Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
"Why has peace not been achieved? Because so far the Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a Palestinian state if it meant accepting a Jewish state alongside it," he said.
"President Abbas must do what I have done. I have stood before my people and I have said I will accept a Palestinian state. It's time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say: I will accept a Jewish state. Those six words will change history … With those words, I will be prepared to make a far-reaching compromise."
Palestinian officials accused Netanyahu of grandstanding for Congress, and said his demands for an immediate recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, rather than as part of an overall peace deal, was yet another obstacle to an agreement.
"What came in Netanyahu's speech will not lead to peace," said Abbas's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdainah.
Netanyahu said he recognised that a peace agreement would require Israel to give up some of the Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, known to Israelis as Judea and Samaria. But he rejected the contention that Israelis had no legitimate claim to the West Bank. "In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers," he said, to a standing ovation. "We're not the British in India. We're not the Belgians in [the] Congo. This is the land of our forefathers."
The Arabs get so emotional about Palestine because the entire combined might of the surrounding Arab states were utterly humiliated . . . not once. not twice, but three times by Israel . . . losing land each time. They epitomized impotent military forces and it embarrassed their manhood. They cannot get over it by agreeing to peace.
Its not the Arab people. Its their leaders and the instigators they hire that create the emotional reaction. Most Arab people do not care.
Quote:
They epitomized impotent military forces
You can't look at them the same way you look at American soldiers. You have to change your mindset to that they are tribesman. In that light they are willing to fight for their own land or for more land to be added to their own (tribe). They are not willing to die for land that they will not have an interest in. Look at the two times the Americans entered Iraq, most of the Iraqi soldiers on the way in gave up without a shot being fired.
Look at all terrorist attacks on Israelis. How many were done by infiltrators (non palestinians) from other countries? none.
Now Israel has to watch Egypt. If the new Egyptian govt decided to violate the tenets of the treaty by allowing weapons into Gaza then Israel will have no choice but to attack Egypt and take the Sinai away from them again (since we all know the UN means nothing to either side). Obama, like all previous presidents, is trying to throw money (nearly $2 Billion) at the situation to stop this from escalating. But we'll see over the next few weeks what will happen.
I guess I meant from people who are in a position that matters.
I did cite a former leader of Indonesia. I think West African Muslims, exempting maybe Nigerians, are often neutral or unconcerned about Israel. (Although if you're a Muslim in much of Mali or Niger the life people have even in Gaza might not look that bad)
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
The Arabs get so emotional about Palestine because the entire combined might of the surrounding Arab states were utterly humiliated . . . not once. not twice, but three times by Israel . . . losing land each time. They epitomized impotent military forces and it embarrassed their manhood. They cannot get over it by agreeing to peace.
I think there's some truth to that. I don't think this makes Arabs particularly unique. (Also Arabs aren't all Muslims and most Muslims aren't Arabs) The peoples who lose a war often seem to remember it when the winners have long since moved on. The Chinese still make movies bemoaning the Opium Wars, which granted is a bit different of a war.
Perhaps one day it will be possible for us to coexist in peace. I have no suggestions as even a first step, but I do pray that Peace will one day return to the region.
Exactly! There is no reason that Palestinians and Israelis cannot live side by side.. And so far the Israeli government has kept those groups under control who would like nothing better then to destroy the mosque and send it back to Mecca in boxes.
I don't know how there will be peace because of all the bloodshed. How can Israelis feel safe even now when hamas is still sending rockets into Southern Israel? The incitement that goes on in the West Bank is constant. How can Jews feel safe? There will be no peace until hamas accepts Israel's right to exist and the incitement stops and Israel sees a true peace partner.
Zionist Israel entered Palestine by force of arms so it will only drag out of it by the same way .
1400 years ago .. the holy Quran told us that jwes spread corruption in earth twice ... in the first time God sent them Nebuchadnezzar to punish them , The second time they will return to Palestine (the Temple )to occupy and they will become a great power and control the world ( like we see now) .. they totally control USA Politically, economically and in the media ) spread corruption again ( The promotion of moral corruption in the media , Dissemination of usury in the banking ..ETC ) .. and when they reach the summit of glory it will be the beginning of their end by the hands of powerful men who dont fear anyone or anything .
The first part of the Quran verse already happened ..so the second verse must happen too .
( when ??)
Allah only knows .
"And We decreed for the Children of Israel in the Scripture: Ye verily will work corruption in the earth twice, and ye will become great tyrants. (4) So when the time for the first of the two came, We roused against you slaves of Ours of great might who ravaged (your) country, and it was a threat performed. (5) Then we gave you once again your turn against them, and We aided you with wealth and children and made you more in soldiery (6)(Saying): If ye do good, ye do good for your own souls, and if ye do evil, it is for them (in like manner). So, when the time for the second (of the judgments) came (We roused against you others of Our slaves) to ravage you, and to enter the Temple even as they entered it the first time, and to lay waste all that they conquered with an utter wasting " Al-Isra 17/4-7
I Think that the way Israel was formed has established a barrier that will be difficult to remove. We have 2 groups of people, each believing themselves to be the rightful heirs to the land and the other as a thief trying to steal it.
I wonder what today would be like if in 1947 we had given the Jews, New York State instead of what was Palestine?
Mandate Palestine, the territory that now comprises Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, was still very much Arab when the British transferred its control of the territory to the UN in 1947. Two-thirds of the population was Arab and only six percent of the cultivable land was in Jewish hands.
The UN plan assigned over one-half of the territory to the Jewish one-third of the population and 44 percent to the Arab two-thirds – a highly unbalanced and unfair partition, but more than that, illegal and immoral for being forced on the majority over its vehement objections.
The Arabs, understandably, were aggrieved. But their reasons to be aggrieved were soon to grow more numerous.
War broke out between the two populations soon after the UN partition plan was announced in 1947. Six months later, 800,000 Palestinians had either been forcibly expelled from their homes by the Jewish militia, the Haganah, or had fled, later to be prevented from returning.
The Jewish population now claimed 80 percent of the territory, an addition of a further 24 percent to the already unbalanced 56 percent pledged by the UN.
It doesn’t take an ethicist or jurist to see that the creation of Israel was an illegal and immoral act, and that Arab Palestinian hatred of Israel, and a desire to see Israel’s dissolution, is not rooted in irrational hatred or anti-Semitism, but in dispossession.
In 1967, Israel gobbled up the remaining 20 percent of ex-Mandate Palestine it hadn’t conquered in 1948. The call for Israel to withdraw to its pre-1967 borders – a plea made by many liberals and progressives as a solution for “peace in the Middle East” – does nothing to address the original ethnic cleansing of 1948, and could hardly, therefore, constitute a just, equitable or even practical solution.
Partition, the solution put forward since 1947, has never worked, not even when the Arab majority was promised 44 percent of the territory. To declare as workable a partition plan that promises a Bantustan-like state on 20 percent of ex-Mandate Palestine and a permanent surrender of the Palestinian right to return is astonishingly naïve.
Apart from dispossession as a reason for hating Israel, Palestinians have other, more quotidian and visceral reasons. These are starkly illustrated in an October 21 2007 Observer article by Conal Urquhart, excerpted below. The article describes, in the words of Israeli soldiers, the brutal and inhuman treatment they mete out to Arab Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank.
“The soldiers described dozens of incidents of extreme violence. One recalled an incident when a Palestinian was shot for no reason and left on the street. 'We were in a weapons carrier when this guy, around 25, passed by in the street and, just like that, for no reason - he didn't throw a stone, did nothing - bang, a bullet in the stomach, he shot him in the stomach and the guy is dying on the pavement and we keep going, apathetic. No one gave him a second look,' he said.
“The soldiers developed a mentality in which they would use physical
violence to deter Palestinians from abusing them. One described beating women. 'With women I have no problem. With women, one threw a clog at me and I kicked her here [pointing to the crotch], I broke everything there. She can't have children. Next time she won't throw clogs at me. When one of them [a woman] spat at me, I gave her the rifle butt in the face. She doesn't have what to spit with any more.'
“Yishai-Karin found that the soldiers were exposed to violence against Palestinians from as early as their first weeks of basic training. On one occasion, the soldiers were escorting some arrested Palestinians. The arrested men were made to sit on the floor of the bus. They had been taken from their beds and were barely clothed, even though the temperature was below zero. The new recruits trampled on the Palestinians and then proceeded to beat them for the whole of the journey. They opened the bus windows and poured water on the arrested men
you can read all here What's Left: Why Palestinians Hate Israel (http://gowans.blogspot.com/2007/10/why-palestinians-hate-israel.html - broken link)
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
