[Viper]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080727/ap_ ... DzOUMLewgF

Is it just me or does it look like we're heading towards a 3 state solution to the Middle East Conflict?

Hamasistan in the Gaza strip
Fatahistan in the West Bank
Israel.

I mean you've got Hamas holding power in the Gaza strip. They keep knocking down and getting rid of any power Fatah has in the area. Fatah (with some help from Israel) is doing the same thing to Hamas in the West Bank. By the time the dust clears Hamas and Fatah will have done so much evil to each other that it would be impossible to ask the two to share the same space together... and viola... 3 states.

If that were to happen and or even be seen as something that might happen, I suppose it's possible that Israel might try to negotiate a deal with Fatahistan (the West Bank) while ignoring Hamasistan.

It seems quite possible that in forcibly taking power in the Gaza strip while not doing so in the West Bank, Hamas may have managed to marginalize a million Palestinians.

[Nickel]

In the long run, I think the only viable solution is a one-state solution. If Israel's going to remain a democracy, it has to come to terms with the growing Arab population inside the country itself, as well as in the occupied territories. Israel changed names, but it never really ceased to be Palestine. It's still home to all those people, and sooner or later there's going to have to be a real sorting out of who has what property and what land. It's not going to be easy or pretty, but at least that kind of weary accommodation might calm things down to the point it's like Northern Ireland recently. As it is, it's a festering sore that's never going to heal. Any solution that presumes the Palestinians will ever stop thinking of what's become Israel as their home, too, probably won't ever really work.

[3aidlillahi]

-Stan nations only occur in Central-ish Asia with Turkic, Indic or Persian majorities. It originates from Turkic languages, which use "stan" often for nations. There are no Arab nations with stan as their nation's name. But hey, they're all the same, right?

If Israel's going to remain a democracy, it has to come to terms with the growing Arab population inside the country itself, as well as in the occupied territories.

In Ilan Pappe's book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, he notes that twice throughout history, Israel has relied on massive immigration of Jews in order to keep the vast majority of Israelis Jewish (75% is the minimum for a viable "Jewish" state, or something like that).

So whenever the non-Jewish populations of Israel became too large, they would allow more 'Jews'* to become citizens. These mostly came from Europe, especially Russia. However, there are 13 million Jews around the world. Roughly 11 million of those are either in the US or Israel. American Jews have it too good. No point in going to a soon-to-be war-zone, at least in droves. Very few Jews elsewhere in the world.

So when the non-Jewish population starts to rise again, the government won't be able to turn to the outside Jewry to keep their state. They'll have three options: kick out the non-Jewish people in large numbers, restrict their birth rights, or fully embrace their future as a Middle Eastern state, rather than a Jewish state.

* In case you don't know, Judaism says that if you're mother is Jewish, then you are Jewish, no matter what you're actual beliefs (so you can be a Satanist Jew or an atheist Jew or even have 100 generations of Satanist Jews as long as the mother is 'Jewish'). That's why they had those neo-Nazis in Israel last year making the news: because they were technically Jewish, despite worshiping Hitler. Gotta love that rule, huh? That is why I put the term Jews surrounded by quotes. (...I wonder if Adam Gadhan would be welcomed as a citizen of Israel...)

[pup55]

I am not a scholar of this region, but it looks to me like we are headed toward a "zero state solution". Israel depends on the billions of US aid every year to survive. That dries up, because of a US economic implosion, and they are left to another three centuries of battles between marginally differentiated semitic tribes, whose main route to heaven is the extermination of the other tribes.

If there is a Jehovah/Allah, surely he is a practical joker.

[Viper]

Speaking of Palestinians...

"Arrests for political reasons haven't stopped for a second," Al Haq director Shawan Jabarin told reporters. He estimated that before the latest sweeps, more than 1,000 people had been seized by each side.

An estimated 20 to 30 percent of the detainees suffered torture, including severe beatings and being tied up in painful positions, said Jabarin, citing sworn statements from 150 detainees.

Where is the outrage? Where are the demonstrations? Where are the seething masses angry about the torture of 400 to 600 Palestinians?!?!

The latest round began Friday evening, when a car bomb killed five Hamas members and a 6-year-old girl in Gaza City. Hamas blamed Fatah, which denied involvement, and rounded up some 200 Fatah supporters.

When is the Palestinian leadership going to be brought up on war crimes charges for the deliberate killing of Palestinian civilians???

Al Haq described methods used by interrogators in both territories. Commonly, detainees' heads are covered by sacks and their hands tied behind their backs. They are made to stand for hours. Those who move risked beatings on arms, legs and the soles of feet. Other methods included threats, humiliation and isolation in tiny cells.

So... is it only wrong when westerners torture Arabs? Does the Arab being tortured somehow feel better knowing that his torturer is a local?

Where's the outrage and the demonstrations?

[Nickel]

Where is the outrage? Where are the demonstrations? Where are the seething masses angry about the torture of 400 to 600 Palestinians?!?!

Apparently YOU found the time to break off from painting YOUR protest sign and joining the march to tell us...

When is the Palestinian leadership going to be brought up on war crimes charges for the deliberate killing of Palestinian civilians???

Oh, but they don't have a state yet, see. If you want them to be signatories to international law and thus beholden to it (like, say, the United States and Israel are supposed to be), you'll have to ask the Israelis to pull their troops out and let them actually get on with the business of forming a nation-state. Until then, it's rather hypocritical to demand international law be strenuously applied to a place that's denied the status of responsible statehood because it is currently illegally occupied in defiance of that very same body of international law.

So... is it only wrong when westerners torture Arabs? Does the Arab being tortured somehow feel better knowing that his torturer is a local?

Is this meant to imply that your boys and the Israelis should be let off the hook? If not, why aren't you screaming for Bush to put in the dock alongside these Arab extremists?

[Viper]

Wow... I really need to start marking up my sarcasm as such.

I figure if people are going to protest torture, they should protest torture, regardless of who's doing the torturing to whom. If they only protest when it’s a specific group of people torturing a specific group of victims, they're really just protesting their targeted group and not torture.

Personally, I'd rather if nothing bad happened to anybody no matter what their national or racial origin. I'm willing to be concerned about it as long as that concern doesn't cut too deeply into my PS3 time. If that somebody happens to be a family member or a personal friend, then I'll go to the ends of the world for them. But as far as people who don't fall into either one of those categories.... I might yell "hey you... stop torturing that guy..." and then get back to my scheduled entertainment....

[Nickel]

Wow... I really need to start marking up my sarcasm as such.

No, but apparently I do...

I figure if people are going to protest torture, they should protest torture, regardless of who's doing the torturing to whom.

Kind of my point, yes. I mean, I've seen you spout a lot of testosterone about how everyone in Russia could be dessicated in an nuclear exchange while the US, Rambo-like, would stand huffing and bleeding but otherwise walking with the Lord on water afterwards, but... not so much about things like extraordinary rendition or Guantanamo Bay. You aren't really on firm ground to be sarcastic on this score.

If they only protest when it’s a specific group of people torturing a specific group of victims, they're really just protesting their targeted group and not torture.

Give 'em a chance; first I've heard of it. Heard a lot about torture by your guys and their agents for YEARS now, though... any pix of YOU at recent rallies you'd care to post to dispel the impression your crocodile tears aren't a crock o' something else?

I might yell "hey you... stop torturing that guy..." and then get back to my scheduled entertainment....

So if you don't care about ANYONE outside friends and family, don't you think it's disingenuous of you to attack people who care at least about SOME people they don't know? You've got the nerve to sh!t on other people because they supposedly don't care about EVERYONE, when by your own admission, you don't care about ANYONE?

[mos6507]

When is the Palestinian leadership going to be brought up on war crimes charges for the deliberate killing of Palestinian civilians???

BOYS WILL BE BOYS.

Only Israel is called upon to act like human beings.

So... is it only wrong when westerners torture Arabs? Does the Arab being tortured somehow feel better knowing that his torturer is a local?

When your culture has a chronic inferiority complex you want to brush the bad PR under the rug.

[Nickel]

Only Israel is called upon to act like human beings.

Wish they'd pick up the phone, then.

When your culture has a chronic inferiority complex you want to brush the bad PR under the rug.

Hence the trademarked and oft-heard term "anti-Semite".

[Taghayee]

In the long run, I think the only viable solution is a one-state solution. If Israel's going to remain a democracy, it has to come to terms with the growing Arab population inside the country itself, as well as in the occupied territories. Israel changed names, but it never really ceased to be Palestine. It's still home to all those people, and sooner or later there's going to have to be a real sorting out of who has what property and what land. It's not going to be easy or pretty, but at least that kind of weary accommodation might calm things down to the point it's like Northern Ireland recently. As it is, it's a festering sore that's never going to heal. Any solution that presumes the Palestinians will ever stop thinking of what's become Israel as their home, too, probably won't ever really work.

Mass Media has created a cartoon of a world where bombings, invasions, and mass murder are coined as democracy while a true call for democracy is demonized as Terrorism.
World's biggest terrorist of the day, Ahmadinejad, has similar take on Israeli-Palestinian issue.

[kam3Oen]

Mass Media has created a cartoon of a world where bombings, invasions, and mass murder are coined as democracy while a true call for democracy is demonized as Terrorism.

Nope, unprecedented living standards have created a large group of silly white people who believe that savage brown people are just like them. God forbid you actually had to live near these people.

[Nickel]

Mass Media has created a cartoon of a world where bombings, invasions, and mass murder are coined as democracy while a true call for democracy is demonized as Terrorism.

Nope, unprecedented living standards have created a large group of silly white people who believe that savage brown people are just like them. God forbid you actually had to live near these people.

May you be reborn as one of them.

[Taghayee]

Mass Media has created a cartoon of a world where bombings, invasions, and mass murder are coined as democracy while a true call for democracy is demonized as Terrorism.

Nope, unprecedented living standards have created a large group of silly white people who believe that savage brown people are just like them. God forbid you actually had to live near these people.

and you'd think that they'd learn from humanity and civility of WWI or WWII or production of weapons as means of survival.... ah those 'brown' savages...when will they start killing in tens of millions to join the ranks of the civil ones...?