The Glade 4.0

More like "give them a place where they can defend themselves effectively, so we don't have to deal with this crap". That part seems to have worked out.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No, your link is blocked at work for some reason. Thanks for reposting.

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The area being called "Palestine" does not mean it was filled with what today are ethnic "palestinians."

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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You've got that almost exactly backwards, Talya. As of the late 19th century, only about 4% of the population of the region that is now Israel was Jewish while about 85% were Palestinians. Then the Zionist movement kicked off, and over the next 40-50 years, the Jewish population shot up to about 1/3 of the total. The Jews were the immigrants, not the Palestinians, and the international community divided the region so those Jewish immigrants could be given their own independent state. That said, the Jews weren't technically "illegal immigrants", because they had the reluctant permission of the Ottoman and then the British governments that controlled the region, though the moral legitimacy of decisions made by imperial/colonial governments and imposed on dissenting local populations is certainly suspect.

The point of difference is in Taly's example it is illegal immigrants. The zionist movement was buying land in the area in large amounts and land that was pretty much worthless (ie the people there couldn't farm it well).

Legally buying large swathes of land (try examining the % of the area that was owned by jews at the time) is far different than an unarmed invasion.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

*snicker*

But I don't want any of that...

None of which changes the fact that Israel exists, and controls the land NOW and has for 70 years. The situation in 1890 or whatever isn't really relevant. So, at this point, Palestinians would be pretty much the same as illegal immigrants, especially since they turned down the 2 state plan in 1947 betting on the rest of the Arab world to get it back by force. when that didn't work out, they started playing underdog, and the rest of the Arabs realized they got a lot fewer soldiers killed and planes shot down if they let it happen.

The fact that the Jews were immigrants back then is about as relevant as the Pilgrims being immigrants in the 17th century. History is pretty selective about what land that supposedly got "stolen" needs ***** about. It's all fun and games complaining about the U.S. or Israel doing it, but the land the Soviets and later their successor states are still holding that belonged to Japan, Poland, or Finland isn't talked about. Hell, even when the 3 baltic states were still Soviet-occupied nations it was basically ignored. Euro-hypocrisy at its finest; cricticizing the Soviets wasn't cool because that might call socialism into question, but beating the U.S. over the head is a good time. Same thing with Israel. Better make a stink over what they do to keep the terrorists and former colonies appeased.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Who gives a **** who was there in 1948?

Either you side with the idea of the owner of territory being able to determine what to do with that territory, in which case the British created Israel and Israel may therefore exist as long as they can hold the territory...

OR...

...you believe that the indigenous peoples of an area hold the rights to that area (unless they've lawfully given it to others), in which case we would have to look to the original tribes of the area to determine who should own it. Also, just about everybody on this board would need to leave North America.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Unless you can figure out exactly where the first protohumans crawled out of the trees, there are no such thing as indigenous peoples. Everybody immigrated from somewhere else.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

And they those first immigrants would therefore be the owners of any given region.

Regardless, the point actually lies in the absurdity of that stance.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Don't forget all the stealing of land they did to each other.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I don't think RD was trying to suggest Israel should just hand over all its land to the Palestinians and cease to exist because the Palestinians were there first. He was just correcting a blatant factual inaccuracy repeated by several people in this thread.

And the situation is not as black and white as you guys are making it out to be. This isn't ancient history. This isn't wrongs committed hundreds of years ago. This is **** that's happening right now. There is active resistance by the Palestinians. They have their own government. The majority of the world recognizes the state of Palestine. This doesn't in any way compare to the plight of Native Americans, which is just history at this point.

So, to answer DFK's question, "Who gives a **** who was there in 1948?" Hundreds of millions of people.

Prior to 1918, we're talking about an area of the Ottoman Empire. Including the 1947 Jewish population surge, there were just under 2 million people in Palestine in 1947, and most demographic data suggests that region was 85 to 90% Muslim from the middle of the 19th Century. The creation of Palestine (as we know it) and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire have been problematic for almost 90 years now, and it's primarily the latter occurrence that complicates things today, but Palestine is still much the way Twain described it in The Innocents Abroad.

As to the plight of the Native Americans, you might want to revisit the fact that the United States trussed up its apartheid with fancy words, land grants, tax exemptions, and nominal recognition of ethnic validity and identity. You also might want to revisit the fact that most of the horrors of the Twentieth Century happened because we, and by we I mean the United States, taught the world how to commit those atrocities and produced the weapons that made them possible.

The British came to hold Palestine by right of conquest after World War I, particularly since the emergent Republic of Turkey was not capable of extending force or control over the Ottoman Empire.

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It is about things hundreds of years ago as well. Thousands in fact. Part of the decision to grant the jews a state was not just the holocaust but also things like the diaspora.

Resistance by people who don't like it really doesn't mean anything, if the right of governmental ownership means anything. The Israelis own the land for as long as they can, or choose to, control it.

Period.



I bet all the Native Americans still alive would disagree with you that they're "just history" at this point, but please continue to ignore their situation.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Yes, history is a factor in every political situation, but its relevance varies with many different factors. The plight of the American Indians is irrelevant to politics in the US today for the most part, outside of a few select issues (that's not to say it doesn't matter at all, don't get me wrong). The status of Jerusalem 1,000 or 2,000 years ago is mostly irrelevant to the current political situation in Israel, because very few people care about it and a lot of **** has happened since then.

But the demographics of Israel/Palestine in the early 20th century is still relevant today, mainly because people are still fighting over issues related to them. Millions of people care, people with power and the will to make it an issue on the international stage, and thus it's relevant. Several people in this thread thought it was relevant enough to bring it up in the first place, only they were using distorted facts to support Israel's position. Now that those facts have been corrected, it's conveniently not relevant anymore because you guys deem it so.


And the land the Israeli's can't control, who owns that?

You guys like to be realists when it supports your position ("Israel controls the land now, it doesn't matter how it got to be that way. Those are the facts, and they have a right to defend themselves now just like any other nation.) But then when the reality of the situation doesn't support your position, suddenly you're all idealists appealing to the morality of Israel's position ("They were attacked first and are only acting in self defense, Palestine rejected a two state solution and chose war over peace, etc.")

But if you guys just want to ignore all that idealism and morality BS, and only focus on the reality of the situation today, then Hamas maintains control of and governs the Gaza Strip, and the PNA maintains control of and governs a small portion of the West Bank. Israel maintains control of pretty much everything else.

The reason for why the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is still relevant is because both sides have military capability, unlike the Native Americans.

Therefore, logically, there shouldn't be a problem if one side eliminate the military capability of the other, because it'll stop being relevant as soon as that happens.

At least, that seems to be what you're saying.

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In time, this too shall pass.

It's actually a fairly sizable issue in a number of ways, but I don't want to derail. What you have is typically economically depressed, "sovereign" territory within the border of the United States, very old treaties, water rights issues, etc. It's not very visible, but it's a big deal with the federal government and states with reservations.

Yes, in the context of the Republic of Lakotah, the US's past treatment of the Sioux is certainly relevant. All I mean is it's not as big of an issue as the situation in Israel. I don't think that's very controversial.

And Taskiss, that's not what I'm saying at all. You've narrowly interpreted my word choice of "fighting over issues" as being about military power. It's not. But I guess technically if one side and all their supporters are completely wiped out, then nothing would be relevant anymore to the debate because it'd be over. That wouldn't change the immorality of it though.

Then you're really not being clear about what you're saying.

Also, trust me, the diaspora and the treatment matters to the jews. It all matters, not just 20th century happenings. "Never again" isn't just about the Holocaust.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I'm more concerned with who was there in 1967, when Israel annexed the current Palestinian territories in a war they started. Even if you believe they were right in starting the war, they still annexed the Palestinian lands in a war the Palestinians had nothing to do with.

I find this hard to believe, if Jews really wanted to make sure "never again" they wouldn't on average be so anti-gun.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

It's only American Jews that are Anti-gun isn't it, cause guns are like everywhere in Israel right?

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Israel did NOT start the war in 1967; they pre-empted the Arab attack. This is like if someone has been telling you they're going to kick your ***, you see them reach for a knife, and you shoot them before they can get it out.

Not only do schoolyard rules of "I'm not touching you!" not fly in adult concepts of assault and self-defense, they also don't fly in international relations. The Israelis were able to pre-empt because Nasser's commander Field Marshall Amer was incompetent; telegraphing his intentions by transferring various decisions aimlessly around in the desert of the Siani beforehand. This also took a heavy toll on the men and vehicles in the month prior to the actual fighting.

There's also the fact that Jordanian plans had been captured by the Israelis, and among other things, indicated that in at least one place noncombatants were to be slaughtered - ""The reserve brigade will commence a nighttime infiltration onto Motza, will destroy it to the foundation, and won't leave a remnant or refugee from among its 800 residents".[88] (From the Wikipedia article on the 6-day war)

Then, let's see.. what else? Oh yes, Egypt had blockaded the straights of Tiran (an act of war) and kicked out the UN buffer from the Siani, and Iraqi troops had been moving into Jordan, both clearly threatening moves to the Israelis. By June 4th, the Arabs had made the decision to go to war; they just didn't get to it prior to having their air force nearly wiped out in a surprise attack (which, frankly, the Israelis were even surprised by. They didn't expect it to go as well as it did; all their pilots had been advised to reserve 5 minutes of fuel for air to air combat.)

As to the land taken, you also seem to forget that Iarael occupied the entire Siani peninsula and the Golan Heights as well as gaza and the West Bank, and that the entire point of holding the land they DID take was to trade it back to the Arabs in return for a peace treaty. The arabs weren't having it, and eventually gave up their claims to that land in the 1978 Camp David accords. Still, it should indicate the level of intransigence of the arabs that they were more than willing to sit there obstinately refusing a peace agreement of ANY kind for 11 years after the war, when that was all they needed to get the remaining land back. They took another shot in 1973 and that one didn't end well for them either. Mauritania (rather pointlessly) remained in a state of war against Israel until 1999.

Oh yes, then there's East Jerusalem. Let's see - despite the 1949 armistice guaranteeing Jewish access to the Wailing Wall, the Jordanians never complied, and Jewish holy sites had been left unmaintained, and graveyards desecrated. Israel, on the other hand, allows a Muslim Waqf to administrate the Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount and bars Jews from praying on the mount itself, despite it's importance in Jewish tradition.

This is the fundamental problem with current views of the arab-Israel issues; people insist on seeing the Palestinians as helpless underdogs and ignore the history of the conflict itself. The 1967 war is not a matter of "Israel attacks first and grabs land"; that's a simplified, anti-Israel propaganda view of how events occurred. To be fair ISraeli conduct was not entirely blameless; there was the Liberty incident (highly foolish on their part, seeing as they were counting on the U.S. Navy to prevent Soviet intervention) and apparently some Israeli troops took it upon themselves to trick or force some Palestinians into leaving their land. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that Nasser was undeniably planning to conquer Israel, he just got sucker-punched while he was dicking around about actually doing it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That's all beside the point, it was Egypt, Syria, and Jordan that were responsible for that, the Palestinians were not. The Palestinians didn't need to get pre-empted, they had no real ability to attack Israel, they just got themselves annexed and then never got their lands back.

From 1950 to 1967, the West Bank was occupied by Jordan in much the same way Israel occupies it now. The Palestinians resisted that occupation and Jordan's "ownership" of the West Bank was never recognized by the international community.

The "us vs. them" stance Israel takes on everything is the real issue, they treat all their enemies as one coherent entity and act as if all of them are at fault for the actions of any one of them. This is also how all the ceasefires keep getting broken, there are dozens of militant groups and if they sign a ceasefire with one of them they always expect that there will be no more violence period and will treat the ceasefire as broken if a different group than the one they signed with attacks them.