[para-dice]

Christian Science Monitor is one of those rare internet sites which offers truly unbiased, all perspectives offered, coverage of M-E issues. They are universally respected for the quality of thier rather staid journalism.

Hizbullah's attacks stem from Israeli incursions into Lebanon
By Anders Strindberg

NEW YORK – As pundits and policymakers scramble to explain events in Lebanon, their conclusions are virtually unanimous: Hizbullah created this crisis. Israel is defending itself. The underlying problem is Arab extremism.
Sadly, this is pure analytical nonsense. Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 was a direct result of Israel's silent but unrelenting aggression against Lebanon, which in turn is part of a six-decades long Arab-Israeli conflict.

Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations-monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis, according to UN reports. Hizbullah's military doctrine, articulated in the early 1990s, states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership; this indeed has been the pattern.

In the process of its violations, Israel has terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians. This past February, for instance, 15-year-old shepherd Yusuf Rahil was killed by unprovoked Israeli cross-border fire as he tended his flock in southern Lebanon. Israel has assassinated its enemies in the streets of Lebanese cities and continues to occupy Lebanon's Shebaa Farms area, while refusing to hand over the maps of mine fields that continue to kill and cripple civilians in southern Lebanon more than six years after the war supposedly ended. What peace did Hizbullah shatter?

Hizbullah's capture of the soldiers took place in the context of this ongoing conflict, which in turn is fundamentally shaped by realities in the Palestinian territories. To the vexation of Israel and its allies, Hizbullah - easily the most popular political movement in the Middle East - unflinchingly stands with the Palestinians.

Since June 25, when Palestinian fighters captured one Israeli soldier and demanded a prisoner exchange, Israel has killed more than 140 Palestinians. Like the Lebanese situation, that flare-up was detached from its wider context and was said to be "manufactured" by the enemies of Israel; more nonsense proffered in order to distract from the apparently unthinkable reality that it is the manner in which Israel was created, and the ideological premises that have sustained it for almost 60 years, that are the core of the entire Arab-Israeli conflict.

Once the Arabs had rejected the UN's right to give away their land and to force them to pay the price for European pogroms and the Holocaust, the creation of Israel in 1948 was made possible only by ethnic cleansing and annexation. This is historical fact and has been documented by Israeli historians, such as Benny Morris. Yet Israel continues to contend that it had nothing to do with the Palestinian exodus, and consequently has no moral duty to offer redress.

For six decades the Palestinian refugees have been refused their right to return home because they are of the wrong race. "Israel must remain a Jewish state," is an almost sacral mantra across the Western political spectrum. It means, in practice, that Israel is accorded the right to be an ethnocracy at the expense of the refugees and their descendants, now close to 5 million.

Is it not understandable that Israel's ethnic preoccupation profoundly offends not only Palestinians, but many of their Arab brethren? Yet rather than demanding that Israel acknowledge its foundational wrongs as a first step toward equality and coexistence, the Western world blithely insists that each and all must recognize Israel's right to exist at the Palestinians' expense.

Western discourse seems unable to accommodate a serious, as opposed to cosmetic concern for Palestinians' rights and liberties: The Palestinians are the Indians who refuse to live on the reservation; the Negroes who refuse to sit in the back of the bus.

By what moral right does anyone tell them to be realistic and get over themselves? That it is too much of a hassle to right the wrongs committed against them? That the front of the bus must remain ethnically pure? When they refuse to recognize their occupier and embrace their racial inferiority, when desperation and frustration causes them to turn to violence, and when neighbors and allies come to their aid - some for reasons of power politics, others out of idealism - we are astonished that they are all such fanatics and extremists.

The fundamental obstacle to understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict is that we have given up on asking what is right and wrong, instead asking what is "practical" and "realistic." Yet reality is that Israel is a profoundly racist state, the existence of which is buttressed by a seemingly endless succession of punitive measures, assassinations, and wars against its victims and their allies.

A realistic understanding of the conflict, therefore, is one that recognizes that the crux is not in this or that incident or policy, but in Israel's foundational and persistent refusal to recognize the humanity of its Palestinian victims. Neither Hizbullah nor Hamas are driven by a desire to "wipe out Jews," as is so often claimed, but by a fundamental sense of injustice that they will not allow to be forgotten.

These groups will continue to enjoy popular legitimacy because they fulfill the need for someone - anyone - to stand up for Arab rights. Israel cannot destroy this need by bombing power grids or rocket ramps. If Israel, like its former political ally South Africa, has the capacity to come to terms with principles of democracy and human rights and accept egalitarian multiracial coexistence within a single state for Jews and Arabs, then the foundation for resentment and resistance will have been removed. If Israel cannot bring itself to do so, then it will continue to be the vortex of regional violence.

• Anders Strindberg, formerly a visiting professor at Damascus University, Syria, is a consultant on Middle East politics working with European government and law-enforcement agencies. He has also covered Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories as a journalist since the late 1990s, primarily for European publications.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0801/p09s02-coop.html
***************************************************************************

I just want to add a comment by the world's foremost voice of dissent, one Noam Chomsky copncerning Gaza:

"It was when Israel abducted two Gaza civilians, a doctor and his brother. We don't know their names. You don't know the names of victims. They were taken to Israel, presumably, and nobody knows their fate. The next day, something happened, which we do know about, a lot. Militants in Gaza, probably Islamic Jihad, abducted an Israeli soldier across the border. That's Corporal Gilad Shalit. And that's well known; the first abduction is not. Then followed the escalation of Israeli attacks on Gaza, which I don't have to repeat. It's reported on adequately."

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle ... emID=10577
*******************************************************

Both the CSM's and the Noam Chomsky article are illustrative of a media that prefers a bigotted approach to M-E issues.


Discuss.

[hwacker]

BS

oh and Noam Chomsky, what a way to turn a paper into a big pile of steaming crap.

[Bodah]

Ok so we've determined that Jews and American Presidents are evil.

What do you propose next Dr Zhivago ?

[Johnny_Utah]

para-dice para-dice:

Christian Science Monitor is one of those rare internet sites which offers truly unbiased, all perspectives offered, coverage of M-E issues. They are universally respected for the quality of thier rather staid journalism.

Hizbullah's attacks stem from Israeli incursions into Lebanon
By Anders Strindberg

NEW YORK – As pundits and policymakers scramble to explain events in Lebanon, their conclusions are virtually unanimous: Hizbullah created this crisis. Israel is defending itself. The underlying problem is Arab extremism.
Sadly, this is pure analytical nonsense. Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 was a direct result of Israel's silent but unrelenting aggression against Lebanon, which in turn is part of a six-decades long Arab-Israeli conflict.

Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations-monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis, according to UN reports. Hizbullah's military doctrine, articulated in the early 1990s, states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership; this indeed has been the pattern.

In the process of its violations, Israel has terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians. This past February, for instance, 15-year-old shepherd Yusuf Rahil was killed by unprovoked Israeli cross-border fire as he tended his flock in southern Lebanon. Israel has assassinated its enemies in the streets of Lebanese cities and continues to occupy Lebanon's Shebaa Farms area, while refusing to hand over the maps of mine fields that continue to kill and cripple civilians in southern Lebanon more than six years after the war supposedly ended. What peace did Hizbullah shatter?

Hizbullah's capture of the soldiers took place in the context of this ongoing conflict, which in turn is fundamentally shaped by realities in the Palestinian territories. To the vexation of Israel and its allies, Hizbullah - easily the most popular political movement in the Middle East - unflinchingly stands with the Palestinians.

Since June 25, when Palestinian fighters captured one Israeli soldier and demanded a prisoner exchange, Israel has killed more than 140 Palestinians. Like the Lebanese situation, that flare-up was detached from its wider context and was said to be "manufactured" by the enemies of Israel; more nonsense proffered in order to distract from the apparently unthinkable reality that it is the manner in which Israel was created, and the ideological premises that have sustained it for almost 60 years, that are the core of the entire Arab-Israeli conflict.

Once the Arabs had rejected the UN's right to give away their land and to force them to pay the price for European pogroms and the Holocaust, the creation of Israel in 1948 was made possible only by ethnic cleansing and annexation. This is historical fact and has been documented by Israeli historians, such as Benny Morris. Yet Israel continues to contend that it had nothing to do with the Palestinian exodus, and consequently has no moral duty to offer redress.

For six decades the Palestinian refugees have been refused their right to return home because they are of the wrong race. "Israel must remain a Jewish state," is an almost sacral mantra across the Western political spectrum. It means, in practice, that Israel is accorded the right to be an ethnocracy at the expense of the refugees and their descendants, now close to 5 million.

Is it not understandable that Israel's ethnic preoccupation profoundly offends not only Palestinians, but many of their Arab brethren? Yet rather than demanding that Israel acknowledge its foundational wrongs as a first step toward equality and coexistence, the Western world blithely insists that each and all must recognize Israel's right to exist at the Palestinians' expense.

Western discourse seems unable to accommodate a serious, as opposed to cosmetic concern for Palestinians' rights and liberties: The Palestinians are the Indians who refuse to live on the reservation; the Negroes who refuse to sit in the back of the bus.

By what moral right does anyone tell them to be realistic and get over themselves? That it is too much of a hassle to right the wrongs committed against them? That the front of the bus must remain ethnically pure? When they refuse to recognize their occupier and embrace their racial inferiority, when desperation and frustration causes them to turn to violence, and when neighbors and allies come to their aid - some for reasons of power politics, others out of idealism - we are astonished that they are all such fanatics and extremists.

The fundamental obstacle to understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict is that we have given up on asking what is right and wrong, instead asking what is "practical" and "realistic." Yet reality is that Israel is a profoundly racist state, the existence of which is buttressed by a seemingly endless succession of punitive measures, assassinations, and wars against its victims and their allies.

A realistic understanding of the conflict, therefore, is one that recognizes that the crux is not in this or that incident or policy, but in Israel's foundational and persistent refusal to recognize the humanity of its Palestinian victims. Neither Hizbullah nor Hamas are driven by a desire to "wipe out Jews," as is so often claimed, but by a fundamental sense of injustice that they will not allow to be forgotten.

These groups will continue to enjoy popular legitimacy because they fulfill the need for someone - anyone - to stand up for Arab rights. Israel cannot destroy this need by bombing power grids or rocket ramps. If Israel, like its former political ally South Africa, has the capacity to come to terms with principles of democracy and human rights and accept egalitarian multiracial coexistence within a single state for Jews and Arabs, then the foundation for resentment and resistance will have been removed. If Israel cannot bring itself to do so, then it will continue to be the vortex of regional violence.

• Anders Strindberg, formerly a visiting professor at Damascus University, Syria, is a consultant on Middle East politics working with European government and law-enforcement agencies. He has also covered Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories as a journalist since the late 1990s, primarily for European publications.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0801/p09s02-coop.html
***************************************************************************

I just want to add a comment by the world's foremost voice of dissent, one Noam Chomsky copncerning Gaza:

"It was when Israel abducted two Gaza civilians, a doctor and his brother. We don't know their names. You don't know the names of victims. They were taken to Israel, presumably, and nobody knows their fate. The next day, something happened, which we do know about, a lot. Militants in Gaza, probably Islamic Jihad, abducted an Israeli soldier across the border. That's Corporal Gilad Shalit. And that's well known; the first abduction is not. Then followed the escalation of Israeli attacks on Gaza, which I don't have to repeat. It's reported on adequately."

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle ... emID=10577
*******************************************************

Both the CSM's and the Noam Chomsky article are illustrative of a media that prefers a bigotted approach to M-E issues.


Discuss.

[Jaime_Souviens]

para-dice para-dice:

For six decades the Palestinian refugees have been refused their right to return home because they are of the wrong race. "Israel must remain a Jewish state," is an almost sacral mantra across the Western political spectrum. It means, in practice, that Israel is accorded the right to be an ethnocracy at the expense of the refugees and their descendants, now close to 5 million.

Correct. Anywhere else in the world, all nations would support the accomodation of racial and ethnic groups in a multi-ethnic society.

If the French were to complain of people of North African descent in their borders, all reasonable people would respond that France cannot any longer consider it's national existence tied to racial and ethnic identity, and France must include its residents of non-French ancestry as full citizens, with protected full rights.

But not in Israel which still is allowed to define itself as, as the author describes it, an ethnocracy.


But :

Noam Chomsky is one of the most morally and intellectually bankrupt entities still sucking air on the face of the planet, and should be shot, hung, drawn & quartered, and shot again.

[Bodah]

Jaime_Souviens Jaime_Souviens:

Noam Chomsky is one of the most morally and intellectually bankrupt entities still sucking air on the face of the planet, and should be shot, hung, drawn & quartered, and shot again.

Maybe, but at least he had this to say about the 911 theories. Its tongue and cheek, but he makes his point.

Sorry for the hijack, couldn't resist .

[Motorcycleboy]

para-dice para-dice:

Christian Science Monitor is one of those rare internet sites which offers truly unbiased, all perspectives offered, coverage of M-E issues. They are universally respected for the quality of thier rather staid journalism.

Both the CSM's and the Noam Chomsky article are illustrative of a media that prefers a bigotted approach to M-E issues.


Discuss.

You should try formulating your own argument, rather than just posting something from some guy on the internet and offering it as "fact."

I would prefer to debate with you.

That said, it's funny you would mention the Christian Science Monitor. Michael Coren is a regular contributor to that magazine. And he had this to say in today's National Post.

$1:

Michael Coren, National Post
Published: Thursday, August 03, 2006

Israel's Reality
Two weeks in Israel in the middle of the war in Lebanon. Stories that should never be forgotten and scenes that I wish could be expunged from my mind. But if one aspect of this entire tragedy pounds away, it is the manner in which the reality of Israel in crisis is so dramatically different from its portrayal in the foreign media. Israelis tend to shrug their shoulders and explain how they are used to the distortion by now. That is sad. Because a lasting peace can only be achieved after a lasting truth.
From the opening days of the latest conflict, the assembled media corps in Israel dwelt on the number and plight of the refugees from Lebanon. Their suffering is generally beyond question and every Israeli I met was devastated by the civilian victims of the war.

But why, they asked, were these same reporters not broadcasting and writing about the hundreds of thousands of Israeli refugees from the north of the country who were fleeing to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem? Around half-a-million Israeli Jews and Arabs have left Haifa, Tiberias and neighbouring towns and thousands more are living each day in underground shelters.
Particularly bitter is the experience of a number of Lebanese who fled their home country six years ago when Hezbollah took over their villages and towns, torturing and raping and killing. They were given residence and often citizenship in Israel and usually live in those areas now being hit so hard by the plague of Katyusha rockets.

Lebanese people fleeing to Syria, on the other hand, receive endless media attention. This is particularly ironic as there are still Lebanese activists in Syrian prisons; and the former prime minister of Lebanon, a man who was helping to transform the nation and was courageously critical of Syrian behaviour, was murdered by a Syrian army of occupation last year.
When it comes to the game of numbers and perception, there is another screaming fallacy in the coverage of the issues. Until just a day or two ago, the foreign media announced every Lebanese fatality as a civilian death. This would mean that the Israeli military is so incompetent and so evil that it had failed to kill a single Hezbollah fighter.

The truth, of course, is that heavily armed Jihadists were being eliminated from the first day of combat. Unlike Israeli soldiers, however, they often wear no uniform and normally have no rank, papers or official status.
In one attack on a bunker in Tyre, more than 30 people were killed by an Israeli aircraft. The official line, weakly replicated by the Western press, was that all of the dead were civilian. It was later revealed that half of them were Hezbollah militia and were found with their weapons.

The question surely is whether we should blame Israel for attacking people who are firing rockets and missiles into their country or blame the people who fire those rockets and missiles and then purposely hide among civilians. If anyone doubts the authenticity of this policy they should spend some time with Lebanese Christians whose homes have been used with special glee by Hezbollah soldiers when firing on Israel.

It is vital to remember one thing about all this. Very few Lebanese people who we see interviewed on television will openly criticize Hezbollah. They know how the organization works and that even if they escape, their families might not be as fortunate. Journalists are regularly questioned about the nature of their story and the line they are taking and often intimidated and threatened.

Pressure is one thing, sheer failure to report the truth quite another. After the Israeli Arab town of Nazareth was shelled and two young boys killed, some journalists ran with the news that because this was an Arab town the Israeli government had removed it from the siren alert system. We saw footage of locals condemning Israeli discrimination and apathy.

It is true that there were no alarms sounded and that Nazareth had been removed from the national alarm grid -- because officials in Nazareth had demanded it. Being part of this system means that the sirens operate for two minutes during Independence Day and Memorial Day, to the memory of fallen soldiers. The political leaders of Nazareth insisted that they wanted no part of these Zionist ceremonies and, when warned that removal might be dangerous, laughingly said in a television interview that their brothers in Lebanon would never attack them.

Another Israeli shrug. The same again when the foreign media refuses to say that Haifa, the hardest hit of the cities in Israel, has a university that is almost 40% Arab and that in every survey that has asked them if they would prefer any Arab citizenship to Israeli citizenship, the overwhelming majority laugh, or cry, at the very idea of Arab citizenship.

Then there are the apparently unacceptable questions. Why, for example, do we see so many pictures of horribly wounded and even dying Arabs but so few of Israelis who have been smashed apart by rockets filled with ball bearings? The answer is that Israeli officials shield the wounded and vulnerable and protect them from indignity. Hezbollah and Hamas operatives, on the other hand, positively welcome often appallingly intimate shots of their wounded.

Politically unacceptable to say but still nauseatingly true. As is the fact that behind the rocket batteries in the Tyre banana plantations are civilians and that beside the Hezbollah killing machines in Beirut are innocent people. Israel pleads with the harmless to flee but still they sometimes die. Only the biased and the naive would blame Israel rather than Iran, Syria and Hezbollah for this.


Tragically, there are many of both among those who claim to be explaining the story. And another Israeli shrugs.
- Michael Coren is a writer and broadcaster. www.michaelcoren.com
© National Post 2006

[Motorcycleboy]

$1:

Jaime_Souviens
Correct. Anywhere else in the world, all nations would support the accomodation of racial and ethnic groups in a multi-ethnic society.

Not quite Jaime. The idea of multiculturalism is an exclusively western concept. Where else, other than Europe, North America and Australia would you ever see countries bending over backwards to encourage the importation and accomodation of large numbers of outsiders?

Rwanda? China? Japan? Saudi Arabia? QUEBEC!

Not likely.

Why do we demand such accomodation from Israel exclusively?

$1:

If the French were to complain of people of North African descent in their borders, all reasonable people would respond that France cannot any longer consider it's national existence tied to racial and ethnic identity, and France must include its residents of non-French ancestry as full citizens, with protected full rights.

It already does. But France, like much of western Europe is undergoing massive social struggle as a result of those policies of immigration and multiculturalism. And that's with something like 5 million Muslims amongst a population of 60 million.

$1:

But not in Israel which still is allowed to define itself as, as the author describes it, an ethnocracy.

There are less than 7 million Israelis. About 6 million of those are Jews, and a million Arabs. What do you think would happen to the Jews if they were to allow 25 million Palestinians into their country? The answer's self evident.

Don't they have the right to a state? Don't they have a right to survive as a people? We're talking about a sliver of land smaller than Lake Superior here.

[Thematic-Device]

Motorcycleboy Motorcycleboy:

Why do we demand such accomodation from Israel exclusively?

Oh gee, because unlike Rwanda they're a democracy? Maybe because we expect Isreal to be better then Rwanda? Even Japan which has by no means a perfect citizenship policy does far better then Isreal.

$1:

There are less than 7 million Israelis. About 6 million of those are Jews, and a million Arabs. What do you think would happen to the Jews if they were to allow 25 million Palestinians into their country? The answer's self evident.

Sounds very similar to the arguement racist southerners gave against allowing blacks to vote. No wait, that is the arguement racist southerners gave against allowing blacks to vote.

$1:

Don't they have the right to a state?

They have a state, and that won't change by allowing the Palestineans to be a part of that state. Nor will it change if they allow Palestine to become a state.

$1:

Don't they have a right to survive as a people? We're talking about a sliver of land smaller than Lake Superior here.

Then isreal should have decided to locate itself somewhere else. If I purchase an apartment underneath a bowling alley, should I be surprised if I often Since they decided upon Isreal, then they should realize that since it is considered a holy spot for three seperate religions they are going to have to accept that there will be other people in the same place.

[Motorcycleboy]

$1:

Thematic:
Oh gee, because unlike Rwanda they're a democracy? Maybe because we expect Isreal to be better then Rwanda? Even Japan which has by no means a perfect citizenship policy does far better then Isreal.

And as a democracy, then why aren't you supporting them against the Jihadist, Islamofascists from Hezbollah?

To me that's a no-brainer.

$1:

Sounds very similar to the arguement racist southerners gave against allowing blacks to vote. No wait, that is the arguement racist southerners gave against allowing blacks to vote.

Oh really? Were the racist southerners facing an influx of 4X their population, made up of a people whose stated objective was to slaughter them and drive their nation into the sea?

I think I'd be a little reluctant to accept that "bargain" too.

$1:

They have a state, and that won't change by allowing the Palestineans to be a part of that state. Nor will it change if they allow Palestine to become a state.

They were well on their way to allowing Palestine to have a state. It began with Gaza. It would have expanded to the West Bank had the Palestianians given it a chance. And maybe, just maybe, the Arab world could step up, and give the Palestinians part of Jordan. After all, Palestinians make up a huge proportion of that country's population too.

But no. It's easier to decry the Jews as "pigs and monkeys" and promise 72 virgins to anyone who fires a missile into their cities.

$1:

Then isreal should have decided to locate itself somewhere else. If I purchase an apartment underneath a bowling alley, should I be surprised if I often Since they decided upon Isreal, then they should realize that since it is considered a holy spot for three seperate religions they are going to have to accept that there will be other people in the same place.

Then by that logic, non-native Canadians should re-locate somewhere else too. After all, the natives were here first. Shouldn't we all just go back to whereever our ancestors came from?

Even that's a poor analogy. Because there's not one anthropologist in the world who disputes the fact the Israelis occupied that part of the world for thousands of years before Islam even existed.

[Elvis]

Motorcycleboy wrote

$1:

Not quite Jaime. The idea of multiculturalism is an exclusively western concept. Where else, other than Europe, North America and Australia would you ever see countries bending over backwards to encourage the importation and accomodation of large numbers of outsiders?

Rwanda? China? Japan? Saudi Arabia? QUEBEC!

So if I understand you it would not be so bad If we bulldoze the west Island?

I just Can wait!

[Jaime_Souviens]

Motorcycleboy Motorcycleboy:

$1:

Jaime_Souviens
Correct. Anywhere else in the world, all nations would support the accomodation of racial and ethnic groups in a multi-ethnic society.

Not quite Jaime. The idea of multiculturalism is an exclusively western concept. Where else, other than Europe, North America and Australia would you ever see countries bending over backwards to encourage the importation and accomodation of large numbers of outsiders?

Rwanda? China? Japan? Saudi Arabia? QUEBEC!

Not likely.

Why do we demand such accomodation from Israel exclusively?

Not true.

First, are you saying Israel is a third world nation, or should be judged by those standards?

Second, those standards are encouraged throughout the world, including in Rwanda, South Africa, India, Nigeria, and anywhere else where there are already disparate groups living in close proximity.

Motorcycleboy Motorcycleboy:

$1:

If the French were to complain of people of North African descent in their borders, all reasonable people would respond that France cannot any longer consider it's national existence tied to racial and ethnic identity, and France must include its residents of non-French ancestry as full citizens, with protected full rights.

It already does. But France, like much of western Europe is undergoing massive social struggle as a result of those policies of immigration and multiculturalism. And that's with something like 5 million Muslims amongst a population of 60 million.

True, bigotted France does have serious problem. But is anyone suggesting it would be reasonable, humane, and appropriate for the French to declare France to be white only?

Motorcycleboy Motorcycleboy:

$1:

But not in Israel which still is allowed to define itself as, as the author describes it, an ethnocracy.

There are less than 7 million Israelis. About 6 million of those are Jews, and a million Arabs. What do you think would happen to the Jews if they were to allow 25 million Palestinians into their country? The answer's self evident.

Nobody put them there, they went on their own.

Hell, they're surrounded by a billion Muslims. But I didn't put them there, and I'm not going to ask anyone else to die so they can stay there.

Motorcycleboy Motorcycleboy:

Don't they have the right to a state? Don't they have a right to survive as a people? We're talking about a sliver of land smaller than Lake Superior here.

If they want to survive as a people, let them start by making friends with their neighbors.

If a bunch of people want to believe in a fantasy where they all return to an ancient homeland, whooopee! I hope it works out for them. ---But if you ask me if anyone from other countries should offer their lives so that others can do this, that's stupid.

The whole project is doomed, anyway. The 6 million Jews to 1 million Palestinians already in the country is a ratio that is not going to last, because the Palestinians are far more fertile. The time will come when they're outnumbered in their own country. What are they going to do then?

[Elvis]

Jaime wrote this

$1:

The whole project is doomed, anyway. The 6 million Jews to 1 million Palestinians already in the country is a ratio that is not going to last, because the Palestinians are far more fertile. The time will come when they're outnumbered in their own country. What are they going to do then?

Don't worry Jaime they allready have a solution to this litle problem. Right now today the IDF while all the world attention is toward Libanon are "cleaning" the Gaza strip.

I have seen this news today that aroud 50 tank and bulldozer are going into Gaza today, but the news story at Radio Canada is no more available. Like all the news regarding the Gaza strip today is not available?!?!?

If you guy's find anything please link it.

[Motorcycleboy]

$1:

Jaime:

Not true.

First, are you saying Israel is a third world nation, or should be judged by those standards?

No. I'm saying Israel is very much a first world, western, democratic nation. Alone amongst the middle east countries I might add.

So why are we so much harder on those who for the most part adhere to our own ideals than we are on nations who really do trade in savagery?

$1:

Jaime Souviens:
Second, those standards are encouraged throughout the world, including in Rwanda, South Africa, India, Nigeria, and anywhere else where there are already disparate groups living in close proximity.

Encouraged by whom? There may be occasional pronouncements from such august bodies as the so-called "UN Human Rights Commision", but for the most part, nations like China enjoy a free pass when it comes to human rights violations. You can't honestly deny that!

$1:

Jaime:
True, bigotted France does have serious problem. But is anyone suggesting it would be reasonable, humane, and appropriate for the French to declare France to be white only?

No. That's not what I said. But certainly France has a right to determine it's future. And not just France. Holland, probably the most Liberal, open-ended, democracy in western history has recently torn itself apart over the issue of multiculturalism. That was a result of the murder of gay Dutch film maker Theo Van Gough by a Muslim extremist. I know you know about that.

$1:

Jaime:

Nobody put them there, they went on their own.

Nobody put the natives in Canada. The fact is they are there. Should we whites all pick up and move back to where our ancestors came from?

The Jews were in Israel 2000 years before Islam even existed. It is their traditional homeland.

The land they claim is smaller than Lake Huron. the rest of the Arab/Muslim world occupies 98% of the remainder of Middle East.

The portion they claim has no oil or other significant resources, despite the fact it is based in a resource-rich region.

Israel has no ambitions to move into the Saudi or Iraqi oil fields.

Why can't the Jews just have that one little piece?

$1:

Hell, they're surrounded by a billion Muslims. But I didn't put them there, and I'm not going to ask anyone else to die so they can stay there.

And nobody in Israel is asking you or even a single US Marine to die for them.

What they are asking for is a free hand to defend themselves without the UN and fucked up France jumping on their case every time a heart wrenching picture from CNN gets broadcast on TV.

$1:

If they want to survive as a people, let them start by making friends with their neighbors.

The Israeli constitution says nothing about annihilating Arabs.

Would you like me to link to some quotes from Hezbollah and Hamas? And I'm not talking about the occasional crank from within their midst. I can find you dozens of quotes from the actual CHARTERS of those organizations which describe Jews as pigs and urge their destruction.

And that's to say nothing of us heathen "Cross Worshipers."

$1:

If a bunch of people want to believe in a fantasy where they all return to an ancient homeland, whooopee! I hope it works out for them. ---But if you ask me if anyone from other countries should offer their lives so that others can do this, that's stupid.

Here we agree. I'm no fan of this "International Peacekeeping Force". I subscribe to the notion that;

"Diplomacy's main purpose is to prolong a conflict."

That's all a "Peacekeeping Force" will accomplish.

Let the Jews kick the fuck out of Hezbollah. When they're done, we can talk with the Lebanese government about "Peacekeepers".

$1:

The whole project is doomed, anyway. The 6 million Jews to 1 million Palestinians already in the country is a ratio that is not going to last, because the Palestinians are far more fertile. The time will come when they're outnumbered in their own country. What are they going to do then?

Good point. But that same argument can easily be applied on a global scale to those of us here in western countries where the birth rate has dropped to unsustainable levels.

Perhaps Israel is the west's canary in the coal mine?

[Motorcycleboy]

Elvis Elvis:

Jaime wrote this

$1:

The whole project is doomed, anyway. The 6 million Jews to 1 million Palestinians already in the country is a ratio that is not going to last, because the Palestinians are far more fertile. The time will come when they're outnumbered in their own country. What are they going to do then?

Don't worry Jaime they allready have a solution to this litle problem. Right now today the IDF while all the world attention is toward Libanon are "cleaning" the Gaza strip.

I have seen this news today that aroud 50 tank and bulldozer are going into Gaza today, but the news story at Radio Canada is no more available. Like all the news regarding the Gaza strip today is not available?!?!?

If you guy's find anything please link it.

Well, if your suggestion is correct, then sooner or later it will have to come out.

If, in the next month or two we learn that the Gaza Strip has been ethnically cleansed of Arabs and turned into an Israeli parking lot, then I will concede my point to you and accept that Israel was wrong.

If however, that hasn't happened in a month's time, I think you'll just have to stop your Israel bashing Elvis.

Fair deal?