Logic,

I am vehemently opposed to colonialism of any sort, including Australia.

I don’t understand why you bring up the presence of Jews in Israel prior to 1788. There have been Jews all around the world for many centuries now and they’re doing pretty fine to me. Why should they have a state at the expense of millions of Palestinians?

Every policy carried out by Israel is to keep the Jews a majority and the Arabs a minority. Whether it’s symbolic in that they have no legitimate voice, identity, past or land to call their own – or whether it be in the ratio of Jews to Arabs. It is estimated that with the significantly higher birth rate among Palestinians, eventually they will outnumber the Jews- a threat no Israeli wants to face. Thus every action is to keep the Palestinians a silent minority.

Jews in Iran are living peacefully to this day. In fact most religious Orthodox Jews claim that the idea of a Jewish state is preposterous and use the Jews in Iran as a perfect example that this perceived “threat” to the Jews is concocted by Israeli PR.

Let’s get one thing straight. No one fled to Israel. They were welcomed in with open arms and told that they would have property and land at their disposal.

“Moving on and getting a life”

As I said above, Jews who apparently “fled” were welcomed in with open arms and took the land that did not belong to them.

The 750,000 Palestinians who were expelled from Palestine in 1948 were not given the same welcome particularly in Jordan where thousands of them were slaughtered by the Jordanian king. Not to mention the massacres of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon by the Christian militias. The rest of them have never been allowed to return.

Quite possibly you can attribute the majority Muslim population in Lebanon to a larger birth rate.

If Israel wants security on its northern borders it has shown the way by sowing the area on the other side of the border with cluster bombs. Of course if the missiles fired by Hezbollah had been similarly armed the reaction of Israel would have been even more incandescent than it was.

Of course Israel didn't go far enough, but I will get to that point a little later.

Israel had the choice between trying to negotiate with the elected government of Lebanon to try to get its captured troops back, or to act the way it did.

It tried trading the lives of 1000 dead Lebanese, with many more wounded, for the return of two Israeli soldiers. And it didn't work. No-one ever thought that it would.

So, what will Israel need for the security of its Northern border? It should act true to its colours - it has already shown that it is willing to depopulate the area with cluster bombs.

Why doesn't it just take an amount of the nuclear waste from its non-existent nuclear weapons program and simply spread it over enough of southern Lebanon to sterilise the area of human activity. Israel has shown that it doesn't care about any human life apart from those of its own citizens. So Israel, go to it!

What is most disturbing of course is that Israel doesn't care about what other countries think of it.

politics by razor alone..

The British Mandate to facilitate the nation-building processes of the Palestinian state is belied by their committment to retaining control of a strategic centre of gravity in the Middle East. The fact that the resident Zionist establishment was pressing for sovereign recognition in the area formed a happy coincidence for the continuation of the Great Game. When the UN assumed control after WWII, they completely over-rode the Arab concern, and so a war of attrition ensued fueled by three clear combustibles;

1. The right to exist (Jewish)
2. The right to defend (Arab)
3. The right to self-determination (Modern Imperials)

Logically, each condition must be satisfied before the following one can take place. As such, they may be viewed as integral or co-dependent. Moving between them requires an element of transformation, in this case;

4. The right for common rights (UN)

Problem is the UNSC is made up of the world's most powerful Imperials (some current, some not), and so the right for common rights is is bound by the right to self-determination.

Therefore the UN needs to be transformed before we will ever see any prolonged respite in the Arab-Israeli conflict, or ever, an enduring peace.

The current discussion is much too specific, reciting instances of attrocities and amnesties in an effort to credit what is essentially the same argument. One side may be worse, but both are co-dependent, unable to exist as they do without the other, and so equal in a sense.

"Will the Lebanese people allow their country to be used by Iran as a surrogate battlefield again?"

Will Israel stop provoking conflict in South Lebanon by constant incursions into Lebanese territory? Lebanon alleges over 500 such incidents from December 2005-May 2006.

http://blogs.zmag.org/node/2708

No, I don't normally support Zmag, and I reject the anti-Semitic rubbish from the pseudo-left.

But the article links directly to the UN reports of these allegations.

Those who blindly always support Israel are desperate to make us think that Poor Little Israel is always the victim. But Hizb'Allah will not be defeated until Israel no longer is a threat to the people of South Lebanon. Only then will they be able to do away with the only armed force (of reactionary anti-Semites) that stands between them and the IDF.

David Jackmanson
http://letstakeover.blogspot.com

"Middle East Settlement" at Last Superpower.net
http://www.lastsuperpower.net/disc/members/00391126506602

What is the pseudo-left?
http://www.lastsuperpower.net/disc/members/568578247191

It is interesting how totally oposite views can be held on the same subject depending on your viewpoint.

Fleurette says that the Jews have done fine. In Poland? Germany? Russia?

And in Egypt, Iraq, Yemen things were not crash hot for Jews according to many histories. And if you consider the Egyptian Jews were living in Israel on stolen land, I understand that they had to leave their houses behind. So the Egyptians now have stolen Jewish houses. In Hebron where ancient Jewish communities were attacked and forced out by thugs their houses were stolen.

And you did not reply to my comments about the the Copts in Egypt. Was their land also not stolen? Without colonization Arabs would be confined to Arabia, Britain and France would contain only Celts. The occupation of Spain by the Arabs was perhaps one of the best things that happened.

If only the Arab peoples would regain their lost skills and free expression which they so brilliantly used in the Middle Ages. Our word Algebra and much of our mathematics is Arabic, but when they excelled they were modernists not traditionalists. Close down the Madrases and reopen the Universities with free thought and expression uncensored by the Imans.

Then tiny Israel will be no problem and Jews and Arabs will once again work together and become a powerhouse of civilization.

I must admit to being shocked by this comment by David Boaz in defence of the Sabra-Shatilla massacres: "The idea that the Palestinian women and children are 'innocent' is ludicrous. The men cannot exist or replace lost fighters without them."

This is a particularly revealing comment when one considers how Zionists are always dredging up the Holocaust to deflect critism from Israel.