Israel has invaded Gaza...

[bobabode]

Big, wet slobbery kisses all around and no I'm not hammered....yet.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by Oerets

If Israel were to relinquish some of the prime land stolen from the Palestinians.

There's that "stolen" language again Barney. That "UN Land Grab" language. When I hear it, there's no question in my mind that people like you and I have an unrelenting and unresolvable difference of opinion about who the bad guys are in this.

And whenever I hear it I am taken back to the real history and issue here. The history? In 1948 when the Egyptians "stole" Gaza from the Palestinians and the Jordanians "stole" the West Bank from the Palestinians. The issue? There were no rocket attacks, mortar attacks, or maniacs with explosives blowing up neighborhoods and markets and buses in Gaza or the West Bank when the territories were occupied by Jordan and Egypt.

There was none of any of this terrorist bullshit until it was the Jews who took Gaza and the West Bank from Egypt and Jordan in 1967. Israel never took any Palestinian land...they took Egyptian and Jordanian land.

If there had never been a '67 war...does anybody really think that there would be a Palestinian homeland in Gaza or the West Bank? Of course not. It would be as it was in 1948...the West Bank would be part of Jordan and Gaza would be part of Egypt. And the Palestinians? The Palestinians would be living in Jordan and Egypt and everything would be hunky-dory. Would there be rockets and mortars launched into Egypt and Jordan? Of course not.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

Oh I'm sorry. Apologies to all. The cancer/removal thing was just a metaphor. Silly me for think it meant a damn thing, let alone going all the way to genocide.

It might have just mean ethnic cleansing, after all.

And Ike, why is calling Nailer on a clearly outrageous metasphor a deadly sin? It was an outrage, wasn't it? Equating policy toward a group of human beings to surgical removal of deadly disease tissue?

OK...OK...obviously both comments might have been more thoughtfully considered. But in Nailer's defense...I believe he was referring specifically to organizations like Hamas, not to Palestinians in general...and I continue to see Hamas as no better than Al-Qaeda, Isis or any other murderous terrorist group.

That said...I'm all for lightening up this atmosphere hereabouts.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

I don't know about anybody else hereabouts...and regarding what I'm about to say, don't much care either...but with this one, any credibility you might have once had with me is flushed down the shitter.

Yeh, "mowing the grass" is a much more pleasant euphemism.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

Israel never took any Palestinian land...

This conveniently overlooks the fact that Palestinian land was bestowed upon them in 1948.

[nailer]

Jews owned land in the British Mandate of Palestine.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by nailer

Jews owned land in the British Mandate of Palestine.

As did Palestinians until Israel passed laws in 1951 to take all land belonging to Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war. The land of Palestine in 1948 was 68% Arab and 32% Jewish.

With regard to the unseemliness of the genocide comment, an influential Israeli politician, Ayelet Shaked, of the Jewish Home party (part of Netanyahu's ruling coalition) did catch a lot of heat lately for her genocidal comments.

http://jonathanturley.org/2014/07/17...onal-backlash/

[nailer]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

OK...OK...obviously both comments might have been more thoughtfully considered. But in Nailer's defense...I believe he was referring specifically to organizations like Hamas, not to Palestinians in general...and I continue to see Hamas as no better than Al-Qaeda, Isis or any other murderous terrorist group.

That said...I'm all for lightening up this atmosphere hereabouts.

I respectfully submit that my cancer metaphor was thoughtfully considered. Cancer treatments target the cancerous cells with the full understanding that healthy cells will be destroyed. Hamas is cancerous while most of Gaza is healthy.

Personally, I think Israel is heavy handed. If I were an Israeli, I might feel differently.

[nailer]

Originally Posted by finnbow

As did Palestinians until Israel passed laws to take all land belonging to Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war.

Did the Palestinians fight beside the Jews when the surrounding Arab states invaded the former British Mandate to push them into the sea? I think not, they left the actual/potential combat zones rooting for their Arab brethren. Their team lost.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by nailer

Did the Palestinians fight beside the Jews when the surrounding Arab states invaded the former British Mandate to push them into the sea? I think not, they left the actual/potential combat zones rooting for their Arab brethren. Their team lost.

It's not as though they supported the creation of the state that you argue they should have fought for, a state that appropriated their ancestral lands 3 years later.