0 Responses to “This Is An Extremely Friendly, Positive Debate…”

1. Yisrael Medad says:

   January 12, 2009 at 4:09 pm

   Just to be a stickler, the (in)famous Khartoum Conference “Three Noes” resolution was adopted on September 1, 1967 and the land offer was first made to the US by Abba Eban after a cabinet meeting on June 19th.

   And the question that should be asked, after noting the PLO establsihment in 1964 is: so, what “Palestine” were they intent upon liberating? Could it have been all of Israel?
2. FredJHarris says:

   January 12, 2009 at 4:12 pm

   The Economist flushed it’s fine reputation down the toilet some time ago.
   It now has the Jewish bone firmly in it’s antisemetic mouth and won’t let go.
   As my conservative friends like to put it, “the Jooooo’s did it”.
3. soccer dad says:

   January 12, 2009 at 6:49 pm

   One of the results of Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai was that some of those living there made their new homes in Gaza. Thus one of the Israeli communities in Gaza was Elei Sinai. So the Jews of Gaza were always portrayed as obstacles to peace, when, in fact, a number of them sacrificed for peace.
4. Halim says:

   January 13, 2009 at 11:05 am

   Palestine belongs to Palestinians whatever UN would haved wrongly decided in 1947.
   It is time for the West to correct this enormeous error which creates continuously wars in Middle East.
   Furthermore, recently historians have shown that they were never any israelites in Palestine but in Ethipia, thus israelis have no claim to the land.
   It is time for the Israelis to return to Europe and Russia and let the Palestinians (Jews, Muslims and Christians) leave in Peace.
   History has shown us that all occupations eventualy fail, the only difference is how long they take.
5. Rahman says:

   January 13, 2009 at 11:40 am

   The thing that is illegal in the first place (occupation), cannot be legal as time has passed. Jewish occupation cannot be tolerated in the holy land.
6. Charles says:

   January 14, 2009 at 12:28 am

   “Occupation?” Every country was occupied by some other ethnic/national group in its history. The Arabs especially should be careful about this… what the Hell is all of North Africa but the result of Arab conquest and “occupation?” Want to back to square one? Then all the ARabs return to Arabia where they came from. No?
7. Yuval Brandstetter MD says:

   January 14, 2009 at 12:04 pm

   Palestine should indeed revert to the Palestinians. My father is a Palestinian, he has a Palestinain ID. So does my mother. So do my inlaws. They are all Jewish. Jews are the only true Palestinians whereas Arabs are invaders tp Palestine, attracted by the opportunities offered by Palestinian Jews, such as my late grandfather.
   In the merry days of the british mandate, the only producer of palestinian ID’s ever (the Turks never did) Arabs rejected the very idea of a Palestinian ID because Palestinian meant Jews.
8. Yehuda says:

   January 15, 2009 at 5:06 am

   To Halim, #4: The Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel, otherwise known as the Jews.
   Israel exists not because of the UN, but because it is our inalienable right, because the pioneers and the defenders repelled Arab aggression and because it is recognised by most nation-ststes.
   The Jews do not need your approval to exercise self-determination and sovereignty in their own land.
   The Arabs’ attempts to deprive us of our rights have brought only misery to them.
9. Andi says:

   January 15, 2009 at 7:39 am

   To Halim No. 4: Please review your history (and archeology). From about the time of Moses, c. 1300 BC, and up to today, Jews have lived in what is now Israel.
   Background: Over 1300 years after Moses, when Rome conquered Jerusalem in 70 AD, Jerusalem was the capital of the country named JUDEA. People from Judea who were captured and enslaved by the Romans, and brought to Rome, were called JEWS, i.e. people from JUDEA. Nearly all of the Jews alive today descend from those Jews from Judea.
   To finalize their conquest of Judea, the Romans erased the country name Judea from maps, and renamed the area: Palestine. Many Jews still lived in the newly named Palestine, from then until today. Their numbers diminished, however, especially after the Arab Muslim conquest of Palestine in about 700 AD, and during additional Muslim (and Christian) conquests over the years, including the Ottoman Turk Muslim conquest of about 1600 AD.
   From 1492 and onwards Jews began to return to their original homeland, Judea cum Palestine. During the 1800s the idea of a newly sovereign Jewish country gained traction among the Jews, to be located in the part of the Ottoman empire that was Judea. In this country would live both Jews and non-Jews, i.e. the Muslim and Christian populations that lived here in Ottoman times. In 1900, how many Muslims and Christians were there in Palestine?
10. Alex Bensky says:

    January 18, 2009 at 8:20 am

    There’s really no point in arguing with people like Halim. People like him are a variant of conspiracy theorists who cannot possibly be persuaded about anything because whatever you bring up is just more evidence of the overarching conspiracy. The only thing interesting about his post is the reminder, if we need one, that the people who are denying that the other side has any rights to the area are the Arabs. It used to be that we were the descendents of the Khazars; now it’s the Ethiopians. Next year we’ll all be crypto-Armenians.

    I subscribe to The Economist but I usually just leaf past its pages on the Middle East. A few months ago it pooh-poohed Israel’s concerns about an Iranian bomb because even if the Iranians got atomic bombs they “probably” wouldn’t use it on Israel. I imagine that brought a sigh of relief to every Israeli. The Economist isn’t leftist in orientation so its anti-Israel stance can’t be founded on the narrative of neo-colonialist Israel, etc. There’s another explanation and I hope it isn’t the right one.

    Meanwhile, Christopher Hitchens wrote an almost pro-Israel article not long ago saying that Gaza could have been the model for the Palestinian state. I demur; the distressing thing is that Gaza *is* the model for the Palestinian state.
11. jaywhite says:

    January 19, 2009 at 7:09 am

    The British ,especially it’s media , are showing their true anti-semitism as time goes on. As Britain becomes less important, they are becoming more obsessed and hostile to Israel. Could it be jealousy? After all, the British must be upset at their growing impotence. They see the Jewish people, whom they have abused and expelled several times from their precious land, now much powerful militarily . Last year, Israel a nation of 6 million overtook the UK as the 4th leading exporter of military weapons in the world. In non-military areas, Israel has one of the most dynamic innovative economies in the world. As Israel’s economy expands, Britain becomes less economically powerful. Their cities are overrun with non Western immigrants who gaining power daily. Even their great obsession, soccer, is now a source of embarassment. The powerful team Arsenal plays in “Emirates” stadium and is famous for having few if any English players. So like a chlld throwing a tantrum and threatening to hold it’s breath, the Brits are threatening Israel with an export boycott of all British military items. Israel imports $25 million worth of British military exports among total imports of several billion dollars. It is the British who are much more dependent on Israeli weaponry.
12. Linda says:

    January 20, 2009 at 2:04 pm

    To Rahman,

    If there is any holiness in the land you refer to, that has been given by Jews only! Your meaning ofpretention “occupation” sounds very familiar to me in the part of Europe I’m from! It’s exactly like the claims of Serbs that the ethnic Albanians that have been there for thousands years, have to leave Kosova to the Serbs.

    The lastcomers have to be agressive in order to invent a historical identity they don’t have and which would provide grounds to their territorial claims.

    Sorry. but Arabs have appeared in the holy land at least one thousand years after the Jews. You better learn to live in peace! Live and let live!
13. ALEJCARO says:

    January 20, 2009 at 8:10 pm

    Does it really matter if the Jews were in Palestine since 1300 BC and the Arabs since 700 AD?
    If the Arabs have lived there since 700AD, it means they’ve been there for 1310 years, up to the present. Not a short time. Both parties have been in Palestine for a long time!!. Therefore, the argument of who was there first or last is ridiculous.

    The perception is that the overwhelming amount of Jews in Israel/Palestine are not native, but immigrants from Europe and Russia, or are descended from those immigrants, and therefore do not have the same legitimacy to the land as those that have lived continuously there for hundreds and hundreds of years. This, no doubt, will generate responses, but the perception is there, whether you like it or not.

    The article in the Economist has it right, these are two people that claim the same spot of land. Unless each recognizes the legitimate rights of the other, there will be never be peace.

    One thing is sure, religious zealots like Hamas, who do violence for religious reasons, have no interest in mutual recognition. Therefore, Hamas must be destroyed.