What does 'ceasing responsibility for life' mean?

Also it's actually incorrect. If the arab nations aswell as other Muslim states in the middle east put their weapons together, it would by far out do Israel.
But what would that achieve? It would be disastrous and I'm sure nobody here wants that
We need to find a solution for peace

Quite honestly, I don't see it as provocative in the slightest. It's factual. Understanding facts seems to be a prerequisite to finding solutions to the problems we have.

I see that it makes people here uncomfortable that Jews are stronger than their enemies. I know that's not the natural order of the universe. But wishing it were other than so won't help.

I'm not sure why you are deliberately writing such provocative statements. As we have seen from the past, these wars haven't exactly brought about peace and stability.

Horrendous, but true. And we're still here.

"The Jews have the bigger guns".

What a horrendous thing to say when innocents are being killed by those guns. Shame on you.

It doesn’t have to be a choice between the two. If you actually came to the negotiating table in a meaningful way, if you didn’t continue to build illegal settlements, if you gave Palestinians basic rights, then you could have both security and peace. Your choices aren’t as binary as apartheid or death. It’s tragic that you can’t see that.

It means you will always be a society with bunkers and air raid sirens and mandatory military service and check points.

As bad as that is, it's still my preference to being dead.

People can say all sorts of things. There are no documents or reports referring to or advancing the cause of “Palestinian” statehood until the 60’s.

if Haj Amin Al Husseini had spoken about “the Palestinians” everyone would have understood he was talking about the Jews.

Obviously there is now a Palestinian national consciousness. But it’s relatively new.

The Arab nations were tribal. It’s the idea of fixed borders that’s Western. You’ll not find a single map showing a fixed border between Iraq and Syria until the 1920s.

Jordan is very much a British creation, created as Transjordan in 1922 (with the Hashemite king Abdullah given the throne) and recognized as an independent state in 1946.

There are Jews marching for Palestinian rights right now because they don’t believe the actions of Israel are synonymous with the teachings of the Jewish religion.

What you and others with your mentality will never understand is that your approach of bombing the crap out of people, denying them basic rights and keeping them caged buys you temporary security but you will never have peace. You will always be a society looking over your shoulder in fear at the bogeyman you keep caged. It means you continue to create generations of people who wish you harm because everyone has a story about a trauma that you inflicted on them. It means you will always be a society with bunkers and air raid sirens and mandatory military service and check points. You’ll always be a country living in fear and hoping that one day uncle Sam’s protection doesn’t expire.

The idea of nationhood is quite western

Yes, but not the idea of kingdoms or countries or empires. That is universal.

all the Arab countries that exist today were created by the British and the French

At the very least, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Jordan and Saudi Arabia were not created by the British and French. You are confusing British imperialists drawing borders and then trying to impose those borders on existing countries with “creating” those countries.

Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon predate Britain as full fledged countries by thousands of years.

They said they did, pre1948. I’m talking about interviews done with people born sort of early 1900s speaking from the 1960s-1980s about the nakba and diaspora and their identity as Palestinians reaching back to their birth and childhood.

Does it even matter what their identity was in 1948? Does it matter if the displacement and defeat is what shaped it?
The point is that the Palestinians now have a strong national identity. Whether it was formed 100 years ago or 20 years ago doesn't make it any more or less legitimate.

Thank you. Agreed. The posts on here about water and other issues have been quite educational
That comment is very inflammatory

Yes, they do now. But they didn’t in 1948.

Because the Arabs thought of themselves as first and foremost as Arabs, not as Palestinians
I don’t agree with this. I’ve watched many interviews with survivors of the nakba and they all think of themselves as Palestinians, they talk about it as part of their identity and birth right. One that really resonated with me was Edward Said.

you’re right, I misread @mushti comment for @Meshigenus and reacted badly so I apologize for that.

Spot on. De-escalation and a cease fire is needed so calmer heads can sort out an agreement. So many innocent lives have been cut short- even babies and children.

It wasn't even Meshigenus who said anyway.

Sorry, neither it was, I apologise for that error.

Because the Arabs thought of themselves as first and foremost as Arabs, not as Palestinians.

The idea of nationhood is quite western; all the Arab countries that exist today were created by the British and the French under the Sykes-picot agreement after the First World War: syria, Iraq, Lebanon, (then in 1922, Jordan). The idea of pan-Arab nationalism (as opposed to nation states) took a long time to fade away, right up until Sadat Hussein’s Ba’ath party (the same political movement to which Egyptian president Nasser belonged) was destroyed by the USA quite recently.

It wasn't even Meshigenus who said anyway.

I'm sorry. However much this is tribal on a thread like this but as an israeli I do not agree with you. That's an awful thing to say. Innocent people are being hurt here and this whole thing has the potential to ignite the whole region.

Wasn’t that massacre of the helpless, unarmed Jewish community in Hebron part of the larger 1929 Palestine Riots over Temple Mont and the Wall? I think it left what, around 150 dead on both sides?

I’m glad your grandparents survived. As I’ve said on other threads, all the fears of safety for Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities there are all valid and based in actual massacres.