132 replies to this topic

[katinka]

So guys, since we're all having so much fun debating religion in the other thread, i wanted to start one on israel.

Its a topic i can't really avoid, but am very torn about.

I was raised in a completely zionist community, and there was no opportunity for thought on that issue. Quite frankly, as a kid i found it confusing (more than now, at least) and didn't think about it much. Now, however, its getting harder and harder to avoid. I still live in that zionist community, but they're not who i associate with. I'm involved in this organization where there are people who are on both sides of the debate, which allows me to meet all these amazing people and learn from them. now, i don't know everything about this issue, but i really think that the formation of israel was unfair to the palestinians who lived there for generations beforehand. It seems like something similar to when the city decides they want to build a stadium or something on your property and evict you, and claim to be putting you in a place of 'equal value', but in reality put you in some crappy apartment. And also, the whole formation of israel as a jewish state.... And at the same time, i feel some solidarity with the israeli's too. I really don't know where to put myself on this issue. I've been trying to connect with people in organizations like JATO and Women in Black-Union Square to learn more about their views, and to try to find my place on the zionist/anti-occupation spectrum. And i'd like to hear what you guys think on the issue.

and in this one, people can actually take sides without arguing endlessly about the existance of god.

[EndocrineFlippa]

plain and simple, Palestinians were there first... if i remember correctly, the Jews just heard some voice talking to them and because they heard some voices moved onto the land of the natives there and claimed it as their own...

do you honestly think jews were there first? just look all the ancient civilizations and people there were arabic... do you think a group of white people magically appeared in the middle of it all? no, they simple moved in there and claimed it as their own with the justification that "god" told them it was theirs....

[MonsterS]

No way, the Jews were definately there first, they just split up for a while. I think theres a book written about this somewhere, the one God wrote...

Also, not to offend anyone, but I mean, the thing is, Palestine is a desert.....Its largely uninhabitable, yet if you look at some of the cities and communities that the Israelis put up, it looks like a desert paradise.

Better yet, there are plenty of Palestinians in these communities and everyone works together, and they get along just fine and do really well, some of the places in Israel are actually rather diverse. When you look at the media portrayal of the conflict, you're really not seeing the whole picture.

Endocrine, by saying that the Jews simply took over the place, thats a really biased look at the picture.

[katinka]

EndocrineFlippa, on Dec 27 2006, 12:18 PM, said:

plain and simple, Palestinians were there first... if i remember correctly, the Jews just heard some voice talking to them and because they heard some voices moved onto the land of the natives there and claimed it as their own...

do you honestly think jews were there first? just look all the ancient civilizations and people there were arabic... do you think a group of white people magically appeared in the middle of it all? no, they simple moved in there and claimed it as their own with the justification that "god" told them it was theirs....

Umm... actually, there are plenty of jews who have darker skin and hair and whatnot. And Judaism, as a religion, existed before islam.

I really do think that jews are natively from that land. But i also think that thousands of years may be enough time to forget that... i dunno.

[tycoonboy388]

Plenty of Jews continued to live in Palestine long after the diaspora. True, the Jews of Palestine were a minority, but they were still there. A lot of the Jewish tradition is rooted in Palestine, and is focused around a tradition of a Jewish homeland.

Religion is something that people have proved to be willing to die for. Thats basically the gist of the entire discussion, there are people who were willing to die to make Israel a refuge for Jews everywhere.

[zaccariah2005]

katinka, on Dec 27 2006, 12:53 AM, said:

So guys, since we're all having so much fun debating religion in the other thread, i wanted to start one on israel.

Its a topic i can't really avoid, but am very torn about.

I was raised in a completely zionist community, and there was no opportunity for thought on that issue. Quite frankly, as a kid i found it confusing (more than now, at least) and didn't think about it much. Now, however, its getting harder and harder to avoid. I still live in that zionist community, but they're not who i associate with. I'm involved in this organization where there are people who are on both sides of the debate, which allows me to meet all these amazing people and learn from them. now, i don't know everything about this issue, but i really think that the formation of israel was unfair to the palestinians who lived there for generations beforehand. It seems like something similar to when the city decides they want to build a stadium or something on your property and evict you, and claim to be putting you in a place of 'equal value', but in reality put you in some crappy apartment. And also, the whole formation of israel as a jewish state.... And at the same time, i feel some solidarity with the israeli's too. I really don't know where to put myself on this issue. I've been trying to connect with people in organizations like JATO and Women in Black-Union Square to learn more about their views, and to try to find my place on the zionist/anti-occupation spectrum. And i'd like to hear what you guys think on the issue.

and in this one, people can actually take sides without arguing endlessly about the existance of god.

pssh... priggish haters. you cud of tooken a side. I believe in god, you don't. look we took sides! Now lets start an endless debate about the situation in Israel.

Israel got what it wanted. I don't expect the arabs to get the land back especially because Israel gots a lot of support from the European Union and the United States.

This video is unbelievable and I am not sure if they are making things up, but, it is about how much money the United states gives to Israel.

Israel is being attacked with qassam rockets and suicide bombings. (note: retaliation with suicide-bombing was discontinued. However, it recontinued after an accidental shelling from Israel that killed 18 civilians.) Obviously, Israeli citizens are living in fear. Hundreds of qassam rockets have been sent to Israel in the past year and innocent civilians have been killed.

The Palestinian people are suffering in this conflict a lot more than the Israeli ctizens. They support Hamas and they are paying the price for it. Ironically, they are still supporting him. Ever since Hamas came to power, Israel stopped giving [palestine] collected-taxes because they believed that Hamas was a terrorists group. This has, really, had an impact on the palestinian government. Government official are being paid partially and sporadically, causing a lot of tension in palestine. There is barely any stability in Palestine. There is a lot of tension between the hamas and fatah party. Roads are blocked and Israeli checkpoints are everywhere making it difficult for palestinians to commute. A 20 minute drive can take up to like 2 hours because of the checkpoints. Palestinians are banned from Israeli Universities, even though the Israeli universities have doctrates and the palestinian universities do not have these doctrates. And more than anything else, palestinian civilians are getting killed in the cross-fire when Israeli soldiers come to stop these qassam rockets from gaza. So, with hamas in power, there is a lot of problems in Palestine. Hamas is definately going to disappear because of the lack of funding; but, the people who support the group will not.

<--Israel's right to exist is definately going to be recognized

What do I think? I believe that the Jewish people do deserve land. But, that land should be in Europe. At the time of the zionist movement, it was the Eastern Europeans that massacred the Jewish people. They should have been the ones to give up their land for the formation of an Israeli state. I guess it is too late now. As for the situation now, a fair agreement will never be made. It is nearly impossible to satisfy both side.

[tycoonboy388]

Before I begin, I want to address the information presented in the first YouTube video zaccariah provided. I am very irritated with Noam Chomsky (I am very fond of him, but his anti-american views are getting the better of him these days), because he did not care to mention that the aid is not only going to the Israeli government. While it is true that the United States does help supply the IDF, it is the largest provider of aid to the Palestinian Authority. I have seen numbers that report that a sizable portion of that $100 billion dollars is going to the Palestinian Authority. Past that, most of the aid is in the form of weapons, not actual aid, seeing as Israel has one of the Middle East's most modern economies.

Now with that basic information out there, I can continue the discussion now.

There were several options for a Jewish homeland, Argentina encouraged Jewish immigrants, and to this day has one of the largest Jewish populations, and Theodor Herzl's initial plan was a settlement in Uganda. But Jews had been living in what was then called Palestine for thousands of years, and Arab land owners were willing to sell land to European Jewish immigrants. In fact, the situation was peaceful for so long until the British pledged that they would endorse a Jewish state in Israel, rather than elsewhere in their empire (Uganda was then eliminated as a choice).

The Jewish state did not want to remove Arabs from Israel. The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, while recogninzing that it was established as a haven for Jews, did not want to exclude its Arab neighbors. The Jews had a working relationship with the Arabs for ages, and wanted to continue the relationship. Here is the excerpt from the Declaration:

Quote

in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions. We extend our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.

What happened afterwards was unfortunate. Even though most of the land initially allocated to Israel was bought by Jewish settlers, the Arabs neighbors did not accept Israel, and insisted that Arabs in Israel leave, in order to be safe when the invasion went through. The invasion failed, and the Arabs who were told that Israel would be gone, those who fleed lost their land. They began to overpopulate the Jordanian controlled West Bank and the Egyptian controlled Gaza strip, waiting for the army that would eradicate Israel. Because these nations chose not to recognize these people as their own citizens, but rather refugees, they did little for the settlements.

Many of these problems are not Israel's fault, but they have to deal with them. Golda Meir said that Israel and Palestine would never know Peace until the people began to love their children more than they hated their enemies. I don't think that time has come yet, but what I do believe is that Israel is committed to working to a solution. While there are some people who have not worked towards peace, the goal of the state of Israel is to create a peaceful homeland for Jews. Israel exists, we must all deal with the consequences.

[leo2car]

EndocrineFlippa, on Dec 27 2006, 12:18 PM, said:

plain and simple, Palestinians were there first... if i remember correctly, the Jews just heard some voice talking to them and because they heard some voices moved onto the land of the natives there and claimed it as their own...

do you honestly think jews were there first? just look all the ancient civilizations and people there were arabic... do you think a group of white people magically appeared in the middle of it all? no, they simple moved in there and claimed it as their own with the justification that "god" told them it was theirs....

As i remember the jews were first but then were forced out by the arabs which are there still today. The first people were no arabic, wrong again, first were polythestic learn the history people.

Isreal wants to live together it is the extremests that cause this action.

[randomania3]

Israel is seriously divided right now. they jsut seem to have serious probs. n war on both sides puts a lot of strain on the citizens there. and the jews have been there siunce they escaped slavery in egypt. and perhaps they were there before enslavement though no one can be sure of that... and btw endocrine- you said something bout jews being white. um, there's 600,000 black ethiopian jews (native jews not converts) that were airlifted to israel in the seventies and tested. their dna very very vclosely matched the dna of jews in israel (but all thats a hole separate topic, lets just say you were way wrong on that call)

[tycoonboy388]

On the topic of non-European Jews in Israel.

There are some 2 million Jews in Israel that come from the Middle East. As I said before, many Jews stayed in Palestine after the destruction of the second temple (what marks the begining of the Jewish Diaspora across the globe), and many Jews established communities throughout the modern Arab world. There were sizable Jewish communities in Beruit, in Damascus, in Yemen, in Iran, in Iraq, in Cairo and Alexandria and in Morocco, some of them were over a half million people at their peak. Nearly all of these Jews were expelled or forced into leaving beginning in the 1940's.

The Middle Eastern Jews still make up a large portion of the Jewish population, though now there is a greater presence of European Jews, mostly from the former communist nations who had restricted the immigration of Jews out of their nations.

[leo2car]

There are also Jews in America and Canda.

[tycoonboy388]

The majority of the worlds Jewish population lives in the Americas, with the largest community being located in New York. There are over 1.75 million Jews in New York city alone.

[esong27]

Let's play nice, people. This is referring to the most ardent posters of the general religion threads, you know who you are. Don't be childish.

[tycoonboy388]

esong27, on Dec 28 2006, 07:02 PM, said:

Let's play nice, people. This is referring to the most ardent posters of the general religion threads, you know who you are. Don't be childish.

You know, esong, aside from zaccariah's comment calling katinka a priggish hater, I thought we were playing nice.

[katinka]

tycoonboy388, on Dec 28 2006, 07:16 PM, said:

You know, esong, aside from zaccariah's comment calling katinka a priggish hater, I thought we were playing nice.

I seem to have missed that comment... i'm gonna go back and look now.

*edit* Oh wait, i'm assuming those weren't the exact words he used...


But yeah, in regards to argentina, there is a very sizeable jewish community there... in fact... http://www.bj.org. That congregation seems to based in the Argentinian-jewish community.

[z2z007]

tycoonboy388, on Dec 28 2006, 07:16 PM, said:

You know, esong, aside from zaccariah's comment calling katinka a priggish hater, I thought we were playing nice.

She wasn't referring to you.

katinka, those were the words used.

Anyway, I don't want to detract from the topic. So carry on regardless of that comment.

[EndocrineFlippa]

Jews definitely weren't the first ones there... the natives were phoenicians... now whoever descended from them is beyond me but im pretty sure it wasn't the Jews

[tycoonboy388]

While the Jews were not the only people living in ancient Israel, indeed they did not call themselves Jews, their presence there remains stronger than any group that has passed through. Every holy site to the Jewish faith, that recognizes a point in the history of the Jews is located in ancient Israel. Because at the time, people were wary of who they considered "foreign," Jews had settled in different areas and had little contact with the Phoenecians or other tribes there. By the time the Jews returned from their enslavement in Egypt, the Phoenecians had left Israel, and few strong settlements of any one group remained, which allowed the Jews to reclaim the land they saw their own.

[leo2car]

I think when most people say Jews that means people believing in Judism.

[Yakov]

Honestly, IMO the Jews were there first it was their territory. If the Palestinians wanted to fight about they should have done so 50+ years ago. A few years ago, Israel wanted to sign a peace treaty with Palestine that would grant Palestine 40% of Israel, which is what Palestine wanted. What did the Palestinian president do? He launched rockets into Israel, thats what he did. Look at Jordan -- they USED to fight Israel, now they have realized Israel only helps them and they are better off. Israel holds NO natural resources, yet if it didn't spend 60ish% of its budge on the Military it would be ranked the #9 richest country in the world. (In fact for a few years it was the #9 richest country in the world). We gave Palestine parts of the West bank and what did we get in return? Peace? Na, more bombings of course! The new Palestinian President is a scapegoat, he is USELESS. He is about as useful as the Queen of England. The Parliament is controlled by HAMAS, and as long as they are in power they will not rest until Israel is DESTROYED.