Are you with or against the Palestinians to declare their own state?

A nice unloaded question to start a balanced debate with. Sometimes the spam is a relief.

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"Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon" Suzanne Ertz

Not unless its negotiated with Israel and in return they recognize the "Jewish" state of Israel and agree to borders that are secure. They were ofered a state by the UN back in the 1940s and they've been offered a state by Israel many times. They know the aceptable terms.

Yes, I'm with the Palestinians if they want their own state, i.e the landmass it had in 1947 and recognize Israel as a legitimate country.

I think it would be a bit ambitious to expect Israel to agree to that, given the mindset of their leaders. One comment in particular is quite telling: "We'll make a pastrami sandwich of them, ... we'll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in 25 years' time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart."
(Ariel (Arik) Sharon, 1973. Winston S. Churchill III, grandson of the British prime minister of the same name, related this quote at the National Press Club in Washington DC, in October 2001, recalling a meeting he had had with Sharon in 1973.)

Whether Churchill 3's memory failed him or not, that's what happened.

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In this world there is no literate population that is poor and no illiterate population that is other than poor. - J.K.Galbraith

The maps from abcxyz tell quite a story when viewed in that way.

No doubt that Jews are smart and earn the luxury of respect and influance world over. It is only because of their hardworkship, devotion, world vision, and in short Godgiftedness. We just remember how they were exiled from Yeroshalom some centuries ago.

They were the western Christian-Crusauders who exiled Jews from their ancesters homeland, Yeroshalom, in about the twelveth century. Otherwise Jews have been living for long long centuries with the local Christians and Muslims in areas located now in Israel. After the brutal exile by Christians from Yeroshalom Jews spread all over there in the East and the West. With patiance of being a third and second class citizen in many parts of the west they chronically gained influance there on behalf of their own strength. In the meantime the Jewish genocde in Germany caused the Hitler's rival, Britain, to listen to the long prevaild voice of Jews, the home-land that was then under control of Britain.

It was a Christian historical guilty of crimes with Jews or what, Britain bestowed the demanded area to the Jews. Palestinians, the local Arabs both Muslims and Christians were like British property were forced to accept the newly Jewish establishment of Israel. Obviously the foriegn state inforcement there caused the conflict that can be called the mother of all modernday political conflicts.

Palestinians (the people owned the lands before Israelians to come) have no voice so its hard to predict that they could ever get their lands back.

Anways, I'm in support of an independent state of Palestine that respects and get respected by the international laws.

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*It's wonderful to know that all languages are Greek if not understood.*

No - Lots one could say about the maps like they don't show the 850,000 Jews who were evicted from Arab lands when the UN partition came about and that there are consequences to multiple wars, multiple intifadas and multiple refusals to accept peace deals.

Yes - says a lot that Jordan and Egypt don't want the Palestinians either.

Yes - Ideally, there would be no religious states. Of course, ideally 6 million Jews - (one third of the Jewish population) wouldn't have been killed.

I.: For.

With reservations: I'd have approved whole-heartedly if the plea for statehood had simultaneously accepted the existence of Israel.

I've heard reproaches that this move will damage the "peace process". Ummm, what peace process would that be, exactly?

Currently, the Palestinians rightly demand the cessation of Israeli "settlements": they are building on lands the Arabs claim for their own. I'd object too!

Stop building, start talking. That would have prevented this entire mess.


II. End the Symbiosis of Radicals:

On each side:

Israelis that want no deal depend on radicals in Lebanon, in Gaza, in the West Bank to launch rockets and periodic intifadas. They provide excuses to bulldoze communities, and to build more "settlements".

Arab extremists that want no deal depend on Israeli over-reaction to fuel arab anger and flood the ranks of their terrorist organizations to continue the fight.

III. The Good News:

There have always been, and there are, good people on both sides that want peace. The reality is that Israel/Palestine need each other. They are not economically viable without cooperation. Why not this?:

Use the USA and Canada economic arrangement as a model: long, peaceful borders, free movement of goods. Once the political arguments are settled, economic bonds will make both prosper. I'm sorry, I'm making sense...better stop.

IV. What the Nazis Did and Planned to Do, the Rest of the Story:

1. Yes, they infamously murdered approximately 6 million Jewish people in the concentration camps.

But.

12 million people died in those camps:

a. Millions of peoples collectively known as "gypsies".
b. The politicians, the intelligensia, and any communists and socialists that they could reach were worked to death, shot, starved, or gassed.
c. The mentally ill and homosexuals met the same grisly fate.

V. The Slavs:

Untold millions of Slavic people, whom Hitler regarded as "subhuman" were similarly worked to death and starved.

Literally millions of Soviet POWs just vanished. Worked at German factories under inhumane conditions until they dropped.

Hitler largest plans were always for "The East". He said that Germany needed "Lebensraum" or "living space". There were more than 200 million Soviet Slavs in the way. They were ultimately to be enslaved to work, and many of them "liquidated" by the same Einsatzgruppen of the SS that were busy rounding up Jews, gypsies, and Communists.


The Nazis had plenty of hate to go around. I just want to remind readers of those others that suffered. I get a rash when only those of Jewish background are mentioned.


VI: Bottom Line:

No group of people has the right to justify current injustice perpetrated against a group that had nothing to do with injustices that their ancestors suffered in the past.


I'd feel that way if somehow the Gypsies were given land in Germany and disposessed them.

I feel that way about current Israelis grabbing land that isn't theirs and justifying it with crimes that the disposessed they have created had no part in.

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"Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless, and do no wrong". (Knight's Oath, Kingdom of Heaven)

Israel now, is a reality but some people couldn't have get out of the quantam-leap-shoke. Who really owns the lands is the conflict caused by the leap. You may have aware of the mentality get created in such situations; One party has power to travel in future and the other poor enough to be sent to stone-age.

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*It's wonderful to know that all languages are Greek if not understood.*

Ownership is an abstract concept, perhaps a non sequitur in this case.
One only owns if allowed by others. Occupation or possession is what is relevant.
To declare a state of Palestine does not create a state.

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Off to Singapore for a spell!

So Northern Ireland is British then?
Guantanamo Bay is American?

It's hard to negotiate with rockets.

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I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

Ditto for bulldozers.

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"Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless, and do no wrong". (Knight's Oath, Kingdom of Heaven)

Where I come from we regard all Chritian believers as saints because they are in the Kingdom of God, just like the early Christians Paul adressed as saints. So we think there are many living saints. They don't 'do' miracles but do believe in them, ascribing them to God in Christ.

You say nobody is perfect but that some are more perfect than others. They would need to first be perfect to be more perfect, don't you think? (just joking, I know what you mean).

Yes, right-wing extremists do provoke hatred of Muslims, just as extremist Muslims provoke hatred of anyone who is not an extreme Muslim. It is human nature, stemming from ignorance, fear and a lust for power.