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Sanctions? Military action? What sort of prosecution?
I am, in part with you, I'd much rather we operated an ethical policy when it came to other nations and had nothing to do with ones with dodgy human rights record. I think where we differ is you would take a more agressive and pro-active approach.
Israel is acting unilaterally to at least achieve a part-solution. I have my suspicions as to how long term Sharon is thinking.
Certainly - I would condemn Israeli killing of civilians, but I would place them within the framework of organised Palestinian terrorism and the continued anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic rhetoric (and action - 6 day war anyone?) of the Palestinian paramilitary groups and many middle eastern governments.
Plenty of countries practice female genital mutilation, the teenage gays are alleged to have raped a thirteen year old boy at knifepoint - do you have any evidence they didn't, what proof do you have of infanticide and is it not also practiced in other countries, and the "!barbarism shown in my original post" referred to Indonesia.
So, why Iran?
I doubt there's much anti-semitism going on there
Do be so kind as elaborate on just how it is that true semites (i.e. The Palestinians and all other Arab peoples of the region) can be "anti-Semitic".
Best you turn your spotlight on the only true anti-Semites of the region, i.e. Eastern European, Khazari-originated Zionist invaders and ethnic cleansers of Palestine and its historic inhabitants.
Have Israelis been subjected to 40 years of illegal occupation?
Have they had their freedom of movement curbed?
Have they had their land stolen and houses demolished at national level?
Have they been driven to total economic failure and levels of poverty that make some African nations look like Northern Europe in comparison?
Have they had Apartheid Walls built around them against their will?
Have they been subjected to collective punishment such as water and electricity cuts?
All the misery suicide bombers have caused to Israeli citizens (which is great) doesn't even account for 1% of the appalling catalogue of atrocities the Palestinian people have suffered in comparison.
There have been long periods during the 40-year occupation when there has been no bombings and no terrorism. At no point has Israel even proposed to withdraw. Ever.
Even during negotiations has never Israel proposing withdrawing from the West Bank. Perhaps they should, for one, offer to withdraw in full, to take down the Nazi Wall and to negotiate Jerusalem later, in exchange for an immediate stop to all terrorism.
And for as long as Israel insists on keeping the stolen land it should return, peace will never happen.
Yes, but that's because there's no consequences to your actions. Its all fine and well saying we should have an ethical foreign policy; it becomes a little harder when petrol costs are spirally out of control, people are being laid off right, left and centre and terrorists are planting bombs on the streets of the country you govern.
We have to deal with the world as it is, rather than how we'd like it to be.
Human beings aren't going to change. Killings will always go on, there will be economies which are disfunctional, terrorism, murder, despots. The only way to change this is a one-world Government (and you don't seem to like the US even moving slightly this way). So in the end some people have to make ruthless and tough decisions, so that those without that responsibility can criticise them.
What a load of complete tosh.
White western rule of the world would in no way end the problem. See Iraq for further information.
:eek2:
When the term Anti-Semitism is used it refers to hostility towards Jews/Judaism and discrimination against Jews.
You’re obsession with the terminology is tedious. Although I am surprised that you don’t dispute the existence of the phenomenon Matadore was describing instead of simply quibbling over the background of the phrase.
Your brief history of Zionism is as one-sided and defunct as Joan Peters version of events, of course you're view appears to be based on Peters equivalents on the opposite extreme of the argument.
The 1947 UN partition plan would have created two states; a Jewish one and an Arab one. The Jewish Agency accepted it. The Palestinians didn’t. The Palestinians launched hostilities against the Zionists. The Arabs invaded.
Yes, the Palestinians are the victims but to blame their fate entirely on Israel is historically inaccurate and ignores the actions of the Arab states as well as the poor leadership of the Palestinians.
So, because the Palestinians weren't happy to give most of their country over on the say so of colonialists, then its their fault?
And then there was the ethnic cleansing in 1948, when 750 000 Palestinians were driven out of 'Israel' and became refugees. Israel's admittance to the UN was conditional on the refugees being allowed to return. Has Israel complied with this?
Zionism is a racist, land stealing ideology - and the Palestinians are without a doubt victims of that ideology.
My, and indeed countless others', perspective on the State of Israel is neither brief nor defunct but very much a constant reminder of the truth which that states' successive leaders and their enablers have - for a variety of political, corporate, ideological and misguided theological reasons - sought to bury or villify to excuse their own terroristic and racist agenda spanning 80+ years.
When you are prepared to read more than the Jerasulem Post or the hack journalism of Joseph Farah for understanding of the nature of the conflict, do be sure to let us know.
Bollocks, they are to blame just as much as ordinary Israelis are. They should be holding their "representatives" to account too you know.
No.
56 years of armed conflict though.
... and for as long as those lands are used as a base to attack Israel from, then they will occupy it. There is a reason why Israel occupied those lands and it wasn't an act of agression. They would rather defend in terrortory other than their own if they can. At the same time we all know that the very occupation is why the bombs continue.
Israel will not trust the Palestinians, and vice versa. This isn't a black and white situation like you portray.
Until you can start to get inside the mind of the Israeli Govt you will never understand their viewpoint. As threads here show polarisation is not going to offer any solutions.
If you could guarantee that the bombs would stop then I'm sure that Israel would consider it's view, as I have already explained. World pressure would change, at the moment though the bombs mean that the US and others will always back Israel.
Besides, when you have the leader of another nation calling for you to be removed from the map, it's hardly surprising that you react badly. Seeing as many people on these boards will defend the "insurgents" in trying to oust the US and UK forces from Iraq (on the same basis), so Israel will defend using force to maintain it's borders.
Thats right, like the Israelis the Palestinians moved there from other places. Of course none of the people who voluntarily moved into the region realised that it was land that was already occupied by other people, and hey presto when they arrived they didn't see any evidence of human habitation.
:shocking:
AFAIK all the power is held by the Israeli state in this scenario.
Remind us what power the "elected Palestinian representatives" hold please MOK.
What decisions can they take all on their own, and execute without interference.
That'd be nice and instructive for me.
So, thanks in advance.
Actually far longer, MoK. A conflict their founders began against the indigenous peoples, through organised military expansionist aggression, land clearances, terrorism and ethnocide. A conflict, once again, which the indigenous peoples had and continue to have every right to retaliate against as would you and your descendants if foreign ideologues arrived to drive you and yours from your rightful property on some spurious claim of divine right.
Until the truth of the origins of this conflict and heinous ideology - which manipulated and forced itself upon a land and peoples over which it had no legitimate claim (by any Western legal standard) - is acknowledged and atoned for by Israel and its blinkered apologists to the generations of indigenous victims, there will be no just and lasting peace. Simple as.
Meh. Hopefully the History tutors at Oxford feel differently about me at interview. *fingers crossed*
Er I'll provide a list of texts I've read if you want on Israeli history that I've read.
Benny Morris -
Righteous Victims
The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
Efraim Karsh -
Fabricating Israeli History: The 'New Historians' (a critique of Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim, etc)
The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948
Avi Shlaim -
The Iron Wall
Ritchie Ovendale -
The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Wars
Joan Peters -
From Time Immemorial
Norman Finkelstein -
Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict (Finkelstein as I am sure you are aware displays Peters book to be a hoax).
Ilan Pappe -
A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples
Some of this reading was out of my own personal interest although the bulk of it was because I chose to do my A-level History coursework on Israel/Palestine.
The thing is MoK, Israel hasn't had a military need (it never had a moral or legal one to start with) to keep occupying Palestine and the Syrian border for decades now. Despite their cries to the contrary.
And the fact remains that the Israelis have never even proposed to return the stolen land if the Palestinians were to immediately and permanently stop attacks. What exactly would the gain be for the Palestinians? "If you stop attacking us we will stop killing, bombing and oppressing you (well, thank you very much for such generous selfless offer!) and we will let you have a number of isolated fragments of what used to be your country- we'll keep the rest if it's all the same to you."
What exactly is the incentive for the Palestinians there???
The ball has always been in Israel's court. All it has to do is to promise to fulfil its international obligations and to offer to withdraw in full and return all land as per 1967 borders. Not an unreasonable demand one would think, seeing as it's not their fucking land to begin with. But something that it hasn't been prepared to do once.
Let them propose that once and for all, even only on condition that all attacks stop first, and you will see the 'ungrateful' Palestinians far more co-operative than they've been so far.
And how much has that been down to the US rather than Israel? In fact, you might say that the ball is in neither courts, it's in the court of the wealthy US jews such as the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds.
Are they to blame for supporting & supply terrorists ?
If this is the impression I have given then I apologise because it's not my view. If you read through my posts you will see that I try to offer a balance here, I see fault on both sides. The blame game will get nowhere except to give an excuse for more violence.
What I find stunning is that so many people are keen to "justify" Palestinian violence, but cannot do the same for Israel. At the same time there is huge condemnation of Israeli violence and a few words about that carried out by the Palestinians.
They both have their reasons, just because you do not agree doesn't mean that they are wrong. Get inside their heads, understand what motivate them to act in such ways and you might just stumble across the way to stop it. Seeing as bigger minds that ours cannot solve it though...
I'm impressed.
You didn't use the word "Zionist" once.
Then you obviously know very little.
I must have missed the part where Israelis instruct Palestinians terrorists to attack buses...
I think that you will find that I didn't use that expression. Perhaps you would like to change the quote?
You clearly also missed the part where the Israelis provoke revenge attacks. You tell me when the last bus attack was, and I'll tell you when the last killing of a Palestinian was .......
Ho hom
So anyway, could you remind me what power the elcted Palestinian "representatives" hold please?
No, no, it wasn't directed at you as such. I was addressing the general impression some people have and repeat that the Palestinians should have settled for past, pisspoor peace deals put on the table by the Israelis and that they have only themselves to blame for the continuing troubles.
Er the 1947 UN offer was equal/better than what the Palestinians will probably end up with...
The 2000 deal was also pretty good.
'Clinton dispatched a set of proposals for a comprehensive, final status Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement to Barak and Arafat. Dated December 23, the Clinton proposals called for a hand over of "94-96 percent" of the West Bank to Palestinian sovereignty and Israeli territorial compensation to the Palestinians elsewhere (presumably in the northwestern Negev, adjoining the Gaza Strip) for the 4-6 percent it would retain; the evacuation of most Israeli settlements; an international force to secure the new borders, particularly between the West Bank and Jordan; early warnig stations in the West Bank; the demilitarization of the Palestinian state; the division of Jerusalem according to demographic concentrations, with the Arab districts under Palestinian sovereignty and the Jewish districts under Israeli sovereignty; and some form of Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple Mount and Israeli sovereignty over the Wailing Wall...At the end of December the Israeli government formally accepted Clinton's proposals as a basis for settlement; Arafat responded with a long list of questions and objections, amounting to a rejection.' Benny Morris Righteous Victims p. 671 (Morris gives one footnote for the final sentence - a HaAretz article Dec 28 2000