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The Forum > Article Comments > Palestine: realities overtaking fairy tales > Comments

Palestine: realities overtaking fairy tales : Comments

By David Singer, published 14/11/2012

The attempt to create two separate national identities and two separate peoples - Jordanians and Palestinians - have always been nothing but misleading and deceptive fairy tales.

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David G:

“The biggest fairy tale that has ever been written is that the Jewish people are entitled to the land where Palestine once existed”

Please enlighten me: where exactly did the country of Palestine once exist? When did it exist there?

“Never have a people come back after 2,000 plus years and laid claim to land upon which other people had been living for a thousand plus years”

Are you aware that there has been a constant Jewish presence in the area for thousands of years? If they were indeed “transplanted” there, as you say, it happened several thousand years ago.

“As you read this, the IDF is again bombing and shelling…”

Let’s conveniently ignore the fact that this shelling is in response to the barrage of missiles from Gaza into Israel that has been going on for years and does not show any signs of abating. You do not seem to be complaining about Hamas targeting Israeli civilians for years on end.

“At the same time, Netanyahu is considering nuking Iran…”

I must have missed this news article. Can you show me when Netanyahu threatened to nuke Iran?
Posted by Avw, Thursday, 15 November 2012 3:42:25 PM
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AVW, you forgot to mention the fact that the Palestinian people have been under occupation since...1947 I think it was.

You also forgot to mention that a people under occupation have the right to fight against that occupation by whatever means they have.

You also didn't say that the Israelis have the forth strongest army in the world whereas the Palestinians have no army, navy or air force.

You also didn't tell us that the Israelis have a new protection against the amateurish, directionless Palestinian rockets, one called iron-dome which was given to them by the Americans.

There is no equivalence here at all. Israel is the aggressor and the occupier. The Palestinians are the victims!
Posted by David G, Thursday, 15 November 2012 4:39:15 PM
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Dear David G.,

Iron Dome was developed and built in Israel and has no American connection. In the last day, over 150 rockets (so far) were fired at Israel, only 35 of which were downed by Iron Dome. One of those rockets has hit 2 adjacent apartments, killing 3 inside and wounding another 9, two of them babies. Another rocket damaged a school, but fortunately all study was suspended earlier so no one was hurt. There were also injuries from broken glass while other rockets "only" hit cars, a vacant house, an industrial plant, a power pole and chicken sheds.

While some of the rockets are amateurish and directionless, this is no longer always the case. The rockets shot today include Iranian-made Fajr rockets, 333mm in diameter, carrying 175 Kilograms of explosives up to a distance of 75 kilometers. Those Fajr rockets got there because the blockade was recently not tight enough.

What would YOU do if those rockets were falling on YOUR city?
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 15 November 2012 6:22:37 PM
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Yuyutsu,

Actually, while the design and building of the original Iron Dome (ID) was undertaken solely by Israel, after the second one Israel sought funding. This was pledged and provided by the US:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Dome

<<Subsequently, funding for an additional eight Iron Dome systems - along with funding for a supply of interception missiles - is currently being provided by the United States, with two of these additional systems having been delivered by 2012. Funding for the production and deployment of these additional Iron Dome batteries and interceptor missiles was approved by the United States Congress, after being requested by President Obama in 2010. In May 2010, the White House announced that U.S. President Barack Obama would seek $205 million from U.S. Congress in his 2011 budget, to spur the production and deployment of additional Iron Dome batteries.

In exchange for the second tranche of deployment funding, the United States is asking Israel for access to, and a stake in, elements of the system's technology. On 17 May 2012, when Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, the Pentagon issued a statement from the Secretary saying in part, "I was pleased to inform Minister Barak that the President supports Israel’s Iron Dome system and directed me to fill the $70 million in assistance for Iron Dome that Minister Barak indicated to me Israel needs this fiscal year." "

On 18 May 2012, the United States House of Representatives passed the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, H.R. 4310, with $680 million for Iron Dome in Section 227. The report accompanying the bill, 112-479, also calls for technology sharing as well as co-production of Iron Dome in the United States in light of the nearly $900 million invested in the system since 2011. " >>

There is, of course, much more and it is interesting reading.
Posted by scribbler, Thursday, 15 November 2012 6:56:54 PM
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What would I do if rockets were falling on my city, asks yuyutsu?

Well, the first thing I would do is to stop the occupation of the people who were firing the rockets.

Then I would give the occupied people their land back, the land which I had stolen, and allow them to form their own sovereign nation.

Then I would pay them massive reparation for the decades of horror and genocide and war crimes which my nation had inflicted upon them.

That's what I would do, yuyutsu, but then I'm not a religious fanatic.
Posted by David G, Friday, 16 November 2012 6:57:05 AM
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David:

“…you forgot to mention the fact that the Palestinian people have been under occupation since...1947 I think it was”

The year you are looking for is probably 1948. Yet you seem to forget that for the first 2 decades of this occupation, the occupiers of the West Bank and Gaza were Jordan and Egypt. You seem to also forget that There is no Israeli presence in Gaza, and there hasn’t been for years.

“You also didn't say that the Israelis have the fo[u]rth strongest army in the world whereas the Palestinians have no army, navy or air force”

I have already addressed the 4th largest army myth in another recent thread (http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14348). But even if it was true, does this mean that Hamas can freely launch rockets at Israel, as long as their forces are weaker?

“…the first thing I would do is to stop the occupation of the people who were firing the rockets… I would give the occupied people their land back”
“…I would pay them massive reparation…”

Israeli forces have not been occupying Gaza for many years.
The reparation idea has been tried before (Camp David 2000 Accords) but was rejected by the Palestinians.

You are right, there is no equivalence here at all. Hamas is an oppressive, violent movement, committed to the destruction of Israel Their rockets exclusively target Israeli civilians, instead of legitimate Israeli military targets. Israel is a democratic country, forced to respond to the constant terror attacks, targeting military leaders and military installations.
Posted by Avw, Friday, 16 November 2012 7:52:53 AM
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