Amergin said:
I have a perspective of extensive tours to the Middle East.
well, perhaps, but you don't have the perspective of a historian, nor (i suspect) are you old enough to comment on the social aspects of the post WWII refugee situation or to do a compare-and-contrast of forced population movements in, say, the last century which might force you to challenge what appear to me to be tremendously lazy generalisations which could be lifted straight from the "palestine solidarity" moron-fest. i have lived in the middle east and my time was not spent on tel aviv beach.
I have the advantage of hearing both sides of the conflict.
what makes you think i don't? i've been involved in interfaith dialogue and world music for nearly 20 years and know a large number of middle-easterners, jews, muslims, israelis, palestinians, arabs, turks, iranians, kurds, you name it.
You Americans have been deprived of hearing the Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim sides of the issue.
and here's lazy assumption #2, that nobody with my views could possibly be british, let alone a lifelong londoner living and working in a city with 20 times as many muslims as jews, that had to endure two terms of ken livingstone, let alone lazy assumption #3:
Your one sided propaganda, from largely pro-Zionist newspapers and TV
these would include the bbc, the guardian, the independent, haaretz, al-jazeera, asharq al-awsat, numerous respected middle-eastern blogs and of course the endless campaigns by tiresome preening actors, and cynical corrupt, dictator-sucking goons like the galloway mob and the rest of the "red-green alliance". i've watched fox news once - and turned it off within two minutes when all my suspicions were confirmed.
barely mention when Israel bombs schools, civilian neighbourhoods, hospitals, and seaports in Gaza. Americans ignore the raids into Palestinian Palestine, the illegal Israeli settlements on traditional Palestinian lands, the bull dozing of Palestinian homes to make room for Jews. You are given only one side of this horrible tragedy.
here in the UK you hear about little else - yet 17,000 people have been killed in syria...where are the marches, amergin? where are the boycotts? where are the calls for sanctions and divestment? where are the demonstrations outside syrian-owned businesses and properties? nobody cares, because everyone knows that Jews Make News. i am in regular contact with dear friends of mine who live in damascus (a palestinian family who do not share your views, although they are 1948 refugees who would be entitled to them, but are too smart to be that stupid) and let me tell you that situation is far more serious than the situation in gaza, which is now largely the result of the willingness of the hamas regime to use its own people as hostages to their unreality.
I favour a One State Solution, in The Jordan Rift Democratic Republic. It can be divided into semi-autonomous states of Israel, Palestine, and Gaza and perhaps Golan.
in the long-term, i agree that a federation will probably be the best solution. in the meantime, for immediate benefits i suggest the ray hanania plan is the most workable and notable for its inclusion of the issue of the jewish refugees from iraq, iran, egypt, syria, lebanon and elsewhere, whose assets were confiscated by the states of which they were citizens, as well as that of the palestinian refugees. i'm sure you'd wish to be properly even-handed.
Its constitution could make it secular with equal rights for Jews, Muslims, Christian, and Non-Theists. Like Lebanon, the President could be Muslim, the Prime Minister Jewish, the Secretary of State Christian, and Secretary of Education and Science to an Atheist (Jewish or Arab.)
seriously, you're giving lebanon as a good example? you must be mad. this is nothing but tribalism writ large; that's not a liberal democracy, it's the eurovision song contest scoring. israel is *already* run like that, by people who are voted for because of who they are, not what they stand for - and look what a mess its political system is in.
But that is fair, and both opposing sides want to destroy the other.
i'm sorry, but that is quite simply untrue. i dare say you objected to "operation cast lead". but the fact is, if you know anything about the military situation you will know that the idf could have levelled the place and killed everyone and everything. instead, less than 1500 casualties - TEN TIMES less than the syrian number which "isn't even a civil war", apparently. are you seriously suggesting that if that had been hamas's army and jews in gaza, the situation would have been the same? "kill the jews" is WRITTEN INTO THEIR CONSTITUTION - and israel WITHDREW from gaza in the first place, supposedly in exchange for a reduction in hostilities - are you suggesting that thousands of rockets fired over what is now an international border should simply be ignored? are you familiar with the work of col richard kemp, by the way? if you have a professional military background, i'd be interested in what you think of his conclusions about the behaviour of the idf.
Mike Mitchell worked hard to bring Catholics and Proddies to the table in Northern Ireland where I once served in the British Army in the Falls Road border separating Catholic and Proddy areas. It was sad. Catholics and Proddies all looked like my cousins. I was also in peace forces sent to enforce the Sinai border region and I was hated by both opponents.
i have family connections in northern ireland and the republic and the highest respect for the professionalism of the british army, but i'm afraid i cannot say the same for many of the un "peace missions", mostly because they clearly don't work. i would be interested in your opinions of the work of gen rupert smith, which is a mordant critique of the effectiveness of multinational peacekeeping, based on his experience of having been in charge in 1992 during srebrenica, as well as the work of the eminent israeli military historian martin van creveld, which i'm sure you've read.
Israelis and Palestinians are both polyglot groups. Neither is pure Semitic, not even the Jews.
neither is remotely "semitic", because "semitic" relates to linguistics, not to ethnicity.
Palestinians and Jews who did not leave with the diaspora are as polyethnic as any on Earth. Put genetics aside. Like America, Israel-Palestine is a vast polyglot country like Austro-Hungarian Empire.
er.... yes, but society is about value systems and each state has an issue with conflicting value systems. you may have heard the remark by the historian bernard lewis about how israeli society is in conflict between the jews of christendom and the jews of islam...
I admire the Jewish people for their superior intelligence and gift of scientific research.
the palestinian diaspora are some of the brightest people there are; tremendous entrepreneurs and many eminent scientists; take them out of the sclerotic and backward middle eastern science base and you realise that when they start returning to the middle east then you will have the basis of a solution, but they won't as long as the beardy nutballs and dictators are in charge. jews do not have superior intelligence, but what we do have is a culture based on lifelong learning and peer-review.
If America were smart, they would encourage Israel to be resettled in New Jersey.
really? so my middle-eastern relatives, who've never set foot in europe (like the ancestors of 50% of israeli jews, remember) would have prayed for a return to new jersey three times daily for 2,000 years? i never realised!
Jersey has rich farmland, and an established Jewish American community. Having been to Palestine and New Jersey, I would pick Jersey in a snap.
you know, the zionists were offered land in uganda and south america at various point. why do you think they didn't go for that? do you really understand so little about jews?
I am Scottish and part Irish with no ethnic affinities the Palestiians and Israelis. If Romney wins, he would approve giving half of New Jersey to form a new Country of Israel. I know that I as a non-Jew and non-Palestinian would rather live in New Jersey.
and because you are a non-jew and a non-palestinian that is why you think that way. if you had the choice of living in new jersey, or returning to a renascent celtic homeland that you had been dreaming of for centuries, i wonder, would you take the money?
America would benefit, and Palestine would still be an ugly dust bowl mixed with lava rocks.
you see, this is what it comes down to. it's what is called "the racism of lower expectation". you think jews are "white" (which my family are not, incidentally) and therefore should be held to the standards of western europe and its vogue for human rights (which is pretty darn recent given the behaviour of western europeans in the last couple of millennia) whereas you think palestinians are not and therefore can't be expected to behave like civilised human beings. it offends you that jews in a survival situation have recourse to the military, not to lawyers, but apparently it doesn't offend you that, for example, in the palestinian authority the sale of land to a jew is carries the death penalty. do you think that the nascent state of palestine when (and not if) it is established should have jewish citizens, let alone with full civil rights? because, i can assure you, that is not a popular position in palestinian politics. so don't you preach to me; i am fully conversant with all the stuff you object to and much of it i object to myself, in my own way, from within my community, which is much more powerful and effective than the "soft racism" of the so-called progressive".
bananabrain