The Harper government is refusing to join the United States in calling for a return to 1967 borders as a starting point for Mideast peace, a position that has drawn sharp criticism from Canada’s staunch ally Israel.
As usual, the best part of the Globe article is in the comments. Surely, there is some type of opportunity just waiting to be exploited with so many leftist anti-Semites gathering in one place?
h/t Revnant Dream
Al Macey #2 >
I believe the dirty word you are looking for here is “Nationalism”. Because that is a right wing polarization term with the left. On the other hand Anti-Semitism is a trait of the left-wing.
Hitler was undeniably a product of both, and forever ostracized the belief in “Nationalism” for all white peoples, and cemented the misconception that right-wingers are anti-Semites. In fact it is the left that that generally uses a passive aggression towards other races, first and foremost towards their own, while patronizing selected others. Their extreme leftist anarchists use open violence regularly to advance their ideologies.
To call anti-Semite Neo Nazi’s “right wingers” or far right conservatives by way of association with Hitler worship is bizarre. They are more closely related to lefty eco terrorists with different aims than anything else the planet has unfortunately produced.
Al Macey,
The failed austrian painter was most assuredly a socialist. Communists were just the competition he detested since he recognized the strong similarities. He promised people everything, and borrowed massively. Hmmm, remind you of another socialist someone?
“Surely, there is some type of opportunity just waiting to be exploited with so many leftist anti-Semites gathering in one place?”
No kidding. I commented there as such. What a cesspool of hatred and bigotry.
Al Macey is what’s known as a concern troll.
I was in Syria and Iraq, (also Iran, but heard no mention of it there…the Shah was still in power), in 1963, and since there weren’t too many Westerners wandering around with backpacks at that time we were often approached by locals, (especially in Syria), telling us they would soon “Kill the Jews”.
We, prudently kept our mouths shut, but I have, over the past 40+ years, asked those who suggest the ‘1967 borders’ WHY, if the 1963 borders weren’t good enough for the Arabs, would ANYONE think that the 1967 borders would be acceptable.
Further to the ‘Nazi’ exchange…..at the abovementioned time we were often/always asked if we were “Deutsch”, (again we learned it was prudent to nod in the affirmative), and were told, (this being only 18 years after the end of WWII), that they loved the Germans, “Because the Germans killed Jews”.
Even at age 20, and politically uncommitted, it struck me as odd that the Arabs appeared not to realize that they too would have been on the ‘undesirables’ list……ah, but that’s the M.E. for you.
ET “That is, they ECONOMICALLY merge and SOCIALLY remain separate.”
That’s pretty much what happened between Quebec and the ROC. We don’t hate each other but there is no love between us and yet for “factual” economic reasons we’ve had the common sense so far to have a federation that is ECONOMICALLY merged and SOCIALLY separate.
Economics will drive the Israel/Pal problem to a solution. I was just over there and water is a massive issue, the Sea of Galilee is essentially being drained. There is no way to divide up Jordon Israel and Palestine in a way that doesn’t offer each access to an appropriate amount of water. So I would add to ET’s idea of a federation being the solution (with Israel and Palestine being provinces) that even Jordon get into that triangle for economic and ecological reasons, particularly water. To the naysayers, a sensible economic solution will have to happen because a lot of people will get snuffed out if it doesn’t.
Abe Froman – gosh, your description of ‘life in the Islamic society’ sounds very similar to ‘life in the 10th century in Europe’.
Your insistence that people are genetically embedded to have specific beliefs – again, just so did the Third Reich describe the Jews – well, your insistence that people are genetic constructs is…utterly scientifically invalid.
nemo2 – 50 years, a generation ago, is a long time and the example is therefore a ‘false analogy’. And as we can see from even this thread, insisting that a Set of people are basically evil and ought to be wiped off the earth, is hardly confined to Islamists.
Al Macey- as others have pointed out, your description of the Third Reich and Hitler as ‘right wing’ is completely, factually, wrong. Fascism – and Hitler- are ‘left’. The facts that you must use to define the difference between a right and left political mode is not whether the govt is aligned with business or not – for all govts are aligned with business..but, whether the focus is on the collective or the individual.
If the focus is on the collective, it’s a leftist ideology. If it’s on the individual, it’s a right ideology. Fascism and the Third Reich are collectivists; their focus was on the homogeneity and solidarity of the group; individual dissent, enterprise, privacy, freedom…including in private business – was rejected.
No, ‘nationalism’ per se is neither right nor left. The question has to be on whether this emotional bond is collective or individual. Fascism is group-based, it is collective.
Fascism posits that a utopian state existed..at some time in the past. The agenda is to purify the population in mode, belief and behavior to return to this state of utopian purity. Communism posits that a utopian state will exist at some time in the future – and that there are steps to take to reach this perfection. Same thing: utopia of the collective…just a different time frame.
Thanks nomdeblog for your insight. The focus is indeed, economic. And water is a key if not the major issue. So I stand by my analysis. A people, no matter how ‘human’ cannot live within the level only of words and beliefs that exist within and only within words. Words, words, words – that’s the bane of the left, the sophist.
Fortunately or unfortunately, despite the immense power of our words (oh..didn’t we just go through the End of the World yesterday?? Words?)..we are material beings. And we have to nurture that material reality. That means that we shut up with the words and take a hard look at our material reality.
In the ME the reality is massive population increase (that provides not only a Mental Force but also a Material Force); lack of arable land, serious problems with water…and..the current economic mode can’t deal with these problems. So – they must change their economic and political mode.
In Israel-Palestine, which are affected by the above, they have the same problem. They must deal with these material problems…and the only solution I can see..is that economic federation with societal uniqueness.
Of course, both sides can ontinue to live only in the mental and emotional modes..and we know the results. The death of the material modes. But, eventually, the material reality rises up and ‘we smell the coffee’ so to speak. Reality and facts, in my view, always win out in the end over words, mere words.
ET: nemo2 – 50 years, a generation ago, is a long time and the example is therefore a ‘false analogy’.
……………..
I left Saudi Arabia 22 years ago; by the time I departed from there not much had changed in the 25 years since I was in Syria….perhaps these (imaginary) changes occurred overnight?
I think ET is probably right about most everything she said, but I also think in the end it won’t matter.
I firmly believe the problem will be solved by war. Two more opposed antagonists can hardly be imagined. Even though the Israelis are culturally Western and thus inclined to observe Fair Play and all our other marks of civilized behavior, the Arabs are -not-.
Left to themselves, the Israelis would easily conquer Egypt and Syria/Lebanon, or at least seize enough land to make their position defensible. Barbarians are great at atrocity, but they suck at war.
Unfortunately Israel has historically not been left to themselves, due to the Cold War. Well, the Cold War is over. Russians no longer supply the Egyptians and the Syrians with stuff. Iran does. Iran isn’t very -big- and it is run by barbarian @ssholes who believe in witchcraft. Israel can -beat- them.
The other thing that’s happening, slowly, is the return of what’s disparagingly referred to in the literature as “cultural chauvinism”. This refers exclusively to Westerners who refuse to make allowances for uncivilized behavior in regional populations like the Middle East.
The West is quietly getting tired of multiculturalism, which is really all that keeps barbarians like Hamas in business. Without UN support and imposed restraint on the Israelis from Europe and the USA, Hamas would last at most a week.
I figure the Israelis will pounce on them one of these days after some random, pointless atrocity, the European and North American press will say “GO FOR IT” and that will be that. Short victorious war, transport of “refugees” to the new border, end of the game thanks for playing.
Lefties screamed “RACIST!!!” one too many times. Its getting to be that if you haven’t been labeled a RACIST!!! you’re not worth talking to.
ET “In the ME the reality is massive population increase (that provides not only a Mental Force but also a Material Force); lack of arable land, serious problems with water…and..the current economic mode can’t deal with these problems. So – they must change their economic and political mode.”
Below is what is going on with respect to water (a wiki cut and paste) and it underlines the need for a federation approach to economics as ET suggests. Also don’t forget these (Israel,Jordan, the Pals) are still weenie entities in terms of population. Although the population growth is exploding the need for food and water, the absolute size of these populations is not yet sufficient to underwrite large water projects unless they co-operate … as the ROC, Quebec and the USA did with the St Lawrence Seaway for example.
“The Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal (sometimes called the Two Seas Canal) is a proposed canal which would run from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea and provide electricity and potable water to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority. This proposal has a major role in plans for economic cooperation between Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians, through the Peace Valley plan. The water level in Dead Sea is shrinking at a rate of more than one metre per year, and its surface area has shrunk by about 30% in the last 20 years. This is largely due to the diversion of about 90% of the water volume in the Jordan River. In the early 1960s, the river moved 1.5 billion cubic metres of water every year from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. But dams, canals and pumping stations built by Israel and Jordan to divert water for crops and drinking have reduced the flow to about 100 million cubic metres.
A shorter route for a canal to stop the Dead Sea from shrinking, the Mediterranean-Dead Sea Canal, has been proposed in Israel, but was discarded due to high investment costs of the needed long tunnel.
Phantom “I firmly believe the problem will be solved by war”. Possibly. But in Jordan for example Turkey has underwritten the 325 Kilometer Disi Water pipeline project for $1 billion. Turkey has a very very big army. They are not going to watch that pipeline get blown up. The economies over there are getting rapidly intertwined and that is the best path to peace.
“The economies over there are getting rapidly intertwined and that is the best path to peace.”
Not necessarily. Let’s remember that in 1939, Germany and France were each others’ biggest trade customers.
The best path to peace is democracy. Fruitful long-term trade is just a happy consequence of free societies, not it’s cause. Since the 19th century, when democratic societies and governments were finally in place all over the Anglosphere and Europe, no democracies have ever gone to war with each other.
Can democracy take root and overcome autocratic dictatorships and Islamism? That’s the question mark in that benighted corner of the world, the Middle East.
phantom – I don’t think war will do it. War can have a robust effect; it can force an old infrastructure into collapse, but then, a new one must be developed. That’s the key focus; the infrastructure.
In the West, the great era of a necessary deconstruction of its old two-class feudal mode took place between, let’s say the 13th through 16th centuries. The basic problems were the same as those in the ME: massive increases in population, inadequacy of the old economic and political modes to support this new demographics.
They tried war (to retain the old mode); and diseases and famines took their toll. They lasted longer than the ME can because they were also able to get rid of excess population by developing communication tactics – the New World and shipping excess population there.
The Middle East is exporting its population to Europe and N America, and our ignorant and naive policy of multiculturalism has set up a mode where it’s OK to ‘bring your old beliefs and behavior to the new home’..rather than integrate. That’s proven disastrous everywhere – and is changing.
But even so, the basic facts are material and these are what have to be addressed in the ME.
The massive increase in population, the serious lack of arable land and water to sustain this population; the statist economic mode that functions within only one major means of producing wealth – and it is state-owned (oil, Suez tolls, tourism).
This mode is inadequate to support the population and it must move to a small private business economic mode of producing wealth. This means that the political mode must change to empower these new business people..who are the emerging middle class.
So, this means that the political mode must move from a two-class no-change, no-growth mode to a three-class dynamic mode based on increasing wealth, increasing the ratio of wealth-producers…to a large middle class. This also means, politically, democracy – which is the political mode that empowers a middle class.
Whew – those are a lot of changes. These are based in a hard objective confrontation with the material realities: population, capacity to produce food/water; capacity to produce wealth.
Then, these infrastructural changes must be developed – and the Old Rulers will fight it every step of the way. And then..the old embedded beliefs and behavior of the ME: anti-individual, collectivist, faith-based, anti-reason, apocalpytic, militant…these must change. Ideologies are always the last to change, because it’s easier to hold onto words and beliefs…since they float in your mind unattached to reality. But hard reality must be confronted.
So- war might deconstruct the power of the Old Rulers and enable a new infrastructure to develop. That happened in Europe…My focus is on the vital importance of that new infrastructure. It has to change; they have no choice. They can’t go back to the Old Way.
The Third Reich was an attempt to return to the Old Way. Didn’t work, but the Marshall Plan had to move in to enable the construction of a new modern economic mode.
IMO, the Jewish people stopped being pets of the left when they stopped being victims and learned how to fight back. When I was a kid (right after WWII) I used to wonder why the Jewish people climbed into railroad cars to certain death and/or enslavement; why did they not risk it all when the brownshirt thugs broke down the doors? This I wondered because my Dad kept guns and I knew that he would use a gun on anyone who threatened his family. I did not understand the herd mentality. Forty years later I saw (with horror) many people in Canada voluntarily give their guns to the liberano gument!! It is useless to think that a man can stop thugs with guns if that man does not have a gun. Once captured it is too late to fight or run. I also witnessed the collapse of many businesses because of a smoking ban; rather than standing up for themselves, those businesses just gave in and went bankrupt. Then the parents of school kids did not kick up a stink when teachers decided what they would teach and the parents still sent their own flesh and blood to school and did not refuse to pay the teachers! Most Canadians have turned into sheep who are willing to ‘pay off’ the Liberty thieves: just like the Jewish people of the pre WWII period – they want to live and keep their ‘stuff’. This is the path to losing both.
Israelis fought back at the end of WWII, esp in the Warsaw Ghetto. Few survived but those that did opened the eyes of other Jewish people and Israel was set up with a Warsaw Ghetto template – the Israeli soldier is a formidable man. The left hates formidable men. I met a four Israeli Soldiers when I went skiing in Switzerland in 1976 – they made the backpacking North Americans look weak and seedy. The ‘love and peace’ chant of the anti Vietnam people, extended to the American soldiers fighting that war, made America/Americans and Canadians weak. We lost all the respect, honor and tough independent moral fiber that the pioneers had earned, at home and abroad.
That picture of ‘the President and the Prime Minister’ (Mr.Obama and Mr.Netanyahu) is a powerful image; which man would you trust with your families’ lives, with your own life, with your country? No brain question, IMO.
dave in pa – democracy isn’t a floating mode of governance. It rests within a specific economic mode: capitalism and the middle class.
Again, a middle class is not the govt-funded reams of bureaucrats. A middle class is a set of the population who are engaged in private small to medium businesses and private wealth production. This class must be politically empowered and democracy is the only mode that empowers a middle class.
So – what some of us are arguing for is not either-or (democracy rather than economic mode). It is BOTH. You can’t have a middle class economy without a democratic mode. And the ME can no longer sustain its population using a statist govt redistributive mode of wealth production based around one resource.
Then, as nomdeblog points out, the material realities on the ground – which are demographics, water and arable land – are beyond the capacities of any one nation in the ME. You must, if you want water in your single nation, collaborate. Democracy alone won’t do a thing to bring you water. You must collaborate with your local neighbours to set up massive water treatment and water source plants. You have no choice.
So- you have collaboration as a necessity. You have enabling a switch in wealth production from single source statist redistribution to private enterprise wealth production. You have a switch from a two-class no-growth, no-change structure to a risk-taking, growth oriented private enterprise three class structure. And..dropping the tribalism for democracy to empower that new middle class.
None of these changes are easy. It took the West 400 violent years to do it. It will be faster in the ME, but violence is part of it as the Old Rulers resist (Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iran???).
Oh, and the West has to reject multiculturalism. You can’t move to the West and think that you can simply set up The Old Way in a new land base.
ET;
Your suggestion that Israeli control of the WB has nothing to do with defence is ridiculous.
An enemy tank on the other side of a river poses far less of a threat to you than an enemy tank on your side of the river. One need not be a military tactician to understand that simple truth.
Hitler was very much a socialist. After coming to power, one of the first things he did was unionize all labour in the country. Another thing he was responsible for was the development and manufacture of the “people’s car” through a nationalized auto industry. For those who don’t know, “people’s car” in German = “Volks Wagon”. It always amuses me when hippie leftards claim that Hitler wasn’t socialist and then they drive away in their Jetta/bug/micro-bus, direct descendants of Hitler’s original designs…
“The best path to peace is democracy.”
Agree Dave in Pa which is the Bush Doctrine which, if you x-out Obama’s comment about the 67 map, his speech ( inadvertently?) adopted. But free market entrepreneurialism is also the only economic approach that will sustain large populations. And free markets will drive the ME to democracy because they go hand and glove; as China will find out gradually with its hybrid capitalism driving it to democracy. Free markets and democracy are a chicken and egg. So yes, it is both free markets and democracy that are the path to prosperity and peace.
“Can democracy take root and overcome autocratic dictatorships and Islamism?”
Yes because the only thing that has kept tribal Islamism afloat so far is outside money, OUR money…from oil funding in the hands of despots. But it hasn’t trickled down to the ME peasants and the population explosion cannot even feed itself. So the socio-political-ideology of Islamism will die out because it won’t work economically any more than communism did. The Arab Spring is a revolt leading to democracy and free markets.
Some will argue that the MB will be like Mugabe and hijack the economy all over again and the 2-class system will continue under a different despot. The MB will try but it can’t work any more than Mugabe works and eventually the growing population will move toward democracy and free markets or die of starvation …but people don’t just die, they rebel.
bob c – nope; I’ll maintain my points. The W Bank is about control of arable land and water. Not defense. If it were for defense, you wouldn’t have settlements because they are key contributors to anger and rebellion among the Palestinians. You’d just have tanks. Tanks.
But there’s half a million settlers in the W Bank and Israeli control of the water; that’s the key desirability. Not defense.
ET, control of arable land and water -is- defense. Can a people who want to survive let an avowed enemy control their water? In a desert?
Ask the farmers in California’s Imperial Valley how its working out for them, having the Greenies from the EPA control their water.
There’s also the issue of Syrian/Egyptian/Jordanian artillery being kept more than 20 miles away from Israel’s population centers. You can’t live in a city that your enemies can shell anytime they want. The West Bank was captured in war for those reasons, and it stays as it is for those reasons (and because the Jordanians -hate- the Palestinians).
Frankly, if the West Bank were in Canada we would have driven the lot of them across the river into Jordan 40 years ago. To pretend otherwise is to deny Canadian history, we’ve done worse things for less reason.
That’s what will finally bring peace to Israel.
Nobody is going to negotiate -jack- with the fruitloops of Hamas because it is impossible. They are not amenable to a negotiated solution, even one where they get 100% of everything they say they want. Arafat proved that. If every Jew in Israel walked into the Mediterranean tomorrow morning and floated off to Italy in inner tubes, the Palestinians would all run to the beach, swim out and try to drown them.
The rocket attacks will continue and the rockets will keep getting better and better. Eventually something bad will happen, probably some kind of NBC attack, and the tanks will roll, and the Gaza/West Bank survivors will end up in Egypt and Jordan.
And that, as they say, will be that.
“The people in the ME are not going to exchange one dictatorial regime for another.”
But they will!
ET
“First – the Israeli people and the Palestinian people exist.
Third – Israel won’t annex the W Bank because to do so would mean giving citizenship to its Palestinian occupants.”
Isrealis exist by their own determination. The Palestinians are a creation by the Muslim nations and the UN support agencies.
The motive of the former is to maintain a festering sore towards destroying Isreal…the latter as a raison d’etre.
Your third point has some merit…but also supports my position is the Palestinians are a ficticious entity and are simply Eygptians and Jordanians. Eygpt and Jordan formally annexed Gaza and the West Bank.
The recent observance of “Nabka” (tragedy or calamity)with reference to 1948, reinforces the truth that both PA and Hamas have no interest in a 2 state solution and ME arabs are intent on a NO state solution.
It is reality that if Isreal had lost the 1948, 1967, 1971 war…there would be no Isreal or a Palestinian state.
The inconvenient truth is that Palestine prior to Jewish immigration was a parched, sparsely populated area as Jordan still is. Prior to the Jewish settlers, the valley of Jezreel was a desert.
Both Jewish and Arab residents of Palestine are immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants. The sophistry that the arabs are the aboriginals is just that, sophistry.
There is some merit to that haridan, Helen Thomas’ suggestion that Jews return to Poland if the Arabs return to Eygpt and Jordan and the other arab homelands from whence they came.
But then you already know this…..
I support returning to the pre- A.D. 67 borders.
[quote] If it were for defense, you wouldn’t have settlements because they are key contributors to anger and rebellion among the Palestinians.[quote] ET
That statement is false…The Settlements may be a impediment to peace, but both defence & settlements go hand in glove. Water may be a key issue to the sustanability of the settlements, but it is an agunctive issue to that of defense.
Interesting that the Man-Child made an anti-UN
statement today…The Obama administration is totally disfunctional
JMHO
phantom – nope, I disagree with all your points. I suggest that your view is pure rhetoric. Words. Hard reality trumps words every time.\
And no, control of arable land and water is not the same as defense; you are stretching the meaning of the term. The reason given by Israel for maintaining occupation of the W Bank is not to control the arable land or water (they never mention either)..but as a military zone to buffer the rest of Israel.
And I disagree with your view that All Palestinians hate All Jews. The same could be said, in reverse, for the settlers. We have to get beyond words.
sasquatch- I disagree. The Palestinians were not a creation by the Muslim nations and the UN. They are the inhabitants, for centuries of that land base. Are you saying that their inhabitation was ‘ficticious’???
It is completely illogical to state that unless a people are a distinct ethnic group then they have no right to a nation. That view, by the way, is fascist, and held by that infamous man-with-the-moustache of WWII. He was all for ethnic identities tied to inherent nationalism.
And to say that, despite their having lived there for centuries they were ‘really Egyptian or Jordanian’ is akin to people here who say that, despite people having lived in the US or Canada for generations..they are ‘really’ Irish or German or Polish’ or ‘Chinese’..or..African. Both views are, in my estimation, invalid.
The fact that people were already settled for generations and living in the land base allotted by the UN to the Jews can’t be ignored. There is absolutely no legal or moral requirement to say that they must be a ‘distinct ethnic group’ to have any legitimacy to living there.
First, even the Jews can’t claim ‘essentialist rights’ to any land. A nation is a political construct not a genetic or essentialist entity. The ME was populated by many peoples both before and after the era of ancient Judaism. There’s no such thing as an inherent right to any land. That includes the native peoples of America and Canada.
And the fact that the economic mode of the time was dry horticulture that supported that size of population very well is not the same as your ‘parched desert’ imagery. You ignore reality. The people there were using a non-industrial dry horticulture; it does not require irrigation or deep plough, it does not require extensive use of water resources. It can support, in health, a limited size population. And that’s what it did.
What the Israelis did was to bring in European style agriculture (not horticulture) that is based on industrial technologies (not just goats and donkeys for energy); that requires extensive irrigation and water resources – and that can support larger populations. They were able to do this, because Europe had, in a different climate and with extensive water resources, already developed a wet agricultural technology.
Recent immigrants? The majority of the Palestinians had been living there for centuries, under Ottoman rule. Are you seriously considering that the land was vacant??
And I disagree further; there is no reason to assume that the ME peoples will, rejecting their current dictatorships, select a new dictatorial regime..eg..an Islamic fundamentalism. You are ignoring the material reality: the fact that the population explosion requires a radical transformation in economic and political mode.
As for returning to ‘old homelands’ – I disagree. You can’t turn back the clock. Israel exists, the Palestinians exist. And in, for example, Canada, would you suggest that everyone leave for ‘their old homelands’? What’s a homeland? Our species has migrated all over the world; there is no ‘original’ homeland.
So the problem becomes: what does one do with the over half a million people living in that area of 1948? Israel didn’t want them; they were the ‘wrong religion’. So?
Philip G. Shaw – how does defense and settlements go ‘hand in glove’? My point is that settlements, which obviously remove land from any future Palestinian nation, incite anger. Hardly a defense tactic.
Every time I’m told that we had no enemies in the Middle East until we supported Israel, I’m reminded that Muslims are killing people all over the world who never supported Israel.
ET;
You have a reasonable basis of an argument if you’re suggesting that acquiring land was/is more of a consideration than military defence for the Israelis occupying the WB. You have no argument at all if you’re suggesting that defence played/plays absolutely no part of it which is how I’m reading your posts.
Throughout human history geography has been a central consideration in terms of the planning for defensive warfare. A river, the Jordan in this case, is a wall you don’t have to build. There is no argument that Israel’s defence is not enhanced by having Arab armies on the east side of the Joran rather than the west side.
International law allows for a defending army, in ’67 the Israelis, to seize land from an aggressor, in ’67 Syria, Egypt and Jordan, which can reasonably be argued enhances defense from possible further attacks. It for this precise reason that no one has been successful in arguing that Israel took control of the WB illegally, or the Golan heights for that matter.
bob c – I don’t see that the W Bank has much value as a spatial zone of defense IF the Israelis continue to expand settlements there. As I said, settling the land only enrages the Palestinians who have been told by the UN and other international bodies that this zone is set aside for their eventual state.
The constantly expanding settlements effectively enlarges the territory of Israel. After all, the people living there are defined as citizens of Israel; roads etc are built for their use only; water irrigation is for their use only..and so on.
The conquering of the W Bank is indeed legitimate as a ‘war prize’. I’m certainly not claiming otherwise.
The problem is, however, that Israel does not claim it as ‘Israeli territory’. It could but it won’t.
The reason for this is because to do so would also require defining the inhabitants of the W Bank, namely the Palestinians, as citizens of Israel.
Israel refuses to do this; they are the ‘wrong religion’. Therefore, it continues to occupy – not annex or give up the W Bank.
Why continue to occupy? And why not give it back?
Because of the arable land and the water aquifers. Water is a vital resource in the ME and with the explosion of populations in all of the ME nations, it has become a primary if not the primary concern.
So, my suggestion, since Israel has no intention, ever, of giving up the W Bank, and equally has no intention, ever, of acknowledging its residents as citizens of Israel; and since neither war nor wish is going to make the millions of Palestinians vanish in flash of light – is to face the ‘reality on the ground’.
Acknowledge the two populations; acknowledge the water resources. And set up a federated nation with two distinct ‘provinces’; economically collaborative and linked and yet socially distinct. I can see no other solution.
ET: “And I disagree with your view that All Palestinians hate All Jews.”
………………………….
As I’ve said to other people, usually those who’ve never set foot in the area, “Your experiences may differ from my own”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RayrywlCMwA&feature=player_embedded
Al Macey, can suggest Jonah Goldberg’s book “Liberal Facism” for your reading pleasure.
Hitler and NAZIs, Mussolini and Facists saw communists as the enemy only to the extent they were all fighting for control of the same socialist side of the street, i.e. nationalist Socialism (in case of Germany and Italy) v. international Socialism (communist – Russia).
Al Macey perception of left v. right being defined by communists on the left and Nazis/Facists on the right with the answer as a compromise somewhere in the mushy middle of the two is an all too commonly held one that the MSM is happy to perpetuate (as socialism really wins either way).
I prefer to see the human struggle ultimately as a triangle with “left” and “right” forming the socialist/tyranny of the group/we’re smarter than you so we get to decide/bring everyone down to the lowest common demoninator base of the triangle and freedom/liberty/free market capitalism/individual choice and responsibility/lift everyone up city of light as the peak angle mankind should be striving for at the top.
Freedom
Communists — Nazis/Facists
SOCIALISM
“As I said, settling the land only enrages the Palestinians who have been told by the UN and other international bodies that this zone is set aside for their eventual state.” ET
So the UN needs to save face, and Israel & the World must risk WWIII by trusting the UN to stop stoking conflict….When someone is over reaching
you don’t give them more power!
The Palestinians are only expressing the will of the UN.. Only if the UN goes away (disbanded) is a solution possible..
To much EU wealth depends on continued conflict, and yes.. also US wealth….
JMHO
Phillip G Shaw >
“…Israel & the World must risk WWIII…..”
Not to split hairs, but I am of the opinion WW3 began on Sept 11/01. I just doesn’t look like WW2 any more than WW2 resembled WW1.
We’ve been there for awhile, it’s a matter of how far it escalates.
The Islamofacists will use democracy once to get into power then it’s back to being ruled by a radical medieval hairy backwater Mullah. There will never be democracy in Muslim lands, and they seem quite happy to wallow in the seventh century so let’s let them wallow in it.
ET
the majority of people in Egypt are not fundamentalist. [And don’t try to bring up that flawed PEW poll as ‘evidence’].
How do you know? If the PEW poll is flawed what other evidence do you have. Wouldn’t it be, perhaps, your feelings and non-checked theories?
The Iranian ‘revolution’ was decades ago and is an invalid comparison to what is going on now.
Why?
You are ignoring the realities of massive population growth in the last 3-4 decades, which has rendered the old statist economies in the ME unable to deal with this population’s needs.
I am not. There is major population growth which mean that the population is younger, much more revolutionary and for them revolution means Islam and things which West (aka western imperialists) hate.
Therefore, I reject your comments.
You can reject my comments however much you wish. The thing is not what I wish or you wish but what people in the ME wish and what will they DO.
ET
“Why continue to occupy? And why not give it back?”
You did not missunderstand my point of turning your argument back at you—you shifted ground.
Give it back to who?? Jordan? They renounced it.
During Black September they also ejected all the “palestinians” that they didn’t kill.
Jordan in the 50’s ANNEXED the West Bank and as you say annexed the occupants as well….they are Jordanians….extinguishing any fanciful notion of aboriginal occupation….same for Gaza with Eygpt.
The inconvenient truth is that Palestine prior to the coming of the Jewish settlers bringing european farming methods….Palestine was a PARCHED, SPARCELY POPULATED area…because the “dry horticulture”, as you describe it, did not support anything other than a sparce population.
Now these Palestinians who migrated to that NEW prosperity from as far away as Yemen falsely claim to have been present for centuries. With the “dry horticulture” that you refer to…such a situation could not occur.
Perhaps you should read the accounts of Allenby’s campaigns during WWI and Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom.”
All of which is accedemic. Eygpt and Jordan formally DID annex and these UNFOR welfare clients are legally Eygptians and Jordanians. They are not even a valid political construct.
Why not refer to the Jewish refugees from the forced dispora from all over the ME after 1967….where is their “right of return” to Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq etc or compensation?
There is merit to Phantom’s prediction…the crazies have already graduated from homemade Kassem rockets to imported Grad rockets with Katyushas on the way. Eventually they will get lucky and rack up a signifigant body count and the survivors will be in Eygpt or Jordan.
Your suggestion of confederation has merit but the Pali’s like the scorpion on the frog cannot evade their nature. The “Arab Spring” is unlikely to yield democracy…muzzies simply don’t do democracy.
You overlook these are a largely, illiterate tribal people incapable of making a rational , informed choice. Well informed/educated and rational (by comparison) American voters elected Barack Hussein Obama and continue to support him.
Sadly, other-wise intelligent people make the grave error of assuming the ME majority share their values and morals……I am assuming you do not go abroad in a tent, would not encourage your children to don a suicide vest, would not celebrate their demise, would not assist mutilating your daughter’s genetilia, would not participate in honour killing your child.
ET;
Who are you quoting by putting quotation marks around the words “war prize” in the sentence you used in your 4:27pm post, namely, “The conquering of the W Bank is indeed legitimate as a ‘war prize’.” I never used those words in any post, and if they are yours then quote marks are inappropriate.
Israel’s taking of the WB was/is legitimate because of the enhancement it provides to their national defense which is undeniable. There is no legally recognized prize that anyone is allowed to claim simply because they were victorious in a military conflict. If there was then Saddam would still be ruling Iraq and Kuwait would be a province of it.
As is usual, trying to get you to fess up to something you said which is completely wrong is about as easy as prying a bone from between the jaws of a starving dog. That incessant tendency of your’s likely explains your complete failure to change any hearts or minds around here every time you engage on the subject of Israel and the ME. As a supporter of Israel, I suppose I should thank you for that and not dissuade you. You are your own worst enemy.
ET, despite all that you apparently “acknowledge,” the key point you seem to continually deny acknowledging is the essence of the “Palestinian” movement. The Shimon Peres way is to integrate economies. He is a major shareholder in PalTel and has an economic interest in misdirecting, misleading and downplaying anything that would affect his investment. He provides cover for the “Palestinian” perfidy as a matter of self-interest. This economic self-interest does not motivate the “Palestinian” movement. To date, this “movement” has received double the amount of the Marshall Plan and have only a terrorist infrastructure to show for it. Is that fact big enough to acknowledge? They are, as Sultan Knish names: Terrorstine.
The way “Palestinians” give voice to “self-determination” is to murder. They have no demarcation for Israel on their maps. The Egyptian-born Arafat proclaimed to his people that signed treaties were nothing more than hudnas; like the Treaty of Hudabiya that Mo had with the Jews of his time. They are merely following Mo’s “perfect” example: lay low until powerful enough to slaughter.
There has never been a “Palestinian” leader prior to Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Arafat’s mentor (some say his uncle)and a open ally of Hitler. They shared the same goals of “self-determination.”
The “Great Nakba” mourns the Muslim failure to “finish the work of Hitler” and “drive the Jews into the sea.” Another lost “self-determination” opportunity.
ONLY war will create peace but ONLY if Israel is allowed to win when she is again winning. An Arab/Muslim victory will the beginning of the utterly evil idea that Islam will prevail over us all and we will really experience Islam’s “reawakening.”
Islam is a zero-sum ideology of imperialism and war. Religion is a beard.
And these “Palestinian” cannot say their own name in Arabic for Arabic has no hard “P” sound. “Palestine” was named thus by the Romans in 135CE, to explicitly deny the connection of Jews to the land. It was a Soviet stroke of 1960s genius to proclaim these Arabs as indigenous “Palestinians” seeking “liberation.”
Gosh, the UN debate in 1947-48 records the Arab/Muslim side saying “No” on two counts:
1. Islam conquered the land and thus it cannot become Jewish; that would upset the natural order of the world as Islam sees it.
2. There are no such people as “Palestinians.” They are from the multitude of existing Arab nations.
So, no, there is no such “nation” of “Palestinians” that “deserve” a Terrorstine of their own.
Looks like the GOp echo chamber got caught up in Netanyahu’s lie
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2010/Joint_statement_PM_Netanyahu_US_Sec_Clinton_11-Nov-2010.htm
Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary Clinton had a good discussion today, with a friendly and productive exchange of views on both sides. Secretary Clinton reiterated the United States’ unshakable commitment to Israel’s security and to peace in the region.
The Prime Minister and the Secretary agreed on the importance of continuing direct negotiations to achieve our goals. The Secretary reiterated that “the United States believes that through good-faith negotiations, the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state, based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.” Those requirements will be fully taken into account in any future peace agreement.
The discussions between the Prime Minister and the Secretary focused on creating the conditions for the resumption of direct negotiations aimed at producing a two-state solution. Their teams will work closely together in the coming days toward that end.