h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

FS, if the Arab world *did* vow to destroy Israel, they had a reason! Israel wasn't founded on empty desert, as many were led to believe, but on the expulsion of Palestinians from their land, farms and towns where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries! Well may the Israelis be defensive - they're in the wrong, and many of them know it!
So, you want we anti-war people to solve every other problem in the world, before you'll solve one of *your* own making - namely, Iraq!
It doesn't have to work that way...

>>that the state which wishes to initiate military action is claiming to do so in the name of world peace. I'd personally find it hard to say that with a straight face without the support of the only global forum in which we can debate such propositions.<<
Bizarre, isn't it? Good point, TLAH...

Yeaaah I'll drink to that Analiese for President for sure this is the ONLY way to go, keep em coming kid.

“if the Arab world *did* vow to destroy Israel,”

No if about it. It is a well documented fact if you care to look for it.

It should also be remembered that there have been Jews living continuously in what is called Palestine since biblical times. Where were they supposed to go? There has never been a Palestinian state, but there was once a Jewish state long before Israel was created.

If the Palestinians had accepted the UN settlement in 1948 they would have had there own state. But they wouldn’t accept anything that included a Jewish state, consequently what would have been Palatine was given over to Jordan, what is now known as the West Bank

The Palestinians demanded everything and ended up with nothing.

Stuart

Let's just drink, Afrabian. We don't need nothing to drink to do we?

I mean Mr. Fulton's making me blush and stuff but I got to decline the nomination because if he thinks the world's screwed up now, just imagine what I could do to it. Analiese knows her limitations and doesn't need to demonstrate them to anybody.

But I'm very flattered by the cheers because it's really nice to have a cheering section even if I don't actually merit them as much as I might think.

So yeah let's drink to you guys then. We should all keep something coming I think because sooner or later somebody will hear us.

And we might even be lucky and not get crushed by the Cowboy Bush Heel for bitching too much.

But if we do get crushed into bloody mush, it might still be worth it if in the process he loses his balance like a typical drunk and plummets to the floor with a sickening thud while screaming, "Ah shit!!". Somebody might get to see that and get a few laughs. Maybe that's the best any of us can really hope for.

There was a Palestinian state before there was an Kingdom of Judah or a Kingdom of Israel so if you want to go back that far, then go back THAT far.

Otherwise, let's argue the merits of the Balfour thing against the contradictions of the rest of the League of Nations mandate that left us all with this bloody mess in order for Britain and France to share the Levant without coming to blows.

Then when we're done with that, let's ask why we honor some Euroamerican Jews' claims to the land and not the Arab claims? And let's try to avoid making Biblical appearls because we're just going to bring up the whole original conquest of Canaan by the Chosen and I don't really think that's what this should be about.

"There has never been a Palestinian state, but there was once a Jewish state long before Israel was created."

This reasoning might also work to defend the actions of Europeans who killed or forcibly resettled indigenous people in North America. The disorganized indigenous groups living in the soon-to-be-United States had nothing that would be recognized by civilized society as a "state," therefore pushing them out of the way to establish a real state should be acceptable.

Sorry to get sarcastic, Stuart, but among the many excuses for what Israel has done, that is a weak one.

Now Analiese, how wrong was I in claiming, "The disorganized indigenous groups living in the soon-to-be-United States had nothing that would be recognized by civilized society as a 'state'..."?

I tried to give my claim some extra leeway with that qualifier about what "civilized society" would recognize as a state.

Oh, this ought to be fun to watch!

NM

“why we honor some Euroamerican Jews' claims to the land and not the Arab claims?”

The Arab claims where honoured with the 1948 settlement, but the Arabs refused to accept the Jewish claim which was just as valid.

Subcom: That might be your reasoning, but it is not mine. The two situations are completely different and to make comparisons is a false argument.

The original Jewish state, known as Judea, was destroyed by the Roman Emperor Titus who first created the land of Palestine. Ever since Palestine has been under external control cumulating with the Ottoman Empire and with its demise, the British mandate. Even Saladin was a foreigner, he was Egyptian.

Stuart

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Don't know...probably Ari, but what is interesting to note is that the VAST majority of those wars were not "wars" as such, because they were internal. The ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, for example.

And if you think about it, very few armed conflicts in the last 50 years have been *called* "war." Korea, yes. But Vietnam was a "police action." Kuwait was a "liberation." The Eritrians are "freedom fighters."

Sometimes, the liberal notion of political correctness comes back to bite.

AAAAAGH!!!" as she bites her tongue on this debate be cause she's too angry" K

You were absolutely correct, Subcommander. The nationstate is a foreign concept to most of the people of the world and wasn't needed at all until some imperialists showed up wanting trading concessions, carte blanche to loot resources and indenture the local labor pools by depriving people of their common lands.

It was imposed on the peoples of the middle east as well in the wake of the collapse of the Turkish Empire to facilitate French and English exploitation of the region. The Americans joined in that when they became powerful enough.

The nationstate is the child of the dynastic and religious wars of the 14th through 17th centuries in Europe. It was supposed to solve those problems but apparently aggravated them to the point that they are now the problems of the world.

It's a luxury we might consider unaffordable in the contemporary context for a number of reasons but especially because it doesn't foster local self-determination or consensus but subjugates those things to the whims of the wealthy who have their own agenda for exercising their self-determination to exploit the world for their own greedy ends.

The indigenous people of America didn't have nationstates. They had tribes and confederations of tribes. These could have been recognized and were initially until such time as the colonists became powerful enough to overwhelm them. The treaties prove that the recognition existed and was subsequently repudiated in callous disregard for international law and common justice.

The same process is being practiced on a global scale now with unfortunately quite predictable results.

The Arab claims weren't honored by the 1948 settlement, a settlement imposed on the region by outsiders, who used to call the place Outremer or "Overseas". The British promised things to both sides of the dispute they couldn't deliver so it wasn't a settlement at all but an open invitation to warfare.

What we know as Palestine was named after the Philistines, the traditional enemies of the Israelite kingdom that David created.

The Romans included the region in their province of Syria before Jerusalem was sacked by Titus. It was subdivided into Judea, Samaria, and the Decapolis. The Jews were expelled from the region for the most part in the aftermath of their failed rebellion against the Romans. Their national shrine, the Temple was razed to the ground. Only a remnant of the West Wall remains.

For centuries Jews, Arabs and Christians lived side by side in the region under Turkish overlords. Then, in less than 50 years, the British changed that, allowing massive immigration of European Jews, in effect turning the region into a dumping ground for people many Europeans didn't want to have around. This caused encroachment on the other inhabitants and brought on the violent response that the so-called settlement was supposed to address but merely aggravated.

So where are the tribes who claim this land? 10 have disappeared entirely. Two allegedly remain but who bothers to detail their affiliation with those tribes?

It is apparently enough to dream of making a toast "next year in the land of Israel". And now for many that dream is a reality but it has also proved to be a nightmare for many more.

I wonder if the antagonists were allowed to "settle" things locally how much of a nightmare that would be? Maybe something more resembling a natural division of territory would occur.

The Israelis have shown themselves to be tough and resourceful but they wouldn't have been able to conquer and hold on to the Arab lands without US support. Likewise the Palestinians would not have been able to resist them without Arab support, however token.

Again, maybe if all the support were redrawn, these people could finally evolve in their own ways unmolested in their own lands free from having to work out Europe's problems or America's problems or Arab nations' problems in addition to their own?

I think you'll discover on further research, Montana, that the Korean "conflict" was officially known as a police action and Vietnam was known as a war.

Not that it changes things much. It's merely been a not very clever attempt by the American government to avoid having to make formal declarations of war and therefore be answerable to the American people for actually protecting their interests as opposed to the interests of the multinational corporations and other private interests.

One other thing before I forget, Montana. Since it was internal, what you would call that thing between states that Mr. Lincoln sponsored? And what would you call the invasion of the Lakota lands in the 1970s by the FBI and other armed government agencies?

Sometimes with the diplomacy and the politics and the speeches of the hawks it's all to easy to forget that Iraq is a real place with real people who will see the bombs coming through the air to kill them.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,482-610123,00.html

"That might be your reasoning, but it is not mine. The two situations are completely different and to make comparisons is a false argument."

Sorry, I wasn't interpreting your meaning very carefully. You weren't necessarily using that excuse to justify all the actions of Israel. My point was that saying Palestine never was a state or the Palestinians never had a state does not mean that Israelis should be excused for forcibly resettling people who were cluttering up their newly acquired area.

Didn't the Nazis claim they were reunifying territory that had been together at one time, Austria and Germany and the Sudetenland? (Spelledwronglyland?) I don't mean all the places that Germany invaded were covered by that excuse, but some of their early conquests?

There must be many nations right now which claim a certain hunk of territory that was lost in past wars, but which might arguably be switched back to the original nation which held it. Even if we agree that a certain territory should suddenly be switched to its old owner, you can't just pull the rug out from the residents or squatters who are there at the time, push them out of the country or into concentration camps. So no matter which people were the rightful heirs to that land, they shouldn't have tried to evict all the others.

I mean, we can talk about Judea, Titus, the Ottoman Empire, Saladin. Today, there is probably at least one Japanese family living somewhere in Israel. Let's say they moved to Israel, enjoy the people and the place, and they're planning to get Israeli citizenship. How does Titus relate to them? Should they be pushed out of the country because Judea existed before Titus took the land, and they aren't descended from either of those groups?

(I don't know how the laws work as far as becoming a citizen of Israel, but I assume it would be possible.)

They need to reconcile ancient history with the current situation somehow.

I'm going to see if I can say this without getting this entry sensored. In 1948, the Western World came up with a brilliant plan, and its benefits were two-fold. First they would get rid of the Jews in Europe and N. America, whom no one particularly liked, without any further bloodshed and second it would put these Jews in a strategically priceless location where they would be perpetually in harm's way and at the Western world's mercy. That plan is Israel. Forget the fact that most of its residents of Jewish descent are actually from central europe genetically and converted during the dark ages. Forget the fact that prior to 1948 none of them wanted to be anywhere near Jerusalem for more than a pilgrimage. They were merely a ploy for us to keep the oil world in check by parking one of the most well-equiped and trained armies of Earth within 48 hours of the most valuable real estate on the planet. There was no altruistic motive. The people that are responsible for it actually think the Jews are critical only for the fact that they must occupy Jerusalem to kick off armageddon and the return of Christ ala Revelations, at which point all those Jews are going to die and go to Hell for failing to recognize the true savior. So all you Israelis out there who are the U.S.'s bioggest welfare case, are merely part of our Christian Fundamentalist end of days playbook and following their plan for bringing about the end of the world in fine fashion. That's why there can be no peace there.
By the way, how's that new Democracy going in Serbia these days? Good to see that the reward for handing Milosevic over to the West is a couple of snipers bullets and an economy dominated by organized crime. I'm sure we'd do a better job with Iraq though, there's way more at stake there.

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The comment was about AFTER the UN was established. And my point was that most armed conflicts since that time haven't been called wars.