Part 7: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

[AndHarry]

Thread 1 - started when 3 Israeli boys were found murdered

Thread 2 - Operation Protective Edge

Thread 3 - Operation Protective Edge, the wider conflict and international involvement

Thread 4 - Operation Protective Edge and the different views in Israel and the wider international community

Thread 5 - in which Operation Protective Edge came to an end and the discussion continued

Thread 6 - themes of the conflict, what happens next and how ordinary people can get involved

Welcome to Thread 7.

you get that egypt is another country don't you? that egypt is not occupying palestinian land?

there seems to be this constant false equivalence logic going on.

Egypt is occupying the Gaza strip just as much as Israel is.

And it's not clear why 'apartheid' lite in the west bank outrages you more than the legally enacted apartheid in Lebanon. There shouldn't be an occupation but the sorry state of affairs in the middle east means that a Palestinian living in the west bank has more rights than a Palestinian in Lebanon or Syria (even prior to the civil war).

Of course Israel should be aspiring to better and not denying to others the civil liberties of its own citizens but id say that it's doing far better in that regard than its neighbors.

are we on this part of the circle again? do you really expect us to answer this AGAIN (why not syria)? it has been explained a gazillion times.

No, I said Syria before the civil war. Palestinians had very few rights. Assad the dad had no problem slaughtering them. Assad the son is just carrying on this tradition.

And Lebanon isn't Syria. Not yet, anyway.

and why were those palestinians in syria?

HoneyBadger, are you in favour of Egypt's actions in Gaza? Are you in favour of the Lebanese and Syrian treatment of Palestinians?

There are sure to be demonstrations, boycotts, intense news interest and UN denouncements against Egypt aren't there? Shall we see?

I suspect you'll be waiting a long time Frankly I'm only surprised that nobody's yet blamed American influence in Egypt; no doubt the usual script will make its appearance in due course ...

Sergeant

Thb is against all wars (so sweet, my 10 year old says that as well).

However, there is no moral equivalence to Israel no matter what other countries may do....because they're not Israel

We all know why there are Palestinian refugees.

The question is why they are still refugees 66 years later even though they may be 3rd or 4th generation in Lebanon.

Of all the great refugee.crises of the 20th century, this is the only one where people have remained refugees from generation to generation. Why?

because an occupation is supposed to be short lived and the people displaced by it able to return home rather than constantly extending in time and space.

i think it's quite possible to post without being so massively rude and personal the whole time. mocking people's beliefs and moral convictions is unnecessary.

no, i do not agree with war is that so strange? the wars of the last couple of decades have had little or no moral or human rights worth and have achieved nothing other than the mass loss of civilian life and military life in order to further economic agendas of the richest people in the world. some have even been outright illegal wars and everyone has had rippling effects of further cause and effect and backlashes.

let's hope no one beats out of your 10yo that war is not good, that mass murdering innocent people is wrong, that sending men to die fighting other people's agendas is wrong.

maybe try debating rather than attacking and being so personal. you do this every time you come back eventually.

and you surely see the nonsense of causing a load of refugees to be homeless and displaced and then trying to detract from your own behaviour by pointing the finger at how others have treated those people in the face of your displacement of them and refusal to let them return.

that's morally fucked and not even an intelligent smokescreen.

I don't know anyone who thinks war is good. Saying that you're against all wars is meaningless.

And you're very rude yourself but ive got used to hypocrisy.

I really can't believe you're justifying Lebanese and Syrian behavior towards the Palestinians! It just underlines that you're not pro-Palestinian but anti-Israeli.

And you didn't say the wars of the past couple of decades, you said ALL wars. Presumably, since war is bad,.Britain shouldn't have declared war on Germany in 1939.

And war could have been avoided if the Palestinians would have accepted the partition plan in 1947...

And final post

Why do I need to detract from my own behaviour?

I haven't done anything to anyone.

What was your point there exactly?

anything else?

it's all bile and twisting. i haven't justified anyone's treatment of palestinians only, as we've endlessly had to do on this thread, avoid derailing to 'what about those people, what about syria, what about timbuktu' and to stick to the subject.

you are just making stuff up on the basis of what? that you think people reading will be that unintelligent that they'll believe i was justifying poor treatment of palestinians? or that they won't bother to read what i actually said? that's bizarre.

No, you said that ive displaced people. Who have I displaced exactly?

And the hypocrisy is a separate but related issue to how Israel treats Palestinians.

Its like someone sitting in a restaurant stuffing their face with cake with lots of other people gorgong on cake and lecturing someone else who is also having a bit of cake on healthy eating.

Of course,.the message on healthy eating remains true whoever delivers it but it does tend to grate a bit when those lecturing on healthy eating single out only one of those cake eaters at the same time as eating lots of cake themselves.

Although it's also true that the cake eater is trying to pretend that they are eating salad.

One more thing, THB. While you're good at pontificating about your own sense of morality and lack, thereof,.among others, you do make a number of factual errors.

Since when are occupations meant to be temporary? Very odd and factually incorrect statement.

The israeli occupation is unusual in that from the start is was seen as temporary. In fact the lack of a long term strategy is part of the problem.
Most occupations in history have been long term or permanent,.at least according to the occupier. Look at the French occupation of Algeria or the Japanese occupation of Korea or the British occupation of Kenya.

And who was displaced by the Israeli. occupation of the wb and Gaza and not allowed to return? Again, very poor and confused understanding of historical events. Very few people were displaced in 1967 when the wb and Gaza were occupied. Unless you're suggesting that the very existence of the state of Israel in the pre1967 borders is one big occupation. An extreme statement but one that would fit with your previous statements vis a vis Israel and its right to exist.

you talk about me a lot. you tell me what i am, what i think, how i'm like a ten year old, etc. this thread has a topic - slagging off me isn't it.

Oh please. Bring out the violins.

Talk about deflecting!

I mentioned the Palestinians in Lebanon on one of the earlier threads. Their seems to be little awareness of their plight - I do NOT think that this should be used as an excuse to justify Israel's policies and actions, or to deflect attention away from them, but this has to work both ways. Surely other countries (Lebanon seems to be the worst) shouldn't use Israel's wrongdoings to deflect attention from their horrendous treatment of Palestinians?

I also don't think it's off-topic because I don't see how the current Israel/Palestine situation can ever be resolved without improving the lot of Palestinian refugees and their descendants in other countries, as well as addressing the issue of right of return. AFAIK Jordan, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in the 90s, is the only Arab country to have granted Palestinians full rights and citizenship.

This article in the Guardian by a Palestinian-American author is interesting (it's from 2010 so I don't know if things have improved since then - although I doubt it). It states:

"The Arab world is rife with hypocrisy when it comes to the Palestinian issue. Arab leaders frequently and rightly cite the chronic human rights violations in which Israel engages, but fail to address the marginalisation of Palestinians within their own societies. Historically, Lebanese citizens have declared that naturalising Palestinians will act as a disincentive to their eventual repatriation and the exercise of their inviolable right of return. But this is a specious and cynical misrepresentation of the issue."

Sorry - "There seems" not "their seems"

Glad to see the same questions are being discussed (not sure that's the right word, really) elsewhere: mondoweiss.net/2014/10/why-are-liberal-zionists-embracing-heartless-matti-friedman. "Israel is Mississippi now"!

Excellent post halfdrunk.

You said very well what I think.

The Israeli occupation and situation in the wb and Gaza is but one part (albeit important) of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

If you genuinely care about the Palestinians, then how they are treated in other countries is also important. As you said, this doesn't legitimize israeli behavior but there's no reason why it can't be discussed on a thread discussing the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Unless the only thing that interests certain posters is Israel bashing. Why Arab countries haven't absorbed the Palestinian refugees after 66 years despite being culturally, ethnically and linguistically similar is a legitimate and important question.

One of the key intractable issues in peace negotiations around the right of return for Palestinians in Lebanon and Syria (and beyond). Experts say that's what Arafat didn't want to be seen as giving up. The conflict is more complex than simply ending the occupation and will need to involve other countries in the region