In this morning's Metro

You are painting this whole conflict as a war between good and bad, and portray Israel as a 60 year invasion. The arguement is that a victimised people should have learned to not victimize others. But in saying that people miss the point of the Holocaust. The point of the Holocaust was that world opinion, The Red Cross, NGOs and sovereign States, did nothing to protect the Jews. Israel was not created out of compensation for the Holocaust. It was created out of a Jewish desire for self-protection.

As anti-semitism rises all around the world (as is evident even on a north east clubbing message board), I can see it from a Jewish point of view. They just want the knowledge that there is a safe place they can go if the world ever turns against them again. They want a place that they know will stand up for them, and protect them. As anti Jewish feelings grow, Israel will become more and more important to the Jewish race. Because there will always be people that boil Jews down to their religion, and claim they control money and are destroying the planet. There must be nothing more terrifying than hearing someone express an opinion of hate towards something that is at the very core of your being, your friends and family, and something you can never ever change. And the way this planet is going at the moment, things are only going to get worse, and scapegoats will always be sought.

I believe attitudes like yours do nothing to contribute to a solution. These good vs. evil arguments never succeed in achieving anything. We need to get beyond this. There will be more bloodshed until both sides start accepting the others place in their worlds. As long as Israel is convinced it is surrounded by an entire region that wants to drive it into the sea, it will respond to every threat disproportionately, because that is what you do when your existence is threatened. Not just Israel, but any nation on earth - don't think that we would act any differently. As long as attitudes like Hamas prevail in Palestine, they will reject any peace deals and continue to resort to terrorism, and a disregard for their own citizen's lives.

So stop selective quoting, revising history and framing things in black and white. Stop painting everything that Palestine has done in terms of ''good", and Israel's entire history as "evil". You are not helping anyone. You are just making the right-wingers in Israel more convinced that the world is against them, that they have their backs against the wall, and the only option for survival is a fight to the death.

I can perfectly well understand the Jewish people yearning for a homeland both before and after the holocaust and I can sympathise with that. It doesn't mean that it was right to steal someone else's land and call it theirs and expel the people who were living there, forcing them into refugee camps.
I'm not saying it is a war of good against evil. But your idea that the palestinians should just roll over and let the Israelis continue to grab their land for settlements until they are forced from the land altogether is just wrong. It's immoral. Any conflict between a bully and his victim can be solved if the victim just hands over his pocket money and cows his head but that does not make it right.
The Israelis have the US and to a large extent europe on it's side along with the most sophisticated weaponry and weapons of mass destruction. The Palestinians have a pile of home made rockets and a few small arms. It is just unfair. That is why I support the Palestinian cause. Because I think they are underdogs in a struggle not of their making.
Now I CAN see how Israel is scared and feels surrounded by enemies but I think that is because the state was founded by creating an historical injustice which has festered ever since. I know that the leaders of Israel are guided by a sense that never again must they allow weakness to lead them to another holocaust. But bullies are not strong they are weak. Israel needs to find the strength to turn away from ultra violence. Every time they embark on something like this present massacre in Gaza they strengthen the hatred against them and fuel anti-semitism around the world.

but it is a 60 year invasion.

Ok, a few facts.

There was no Arab state or nation called Palestine in the Middle East in 1948. There was no nation that could be stolen. The Jews have lived continuously in this region for over 3700 years. They were a majority population in Jerusalem since the 19th century. It too simplistic to boil it down to a 'god-given right' argument. The palestine mandate was a British controlled piece of the old Turkish Ottoman Empire. In 1922, Winston Churchill gave 80% of it to the Arabs. That area is now the country Jordan (which is almost exclusively populated by Arabs). Then, in 1948, the UN divided the remaining 20% into two parts. A jewish partition and an arab partition. (And note that 60% of the Israeli partition was arid desert). Israel was very successful in settling their territory and turning desert into productive land (orange groves in the desert etc).

So the arabs got 90% and the jews got 10% of British land. Sounds like a pretty good deal for the Arabs. But no, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq all went to war and attacked the remaining 10 percent. (one sixth of one percent of the Middle East not populated by Arab states). The leaders of these countries wished to push the Jews in to the sea. They tried again in '67 and '73. One million Arabs chose to remain in Israel. The Jews made these Arabs citizens of Israel, and gave them equal rights. In contrast, a Jewish person is a persona non grata (a diplomatic term for an unwelcome person) in Palestine. Also, in 1948, close to a million Jews were forced to flee Jordan and other Arab countries and move to Israel. What about their land that was stolen by the creation of Jordan and Syria? As for the argument that Israel should 'just' give the land back. They tried in 1948 and 2000. Each time this was met with armed attack or terrorism. The most recent attempt at giving land back (the withdrawal from Gaza and certain settlements), the palestinians responded by destroying all the remaining synagogs of those settlements and launching rockets into Israel.

This is not to say Israel is not guilty of its own war crimes and acts of aggression, but it is just plain wrong to regurgitate the age old statement "just give their land back and it will all be fine". People seem to be suggesting that Palestinian violence is justified, because they are repelling invaders. You can't have it both ways. And interestingly, how come the Palestinians in Jordan aren’t asking for their own state in Jordan? The PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organisation) never called for the liberation of the West Bank from Jordan or the Gaza Strip from Egypt, which these territories were initially annexed by.

So, enough with the soap-box preaching of "JUST GIVE THEM THE LAND YOU STOLE". It's not that simple. Israel is willing to give back the land. Israel is even willing to let Palestine take half of jerusalem. It is only the orthodox who want all of Palestine, and they are a minority. Most Israelis aren’t even observant. Go read the Hamas Charter. It expressly forbids peace talks, negotiation and even the act of sitting around a table in talks with Israel. Israel got nothing in return for its withdrawals during the 21st century. No compromise from the palestinians, no concession, no acknowledgment of Israel or stop to the violence. What political party is going to risk withdrawing from more territory? The political fall-out would be disastrous.

Again, double standards. As much as the Israelis believe they have a god-given right, the Palestinians believe they are on a god sanctioned Jihad against the Jewish state. Again, why aren’t you outraged about the land Arab nations like Jordan and Syria stole from the Jews who were living there?? Double standards. Everyone bar the extremists wants a two state solution. The reason those of us who are sticking up for Israel get so defensive, is because the rest of you seem to suggest that the 'fair' solution is the removal of the state of Israel. On the logic that Israeli is an invader. Israel may be illegally occupying West Bank and Lebanese territory, but they did this only AFTER they were attacked. Not before.

There is nothing that frustrates me more in this debate than double standards, especially when they come on moral high-horses that are mostly based on distorted, exaggerated, one-sided or just plain wrong facts.

That is why I felt motivated to enter this headache of a thread.

Some of you say you're in favour of a two state solution, but when one takes a closer look at what your saying... it seems suspiciously like a one state solution to me.

Otherwise, what the fuck are we arguing about then?

I actually wrote something else.... but after reading Ferox above post I decided to delete mine as it contriibuted nothing to the dialogue.

Ferox, thank you - I say that with total sincerity. I know wasm't said for my sake - but reading such words in the current climate is so rare.

I did a politics module (Water Politics and Water Policy) in my final year of uni, which was basically focused on the water inequalities between Israel and Palestine. Did a lot of research into the troubles in the region, and how and why it came about, hence I get annoyed when people don't do their research and base their facts on media and press opinion and a few pictures of an injured child.

It seems to be anything other than left of center in this argument you've got to read the Morning Star, wear a Free Palestine t-shirt with pride, and smash a Starbucks up outside the Israeli embassy in London.

Some white youths Palestine flags & 1 with a megaphone were outside Marks & Spencer on Northumberland Street tonight complaining about M & S giving Israel some wedge.

Little dicks. Pathetic little middle class whining bitches, probably still living with their parents, proudly wearing their T-shirt and waving their flags in the war zone of Northern England. Quite the fucking counter revolutionaries they are.

You knwo they protest outside because marks and spencers buy underwear from Israel

I find the water situation very depressing, on one hand I've stayed in israel many tims and while water is something you use carefully - there's always a supply...Yet I know I'm always walking distance from somewhere with much worse water conditions.

But then who do you hold accountable? Why should Israel be expected to support a nation that its at war with? Israel is one fo the few nations I can think of that actually supports its enemy with medical aid, water, etc.

Palestine shares its borders with more than just Israel... Why is Israel accountable?

ah. facts.
I wondered when facts would arrive.
I'm pleased to see you did a module in your final year. That will have armed you with all the facts necessary to reach a firm conclusion I'm sure.

Lets just examine your 'facts'


first the 'there was no Palestine' fact. That's true, the whole middle East was part of the Ottoman Empire till the British nicked it after WW1.
Does that mean that it was an empty land devoid of people? that there were no cities filled with people? people who had lived there for generations? people who had the right to carry on living there? people who owned the land? Just because it was not a country but a colony does not mean the people who lived there had no right to remain. There was also no country called ISRAEL. Fact.

then there's the 'Jews have lived here continuously for 3700 years' fact. That's true (apart from being expelled by the Persians and the Romans) but all Semitic people have lived here for thousands of years including the ancestors of the present day Palestinians. Does the fact that some Jews have lived there for a long time give them the right to import millions of Jews from around the planet, steal the land of the Arabs at gunpoint and expel them and settle Jews in their former lands? I think not.

The Arabs got 80% of the Mandate fact. True they did. They also got the other 20% since at that time there was no Israel.
In 1948 the Zionist terrorists succesfully booted the british out, declared a Jewish state and forcibly ejected hundreds of thousands of Arabs who fled to refugee camps where they remain to this day. Israel has refused point blank ever since to grant them the right of return.fact.


I could go through the rest of your analysis of the situation and show how the rest of your 'facts' are partial biased and ill informed but I can't be arsed.


just finally to dismiss the deliberate murder of hundreds of children as "a few pictures of an injured child" is just sick

After reviewing posts on the matter (including yours), I have identified at least 4 different 'peace plans' being promoted. Here's your chance to nominate your favourite one! And because I'm an opinionated bastard, I've added my thoughts too.

1. Israel shouldn't exist (Not going to happen - sorry. Pick again.)

2. Israel should just put up with it - after all, it's just a few rockets per day (Are you on drugs?)

3. Israel should respond the the rockets in a 'proportional' way, making sure not to hurt any of the 'innocent civilians' that Hamas chooses to hide amongst - not even the peace-loving innocent Palestinians who are storing weapons in their houses and otherwise offering Hamas their enthusiastic support. (Hmmm well, we could give it a try, but this would achieve precisely what? Couldn't Hamas just keep doing what it's doing pretty much indefinitely - and obtain better rockets and even scarier stuff over time? On second thought, this one's not a goer either.)

4. Israel should unilaterally offer peace to the Palestinians, withdraw to the original borders and hope that this means that Hamas and all the other groups with 'death to Israel' policies will just change their minds. (No. Really. You are on drugs, aren't you?)

Have I got it about right?

ok
here are the alternatives

1 Israel can continue to bomb the shit out of it's neighbours who will decide that they will not seek revenge. (not going to happen)

2 Israel can nuke the whole of the arab world and live in splendid isolation in the bit they have left (unsatisfactory on many levels)

3 Israel can just nuke Iran and Syria and all their problems will be solved (WW3)

4 Israel can continue to live in a permanent state of war but gradually build up it's wall until no one can climb over it

5 Israel can talk to it's enemies and for once agree to put withdrawal to the 1967 borders on the table along with dismantling the west bank settlements and have Jerusalem as an internationally administered city

Nothing will change the minds of militants who hate Israel. Israel could offer them all the land, but they would say it would be under the condition that no Jews live there. In the end, it only takes one militant launching rockets from the roof of his apartment building to start shit again, and until the Palestinian government can control them, Israel will continue to defend and retaliate. Israel will not "take a few hits" just to be the bigger person. The RIGHT thing here is for Hamas to stop acting militant and listen to reason.

The Palestinian government is hardly going to be able to control militants with its infrastructure decimated by a combination of israeli blockades and embargoes and the odd israeli smiting.

If there was a well funded, functioning, independent palestinian territory, then young men and women wouldn't have an incentive to launch guerilla warfare. As long as the palestinians live in an empoverished, embargoed open prison then extremism will run riot and no amount of bombing is goign to stop the rocket attacks, as israel is busy proving once again.

I disagree profoundly with your council of despair.
The militants can change their minds. People are not mindless robots. You cannot pre-judge what they would say. You have to say it to know that.
If the hopes for peace can be ruined for evermore by one rocket from a roof then there will never be peace.

There are always people who do not want peace. On both sides. But the majority of people do.
I could turn around what you say about the rocket by saying it only takes one illegal settler to start shit again.
They have to rise above that mindset.

They cannot go from total violence to perfect peace in one go.

But the only way to make progress is to eliminate the idea that they can bomb their way to peace.
It will not work. The past 60 years are proof enough. That idea has been tested to destruction

Ok, serious question, what can be done? I'm not sure. I'd like to try and support an organisation like B'Tselem.

http://www.btselem.org/English

Israel will clearly not listen to the outside world apart from anything that threatens it alliance with America. It will also be quick to accuse any outside source of a hidden agenda or anti-semitism. It is convinced that the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are all anti-israel. (And perhaps they are, who knows). It is also convinced that the UN is biased against Israel, and they have a strong point here, considering the UN has a human rights commission specifically established to monitor Israeli violations only. (The only commission established to monitor the actions of a single country). Israeli has little friends in the UN apart from its allies, so I think the UN is limited in what it can do with Israel directly.

Hence why I think an organisation such as B'Tselem, which is made up of Israelis and Palestinians, working inside of Israel to change popular perception, document human rights abuses and put pressure on the government and military, has the potential to be very effective. They are not alone, and could start a ground-roots movement for change. It's all about attitudes. Sanctions, deterrence, giant walls, incursions, politics, violence... hasn't worked. We need something akin to the Civil Rights movement in the US, to happen within Israel and within Palestine.

I can't remember it's name (maybe Joe can help me out here) but there is a school within Israel that enrolls both Palestinians and Jews in the same class. They both learn each others religion and culture, they learn each-others language and sing each others songs together. From recent reports this school is really successful, and its students have mixed friendships and do not segregate themselves. We need to pour our money into institutions like this.

I also liked the Israeli peace team that came to Australia recently to play sport, made up of Palestinians and Jews. It's gimmicky perhaps, but it is the thing that will break these cycles. Genuine friendship will withstand prejudices and hate.

Many did remain and are fully fledged Israeili citizens... the majority of those that left did so of their own accord:

"Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return." - Haled al Azm, the Syrian Prime Minister in 1948/_49

The Arab states got it wrong, they planned to swiftly drive the Jews into the sea. and upon doing so their brothers could swiftly return to their homes. But they got it wrong in the words of King Abdullah of Jordan:

"The tragedy of the Palestinians was that most of their leaders had paralyzed them with false and unsubstantiated promises that they were not alone; that 80 million Arabs and 400 million Muslims would instantly and miraculously come to their rescue."

While I'm not saying every Arab that left his village did so willingly - I'm saying that a propotion stayed and propotion left of their own accord.

But we're not talking about the majority arab populations of that region as the UN divided Israel along ethnic lines, large Arab cities tended to fall into the proposed Palestinian state and large Jewish cities fell into the proposed Israeli state.

Between 650,000 and 472,000 Arabs left Israel between 47-9 according to UNRWA through the birthrate this number had grown to 4,100,000 by 2003.

During the same period 586,000 Jews were expelled or left Arab lands... what took place was not so much the import of millions of Europeans, rather it was the switching of two population (in both cases sometimes willingly and sometimes unwillingly).

Then tell me why Qassams aren't falling on Israel from the West Bank?

FATAH seems to be able to control its West Bank population in the pursuit of peace. They still condemn and speak out about whats happening in Gaza, but they're not launching rockets as they are like Israel hopeful for peace.

I don't agree with your analysis Joe but it's so pointless to keep on with the blame game. Organisations like the one Ferox shows have a way forward that would have a genuine chance of success if it were not for the extremists on both sides. Ultra Orthodox Jews are just as supremascist as the leaders of Hamas and they constantly get in the way of any progress.


The urge just to punch your enemy as hard as you can is the easiest route to go down so unless the peacemakers are really strong and/or charismatic they have little chance against the right wingers who will say they are weak and naive.


I think Hamas are stupid to keep lobbing their missiles and all violence is counterproductive, but I feel that the Palestinians are the underdogs here and the onus is on Israel to stop the turkey shoot in Gaza as it plays into the hands of those hardliners who want to push Israel into the sea.


Part of my family are Cypriots displaced by the Turkish invasion and there are some for whom the death of a parent, or brother, or son at the hands of the Turks, and the theft of their land means they have a bitterness in their hearts that can never be removed. They hate the thousands of mainland Turks who settled in the occupied areas and want to see them pushed into the sea too.

But with 40 years and a UN presence and no more violence on either side even they would like a settlement now. They accept that the dead aren't coming back and that they will never get what they see as justice or their land back but they don't want to keep living in a divided island.

I'm sure if something similar were to happen in the middle East and enough time were to go by with no violence then a similar thing could happen. But the present Israeli shock and awe tactics merely prolong the agony and provoke the cycle of violence.