The Consistency of Sharon, Deception as Strategy

[Alex88]

http://www.counterpunch.com/hallinan06232003.html

"One thing to keep in mind about the current push for peace between Israelis and Palestinians is that Ariel Sharon is one of the most consistent political figures in the Middle East, and he keeps his word. It is a deeply chilling observation."

"Back in the early 1970s, when Sharon engineered the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, he was always clear that they were permanent, and that their primary function was military. "They guard both the birthright of the Jewish people," he told the newspaper Ha'aretz, "and also grant us essential strategic depth to protect our existence." For all his talk about "painful concessions" in the present "road map," those priorities have never altered a whit."

"In the uproar created over his use of the word "occupation" to describe Israeli presence in the Territories, most people missed the fine print. Sharon did indeed use the word, but quietly told his supporters that the "occupation" referred to the Palestinians in "those cities," not the land."

"Sharon has always been clear that a Palestinian "state" would consist of less than half the land on the West Bank and the settlements would remain. Some small outposts may be removed, but huge sprawling settlements like Ariel and Shiloh will remain. The "state" will not include the Jordan Valley, and Israel will control its borders and airspace (which is why Sharon refuses to use the word "sovereign")."

[Darranar]

1. There are many reasons for the Palestinian impoverishement...

aside from the Israeli "occupation." (Yes, I put it in quotation marks.) There is that little fact that the PA is composed of many crooks who put a considerable portion of all that foreign aid into their pockets. They blame the Palestinian poverty on Israel, and fuel hatred with their own actions that harm their people.

[jos]

2. The real Sharon

is the same Sharon that's been around for decades. He has no intention of ending the occupation, which I won't put in quotes, and no intention of agreeing to a truly independent and viable state.

Great column. Thanks.

[Darranar]

3. If you were wondering...

I put "occupation" in quotation marks because no nation, or two nations depending on how you look at it, has a legitimate claim to the land. "Disputed territory" is a better word, but I think that arguing over such terms is a pointless waste of time and energy.

[jos]

4. Okay

If you want to call the land west of the west bank and north of gaza disputed as well, I'll agree to your characterization. And I would ask the Palestinians in the west bank and gaza whether they feel that they are "occupied" or "disputed."

[Darranar]

5. It is NOT disputed...

only one nation has a legitimate claim to that territory. What other country does, besides Israel?

[jos]

6. Fair enough

Then there is no dispute that the west bank and gaza belong to the Palestinians under the 1947 partition.

[Darranar]

7. The Palestinian state...

does not exist, and it never has. The 1947 partition was shockingly unfair to the Israelis, at least as unfair as the terms given to the palestinians by Barak.

[jos]

8. Unfair to the Israelis!?

Sure, there was a Palestinian nation (didn't the Zionists want a "Jewish homeland in Palestine"), more than half of which was given to Israel, but the partition was unfair to Israel.:crazy:

[Darranar]

9. There was no Palestinian nation...

and for someone who argues for the Palestinians, you should know that the amount of land doesn't matter much if it is infertile. The Israeli state got some of the coastline and a large amount of the Negev desert. The fertile land, where many of the Jewish holy sites were located, was given to the Arabs, excpet for a few locations taht were isolated. Jerusalem itself was aupposed to be under international control, but we all know what happened to that.

[jos]

10. No Palestine?

Then why were the Zionists calling for a homeland in Palestine? Why was the land in question called Palestine? So a majority of the Zionists come from Europe seeking a state in Palestine, and then turn around and tell the people who had been living there for generations that the entity they were living in never existed. Boy, that definitely takes a lot of chutzpah!

[Darranar]

11. I said...

that there was no PALESTINIAN STATE. There is a difference. Palestine was the name the Romans gave the area when the conquered it from the Jews. It has never been independent under that name.

[GabysPoppy]

12. It is hard for people to understand

That for the longest time the people who call themselves Palestinians today were originally Jordanians who were treated like dirt by the Jordanian government.

[ex_jew]

13. But do I care ?

How they were treated by the Jordanian government is their problem. Starving them, shooting them, taking away their land etc. is not the answer. There's a giant cost, both in dollars, lives and intellectual honesty, in following the course we've taken in the Middle East. All for the sake of what ? So that Hitler's crimes can cause hatred and bloodshed for eternity, turning 1 billion Muslims against us etc. Maybe YOU have trouble understanding that Israel was created by highly error-prone humans at a very, very difficult point in history. While it may have seemed like a good idea at that time, I'm not so sure.

[GabysPoppy]

15. Someone pointed out in another thread

"I never saw anyone here say Israel shouldn't exist"

Thanks for pointing out that s/he was wrong.

[The Magistrate]

16. No One Who Defends Israel, Sir

Has any difficulty with idea it was the least unpalatable of several poor alternatives. That condition, however, has not changed at all over the subsequent decades: it remains the case, clearly, in the present day.

[jos]

18. Really?

Who is safer, a Jew in Israel or a Jew in North America?

[The Magistrate]

19. Hard To Say, Sir

Per capita rates of murder in the United States do not compare very favorably with per capita rates for violent death in Israel. Even over the last three years of violence, a death rate of approximately 250 a year among Israelis remains supportable; it is far less than has typically marked countries at war in the last century. It must be balanced, also, against the primary impetus of the founding of Israel: that there be a state wherein state persecution of Jews is an impossibility. That, given the history of the matter, is a thing of incalculable benefit to Jews: deaths incurred in its maintainance take on the aspect of an insurance premium paid. You might begrudge the cost of insuring your automobile or your home or your health, and even wish for lower premiums, but if you had ever had a catastrophic wreck, or severe illness, or been burnt out of your home, would you be eager to cancel your current policies?

[jos]

21. Interesting analogy

Israel as an insurance policy.

Assuming that the creation of a Jewish was the correction solution, why shouldn't the state have been in Europe. After all, European anti-semistism in general, and the Holocaust in particular, were the "impetus" for the Zionist movement. Why shouldn't those who created the problem have been made to pay as part of its solution?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

22. "Why shouldn't those who created the problem...

have been made to pay as part of its solution?"...

They ALL should...

[The Magistrate]

23. An Interesting Suggestion, Sir

Given the history of the Nazis, Bavaria might have been a suitable locale. It was not considered, of course, and is not really a practical proposal. The fact was that at the end of the Second World War, a Jewish state authority in embryo existed in Mandatory Palestine, in the form of the Yushiv, which had long carried out many essential state functions on its own behalf, and in some degree as an agent of the English in administering Jewish affairs there. Further, a great proportion of the surviving Jews in Europe, many barred from returning to their homes by local hatred, and confined in displaced perons camps, wanted to go to Palestine, and were determined to get there. Choices must be made among the available alternatives; everything in life is contingent.

[Violet_Crumble]

40. Really?

Further, a great proportion of the surviving Jews in Europe, many barred from returning to their homes by local hatred, and confined in displaced perons camps, wanted to go to Palestine, and were determined to get there.

Wouldn't it be more correct to say they wanted to go anywhere and that they weren't Zionists by any stretch of the imagination. Would they really have chosen Palestine over the US? My understanding is that they weren't given that choice. Also, I'm guessing that the displaced persons camps you mention were in Western Europe? In that case didn't the Allies as the occupying power have some responsibility at the time to do something about the appalling conditions these survivors were in? Eastern Europe's completely different, but were Jewish survivors in Eastern Europe given any opportunity to leave at all?

Cheers...

Violet...

[Darranar]

41. Yes...

Jewish survivors from both Eastern and Western Europe were placed in dsiplaced persons camps, and Jews from both sides of Europe immigrated to Israel.

Many survivors were very Zionist, mainly because they had seen such horror in the places that they had come to think of as home that they no longer felt safe within a non-Jewish state. And yes, they would have chosen Palestine over the US, for the reasons given above; though it is true that many never had that option.

[The Magistrate]

42. A Number Were Zionists, Ma'am

At least by then. The Zionists certainly propagandized in the camps, but as with most successful propagandas, real headway can be made only when there is some pre-existing disposition toward the desired result in those hearing the propaganda. The idea of a Jewish homeland was very powerfully attractive to survivors. The Soviets, remember, were at this time more supportive of the Zionist enterprise than not, viewing it as a means to destabilizing England's hold on the Near East; also, the full rigor of Iron Curtain occupation was not yet in place. Smuggling people out of east Europe in the chaos was a feasible operation. The Allies in western Europe maintained the camps, and felt that was the fulfillment of their obligations: many persons besides Jews were so housed at the time. These were not places people starved or died of epidemic disease or jailor's brutality, after all. It is likely more would have wanted to reach the United States than were allowed in, certainly.

But by far the largest proportion of European Jews came to Israel after the '48 war, almost a quarter million from Poland and Rumania alone. Numbers even came from the United States to Israel.

[Violet_Crumble]

47. I'd agree that some became Zionists...

I wasn't aware that Zionists had been spreading propaganda through the camps. I did know that in the US during the war that the Zionists did have an attitude that they supported European Jews being evacuated to Palestine and not the US, and this played a part in the restrictions the US placed on Jewish immigration to the US. I've always assumed, correctly I hope, that the US Zionists weren't aware at the time that the Holocaust taking place. I think their attitude, along with that of the Allies, were of political self-interest over-riding concern for the European Jews...

I wasn't sure how many people were housed in displaced persons camps after the war. I know the war resulted in the hugest displacement of people ever, and that between 8 to 10 million displaced persons were in Europe at the end of the war, though lots of them would have been just wandering around and not in any camps. I don't know how many in the camps would have been Gypsies, who were the other ethnic group who were victims of the Nazi genocide, and as far as I know were never given the chance to go anywhere, even though I don't understand why their trauma is considered by some to be any less than that of European Jews....

I think yr explanation makes much more sense than the one I just saw from Darranar, which doesn't take into account the manipulation of people, and assumes that anyone who's been a victim of systematic brutality and genocide automatically wishes to set up a state for their own group. I think it more likely that a lot of people took the only choices that were open to them at the time, and doubt that many had the choice between the US and Palestine....

Cheers...

Violet...

[The Magistrate]

50. The Numbers In The Displaced Persons Camps, Ma'am

Is not known to me. They would have included a fair number of German refugees from the east, as well as many Russians and Ukrainians, who had been used as slave labor in Germany, along with many Poles.

The role of Zionists, whether in Mandatory Palestine or the U.S., in influencing U.S. restrictions on Jewish entry at this time, seems to me to have been negligible. Exclusion, or at least drastic restriction, of Jewish emmigration, and east European immigration in general, was a long crusade in U.S. politics, beginning in earnest about the time of the Great War, and resulted in a rewriting of immigration law in 1924. Zionist statements that Jews would rather be in Palestine than anywhere else might have given some figures an excuse to feel a little better about what they meant to continue doing in any case, but no more.

[Darranar]

51. I agree with The Magistrate...

I was going to comment on this, but he beat me to it.
There was a strong anti-immigration movement in the 1920s and 1930s, and many anti-immigrationists made their way into the State Department. This was a major cause of the refusal of the US government to allow Jewish and other refugees in. The situation was worsened, or perhaps simply not dampened, by FDR's inaction until too late; he was more concerned with the situation militarily then humanely.
Zionism had very little to do with it; it was mostly bigotry.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

44. no, it would not be more correct to say that they wanted to go anywhere...

they wanted to go back to their homes only to realize there was nobody else there they once knew...

they wanted to go where they had some emotional connection...

they wanted to go where they were wanted...

they wanted to go to where they had ties to family...

they did not want to go just anyoldwhere (would you?)...

and yes Palestine was sometimes chosen over the US for exactly the reasons cited above...

[Violet_Crumble]

49. There was a reason why I asked The Magistrate that question...

Because when he gave an answer, he didn't decide to become the voice of all European Jewry and he actually based his answer on historical facts, not some belief that placing oneself in that situation means that they all must have thought the exact same thing as you think sitting here in 2003...

Violet...

[tinnypriv]

52. Have you got Fateful Triangle?

If I recall there is some discussion of this issue in there.

[Violet_Crumble]

55. I have...

I've never gotten all the way through it, though, because it's pretty heavy going. I might curl up on the lounge with it after lunch and try to fend off the flu by trying to get into it again...

Cheers...

Violet...

[tinnypriv]

56. I found it

To save you some time. p92. :)

[Violet_Crumble]

57. Thanks. I'll check it out...

[cantwealljustgetalong]

53. there was a reason I answered you...

the answer to your question was not one that had to be limited to the historically endowed wisdom of the Magistrate, but, rather easily lent itself to a common sense understanding of human nature as well as my first hand knowledge with European Jewry...

and there was no presumption on my part of speaking for all of European Jewry...perhaps you are projecting here, as it seems that you were indicating that they would want to go "anywhere" with no reference to speaking for only some...

[Violet_Crumble]

54. Not projecting at all...

While you made statements telling me what you thought the mindset of all European Jews were, hence my guess that you think you have some right to say what they were all thinking, I asked a question of the Magistrate that wasn't a statement. That little ? at the end should have tipped you off...

No offence or anything, but I'm doubtful as to any claims on yr part that you have any great understanding of human nature, and unless you were present in the displaced persons camps and actually interviewed the survivors, yr 'first hand' experience doesn't count for anything. I'll take what the Magistrate said in reply over yrs anyday...

Violet...

[Name removed]

58. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tinoire]

64. Because then you would have been displacing white people

White people with the means to defend themselves... Israel was placed right where it is because of the West's insatiable blood-lust for oil and desire to destabilize the entire region by establishing an out-post state there as if there were nobody already occupying the land.

[GabysPoppy]

65. I have heard theories before But this desrves a special cake

I guess it means that Moses and his band of marauders were just staking out the area for these insatiable westerners.

And continuing along this theory King David and his son Soloman were the original Corleones just like the Don and his son Michael. It stands to reason then that King David ommitted the first terrorist act against Goliath a peaceful, loving member of Hamas.

And then these insatiable Westerners selected volunteers among the survivors of the camps, the ones with numbers tattoed on their arms to fight and defend this outpost. Just to guarantee victory those same insatiable westerners scoured the hills of Brooklyn to recruit those deadly Jews armed with Tallis and Tefillan and sent them into battle.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

20. "who is safer?''...

the existence of both increases the safety of either...
the non-existence of either, decreases the safety of the other...

[bemildred]

17. An interesting point of view.

I'm not sure it is the case that it was not a good idea.

These peoples have lived together there for a long time, and
for much of that time it would seem that they got along as well,
or as poorly if you prefer, as any of the many other ethnicities
and religions that have coexisted there. This would not be the
first time that one people has moved in somewhere and another
been displaced.

I think the problem was in the implementation. Had the Israelis,
especially had the government, been assiduous in dealing with the
just claims of the indigenous residents, not necessarily letting
them keep the land, but making every other effort to make them
whole, one would expect that after several generations now there
would be acceptance of the new situation. It was the sweeping of
these people into camps and ghettos and the leaving of them there
without redress or compensation that created and has perpetuated the
current situation.

It seems to me unlikely that the future of Israel will ever be secure
until that failure is remedied.

[Gimel]

24. I agree

Actually, it is a great sorrow, as well as a pity, and nothing could be done about it for several reasons. First, Israel had few resources to solve it's own problems, let alone that of the Arabs in refugee camps. Providing employment for them inside of Israel was one way to help ease the poverty.

The terrorists also existed and terrorism has been a problem since the end of the 1948 founding of the State. Security was therefore always an issue, which tended to keep the Arab populations in the camps, rather than free them.

[bemildred]

45. I think it could have been handled a good deal better

than it was, and the result has been bad for all concerned.
Plenty of money has been found for other things. There will always
be terrorism, we have it here in the USA, its hardly an Islamic
invention, the question is how do you handle it, do you take steps to minimize
it, or do you try to wish and pretend it away, are you
realistic and tough minded or do you run around whining about how
unfair and evil it all is and pretend none of it is a result of
things done wrongly in the past that need correction?

[Darranar]

37. You don't care?

So why do you only care when Israel mistreats Palestinians, and not when Arabs mistreat Palestinians?

[Violet_Crumble]

14. The longest time?

Like all of a few years? There was no such thing as Jordan and Jordanians until the British created it, if we're talking about modern nation-states, which is what I'm guessing when it's mentioned in this thread that there never was a Palestine or Palestinians. Not that I think any of it's relevant to anything. Palestine hasn't and still doesn't exist as a nation-state, but neither did East Timor until very recently....


Violet...

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[The Magistrate]

26. That Is A Mere Colonial District, Sir

Not a state. Worse, the Arab Nationalist political leadership in the Mandatory period rejected invitation by the English authorities to participate in its administration; this proved extremely foolish.

[jos]

27. Really irrelevant

whether it was an independent state or not. The point is that there was an entity called Palestine encompassing the land now known as Israel and the west bank.

[Gimel]

28. Perhaps

the old Roman maps have Israel in that location.

[jos]

30. True

But I am sure that old maps of North America have Sioux and Cherokee designations on what now sits Canada and the US. At what point does, as the term is used in the law, adverse possession kick in, allowing those who came later, or remained, to claim the land? I'm not saying that Jews have no right to live in the land in question. They do. And to my mind the right to live anywhere in that land. But it doesn't necessarily follow that they have the right to claim part, or all of, the land for a state for themselves.

[Gimel]

32. How has it escaped you?

The UN granted the right for statehood to the Jewish population in Palestine. It wasn't self-proclaimed. It was on the British agenda that the land of Palestine would become a Jewish state (Balfour Declaration). It was also adapted by the League of Nations as a goal, and one of the first resolutions of the UN after it's founding. Israel has a firm basis in international law.

[jos]

34. Well aware

I am well aware of the history. What I am arguing is whether it was right to have been done, and whether it is right that it should continue.

[The Magistrate]

29. What Is Irrelvant, Sir, Is The Name Of The District

A name does not a nation make, anymore than a map constitutes a stretch of countryside. A nation is an entity comprised of ethnicity and culture and social practices attached to a particular geography: a state is the political organization of same along lines not dominated by kinship. The Arabs of Palestine certainly constitute a nationality, in my view: in this region it has always been possible to distinguish the dwellers on the coast and in the river valley from those of the desert interior: their modes of life and ways of getting a living are distinct, their leading families were seperate, and so therefore their local political alliegences were distinct. The modern idea of Nationalism came late to this region, but not much later than to Eastern Europe, and it is true that its initial impact was for a Pan-Arab Nation free from the Turk. Local distinctions soon enough cropped up, however, and the Pan-Arab ideal has not to date borne any lasting political fruit.

The difficulty is that the leading Arab Nationalists of Palestine early in the 20th century proved themselves fecklessly incompetent in pursuing establishment of a state for the people they led. They built no institutions seperate from allegience to a leading clan. In '48, they staked all on a double-or-nothing throw of the dice of violence in response to the U.N. partition, rather than to declare the state they were offered, and begin to work on from there. As matters came to pass, they lost that gamble, and to this day their people suffer the consequences of this, and many other misjudgements made by their leadership.

[jos]

31. Valid points

An outsider observer can certainly conclude that it would have been better off for both sides, and the world, had the Palestinians accepted the partition. But if you put yourself in their shoes, if they felt that they were losing more than half of what they considered to be their land, why should they accept such an arrangement. They may have been foolhearty, but they acted out of principle.

[The Magistrate]

33. To My View, Sir

Acting out of principle is a detestable vice, made heinous when the doing is foolhardy to boot. More harm has been by men of principle in this world than any honest rogue could dream of wreaking for mere gain.

This is, of course, more an expression of personal temperament than anything else, but you will find it an accurate predictor of my views in many matters.

[Noon_Blue_Apples]

59. What a tangled web we weave

"Acting out of principle is a detestable vice, made heinous when the doing is foolhardy to boot. More harm has been by men of principle in this world than any honest rogue could dream of wreaking for mere gain."

Some time should be spent defining terms as this has infinite meaning or none at all. Your choice.

Statements such as - Israel will remain a Jewish state for Jews no matter what; and a one state solution is a nonstarter - wreaks of what you claim to detest.

Is this not acting out of principle?

"More harm has been (done)by men of principle in this world than any honest rogue could dream of wreaking for mere gain"

Nelson, Martin, Ghandi, you destible, henious fools.

Go figure.

Bill

[The Magistrate]

60. Well, Sir

The determination of Jews there be a state wherein state persecution of Jews is a practical impossibility seems to my view not a principle, but a pragmatic reaction to the facts of history in the matter: without that history, my view in the question would be somewhat different.

Lenin, Sir, was a man of principle; so was Hitler, so was Mao Tse-tung, and Torquemada: so are the wretches who drive policy in the International Monetary Fund. So is every parent sunk in religiousity who drives from home a young pregnant daughter. Principle is not a mere synonym for good or agreeable; it is an ideal, and to impose such on the world leads to harm more often than not, as the world is far from an ideal place.

Perhaps the last word on the subject is best left to old Speaker Sam Rayburn: "I am a man of principles, and chief among them is flexibility."

[Noon_Blue_Apples]

61. No, you only contradict yourself

You are in search of a Jewish 'ideal' are you not?

The search for 'practical impossibilities'

"it is an ideal, and to impose such on the world leads to harm more often than not, as the world is far from an ideal place."

"I am a man of principles, and chief among them is flexibility." - yes you seem quite flexible regarding the nature of an Israeli state - 'non-starter' was it?

To dismiss King and Ghandi and bring out Hitler and Tung gives no credence to your view.

A blanket statement that principled people are heinous is ridiculous on its face.

Bill

[The Magistrate]

62. Wear It In Good Health, Sir

By the way, the oriental fashion is to place family name first; in occidental fashion it would be Tse-tung Mao.

[Noon_Blue_Apples]

63. Your surrender is duly noted

enjoy the bliss

[Aidoneus]

35. What occurs to me as foolish,

is that the British felt themselves entitled to give away all or any part of it in the first place.

[The Magistrate]

36. Perhaps, My Friend

But they had it just the same; stole it rather fair and square, as the saying goes, with the whole League of Nations stamping the title deed.

[tinnypriv]

38. No, I wasn't wondering - facts and sources herein

I know full well why you put it in quotation marks - you've read an "occupation or disputed?" talking point on some moronic "Pro-Israel" website.

For the actual FACTS, try taking a look at three sources. For your ease of use I picked a RW Israeli, a centerist Israeli (widely recognised as the foremost expert on Palestinian nationalism), and an Israeli academic research department at the University of Haifa:

-------

Quote: "Eshkol's plan (after the 67 war) was a (potentially independent) Palestinian regime in the West Bank" (Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War, chpt 11, p.316, citing Israeli Foreign Ministry Files, box 4078/5)

Quote: "In my opinion, the concept of autonomy lead to a Palestinian State. If we say autonomy, this is an invitation to an independent Palestinian State" (Menachem Begin, quoted from close session discussions of the Israeli Cabinet on June 19, 1967 - Levi Eshkol Research Section, University of Haifa)

Quote: "Since the middle of the 1960s (and particularly after 1967) the distinctively Palestinian component became relatively stronger among the factors that shape the identity of the Palestinian Arabs" (Yehoshua Porath, New York Review of Books, January 16, 1986)

-------

There is no "dispute", and furthermore there never was any dispute. When Israel occupied the territories it knew full well that withdrawal would lead to a Palestinian state. It wouldn't (and won't) withdraw and therefore it occupies the Palestinians, who are an indigenous people, entitled to self-determination.

Israel is preventing that self-determination, with a military occupation.

Now, that is all Israeli sources. How about the UN? Well, lets see:

-------

Quote: "In accordance with a number of resolutions adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council and by the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, which reflect the view of the international community, the ICRC has always affirmed the de jure applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the territories occupied since 1967 by the State of Israel, including East Jerusalem. This Convention, ratified by Israel in 1951, remains fully applicable and relevant in the current context of violence. As an Occupying Power, Israel is also bound by other customary rules relating to occupation, expressed in the Regulations annexed to the Hague Convention respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land of 18 October 1907" ('Statement by the International Committee of the Red Cross', ICRC press release, 5 December 2001)

Quote: "The participating High Contracting Parties reaffirmed the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the Occupied Palestinian Territory" ('Declaration of the High Contracting Parties to fourth Geneva Convention', UN press release, 5 December 2001)

Quote: "Israel is a party to the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, which is applicable to Palestinian and all Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including East Jerusalem" ('Israeli settlements in the occupied Arab territories', UN Commission on Human Rights resolution 2002/7, 12 April 2002, adopted by 52 votes to 1)

--------

End of debate.

One thing I do agree with you on - discussing this nonsense is a waste of time. At least now you can just bookmark this.

[Darranar]

39. Had the Israelis withdrew...

the Jordanians would have taken over, at least in the 1960s. the concept of a Palestinian state was ignored after 1948 until the Israelis took over the land.

[tinnypriv]

43. Sigh, yet another strawman

What difference does that make to the idiotic claim (which you've recycled) that the Occupied Territories are now "disputed", were not occupied then and are not occupied today?

Answer: zero.

I suggest reading the sources given (they were picked for a reason), rather than Palestinefacts.org. Most are online, some aren't. For the ones that aren't, if you have a specific request I can send it to you (since you seem genuinely interested in finding out about the topic). I'm sure others could do the same.

[Darranar]

46. Since when...

Am I supposed to believe everything you show me? If I did, I'd be crazy by now. I am not saying that those quotes weren't made, I am saying that the people who said them were wrong in saying them; all of them were, including Menachem Begin.

Anyway, I already stated that I do not want to argue the point of "occupation" and "disputed territories" with anyone beyond simply stating my opinion, since I believe that there is no purpose to pointless, long-winding arguments over a few terms that should be clear enough. that is why i ignored the larger part of your post.

[tinnypriv]

48. 2pts

1) LOL, that's a good attitude. Don't believe anything until you've checked it out yourself.

2) The rest is so off the scale of irrationality that it isn't worthy of a response.