Cont'

If the body that you hang such a tenuous hook of legitimacy on for the illegal activities of the government of Israel has no problems with identifying the Palestinian people why do you? Don't you agree it makes you look rather silly?

So why do it? Are you that uncomfortable with the actions of your brothers and sisters that you need to couch the conflict as a Jews vs Arabs. Possibly.

But then you say we are victims of Arab brainwashing.

Wikipedia defines brainwashing as “the application of coercive techniques to change the values and beliefs, perceptions and judgements, and subsequent mindsets and behaviors of one or more people, usually for political, financial, personal, or religious purposes”

Mate, look in the bloody mirror.

You then refer to the PLO Charter (1968) including;

"Article 1: Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.”

“Article 2: Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.”

Let me reply with references to the Likud Charter from Wikipedia;

“The 1999 Likud charter emphasized the right of settlement in "Judea, Samaria, and Azzah". Similarly, they claim the Jordan River as the permanent eastern border to Israel and Jerusalem as "the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel".”

“The 'Peace & Security' chapter of the 1999 Likud Party platform “flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.” The chapter continued: “The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state.”

Why shouldn't the average Australian view both parties as 'mad as cut snakes'?

One doesn't know for which disaffected group Rhys Jones and rexw are batting, but until they get their facts correct they are doing them a great disservice. Surely it can't be that hard ... before breaking out online.

Since the beginning of this year, Hamas have fired 174 mortars and rockets at Israeli towns and villages, over 80 rocket attach attacks since 19th March. This provacation would bring retaliation from any country.

There are no Jewish settlements in Gaza. Gaza actually ramped up attacks on Israel after Jewish settlements and Israeli troops left. The argument that there would be peace if Jewish settlements on the West Bank ceased is not borne out by fact.

The solution, and simple at that: The Palestinian people recognise Israel’s right to exist, and agree to the two state solution. Until the Palestinians actually decide they want a state of their own, no borders can be determined. This is the fundamental reality that needs to be addressed before all else.

David,

On one thing we agree:

If Israel and Jordan will agree to restore the pre-1967 status quo, I will be overjoyed and happy to kiss King Abdullah's feet. I'll even invite you for lunch.

There are however two difficult problems:

1) The Israeli leadership are idiots and blinded by Jewish ideology, so they want these cursed territories for themselves.
2) His majesty King Abdullah, as was his late magnanimous father King Hussein, is too inteligent to want anything to do with those cursed territories.

Alternately, I'll be happy to hand over the West-Bank to anyone who is foolish enough to be willing to take that responsibility. The Chinese perhaps? maybe Iceland? Maybe overcrowded-Singapore will be tempted? What about our own Julia - even someone with half-a-brain wouldn't take it! Well, maybe Gaddafi...

Nay, even the Palestinians (despite what they claim for the sake of propaganda) do not want that land: they had too many chances under previous Israeli PMs to gain control and have their own state, yet they always jeopardized it (I don't blame them, nobody in their right mind wants that responsibility).

Israel is drowning in that swamp (remember Vietnam?), so all the Arabs and the Iranians need to do is sit idly and wait for its eventual demise.

If you cared for Israel, like I do, you would urge it to get out of the West-Bank ASAP, with or without agreements, and you would urge the rest of the world to help relieve Israel of that stupid burden by pressuring it to let go. However, it seems that you care not for the Israelis, but only for "the Jews" and their grandiose dreams.

"Continuing to equate acts of God with deliberate murder makes you appear really foolish."

Thus spake the lawyer: legally these are indeed very different (especially in matters of compensation), but for an ordinary sane person with a bit of common-sense, what difference does it make whether s/he dies of a flying-bullet or of the ceiling falling over his/her head? None!

(continued...)

(...continued)

Well, lawyers live in a world of their own. Everybody could see the border between Israel and Jordan, in some parts it was an actual wall, so you could even touch it. All road-signs said "Halt, border ahead", not "Halt, armistice-line ahead", Israel-Radio also referred to it as nothing but "border" and anyone who came too close to the (unreal?) border was shot (were these *legal* bullets, or are those people who were shot still *legally* alive?), but *legally* it was not a border, and *legally* the people on the other side do not deserve any human-rights because they were not part of a *legal* kosher-state, so therefore it is OK to torture them or whatever, as *legally* they do not even exist, go figure lawyers.

How sloppy of the league-of-nations and subsequently the UN to give land-rights to an archaic and diffuse, but mostly UNACCOUNTABLE group such as "the Jews". Rights always come with responsibilities, but suppose those "Jews" committed atrocities, who would be held accountable? does it give the UN rights, for example, to arrest Jews in Melbourne or bomb synagogues in Argentina?

Nay, while the UN may have been legally sloppy, common-sense says that their intent was simple and straight-forward: to allow the formation of the state of Israel, then make it a full (and accountable) member. Once Israel was created, their mission was complete and that chapter was closed... except for the lawyers of course, who live in their own separate reality...

Dear Danielle,

"Until the Palestinians actually decide they want a state of their own, no borders can be determined."

We might as well wait for fish to grow beards.

On the contrary: Israelis do not deserve to remain victims of the Palestinians and their delay tactics. Israel needs to wait for no one. Israel should return to its own pre-1967 borders, erect a big wall and declare to the whole world: "This is our border. We want nothing beyond it, we occupy nobody-else's land, we wish to hurt no one, but anyone who dares to breach this border will be nuked without mercy!"

# csteele

"Citizenship" does not necessarily imply a "State"

For example West Bank Arabs enjoyed Jordanian citizenship between 1950-1988 but the West Bank has never been legally recognized as forming part of the State of Jordan.

Had the international community accepted your view in this instance then the course of history may have been entirely different - one Arab state in about 83% of Palestine and one Jewish state in about 17% of Palestine - instead of the current futile attempt to create a second Arab state on 5% of former Palestine. Both Jews and Arabs would have been spared a lot of suffering.

Pity you weren't agitating for this over the last 43 years. Are you prepared to do so now?

The percentages will change slightly - about 82% for the Arab state and 18% for the Jewish state depending on direct negotiations between Jordan and Israel. Is that really so unfair a division of Palestine between Jews and Arabs?

What you still fail to comprehend is that the legal rights vested in the Jewish people by the League of Nations and the UN - as unfair or unjust as you or the Palestinian Arabs or indeed the Arab world might consider them to have been - are still on the statute books to be exercised for the benefit of the Jewish people.

These are not tenuous hooks of legitimacy as you assert. They are the legal foundations for the recognition of the Jewish people's right to reconstitute their national home in Palestine.

The international commitment for the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Palestine on 0.001% of the liberated Ottoman Empire - remains as binding as the international commitment given at the same time for the creation of an Arab National Home in the remaining 99.999% of the liberated Ottoman Empire.

(to be continued)

# csteele

(Continued from last post)

Yes - the 22 Arab Islamic states supported by another 35 non-Arab Islamic States in the UN are seeking to undermine and eventually eliminate the State of Israel by the creation of a plethora of non-governmental organizations designed to create and identify a "Palestinian people" where no such people was recognized by the UN in 1947 or the League of Nations in 1922. That is propaganda. Such belated action by these UN agencies may well translate into legal consequences. They are certainly trying their hardest to do so.

Are you aware of any such UN agencies set up to promote the inalienable rights of the Kurdish people, the Corsican people or the Basque people?

The Jews' vested legal rights are not going to be undermined by such tactics clearly designed at delegitmizing the Jewish people.

Comparing the PLO Constitution - binding on all Palestinian Arabs - to the political platform of one of many political parties in Israel is a furphy. If you compared the PLO Constitution to the Basic Laws of Israel you might be on firmer ground. But I guess you would want to avoid any such discussion.

In any event the PLO constitution denies the Jewish people any right to have their own state. The Likud platform delineates the future territorial boundaries of the Jewish state. They are two very different concepts. As stated earlier the Arabs already have one state in former Palestine - called Jordan - created on 78% of former Palestine. The PLO wants 100% as their Charter makes clear.

Sorry - I will continue to view this as a conflict between Jews and Arabs - because that is what it is, always has been and will be.