Israel

[OrangeCounty]

Going to so thoroughly enjoy utterly demolishing you again.

Israel is/was an ancient kingdom, the legitimacy of its existence extends far beyond that of any Arab/Muslim state operating under the borrowed regional name "Palestine."

For millennia the Jews were looking to return and reestablish their nation-state and that happened back in the 40's, initiated earlier with the Zionist political party in the late 19th century.

Again, why do you even comment on this topic when I already made an example of how clueless you are last thread.

E: Now that I can very easily pick your comment apart.



Completely false; their own declaration of independence called for the cooperation of Jews and Arabs, even directly after the multitude of riots and massacres against the returning Jews a day before the 1948 war they still added in this.

WE APPEAL - 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.

I know you tried peddling the whole "expulsion" meme as most people do, but the reality of the matter is the Jews, Israel, have never attempted to expel, undermine, or subject to unfair treatment those who weren't Jewish. All refugees are not non-Jewish, in fact, many were Jewish and Christian as well during the Israeli-Arab wars when towns would be entirely evacuated of all inhabitants irregardless of religion or ethnic background. Furthermore, hundreds-of-thousands of non-Jews did remain within Israel during and after the 1948, 67 and 73 war.

The only people peddling the "expulsion" viewpoint are pseudo-historians like Pappe, who have been caught completely altering direct quotes and later lying about it to try and cover up his half-assed work.




I wonder how many of those have expansionist and murderous theologies as neighbors?



Just to start off with a really simple test, please explain who the "Palestinians" we're 2,000 years ago.

A "Palestinian" peoples has never existed in recorded history. Not only that, Arabs never identified with being "Palestinian" until Arafat. All of Arab nationalism prior to revolved around Southern and Greater Syria, led by Emir Faisal. Hence why he was the one representing the Arab movement during the war against the Ottomans in the Levant, with the British and other Jews.

"Both sides hate each other."

Only one side has incited violence and wars of annihilation.

Inb4 "i-Israel genocide!" Or "Pallywood ethnic cleansing!"

When I'm at home off work I'll start pasting all the League of Nations and UN reports that detailed everything that contradicts these propaganda points.

Then again, I already posted all of this when I buried moe in the last thread.

Now that i'm home this will be much easier.



Entirely false. Can you give me a single example of Israel "expanding their territory" after 1973? I'll save you the time and effort, they haven't, and ironically, they've done exactly the opposite, giving land back to those who publicly proclaim their destruction and teach the murder of Jews in schools.

I'm also suspecting you'll bring up the "illegal settlements" in the WB. The "settlements" are entirely legal and aren't built within Area A, which is legally the PA's; it's illegal for non-residents (Jews) to even step foot in these areas. Area C, as per the Oslo Accords, agreed to by the PA, is fully under Israeli military control. Area B is jointly the PA and IDF, however, the IDF maintains seniority in certain instances (such as arrests).

Furthermore, the WB was never "Palestinian" to begin with, it was under Jordanian control (illegally, against the UN resolution which would have divided it among the Jewish/Arab state, but it doesn't seem like people like to talk about that fact too much, wonder why) and taken during wartime to defend their exposed major cities. Same exact issue with the Golan Heights and the dispute with Syria. I guess Syria should have thought about that before firing mortars and sniping villagers.

Do you want to continue with Gaza? Gaza is a wonderful mess in which they forcefully evicted every single last Jew (you probably don't remember the live footage on our news stations of the IDF literally dragging their fellow Jews out as they adamantly refused to leave), and of course Israel got peace in return. Oh wait... no, that's not what happened sorry. In return, Israel got tens-of-thousands of rockets and threats of annihilation. Kind of reminds me when Arafat "recognized" Israel as the Jewish nation and its right to exist, yet..... the violence still continued. Kind of like how when leaders of the PLO are interviewed by Western media they lie and lie and lie, then back home it's almost like a comedy as they go back to calling for the murder of Jews and destruction if Israel.

It's funny that I can destroy your argument with a single link from BBC News dated from the past year:

Israel 'approves 464 settlement homes in West Bank' - BBC News


You must not get out much because Israel has been expanding on a yearly basis.

 

[Felix]

It's funny that I can destroy your argument with a single link from BBC News dated from the past year:

Israel 'approves 464 settlement homes in West Bank' - BBC News


You must not get out much because Israel has been expanding on a yearly basis.

Alluding to "hey I'm going to destroy your argument with..." only makes your own argument seem weaker. You are right, though. Israel does continue to expand. I'm just letting you know that in the future if you wish to show an assertive argument, you should be coherent and expand on the sources you cite rather than just citing the source itself.

 

[OrangeCounty]

Alluding to "hey I'm going to destroy your argument with..." only makes your own argument seem weaker. You are right, though. Israel does continue to expand. I'm just letting you know that in the future if you wish to show an assertive argument, you should be coherent and expand on the sources you cite rather than just citing the source itself.

Really? It seems pretty clear to me, you don't even have to read the article itself, he just has to read the title of the article to know that he just made a very untrue statement.

Why waste words on someone who is that far off-base?

 

[Felix]

Really? It seems pretty clear to me, you don't even have to read the article itself, he just has to read the title of the article to know that he just made a very untrue statement.

Why waste words on someone who is that far off-base?

Because that's how you prove your point when making a sound argument: you show someone why they're so off-base, you prove them wrong.

 

[OrangeCounty]

But I accomplished that with minimal effort The guy just wants to rage at people, I'm not going to engage with that much effort.

 

[Spyder69]

It's funny that I can destroy your argument with a single link from BBC News dated from the past year:

Israel 'approves 464 settlement homes in West Bank' - BBC News


You must not get out much because Israel has been expanding on a yearly basis.

You just proved you didn't actually read anything, and that again not only on the electoral college topic, you're also uneducated on this topic.

None of the settlements are built in Area A, making it legal. Area A is 100% under PA jurisdiction, butttttttttttttt, unfortunately, again, the settlements aren't built in there.

Try again.

E: Silly me, I keep forgetting to ask you simple questions that make you look at your own response and think "dang i'm stupid."

Please tell me who was occupying the land before it came under Israeli control that went against the UN resolution divvying it up (here's a hint, their name starts with a "J").

Secondly, please explain to me what Area A, B and C all are, considering the article makes no mention of where these settlements are located in the WB.

Lastly, please explain to me what the Oslo Accords are.

Simple right? Once you've done that you can proceed to see yourself out of the forums.

 

[Spyder69]

Alluding to "hey I'm going to destroy your argument with..." only makes your own argument seem weaker. You are right, though. Israel does continue to expand. I'm just letting you know that in the future if you wish to show an assertive argument, you should be coherent and expand on the sources you cite rather than just citing the source itself.

Israel is "expanding" on land that's actually theirs as per the Oslo Accords. Every dispute that occurs in the WB occurs on Israeli owned land that goes against the Oslo Accords and IDF military law.

 

[Shredderbeam]

Thank you for the compliment!

So, if I'm correct, a country has a right to exist when its government has a 'right' to own the land it purports to 'exist' on? Let's take a step back and analyze what the word 'right' itself means though.

If I have a right to own a certain bit of land, does this mean you have a duty to abstain from interfering with the exercise of my right to own this certain bit of land? In other words, if I have a 'right' to own the land my house sits on, and you say: 'that's cool, I'll build my swimming pool on that bit of land' (that you own), then this 'right' is a bit meaningless no? Rights, at least under a Hohfeldian view correlate with duties which others owe to us.

If we accept this tool, let's reanalyze the situation. If Israel has a right to own the land it purports to own, then does this mean the broader international community has a duty to abstain from interfering with Israel's exercise of its right to own the land? With ownership comes an embedded right to exclude, so naturally Israel would have the right to exclude those natural citizens from the land it now owns by right.

I suspect you will say that Israel does not have a 'right' to own the land, and so no correlative duties arise, in which case, the next question arises: what does Israel have? What comments do you have about the above?

I think I poorly worded my original post. I agree with your earlier points about rights to own land and duties to abstain from interfering with others land. My main criticism rests upon Israel's expansionist tendencies, such as expansion into Palestinian territory on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. I argue that in those situations, Israel is attempting to do what England did to Northern Ireland - settle the area with enough Israelites such that Israel has an excuse for having its military there, and eventually an excuse for annexation.

As to your reparations point, do you think this is (a) practical, and (b) justifiable? First off, the atrocities and genocide were committed against the ancestors of those whom you seek to repair; you clearly cannot make reparations to the ancestors themselves! By what mechanism do you argue that we inherit the rights of our ancestors? So, using the term 'right' loosely, if the ancestors are owed a right to reparation, why does it follow that their offspring inherit the right, and to what extent do they inherit the right? Do they inherit duties as well?

Practically speaking, it would probably be difficult, but it certainly would be justifiable. Reparations cannot be made to the ancestors (though in this case there are some who are still alive), but if their children and grandchildren suffer as a result, they are owed compensation. Consider the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow laws in the U.S. - black people are suffering as a direct result of what their ancestors suffered.

If we look at history, war has plagued all lands. You may speak of virgin land, but which land is truly virgin? Those ancestors themselves may have committed atrocities against the generation preceding them. How/where do you draw the line? Also, who are reparations owed to? Do we skip the middle party who also committed atrocities?

Unfortunately, there's no hard cut-off. My initial feelings on this would be that as time passes in the hundreds of years, the "right" to the land would gradually fade. As an example, I don't support evicting the descendants of the Normans out of England and giving the land back to the Anglo-Saxons.

"I don't know what country you live in, but imagine that a country with a more powerful military starts attacking your country. Imagine that you're being firebombed from 50,000 feet (I don't know how high bombers actually fly, lol). Would you make the same argument, that your country "deserves" such tragedy since it cannot defend itself?"

Such is nature. we all conquered each other everyone must lose eventually. Also I have been thru many natural disasters including Tsunamis and Hurricanes and at one point we all accepted we might die.

That is nature, yes, but this is more of a moral argument. I imagine that if somebody threatened you with a gun and took all of your belongings, you wouldn't shrug and chalk it up to nature.

@Shredderbeam you may enjoy a paper called “Necropolitics” by Achille Mbembe. Much of his paper focuses on Israeli-Palestinian relations and particularly Israel's use of death as a form of power.

I'll check it out, thanks!

Well, if you take that route you're arguing against the idea of reparations as a whole. Israel was founded in a time of extreme turmoil, genocide and atrocity. Taking that into account, I would say, yes; Israel as the right to exist as a PEACEFUL state that can defend itself.

I don't think they have the right to expand into the West Bank and swallow up territory left and right.

I'll agree with that. I've never had a problem with a Jewish homeland as a peaceful, non-expansionist state.

In short, yes. I see a lot of "w-well such-and-such is sooo 'arbitrarily' defined!" type of talk thrown around and it gets a bit old. Fact of the matter is Israel and the Jews are a very unique case. Israel was a Jewish kingdom that existed thousands of years ago, the Jews since then have been wanting to return to this land and reestablish their nation.

That's true, but if you want to look that far back, the Jewish people conquered the land from its original inhabitants.

Unfortunately, for thousands of years other conquering powers have held it since then, and only recently during WWI was the chance for the Jews to return a reality thanks to the coming together of the Zionist political party and the cooperation of the British and a very key person, King Emir Faisal, who was supportive of the Jewish return.

You might find some of the interviews in the above video very interesting. Faisal was positive due to the understanding that Arab and Jewish cooperation could make the entire region a success with what the Jews would be bringing with them (as they'll name specifically, large sums of money and the fact that virtually all the best scientists and doctors were Jewish).

Sadly, not everything went to plan as the French quite literally fucked everything up with Syria. (can the French do anything right? At all?)

The conflict in the Levant stems from only a very few people and a few bad decisions on the IDF side that went against IDF orders (hence why you have certain villages/towns that experienced less than ideal situations for evacuation, or as propagandists would put it "expulsion, when in reality, you can find account after account of engagements between Israeli paramilitary and Arab fighters, in some instances dressed as women, but I digress), and the any number of actions taken by the Arab league that started with the forceful expulsion of almost their entire Jewish populations.

http://www.dhimmitude.org/archive/littman_unhrc_wupj_17jul03.pdf
The Palestinian Refugee Issue: Rhetoric vs. Reality | Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs
A/364 of 3 September 1947

Long reads, but you'll find things of this nature interesting if you're interested in the actual historicity of what has happened.

I have a lot of other links to older documents on my other work computer but I have no clue where it is. Some of them are in my old thread though.

If you have any questions pertaining to any topic feel free to ask.

Interesting links. I'll definitely read them, thanks!

 

[Spyder69]

That's true, but if you want to look that far back, the Jewish people conquered the land from its original inhabitants.

I understand that, but the Jews still exist. All other cultures that had any cultural ties to Judea and Samaria ceased to exist millennia ago.

 

[Shredderbeam]

I understand that, but the Jews still exist. All other cultures that had any cultural ties to Judea and Samaria ceased to exist millennia ago.

That's true. With regards to that I'd definitely support a peaceful Jewish homeland.

 

[dont ev3n]

If we're referring to the nation-state itself, I would likely lean towards a no based off its arbitrary creation. As in, the establishment of Israel follows western powers dividing territories and allocating a geographical (however historic) location to the Jews with very little consideration to surrounding populous. I am not truly affirmed to this answer as the establishment of Israel somewhat mirrors that of many other states divided by the UN or western powers; however, there's a slight caveat of Israel being declared the Jewish state and presiding over land deemed to be holy by a variety of religions. It is worth noting that in other states with arbitrary borders (looking at Africa), there is much strife within states themselves due to the many nations that lie within a singular state.

@Shredderbeam you may enjoy a paper called “Necropolitics” by Achille Mbembe. Much of his paper focuses on Israeli-Palestinian relations and particularly Israel's use of death as a form of power.

This. Its creation stemmed from western created division following the first world war only to be abandoned by all aid predeceasing WW2. The pot was created, stirred, then abandoned at the hands of the British for Jewish, and Israeli support in wartime efforts.