Spy

To answer your question. If I was an Israeli I'd dismantle the settlements and cease the occupation...ie stop stealing my neighbours land and cease my suppression them. I'd also extend the hand of frienship to my peace loving neighbours and their democratically elected government.

Not too hard really for it's what we Western Liberal Democrats have done for the past couple of centuries ... and it's made us the most safe, secure and prosperous nations on this earth ... ever.

But then again we've developed over time through our extroverted seeking of new knowledge and concepts which have developed and evolved through time. Which is in total contrast to the bigotted narrow minded and vision lacking idiots who draw their truth from an unchanged thousands of years old book of fantasies and fairy tales and who believe some God centuries ago in one of their concocted tales 'told' them they owned all the land from one river to another.

And some goose from the latter camp has told me to get real ... Ha bloody ha.

Not a murmur of of ourtrage, nor protest, nor indeed even acknowledgment of the plight of Palestians, when :

... Palestinians are caged and treated as sub-human in Arab States; where even those born, now three generations, have no claim to citizenship status.

... Palestinians are killing other Palestinians. By October of the year 2005, 151 dead; more than in clashes with Israeli troops defending their country against terrorism.
Mohammed Daraghmeh, “Palestinian Vigilante Killings on the Rise,” AP, (Oct. 6, 2005)

... Hamas Al-Aqsa Children‘s TV program teaches the joys of martyrdom; or kindergarten tots dressed as suicide bombers, portray them, yelling in their “final” moments “Alah Ak-bah”, or children and adolescents forced to kiss the bloodied corpses of terrorist-operative martyrs (shaheeds).

Concern for Palestinians? Utter Bosh! Be honest. It is the mention of Israel - and you come out like pit-bulls attacking a prey.

Israel is tiny, its narrowest point 9 miles across. According to some here, Jews, as a people, aren’t allowed to have a minute strip of country of their own; and they certainly aren’t permitted the right of defending its people of whom Jews represent only 73%. Arabs have over 50 countries. Every other people have a country. But let’s deny Jews this - after all they are responsible for all the world’s woes - even for the Black Death (sarcasm, Lev).

Keith interprets the actions of of Israel through the prism of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. I suspect he and von Tongeren “lunch”.

Marilyn and Lev read, uncritically, whatever trash supports their position.

cont ...

Ilan Pappe’ - the ultimate postmodern historian - never mind facts, look how big the book. Pappe admits this, often:

“Who knows what facts are? We try to convince as many people as we can that our interpretation of the facts is the correct one, and we do it because of ideological reasons, not because we are truthseekers,"
Interview - French newspaper, Le Soir, April 29, 1999.

One of the lies Pappe propagates, ad nauseum: Israel
committed a massacre in Jenin in 2002. This has been refuted, also by UN reports.

Benny Morris critiquing Pappe's 2004 book, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, wrote in the New Republic:

“Much of what Pappe tries to sell his readers is complete fabrication. . . . This book is awash with errors of a quantity and a quality that are not found in serious historiography. . . .”

Norman Finkelstein’s work is THE text used by anti-Semites. The New York Times’ review described the premise of his “Holocaust Industry,” - full of slurs, fabrications, omissions, and selective editing - as a "novel variation" of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Finkelstein mocked Nobel Prize winner and noted human rights activist, for all peoples, Eli Wiesel, as the “resident clown”; indeed, slanders other Jewish human rights activists.

One can easily demolish each of Marilyn’s points. There is ample factual, well documented and supportable material to do so. But I am certainly not wasting time ... yet again ... on Marilyn’s hysterical rants; nor waste time, as have done so, “trying” to debate Lev and his delusions of social engineering..

Refusing to believe it initially, I have unwillingly come to the conclusion that Keith, Marilyn and Lev, and their camp-followers, are anti-Semites (the academic term, Marilyn; Lev - the new face of anti-Semitism).

Knee-jerk protests: “I like Jews, I have friends who are Jews” - the typical response of anti-Semites.

I recognise the ugly, scorpion-face of, and rhetoric of racism, only too well.

Danielle

Sadly once again you cannot defend the actions of the Israelis so you sink to the level of lies and personal abuse.

You've never been able to back up your stupid anti-semitic slurs ... and still can't.

You know the last time you entered your views on this forum it became all to obvious you could be condemned as an emotionally crippled intellectual dwarf.

Nothing has changed.

Keith, thank you for providing a response to my questions about what you'd do if you were Israeli. Sadly you appear to have little grasp of the facts

"If I was an Israeli I'd dismantle the settlements and cease the occupation"

Comment: Hold on a second, Israel dismantled the settlements and withdrew from Gaza in the summer of 2005. What did it get in return? Almost daily rocket attacks from Gaza! Now with the Gaza experience in mind it's hardly suprising that Israel would think twice about pulling out of the West Bank. After all, missiles fired from the West Bank could reach Jerusalem and other major Israeli population centres. Would you pull out your military and expose yourself to that type of threat? I think not.

Like many, I used to think that if Israel simply withdrew from the territories the Palestinians would be happy and all would be fine. Unfortunately, Gaza proves otherwise. Hamas and other radical groups want to destroy Israel. They will not be satisfied with what is now known as the West Bank and Gaza. They want ALL of what is now Israel.

"I'd also extend the hand of frienship to my peace loving neighbours and their democratically elected government."

Comment: Not sure if you're being sarcastic here with the reference to "peace loving neighbours". Let's assume you're being serious. Well, sorry to wake you up Keith but Israel already has extended the hand of friendship - it has peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan.

I suggest you check the facts before your next post.

Danielle,

1) The plight of the Palestinians in Arab lands is well acknowledged. They have been treated poorly by various despotic regimes and there has been serious condemnation of some of Hamas' objectives in this thread.

2) The UN report is quite different to what you claims (cf., http://www.un.org/peace/jenin/). Further information is well documented (http://www.jenininquiry.org/).

3) Dr. Ilan Pappé engages in normal historical practice. He accumulates facts and then he interprets those facts.

The full interview of can be found here: (http://www.ilanpappe.org/Interviews/An%20Interview%20with%20Ilan%20Pappe.html).

Dr. Pappé's response to Benny Morris comments in New Republic are quite illustrative; Pappé can read Arabic and also used Arabic sources, whereas Morris cannot; his (unpublished) response is worthy reading for those who wish further understanding on the debate rather than shrill assertions

(http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2555.shtml)

4) The fact that Norman Finklestein's work "The Holocaust Industry" is used by anti-Semites doesn't mean that the content is incorrect. As Finklestein himself remarks "None [of the critics], so far as I can tell, question my actual findings."

We are of course aware that Finklestein is better placed than most to discuss the holocaust; his mother and father survived the Majdanek and Auschwitz concentration camps respectively.

Spy,

It is unreasonable to continue claiming that "Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005" when they invaded the following year, have a stranglehold on the economy. Out of 9,000 commodities that were entering Gaza before the 2006, only 20 commodities were to be allowed in. Even the Red Cross found the need to comment on the collective punishment being forced on the people of Gaza.

Still, you are certainly right about one thing. Yes, we do want the whole lot - all of historic Palestine as one democratic and secular state; and that would eventually end the rocket attacks on both sides. And demographics be damned - that's a fundamentally racist argument! So what if Jews end up being a minority religion in Palestine? It's not numbers that count it is the provision of egalitarian political rights that matter.