Jerusalem Up Against the Wall

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  • Posted By: World Citizen1234 @ 08/03/2008 2:48:45 PM

    The sad reality is that Israel does what it thinks it has to do to survive. No country would accept violence occasioned upon its citizens. Israel, the sole democracy in the Middle East, isn't always "right" but when a committed enemy is killing your people, there is little that the attacked population won't do.

    This whole tragedy can be resolved if the Arab world would simply accept that Israel is a fait accompli and then bask in the economic benefits that would be created. Instead, the Palistineans have willingly given themselves to a terrorist organization and civil war. When Israel withdrew from Gaza, the Palistinean reaction was not to improve their own existence; rather, it was to rain rockets specifically aimed at Israeli civilians.

    Until the Palistineans accept the 2 state solution and empower those who want to acept Israel and its right to exist, they will continue to find themselves isolated; even from their Arab brothers who deny them aid to bring them out of squalor and poverty.

    • Posted By: TheVigil @ 08/04/2008 4:51:49 PM

      Oh, and one last point...

      The domination of the ancient Hebrews by Egyptians and their subsequent exodus to Egpyt as slaves was a "fait accompli" at one point as well. So was the second Diaspora under the Romans. But overcoming this and returning to the land of their historical kingdom was something the Jewish people never forgot.

      From the Wikipedia article on the Jewish diaspora:

      "According to Eliezer Schweid the rejection of life in the Diaspora is a central assumption in all currents of Zionism.[1] Underlying this attitude was the feeling that the Diaspora restricted the full growth of Jewish national life. For instance the poet Bialik wrote:

      And my heart weeps for my unhappy people ...
      How burned, how blasted must our portion be,
      If seed like this is withered in its soil. ..."

      If the Jews never accepted their own exodus from the lands they considered their own and instead fought for MILLENIA for the right to return - how can you say the Palestinians are any different?

    • Posted By: TheVigil @ 08/04/2008 4:01:09 PM

      Best pro-Israel comment I've seen on this thread.

      The biggest problem is that the only Palestinians left in Gaza and the West Bank are the ones who *have* sacrificed the chance to improve their own lives for their own bitterness and hatred over the Palestinian exodus. Many of them don't know how to live, only to die, and mostly they just pour gasoline on a fire already raging out of control.

      But there *is* a Palestinian diaspora with moderate Palestinians living in many places abroad, and I cannot emphasize strongly enough that it is *not right* to lump them in with Gaza/West Bank hardliners as if everyone of Palestinian descent were the same. I can say this with certainty because I was taught by one at a major American university, who is a full professor there. The Palestinian moderates living abroad could be a key piece to solving this conflict because they *have* the capacity to see beyond hardline behavior. It is an error of deep loss to stereotype everone of Palestinian descent as a hardliner, and I will continue to maintain the memory of this often-forgotten-about group.

  • Posted By: JB619 @ 08/03/2008 7:18:03 AM

    What a load of #$@%! Muslims live in the Past, Jews in the Present and Christians in the Future. As a Jerusalem resident, these attacks were horrendous. I fault his leadership for not wanting to choose peace. We Israelis have come to the conclusion that we are not "for" Peace but we are "about" Peace. There is a difference. The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. I hope his wife can raise a child free of hate.
    Bottom line is that the West can't grab the idea that people will kill others for the sake of killing. That is what Muslims do. You don't see Christians doing it. You don't see Jews strapping suicide belts to their chest. For 2,000 years we Jews were persecuted but never did Jews go on rampages, pogroms or intifadas committing random acts of murder. No matter where you go be it England, France, Israel, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines and even the US (Australia and Canada are next) Muslims are on the rampage. Not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims.

    • Posted By: TheVigil @ 08/04/2008 4:40:36 PM

      What about Columbine? What about Virginia Tech? What about a dozen years of random slayings in the Postal Service?

      What about the Crusades? What about the Spanish Inquisition? What about the Holy Roman Empire? What about the modern Christian fundamentalists who advocate the mass murder of gays and lesbians?

      The conflict described in this article is as old as time. There were wars fought between the ancient Israelites and the "Filasteen" - Philistines, the forefathers of modern Palestine - in the time of Samson and the reigns of Saul and David.

      And just for a second, put yourself in the shoes of a "Philistine" living in ancient Israel/Palestine at the time of the arrival of Abraham. With no knowledge of Abraham's religion or beliefs, what would you see? To the ancient Palestinians, Abraham and his followers would not have been seen as the rightful owners of the "Promised Land", but outsiders - diasporic Chaldeans, ancient people from Turkey, attempting to claim and establish a kingdom on lands you lived on.

      I'm not saying this is what Abraham *was*, or denying his divinity, so to speak, or denying the beliefs of the Jewish people. Two of my great-grandparents were Russian Jews who emigrated to the U.S. because of the pogroms. But try to step outside yourself for a second and look at the way things would have looked from the other side. The Palestinian people, ancient or modern, have never held the same beliefs as the Jewish people - and without that Biblically determined certainty that Israel is a land Promised to the Jews, it would have been impossible for people to see them as anything *but* outsiders.

      I don't claim that either side is right or wrong - but viewed in that light, the conflict is not hard to understand...

    • Posted By: Yuseff @ 08/04/2008 10:30:20 AM

      Good European and American Christians have been killing and persecuting jews for thousands of years. Europe has had dozens of holocausts (long prior to Hitler) and Inquisitions over the centuries. Israel caputured Gaza and the West bank in the 1967 war and now keep these people on reservations. Now you wonder why people act up?

  • Posted By: TheVigil @ 08/04/2008 4:13:54 PM

    I cannot express the sadness I feel after seeing the bigotry in this thread, and the one-sidedness of the comments.

    There are a lot of very, very violent people left in Gaza and the West Bank - as a matter of fact, most of the Palestinians left in the West Bank and Gaza *are* angry, mostly uneducated, lacking in the skills necessary to survive in the modern world, because all of the educated Palestinians and the ones with salable job skills have left a long time ago to join the Palestinian diaspora. Very few educated people would want to live in the armed camps that Gaza and the West Bank have become.

    But it's important to realize that there *is* a diaspora. There *are* moderate Palestinians - they just mostly live abroad now. A lot of the anger against the state of Israel is rooted in the fact that they drove half a million people off the lands they were living on - whether or not there was an "official" Palestinian state there or not (there wasn't), it doesn't change the fact that a lot of people were driven off lands that they considered to be their homes, driven out of houses they had built at gunpoint.

    And it is *not* fair to simply claim that all Palestinians, or all Arabs, are terrorists because some of them are. It's an angry stereotype that only contributes to the violence. For a young Palestinian who's trying to decide between life and death, who hears that his people should all be denied rights and clustered together in camps of squalid poverty where there's no medicine to be had and life is a horror, what is he going to decide but that a death that his religion tells him might earn a place in heaven is preferable to a life of squalor, poverty, hatred directed towards him and horror?

    The Israelis *have* to realize that the Palestinians are people. And the Palestinians have to realize the same thing - for all the unfairness of the diaspora, I do believe they have to accept the situation and deal with the present-day reality - which is not the same thing as saying the diaspora was morally right. It wasn't, but it came at the tail end of a whole host of unfairnesses committed against the Jewish people and may have been unavoidable.

    But as long as people on *both* sides continue to see the other as "they", lump everyone together, and advocate for hatred, stereotyping, and paranoia, the conflict is going to continue. I can promise that to everyone on these boards.

  • Posted By: MazalUK @ 08/04/2008 10:22:27 AM

    So Newsweek correspondants implicitly condone mass murderers on the basis that thet are unable to fulfil their dreams because of the "brutal Israelis"?

    This 'tearjerker' of a story stinks of rank sentimentalism embroidered by the haters of Israel simply to get sympathy for the evil acts of Islamists who only wish to martyr as many Jews as possible - pity they didn't realise that they also killed a few Muslims in their rampage along the way.

    As Golda Meir once famously said, We will have peace in the Middle East once Arab mothers learn to love their children more than they hate us".

    • Posted By: TheVigil @ 08/04/2008 3:48:30 PM

      I think we'll have peace in the Middle East once the Israelis learn to share, and realize that they've killed as many Arabs as the Arabs have the Jews, myself. But it seems you can't see anything but your own tribe.

  • Posted By: lalahakbar @ 08/03/2008 1:46:13 PM

    Hussam Dweiat's sons and the unborn child will regard their father as a hero and martyr, as Islamists do. The authors of this tear-jerker ought to have asked Jamilla her opinion about what her husband did. I'd bet the authors one U.S. dollar that she respects what he did, despite his selfishness and the precarious position he put them in. Jamilla doesn't understand why would Israel "punish her and her sons by tearing down their house?" The answer, Jamilla, is that Israel doesn't want to make it any easier for your sons to become the kind of terrorists your husband was. And I'd bet the authors another dollar that Jamilla's sons will be as bitter and homicidal as Hussam. Jamilla, you married a terrorist bum, who killed innocents. That is why they are tearing down your house. Sorry, life's tough.

    • Posted By: Yuseff @ 08/04/2008 10:24:37 AM

      He was not some terrorist bum. He got fined $200,000 for building a house for his family. This is a place where people are making like $1,000 per month.

      Of course he could have paid off the fine.....in a mere 200 months if his family doesn't need to eat in the meantime.

  • Posted By: donya_f @ 08/03/2008 5:24:56 PM

    If Israel truly wants peace they will agree to give all the land that they have taken back, but of course Israel wants all the Palestinian land and uses any excuse to delay things. This way they can grab more and more land. And as for the only democracy in the Middle East, it is a democracy for the Jewish people in Israel not for the Palestinians.

  • Posted By: bluesgutter @ 08/03/2008 3:37:43 PM

    tHE BIGGEST THREAT TO JERUSALEM IS jOE lEIBERMAN.

  • Posted By: nnconcerts @ 08/02/2008 11:11:35 PM

    Israel has been impoverishing all American taxpayers and have almost destroyed American families. They also move on to destroy homes of Palestinians. They are unable to understand their own colonial aparthied practices against the Palestinians. All this will one day prove they cannot go on forever. I belive Iran must build their nuclear arsenal and keep Israel in check. Its the only way to show Israel they cannot abuse human rights. If they do so, they will be branded as the worst civilization that ever walked the planet. It is appalling how American politicians are able to misunderstand this. These politicians are paid by all the fat cats and lobbyists like AIPAC which is going to come to an end soon.
    This is the only country where policiticans can be bought for a price in the US. My book "The colonial Israel" will soon be published. My thanks to the writer of these writers of Newsweek.

    • Posted By: sanity1 @ 08/03/2008 3:24:22 PM

      So, why is your book not about China, Sudan, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Russia, or numerous others? While Israel may not be perfect, they aren't even the same dreadful league as these guys. Oh, thats right, you must be deluded or a bigot.

  • Posted By: JB619 @ 08/03/2008 10:47:26 AM

    nnconcerts you failed once again. The UN was not created to give land to the Jews as your ignorance would like for you to believe. It was created initially after WWI and failed. The Arabs received Jordan and the Jews Israel. However the Arabs didn't accept that and even received more land this time inside of Israel. The Jews accepted and the Arabs rejected launching wars in 48, 67, 73 and two intifadas and still have nothing to show for it.
    Nothing I said is incorrect or inaccurate. You are right, anyone can discover these modern inventions but guess what, Israel did and the world is a better place for it. What have the Palestinians discovered? Terrorism? Can you really say to yourself the world is a better place for what they have discovered?
    My mind is not clouded with hate. It is the reality I live it. Survival, and the Jewish state will survive.
    Why you ask? Because we love more than the Palestinians hate. We offer love to our families and friends, even refugees who come to Israel via Sinai. They would rather be in Israel then get murdered by their Islamic leaders in Sudan or Egypt. No, we don't run bulldozers over people, nor do we murder the innocent nor do we live in a world of hate. Just ask the Goldwasser and Regev families. We realesed your proud child murderer Kuntar for two dead Israeli soldiers. We have morals and values of which you have none. Sadly, you don't even know the difference between the two.
    Once again, we Israeli's are not "for" Peace but are "about" Peace.

  • Posted By: nnconcerts @ 08/03/2008 10:24:41 AM

    You don't know much about why the UN was created which doesn't seem to do any good to anyone anymore. But when it was created for the sole purpose to give land to the jews. This was the stated objective in 1948, even the Hasidic jews didn't want this and were opposed to this creation. Secondly, you have not discovered any more than what Baghdad discovered and Persia discovered. These modern inventions, anyone can discover from a pin to a complex system which is not difficult.
    Now, you are unable to reason because your head is clouded with hate and this is what you are and what you incite and show towards others. I have Israelis living in my rental home today, they will be gone next week but they are tolerant and they are very unlike you.
    So, get off your pedestal and start to live like a human rather than an animal or a bull in a china shop by destroying your neighbors and all you are doing is sowing more hate which is going to come back to you if you just wait awhile. What goes around will come around. Lastly, the number zero was invented by us and you can keep using it. Without this your computer programs and cell phone would never have worked.

  • Posted By: JB619 @ 08/03/2008 7:57:53 AM

    To: nnconcerts,
    You wrote "They are unable to understand their own colonial aparthied practices against the Palestinians."
    Since when did Jews colonize Israel? Jews have always been in Israel for the better part of 3,000 years. Due you even know what Colonize means? Are we taking the resources to some other far off country for use? Oh by the way, that IM on your computer or that cell phone on your waist, yeah we invented that SUCKER!!! Why don't you take a look at Kenya, India, Pakistan, Iraq, South Africa etc who are all ex-colonies of the great UK and see how they are doing.

    You also wrote "I belive Iran must build their nuclear arsenal and keep Israel in check." Well, last time I looked Israel never said Iran would be wiped off the face of the earth, nor has Israel ever said to Lebanon, Syria or Iran that they are rats deemed to go to hell etc etc. By the way, we don't hate the Lebanese or Iranians just their governments and Hizbullah.

    So before spouting off get your facts straight. No we are not colonizing and no we are not threatening anyone.

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