Israel 60 years on: The Filth and the Fury

Oh? I see plenty of friends in this thread, in The Independent, in academic life, across the Internets and throughout the press.

I really doubt a few left wingers and a few academics makes up for almost every other country being against you and your closest friends just use you as a stick to beat thier enemys with, hardly seems a fair trade off.

No, not really. You see, if they used terrorist methods (bombs, sabotage, raids, the works) only against military targets, like, say, the French Resistance during WW2 did, you'd be right.

you seem to be confusing method and goal, method is something you use to achieve the goal, whether the method is evil, stupid or actually takes you away from your goal, the goal remains the same.

so if thier goal is to stop the occupation, get israel off thier lands, they're fighting for freedom.

Quote:

---

You, sir, [...] Have you perchance heard of a Mohammed Amin al-Husayni, an Ayan (Ottoman provincial noble) of the al-Husayni clan? You probably haven't, seeing your previous posts. He was a close confidante of Hitler and recruited Muslims into the Waffen-SS (the infamous Handschar division).

---

:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:
Ah the same old crap again , the infamous Handschar division which famously was the only SS division to mutiny..but maybe that was the catholics who mutinied .
Honestly so much bollox is written on pro-zionist websites about that division that I really do have to laugh when someone tries to mention it as an example .

Quote:

---

It will remain. Both the demographic worries of many Zionists today, namely the growth of the Israeli Arab population and the growth of the Haredi population will not lead to any major shifts in anything

---

Oh dear you really havn't been following events in Jerulasalem have you ~:doh:

Quote:

---

Oh? I didn't know that the majority of Israel hates its own country.

---

I see you have a problem reading don't you , that explains how you can write such bollox .
Try reading what you think you were responding to eh , then try again .

Quote:

---

What difference does it make who started what who keeps it going?

---

Since all sides started it and all sides keep it going what was your point again ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Since all sides started it and all sides keep it going what was your point again ?

---

What's unclear?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tribesman

That view can be summed up by the word bollox .

---

You're Gordon Ramsay aren't you?

Worth the risk:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Did you know you can say ":daisy:" on BBC America?

Edit: Hey. The BBC is cultured, it has these ladies. Culture aplenty there just of a smaller and infectious nature.

I'm going to take a different tact than I usually do in these discussions. I think everyone knows that I support a two-state solution, Israel's right to defend itself against aggressors, and Palestine's right to its own sovereign territory. No need to rehash all that.

I'd like to focus more on the OP, as well as Adrian's interesting take. Banquo's article, and therefore, by extension, Banquo himself, seemed to be suggesting that the tone of rhetoric and the approach Israel has taken over the past 6 decades has changed. Adrian said this was due to a shift from a heavily secularized national focus to the introduction of religous fundamentalism (Jewish fundamentalism in this case) into Israeli politics.

I find Adrian's view very interesting, and certainly worthy of further study and contemplation. I have heard anecdotal evidence that supports his assertion, that Israel is becoming increasingly religiously conservative.

But I would like to challenge the assertion that the tone has changed. I don't see Israel as being any more aggressive or harsh in its reactions than it has been in the past. I think Israel's reaction to the 6-day war in 1967 was the pinnacle of Israeli aggresive responses. Think about it... they didn't just annex the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They took the Sinai, the Golan Heights and other extra-territorial portions of neighboring countries that were never even mentioned in the UN mandate. If anything, over the 40 years since, I see Israel as having (granted slowly) inched back from a rather confrontational posture to one where they've made it clear they're willing to trade land for peace (and recognition of their right to exist).

As for Israel's future, Adrian's other question that shows promise of moving this particular thread outside all the other Israel/Palestine ones, I think it's rather bleak. I do not believe there will be a nation of Israel in 30 years time. I don't think it will end tomorrow or next year, but it's only a matter of time. I say that because each successive Israeli generation has shown more and more propensity to try to work with foreign nations. But time has only hardened the resolve of the Syrians, the Iranians and other strong neighbors. Egypt has become more and more riddled with extremism, and I believe that when Mubarak passes, they will be a much different nation than they are today. Lebanon will continue to suffer under the hands of Hizbollah, whom I believe will eventually control all of Lebanon, by a seizure of power.

In other words, Israel has gradually become more willing to deal, while other forces in the region have become less so. We've seen the Palestinians move from discussions of how to ressurect the two-state solution (under the PLO) to an avowed mission to end the existence of Israel (under Hamas). And while yes, Israel did develop nuclear armaments 40 years ago, they were clearly defensive in nature. Iran is developoing a nuclear program that they refuse to attribute to purely defensive intentions, and have a national leader who has publicly called for the destruction of Israel. It is the folly of the West that we never believe these madmen until there is no choice but to do so.

So sadly, I think the talk of Israel's self-defense is a moot point. I think the years to come, the governments of Western Europe will continue their policy of active disengagement with Israel, who will find itself with one lone friend in the world, the USA. And I think American policy now needs to shift from defending the right of Israel exist there, to the defense of the right of Jews to exist, here. This is not hyperbole. I believe the commentary coming from Iran, from Syria, from Lebanon, and from Hamas, that once they have the land, the people will be the next to be destroyed. If we don't want another holocaust, we need to find a place to put those 11 million people within our own borders and pray that we can keep the Islamic fundamentalists out (though a quick glance at Dearborn, MI, shows that we're losing on that front as well).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tribesman

:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:
Ah the same old crap again , the infamous Handschar division which famously was the only SS division to mutiny..but maybe that was the catholics who mutinied .
Honestly so much bollox is written on pro-zionist websites about that division that I really do have to laugh when someone tries to mention it as an example .

---

None of this even attempts to address the main points in that paragraph. It just trips over an anecdote mentioned in passing and falls flat on its face. Sorry Tribesman :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Oh dear you really havn't been following events in Jerulasalem have you

---

As said, that has more to do with migration than with birth rates. One simple look at the history of these things reveals that the chance that it will lead to a major demographic shift without migration across the country is small at best.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tribesman

I see you have a problem reading don't you , that explains how you can write such bollox .
Try reading what you think you were responding to eh , then try again .

---

Looks like you're the one suffering from this, buddy. Perhaps you should try to answer my point there before replying again. Perhaps this rephrasing'll make it a little bit easier and make you a little bit less confused: what exactly makes the majority of Israel of the same opinion as Ilan Pappé and the author of this editorial and their chums? You see, you might not know and all, but the tone, style, and argumentation of this fine piece of journalistic work isn't exactly the usual in the country (thank God). Just thought you should know.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Baba Ga'on

That's interesting. I didn't know just living where you want to live automatically leads to conflict! I mean, of course, it was the Yishuv that began pogroming the locals in the 1920s, and the Zionists who came in guns blazing taking land like some kind of 20th century conquistadores. Arabs and Jews had also never lived in peace in the land before.

---

"Living where you want to"? A lovely euphamism for "I'm stealing your land."

You certainly don't have to take my word for it, read the words of the Zionist and Isreali leaders. It was clear from the start that the Zionists had every intention of forming an army and taking all of Palestine for themselves. That's not me saying that, that's Ben-Gurion and his friends.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Baba Ga'on

Oh? I see plenty of friends in this thread, in The Independent, in academic life, across the Internets and throughout the press.

---

Thankfully, yes. But as far as countries go, nobody will stand by them. Even my ridiculous Canadian government won't talk to the Palestinians. Canadians are supposed to be honest and trusted peace brokers who will speak to all sides to help end conflicts, but our feds have their heads so far up the US/Israeli collective backside we've become puppets and are too afraid to speak for ourselves. Truly terrible.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Baba Ga'on

Do some research. The Arab population in what European imperialists named after a Roman province that had been dead for fifteen hundred years was extremely mobile, and it is not sure at all if many of the people living there in 1948 had been living there for generations, or even for ten years.

---

Golda Meir felt the same way. Amazing woman, but I feel she was wrong on this issue as well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Baba Ga'on

Ahahaha, hahaha, haha, oh wow.

---

I made you smile. It's a better day for both of us then. :sunny:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Baba Ga'on

You, sir, [...] Have you perchance heard of a Mohammed Amin al-Husayni, an Ayan (Ottoman provincial noble) of the al-Husayni clan? You probably haven't, seeing your previous posts. He was a close confidante of Hitler and recruited Muslims into the Waffen-SS (the infamous Handschar division). It was he and the rest of the al-Husayni clan who instigated and lead pogroms and murders of Yishuv members from the 1920s onwards, starting a long conflict that endures to the present day. It was he and other members of his clan who started the Mandatory Civil War after the UN, which was kinda like Iraq is now, only then in the 1940s.

---

I might have heard of him, not really sure. I'll read up.

I have, however, heard of Yitzak Shamir and Menachim Begin. While my father, a Canadian soldier, was fighting the Nazis in WWII, those two gentlemen were killing Allied soldiers. So who was on whose side?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Baba Ga'on

The Yishuv started no conflict. The very fact that you assume that they did is beyond me, considering most of these people were fleeing persecution themselves and only wanted to live in peace on land to call their own.

---

Lots of people flee persecution, that does not entitle them to take someone else land and call it their own.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Baba Ga'on

But you're right. The Palestinians did not start "the war". Arabs in what they considered to be part of Syria did. The Palestinian identity was not widespread until the 1970s or even later.

---

Semantics do not justify inhumanity, brutality, and theft. People lost their land and their homes and their lives when others came to steal what was theirs. Palestine existed, in one form or another, perhaps in different shapes and under different regimes, but people lived there and worked there and had children there and called it home. Israel, on the other hand, was created out of the thin bureaucratic air and peopled by the citizens of dozens of foreign countries, some of them thousands of miles away.

Quote:

---

Looks like you're the one suffering from this, buddy. Perhaps you should try to answer my point there before replying again. Perhaps this rephrasing'll make it a little bit easier and make you a little bit less confused: what exactly makes the majority of Israel of the same opinion as Ilan Pappé and the author of this editorial and their chums? You see, you might not know and all, but the tone, style, and argumentation of this fine piece of journalistic work isn't exactly the usual in the country (thank God). Just thought you should know.

---

Thats funny since over 60% of Israelis favour such views , and you know what really funny every such editorial in the Israeli media gets lots of favourable comments from Israeli Jews and lots and lots of hostile comments from non-Israelis describing all those in favour as self hating jews . sad isn't it when you read page after page of slagging from some prick in Brooklyn or Ottowa claiming that the people in Israel havn't got a clue and are traitors to zionism .

Quote:

---

None of this even attempts to address the main points in that paragraph. It just trips over an anecdote mentioned in passing and falls flat on its face. Sorry Tribesman :(

---

The main points in the paragraph :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: they were bollox too since both sides were at it .

Quote:

---

As said, that has more to do with migration than with birth rates. One simple look at the history of these things reveals that the chance that it will lead to a major demographic shift without migration across the country is small at best.
I can see you havn't a clue what that was about . Would a clue be in part of your post and the city mentioned in my post . Apparently its a big and growing worry and not just for the zionists .

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Baba Ga'on

Do some research. The Arab population in what European imperialists named after a Roman province that had been dead for fifteen hundred years was extremely mobile, and it is not sure at all if many of the people living there in 1948 had been living there for generations, or even for ten years.

---

Would you care elaborating on this point? Just what exactly "extremely mobile" means? Cause it's sound like a commercial slogan. Because they were mobile we have to assume that most of them didn't live there before <insert amount of time> and that gives someone the right to claim it? Well, I move every night from my living room to my bedroom, I somehow don't expect that someone can claim my livingroom as his because his grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand... father had a hut made of mud in that place more than a thousand years ago.


And just how many Isrealis have been living there for generations in todays Israel? Or better yet, after ww2, at the time Israel was formed?

It was suggested by someone perhaps wiser than myself, a most ginormous grouping indeed, that I should include quotes with my assertions.

Therefore, relating to my assertions that the Zionists did plan to take all of Palestine for themselves and that there was an indigenous population:


"Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-old traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder important then the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit the ancient land."

1919, Lord Balfour, the father of the Balfour Declaration, justified the usurpation of Palestinians right of self-determination.

"We must expel Arabs and take their places."
-- David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.

"There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?"
-- David Ben Gurion. Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp. 121-122.

"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!"-- Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.

"The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized .... Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever."-- Menachem Begin, the day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine.

"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."

-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.


"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country."
-- David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.


"There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."

-- David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tribesman

:Panzer might I suggest you stick to discussing the London congestion charge since your lack of knowledge on that subject is far far less than on this subject .

---

Its all there in the history books. The arabs continue to start wars, lose land, and then somehow expect for it to be given right back. I wonder if they would do the same if they didn't suck so much at military operations. Probably would, as they're so invested in making themselves seem oppressed.

Quote:

---

And being the people they are ( )... And what, pray tell, kind of people would that be, my dear sir?

---

I think I've made my feelings on arab muslims - their values, society and culture - abundantly clear. I can reiterate if you'd like.

Quote:

---

The Palestinians did not start the war, the Zionists started the war. The Zionists packed up their bags and families, sold their houses, gave up their birth nationalities, and crossed oceans and continents and time zones to start the war. The Palestinians didn't have to move ten feet because they were already there. The only possible way you could say the Palestinians started the war would be to blame them for getting in the way of the people stealing their land.

---

Ah, but you cannot steal something from someone if it did not belong to him in the first place.

A rather crude and imperfect example would be the status of Mexicans living in the West after the Mexican-American war. It did not matter whether they had been living there for several generations, their "ownership" of the land they lived on was at the sole discretion of the American government.

Although the causes were different, the situation was the same. The palestinians were at the will of the UN and the British. They chose to make a homeland for the Jews out of a tiny parcel of land taken from the Ottoman Empire. It was their prerogative to make such a mistake.

Quote:

---

Its all there in the history books. The arabs continue to start wars, lose land, and then somehow expect for it to be given right back.

---

:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:
They expect it tobe given right back:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:
read the history books Panzer , Israel is signatory to a document that says it cannot take land in war and not give it back :dizzy2:

Quote:

---

Ah, but you cannot steal something from someone if it did not belong to him in the first place.

---

But it did belong to people , it was the Jewish settlers who owned less land . and the government held land was to be distributed to the residents on an equitable basis , so your ownership claim is complete bollox .

Quote:

---

I think I've made my feelings on arab muslims

---

Ah so the arab christians are OK then , and the atheists .

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Ah so the arab christians are OK then , and the atheists .

---

Nope they are not OK, they are being oppressed by your favorite people.

I thought I'd trot out some facts, you never know what it's good for.

Fact:The land of Palestine was known as such (Παλαιστίνη) in the days of Herodotus.

See his Histories 7:89 where he describes it as being inhabited by Syrians and Phoenicians: '[..] and this part of Syria and all as far as Egypt is called Palestine.' Of course the population of the area has since been in flux, as has the population in every other part of the world. Jews were part of that flux wherever they moved.

It is rather funny to see Arabs being posthumously denied a right to Palestinian land around 1900 because they supposedly didn't have fixed abodes and were 'moving around' as it is said, as this applies a fortiori to any Jews who settled there.

Fact: Under the British Mandate, all who lived in the region called Palestine were legally Palestinians, including all Jews.

The term 'Palestinian Jews' was dropped only after 1948 when these Jews became citizens of Israel. Likewise the Arabs who lived there were called 'Palestinian Arabs'. The 'creation' of a separate Palestinian identity was as much the work of the Arab leaders as the Palestinians themselves. A separate Palestinian nation with a claim to Israel's land was a useful pawn to these leaders. The question of whether the Palestinians constituted a nation before the period under consideration is neither here nor there. All nations were once constituted for the first time. So were the Palestinians, ultimately during the Mandate. What counts is that they are a nation now.

Fact: When the British took the first population census under the Mandate in 1922, the breakdown was as follows: 752,048 individuals, of which 589,177 Muslims, 83,790 Jews, 71,464 Christians and 7,617 persons belonging to other groups. When the British left in 1948, the numbers were: approximately 1.35 million Arabs and approximately 650,000 Jews.

If the Arabs were chased off their land during the Mandate, how is it that there were twice as many of them after the Mandate ended? Or could it be that Zionist colonization had been far less aggressive than it is made out to be?

The problem of 'whose land was it in the first place?' is complicated. The Arab fellahin (peasants) who lived and tilled the land in what is now Israel were most often not the legal owners of that land. They despised their own leaders and land-owners who sold them for a nickel and a dime if they had the chance. Israeli unwillingness to strike a deal with the locals and their (often absenteist) masters grew as a result of the rampant antisemitism among Palestinians in the 1920's and 1930's. After the Mufti-led revolt of 1936 any chance of a peaceful solution was gone.

Ben-Gurion's writings reflect the ambivalence of a man who lived through all this, and who was forced to deal decisively with these matters, yet refused to adopt the kind of Jewish fascism promulgated by Jabotinsky e.a. Unless someone disabuses me with evidence in hand, I believe Ben-Gurion's writings and speeches show that he was both more honest and more lucid than any Arab figurehead in Palestine at the time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

I think I've made my feelings on arab muslims - their values, society and culture - abundantly clear. I can reiterate if you'd like.

---

Only if it would offer you a cathartic respite.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

Ah, but you cannot steal something from someone if it did not belong to him in the first place.

---

Do you really think semantics justify theft? Besides, what constitutes ownership? Does the man who was born and lives in a place and raises his family there have no rights to the land only because a bureaucrat thousands of miles away says the paperwork now says the land now belongs to another guy who has never even been to that place in his life?

The files might be in order and the forms signed in triplicate, but where is the justice? Theft is theft no matter what you call it and how nicely you dress it up.

Even the founder of Israel agreed the Zionists were taking other people's land.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Ah so the arab christians are OK then , and the atheists .

---

Your distorted realities aside, its about the culture, not race.

Arabs or muslims who have embraced some of the basic tenants of what we consider enlightened thought here in the West, I have few problems with. These would include such basic freedoms as those of thought and expression. Oh, and the strange habit of not subjugating women.

On the other hand, I believe I have made reference to those arabs who embrace the strains of Islam common in that part of the world - which includes the vast majority of palestinians - as being more akin to our canine friends than ourselves.

Clear enough?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Beirut

Do you really think semantics justify theft? Besides, what constitutes ownership? Does the man who was born and lives in a place and raises his family there have no rights to the land only because a bureaucrat thousands of miles away says the paperwork now says the land now belongs to another guy who has never even been to that place in his life?

The files might be in order and the forms signed in triplicate, but where is the justice? Theft is theft no matter what you call it and how nicely you dress it up.

Even the founder of Israel agreed the Zionists were taking other people's land.

---

We're operating on different levels. Im making a legal argument and you are offering an emotional one.

To be very honest, I do not think Israel was a good idea.

If I were Truman, I would have offered some of the vast swathes of government owned American land for the Jews to come and settle in. Make it its's own stat. It certainly would have helped the economy. :yes:

Of course that wouldn't have swung with the American people or the Zionists.

Unfortunately, the nation of Israel was created, and it was well within the UN's authority to let that happen.

The time to fight against its creation - through petitions to the UN or through military force - was in 1947. Each successive decade that passes makes the failure of palestinians to accept peace, or even Israel itself, even more ridiculous. Each infatada, each school bus blown up, each nightclub slaughter, and each rocket fired into urban areas makes the heavy-handed retaliations of the Israelis a little bit more justified.

You know, my father was very much indoctrinated into the Nazi war machine through the Hitler Youth. In '45, he simply could not - would not - believe Germany had lost. It was a terrible thing for such a small boy to have believed with all his heart that Germany was right and would win, and then to see his neighborhood patrolled by foreign soldiers.

However, 63 years later, it has sunken in. In fact, reality came to him far sooner than that, and he was able to move on and make something of himself. Palestinians could learn from such an example.

In other words, do they want to be the Native Americans who wallow in poverty and drunkenness, complaining about how their land was stolen - or do they want to be the Native Americans bringing in millions who just bought Hard Rock.

Sometimes you just have to move on. Everyone has OK'd a palestinian state except the palestinians.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Baba Ga'on

This article, put shortly, is filth. It's full of misinformation, propaganda, and lies. But that's not very surprising coming from what appears to be an Israeli who has made yerida

---

I share a house with an Israeli who made yerida. She is a seventh generation Israeli. Her family lived in Hebron (I think it was) long before Herzl, long before Balfour, long before 1948.

And no, Palestine was not an empty land. It was an inhabited land, often a dangerous land. By denying this, one denies the history and hardship of the first Jewish settlers. :yes:

But her family could live with the Arabs. Sometimes there was mutual aggression, sometimes peace and co-operation. What they can not live with, what made her leave, was the change in Israeli society. After the war, her parents grew up in a Tel Aviv that was open, enlightened, progressive. Now? It is full of Israelis who think they are brave for spending their conscription years as part of one of the strongest militaries in the world, pestering Palestian civilians at checkpoints. Hardliners, orthodoxes, pinguins. This Israel, and not two centuries of living amongst Arabs, is what made her leave.

Allah bless the EU.


THE STRASBOURG RESOLUTIONS

The Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Co-operation comprises more than 200 members of Western European Parliaments of widely different political tendencies. At its General Assembly in Strasbourg on June 7th at 8th the Parliamentary Association unanimously passed the following resolutions:

(1) Final Resolution of the Political Committee

The General assembly of the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Co-operation calls upon European Governments to take initiatives forthwith that will help to secure the withdrawal of Israel from all territories occupied in 1967.
Such a withdrawal is implied by Resolution 242 and required by Resolution 338 of the United Nations Security Council and also by the United Nations Charter and the principles of International Law which categorically forbid the acquisition or territory by force.
The Association emphasizes that there can be no just and lasting peace settlement without recognition of the national rights of the Palestinian people. There has already been almost unanimous acceptance by the International Community of this principle, which Israel must also come to accept.
The whole Arab world has agreed that the P. L.O. is the sole representative of the Palestinian nation and this decision has been endorsed by an overwhelming majority of the countries represented at the United Nations.
The Parliamentary Association urges European governments to recognise this fundamental point in the initiatives they should now take.
First, they should call on Israel to halt immediately the expropriation and confiscation of Arab property in Israel and the occupied territories.
In particular, Israel must end the process of the "Judaization" of Jerusalem which it has illegally annexed and the establishment of new Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
Secondly, the European governments should try to get all interested parties including Israel and the P.L.O. to the conference table, if possible within the context of the Geneva Conference. Europe itself, either through its member states or through the E.E.C. could play a valuable part in such a conference if called upon to do so. It would be reasonable to expect all concerned not to resort to military action of any kind for the duration of the negotiations.
Third, they should urge both the Israelis and the P.L.O. to agree to leave in abeyance discussion of ultimate solutions and concentrate on the immediate and practical task of trying to find a modus Vivendi which will require the acceptance by Israel of the rights of the Palestinian nation and of the existence of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza if the Palestinians decide to establish one, and reciprocally the acceptance of the existence of Israel within her 1967 frontiers.
Finally, the European governments should urge on all concerned the crucial importance of effective peace-keeping machinery and should agree to take an active part themselves in such arrangements.
The Parliamentary Association recognises the problem that is posed by the fact that some of the media and publishing houses of Europe are dilatory in disseminating facts about the Arab world and intends to use its influence to overcome this problem.
The Parliamentary Association recognises the help done to the understanding of the Arab cause and growing sympathy for it in Western Europe by the liberalisation measures taken in various Arab countries and by the readier access to Arab countries by the news media, businessmen and other visitors from Europe .
The Association calls on European governments to improve legal regulations concerning the freedom of travel and the protection of the basic rights of immigrant workers in Europe which should be equivalent to those of citizens of the countries concerned.
The Association considers that the political settlement of the Israeli-Arab conflict is an absolute necessity for the establishment of a genuine Euro-Arab co-operation. Nevertheless, the Association considers that the political aspect of co-operationing not limited to this point alone, and has in mind for example the free circulation of ideas and people in the world as a factor for the maintenance of peace, for the support of freedom and in particular for a harmonious development of co-operation between Western Europe and the Arab nations.
The Association believes that the prospects of long-term Euro-Arab co-operation in all fields have never been so favourable but that they depend on a peace settlement based on justice in the Middle-East.

(2) Final Resolution of the Cultural Committee.

The General Assembly of the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Co-operation, meeting in Strasbourg on June 7th 1975,
Having considered the cultural resolutions adopted by the the preparatory conference for Euro-Arab
parliamentary co-operation held in Damascus from November 12th to 17th, 1974, which reaffirms in the
present resolution,
convinced that significant results are possible in the cultural field of the Euro-Arab dialogue,
recognising the historic contribution of Arab culture to European development,
emphasising the contribution which Arab culture can still give to European countries especially
in the field of human values,
regretting that cultural relations between European and Arab countries are still infrequent
and limited in scope,
regretting the relative neglect of the teaching of Arab culture and Arabic in Europe and looking forward to
its development,
hoping that European governments will help Arab countries to create the resources needed for the
participation of immigrant workers and their families in Arab culture and religious life,
asking the European press to show a sense of responsibility so that they may inform public opinion
objectively and more fully about the problems of the Arab world,
recognising the important role which Friendship groups and Tourism can play in improving mutual
understanding,

Calls on the governments of the Nine to approach the cultural aspect of the Euro-Arab dialogue in a constructive spirit and to give a higher priority to the popularisation of Arab culture in Europe .

Calls on Arab governments to recognize the political effects of active co-operation with Europe .

Invites national groups of the association to increase the efforts necessary in every country to bring about the objective proposed at Damascus and today at Strasbourg and ask them to inform the Secretariat of the results achieved.

considering the harmful effect of the political situation on Palestinian development,

Condemns - while recognising Israel's right to existence - the Zionist intention of replacing Arab by Jewish culture on Palestinian soil, in order to deprive the Palestinian people of its national identity,

considering that in carrying out excavations within the holy places of Islam in occupied Jerusalem , Israel has
committed a violation of international law despite the warnings of UNESCO,
considering that these excavations can only bring about the inevitable destruction of evidence of Arab culture
and history,

regrets that Unesco's decision not to admit Israel into its European Regional Group has sometimes been exploited with great lack of objectivity.

(3) Final Resolution of the Economic Committee.

The General Assembly of the Parliamentary Association for European Arab Co-operation reaffirms the usefulness and necessity of a close economic co-operation between Europe and the Arab World in the interest of their peoples.
The Assembly expresses its disquiet at the slow progress made in the Euro-Arab dialogue and is concerned with events based on political motives which in the course of recent months have armed Euro-Arab co-operation, i.e. the setting up of the International Energy Agency and the signature of an agreement between the E.E.C. and Israel , before negotiations have been completed between the E.E.C. and Arab countries. In this connection, it insists that economic co-operation between the E.E.C. and Israel must not apply to the occupied territories.
The Assembly considers that there is no conflict between the interests of Europe and the Arab countries, provided that the mercantilist stage is left behind and genuine economic partnership can be established.
This is the perspective within which can best be solved the problem of recycling petro-dollars. These petro-dollars should above all be used for needs of Arab development.
The Assembly calls attention to the role and status of multi-national companies and the potential danger arising from certain of their activities. It expresses the hope that steps may be taken to avoid these dangers.
The Assembly reaffirms the right of every nation to dispose of its own national resources, including the right of nationalisation.
The Association expresses its will to do all in its power to promote Euro-Arab co-operation at national level, within the E.E.C. and through international organisations.

Euro-Arab Parliamentary Dialogue
Brussels , 21-23 June 2002

Algeria - Alg&#233;rie
M. Abdel R Bel-Aiat
M. Najoum Mohamed
M.Mahmoudi Lakhdar
M.Belhadi Miloud
M.Mohamed Dada
Mr. Zahed Messaoud
Mme. Sabah Bournour
Mr. Ferhat Berndifellah
Mr. Abdelaziz Zemri
Mr. Mohammed Guerrout
Mr. Ali Mokrani

Austria - Autriche
Fritz EDLINGER

Belgium - Belgique
Dalila DOUIFI
Marie-Jos&#233; LALOY
Erika THIJS
Denis D’HONDT
Andr&#233; SCHELLENS
Jean CORNIL
Michiel MAERTENS
Pierre LANO
Jacques D’HOOGHE
Fran&#231;ois ROELANTS DU VIVIER
Mirella MINNE
Anne-Marie LIZIN
Paul GALLAND

Bulgaria - Bulgarie
Younal LOUTFI

Denmark – Danemark
Henning GJELLEROD

Egypt- Egypte
Mr.Ahmed A.Z.El Alfi
Mr.Ezz El Din Nassar
Mr.Gamal Abou Zekra
Mr.Jamal Abo Zikra

Estonia - Estonie
Indrek MEELAK

European Parliament - Parlement Europ&#233;en
Luisa MORGANTINI

France
Lo&#239;c BOUVARD

Germany - Allemagne
Monika GANSEFORTH

Iraq -Irak
Dr.Ghaleb A. Al-Jasseml
M.Ali Abdullah A. Al-Thalimi
M.Daood Abdel Kader Salman

Ireland - Irlande
Michael LANIGAN

Italy - Italie
Gian-Guido FOLLONI
M RIVOLTA
Patrizia PAOLETTI
Antonio LOCHE (co-ordinator)

Jordania- Jordanie
M.Thaer Hikmat
M. Bel AIAT
M. Ali Zaioud

Kuwait - Kuweit
M.Muhamed J.Al-Saqr
M.Abdul M.Youssef Jamal

Lebanon - L&#237;ban
M.Cheikh Mika&#235;l Daher
M.Yassine Jaber

Malta - Malte
George VELLA
Victor GALEA PACE

Morocco - Maroc
M.Amin Al-Damnati
M.Omar Asseba'i Assousi
M. Zeidan Mohamed

Netherlands - Pays-Bas
Bert KOENDERS

Palestinia - Palestine
M.Abdullah Abdullah
M.Chaouki Armalli
M.Zouhair Sandouka

Portugal
Edite ESTRELA
Antonio CRUZ SILVA

Saudi Arabia- Arabie Saoudite
S.E.Dr.Al Jaafari
S.E.Dr.Al Shaghroud
S.E.Dr. Al Latif Jamjoum
S.E.Mr.le Conseiller Al Moamar
Prof.Ahmad Badaoui
Prof.Badr Al –Dael

Soudan - Sudan
M.Ahmad I. Al-Taher
Dr.Issma'il Al-Haj Moussa
M.Sayed Mahjoub Ahmad
M.Sa'ed Habib Allah Sa'ed
M.Yasser Khoudhrb Kalaf Allah

Sweden - Su&#232;de
P&#228;r-Axel SAHLBERG

Syria- Syrie
Dr.Hassan Al-Nouri
M.Ibrahim A'abbas
Mme. Nihad Thantah

Tunisia -Tunisie
M. Al Tijani Al-Haddad
M. Hamda Knani
Mme. Afifa Salah

United Arab Emirates - Emirats Arabes Unis
M.Abdel R.Ali Al-Chamissi
M.Abdullah Ali Al-Chouhi

Yemen - Y&#233;men
Mr. Sultan Al-Barakani
Dr. Auras Nagi
Dr. Abdulrahman Bafadel
Mr. Abdelbaqui Abdelrahman

Observers
Peter HANSEN, Commissioner General of UNRWA
Nikolaus VAN DER PAS, Directeur G&#233;n&#233;ral, Commission Europ&#233;enne, DG Education et Culture
Floris DE GOU, Chef de la section politique et secr&#233;taire de la Commission Politique &#224; l’Assembl&#233;e de l’UEO (Paris)
Charles Ferdinand NOTHOMB, ancien minister des affaires etrang&#232;res, Belgique
Bernard ZAMARON, D&#233;l&#233;gu&#233; G&#233;n&#233;ral, Centre Robert Schuman pour l’Europe

AIPU
M.Noureddine E. Bouchkouj (S&#233;cretaire G&#233;n&#233;ral)
M.Mohamed Walid Abdula'al
M.Ahmad Mokayess
M.Did Al-Zanbaq
M. Samir al-Nihqwi
Mme.Layla Nachawati
Mlle.Rawad Asaid
M.Loay Kaddourah

PAEAC - APCEA
Pol MARCK (Secretary General PAEAC)
Johan GEZELS (Executive Director)
Carme GARCIA (Assistant)
Pierre HERMANT (Assistant)

Interprets - Interpr&#232;tes
Lenka JOSZO
Mourad RAMDANI
Mourad KHALLAF
Frances CALDER
Doina ZUGRAVESCU
Anne THOEN
David STEPHENS


What the hell is going on here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fragony

What the hell is going on here.

---

Its called politics. European Nations wanting something from Middle Eastern Nations and coming up with a joint resolution so that maybe they can have some type of political, economic relationship.

Pushing Israel to return to the 1967 borders is pretty calm and basic since it falls within the solution that is called for by a United Nations Resolution.

The rest is just political bargianing languge, not to sure if it really means anything or not. Would depend on how each nation is applying THE STRASBOURG RESOLUTIONS to its relatonship with Israel and other Middle-Eastern states.

Open borders has been pushed for awhile - one of the favorite's of the one world government conspiracies advocates. So not to concerned about it since I dont think the one world government has a chance of existing

Most of the other statements fall within the norms I believe for political and economicial relationship building between nations. Only statement that gets me is this one Calls on the governments of the Nine to approach the cultural aspect of the Euro-Arab dialogue in a constructive spirit and to give a higher priority to the popularisation of Arab culture in Europe. Not really sure what this statement means or implies.

One could look upon that statment a number of ways.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fragony

What the hell is going on here.

---

Simple. It's Fragony buying into more of Bat Ye'or's nonsense. She claims this resolution is solid proof that the EU wants to arabise and islamicize all of Europe.

Ye'or has gone off her rocker long ago. :dizzy2:

I know of the 1975 resolution where we got sold (read Eurabia by Bat Ye'or, scary as hell), same place also Strassbourg, that is why we have all this. This one was completily unknown to me. Need to get out of this place.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adrian II

Simple. It's Fragony buying into more of Bat Ye'or's nonsense. She claims this resolution is solid proof that the EU wants to arabise and islamicize all of Europe.

Ye'or has gone off her rocker long ago. :dizzy2:

---

All been documented, this is why I voted no. And with all due respect you are a journalist working for a pro-euro newspaper.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adrian II

Simple. It's Fragony buying into more of Bat Ye'or's nonsense. She claims this resolution is solid proof that the EU wants to arabise and islamicize all of Europe.

Ye'or has gone off her rocker long ago. :dizzy2:

---

Okay an European political thought that I never understood. An extremist view of what popularisation would imply then is her take on that clause, allowing others to wallow in fear?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fragony

read Eurabia by Bat Ye'or

---

I have, it's my job, that's why I mentioned her as a source before you did. I'm looking at the Dutch translation right now, I've read it from cover to cover and it's one big load of unsubstantiated balderdash.

You need to get out of this bad company, that's what you need. :yes:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adrian II

You need to get out of this bad company, that's what you need. :yes:

---

Well kindly recommend me a book where it's torn apart piece by piece. There isn't one now is there, sounds like a joy for the intellectuals to shred.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fragony

Well kindly recommend me a book where it's torn apart piece by piece.

---

OMG can't you do that yourself? Want me to show you how it's done?

OK, page 25, Dutch edition.

Ye'or wrotes: 'Whilst the media were revealing that Al Qaeda was recruiting among students and the higher-educated middle class, the European universities, at the request of the Palestinians, called for an international boycot of Israeli students and researchers. The Protestant churches voted for a boycot of all companies that were doing business in the Hebrew state'.

Now, where would the evidence for all that be? Can you show me any major European university that has called for such a boycot? Maybe there is one obscure establishment somewhere that has, but it is not mainstream at all. From time to time, there are calls and petitions from groups of European academics, but they never garner enough support to even become an issue. Only in Britain have they been vocal enough, but oh dear, universities would have none of it. Last year Britain's University and College Union (UCU) unanimously voted for a recommendation that not only is the call to boycot unlawful under discrimination legislation, but so are debates on the issue at the union's meetings. Consequently, the union cancelled a UK speaking tour in which Palestinian academics would discuss the academic boycott of Israel with their counterparts at UK universities.

It is standing pan-European policy not to indulge these characters. Remember how Bat Ye'or excoriates the European Commission for 'mobilizing all the European media and all the means at its disposal to denounce Israel and to spread the language of Eurabia'? Speaking of hyperbole, eh? Anyway, strangely enough, when confronted with one such boycott petition in 2006, the European Commission cut them short in the following manner:

Today, November 16, 2006, the office of the External Relations Directorate General of the European Commission, stated in a letter addressed to Prof. Yeshurun and Dr. Beck, that the European Commission considers "that measures such as to suspend the support that the EU addresses to academic and scientific co-operation between European and Israeli institutions are contrary to the principles of academic freedom and its objective of encouraging scientific cooperation". The letter, signed by Alain Seatter, head of the EU unit, added that "It is the Commission’s view (which reflects the views of the EU foreign ministers) that positive persuasion and dialogue on respect for international and humanitarian law through the means provided by the legal treaties with Israel is a more effective approach to conveying EU views on issues such as those raised by the academics to whom you refer". The letter concluded that "For this reason, the European Commission has no intention of suspending its programs of co-operation with Israeli institutions".
Linky

Now about those Protestant churches. There is no such joint intention or declaration or report of the Protestant churches of Europe at all. Whatsoever. period.

The only Christian divestment movements against Israel are American. The movement started there, with the Presbyterians and the Methodists. As far as I know the only remotely Protestant church in Europe that ever touched this is the Anglican Chrurch, and it only called for divestment for its own money from companies that support the Israeli occupation, like Caterpillar, the manufacturers of the bulldozers.

And so it goes on, page after hysterical page. If you are unable to debunk such screaming nonsense, you had better not touch political literature at all. I mean it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adrian II

OMG can't you do that yourself? Want me to show you how it's done?

OK, page 25, Dutch edition.

Ye'or wrotes: 'Whilst the media were revealing that Al Qaeda was recruiting among students and the higher-educated middle class, the European universities, at the request of the Palestinians, called for an international boycot of Israeli students and researchers. The Protestant churches voted for a boycot of all companies that were doing business in the Hebrew state'.

Now, where would the evidence for all that be? Can you show me any major European university that has called for such a boycot? Maybe there is one obscure establishment somewhere that has, but it is not mainstream at all. From time to time, there are calls and petitions from groups of European academics, but they never garner enough support to even become an issue. Only in Britain have they been vocal enough, but oh dear, universities would have none of it. Last year Britain's University and College Union (UCU) unanimously voted for a recommendation that not only is the call to boycot unlawful under discrimination legislation, but so are debates on the issue at the union's meetings. Consequently, the union cancelled a UK speaking tour in which Palestinian academics would discuss the academic boycott of Israel with their counterparts at UK universities.

It is standing pan-European policy not to indulge these characters. Remember how Bat Ye'or excoriates the European Commission for 'mobilizing all the European media and all the means at its disposal to denounce Israel and to spread the language of Eurabia'? Speaking of hyperbole, eh? Anyway, strangely enough, when confronted with one such boycott petition in 2006, the European Commission cut them short in the following manner:

Today, November 16, 2006, the office of the External Relations Directorate General of the European Commission, stated in a letter addressed to Prof. Yeshurun and Dr. Beck, that the European Commission considers "that measures such as to suspend the support that the EU addresses to academic and scientific co-operation between European and Israeli institutions are contrary to the principles of academic freedom and its objective of encouraging scientific cooperation". The letter, signed by Alain Seatter, head of the EU unit, added that "It is the Commission’s view (which reflects the views of the EU foreign ministers) that positive persuasion and dialogue on respect for international and humanitarian law through the means provided by the legal treaties with Israel is a more effective approach to conveying EU views on issues such as those raised by the academics to whom you refer". The letter concluded that "For this reason, the European Commission has no intention of suspending its programs of co-operation with Israeli institutions".
Linky

Now about those Protestant churches. There is no such joint intention or declaration or report of the Protestant churches of Europe at all. Whatsoever. period.

The only Christian divestment movements against Israel are American. The movement started there, with the Presbyterians and the Methodists. As far as I know the only remotely Protestant church in Europe that ever touched this is the Anglican Chrurch, and it only called for divestment for its own money from companies that support the Israeli occupation, like Caterpillar, the manufacturers of the bulldozers.

And so it goes on, page after hysterical page. If you are unable to debunk such screaming nonsense, you had better not touch political literature at all. I mean it.

---

A sense of wonder in the ' how could it be' kind is all you can do? My stomach needs the substantial stuff. All the royals are yapping the same thing. All governments seem to have little priorities other then muslim sentiments and muslim integration. As if we don't have hindu's living here, where's the love for them, maybe they just cause enough trouble? Could be. Need more though. If you are right about all this you sure should find a better way of selling this because I and with me half of the dutch population that sees islam as a threat doesn't buy it. Maybe I am not that good at thinking, I am only 31 year's old and I am trying, you know read stuff from smart people, a lot more then other stupid people do at least. You are losing us mia muca.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fragony

A sense of wonder in the ' how could it be' kind is all you can do?

---

That's all you have for an answer?

There is nothing to substantiate her claims. I mentioned two of those claims. Where is the declaration of European universities for a boycot of Israel? Is there such a declaration from even 1 European university?
Where is the statement of the Protestant churches in Europe that calls for a boycot of Israel? There is none. Maybe there are some Christian aid organizations that call for a boycott. Well, it's a free continent and it's their money they're talking about, not church money.

This woman is peddling myths and innuendo.

All she does in this book is yap about attempts at European-Arab dialogue and cultural exchange that are a normal part and parcel of politics, exactly as Redleg said. Every country does it, the U.S. and Russia, China, Brazil, you name it.

Not for Bat Ye'or. Every time a European leader shakes the hand of an Arab leader, here she comes running down the block screaming "Betrayal, they're selling us out!" :dozey:

Arabs or muslims who have embraced some of the basic tenants of what we consider enlightened thought here in the West, I have few problems with. These would include such basic freedoms as those of thought and expression. Oh, and the strange habit of not subjugating women.

So basically is not arab's or muslims you dislike/hate/fear its a certain thought process. The way you wrote it is similar to saying you dislike black people and then going onto say its just lazy black people you have a problem with. That just seems like a cover for racism because the correct statement is you dislike lazy people.

Are you equal with this criticism of people ? if there was a society that kept a people down because of thier nationality, occupied foriegn terroritorys and took a large percentage of essential resources like water to keep for thier 'own people' would you think as badly of these people ?

In other words, do they want to be the Native Americans who wallow in poverty and drunkenness, complaining about how their land was stolen - or do they want to be the Native Americans bringing in millions who just bought Hard Rock.

Im sure the palestinians would love to be bringing in millions but unfortunatly unlike USA, israel does not try to make up for the fact they took this land of the palestinians, infact in israel they seemingly go out of thier way to make life as miserable as possible.

The arabs continue to start wars, lose land, and then somehow expect for it to be given right back.

Since when did might = right ?

If the situation came up where an arab allaince overwhelmed israel militarily it wouldn't make it right for them to do as they please just because they are the victors and similarly with israel winning a few wars in the region does not give you the right to do whatever you please...

I wonder if they would do the same if they didn't suck so much at military operations. Probably would, as they're so invested in making themselves seem oppressed

You make me laugh, when the superpower of the region constantly calls racism or anti-semitism at the slightest sign of critcism, hell you'd think they were the ones being oppressed, at least the palestinians have the excuse of actually being oppressed

Quote:

---

There is nothing to substantiate her claims. I mentioned two of those claims. Where is the declaration of European universities for a boycot of Israel? Is there such a declaration from even 1 European university?
Where is the statement of the Protestant churches in Europe that calls for a boycot of Israel? There is none. Maybe there are some Christian aid organizations that call for a boycott. Well, it's a free continent and it's their money they're talking about, not church money.

---

The student's union here at UCL voted through a "Friends of Palestine" motion, pledging that UCLU was against the illegal occupation of Palestine, and condemning Israel, at the end of last term. However, this occured at an AGM with several procedural irregularities, and was overturned on those grounds. In any case, it was against the Union Charter, so the provost would have intervened.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adrian II

That's all you have for an answer?

There is nothing to substantiate her claims. I mentioned two of those claims. Where is the declaration of European universities for a boycot of Israel? Is there such a declaration from even 1 European university?
Where is the statement of the Protestant churches in Europe that calls for a boycot of Israel? There is none. Maybe there are some Christian aid organizations that call for a boycott. Well, it's a free continent and it's their money they're talking about, not church money.

This woman is peddling myths and innuendo.

---

Well if she is right it could have been given a spin in the right direction with all the tools at hand at the moment, not saying she is right of course but there is about 400 pages of recorded meetings and there even are apendixes and references, I am not easily fooled but that gets me every time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fragony

Well if she is right it could have been given a spin in the right direction with all the tools at hand at the moment [..]

---

God help me.. What spin? What tools?

THERE IS NO EUROPEAN ACADEMIC BOYCOT OF ISRAEL.

Look here, a special party was thrown to celebrate relations in 2006.

Stressing the values shared by the European Union and Israel, Ambassador Cibrian -Uzal mentioned that the European Union is Israel's main trade partner, that for a decade Israel has been a member of the European Union's R&D programmes and has also joined Galileo - the EU's satellite navigation project. Moreover, the European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plan mutually agreed upon included the possibility of fully integrating Israel in the European Union's Internal Market. [..] May 9 also saw the publication of 'The European Connection' a newspaper supplement on how Israelis and Europeans inter-connect in the fields of music, fashion, business, science and more. 'Studying in Europe,' a Hebrew language guide designed for Israeli students produced with the help of all EU Member State embassies was also issued on May 9 and quickly proved to be extremely popular with Israeli students.

Linky

I didn't bring that up kinda pointless to attack a position that was never taken, european boycott of universities wut, never heard of it. What I do see is a rather odd love for everything islam.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

We're operating on different levels. Im making a legal argument and you are offering an emotional one.

---

The two intertwine nicely, evidenced by your own Declaration of Independence (which one may view as both a legal and emotional document) which states with blazing insight into the human condition:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

To be very honest, I do not think Israel was a good idea.

---

On this we agree.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

If I were Truman, I would have offered some of the vast swathes of government owned American land for the Jews to come and settle in. Make it its's own stat. It certainly would have helped the economy. :yes:

---

Interesting proposition. You'll love the food.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

Unfortunately, the nation of Israel was created, and it was well within the UN's authority to let that happen.

---

Says who? The UN?

Interesting that most of the countries who backed it didn't live anywhere near the affected area and the people who thought it was a terrible idea had the reality of it dumped in their front yard.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

The time to fight against its creation - through petitions to the UN or through military force - was in 1947.

---

Agreed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

Each successive decade that passes makes the failure of palestinians to accept peace, or even Israel itself, even more ridiculous. Each infatada, each school bus blown up, each nightclub slaughter, and each rocket fired into urban areas makes the heavy-handed retaliations of the Israelis a little bit more justified.

---

Each successive decade that passes makes the failure of the Israelis to accept peace, or even Palestine itself, even more ridiculous. Each invasion, each school blown up, each market slaughter, and each rocket fired into urban areas makes the heavy-handed retaliations of the Palestinians a little bit more justified.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

You know, my father was very much indoctrinated into the Nazi war machine through the Hitler Youth. In '45, he simply could not - would not - believe Germany had lost. It was a terrible thing for such a small boy to have believed with all his heart that Germany was right and would win, and then to see his neighborhood patrolled by foreign soldiers.

However, 63 years later, it has sunken in. In fact, reality came to him far sooner than that, and he was able to move on and make something of himself. Palestinians could learn from such an example.

---

After several bad post-war years, Germany was freed. Palestine, what there is left of it, remains a prison.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

In other words, do they want to be the Native Americans who wallow in poverty and drunkenness, complaining about how their land was stolen - or do they want to be the Native Americans bringing in millions who just bought Hard Rock.

---

How can they prosper when no one will even talk to them? My own stupid stupid Canadian federal goverment won't talk to the Palestinians. And when those leftie weak-kneed commie Canadians won't even talk to you, who will?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

Sometimes you just have to move on. Everyone has OK'd a palestinian state except the palestinians.

---

The offers so far do nothing but legitimize their captivity. Let's see the real deal. Let's see the UN and the US push an honest solution and let's see the Arab countries float some serious cash into the area and fix things up.

Quote:

---

Clear enough?

---

Yes Panzer clear enough , its clear enough that you have racist and religionist views and are talking crap based on those , though of course that process generally goes hand in hand .

Quote:

---

We're operating on different levels. Im making a legal argument and you are offering an emotional one.

---

:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: and that is where you screw up badly since your "legal" arguement has no basis in law and even the Israeli courts don't agree with you .
So you are making neither a legal arguement nor an emotional one just a baseless one ...and I really hate to break it to ya Panzer but a baseless arguement is a errrrrr......baseless arguement .
Here let me explain in simple terms that you may be able to grasp .
Your arguement + a law that supports that arguement = a possible legal arguement .
Your arguement + lots of laws that directly contradict that arguement= you talking bollox .
Its so simple isn't it :yes:

Beirut...

Quote:

---

Says who? The UN?

---

all you have to do to destroy the credibilty of that claim is quote this clause from the basis of the move it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine ..it cearly shows that the UN could not and should not have taken the action it did and claim to be still acting within the terms that it itself approved , by acting outside the terms in destroyed any claim of legality over partition .



Louis , that is a fine post you wrote . Ordinary decent Isrealis are being persecuted and driven out by the nutters and by the Israeli governments strange practice of pandering to the nutters both in Israel and abroad .

Short of the dissolution of Israel (ties in with Beirut', or its eradication by violence, does anyone here see a viable solution?

If not, let's allow them to talk/kill at their own pace until they reach an ending.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Yes Panzer clear enough , its clear enough that you have racist and religionist views and are talking crap based on those , though of course that process generally goes hand in hand .

---

Religionist? :laugh4:

What a pathetic attempt to stifle the discussion. :no:

Why is it that the intellectually dishonest on the left such as yourself insist on attaching an “-ist” to any sort of judgment that you do not agree with?

Religion is an ideology, not a condition. Unlike things such as race and sex, one’s religion is a deliberate and thoughtful consideration. In that vein, it is – or at least should be – open to criticism and yes, even judgments about the values it espouses.

So am I religionist against the strains of islam common in the Middle East. You’re damned right I am.

I will take every opportunity to point out that islam in the arab world represents the worst of humanity. I will never ignore the complete subjugation of women, in which such perverted, disgusting things such as punishing victims for their own rapes are common. I won’t look past the complete lack of basic human rights. I cannot simply overlook the torture and executions of homosexuals and other “undesirables”. None of us should ignore or attempt to explain away the hatred bred for outsiders within the “religion of peace”, unlike any other major religion in the world today.

You should be ashamed of how easily you can ignore these realities – whether they come from shias or sunnis, Iran or Saudi Arabia - and yes, even Palestine. :shame:

You consistently attempt to discredit me by calling me a racist, a nazi, and now even a religionist(!), yet I consistently stand up for the millions of people oppressed by islam, most of them arabs themselves.

Islam in the Middle East is a hate filled ideology used by arabs to subjugate their own minorities and lash out at outsiders. It has left a once thriving civilization in the Middle Ages and cleverly directs people’s anger at their situation towards the West. It contributes nothing to humanity, and has cost us all – Westerners and Middle Easterners – too much for too long. Christianity went through this – hundreds of years ago.

The inordinate focus on violence rampant in islam itself plays a large part in the inability of the Palestinians and the arab world to reach compromise. Compromise is weakness while total annihilation of the Jewish menace is the ultimate martyrdom. Insanity. :dizzy2:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Beirut

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger
To be very honest, I do not think Israel was a good idea.

---

On this we agree.

---

I think thats more progress than has been made in 50 years of this conflict. Now what should be done about it?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

Short of the dissolution of Israel (ties in with Beirut', or its eradication by violence, does anyone here see a viable solution?

If not, let's allow them to talk/kill at their own pace until they reach an ending.

---

You mean Israelis and Palestinians? Or the gentlemen involved in the "My chicken got there first - Yeah, but it was hatched from my egg" debate?

The former would be totally un-you.

Don Corleone That was another classic post of yours, frank and well-considered. But how oddly pessimistic, certainly when compared to your views about other pressing issues (for instance China's development). And if I know my Israelis, I would hit your Jewish relocation to the U.S. plan with the IPCF* stamp and file it under 'Ideas I'd better not show my Israeli friends'. It's just not in the cards, I think. Certainly not their cards.

* If Pigs Could Fly

Quote:

---

What a pathetic attempt to stifle the discussion.

---

What discussion Panzer ? you claim history with apparently very little knowledge of the history , you claim legality with no legal arguement whatsoever , you claim culture and religeon but with narrow minded bigoted views trying to cover a very wide and complex issue .
In short Panzer it isn't a pathetic attempt to stifle discussion , it is your pathetic attempt to take part in one that is the problem .

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tribesman

What discussion Panzer ?

---

The one in which you consistently accuse me of all sorts of evil "ists" without anything to back it up, while at the same time defending jew hating, misogynist, homophobic thugs. Its such a complex issue though, huh? :stupido3:

As for my legal and historical claims, it is interesting to compare those nations and world bodies that recognize Israel's right to exist and those that do not.

Oh, and next time you decide to come up with a new label for me, you might want to look it up. You so terribly misused religionist its almost... pathetic? :study:

Gentlemen

I know this is a radical, even revolutionary notion, but perchance we could resort to constructing arguments and debate, rather than flinging insults at one another?

If one finds one's opponent may be in error, the polite thing to do would be to persuade him using evidence and compelling exposition. Shouting belittlement across the no man's land is unhelpful in this regard.

I know, it'll never catch on - but try it - you might like it.

:bow:

Richard Holbrooke put this in the WaPo today, about what Truman faced with statehood looming. Thought it was interesting...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...d=opinionsbox1

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In the celebrations next week surrounding Israel's 60th anniversary, it should not be forgotten that there was an epic struggle in Washington over how to respond to Israel's declaration of independence on May 14, 1948. It led to the most serious disagreement President Harry Truman ever had with his revered secretary of state, George C. Marshall -- and with most of the foreign policy establishment. Twenty years ago, when I was helping Clark Clifford write his memoirs, I reviewed the historical record and interviewed all the living participants in that drama. The battle lines drawn then resonate still.

The British planned to leave Palestine at midnight on May 14. At that moment, the Jewish Agency, led by David Ben-Gurion, would proclaim the new (and still unnamed) Jewish state. The neighboring Arab states warned that fighting, which had already begun, would erupt into full-scale war at that moment.

The Jewish Agency proposed partitioning Palestine into two parts -- one Jewish, one Arab. But the State and Defense departments backed the British plan to turn Palestine over to the United Nations. In March, Truman privately promised Chaim Weizmann, the future president of Israel, that he would support partition -- only to learn the next day that the American ambassador to the United Nations had voted for U.N. trusteeship. Enraged, Truman wrote a private note on his calendar: "The State Dept. pulled the rug from under me today. The first I know about it is what I read in the newspapers! Isn't that hell? I'm now in the position of a liar and double-crosser. I've never felt so low in my life. . . ."

Quote:

---

The one in which you consistently accuse me of all sorts of evil "ists" without anything to back it up, while at the same time defending jew hating, misogynist, homophobic thugs. Its such a complex issue though, huh?

---

oh dear panzer its your own words that back up what I say , oh and BTW when do I defend jew hating misogynist homophobic thugs ?

Quote:

---

As for my legal and historical claims, it is interesting to compare those nations and world bodies that recognize Israel's right to exist and those that do not.

---

Interesting is it ? can you identify any nation that recognises Israels right of existance in the territory it claims is Israel ? Even your own government doesn't recognise it because it is illegal .

Quote:

---

Oh, and next time you decide to come up with a new label for me, you might want to look it up. You so terribly misused religionist its almost... pathetic?

---

Errrr.... Panzer it is defined as someone with zealous views about religion , you are very zealous about Islam , it makes no distincion about whether the strongly held almost fantical views are in favour or opposed to the religion in question . So it isn't misused at all . :idea2:

Quote:

---

Richard Holbrooke put this in the WaPo today, about what Truman faced with statehood looming. Thought it was interesting...

---

Don't go there Drone , when I quoted Truman before and his views on the establishment of the State I was accused of being a rabid anti semite who had just showed that I really really hated Jews ...though apparently that was because someone thought it was my words rather than their presidents .~;)

Johann Hari clearly got a few emails along the lines of Baba's viewpoint, and replies forcefully. In the process, amply demonstrating Tribesman's point that a significant majority of Israelis are interested in their government actually trying to talk constructively.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Johann Hari: The loathsome smearing of Israel's critics

Thursday, 8 May 2008

In the US and Britain, there is a campaign to smear anybody who tries to describe the plight of the Palestinian people. It is an attempt to intimidate and silence – and to a large degree, it works. There is nobody these self-appointed spokesmen for Israel will not attack as anti-Jewish: liberal Jews, rabbis, even Holocaust survivors.

My own case isn't especially important, but it illustrates how the wider process of intimidation works. I have worked undercover at both the Finsbury Park mosque and among neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers to expose the Jew-hatred there; when I went on the Islam Channel to challenge the anti-Semitism of Islamists, I received a rash of death threats calling me "a Jew-lover", "a Zionist-homo pig" and more.

Ah, but wait. I have also reported from Gaza and the West Bank. Last week, I wrote an article that described how untreated sewage was being pumped from illegal Israeli settlements on to Palestinian land, contaminating their reservoirs. This isn't controversial. It has been documented by Friends of the Earth, and I have seen it with my own eyes.

The response? There was little attempt to dispute the facts I offered. Instead, some of the most high profile "pro-Israel" writers and media monitoring groups – including Honest Reporting and Camera – said I an anti-Jewish bigot akin to Joseph Goebbels and Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh, while Melanie Phillips even linked the stabbing of two Jewish people in North London to articles like mine. Vast numbers of e-mails came flooding in calling for me to be sacked.

Any attempt to describe accurately the situation for Palestinians is met like this. If you recount the pumping of sewage onto Palestinian land, "Honest Reporting" claims you are reviving the anti-Semitic myth of Jews "poisoning the wells." If you interview a woman whose baby died in 2002 because she was detained – in labour – by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint within the West Bank, "Honest Reporting" will say you didn't explain "the real cause": the election of Hamas in, um, 2006. And on, and on.

The former editor of Israel's leading newspaper, Ha'aretz, David Landau, calls the behaviour of these groups "nascent McCarthyism". Those responsible hold extreme positions of their own that place them way to the right of most Israelis. Alan Dershowitz and Melanie Phillips are two of the most prominent figures sent in to attack anyone who disagrees with the Israeli right. Dershowitz is a lawyer, Harvard professor and author of The Case For Israel. He sees ethnic cleansing as a trifling matter, writing: "Political solutions often require the movement of people, and such movement is not always voluntary ... It is a fifth-rate issue analogous in many respects to some massive urban renewal." If a prominent American figure takes a position on Israel to the left of this, Dershowitz often takes to the airwaves to call them anti-Semites and bigots.

The journalist Melanie Phillips performs a similar role in Britain. Last year a group called Independent Jewish Voices was established with this mission statement: "Palestinians and Israelis alike have the right to peace and security." Jews including Mike Leigh, Stephen Fry and Rabbi David Goldberg joined. Phillips swiftly dubbed them "Jews For Genocide", and said they "encourage" the "killers" of Jews. Where does this come from? She says the Palestinians are an "artificial" people who can be collectively punished because they are "a terrorist population". She believes that while "individual Palestinians may deserve compassion, their cause amounts to Holocaust denial as a national project". Honest Reporting quotes Phillips as a model of reliable reporting.

These individuals spray accusations of anti-Semitism so liberally that by their standards, a majority of Jewish Israelis have anti-Semitic tendencies. Dershowitz said Jimmy Carter's decision to speak to the elected Hamas government "border[ed] on anti-Semitism." A Ha'aretz poll last month found that 64 per cent of Israelis want their government to do just that.

As US President, Jimmy Carter showed his commitment to Israel by giving it more aid than anywhere else and brokering the only peace deal with an Arab regime the country has ever enjoyed. He also wants to see a safe and secure Palestine alongside it – so last year he wrote a book called Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. It is a bland and factual canter through the major human rights reports. There is nothing there you can't read in the mainstream Israeli press every day. Carter's comparison of life on the West Bank (not within Israel) to Apartheid South Africa is not new. The West Bank is ruled in the interests of a small Jewish minority; it is bisected by roads for the Jewish settlers from which Palestinians are banned. The Israeli human rights group B'tselem says this "bears striking similarities to the racist Apartheid regime". Yet for repeating these facts in the US, Carter has widely called "a racist". Several universities have even refused to let the ex-President speak to their students.

These campus battles often succeed. Norman Finkelstein is a political scientist in the US whose parents were both Jewish survivors of the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. They lost every blood relative. He made his reputation exposing a hoax called From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters which claimed that Palestine was virtually empty when Zionist settlers arrived, and the people claiming to be Palestinians were mostly impostors who had come from local areas to cash in. Finkelstein showed it to be scarred by falsified figures and gross misreading of sources. From that moment on, he was smeared as an anti-Semite by those who had lauded the book. But it was when Finkelstein revealed two years ago that Alan Dershowitz had, without acknowledgement, drawn wholesale from Peters' hoax for his book The Case For Israel, that the worst began. Dershowitz campaigned to make sure Finkelstein was denied tenure at his university. He even claimed that Finkelstein's mother – who made it through Maidenek and two slave-labour camps – had collaborated with the Nazis. The campaign worked. Finkelstein was let go by De Paul University, simply for speaking the truth.

Are the likes of Dershowitz and Phillips and Honest Reporting becoming more shrill because they can sense they are losing the argument? Liberal Jews – the majority – are now setting up rivals to the hard-right organisations they work with, because they believe this campaign of demonisation is damaging us all. It damages the Palestinians, because it prevents honest discussion of their plight. It damages the Israelis, because it pushes them further down an aggressive and futile path. And it damages diaspora Jews, because it makes real anti-Semitism harder to deal with.

We need to look the witch-hunters in the eye and say, as Joseph Welch said to Joe McCarthy himself: "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"