He was living in the same building for one year.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

Of course...so you keep saying.

Surely you can do better than that, sunshine. Where's the venom! Where are the ad hominem insults?

Oh, and why is the Balfour Declaration relevant, if it ever was?

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by Boreas

Surely you can do better than that, sunshine. Where's the venom! Where are the ad hominem insults?

Oh, and why is the Balfour Declaration relevant, if it ever was?

You raised the relevancy issue numbnuts. (Venomy 'nuff for yer masochistic little self?) Not me. All I said is that your response is typical. Which it is.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

You raised the relevancy issue numbnuts. (Venomy 'nuff for yer masochistic little self?) So it's on you to elucidate why you think it is not valid or relevant.

I did but here it is again with a little more meat on its bones.

First off, I never said it was invalid. As a letter of intent by a colonial power, it was entirely valid. It's just that Britain never voluntarily took it to the next level.

The Balfour Declaration was just a letter from a guy to another guy that said the UK thought the creation of a Jewish state was a neat idea. It never had the force of law or official policy. It never led to a timetable for the establishment of or structure for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. It took 31 years, a second World War, a Holocaust, an illegal flood of refugees from Europe and a guerilla war to get the job done. In the end, it took the UN to force the issue on a profoundly reluctant Britain which saw their empire crumbling before their very eyes. The Balfour Declaration was indeed meaningless.

Of course, Ike will maintain that what I'm actually saying here is that, because the Balfour Declaration is and was irrelevant, the State of Israel is illegitimate. The fact that this is absurd on its face won't matter to him.

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by Boreas

The Balfour Declaration was in essence a British letter of intent. It established nothing and delineated no territorial boundaries. (That was Sykes-Picot.)

In the end, it took another World War and the actions of the United Nations to establish a Jewish state within recognized borders. Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan weren't encompassed by those borders.

I did not say a word about the Balfour Declaration, that is a side issue. I was referring to the Mandate given Britain (and the corresponding real estate) proposed by the League of Nations post WW I. That real estate also included Jordan, which Balfour called Trans- Jordan, and he gave that to the Hashemite Kingdom. This mandate did not refer to Israel as such but was intended to find a "Homeland for the Jews".

The subsequent Arab reaction and Jewish counter reaction pretty much led to today's situation but was by no means one-sided.

[merrylander]

Red herring alert

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by Boreas

Surely you can do better than that, sunshine. Where's the venom! Where are the ad hominem insults?

Oh, and why is the Balfour Declaration relevant, if it ever was?

John this is a favourite stunt of yours. I made no reference to that letter, it was you that brought in that rather smelly red herring from out in left field in order to throw the thread off track. F**''K Lord Balfour and the horse he rode in on.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by merrylander

John this is a favourite stunt of yours. I made no reference to that letter, it was you that brought in that rather smelly red herring from out in left field in order to throw the thread off track. F**''K Lord Balfour and the horse he rode in on.

Rob, the post you quoted wasn't addressed to you.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by Boreas

Rob, the post you quoted wasn't addressed to you.

Youre such a coward. The post may not have been addressed to Rob but it was as much in response to Rob as to me.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by Boreas

I did but here it is again with a little more meat on its bones.

First off, I never said it was invalid. As a letter of intent by a colonial power, it was entirely valid. It's just that Britain never voluntarily took it to the next level.

The Balfour Ceclaration was just a letter from a guy to another guy that said the UK thought the creation of a Jewish state was a neat idea. It never had the force of law or official policy. It never led to a timetable for the establishment of or structure for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. It took 31 years, a second World War, a Holocaust, an illegal flood of refugees from Europe and a guerilla war to get the job done. In the end, it took the UN to force the issue on a profoundly reluctant Britain which saw their empire crumbling before their very eyes. The Balfour Declaration was indeed meaningless.

Of course, Ike will maintain that what I'm actually saying here is that, because the Balfour Declaration is and was irrelevant, the State of Israel is illegitimate. The fact that this is absurd on its face won't matter to him.

As far as the letter is concerned, it's confirming support from the British government for the establishment in Palestine of a "national home" for the Jewish people. Seems relevant enough to me. Maybe you require a treatise. The News have as much historical claim to the dirt as any Arab tribe who once squatted on it. It's no less legitimate than the states called Jordan, Lebanon, or Syria.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by merrylander

I did not say a word about the Balfour Declaration, that is a side issue. I was referring to the Mandate given Britain (and the corresponding real estate) proposed by the League of Nations post WW I. That real estate also included Jordan, which Balfour called Trans- Jordan, and he gave that to the Hashemite Kingdom. This mandate did not refer to Israel as such but was intended to find a "Homeland for the Jews".

The subsequent Arab reaction and Jewish counter reaction pretty much led to today's situation but was by no means one-sided.

You did mention Balfour. The fact of the matter is that neither Balfour nor any other Brit was in a position to "give" anything to anybody. What occurred was the carving up of most of the Ottoman Empire into "zones of influence" by the European victors of World War I. There were lots of attempts to work this out. Sykes-Picot was one. The Reglement Organique and the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence were others.

As you can see, it was a very confused process. And "Arab reactions and Jewish counter reactions" were inevitable. As then British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw observed in 2002:

"A lot of the problems we are having to deal with now, I have to deal with now, are a consequence of our colonial past. ... The Balfour Declaration and the contradictory assurances which were being given to Palestinians in private at the same time as they were being given to the Israelis—again, an interesting history for us but not an entirely honourable one."