Israel: asset or liability?

[Supersonic]

Is having Israel as an ally, an asset or a liability to the US' national interest?

Please take into account factors such as:

security/insecurity
military influence
international reputation
business/trade effect
financial factors

In no way should this be considered a poll regarding religion. Of course it's intertwined with many issues but what about the above factors?

[Ugmo]

Seems like the Israeli government has an enormous sense of entitlement. As in "We'll do as we damn-well please, and you have to support us no matter what." I guess they got that sense of entitlement from the fact that they have done as they damn-well pleased in the past and we have supported them no matter what. But it would help if they'd act a little less arrogant.

[cc117]

They are God's people. They can do anything they want.

[SmokingGun]

Asset.

[lerxstcat]

Seems like the Israeli government has an enormous sense of entitlement. As in "We'll do as we damn-well please, and you have to support us no matter what." I guess they got that sense of entitlement from the fact that they have done as they damn-well pleased in the past and we have supported them no matter what. But it would help if they'd act a little less arrogant.

They represent several thousand years' worth of pent-up hostility over the Israelites getting pushed around or fucked by pretty much the whole of the rest of the world. They finally have their homeland back and are dug-in and saying nobody fucks with them anymore.

I'd kind of call them an "assebility" in that militarily they are great allies to have - no better fighters anywhere. On the other hand would we NEED such allies if we weren't backing them against much of the world? Morally they deserve our backing after the Holocaust but they sure don't make it easy to do sometimes.

We are a better nation for backig them than we would be to abandon them just because it'd be easier for us, though. Sometimes you just have to do the right thing - and it's complicated because both sides are brutal in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But Israel has suffered the greater wrong since the time of Ramses II.

[Ugmo]

They represent several thousand years' worth of pent-up hostility over the Israelites getting pushed around or fucked by pretty much the whole of the rest of the world. They finally have their homeland back and are dug-in and saying nobody fucks with them anymore.

Or it could be that now they finally have someone else to push around and they like the feeling.

I'm all for backing them as an ally, but they ought to appreciate that and not try to exacerbate the situation by acting like dicks in their own neighborhood!

Edited to say I don't want to generalize here, as I gather there are plenty of Israelis who disagree with the actions of their government.

[vlad]

I understand Israel's paranoia, but I don't understand the land and water grab as anything but what ti is. Tearing out thousands of olive trees in the West Bank and walling off Palestinian farmers from their own lands..."deporting" Palestinains (including Christians, not just Muslims) from the West Bank to Gaza ( simply brilliant! Force more into Gaza and then feign surprise when they aren't feeling all that peaceful to Israel.)

It's an ugly thing. The "settlers" are a tremendous obstacle to peace (not saying there aren't any obstacle from the other side, but Israel has the real control over every aspect...)

And as for the IDF, etc being great fighters...when have they actually fought by our side? They may have, but I can't recall any time. This is probably a good thing, as having Israelis fighting in our wars of late would be a very huge liability from a PR standpoint.

We get intelligence from them, though after their invovlement with the lead up to the Iraq War...not so impressive. And they have sold our military technology to China.

So I don't know....the past few years, I have lost so much respect for Israel. We have been covering their butts in the UN and elsewhere, to our cost, and they (the government and some elements of the population) treat us with a complete lack of respect or gratitude. So, you know what? Fuck them.

There are some great people in Israel, but then there are great people in a whole lot of countries.

[SeminiferousButtNoid]

I support Israel and their right to exist. I support the defense of their homeland and whatever they need to do to accomplish that. I don't support our direct involvement with their problems unless some other non-NATO, non-Arab country gets involved. They are big boys now and are more than capable of taking care of themselves.

[JakeYonkel]

Speaking as a part Jew, I agree with this:

I support Israel and their right to exist. I support the defense of their homeland and whatever they need to do to accomplish that. I don't support our direct involvement with their problems unless some other non-NATO, non-Arab country gets involved. They are big boys now and are more than capable of taking care of themselves.

Just another part of the world we're interfering with. Granted they exist in an area where basically everyone immediately near them wants them eradicated.

[VinnieKulick]

Israel has been one of our greatest allies since the end of WW2. In fact, it was a Russian Jew who left the Soviet Union and took some documents about the plans to spread communism, that gave us our greatest insight on how Russia was conducting itself in a post WW2 world.

As time goes on, they have taken a strip of land that is the only one in the region WITHOUT oil, and built a powerful economy.

I'd get tired of people shooting rockets into my country, and threatening to wipe my nation off the map too.

That being said, Israel needs to be more upfront about what it does in the region, because there's a LOT of shady shit going down.

But, they are pretty effective at taking care of matters, so we don't need to get THAT involved with them, and as a matter of fact, most times we take action in the region, we have to ask Israel to NOT participate.

[vlad]

Israel has been one of our greatest allies since the end of WW2. In fact, it was a Russian Jew who left the Soviet Union and took some documents about the plans to spread communism, that gave us our greatest insight on how Russia was conducting itself in a post WW2 world.
....

As with them, and as a matter of fact, most times we take action in the region, we have to ask Israel to NOT participate.

A sincere question. How have they been one of our greatest allies since WW2? Concrete examples.

And the Russian Jew, was he Israeli, or did he come straight from the USSR to the US? There is a difference between being Jewish and being Israeli...don't confuse the Jewish people with the country of Israel, though there are those who wish to deliberately blur that line.

And there you go, we have had to ask them not to participate...we've been in the Mid east for 20 or 30 years (if you count Beruit), hell a lot more than that if you count our screwing the Iranian people over in '53....and have we been able to get any real help from our ally? Shit, we have bases from Turkey to motherfucking Kyrgyzstan that we use for military activities in the very region that Israel sits in. Israel...not so much.

Also, Vinnie it would be good idea to read up on the history of US/Israel relations, especially around the Suez Crisis for starters.. And oh yeah, the USS Liberty. The main reason that whole fiasco was hushed up (the Captain got the CMH, but it was given privately and is the only one given for "friendly fire", and the nation that did the firing is not mentioned at all). Anyhoo... LBJ was working on getting Israel on board as an ally, and so tamped down on the whole incident. Because prior to this, they weren't our greatest ally, nor did we have the "special relationship" that gets touted by every President at least since Reagan.

[upinsmoke]

I don't have anything against people from any particular background, but Israel as we know it was created by western nations bent on fulfilling a prophetic imperative. They've marginalized the indigenous inhabitants of that region for far too long. It isn't right, settlement building should be halted until the country is completely made whole, or a two state solution is cemented once and for all.

eta: liability.

[VinnieKulick]

A sincere question. How have they been one of our greatest allies since WW2? Concrete examples.

And the Russian Jew, was he Israeli, or did he come straight from the USSR to the US? There is a difference between being Jewish and being Israeli...don't confuse the Jewish people with the country of Israel, though there are those who wish to deliberately blur that line.

And there you go, we have had to ask them not to participate...we've been in the Mid east for 20 or 30 years (if you count Beruit), hell a lot more than that if you count our screwing the Iranian people over in '53....and have we been able to get any real help from our ally? Shit, we have bases from Turkey to motherfucking Kyrgyzstan that we use for military activities in the very region that Israel sits in. Israel...not so much.

Also, Vinnie it would be good idea to read up on the history of US/Israel relations, especially around the Suez Crisis for starters.. And oh yeah, the USS Liberty. The main reason that whole fiasco was hushed up (the Captain got the CMH, but it was given privately and is the only one given for "friendly fire", and the nation that did the firing is not mentioned at all). Anyhoo... LBJ was working on getting Israel on board as an ally, and so tamped down on the whole incident. Because prior to this, they weren't our greatest ally, nor did we have the "special relationship" that gets touted by every President at least since Reagan.

I have read a LOT about the US/Israeli relationship, This book in particular is insightful and tells a lot about how the USA helped Israel become a powerhouse, and how a number of famous Jewish entertainers helped finance the AIPAC and how it became so powerful lobbying the government
on Israel's behalf. http://www.amazon.com/Friends-Deed-Insi ... 0786860065

The guy who left Russia was a Russian born officer in the soviet army. He defected to Israel and brought a lot of documents with him, which the USA quickly used to gain information on the Russians.

And, most of our help we've gained from our partnership is in the Intel field. They've been invaluable to us in terms of getting us information on the Soviets, and on other 'enemies' around the world.

I'm NOT saying they're perfect or that they are without blame for a LOT of violence. All I am saying is, with centuries of persecution, who can blame them for flexing their might as often as possible.

[Ugmo]

I have read a LOT about the US/Israeli relationship, This book in particular is insightful and tells a lot about how the USA helped Israel become a powerhouse, and how a number of famous Jewish entertainers helped finance the AIPAC and how it became so powerful lobbying the government
on Israel's behalf. http://www.amazon.com/Friends-Deed-Insi ... 0786860065

The guy who left Russia was a Russian born officer in the soviet army. He defected to Israel and brought a lot of documents with him, which the USA quickly used to gain information on the Russians.

And, most of our help we've gained from our partnership is in the Intel field. They've been invaluable to us in terms of getting us information on the Soviets, and on other 'enemies' around the world.

I'm NOT saying they're perfect or that they are without blame for a LOT of violence. All I am saying is, with centuries of persecution, who can blame them for flexing their might as often as possible.

Have you read about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg? I think they trump your Jewish guy from Russia!

[VinnieKulick]

Those sneaky jews!

I don't have that book anymore, I sold it, but it is a very good reference for the history of the relationship between the US and Israel. I'd recommend it to anybody who wanted to know some of the reasons we back Israel so much.

[SeminiferousButtNoid]

I don't have anything against people from any particular background, but Israel as we know it was created by western nations bent on fulfilling a prophetic imperative.

Israel was created when they declared themselves an independent state and all the Arab countries declared war and lost. The creation of Israel has nothing to do with any western nations and is solely due to the people of Israel. As far as "prophetic imperative", it is impossible to divest Judaism from Israel just like it is impossible to divest Islam from the majority of Palestinians. They both have their religious motivations.

They've marginalized the indigenous inhabitants of that region for far too long.

Ridiculous. Palestinians are Arabs. Arabs are not the indigenous people of what consists of modern day Israel. None of the Levant occupants of Early Antiquity have any kind of bloodline with modern day Arabs. Arabs are not related to Canaanites, Hebrews, Phoenicians (Biblical Philistines), etc. They came from the lower Near East much later. Jews have lived in the Levant for 4000 years in varying numbers and in majority numbers from ~1000 BC to ~AD 200. Palestinians are about as "indigenous" as black people are in Detroit.

It isn't right, settlement building should be halted until the country is completely made whole, or a two state solution is cemented once and for all.

The new settlements are something that the Israeli government will concede if the Palestinians are serious about peace. They did it with Egypt and they will do it again. Unfortunately, the Palestinians don't really want peace and they don't really want a two-state solution. If that was the case, this would have ended a long time ago. They want it all...

[upinsmoke]

Israel was created when they declared themselves an independent state and all the Arab countries declared war and lost. The creation of Israel has nothing to do with any western nations and is solely due to the people of Israel. As far as "prophetic imperative", it is impossible to divest Judaism from Israel just like it is impossible to divest Islam from the majority of Palestinians. They both have their religious motivations.

The jews were sent there under the guise of restarting a homeland promised by 'god'. What, should Americans or Canadians of European descent start settlements in Europe? The UK? Drive out and marginalize a few British of arabic descent? Oh, that's right, a 'prophetic' text outlining 'god's plan' doesn't exist for that. Where did you get that western nations didn't facilitate every bit of this? Of course Israel, as a declared nation, didn't start until much later, after many waves of immigration and war. The 'Palestinians' were forced out of their towns and neighborhoods, after a gambits to drive out the jewish invaders failed miserably. The jews took the territory, towns, businesses and houses only to never gave them back. They used every attack by the Palestinians as an excuse to gobble up more land, and continue to do so. The Palestinians weren't alway motivated by religion, until they felt that was the only course of action available to them. Early jewish settlers brought the first 'terrorists' to the region.

Ridiculous. Palestinians are Arabs. Arabs are not the indigenous people of what consists of modern day Israel. None of the Levant occupants of Early Antiquity have any kind of bloodline with modern day Arabs. Arabs are not related to Canaanites, Hebrews, Phoenicians (Biblical Philistines), etc. They came from the lower Near East much later. Jews have lived in the Levant for 4000 years in varying numbers and in majority numbers from ~1000 BC to ~AD 200. Palestinians are about as "indigenous" as black people are in Detroit.

Palestinians aren't just Arabs. The word was created for the inhabitants of the region around 1967. The word encompasses whomever was living in the area at the time, and means something akin to 'rolling' or 'migratory'. Christians and Jews never left the region, either. Guess what? They were pushed into little tracts of land, just like the Arab Palestinians. Neither of those groups support the creation of Israel. They side with the arab Palestinians. Indigenous arabs, jews and christians belong to the region every bit as much, if not more, than the Jewish settlers. Your argument makes no sense. Jews by their OWN recorded history were not the original inhabitants of the land. They 'conquered' it, because an invisible being supposedly told them it was ok. Never mind that the archaeological record doesn't even support the claim that they destroyed all the peoples of that area. Sure, they had wars and skirmishes, but otherwise lived in times of relative peace with those peoples.

The new settlements are something that the Israeli government will concede if the Palestinians are serious about peace. They did it with Egypt and they will do it again. Unfortunately, the Palestinians don't really want peace and they don't really want a two-state solution. If that was the case, this would have ended a long time ago. They want it all...

The Israeli government, as it now stands, would only concede territory as a gambit for future takeover. It doesn't want a two-state solution, either. They'll always find an excuse to take more. The majority on either side won't get past their pride long enough to call a draw and start fresh. You can't blame the Palestinians for the way they feel, and most Israelis today were born there, so have nowhere else to go. The only solutions available are either single or two state. I don't support terrorist activities from either side, but both sides will have to back the fuck off for changes to take place. Not that the Palestinians can do any 'backing the fuck off'. They have to survive in little, narrow tracts of land. Millions of people stuffed in like tins of sardines.

[lerxstcat]

Palestinians aren't just Arabs. The word was created for the inhabitants of the region around 1967. The word encompasses whomever was living in the area at the time, and means something akin to 'rolling' or 'migratory'.

They are actually Jordanian Arabs, to be precise. Palestinians are just Jordanians, and have a homeland already. It's the Kingdom of Jordan.

So there is your two-state solution. The Israelis have Israel, and the Palestinians - Jordanians - have Jordan.

[upinsmoke]

Palestinians aren't just Arabs. The word was created for the inhabitants of the region around 1967. The word encompasses whomever was living in the area at the time, and means something akin to 'rolling' or 'migratory'.

They are actually Jordanian Arabs, to be precise. Palestinians are just Jordanians, and have a homeland already. It's the Kingdom of Jordan.

So there is your two-state solution. The Israelis have Israel, and the Palestinians - Jordanians - have Jordan.

No, they're NOT just 'Jordanian Arabs'. 'Palestine' covers many backgrounds. The word was made for the all inhabitants of the region, not just 'Jordanians'.

[vlad]

Palestinians aren't just Arabs. The word was created for the inhabitants of the region around 1967. The word encompasses whomever was living in the area at the time, and means something akin to 'rolling' or 'migratory'.

They are actually Jordanian Arabs, to be precise. Palestinians are just Jordanians, and have a homeland already. It's the Kingdom of Jordan.

So there is your two-state solution. The Israelis have Israel, and the Palestinians - Jordanians - have Jordan.

Wrong, wrong, wrong....the Palestinians, as upinsmoke pointed out, are not the same as the people in Jordan....there are Palestinians in Jordan, certainly...Arabs are not a monolith, there are very different cultures. Besides Jordan has absorbed close to a million Iraqi refugees from the east since the start of the Iraq War, and absorbed Palestinians refugees from the west. How much can one small desert country take in for the convenience of a neighbour that...well never mind. israel is going to have to buck up and really deal with the peoples they control.


Genetically, the Palestinians are as close to the original inhabitants of the region as the Jews. With a bit more Arab admixture (because they remained in the region and many are likely to have deep Jewish ancestory...the admixture for many Jews has a European component. Both are closely related, though separated by centuries.

And actually the term Palestinian goes back much further than 1967. Even the Arab/Muslim hater Daniel Pipes admits he can trace it back to the 1920's.

[upinsmoke]

And actually the term Palestinian goes back much further than 1967. Even the Arab/Muslim hater Daniel Pipes admits he can trace it back to the 1920's.

Yeah, they started using it as an official designation around then, never mind that they'd been using it for MUCH longer to describe the region AND all the people contained therein.

[vlad]

And actually the term Palestinian goes back much further than 1967. Even the Arab/Muslim hater Daniel Pipes admits he can trace it back to the 1920's.

Yeah, they started using it as an official designation around then, never mind that they'd been using it for MUCH longer to describe the region AND all the people contained therein.

Oh I agree the designation for the region (Herodotus mentioned it all that long way back)..but in the sense of a peoples known as Palestinians in our modern sense goes back that far, before 1967. And that 1967 was when it was made official.

There is a whole lot of history in the region that Americans in particular haven't gotten. Like many regions in the world after WW1, the attempts to shake off the yoke of European control also occurred in Palestine. They weren't successful, but they were already complaining very strongly about the Zionists moving in, as well, by 1920. They weren't "anit-Jewish", it was made clear that the indigenous Jews of the area belonged there.

Note: I really do understand why the Zionist movement exists....especially after WW2. But for fuck's sake, there were people living there already. It wasn't an empty land as some prop likes to push...and the people living there were very clear for decades before WW2, that they'd like to have their own country, thank you..and not be taken over by yet another group of Europeans (as they saw the Zionist movement).

All that is water under the bridge, but it can't be ignored with a bunch of myth making propaganda. Israel has to really and justly deal with these folks. Unlike American Indians who had the "decency" to keel over by the millions from European diseases, the Palestinians remained in large enough numbers to push back.

[lerxstcat]

Palestinians aren't just Arabs. The word was created for the inhabitants of the region around 1967. The word encompasses whomever was living in the area at the time, and means something akin to 'rolling' or 'migratory'.

They are actually Jordanian Arabs, to be precise. Palestinians are just Jordanians, and have a homeland already. It's the Kingdom of Jordan.

So there is your two-state solution. The Israelis have Israel, and the Palestinians - Jordanians - have Jordan.

Wrong, wrong, wrong....the Palestinians, as upinsmoke pointed out, are not the same as the people in Jordan....there are Palestinians in Jordan, certainly...Arabs are not a monolith, there are very different cultures. Besides Jordan has absorbed close to a million Iraqi refugees from the east since the start of the Iraq War, and absorbed Palestinians refugees from the west. How much can one small desert country take in for the convenience of a neighbour that...well never mind. israel is going to have to buck up and really deal with the peoples they control.


Genetically, the Palestinians are as close to the original inhabitants of the region as the Jews. With a bit more Arab admixture (because they remained in the region and many are likely to have deep Jewish ancestory...the admixture for many Jews has a European component. Both are closely related, though separated by centuries.

And actually the term Palestinian goes back much further than 1967. Even the Arab/Muslim hater Daniel Pipes admits he can trace it back to the 1920's.

It's really not wrong. And yes, Arabs and Jews are both Semitic peoples and very closey related genetically despite the millenial hatred. As for Jordan being a small country, it is still much larger than Israel, at least in extent of land. And the whole region was basically the armpit of the Ottoman Empire for centuries before the Zionists started resettling and restoring the land, irrigation systems etc... in the late 1800s. The very small population of indigenous people had not managed to restore the land that had lain ruined for many centuries.

So you could say the Zionists deserved the land they homesteaded, that the locals let turn to shit for many hundreds of years.

[SeminiferousButtNoid]

The jews were sent there under the guise of restarting a homeland promised by 'god'.[

LOL, sent by whom? Zeppo Marx?

What, should Americans or Canadians of European descent start settlements in Europe? The UK? Drive out and marginalize a few British of arabic descent?

This is an absolutely nonsensical analogy and is nowhere near the same as to what's going on.

Oh, that's right, a 'prophetic' text outlining 'god's plan' doesn't exist for that.

Kinda similar to the "prophetic text" which advocates followers of Islam to either kill and enslave infidel defilers and have them forcibly convert to Islam. Or how about that Palestinians must have control of Jerusalem because it is Islam's "third holiest city". One could say to wipe of Israel from the map, couldn't one?

Where did you get that western nations didn't facilitate every bit of this? Of course Israel, as a declared nation, didn't start until much later, after many waves of immigration and war.

The creation of Israel was solely by the Israelis hands. They received no help from the West in the War of Independence. The Jews were kicked out of their homeland 1800 years earlier after the Romans defiled the second temple and passed laws forcing them to betray their religion.

Fun Fact: There were no Arabs in the Levant at this point. They all lived in Arabia and Syria.

The 'Palestinians' were forced out of their towns and neighborhoods, after a gambits to drive out the jewish invaders failed miserably.

Wrong. No Jews, "invaded" the Mandate of Palestine. They were already living there by 1948. The "Palestinians" fled their homes because The Arab World had swarmed the patch of land that the Israelis had reclaimed.

The jews took the territory, towns, businesses and houses only to never gave them back. They used every attack by the Palestinians as an excuse to gobble up more land, and continue to do so.

LOL It is really tedious to lecture someone in history that is freely available to gather themselves. Firstly the only time Israel has gained land besides their initial independence has been as a result of wars with Arab States like Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. There has never been an official country called "Palestine" to fight with and gobble up land from. The Levant has been ruled by various Arabic and Turkic empires since it was conquered from the Christian Byzantine empire. As Lerx said, Trans-Jordanian Arabs, Arabs of the Ottoman Empire, Arabs of the Seljuk empire and so on. There has never been an official Palestinian anything.

The Palestinians weren't alway motivated by religion, until they felt that was the only course of action available to them. Early jewish settlers brought the first 'terrorists' to the region.

More laughs. Jews returning to their homeland after a 1500 year diaspora were terrorists? Funny how I never heard about Jewish immigrants strapping bombs to themselves and blowing up innocent people whenever they immigrated. Maybe you had different history books growing up.

Palestinians aren't just Arabs. The word was created for the inhabitants of the region around 1967. The word encompasses whomever was living in the area at the time, and means something akin to 'rolling' or 'migratory'. Christians and Jews never left the region, either. Guess what? They were pushed into little tracts of land, just like the Arab Palestinians. Neither of those groups support the creation of Israel. They side with the arab Palestinians.

The majority of Palestinians are Arabs with a slight Christian minority. Please don't split hairs. As for the Jews that were living there, 99% of them became Israelis. Most of the Palestinian Christians became Israeli citizens with a small minority emigrating to Lebanon or the United States.
Palestinians, as we know them, are Arabs for all purposes here. Please tell me you realize this.

Indigenous arabs, jews and christians belong to the region every bit as much, if not more, than the Jewish settlers.

So Jewish settlers kicked out "indigenous" jews?

Your argument makes no sense. Jews by their OWN recorded history were not the original inhabitants of the land. They 'conquered' it, because an invisible being supposedly told them it was ok. Never mind that the archaeological record doesn't even support the claim that they destroyed all the peoples of that area. Sure, they had wars and skirmishes, but otherwise lived in times of relative peace with those peoples.

The archaeological record supports the fact that the people that inhabited the Levant before the Kingdom of Israel don't exist anymore. Therefore it's safe to say that Jews administering and living there in majority numbers for 1200 years constitutes a valid claim to the land.

The Israeli government, as it now stands, would only concede territory as a gambit for future takeover. It doesn't want a two-state solution, either. They'll always find an excuse to take more.

LOL then why the hell did they give Sinai back to Egypt and the majority of the Golan Heights back to Syria? Because they secretly are going to take them back again? Any land that the Israelis have taken have been spoils of war. Israel famously promised to give all the territory back shortly after The Six Day War if the Arabs would simply recognize them as a state and have peace. The Arab countries refused! And the Israelis would love to give Gaza back to Egypt but it is well-known that the Egyptians don't want it.

The majority on either side won't get past their pride long enough to call a draw and start fresh.

It's apparent from your treatise that you think that it is the Israelis that can't get past their pride and that the Arabs are just victims.

You can't blame the Palestinians for the way they feel, and most Israelis today were born there, so have nowhere else to go.
The only solutions available are either single or two state. I don't support terrorist activities from either side, but both sides will have to back the fuck off for changes to take place. Not that the Palestinians can do any 'backing the fuck off'. They have to survive in little, narrow tracts of land. Millions of people stuffed in like tins of sardines.

Have you ever heard of a little group called Hamas? How about Islamic Jihad? Hezbollah, perhaps? As it has been said before, Palestinians could have their own country tomorrow if

a) Their terrorists groups are disarmed
b) They agree for their new state to be a DMZ
c) They understand that Jerusalem is the undivided capitol of Israel
d) They acknowledge Israel's right to exist.

That's all they have to do. Unfortunately, they want to continue suicide bombing, they don't want to be demilitarized, they want all of Jerusalem and they don't want to recognize the state of Israel. They're like petulant children that get offered an Extra Value meal and then start attacking you because you didn't Super Size it

[upinsmoke]

LOL, sent by whom? Zeppo Marx?

I don't know, maybe it was the western nations who helped implement the mandate? Derrrr... but if you read nearly as much as you claim, you would not be arguing from such a retarded point.

This is an absolutely nonsensical analogy and is nowhere near the
same as to what's going on.

It fits the situation without having to bend much at all. I can't help that you're too dense to realize that. Your arguments are textbook evangelical republican missives.

Kinda similar to the "prophetic text" which advocates followers
of Islam to either kill and enslave infidel defilers and have
them forcibly convert to Islam. Or how about that Palestinians
must have control of Jerusalem because it is Islam's "third
holiest city". One could say to wipe of Israel from the map,
couldn't one?

It's hilarious that you regurgitate an argument against something I'm not arguing about. I'm not on the side of islamists. Religion is all Dungeons & Dragons to me, regardless of the origin. Boy, I bet a fencepost never got ANYthing by you.

The creation of Israel was solely by the Israelis hands. They
received no help from the West in the War of Independence. The
Jews were kicked out of their homeland 1800 years earlier after
the Romans defiled the second temple and passed laws forcing them
to betray their religion.

Fun Fact: There were no Arabs in the Levant at this point. They
all lived in Arabia and Syria.

No, no help at all!!! Where do you come up with this shit? Oh, that's right... evangelical republican talking points, not actual fact.

Guess what? 1,800 years earlier made european & Russian jews, ummm, what's the word for it? Ah, yes... EUROPEAN & RUSSIAN. Good fucking god. The "Levant" wasn't their homeland, it belonged someone else, from whom it was subsequently stolen.

Wrong. No Jews, "invaded" the Mandate of Palestine. They were
already living there by 1948. The "Palestinians" fled their homes
because The Arab World had swarmed the patch of land that the
Israelis had reclaimed.

How did they "get" there by 1948?
"The "Palestinians" fled their homes because The Arab World had swarmed the patch of land that the Israelis had reclaimed..." What does this even mean? Please Advise.

LOL It is really tedious to lecture someone in history that is
freely available to gather themselves. Firstly the only time
Israel has gained land besides their initial independence has
been as a result of wars with Arab States like Jordan, Egypt, and
Syria. There has never been an official country called
"Palestine" to fight with and gobble up land from. The Levant has
been ruled by various Arabic and Turkic empires since it was
conquered from the Christian Byzantine empire. As Lerx said,
Trans-Jordanian Arabs, Arabs of the Ottoman Empire, Arabs of the
Seljuk empire and so on. There has never been an official
Palestinian anything.

You really shouldn't be "lecturing" anyone when you argue from one-sided lowbrow zionist talking points. Not the first person said anything about an "official country" called Palestine. Straw men are not your friends here. You don't know shit from shinola.

More laughs. Jews returning to their homeland after a 1500 year
diaspora were terrorists? Funny how I never heard about Jewish
immigrants strapping bombs to themselves and blowing up innocent
people whenever they immigrated. Maybe you had different history
books growing up.

Braintrust, it isn't (or WASN'T) their homeland if there were 1,500 fucking years in between. By that time, they were Europeans. Maybe you should read a little deeper. They weren't suicide bombers coming into the "promised land", just homicide bombers, LOL. The indigenous populations had to deal with being blown the fuck up first.

The majority of Palestinians are Arabs with a slight Christian
minority. Please don't split hairs. As for the Jews that were
living there, 99% of them became Israelis. Most of the
Palestinian Christians became Israeli citizens with a small
minority emigrating to Lebanon or the United States.
Palestinians, as we know them, are Arabs for all purposes here.
Please tell me you realize this.

I'd say you're the one splitting hairs here. The fact of the matter here is that there is good evidence that everyone living in the British mandate of Palestine was forced to leave in 1948 because of the war, and were never allowed to return to homes, businesses, properties and towns. The Israelis like to claim that arab officials told the Palestinians to leave and not come back, but that argument has come under some pretty heavy fire over the past couple of decades.

So Jewish settlers kicked out "indigenous" jews?

Don't tell me you actually believe that a few jews and christians stayed around while a war was going on over their heads. Yes, everyone who fled had everything but their very lives stolen.

The archaeological record supports the fact that the people that
inhabited the Levant before the Kingdom of Israel don't exist
anymore. Therefore it's safe to say that Jews administering and
living there in majority numbers for 1200 years constitutes a
valid claim to the land.

What about the displaced peoples? They don't have any right to their own homeland? 650,000 to 750,000 fled the fighting. That is a fact. A load of Jewish-European refugees still had less of a claim than those who had to get out.

LOL then why the hell did they give Sinai back to Egypt and the
majority of the Golan Heights back to Syria? Because they
secretly are going to take them back again? Any land that the
Israelis have taken have been spoils of war. Israel famously
promised to give all the territory back shortly after The Six Day
War if the Arabs would simply recognize them as a state and have
peace. The Arab countries refused! And the Israelis would love to
give Gaza back to Egypt but it is well-known that the Egyptians
don't want it.

Christ, what a preposterous argument. Again, I didn't lay out any particular major territory that the Israelis would "take back". The "gambit for a future takeover" would be over the frequently stolen smaller bites of land... y'know, like the Israelis do right now. Surely you're not that stupid.

It's apparent from your treatise that you think that it is the
Israelis that can't get past their pride and that the Arabs are
just victims.

It's apparent reading comprehension is not your forte. Show me where I said that. Oh, right -- you can't, because I didn't imply it.

Have you ever heard of a little group called Hamas? How about
Islamic Jihad? Hezbollah, perhaps? As it has been said before,
Palestinians could have their own country tomorrow if

a) Their terrorists groups are disarmed
b) They agree for their new state to be a DMZ
c) They understand that Jerusalem is the undivided capitol of Israel
d) They acknowledge Israel's right to exist.

That's all they have to do. Unfortunately, they want to continue
suicide bombing, they don't want to be demilitarized, they want
all of Jerusalem and they don't want to recognize the state of
Israel. They're like petulant children that get offered an Extra
Value meal and then start attacking you because you didn't Super
Size it

Funny how you argue over and over about something that isn't being contested. Are you going to now say that all Palestinians were islamic extremists BEFORE western countries got involved in this clusterfuck? Try again.

[ijwthstd]

Remember the U.S.S. Liberty!

[vlad]

It's really not wrong. And yes, Arabs and Jews are both Semitic peoples and very closey related genetically despite the millenial hatred. As for Jordan being a small country, it is still much larger than Israel, at least in extent of land. And the whole region was basically the armpit of the Ottoman Empire for centuries before the Zionists started resettling and restoring the land, irrigation systems etc... in the late 1800s. The very small population of indigenous people had not managed to restore the land that had lain ruined for many centuries.

So you could say the Zionists deserved the land they homesteaded, that the locals let turn to shit for many hundreds of years.

I am not talking about Arabs and Jews, I am talking about the specific Palestinian people, who have a close genetic link to the Jewish people..in that they both have roots in the same fucking land. Not all Jews left the region during the diaspora, and not all people living in the region 2000 years ago were Jews. The people that stayed, many converted to Chrisitianity, and then later many of those converted to Islam.

There is more true Arab admixture in the Palestinian population, but no an overwhelming amount...just as there is not that much European admixture in the Ashkenazi, but it is there. Neither people are the same who inhabited the region 2000 years ago. They both have been changed by events and location.

Also, there is a profound difference between being culturally "Arab" and being genetically 100% Arab. One could also point out that the Ashkenazi, in particular, are just as alien, culturally...I was not aware that Yiddish is a Semitic language, for example...

As for the "locals turned to shit"....hello! that whole making the desert bloom crap requires water, which in limited amount in the region. One of the biggest hurdles to peace in the region, and one that is neglected in all the yelling is the use of water. Israel's "settlements" in the West Bank are sitting right on top of the water that the West Bank (Palestinians) needs and which Israel grudgingly allows Palestinians very limited access...for the lands they own right above it.

As for Gaza....another often unstated reason for the Israeli's ditching their settlements there is that the aquifer beneath Gaza is becoming brackish. The fresh water lens has been broken through into salt water.

Israel can not continue to "make the desert bloom" without taking the water under land that is not part of the state of Israel, but rather from land they occupy by military force. If they are forced to share it with the people that actually live above it, or even have to stop taking that water at all, if there were to be an independent Palestinian state that stopped this water taking...well that ain't going to happen.

Israel yaks about "peace" and the two state solution, but they have no intention of actually doing that...they have too much to lose in resources.

Leon Uris wrote fiction, folks...I believed it for years, until I actually started to pay attention to what was really going on over there.


Jordan is bigger than Israel, but Lerx, you like history..take a look at the maps of ancient empires, say Alexander the great....there is always a big curve below which sits most of Jordan, because it is was motherfucking wasteland...armies would also march along that curve (the Fertile Crescent for lack of a better word) rather than cut across what is now Jordan, because it is a true desert. There were monumental agricultural structures, irrigation, for thousands of years in the ME, but not in the eastern Jordan region...because it wasn't possible....they certainly would have if they could have. In what is now a very desolate region in Central Asia, there were huge irrigation projects and the region was known as a great urban area. Southern Uzbekistan Turkmenistan and Tajikistan...up until the Mongol invasions from the east in fact. And in some cases even later.

Again, I''ll remind you, Jordan has a milliom or so Iraqis as refugees from our war in Iraq, and a huge number from the west with Israel, why should it be up to little Jordan to pick up the slack for the sins of others? How about the Palestinians get to keep the land they lived on? And I find it really hilarious that any pro-Zionist would think that population transfer is a moral stance...it is Lebensraum . yeah, I went there.

[lerxstcat]

Since you mention the Mongols, it's worth noting that they were the ones who destroyed the irrigation systems in that area as well as from Syria to Egypt as well.

That was in the mid-1200s. Nobody tried to rebuild those irrigation systems until the Zionists began to return from the Diaspora in the mid-1800s. That's 600 years, Vlad, where the locals did nothing to improve the land.

Of course once the Zionists began to improve the land, THEN the "Palestinians" from Trans-Jordan began to move back into the area in greater numbers - to glom onto and benefit from the improvements the Zionist jews had made by hard work. Work that the Jordanian Arabs were free to do in the intervening 600 years, but didn't.

The "Palestinian people" is a construct of post-Mandate times, attaching the name of the land to a people who are not really indigenous to that land. You can say the Zionists aren't either, but they have an ancestral clam that they are now able to enforce.

If the Lakota were able somehow to gain military control of North and South Dakota, and keep the United States from dislodging them, you would probably say they had a similar ancestral claim - even though they originally came from Minnesota and displaced other tribes before them. The Black Hills are thier Jerusalem. If they could hold it aginst the US military, you would probably defend their right to.

Now I know that is an unlikely scenario, to say the least, but it's a fair analogy, except for a longer diaspora for the Jews. And would you deny the Lakota their claim because they probably all have some admixture of European ancestry now, well over a century later?

The difference between the two scenarios is that the Zionists moved into an area that had a vacuum of authority and control - the Ottomans owned it but weren't concerned about doing anything with it. The Mandate didn't occur until after WWI and the Zionists had already been at it for a couple of generatiuons by then. So you can't say that european powers "sent them there", if anything you can say that they recognized their right to reassert their ancestral homeland in the absence of any other organized government in the region. Because the Ottoman Empire had not been that in the region for a long time.

[SeminiferousButtNoid]

All I see from upinsmokeandmirrors is a bunch of "I know you are but what am I" retorts, failing to respond to Israel's historical, religious, and civic claim to the land and making the assertion that I'm using "evangelical talking points". I can honestly say I've never been accused of that before. I wonder if Alan Dershowitz gets accused of that too? Basically your position is that Israel doesn't have the right to exist. In which case your "both sides need to lose their pride and their will be peace" crap is rendered meaningless.

[Hames Jetfield]

When it comes to Israel and Palestine I have to agree with the genius Christopher Hitchens’ assessment of the situation. Hell, I agree with Hitch on lots of things. I love reading Hitchens, though I do disagree with him on a few things.