skinster, I read your post with interest. While I understand your enthusiasm for the plight of Palestinian Arabs and I do share some of it, still, - your understanding of their predicament is badly flawed. You are making things up and revising history as you go to suit your narrow-minded narrative. Permit me to point a few things out to you…
skinster wrote:Israel is the oppressive force in this situation; an apartheid settler-colony state, an occupying force and a prison, imprisoning 2 million people in Gaza, 1 million are children.
While I do agree that Israel is an oppressive force, - unlike you, I am willing to live with it. Yes, I am ok with Israel keeping Palestinian Arabs of Gaza locked up in a blockade, because I know that the alternative is much worst. It is very easy for you to point a finger and accuse Israel of imprisoning 1.7 million Palestinian Arabs in Gaza, - it is easy for you because you refuse to ponder what would happen if Israel suddenly let them be free.
Allow me to remind you that Palestinian Arabs in Gaza were free to do as they please back in 2005 when Israel under Ariel Sharon pulled all of its people from the settlement in Gaza. All Jews left, none remain! Gaza’s Arabs were free to do as they please. Question, - what did they do, after they destroyed the Jewish settlement infrastructure, - the farms, the green houses, - everything, - what do they do? They put Hamas in power, killed of 300 of Fatah people by throwing them from the rooftops of high-rises and by 2007 went to an all-out war against Israel, - the war in a form of terrorism and mortar and rocket fire daily. 10,000 projectiles in 2 years were lunched at Israeli communities. Why? Well, - why not, right?
So, - Israel locked the Palestinian Arabs of Gaza up in a jail with a provision that when they wise up, the blockade will end. Simple as that.
To wit, - you have no case to complain here. You cannot accuse Israel of blockading Gaza, while turning a blind eye on attacks by Hamas on the Jews. According to your logic, - its ok for Palestinian Arabs to fire at the Jews, but it is not ok for the Jews to defend themselves. I hope you see a problem with your reasoning.
Coming back to the alternative I mentioned earlier. Do understand that the alternative is war. It has already happened 3 times. It may happen again with by far more catastrophic consequences. So, - blockade is a better choice, all things considered.
skinster wrote:There are no two equal sides here, there is the fascist government and the imprisoned, occupied that live under its boot, and diaspora refugees.
I disagree. Government of Israel is not fascist by definition. It is an elected parliamentary democracy with separated and independent judiciary. It is just like any other western democratic country. Anybody with a passport or a residency permit has broad civil rights. This is not fascism. Arabs constitute 1.8 million Israeli citizens. They have the same rights as anyone else. They are represented in all spheres of Israeli life, even the Army. Perhaps further reading on fascism will benefit you, - look up Italy under Mussolini, Spain under Franco and off course Germany under Hitler. Their is no comparing that can be drawn on any reasonable grounds between Israel and any fascist regime if the history of the planet.
You are correct however that the ‘two sides’ are not equal. They cannot be equal and so they are not. It is also a stretch for you to imply that Israel is occupying any land. Most Israelis will disagree with you and so would I. I’ll come back to that point…
skinster wrote:There was no attempts to make deals with the Palestinians, that was a facade in order to steal more of the land than the 55% the minority of Jews were offered in the Balfour Agreement.
Wow! Let us not make up history here. The Palestinians have actually had numerous opportunities to create an independent state, but have repeatedly rejected the offers:
In 1937, the Peel Commission proposed the partition of Palestine and the creation of an Arab state.
In 1939, the British White Paper proposed the creation of a unitary Arab state.
In 1947, the UN would have created an even larger Arab state as part of its partition plan.
The 1979 Egypt-Israel peace negotiations offered the Palestinians autonomy, which would almost certainly have led to full independence.
The Oslo agreements of the 1990s laid out a path for Palestinian independence, but the process was derailed by terrorism.
In 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to create a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 97 percent of the West Bank.
In 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to withdraw from almost the entire West Bank and partition Jerusalem on a demographic basis.
In addition, from 1948 to 1967, Israel did not control the West Bank. The Palestinians could have demanded an independent state from the Jordanians. On the contrary, while Jordan was in control, Arafat said there was no longer a claim as it was no longer part of Palestine. Once it was back in Israeli hands it miraculously became disputed land again! This is one of many reasons Jews and Israelis are cynical.
The Palestinians have spurned each of these opportunities. A variety of reasons have been given for why the Palestinians have in Abba Eban’s words, “never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Historian Benny Morris has suggested that the Palestinians have religious, historical, and practical reasons for opposing an agreement with Israel. He says that “Arafat and his generation cannot give up the vision of the greater land of Israel for the Arabs. This is true because this is a holy land, Dar al-Islam [the world of Islam]. It was once in the hands of the Muslims, and it is inconceivable to them that infidels like us the Israelis would receive it.”
The Palestinians also believe that time is on their side. “They feel that demographics will defeat the Jews in one hundred or two hundred years, just like the Crusaders.” The Palestinians, Morris says, also hope the Arabs will acquire nuclear weapons in the future that will allow them to defeat Israel.
In 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to withdraw from 97 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of the Gaza Strip. In addition, he agreed to dismantle 63 isolated settlements. In exchange for the 3 percent annexation of the West Bank, Israel said it would give up territory in the Negev that would increase the size of the Gaza territory by roughly a third.
Barak also made previously unthinkable concessions on Jerusalem, agreeing that Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem would become the capital of the new state. The Palestinians would maintain control over their holy places and have “religious sovereignty” over the Temple Mount.
According to U.S. peace negotiator Dennis Ross, Israel offered to create a Palestinian state that was contiguous, and not a series of cantons. Even in the case of the Gaza Strip, which must be physically separate from the West Bank unless Israel were to be cut into non-contiguous pieces, a solution was devised whereby an overland highway would connect the two parts of the Palestinian state without any Israeli checkpoints or interference. The proposal also addressed the Palestinian refugee issue, guaranteeing them the right of return to the Palestinian state and reparations from a $30 billion fund that would be collected from international donors to compensate them.
“In his last conversation with President Clinton, Arafat told the President that he was “a great man.” Clinton responded, “The hell I am. I’m a colossal failure, and you made me one.”
Arafat was asked to agree to Israeli sovereignty over the parts of the Western Wall religiously significant to Jews (i.e., not the entire Temple Mount), and three early warning stations in the Jordan Valley, which Israel would withdraw from after six years. Most important, however, Arafat was expected to agree that the conflict with Israel was over at the end of the negotiations. This was the true deal breaker. Arafat was not willing to end the conflict. “For him to end the conflict is to end himself,” said Ross.
The prevailing view of the Camp David/White House negotiations—that Israel offered generous concessions, and that Yasser Arafat rejected them to pursue the war that began in September 2000—was acknowledged for more than a year. To counter the perception that Arafat was the obstacle to peace, the Palestinians and their supporters then began to suggest a variety of excuses for why Arafat failed to say “yes” to a proposal that would have established a Palestinian state. The truth is that if the Palestinians were dissatisfied with any part of the Israeli proposal, all they had to do was offer a counterproposal. They never did.
Anyone that is against Israel should satisfy themselves as why this may have been?
I believe, when it comes to the Palestinians, as David Crosby has it:
"They Want It All"
skinster wrote:The Palestinians even allowed Israel to keep 78% of the land but that wasn't enough, because Israel wanted it all and wanted more in countries outside of Palestine (Egypt, Lebanon and Syria), some of which it still is occupying. Israel now controls 100% of Palestine and Palestinians who live in the land are, either militarily occupied or living in the largest prison camp in the world and your hasbara proves nothing except you people will still try to polish a turd in the age of social media that includes anti-zionist points of views and/or facts about the reality on the ground.
Well, - I hope you read my response above.
As it stands right now, Israel is in a position to annex most of the West Bank, certainly Area C for sure. I must remind you that there has never been a country called Palestine, so Palestinian Arabs as they became known at around 1964, can’t really blame Israel for any land that they perceived as taken from them. They had no recognizable ownership to any land in question. When Ottoman Empire ceased to exist, any land deed of the day ceased to exist. British Palestinian Mandate also ended.
At best you may say and the Arabs may say that the land is disputed. Israel would welcome such announcement, however Palestinian Arabs as their behavior has so far shown, do not want that, - they want Palestine INSTEAD of Israel, not NEXT to Israel.