Gaza

[P. G. Tipps]

Please wonder elsewhere.

I wonder where ... ?

[MrGongGong]

Please wonder elsewhere.

No, I will wonder wherever I like

[french frank]

Perhaps we should condemn the US even more that Israel. They support Israel in whatever it does and have the power to put enormous pressure on the country by turning off its military and financial aid.

Israel the Rottweiler, the US its master?

If the US were genuinely protecting Israel, they would concentrate on themselves controlling, from a position of strength, the Islamist, holocaust-denying forces which challenge the entire concept of a Jewish state in the Middle East. They would respect the rights of all non-violent civilians, not unleash the animal on them.

[aeolium]

They would respect the rights of all non-violent civilians, not unleash the animal on them.

But what are the rights of "all non-violent civilians" in the area encompassing Israel and the Palestinian enclaves? The Israeli state was created in violence, partly through terrorism against the British Mandate forces and the Palestinian residents, and after its recognition by the displacement of huge numbers of Palestinians to refugee camps in other countries. Since that time there has been more or less continuous violence first between Israel and its Arab neighbours and then between Israel and Palestinian groups. And Israel has continued to inflict violence against "non-violent civilians" by increasing its settlements. If it is a case of considering international law, then UN Security Council Resolution 242 with its reference to the 1967 borders and a just settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem has not been superseded as a statement of the underlying rights of the parties.

So respecting "the rights of all non-violent civilians" does not here equate to merely ensuring a cessation of hostilities.

[MrGongGong]

But what are the rights of "all non-violent civilians" in the area encompassing Israel and the Palestinian enclaves? The Israeli state was created in violence, partly through terrorism against the British Mandate forces and the Palestinian residents, and after its recognition by the displacement of huge numbers of Palestinians to refugee camps in other countries. Since that time there has been more or less continuous violence first between Israel and its Arab neighbours and then between Israel and Palestinian groups. And Israel has continued to inflict violence against "non-violent civilians" by increasing its settlements. If it is a case of considering international law, then UN Security Council Resolution 242 with its reference to the 1967 borders and a just settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem has not been superseded as a statement of the underlying rights of the parties.

So respecting "the rights of all non-violent civilians" does not here equate to merely ensuring a cessation of hostilities.

: thumbsup thingy:

[french frank]

So respecting "the rights of all non-violent civilians" does not here equate to merely ensuring a cessation of hostilities.

Your words in this context, not mine. I made no attempt to define the rights.

Does the fact that the current state of Israel was 'created in violence' mean that it should be destroyed in violence too?

Is there a place for an Israeli state in the Middle East or not?

Are the rights/wishes of the Palestininans compatible with those of the Israelis? Or vice versa?

[MrGongGong]

Is there a place for an Israeli state in the Middle East or not?

zzzzzzzz Of course there is (it's a done deal)
BUT to allow them to behave in the way they do creates violence and hatred.
For all their shouting they don't really want peace at all
It is a gross betrayal of the memory of those who died in the holocaust that Israel always turns to this to justify it despicable actions

It's not their land, "God" didn't "give it to them" and the west should stop encouraging them.

[french frank]

zzzzzzzz Of course there is (it's a done deal)
BUT to allow them to behave in the way they do creates violence and hatred.
For all their shouting they don't really want peace at all
It is a gross betrayal of the memory of those who died in the holocaust that Israel always turns to this to justify it despicable actions

I think I'll just go and make a nice cup of tea. I may be gone some time.

[jean]

Of course there is [a place for an Israeli state in the Middle East]...

It's not their land...

Tell me, how does that work?

[aeolium]

Your words in this context, not mine. I made no attempt to define the rights.

Does the fact that the current state of Israel was 'created in violence' mean that it should be destroyed in violence too?

Is there a place for an Israeli state in the Middle East or not?

Are the rights/wishes of the Palestininans compatible with those of the Israelis? Or vice versa?

No, the point I was trying to make was that respecting the rights of all non-violent civilians is essentially an irrelevance in a situation where there is a semi-permanent condition of violence. It is only by considering the rights of all parties - whether they are currently engaged in violence or not - that some kind of resolution could be achieved. And those rights have been provisionally defined, and accepted as the touchstone of negotiation by virtually all nation state members of the UN, in UN Resolution 242. Respecting the rights of all non-violent civilians would not have brought about peace in Northern Ireland, because the violent civilians would have carried on fighting.

Certainly there is now a de-facto and de-jure state of Israel recognised by a large majority of UN states (but not a number of states, mainly Middle Eastern and North African). It isn't clear though to what extent the non-recognition of Israel in these states is based upon the fact that it is, at least according to UN resolutions, in illegal occupation of land seized after the 1967 war.

No conceivable settlement now can restore the rights of the Palestinians who were deprived of land in the creation of the Israeli state. There is though a compromise solution, based around the UN position, by which Israel surrender occupied land in return for some kind of security perhaps enforced through a UN peacekeeping force. In the last decade or so any kind of peaceful negotiation has become much less likely on the Israeli side because of the election of hardliners and on the Palestinian side since the division between Fatah and Hamas, and the election of Hamas in Gaza. Israel have less reason to want to negotiate because they have all the cards: their military power and the political, financial and military backing of the US. And even though Israel has hostile states in the region, those states are not friendly to the Palestinians.

[MrGongGong]

Tell me, how does that work?

Maybe it starts with Israel stopping thinking that every country nearby is their enemy ?
OR
They could start to obey UN resolutions ?
OR
They could get rid of their nuclear weapons ?
OR
They could stop persecuting people?
OR
What aeolium says?
OR
Maybe ask Daniel ?

[jean]

I mean that you have so often said that Israel was brought into being by terrorism and 'it's not their land' that I'm surprised to find you think there's any place for it at all.

[kea]

Naomi Wolf: "I can't stand this. 19 dead, children and little people, ninety injured -- Israel was told MULTIPLE TIMES BY THE UN exact coordinates and they SHELLED THEM ANYWAY. Hello world? World? When you watch documentaries about the growing storm of the Holocaust the thing you feel as a Jew is outrage and disbelief that the world knew about this and did nothing -- that no one would step in to help -- that no one intervened.

See, people named Naomi always have sensible views on political subjects ;)

I think "the world knew and did nothing" is in many ways the fault of most of the problems in the Middle East right now.

From almost as soon as it was founded Israel was constantly attacked by hostile countries with the stated aims of wiping Jews off the face of the earth—no one came to their aid. Thus the moderate voices within Israel calling for peace with the Arabs were quashed, and the country developed into a corrupt, theocratic bunker state which engaged in regular ethnic cleansing campaigns.

The world saw the Palestinians being victimised in these campaigns and, again, did not help them. Even tried to ignore them, to pretend they were just misplaced Jordanians or Egyptians. So their only hope came in the form of terrorist groups, a last ditch attempt to get the world to notice their plight, even at the cost of public sympathy.

The West stood by while the Syrian government murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, failing to offer anything more than platitudes. Someone else stepped in to fight back, and now the West is in trouble because that someone is very hostile towards it and its values. But perhaps the West should have considered doing more if it wanted its values to be propagated?

There is a middle ground between making speeches and dropping bombs, but it seems most of our governments haven't figured that out yet.

[MrGongGong]

I mean that you have so often said that Israel was brought into being by terrorism and 'it's not their land' that I'm surprised to find you think there's any place for it at all.

What do YOU think then ?

Is THIS

https://archive.today/RPf3M#selection-1087.420-1095.38

What is needed ?

[Serial_Apologist]

What do YOU think then ?

Is THIS

https://archive.today/RPf3M#selection-1087.420-1095.38

What is needed ?

The writer of that article is so scrupulous that he omits to mention the non-Hamas Palestinians who have nowhere to go.

Sarah Montague on this morning's Toady shut a Hamas spokesperson up, telling him to stop talking about the past and address the future, conveniently forgetting (for the BBC's umpteenth time) that the present there is the past unsorted.