Keith
You say:
“They are not training their children to kill and maim others and blow themselves up in the process.' This is the type of propaganda we've suffered for years. Lebanon undermind that in our minds”
In modern day parlance propaganda connotes promotion of false information/ideas
Are you suggesting that the Halmas run schools which GLORIFY suicide bombing to primary school aged children. & teach a very one eyed -lopsided view of history –including, quote ‘JEWS ARE THE ENERMY ON MANKIND’ and “Jews are monkeys & pigs” are benign?
Or is it just that you chose not to see it –because it is not compatible with your mindset?

You say:
“Israel has a couple of things in common with North Korea.
Most North Koreans are trained for warfare. So are most Israelis.”
What simplistic crap!
It would have been truer to say that Israeli citizens are subject to conscription as are the citizens of Greece or Turkey, & others.
But Israeli citizens are not taken away at the age of 5-6 & indoctrinated into hate as are Hama’s & Hezbollah protégés.

The ideology that Hama & Hezbollah subscribe to is much closer to the dominant creed of Nth Korean/Soviet Russia –remove Kim Il Sung & substitute “Allah” & you have little difference.(Which may be why so many leftists feel kinship with the Halmas & Hezbollah “cause(s)”?)

And you said earlier:
“Can you tell me those lands that are still occupied by the Allies after the defeats of Germany, Italy and Japan?”
Try these for size:
i) Sakhalin Island & it Japanese population-( an area in size probably bigger than the whole of Israel) taken by the Soviet Union & still occupied by Russia
ii) The Kurile islands ( Ditto above )
( but one may ask, why limit it Italy, Germany & Japan –history-both previously & more recently - is stuffed full of similar exemplars)

Horus:

You forgot Kaliningrad, now part of Russia, but formerly named Koeningsberg, the capital of East Prussia. And all of East Prussia past the Oder and Neisse rivers became part of Poland in 1945 (to compensate for those parts of eastern Poland annexed by Stalin. 12 million ethnic Germans were expelled from the homes they had held for centuries as a result of this redrawing of eastern Europe's border at the Potsdam Conference.

Keith:

Your absurd attempt to posit a similarity between Israel and North Korea on the basis of the fact that both nations have mandatory military service programmes merely emphasises what an unserious guy you really are. I guess Norway, Sweden, Switzerland are similar to the Kim Jung Il regime as well, eh? You lower yourself to the level of sunisle, whose toxic rantings are so far beyond the bounds of reason that discourse with her has no point.

Perhaps I was mistaken about you.

And if you truly don't believe that Palestinian children are being encouraged to embrace 'shahada' (martyrdom), then I suggest you have a look at the material at Palestinian Media Watch or MEMRI. It is freely accessible on the web. Both these organisations have reams of video footage taken from Palestinian Authority TV that shows the vilest forms of incitement to violence and Jew-hatred of the basest form imaginable.

Do some homework and get back to me on that one - ok? Presuming, of course, that you are willing to avoid asinine pseudo-analogies like the one between Jerusalem and Pyongyang.

sunisle

I will have one more try before giving up on you. I notice the others already have.

You keep hanging on the description of the Palestinians as indigenous. A nice piece of emotion but without justification.

The Israelis like the Palestinians are largely all born in their respective middle eastern countries. From an Australian centred point of view that gives them all equal rights to live where they are. I have no wish to go down the IRA or Basque separatists path which I consider futile pointless and selfish.

There may relatively few suicide bombers but they have killed a lot of innocent people and why do they exist at all? It is an abomination. Can you imagine such a group occuring with for example the Australian aborigines (who are true indigenes)? There must be a support structure behind them. It is hard for me to even imagine a society which produces as many as they have. In our country any parent who produced a teenege suicide bomber would be investigated by relevent child protection authorities and might have their remaining children placed under state protection.

If the Palestinian government cannot keep their suicide bombers and their missile launchers under control Israel must do it for its own good.

If the Palestinians want a good quality of life for themselves they must guarantee it to their neighbours. This they have never done.

Regarding reading you seem to pick and select views which at least superficially seem to agree with your point of view and regard that the equivalent of a good education. It is not.

Hi Ted

I’ve commented before how inappropriate are the insults that are thrown between protagonists in the mid East. The same applies in fair dinkum discourse.

Santa exists. My family grew up experiencing the Christmas Spirit and Santa’s generosity, in all its meanings

Under the Geneva Convention those settlements, if any attempt is made to annex them, are illegal. I’ve no problem with continuing so long as they are under the sovereignty and control of the Palestinian state.

Ted first you don’t believe in Santa then you use an argument that indicates you want your cake and to eat it too.

Your argument indicates you believe in ‘the spoils of war’ concept. Israel has the right to the land because it won it in a war. Right?
So then why don’t you accept the Arabs have the same right?
Israel pushed Palestinians off Palestinian lands. When the Arabs say they intend to do the same, i.e. push the Israelis into the sea, you call foul and harp on and on moaning and grizzling like there is no tomorrow.
No manipulation of the pros and cons of the diplomatic detail cannot alter that basic reality.
No the settlements’ lands belong to Palestine. I’d agree with the Arab plan. Borders settled at ‘67 and not at the borders proposed under UN resolution 181.

http://en,wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_UN_Partition_Plan

We could dwell on that point but let us move on. We do agree on your points A and B. They are reasonable and fair.

I think you misread both the Palestinians and Hamas. Hamas with the reigns of power would have gone down a similar road as Arafat’s PLO. The moderates would have gained the ascendency and become more representative of the Palestinians than Arafat ever was. The electors voted for just that. You overlook the fact Hamas was able to adapt and dropped that disgraceful demand from it’s election manifesto before the recent election.

I also agree compensation needs to be two ways. I’m sure the American taxpayers would be overjoyed with your suggestion. It would lift some of their annual burden. ;-)

Three points re the refugee issue
1) I think the world has a conscience and is becoming much more aware of and sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, especially after Lebanon.
2) An edict of the world body resulted in the initial displacement of Palestinians. That was not the case in the examples you cite. That makes a huge difference.
3) Perhaps the Palestinians are more resolved to hang onto their homeland than other groups. Remember Israel has recall of lessons of other groups who displayed just such lack of resolve.

Hi Logic

1/ In the same position, I’d make a workable peace in something less than 60 years and save my friends lotsa money.

2/ Now your latest post has just shown us that there is something else Israel has in common with North Korea.

Horus and others

Israelis are taught similar things at home by their media. A reading of some popular Israeli publications and research of quotes of some of Israeli’s former and current leaders would maybe provide some balance currently lacking.

Horus

North Korea has no State religion. Israel is much closer to Hamas and Hezbollah when it comes to religious fervour and its ideological basis.
Really how twisted is your logic…mate? You can see religion in a godless state? Your amazing justification reveals an almost monkey-like gymnastic intellectual exercise!

Horus et el
Do you realise that you have, likely unwittingly, chosen to compare and equate the actions of Israel, with regard to occupation, with the actions of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics instead of the actions of the Allies of the free and liberal Western world? Guess that intellectual Freudian slip indicates a totalitarian sympathy at heart…eh?

Horus

Don’t think I did not guess you’d confuse yourself, once you got past posting ‘one liners’, with your own illogical musings and mumblings and leave yourself open to such public ridicule. You with your base insults deserve little better.
I couldn’t have planned a better opening to expose your inbred totalitarian sympathies and leanings.

Yep, that’s it! I’m a peace-loving liberal Westerner.

Keith, you assert: "an edict of the world body resulted in the initial displacement of Palestinians. That was not the case in the examples you cite. That makes a huge difference."

WRONG AGAIN.

Here are two more international edicts that forcibly expelled millions:

At the end of the Greco-Turkish war, the international community promoted the first large-scale population exchange of the 20th century. According to the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne, over two million people were de jure denaturalised and forcibly ejected from homelands where they had lived for centuries, and even millenia.

The population exchange took place as a result of an agreement signed in January 1923 by the governments of Greece and Turkey, as well as the WWI Allies. Turkish nationals of the Greek Orthodox religion who resided within the finalised borders of Turkey were denaturalised and expelled to Greece. And Greek nationals of the Muslim religion who resided within the finalised borders of Greece were expelled to Turkey. While this process of ethnic cleansing was agreed upon by the Turkish and Greek governments, it was imposed at bayonet-point upon millions of individuals who had no choice in the matter. The openly declared objective of this policy was to engineer an ethnic homogeneity in the Balkans that would avoid the sort of tensions that had triggered WWI.

And the victorious Allies at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 explicitly ordered the expulsion of 12 million Germans from East Prussia. While the Potsdam Declaration mandated an “orderly and humane” deportation process, it is generally accepted that over 1 million German civilians lost their lives during the process.

Winston Churchill clearly enunciated the rationale for this policy of ethnic cleansing during a speech in the House of Commons:

"Expulsion is the method which, in so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble... A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by these transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions…"

So much for your “huge difference.”