Palestine/Israel

[D B Disco]

Not being Jewish or Muslim, I don't pretend to be fully versed in the whole Israel situation, but when reading facts such as the below, I can't help but feel that if I lived in Israel I would be fully behind their Government taking a hard-line stance.

A day after the declaration of independence of the State of Israel, armies of five Arab countries, Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq, invaded Israel. This marked the beginning of the War of Independence. Arab states have jointly waged four full scale wars against Israel:

• 1948 War of Independence
• 1956 Sinai War
• 1967 Six Day War
• 1973 Yom Kippur War

Despite the numerical superiority of the Arab armies, Israel defended itself each time and won. After each war Israeli army withdrew from most of the areas it captured (see maps). This is unprecedented in World history and shows Israel's willingness to reach peace even at the risk of fighting for its very existence each time anew.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Where is that from? Because the last part isn't particularly impartial.

 

[rudebwoyben]

Oh dear, where to start with this one-sided piece of propaganda which conveniently omits a lot of facts.
For a start, this has been a national conflict not a religious one. Not all Arabs are Muslim. There are Christian Arabs, Druze and Jewish Arabs.

Let's go through these wars one by one. In 1948, the Zionist militias such as the Haganah and Irgun had been capturing Palestinian villages and evicting their inhabitants for several months before the armies of the Arab armies intervened in Palestine. Actually, they only intervened because they saw that the Zionist militias were destroying Palestinian society with only much poorer trained Palestinian irregulars to oppose them. They intervened to protect the parts of Palestine which had been assigned to the Arab Palestinian state under the UN partition plan in 1947, not to invade the Jewish state. When Israel declared its independence in May 1948, Ben-Gurion did not state where the borders of the new state would be. He did this because he saw an opportunity to grab more territory than that allocated to the Jewish state under the UN partition plan in 1947 (which is what happened). Therefore, the Arab states could hardly be invading Israel!

In 1956 it's obvious. Israel, along with France and the UK, attacked Egypt - not the other way around. The Israeli attack served as a pretext for the UK and France to intervene to "protect the Suez Canal Zone", while the French and British gave Israel a cover for their own attack. The reason why Israel attacked was simply to damage the prestige of the largest Arab state and to maintain their own deterrent military power.

In 1967, it was Israel who attacked Egypt, Jordan and Syria - not the other way around. It was the Israelis who launched airstrikes on the airforces of those countries and then invaded the Sinai peninsula, then East Jerusalem and the West Bank and then finally the Golan Heights. The Israeli government knew that Egypt and the Arab countries were in no position to attack Israel but through a series of acts of brinkmanship on both sides (and some latent Israeli irredentism regarding Jerusalem) the war was started.

In 1973, it was Egypt and Syria who struck first. However, this has to be considered in the context that Israel was occupying (and still is in Syria's case) territories belonging to them. Moreover, in the 6 years between 1967 and 1973, the Israelis had diplomatically resorted to a strategy of immobolism, not entertaining the possibility of any sort of diplomatic manoeuvring or concessions to help bring about peace. Sadat therefore reasoned that the only way to break the diplomatic deadlock was to launch a war to recover the Sinai peninsula and Golan Heights. Actually, it worked. Afterwards there were disengagement agreements between Israel and Egypt and Syria and it directly led to the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

As for the claim that Israel has always sought peace. It's nonsense and meaningless. A proper peace has to be equitable and just and Israel has never sought that.

 

[rudebwoyben]

Where is that from? Because the last part isn't particularly impartial.

It's from the Jewish agency website, so it is hardly impartial.

 

[D B Disco]

Oh dear, where to start with this one-sided piece of propaganda which conveniently omits a lot of facts.
For a start, this has been a national conflict not a religious one. Not all Arabs are Muslim. There are Christian Arabs, Druze and Jewish Arabs.

Let's go through these wars one by one. In 1948, the Zionist militias such as the Haganah and Irgun had been capturing Palestinian villages and evicting their inhabitants for several months before the armies of the Arab armies intervened in Palestine. Actually, they only intervened because they saw that the Zionist militias were destroying Palestinian society with only much poorer trained Palestinian irregulars to oppose them. They intervened to protect the parts of Palestine which had been assigned to the Arab Palestinian state under the UN partition plan in 1947, not to invade the Jewish state. When Israel declared its independence in May 1948, Ben-Gurion did not state where the borders of the new state would be. He did this because he saw an opportunity to grab more territory than that allocated to the Jewish state under the UN partition plan in 1947 (which is what happened). Therefore, the Arab states could hardly be invading Israel!

In 1956 it's obvious. Israel, along with France and the UK, attacked Egypt - not the other way around. The Israeli attack served as a pretext for the UK and France to intervene to "protect the Suez Canal Zone", while the French and British gave Israel a cover for their own attack. The reason why Israel attacked was simply to damage the prestige of the largest Arab state and to maintain their own deterrent military power.

In 1967, it was Israel who attacked Egypt, Jordan and Syria - not the other way around. It was the Israelis who launched airstrikes on the airforces of those countries and then invaded the Sinai peninsula, then East Jerusalem and the West Bank and then finally the Golan Heights. The Israeli government knew that Egypt and the Arab countries were in no position to attack Israel but through a series of acts of brinkmanship on both sides (and some latent Israeli irredentism regarding Jerusalem) the war was started.

In 1973, it was Egypt and Syria who struck first. However, this has to be considered in the context that Israel was occupying (and still is in Syria's case) territories belonging to them. Moreover, in the 6 years between 1967 and 1973, the Israelis had diplomatically resorted to a strategy of immobolism, not entertaining the possibility of any sort of diplomatic manoeuvring or concessions to help bring about peace. Sadat therefore reasoned that the only way to break the diplomatic deadlock was to launch a war to recover the Sinai peninsula and Golan Heights. Actually, it worked. Afterwards there were disengagement agreements between Israel and Egypt and Syria and it directly led to the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

As for the claim that Israel has always sought peace. It's nonsense and meaningless. A proper peace has to be equitable and just and Israel has never sought that.

It's clear you are far more knowledgeable about this than I am, so I hope you excuse me looking at this in layman's terms.

Your last post led to me reading this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel for the last 10 minutes, and I would hope this is a less one-sided representation of the facts! (At least I'm learning things!)

Clearly it's a very "complicated" situation overall, with both sides being far from perfect in the actions they have taken over the years, and I can understand why people of both sides will have their own view of things.

I do still believe though that Israel has no choice but to take the hard-line approach that they do, and I do believe that if the hadn't/didn't, Israel would not still be there as an independent state. Whether Israel should be there is a whole other matter, and has and will always be argued I suppose.

 

[rudebwoyben]

Cool,. I'm always free for some further education.
Actually you're right that they have to take a hard-line approach. In my view that stems exactly from the way Israel was created and the whole basis on which Israel was founded. Of course that was always going to provoke a hostile reaction. By the same reasoning, a liberal Zionist is an oxymoron as there is nothing liberal or inclusive about Zionism.

 

[Tilbury]

Netanyahu is losing the plot. He compared Mexicans living in southern US states and potentially wanting to create their own new country to that of the Israel/Palestine situation.
I.e. scaremongering Americans into supporting Israel.

 

[Womble98]

D B Disco, some food for thought: If the terrorism of Hamas is so evil, morally reprehensible and unjust (which in my view it is), why is the terrorism of Irgun, a Jewish Natioinlist group which helped found the state of Israel acceptable? They used just as reprehensible methods in their search for a state as the Palestinians have sometimes used.

 

[D B Disco]

D B Disco, some food for thought: If the terrorism of Hamas is so evil, morally reprehensible and unjust (which in my view it is), why is the terrorism of Irgun, a Jewish Natioinlist group which helped found the state of Israel acceptable? They used just as reprehensible methods in their search for a state as the Palestinians have sometimes used.

Whoah..............

I don't think I've said anywhere that terrorism of any kind is acceptable?

At most, I've said that I can understand why Israel takes a hard-line approach - because I believe they have no choice.
At the same time I can also understand Palestinians being angry at losing their land and their homes. I guess they sometimes feel they have no choice but to fight back too.

 

[Womble98]

Whoah..............

I don't think I've said anywhere that terrorism of any kind is acceptable?

At most, I've said that I can understand why Israel takes a hard-line approach - because I believe they have no choice.
At the same time I can also understand Palestinians being angry at losing their land and their homes. I guess they sometimes feel they have no choice but to fight back too.

Sorry, I didn't phrase it that well. The point I was making is that the hardline approach is only acceptable from Israel- if Palestinians fight back it is not defending their lands, it is terrorism, and the general hypocrisy around their argument.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Whoah..............

I don't think I've said anywhere that terrorism of any kind is acceptable?

At most, I've said that I can understand why Israel takes a hard-line approach - because I believe they have no choice.
At the same time I can also understand Palestinians being angry at losing their land and their homes. I guess they sometimes feel they have no choice but to fight back too.

That's not true. Hamas doesn't have the capacity to do significant damage to Israeli civilians. During Operation Protective Edge six Israeli civilians were killed during a two month rocket campaign by Hamas. Obviously all civilian casualties are terrible but that's not an existential threat (there were about that many cycling deaths in London over the last two months).

Zeev Sternhell - an Israeli academic, zionist and probably one of the world's leading experts on fascism - has characterised Israel as a fascist state (or at least a state well on the road to fascism). That fascism needs external and internal threats to continually advance itself. Hamas provide the conditions where the Israeli right can advance Jewish Nationalism, roll back the civil (and civic) rights of Israeli Arabs and step up land seizures in the West Bank.

In return, Israel creates the conditions for Hamas to dominate life in Gaza. The siege leaves Hamas in control of basic necessities for life in Gaza while the regular large-scale destruction and humanitarian crisis drives support for them.

 

[Womble98]

It should also be noted that Israel gave support to Hamas as an opponent to the PLO and Fatah, giving it weapons and money. Very similar to the west and Al-Quaeda.

 

[sl1k]

What Netanyahu's election victory means for the Palestinians - The Washington Post

 

[Womble98]

I quote from Netanyau on election day "The right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are heading to the polling stations in droves,” he wrote. “Left-wing NGOs are bringing them in buses.”

He is a fucking idiot.

 

[Womble98]

Rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. Here we go again...

 

[rudebwoyben]

Just to provide context the Israeli army has been firing at and killing Gazan residents and fishermen ever since the cessation of the last conflict.
Hamas are having problems maintaining their authority as more extreme Salafi groups are gaining ground, which will make the whole area more unstable.

 

[DarkSithLord]

I see another escalation has taken place. Will they ever learn?

 

[smat]

I see another escalation has taken place. Will they ever learn?

Who, learn what?

 

[DarkSithLord]

Who, learn what?

Both sides to cease the violence and bloodshed.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

religion baby

 

[DarkSithLord]

religion baby

Exactly the root of much evil in the world.

 

[smat]

Both sides to cease the violence and bloodshed.

Ah. Simple.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

religion baby

Must be nice having such a basic understanding of the world. Reckon it's might be helpful for you to think about the aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that aren't caused by religion and then we can think about the bits of it that are exacerbated or escalated by religion.

e.g. Zionism doesn't really have anything to do with religion - it's a Jewish Nationalist political philosophy. Palestinian nationalism isn't a religious movement either.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Must be nice having such a basic understanding of the world. Reckon it's might be helpful for you to think about the aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that aren't caused by religion and then we can think about the bits of it that are exacerbated or escalated by religion.

e.g. Zionism doesn't really have anything to do with religion - it's a Jewish Nationalist political philosophy. Palestinian nationalism isn't a religious movement either.

You're drawing rather broad conclusions based on a throwaway line on an internet forum.

There are plenty of analogous examples to draw from throughout world history that only serve to highlight how much religion is a factor in all this. We don't even have to look outside of the UK to find one. The notion that Zionism has nothing to do with religion is utterly false. Without Judaism this piece of land is arbitrary, and the justification for Zionism weakens significantly, it loses it's Fundamentalist Christian backing in the US which allows it to survive, and it also (in large part) loses it's Muslim opposition too. This problem simply could not exist in it's current form without these revealed-truth religious texts shaping people's motives, and but for them we would probably have already solved the issue by now.