Yes, there are stories coming out of executions of Fatah members on the street, sometimes in front of family members, others being pushed off roofs and reprisal killings by Fatah against Hamas. I believe 80 Palestinians have been killed in the last six days.

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Joel_Goldenberg ]

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Yes, there are stories coming out of executions of Fatah members on the street, sometimes in front of family members, others being pushed off roofs and reprisal killings by Fatah against Hamas. I believe 80 Palestinians have been killed in the last six days.

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Wow! I bet that would be a new experience for Palestinians. Not like the Israelis have never done such a thing to them. But, then, of course, there is also the truth:

"To an extent, Hamas is trying to appear magnanimous in victory today. The group's military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam brigades, has released some Fatah prisoners but others are still under questioning and are still being interviewed."

But why let fact interfere with the racist state's attempt to demonize Hamas?

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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Israel still wants a two-state solution with moderate Palestinians despite Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Friday.

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At one hotel in Ramallah, a number of the top Fatah security leaders and supporters exiled from Gaza are staying. A large number of them won't leave their rooms as they are terrified of being tracked down and killed. They won't even come down to the lobby, and they order room service. They are all worried about what will happen to their families in Gaza. I spoke to one such leader by telephone, who told me that the mood among her and her colleagues is terrible.

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They need not fear. The death squads in Gaza either belong to the racist state or have been equipped and trained by the racist state, and its sponsor, the US, to kill Hamas. Did you not see those reports?

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Amos Gilad, head of political military policy at the Defense Ministry, told Israel Radio on Thursday that the assistance provided to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Presidential Guard is aimed at reinforcing the forces of peace in the area.

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Yes, the "forces of peace". If Israeli has mastered anything it is peace, no?

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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(CBS/AP) Relative calm appeared to return to Gaza Friday morning as Hamas announced that all Fatah prisoners taken in the last five days of fighting in Gaza would be granted amnesty and released.

The captives, including several senior field commanders seized by Hamas men Friday, will be freed unharmed, said the spokesman, Abu Obeideh, in a press conference in Gaza City, signaling that Hamas seeks conciliation with the defeated forces of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ... Traffic was back on the streets and few armed men were visible, in contrast to the running battles of the past few days.

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Would the Abbas death squads armed by the racist state and the US have been so generous? How many Palestinians, including children, does the racist state hold without charge and often tortured?

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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The West Bank, home to most of the Palestinian population, is dominated by the more moderate Fatah, which has ties to Israel and the West.

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Mock phone call to Condi

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Joel_Goldenberg ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Hamas has very retrograde policies towards women, non-Mulims and sexual minorities. From now on, let's have a rule that any future reference to hamas but be preceded by "the sexist, homophobic, religiously intolerant Hamas militia".

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Does this mean we can refer to the PA as the homophobic state?

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You can refer to the PA or Hamas by any name that you choose. Homophobic Paramilitaries is fine by me. That doesn't change the reality that Israel is a racist state or that it was the polices of the racist state, the US, and their neo-con game masters that first led to the rise of Hamas and now have handed over to them Gaza. If Israel wasn't racist and was actually interested in peace, there may not be a Hamas at all. They are a creation of racist, militaristic policies, bent on expansionism and ethnic cleansing.

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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Israel still wants a two-state solution with moderate Palestinians despite Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Friday.

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Fatah "governance" of the West Bank Bantustans and Hamas "governance" of the Gaza open air prison is not a two-state solution to the conflict - whatever the spokesperson of the Israeli regime says.

But as long as Palestinians are fighting each other, I predict that the US and Israel will support whichever side is losing ... to ensure continued conflict. When the secular PLO was the enemy, Muslim Brotherhood offshoots, Hamas predecessors and early formations of that organization were supported by Israel and the US. Now that Hamas has the edge, the support goes to Fatah and the puppet Abbas.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
I hope that the cheering section for Hamas

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I hope that the cheering section for Hamas realizes that the big winners in any Hamas win is the Israeli right. The last thing Likud and Co. want is for moderate;s to be in control of the PA

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Originally posted by remind:

Well, I looked through the thread for signs of pom poms, and I found not even 1 little strand broken off.

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So is civil war inevitable in this situation? Is the possibility of a Palestinian state dead?

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The possibility of a Palestinian state has never been alive. It has been dangled before Palestinians, forever, as a false hope. Because when there is no longer hope for a two state solution what is left? Action on a single state solution.

http://www.ucm.es/info/cv/cursos_pdf/72113.pdf

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:

But as long as Palestinians are fighting each other, I predict that the US and Israel will support whichever side is losing ... to ensure continued conflict. When the secular PLO was the enemy, Muslim Brotherhood offshoots, Hamas predecessors and early formations of that organization were supported by Israel and the US. Now that Hamas has the edge, the support goes to Fatah and the puppet Abbas.

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Right on. There's the key. Israel and the U.S. will negotiate in good faith with whoever is NOT the leading representative of the Palestinian people at any given point in time.

Israel and the U.S. are responsible for the useless, ineffectual, suicidal, divided, confused, and directionless "leadership" situation of the Palestinians for decades now. How tragic that the Palestinian masses should have to choose between Fatah and Hamas. How disastrous that the secular, socialist-minded, national liberation organizations of the 60s and 70s were annihilated by the overwhelming force of the enemy.

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No cheerleading per se. But there are references on this thread to Hamas being demonized and links to reports of demonstrations of conciliation by Hamas, while there are references to Fatah death squads.

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Wasn't demonizing Hamas with unsubstantiated allegations of executions your goal? Reporting facts is now verboten? (I suppose that has always been true for neo-cons and the apologists of the racist state.) Was not Fatah being armed by the US and the racist state to carry out attacks against Hamas? In fact, didn't the racist state encourage a Palestinian civil war right from the get-go?

I take no pleasure, per se, from a Hamas victory in Gaza. I am sure it will be fleeting. But I take great pleasure, admittedly, at seeing the cynical, hateful, and murderous plans of the racist state and the US fail. That does bring me some degree of satisfaction.

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

The moderate is necessary to counterbalance the "extremists". It is important that no point of view other than the moderate and the extremist be publicized. There are no other views. By staying focussed, myopically, on the dichotomy between the moderate and the extremist, inconvenient questions can be avoided entirely. This is a good thing and helps the moderate seem moderate, the extremist seem extreme, and real solutions seem quaint and irrelevant. The supporters of the moderate like that. Hooray for the moderate!

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:

Wasn't demonizing Hamas with unsubstantiated allegations of executions your goal? Reporting facts is now verboten? (I suppose that has always been true for neo-cons and the apologists of the racist state.) Was not Fatah being armed by the US and the racist state to carry out attacks against Hamas? In fact, didn't the racist state encourage a Palestinian civil war right from the get-go?

I take no pleasure, per se, from a Hamas victory in Gaza. I am sure it will be fleeting. But I take great pleasure, admittedly, at seeing the cynical, hateful, and murderous plans of the racist state and the US fail. That does bring me some degree of satisfaction.

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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I don't think Israelis want to live under a Hamas-Fatah civil war, so your one state solution is a non-starter. Who is to blame? Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak. But what comes next? More bloodshed. This may last as long as the American civil war, which was one of history's bloodiest wars at the time.

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I don't think Israelis want to live under a Hamas-Fatah civil war

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In a key passage that may already have been overtaken by the rapidly deteriorating situation, Mr De Soto wrote: "Hamas is in effervescence and can potentially evolve in a pragmatic direction that would allow for a two-state solution - but only if handled right.

"If the Palestinian Authority passes into irrelevance or collapses (as now seems likely) calls for a one-state solution to the conflict "will come out of the shadows and enter the mainstream."

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Jews have a right to the State of Israel in the same way that Palestinians have a right to a Palestiniain state.

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Don't you really mean like whites in America have a right to a white state?

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The Jewish state of Israel is here to stay. Perhaps once Hamas and Al Fatah stop killing each other they too can finally look toward a state of their own. For now though this looks like it may be difficult to achieve.

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[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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In the lexicon of the oppressor, a moderate is someone who agrees with occupation or invasion. A moderate doesn't demand "concessions". a moderate takes what he's given and doesn't ask questions. A moderate doesn't resist. A moderate has a job to do, just as Quisling had a job to do. Somebody's got to do it. Why not the moderate?

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ohara: Perhaps once Hamas and Al Fatah stop killing each other they too can finally look toward a state of their own. For now though this looks like it may be difficult to achieve.

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Originally posted by ohara:
Jews have a right to the State of Israel in the same way that Palestinians have a right to a Palestiniain state. The Jewish state of Israel is here to stay.

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Whoa, nice try guy.

Israel has a right to exist within secure borders.

Israel (like any country) belongs to all its citizens - not just the Jews - don't you agree?

If birth rates are such that non-Jews become a majority, that's ok too - or is it?

And if a majority of Israeli citizens vote one day to repeal a couple of laws - such as the Jewish "right of return" (which means I can become a citizen tomorrow) and the references to "Jewish state", and other discriminatory statutes - then they're allowed to do that too...

Aren't they?

So, you see, Israel has the right to exist, but not the "Jewish state". It exists at the pleasure of the people. Just as Iran has the right to exist within secure borders, but please don't ask me to defend the right to exist of some "Islamic Republic" nonsense, and don't tell me the "Muslims have a right to Iran".

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Maybe when Zionist "moderates" emerge, so will Palestinian "moderates".

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There has been lots of debate about the accord that Arafat rejected - most analysts say that Arafat simply couldn't "take YES for answer". But just imagoine if he had said YES, we would be soooo far ahead of where we are in the Middle East now.

For that matter, as long as we are talking about what ifs. On this the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War - imagine if Jordan had NOT attacked Israel after Israel destroyed the whole Egyptian airforce while it sat on the ground. Israel would NOT be in possession of the west bank and a major impediment to peace would not exist.

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

Fatah. Arafat. Hamas. Abbas. Fatah. Hamas. Shuffle the cards as much as you like, and it's still divide et impera.

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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Tell me why it is you oppose a state that respects equally all her citizens, Jew and Arab?

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http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jun/15/hamas_wins_thanks_to_us

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Today it is almost amusing to contemplate the professions of horror on the part of right-wing Israelis (and their neocon friends) who scream “bloody murder” about an outcome they helped effect and actually welcome.

The name of their game was, is, and always will be making sure that Israel has “no partner” with whom to negotiate. Their worst fear is of Palestinians like Mahmoud Abbas who is a credible negotiating partner.

I understand that this is a difficult point to assimilate. But the fact is that the Israeli (and American) right-wingers are rooting for the Palestinian extremists. And that is why, today, with Hamas fully in control of Gaza, they are as happy as Red Sox fans when the team is ten games up on the Yankees on Labor Day.

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[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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Israeli Arabs have equal rights to Israeli Jews. They vote, they have parties, they have members of the Knesset, they have freedom of speech.

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A white South African during Aparthied once told me how good the "blacks" have it under Apartheid. I think he must have been you.

"Happy lies! Happy lies!"

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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Stockholm: Israeli Arabs have equal rights to Israeli Jews.

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Sure, Stock. That's why Israel has separate school systems for Arabs and Jews, just like the deep south of the USA (before the enforcement of some civil rights laws by the Johnson administration). Human Rights Watch made a comprehensive report in 2001 outlining the extensive and systematic discrimination against Arab Israelis. "It reserved its harshest criticism for the dire state of special education for disabled Arab children." That's why unemployment among Arabs is twice the rate of Jewish unemployment. That's why Arab workers, like French Canadians before the quiet revolution, are sacked for speaking Arabic at work. Israeli law even rips apart Arab families, preventing them from being together. Arab politicians are subject to constant discrimination and intimidation. Even the US State Department annual report on human rights practices in Israel identifies discrimination against Palestinian citizens in most spheres of their lives. So, Stock, I guess that remark puts you to the right of the US State department.

What party are you with, again? Or don't you like "labels" of left and right?

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Israeli Arabs have equal rights to Israeli Jews.

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You think there's no such thing as a Jewish Arab? What kind of dichotomy is this? Do you actually give your brain a rest while you're talking?

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What rights have the Arabs ever granted Jews living in their midst - apart from seizure of property and expulsion?

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What's this - the "nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah" argument?

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Since Israel began its policy of sealing off the occupied territories, human rights activists have often compared Gaza and the West Bank to open-air prisons. But in researching the explosion of Israel's homeland security sector, a topic I explore in greater detail in a forthcoming book (The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism), it strikes me that they are something else too: laboratories where the terrifying tools of our security states are being field-tested. Palestinians are no longer just targets--they are guinea pigs.

So in a way Friedman is right: Israel has struck oil. But the oil isn't the imagination of its techie entrepreneurs. The oil is the war on terror, the state of constant fear that creates a bottomless demand for spying devices and containment walls, whether in Gaza, in Baghdad or at the US-Mexico border. Israeli entrepreneurs have discovered, just as US politicians did after 9/11, that fear is the ultimate renewable resource.

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That's why Israel has separate school systems for Arabs and Jews,

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Israel has an election that produces a Meretz majority government and Uri Avneri becomes PM

The PA has an election that is won by a landslide by a party led by Hanan Ashrawi who is a feminist with no religious ties and who rejects violence.

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"If you have two brothers put into a cage and deprive them of basic essential needs for life, they will fight," said the Palestinian foreign minister, Ziad Abu Amr.

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The Guardian story notes that there is little to celebrate at the birth of Hamastan.

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Guardian: Hamas has crushed the hopes of the Bush administration that Fatah would be able to re-establish security control over Gaza, a long-standing Israeli condition for resuming negotiations. Washington had just launched a controversial $60m programme to bolster Mr Abbas's presidential guard and Israel had quietly allowed Arab states to send in arms and ammunition.

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Keep those Palestinians killing each other, eh? The first highlighted remark is noteworthy. Israel was interfering with internal Palestinian politics and making successful interference a condition of negotiations. The subversive role of Israel couldn't be clearer if they arrested all Palestinian elected leaders and started torturing them.

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There is some extensive reporting over at the Angry Arab website.

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maybe a big part of the problem in the Middle East is that there is too much "anger".

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Jews have a right to the State of Israel in the same way that Palestinians have a right to a Palestiniain state.

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Don't you really mean like whites in America have a right to a white state?

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Originally posted by Caissa:
Have there been many other attempts at having countries (other than island nations) who have relatively large land masses that aren't contiguous? The UAR and East and West Pakistan come to mind in modern times.

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1. The United States. Alaska is separated from the 48 other continental states by Canada.

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Your remarks seem especially facile today, Stock. Is it because you're giddy with happiness over Palestinians killing Palestinians?

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Israeli Arabs have equal rights to Israeli Jews.

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Interestingly enough, until 2000, there was a ban on the sale of public land to non-Jews, including to non-Jewish citizens of Israel.
Here is a BBC article about the overturning of this ban by the Israeli Supreme Court.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Wake me up ...

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Israeli Arabs have equal rights to Israeli Jews.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:

It was never possible to achieve because the Zionists would never allow it and have done everything to undermine it. It is why a single state solution is now the only solution. A civil rights struggle is so much easier, in any case, than a nationalist struggle. The world can question the need for a Palestine, but the world will not question the need for basic human rights in a single state comprised of Jews and Arabs. Doesn't that sound nice?

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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FM,

I did some work and went to the gym between my last post and this post, and since then there's been 100 posts in between...

What makes you say a civil rights struggle is easier than a nationalist struggle?

My other question relates to the fact I'm not sure if your last sentence is sarcastic or not. As far as i know, most of the world cares about race. Outside the occidental center and left, people care about race. In Africa, in the middle east, in india, in Japan, etc. And certainly in Israel and Palestine, though there the social interpretation/construction is blurred through shifted focus. I think your ideal presented is unrealistic.

It's not about what the world wants. It's about what the palestinians and the israelis want. And they don't want to live in the same state.

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According to the 2004 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for Israel and the Occupied Territories, the Israeli government "did little to reduce institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country's Arab citizens.

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That's the US State Department. A more pro-Israel institution could hardly be imagined. And yet ... the Israeli government "did little" to reduce discrimination.

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
More, in regard to the fabrication and Israeli apologetic that "Israeli Arabs have equal rights to Israeli Jews."

That's the US State Department. A more pro-Israel institution could hardly be imagined. And yet ... the Israeli government "did little" to reduce discrimination.

Who was it that said if you repeat a lie often enough it will be believed?

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I don't mean to be nitpicking, but,

Out of the pentagon, the NSA, the CIA, and the state department; the state department is the most progressive one.

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"They sat me down on a square chair without a back, which was attached to the floor and had sharp metal ends [sticking up]. My legs were tied to the legs of the chair with metal cuffs and my hands were tied behind my back with metal cuffs. One interrogator sat behind me and the other in front of me. The interrogator opposite me said: We have to give you a little sports, so you will be able to hold out in the military interrogation. The sports was that they pushed me backward by the chest, a backward somersault, and I would hold myself so my bones would not break. After a minute or two I would automatically fall on the floor, but the interrogator behind me would put his foot on my chest and press, and the interrogator in front would grab my hands and pull and pull behind the chair. They kept on like that until I don't know what happened to me, heat in every part of my body, puking everything I had in my stomach and it would go into my nostrils. I would wake up when they poured water on my face. When I woke up, we went back to the same situation. It went on like this 15-20 times an hour.

"After that they made me crouch on my toes, not letting me lean on the back of my foot. I was in that position for 40-50 minutes, maybe an hour - that was my estimate - until I felt my soles swelling and they turned blue and there was tremendous pain. After that, stand up, and they tied my hands and pressed as hard as they could on the metal handcuffs until the metal dug into my hand. Here are the signs, you can still see them. Because of the pressure, the key of the handcuffs didn't always work and they would bring huge metal scissors, like they use in construction, and tear off the handcuffs and then bring new ones, to go on. The color of my hands changed to blue, and when they opened [the handcuffs] my hands shook. The interrogator stood on the table and pulled me with a chain of handcuffs. When I fell, they pulled me by the hair.

"I would cry, beg, shout, and they came back to me with words, that it was impossible to stop, only after you start talking about what we want. I said to them: Tell me what you want. Tell me I am responsible for the attack on the Pentagon, I am ready to confess to everything, just tell me what. I want to end this death."

"There were always four interrogators and two rotated every four hours, day and night. The new ones would tell me they were stronger than the ones before, that the ones before were a joke, we are the strong ones. And that was true. The new ones tied me and started to beat me all over my body. One interrogator pressed hard on my testicles and on my feet with his shoes. When they slapped me and I tried to pull back, the major would say: What are you doing? If you move back, I will break your nose, and if you move forward I will rip off your ear. Be strong and take it sportingly, because you are a soldier and a fighter. They broke this tooth."

Ashqar suddenly stops talking. He turns pale and his face is covered with beads of perspiration. His father, Sati, quickly wipes his face with a damp cloth. "Every time I try to remember I get dizzy, even when I am alone." Quiet descends in the room. It will take Ashqar another few minutes to pull himself together.

"I was taken into detention on Friday morning, and that was the last light of day I saw before the interrogation. I came out for the first time on Monday night or before dawn on Tuesday morning. On those long days I sat in a chair and did not even go to the toilet. So you won't kill yourself, they said. I urinated in my clothes, and a terrible stench started. For four days I didn't eat anything. They told me: If we give you something to eat, something will happen to your stomach and your intestines. Maybe they will explode under the pressure of the food when we push you backward. You will drink only half a cup of saltwater. That is what they gave me every time after they bent me and I vomited. Why with salt? I asked. Give me without salt. No, so nothing will happen in your stomach and intestines. I would drink it and vomit.

"On Monday evening, they told me that five witnesses had testified that Luwaii had transported a wanted man. I told them that there was a famous wanted man named Luwaii Sadi, but my name is Luwaii Sati, and maybe they had mixed us up. He said to me: Are you saying the Shin Bet is that stupid? We know exactly what we're doing, and it is all correct. I said: Put me on trial for whatever you want. He said: Ya'allah, sports again. He pushes me backward in the chair. I will help you become a story in Palestinian history. He is talking to me and my head is down below. He pushes strongly with his leg and presses on my chest. I felt something like an explosion in my body. Like something broke. After that I don't know what happened. I woke up and they were pouring water on my face. Again they pushed me backward and again I fainted.

"He said to me: Stand on your feet. I felt that my legs were cold, like pins and needles in the legs. I said: I can't. He said: Now you are paralyzed. I said: I guess I am. He said: That is what we promised you and that is what you want."

"I discovered I had a wound in the back and it was bleeding - because of the sharp chair - and one of my bones was protruding. Because of the blood and because of the urine of four days there was such a stench that the interrogator could not come close to me. He said: Why do you stink like that? I told him: That is your perfume. A warder took me to the shower and threw me on the floor and said to me: Ya'allah, you have two minutes to shower. I looked at the faucet up above and I could not reach it. I pulled down my pants and the underpants stayed in place. I tried to pull them down - I could do it in front but behind it was stuck to my back. The two minutes went by and the warder started to pound on the door. Time's up. I told him: Give me another two minutes, I can't reach the faucet. He came in and asked: What do you have on your back? I said: I don't know.

"He called the interrogator and said: Come and see the prisoner. The interrogator came and asked: What do you have, Luwaii? I said: I don't know what I have on my back, I can't pull the underpants down and I can't reach the faucet. He said: Ya'allah, we will go up and finish the story and take you to the doctor.

"Two warders took me in a Prisons Service vehicle to Rambam [Medical Center in Haifa]. In emergency, my hands and feet were tied and a Russian doctor asked me: What hurts you? I told him: My whole body hurts from the interrogation. The Druze warder said: Shut up. The doctor turned me on the side and stuck a finger into my ass. I asked him: What are you doing? He said: I am checking whether you have hemorrhoids. Why didn't you ask me first? I am a professional, he said. I said: What about the wound on the back? He put ointment there and dressed it. After 10 minutes I was taken back to interrogation. Again I was tied to the square chair. The bandage fell off and the wound started to bleed again. After that, they stopped the military interrogation."

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If you are an ethnic Latvian or Lithuanian or Estonian you get all kinds of citizenship rights that Russians born in those countries don't have.

It would be nice if the rest of the world had the same post-modern non-chalant attitude towards ethnicity that we have in Canada - but they don't.

Seriously--I thought the shooting was bad on the Is Fidel a Fascist thread!!

OK. Vest on. Night scope on. Gas mask on. AK-47 under one arm; M-16 under the other. Trackers armed and ready. I enter the thread:

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Israel and the U.S. are responsible for the useless, ineffectual, suicidal, divided, confused, and directionless "leadership" situation of the Palestinians for decades now. How tragic that the Palestinian masses should have to choose between Fatah and Hamas. How disastrous that the secular, socialist-minded, national liberation organizations of the 60s and 70s were annihilated by the overwhelming force of the enemy.

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Unionist! Couldn’t have said it better myself. It seems the US regime/Corporate America keeps Israel afloat as its regional destabilizer for the whole Middle East, while it funds, invests in and trades with the various dictatorships over the Arab states to keep the oil flowing and US-based oil firms in the drivers’ seat. This insidious strategy seems to work well, as it keeps everyone off-balance and divided.

Joel_Goldenberg wrote:

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But there are references on this thread to Hamas being demonized and links to reports of demonstrations of conciliation by Hamas

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Well, like it or not, there are some very credible media reports out there showing Hamas, or at least strong elements within it, want to recognize Israel. Obviously, despite their disdain for doing so, since being elected into the government of the PA, it's something they need to do in order to negotiate anything (how can you negotiate otherwise if you don't recognize the existence of the other party).

Ohara wrote:

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There will never be a "one-state" solution. Jews have a right to the State of Israel in the same way that Palestinians have a right to a Palestiniain state. The Jewish state of Israel is here to stay.

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Here we go again. This is the usual flat-headed Zionist position that is blocking any real progress for anything.

Ohara knows as well as anyone that Jews are not a nationality or ethnicity. They are a religion. There are Arabic Jews; German Jews; Italian Jews; Slavic Jews; English Jews, etc. I even read somewhere there are many Chinese Jews.

Conversely, Palestinians are not a religion. They are a nationality with an national identity that goes back centuries. Most Palestinians are Muslims; but apparently there are many who are Christian as well.

The two-state solution--while certainly being a far better alternative than the unjust situation today--still preserves the destructive existence of religious-affiliated states (presumably one Jewish; one Muslim).

As said before, history has taught us all that religious-affiliated states—be they “Jewish,” “Islamic” or “Christian”—are nothing but trouble, as they have always invariably bread discrimination, persecution, violence and conflict—always. This is exactly why socialists and democratic free thinkers and labour unionists have fought for centuries for equal rights and freedoms for all religions, as well as from religion for those who don’t want it, and full separation of church and state.

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Ohara knows as well as anyone that Jews are not a nationality or ethnicity. They are a religion. There are Arabic Jews; German Jews; Italian Jews; Slavic Jews; English Jews, etc. I even read somewhere there are many Chinese Jews.

Conversely, Palestinians are not a religion. They are a nationality with an national identity that goes back centuries. Most Palestinians are Muslims; but apparently there are many who are Christian as well.

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You are dead wrong about that Jews ARE an ethnicity and a nationality. One that intersects with a religion. There are many people who are atheist who regard themselves as Jewish in terms of their ethnicity. In fact, the Catholic Archbishop of Paris was born Jewish and converted to Catholicism. He still considers himself to be a Jew because that is his nationality. If you are born Jewish - Jewish you remain regardless of whether you convert to another religion or declare yourslef atheist. Judaism is a religion. Being Jewish is an ethnicity. If Being Jewish were simply a religious affiliation, then all people in Europe would have had to do during the Holocaust was to convert to another religion and they would have been spared. But it didn't work that way because anti-semites don't give a damn about what rteligion a person subscribes to. they hate people for having Jewish BLOOD. Whether they ever go to a synagogue is irrelevant to them. I defy you to find any Jewish from Iraq or Morrocco who would ever call themselves "Arabs".

I am 100% atheist, never had a Bar Mitzvah, never been to a synagogue and eat pork and lobster at every opportunity. yet Hitler would have gassed me every bit as quickly as some Hassidic freak with a long beard.

Palestinians do NOT have a national identity that goes back centuries. (which is not to say that they don't have one now). There has never been any reference "Palestinian" to refer to Arabs living between the Meditteranean and the Jordan until the late 1950s and even then it was not common. Up until 1948, the term Palestinian was used quite frequently - it referred to the JEWISH inhabitants of Palestine. The Arabs NEVER called themsleves Palestinians - they just called themselves generic "Arabs". In fact, when Palestine was partitioned, there was never even name chosen for the Arab country that was supposed to be created because the name Palestine was so heavily associated with the Jews.

For centuries most of the Arab world was under Turkish rule and the Arabs were viewed as one Arab people. Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon were all countries carved up by European colonials and have no historic antecedent at all.

All that being said. I do reognize that there are "facts on the ground" - millions of Arabs people now think of themselves as Palestinians and they are free to define themselves as they wish - but the history of Arabs in what is now Israel calling themselves Palestinians is something very, very recent.

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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S A: What is wrong with one secular state that welcomes Israelis and Palestinians as equal citizens with equal opportunities and rights to their respective religions?

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I'm Jewish. And I practice no religion.

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Max Bialystock ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Palestinians do NOT have a national identity that goes back centuries.

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All that being said. I do reognize that there are "facts on the ground" - millions of Arabs people now think of themselves as Palestinians and they are free to define themselves as they wish - but the history of Arabs in what is now Israel calling themselves Palestinians is something very, very recent.

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So let the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza call themselves Israelis, drop the racist nonsense, and all can live in peace in a single state with full equal and democratic rights. And then you no longer have to support the torture, oppression, and murder done in the name of Judaism.

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You are dead wrong about that Jews ARE an ethnicity and a nationality.

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No, but i can understand how your addled brain would come up with that. Time to get out into the world a bit.

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And then you no longer have to support the torture, oppression, and murder done in the name of Judaism.

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They're the ones that try to conflate "Jews" and "Israel" so why should we be surprised when other people begin to make the same mistake?

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When Hamas sends out suicide bombers on a mission to kill as many innocent civilians as possible would you say that it is all done "in the name of Islam" or would that be "Islamophobia"?

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If Hamas declared themselves the Islamic State and governed in a way as brutal, violent, and oppressively as does Israel, and did so in the name of Islam, I would call them racist. And maybe they are. But they are not Israel. They are a both a creation of and a reaction to Israel.

But you didn't answer my question. You have made it clear you consider Israel to be the Jewish state. So, in your mind, are Israeli policies carried out in the name of Judaism, rightly or wrongly, or not?

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

Judaism is a religion. Jewishness is an ethnicity/nationality. The government of Israel is quite secular and there are people who are Israeli citizens who are Muslims and Christians and atheists. in fact most of the early Zionists were atheists. They didn't do anything "in the name of Judaism".

When America goes to Iraq they do so in the name of the American people. Not all Americans support their government's policies but their government, their state, still acts in their name. How is that different for Israel, the Jewish State?

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: Coyote ]

Stockholm wrote:

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You are dead wrong about that Jews ARE an ethnicity and a nationality.

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Dead wrong?! That's an appropriate term to a Middle East thread, ain't it.

Far be it from me to tell anyone how they would like to see themselves or view their religious faith as an identity of some other kind, like racial, national, etc. It’s every person’s right to do this.

However, with due respect, from some of what I have read, Jewish history and culture is based primarily on a binding spiritual faith, not on a race or nationality.

The Jewish teachings say they descend from the ancient Israelites in the region of Judea. But history shows, there were many ethnicities and small civilizations in that area—not just one. Yet they all seemed to practice a form of mono-theism with similar beliefs and traditions. That, at least to me, shows a religious commonality—not an ethnic or national one.

That, again, is supported by the fact that members of the Jewish faith exist among just about every ethnicity or nationality.

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If Being Jewish were simply a religious affiliation, then all people in Europe would have had to do during the Holocaust was to convert to another religion and they would have been spared. But it didn't work that way because anti-semites don't give a damn about what rteligion a person subscribes to. they hate people for having Jewish BLOOD. Whether they ever go to a synagogue is irrelevant to them.

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That’s all true in terms of defining how Nazis and anti-Semites see things. It does mean how they see it is accurate—because it’s not. The Reich would happily condemn me as a Catholic anti-patriot even though I’m about as Catholic in practice as the chair you’re sitting in and have about as much respect for the church establishment as I do for the Nazis.

The fact is, as far as religious institutions are concerns (at least that I know of), once person converts from one faith to another, they become part of that new faith and leave their old one behind. That includes Jews. (Of course then there are those who see themselves as “multi-faith” or cross-overs, but that’s another argument).

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There are many people who are atheist who regard themselves as Jewish in terms of their ethnicity. In fact, the Catholic Archbishop of Paris was born Jewish and converted to Catholicism. He still considers himself to be a Jew because that is his nationality.

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Stockholm, this reminds me of a bar fight I walked in on between two anarchist friends who, obviously while drinking copious amounts of booze, were ready to come to blows over which religion they thought was more progressive: Catholicism or Protestantism.

Since I obviously didn’t want them to fight, I tried to remind them that they were both anarchists and sworn atheists, therefore what possible concern could this be to them.

I almost fell over when one of them replied, “A Catholic atheist is different than a Protestant atheist.” I was too floored to ask him exactly what the fuck he meant by that, and to this day I can’t (or don’t really want to) figure it out.

Like I said, people have the right to see themselves any way they like. But, dude, if he’s the Arch Bishop of Paris, chances are his nationality is French, not “Jewish.”

I have met, worked with, lived with, schooled with and read about, and been told about many Jewish people. I have never heard one of them refer to their religion as a nationality or race. None. Zippo. Not any.

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Palestinians do NOT have a national identity that goes back centuries.

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Hey Historian. I hate to bust your bubble, but in about a second and a half worth of Googling, I found a dozen or more references to Palestinian history, including this one that goes back over 2000 years.

The facts about Cuba's military spending as a percentage of its GDP (which is what matters), along with the fact that I never said there are no EU sanctions, just lots of trade despite these, can be found on this thread.

But, as folks know, you can't be a good apologist without being a good liar. Too bad he's obviously too immature to be either.

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But, dude, if he’s the Arch Bishop of Paris, chances are his nationality is French, not “Jewish.”

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I assume he has a French passport and votes in French elections, but if you ask him what his "ethnic background" is - he will not say "I'm French". He'll say I'm Jewish. In much the same way that a Gypsy in Hungary will not consider themself to be Hungarian.

I might add that up until relatively recently Jews also spoke their own language that was distinct from the language of the countries they lived in. If they were in eastern or northern Europe they spoke Yiddish and if they lived in southern Europe or in Arab countries they all spoke Ladino.

Jews also have their own cuisine and recipes that are quite distinct from what others eat.

Please remind me of the unique language and recipes that Presbyterians have that is totally different from Anglicans.

If having your own language, culture and cuisine etc...doesn't make you an "ethnicity" what does?

[ 16 June 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

Yet Jews remained an ethnic and religious group in those countries, and people were perceived as Jewish even if they converted. For instance Karl Marx was baptized as a Lutheran but was still perceived as Jewish. Converting was actually more for assimilation purposes than deciding to believe in the divinity of Jesus.

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I might add that up until relatively recently Jews also spoke their own language that was distinct from the language of the countries they lived in.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you are referring to Yiddish, spoken mostly by German and Slavic Jews in Europe (which I have read they developed in order to communicate under what were always brutally repressive situations of persecution). And there is also the more traditional Hebrew that I understand is used mostly as a ceremonial language.

But the Pentecostals have their "tongues" Language. The Orthodox Catholics use Latin; various Buddhist sects have their specific languages, etc.

But the fact is most Jewish people don't speak wither Yiddish or Hebrew, so that alone isn't enough to make them an ethnicity.

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Jews also have their own cuisine and recipes that are quite distinct from what others eat.

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That's true. They do. But the Muslims have their Halaal diet (which is apparently similar to the kosher dishes and prescriptions). Hindus also have specific dietary requirements, as to many Buddhists, etc.

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If having your own language, culture and cuisine etc...doesn't make you an "ethnicity" what does?

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That fact that you can change your faith and even your nationality; but you can't change your ethnicity or race. You are born in the ethnicity and you are biologically linked to it for your entire life.

Those violent racist/bigot forces that say “a Jew is a Jew regardless” are based on blind insidious hate—not on fact.

How, to get back to the solution part of this thread, even if you still want to see Jewish people as a “race” (which they are not), that still doesn’t provide a reason to refuse to consider the one-state option for both Israelis and Palestinians.

I asked before, and I’ll ask those here on this thread, including those who have made this a key issue in their lives, what is wrong with one secular democratic state (to the extent the state can be democratic –a little Marxist dig there ) that welcomes all on an equal basis with equal rights and opportunities and respect to their religions and cultures?

This is an especially valid question if the whole “right of return” debate doesn’t actually mean people getting their old houses back, but simply gaining equal rights and freedom within an expanded territory.

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That fact that you can change your faith and even your nationality; but you can't change your ethnicity or race. You are born in the ethnicity and you are biologically linked to it for your entire life.

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Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:
Even if that's true in your experience (because it certainly isn't in mine), that still doesn't answer my buring question: what's wrong with the idea of one secular democratic state based on equal rights and opportunities for both Israelis and Palestinians?

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Considering the whole history, the political and secular-religious rivalries going on now, al-Qaeda and their supporters and the potential instigations of neighbouring countries, how could this be achieved?

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In the wake of the Fatah collapse in Gaza, Ha'aretz reported that Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert will advise President Bush that Gaza must be isolated from the West Bank. This can be seen as an attempt to shore up Abbas whose survival Israel sees as essential to maintaining the fiction that it does not directly rule millions of disenfranchised Palestinians. A total collapse of the Palestinian Authority would expose Israel's legal obligation, as the occupying power, to provide for the welfare of the Palestinians it rules.

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