Quote:
Originally Posted by donquixote99
C'mon. I never said that.
"Too bad you people' is rather sarcastic. A lot of the grief you're catching in this thread is due to the tone you take with others. I mention this because it doesn't have to be the 'normal' way these matters are discussed. We could decide to offer each other more respect. I think we'd have more chance to understanding each other better, and even finding some areas of agreement, and new insights, if we did that.
As for the history you mention, 'living in' is one thing, of course, while having political ascendancy or full national sovereignty is quite another. The bottom line is that in 1947, the Israelis claimed full national sovereignty, in the usual way, with armed force. I recognize 'facts on the ground, and am not calling for Israel's disestablishment.
It would go a huge long way if you and the Israelis would just admit they came in and took over, creating said facts by force and fraud. That they did real harm to a lot of Palestinians doing it, and have done a lot more harm since. That Roger Cohen isn't just a messed-up guilty guy, but a person with good values, and with a lot of truth to what he says.
Maybe another way to say that is 'it's not messed up to feel guilty if you've done wrong.'
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Neither I, nor Israelis should say anything of the sort. A reasonable plan for a Palestinian homeland and a Jewish homeland was provided by the British Mandate and it was rejected right out of the gate and not by the Jews. If Roger Cohen wants to ignore the fact that right from the beginning, the stated goal of the enemies of Israeli Jews was the destruction of any Jewish state in the "holy land" and the death of any Jews who try to establish any Jewish state in the "holy land", and that it continues unchanged to date, that is Mr. Cohen's blind spot.
My tone and my manner are my concern. I have strong feelings about this and I see no need to temper them so that you can feel all comfy that at the end of the day we can all sit around the campfire and sing kumbaya with each other. Because there's never any agreement on this issue. Just as there's never any agreement on guns, or abortion, or creationism or gay marriage or most of any of the other issues debated on this forum or any other.
Seems to me when us lefty guys get our back up the most is when somebody who's typically the spread on your side of the bread suddenly turns into a braindead right-winger on any particular subject. Then we got all these concerns about sarcasm back and forth (because it's fucking back and forth Don and it's been back and forth since my opinions were known...it ain't just me) that we don't have when everybody remains properly ensconced in their anticipated ideological space. It's so interesting how I'm told I don't get it and I don't know what I'm talking about...but I get it fine and I know what I'm talking about just fine when I'm agreeing with the left-side of this forum. But it's that way for any liberal supporter of Israel on any liberally slanted forum. Ask any liberal forum member who's a supporter of the state of Israel and decides to shoot himself in the head by making it public on that forum.
The problems all end when Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda terrorism ends. When hundreds of rockets and mortar rounds aren't fired into quiet Israeli neighborhoods filled with people who just want to be left the fuck alone, but probably won't ever be because some religious fanatic and the dolts who are more than happy to follow him don't like who lives in the neighborhood.
Trying to make peace with those people is like trying to make peace with a fucking wolverine.