Israel, Gaza, and the Middle East Conflict

[inked]

I see Hamas has fired another 10 rockets into Israel. Where's the international furor? (OF course, I have been totally in the dark literally due to 5 continuous days without power of any sort due to ice storm effects...Is Obama still President of the United States of America? Is that Illinois Governor impeached? Or is ignorance bliss?)

The Illinois Governor is O-U-T! See here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090130...20090130113032

Still nothing international in outrage over Hamas' rockets........................................... ..

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by inked

I see Hamas has fired another 10 rockets into Israel. Where's the international furor? (OF course, I have been totally in the dark literally due to 5 continuous days without power of any sort due to ice storm effects...Is Obama still President of the United States of America? Is that Illinois Governor impeached? Or is ignorance bliss?)

The Illinois Governor is O-U-T! See here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090130...20090130113032

Still nothing international in outrage over Hamas' rockets........................................... ..

You need to check the information you read Inked.

The dozen rockets sent into Israel were not launched by the Hamas movement, as conceded by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak. Gaza is the home of many smaller movements far more radical than Hamas. Movements that effectively no one controls after Gaza City was bombed back to the Stone Age by those clever Israeli artillery pieces.

There is no international furore over this attack, which killed 2 Israeli soldiers and one civilian, because the Israelis are doing the exactly same thing. Last week they killed a farmer.

Yet there is a constant international furore over the violations of human rights perpetrated by both Hamas and Israel in this conflict. For example it was just leaked by a major Israeli newspaper that the Israeli government, yet again, is illegally building new settlements (I have to ask: Are they stupid?) on the West Bank, and this time they are even re-appropriating private propertyl owned by West Bank Palestinians to build yet more settlements.

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

The dozen rockets sent into Israel were not launched by the Hamas movement, as conceded by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak. Gaza is the home of many smaller movements far more radical than Hamas. Movements that effectively no one controls after Gaza City was bombed back to the Stone Age by those clever Israeli artillery pieces.

The Popular Resistance Committee was indeed behind the attacks and not Hamas per se. Hamas is however responsible for security matters in the Gaza strip, i.e. seeing to it that rockets are not launched into Israeli territory. Israel and a large part of the international community would hold Hamas accountable for attacks such as the recent ones, and I agree with this stance.

It seems to me that there is a trend here - whenever Gaza receives a higher degree of autonomy, there is a subsequent increase in the number of attacks on Israeli targets. As a result, the Israeli military has to enter Gaza to quell the attacks and regain control, since the Palestinian government evidently has failed to prevent any hostilities. Then, when Gaza again is trusted with more self-governing, the leaders still fail to meet the demands of achieving a reduction in violence. And history repeats itself.

[The Telcontarion]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

The Popular Resistance Committee was indeed behind the attacks and not Hamas per se. Hamas is however responsible for security matters in the Gaza strip, i.e. seeing to it that rockets are not launched into Israeli territory. Israel and a large part of the international community would hold Hamas accountable for attacks such as the recent ones, and I agree with this stance.

It seems to me that there is a trend here - whenever Gaza receives a higher degree of autonomy, there is a subsequent increase in the number of attacks on Israeli targets. As a result, the Israeli military has to enter Gaza to quell the attacks and regain control, since the Palestinian government evidently has failed to prevent any hostilities. Then, when Gaza again is trusted with more self-governing, the leaders still fail to meet the demands of achieving a reduction in violence. And history repeats itself.

Sounds like a perfect argument for Israel to go in and take over the Gaza strip entirely; has Israel made this assessment already? One could argue that if Israel wanted to do such a thing, false flag terror would be a perfect way to have others (Jonathan) make this argument for them.

I don't see that as possible, do you? It's not like Hamas had the support of Israel or that there is strong evidence to suggest that they were behind the founding of the political organization. Nor have there been any admission of false flag terror by Israel in the passed, which would be a strong indicator of them being capable of doing such a thing. Neither does the insistence of Israel in building settlements - even now during the conflict - suggests a strong desire to acquire the land and should not be taken as a motive for them to carryout such an operation.

I see no reason to ask, quo bono? Do you?

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

The Popular Resistance Committee was indeed behind the attacks and not Hamas per se. Hamas is however responsible for security matters in the Gaza strip, i.e. seeing to it that rockets are not launched into Israeli territory. Israel and a large part of the international community would hold Hamas accountable for attacks such as the recent ones, and I agree with this stance.

It seems to me that there is a trend here - whenever Gaza receives a higher degree of autonomy, there is a subsequent increase in the number of attacks on Israeli targets. As a result, the Israeli military has to enter Gaza to quell the attacks and regain control, since the Palestinian government evidently has failed to prevent any hostilities. Then, when Gaza again is trusted with more self-governing, the leaders still fail to meet the demands of achieving a reduction in violence. And history repeats itself.

Hamas should in the end be held responsible for security matters in Gaza: Agreed.
There are many buts though!

First point:
Gaza has only once received any degree of autonomy, and that was when the Israelis left Gaza in 2005. Neither Hamas, Fatah or PLO have had any real governing independence free of Israeli military interference in Gaza prior to 2005 because the Gaza Strip was occupied, and had been so since the Six-Day War of 1967. It is therefore false to argue that this is a trend. The one trend that is Gaza is the corruption of several Palestinian authorities coupled with the non-stop provocations Israel upheld since 1994 with their checkpoints and trade chokepoints.

And second point I argue: There is a lapse of logic in the responsibilities awarded to the government of Gaza (Hamas) and the duties that it is in reality able to perform.

Let's agree that any governing body of an independent territory must upheld the duties that the peoples of that territory have endowed it and expect it to adhere to. But the Gaza Strip isn't an independent territory! And to the extent that it is autonomous it has been so for less than four years.

Hamas definitely must be blamed and must be held responsible for the deaths and violence it has stirred in Gaza. It's tactics in opposition to Israel are demented and counter-productive.

Yet Hamas does not stand alone in the security matters of Gaza. Israel has taken that responsibility too with its blockade of trade and freedom of movement, denying Gazans the most basic of needs.
On any given day of 'normality' in Gaza Hamas should be held responsible for the basic security in Gaza. It's ridiculous however to ask Hamas or any other governing body in the disaster area that Gaza City is, to even have a remotely adequate control over security.

On a last note, there is no Palestinian government or authority. It does not exist. There is Fatah governing in the West Bank and Hamas governing (or whatever you want to call the current situation) Gaza. Those two political movements are not even reconciled. The Palestinian people have no unified government, have no unified (or working) economy, health service, security arrangement, etc.

So unless Hamas stops its headless actions and violence, and Israel stops its inhumane blockade of Gaza and idiotic settlement culture in the West Bank, there will be no solutions and each side will continue to blame each others in a perpetual circle of chaos.

[Count Comfect]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

Gaza has only once received any degree of autonomy, and that was when the Israelis left Gaza in 2005. Neither Hamas, Fatah or PLO have had any real governing independence free of Israeli military interference in Gaza prior to 2005 because the Gaza Strip was occupied, and had been so since the Six-Day War of 1967.

I don't intend to get into an argument about this war - I think it's far too muddled an issue to want to get into that - but I think this point is incomplete. Gaza has never received any degree of autonomy ever, with the exception of the limited autonomy after 2005. Before 1967 it was occupied by Egypt; before 1948 it was Mandated to Britain; before 1917 it was Ottoman; before that, it wasn't even considered a separate unit, really. So there is really no precedent regarding Gazan self-government at all, not just none after 1967. This is really uncharted territory (and goodness knows someone better start charting it in a better direction on all sides).

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

I don't intend to get into an argument about this war - I think it's far too muddled an issue to want to get into that - but I think this point is incomplete. Gaza has never received any degree of autonomy ever, with the exception of the limited autonomy after 2005. Before 1967 it was occupied by Egypt; before 1948 it was Mandated to Britain; before 1917 it was Ottoman; before that, it wasn't even considered a separate unit, really. So there is really no precedent regarding Gazan self-government at all, not just none after 1967. This is really uncharted territory (and goodness knows someone better start charting it in a better direction on all sides).

The point of raising the issue of autonomy in Gaza was made by Jonathan (and myself) as to whether more autonomy led to more rockets fired into southern Israel. The point I make here is that although there has been a sharp increase in rocket fire from Gaza to southern Israel, this isn't a long-term trend of "more autonomy - more violence" because autonomy never really existed before 2005.

But I think that's an important point you raise Count Comfect - it's a core issue of the Palestinian diaspora!
The lack of autonomy previously or, lack of precedence, is a testament to 1) the fact that Gaza was of course not a Palestinian territory, but an area under Ottoman, then British, then Egyptian control. Which means that in its current state it is a fairly recent geopolitical territory, now belonging to Palestinians.

That fact uncovers the sad situation of the Palestinian people. Having lived on this land, covering area from the Sinai desert, to Aqaba, to the Jordan River/West Bank, to Jerusalem to Haifa and back to the current Gaza strip, the Palestinian people have been victims to several consecutive occupying powers: Ottomans -) British -) Egyptians/Israelis/Jordanians/Syrians.

No surprise then when Palestinians look back in history and become enraged! What justification could any other people have in displacing the inhabitants (Palestinians)? None.

To a Palestinian with a family history dating back hundreds of years between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River it must look completely insane to see all ownership, access, freedom of movement and consequent lack of dignity and stability be taken away in a few decades because another people were displaced and felt a God-chosen entitlement to the land. It must seem surreal.

The story is one big muddle isn't it..
You have the coming of a psychologically and historically besieged people (the Jewish diaspora mainly in Europe), traumatized by the worst systematic massacre in human history, to an area a little larger than the size of New Jersey (or the largest mountain-chain in Norway), where a people (the Palestinians), empoverished, disenfranchised and bordering on enslaved by colonialist Britain and the former brutal Ottoman Empire. All this at a point in time where a resurgence of ethnic and nationalist sentiments all over the globe (post-WW2 era) mixes with an overflow of politically tied aid (USA, former USSR) and... guns... and more guns and even more guns.

But for all the lunacy that Hamas and other more radical movements in Gaza and the West Bank represent, the big question the world asks itself (and this is why outrage pours over again and again) is how Israelis, being 1st-hand witnesses to the discriminations and human brutality under WW2, could possibly proceed with the sort of occupation that has crippled the West Bank and Gaza. Displacing people from their homes, denying them basic needs, denying them freedom of movement, and declaring them less-worth (rings of apartheid does it not?). That's the big question-mark which the people of Israel need to come to terms with soon.
Certainly there are many, many accounts as we speak by former soldiers of the Israeli army, by journalists, by politicians and ex-politicians, by civilians and by some hard-working Israeli human rights activists and a swarm of non-Israeli Jews (in Europe, the USA, South America, etc.) that the way Israel is proceeding is morally wrong and counter-productive. There needs to a change in mindset.

In the Palestinian territories I think this is more difficult. How do you ask families whom see their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles get killed by gun-fire, artillery fire, collapsing houses and buildings, and starvation, to lend a hand to the other side? How do you convince them that there is no harm meant by the regular folks on the other side when you can't get the food and medicine you need for your family because there is a blockade? Or when white phosporous is dropped in the air over their heads?

Let's hope the Gazans somehow manage to coerce their leadership (Hamas) into enough being enough and demanding them to reach out to Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah in the West Bank.

But this type of dialogue won't happen until the one superpower in the world steps up on the gas and if not forcefully, then very strongly, urges both parties to sit down and talk!!

[inked]

CH, I had no sources for 5 days! I note that you did not link any active international concern sightings or citings, either. One can really get behind when off-line for too long.

Count Comfect and Jonathan both make excellent points and not ones which support my contentions. Personally, I think Israel should have just kept the whole 1967 enlarged boundaries since the attackers LOST THE WAR THEY STARTED. But Hamas and its surrogates (just like Hamas itself is a surrogate) are responsible. The strongest claim to that is the assertion that the one superpower should force both sides to the table. Why, exactly, should the USA do that. The Ottomans did it their way, the Brits theirs, the Jordanians theirs, et cetera - so why is it imagined that the USA has the magic cure and should exercise it here instead of say Iraq or Darfur or ad nauseum.

Where's that vaunted EU in all of this?

We know where the UN is ... covering weapons tunnels and rocket firings....

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by inked

CH, I had no sources for 5 days! I note that you did not link any active international concern sightings or citings, either. One can really get behind when off-line for too long.

Count Comfect and Jonathan both make excellent points and not ones which support my contentions. Personally, I think Israel should have just kept the whole 1967 enlarged boundaries since the attackers LOST THE WAR THEY STARTED. But Hamas and its surrogates (just like Hamas itself is a surrogate) are responsible. The strongest claim to that is the assertion that the one superpower should force both sides to the table. Why, exactly, should the USA do that. The Ottomans did it their way, the Brits theirs, the Jordanians theirs, et cetera - so why is it imagined that the USA has the magic cure and should exercise it here instead of say Iraq or Darfur or ad nauseum.

Where's that vaunted EU in all of this?

We know where the UN is ... covering weapons tunnels and rocket firings....

Well I guess it's reasonable to expect simplistic solutions to a simplistic understanding of the conflict right?

The United States has a unique position in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because it is the only country currently in the world that has the economic, military and political leverage to get the two sides to the table to sit down and talk. It's done it before, but as we all know past attempts have failed, in large part due to the demented stupidity of Yassir Arafat, who was nothing less than a double-faced crook. There, I said it.

As a European I would be thrilled to see the EU play a substantive part in any peace negotation. But frankly I believe the EU, representing most of Europe (though not my country Norway which isn't a member!), doesn't have the remotest of clout to involve itself. There's little to no credibility left, and that is part due to historical reasons.

*Ignores the UN-bashing*

Let's be clear about one thing however. You seem to be under the illusion that involving oneself in one conflict means a forfeit of another. That's not how it works, and certainly not how it is going to be for the US or any other responsibility-aspiring nation on our planet in these times of financial and ecological dire straits.
The US is 24 hours, day and night, participating in solutions to international, regional and local problems stretching from the Taiwan Straits to the Caribbean backwater that is Haiti. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you realise, is therefore only one of many, many conflicts where American input is needed.

[inked]

So,CH, exactly how is it that the "dememted stupidity of Yassir Arafat" has been changed such that the USA is magically going to solve the crisis by force?

I must have missed that part of your simplistic answer because it was so short and nonexistent?

Seriously, answer the historical examples of failure and explain how it is that simple power -as you understand it- is going to solve the problem that has historically been present since recorded history and for which "demented stupidity" seems to be the one actuality verifiable?

I'm all a-gaga waiting for the answer!

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by inked

Where's that vaunted EU in all of this?

Why, still busy funding and working on the clean-up of Israel's last little excursion into Libanon. And currently trying to get humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. You know, doing something constructive unlike some other people who still believe happily lobbing enough rockets and bombs at one another will solve anything...

I'd like to clear up two misconceptions, though. One, neither Europe or the EU are just idly standing by, twidling their thumbs. Nor is the EU limiting itself solely to providing aid, there are still quite a few diplomaths travelling between the Middle-east and Europe lately. Granted, the EU is not taking centerstage in the peace talks, but personally, I don't see how a larger EU-involvement would get more result. At this point I think Egypt is best placed to negociate a long-term cease-fire anyway.

Two, there IS still Ã*nd ungoing critique on Hamas. But apparently this won't be believed without an internet-article stating such, so please see this for example:

"Hamas has an enormous responsibility for what happened here in Gaza," said commissioner Louis Michel while visiting a UN aid compound that had been bombed by Israel.

He denounced Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel as a "provocation" and said the Islamist party was "acting in the way of a terrorist movement."

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by inked

So,CH, exactly how is it that the "dememted stupidity of Yassir Arafat" has been changed such that the USA is magically going to solve the crisis by force?

I must have missed that part of your simplistic answer because it was so short and nonexistent?

Seriously, answer the historical examples of failure and explain how it is that simple power -as you understand it- is going to solve the problem that has historically been present since recorded history and for which "demented stupidity" seems to be the one actuality verifiable?

I'm all a-gaga waiting for the answer!

There's nothing magical involved in peace-brokering Inked. It's a time-consuming business which, if it's going to work, needs leverage. As Eärniel just pointed out, the EU is engaged in low-intensity, but important work like humanitarian aid. Yet the European Union just isn't going to be able to pull the load politically or pressurize either parties economically. Except for the vital input of neighbouring states, there is only one real actor on the international stage that can and is stating its commitment (Obama admin) to negotiate a peace. But you know that.

The demented stupidity of Yassir Arafat certainly doesn't apply any longer since the guy is dead... So that's changed right??
The fact of the matter is that in the 1990's, both during the Oslo Accords and the later Camp David talks, Yassir Arafat repeatedly nearly single-handedly hampered negotiations. As something of a proclaimed king of the PLO he had the first and last word. His was a shameful display of arrogance and counter-productivity on what the Palestinian people wanted the most: security.
Of course it didn't make it any easier after the Oslo Peace Accords were signed in 93-95 that an Israeli right-wing terrorist assassined Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, one of the truly progressive leaders that Israel has had and who geniounly wanted a peace settlement.

But you don't need to slate my opinions to make your simplistic points. I don't believe in simple power, if I did I'd be a supporter of Bush right?

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict you need not only economic and political leverage, but leverage of intelligence and leverage of committment, neither which Bush seemed to understand much of.
Americas new president however, is a smart guy who has begun his term by surrounding himself with smart people who are not only hard-working but pragmatic. It's quite the change from the neo-conservative cowboy views of Bush and Cheney to Obama and Biden, both whom just had served membership in the Foreign Relations Cmte. of Congress, the latter being the Chairman..

Do me a favour though. If you want to discuss this conflict, contribute with some geniune insights and not recycled comments on how much the EU and UN sucks. It's boring to read.

[The Telcontarion]

Again, I ask, who benefits. Sure enough, now Israel is calling for a greater Israel. Expanding the present borders of Israel; I knew it, I knew it. So who benefits from what is going on right now; quo bono?!!!!!

Real simple...

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

This is such a cluttered argument.

For one thing, Coffeehouse. This, here:

To a Palestinian with a family history dating back hundreds of years between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River it must look completely insane to see all ownership, access, freedom of movement and consequent lack of dignity and stability be taken away in a few decades because another people were displaced and felt a God-chosen entitlement to the land. It must seem surreal.

I don't know why this would be "surreal." It's actually the way most things work, historically. All these effete notions about "human rights" are extremely recent, and observed more in the breach. My Celtic ancestors had their asses kicked from the mountains of Russia to the New World. There they started in industriously eliminating as many of the indigenous people as they could manage. Everyone else was doing the same. Where are the Sami and Traveler people in Norway? Who dominates their ancestral lands?

I just don't know. At some point, we're going to have to embrace a larger version of reality than the one we currently use. We're going to have to look at our behavior as it impacts the planet, and not just our cultural or ethnic group.

That's a change in consciousness. That's not going to happen while people are still naming rocks and saying MINE! And the problems in the Middle East are just vile examples of how that goes wrong, for ordinary people.

[inked]

CH, so "because they have power" is so simplistic. Power is what the Ottoman's had, Britain had, Jordan had, and the UN had. So why did it not work? And whilst I give you naivete points for your support for the untried and unproven O-man, Bush-bashing no longer works as an excuse for US failure and it certainly doesn't reach back through the historical process, does it? (It is rather boring though and I predict will soon enough turn to Obama bashing as he fails to achieve what none before him have done.)

The UN statement I had read before losing power which means prior to being out of the loop for 5 days plus another two, now, so again I ask where is the active/current/timely international censure of the persons ostensibly in charge of Gaza allowing continued rocket firings by surrogates they either a) employ or b) cannot control. I can see the sufferance that argument would get if Israel allowed "radical" to randomly bomb and mortar and rocket attack Gaza in the same fashion.

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

This is such a cluttered argument.

For one thing, Coffeehouse. This, here:
I don't know why this would be "surreal." It's actually the way most things work, historically. All these effete notions about "human rights" are extremely recent, and observed more in the breach. My Celtic ancestors had their asses kicked from the mountains of Russia to the New World. There they started in industriously eliminating as many of the indigenous people as they could manage. Everyone else was doing the same. Where are the Sami and Traveler people in Norway? Who dominates their ancestral lands?

I just don't know. At some point, we're going to have to embrace a larger version of reality than the one we currently use. We're going to have to look at our behavior as it impacts the planet, and not just our cultural or ethnic group.

That's a change in consciousness. That's not going to happen while people are still naming rocks and saying MINE! And the problems in the Middle East are just vile examples of how that goes wrong, for ordinary people.

But Sis, I completely agree with you. Displacement of peoples through history surely has been the norm not the exception. Does not make it any less wrong. "Naming rocks and saying MINE!" is the wrong way to go about, and you are right, the Middle East shows how bad it can get. But that does not make it any less of a slash in the well-being of the Palestinian people that another people, the Jewish diaspora, whom were displaced not by Palestinians, but by Western nations, arrive in a land where Palestinians have lived for centuries, and are subsequently told that they must give up large areas of land and all that is attached to it while at the same time hearing that the Jewish are "God's chosen people". That must be surreal.

As I mentioned a few times now, both sides need to sit down and talk. There needs to be negotiations, and in successful peace negotiations there are concessions. Two hallmark concessions that every outside observes sees could go along way in solving the problem is the return of the land in the West Bank currently illegally occupied by the settlers and a complete end to rocket and suicide bombing attacks by Palestinians. Security for Israel = Security for Palestina and vice versa.

Concerning the Sami..., they are now perhaps the most well-endowed and independently acting indigenous people on the planet
While the Norwegian state made missteps in the past, trying to force the Sami people to learn Norwegian and become 'real Norwegians', that era is over.
Today, Sis, the Sami people of Norway have their own brand new, state-of-the-art parliament in northern Norway where more than 20 parties or so are actively participating. The ancestral land of the Sami people in mostly Finnmark is now labelled strictly for the Sami people's use. They have unique ownership rights to this area and in fact most of Finnmark for farming, fishing and other commercial purposes that would make most landowners in the world green with envy! Being a Sami in Norway these days tastes very good I believe.

And Inked, tell me when you have something insightful to say and perhaps I'll read it It's becoming clear that your less interested in any solution to this conflict than seeing Gaza City levelled to the ground..

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

I'm not 100% sure why "Western Nations", whoever they are, are being blamed for Jewish resettlement.

Well, except for ELTel's POV, which is that those people were never in the middle east, to start with.

Wouldn't Jewish settlers have the same hereditary right to the lands of Abraham and Isaac as the Palestinians?

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

I'm not 100% sure why "Western Nations", whoever they are, are being blamed for Jewish resettlement.

Well, except for ELTel's POV, which is that those people were never in the middle east, to start with.

Wouldn't Jewish settlers have the same hereditary right to the lands of Abraham and Isaac as the Palestinians?

Well I didn't mean to be vague. Let me clarify: Nations of the West, meaning Western Europe and North America (-minus Mexico), particularly the former and current powers: Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States. Does that clarify? Line of thought:
- Jewish diaspora endures an historical hardship in Europe, beginning with the Catholic-led expulsions in Spain and Portugal and, the rise of anti-semitism in the early 19th century, culminating in the systematic massacre of Jews in all of the Third Reich and Mussolini's Italy.
- Great Britain half-heartedly addresses anti-semitism by promising Jews in Europe a national home in Palestine after the First World War by way of the Balfour Declaration while at the same time giving promises to the Arabs of Palestine that they would get their independence and their national home.
- Massive Jewish legal and illegal migration follows under the watch of the British and the French, without consulting the large majority of Arab Palestinians already residing there. Having just been rid of the Ottoman yoke, the Palestinians now get shoved down their throat 'British protection' in form of a mandate, completely in conflict with what they were promised during the Great War. One nation stood out in this period and challenged the British on this 'protection', calling it illegal and a sham, and that was the United States.

The history between 1918 and up to 1948 is of course complex, but there is no doubt when looking back on this period that the British played colonial games for their own ends. It's a disgraceful and shameful part of British history, and I think they are painfully aware of it.

In any case: From a purely practical perspective the question of who has the right to the land or not is just a major obstacle to a lasting peace arrangement. That's why both the Oslo Accords and the Camp David talks stressed the mutual right that Palestinians and Israelis have to a national home. That mutual, non-conflicting right with a center of gravity in Jerusalem should be the basis for peace talks. In my view.

I'm happy though to have a discussion about each side's merits. In my mind there is no doubt that a people who have lived on the land, for centuries, family to family, and constituting the vast majority of the population in that same time period, owning most of the land, cultivating most of the land, building and developing most of the land, raising towns and cities, have precedence over any God-given hereditary right that the Jews can point to in the Old Testament.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

I'm happy though to have a discussion about each side's merits. In my mind there is no doubt that a people who have lived on the land, for centuries, family to family, and constituting the vast majority of the population in that same time period, owning most of the land, cultivating most of the land, building and developing most of the land, raising towns and cities, have precedence over any God-given hereditary right that the Jews can point to in the Old Testament.

Ah, see, here's one of those problematic assumptions.

Your point of view is that, since the Jews were displaced longer, and dispersed further, the people who took over their figs and fields are the heros.

Is that true for every people?
What's the start date?

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Ah, see, here's one of those problematic assumptions.

Your point of view is that, since the Jews were displaced longer, and dispersed further, the people who took over their figs and fields are the heros.

Is that true for every people?
What's the start date?

It's not an assumption, it's a declaration. It seems your under the impression that the ancestors of modern-day Palestinians somehow arrived on the spot after the Jews lost their short-lived kingdom? They didn't.

Bare with me. There have been Jews living in Palestine since the sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD, but they have not constituted a majority, in any way. For a little less than 1900 years the Jews have thus not even been remotely close to constituting the majority of the population, and if we extend the timeline further back, the Jews as a majority in the lands around current-day Haifa and Jerusalem and all the way to the Jordan River, has not been the norm, but the exception. Whatever tales are told in the Old Testament, when one actually looks back on history and archeological data, the Jewish kingdom of Israel was a short reign, along with numerous other tribes and peoples whom for one reason or another neither exist under that name, or have intermixed and effectively constitute modern-day Palestinians.

The Palestinians as a collective national identity is fairly recent, just as is the case for 'Germans', which only came about in the 18th century. Yet the ancestors of 21st century Palestinians were there 1900 years ago, were there during the sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and were there before, during and after the short-lived kingdom of Israel. The Palestinians today, much like Arabs in Syria and Lebanon, constitute a culmination of centuries and millenias of displacement and replacement of peoples, cultures and languages. The most 'recent' addition in this time period is the coming of Islam from Arabia, replacing local religions. There hasn't been a taking over of 'figs and fields', because these people, or as the Old Testament likes to name them, Canaanites, were there then too.