A Modern Perspective

[etoile]

How many people agree with the following statement, and how many are ready to vivisect me for it?
Note: before condemning or agreeing,
Surely there can be some sort of peaceful resolution in the Middle East! Israel should listen closer to the UN, which has been consistently biased towards Israel since approving its creation in 1948. Peace can be established if the following steps are taken:
1) Israel returns the Golan HEights to Syria.
2) Jerusalem is made an international city with limited access to Jews.
3) Israel stops all military operations in and withdraws its forces from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
4) Israel surrenders all sovereignty over the Occupied Territories to the Palestinian Authority and evacuates ALL settlements, without exception.
5) Israel makes concessions of port cities to the new Palestinian state.
6) Israel allows all refugees and their descendants to enter Israel and be granted full citizenship.
7) Israel's army becomes voluntary, and not a draft, and its funding is limited to no more than 5% of the entire national budget.
8) America ceases payment of aid to Israel and sale of arms.
9) Israel releases all Palestinian prisoners.
10) All unused weaponry after diminishment of army is to be ceded to the Palestinian Authority.
11) The Israeli government is to pay a set sum of financial aid directly to the Palestinian Authority and to go into a trade agreement with them.
12) The UN dictates all Israeli military initiatives.
13) No Israeli may enter Palestine without permission from the UN or from the PA.
14) All Yeshivas in Israel must allot at least 20% of their seats to Palestinians.

Reading this over, I realize that anybody with these sincere views will earn my lifelong loathing. What scares me most, though, is that this list of proposals (I took out a few) actually was suggested as one of the bills our school was to submit for a Student Congress completition. Most of the people on the team forcefully refused it and the list was deleted, though I still have a copy. THe morbid thing is, another school suggested a similar bill, though not as harsh.
The above list directly contradicts my beliefs, but disregarding this notice, who supports what I said there?

 

[etoile]

Oh yes, I forgot to finish my post:

before condemning or agreeing

It was supposed to say "before condemning or agreeing read the note at the bottom."

 

[Publius]

I wish,
The jewish community isn't about to give anything up at all. This is especially true since they have the U.S. in their corner. No politician in this country would dream of sacrificing such huge campaign contributions by even suggesting that we remotely tone down our support for israel.

Good post!

 

[etoile]

You seem to miss the point. Did you notice the little afternote that identified the whole proposal as sarcasm? I took it from a proposal someone actually wrote once. And I put it here to make a point of its impossibility and its horror.
I am sorry if I didn't clarify that; I'll try to do better in the future.
The US has a staunch ally in Israel, and if they adhere to their policy of fighting terrorism, well, Israel has more experience fighting terrorism than the US and the entire EU combined.
You can find opinions similar to the one I published on any American college campus or among the staff of BBC and CNN.

 

[Avatar4321]

Explain to me why Israel needs to give up everything and the Palestinians give up nothing. Israel has already offered to give them all of their demands. if this is what the Palestinians want then why not accept it?

The fact is the Palestinian leadership wants Israel eliminated. And they arent going to stop terrorism because its getting them exactly what they want. Everytime they bomb a bus or a mall the world pressures Israel to give into another one of their demands. this is messed up.

 

[insein]

Another Appeasement policy that will never work. Spain was helping us and had a conservative government. Terrorists bombed Spain and now it has a socialist government in place and have removed their troops from Iraq and the WOT.

To say to Israel, who could have leveled the whole Middle East by now if not for us holding them back, to give up their land to terrorists is ludicrous.

 

[Mustafa]

Originally posted by etoile

You seem to miss the point. Did you notice the little afternote that identified the whole proposal as sarcasm? I took it from a proposal someone actually wrote once. And I put it here to make a point of its impossibility and its horror.
I am sorry if I didn't clarify that; I'll try to do better in the future.
The US has a staunch ally in Israel, and if they adhere to their policy of fighting terrorism, well, Israel has more experience fighting terrorism than the US and the entire EU combined.
You can find opinions similar to the one I published on any American college campus or among the staff of BBC and CNN.

Etoile actually that list of suggestions you were given in your class is considered to be valid by most of the nations of the world including of course the Muslim nations.

One might suggest that President George Bush return everything west of the Mississippi river back to the earlier occupants of North America as a sign of pacifying the United (Muslim) Nations in New York.

Historically when any established country was envied by others around them, those other countries had to go to war in order to conquer their neighbor. Something all the surrounding Arab countries have tried now some 5 times but failed miserably. If it weren't for the US and Russia stopping Israel from proceeding on to totally victory the Middle East would look something like the following map.

 

[etoile]

Oh yes! They were about to attack Cairo and Damascus, but the Americans intervened because the USSR threatened to intervene on behalf of the Arab countries, with whom they had lucrative trading contracts, especially in arms and oil.

 

[jowlover]

well then if the Zionists want peace then they can simply withdraw to the 1967 borders and then seal the borders-allowing a crossing road between the Gaza and WB, they can worry about the refugee problem later or just let refugees return to those areas, Hamas and all the other militant groups have already stated they would end violence against Israel if it returns to it's 1967 borders, and if they attacked Israel anyways Israel could easilt occupy the territory again, so at least that way the Palestinians would have something to lose, as it is now they have nothing to lose so they might as well keep attacking..

 

[Annie]

Originally posted by jowlover
well then if the Zionists want peace then they can simply withdraw to the 1967 borders and then seal the borders-allowing a crossing road between the Gaza and WB, they can worry about the refugee problem later or just let refugees return to those areas, Hamas and all the other militant groups have already stated they would end violence against Israel if it returns to it's 1967 borders, and if they attacked Israel anyways Israel could easilt occupy the territory again, so at least that way the Palestinians would have something to lose, as it is now they have nothing to lose so they might as well keep attacking..

prior to the stupid Arab war, which the Israelis won, there were no '67 borders. Breathe man, breathe.

 

[etoile]

Originally posted by jowlover
well then if the Zionists want peace then they can simply withdraw to the 1967 borders and then seal the borders-allowing a crossing road between the Gaza and WB, they can worry about the refugee problem later or just let refugees return to those areas, Hamas and all the other militant groups have already stated they would end violence against Israel if it returns to it's 1967 borders, and if they attacked Israel anyways Israel could easilt occupy the territory again, so at least that way the Palestinians would have something to lose, as it is now they have nothing to lose so they might as well keep attacking..

As KAthianne said,

Breathe, man, breathe.

Indeed, there were no 1967 borders before 1967, when the surrounding Arab world attempted to erase Israel from the map, and didn't conceal it. Then, Israel defended itself and expanded its territory through DEFENSIVE warfare--something many other nations before have done (hmmm, how does Gibraltar still belong to the British? Treaty of Utrecht, after the War of Spanish Succession; or how about America? Remember Manifest Destiny and how we got NM and CA?).
Also, Israel's 1967 borders are "undefensible borders," as US officials termed it looking at the potential map of ISrael in the '70's.

That's right: the Palestinians have nothing to lose; least of all, they have no credibility to lose. Certainly, they have no profitable lifestyle to lose because, instead of acknowledging Israel as legal from her very establishment in 1948, instead of imitating Israel in her technology that led her to become an "agricultural jewel" (DAniel Pipes) from a virtual wasteland, they decided to try and destroy her: something they failed at repeatedly. Result: refugee problem, suicide bombings, horrible lifestyle.
And, horrifyingly, most of the world sympathizes with them. America and (the former OTtoman empire that controlled the region 'till 1917) Turkey are the only ones that do not condemn Israel- this tiny tiny nation--for all the wrongs in the Middle East.
Injustice? Racism? Look a little bit to the NOrth, South, East or West on the map of the Middle East and you'll find both in far greater measure than Israel can ever provide.