Zionism

[Caladan]

Wouldn't the Palestinians have a claim to land they have occupied longer than the the former Kingdoms of Israel and Judah existed?

Which Palestinians? the land was conquered by a variety of dynasties and rulers. Anything from competing Islamic dynasties from various ethnic stocks and regions who competed and expelled each other from Palestine, to other foreign regimes.
If we include any Arab or Islamic control or conquest over Palestine as some kind of a Palestinian hold to the land (which would not make sense), then technically the Arab Muslims have created only ONE city in the entire history of Palestine/Israel.

But this is all an academic debate. Today the Palestinians have a claim in two areas. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Any future Palestinian state is going to be built there. And again, the original goal was to partition the British Mandate of Palestine to two states: One Jewish and One Arab. Because of the failure of the first round, we now have to work again from scratch in order to make a two state solution a reality.

 

[1robin]

A very quick and basic search on these forums alone found over 15 threads on human rights violations in Islamic countries.

This thread is about Zionism.

Why are you attempting to divert attention away from the subject at hand?

I do not speak for any else but Islamic and Arab human rights violations are in a causal relationship with everything happening in the region. Arab aggression has been the incentive for most policy Israel has adopted.

 

[1robin]

Which Palestinians? the land was conquered by a variety of dynasties and rulers. Anything from competing Islamic dynasties from various ethnic stocks and regions who competed and expelled each other from Palestine, to other foreign regimes.
If we include any Arab or Islamic control or conquest over Palestine as some kind of a Palestinian hold to the land (which would not make sense), then technically the Arab Muslims have created only ONE city in the entire history of Palestine/Israel.

But this is all an academic debate. Today the Palestinians have a claim in two areas. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Any future Palestinian state is going to be built there. And again, the original goal was to partition the British Mandate of Palestine to two states: One Jewish and One Arab. Because of the failure of the first round, we now have to work again from scratch in order to make a two state solution a reality.

Agree to some extent but what right does a culture that denied the first settlement to its own claims for land and that of Israel have any rights to land in perpetuity?

 

[Caladan]

Agree to some extent but what right does a culture that denied the first settlement to its own claims for land and that of Israel have any rights to land in perpetuity?

It's pragmatic. The other alternatives are not viable in the long run, or at least will not yield productive results. Gradually giving Palestinian areas more autonomy until a future stage of independence is a realistic option. The other option being prolonging a stalemate in which the resources of both sides are being exhausted. What interest does Israel have in maintaining various levels of civil or administrative control over another population?
The two state solution has been the standard accepted political solution both by a majority of Israelis and Palestinians. The big disagreements are of course on countless of details, such as territorial division of the two states.

 

[1robin]

It's pragmatic. The other alternatives are not viable in the long run, or at least will not yield productive results. Gradually giving Palestinian areas more autonomy until a future stage of independence is a realistic option. The other option being prolonging a stalemate in which the resources of both sides are being exhausted. What interest does Israel have in maintaining various levels of civil or administrative control over another population?
The two state solution has been the standard accepted political solution both by a majority of Israelis and Palestinians. The big disagreements are of course on countless of details, such as territorial division of the two states.

In a graph consisting of land grants from Israel to Arab's and violence. Violence increases for every grant given. I can't see how that justifies more land to be given. Especially since much of Arab aggression is launched from land that was given or not to be controlled by either. That is the case for the West Bank, Golan heights, Gaza Strip, the Sinai, Suez canal, etc... It's kind of a bully mentality. The only thing a bully respects is power and the one things he always takes advantage of is timidity or the scruples others are bound by but they are not. I wish it were different but both the Bible and history indicate there will never be peace in the region this side of Armageddon.

 

[Caladan]

In a graph consisting of land grants from Israel to Arab's and violence. Violence increases for every grant given. I can't see how that justifies more land to be given. Especially since much of Arab aggression is launched from land that was given or not to be controlled by either. That is the case for the West Bank, Golan heights, Gaza Strip, the Sinai, Suez canal, etc... It's kind of a bully mentality. The only thing a bully respects is power and the one things he always takes advantage of is timidity or the scruples others are bound by but they are not. I wish it were different but both the Bible and history indicate there will never be peace in the region this side of Armageddon.

For what it's worth, yes there are Palestinian factions and sectors that exploit territorial compromises in order to launch attacks deeper into Israeli territories. But in some cases, such as the pull out of Gaza our side (the Israeli side) should have made the disengagement more organized and synchronized with the powers involved, including the Palestinian Authority which controlled the Gaza strip at the time (before Hamas now) in order to avoid a situation of power vacuum. Giving the Palestinians the challenge of building a state and a functioning economy/society will keep them busy and focused on their own society. Different Palestinians faction will have to resolve their inner conflicts, economic woes would need to receive attention, etc. As it is, the Palestinian governments and official authorities are responsible for vast corruption and abuse of their people, as a state they will be held accountable on a much more serious level. They won't have time to take on Israel if they would want to make a real effort to build a state.

 

[1robin]

For what it's worth, yes there are Palestinian factions and sectors that exploit territorial compromises in order to launch attacks deeper into Israeli territories. But in some cases, such as the pull out of Gaza our side (the Israeli side) should have made the disengagement more organized and synchronized with the powers involved, including the Palestinian Authority which controlled the Gaza strip at the time (before Hamas now) in order to avoid a situation of power vacuum. Giving the Palestinians the challenge of building a state and a functioning economy/society will keep them busy and focused on their own society. Different Palestinians faction will have to resolve their inner conflicts, economic woes would need to receive attention, etc. As it is, the Palestinian governments and official authorities are responsible for vast corruption and abuse of their people, as a state they will be held accountable on a much more serious level. They won't have time to take on Israel if they would want to make a real effort to build a state.

First judging by your signature line you might appreciate some word's of wisdom from the almighty rock band Rush.

"there is no hero in neutrality"
"If you choose to not decide you still have made a choice"

It was not mainly the Palestinians that have been the problem. It is the Islamic nations that use them to fight proxy wars against Israel. Jordan invaded from the West bank, Egypt invaded or tried to from the Suez and the Sinai, and Lebanon from the Golan heights. I am quite sure Israel has not been perfect in their withdrawals nor politics but nothing they have done justifies using hospitals to fire rockets at children from land they gave the Palestinians or a thousand other atrocities. In human conflict perfection is not an option. Israel no doubt has done some very bad things but on any non Islamic balance sheet they have been the more honorable of the region. Did you say you are an Israeli?

 

[MusaaEl-Haadi]

For or Against?

I am opposed to Zionism for 2 reasons:

1)The only reason the Jews were given Israel was because they were oppressed by the Nazis. I find it hypocritical that they would turn around and do essentially the same thing to the Palestinians. < Veryyyyyyyyy good point ( Truth is Truth )

2)Zionism claims that Israel belongs to the Jews by right of birth, but the majority of displaced Jews in Israel are of European descent and just happen to follow the Jewish religion. They have no more of a "blood" claim to Israel than I do < Veryyyyyyyyy good point ( Truth is Truth )

.

Thankyou

 

[Shermana]

Thankyou

Ashkenazis are genetically proven to share blood links with Mizrahis and those with a long chain of descendence in the land.

The Khazar Shtick would be cute if it wasn't totally wrong and pushed only by a few fringe scientists with a blatant axe to grind.

 

[Leftimies]

Which Palestinians? the land was conquered by a variety of dynasties and rulers. Anything from competing Islamic dynasties from various ethnic stocks and regions who competed and expelled each other from Palestine, to other foreign regimes.
If we include any Arab or Islamic control or conquest over Palestine as some kind of a Palestinian hold to the land (which would not make sense), then technically the Arab Muslims have created only ONE city in the entire history of Palestine/Israel.

But this is all an academic debate. Today the Palestinians have a claim in two areas. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Any future Palestinian state is going to be built there. And again, the original goal was to partition the British Mandate of Palestine to two states: One Jewish and One Arab. Because of the failure of the first round, we now have to work again from scratch in order to make a two state solution a reality.

This is the most sensible thing I've heard for a long time. Frubals, man, frubals coming your way.

 

[MusaaEl-Haadi]

Every map I see never addresses the fact that during the Caliphate Israel was subjugated by the empire and that Arabs mingled in the land. The very structure callwd al-Masjid Qub'bat As-Sakh'rah is a result of this empire.

If Greeks subjugated the lands around them would this not mean the land belongs to the Greeks? Wouldn't Greeks mingle in these communities?

Do you also find it ironic that the original Qiblah (direction of prayer) was in Jerusalem? Muhammad was kicked out I should mentioned. No argument you make can validate Filistini existence in Israel as it has and always will be Israel. Filistini have no claim to the land because they stole it during the Caliphate or the Islamic empire and part of Islam is rooted in Israel as it tried taking from the Jews what belonged to them.

Your entire history is inaccurate because you refuse to go back further

What the diffrent in the meaning of Khaliyfat and Caliphate

 

[Silver Wolf]

My opposition to Zionism is completely secular, nothing religious.
I do not see how a group of people, even one as persecuted as the Jews, have the right to come to a country and claim it because their ancestors may have lived there thousands of years ago.

 

[Shermana]

My opposition to Zionism is completely secular, nothing religious.
I do not see how a group of people, even one as persecuted as the Jews, have the right to come to a country and claim it because their ancestors may have lived there thousands of years ago.

Because they won a war like every single other country? Are you aware of how the war started? That the Arabs invaded? Do you hold opposition to any other country that is based on who won wars or only the Jewish state? If so, do you hold an equal amount of indignation? Do you believe that the Arabs are entitled to the land simply because they managed to conquer it for so many years? Why shouldn't it go to the Turks instead? Do you also hold that New Mexico, Texas, and California should be returned to Mexico? Do you hold that Iran and Turkey should cede Kurdish lands to the Kurds?

Because the UN partitioned it into lands that the Jews held a majority in, mostly from lands they bought straight from the Arabs? Are you aware of the basic history of the 1948 partition plan? Or the preceding deals? Do you understand the issues at stake from the time period or the basic history of the Zionist movements? Do you know that the "Mandate of Palestine" was based on arbitrary borders that didn't exist until the 1900s, and that before then the land was a series of Turkish Vilyets? Or that the Arabs referred to it as "Southern Syria"?

Would I be correct in stating that you haven't actually read the basic history? Do you think the Jews just went in and took it over without compensating or making deals with the title holders?

It's very strange how many people have vocal positions against Israel but can't be bothered to learn the basic history. I guess that would involve work and study.

 

[1robin]

My opposition to Zionism is completely secular, nothing religious.
I do not see how a group of people, even one as persecuted as the Jews, have the right to come to a country and claim it because their ancestors may have lived there thousands of years ago.

That is not the basis for Israel's claim to the land though continuously occupying the land for 4000 is better than most. Britain controlled the area after WW1 and they along with UN mandate offered land to both the Jews and Palestinians. The Jews were happy with only 1/2 of their old land but the Palestinian refused half of what they did not own anyway. They and the nations in the area attempted to take what they did not have any right to and lost much of what they had occupied. Even that was later mostly given back and they did not attack and loose a war every few years then use the neutral areas to stage the next attacks or snipe at children the Jews would never bother them. In every category by which any claims to land are usually resolves Israel has every claim possible. There exists no legal reason they do not hold rights to the land.

 

[Silver Wolf]

Because they won a war like every single other country? Are you aware of how the war started? That the Arabs invaded? Do you hold opposition to any other country that is based on who won wars or only the Jewish state? If so, do you hold an equal amount of indignation? Do you believe that the Arabs are entitled to the land simply because they managed to conquer it for so many years? Why shouldn't it go to the Turks instead? Do you also hold that New Mexico, Texas, and California should be returned to Mexico? Do you hold that Iran and Turkey should cede Kurdish lands to the Kurds?

Because the UN partitioned it into lands that the Jews held a majority in, mostly from lands they bought straight from the Arabs? Are you aware of the basic history of the 1948 partition plan? Or the preceding deals? Do you understand the issues at stake from the time period or the basic history of the Zionist movements? Do you know that the "Mandate of Palestine" was based on arbitrary borders that didn't exist until the 1900s, and that before then the land was a series of Turkish Vilyets? Or that the Arabs referred to it as "Southern Syria"?

Would I be correct in stating that you haven't actually read the basic history? Do you think the Jews just went in and took it over without compensating or making deals with the title holders?

It's very strange how many people have vocal positions against Israel but can't be bothered to learn the basic history. I guess that would involve work and study.

Your post could've done well enough without the ad hominem at the end.
I think the Arabs have a right there because historically, they have more of a right to it than a bunch of exiles. But I forget, they are just like the Slavs were to the Nazis, untermenschen meant to be exterminated and replaced by the master race.

 

[Moishe3rd]

Your post could've done well enough without the ad hominem at the end.
I think the Arabs have a right there because historically, they have more of a right to it than a bunch of exiles. But I forget, they are just like the Slavs were to the Nazis, untermenschen meant to be exterminated and replaced by the master race.

Your post itself is ad hominem.
And, you didn't brush up on your "historically" part.
Perhaps you'd like to try that now?
Could you explain the "historical right" that the people you refer to as Arabs have over what is now the State of Israel?
Or, if that eludes you, could you explain what creates an "historical right?" Feel free to use other parts of the world as evidence of your "historical right" to any particular land.
Thank you.

 

[metis]

What strikes me when I see this supposed demand that the U.N. somehow was wrong in partitioning Palestine into Israel and Jordan, why is it that these same people don't typically feel the same way about other areas where this has occurred, including the U.S.A.? We took the vast majority of Indian land, killed most of them directly or indirectly; then we took the southwest from the Spanish; etc.

Yep, I think Israel should give up the land right after European-Americans all go back to Europe and return the land here to its original human population.

 

[Shermana]

What strikes me when I see this supposed demand that the U.N. somehow was wrong in partitioning Palestine into Israel and Jordan, why is it that these same people don't typically feel the same way about other areas where this has occurred, including the U.S.A.? We took the vast majority of Indian land, killed most of them directly or indirectly; then we took the southwest from the Spanish; etc.

Yep, I think Israel should give up the land right after European-Americans all go back to Europe and return the land here to its original human population.

Precisely. For some strange, unidenfitable reason (cough) they ONLY care about the Jewish state, and no where else. They couldn't give two figs about Iraq, Turkey, Burma (Myanmar), Chiapas in Mexico, the Native Americans (Whose land they are more too happy to occupy and give a token "I care them about too" fib) and their justification is quite often "International Law changed after 1945". Which is hysterical every time they say it. They think the International Law Fairy waved her magical International Law Wand and changed the playing field ever since. But then when I bring up that there are still secession and territorial issues like with Xingjiang in China and the Kurds and the Tamils, they change the subject or say something like "I care for all peoples worldwide" when often in reality it's the first time they've heard of such situations, or they have heard and simply couldn't care less about them.

And then they complain that "Anyone who is anti-zionist is called anti-semitic". Well guess what people, when you ONLY care about the Jewish state, or you throw 99% of your "Human rights activism" towards the Palestinians and refuse to learn the objective history and look for every possible excuse to hate on the Jewish state, it may just be true. May just be.

 

[Shermana]

Your post could've done well enough without the ad hominem at the end.
I think the Arabs have a right there because historically, they have more of a right to it than a bunch of exiles. But I forget, they are just like the Slavs were to the Nazis, untermenschen meant to be exterminated and replaced by the master race.

I'm sorry, I think the ad hom was quite justified. What's wrong with what I said exactly? Was I not being factual when I said that most of them have absolutely no knowledge or intention to learn the basic history of the situation? When I use ad hom, I try to make it factual so it sticks in.

Now what's ironic is that you go ahead and try to make a huge smear against the Jews by comparing them to the Nazis with the Slavs. Do you even know that 20% of the Israeli citizen population is Arab with virtually equal rights? And then you say they have "More right than a bunch of exiles" as if that somehow is a justified position. At what point do land squatters have "more right" than the people who have lived there before them? Are you even aware that most of the Arabs living there descend from illegal immigrants from Syria and Jordan and Egypt in the late 1800s to early 1900s? Are you even aware that many of the Jews living there descend from those who never left the region? Why do exiles not have a right, considering they've never really had the ability to return in the first place for the most part?

I got some ad hom for you too, ya ready? I'll give you a hint, it applies to the same "Ad hom" you accused me of. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts you have not read enough history of the situation to be able to have an honest conversation about it, yet you probably feel bold enough to attack the Jewish state with vitriolic assertions.

Now do you also have similar objections to the USA? Or did things magically change after 1945? Or do you vouch for Native American sovereignty and a dissolution of the US government as well?

 

[Pastek]

Britain controlled the area after WW1 and they along with UN mandate offered land to both the Jews and Palestinians.

Maybe middle eastern people should do the same with other lands and offered them here and there.