multilateral or unilateral? (96)

I doubt you'll see any movement on the Israel/Palestine thing until the US stop providing military aid to Israel. Fundamentally the US need a well armed ally in the middle east to represent their interests and as long as Israel are fulfilling that function then the US isn't going to slap their wrists nor force the Palestine issue.

I do think that if/when the Iraq situation comes under control or suitably pro-US governments are installed in Egypt and Libya then the US will begin to drastically cut it's military and diplomatic support for Israel. It's really only at that point you'll see any resolution of the palestine issue. In the meantime you can more or less ignore any 'pro-resolution' statements that come out of the US.

Edited 19 Sep 11, 1:59 PM by AstronautMikeDexter

Cheers Ian

See worlds on worlds compose one universe, observe how system into system runs

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

As I type I reach out my hand, so as you read, you are then touched.

I'll sleep easier when the Iran situation is 'under control'.

The machinations and stirring by this most rabid of states is the most dangerous element to be factored into any calculation towards peaceful resolution.

Even the recent confrontation during the attempt to break the blockade of Gaza had it's origins there. (Turkey wants to buy enriched uranium from Iran to put them in the nuclear club. Iran won't trade with anyone who trades with Israel. Hamas in Gaza is funded and directed by Iran. Small scale 'peace flotillas' have been going on for years. International incident easily manufactured. Ultimate result: Turkey stops trading with Israel)

We still don't have any idea who will take over in the aftermath of the 'Arab Spring' - the overthrow of the Shah was originally a movement amongst educated, liberal middle-class Iranians hijacked by fundamentalists.

Before supporting a group it is essential to discover what comes later. Would anyone on these boards want to live under any near/ middle eastern government? - Secular or religious, their despotism has been absolute. Horrendous torture is routine. Freedom of sexuality is nil.

You may not like how the State of Israel is run but it's a lot more tolerant than any neighbour.

There surely can be no argument that a Jewish homeland is not necessary. In every country massacres have happened since being expelled from Judah by the Romans in AD 73.

Philistia was already long extinct by then ('Palestinians' call themselves the 'Filistini'). The name 'Palestine' was first used by the conquering Romans and has only ever been appended by occupying forces.

So if the State of Israel ceases to be, what will the peace campaigners do when the massacres start? Will they sign a petition? Float candles down the River Thames? Bang drums while wearing Tibetan hats? Too late.

Yes, I am very pro Israel's right to survive but that does not mean that I am uncritical yet the paranoia within the borders is justified and that can be fed on by the unscrupulous.

If you don't like something, suggest positive steps that protect everyone. Don't become a puppet or 'useful idiot'.

Edited for grammar

"He took a single sip of her pain and found it exquisite"

Edited 19 Sep 11, 6:15 PM by Mad_Monk

Can you clarify how keeping the Palestinians in a state (or lack thereof) of poverty and oppression actually helps deal with Iran? Most people would jump to the logical conclusion that it increases tensions in the area, and creates a fertile ground for terrorism and indignation.

Strange that people in democratic countries have such concerns about other nations leadership, that they have to interfere.

Irrelevant.

Well - I'm pretty much against theocracy as a concept. However, I don't think anyone suggested Israel shouldn't exist

Certainly the place has been passed around quite a bit... but that doesn't mean there weren't indigenous Arabs there when it was partitioned. Personally I think there was little regard taken for that.

There you go agian, who suggested it should 'disappear'?

The paranoia is probably justified. That's not a reason to keep on aggravating it, in order to keep the rockets firing in order keep the paranoia up, in order to maintain the illusion that the occupation needs to continue.

indeed I'm pretty sure that Israel can afford the money, land, and goodwill needed to reach a lasting two state solution within the borders it had, thus preventing the further loss of Jewish lives and improved relations with its other neighbours.

However, that is all somewhat off topic - Israel don't settle because the cost in lives is sufficiently low compared to the advantages of staying in a war someone else is paying for. This is about America, realpolitik 2011, and the shocking game of chess that's being played at the expense of human life.

And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

Its certainly a hypothesis I can relate to, sadly. The only other thing that I can conjecture is that its actually in western interest to maintain a state of instability in the middle east. They should all be fantastically rich, one way of keeping them from being so is to keep them at war.

And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

Ethics_Gradient wrote: I don't think anyone suggested Israel shouldn't exist So if the State of Israel ceases to be, There you go again, who suggested it should 'disappear'?

It is the avowed intention of Hamas, Al Fatah and all Islamist organisations to destroy the State of Israel. The tactic of declaring a State of Palestine/ Filisteen is a step towards declaring the Jewish state as an illegal occupier. It is naive to understand the tactic as anything else. That IS the intention.

"He took a single sip of her pain and found it exquisite"

Mad_Monk wrote: Ethics_Gradient wrote: I don't think anyone suggested Israel shouldn't exist So if the State of Israel ceases to be, There you go again, who suggested it should 'disappear'? It is the avowed intention of Hamas, Al Fatah and all Islamist organisations to destroy the State of Israel. The tactic of declaring a State of Palestine/ Filisteen is a step towards declaring the Jewish state as an illegal occupier. It is naive to understand the tactic as anything else. That IS the intention.

Oh for fucks sake.

ETA: Fatah, Oslo Declaration of principals, 1993.

ETA2: Please don't add anti Islamic bullshit to the thread in the same spirit that I asked for no anti-Semitic bullshit in the OP

And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

Edited 19 Sep 11, 10:21 PM by Attitude_Adjuster

Mad_Monk wrote: Ethics_Gradient wrote: I don't think anyone suggested Israel shouldn't exist So if the State of Israel ceases to be, There you go again, who suggested it should 'disappear'? It is the avowed intention of Hamas, Al Fatah and all Islamist organisations to destroy the State of Israel. The tactic of declaring a State of Palestine/ Filisteen is a step towards declaring the Jewish state as an illegal occupier. It is naive to understand the tactic as anything else. That IS the intention.

exactly

and the UN did not CREATE Israel

2000 years ago the whole of the Balkans area and the Middle East were incorporated into the Roman Empire and Nation States disappeared (the Jews had been expelled from Judea by the Romans for rebelling against Roman rule)

Following the moving of the Capital of the Empire by the Emperor Constantine (the first Christian Emperor) from Rome to Byzantium (renamed Constantinople) in the 4th Century AD (and the subsequent split of churches between Catholic and Eastern Orthodox and Empires between the Western and Eastern) the Western Empire fell and eventually the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire finally fell to the Ottoman Turks in the 14th Century AD.

From then on until the first World War the old "Eastern Empire" remained the Turkish Empire (the Balkans split between them and now the Austro-Hungarian Empires) The only independence from the Turks was Serbia (Russian pressure) and modern Greece (British pressure) in the 19th. Century.

During the First World War the British and French promised that if they won they would split the Austro-Hungarian and Turkish Empires and grant Independence and a "Homeland for the Jews".

After the end of the war new nations were created in the Balkans (of which Yugoslavia was always doomed to failure) and the French and British were giving mandates by the then League of Nations to create countries in the Middle East (then, and in some cases right up to the end of W.W.II and the discovery of oil largely nomadic ) based largely on lines drawn in the sand.

France created Syria and Lebanon (the latter because unlike what became Syria it had a large Christian community). Britain created Iraq (based on the old Mesopotamia, Transjordan (later Jordan) and Palestine. Then the problems arose, Muslims did not want a Jewish state in their midst and the British procrastinated.

Following W.W.II the British had pressure put on them by the new United Nations to honour their mandate (and by Muslim countries not to). Finally a Labour government (who had amongst other things had made it a capital offence for Jews to own arms in Palestine but no such restrictions were put on Arabs) withdrew and the State of Israel (smaller than many wanted but accepted by most) was proclaimed. Immediately it was attacked by British officered andtrained Arab forces with the avowed aim of "driving the Jews into the sea".

Since then Israel has been attacked twice (The Yom Kippur and Six Days wars) and also targeted by Iraq during the Gulf War. Until the taking of the Golan Heights in 1967 it was daily shelled by Syria and attacked from the West Bank by Transjordan. For a great deal of its length Israel without the West Bank is about 20 miles wide.

Palestinian refugees. They have been allowed to fester in camps for 60 years by their Arab "brothers" for political purposes. At one stage Israel offered to build proper accommodation in Gaza but Egypt vetoed this. Had countries like Saudi Arabia spent as much money on those in "camps" as they had in arming them they would not be living that way. For Moslem fundamentalists this means the elimination of a Jewish state, the suicide bombers are not killing themselves and others because of the land occupied (as a buffer zone) in 1967 following the 6 Day War but because they believe, or have been brain washed into believing, that they are fighting a Holy War against Jews and will be rewarded as martyrs in their after life.

as Mad Monk said this is just a further tactic

^Thunder^
@For_Sale_And_Wanted I.C's own Exchange & Mart| Thunder-Pix/TiinaK|