Once again, spoken like a true lawyer/advocate for your side.

With this kind of thinking on both sides the conflict will last another 130 years.

The suggested 'solution' rests on the proposition that Palestinian identity is fabricated. But how is it more fabricated than the Israeli identity?

New Zealanders too prize their right to have a separate state from Australians, despite a virtually identical colonial heritage and no obvious differences in ethnic make-up. Are they wrong?

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13419

quote]from article
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13416
''many analysts emphasized..that only a handful
of Israelis had been injured,..but none fatally.

The fighting, they accordingly claimed..
produced relatively little pressure..*on the home front.

Alon Ben David from Channel Ten summed up..this perspective..when he wrote: "There is no doubt..]lol]..that Iron Dome..*alongside the population's..[lol]..*exemplary behavior""

via silence

""prevented casualties on the Israeli side
and enabled Israel..to come out of this cycle*

I would say..with a sense of satisfaction.!

Twenty-two [combatants]..[yeah right..were they 'armed'
in act of terror,..or "hiding"..[in their own homes?]

22..'''..were killed on the *other side,
and another..[three or four]civilians;""

what no kids for once?

""we..have zero losses…under these conditions!""

civil inaction

""we can conduct..a monitored[fray]
*that we initiate…"*""[and survive?]

""Zvi Barel..exposed the logic
behind the Iron Dome's glorification,
claiming that it helps Netanyahu "sell" the planned attack against Iran""..

SURPRIZE*

"": "After Iron/Dome..demonstrated
*!*!*!its 95 per cent*!*!*..[lol]effectiveness,
there is no better proof..to Israeli citizens..that..*they will not suffer..*serious damage..following an assault*..against Iran.

Escalation..in Gaza..is good for Israel,
meaning..*for those..who support attacking Iran".

In a slightly different context
and using Netanyahu's duck allegory,?

Haaretz's editor-in-chief Aluf Benn wrote,
"what looks like..a preparation for war,
acts..*like a preparation..for war,..

and quacks
like a preparation..*for war,
*is..a preparation for war,..and not just a 'bluff' or a diversion tactic"."'

yes
AHHHHmen

yes the end/time nutters
are insane

[no god
of life]..is honoured..*by murder[death]..nor war*]

quote:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13419&page=0

""these few..well chosen words
[stop engaging in fiction]
come back..into the*real world...and face the following facts:""

""The Jewish-Arab conflict
over Palestine..has been ongoing for 130 years""

oh i thought since the maccabees
or since that genocide..of that tribe
[recovering..from their ADULT/circumsizion]

"""Jews"""
[not isrealies..[see previous point]

""have their sovereign State
in 17% of former Palestine..now called Israel.""

the key bits held
allowing invader control over the rest


""Arabs""
[as opposed to palistinans
see a oprevious point]

""have their sovereign state
in 77% of former Palestine...now called Jordan""

yet its REALLY ALL PALISTEIN!
a pig is still a pig[even if you call it a goy]

""Just 6% of former Palestine..[lol]
*remains..to be allocated*[lol]..between Jews and Arabs""

with jew[you]deciding
who/what/why/when..how long[before it too become gulag
just so jew reserction day cemitries can blot out all of 'gods' land

"Attempts between Israel..and the PLO;
have irretrievably broken down.""

mossad formed the plo
so well dun son[satan will be pleased]

""New Arab negotiating partners""
to install as dicktraiters
over their own people[egypt/syria]

""to try and resolve[wait for it]
the allocation*..of sovereignty..*in the West Bank and Gaza.

palistein..is [was sovereign]
it should sit in the un

[israel..should be declared oppressor
[in others..sovereign lands]

[since when..has blood/fight/might/deciete/lie
worked..*for your chosen people..you serve the lord of death

the god of war
not law

I wish David Singer would stop unloading this crap here. I thought this was an Aussie Issues site?? His contribution list has a very small scope, go dump it in Palestine please!!
NT

Dear NTeyeball,

With the disproportionate role the issue of Israel and the Palestinians plays in world affairs, particularly in the politics of our strongest ally the United States, means it has to be of relevance to us here in Australia.

However I do empathise with you wishing “David Singer would stop unloading this crap here“. It used to bug the hell out of me that he got so much airtime with a such repetitive, discredited, nationalistic message.

Now I look forward to his missives. They have many functions. They serve to remind decent folk that intransigence is not restricted to just one side in this debate. Also they flag that the message coming out of Israel, particularly from its government, is distorted, hyped, myopic, deceitful and dangerous. Finally they are great for teaching critical thinking, something I was helping one of my children with last night.

When we looked at Mr Singer's article we encountered several good examples of the 'distorted, hyped, myopic, deceitful and dangerous'. For instance he quotes;

“remark recently made by an apparently intelligent 18 year old girl from Ramallah – who told the person interviewing her for a scholarship to a college in America:"

"... the [Jewish] “settlers” [in the West Bank] are really refugees. They, too, are returning to their ancestral homelands. It wouldn’t be fair to tell them to leave."

What he doesn't do is acknowledge where the article comes from.

http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Opinion/Article.aspx?id=261006

Why? Because the girl from Ramallah had prefaced her remark as follows;

“The basic principle, she explained to me, is that refugees from both sides have to be permitted to return to their original homes. Basic human rights demand that. So Israel, she said, will have to absorb all the refugees from Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.”

There is a message for Mr Singer and his ilk 'in these few well chosen words - stop engaging in fiction - come back into the real world'.

To csteele

As you frequently do - you seek to personally attack me and ignore the message with your following comment:

"When we looked at Mr Singer's article we encountered several good examples of the 'distorted, hyped, myopic, deceitful and dangerous'. For instance he quotes;

“remark recently made by an apparently intelligent 18 year old girl from Ramallah – who told the person interviewing her for a scholarship to a college in America:"

"... the [Jewish] “settlers” [in the West Bank] are really refugees. They, too, are returning to their ancestral homelands. It wouldn’t be fair to tell them to leave."

What he doesn't do is acknowledge where the article comes from."

Actually I did acknowledge where this article came from in my article as submitted to OLO.

Dare I hope to expect an apology from you?

What about a comment from you on the particular statement above made by the young lady - rather than trying to draw attention away from her remarks by a totally unjustified attack on myself?

Do you agree with her that the Jewish settlers are returning to their ancestral homelands? Is she right or wrong in your opinion?

This is the issue - don't run away from it.

The validity of any argument should be tested by applying it universally, not just to the individual case.

So is it valid to maintain that any 'people' has the right to return to its ancestral homeland of 1,500 years ago, even if that means displacing the individual people who are currently living there, were borne there, and whose families have lived there for hundreds of years? Do individuals whose ancestors emigrated from Britain or France 1,500 years ago have more rights than people whose ancestors came there 500 years ago and who are currently living there? Could we create a homeland for them in a densely-populated country?

Think of the suffering and chaos this would cause if it were applied across the world. Israel is the only case where a 'people' have been given a homeland where other people were already living, and it is such a bad precedent it is unlikely to be repeated.

The rights of 'peoples' to homelands are attenuated through time. This is also the reason why the occupation of Israel (within the internationally-recognised borders) could not be reversed - because it would be unfair to Israelis who are living there, and who were borne there.

The rights of 'peoples' must give way to the rights of individual people. We cannot right the wrongs committed to people long dead by the Romans empire by oppressing the living.

Michael T

The Jewish people acquired the legal right by the League of Nations in 1922 to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine - just 0.001% of the territory ruled for 400 years by the Ottoman Empire and captured by Britain and France in World War 1.

The remaining 99.999% taken by France and Britain was set aside for Arab self determination.

Palestine was not then solely inhabited by Moslems. Christians lived there too.

Jews also then lived in Palestine - returning to live there in droves since 1880 to join the many that had already preceded them in returning to live in their biblical and ancestral homeland.

Promised 0.001% of the land in the carve up of the conquered Ottoman Empire - the Jews were to find just a short time later that 78% of this tiny area promised to the Jews was no longer to be part of the Jewish home. That area was to become the exclusively Palestinian Arab state of Jordan.

Still not content with acquiring this major part of Palestine - the Arabs of Palestine agitated for the remaining 22% - rejecting many offers to accept some lesser part in 1937, 1947, between 1948-1967,in 2000/2001 and 2008.

The history of Palestine did not begin in 1947. Go back to 1915 and the picture is entirely different. Go back to the time of the Old Testament and the New Testament and the story is even more amazing.

Yes - the story of the Jews, their exodus from slavery in Egypt, their forced removal from their country by the Romans, the attempts to exterminate them throughout the ages in places where they had settled and their ultimate return to legally reclaim their biblical and ancestral homeland after 1900 years with unanimous international approval in 1922 is indeed a remarkable story.

It will not be repeated for the simple reason that it has never happened to any other nation known to me.

Every Jewish household world wide will recall these events tomorrow evening and for the next eight days.

Dear David Singer,

And here I was thinking I was on your persona non grata list. It was for this reason I refrained from alerting you to the fact the end of February came and went without the 2000 signatures on your petition.

Oh well.

As for attacking personally attacking you I did no such thing. I specifically said there were several good examples of the 'distorted, hyped, myopic, deceitful and dangerous' in your article.

Was it not distortion to take the dreams for peace and a return of all refugees from a young, teenage lass from Rahmallah and appropriate them to justify Israel’s continued practice of building in the West Bank, something totally against a unanimous world opinion?

Was it not myopic to just take that one sentence of hers without seeing her whole message?

Was it not deceitful to portray that totally distorted viewpoint as ‘intelligent’ while the hope for a roadmap for peace from President Obama as ‘gross stupidity’?

As to a personal attack there is only one word I think is appropriate and that is ‘shameless’.

To csteele

Still no apology for wrongfully claiming:

"What he doesn't do is acknowledge where the article comes from"

Still no answer to this question:

" Do you agree with her that the Jewish settlers are returning to their ancestral homelands? Is she right or wrong in your opinion?

Dear dear ....