Israel - Palestine Discussion | Post Respectfully | Discuss more, tweet less

The Palestinians are not clever in this to be honest. They should publicly declare that they give up all land in the Middle East to Israel (they are fighting over desert land that is 1/10 of Bavarias size and which will be taken from them anyway), thus they have no home so 5 million asylum seekers are mass migrating towards Europe with immediate effect, preferably towards UK, Germany and France.

Win-win-win for everyone. Palestinians get to live a proper live sponsored by European taxpayer money, Israel is happy and when Israel is happy, Israel's subjects like UK and Germany are also happy. All problems solved.

It's taken decades of attempted talks but finally peace in the Middle East has been solved by Cait Sith on the Manchester United forum RedCafe.
 
a explicitly secular Israeli state where Palestinians are granted citizenship with equal rights and duties

This is the only viable solution but the Israeli's fear losing power in their own state so it will never happen. Maybe they can do like the Glazers and have class a and class b citizens when it comes to voting rights but equality in every other aspect.
 
So if I posted that Palestinians have the right to armed struggle anytime since Monday, you would have seen this as pro Hamas ?

Maybe you need to stop being so paranoid.
I simply read it in the context of an argument about rocket fire on civilian targets into which it was posted. Not the most far out interpretation. But had I refreshed that tab a few minutes later I hadn't even read it, so whatever.
 
The images from Gaza.. the apartment blocks.. the 3rd most densely populated place in the world..

This is just too cruel
 
Can someone please explain to me by the west and especially the US and NATO cater to Israels murderous bullshit?
Nato and the west accept it because the US accepts it
the US accepts it i guess for a few reasons but primarily (imo) because Israel hates Iran and they know that with a nudge and a wink they could probably get them to nuke Iran for them without tham having to do it themselves and deal with the diplomatic fallout as much.
 
Again I'm not in the know but your final sentence sounds like a really easy(lazy) way to justify the actions of the Israelis in removing a people from their land.

The Palestinians have less fire power and ability to defend themselves than ever without Hamas though don't they?

To be honest, I don't really see Hamas as someone who legitmately defends palestinians lives. At least during the last escalation they had a tactic of putting their rocket launchers in places with civilians, so they could gain international sympathy when civilian lives where lost when those targets were attacked. A considerable amount of their rockets fall short and land in Gaza. Not to mention the scores of palestinians they themselves have executed. If Israel simply wanted to wipe the people of palestine they could probably do it in a few days, Hamas doesn't prevent them from doing so. This is not to whitewash the Israeli goverment, they are behaving abhorrently. Which leads to the fact that both sides needs genuine honest leaders hellbent on a peacefull solution. Hamas only fuels the notion that Israel and Palestine can never live side by side which at the same time fuels Israeli extremists which then again fuels the other. It's kind of hard to see what else can be done other than if the US starts to very severely punish the Israeli goverment for it's transgressions rather than just being comitted to supporting Israel no matter what.
 
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Can someone please explain to me by the west and especially the US and NATO cater to Israels murderous bullshit?
The US gave $3.8bn to Israel in Military aid in 2019. It's not in their interests to stop. There's also a significant Israel lobby in the US which works to shift US foreign policy to a pro-Israeli stance.
 
Can someone please explain to me by the west and especially the US and NATO cater to Israels murderous bullshit?
Simplistically, its electorally popular and Israel is a key strategic foreign policy resource in the region for nato and the west.
 
The US gave $3.8bn to Israel in Military aid in 2019. It's not in their interests to stop. There's also a significant Israel lobby in the US which works to shift US foreign policy to a pro-Israeli stance.

I understand the US gives them aid, what do they get out of it other than the Jewish vote which is typically 70-30 Democrat over GOP anyway. it doesnt seem like that huge of a demonination to swing an election. NATO is the one that really bothers me
 
Nato and the west accept it because the US accepts it
the US accepts it i guess for a few reasons but primarily (imo) because Israel hates Iran and they know that with a nudge and a wink they could probably get them to nuke Iran for them without tham having to do it themselves and deal with the diplomatic fallout as much.

Meanwhile Palestinians are getting murdered every fecking day.
 




This is the main point. And the West Bank is even more pourous than that latest map suggests. Bear in mind that the Arab-Israeli population taken together with Gaza and the West Bank is on par with that of Israel. It's approaching apartheid if not already completely there (the most recent settlements represent apartheid conditions for certain).
 
Simplistically, its electorally popular and Israel is a key strategic foreign policy resource in the region for nato and the west.

Clear and succinct. For example.
The US 'supplies' Israel with the very latest military aircraft. Israel was one of the first foreign air forces to operate the so called 5th Generation F35 fighter jet. Now these cost around 100m dollars each. Israel is buying 50 of these. You can do the maths and wonder how a small country can afford this level of military might.
 
What seems strange, from the outside at least, is that all through Trumps Presidency when he was clearly supporting Israel there were very few major flare ups between Palestinians and Israeli military, now with Trump gone the violence flares up again.
Is this coincidence or is there something we are missing here. You would have thought with Trump actions, the support for Jerusalem etc. its when the Palestinians would be up in arms?
 
"You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back"
Really don't know what to say to you.
 
You would have thought with Trump actions, the support for Jerusalem etc. its when the Palestinians would be up in arms?
They were. There was widespread violence all around Ramallah and other areas, obviously.
 
Can someone please explain to me by the west and especially the US and NATO cater to Israels murderous bullshit?

Watch this series and you'll have a better idea:



There is a similar one on the US that I can't find online.
 
What seems strange, from the outside at least, is that all through Trumps Presidency when he was clearly supporting Israel there were very few major flare ups between Palestinians and Israeli military, now with Trump gone the violence flares up again.
Is this coincidence or is there something we are missing here. You would have thought with Trump actions, the support for Jerusalem etc. its when the Palestinians would be up in arms?
Don’t have any numbers on hand, but I would be shocked if there wasn’t violence of note in that region during the Trump admin.

That just smacks of recency bias.

Not anointing you with this mindset here, but a similar refrain exists here in the States regarding mass shootings. Some here think that there weren’t any mass shootings of note in the US during his term.
 
I understand the US gives them aid, what do they get out of it other than the Jewish vote which is typically 70-30 Democrat over GOP anyway. it doesnt seem like that huge of a demonination to swing an election. NATO is the one that really bothers me
It's a combination of reasons which some have already pointed out, but there is also a religious aspect which for some is also a vote winner, see this:

 
Don’t have any numbers on hand, but I would be shocked if there wasn’t violence of note in that region during the Trump admin.

That just smacks of recency bias.

It was the Jared factor. If Jared couldn't fix the middle east no one can.
 
They were. There was widespread violence all around Ramallah and other areas, obviously.

OK fair enough, must have missed that, don't remember rocket attacks on Tel Avi though!
Do you think the Biden Presidency is likely to be more or less sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, or just not interested one way or the other?
 
I understand the US gives them aid, what do they get out of it other than the Jewish vote which is typically 70-30 Democrat over GOP anyway. it doesnt seem like that huge of a demonination to swing an election. NATO is the one that really bothers me

Don't worry. The US gets exactly what it wants from their support of Israel. They are a vital ally in a very unstable middle east.
And don't forget. The US and the West in general counterbalance that with support to Saudi Arabia. Neither will attack eachother because of the balance of arms. And being the 2 biggest military forces in the region, keep the others largely in check.
 
Do you think the Biden Presidency is likely to be more or less sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, or just not interested one way or the other?
I think the role of the presidency is overrated in these conversations. US foreign policy does swing back and forth by bits depending on who's in power, but it generally follows a predictable line which has more to do with state planning. The Biden administration will dress the rhetoric up differently but basically defer to the same people Trump did, except Trump's whole premise was to pretend that he didn't defer.
 
Jews were not expelled. They left after the creation of Israel. Middle east had been full of thriving Jewish communities. If you think otherwise you have probably been brainwashed along with your pro zionism stance.

That isn't really true though.

Certainly on the country I can personally speak with most authority on (Egypt), while the total number of Jews directly issued with an expulsion order or marched to the border were relatively small, the actions taken by Nasser were intended to pressurise the Jews to leave, alongside many other groups (Italians, Greeks, French, British etc) and he was successful in doing so.

Denying this aspect of the Jewish experience does nothing to further your point and only serves to make it seem like you're only interested in absolutes where one side is good and always has been and the other side is bad.
 




This is the main point. And the West Bank is even more pourous than that latest map suggests.


My problem with the maps is that only in the last one does the green section represent "Palestinian Land", and even this one requires further explanation. The other maps depict quite different values, none of them the same.

The first map purports to show “Jewish settlements" in white, but the green is actually "everything else". It's very hard to know just how much of the green in this map was "Palestinian Land" in the same sense the white is supposed to signify “Jewish land.” Much of it was uncultivated empty desert and hill country owned by nobody. A lot of land was owned by relatively few major Arab landowners who leased to Arab workers. Some was owned by other foreigners, religious endowments, etc. In any case the Jewish-Arab population ratio at this point (1947) was roughly 1:2.

The second map shows the paritition plan proposed by the UN in 1947. Here, the green section depicts the proposed Palestinian state, which the Palestinians rejected, and the white the proposed Jewish state. The Jews didn’t fully commit either way, and both sides went to war pretty much immediately. This map never represented any reality on the ground.

The third map depicts the result of that war. Here, the green sections actually represent territory conquered and occupied by Egypt and Jordan in the course of the war - Gaza by the Egyptians, the West Bank by the Jordanians. These green sections were subsequently conquered by Israel in 1967.

Finally, the fourth map, which apparently shows for the first time "Palestinian land”, although it’s not entirely clear if this refers to sovereignty or ownership - you can’t speak of Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank (under occupation) or Gaza (under blockade), but ownership is problematic in its own way here.

This is not to deny that the Jews were a minority and became a majority (and through their state the sovereign power) in the land, or to deny the settlement process since 1967. But these maps in the way they are presented are not a reliable guide to the process that brought things to where they are.
 
Not anointing you with this mindset here, but a similar refrain exists here in the States regarding mass shootings. Some here think that there weren’t any mass shootings of note in the US during his term.

Sorry wouldn't know about mass shootings in Trumps time, it seems over here they are happening all the time?

My point was that Trumps support for Israel was 'front and centre' and whether an American President does come down on one side or the other, as openly as Trump clearly did, does this make any difference to the levels of violence that flare up in Israel/Gaza?
 
Ive been a member of this message board for quite a few years, not the most active but always here the catch up on the latest.

My name is Ariel, I am former soldier in the IDF, living in Haifa and living my life. I have never entered a political debate here but sometimes you have to. I served in Gaza, I saw the incredible lenghts our army goes to prevent the loss of innocent lives. But when a murderous terror organization randomly fires up the sky in order to kill innocent people, you have to get to their weapon suply which they keep in populated areas. Israel always send liflets warning about upcoming attacks.
7 israeli citizens have died in the past 3 days because of Hamas actions, 2 of which are israeli arabs(1 a child) who also just wanted to live their lives, same as me. If you havnt lived in this impossible situation, if you havnt seen what we do to prevent the loss of innocent lives, YOU DONT GET THE RIGHT TO AN OPINION. Stop spreading lies. Good evening.
 
Nato and the west accept it because the US accepts it
the US accepts it i guess for a few reasons but primarily (imo) because Israel hates Iran and they know that with a nudge and a wink they could probably get them to nuke Iran for them without tham having to do it themselves and deal with the diplomatic fallout as much.
:lol: Jesus. That’s a hot take.

The USA’s strategic interests in being pro-Israel (and Saud) run much deeper than that, primarily in Israel being their strongest ally in a volatile region. Though it does involve Iran, it’s not so they can covertly nuke them. That’s absurd.
 
. But these maps in the way they are presented are not a reliable guide to the process that brought things to where they are.
No, they are illustrative of large-scale change over time. For a guide to the processes which brought it about you'd be best to delve into historiography. Having said that, if you look at those maps it's pretty impossible to deny that the state of Israel post-47 (or 48) is anything other than an exercise in colonialism. Particulary with regard to the continued occupation of the West Bank.

The basic point is control of land, not population within the land controlled. Whilst Palestinian land was often very tribal in areas, as you'll know, the basic premise holds.

The problem with academia sometimes is that it becomes too bogged down in minutia of processes to the extent that it tends to fetishize small details over the very basic and visceral picture. Sometimes it is important to go through every part of every stage but other times the process just tends to obscure and almost excuse. History ought to be better at its narrative aspect rather than draw equivalences everywhere. Not that you do, but you see it quite generally.
 
The League of Nations was founded in 1920. One of its first acts was to grant the Mandate of Palestine to the British.



I agree by the standards of the time the arrangement worked well enough in granting the religious communities the collective space to practice their faith communally and survive, occasional pogroms and outbreaks of violence and intolerance notwithstanding. But “lived in harmony”? Like I said originally, that kind of assertion requires a major caveat.



The Jews of Arab and other Muslims countries who left for Israel after 1948 left for a variety of reasons, according to the differing circumstances in each case. There was no mass expulsions across the board, although severe discrimination and even persecution and violence in places like Iraq, Libya, and Egypt (where the Zionists were not entirely innocent of provoking things) precipitated flight. But poverty and ideology were also sometimes factors. Elsewhere things were better, especially in Morocco.

Yeah sure but I do think with modernization and changing dynamics those minority Jews would eventually be equal citizens in modern nations, especially if at the type they were treated better than other minorities. Still all irrelevant now as Israel got created as a separate homeland.

As far as I know these settlers are no refugees looking for a home but from places like Brooklyn, NY.
 
Can someone please explain to me by the west and especially the US and NATO cater to Israels murderous bullshit?

Strong pro Israel lobby in UK and U.S.A in particular. If the average American knew how much of their tax money goes to a cause that has nothing to do with them they'd be enraged. We have so much poverty and inequality in our town with unpaved roads at some important intersections due to lack of funding. Meanwhile a significant portion of our budget is going to IDF and the likes.

Also, in general, the pro Israel group is in power. This is no conspiracy. Check an average Pro Israel fundraiser event (they often take place in major American cities) and the amounts raised is staggering. You have a lot of rich billionaires who support the cause with likes of Roman Abramovic donating 100m.

The point is the west or Nato or whoever aren't one single entity. They are full of decision makers, who are people, who can easily be swayed by people with a lot of power.
 
It’s not about religion in a sense of ‘my God is better than yours’ but it just so happened that people from one religious state wanted to expand their land into and claim land in another religious state

It's not that simple. Not all Palestinians are Muslims. There are a lot of christians on the Palestinian side. Just because they have Arabic names doesn't mean they are Muslims.
 
It's taken decades of attempted talks but finally peace in the Middle East has been solved by Cait Sith on the Manchester United forum RedCafe.

That's all very well, but it's all really about religion. Always has been. Primarily Masjid Al Aqsa. The Palestinians are holding up all of Muslims resistance with their lives and the lives of their children against an attack foretold in Islam and being played out now.

It's basically right wing Christians (every US president you can think of) supporting right wing Jews/Zionists to bring about the end of days (Dajjal, or anti Christ). I may be a delusional fool but this not about what I believe or anyone on Redcafe believe. It's about what all of the parties in play (mentioned above) believe.

So no, Palestinians will not just migrate somewhere else as it's not about the land per se.
 
Ive been a member of this message board for quite a few years, not the most active but always here the catch up on the latest.

My name is Ariel, I am former soldier in the IDF, living in Haifa and living my life. I have never entered a political debate here but sometimes you have to. I served in Gaza, I saw the incredible lenghts our army goes to prevent the loss of innocent lives. But when a murderous terror organization randomly fires up the sky in order to kill innocent people, you have to get to their weapon suply which they keep in populated areas. Israel always send liflets warning about upcoming attacks.
7 israeli citizens have died in the past 3 days because of Hamas actions, 2 of which are israeli arabs(1 a child) who also just wanted to live their lives, same as me. If you havnt lived in this impossible situation, if you havnt seen what we do to prevent the loss of innocent lives, YOU DONT GET THE RIGHT TO AN OPINION. Stop spreading lies. Good evening.

And the dozen Palestinians children killed? Militants just randomly decided to lug rockets into the sky? Israel did nothing?

Who started direct violence on civilians first? Right or wrong this is the typical Israeli pattern. First provoke and cause a total mess on Palestinian citizens who are unarmed. Then wait for the response from militants after which you look or an excuse to increase your advance.

You don't tell me or anyone who does and doesn't have a right to an opinion. IDF scum also have no right to tell us about leaflets they throw around when so many children have died at their hands.
 
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That's a Noam Choamsky post that I relayed.
I wasn't a question about the origin of the quote. You come across as a total extremist, in this case openly justifying rocket attacks on civilian homes (and you just did it again). So I simply meant our conversation ends here.
 
Sorry wouldn't know about mass shootings in Trumps time, it seems over here they are happening all the time?

My point was that Trumps support for Israel was 'front and centre' and whether an American President does come down on one side or the other, as openly as Trump clearly did, does this make any difference to the levels of violence that flare up in Israel/Gaza?
Very little, it would seem.
 
My problem with the maps is that only in the last one does the green section represent "Palestinian Land", and even this one requires further explanation. The other maps depict quite different values, none of them the same.

The first map purports to show “Jewish settlements" in white, but the green is actually "everything else". It's very hard to know just how much of the green in this map was "Palestinian Land" in the same sense the white is supposed to signify “Jewish land.” Much of it was uncultivated empty desert and hill country owned by nobody. A lot of land was owned by relatively few major Arab landowners who leased to Arab workers. Some was owned by other foreigners, religious endowments, etc. In any case the Jewish-Arab population ratio at this point (1947) was roughly 1:2.

The second map shows the paritition plan proposed by the UN in 1947. Here, the green section depicts the proposed Palestinian state, which the Palestinians rejected, and the white the proposed Jewish state. The Jews didn’t fully commit either way, and both sides went to war pretty much immediately. This map never represented any reality on the ground.

The third map depicts the result of that war. Here, the green sections actually represent territory conquered and occupied by Egypt and Jordan in the course of the war - Gaza by the Egyptians, the West Bank by the Jordanians. These green sections were subsequently conquered by Israel in 1967.

Finally, the fourth map, which apparently shows for the first time "Palestinian land”, although it’s not entirely clear if this refers to sovereignty or ownership - you can’t speak of Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank (under occupation) or Gaza (under blockade), but ownership is problematic in its own way here.

This is not to deny that the Jews were a minority and became a majority (and through their state the sovereign power) in the land, or to deny the settlement process since 1967. But these maps in the way they are presented are not a reliable guide to the process that brought things to where they are.

To be honest, I'm quite uncomfortable with this line of approach and always have been.

For me, it follows the same line of thinking of 'when was there a country called Palestine before? Who are the Palestinians?' as a way to delegitimise their claims.

Most contemporary countries did not exist in their current borders until relatively recently, due to the ebb and flow of various empires. Most land would not have been owned in the same way as it is now either. I imagine many people of even a few hundred years ago would not necessarily associate themselves with a nation state as we do now.

Yet in almost no other cases, in most polite conversation, would it be acceptable to say now for instance that it would have been acceptable for large scale migration to Myanmar or Mozambique. Or that if it had happened, well tough because how much or little of the land was owned by the population living there at the time.

I know its not your intention per se but for me, the underlying message whenever people usually put this forward is to suggest that there were no problems with what happened because the 'Palestinians' never really owned the land anyway and the Jews were settling totally empty space.
 
I wasn't a question about the origin of the quote. You come across as a total extremist, in this case openly justifying rocket attacks on civilian homes (and you just did it again). So I simply meant our conversation ends here.

You come across as a simpleton if you only see things with the lens of justification -- "rightful" and "not rightful" while I'm pointing out how it's being framed. As if the rockets are now a step too far compared to everything that's been happening.