State
7. A politically unified people occupying a definite territory; nation.

I don’t think it’s longer prudent to refer to Palestine as a state, today its nothing but a fragmented body of dispossessed peoples, very similar to the existence black South African’s endured during apartheid. It’s not to say that it’s a perfect example, but in a macro sense its ‘grand apartheid’. The Palestinian people have been disfranchised at three levels including banishment, occupation, and second-class citizenship through a system of oppression very similar to the laws passed by the South African apartheid regime.

Palestine over the last 2000 years was the ‘homeland’ of the Palestinians, the original descendants of the Canaanites, Jews and Arabs (preceding and following Islam). Even during the British mandate they were considered as a self governing political society, but it seems people are quick to question their right for self-determination (and not an empty shell of a symbolic Palestine state or an Arab Bantustan). You have to ask yourself Paul how this could happen in such a short period of time? And don’t use terrorism as an excuse as both sides are guilty of perpetuating this heinous act against each other, neither side holds a monopoly on belligerence.

Paul the Peace Processes are a farce, it’s true the Palestinians rejected Israel’s version of the two-state solution, but it’s not well documented that Israel rejected the unprecedented two-state solution put forward by the Palestinians (or the PLO I should say as they no longer a representative body), which outlined a state of Israel incorporating some land captured in 1967 and including a very large majority of its settlers; the largest Jewish Jerusalem in the city’s history; preservation of Israel’s demographic balance between Jews and Arabs; & security guaranteed by a US-led international presence. The accords being offered to the Palestinians is nothing but a cruel mockery of the hopes of everyday people that have suffered more than enough. Arundhati Roy poignantly refers to it as a paradigm between power and powerlessness and that couldn't be closer to the truth.

Wonder why PaulL seems to have a different view of history than the history books. The only one in history that ordered such, was Hitler?

Cheers - BB

Earthrise,

False indignation? You really are a joke.

1130 Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists/bombers between September 2000 and May 2006. Nearly 10,000 injured. Almost all of these people were civilians, as they are the terrorists’ favourite target.

20/11/2000 A roadside bomb exploded at 7:30 in the morning alongside a bus carrying children from Kfar Darom to school in Gush Katif. Miriam Amitai, 35, and Gavriel Biton, 34, were killed and 9 others, including 5 children, were injured, 5 of them seriously.

1/06/ 2001 - 21 people were killed and 120 wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a disco near Tel Aviv's Dolphinarium along the seafront promenade just before midnight on Friday, June 1, while standing in a large group of teenagers waiting to enter the disco.

21/032002 - Three people were killed and 86 injured, 3 of them seriously, in a suicide bombing on King George Street in the center of Jerusalem. The terrorist detonated the bomb, packed with metal spikes and nails, in the center of a crowd of shoppers

This is three examples from among hundreds since 2000.

It is clear that there has been much death and injury on both sides. The difference is that the Israeli policy is not to target civilians. Your contention that the Israeli gov’t is assassinating peace activists and other innocent civilians is a clear example of your bias. Whilst I am sure such events have occurred, to pretend that the Israeli gov’t is behind them is pure propoganda. Individual Israeli soldiers have definitely committed acts of murder and mostly they are caught and punished.

As for the idiot peace protesters who stand between the warring sides, they take their life in their own hands and I have no sympathy for them. They knew what they were getting in to.

If you can’t see the difference between a suicide bomber looking the children in the eye before he deliberately blows up their bus and an Air Force pilot who when attempting to kill a terrorist hiding behind his community, kills innocents instead, then you are braindead

Yes Paul your numbers are correct, 2648 civilians post occupation have indeed been killed, mostly from terrorist attacks according to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but why did you choose to omit Palestinian deaths?

According to UN Population Division, and UNHCR and UNICEF data, the total number of avoidable Palestinian deaths (so called collateral) since the beginning of the occupation in Occupied Palestinian Territory now total around 300,000 with under-5 infant deaths averaging around 200,000; Palestinian refugees now total about 7 million.

It’s obvious you’re the one who can’t tell the difference between a suicide bomber and an Air Force pilot…

Earthrise,

“Genocide is exactly what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people”

Then why is the Palestinian population rising so dramatically?

According to the UN, the total Palestinian population in all the disputed territories (they include Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem) was 1,006,000 in 1950 growing to 2,152,000 in 1990.

In Gaza alone, the population increased from 731,000 in July 1994 to 1,324,991 in 2004 - a increase of 81 percent - the growth rate, 3.8 percent, one of the highest in the world.

The Palestinian population has continued to grow exponentially; being estimated in 2004 at more than 3.6 million.

Anthony Cordesman attributes this massive population increase, within all disputed territories, to “improvements in income and health services” implemented by Israel. (Anthony Cordesman, “From Peace to War: Land for Peace, or Settlements for War.” DC Center for Strategic and International Studies, August 15, 2003: pp,12-13)

Gaza has five universities and two tertiary academies, the West Bank has seven universities and three tertiary academies. Add to this another six education/research institutes. I would say that Palestinian culture, language, national feelings, religion, etc, are not only alive, but thriving.

Killing of crops and orchids (sic)?

Earthrise, you further state: “the ultimate plan of Israel is to assume sovereignty over most of the West Bank through settlement.” Can you provide documented evidence of this? Undoubtedly, if Israel still occupied Gaza, you would have added this territory as well. But Israel removed all its settlements - didn’t it.

Danielle, I am wondering, wondering, and wondering at reasons you waste a time in attempts to clarify more more more more more more more sins Israel (read: the Jews worldwide) seemingly caused towards the Arabs of Palestine-outside-Israel.

Today a PA premier, a known terrorist of HAMAS, mentored a world clearly, that any Jewish, non-Muslim civilian to be killed in order to push a globe into terrorists demands of a delusive restitution of Palestine as Arabs-only political entity.

And in Melbourne, local Muslims demonstratively smoke in trains / at underground stations under noses of in-this-case-importent-police-if-any-at-all and not only accuse in racism anyone telling them politely of government-imposed penalties for this offence but mount a voice to attract foreign students with tells of being abused by this informing: “We are Australians TOO and we know what we do”.

Welcome to New Gaza of Australia, pro-Hamas Forum participants!