Very briefly, the old adage, 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you' is the only thing that is ever going to resolve the Arab/Israeli conflict... and I can't see that happening in the near future.

There are, of course, extremists on both sides. Islam has the PLO and Hamas, both of which seem intent on the removal of the State of Israel. Ahmadinejad has, of course, added fuel to fire through his apparent denial of the Holocaust. Then, to a lesser extent we have the Jewish Defense League (JDL), a far-right organization in the United States whose stated goal is to "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary".

Despite all this the tiny State of Israel continues to flourish, has converted desert into thriving orchards and has contributed in a major way to medical science, technology and industry. What is amazing to me is the indifference, even hatred, of much of the civilized world towards Israel - even among some Christians. Surely we should be supporting these people who, despite opposition, have contributed so much to our wellbeing and culture. In today's climate of political correctness, I find it fascinating that Israel is still targeted for criticism despite its only aggression being to defend its borders against terrorist organizations.

Clearly Hamas should not receive financial aid or other world recognition while it continues to uphold the statements contained in its 1988 Charter. Surely it is Israel that deserves our respect and open support.

How can Zionists live peacefully with the Palistinians when they steal their land and persecute them.Israel is an apartheid state.

We get selected quotes from the PLO Charter and other places showing how racist the indigenous population of Palestine is.

But what is actually happening on the ground? In my researches into the recommendations of the Palestinian inspired international BDS Movement (Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions) I came across the following detail on the L'Oreal Company which has some relevance to racism:

"L'Oreal Israel manufactures a line of products using Dead Sea Minerals under name of 'Natural Sea Beauty' and has operated a factory in the Israeli town of Migdal Haemek in the Lower Galilee. The settlement of Migdal Haemek was established in 1952 on lands belonging to the ethnically-cleansed Palestinian village of al-Mujaydil, whose original inhabitants are still denied the right to return to their homes. Like almost all other Jewish settlements built in the midst of Palestinian villages in the Galilee, inside Israel, Migdal Haemek discriminates against Palestinian citizens of Israel, denying them the right to buy, rent or live on any part of the town, simply because they are “non-Jews.”

These aren't some quotes from a Charter - these are real racist actions. It seems David that your current preferred method of defense is attack. You can't reasonably attack Arab pronouncements when these sorts of Jewish racist actions are currently going on and have been since at least 1948.

Try and be balanced and proportional, and basically honest.

This spokesman for the settler enclave in Palestine, in his latest bid to proclaim the “special” status, over all other human beings, of the ethnic group for which he purports to write, cites the PLO:

"The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.
“Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong”.

The Zionist defender labels this a “vile and racist program”. Coulda fooled me! The “vile racism” of the PLO was to reject the idea that the Jewish ethnic group is special in a way that no other human beings are “special”. It honoured and respected people born in Palestine but not those who had invaded it. It could have set the basis for a single, democratic, non-racist Palestinian state. It still could, with the modification allowing for the passage of time that everyone born in the territory, before or after the Nakba and the ethnic cleansing, should be regarded as a Palestinian. So should the five million exiles. But not the settlers.

Jews don’t need a race-based “national homeland”. They already have national homelands. Australia is one of them. They are no more and no less a “special” race than are we goyim. The claim that they are uniquely “special” is breathtaking arrogance and the oft-heard claim that God made it so is blasphemy. It is not a claim to which any of the Jews I know and respect would subscribe.

(The Hamas statement which this Zionist cites really IS vile and racist, showing contempt for all of us kafirs (Jewish or not) who don’t share their ideology. Goes to show that injustice is fertile soil for more injustice).

Mr Singer (resident Zionist dissembler) there are many people around the world that are heartily sick and tired of listening to the constant complaining by Zionists of how unloved they are in the world. Israel is so paranoid that everyone, Jews included, are considered anti-Semites if they have the temerity to disagree with Israeli foreign policy.

One should note that Israel's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, a representative of the Israeli state would have all jailed Palestinians airlifted to be thrown out over the sea where they may die. He also believes that Israel should ethnically cleanse all of what they consider Israel so that it can be a pure Jewish state. Who else comes to mind in his desire for a pure Aryan state? Lieberman does not differentiate between Christian and Muslim Palestinians.

The Jews aren't a people they are a religion which is greatly admired by both Christianity and Islam. Jews should take pride of their status as the first of the three Monotheist religions. Only those that believe in fairy tales can accept that they are God’s chosen people.

Israel and the Jews the world over can no longer act as victim and only the deeply misinformed can accept it. Israel has the fourth largest standing army in the world backed by some 250 nuclear weapons and the most sophisticated and advanced weapons second only to America.

They have a steady and growing economy built on the land it has stolen from the Palestinians. Israel has defeated all the so called front line Arab states: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and the occupied West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon and having secured peace treaties with the first two it now looks farther afield to Iran that it has threatened repeatedly to bomb.

No Mr Singer no one hates those of the Jewish religion that is the most ridiculous of all statements as they come from all countries in the world today. What they do wish is for Israel to act as all recognized sovereign states and abide by international laws.

To #Arjay,#Stan1 and #EmperorJulian

Your anonymous Jew-hating posts indicate you are not interested in resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict.

To #EmperorJulian

Nice to see you acknowledge the Hamas Covenant is "vile and racist".

Since Hamas will in all likelihood form the Government of your proposed "single, democratic, non-racist Palestinian state." after the proposed return of "five million exiles" the future for its Jewish and Christian citizens appears very bleak.

You also state:

"Jews don’t need a race-based “national homeland”.

Does that equally apply to the 57 Muslim national homelands which currently make up the 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Co-Operation (OIC)and whose qualification for membership is that they have a "muslim majority"?

I await your answer with interest.

David Singer. You write to me and others

"Your anonymous Jew-hating posts indicate you are not interested in resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict."

I have just re-read my post (above) and fail to see how it is "Jew-
hating". Whilst, in deference to your legal training, I may have previously read your posts seriously as possibly having some basis of truth, in future I will be aware that any criticism of Israel will be interpreted by you as anti-Semitism. This is a standard Zionist tactic but I was somewhat surprised that you would have made it so obvious and put yourself in the ranks of the unthinking paranoid Zionists who find it difficult to accept the truth of ethnic cleansing.

It is well that the Zionist spokesman has taken on the impossible task of defending racism, even to the tune of challenging my own anti-racist comments and Stan1’s.

Neither the Jews nor any other ethnic group are uniquely special. The Zionists (including their champion here) contend that the Jews ARE uniquely special and, unlike any other ethnic group, have the right to a homeland in someone else’s land for all the world’s Jews whatever their real nationality (based on birth or immigration with mutual consent). NOBODY other than the Zionists proclaim this exclusive entitlement for any ethnic group. NOBODY other than the Zionists have the hide to call it racism to reject this special entitlement.

The Moslems, referred to in the Zionist’s red herring defence, are not an ethnic group and not a nationality. They have many nationalities, many homelands. Islam welcomes converts. The Zionists have no plan to turn goyim into Jews – only to steal their territory. A look at my entries in this forum will show I carry no brand for Islam.

Anti-Zionists ARE “interested in resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict”. Resolving it by return of people to their own real homelands, and, like the rest of us, accepting citizenship as equals. No special preference for any race, anywhere.

The Zionist draws attention to the prospect of Jews being a small minority in Palestine following the return of the five million exiles to their stolen land. They were a small minority before the Nakba, and lived without warfare as equals with others. They are a small minority and live as equals in most other countries including Australia.

In Palestine, decades of ethnic cleansing, occupation, land theft, standover, threats and aggression have soured relations. The bed made by the Zionists will be hard to lie in. The challenge for negotiations will be to hammer out guarantees of secure civil equality for every individual in a secular, democratic state belonging to the families born there and fostering harmony between individuals as in the past. THAT’s a peace process. Negotiating surrender to gunpoint occupiers never was.

To #Ulis, Stan1 and EmperorJulian

So the Jews are not a people according to your common point of view.

Guess you must be furious that the world in 1922 gave international recognition to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.

Like the PLO and Hamas you apparently reject the unanimous international consensus of the 51 member countries of the League of Nations that made that decision.

Besides being Jew-haters you also qualify to be designated as Jewish State deniers.

Now you are perfectly entitled to your views - as I am to mine. Why are you all so coy about being outed denying Jews the same rights as are enjoyed by the 57 Muslim majority states that exist today and form the Organization of Islamic Co-Operation?

To #EmperorJulian

Like those of your persuasion there is an apparent inability to address questions that are put to you.

I repeat the following statement made by you:

"Jews don’t need a race-based “national homeland”.

I repeat the question I asked you;

"Does that equally apply to the 57 Muslim national homelands which currently make up the 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Co-Operation (OIC)and whose qualification for membership is that they have a "muslim majority"?"

I continue to await your answer with interest.

Lets first get the wording right - it is sectarianism not racism. We don't call the Irish dispute racism. Similarly Palestinians and Isreali's are not clearly racially different. The difference is determined entirely by different versions of the same stories of Abraham...

Now that leaves us with the question of whether it would have been more appropriate for Germany to have gifted a portion of Bavaria rather than evicting entirely innocent palestinians from their homeland.

Really, what a farce.

Time has passed this thread by, but I’ll leave on record a response to a challenge by David Singer that I have only just stumbled on.

The League of Nations did not include Palestine. The Balfour Declaration was a decreed by a bunch of foreign governments (historically tainted with anti-Semitic racism) allocating Palestine to foreign settlers identified on grounds of race to use as a racist state. Its moral authority to do this was then and still is zero. So was and is any obligation on Palestine to comply with it and on anyone else to respect it.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation is based on the agreement of governments of the member countries on their own land (not someone else’s). It has no authority any more than does the Commonwealth of Nations and has considerably less than does the EU. Hopefully it will disintegrate in time as the throwback cult on which it is based is overtaken by its inability to cope with the evolving human demand for liberty. But it based on religion, not race, and does not bill itself as a repository for a worldwide ethnic group moving in to steal ever more land. Its existence is totally irrelevant to the race-based claim of the Zionists.

#To Emperor Julian

The League of Nations did not include Palestine for one simple reason - it was not a country. It had been a province of the Ottoman Empire for 400 years divided into different administrative districts until it was occupied by the victorious allies at the end of World War 1.

Your claim that "The Balfour Declaration was a decreed by a bunch of foreign governments (historically tainted with anti-Semitic racism)" - is a load of garbage.

There were 51 countries in the League of Nations including Australia, Argentina,Belgium,Brazil, British India,Canada,Chile,Japan, New Zealand,Luxembourg,China,Norway and Panama - just to mention a few. To suggest they were anti-semitic is arrant nonsense.

They unanimously recognized the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home there. Jews returned under this legal and internationally recognized imprimatur to what had been their ancient historic and biblical homeland before it was stolen from them by others.

Your claim that Islam is a religion whilst Israel is not a religion is even contradicted by the PLO Charter which states categorically:
"Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality".

Your further claim that Islam "does not bill itself as a repository for a worldwide ethnic group moving in to steal ever more land" is ludicrous. Islam has made a practice of invading and subjugating other peoples lands by means of Jihad. How do you think the Arabs ever ended up outside the Arabian peninsular in the seventh century AD and have continued their progressive assault on other peoples land since?

After Mohammed's death in 632, the new Muslim caliph, Abu Bakr, launched Islam into almost 1,500 years of conquest of others through invasion and war, a role Islam continues to this very day.

The Muslim wars have been waged against a multitude of peoples over millions of square miles from southern France to the Philippines, from Austria to Nigeria, and throughout central Asia.

Get a grip on yourself before your irrational Jew-hatred totally consumes you.

When reading these posts, it remains clear that Jews do and will continue to have a homeland of their own. Albeit Israel is not completely Jewish, with 27% non-Jews, of whom most are Muslims. Where else in the world is there that ratio?

Whilst, posters may claim they are not anti-semites, then how do they justify wanting states that are Juden-frei?

If they they are wanting a one-state solution, they can't object to settlements on the West Bank.

Israel is a minute territory, we have stations larger than Israel in Australia.

During WW11, the British finding that there were not enough people in Palestine, shipped in 100's of thousands of Arabs from elsewhere ... the mostly 'indigenous' Arabs. Egypt has recently identified Palestinians in Palestinian camps there, who are actually Egyptian in origin, and have admitted them to their society. They are continuing to do so.

The term 'Palestinian,' coined by the British, was only applied to Jews in the area. Arafat and many others stated clearly, and ad nauseum, that the Arabs of this area were Syrians. Only in the 1970's did Arabs claim to be Palestinians.

The term Semite means a member of any of various ancient and modern Semitic-speaking peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including; Akkadians (Assyrians and Babylonians), Eblaites, Ugarites, Canaanites, Phoenicians (including Carthaginians), Hebrews (Israelites, Judeans and Samaritans), Ahlamu, Arameans, Chaldeans, Amorites, Moabites, Edomites, Hyksos, Arabs, Nabateans, Maganites, Shebans, Sutu, Ubarites, Dilmunites, Bahranis, Maltese, Mandaeans, Sabians, Syriacs, Mhallami, Amalekites and Ethiopian Semites.

'I have just re-read my post (above) and fail to see how it is "Jew-
hating"'

I have to agree. I am struggling to keep up, please be patient.

What is the bone of contention here? What, in layman's terms is so offensive.

I didn't think Judaism was a race I thought it was a religion. I didn't think Muslim was a race either.

I'm really confused by what this passionate argument is all about. I certainly don't see any Jew-hating here.

'I repeat the question I asked you;

"Does that equally apply to the 57 Muslim national homelands which currently make up the 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Co-Operation (OIC)and whose qualification for membership is that they have a "muslim majority"?"

I continue to await your answer with interest.'

I thought he did with,

'The Moslems, referred to in the Zionist’s red herring defence, are not an ethnic group and not a nationality. They have many nationalities, many homelands. Islam welcomes converts. '

Sorry if my ignorance is offensive, but I really don't understand what you are all on about.

Perhaps before any rational and intelligent discussion, OLO contributors could bother to obtain basic facts. Must OLO be plagued with the same slogans, accusations and diatribes against Israel with not one 'fact' supported with references that can be verified from independent sources.

“While the term's etymology might suggest that antisemitism is directed against all Semitic peoples, the term was coined in the late 19th century in Germany as a more scientific-sounding term for Judenhass ("Jew-hatred"),and that has been its normal use since then.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism

Regarding Arjay's input ... yet again away with the fairies ... I understood that repeating the same reference, again ad nauseum, was not permitted on OLO posts.

Arjay … Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attacks. Or are you saying that he was lying to protect 'whomever'?

It is becoming increasingly evident that those who appear regularly to 'rabbit on' with anti-Israel disinformation and being alongside Arjay's constant contribution are in the same league as Arjay. They all have the identical agenda.

cont ...

Let us look at an independent source.

Read the following by Abdulateef Al-Mulhim, retired, Naval Commodore, Saudi Arabia. A frequent contributor to “Arab News”. This article appeared some two-weeks ago, on Saturday 6 October 2012
http://www.arabnews.com/arab-spring-and-israeli-enemy

Now I understand muscular spasms can be disconcerting. But to define someone as half against or semi-anti seems very peculiar indeed.

Danielle
A friend of mine is an expect linguist and he has analysed that notorious tape where OBL is said to have taken credit for 9/11.

In his opinion it is difficult to understand exactly what is said but it went something like this: bush XXXx read xxxx goat xxxx building xxxx plan xxxx boom xxxx guilty xxxx i kill hem.

Now given OBL had poor english this confession, according to my friend could just as readily be intrepreted as OBL accusing Bushing of doing it. Clearly, OBL didn't like Bush listening to the reading of my favourite goat herder. Which is really quite ironic, I thought.

Osama bin Laden made a confession in Arabic, which was considerably clearer and translated into English. I do not speak Arabic so cannot give any opinion as to whether the translation is correct or not.

Can I take it that you support Arjay's conspiracy theories?

Personally, I do not care what the Palestinians call themselves. But let us be accurate as to the origins of the vast majority.

Evidence is provided by the following references:

The Palestinian Royal Commission Report (the Peel Report, London, 1937)
The Hope Simpson Report: John Hope Simpson, “Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development (London, 1930)
Report on Agricultural Development and Land Settlement in Palestine by Lewis French (December 1931) and supplementary report, 1932.
Land Ownership in Palestine 1880-1948 (Jerusalem: Academic Committee on the Middle East, 1976)
and not the least,
King Abdallah, “My Memoirs Completed” (London, 1978) pp.88-89

These references would be held in your closest university.

The British Mandatory period witnessed unrestricted illegal Arab immigration from Egypt, Transjordan and Syria.

So bad was this wholesale Arab immigration, that the 1930, Hope Simpson Commission condemned this practice. (John Hope Simpson, Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development (London, 1930)

This Arab immigration saw the Arab population increase 120% between 1922 and 1947.

Imagine Australia’s current population going from 22 million (rounded down) to 46 million in twenty-five years? It took from the end of WWII (and our massive immigration policy) until now, just to double our population; a period of over sixty years.

The following reports, meticulously referenced, provide the situation in Palestinian refugee camps and the role of the UNRWA.

Why a Special Issue on UNRWA? by Steven J. Rosen
Middle East Quarterly Fall 2012, pp. 3-10
http://www.meforum.org/3344/unrwa-special

UNRWA Resists Resettlement by Alexander H. Joffe
Middle East Quarterly Fall 2012, pp. 11-25
http://www.meforum.org/3350/unrwa-resettlement

UNRWA Betrays Its Mission by Nitza Nachmias
Middle East Quarterly Fall 2012, pp. 27-35
http://www.meforum.org/3354/unrwa-missio

I don't understand your point Danielle. Even if Palestinians are a construct, clearly there were other people living in the space today known as Israel. If they were not Palestinians, who were they and where are they? The answers to this would open up a whole new can of worms.

Unless your claiming as Captain Cook did about Australia that it this land was Terra Nullis? Seems a stretch to suggest any part of the Mediterranean was uninhabited at any time in the last 5,000 years. let alone at the turn of the 20th century.

For mine, "why can't you people all just get along?"

This partisan finger pointing which has long ago descended to a grotesque violent tit for tat, rendering all sides ridiculous, embarrassing and sad.

This is the 21 st century and you guys, both of you, are conducting some kind of medieval nightmare. Both parties are defined by religious beliefs - it really is shameful.

Can't you all go away somewhere.

YEBIGA.

Regarding your last comment, perhaps you should re-read what I wrote, and indeed the previous comments.

Every fair-minded person would like to see a two state solution with both sides living in peace. This means that Israel be recognised. Have you an argument with Abdulateef Al-Mulhim's article? If so, what?

Recent news: “Gaza militants have fired more than 505 rockets or mortar rounds at southern Israel since the beginning of the year, including upwards of 45 this month alone.” The fact that Israel has built shelters does not lessen this attack; also bearing in mind that Hamas' rockets do not differentiate between Israeli Arabs nor Israeli Jews. Do you think that Israel should ignore these? Would you?