists, by making unfeasable for the Jordanians to use the West Bank as an invasion route into those regions. That is, to give them defensive depth for the coastal strip while at the same time giving the Jordanians control over the Muslim population centres of the West Bank.

That's what has to be considered in the territorial assignments, because the Israelis, ultimately, hold the upper hand. Anyway, when we speak of the concentration of Palestinians that would then be found in the Jordanian and Egyptian regions at the conclusion of the peace I was thinking of, what would be the Israeli point in annexing them?

The Israelis want to maintain the religious homogenity of their nation; they can't do that if they annex those regions, and so such a plan precludes the annexation of those regions by that simple fact. Israel expansion across the Jordan would unify the whole Muslim world - the whole World for that matter - against them, and accomplish them nothing except gaining them sand and more Muslims under their rule.

Israel could go north and find favour with the Lebanese Christians, who have been suffering under Hezbollah and the Syrians, perhaps, but again they risk destroying the homogenity of their State, and arousing the opposition of the world as they did the first time. My plan would involve a peacekeeping force in the south of Lebanon as well (I think I should post it just to let it be ripped at and seen in full, at least), aide in the reconstruction of that State.

I know you feel they can be dealt with rationally, but I disagree. Restoring Israel to its religiously dictated borders is dogma.

Quite, but it was more a dogma of nationalism than religion during the Zionist movement, and one that is fading in modern Israel; nationalism is not as sustainable a thing as religio.

Secular morality, legality, etc. simply don't enter into their equation, and you cannot expect them to behave reasonably.

For some of them it does, and for some of them it does not. A similiar situation is extant in many countries where the population is not wholly secularized. And with a parliamentary democracy like Israel's, this means that the "politics of religion" remain manifest.

Every Israeli can cite Arab intentions, and every Arab can cite Israeli intentions. The Israelis may seem rational on many fronts, but there are certain subjects in which they do not collectively behave as a rational people, and expansionism (ie- settlement) is definitely one of those subjects.

No, they simply don't behave as we expect a Western Nation to behave. In the 19th century expansionism and settlement was a matter of course for any modern country. Considering that it is still only proposed by the more conservative segments of Israeli society, I see a western power that, due to circumstance, is simply behind those nations which have been in regular concourse with other western powers, as opposed to local dictatorships, and thus have evolved different standards to each others' mutual approbation.

This does not mean, however, that the Israelis are irrational: It is just that their own standards are ones that we find as anachronistic, but hardly inapproachable.

As for Jerusalem, I think the best solution would be to pull everyone out of it and raze that fucking shithole (and all of its "holy places") to the ground. It's been the cause of more pain and misery than any other place on Earth, and it would continue to be a festering sore if it were made a sovereign country. I can already see the Israelis illegally moving in waves of immigrants to this new country and building them homes while the Muslim portion of its population protests to the UN with no effect whatsoever, after which tensions flare, violent erupts, and the IDF moves in to "protect the security of their Jewish brethren in Jerusalem".

If the Israelis did that, they would have to deal with the surrounding Muslim States. Considering any peace deal in which Syria surrenders the Golan Heights would probably mean U.S. support of their military, the Israelis might be well advised to approach the Holy City as being fully sovereign in its rights, as it ought. Naturally all States look on the violations of sovereignty in others, as being of a poor sort, besides.

I don't think such a thing would happen, simply because Jews would have an equal say in the government. Or at least I hope it would not, and I think that with proper engagement between the States, it could be avoided. But the Israelis would have to recognize that the Old City would not be a part of Israel, and content themselves with it being ruled as equally by Jews as by Muslims and Christians; and the Muslims would have to do the same in the reverse.

I do not think a peace like this would be easy: It would have to be dictated by Great Powers, the nations of the Levant brought to the table by applied economic pressure and perhaps subtle threats. But I also think it the best chance.

The problem with the situation is that the Palestinians will forever be subject to Israel if they have their own State; they would perhaps be better off to be annexed to Israel, albeit in the long term (for their civil rights position could change), than to forever be the shadow-vassal of a nuclear-armed neighbour.

So I think the Arab States of the region must abandon the cause of a Palestinian State, and instead take up the cause of the Palestinian People, for they have the power, and the nature of borders and legitimacy, to safeguard their interests.

I think the Holy City is the focal point: And it must be acknowledged as such and dealt with as such in a realistic manner which will see it administered outside of the province of any State which is wholly of one particular religion of the region.

And I think that the situation, ultimately, must revolve around the engagement of Great Powers, combined with the acknowledgement of Israel's position as the leading regional power: The Great Powers can exert pressure on Israel, but only within the realm of reality allowed by her possession of a nuclear arsenal.

Therefore any peace must take into account the Israeli desire for defendable borders, regardless as to if we think it should.

And, finally, the Arab States which border Israel all must be involved, and the peace must be general, resolving all of the issues extant, to work. Anything less than comprehensive or leaving out even a single State, due to the propensity of those States to support terrorist organizations, could collapse the entire effort.

[tharkûn]

Sigh, Mike why do you insist upon the invisible ink?

I never once labelled either side as agressors. I merely related the situation at the outbreak of war. The initial violations of the ceasefire didn't even happen in the same decade. Do we really need or want a blow by blow from the Suez ceasefire to Moked?

The war was a direct continuation of Suez which had its roots in '48 and WWII. It was not imperialistic, nor was it unprovoked. By the time Moked goes down there have already been:
artillerly duels
planes shot down
infantry attacks

Was the provocation provoked? Hell yes. Was that provocation provoked? Again yes, finding the initial agression is nigh to impossible and pointless to boot. My contention is not that Arabs are solely responsible for the war, but that the Israelis are NOT fully responsible, that numerous acts of war had occured (on BOTH sides), and that the Arabs were deliberately escalating the conflict in hopes of either a military victory or an economic/logsitical one. By the time the decision is made to pre-empt the only logical choice is pre-emption, anything else is effective suicide or hoping for a miracle.

[C.S.Strowbridge]

I never once labelled either side as agressors.

<SNIP!>

I'd just like to say, who cares who the aggressor is? Countries go to war all the time. Borders change, most people simply deal with this and move on.

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

Now you show your true colors. You don't care who the aggressors are. This "I don't care who started it, you are both equally bad" is what drives the center right crazy. Moral relativism at it's WORST.

Every individual, and group, has what I call a "moral bank account."
Help a child, +$1.00. Hurt a child, -$10.00. Like spending and saving and borrowing, each act of goodness or evil adds or subtracts from your account.

On the whole, the balance in the Isreali bank acount is low, but much higher than the negagive balance, or debt, of the arabs.

What is the balance on YOUR moral acount?

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

By the way it's much easier to get into debt, than to acrue a large balance. 1 ohshit = 10 attaboys.