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Palestine/Israel

152 replies

Lady1d · 26/07/2014 20:27

Can someone please give me the background to everything that is going on. Sorry to sound like a complete idiot but I'm not at all up to speed on current affairs and need an idiots guide

OP posts:
Isitmebut · 26/08/2014 15:16

I'm hearing an Egyptian Gaza brokered peace, good news, I'm wondering if along the lines of by post the other day, it was the only way I could see Hamas backing down from a military exchange they could not win.

"The Palestinian/israeli conflict will not change while Hamas governs, or doesn't spend it's $$$$hundreds of millions annual 'missile money' on arms and doing what is right for its electorate, not just rebuilding Gaza, but improving it - and if in doing so it 'appears' to demilitarize, it can both 'save face' with the population that want all Israelis dead AND appeal to Israel (and the world) that it is showing it DOES want peace."

"There you have it, the Isitmebut solution to arrive at Palestinian/Israeli Peace; everyone will be happy, what could poss-ibly go wrong."

PigletJohn · 26/08/2014 19:42

A truce will not solve the problems, though.

Israel is never going to give back the land it has stolen, and will not give non-Jewish occupants of the Occupied Territories citizenship rights including the vote.

I doubt it will stop taking more land and building more Illegal Settlements until it has achieved a Final Solution to the Palestinian Problem.

Isitmebut · 26/08/2014 23:43

A truce will not solve 'the problems', most of which negotiated within that Geneva Accord in 2003, that israel took the first steps towards by withdrawing it's settlers forcibly from Gaza that year.

The Palestinian electorate minority, spoke for their underaged majority, and not only rejected those terms, they thew out the prospects of peaceful negotiations by the surprise, decisive, election of Hamas - whose platform was/is to take back the land currently called Israel, by force - wholly supported by the Palestinian peoples mandate.

What a shame the Palestinian's took that decision in 2006 to elect Hamas, as while they might get some concessions from Israel, no Israeli politician will ever be able to trust a Palestine led by Hamas and other Islamic Jihadi factions, so will remain on a constant readiness for terrorist actions, to protect all their citizens.

Remembering 'the Final Solution' is in Hamas's Charter, if you or I lived in southern israel, we wouldn't want it any other way, now would we.

PigletJohn · 27/08/2014 06:56

When Israel, with great reluctance, moved 2% of its then Illegal Settlements (colonies) so that Gaza could become the worlds largest concentration camp and bombing target, it compensated its settlers generously.

Israel has since continued to seize land, and has built vastly more Illegal Settlements than the tiny number it gave up, and continues to build still more even now.

A few people pretend to think that this pattern shows Israel is willing to return stolen land for peace. In fact it shows that Israel does, and is determined to do, the opposite.

Isitmebut · 27/08/2014 11:13

History shows that long, violent, religious/cultural conflicts, full of hatred and fear on both sides, CAN be resolved when ‘a few good politicians’ on both sides WANT to resolve the issues of that conflict peacefully – and take a huge political gamble in taking that resolve to their own people.

As only when more of those people they represent come with them on the attempt to negotiate a lasting settlement (than won’t), can either side legitimately and effectively negotiate for peace.

Re your “concentration camp/bombing” rant in your first paragraph, CLEARLY as the world powers in 2000 were pushing for a Palestinian/Israeli ‘roadmap’ for peace - and secret negotiations went on for 2-years between Palestinians and Israelis to produce a ‘big picture’ settlement that became the 2003 Geneva Accord – resulting in Israel pulling it’s settlers out of Gaza (and some out of the West Bank), that was NOT the Israelis motives.

The 2006 election of Hamas complete changed the political climate for a ‘big picture’ settlement, showing on the Palestinian peoples side that not only did they had no interest in a settlement where both sides give and take, they wanted to INCREASE the armed conflict with Israel – and you and the Hamas apologists can NEVER deny that.

Yet you still look for Israeli ‘small picture’ concessions to give up land and give citizenship to those Arabs other than Palestinians and Druze who obtain it by birthright, so other Palestinians who via the ballot box or the missile, want to wipe them off the face of the earth.

In what planet would those under attack from a whole nation, go out of their way to give those that mean them harm, ‘the keys’ to the Israeli gates and make them all citizens, within a State with a Ministry of Religious Affairs and a ‘Right to Return’ policy, where there are 2nd class Jews? The Bedouin Arabs within Israel can only seem to achieve a 2nd class citizen status as well, which seems wrong, but this has was not any key component/stumbling block of the 2003 Geneva Accord I can see.

Obviously a key component of the 2003 Geneva Accord was the cessation of hostilities, especially by the Palestinians who WANT Israeli keys to their own homeland and access to land and rights in theirs - and need the Israeli politicians and citizens to concede, believing they have something back in return.

But I reiterate, the 2006 election of Hamas meant there could NEVER be ‘s few good politicians’ on the Palestinian side, that could bring the Palestinians aboard a 2003 type peace accord, as they REJECTED IT outright, via the 2006 Palestinian ballot box.

So everything stays as it was, relatively short term peace, with no prospects of a 2003 type settlement, likely to resume hostilities once Hamas regroups and rearms.

Isitmebut · 27/08/2014 13:58

On the subject of Hamas following the will of the Palestinian people and ‘a few good politicians’ on either side bringing along their people to reach a final settlement, this is what the Israelis thought of the current concessions – it appears both the politicians and people on both sides, are as wider apart on trust and ‘the will’ to reach a 2003 type settlement, than for many years.

www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-27/netanyahu-hit-with-domestic-criticism-over-gaza-truce.html

PigletJohn · 27/08/2014 14:46

Israel is never going to give back the land it has stolen, and will not give non-Jewish occupants of the Occupied Territories citizenship rights including the vote.

So there is no grounds for a long-term peaceful settlement.

What can Israel "offer?" To make the illegal blockage slightly less oppressive?

Isitmebut · 27/08/2014 15:03

PigletJohn ...... Palestinians will never know WHAT it could have achieved without Hamas, as the Israeli government will never be able to bring a domestic majority of 'the people' onboard, while they (Hamas) are setting the political agenda, of a perpetual war.

On the only two State solution possible, please tell me what vote those in the Occupied Territories wanting to kill the Israelis are looking for, how to spend Hamas's missile money better, or who should be Israel's PM?

Re the blockade of 2006, which funny enough still don't compute with you came in when Hamas came in, maybe the following paragraph from my link above, coming out of the current cease fire will make things "less oppressive" - but not allow a faster method of replenishing Hamas with war material.

"Under the deal that ended seven weeks of fighting yesterday, restrictions on Gaza’s border crossings with Israel will be eased to let in reconstruction materials and humanitarian aid, while fishing zones off its coast have been extended, Egypt said. The two sides will resume indirect talks on other issues in the coming month, it said."

ChicosMummy · 01/09/2014 11:44

The devastation of Gaza and continued erosion of Palestinian human rights has nothing to do with Hamas. If it really were all about rockets then why the continued theft of privately owned Palestinian land e.g. 400 hectares in Bethlehem for the construction of a new settlers-only enclave? www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-claims-400-hectares-in-west-bank-for-state-use-9702112.html

The ultra heavy handed response to rockets fired from Gaza is simply yet another excuse to wipe out the indigenous inhabitants of the land, some of whom are the descendants of the original Hebrews and disciples of Christ. Even the recent Operation Protective Edge was an excuse to attack the unity government; the murder of the three settler teens was used a a pretext despite police officials admitting that had nothing to do with Hamas.

It's all about Greater Israel, let;s be honest for once.

PigletJohn · 01/09/2014 13:54

"Isitmebut Wed 27-Aug-14 15:03:58
"Palestinians will never know WHAT it could have achieved without Hamas"

That's not true. The theft of Arab homes and land, the ethnic cleansing of Israel and Palestine, and the oppression of the Palestinian people, was going on for many decades before Hamas was elected.

Isitmebut · 01/09/2014 14:09

ChicosMother ..... Greater Israel or security, I guess it depends if you lived opposite Sunni Islamic Jihadi Hamas neighbours in the south of Israel, or near the Golan heights where Sunni Islamic Jihadi ISIS and their ilk has just taken over the border crossing with Israel.

Most of the extra real estate they sit on, calling them buffer zones, moved over to Israel when three neighbouring country's attacked Israel (and not just once) with the intent of taking all the land currently called Israel.

So YOU BE HONEST, if you were a jew/government, surrounded by Islamic Jihadist ISIS (who will kill anyone non Sunni), Hamas (who want to specifically kill jews), Iran (who wants to kill Sunnis other than Hamas and jews) and those countries directly around you are at civil wars going on for a few years now - WOULD YOU GIVE BACK LAND and put your own lives at risk???

For gods sake, surely you don't need to be jewish to see the problems, mainly on religious lines, within the Middle East are getting far WORSE and a greater danger to any State, never mind Israel.

Trust of Islamic Jihadists are a bit l-o-w at the moment, so if I was Hamas, if I was going to put my own citizens lives in danger to gain land concessions, I'd wait a bit.

PigletJohn · 01/09/2014 15:09

As you say, isitme. Israel will never give back the land it has stolen (and continues to steal more, even today); and will never grant citizenship to the people who live in the land it occupies.

Therefore Israel is not prepared to consider doing anything that can bring peace.

Isitmebut · 01/09/2014 17:17

PigletJohn ... how many piggin' times do we have to go through this?

Look at the top of this page, the 2003 Geneva Agreement and the fact israel removed all several thousand citizens from Gaza in 2003; both sides would have problems with getting the Accord past their citizens, but the Palestinians in DEMOCRATICALLY rejecting it and appointing a much harder line (take Israel by force Charter) Hamas - killed the peace process sand stone dead.

And as it is STILL clear the people support Hamas, so be it,

PigletJohn · 01/09/2014 18:13

and Israel continues to steal homes and land.

Which it will never give back.

How friendly do you think your countrymen would be, with an occupying power which stole their land and homes, and evicted them?

Isitmebut · 02/09/2014 13:57

The question should be is your object to get all your land back from the creation of Israel as per Hamas's Charter, or negotiate a peace/solution along the lines of the 2003 Geneva Accord???

The Palestinian people democratically voted in 2006 for the former, so when do you expect peace with that objective and the Hamas approach?

The Palestinians clearly have been hard done by, but they currently have chose to be represented by Jihadists that will never be able to achieve a peaceful settlement with Israel - or get overt support for the Palestinian people via western governments who had already designated the Palestinian/Hamas government as Terrorists - and whose tolerance of Islamic Jihadi causes/methods is getting more than strained.

How can any western government believing that they and their own citizens are at threat from a Sunni Islamic Jihadist ISIS trying to establish a State thousands of miles away, seriously tell Israel that they need to allow similar onto, or further inside, their borders???

I know you cannot reconcile that the Palestinian election of Hamas was a 'game changer', but it was, and ISIS has made a problem that needs Israel's cooperation to cede land and put their citizens more at risk, currently impossible. IMO

PigletJohn · 02/09/2014 14:21

The West Bankers have done their best to be relatively meek, and they have been rewarded by having their homes and land stolen, and by being penned up behind barbed wire, military checkpoints, and the Israeli Wall.

Isitmebut · 02/09/2014 14:48

Has it got worse since the Israeli's withdrew some West Bank settlers (and all Gaza settlers) in 2003, and Hamas was elected in 2006? If so, do you see what Israelis did in 2003, and what happened after 2006, and not see a link?

Shakshuka · 02/09/2014 16:17

Piglet John

Are you suggesting that Israel has a 'final solution to the palestinian problem' and that this mirrors the Nazi plan to eradicate all Jews in europe?

How did you discover this plan?

Is it top secret?

Is the use.of the phrase 'final solution' a little racist nod to the holocaust?

Why has this genocidal plan not been implemented? Last time i looked, there were a lot of Palestinians- are the israelis secretly loading them on trains to death camps in the Negev?

PigletJohn · 02/09/2014 16:39

I see no doubt that Israel (1) will not give back the land that it has stolen, and intends to turn all the land into a single Jewish state (2) will not give the Palestinians citizenship rights in this state.

To achieve this, it is certainly following a policy of ethnically cleansing Palestine by dispossessing and evicting them, stealing their homes and land to get rid of the Palestinians. The number of Palestinians that Israel kills is very substantial.

Shakshuka · 02/09/2014 16:50

Aah, so its just you making it up. I thought as much.

If Israel didn't want to exchange land for peace, shame the Palestinians never called their bluff by accepting Camp David and/or Annapolis which involved dismantling some settlements and land swaps for others. Strange that israel offered, no?

Strange that israel gave back every last inch of the Sinai for peace with Egypt. Yet according to you, Israel never gives land for peace - despite the historical precedent.

Every death is a tragedy but in gencoidal terms, the number of deaths is tiny, not substantial . Its not genpcide and its not an attempt at genocide.

Shakshuka · 02/09/2014 16:55

Reuven Rivlin, the israeli president, believes in the one state solution with equal rights for all cirizens, Palestinians and Jewish. He's pretty influential.

PigletJohn · 02/09/2014 17:29

has he made any progress with rights for West Bankers? Are their homes and land still being stolen by Israel?

Shakshuka · 02/09/2014 17:48

Actually very few Palestinians are displaced by the settlements. They have mostly been built on uninhabited and cultivated spaces.

Some of the illegal (by Israeli law) settlements in recent years were built on private land - by Israel law, they should be dismantled and some have been.

The settlements are still problematic as an obstacle to.peace and I don't support them. Just pointing out factual errors.

PigletJohn · 02/09/2014 18:57

I wonder if the person who told you that considered land to be "uncultivated" when access to it by farmers has been blocked by Israel's Apartheid wall; or when fruit trees and thousand-year-old olives have been destroyed by settlers or the Israeli army.

Shakshuka · 02/09/2014 19:38

No person told me , pigletjohn, I've been to settlements, seen with my own two eyes.

And you're mixing up your oissues. Most Israelis also oppose the lawless behavior of extremist settlers. I have Israeli friends who go to support the Palestinians in areas where there is conflict with settlers. The vast majority of settlers are law abiding and peaceful civilians.

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