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In WWII Germany was the small guy. Japan was small in comparison as well. The Mongols were a miniscule pittance in contrast to the Chinese, European, Indian, and Muslim areas they conquered. Same for the Huns.
Al Queda is tiny in comparison to the US.

Feel sorry for them too?
Nuts.

Actually Germany was arguably the most powerful country in the world before World War two. Perhaps behind south africa. Certainly the most powerfull in europe.

Frazzled wrote:In WWII Germany was the small guy. Japan was small in comparison as well. The Mongols were a miniscule pittance in contrast to the Chinese, European, Indian, and Muslim areas they conquered. Same for the Huns.
Al Queda is tiny in comparison to the US.

Feel sorry for them too?
Nuts.

Palestine is as powerful as Japn in ww2?

whatwhat wrote:Actually Germany was arguably the most powerful country in the world before World War two. Perhaps behind south africa. Certainly the most powerfull in europe.

He said little guy. They were quite a bit smaller than their victims. Indeed the big Kahuna was the USSR. So does anyone feel sorry for the Germans again?

namegoeshere wrote:

Frazzled wrote:In WWII Germany was the small guy. Japan was small in comparison as well. The Mongols were a miniscule pittance in contrast to the Chinese, European, Indian, and Muslim areas they conquered. Same for the Huns.
Al Queda is tiny in comparison to the US.

Feel sorry for them too?
Nuts.

Palestine is as powerful as Japn in ww2?

You said the small guy, not me. Sorry if you can't live with your own statement.

The french army had more and better equipment at the beginning of WWII, and even the Japanese knew they couldn't win a long term war against the United States. It's not about size, it's about leverage.

My sympathy lies with the Palestinians as well, I just think their leaders have failed them, and their campaign of terror against Israel is not how to gain my support.

namegoeshere wrote:When a big guy beats the gak out of a small guy, my sympathy is with the small guy. Maybe both sides are stupid. But the Israeli state is the guilty party, they have the power to change the situation.

Frazzled wrote:He said little guy. They were quite a bit smaller than their victims. Indeed the big Kahuna was the USSR. So does anyone feel sorry for the Germans again?

Don't think he was referring to the size of the country. And if your suggesting the USSR was the more powerfull before 1945, to be blunt, your incorrect.

Frazzled wrote:What were the points again?

For my part in our arguement I believe that:

Israel is more to blame for the outcome and deaths of the Jamnuary conflict than western media and authorities have been saying. Hamas is not entirely to blame for the cause, and is not responasbile for the deaths of the Pslestianian civilians killed in the retaliations.
- Essentially tit for tat killing is NOT justice.

Israeli short term goals have failed, efforts to prevent rocket attacks is not working and largely counter productive.
- Though admittedly China called for Hamas to admit defeat. Still China works on a different set of principles to those of a 'western democracy' and can and will perpetuate these policies internally.

Israeli long term goals have also likely failed. Hamas membership is growing far faster than it is being removed by all manners of attrition, the same might not be said of materiel. We cannot accurately judge if Israel has been successful in removing the infratstructure for making rocket attacks. We know at least it has not been entirely eradicated. A more likely long term goal, offer retaliation so terrible Palestianians will be too afraid to resist also likely wont work as the resolve to resist has not been lessened and has been increased by anger resentment and humiliation.
- Destruction of Palestinian business infrastructure sees to that. Over the years and recently businesses have been targetted by the bulldozer and the high explosive bomb. Some for no more reason than being in the way of clearance zones etc.
Also the workforce being forced into apparently up to three hour checkpoint queues each morning for low end underpaid jobs as guest workers Israel is a humiliation to Palestinians. Humiliation breeds resentment, resentment breeds terrorism. Admit it, you would feel angry is this was your career future: Up at five to be at the checkpoint for six to queue to get into Israel to work by nine for a Jewish company with "rich" Jewish employees, and you doing the gak job with no trade union representation, no prospects and little pay. Not every Jewish employer would treat you like dirt, but I suspect a few do, its human nature.
If this was my career future I would be resentful. Would you?
Sure we all understand why checkpoints are needed, but this doesnt make it easy for the people.

I am going to end now. I have little more to add and this is getting cyclic. Reply as you wish to this comment but ask no more questions.

Needless to say I am disgusted by what I have seen and heard done this last few months, but do know and freely admit that if Israel ever drops its guard there are many around them who would gladly puish them into the see. I am equally disturbed that I feel myself having to raise a form of defence to Islamic factions for which I have no real sympathy.

I will let God say the last word for me in his uncannily similar critique over the morality of Israel (in fact Judah) long, long ago:

Ezekiel 16 v51,52 "You have done more detestable things than they, and have made your sisters (neighbouring states) seem righteous by all the things you have done. Bear your disgrace, for you have furnished some justification for your sisters. Because your sins were more vile than theirs , they appears more righteous than you."

Again, Germany and Japan were miliatrily weaker than their opponents. After all, they lost. The Mongols never outnumbered their opponent.

Its all perspective isn't it? I'd proffer from the Israeli perspective, its not them vs. Gaza, but them vs. 1.0Bn people in the region. Sounds like they scheduled way too many opponents in the game of mideast uber pwonage.

Again, I'm all for a full and complete pullout from gaza and the West Bank, with a declaration that they are independent territories that can do what they want-stay independent, or join contiguous related countries, with massive retaliation for any attacks after that point. But peaceful co-existence is not in Hamas and Hamas' benefectors' interest.

After all, what happens if they quit fighting? Then all the psychos turn inward and attack their own countries-ala Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

After all, at that point

Polonius wrote:@ Orlanth: I think you're missing my point. I don't have the info you seem to have about the extent of segregation within Israel. If you can share that, I'd appreciate it. For example, you seem to compare the Arab MKs in Israel to the tribal chiefs in South Africa. The difference is that Arabs serve in the actual Israeli government while the Chiefs only had authority over their enclaves.

I'm not trying to deny anything. I'm simply saying that you should call things what they are. I know that under apartheid blacks were utterly without rights. I know that under Israeli law Arabs have rights. that's enough of a difference, to me at least, to make any quite connection tenuous at best. I think the Jim Crow laws in the US might be closer (and those were never as bad as Apartheid, although they came dead close).

I also want to make clear I'm not talking about the territories or any non-citizens. I'm talking about Arab-Israeli citizens.

I respectfully disagree with you. But my time within this thread has come and gone, it is becoming cyclic and cyclic threads end up with threads where one or both sides do not listen, and no matter how well argued they always end up with trolling in the end, if not by us, by others.

Let us say that while I appreciate there were some differences between Israel and apartheid South africa, there were also many similarities both in Israel itself and most ceertainly regarding the West Bank and Gaza which have been defacto ruled under direct occupation by Israel since 1967. Besides I still stand by my comment that an Israeli Arab, let alone a West Bank Palestinian has far more in common with an apartheid regime political minority than an unwelcome political minority in a western democratic country today. Though I do admit there are minor differences, discrimination doesnt go far enough as a classification of the status of the society in which they exist.

Sir, I will end by saying that I choose to find nothing in your commentaries that I read as anything other than polite, well mannered and logical responces, and have not for my part replied in anger to you.

Frazzled wrote:Again, Germany and Japan were miliatrily weaker than their opponents. After all, they lost. The Mongols never outnumbered their opponent.

Well I still disagree, Germany were by f ar the more military strong in Europe at the time.

However I was just disagreeing with a statement you made to back up your point, I actually agree with your point. The politics of war is far more complicated than a school yard. The argument "pick on someone your own size" isn't really applicable when a country is looking out for each and every one of it's citizens.

Before losing, Germany and Japan managed to overrun the whole of Europe except the UK, some of North Africa, most of European Russia, chunks of eastern China, and all the western nations' asian empires including the Philippines, and they only ran out of steam near the border to India.

They then managed to keep the war going for another 3-4 years. So I don't think they were military weak or even underdogs.

Japan did not stand a chance against a unified and ticked off US. Germany was the definite underdog in the Loeuenbrau Stolichnaya World Domination Bowl.

namegoeshere wrote:
We do absolutely nothing for 3 reasons.

1. Israel is a well armed and nuclear country
2. We don't give a gak about other countries if no money is involved.

Ish. I suspect the £18,847,795 of weapons we sold them in the first three months of 2008, compared to the total sales of £ 7, 500,000 in 2007 might have something to with it as well.

....The UK was bigger than Germany ? Man, that coastal erosion must be worse than I thought.

Orlanth wrote:Anyway enough bitching about Israeli poliocy. We can complain but can we offer a solution, for one side or another.

I think we can.

Compulsory purchase.

Literally buy out the Palestinians, offer them cash for land. Not at current rates as it is not worth much. No really buy them out. Sure you have to buy them all and that means you cant give them a choice. But if the billions spent on arming Israel was used to a mass relocation with fair monetary settlement, it mighty even end up cheaper. I dont see manty downsides to this Israel wins as they get the land. palestinians sort of win as they are paid to relocate. Not into refugee camps but with money to rebuild homes and businesses. Hamas doesnt win, but that is not a problem.

The only way I see this working is if the blame finger is passed through Israel to the US as backers of Israel. Along the lines of 'you bankrolled the problem, now you can pay for a fair solution'.

Actually what I would really like is for Israel to become a protectorate of the USA, if temporarily. Same as above but Mr Palestianian now has access to due process. However this would get very expensive quickly and I dont see Jerusalem agreeing to any surrender of sovereignty however short term this is for.

It's an interesting idea, but I think you underestimate the desire of Palestinians to live on ancestral land. It's unlikely all but a minority will be happy with forced relocation, even if its well funded forced relocation. Right now there are second and third generation Palestinians living in other countries in the region that still have the keys to their homes in what is now Israel, that still dream of returning home. In most cases the houses were bulldozed fifty years ago...

Polonius wrote:As for Arab Israelis, there are some signifigant gaps between the the defacto priviliegs of Jews vs. Arabs. Access to land, money spent on education, etc. are all higher for Jews. Jews have a legal right to immigrate to Israel, while Arabs, even those related to Israeli citizens, do not. In most areas though, Arab Israelis have the same rights: speech, dissent, voting, participation in government, etc. They generally not as well off, healthy, or educated.

The Knesset recently banned Arab parties from taking place in the upcoming elections, citing disloyalty. It was overruled by the Supreme Court, but there's now other efforts in place to remove Arab parties from the electoral process.

Frazzled wrote:For me this is just one conflict of a hundred in the world. Big deal.

Except this conflict has billions of dollars in US aid being given to Israel, and that means your country has a direct input into what is happening there.

Orlanth wrote:Israeli long term goals have also likely failed. Hamas membership is growing far faster than it is being removed by all manners of attrition, the same might not be said of materiel. We cannot accurately judge if Israel has been successful in removing the infratstructure for making rocket attacks. We know at least it has not been entirely eradicated. A more likely long term goal, offer retaliation so terrible Palestianians will be too afraid to resist also likely wont work as the resolve to resist has not been lessened and has been increased by anger resentment and humiliation.

The medium term goal of turning Palestine away from Hamas is probably a failure. Israel started this policy by ramping up the quarantine on Palestine, to make the Palestinians give up and return to the corrupt but less aggressive Fatah. This led to considerable increases in the number of rocket attacks, which led to Israel pounding hell out of Palestine, and the increase in Hamas recruitment numbers. Whether this results in stronger showings for Hamas at the polls is yet unknown, but it's unlikely Palestine will relent to Israeli violence, as no country ever has. People just don't work that way.

The issue with long term Israeli goals is that they don't exist. There's no coherent end position, and hasn't been for a while now. The two state solution is offered, but Jews continue to make illegal settlements in Gaza, and Israel only sporadically stops them. Periods of tolerance are abruptly replaced with economic repression and occasional military assault.

Frazzled wrote:Again, Germany and Japan were miliatrily weaker than their opponents. After all, they lost. The Mongols never outnumbered their opponent.

Strangely, I agree with you. German victory over France and BEF was a massive upset, they routed a bigger, better armed force in a matter of weeks. While the Japanese were a lot more powerful than the Eastern British forces (once the British were committed to war with Germany) they were never any match for the industrial power of the US.

I also agree with your overall pointI just don't think any of that matters. Being smaller doesn't mean you deserve sympathy. The IRA was smaller than the British government. Al-Quada is smaller than, well, everyone they're trying to fight.

Its all perspective isn't it? I'd proffer from the Israeli perspective, its not them vs. Gaza, but them vs. 1.0Bn people in the region. Sounds like they scheduled way too many opponents in the game of mideast uber pwonage.

I'm just going to say this bluntly, your understanding of the region and its politics is dreadful. And it isn't getting any better despite the number of threads we've had on this topic. You still see this in the terms of the 1960s, with Arab countries all lined up to take out Israel, despite the number of times people have pointed out the changing political environment. Out of the region, only Iran and Syria are still aggressive towards Israel. Please stop pretending otherwise.

Again, I'm all for a full and complete pullout from gaza and the West Bank, with a declaration that they are independent territories that can do what they want-stay independent, or join contiguous related countries, with massive retaliation for any attacks after that point. But peaceful co-existence is not in Hamas and Hamas' benefectors' interest.

It's also been pointedo out on multiple occasions that Hamas' primary patron is the Saudis. Yes, those Saudis, the ones allied with the US.

After all, what happens if they quit fighting? Then all the psychos turn inward and attack their own countries-ala Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

That's a pretty crude description of Egyptian politics. It nicely assumes that the 'psychos' are fighting simply because they're psychotic, and not because of the hellish living conditions in Palestine that are a direct result of Israeli quarantine. Actually, Israeli and Egyptian quarantine... but then thinking Egypt and Israel working together to enforce a border plan doesn't really fit with your idea of Israel alone in a sea of barbarians, so you'd better ignore it.

Waging a war against populations because of the actions of terrorists is a terrible idea. Unless your goal is to kill people for a long time with no effect.
Spending the money on schools housing etc would have a massive effect toward the positive.

reds8n wrote:
Ish. I suspect the £18,847,795 of weapons we sold them in the first three months of 2008, compared to the total sales of £ 7, 500,000 in 2007 might have something to with it as well.

Awesome point

You stated Israel is the same as SA back during the apartheid but you have failed to support your claim. I have been to Israel and traveled extensively there. I have been to SA during the apartheid and ten years after. I traveled extensively through SA as well. There is nothing similar between the two. Israel has an excellent standard of living and produces top technology such as software. SA is booming now with many foreign manufactures setting up shop. Apartheid was a crime against humanity but times have changed a lot there. I felt very comfortable wherever I went and was often helped by those indigenous to the land.

G

Orlanth wrote:

Polonius wrote:I'm not sure where you've gotten your facts. I certainly can be wrong, but it seems a little weird to me to call a minority that has representation in the Kenneset, a judge on the supreme court, and every basic right "slaves." I didn't see anything about the passports.

Indeed, but you are seeing 'token Arab'. Israel is not certainly stupid, have an Israeli Arab who is moderate, allow him some leeway. after all in every minoroty there are some you want to keep. No that is not fair. There are some who rise to the top and it would be senseless let alone wrong to punish them unnecessarily.
There were such people under Apartheid too, why do you think South africa built cantonments and encouraged tribal chiefs and kings to rule pocket enclave kingdoms

Polonius wrote:As for economic imbalance, guess what? That happens everywhere. It's still not apartheid.

True but, the differences are in scale are the key. Discrimination is what you get here in Europe and America and it can go several ways. Some companies still wont hire the black man (though they have tom mask that carefully) you also get reverse discrimination nd not get a job the the police for being white and be marked down in army entrance for same reason. Thuis however is another story.
The main difference is scale and extent. If blacks in Europe had the same restrictions as Israeli arabs we would be able to see it for ourselves, it goes beyond a basic imbalance in opportunity.

One daily life example I heard, yes it is anecdotal, but also indicative of many many differences between an apartheid style state and a merely discriminatory one. Its a good example because it doesnt involve any hatred or core of hatred:

A car accident in Jerusalem, no violance involved just a car accident involving Jewish and Arab registered cars (yes car registration is segregated). Jerwish and Arab ambulances arrive (yes ambulances are segregated). The Jewish ambulance is clearly far better equipped. The local police orders the Arab ambulance crew out the way so the Jewish ambulance can extract jewish casualties as priority. The Jewish paramedica find it easier to access Jewish casualties by removing the arab ones from the wreck. So they do so. Including one with neck injuries - who as any paramedic knows should not be moved for fear of spinal injury and the arab parameics were not willing to remove.

Polonius wrote:Painting Israel with the same brush as Apartheid South Africa is simply inflammatory, and prevents you from making your real point, which is that the treatment IS unequal, and that something should be done about that.
Saying "Israel has apartheid" allows Israeli apologists to simply say "no, it doesn't" and move on.

This isn't an answer, it is just denial.
However you brush close to the defence by still relying on the standpoint that criticism is inflamation rather than information and can therefore be ignored as bigotry. This is quite unfair, I am no bigot and my comments should be answered for themselves rather than circumvented by what could be taken as an assault on my credibility.
To your credit at least you have not gone to the ultimate step of accusing repeated critics of Israel as automatically being anti-semitic. That is where things get nasty. aka 'If you speak out against Israeli policy, you are likely to be some sort of neo-Nazi, therefore we have no reason to answer you, and we discourage others not to listen to you as you are the one who is truly evil'.
This line has been used before to cover a multitude of excesses and to silence critics by fear of labelling and the resultant smear on reputation, why do you think so few US politicians (in particuolar) ever dare to speak out against anything Israel does.

You do realise whether or not a country has an excellent standard of living has nothing to do with apartheid. South africa was the wealthiest nation on earth before oil became the number 1 commodity a century or so ago. During apartheid. Just because a place looks and seems nice doesn't mean racial and religious atitudes are going to be similar.

That said I have no interest in discussing the differences between israel and SA and whether or not it is in apartheid.

Green Blow Fly wrote:I felt very comfortable wherever I went and was often helped by those indigenous to the land.

lol. Who out of interest are you describing as the indigenous people of Israel?

I was referring to SA in that statement.

G