i am waiting for the day it will be major war but i wont blame israel.who can take sustained attacks without doing something?

I had to check who the journalist was...thought it might have been Neil McDonald...

The Dr. Dawgs of the world love to bitch about the "neo-cons", but those neo-cons (from Howorwitz to the Kristols etc) all left the Left because of its growing anti-semitism (among many other reasons).

Loving the underdog is a Lefty trait. I know because during my time on the Left, this was the "reason" (if you can call it that) for adopting this or that cause. Underneath all the fake statistics, junk science and made-up history, folks would admit after a few beers that they just "felt sorry" for this or that far away group of victims (even though they hated themselves and their immediate comrades)

A lot of leftists are weaklings and losers who resent success and scoff at hard work, so of course they project their victimhood on underdogs and love to "rescue" them. All psych 101 stuff.

"Now is the time for intifada" - dawg

Meanwhile, Sarah Silverman shills for Obama, attempting and succeeding to get Florida grandparents on board:

The Great Schlep, indeed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk

Interesting, is there at least 1 right-winger w/o left background in the West? There are lots in the former Soviet Union, you know. Makes one wonder? Not me.

Hammer the shit out of them Israel and close your borders to them. If the general population wonders where their next meal is coming from they might take exception to the militants setting up shop in their neighborhoods and do something about it, maybe.

Dawg is downright giddy realizing that his traffic has somehow increased greatly.

Imagine, if you will, your next door neighbour starts chucking grenades over the fence into your yard. So you ask the cops (UN) to do something but all they say is you shouldn't even be living there. What's a person to do?

Keep in mind that your "neighbours" are actually squatters that are living in the lot you vacated so as to not be so close to the original neighbours who have always tried chucking crap over the fence in the first place.

Yeah, Israel is living in a bad neighbourhood but moving out is not an option.

You should have put a health warning on the link - I didn't know you were sending me to Dawg's site. Now I'll have to clean out my computer. I see he is spouting the usual rubbish about 'civilian' casualties whereas this seems to be a highly successful military take-out with minimal "collateral damage".

The only disproportionate response I see is that of the middle-eastern Islamofacists and their left-wing dawg-arse-faced comrades over the existence of the independent Jewish state of Israel.

When you have a group of people that live in a totalitarian Islamic society that indoctrinates their children with hate in kindergarden, there can never be peace. This is not to mention support from Islamist supporting countries like Iran and Syria on it's borders.

Sooner or later, Israel will nuke them. They are not going to be slaughtered in the name of some 7th century goatherd pedophile.

Israel: Yes good move and long, long overdue.

Let's hope that this isn't just more pre-election optics. This Olmert-Livni-Barack team has been utterly, profanely, criminally jewicidal. Optics like the earlier violent removal of Jewish "settlers' from the "occupied territories".

Remember too that Barack only recently made sure that the Gazan enemy got 90 truck loads of food, fuel and other "humanitarian" supplies. Eldad (sp?) is trying to get him indicted for treason, which won't happen of course but that's what it was!

But even if Kadima optics fail, it looks like Netanyahu will be more of the same.

dr.dawg doesnt want cussin or trolls,he invented both and cant stand to be on the receiving end.he should go to Gaza to aid in their fight as the socialists did in Spain many years ago.he may be able to write a book like Hemmingway,but he should also buy a Purdy if he wants to fill those shoes.

You're a much better judge of photographic images than I, Kate...doesn't that last picture of the "casualties" on Dawg's blog look a little off to you? I tried to point it out to him but he doesn't want to take my word for it.

Just curious...

Trees are the new Jews.
http://tinyurl.com/86v388

Been saying for years that the leftards are just useful tools for bloody tyrants.

As for Israel leveling Gaza ... the only reason it took this long to get going on that most justified project is that they first had to make sure no Israelis were living there. That being accomplished officially two years ago and having gone through the motions of peace making with those murderous bastards, all the while suffering unending abuse and physical attacks, the time has arrived.

Bulldozers should be deployed ASAP to complete the return of Gaza to it's natural state.

Dawg, who I believe carried his deep-seated hatred toward Jews from Eastern Europe, is emblematic of the thinking of the Radical Left in Canada. Take his precepts forward and you don't end up with a bunch of Jews as victims, you end up with a lot of dead Jews and no Israel.

Make no mistake, this is PRECISELY what NDP supporters and Red Liberals in Canada want.

A "Proportional Response" is typical of cozy but completely phoney phrases used by the Vapid Left. Using such an approach simply extends a dispute between peoples on in perpetuity.

John McCain was deliberately misquoted and then chastised for his suggestion that American troops may remain in Iraq for 100 years. Why isn't the Left held up to the same scrutiny for their similar suggestion about Israel?

Why won’t the other neighboring Muslim countries take in their “Brothers”?

Including Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon or even the most ardent Palestinian supporters in the MSM Iran & Saudi Arabia.

Not take them into slums, like the Lebanese did in limited number and mistreat them, but give them a real home. They seem to relish in the fact that their kinfolk are stuck in squalor close to Israel where they can be supported with weapons and Islamic slogans.

Here are some interesting videos for those that buy into the Palestinian propaganda. Once away from the MSM you find that much of the violence against the Palestinians is staged fake footage, which has earned the name “Pallywood”.

Well worth a watch……….. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL1ClZgtoeI

"Why won’t the other neighboring Muslim countries take in their “Brothers”?"

Why fool around, strapping explosives onto some brainwashed kid, when they have a whole colony of martyrs right on the front line.

"The left has proved itself the real cradle of contemporary anti-Semitism."

Yes, fundamentalist right-wing zealots are especially fond of demonizing Jews who have first-hand experience of the deleterious effect of savage and inhumane policies towards Palestinians, upon the psyche of the citizens of Israel.

Noam Chomsky, here: http://www.chomsky.info/books/reader01.htm

Well, as usual, I'll disagree. Not with our assessemtn of Dr. Dawg - there is hardly an issue that he and I agree on - and I include even the weather. But with the article.

First, fascism is not an ideology of 'the right' but of the left, i.e., it is focused around the authoritative weight of the collective rather than the individual.

Second, I disagree that there is any essential right of any people to a land base. Anywhere. Land occupation is not a fundamental right but a political decision. Therefore, the UN decision to create a state of Israel as well as a state of Palestine was a political decision for both peoples.

There are several problems. The Arab States objected to this political decision and Israel refuses to acknowledge any Palestinian rights to such a UN declared state.

Its expanding settlements of the land set aside for the Palestinian state - which is now more than half taken up by these settlements, the violence of the settlers against Palestinian neighbours and farms, the hostility of each side to each other, rendered as such by a generation of interactive hatred - means that the future reality of such a state is fragile if not impossible.

Third, the fact that Israel, like its Islamic neighbours, tied its political identity to a religious identity makes it difficult to criticize these states. If you criticize the Arab States, you are accused of 'Islamophobia'. If you criticize Israel's political behaviour, you are accused of 'antisemitism'. But these states should not be immune to criticism and merging the two (political and religious) is incorrect!

I criticize Israel's refusal to enable and acknowledge a Palestinian state and its expanding settlements and its turning a 'blind eye' to settler violence.

Fourth, it is true that the Islamic fascist ideology has made use of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but the roots of Islamic fascism are most certainly not found within this conflict. They originate in the political and economic tribal infrastructures of the Arab States, which have nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with Israel-Palestine.

But, it's a handy externalization of these internal Arab problems - to divert and focus internal anger to Israel, the Jews and the US. But the two situations are separate and we shouldn't assume that solving the Israel-Palestine conflict will do a thing to reduce Islamic fascism.
I also think that the Arab States in reality don't give a hoot for the Palestinians, whom they view as low-class ignorant peasants.

Finally, I'm puzzled by what I see as the knee-jerk support of Israel in so many posts. What puzzles me is why do we not expect that a people, the Palestinians, who were like Israel, promised a state of their own - and who have seen it denied for over a generation, who have seen that promised land base eaten up by more and more Israeli settlements, who are kept as second and third class economies by not being allowed full water rights, or funding to develop, or land to develop.....why, why, do we think it terrible when they are filled with anger, hatred, despair, revenge? That's what puzzles me. Why do so many of us in the West expect the Palestinians NOT to be angry?

What do I think needs to be done? First, the structural change is required. The ideologues, including those behind Israel, think that first, an emotional and intellectual change should appear, ie, the Palestinians should stop hating and attacking Israel. Then and only then, the narrative goes, will they be 'allowed' to have a state.

My own view is that the emotions and intellectual changes can only come AFTER the structural change. That means that Israel has to remove all its settlements from the West Bank. All of them. And affirm the reality of a Palestinian State. The international community ought to help them set it up. The two states will be economically linked but politically separate. I even suggest that these two states will be closer to each other than to others; that is, Palestine would be closer, economically and eventually, emotionally, than it would be to the Arab States.

But, bombing them into submission won't work; it will inflame the endless hatred even more. We've got evidence of that for a generation. Enabling them to live in their own state - that's a structural change - and I think that would make all the difference.

But I know that I'm almost alone in this view. Oh well.

the below is good view talk from palstinian point of view to see waht they see that

1) for a second forget jewish muslim and christian
as i tried to explain in past one year put war and cold blooded murder of evern 20 not 200 from any party to civilan for reveng and use army is not proper in any way in populated civilian areas

jesus must help us out of hand of this jewish this time
send your army rather than afgantan to isreal
://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/abc/home/contentposting.aspx?isfa=1&feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V3&showbyline=True&date=true&newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20081227%2fgaza_airstrikes_081227

More than 200 dead after Israeli air strikes on Hamas

2) if you look it real history of jesus as most belive it was jewish conspiracy lead to jusus planed to kill by hand of jewish while muslim are not agree with Mr. Mel Gipson with film he made it and if you search engine in all version of jesus also you know none really go by real historyof death of jesus in the film

://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335345/
it was not muslim who said jewish who killed
jesus we think jesus was saved in that day
but look how bad jewish what they done
to all people in world over
their igonrace so far
://www.jesusfilm.org/
://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/04/24/verhoeven.jesus.ap/index.html
://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6397373.stm
://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_(1979_film)

3) by consider all hitler and viloance against jewish also we should not let anybody to the same job tojewish but this land of isreal now used to tortured teh same method hitler did agains good jewish to used against both jewisha and muslim while in kill few days in isreali attacked i can guranttee you can see christina died too

4)may solution to see what is greated sin and what is lowe sin in made international way to stop all peopel fight using their relgion to stop all violance by force of crimianl and internatinal and human right as well
study of made formula what is biggest sin is
New culture-relgion-rules-law to join international people together:
we need to divide greater sin separted
from small sin to made
international culture and law to go around
://islam.org/greater_sins_complete/

5)we need a judge who see and who send soldure in afganstan or in isreal or in middle east or in india by consider teach god and one rule of god for human must stan in all region and stop all god fathe movie and jewish movie with arabs
and review if head of judge in canada today is he jewish hired by conservative party do good fair job for all community not only favor for jewish and hit other community too

Conservative may need review judges over discrimination and better fair orders not to support only large but wrong company and as we know since DEC 5 2008 some thing was heard

://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Harper
Supreme Court appointments by Harper chose the following jurists to be appointed as justices of the Supreme Court of Canada by the Governor General:
Marshall Rothstein (March 1, 2006 – present)
In keeping with Harper's election promise to change the appointment process, Rothstein's appointment involved a review by a parliamentary committee, following his nomination by the Prime Minister. Rothstein had already been short-listed, with two other candidates, by a committee convened by Paul Martin's previous Liberal government, and he was Harper's choice. Harper then had Rothstein appear before an 'ad hoc', non-partisan committee of 12 Members of Parliament. This committee was not empowered to block the appointment, though, as had been called for by some members of Harper's Conservative Party.[120]
://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Rothstein
Marshall_Rothstein was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, he received a Bachelor of Commerce degree

====
what i know is all seen in news about all dead peopel is wrong in justice system allow people in world by havign bad jduge to do crime free using theri own revenge and hate and this must be stopped. ameen

you can not delet one crime with doing other crime each had value in justic system need to direced and need judge to made order with no conflcit of interest to above issues with laws

yup, Isreal used to phone one hour ahead of time to let the Pals know that they (isrealis) were going to level a rocket making factory. That amount of time would let the Hamass' save everything but the building. Me, I would have phoned an hour afterwards to make sure they knew their rocket factory had been destroyed:-))))

In Infidel, Hirsi Ali notes that at a very young age she is taught by the imam to hate the Jews and they are responsible for all the evil in the world. She states she nor anyone else she had known in Somalia or Kenya had even seen let alone met a Jew. Muslims are taught to hate them and blame them for their miserable squalid lives.

It is good that Fiamma Nirenstein has finally learned that the left hates the Jews. Take a look how Rae's wife was treated by the Liberals. The Jews obviously don't fit into the leftist intelligensia mold. Stalin and Hitler should have been a clue.

"Why won’t the other neighboring Muslim countries take in their “Brothers”?"

Because the Palestinians are a different ethnicity.

ET not necessarily, I agree with what you have said for the most part and have been of that opinion for a very long time, but if you are going to use violence expect it return. The militants are the problem but until the general population rejects them and their tactics there will never be peace. The answer I believe will emerge when the Palestinians finally reject the shootem mentality and present Israel with a honest, sincere and reasonable proposal for peace and a state of their own. If this were done world pressure would dictate Israel not only listen but act.

Operation cast lead on YT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryOHXIx0BIU
Watch the rocket hitting what appears to be a junk yard and the 2ndary explosion. Yeah, they are innocent civilians, just happening to live on top of a kassam lab/warehouse.

No amount of 'diplomacy' is going to put an end to the blind hatred of Jews by a significant portion of Islam. It is this hatred of Jews that keeps the middle eastern cauldron boiling.

Period.

Re my post above: How do you spell 'evidence', Hamas?

ET, you wrote "My own view is that the emotions and intellectual changes can only come AFTER the structural change. That means that Israel has to remove all its settlements from the West bank. All of them. And affirm the reality of the Palestinian state."

You presuppose -- incorrectly, in my opinion -- that the Palestinians and their representatives-in-arms would agree to a peace, and would stop their aggression, if the Jews would simply behave differently, i.e. if there were "structural changes." But at Camp David in 2000 Israel offered ninety percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza, and the Palestinians responded with a terrorist campaign; early the next year Israel upped the offer to ninety-seven percent of the West Bank, and all of Gaza. Arafat rejected it outright.

For some reason which clearly has nothing to do with any lack of intelligence your analysis on the Israel issue always makes no room at any point to acknowledge the primacy of the fact that the Palestinians, as well the governments of non-neighbouring countries like Iran refuse to accept the existence of Israel, even though it's crystal-clear that the Palestinians, by rejecting the ninety-seven percent offer, were in effect saying clearly that they prefer occupation over accepting the existence of Israel.

Let me ask you a question point blank, and it's not meant to be rhetorical, I'm curious what your opinion is: if Israel offered the Palestinians one-hundred percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza, do you think the Palestinians would accept that, and agree to a lasting peace?

"if Israel offered the Palestinians one-hundred percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza, do you think the Palestinians would accept that, and agree to a lasting peace?" by EBD

My 2 cents.

Answer: No. The Hamas Charter demands the destruction of Israel. They want all the land. Period. Then there is Islam. Islam will never accept Israel for once a Muslim (though stolen)land it is always a Muslim land. There is no structure to alter with Islam.

I posted this the other day on Atlas Shrugged & dee no reason to change it.

I say screw the UN & Eurabia. Its time None Jewish North Americans made a stand in this. I stand with Israel. I will be writing my Government to that effect. Watching the State of Israel is like going back in time to Cambodia being surrounded every day. As well Saigon. Its unreasonable that a populace has to take this kind of abuse as a Nation, while others in an organization that is full of her enemies makes demands than expects them to be carried out. Unbelievable!!! Enough pandering to the Islamists. If Western civilization doesn’t make a stand, than we don't deserve to survive. To think Europe is strewn with dead North American boy's , Jewish & Gentile. That fought to free them, you would have thought they had learned something by now. Obviously not. Another thing ,why doers Israel have to wait on other Countries to bomb threats? This is as gay as it gets.
JMO

You may be a lefthole if…

There are about a dozen countries or kingdoms in the middle east give or take a few despots and tyrants. Do Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Syria, Kuwait and Bahrain have the right to exist and to exist as legislated or de facto muslim states? Does Israel have the right to exist and to exist as a Jewish state? If you think all arab-ish states have the right to exist as muslim states but that Israel does not have the right to exist as a Jewish state you may be a lefthole who will not be happy until Israel is destroyed. If you as a lefthole have one firing synapse please focus it on coming up for the reason you would not grant in a million years the right of Israel to be a Jewish state but you somehow rationalize irrational rationalizations until you are okay with muslims states that dump on women, gays and Christian infidels as a matter of course. If you could not personally pull the trigger to blow out the brains of a woman who dishonoured her husband, give this a try. It will only hurt until you talk with a few other leftholes and re-justify your “progressive” stance.

It's interesting -- and a bit of a hopeful sign -- to see the Egyptian Foreign Minister's take on the situation, which happens to coincide with mine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5roptSbO3GQ

I love how the leftards love bringing up facts like 'collateral damage'. These people in Hamas are such scumbags that they intertwine themselves with civilian populations. So much so that the only way to kill them is to take innocents out with them. Hamas has no respect for human life, they know how to pull on leftist heartstrings, that is why to them the more innocents killed the better. This helps further Hama's cause in PR and fundraising. They(Hamas) have learned how to manipulate the lefties with great success.

joe - I agree with you; the neighbouring Arab States won't 'take in' the Palestinians because they are a different 'group' and are looked down on by the majority of Arabs. Again, why should they take them in? They were promised a state of their own.

Western Canadian - there is violence on both sides. It is incorrect to conclude that No Israeli harms a Palestinian and that ALL violence comes only from Palestinians. The settlers in particular can be extremely violent against Palestinian neighbours, burning their farms, shooting at them, etc.

Again, to state that after a generation of abuse, on both sides - and it is naive to claim that Israel has done nothing harmful to the Palestinians, that the Palestinians should be without anger, without rancour..and should settle down and be peaceful, renounce their anger and violence...and then, only then, when they can Show The Parent (Israel) that they are Good..then, they'll get their state. No-one believes that fairy tale. And, as we have declared with our freedom of speech, you cannot legislate emotions. After a generation of occupation, the anger is enormous.

Therefore, shaken, this 'blind hatred' has developed over a generation of despair, of occupation, of seeing settlers move into their land. Equally, no amount of 'diplomacy' is going to shake the firm belief of the settlers that this is ALL their land, and that 'god' gave it to them.

EBD - no, the agreement was not for a separate Palestinian state but only for Palestinian municipal control over towns and villages in that area. Israel retained full boundary, land, water and mineral resource, and air control. It wasn't an offer of a state..and by the way, what right does Israel have to make such an offer? The notion of a Palestinian state was offered by the UN originally but this 'offer' suggests that Israel considers that the land is theirs..to offer, to give away. No, it isn't.
Therefore, the Palestinians were right to reject such an offer for it effectively set them up as a colony of Israel.

Arafat was a corrupt dictator who certainly didn't want a democratic Palestinian state because he would lose power. But the Palestinians DID recognize the state of Israel, while Israel has not recognized a Palestinian state.

As for Iran and the other states, so what? They don't want a democratic Arab state in their midst, to suggest to their own people that a democracy was a viable alternative to totalitarian Islam. I can't see that it makes legal or political sense to insist that the Arab States recognize Israel 'or else'...no Palestinian state can be allowed. After all, we've seen some nations recognize Kosovo and others haven't.

As I said, the structural change has to come first; the emotional and ideological peace and acceptance of each others as neighbours cannot come first; it will follow the 'hard reality' which is structural.

As for Israel 'offering' the full West Bank and Gaza, as I said before, it's not Israel's land to offer. What Israel should do, is first, remove all the settlements from that West Bank; and acknowledge it as the Palestinian land base for their state.

Then, a lot of political and legal assistance will have to be moved in, preferably similar to the US assistance in moving Iraq from a non-democracy to a democracy.

Then, set up economic ties and interactions.

And yes, the hatred will die down as people move into positive interactions with each other. But, when the Palestinians see all those Israeli settlements going up, spreading and expanding on that West Bank land - what do you expect them to feel? Happiness? Or despair and hatred?

Will Israel relinquish those settlements? I can't see them doing it. Therefore - there's no hope for a solution. Since Israel will not relinquish the land to the Palestinians, then, they can't have their own state. So, the hatred and anger continues.

sounder - as I keep saying, Islamic fascism has nothing to do with the Israel-Palestinian situation. Certainly Islamic fascism has tried to merge its agenda with the I-P situation but only as a red herring to turn the gaze of their own people away from the REAL CAUSE of Islamic fascism, which is the political and economic dysfunctionality of the Arab states. The Arab states don't give a hoot about Palestinians.

Is there a solution? You can't legislate emotion; you can't beat a people into silence or feelings of peace, or acceptance of what is felt to be unfair. The solution has to be structural..the feelings and thoughts develop after a structure is in place. Will Israel remove all settlements from the West Bank and accept a genuine Palestinian state - and by genuine I don't mean municipal but national control over that land base? My own view - is No, it won't.

"Will Israel remove all settlements from the West Bank and accept a genuine Palestinian state - and by genuine I don't mean municipal but national control over that land base? My own view - is No, it won't. "

Will Hamas and the Palis remove all settlements from the West Bank(won legitamately by Israel) and accept a genuine Israel state...etc NO THEY WON'T.

There.Fixed that for you.

Well, ET, we will agree to disagree. I will, anyway. Here's the difference in our perspectives: you say that if there's structural change, then "emotional and ideological peace" will "follow." I simply do not believe that Arab enmity against Jews and the state of Israel is caused by Israeli actions -- it's inflamed by them, I grant you -- or that Israeli concessions would reduce, instead of strengthen, those who wish to see Israel gone.

Again, we can debate the merits/reasonableness of the actions of both sides of this intractable situation until the cows come home, but what troubles me is that I see nothing in your analysis that even begins to acknowledges that the attitudes of Arabs and Islam towards Jews, an attitude that they encourage and hold volitionally, is, ultimately, the final impassable obstacle to peace. Israel wants peace, and the Palestinian leaders clearly don't. I don't see how this can be removed from consideration simply through the act of asserting that peace would be possible if the Jews behaved differently.

Mexicans aren't bombing Taos because they lost land there; aboriginals aren't bombing Toronto, etc etc etc. World history is a litany of territory lost and territory gained, and stable borders are generally the result. Israel is a tiny sliver of land dwarfed by Arab lands which, in many cases, the Palestinians have relatively recently, in historic terms, moved from.

Without discounting anything you've said, your comprehensive, ongoing excision of Arab/Muslim hatred of Jews as a thing itself, separate from the details of the attempted process and it's political manifestations, is pointed. Not in any particular post, or statement -- that's the whole point -- it's more an ongoing elision that is so absolute that it begins in the long run to loom large.

Your position, informed as it is, would be a lot more convincing to me if you acknowledged that Arab enmity towards Jews is a hugely significant, if not most important, cause of the horrifying situation.

et: I have always appreciated your point of veiw but I tend to see this in a different light. There will never ,ever be peace nor a settlement to this situation until the return of Christ. When you come from a completely secular point you have to see it your way. This whole war goes directly back to the bible and the old testament.It will never be resolved.Yes I agree that it is religion that is fueling the war but you cannot continue to teach hatred and murder to whole generations of kids and not expect this to continue on. I support the Israelis and I do not think I have a"knee-jerk" reaction. The Israelis have been more than fair with the Palestinians but when they (the Palestinians) are so filled with hatred from an early age they will not accept anything other than the death of Israel and all Israelis.

Isreal.

The late Jack Bernstein was an American Zionist who "returned" to Israel, to live and die in Israel building a Jewish nation.

http://www.iamthewitness.com/books/Jack.Bernstein/The.Life.of.an.American.Jew.in.Racist.Marxist.Israel.htm

http://www.iamthewitness.com/books/Jack.Bernstein/My.Farewell.to.Israel.htm

Any understanding of reality that doesn't begin from recognizing that Israel could cease to exist tomorrow and Muslims everywhere wouldn't magically become any less anti-Semitic, is hopelessly naive.

ET, that there is violence on both sides has been know by most everyone for some time. A violent reaction by most of the settlers is the result of frustration, not planned aggression as with thePalestinian militants. Having said that, the settlers in my view are mostly responsible for the ongoing tensions between the two sides.

The Palestinians are about to enter a era, with Obama in charge, of unprecedented opportunity. An opportunity to obtain their own State if they would as I said in my last post, put down their arms and present Israel and the rest of the world with an honest, sincere and reasonable proposal. The rest of the world would in my opinion force Israel to make concessions and come to an agreement. Do I think it could happen, not really.

You know. I hate to say this,but have just realized that ET is of the lefty intelligensia persuasion.Diploamcy.Yeah.That works for thugs,the Useless Nations,and terrorists.I suggest to you,ET. Go to Gaza,and try your wisdom there with Hamas,Hezbolla,etc.
And before you start,been to Gaza,and all I got was shit on and a lousy t-shirt.

Great and generous posts EBD.

ET: As for Israel 'offering' the full West Bank and Gaza, as I said before, it's not Israel's land to offer.

Well, yes it is. They took it in a defensive war against 5 Arab states. UN 242 did not require Israel to vacate THE land, but SOME of the land (the indefinite article in the original French), yet to be determined. The original borders were not defensible -- a minimum requirement for a sovereign state. However, sadly, the Arab states (not the make-believe "Palestinian" people) wouldn't agree to negotiate its return (The three no's rejection from Khartoum (sp?)) so it became a kind of limbo. Not Israel's fault.

Rule #1 in negotiating is to only give up something in exchange for something equally valued: for Israel that something was a strong unequivocal acknowledgement of Israel's right to exist in peace within secure defensible borders. That has NEVER been achieved. It is utterly false to say that the "Palestinians" recognized Israel's right to exist. Arafat made vague statements (in English, for the infidel ear) to this effect but the PLO charter which clearly stipulated the destruction of Israel was never modified.

There is not one iota of a difference between Fatah and Hamas in this matter. It is a great tragedy that the West, and Israel itself, confinues with the fiction of Fatah as a peace partner.

As to Saudi Arabia's laughably phony "peace plan", it spoke of a "normalization" of relations with Israel ( whatever the hell that is) while pushing for a "right of return" for the grandchildren of the original refugees as well as Arabs who moved there seeking a better economic future which the Jews created. Never forget: post 1967 was the golden age for the "Palestinians" who would tell you this if they didn't fear being thrown from tall buildings.

"Right of Return" of course means the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel. Period.

Anybody looking at a map of the area intuits that two states in "Palestine" are not viable -- that a unitary state for Arabs and Jews living in harmony and with full equality is the ideal outcome. But it is not to be -- EVER -- because Arabs have a irreversible and murderous hatred of Jews and have a preternatural inability to live alongside Jews enjoying full legal equality.

ET, EBD is absolutely right in citing the looming absence of this central fact in your analysis.

I think ET's analysis would be correct if Israel's opponents
were rational actors, but they are not, so it is not correct.

I agree with EBD that the main obstacle to peace in the ME is that the altogether rabid and unreasonable "Arab enmity towards Jews is a hugely significant, if not most important, cause of the horrifying situation".

Western Canadian's suggestion—which (s)he immediately admits is altogether unlikely—that the Palestinians "put down their arms and present Israel and the rest of the world with an honest, sincere and reasonable proposal” is magic thinking: it’s not what terrorist polities do.

I have much less sympathy for the Palestinians than I do for Israel, which is being treated absolutely abysmally by the left, including those weasel entities, the UN and the EU*. As a c/Conservative in this country, I altogether identify with Israel: no matter what it does, the “progressives” will condemn it. I say, it should use the power it has to protect the only democracy in the ME (versus backward and thuggish Muslim fiefdoms and theocracies) and just do what it needs to do.

*I’m delighted that PMSH refused to send any Canadian delegates to the racist—anti-Israel—Durban 2. Enough is enough.

Bravo, Me No Dhimmi and Vitruvius! Thank you for those fine analyses.

ET - you have NOT answered EBD's point-blank question. Let me rephrase it to remove your wiggle room:

If Israel acknowledged that that Palestinian State should be one-hundred percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza, humbly apologized for past occupation, and made financial reparations for their past misdeeds, do you think the Palestinians would accept that, and agree to a lasting peace?

Justthinkin said,

"I hate to say this,but have just realized that ET is of the lefty intelligensia persuasion."

I think I'll get my popcorn, this should be good. Justthinkin, you havent read many of ET's posts have you, because left wing is about the last thing I would call her. Intelligensia...ulm no...academic, yes. We will see how patient she is tonight.

That being said I will chime in on Et's side, in general. The settlements are an impediment to peace, which I grant may never happen even if the land is returned. But I can guarantee you there will never be peace if the West Bank is not used for a Palestinian state.

The only oher alternative is a one state solution where Palestenians/Arabs are granted full citizenship in the state called Israel. In other words Israel becomes a multi ethnic, secular state. Doubt that will happen. But this raises the crux of the problem, what do we as a secular, officially non ethnic state do with thes states that profess to be a "home for (insert group)". This inclues Israel but also Pakistan, created as a home for muslims. And then what do we do, as in what is or position, when the aboriginals of europe ever decde to take back their land...when we see expulsions from Europe, we will see it before 2020.

We only objected a little when the ethnic Chiese were kicked out of Viet Nam, the infamous boat people.

I dont know the answer, I think it will vary based on our interests, who is our friend etc.

On that point, Israel is a friend and ally and thy have a right to defend themselves....but Canada's interests only extend so far. For those who make the argument that all that matters is the military option then you ar condeming Israel to ultimte destruction, since they cannot survive militarily in a sea of determined opponents. Going to far will bring that down on them.

Fortunately most Israeli's arent animated by the beliefs that drive the settler movement. They just want to be left alone to pursue a life in a realtively pleasant place on the planet, excepting the humans that keep starting wars.

Anyway, I look forward to ET responding herself.

Vitruvius,

It is an equal mistake o asume that ALL of Israel's opponnents are non-rational actors.

Israel's acknowledged dillema is that it is willing to negotiate, it just doesnt know who to negotiate with. There is no "other side", there are many and all are independent.

If there is no "other side", how
can the other side be rational?

ET.
Keep dancing baby!! It's not a mystery, you have the analytical down pat, but you just jump to the "RIGHT" conclusion with “deliberate” missing logic.

Yes it is a hopeless cause because the solution is dynamically opposed to the interest of both parties. A pointed stick or ridicules hope from outside sources just keeps the music playing.

ME! I think the dark Ages had a Purpose!

The Globe and Mail web site “reports”—10 to 1 for the pro-Palestinian side—on anti-Israel demonstrations across Canada, apparently 800 in Toronto. See:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081228.wisraelprotests1228/BNStory/Front

“Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has expressed concern about the escalating violence but has made clear the federal government believes Israel has a right to defend itself.” BRAVO Mr. Cannon and Canada’s Conservative government.

Also in the article: “Ismail Zayid, who joined dozens of protesters at a downtown Halifax park in condemning the ‘massacre’ [at least that word is in quotation marks] of Palestinians, was incredulous at Mr. Cannon's statement.”

That's 800 demonstrators!

Stephen it doesn't require that ALL Israel's enemies act irrationally for there not to be peace. It only requires that some of her enemies act irrationally for there to be war.

To be honest, why should any westerners give a rat’s ass what goes on between Israel and the Palestinians?

The whole thing stinks of propaganda and manipulation of the west on both sides. I believe all peoples have a right to their own countries or place in the world, but I also think that we should as with everything else in the world butt out and let them have at it.

I’m sick and tired of turning on Canadian television and listening to the bleeding hearts, lobbyists and terrorist fund raisers, spew their filth seeking our support and of course financial assistance. We need to kick them out of our countries if they continue to use them as their political toilets while creating their own mini states within our midst. They make this issue ours and it’s not. If we fall prey to their propaganda as we so often do, before long it will be on our doorstep, or in our streets.

"Certainly Islamic fascism has tried to merge its agenda with the I-P situation but only as a red herring to turn the gaze of their own people away from the REAL CAUSE of Islamic fascism, which is the political and economic dysfunctionality of the Arab states." - ET

Political and economic, not to mention social dysfunctionality of the Arab states is an effect, ET.

The Islamic ideology, based, as they believe it is, on the uncreated and unmitigated word of Allah is the root cause.

It has always worked extremely well as a political and war ideology to manipulate the Ummah.

Jew hatred is ingrained and visceral. And the prophet - the perfect man; the one Muslims are commanded to emulate - hated the Jews with a passion.

To understand this hatred, just look at how it's programmed into the heads of Palestinian children on TV programs and in the classroom. It's programmed into the heads of Muslim children in the US, Europe and elsewhere and continues through college.

Until recently, the website and printed material from the MSA included the Hadith:

"The Hour [Resurrection] will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews,
and kill them. And the Jews will hide behind the rock and tree, and the rock and
tree will say: oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, this is a Jew behind me, come and
kill him!"

No Islamic people, let alone the so-called Palestinians, will ever be at peace with Israel. Giving them their own country will not solve the issue.

Stephen...you just made my point.Now you and ET answer some of the direct questions put to you here by many posters.

ebd - I disagree that Israel wants 'peace' because this peace that it wants includes those West Bank settlements. That means - no Palestinian state.

I remind you that I separate Islamic fascism from the I-P conflict; the two are not related. The first uses the latter for its own cynical purposes but the Arab world is not interested in the well-being of the Palestinians. It is a mistake to lump all Arabs as 'one'; they are not and don't consider themselves as such.

Palestinian anger at Israel is caused, in my view, by Israel. It is not a product of Islamism.
Your comparison of Mexico and aboriginals is weak. Palestine has no nation of its own; Mexico has a nation of its own; its lost territory was not a territory that was politically defined for it as its 'right' - as was the Palestinian territory defined for the Palestinians as theirs, by the UN. Same with the aboriginals..

Palestine wants a state and Israel is both refusing to recognize that they have such a political (not 'natural') right, and is settling the land base of that potential state. Therefore, how can you expect that the Palestinians should not be angry at these actions?

I do excise the Islamic fundamentalist hatred of infidels - which includes not merely Jews but Christians, Hindus, anyone who is not Islamic, from this I-P situation. As I've said before, those analyses which merge Islamic fascism with the I-P situation are profoundly incorrect in my view. I believe that the root cause of the I-P situation is Israel's refusal to permit a Palestinian state and its settlement of the lands set aside for that state.

me no dhimmi - we've been through this argument before. I maintain that Israel's continued occupation of the Palestinian lands is indefensible, and that includes any notion of a requirement for 'defensible geography'.

The 'right of return', as a metaphor of a claim to a land base, can be realized by financial compensation for the Palestinian loss of homes, farms and belongings. No, the 'right of return' doesn't mean any destruction of Israel. No Arab State is that naive and the gap between their public rhetoric and their knowledge of reality remains - a gap.

As for a unitary state, by which I assume you mean ONE state with both Palestinians and Jewish people as citizens on this ONE state - I'm sure you know that Israel rejects this. Because it would end the Jewish religious majority in Israel, and Israel was set up to maintain such a majority. Therefore, one state is impossible. It has to be two states - and Israel is taking all the land for that second state.

What do you mean by a 'preternatural inability'? What is the cause? Surely you can't mean a genetic cause, and after all, Jews and Muslims lived for centuries with each other without hatred, understanding each as 'people of the book'. Again, don't mix up Islamic fascism into this; it's a 19th phenomenon emerging as a result of dysfunctional industrialization in the ME.

As for Israel's opponents being rational or irrational - they are the same as Israel people. That is, we are all human. Would you define the settlers, who can be the most fundamentalist and militant people around - as rational opponents of the Palestinian farmers in the area? Is it rational for a settler to burn the neighbour's farm to the ground to get him to abandon the farm?
Is it rational to claim that land is yours because god gave it to you?

Is it rational to insist that the Palestinians shouldn't be angry and yes, violent, when it's one generation on, and they still aren't getting that promised state, and are forced to watch that land being settled by someone else...and to watch it as outsiders, because they are not allowed to even walk in the same fields as the settlers? Is that rational?

What is the solution? To insist that, a priori, ALL Arabs are constitutionally unable to interact with Jews is a fallacy, a psychological generalization that can't be maintained as a truth because it provides no causality for this conclusion.

To insist that ALL Arabs are against the state of Israel...just because..is irrelevant to a future agenda because it rejects change and therefore, rejects history and the capacity of all people to think and reason.

To state that the only actions that Israel engages in are purely defensive, ignores the occupation which has lasted a generation, ignores that such an action in itself generates hatred and resentment; ignores those massive settlements on land promised to the Palestinians, ignores the loss of farms by settler violence, ..and so on.

What is the solution - if there is one? Hoping that the Palestinians will disappear is not a solution. The only solution is to acknowledge that the Palestinians aren't going to disappear; that they were, as was Israel, granted a political solution by a land base, a nation - and Israel ought to clear out the settlements, and enable such a Palestinian state.

But to expect a people who are living without land, without being in control of their own economy and land resources - not to be angry, hostile and vicious - is naive.

The settlements are an impediment to peace
- Stephen

Frankly, I'm conflicted on this facet of the conflict. However, it amazes me to hear liberals gush over pluralism and inclusiveness, multiculturalism, open borders, "no human is illegal" etc. etc. etc., while arguing that the "occupied territories" must be -- let's use the german -- judenrein. Sp? AND, there are 100s of Arab settlements in Israel.

Conflicted, but on balance, with reference to EBD, Vitruvius (someday I'll learn to be this cryptic!) , Tenebris, lookout, et al, I can't quite buy the argument that they are an "obstacle to peace" 'cos I know with absolute certainty that absent all the settlements the conflict would not be resolved, nay, it would be inflamed with triumphalism.

Reminder: all the Jews in Gaza were forcibly, violently removed from their homes by the anti-zionist jewicidalists running Israel.

Therefore, if you agree with me that there is absolutely no difference between Fatah and Hamas, surely you must agree that the presence of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) cannot be "obstacles to peace".

ET, the hatred of the Jews in that region far, far precedes the establishment of the state of Israel.

The Palestinian displacement is a red-herring.

I think ET's analysis would be correct if Israel's opponents
were rational actors, but they are not, so it is not correct.
Posted by: Vitruvius at December 28, 2008 7:08 PM

Indeed. Why someone as intelligent as ET would presume the "Palestinians" to be rational actors escapes me. Just watch them act irrationally over and over and over again.

ET, the core problem with the "Palestinians" is that they've been programmed to be irrational, ie, indoctrinated with lies. We know this. Not that it's their fault- it's the fault of those who programmed them with such hateful indoctrination, propaganda, etc. This is the reality.

Until this programming of the "Palestinians" is halted, and, probably via generational change and reeducation, reversed, then it's not logical to presume the "Palestinians" will react rationally to rational offers and moves from Israel. After all, the 2000 offer was rational, and irrationally rejected. The peace offering of Gaza was used merely as a rocket launching pad... see where it's going?

More coverage from LGF which the complicit leftist MSM dares not touch:

"Another Pallywood Production?

Associated Press Palestinian photographer Khalil Hamra seems to be the AP’s inside man when it comes to pictures of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and this photo (shown below) that he filed yesterday has all the marks of being staged. Were these apparently unhurt children deliberately arranged on a stretcher next to a wounded man for propaganda purposes? Notice that the caption is vague about whether the children are injured. (Click the thumbnail image for a larger version.)
...-

"Swastikas in Madrid

This is the scene outside the Israeli embassy in Madrid, where Palestinian supporters are carrying openly antisemitic banners:"
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/

it must just suck big time to be palestinian . . . talk about being born behind the 8 ball and destined to a life of hatred, mass psychosis and self inflicted misery.

"...and after all, Jews and Muslims lived for centuries with each other without hatred, understanding each as 'people of the book'." -ET

When and where exactly did this take place? Surely you don't mean the 'golden age' of Andalusia? Maimonides might have a thing or two to say about that.

In fact, the only time Jews lived more or less peacefully with Muslims in an Islamic state was when they accepted dhimmi status.

There already is a Palestinian state - it's called Jordan. The Brits carved it off for them exclusively and left the Jews with their own small unequal portion.

Another red herring or two: ET writes, "But to expect a people who are living without land, without being in control of their own economy and land resources - not to be angry, hostile and vicious -is naïve”.

Then why, in all the Arab lands “in control of their own economy and land resources”* are the Muslims there still “angry, hostile and vicious”?

And no one here has suggested that the “Palestinians” have no cause to be angry. (But, even if they didn’t have cause—see *—they’d still hate the Jews.)

ET - see my 7:30pm post. My dear colleague - Are you ducking the question?!

(Do note that the framing of the question conveys nothing of my position on the subject)

Our Western mindset causes us to assume Palestinians want a state, because it's what we would want. We know it's the precursor to stability and prosperity. They play along with this fiction because it sells well to the left and other well meaning people.
In reality the only land they wish to control is Israel, everything else is just a strategic gain to use for the greater struggle.

"The only solution is to acknowledge that the Palestinians aren't going to disappear." -- ET

This is a bad dream. It's *the Palestinians* who refuse to acknowledge that the Jews aren't going to disappear. The disappearance of Jews from the map in the ME is the stated goal, it's part of Hamas' charter. It was a stated goal of Arafat and all the rest, all along, and the idea that the Jews will be driven from Israel -- not Palestinian territories -- continues to be taught in Palestinian schools, and posited as a day-to-come, the glorious end result of their struggles.

Meanwhile, for the Jews in Israel, who have never refused to acknowledge the existence of their Arab neighbours -- it would be an insane thought -- you....prescribe for them, the Jews, that they acknowledge the existence of Palestinians.

The direct question I asked you, ET, and which was more thoroughly restated by Tenebris -- I'll use his question, and elaborate a bit, is this: IF Israel fully acknowledged that a Palestinian state should exist, and that it should be comprised of 100 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza, without any oversight from Israel, and with all water rights, freedom of movement, etc., guaranteed, and they made all of those concessions, do you think that the Palestinians would accept that and cease hostilities?

"But to expect a people who are living without land, without being in control of their own economy and land resources - not to be angry, hostile and vicious -is naïve”.

No its not.

Who amongst us can say that they do not have grievance against another for some real or imagined slight. What separates the civilized from the uncivilized is the ability to forgive and move on, to work for the good of your enemy not his ill.

That the Palestinians lack self determination is in the main their own doing and it is certainly within their grasp to stop inflicting wounds on themselves at the time of their choosing.

No this is not to excuse Israel's actions it is simply to point out that while Palestinians can not control their enemy, they can control their action/reaction.

I concur with EBD @8:32PM.
"IF Israel fully acknowledged that a Palestinian state should exist, and that it should be comprised of 100 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza, without any oversight from Israel, and with all water rights, freedom of movement, etc., guaranteed, and they made all of those concessions, do you think that the Palestinians would accept that and cease hostilities?
The answer is simply NO!
It was tried,and Arafat himself said that Israel must be driven into the sea.
What ET,stephen,et al fail to realize in their "academic" world is that these people want nothing more,or less,then complete domination.When Et,and et al come live,or visit the real world,they may,just may, wake up.Until then,us plebes will save their useless asses.But we will demand payment.

"They were ordered to wear black turbans. The Christians had to wear a cross the length of a cubit and weighing five ratls around their necks; the Jews were obliged to wear a block of wood of similar weight ... "

"In the regions under stable Islamic control, subjugated non-Muslim dhimmis - Jews and Christians - like elsewhere in other Islamic lands, were prohibited from building new churches or synagogues, or restoring the old ones. Segragated in special quarters, they had to wear discriminatory clothing..."

"No ... Jew or Christian may be allowed to wear the dress of an aristocrat, nor of a jurist, nor of a wealthy individual; on the contrary they must be detested and avoided... A distinctive sign must be imposed upon them in order that they may be recognized and this will be for them a form of disgrace."

- all from Andrew Bostom's The Legacy of Jihad, plus this little poem by Abu Ishaq which it is claimed likely incited the Granada pogrom

"Bring them down to their place and
Return them to the most abject station.
They used to roam around us in tatters
Covered with contempt, humiliation, and scorn.
They used to rummage amongst the dung heaps for a bit of filthy rag
To serve as a shroud for a man to be buried in . ..
Do not consider that killing them is treachery.
Nay, it would be treachery to leave them scoffing."

And ET stupidly writes "Jews and Muslims lived for centuries with each other without hatred, understanding each as 'people of the book'"

ET ... you have been consistently wrong about the nature and the status of the Israeli state for so long it must have become a habit with you.

The so called Palestinians have been the willing tools of those neighboring Arab states whose ambition is the destruction of Israel.

The ARABS who act as willing tools and the bloody minded Islamists deserve no sympathy when the consequences of their deliberate and unceasing provocations come back to them.

There is no compromising with totalitarian ideologues.

irwin daisy, we've had this discussion before. You maintain that the 'root cause' is the Islamic ideology. I reject that, because my analytic view of societies is that the ideology is a 'superstructural expression' of a deeper infrastructure - the economic..and the economic is related to the ecological reality of the domain. The political and legal systems enable the economic system to function. The ideological expresses this deeper infrastructure.

The Islamic ideology, I also maintain, is one that is based on a tribal and pastoralist agriculturalism. Defining the societal structure as a religious ideology has meant that the Muslims have found it almost impossible to change their ideology as their economy changed..and also..to change their economy by themselves (rather than have the West move in and process the oil)...and change their political and legal system.

So - I strongly disagree with you. The ideology is NOT the basis of either Islamic fascism or the I-P conflict. And I don't merge the two. I disagree with your view that 'no Islamic peoples' will ever be at peace with Israel.

In reply to EBD - yes, I do believe that IF the Palestinians got their own state, the full West Bank and Gaza - as a state, AND were assisted in setting it up as a democracy AND enabled to exist with economic ties to Israel..then, hostilities would cease.

me no dhimmi - I wish I knew conclusions with your 'absolute certainty'. I can't state anything with such certainty. You state that you know 'with absolute certainty' that even if there were no settlements, the conflict would continue. Do you mean without the settlements AND the land declared as a Palestinian state? Or not?

Because one is not a zionist does not mean one is anti-Jewish..and that word you use..jewiscidilists - is inflammatory. Why shouldn't the settlers in Gaza have been removed? The fact that they resisted is not relevant.

lookout - I disagree with your generalization that All Palestinians hate Jews. That is, as I'm sure you know, invalid. Societies, or collectives don't hate/love. Only individuals do; therefore, some hate Jews and some like them.

As for the problems in the Arab countries, I've written about this endlessly - the tribal dysfunctionality....which emerges when you have a population imbalance, and a political and economic system that is suited to a tribal rather than an industrial size population. The people in these countries are NOT in control of their economy and political system; the elite tribe is. There is no middle class in control - and that's the problem. And this situation has nothing to do with I-P. Nothing. It's far deeper, it's located within the infrastructure of these Arab countries and not within I-P.

No, Jordan is not 'the Palestinian state' and was most certainly not defined as such by the UN resolution which set up the West Bank/Gaza as the Palestinian state.

Again, there is no such thing as an 'Arab mentality' just as we cannot say that ALL Germans are fascists; or ALL Canadians are tolerant. We can indeed say that:

Palestinian children are taught hatred of Israel. I consider this a result of the generation long occupation and the encroachment by the settlers and the settlements.

The settlers themselves believe and teach their children that the land base is Jewish only and that the Palestinians/Arabs are without rights to that land. So, we have both sides teaching the next generation mythic narratives about each other.

We can also say that the Islamic ideology - turned into dogma by defining it as a religion and immutable, rejects the rights of other religions. This ideology has hardened into fascism with the inability of the tribal political system to transform into a democratic system. This has nothing to do with I-P.

By the way, irwin daisy, there was a long tradition in Iran of a Jewish community.

Again, a people's way of thinking is not genetic, it is not 'set in stone'. All people have the ability to reason and debate - if allowed to, if encouraged to. It took the West 400-500 years to fight its 'frozen mentality' period; it took people like Abelard who insisted that he had the right to question and doubt. There is no reason to assert that Arabs have 'frozen minds' so to speak.

So - IF Israel would recognize that original UN resolution, and both allow and enable a Palestinian state - then, that would cease that conflict. I'd bet that a democratic nation of Palestine would play an important role in moving the other Arab states into democracy. At the moment, that's the role of Iraq but it's not an easy road.

"Did Israel Use "Disproportionate Force" in Gaza?"

Dore Gold - The Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs

Israeli population centers in southern Israel have been the target of over 4,000 rockets, as well as thousands of mortar shells, fired by Hamas and other organizations since 2001. Rocket attacks increased by 500 percent after Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. During an informal six-month lull, some 215 rockets were launched at Israel.

The charge that Israel uses disproportionate force keeps resurfacing whenever it has to defend its citizens from non-state terrorist organizations and the rocket attacks they perpetuate. From a purely legal perspective, Israel's current military actions in Gaza are on solid ground. According to international law, Israel is not required to calibrate its use of force precisely according to the size and range of the weaponry used against it.

Ibrahim Barzak and Amy Teibel wrote for the Associated Press on December 28 that most of the 230 Palestinians who were reportedly killed were "security forces," and Palestinian officials said "at least 15 civilians were among the dead." The numbers reported indicate that there was no clear intent to inflict disproportionate collateral civilian casualties. What is critical from the standpoint of international law is that if the attempt has been made "to minimize civilian damage, then even a strike that causes large amounts of damage - but is directed at a target with very large military value - would be lawful."

Luis Moreno-Orampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, explained that international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court "permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks against military objectives, even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur." The attack becomes a war crime when it is directed against civilians (which is precisely what Hamas does).
After 9/11, when the Western alliance united to collectively topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, no one compared Afghan casualties in 2001 to the actual numbers that died from al-Qaeda's attack. There clearly is no international expectation that military losses in war should be on a one-to-one basis. To expect Israel to hold back in its use of decisive force against legitimate military targets in Gaza is to condemn it to a long war of attrition with Hamas.

http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=1&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=378&PID=0&IID=2808&TTL=Did_Israel_Use_“Disproportionate_Force”_in_Gaza?

The blatant anti-semitic racism of the "palestinian" people is revealed in this concept: They insist that palestinian lands be "judenrein".

Now here's the rub: can we call Muslims moving to Toronto "settlers" as well? Note there may be a great many Canadians (Thais, Hindus, Coptic Egyptians) who don't want them here.

As I've said many times before on this matter, in particular in the excellent discussion you, CGH, and I had here on January 25, 2008, I agree with your general analysis in theory, ET. Yet I do not see how it can be implemented in practice, by Israel backing away from its opponents, at this time; not while Israel's opponents are lobbing shells on it's citizens without regard. In theory, in the long term, we face an Anthropological problem. In practice, at this time, Israel faces a Sun Tzu problem.

ET,

"...which emerges when you have a population imbalance, and a political and economic system that is suited to a tribal rather than an industrial size population. The people in these countries are NOT in control of their economy and political system; the elite tribe is."

What exactly is this political and economic system in Islamic countries? Could it be Shariah? The elites and clergy use the Islamic ideology to control the people, it's always been this way. The Islamic ideology informs everything within society, their world view and the individual's life.

The Cairo Declaration on 'Islamic' Human Rights is based on Shariah, as stated in articles 22 and 23.

"Palestinian children are taught hatred of Israel. I consider this a result of the generation long occupation and the encroachment by the settlers and the settlements."

Then how about American Muslim schoolchildren? Or Pakistani children? Or...

As you like to say so often, ET, we'll have to agree to disagree. However, history and common sense disagrees with you on this issue as well.

Ah yes. The fairness and enlightenment of Dr. Dawg.

He just banned me as a "troll" for the crime of echoing his own comments.

marky mark said

"Reasonable people can have this debate without accusing people on one side or the other of monstrous lies."

I responded by pointing out Dawg's monstrous accusations...

" So you are proposing, then, a "Final Solution to the Palestinian problem," Mr. Dost?"

"Meanwhile, one of Kate's regulars calls for genocide."

"Palestine is occupied territory, and its people have been under Israel's iron heel for decades.

Let Israel return to its 1967 borders, and let the Arab world--indeed, the security of those borders. No settlements outside them. No shooting olive harvesters, shelling children's zoos, or guzzling 80% of the water in the West Bank. "

3rd time lucky.

From Flea,

"Furthermore:Switzerland, Brazil and the usual laundry list of suspects condemn a disproportionate Israeli response to attacks from Gaza. Normally I would say the Swiss and the Brazilians can rot in hell but on this occasion I agree; a proportionate response is called for.

I demand Israel launch two hundred attacks per week at random on densely populated civilian areas in the Arab occupied territories then hand out candies in the streets when Arab children die. This would be exactly proportionate."

Exactly right.

ET rarely misses the point. But always when it concerns Israel.

Hamas Charter

1st Line: "In The Name Of The Most Merciful Allah"

Paragraph 2: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory)."

Article Eleven: "The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day."

Article Thirteen: "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with. As in said in the honourable Hadith"

Article Twenty-Seven: "Secularism completely contradicts religious ideology. Attitudes, conduct and decisions stem from ideologies. That is why, with all our appreciation for The Palestinian Liberation Organization - and what it can develop into - and without belittling its role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, we are unable to exchange the present or future Islamic Palestine with the secular idea. The Islamic nature of Palestine is part of our religion and whoever takes his religion lightly is a loser."

Now, is there any doubt the Pals are driven by Islam 'In The Name Of The Most Merciful Allah'?

From Common Sense Political Thought, this excellent summary which I believe Vitruvius will appreciate:

Excerpt ====

The foreign policy scholars and collegiate experts and seasoned diplomats have written millions, if not billions, of pages about this half-century long, seemingly insoluble problem, but it’s really far simpler than they think. There are two, and only two, problems, and they are diametrically opposed:

1. The Israelis want to live in peace and security, in a Jewish state that they control, in part of the Levant, a part which must contain Jerusalem; and

2. The Palestinians believe that they have an ancient and modern right to live in and control all of the Levant.

That’s it, that’s all there is to it. In our liberal Western concept, we see a natural split-the-differences solution: the Israelis pull back from the land that they seized in the 1967 war, and the Arab nations grant the Israelis peaceful recognition. Makes perfect sense, right?

Except to the Arabs, that is defined as losing! That kind of rational-in-Western-minds two-state solution means that Israel wins on goal number one, which means, necessarily, that the Palestinians and the larger Arab community have lost on goal number two. It doesn’t matter where the compromise line is set, it still winds up an Israeli victory as far as the Arabs are concerned.

End of excerpt ====

Joe,

I agree, that is implication of the point.

Vitrvius,

There is no opponent is the point. You cannot class all of Israels opponents into a single box. There are many who would cut a deal, and many who cut no deal. This isnt unknown in other situations, often it means you have to let things play out until there is a force that can coalesce and enforce a settlement.

Analogy, I am aware of an Indian band in the Yukon, every time the government strikes a deal another faction wins the next band election and overturns or refuses to honour the agreement. So who do you negotiate with. it isnt that there arent "rational actors" they just dont hold enough power.

Similar political situation with the Palestinians. there are those you can deal with. The problem is those you that you cannot, for the moment, have guns, money and backing in significant amounts. In other words you cannot cut one Palestinian deal. This was why thy allowed Gaza and th West Bank to be run by different authorities.

The long run hope is to show the futility of protest in Gaza and ideally the West Bank group will be courted and brought into a deal. It could be argued that here are two Palestines forming, we will see.

Hezbo to the north is different. Once again what are they, they represent a quasi stae within Lebanon. Do you hold the Lebanese government responsible for them? or is a hezbo a common problem for the central government and for the Israeli's?

Israel has a right to defend itself, so dont get me wrong I think Israel is correct in what it is currently doing. The cease fire was ended by Hamas first, if I remember correctly. So Israel maitains the important high ground, morally and legally speaking, and Hamas kept firing rockets, an unacceptable situation.

But the settlements, which are a secondary issue to the current flare up, were a long term mistake and they will be sacrificed at some point in time. Israel cannot defend them ultimately. I dont believe the settlement movement even enjoys majority support within Israel. Some may be kept as part of final settlement.

I agree with you, Stephen, that, as you put it, "Israel maintains
the important high ground, morally and legally speaking".

ET

one question for you

was the fact that Isreal didn't recognize a Palistinian state the cause of the slaughter of thousands (about 10,000, as I recall) of Jews outside of Heberon in the mid thirties?

It is completely understandable that Israel has responded militarily to the indiscriminate use of rocket artillery by Hamas. But I can't help but think that Israel is doing exactly what Hamas and other Islamic militants want.

As they have shown repeatedly in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, Jihadists are perfectly willing to sacrifice their own people to achieve a broader strategic goal. The ongoing rocket attacks (more than 2000 in the past year) despite repeated warnings from Israel, Egypt and other countries appears to be a deliberate provocation. Hamas had to know what was coming. So why do it?

The answers seems obvious:

1. Derail peace talks: done
2. Turn the international PR war against Israel: done
3. Isolate Israel diplomatically: done
4. Inflame Arab opinion: done
5. Demoralize Israeli civilians: done
6. Increase support for militant Islam in the Arab world: done
7. Provoke a bloody ground assault? Not yet.

Hamas and other militant groups are thinking long term. They know they will be clobbered and pay a heavy price in Israeli attacks, but are willing to see hundreds or even thousands of their own people die in order to further their long-range strategic goals.

Israel needs to re-think its strategy. Right now they seem lost, unsure of how to deal with the threat beyond massive reprisals. It isn't working, and their enemies are gaining in strength. They need to find a better way and soon. An idea of how they want all of this to end would be a good place to start. Hamas has a clear goal in mind. Israel must do the same.

And your proposed course of action,
Belisarius, would be: what, exactly?

Belasarius,

You rais an interesting point hat I have been wondering as well. The last conflict into Lebanon was generally deemed to be ill planned, off startegy and badly executed...there were successes but the internal recriminations within Israel were evidence that this didnt go well.

This leads us to today. I highly doubt the Israelis are making two mistakes in a row. This appears better planned and a looks more like a proper catspaw...they will strike at what they need to, if they invade, and then pull back.

I dont know if what is hapening now is what Hamas or Hezbo wanted, especially the timing of it. This appears to be on Israeli timing and initiative, a good sign. The lack of co-ordinated response from Hamas' allies indicate that this might be a surprise.

I cannot help but think that this is a training exercise for the Israelis to prepare them for their real ultimate target and major threat....Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. The IDF will definitley want some payback for last time.

Like an in division NHL opponent, you dont need to rush the retaliation since you know you are going to be seeing these opponents again soon.

But I am convinced this is about trying to show the futility of Hamas' course of action.

je other danger will be if Iran really does send a supply ship to Gaza. Do the israeli's board it? do the sink it? You have to believe that they'll have a pretty good idea what is on that ship...which may be medical supplies and food, daring the israelis to do something.

But good question, glad to know I wasnt the only one thinking about it.

joe, your benign suggestion that the Palestinians 'forgive and forget and move on' is naive. They are an occupied people; there is nothing to move on to.

irwin daisy - I've outlined the societal structure many times before - I've explained the political and social system - which is tribalism. Sharia is merely a particular legal system found in this particular tribal system, but all tribal systems have regulations defining kinship, male and female behaviour, legal rules etc. The pastoral tribal system usually separates men and women quite strictly...I won't go into it all here. Again - an ideology is never a 'root cause'; you have to search out the origin of the ideology and examine its role in the economic and political system.

sounder - no, the Palestinians are not 'driven by fascist Islam; Hamas as an ideological set is driven by fascist Islam.

me no dhimmi - such a simplistic reductionism is, in my view, completely invalid. It reduces everything to the Good Guys and the Bad Guys and I disagree with such a view.

stephen - I agree with your points, and particularly the settlements. But I don't think that Israel will give them up though there are many Israelis who do promote giving them up. But the settlers themselves are often intense fundamentalists - on a par with the fundamentalist Islamists - and they won't accept any Palestinian on 'their land'.

Belisaurius - yes, I'd agree with you, the Hamas attacks were part of a long term strategy. Islamic fascism has moved into the I-P situation and uses it for its own fascist agenda. Again, Islamic fascism in my view has nothing to do, basically, with the I-P situation; Islamic fascism in I-P is a tactic of diverting the Arab people from wanting change in their own Arab nations.

I think that if Israel made a decision to vacate the West Bank, hand it and Gaza over to the Palestinians as a nation (not municipal governance)..then, the Palestinians would be delighted. Who would NOT be delighted? The Islamic fascists.

Right, vitruvius - there's the anthropological or societal reality, and the 'high energy conflict' or military reality. But I don't think that you can deal in only one OR the other. Israel focuses primarily on the military, but the other reality has to be dealt with as well. And peace talks aren't the method of doing it. The only way to deal with the societal reality..is to pave the way for a Palestinian state. That means removing the settlements from the West Bank instead of, as Israel is even now doing, expanding them. And recognizing a Palestinian nation. And helping them to set it up as a democracy and with economic links to Israel.

Now - who would object to this? As I said, the Islamic fascists would. Not the Palestinians, and frankly, except for the settlers and their kind, most Israelis would welcome it. Would the Arab States? Some - such as Jordan, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, maybe Egypt. But Syria and Iran? And Al Qaeda? Nope - they want that conflict kept up; it's useful to hide behind.

So, my own view, unpopular as it may be here, is that Israel has to work 'both sides of the coin'. It has to move towards a Palestinian state, and again, peace talks are, as are all bureaucratic agendas, useless. It has to be practical actions with that wall and those settlements. And that, to my knowledge, isn't on any Israeli agenda.

No one would object to it in theory, ET, yet I still don't see how you're going to get from here to there in practice, at least not while once side is lobbing shells on the other, pace the settlers. As Steven den Beste once noted, "Pious aphorisms and intensive omphaloskepsis are not a plan".

Vit And your proposed course of action,
Belisarius, would be: what, exactly?

First, determine the end-state you (Israel) want.

Second, create the strategy to achieve it.

Israel needs a clear strategic goal. Today, they are obviously conflicted between a desire to incorporate as much of the west bank into Israel proper and the need to co-exist with a viable Palestinian state.

I can see your hands waving, Belisarius. And your
proposed course of action, would be: what, exactly?

vitruvius - I would consider peace talks an example of both your pious aphorisms and benign omphaloskepsis - both carried out with a glass of the best whisky at hand.

Therefore, I am suggesting action - with regard to removing the settlements, and the written statement of acknowledgement of a Palestinian state; and assistance in setting up a democracy and economic collaboration. AS WELL - there is the military action against Islamic fascism. That has to be maintained. And for the umpteenth time, I differentiate between the Israeli-Palestinian situation and Islamic fascism. They are two completely different agendas and peoples involved.

Most Palestinians and Israelis would be totally in favour of such a decision to enable a Palestinian state. It would cut the ground out beneath the feet of the Islamic fascists who are cynically using the I-P situation for their own agenda. And as I've said before, the Islamic fascists don't give a hoot about Palestinians and certainly don't want them to set up a democratic state.

So, Israel has to focus on both actions - and enabling a Palestinian state would confront the Islamic fascists right in 'the eye' so to speak.

You have outlined some aspects of an action plan for Israel, ET. Now, what would your concomitant action plan for Palestine be, and, importantly, do you think it is achievable: in practice, not just in theory?

You are right ET Palestine is an occupied land and so is North America, South America, Australia, large parts of Asia, Africa. In fact I would have great difficulty naming a place that at some point or other has not been or continues to be 'occupied'. I remember speaking to my aunt who was forbidden to speak her native Welsh while attending school. Should there then be conflict in Wales because England 'occupied' the land? After all the Welsh have no where else to go after all its not like the Scots or the Irish would have welcomed the refugee Welsh with open arms.

In other word ET my naive suggestion is actually the only viable option on the table. The Israelis and the Palestinians have to do exactly that. Forgive and move on. Until that happens there shall remain interminable conflict with each side seeking to claim the moral high ground of merely resorting to violence as a form of self defense.

All our attempts at justification of one position or the other is the simple mind game of the ineffectual.

When speaking of the Middle East conflicts I prefer to use the words of the pretend psychiatrist Bob Newhart. "STOP IT".

There will come a day when "Palestinian nationalism", "victims of Zionism", will be seen as just another variation of "the Jews are Christ killers". It is simply this generation's bat with which to bash Jews. The ETs of the world seem to forget that Jews accepted the UN partition plan of 1948 and the Arabs did not. They could be celebrating their 60th anniversary of statehood. Jew hatred is inherent in Islam - Islam maintains that Abraham was asked to sacrifice Ishmael not Isaac so it will always maintain that the Jews lied in their book. Islam plunked its Dome of the Rock right on the spot of the two Jewish Temples on purpose. Islam has seen Jews as second class dhimmis with no rights before the law long before there was ever a single "obstacle to peace settler".

Keep in mind, Joe, that Mr. Newhart only charged $5 for his, arguably correct, "Stop It" advice. Meanwhile, it remains the case that there is no end to the shysters, of various persuasions, who are charging billions of dollars to keep it going. One can see how this exasperates the problem.

Too right Vit LOL

"All our attempts at justification of one position or the other is the simple mind game of the ineffectual."

you have to pick a side or the side will be picked for you. No Jews in Gaza - check. that worked our well. Instead of lobbing rockets at the Jews in Gaza they now just lob them at the Jews a little farther north. No Jews in Judea, sure - but what about those "settlements" of Haifa and Tel Aviv? Let's make it binational and just return non-Muslims to dhimmi status.

If we don't pick a side, our indecision is aid to the anti-Western civilization forces.

And for the umpteenth time, I differentiate between the Israeli-Palestinian situation and Islamic fascism.

True ET, but they don't!
But not just islamic fascism -- nazism too: Mein Kampf is hugely popular in the region. Hitler is adored.

While it's true that they often under-stressed the Islamic jihad, it has always been the driving force of Arab rejectionism.
Arafat was widely thought to be a kind of secular marxist-stalinist, but in Arabic, to Arab audiences, he regularly used the language of Islam. For example, during the Oslo "peace" racket, he told his interlocutors that any deal should be seen as a modern Treaty of Hudaibiya.

See a post above in which sections of the Hamas charter were quoted. Hamas is telling you, for the umteenth time, that Islam is the thing.

Even if a "deal" were done, ET, it will be broken. You'll hate me for saying this, but Arabs, like the communists, simply don't honour their agreements with infidels. Ever. This too, I know, with unassailable certainty!

Both Fatah AND Hamas will need to be destroyed root and branch for peace to ever arrive. But like yourself, the West's elites persist in the liberal fantasy of making terrorist groups peace partners.
And, as I've said, for the umpteenth time, there is NO difference between Fatah and Hamas when it comes to the desired destruction of Israel and the anihilation of Jews.

Yes, yes, I know the reductionist simplicity annoys and offends you, but reality tends to do this!

Actually ex-lib I believe the forgive and move on philosophy is choosing the Western tradition as opposed to the 'eye for an eye' tradition so prevalent in the Middle East.

"there is NO difference between Fatah and Hamas" [by Me No Dhimmi]

Other than slow jihad vs. fast jihad.

while virtue and lookout are dancing!!!!!!!!
in thier new song reader tipes side tonight!
we leave a miniut those old dancer alone
may be i have chance to put one more puzzle to public to find solution to isreali area

puzzle here is
real hate and abuse and crime there
can you trust criminal witness and words easy!!

i can not easy trust any criminal
killer in that region easy
since most them are keep
killing cannot be trustable
source of people we can bleive their side of thier story

new fight
no respect to chrismas holdiy
this jewish in isreali start new fight
to stop the peace talk
to kill identify hasam again

this isreali also as danger as hamas are
i can see differnce between them!
why did hamas did start shooting
few days after cease fired was expire

is something is missing here

Israeli military officials said Hamas militants fired more than 65 rockets into southern Israel on Wednesday -- four days after a cease-fire officially ended.

://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/24/israel.rockets/index.html

every body can start this shooting first
or can be isreali who knows!!

to blame to hamas to identify their place to kill hamas too

isreali play game here
first said free
then identify
them they they kill them
and then sai
oh i siad we can not give the land back yet

this is game and conpiracy over a 40 years

://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1228728241255

all peace talk is BS for isreali only to identify
the leader and then start
like september 11
taht BUSH and isreali started to

to blame to muslim
now this attack
does not look like Hamas attack in start with
and
next is
even if Hasam start why or what they want

why isreali do not follow the law
and do not let thier land back

how many years they must talk
thos BS isreali to " stop it"
and give their land back

I love people who have blogs but do not have the courage to display who they are. They have ZERO credibility with me. They can do, say & write what ever they want with impunity. Dr. Dawg is but another example of a growing number of cowards on blogs seeking 15 minutes of fame at the expense of the facts. “Dawg” (how fitting a name) seems to have taken this issue quite personally which leads me to believe he may have a connection to the incident.
I know only that Hamas has been lobbing rockets into Israel, unless we know the whole story about what is going on, all comments including those from MSM are pure speculation. Cowards like “Dr. Dawg” are the real criminals here! Someone should take this deceitful coward to task!

What a crime the death of any innocent person is, regardless of gender, race or religion.

I urge everyone to make a short comment in his or her post referencing what you think of this idiot “Dr. Dawg”!

No, let's not. Life is too short to drink bad wine.

[quote]Again, don't mix up Islamic fascism into this; it's a 19th phenomenon emerging as a result of dysfunctional industrialization in the ME.[/quote]

ET,
There you go again... Why do you assume that it was "Dysfunctional" rather than "Intentional"

Anti-semitics are not now, or where not in the past, all in the ME!

Et; re Israel returning the West Bank lands, that's between Israel and Jordan. The Arabs living there have no right to claim any other citizenship.
If you truly believe your supposition then you'd also agree that the US should return land taken from Mexico? Same basic set of facts.

I received a disheartening phone call from a longtime friend of mine this evening. He's 43, a high-school teacher, and a non-practicing Muslim.

But he wanted to tell me about the terrible things he saw on TV this evening. In his words, it involved "Poor Palestinians throwing rocks" vs. "Israeli fighter jets killing hundreds & hundreds".

This appears to be the picture being painted by the MSM.

I tried to point out some other things to him such as the 20+ mile rockets that have been fired into Israel for some time, such as Iran fighting a proxy war through Hamas, etc. but it was all to no avail. The power of the MSM is just too strong.

://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/12/28/lklv.hancocks.israeli.strike.cnn

://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/28/gaza.israel.international.reaction/index.html

if politician in isreal and palestine
could not stop this war for 40 years so far

let's people stop this
cold blodded murder under any name
normal ordinaly in all world will stop
isreal now
give their land of muslim back today

this is human right to live not die
they treat them like animals
any more
doing criminal act is not accepted under any more excuse from anybody
people in world ready to change and enforce law

Wherever I am, I stand with Israel.

From 2001 to 2005, Hamas and the rest of the Gazan rocket firers insisted their attacks were provoked by the presence of 7,000 Israeli settlers within the borders of Gaza. Remove them and the attacks would stop, the Palestinians promised.

But the Israeli army removed the settlers and the rocket attacks escalated. Nearly two-thirds of the attacks on Sderot have occurred since. Without Israelis inside Gaza to fire on, the terrorists have turned their firepower on the next nearest Jews.

I believe the same will happen once the settlers are removed from the West Bank. What did we see happen in Gaza on the road to democracy? A civil war between Hamas and Fatah. A real example of how these people would act in their own state.

The muslim propaganda is working on all cylinders as the MSM is against Israel and the growing hordes of muslims here in Canada and the West are starting their marches. Several friends have commented that they didn't think there were so many muslims here! How long before we see our own "youths" starting carBQs?

ET, when the Palestinians have their own state what will happen as it is a tiny piece of land, split into two tiny parts with a huge exploding population (oops,bad choice of words), no jobs, violent uneducated people, still being taught to hate the Jews and two opposing political factions. Somehow this doesn't sound like a good base for a new state but what could go wrong.

My view has always been that you can see how much the Palestinians want peace by how they raise their children and how they treat each other. With the non-stop indoctrination of their children to hate the jews (in children shows on television and in schools), the way they let their kids throw stones at Israeli outposts or deliberately get in the middle of firefights, and the way they killed each other in the Hamas vs. Fatah clash, shows me that they do not care of peace. I could care less about how they feel "threatened" by Israeli settlements. It's no excuse for that kind of behavior to their own people.

If they're not willing to live with each other, or take care of their kids and raise them with some values, then why would people believe they can live peacefully with Israel?

Israel, surrounded by enemies can pursue only one Peace Policy.

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

It works

Robert W

That is unfortunate. It is true...but so what. This isnt about ensuring some kind of equivalent result, but that is the narrative that is tried and true, David vs Goliath, ironically enough.

This too shall pass, Israel looks like they have this one well planned and are executing it well, so far. If this degrades Hamas' capabilities significantly then the goal has been acheived.

Remember Hamas refused to extend the cease fire, so they shouldnt be so shocked when the cease fire ends. Israel probably has a day maybe two more until it starts to look like an unecessary pummelling. One hopes they no longer have such a target rich environment.

The question is are they going to invade by ground, my suspicion is the tanks and troops at the border are a feint and a ruse to force Hamas into their defensive positions, lets the Israeli's see where they are and what the "order of battle" such as it is from Hamas, might be.

It might also be to see what communication and cooperation there is between Hamas and any outsiders, Iran, Hezbo, the Syrians. I think Hamas is finding itself a little isolated and ineffectual.

While Gaza and Hamas are the easier of the two, Hezbo and Hamas, it just might make Hamas think twice and it might undercut Hamas enough to put fatah back in power in Gaza. If thats the case then Israel might find itself with a single opponent that it can cut a deal with again....the strength and content of that deal are of course totally specualtive, but I beleive that is the Israeli's ultimate hope...the alternative is never ending and increasingly dangerous warfare.

joe - your 'forgive and move on' is naive, because unlike your Welsh example, Israel cannot accept the Palestinians as citizens because its mandate is to retain a Jewish majority population. And no, N. America and all the other lands you list are not 'occupied' because the people now living in them are in sovereign control of their own governance. That is not the case with Palestinians who are not in sovereign control of their own national governance.

me no dhimmi - no, I don't consider a terrorist group amenable to negotiation, and when I refer to the Palestinians I am not referring to the Fatah/Hamas fascism. And I don't accept reductionist analyses of All Arabs break their word and so on.

philip g. shaw - when I refer to dysfunctional industrialism, I mean developing an industrial style economy while not also changing the political, legal and social systems to ones that work within this industrial structure. These social systems (economic, political, legal, social) all have to operate in the same mode. The ME problem is that they allowed an industrial style economy in, built by Western technology since the Arab world rejected science...but..these nations didn't change their political, legal and social systems. These systems remained TRIBAL rather than INDUSTRIAL and that, in my view, is the basic cause of Islamic fascism. This destabilizing infrastructure where your basic system operates in one mode and your other key systems operate in a pre-industrial mode...is what I mean by 'dysfunctional'.

No, anyone who tries to hide the reality of the Palestinian existence by redefining them as 'actually they are Jordanians' is wrong, and Jordan most definitely does not want them and has never wanted them - even before Israel was created. Such a perspective is akin to saying to blacks..'well, you are really African and so you should return there'; or to the many Scots living in parts of Quebec..'you really aren't Quebecois'..and so on. Peoples migrate over centuries, and become embedded in their new niches. You can't define a people as a product only of an assumed, and I mean assumed, original land.

dave, I disagree with you. The removal of the settlements in Gaza didn't enable a sovereign governance there, and you are ignoring the crippling economic sanctions put on Gaza over the last two years by Israel which reduced that area to extreme poverty reliant almost entirely on foreign aid. Hamas then was moved into a situation where, as the elected government of that area, it had to 'do something to show resistance' (the rockets)even in such a no-win situation.

Therefore, I repeat my view, that Israel has to stop its expanding settlement of the West Bank, remove the settlers - and don't ignore that these settlers are militant and fundamentalist on their own and firmly believe that the Palestinians are 'scum' and have no right to the land. Don't assume that bias and hatred exists on only one side.
Israel has to announce its agreement to a Palestinian state made up of the full West Bank.
This has to be a legal Motion, sanctioned by their legislature.

It has to openly treat the Palestinians as, not scum or terrorists, but as people..and acknowledge that terrorism(Islamic fascism)is not identical with the Palestinians but that it exists and that Israel will continue to fight terrorism. That is, it has to insert a wedge into the islamic fascist strategy of using the Palestinians to advance their fascism.

I don't know if I am clear on this; there are two separate 'agendas'. One is the Palestinian reality, their existence as a people (no, they are not Jordanian), their UN sanctioned agreement to have their own state, their desire for such, their reality as without such a state and without being citizens of any state.

Islamic fascism is a completely, totally different reality. It would exist even if there were no Israel and no Palestinians. Its cause is the dysfunctional infrastructure of the ME nations which moved their economy into industrialism but left their political, legal and social systems trapped in an 8th century tribalism.

Then, Israel has to remove the settlers. This is more difficult than articulating, clearly, the different conflicts: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over land; and the Islamic fascist conflict over rulership. This process - would be vicious and violent for the settlers have no intention of leaving.

Then, Israel and other nations would have to help Palestine set up a democratic infrastructure - as was done in Iraq. And the other realm, the Islamic fascist realm, would fight this. Islamic fascism does NOT want a Palestinian state to exist; it wants the situation to remain the same for it affords a very handy 'flytrap' to inflame emotions, draw idealistic youth to The Cause, draw leftist idealists in the Western World to not criticize Islamism and its fascist agendas. No, Islamic fascism - which, again, is totally different from the I-P situation - wants NO PEACE in this region.

Then, because of the 'two land bases' allotted by the UN to Palestine, it is obvious that the new Palestinian state would be closely, economically, aligned with Israel. Israel has to enable and encourage this. This would actually expand the democratic and economic robustness of that total land area in the ME. Again, the Islamic fascists don't want democracy and a middle class industrialism in their area; they'd fight it.

Vitruvius - what do the Palestinians have to do? Not easy - they have to see that Israel means its word this time - and they can't see that until the West Bank is free of settlers, and the wall is down. So, the first move is, frankly, that of Israel. Once that first step is taken, then, I think that they'd move to elect a governance amenable to setting up not only a democratic state but one with close economic ties to Israel.

This could have been done 50 years ago; that was the time for it. Now - Islamic fascism has emerged and it will do everything to prevent a Palestinian state, to prevent democracy, to prevent the Palestinians from having their own life and from having peace. Again- don't merge the two; Palestinian desire for a state and Islamic fascism are two different things, have two different causes, and enabling the first won't stop the second.

Greetings, all. The Phantom returns after a nice holiday from all this sordid nonsense.

Dr. Dawg's comments are entirely predictable. It makes perfect sense that a man who supports and actively promotes Communism would be on-side with Hamas. Communism which killed 100 million in the last century and still kills in N. Korea, China and Cuba today, and Hamas which flings missiles blindly into populated areas hoping to kill -anyone-. And usually failing to do so, thankfully. Killers all. Hamas just sucks at it compared to the hard core Commies is about the only difference.

In short, Dr. Dawg is a moral pervert. Therefore one can predict he will talk up whatever side of any issue is the most disgusting, immoral and deserving of eradication. That's why he likes unions.

What I find interesting about this latest round of Hamas attacks is the coverage. As the article makes clear, and as I've been noticing myself, every time a Jew gets killed its no big deal. MSM only cover it when little kids get the chop, they don't even mention soldiers dying.

I contrast this insouciance toward Jewish casualties with the MSM body count ticker Canadian soldiers get in Afghanistan.

Then there's the descriptions. My favorite was the air strike that nailed 200 Hamas guys at one whack. If a Canadian Forces CF-18 killed 200 Taliban guys by nailing them with precision bombing in the middle of a town, where they were using the townspeople as human shields, that would be a remarkable feat of arms. Big coverage and big kudos would be arranged.

An IDF jet did that earlier this week. It was described in the papers as an "attack on a Hamas military training school, where a graduation ceremony was taking place". "Young men in uniform were lying dead in the courtyard." One presumes this was the Hamas Art History graduation.

Clearly, this is nuts. It is propaganda aimed at destroying Israel, and Europe really doesn't get a damned thing out of it.

I've been thinking about that a little bit. If you look at all the crazy sh1t the EuroLeft believes, from global warming to animal rights to post modern Communism, its all anti-human. Self loathing, in other words. They love anything that shows how bad they are. They hate America because America always wins, America is proud, America shines.

The Israelis are hated by the Muslims because they aren't Muslim, which is as it has always been. If you stuck a bunch of Inuit guys there the Muslims would hate them instead.

For that matter they hate the Palestinians. Muslims are equal opportunity that way. The only "aid" the Palestinians get out of Egypt and Syria is they are allowed to buy weapons and etc. If they have money.

If every Palestinian starved tomorrow morning zero food aid would flow from the Muslim states. Because they HATE the Palestinians and consider them to be scum. Just ask an Egyptian, they'll tell you.

But this does not explain why the European Left hates the Jews. I think its because the Jews are Europeans, and they are -successful-. Hamas is loved because they are a bunch of sad-sack dimwits who line up 200 men in a courtyard for the enemy to kill with one airstrike. They are loved because they can't feed their own population despite UN aid and the unceasing efforts of ISRAEL to civilize them. They are loved because they make glorified spud guns out of irrigation pipe and launch primitive explosives into Jewish towns. They are loved because they hate Europeans.

Israel is hated because they are Europeans who win. They win like Americans. They win against the desert, they win against Hamas, they win against Egypt and Syria and the Saudis and Iraq and Iran. They -always- win.

Israel is a little European island in the middle of the Muslims. All around them is poverty and tyranny, in Israel is prosperity and freedom. The EuroLeft hates that. They want to see it destroyed just as they want to see all of traditional Europe destroyed, to be replaced by some kind of crushing Soviet dystopia where humans die and the land is given back to Gaia.

ET, I've been reading your comments and I agree with you about the source of the problem. Israel is a little island of Western civilization in the midst of a sea of waring tribes.

You can see it still happening in Iraq, where the Kurds, the Suni and the Shia all hate each other's guts, and all three of them hate the Turks, and all four of those hate the Arabs, and etc. Waring tribes.

Where I differ from you is what is to be done about this state of affairs. There are really only two things that one can do, in principle. One can fight, or one can pack up and leave.

Israel is the one and only Jewish state on Earth, they don't have the luxury of packing up and leaving. Therefore they can only fight.

If they fight, they have to win. The tribes aren't going to merely conquer them and live in the territory with them. The tribes will kill them all. That's what tribes do.

In fighting then, again you have two and only two options. Offense and defense. In offense you take the fight to the enemy and kill them, invest their land and run the survivors off. In defense you build a wall and shoot anyone who comes over the top.

Israel has historically chosen defense, and this has been fairly successful for them. No Muslim army has managed to take land from them and hold it. When the borders of Israel move, its due to UN negotiations after Israel has beaten whoever attacked them.

Currently they have a problem with Hamas and Hezbolah lobbing rockets over their wall. Once more, there are two choices. Either ignore it or sally forth and fight. Israel choses to fight, and they will quite obviously win.

Ultimately the choices that face Israel is who they want inside their wall with them, and should they move the wall. Do they relinquish control of the West Bank and Gaza to their enemies, or do they conquer and invest those areas and build the wall at those new borders?

The tribes have easier choices, I'm sure you'll agree. Should we fight the scary Jews this week or leave them alone? Are we feeling lucky?

Go Israel. Finish the job this time. I am sick and tired of people moaning about the poor Palestinians. How about the poor Israelis who are being constantly bombarded by a bunch of thugs. I am sorry for the children on both sides, but Israel has to do something to defend themselves.

Well, unfortunately the Jewish people are only the first group of people to be forced by the left wing socialist to walk the plank off of the evil ship Jolly Roger.
I can think of at least two other groups that will surely be swimming in shark infested waters in order to make way for the left's "neo-allies".
Yes, it's true. Those Socialists love to hate.
Truly a match made in Hell.

phantom - no, Israel can't incorporate the West Bank and Gaza territory and population into Israel because its national mandate is to retain a Jewish majority. If it incorporated those two territories and their populations as citizens, then Israel would no longer have a majority Jewish population.

The notion held by some to 'get rid of all the Palestinians' by shipping them off to 'some other Arab nation' such as Egypt or Jordan ignores that All Arabs are not alike; they are tribal, they are sect based, they are not all 'M&Ms from one package'.

Jordan, for example, rejected Palestinians in 1988. If a Jordanian, for instance, took out a Palestinian travel document, he'd lose his Jordanian citizenship. Instantly. And Palestinians are not eligible for Jordanian citizenship. Indeed, Palestinians don't have any citizenship; they only have Palestinian Authority travel documents.

So, I don't think that 'defense' is the only option for Israel, since there are TWO problems. One, is the Palestinian land and nationhood problem. The other is Islamic fascism and as I've said, the two are not related in origin. Islamic fascism would have emerged in the ME whether or not Israel ever existed; its causes are strictly within the internal infrastructure of the Arab States.

I think that Israel has to enable a Palestinian state to emerge. This would have been easier 50 years ago, but, it is the only option that I can see even now. That means - remove the settlers and the wall, assist in setting up a democratic state and, link the Palestinian state, economically, to Israel..because of the territorial reality of close ties.

The key problem to this reality now, is not the generation-embedded anger and hatred of the Palestinians vs Israel; frankly, that could vanish in a decade. And even the Israeli settlers, with their fundamentalist views which won't change..well, they are not the majority in Israel. The key problem is that other reality, Islamic fascism - and I maintain that Islamic fascism does NOT want a Palestinian state. They'll do everything to prevent it.

Islamic fascism, as I've said, emerged in the 19th c in the ME states due to their dysfunctional industrial economy linked to a tribal political/social/legal structure. Such a setup is disastrous and has led to fascism.

Exporting this fascism to the West, ie, locating the cause of low incomes, lack of popular control over their own government etc..locating this CAUSE as external, ie the Evil West..rather than internal ..the tribal totalitarian control...was handy, because it removed the anger against the ME tribal dictatorships and focused it on the West. The West has now begun to fight back ..and has moved the conflict back into the ME states which is where it should be.

BUT - a second tactic of moving this anger at their own tribal governments...and moving the anger instead to anger against Israel..this has increased as the anger against the West is met with strong rejection by the West.

In my view, Islamic fascism doesn't give a hoot about Palestinians, who are deemed the 'lowest of the low' among the Arab hierarchies. But, it's an extremely useful tool to deflect internal anger against one's own totalitarian governments to an external zone.

Plus, Islamic fascism doesn't want to see Arab democracies in the ME; after all, their own governments are anti-democratic, they are totalitarian tribalisms. Iraq is a thorn in the flesh so to speak, and an important thorn, to slowly deconstruct this tribalism 'from the inside'.

I think that IF Israel were to take bold, active steps to enable a Palestinian state - and this would involve fighting its own settlers and fighting Islamic terrorism...but if it were to do this, then democracy in the ME would have TWO nodes - Palestine and Iraq...and these two situations would further disable the disastrous tribalism of the area.

But instead, Israel expands those settlements! It puts in ruinous economic sanctions against Gaza and the West Bank; it builds walls around and through Palestinian fields. And, it doesn't separate the fascist rejection of democracy from the Palestinian desire for a homeland.

It's an extremely difficult situation, because the two sides are not 'two' but more complex. There's the fact that the Palestinians can't be Israeli citizens; but they also can't be 'swallowed' by any other Arab nation; and yet they were set up by the UN to have their own sovereign nation. There's the fact of the settlers and the angry occupied Palestinians. There's also the fact that a majority of Israelis and Palestinians want a two-state solution. And now, there's the fact of Islamic fascism which does NOT want a Palestinian democratic state.

The only solution that I can see, is the one outlined above - Israel has to operate on two fronts: one,is to enable a Palestinian state; and two, to fight Islamic fascism which will try to prevent this. AND, to somehow make this Great Divide clear, loud and public to the international world.

From Ace of Spades HQ
"It's been said before but it is worth repeating a thousand times: if Hamas, Hezbollah, and most of the Arab states (and Iran) laid down their weapons tomorrow and forgot about their plans to dissolve Israel, there would be peace in the Middle East. The Israelis could forget about the fences and the Palestinians might one day have something approximating a Western standard of living. On the other hand, if Israel laid down its weapons tomorrow, the country would be utterly annihilated, the Israelis killed to the last man, woman, and child."
~Gabriel Malor

I'd like to add that Israel could wipe out all of it's enemies in the Disputed Territories and Lebanon right now but doesn't. If Israel's enemies held the same military advantage that Israel does, all Israeli Jews would be massacred. One only has to look at pictures of Muslim terrorists using women and children as human shields to know who holds the moral high ground in the Middle East.

Canada, the U.S., or any Western Power wouldn't put up with rocket bombardments and suicide bomber attacks for a single day without invading and punishing the territory that the attacks were launched from.

I noticed on Fox & Friends this morning that the reporter took a decidedly one-sided look at the war reporting on the Israeli barrage but passing over quickly the ongoing shelling from Gaza that lead up to it. Israel should flatten the Palestinians and push out their boundaries to the extent possible. No matter what they do, the Israeli's will be condemned in the media. So, take advantage of it now.

this one is for Joe:
an "eye for an eye" is actually about monetary compensation, not physical retaliation. This is how Judaism has always interpreted it. Let the punishment meet the crime - if a person causes another to loose an eye, he can not be killed for that. You could read for days on this subject - here is one link:
http://www.adventistbiblicalresearch.org/Biblequestions/eyeforeye.htm

The law of equivalency was an attempt to limit the extent of a punishment and to discourage cruelty. The principle of this legislation is one of equivalency; that is to say, the punishment should correspond to the crime and should be limited to the one involved in the injury (Deut. 19:18-21).
This law was a rejection of family feuds and the spirit of revenge that led the injured party to uncontrolled attacks against the culprit and the members of his or her family (cf. Gen. 4:23). The punishment was required to fit the crime, a principle still used in modern jurisprudence. I must add that in the Bible this law was applied equally to all members of society (Lev. 24:22), while in Mesopotamia it was limited to crimes against society's "important" people.

Israel does not have the luxury of forgiving and forgetting in their neighbourhood - otherwise, as others have stated so clearly, they will "forgive and forget" themselves right out of existence. G-d does not require that you do not fight for your own survival.

T. E. Lawrence: As long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe they will be a little people, a silly people, barbarous and cruel.

ET, as usual I bow down to your brilliance but could you answer my previous question.

When the Palestinians have their own state what will happen as it is a tiny piece of land, split into two tiny parts with a huge exploding population (oops,bad choice of words), no jobs, violent uneducated people, still being taught to hate the Jews and two main opposing political factions? Somehow this doesn't sound like a good base for a new state yet you want Israel to tear down its defensive wall and now be exposed to its former suicide bombers.

ET – optimism is one thing…childish naïveté is another!

“…the generation-embedded anger and hatred of the Palestinians …could vanish in a decade.”

Snort! If the Palestinians forsook Mohammed for Christ, perhaps. Barring that, peace will be a long time coming, and no concession of the Israelis will bring it about, excepting their complete disappearance. Your pronouncements on this subject (they are scarcely arguments) convince only those who wish to believe that Israeli oppression of Palestinians excuses the depraved behaviour of the latter.

“Islamic fascism…emerged in the 19th c … due to their dysfunctional industrial economy linked to a tribal political/social/legal structure.”
Drop the label, focus on the behaviour: Since Islam’s beginning, there have always been populations enjoying its imprimatur that have condoned and/or prescribed such treatment of the non-Muslim.

I hope to email you later to discuss your inversion of economy and religion.

The T. E. Lawrence quote is compelling. He loved those people.

On the other hand, to reinforce how little has changed in that neck of the woods over the last 200 years, read this book; it is fantastic:

Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival by Dean King, 2004.

You're welcome.

"Israel should flatten the Palestinians and push out their boundaries to the extent possible."

Which would make them, what? No better than the Nazis. Yup. Nazis. If they don't like being compared to those assh*les... maybe they should stop acting like them.

How hard is it to acknowledge that the Palestinians have a legitimate right to be angry? They have been displaced from their homes by an expansionist state that doesn't welcome them as equals.

You guys freak when somebody opens a falafel hut in your neighbourhood. Imagine if an immigrant group moved into Canada, proceeded to ethnically cleanse their neighbourhoods, and then set up an apartheid state.

The vast, vast majority of so-called liberals support Israel, but they want to see the Palestinians give at least some of their country back. It's only fair, and it's the only way to stop the bloodshed.

If the Israelis want radical Palestinians to stop the shelling, then they have to stop their radical settlers from stealing Palestinian land.

islamic jihad squared. the world nor israel will have peace as long as there are followers of the prophet, the koran, the hadiths and other islamic teaching. the end. period.

I think we are agreeing on the same point ex liberal. I interpret the words of Jesus in Matthew 5 as don't seek revenge, better to be wronged than to resort to evil.

That being said I can not bring myself to "pick sides" when people are destroying one another. I refuse to be drawn in to some long litany of grievances ancient, past, present or future. Until BOTH sides agree to get along there shall be war. Until BOTH sides respect each others right to exist there shall be conflict.

As a Christian I support Israel's existence and agree that it has the right to self defense. At the same time my most fervent prayer is that BOTH parties stop killing each other. For that to happen there is only one way. Its called forgiveness.

BTW I would suggest that you lay aside your commentary for a bit and actually read the Old Covenant. You will soon discover that 'Eye for an eye, Tooth for a tooth' meant exactly that.

I agree that as in most instances the aggrieved parties settled their conflicts with an exchange of money but that does not mean that Law did not provide for other means of retribution.

tenebris - I disagree with your insertion of ideology or religion as primal cause. I maintain that the primal cause is the economy, ie, how do we get enough to live, to provide shelter, to enable us to survive in health. That's basic.

And yes, I do believe that if the Palestinians had control of their own land, the hatred would vanish in a decade.

Islam and Islamic fascism are two competely different perspectives. I personally believe that Islam as an ideology emerged in the 7th c as a reaction to the expanding land base control of the Byzantine/Christian peoples. With the Roman infrastructure of roads, money, writing, trade connections, this area was economically moving into settled agricultural economies, trading with each other. This interactive economy, in my view, was the basis for the development of the Christian religion.

The Christian religion is one of collaboration, acceptance of one's neighbours, a separation of church and state (Caesar..etc). Perfect for an expanding economy that focused on interactive trade, stable and expanding agriculturalism etc.

Islam, in my view, is an ideology based around a completely different economy - pastoral nomadic. Note the references in it to cattle, sheep, goats. This is an economy that is nomadic, that requires a large land base but with a lot of the land vacant (to replenish) while the herds are led from pasture to pasture. Also, the primacy of the male, the rigid repression of women (found where the men are away for weeks at a time)..it all points to a pastoral nomadic economy. As for religion, Islam takes most of its views on that from Judaism.

An interesting thing about judaism is the importance of women, for Judaism is matrilineal; you 'inherit' the religion filiation from the women's side not the male side. That tells me that these people were not pastoralists but had some kind of 'garden economy'.

At any rate, I believe that Islam emerged as a militant social and political (not religious) ideology to fight against the encroachment of their land base by expanding agricultural Christian settlements. Defining it as a religion moved its political system out of the capacity to change...and then it moved into basic militarism.

Can it change as a religion? I think so, for any ideology, which is after all, made by man, can be changed by man. If you read various articles by Islamic scholars, they are arguing for an 'interpretation' of Islam rather than a dogmatic following of it. There are lots of such articles.

Islamic fascism is completely different; it emerged in the 19th c - and I've explained why.

dave - sorry, I thought I answered your question when I said that a sovereign Palestinian state would have to be economically linked to the economy of Israel - not only because of that geographic split (and after all, Alaska and Hawaii are split from the mainland USA)..but because both would be democracies and thus have a middle class.

They too could be celebrating 60 years of statehood"

"On November 29, 1947, the U.N. General Assembly by a two-thirds vote (33 to 13 with Britain and nine others abstaining) passed Resolution 181 partitioning Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Jewish community of Palestine jubilantly accepted partition despite the small size and strategic vulnerability of the proposed state. Not only were Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip not included, but also Jerusalem, most of the Galilee in the North and parts of the Negev desert in the South were excluded. The Arab national movement in Palestine, as well as all the Arab states, angrily rejected partition. They demanded the entire country for themselves and threatened to resist partition by force. Had they accepted the U.N. proposal in 1947, the independent Palestinian Arab state, covering an area much larger than the West Bank and Gaza, would have been created along with Israel. Instead, they launched a war to destroy the nascent Jewish state."

Joe, it may not be Christian tradition to read the commentaries/Oral Torah/Talmud, but it is definitely Jewish tradition. In fact, for Jews, the Written Torah cannot be understood without the Oral Torah. It probably does not fit the picture of the "harsh cruel Old Testament" but there no evidence of "eye for eye" ever having been carried out literally by Jewish courts.

ET,

"Islamic fascism, as I've said, emerged in the 19th c in the ME states due to their dysfunctional industrial economy linked to a tribal political/social/legal structure. Such a setup is disastrous and has led to fascism."

This is pure rubbish. It frankly doesn't matter what you've said, or think. History completely disagrees with you. You should give your head a shake.

First of all, let's look at what Merriam/Webster has to say:

Fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

According to Sir Jadunath Sarkar, the pre-eminent historian of Mughal India, "The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent is the ideal of the Muslim State. If any infidel is suffered to exist in the community, it is as a necessary evil, and for a transitional period only…A non-Muslim therefore cannot be a citizen of the State; he is a member of a depressed class; his status is a modified form of slavery…In short, his continued existence in the State after the conquest of his country by the Muslims is conditional upon his person and property made subservient to the cause of Islam."

It should also be noted that the world's greatest genocide was performed by the Muslims against the Hindus, Buddhists, etc., of India, where 80 million were exterminated.

Another notable instance is recounted by Arab historian Philip Hitti: 'The caliph al-Mutawakkil in 850 and 854 decreed that Christians and Jews should affix wooden images of devils to their houses, level their graves even with the ground, wear outer garments of honey color, i.e., yellow, put two honey-colored patches on the clothes of their slaves...and ride only on mules and asses with wooden saddles marked by two pomegranate-like balls on the cantle.'"

In 1888, a Tunisian Jew noted: "The Jew is prohibited in this country to wear the same clothes as a Muslim and may not wear a red tarbush. He can be seen to bow down with his whole body to a Muslim child and permit him the traditional privilege of striking him in the face, a gesture that can prove to be of the gravest consequence. Indeed, the present writer has received such blows. In such matters the offenders act with complete impunity, for this has been the custom from time immemorial."

In Granada, up to five thousand Jews perished in a pogrom by Muslims in 1066. The Berber Almohads in Spain and North Africa (1130-1232) wreaked enormous destruction on the Jewish and Christian populations. Suspicious of the sincerity of converts to Islam, Muslim "inquisitors" (i.e., antedating their Christian Spanish counterparts by three centuries) removed children from such families, placing them in the care of Muslims. A prominent Andalusian jurist, Ibn Hazm of Cordoba (d. 1064), wrote that Allah has established the infidels' ownership of their property merely to provide booty for Muslims.

History has recorded 1400 years of Islamic fascism. ET, you are dead wrong.

Here is a snippet from a Stratfor mail today:

"Underneath all of this is a core reality: A Palestinian state on the 1948 borders is an impossibility for both Palestinians and Israelis. For the Palestinians, it would mean a state divided physically between Gaza and the West Bank, without an independent economic foundation. It would be a fiasco. For the Israelis, the 1948 borders would allow the Palestinians to rocket Tel Aviv easily, with no guarantee that a Palestinian state would or could put a stop to it.

"The Palestinians need more than the 1948 borders, and the Israelis can't even give that. Therefore, the current cycle of violence is simply one of many such cycles that are hardwired into the geography of Israel and Palestine and from which there is no escape. [...] Geography determines that the conflict is intractable."

Throughout the discussion in this thread I've been asking for a viable plan, because I don't have one. No one has, in my opinion, produced such a plan; I now think that's because no such plan can be produced, for the reasons explained by Stratfor.

"At any rate, I believe that Islam emerged as a militant social and political (not religious) ideology to fight against the encroachment of their land base by expanding agricultural Christian settlements. Defining it as a religion moved its political system out of the capacity to change...and then it moved into basic militarism."

Patricia Crone rubbish again. What land? The infertile desert? I've asked you before to prove this. Prove that Roman, or Byzantine Christians were encroaching into Arabia. Certainly the Quran, Hadiths and Sira don't agree with you. Neither does any scholar, other than the one mentioned.

The religion of Mahomet was an imperial war ideology. Nothing more. He looted, stole, pillaged and raped his way out of the desert, stealing up to three quarters of formerly Christian lands. But stealing wasn't good enough for these monsters. Entire cultures, including their art, knowledge and language had to be wiped out, in order for alien Arabic cultural imperialism to prevail.

This has not changed to the present day. Look at the enclaves they are creating throughout the west. Not to mention passive, cultural and legal jihad tactics in order to establish special supremacist status.

Why have all the Christians mostly fled from Lebanon, a formerly predominately Christian country? Palestine? Southern Thailand? Malaysia? Etc., Etc.

"Encroachment of their land base." A monstrous lie!

Well ex liberal I guess you and I are just going to (I hope) peacefully disagree. To say that the lex talionis was never applied in Jewish law because an Adventist commentator said it was never allied is a wee tad of a stretch of the imagination. Not to mention which I never constrained the application of the lex talionis to Israel. In fact it was written in the Code of Hammurabi and is also in the Koran.

Now I don't know about you but I do pray for peace in the Middle East. Blessed are the peace makers and all that you know. I also try not to pick fights with people who are on my side. Luke 9:50.

In closing, because I have taken up too much of Kate's bandwidth, I say, "Without forgiveness there can never be peace"!

"Had they accepted the U.N. proposal in 1947, the independent Palestinian Arab state, covering an area much larger than the West Bank and Gaza, would have been created along with Israel. Instead, they launched a war to destroy the nascent Jewish state."

So basically, you guys don't like the U.N. telling you what to do in your country, but Arabs should have to listen to the U.N. when it tells them that they have to make room for hundreds of thousands of European refugees.

If they'd made plans to create a new Israel in Alberta, you guys would be goosestepping down to Canadian Tire to buy up all the ammo faster than you could say "global warming is a hoax perpetuated by the liberal media".

Look, Israel needs to be secure, but denying the Palestinians justice isn't going to secure it. Israel needs to admit they've kind of been land-grabbing douchebags, and step up with compensation. And by compensation, I don't mean more rabid Jewish settlers.

John,

With the defeat of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, the ME was divided up amongst the Allies. It was later partitioned off into the countries that exist today. The proposed Palestinian and Jewish states were, in the later stages, part of this.

There were few in Palestine at the time. There certainly weren't any so-called 'Palestinians,' other than perhaps the original Jews, who first called themselves by that title. The land was mostly a waste land, later irrigated and made fertile by immigrant Jews.

Most of the present day Arabs, Syrians, etc., only calling themselves 'Palestinians,' since the '60's, immigrated into the area much later, after the land became workable.

The current myth of the 'Palestinians' is mostly false.

"So basically, you guys don't like the U.N. telling you what to do in your country, but Arabs should have to listen to the U.N. when it tells them that they have to make room for hundreds of thousands of European refugees."

What an imbecilic line of "thought". Arabs didn't rule that piece of land anyway. The only question was how it was going to be split up. "Palestinians" got two states, but that wasn't enough for those assholes.

Palestinians need to admit they've been murderous fanatic terrorist douchebags, accept the fact that Israel will not fulfill their wet dreams and allow itself to be wiped off the map, and step into the 21st century, where maintaining ceasefire doesn't mean lobbing rockets across their border. Then they wouldn't get their precious EU-funded bomb-making universities destroyed.

Vitruvius: December 29, 2008 4:59 PM
That's an excellent addition to the debate. Thanks.

As ex-liberal pointed out above -- something I suspect a lot of people don't know, or have forgotten -- the original 1947 post-partition state of Israel EXCLUDED Judea, Samaria, Gaza, Jerusalem, and parts of the Negev, etc. And as events proved, that state was simply not defensible -- not viable. And YET, the Arabs were not satisfied with their state, which was at least contiguous, and contained all these areas.

And ET, as to your argument about importantce of economics over islamic ideology, you would do well to research economic statistics for the "Palestinians" post 1967 -- a veritable golden age economically. You need also to reflect on what Hamas did with that world-beating high-tech greenhouse Israel left INTACT when retreating from the Gaza strip.
As Vitruvius has argued the "Palestinians" are not rational players.

You're right Vitruvius: There is NO solution to the problem in the box within which it is currently perceived. Clearly TWO states are just not viable.

Clearly, the answer is for the "world community" to destroy Fatah/PLO/Hamas, provide ample financial incentives for the "Palestinians" to vacate Gaza/Judea/Samaria and re-locate to other Arab countries like Jordan and Egypt. Problem is tho that with the thorough islamization they have undergone starting with Arafat (Israel's nuttiest idea!) they are considered poison by countries trying to maintain their good old secular dictatorships.

And UNWRA needs to be shut down. The UN has deliberately inflamed this conflict through sustaining the open sores of "refugee" camps over 60 years in order to undermine Israel. If I'm not mistaken, this is the only "refugee" problem which had its own UN agency.

nope, irwin daisy, I don't agree with you. You see, what is missing from your analysis, which is focused only on an ideology, is any reason for such an ideology to emerge and become dominant among so many people. You don't explain that. Ideologies don't 'float in the air'; if they do they dissipate like fog. An ideology emerges FROM the economic/political structure - and you utterly ignore this basic infrastructure.

With regard to fascism, what is missing in your dictionary definition is an understanding of its utopianism, and its description of that utopia. In fascism, as differentiated from the other utopian ideologies of socialism and communism, the 'pure ideal' is found in the past, when The People were in supreme control. Islamic fascism seeks to restore this assumed era of purity.

No, it didn't originate in the 7th c; Islam did but not fascist Islamism. I suggest you read a few books on the subject of both fascism and Al Qaeda. Wright's The Looming Tower outlines Al Qaeda's history from the 18th c. Fascist studies are, of course, enormous - Paxton, and Eatwell are good.

I repeat my analysis that Islam, as an economic, political and social ideology emerged in the ME because of encroaching agricultural expansion - and that area was not, at the time, as barren as it is now. No, my views are not 'a monstrous lie'. You don't understand anything about societal structures and how the population must be grounded, first, in the land base.

Again, an ideology such as you outline, ungrounded in any economic or political infrastructure - existing only 'as itself' simply doesn't occur. ALL ideologies that move into a larger population, ie, larger than a few dozen cult members, MUST have some functional ground within an economic and political agenda. Your narrow view that Islam only exists as an idea to war and steal doesn't explain WHY it exists as such. And no peoples operate only to 'war and steal'. Your view is superficial and without merit.

Yes, there were 'Palestinians' in the disputed area in 1948. Your claim, irwin daisy, that there were very few, and the people who were there were primarily Jewish is historically inaccurate. The population under the British mandate was about 700,000 and was primarily NOT Jewish, but was Palestinian - and was called such by the British. No, they didn't immigrate into the area; they had been there for centuries, even though you consider that the land was 'empty' until 1948. It wasn't; that's the myth of the empty land, as untenable as the myth of 'first footstep gets the land'.

Nor was the land a 'wasteland', for it supported those 700,000 quite well. You don't understand the nature of a non-industrial sustenance horticultural and small animal grazing economy. It doesn't require irrigation, for the sheep, goats, olive trees, dates and vegetables sufficient to sustain local villages don't require irrigation.

The Jewish settlers were primarily from Europe, which had moved into an industrial agriculturalism about 100 years ago, and therefore, they brought these new technologies and strategies with them - irrigation, large scale mass production of food, etc.

Your bias is obvious, irwin daisy, and all I suggest is that you be aware of the differences between a non-industrial peasant agriculturalism and an industrial market agriculturalism.

Yes, vitruvius, the UN plan of 'two nations' side by side was indeed, an almost insane suggestion. But, since the situation exists, ie, that there IS a population in Israel that is majority Jewish and there IS a population in Palestine that is majority Muslim - and that these people originally came from the land base that is now Israel...what does one do? Since Israel will not accept them as citizens, and neither will any Arab nation - and they themselves don't want to be shipped off, like we ship our Inuit off to Davis Island...then, what does one do? My suggestion is two Nations, each sovereign up to a point...but economically entwined.

I don't think, ET, that your suggestion is viable, certainly not
at this time, perhaps not for quite some time, perhaps never.

"What an imbecilic line of "thought". Arabs didn't rule that piece of land anyway. The only question was how it was going to be split up. "Palestinians" got two states, but that wasn't enough for those assholes."

It's not about "ruling". It's about the fact that millions of people were already living there when the U.N., having come to the realization that nobody wanted millions of Jewish refugees on their own doorstep, decided to carve out a new homeland for them. The people already living there got scared and pissed, as would anyone in their shoes.

As it turns out, they were right to be scared, because many of the people who showed up were fanatically dedicated to the creation of an expansionist Jewish state that basically says you have to be a Jew if you want to hold any position of power. (And frankly, I can see their point... if I'd just escaped a deathcamp, I'd be thinking the same thing)

What I don't know about this conflict could fill a room, and that goes the same for everyone here. To be perfectly honest, these two groups deserve each other. They're all behaving like savages, with neither side showing the compassion and leadership to move past this bullshit. Frankly their chances of long term survival are not all that hot, because they're too focused on trying to grab everything they want, and not at all about what the other needs.

ET - Asserting an economic primacy to conflict is very "American" :-)

Look, you make a not unreasonable assumption, all else being equal. The problem is, all else is NOT equal. We have here two distinct groups of people with almost 4000 years of antagonism, a family feud writ large. You appear blind to the pure unreasonableness of simple hatred. The dislike of Montague for Capulet is but the penumbra of the loathing of Arab for Jew, and this tragedy plays out with particularly poignancy. All actions are now interpreted as an excuse to stoke the fires of hatred. But, to argue that there is a middle course between the Scylla of Zionism and the Charybdis of Hamas begs the question. Indeed, the assertion itself is perverse.

The parameters of the solution are quite simple, its implementation, however, is obscure.

Aye, Tenebris, between Scylla and Charybdis.

"nope, irwin daisy, I don't agree with you. You see, what is missing from your analysis, which is focused only on an ideology, is any reason for such an ideology to emerge and become dominant among so many people. You don't explain that. Ideologies don't 'float in the air'; if they do they dissipate like fog. An ideology emerges FROM the economic/political structure - and you utterly ignore this basic infrastructure."

When Mohammad preached during the Mecca years, it was mainly passive, arrogantly and ridiculously claiming (given that he was not Jewish) that he had been visited by Gabriel with the correct Abrahamic gospel.

This was rejected out of hand. He had perhaps 50 converts, mostly family and friends. It was only after his exile to Medina that he became militant and a caravan pirate. During this period, he developed a huge following by promising booty, slaves, rape and pillage. Not to mention, heavenly graft for fighting and dying in his/Allah's cause. This is how his ideology became dominant. Good old fashioned greed, avarice and, most importantly, lust. And it still works.

He did not fight against Christendom, at first. He fought and won against other indigenous tribes, whether Jewish or Arabian, in his home land. He forced the Jewish tribes out, or slaughtered them. Still to this day, Jews are not allowed to set foot in Saudi Arabia.

The supremacist expansion of Islam proceeded from there, refining all the political, judiciary, war and social trappings that it boasts now.

"With regard to fascism, what is missing in your dictionary definition is an understanding of its utopianism, and its description of that utopia"

Islamic utopia is what it's all about. Not just reliving the past Caliphates, but forcing the entire world to submit to Allah. This is the Islamic mission, from the outset. The entire world is already Allah's, they are simply reclaiming it. Not to mention the 72 raisons and other materialist stuff waiting for them in Islamic paradise.

"No, it didn't originate in the 7th c; Islam did but not fascist Islamism."

Boy, you're stubborn. I have proven history disagrees with you, over and over. Do you want more evidence?

"And no peoples operate only to 'war and steal'. Your view is superficial and without merit."

What else do they do? What have they ever done? What have they accomplished? And please, don't give me the so-called golden years of Andalusia. That's been debunked.

"Yes, there were 'Palestinians' in the disputed area in 1948. Your claim, irwin daisy, that there were very few, and the people who were there were primarily Jewish is historically inaccurate. The population under the British mandate was about 700,000 and was primarily NOT Jewish, but was Palestinian"

Really? Once again, history and Sir Winston Churchill disagrees with you.

Michael Medved writes:

“First of all, it’s not true in any sense that the modern Jewish State ever supplanted or destroyed an existing nation of “Palestine.” From the time of definitive destruction of the ancient Jewish commonwealth in 70 A.D., the land that comprises the current State of Israel never enjoyed independent existence but, rather, passed back and forth among competing world empires - Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader, Mamaluke, Ottoman and British. Over the course of more than 1,800 years, no nation with the name “Palestine” appeared on any maps, anywhere.”

What there had been, and what enchanted spirits such as Sir Winston’s so thoroughly, however, was a slow but steady resettlement of the Holy Land over the centuries by Jewish immigrants who, by their own industry and ingenuity, were transforming a veritable wasteland into a prosperous community. As Sir Winston detailed in his White Paper of June 1922:

“During the last two or three generations the Jews have recreated in Palestine a community, now numbering 80,000, of whom about one fourth are farmers or workers upon the land. This community has its own political organs; an elected assembly for the direction of its domestic concerns; elected councils in the towns; and an organization for the control of its schools. It has its elected Chief Rabbinate and Rabbinical Council for the direction of its religious affairs. Its business is conducted in Hebrew as a vernacular language, and a Hebrew Press serves its needs. It has its distinctive intellectual life and displays considerable economic activity. This community, then, with its town and country population, its political, religious, and social organizations, its own language, its own customs, its own life, has in fact “national” characteristics.”

Again, in 1939, before the British House of Commons Sir Winston related:

“Yesterday the Minister responsible descanted eloquently in glowing passages upon the magnificent work which the Jewish colonists have done. They have made the desert bloom. They have started a score of thriving industries, he said. They have founded a great city on the barren shore. They have harnessed the Jordan and spread its electricity throughout the land.”

But surely, all this Zionist prosperity came at the expense of the Arab Palestinians? In fact, quite the opposite is true, as Sir Winston pointed out:

“So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population.”

This fact is confirmed by many sources, including the Zionism and Israel Encyclopedic Dictionary whose excellent analysis of the Arab Revolt in Palestine states that by 1937:

“Palestine contained more Arabs than ever before in its history, and they enjoyed a higher standard of living than ever before…”

BUT (here’s where things start getting ugly)…

“…but they could only be supported as long as they were dependent on the economic activity of the Jewish minority and the investments of the Zionist movement. At the same time, the Arabs of Palestine insisted that this Jewish minority was dispossessing them and tried to rid themselves of the Jews and the Zionist enterprise. The Arabs would say that they had been impoverished by Zionist “dispossession,” but in fact they enjoyed a higher standard of living and faster economic growth than their neighbors in Syria, Jordan or Egypt.”

But of course, ideological and inbred hate ruined it for them.

ET, I believe it was Oscar Wilde who said, "The first sign of genius is contradiction." You might give up, when you've been proven wrong, once in a while. Your position is untenable.

Oh, and one more thing, ET – You say "[t]he Christian religion is one of collaboration, acceptance of one's neighbours, a separation of church and state (Caesar..etc). Perfect for an expanding economy that focused on interactive trade, stable and expanding agriculturalism etc."

No. Absolutely. Not.

Not only are these not the core of this religion, they are not even correct in corollary. Christianity accentuates unity in diversity, not collaboration; the refusal to bind the neighbour’s conscience, not acceptance; overcoming the world, not ceding autonomy to the state.

tenebris - what can I say but 'rubbish' to your claim that stating that an economic analysis is 'American'. It's basic societal analysis.

People, believe it or not, don't exist on air, either the hot air from words or from the benign smiles of Zeus. As material realities, humans must materially sustain themselves, provide shelter for themselves, maintain their health. That's the economy's task.

I disagree that 4,000 years of hatred between Jew and Muslim means 'no change', because Jews and Muslims CAN get along quite well when they are working together in the West. And even in the ME.
Emotional ideas are not genetic. I absolutely disagree that because one is a Jew, one must hate Muslims, and vice versa.

John, there weren't several million people living in the area in 1948. There were, however, over a million. The 1931 census, gave about 1.3 million in all of Palestine, with about 7-800,000 Muslims in the area that would become Israel and about 65,000 Jews in the same area. Figures are difficult because census was unreliable.

A good study is triple w dot mideastweb dot org slash palpol dot htm
Sorry about the wording but I tend to get sent to the corner when I put in a link.

The study also debunks the myth of 'all those Arabs immigrated into Israel when they thought it would be formed, as well as the myth of The Empty Land of 1948.

"The dislike of Montague for Capulet is but the penumbra of the loathing of Arab for Jew, and this tragedy plays out with particularly poignancy."

Quite right, Tenebris.

I believe Islam, in the early years anyhow, was also called Hagarism.

In many ways, it's the fight of the illegitimate heir against the legitimate.

Look at Eid, for example. The replacement on the alter of the rightful son. It's a blood feud.

ET: That 65,000 figure for Jews is surely way low.

ex-liberal?

BTW, you conceded to Vitruvius that it was "insane" for the UN to create two states there in 1947. And yet, you continue to insist on a two-state solution today which must surely be even more insane considering that both territories are now terrorist encampments whose only goal is the destruction of Israel.

"The study also debunks the myth of 'all those Arabs immigrated into Israel when they thought it would be formed, as well as the myth of The Empty Land of 1948."

A recently manipulated study, ET? Given that Churchill and others were actually eye witnesses, with no bone to pick?

More 'evidence' for the Palestinian myth.

It still seems to me, that when one is between Scylla and Charybdis, and I'm sorry to keep sounding like an engineer, or if you prefer, a broken record, it remains the case that the objective must be to get out of the situation of being between Scylla and Charybdis, rather than the more leisurely objective of the pursuit of the analysis the philosophical nuances of Scylla v. Charybdis; to that end I continue to find myself short of a viable plan to achieve said objective, and thus, finally, I ask again ~ ET, Irwin, Tenebris, Me No Dhimmi, EBD, anyone ~ what, exactly, should be done now, considering that any such proposal must have a reasonable chance of working now for it to be interesting?

Well Vitruvius if one makes the assumption that both parties want peace the solution is not far off. If both parties do not want peace the use of Baffin Island as a solution comes immediately to mind.

As Stephen noted at 21:57 yesterday, Joe, "Israel maintains the important high ground, morally and legally speaking". So who should go to Baffin Island? And under those circumstances, wouldn't it be better if they just dispersed into the generic middle-east? Indeed, if I thought such a plan was viable, that's what I would first propose. Let Israel have it's little postage-stamp sized slice of not-even-lush land, without geo-political incursions thereto, let them defend that, and stop pestering them. Does anyone think such a plan is viable, now?

"If both parties do not want peace the use of Baffin Island as a solution comes immediately to mind."

Manley, when he was Minister of Foreign Affairs, already suggested that, more or less. The Palestinians, of course, were outraged.

I don't know, Vitruvius.

ET, discounts emotions. This conflict is all about deep seated, historically ingrained emotions, supported by a religious/political ideology based, as they believe, on the uncreated and unmitigated word of Allah and the actions of his prophet.

A rational answer, to a mostly irrational problem?

The likely short answer is all out war.

The long answer is for Islam to be confronted, exposed and rejected, especially with regards to universally accepted human rights issues. Pressure and shame them into change. Their political ideology is not acceptable in todays world.

However, given the cultural cowardice and burgeoning anti-Semitism of the left, this is unlikely as well.

Certainly appeasement doesn't work. As stated earlier:

"Israeli population centers in southern Israel have been the target of over 4,000 rockets, as well as thousands of mortar shells, fired by Hamas and other organizations since 2001. Rocket attacks increased by 500 percent after Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. During an informal six-month lull, some 215 rockets were launched at Israel."

I think I have a good idea what should be done .... but you also stipulate that it has to have a reasonable chance of working now to be interesting. With the Obama admin my proposals are even more remote, nevertheless, some ideas in no particular order:

- The US needs to END all financial support to "Palestinians". This support skews the incentive structure in favour of a continuation of the conflict.
- All western infidel nations should end all finanial support to the "Palestinians".
- Western nations should stop fearing the oil weapon; elementary economics teaches us that they need to sell oil as much as we need to buy it.
- The US should consider leaving the UN, which action would destroy it.
- Shut down UNWRA which, like welfare in general, perpetuates victimism and destructive behaviour.
- The world needs to shed the insane good-terrorist/bad-terrorist delusion, and work at destroying both Fatah and Hamas. This would be consistent with the so-called GWOT and at the main front in this war.
- DESTROY FATAH AND HAMAS. Kill or arrest all their leaders, exile them.
- This current sham of a war in Gaza is probably designed to allow the good terrorists to re-take Gaza. No solution. Fatah's prime objective is the destruction of Israel just as is that of Hamas.
- Starve the "Palestinians" to the point where the Arab countries start providing ALL the aid and thereby develop some kind of financial incentive to change behaviour.
- The West should unite in a project of voluntary ethnic cleansing and offer financial incentives to "Palestinians" to move to another Arab country. This would be money well spent.
- Israel fully, unapologetically occupies Gaza and the West Bank now absent the terrorist infrastructure and begins helping the "Palestinians" create a civil society, beginning with a root-and-branch reform of the education system.
- With internatiional help Israel would supervise new investment to create an actual economy (like during the post-67 occupation -- the economic golden age for "Palestinians").
- the end game would be some kind of autonomy for "Palestinians" who choose to stay.
- there is no realistic prospect for full statehood for "Palestinians".

But this would require a political class vastly superior to the sorry lot of delusional maniacs we're stuck with, world-wide.

Now I don't know about you but I do pray for peace in the Middle East. Blessed are the peace makers and all that you know. I also try not to pick fights with people who are on my side. Luke 9:50.

In closing, because I have taken up too much of Kate's bandwidth, I say, "Without forgiveness there can never be peace"!
Posted by: Joe at December 29, 2008 5:09 PM

-----------------

What I don't know about this conflict could fill a room, and that goes the same for everyone here. To be perfectly honest, these two groups deserve each other. They're all behaving like savages, with neither side showing the compassion and leadership to move past this bullshit. Frankly their chances of long term survival are not all that hot, because they're too focused on trying to grab everything they want, and not at all about what the other needs.
Posted by: John at December 29, 2008 6:44 PM

----------------------

Posted by: Tenebris at December 29, 2008 7:09 PM

-----------------------

All very excellent posts. I am impressed. Very impressed. Although there seems to be some very significant areas that no one has touched on in this, the Mother Of All Considerations. Well, at least to some.

On to the great debate;

But of course, ideological and inbred hate ruined it for them.

ET, I believe it was Oscar Wilde who said, "The first sign of genius is contradiction." You might give up, when you've been proven wrong, once in a while. Your position is untenable.
Posted by: irwin daisy at December 29, 2008 7:32 PM

Say we start with Menachem Begin and the Irgun and the results of their efforts. Then consider the variations of revisionist histories. Moving on to references of Churchill's objectivity. Really now. The Grand Old Man was many things, and a study of his life, his family history and his associates might bring some perspective there.

After all arguments are presented, and the impressive array of historical accounts are considered, the question remains. Why would the Peoples of any modern Western Country think for a moment that this timeless struggle concerns them or that they have any place inputing into this seemingly endless cycle?

I am very much a believer in the kiss principle, and how it applies here is simple. We need to mind our own business. We are not party to this cycle of debauchery that these people, of these lands have chosen to engage in. For what seems forever.

I never said or implied that there was a solution at hand, Vitruvius, so in that sense I could just as reasonably say to you "come on Vitruvius, let's hear it, what's your solution, then?" That would be odd, of course, because you never said or implied that there was a solution.

This, in short form, is my view on any proposed solutions: I consider it unreasonable to believe that academics or anyone else can use reason to solve the problems caused by unreasonable people, or at the very least, any proposed solutions that do not fully and comprehensively take this fully-formed, intractable cultural bloodlust into account are dead in the water. And it's hubris to think that the shuffling around of ideas and anthropological terms by western intellectuals will ever -- could ever -- any effect whatsoever on the *thinking* of the Palestinians and their representatives is
The thought processes of those who grew up in the Palestinian culture of hatred are not pieces on a board game or ideas that can be maneuvered by western intellectuals.

It seems self-evident to me that the sheer irrational extent of the hatred of Jews -- now well-implanted in the next generation of little bombers -- cannot be casually elbowed aside just because it gets in the way of the theory being proffered by those who feel they have a solution.

So.....I ask you again, Vitruvius: what, *exactly*, should be done now to solve the problems in the Middle East?

/:>)>

It occurs to me that we can make a list of the principal alternative proposals that have come to be on the table in this discussion, be they viable or not, as follows:

• War to the End
• Exile (Palestinians)
• Exile (Israelis)
• Reconciliation
• Nihilism

Perhaps, mutatis mutandis, we should conduct a poll on this, if not in the name of finality, at least in the name of closure.

well folks, I have to side with ET here, as Lebenon with it's MIDDLE economic class is a complete sucess!!! NOT

Vitruvius, as I said up above the Israeli's are suffering from a pretty small set of choices here. They can "buy" peace from Hamas with some unilateral pull-backs and the like. This is what ET is basically suggesting with the removing of settlers idea.

Extending to the Palestinians full statehood doesn't really get Israel anything good, because once those borders come down the Egyptians, Syrians and etc. are -much- closer to Israeli civilians. Thing you have to remember about Israel, its SMALL. From Gaza you can hit Ashdod with artillery, its only 20 miles. A smaller distance than from Oakville to Hamilton. Its only 40 miles from Gaza to Tel Aviv, that's Hamilton to Toronto. Modern artillery pieces can reach targets 25 to 20 miles away depending on what shot they're firing. Modern truck mounted artillery missiles can easily reach 50 miles with accuracy.

So, Israel can't afford to have Egyptian artillery that close to their cities. That's why Gaza exists in the first place. Giving the Palestinians statehood puts the guns of their enemies right into the middle of Israel.

Giving the Palestinians state hood doesn't really do anything for them either. Say the Israelis go ahead and recognize Hamas as the legit government of Gaza, pull down their border posts with Egypt and book it back behind their wall. What does this get Hamas?

They don't have to dig tunnels into Egypt anymore. That's pretty much it. Any aid from Israel is gone, aid from the UN is gone, all that's left is the cruddy Gaza strip and them sitting in it. They'll be free. Free to die in the heat from their own bad sanitation habits. Obviously Hamas has to attack Israel the day after the Independence celebration is over, so that the Saudis keep slipping them guns and payola.

I'd say the Israelis are doing exactly what they should be doing. Hamas fires on them, they kill the Hamas rocketeers without killing a bunch of Palestinian bystanders. Hamas keeps firing, they drive in to Gaza, round up every son of a bishop with a gun in his hands, toss them all in jail and then go home. Rinse, repeat as required.

Really, what you have here is something like the Mohawk Warriors Society firing home made rockets at Hamilton from the reserve in Caledonia. What would we do? We'd drive over there and arrest them, is what. Fairly obvious. We'd take whatever weight of armor was required to make it past their barrage, nab them, toss their butts in jail and that would be that.

That's what the Israelis are doing. Funny how the MSM is going flat out to make that look like the Nazis bombing London.

ET - the smiley means the statement is to be interpreted humorously. Its meant to assure you that I dispute the position, not the person. I am deeply wounded…

En garde!

“People…don't exist on air, either the hot air from words or from the benign smiles of Zeus.” And man does not live by bread alone. While a full belly usually precedes violence towards ones neighbour, it oft times is the consequence.

“As material realities…”? Come, my dear – again you beg the question. Clearly, we are both darkly wise and rudely great.

“That's the economy's task.” Stop your nattering about the economy, in the sense of impersonal agent. Are you a mere Marxist? Or do you invoke a secular god to escape your own responsibilities to provide for you and yours?

“I disagree that 4,000 years of hatred between Jew and Muslim means 'no change',… I absolutely disagree that because one is a Jew, one must hate Muslims, and vice versa.” Straw man. This does not become you. I describe a cultural pattern. I do not prescribe an individual’s behaviour.

I assert what is – on the Palestinian side, societal hatred and strife inculcated into the culture by depraved and murderous creatures; on the Israeli side, at a stretch, arrogance, disdain and modest economic exploitation.

I want what ought to be – peace, harmony, mutual love and fellowship.

Like Vitruvius, I do not know how to get from A to B.

I fail to see, EBD, how you can ask me what my proposal should be, when my whole point here has been that I am in want of a viable proposal, and thus have been pestering others for assistance thereto. Should it be the case that others admit that they too are in want of a viable proposal, including you, EBD, I can accept that; perhaps, as Stratfor suggested, the problem simply is, for now, intractable. I've only been asking for the input, advice, and counsel of the many wise commenters here at Small Dead Animals, including yourself.

I light of your comment, Phantom, let's mutatis
my above list by adding the following option:

• Status Quo

irwin daisy - go to the statistical link on populations that I provided; it will show you that the population of the area in 1931 was about 1.3 million, with 7-800,000 in the area that is now Israel. Most of these were Muslims. The Ottomans and British weren't administering an empty land. Kindly check out the statistics and the census - which was done for tax and military purposes. I provided the link. Go to it.

here it is again. Try it.
triple w dot mideastweb dot org slash palpop dot htm
I hate to disturb your opinions but they might, just might, be wrong. Go check out the actual statistics.

Try to understand the difference between a sustenance agriculture, which sustains a village, and an industrial agriculture, which sets up a market economy. There's no need for irrigation etc in a sustenance agriculture.

Please understand the difference between Islam and Islamic fascism. Islam is not, in itself, as an ideology, a fascist ideology. Your intense hatred of Islam biases you to merge the two. I suggest that you read the development of Al Qaeda, which is the fascist Islam, in Wright's book, 'The Looming Tower'.

You still haven't provided a reason for whole populations moving into Islam, and sorry, I don't accept your 'greed' causality. Such individual psychological motives don't explain whole population behaviour.

No, I don't discount emotions but I don't accept them as causal of whole population behaviour. That means that for you, a whole population is bereft of reason.

Me no dhimmi - sorry, I left out a '0'. It should be 650,000 Jews in the area in 1948. Yes, it was insane but the fact is, that this IS the situation that was set up. Therefore, as vitruvius keeps asking - what does one do with the NOW?

me no dhimmi, in your plan, what citizenship would these Palestinians hold, since they were not citizens of a Palestinian state? And what do you mean by 'some kind of autonomy'?

hugger - why does it matter? Because the people on both sides are, like us, human. And second, because Islamic fascism is feeding off the I-P conflict and Islamic fascism, which has no interest in settling the I-P conflict has an interest in the West and the destruction of the West. The best means of winning against Islamic fascism - is the political system of democracy, which requires a middle class - something that the ME tribal regimes reject and this rejection is the cause of Islamic fascism.

Again, my suggestion is that Israel stop its expansion of the settlements, take down the Wall, and actively enable the development of a democratic state of Palestine - with an economy that is necessarily linked to that of Israel. As for Islamic fascism, that has to be fought, but it is a profound error, as I feel irwin daisy makes, to merge Islam and Islamic fascism. The two are quite different.

ET:
IF Israel would recognize that original UN resolution, and both allow and enable a Palestinian state -

Israel did in 1948. What was the result? you guessed it. War by ALL neighboring Arab States. Than many conflicts latter. They won that land by blood, than have given portions up like the Sinai or the Golan heights. They even forced there own at 2 or more billion by themselves to evacuate ( I call it at gun point) settlers off land so Gaza could be Jew free. Yet the rockets continue to fall. Some things are not rooted in economics, or logic. It comes from a peoples soul for ill or good. Both hate & love are the greatest of motivators. Even a beggar will die for what they cherish. Mohammed made the mold ,they are just the clay poured in that hateful shape. Israel is only an out post of the Caliphate conflict by Iran & Saudi Arabia. To Islamify the Planet. Hamas is just linked to that theater of the war. They no more care for Palestinians than infidels, that the first Iraqi war proved. Its an excuse of an eons long hate.
JMO

Oh, and by the way Kate. We are in the midst of an economic tsunami. Isn't that a tad more important to we lowly North Americans who can only stand in the shadow of the great engineers of the resurrection of the Great Quest of the search for the Holy Grail?

Still, I did find the debate titillating, interesting and somewhat informative. I extend my sincere appreciation to those good people who have shared their studies and perspectives.

We learn by sharing the things we experience.

As we learn, we come to know that some people are destined to suffer, by their own hand. And all we can effectively do, is offer a helping hand when they have finished with their mutually imposed horror.

It is not for us to comb the annals of history to determine whose cause is righteous. I could try to explain to you the essence of getting in the middle, but I expect you wouldn't listen anyway.

I could try to explain to you what it is to stand in the middle of a hatred that you weren't a party to. But I expect you wouldn't listen to that either.

The intellectual debate circumvents the piss that runs down your leg the first time you fire on a target you can't see, that's firing on you.

ET's solution makes the most sense. Her historical analysis is not completely accurate, but she understands the core of the current conflict and how it must be resolved. The only option which will permit the survival of Israel is reconciliation and the establishment of a Palestinian state. All other courses will lead inevitably to the Jewish state's destruction. This is the course upon which they are currently set.

Most posting here obviously support Israel, but you must understand that in the world at large they are viewed as the villain. Their very right to exist is coming into question. By playing into the hands of the jihadists, they are only hastening their own end.

ET: Take down the wall? You mean the one that reduced suicide bombing by what 99%. The one that went up only after about 1000 innocent Jewish civilians were mass-murdered in buses and pizzerias.

You mean as a kind of proactive good will gesture? Like say the good-will gesture of destroying all those Jewish homes in Gaza and making it judenrein?

Hugger:

I say this kindly. You have issues, personaly i would have seen a Dr. by now. Please do so for your own sake if not your family's.
Happy Trails

And your plan, Hugger, Belisarius, Revnant Dream, would be: what, exactly? Look, seriously, I'm not actually trying to be a pest, folks. Nevertheless, to the degree that it remains the case that none of us actually have a viable plan: can't we just admit it? Does not failing to admit same endanger skating on the thin ice of hubris?

Hugger:

I say this kindly. You have issues, personaly i would have seen a Dr. by now. Please do so for your own sake if not your family's.
Happy Trails
Posted by: Revnant Dream at December 29, 2008 10:00 PM

If you could explain my issues in a more comprehensive manner,then your opin may be of greater value to those who frequent this site, and yourself as well.

Posted by: Vitruvius at December 29, 2008 10:07 PM

Vitruvius, what did I say? I know you're not an idiot.

I don't know why you're asking me, Hugger,
I would have thought you knew what you said.

I don't why people are arguing about the jewish/muslim population in the 1930 in Palestine.

That's mostly irrelevant.

In my opinion the future of Israel/ Palestine conflict is mostly rooted in demography. The arab population is growing more rapidely than the jewish population. That's causing tensions.

Don't forget that there are 1.5 million Arabs in Israel. Citizen of Israel and growing fast.

Personally I predict that when the arabs will form about 30% of Israel population (1 generation fromnow), the conflict will mostly move inside Israel. It is likely to be political.

Posted by: Vitruvius at December 29, 2008 10:28 PM

I'm not asking anything of you Vitruvius. Or for that matter any persons who see the world from a singular perspective.

Every person sees the world from a singluar perspective: theirs. However, as we've gotten off topic, and as this thread is beginning to exhibit the signs of a discussion that is no longer producing a satisfactory signal to noise ratio, it's probably a good time for me to leave. We'll see.

Every person sees the world from a singluar perspective: theirs.

Posted by: Vitruvius at December 29, 2008 10:48 PM

No Vitruvius , that is where you are wrong. There is so very much to consider. How could any thinking, caring, intelligent individual ever think that they have come to know all that there is to know?

Some people see the world from a singular perspective. Some people constantly question why? And in their hearts, they really want to know.

It transcends the stupidity of patronage.

Perhaps, but it's off-topic. There are rules here, you know.

osted by: Vitruvius at December 29, 2008 11:10 PM

Good Sir, we as a People have to venture forward as one.

It's not that complicated if we choose to eliminate those whose intent it is to set us upon each other. For their own gain.

All of us have so much in common. If only we could realize that.

You speak of rules. Such a convenience for some.

ET,

Fascists champion the nation. The Ummah is the Muslim nation. Muslims, in general, are loyal towards the Ummah first and foremost. That is what the Caliphate is about. That is what dar al Harb and dar al Islam is about. That is what the Islamic ideology has always been about.

And, if you don't like greed, avarice and lust, here's another answer for whole populations moving into Islam:

Boston University anthropologist Charles Lindholm, wrote, "The Muslim message of the equality of all believers struck a cord with the common people of the empires, who, theoretically at least, were liberated from their inferior status by the simple act of conversion. The rise of Islam was both an economic and social revolution, offering new wealth and freedom to the dominions it assimilated under the banner of a universal brotherhood guided by the message of the Prophet of Allah."

Well, good enough then, that is given the alternative - dhimmitude for Jews and Christians and death for Polytheists.

I maintain that the Palestinian problem is a microcosm; a flashpoint of the much larger issue. That being the ideology of Islam in general. Until it is wholly confronted, rather than appeased; until it is rejected in no uncertain terms as antithetical to universally accepted human rights and the western way of life, there will be more and more Palestinian type problems all over the world.

"In a final "Policy Response" section of his book, 'The Art of War on Terror: Triumphing over Political Islam and the Axis of Jihad,' Moorthy Muthuswamy suggests a multi-pronged plan of action. He advocates the potential weakening of political Islam through the discrediting of its theological foundation and manufactured Muslim grievances. He recommends a change in focus away from individual terrorist groups and the axis of evil to the axis of jihad, even to the point of formally charging Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran with crimes against humanity. Muthuswamy further contends that the strengthening of India, as well as a coalition between India and Israel, could act as a counterforce to political Islam and the axis of jihad. Recognizing the physical threat of the global jihad, he acknowledges the necessity of developing a comprehensive allied nuclear retaliatory strategy to fight jihadist nations.

SrđaTrifkovic:

It will not be “discrimination” if and when Islam is reclassified as a cult-cum-political ideology, inherently seditious to all forms of human organization other than itself, and eminently deserving of the kind of treatment meted out in the U.S. to, say, Bolsheviks after 1917 and anarchists after 1901.

Nevertheless, it remains the case that as clearly stated in cyan below, as a precondition for participation in this private property known as Small Dead Animals: Ensure your comment is on topic[...]. This is not a forum or a repository for off-topic link dumps. [...] Take your extended debates and/or flamewars to private email. Thank you. That's not your choice, nor mine, it's Kate's. Respect it or leave.

Posted by: Hugger at December 29, 2008 9:53 PM>

“We are in the midst of an economic tsunami”.

What economic tsunami would that be? I’m doing fine, as well as anyone else I know in Canada. Either we are truly and naively blind to our own economics, or its Liberal crapolla fed to the masses. Otherwise it simply might be just good conservative governance and not paying attention to the Liberal pandering and fear mongering.

Honestly I can’t believe how much cyber ink and human endeavor was wasted on this pathetic non-Canadian issue, Israel verses Palestine. Who cares? This is none of our business and Canada should sit back and watch them duke it out! One will win and peace will ensue eventually. Ya ya of course Iran, Syria and whatever other tribal crap-hole that holds the world hostage to oil and terrorist demands will jump in on Israel. I have a pretty strong feeling that it will all sort itself out in the end.

And by the by what ever happened to the food for oil program? I think if we extend the offer from food to pharmaceuticals and discounted chemotherapy equipment, we’ll have the king’s share of oil. (Pardon the pun).

(just returning to computer now, can't resist just one more post)

The demographic question is just arsenal for those who think that the Jews displaced/stole the land of ancient Palestinians. In 1947 when the UN partition plan was proposed (and accepted by Jews but rejected by Arabs - I repeat THEY COULD BE CELEBRATING THEIR 60 YEARS OF STATEHOOD), Jews were in the majority in areas that were to be the Jewish state and Arabs were the majority in lands to be partitioned as an Arab state. EXCEPT for Jerusalem where Jews were in the majority. The partition plan called for Jerusalem to be an international zone (or something like that) (You know Rome capital of Christianity, Mecca capital of Islam, but Jerusalem, no no that can't possibly be the capital of a Jewish state). All the demographic studies show the Arab population rising, so if the Jews are the Evil Occupying Force brutalizing and displacing the Arabs, how is it that their population keeps rising? Rather than displacement, Arabs flocked from Jordan, Egypt, Syria etc. to the areas economically improved by the Jews. Yes there were only about 650,000 Jews in 1947/48 when the Arabs rejected the UN two state solution, and those 650,000 had to fight off 5 Arab countries bent on their destruction. A little bit amazing, no?
Oh and by the way, from 1948-1967, the "West Bank" was held by Jordan, and Gaza was held by Egypt, but did we hear anyone shouting that the Jordanians and Egyptians were denying the "poor ancient Palestinians" their right to statehood. So called Palestinan nationalism was made up after the 6 day war - the ETs of the world will deny this, but the evidence exists - since they could not beat the Jews militarily,there was a conscious decision made, with the help of Soviets, to retool perceptions so it became not the Arab/Israeli conflict, but the Israeli/Palistinian conflict (with Israel on the top and the Palistinians - not Arabs - able to fight only with stones and by suiciding themselves.
And the evil occupation post 1967? Oh you mean the one where infant mortality amongst Arabs dropped, life expectancy increased, literacy increased, universities were opened, 10s of 1000s of Arabs worked in Israel? Please spare me the crocodile tears about what could this poor generation do having had to live as victims of Zionism. Oh I forgot, they had to live with "fanaticdal settlers" (read non-secular observant Jews) - how dare those Jews try to live amongst Arabs - there should be no Jews in the state of Palestine.

Peace will come when the rest of the world says to the Arabs - you were offered a two state solution in 1947, you turned it down, you must accept responsibility for your actions - here is money if you want to relocate, otherwise if you want to stay, you must swear allegiance to the state of Israel - now get on with your life.

(Joe - I used the Christian source because I thought that would be more meaningful to you - there are many many Jewish sites I could have linked to. I know that we are friends. Remember "first the Saturday people, then the Sunday people" - their words.

me no dhimmi - "jewicidal" LOL, love that, an apt description.

Ex-liberal if you wanted to use a Christian source then please use a Christian source. The Adventists are at best pseudo-Christian, with their heavy reliance on "the Law". The source you cited simply uses "modern archeology" as some kind of justification for a pre-held point of view with out actually showing any studies that would back up his claim. Kind of the Liberal way of "studies show" without any actual studies.

I always find it funny when I read these commentators because they seek to refute what is plainly written. Its as if they believe that they know better the application of the writing than the author himself. If one assumes that Moses wrote Leviticus then to say that "an eye for an eye" does not apply would mean that the observance of the Sabbath does not apply also. Since the same man brought both concepts into law.
If Moses wrote both don't you think that he knew what he was writing? Don't you think that if he wanted the law to be interpreted in another way he would have written it as such?

I have the same issue with St Paul's critics. If one part of Paul's writings doesn't apply because it doesn't fit with modern sensibilities then Paul's writings can not be used as justification for anything that you would now hold near and dear. Its kind of like cutting off the branch you are standing on. As Christians you and I don't have the luxury of picking and choosing in this regard no matter what some hair brained commentator might say. One of the great stumbling blocks amongst Evangelical Christians is the over reliance on Commentators. I can't tell you the number of "Bible" studies I have gone to only to discover that the Bible is never even opened! We are studying some silly commentary. You wouldn't believe how many of those studies I have shut down simply by reading the Bible to the study.

ex-liberal: Just got around to reading your post, which I find most excellent. I concur with every point you make here, and especially appreciate your remarks about the "Palestinian" golden age post 1967. Also, your point -- which I often make myself -- about the complete absence of "Palestinian nationalism" when Gaza and the West Bank were occupied by Egypt and Jordan, respectively, and illegally, between 1948-1967. Not a peep.

Also, of course your point about the invention of the "Palestinian" people -- a huge propaganda coup (KGB inspired I believe) of making Israel Goliath and the "Palestinians" David.

BTW, if I'm not mistaken, I believe it was from you that I first heard the remark: "The Palestinians got their state -- Jordan". It puzzled me a first until I later learned that 80% of the mandate -- set aside for the Jews -- was cut out for Jordan.

I think your posts on the Israel-Arab conflict are the best I've seen here at sda.