posted
Well, that's a simplistic distilation of the Israeli-Palestinian confict.
As far as the history goes, its available for you go read at most libraries and fine bookstores. Please avail yourself of the appropriate material without hesitation. The many and varied social and cultural issues of the conflict await you in abundance.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
They DID start it. Israel did nothing, and they were still attacked. So they did something. People in territory that they validly captured in a war are the ones attacking them, and they're doing what they have to do to defend themselves. No, I don't agree with ALL of their tactics. But the strategy is sound and reasonable.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Yes, they did start it by sitting there and wanting someone to come appropriate their land to begin a state.
Meanwhile, we wait for the international community to come to grips with the fact that he Palestinian people need a home state as the Jewish people did.
And I think that actions on both sides are far from reasonable. Not the least of which is the failure of the Palestinian people to address their needs by using nonviolent means and the failure of the Israeli government to institute policies with an eye to other people in the region.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
The Palestinians had a home. Not a very comfortable one, but a home nonetheless. Then somebody came up with the bright idea to allow the Jews to settle in their decrepit basement, as compensation for the demolishing of the Jew's old apartment block. And for a time, the two inhabitants got along just fine. Until the new residents decided to stop paying rent and declare their floor independent, that is. Nobody had thought it possible, but the Jews, having great talent for interior decoration and wonderful artistic taste, miraculously managed to transform their dirty little corner into an oasis, complete with the very latest in trendy Ikea furniture. Needless to say, this not only drew the attention of other house owners in the street, who were none too pleased with the massive influx of state of the art garnishment their new neighbour seemed to be receiving, but it also inspired feelings of jealousy and regret among the original occupants. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Hmm. Which side am I arguing for, again? The one certainty I have, is that the Israelis have made an extremely disturbing transition from oppressed and persecuted to sponsored oppressor and persecuter in a space of merely fifty years. How much longer?
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
Another query for Omega: "territory validly-captured in war?"
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
That may be a reference terrority captured in the 6-Day War or the Yom Kippur War.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Yeah, I understand that's where he's alluding to. It's the concept of "valid territory" emerging from an act of invasion and occupation that perplexes me.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
The basic thought behind "validly captured in war" is that if you are attacked first, or if you catch your enemy with his pants down while he's preparing to attack you, you're morally entitled to all of your enemy's lands you can capture and hold.
I HAVE read the history, Jay, and I suggest you haven't, unless you're going to start citing actual historical events like the Balfour Declaration (1917) and the subsequent League of Nations and UN actions.
quote:Yes, they did start it by sitting there and wanting someone to come appropriate their land to begin a state.
Then they should have been bitching at the Brits, and before them, the Turks, and everybody ELSE who'd ever occupied that land.
Who are "THEY anyway?" You can't say "Palestinians," as Palestine, as anything more than a region (Like Asia Minor and Patagonia - and when have you ever heard anybody reffered to as an "Asia Minoran" or a "Patagonian"?) didn't EXIST until 1947.
And in any case, if you still manage to believe that, I'll have to ask you to please leave California immediately, and see to it that it is returned to Mexico, or failing that, the various native tribes of the coast.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
Sweet merciful crap! Its easier to decode the W359 caps than it is to decipher what the hell that charming bastard meant.
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
I find your claim to have read the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict refreshing and I congratulate you on your citation to the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
With all of your reading on the subject, you must then know that the �they [the Palestinian people] started it� argument is simplistic and does nothing to help either understand the roots of the problem or find a solution. That argument places the events of the recent past in a historical vacuum and fails to grasp the social and cultural problems that underlie the current round of violence. In short, it fails to ask or address why these things are happening and as a result it ignores a whole ton of history.
I need not cite to a White Paper or United Nations Resolution 181 to point that out.
I think the Palestinian people have legitimate grievances. They are of course expressing them entirely in the wrong way as factions support suicide bombers and killing civilians. Moreover, I think that the state of Israel has legitimate grievances that it often expresses in the wrong way with assassinations, continued support of settlements in the occupied territories and killing of civilians.
There are complex social, cultural and historical issues going on here which have been far ignored by Omega and, to the extent you�re actually addressing the issues in the debate, you as well.
Regarding the apple to oranges argument about California, this is another odd tangent you have a habit of taking. I clearly referenced the Palestinian people and not the area of Palestine.
However, back to at least part of the debate at hand, reassessing my opinion regarding the oppression of the Palestinian people, I have come to think that they feel, or at least a portion of them feel, that they are at war. As a result and they feel that they are occupied people. War and occupation has its own set of problems not unlike oppression and many Israeli actions smack of some of the unsavory parts of occupation. But the Palestinian people are not wholly blameless in all the problems afflicting the area.
[ September 11, 2002, 16:54: Message edited by: Jay the Obscure ]
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
It is true that there are enormous social, economical, and cultural problems tied up in the situation, which render it a virtual Gordian Knot.
However, since untying every loop to everyone's satisfaction would appear most likely to take us until the sun turns into a red giant, the Alexandrian solution seems a more feasable one.
quote:I clearly referenced the Palestinian people and not the area of Palestine.
My point was that you cannot have a "Palestinian people" until and unless you have a "Palestine" as a legitimate political entity, which had never happened up to the referenced point, any more than you can have an "Appalachian People." They were Arabs who happened to live in and around a region called Palestine, just as we have Kentuckians who live in a region known as Appalachia.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
That's a very good point. I hadn't thought of them.
Hmm.
The Gypsies don't claim a homeland, AFAIK. They are nomadic wanderers, travelling from place to place.
The Kurds and the Palesinians, however, may be more similar. I'll have to research Kurds and Kurdistan and get back to you.
However, off the top of my head, the Kurds, in reference to being considered a distinct society and culture, existed before 1947. The Palestinians do not seem to have.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:if you catch your enemy with his pants down while he's preparing to attack you, you're morally entitled to all of your enemy's lands you can capture and hold.
So, uh, let me get this straight. With a stroke of a keyboard, you can declare invasion and occupation to be a moral action full stop. You can define Palestinians as not posessing any historical identity beyond that of being generic towelheads within a set boxy area. And then you expect those who disagree with you (which could also be phrased as the vast majority of the world excluding one Rob Farquhar) to recant their foolish lies and believe you.
Well, I suppose that confirms my earlier suspicions.
I'd like a model train and some new boots for Christmas. I hope you'll like the milk and cookies.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
It's interesting that you had to delete the first fifteen words from my statement to make it say what you wanted it to say, dolt.
quote:With a stroke of a keyboard, you can declare invasion and occupation to be a moral action full stop
It can be. Occupied Germany and Occupied Japan ring a bell? Or are you TOTALLY ignorant of historical precedent? Occupation of a hostile power by an aggrieved nation or nations is nothing new, and there's nothing particularly immoral about the act in and of itself, but there is in how it's carried out.
It is my contention that the Israelites set fair and reasonable conditions for their withdrawal from the occupied areas, which have not been met by the Palestinian "government." If you contend otherwise, present your supporting data. Keep in mind that references to the treaty in which Israel returned the Siani, and the Oslo Accords, will probably be made. References to the Israelis being mean to the Palestinians should only be made if you can show how other occupying forces have treated a continuously hostile population in a different manner.
quote:And then you expect those who disagree with you (which could also be phrased as the vast majority of the world excluding one Rob Farquhar) to recant their foolish lies and believe you.
You know how I feel about the vast majority. The vast majority believes in sky-beings that run the universe.
However, no, I don't expect them to do that. They also have the option of presenting their argument in a form other than the puerile way you just have, -- as Sol has done. He made very good points with his examples, enough so to require the reevaluation of position that I mentioned (that's what 'further research' and 'get back to you' mean.)
If they fail to do that, however, they are merely blowing rancid fartsmoke, as you are.
Have a nice Christmas vacation on Planet ASS.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
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