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Post by fixit on Aug 2, 2014 14:56:55 GMT -5
The land Israel occupies was taken in wars that were started by neighboring countries.
Has a superior military power ever handed back territory to people who swear to destroy it?
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Post by snow on Aug 2, 2014 15:15:53 GMT -5
The land Israel occupies was taken in wars that were started by neighboring countries. Has a superior military power ever handed back territory to people who swear to destroy it? It must have, at least once. After all Israel is a state and they didn't take it by military power, it was given back to them. In a way giving the land back to the Jews should mean we should give our land back to the Native Americans. It was their land first. Why do you think the Jews have more right to land that was taken then our Native people? And, you're right. It is complicated.
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Post by fixit on Aug 2, 2014 16:33:50 GMT -5
Possession is nine points of the law.
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Post by BobWilliston on Aug 2, 2014 18:33:08 GMT -5
Possession is nine points of the law. If you're the criminal !!!!!!!
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Post by BobWilliston on Aug 2, 2014 18:49:21 GMT -5
The land Israel occupies was taken in wars that were started by neighboring countries. Has a superior military power ever handed back territory to people who swear to destroy it? Yes, they hand it back when the people who swear to destroy them are gone. Principled nations recognize the difference between "people and their land", and the "despots that control them". They don't punish the people and steal their land from them simply because come tyrant came in and took over. Except when the superior power wanted the land all along anyway, then they keep it no matter who says what. That's because they're bullies too. And God doesn't like bullies of any kind.
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Post by snow on Aug 2, 2014 19:49:27 GMT -5
Possession is nine points of the law. Didn't work too well for the inhabitants that lived there before 1948.
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Post by BobWilliston on Aug 2, 2014 21:19:15 GMT -5
Possession is nine points of the law. Didn't work too well for the inhabitants that lived there before 1948. In defense of the Israelis -- I should say, the pre-1948 Jewish settlers in Palestine -- they individually paid for the land that they settled on. It was British controlled territory at the time and the Jews who went there were defying the British and the Arabs who sold them land generally had no problem with them being there. One of the things they would not do is displace Arabs who were living there. That whole era is memorialized in some of Leon Uris' writings. Ironically, neither Jews nor Arabs were pleased with the British, but the Jews at that time had every reason to demand a land of their own so they declared their independence. The Arabs were not so immediately desperate because they were not recent escapees from the ovens, and they had lots of places they could go to. What Netanyahu is doing by building on Palestinian lands right now is totally contrary to the principles of the founders of Israel, but they're largely being funded by Americans -- and not American Jews either, American fundamentalist Christians. A lot of the Israeli population are very displeased with that. How the Palestinians "outside Israel" became so angry with Israel is quite another story. As we know, all the countries around Israel declared war on Israel as a matter of principle the day it became independent. They told the Palestinians within Israel's borders that they were going to bomb Israel out of existence, and they were warning them to get out of Israel before they did it. Israel at the same time promised protection for all Palestinians in their territory, but they were going to refuse to let the refugees return if they left. Well, Israel was not bombed out of existence, and the Palestinians who stayed were granted full citizenship -- and the others ended up in refugee camps in foreign countries, some of them still there to this very day. Lebanon will not permit them to assimilate, even though they are all Arabs. Of course, they're not all the same kind of Muslims. Lebanon has its own very unique religious environment. Gaza, of course, got cut off from the other non-Israeli territory and that has complicated their existence ever since. Presently, no other country in the Middle East cares for Hamas except one of the tiny gulf states (probably Shi'a), so there they are locked up in Gaza with an untrusting populace.
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Post by fixit on Aug 2, 2014 22:05:52 GMT -5
Netanyahu foresaw that Israeli disengagement from Gaza would result in rockets and a huge base for terror.
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Post by BobWilliston on Aug 2, 2014 23:24:12 GMT -5
Netanyahu foresaw that Israeli disengagement from Gaza would result in rockets and a huge base for terror. And that's exactly how the Allies treated Germany after WW I. And that's exactly what paved the way for Hitler to do exactly what he did. You impoverish a people in their own country and remove every possibility for them to defend themselves -- and you have erected a huge sign inviting some dictatorial fanatic to come in and take over. There's absolutely nothing to stop them, and Israel is getting now exactly what the Netanyahu plan was doomed to get them from the very beginning. And a lot of Israelis know that. The Jews who learned that lesson after WW I and went to Palestine before the World gave Hitler his holocaust will be rolling over in their graves with what the likes of Netanyahu have done to what they built. Except that God is on Israel's side, so it is to be expected that they will suffer for their righteousness.
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Post by fixit on Aug 3, 2014 1:25:47 GMT -5
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Post by BobWilliston on Aug 3, 2014 3:19:37 GMT -5
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Post by fixit on Aug 3, 2014 4:46:01 GMT -5
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Post by BobWilliston on Aug 3, 2014 15:56:28 GMT -5
Fox News Don't even try to tell them they're not biased -- they will be insulted.
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Post by fixit on Aug 3, 2014 16:28:24 GMT -5
I hate it when even one person dies violently, is injured, or loses their home. However, much of the western media are making a huge deal of the less than one in a thousand being killed while Gaza is being demilitarized. Meanwhile, people are being killed at a much faster rate in Iraq and Syria as we speak. Where are the protesters? Are Iraqis and Syrians of less value than the folks in Gaza? www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28631770
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Post by snow on Aug 3, 2014 17:15:11 GMT -5
I hate it when even one person dies violently, is injured, or loses their home. However, much of the western media are making a huge deal of the less than one in a thousand being killed while Gaza is being demilitarized. Meanwhile, people are being killed at a much faster rate in Iraq and Syria as we speak. Where are the protesters? Are Iraqis and Syrians of less value than the folks in Gaza? www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28631770Of course there have been protesters about Iraq and Syria. What you are seeing in large numbers are Jews protesting wanting nothing to do with what Israel is doing. What does that tell you. The media is hyped about this at the moment. We all know how the media works.
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Post by fixit on Aug 3, 2014 18:17:34 GMT -5
Would the protests be greater if Israel used barrel bombs against civilians like the Syrian and Iraqi governments have been doing?
That won't happen though, because Israel treats Muslims better than Muslims treat their fellow Muslims who they don't get along with.
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Post by BobWilliston on Aug 3, 2014 18:43:10 GMT -5
I hate it when even one person dies violently, is injured, or loses their home. However, much of the western media are making a huge deal of the less than one in a thousand being killed while Gaza is being demilitarized. Meanwhile, people are being killed at a much faster rate in Iraq and Syria as we speak. Where are the protesters? Are Iraqis and Syrians of less value than the folks in Gaza? www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28631770Of course there have been protesters about Iraq and Syria. What you are seeing in large numbers are Jews protesting wanting nothing to do with what Israel is doing. What does that tell you. The media is hyped about this at the moment. We all know how the media works. Especially Fox News.
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Post by snow on Aug 3, 2014 19:43:38 GMT -5
Would the protests be greater if Israel used barrel bombs against civilians like the Syrian and Iraqi governments have been doing? That won't happen though, because Israel treats Muslims better than Muslims treat their fellow Muslims who they don't get along with. The bombs they are using are cluster bombs which are pretty horrid. When they explode they release submunitions which travel further and are causing more death of civilians. They are also dropping white phosphorus bombs on the Gazans. Not much better than the barrel bombs you speak of. Both are designed to kill indiscriminately over and above the initial explosion. Saying that what the Muslims are doing to each are worse than Israel is really not a good argument when both are doing things that are designed to do a lot of civilian damage.
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Post by BobWilliston on Aug 3, 2014 20:28:50 GMT -5
Would the protests be greater if Israel used barrel bombs against civilians like the Syrian and Iraqi governments have been doing? That won't happen though, because Israel treats Muslims better than Muslims treat their fellow Muslims who they don't get along with. You do know, though, that Judaism does NOT even present itself as a religion of peace, as does Christianity and Islam. But on the other hand, we do know how well Muslims treat Jews and each other. I think you're again confusing Hamas with Muslims. Hamas' does not really speak for Muslims -- it is even out of favor with Islamic governments. They present themselves as representing the Palestinians people, though the people have not chosen Hamas. There are many other countries where you can find Muslims treating each other and all other religious communities with respect and dignity. You may not even know the names of those countries.
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Post by fixit on Aug 3, 2014 20:54:23 GMT -5
Would it be fair to say that Muslims suffer more from their fellow Muslims than from anyone else?
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Post by fixit on Aug 3, 2014 22:25:12 GMT -5
Hamas' does not really speak for Muslims -- it is even out of favor with Islamic governments. They present themselves as representing the Palestinians people, though the people have not chosen Hamas. I hope you're right but we can't really know how much support Hamas has unless they hold a free and fair election. Hamas is a terrorist organization committed to Israel's destruction. I don't know how many Palestinians realize that's a dead end street that can only bring misery on their people. If Hamas was destroyed, do the Palestinians have a responsible party that could step up to represent them? How could Hamas be destroyed?
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Post by BobWilliston on Aug 3, 2014 23:19:27 GMT -5
Hamas' does not really speak for Muslims -- it is even out of favor with Islamic governments. They present themselves as representing the Palestinians people, though the people have not chosen Hamas. I hope you're right but we can't really know how much support Hamas has unless they hold a free and fair election. Hamas is a terrorist organization committed to Israel's destruction. I don't know how many Palestinians realize that's a dead end street that can only bring misery on their people. If Hamas was destroyed, do the Palestinians have a responsible party that could step up to represent them? How could Hamas be destroyed? The Palestinians already have a responsible party elected to represent them -- they've been trying to negotiate with Israel, and to no avail as we have seen. But Hamas seized power in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority had no power to do anything about it. If Israel had given the Palestinians statehood, they may not have to be dealing with Hamas by themselves -- the legitimate Palestinian government would be in a position to help them control Hamas. The Palestinians are all tied up in their own house while two interlopers carry on their fight in the house. The stuff of a psycho nightmare movie. I don't really expect you to see a resolution to your satisfaction because I can't figure out what dignity you would afford the Palestinian people.
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Post by BobWilliston on Aug 3, 2014 23:21:56 GMT -5
Fixit, you do realize that Hamas does not control all of the Palestinian people or territory, don't you?
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Post by fixit on Aug 3, 2014 23:35:49 GMT -5
Fixit, you do realize that Hamas does not control all of the Palestinian people or territory, don't you? Yes. They had a civil war with the Palestinian Authority and took control of Gaza. That's when Gaza became a prison. Questions: 1. Should Hamas be confronted for the sake of the citizens of Gaza? 2. Who is willing and able to free the people of Gaza from Hamas's stranglehold? When the UN was caught with rockets stored in three of their schools they tried to hand them back to Hamas. So clearly the UN can't be trusted to stand up to Hamas.
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Post by BobWilliston on Aug 4, 2014 0:13:42 GMT -5
Fixit, you do realize that Hamas does not control all of the Palestinian people or territory, don't you? Yes. They had a civil war with the Palestinian Authority and took control of Gaza. That's when Gaza became a prison. Questions: 1. Should Hamas be confronted for the sake of the citizens of Gaza? Of course. Has someone suggested that they should not? Well, that's two questions. Obviously Israel is willing to get rid of Hamas from their neighborhood, but I doubt their motivation is to do any favor to the Gazans. They created the vacuum that allowed Hamas to move in, and they haven't acknowledged that yet. The USA is always talking about its humanitarian service to the rest of the world, but a check on what the House of Representatives is saying these days suggests they don't care to do anything for the citizens of Gaza. The rest of the world has made loud sympathetic speeches in favor of the Gazan citizens, but I haven't heard that anyone is doing anything for them. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who are able to free the people of Gaza from Hamas. Israel is doing something, but they seem to be killing as many citizens as Hamas fighters. The USA has more military machinery than the rest of the world combined, but their "representatives" are presently outraged at the criticisms directed at the Israelis. Of course, it wouldn't be the first time that the US has supported both sides of a war. But they can't seem to distinguish the citizens of Gaza from Hamas, and they haven't had time to plan a covert support operation -- something that the American people would believe to be help for the citizens ONLY. Now you are really scaring me. If someone told me that "the UN was caught with rockets stored in three of their schools" I would totally disregard anything that source told me about anything. The UN does not have a military or an arsenal, and they don't handle weapons. Any manpower and ordinance operating under the UN banner is volunteered by a member nation(s), and who they are is never a secret. If there were rockets discovered in Gaza they were either put there by Hamas, or some country is involved in an extremely complicated covert operation to put them there. I don't believe that's at all reasonable to think in this situation, and it is certainly not reasonable to think the UN planted rockets anywhere. Do you remember the year when the UN forces were massing on the borders of the US to carry out a massive invasion. People were freeking out all over the place, and complaining that the government wasn't doing anything about it. And they said the UN was spying on us with black helicopters, and some people ran and hid every time a black flying object appeared in the air. That's how looney dumb people can be. Neither Canadians nor Mexicans ever observed anything UN or black hanging out by their borders aiming at the US. The stupidest part of the whole thing was that the UN headquarters in INSIDE the USA.
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Post by fixit on Aug 4, 2014 2:19:07 GMT -5
When the UN was caught with rockets stored in three of their schools they tried to hand them back to Hamas. So clearly the UN can't be trusted to stand up to Hamas. Now you are really scaring me. If someone told me that "the UN was caught with rockets stored in three of their schools" I would totally disregard anything that source told me about anything. The UN does not have a military or an arsenal, and they don't handle weapons. Any manpower and ordinance operating under the UN banner is volunteered by a member nation(s), and who they are is never a secret. If there were rockets discovered in Gaza they were either put there by Hamas, or some country is involved in an extremely complicated covert operation to put them there. I don't believe that's at all reasonable to think in this situation, and it is certainly not reasonable to think the UN planted rockets anywhere. I agree with you that Hamas needs to go. I suspect if Israel tried to depose Hamas they'd get a lot of abuse and not much thanks from the Arab world. Is it worth losing more Israeli lives to do it? I doubt that Abbas would ask for Israel's help in deposing Hamas. I never said the UN planted rockets, but three UN schools were warehouses for Hamas rockets. I presume Hamas planted them there, but how could the UN be so incompetent (or Hamas sympathetic) to allow its facilities to be used as rocket warehouses? And why do they allow Hamas to fire at Israeli forces from UN facilities? And it seems pretty incompetent (or collaborative) for the UN to hand the rockets back to Hamas after they were discovered.
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Post by BobWilliston on Aug 4, 2014 3:15:29 GMT -5
I agree with you that Hamas needs to go. I suspect if Israel tried to depose Hamas they'd get a lot of abuse and not much thanks from the Arab world. You're not getting it. The rest of the Arab world doesn't give a hoot what happens to Hamas, and they're not offering to rescue them from the Israelis either. They'd be quite happy, I expect. We have no way of knowing -- the Israelis have to decide that. And moralists have no control over that -- governments do as they please and their power permits them, and civilians are not always consulted about what the government will do with them, even in democracies. But -- if Palestinian lives are as valuable as Israeli lives, then the cost to Israel is relatively small. Abbas probably is smart enough to know that if he (Abbas) wanted something, Netanyahu wouldn't give it to him anyway. Abbas has his own serious problems with Israeli occupation. Abbas has no army to do anything -- at Netanyahu's pleasure. What you said was: When the UN was caught with rockets stored . I explained to you that the UN doesn't have rockets. And the UN has no one in Gaza with any authority to do anything but "report". They couldn't do anything about the rockets no matter who placed them there, much less make Hamas remove them. The best they could do is find a way to tell the Israelis they were there, so the Israelis could go and bomb the place just like they did. Of course Hamas put them there. Any suggestion that the UN had anything to do with it is pure Hamas propaganda. Schools are not equipped to disallow the government from putting whatever they want in the building. No no no no. I explained to you that the UN in Gaza does not have any means of enforcing anything. The only time the UN can accomplish anything by force is after the UN headquarters in New York authorizes volunteer nations to send their military in and do something. Hamas is not afraid of any UN personnel in Gaza because they know what the UN's job is in Gaza. The only thing the UN Gaza personnel are doing "wrong" right now is informing on our ally who is wantonly committing war crimes -- it embarrasses us because we have done so much bragging about the integrity of the Israelis. UN personnel normally leave when local militants threaten them. When you have no gun and someone else is demanding at gun-point, you give them your underwear if they want it. But you can be guaranteed that no UN personnel ever was in possession of rockets anyway -- if they knew what was good for them. Their job is more like finding food for civilians no matter what kind of government is in control.
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Post by snow on Aug 4, 2014 10:00:07 GMT -5
Yes. They had a civil war with the Palestinian Authority and took control of Gaza. That's when Gaza became a prison. Questions: 1. Should Hamas be confronted for the sake of the citizens of Gaza? Of course. Has someone suggested that they should not? Well, that's two questions. Obviously Israel is willing to get rid of Hamas from their neighborhood, but I doubt their motivation is to do any favor to the Gazans. They created the vacuum that allowed Hamas to move in, and they haven't acknowledged that yet. The USA is always talking about its humanitarian service to the rest of the world, but a check on what the House of Representatives is saying these days suggests they don't care to do anything for the citizens of Gaza. The rest of the world has made loud sympathetic speeches in favor of the Gazan citizens, but I haven't heard that anyone is doing anything for them. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who are able to free the people of Gaza from Hamas. Israel is doing something, but they seem to be killing as many citizens as Hamas fighters. The USA has more military machinery than the rest of the world combined, but their "representatives" are presently outraged at the criticisms directed at the Israelis. Of course, it wouldn't be the first time that the US has supported both sides of a war. But they can't seem to distinguish the citizens of Gaza from Hamas, and they haven't had time to plan a covert support operation -- something that the American people would believe to be help for the citizens ONLY. Now you are really scaring me. If someone told me that "the UN was caught with rockets stored in three of their schools" I would totally disregard anything that source told me about anything. The UN does not have a military or an arsenal, and they don't handle weapons. Any manpower and ordinance operating under the UN banner is volunteered by a member nation(s), and who they are is never a secret. If there were rockets discovered in Gaza they were either put there by Hamas, or some country is involved in an extremely complicated covert operation to put them there. I don't believe that's at all reasonable to think in this situation, and it is certainly not reasonable to think the UN planted rockets anywhere. Do you remember the year when the UN forces were massing on the borders of the US to carry out a massive invasion. People were freeking out all over the place, and complaining that the government wasn't doing anything about it. And they said the UN was spying on us with black helicopters, and some people ran and hid every time a black flying object appeared in the air. That's how looney dumb people can be. Neither Canadians nor Mexicans ever observed anything UN or black hanging out by their borders aiming at the US. The stupidest part of the whole thing was that the UN headquarters in INSIDE the USA. I'm not surprised that it is believed that the UN had rockets stored. When I posted the UN document, it was called biased. So I think this conversation like many others has come to the end of the line. Those who support Israel in their attack on Gaza will always be in support of Israel, no matter what horrid things they do. I don't see it as taking sides. In fact as I said earlier, I am not anti semantic, I am not pro Hamas, I am for stopping the slaughter of innocent civilians. There has to be a better way to get the Gazans freed from Hamas control than bombing and killing the civilians that are caught between two armies. I would like to see someone do something other than protest and back it up with some action. The US is known for it's successful covert operations so why don't they go into Gaza and figure out a way to get rid of Hamas without dropping bombs on the people? I don't have a lot of respect for the UN, think they are pretty much useless when it comes to bringing peace to anywhere. But I would love to be proved wrong.
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