A few questions so I will know who I'm dealing with...

[Roudy]

Now you hit the nail in the head.

For the last 60 years, the palestinian people have been paying the price of german racism.

It takes a heartless monster to support the state of Israel.

The world needs to find an alternative where the security of the jewish people and the rights of the palestinian people are not mutually excludents.

"the palestinian people have been paying the price of german racism"

In that case, they should have done more to bring down their main Mufti, who admired Hitler and wanted to adopt the Nazi ideology himself

They supported the Nazis, so it's kind of "fates laughter" of some sort.

gey real. they supported the nazis, (actually, they didn't) al-husseini was largely unsuccessful in his endeavours...i think he had a small smattering of bosnian muslims he enlisted) not because of racism butr becaause they were against british colonialism and the transfer of that colonialism to european jews.

my god, if there was all that much arab/islamic racism, how hard do you think it would have been to wipe out that very small but flourishing community of jews in jerusalem. most jewish people lived comfortably in the mideast, in fact, as a protected minority...until the advent of zionism.

Amin Al Husseini: Nazi Father of Jihad, Al Qaeda, Arafat, Saddam Hussein and the Muslim Brotherhood - Tell The Children The Truth - Homepage

 

[Lipush]

I rest my case, Roudy.

Truth can be avoided up to a certain point.

One cannot make the blind see.

 

[sealadaigh]

Every single one of the words that you have said could be said about the Jews except that it was 2000 years instead of 65 years. So who has a better claim to the land !!!

Patrick,claim of the land is an over-discussed irrelevant topic if you ask me.
The land belongs to whoever is ruling it at any point in time

i can live with that and agree with it, certainly. i do think it important to note that as countries have become more global we are moving away from such tribal concepts, albeit very slowly.

lol...actually, i thrive on chaos and nature being red in tooth and claw, but then again, i lack certain social encumbrances. the future is not mine.

 

[sealadaigh]

I rest my case, Roudy.

Truth can be avoided up to a certain point.

One cannot make the blind see.

if you want to rest your case based upon the truth as presented by a hate site, that is your prerogative and, in light of that, i certainly will agree with your comment that "one cannot make the blind see."

 

[Lipush]

I actually like your questions - I think they are interesting. It would be nice to discuss them - if that is your intent.

I'm well aware of history but the question isn't why a homeland for Jews was needed - the question is what is meant by a Jewish State and whether it can work with a democratic society and government. It's not rocket science

I've already answered that question. If you don't like the answer, fine. But it does not change the fact that democracy is never an absolute. In the U.S., elected officials cannot enact a statute that violates the Constitution (our core principles). In Israel, elected officials cannot remove the core principles that make Israel the Jewish homeland.

I agree - a democracy is never an absolute. What are the core principlees that make Israel the Jewish homeland?

This is why my question about the "Palestinian right of return" is key. If Israel were to allow Arabs to move to Israel by the thousands (or millions) and establish a majority, Israel would cease to exist. Those who purport to believe that democracy is the only valid value on the planet might say "so what?"

I agree - agreeing to a "right of return" would be demographic suicide for Israel. There are those that say Israel's constitution and society are strong enough to withstand that but I am not so sure.

I don't think that democracy in and of itself is the only valid value. What I consider important is a system where all citizens have equal rights and protections.

We all know what happened the last time people said "so what" about the fate of the Jewish people.

I don't disagree with that but at the same time - that can't be used to perpetrate further injustices.

I agree - a democracy is never an absolute. What are the core principlees that make Israel the Jewish homeland?


Wow, that's actually an awesome question, and there are SOOOO many possible ways of answering it!

It can become a looong discussion.

 

[Lipush]

Yes, I am a Zionist. Efforts to assign a pejorative meaning to that term have no impact on my pride in describing myself as such.



Your implicit belief that this is how Jews, or Zionists feel is, in fact, bigotry.



The Jews were in Israel before there was Islam. Many were expelled by invading powers. However, the Jews never left entirely, nor did they ever relinquish their claim to return to their homeland (thus, the commonly uttered phrase "next year in Jerusalem"). I oppose the arbitrary notion that people who established residence in Israel during the various conquests have the right to call the land theirs. I oppose the arbitrary notion that parts of Israel that were uninhabited before 1948 can somehow be regarded as "Arab land." I reject the notion that Great Britain lacked the right to decide, with the assitance of the UN, how to partition the land when it relinquished control.

As for calling me a bigot - look in the mirror. If you think Israel is the only country in the world that constitutes a homeland for a particular group of people, you're simply wearing blinders. If you are aware of this fact, but choose to only complain about the one Jewish State, then the bigot you perceive is your own reflection.



That might very well be the weakest analogy I've ever been presented.

Bottom line: Israel does not exist because Jews perceive themselves as the "chosen people of God." Rather, Israel exists because the Jewish people never gave up the dream of returning to their homeland and, when the opportunity presented itself for them to do so, they responded by turning a desert into a garden.

Proud Zionists such as myself will continue to defend this garden.

lolol...and it tells me a lot about you and your arrogance to think that a simple "that sucks" or variations serve as argument or discussion.

i don't care a damn who thinks they are chosen or not. i present black seperatism as an analogy and don't think sloshing down wine once a year and saying "next year in the gulf states" constitutes a land claim.

as for the contiuous presence in jerusalem...yes...and those indigenous jews didn't like the europeans any more than the indigenous arabs, probably even less as it caused them problems.

It's more than just once a year at Passover. Jews who pray 3 times a day, say it 3x a day in their prayers. It's said in every Grace-after-Meals. Jews pray towards Jerusalem, not Mecca.
Also, Jews have always maintained a presence in the Land, even when they weren't the majority or the rulers. For instance, the Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) was started in Sefad, a city in then-called Palestine, during the time when Jews weren't the majority or in control.
Furthermore, there are 4 fast-days that correlate to the destruction of Jerusalem. I can't keep 4 fasts, so I just fast on one of these days, Tisha B'Av, the most important of these. On that day, we sit on the floor all day long. You have no idea what Israel and Jerusalem mean to the Jewish people.

Jerusalem is our right hand, and how can you function normally once your right hand is cut off?

 

[Roudy]

I rest my case, Roudy.

Truth can be avoided up to a certain point.

One cannot make the blind see.

if you want to rest your case based upon the truth as presented by a hate site, that is your prerogative and, in light of that, i certainly will agree with your comment that "one cannot make the blind see."

[ame=http://youtube.com/watch?v=k6twkhM6h7k]Muslim Brotherhood and Nazi Connection - YouTube[/ame]

 

[sealadaigh]

No, the "Palestinians" have been paying the price of their own racism. When Jews lawfully began moving to the British Mandate of Palestine, buying land, and establishing residence, the Arabs reacted with violence. This created a circumstance that prompted Great Britain, through the UN, to divide the land.

None of that changes the fact that the Arabs were there AFTER the Jews, and the Jews never abandoned Israel - THEY WERE EXPELLED.

So why should the Jews pay the price of Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Crusader, Muslim or Ottoman racism? (and yes, I've left off a few)

lots of people get expelled. the celts were driven out of western france, england. do they have a claim.

You tell me. You seem to be awfully concerned about the "Palestinians" who were supposedly expelled, so where's your line?

the palestinians were not technically expelled but they were not allowed their right to return to their home after fleeing a war zone not of their making.

so, you are of the opinion that other countries should be forced to accept refugees regardless of who cuses them to have refugee status.

that's OK. while i don't believe in religious states i will smile silently when the united states in the future insists upon having their existence recognised as a catholic state as it absorbs and grants citisenship to the many latinos flooding our borders.

that's fair.israel is a small sliver of the mideast but there are only 15 million jews. the united states is pretty small for over 1 billion catholics.

"shoot low sheriff, i think she's ridin' a shetland" leon rausch

 

[ForeverYoung436]

This is directed primarily to the anti-Israel/pro-"Palestinian" posters...

1. Do you believe that there should be a Jewish State of Israel?

2. The Old City of Jerusalem should be under (a) Israeli control; (b) Jordanian control; (c) Palestinian control; or (d) International control?

3. Do you believe that a viable "2 state solution" can include a "Palestinian right of return" to Israel?

4. Rocket fire from Gaza into Israel constitutes (a) terrorist activity, or (b) legitimate resistence.

5. Do you believe that the majority of those who consider themselves "Palestinians" support a "two-state solution" resulting in a peaceful coexistence with a Jewish State of Israel?

Yes, a, no, a and no are the right answers, IMHO, but only Professor HistoryBefore67 is authorized to give out passing grades.

 

[Hossfly]

Zionist ambush, lol.

that's what i call it when someone asks questions for the purpose of attacking someone who responds in an honest fashion but not to the liking of the person asking the question.

she said she wanted to know who she was dealing with? she shoulfd have said "i just have a few questions so i can attempt to rip you to shreds.

hey, i'm gullible and naive. i keep trusting people at their word and expressed intent, even pro-israelis initially....but if she wants to go all aggro, i can certainly accomodate her.

**** you.

Well, I don't understand what the issue is here. There were 4 simple questions and everyone has different opinions so what makes your opinions the only correct answers?

 

[Kondor3]

We seem to be pretty much on the same page with much of this, Rocco.

So... is Israel being used by The West as a Tripwire and Buffer-State, much as Poland was used by the Soviet Union to drive a wedge between itself and NATO during the Cold War?

In this case, providing an early-warning tripwire system or proxy preemptive strike mechanism against the Arab-Muslims of the region?

"Oh, yeah... buffers. Yeah, Senator, The West had a lot of buffers!"

 

[Kondor3]

"...Every single one of the words that you have said could be said about the Jews except that it was 2000 years instead of 65 years. So who has a better claim to the land !!!

Ummmmm... the ones with the prior claim, who managed to hold themselves together as a People and as a Religion for 2,000 years, and then found and exercised the Balls to take back their old Homeland and to hold onto it by force-of-arms?

 

[Hossfly]

Not really; compared to the problems of the world, Palestine is a flea, and relatively unimportant in the broader scheme of things, other than it containing a variety of holy places which the Arab-Muslims stole at the point of a sword, centuries ago.

As Palestinian-controlled lands continue to shrink towards the size of a postage stamp, and as they continue to lob rockets at innocent Israeli civilians (and thus losing whatever small shreds of sympathy that they had in the minds of many throughout the world), they will eventually be obliged to pack up and leave and scatter to Jordan and Lebanon and Syria and Eqypt and Iraq and the like, and twenty years beyond that, they will have been happily forgotten by the rest of the world.

Any group of people who are willing to sit and rot in refugee camps and towns for 65 years without taking the hint and moving their families to someplace sane - any people who are willing to delude themselves for 65 years with sugar-plum visions of a Return that is never going to happen - just aren't playing with a full deck.

The world has grown bone-weary of these Losers taking center-stage when there are far more important things to deal with.

Accelerate the inevitable, scatter these Losers to the four winds, and be done with it.

Every single one of the words that you have said could be said about the Jews except that it was 2000 years instead of 65 years. So who has a better claim to the land !!!

If you think about it, ol' Joshua staked a claim and that is just as good as a deed. I can't see what all the fuss is about.

 

[Two Thumbs]

This is directed primarily to the anti-Israel/pro-"Palestinian" posters...

1. Do you believe that there should be a Jewish State of Israel?

2. The Old City of Jerusalem should be under (a) Israeli control; (b) Jordanian control; (c) Palestinian control; or (d) International control?

3. Do you believe that a viable "2 state solution" can include a "Palestinian right of return" to Israel?

4. Rocket fire from Gaza into Israel constitutes (a) terrorist activity, or (b) legitimate resistence.

5. Do you believe that the majority of those who consider themselves "Palestinians" support a "two-state solution" resulting in a peaceful coexistence with a Jewish State of Israel?

There is one now.

israel or jordan, pals are jordinians, so....

Israel gave land for peace and got more war, so fuckem

terrorism

pals don't want peace with israel, unless all the jews are dead and they are in control

 

[Coyote]

This is directed primarily to the anti-Israel/pro-"Palestinian" posters...

1. Do you believe that there should be a Jewish State of Israel?

2. The Old City of Jerusalem should be under (a) Israeli control; (b) Jordanian control; (c) Palestinian control; or (d) International control?

3. Do you believe that a viable "2 state solution" can include a "Palestinian right of return" to Israel?

4. Rocket fire from Gaza into Israel constitutes (a) terrorist activity, or (b) legitimate resistence.

5. Do you believe that the majority of those who consider themselves "Palestinians" support a "two-state solution" resulting in a peaceful coexistence with a Jewish State of Israel?

Yes, a, no, a and no are the right answers, IMHO, but only Professor HistoryBefore67 is authorized to give out passing grades.

There are no "right" answers.

 

[Coyote]

Exactly.

There are no "correct" answers. If there were, we'd be having a kumbaya moment.

 

[HistoryBefore67]

I think there are correct answers.

But they're not correct because I say they are correct.

They're just correct.

 

[Lipush]

Well that's one way of putting it...

 

[toastman]

Exactly.

There are no "correct" answers. If there were, we'd be having a kumbaya moment.

When you say there are no answers, what exactly are u referring to ?

 

[Hossfly]

Exactly.

There are no "correct" answers. If there were, we'd be having a kumbaya moment.

When you say there are no answers, what exactly are u referring to ?

I think she was referring to my response in post #70