The Political Discussion Thread

[Annoyed]

Some 200 years ago....

Human nature hasn't changed all that much in 250 years. Government, and the people who make up a government are not to be trusted.

That document is as valid today as it was when it was written.

[Womble]

The whole "end the occupation" thing is laughable. Gaza is the prime example of what's going to happen in any territory Israel might cede control of. I shudder to think what would've been happening right now if the "doves" had enough time at the steering wheel to cede the Golan Heights to Syria; we'd have ISIS on high ground over the Galilee, on the shores of Israel's main water source.

Suppose Israel pulls out of West Bank right now. There's no reason whatsoever to believe that the Palestinians will stop trying to kill us and destroy Israel within the 1947 borders, and all the reasons to believe that they won't stop. By every single opinion poll out there, the Palestinians see the two-state solution not as its own goal but as an intermediate step before one-Judenfrei-state solution. Give them full control of the West Bank, and the conflict will get worse, not better. More people will die, not less. They'll have the ability to shoot mortars at Israel's only international airport and bombard Tel Aviv with rockets the way they currently bombard Sderot.

A generation or two from now, when and if the Arabs ever come to their senses, I'll agree that two states are a good idea and that the time has come to discuss the terms of it. Right now, the best way to manage the conflict is to destroy the great Palestinian dream of ethnically cleansing Jews from the land. Crush their treasured hope of great victory just around the corner. Anyone supporting their "cause" right now is pouring gasoline onto the fire.

[Womble]

Something from my Facebook feed today, from a nurse in an Israeli hospital. She is a Moroccan Jew whose family speaks Arabic at home, so she is fluent in it. The Gaza Arabs who often get treated in a hospital do not expect the Israelis to understand them, so they speak freely among themselves.

Two Arab mothers from Gaza are chatting as they wait for their children to finish treatments. "My son has joined Hamas lately," says one of them. "I'll tell him to blow this place up".

An Arab family with a small child sits in the waiting room next to the Israeli families. The father speaks some Hebrew, the mother none at all, but they get along fine, smile, communicate, share the food they brought with them. The Arab mother takes a watermelon out of her bag, and gives her little son a knife. "Come on," she says in Arabic, "cut it like you stab a Jew. Go ahead, slaughter the Jew!" An awkward moment follows: everyone in the room knows the meaning of "Yitbach al-Yahood".

Army medics have just brought in a group of Palestinian kids from Gaza. A five year old girl tells the nurse examining her: "When I grow up, I will kill you".



I think there's more truth in my signature than most people are comfortable with.

[aretood2]

Um...how close is Hebrew with Arabic? I mean, if a Portuguese family starts talking about stabbing and blowing up people, a Spanish speaker will pretty much pick up on it.

[Pharaoh Hamenthotep]

Something from my Facebook feed today, from a nurse in an Israeli hospital. She is a Moroccan Jew whose family speaks Arabic at home, so she is fluent in it. The Gaza Arabs who often get treated in a hospital do not expect the Israelis to understand them, so they speak freely among themselves.

Two Arab mothers from Gaza are chatting as they wait for their children to finish treatments. "My son has joined Hamas lately," says one of them. "I'll tell him to blow this place up".

An Arab family with a small child sits in the waiting room next to the Israeli families. The father speaks some Hebrew, the mother none at all, but they get along fine, smile, communicate, share the food they brought with them. The Arab mother takes a watermelon out of her bag, and gives her little son a knife. "Come on," she says in Arabic, "cut it like you stab a Jew. Go ahead, slaughter the Jew!" An awkward moment follows: everyone in the room knows the meaning of "Yitbach al-Yahood".

Army medics have just brought in a group of Palestinian kids from Gaza. A five year old girl tells the nurse examining her: "When I grow up, I will kill you".



I think there's more truth in my signature than most people are comfortable with.

Very specific about the warning.. but no details to identify anyone involved.. Sounds like a scare story. Like all those with a character who performs a good deed for someone who then turns out to be a terrorist who then warns the do-gooder about their plan so the do-gooder can get away in time.. This sounds like the same kind of thing.. Although obviously with the main "this is so you can get away in time" part twisted into a death threat.

If you can't find any specific details about it, then it probably didn't happen.

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/warning.asp

[Falcon Horus]

But which came first? Israel taking land, or Hamas/PLO conducting raids?

Israel became a state on May 14, 1948.

Fatah was established by Yasser Arafat and many others on October 10, 1959.
PLO was founded in 1965.
Hamas is an off-shoot from the Muslim Brotherhood and was established in 1987/1988.

[SGalisa]

What needs to happen in order for the occupation to be considered over?

That's pretty obvious, based on past historical history and experiences from that.

Since the original Canaanites no longer exist in the area, and King David of Israel bought Jerusalem (did not take it for free, but bought the land as in an actual real estate transaction), Israel became the rightful owner to the area. However, because (Jewish) Israel is so hated by the rest of the world, after the diaspora in 70 A.D./C.E., whoever else since then took over the land without buying it, but "taking" it over (FREE) have made claims to owning the land. FREEbies don't count. Maybe King David realized this might occur, and that's why he insisted in paying for the property instead of just taking it.

Back to the current timeline, Jewish Israel returned to their original roots, but are considered the occupier, therefore, they would either be ousted (forced out) and then probably still hunted and annihilated or just destroyed on site in Israel's current U.N. declared territory. Either way, Jewish Israel would still be destroyed instantly or eventually (because of the attitude{s} of the rest of the world being against them).

[Falcon Horus]

That's pretty obvious, based on past historical history and experiences from that.

Could you be so kind and return your lands to the original owners... I believe, you took their lands for free too.

[SGalisa]

Could you be so kind and return your lands to the original owners... I believe, you took their lands for free too.

Oh, Aren't you sweet.

In BOTH situations, those who took the lands existed before our birth times. And Actually, some of the land was NOT free. The Native Americans living at the time GAVE Manhattan (currently NYC, NY) to the Americans for a song. It was a swamp dump anyway, not easy to grow crops on it, and they lacked the foresight to see expensive hotels and businesses consuming nearly every square inch of property, so they gave it the new Americans for a *song*. . . in other words -- a Cheap price. I'm not saying I agree with the attitude of those people who have gained profits from living in that area, because it's a wrongful pride attitude against the Native Americans, IMHO.

I have as much compassion in understanding for the Native Americans, because my grandparents inter-married with a Native American tribe. So, that makes my family their family, too. Sort of complicated, but that's what America has become. Many families over here are part Native American from being born into that physical integration of family life.
My hubby's best friend is a mix of Native American tribes plus, a tad of indo-European. Even tho my hubby is not Native American (at all, that he knows of), he and his buddy get along like best (blood) brothers.

[SGalisa]

Very specific about the warning.. but no details to identify anyone involved.. Sounds like a scare story. Like all those with a character who performs a good deed for someone who then turns out to be a terrorist who then warns the do-gooder about their plan so the do-gooder can get away in time.. This sounds like the same kind of thing.. Although obviously with the main "this is so you can get away in time" part twisted into a death threat.

If you can't find any specific details about it, then it probably didn't happen.

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/warning.asp

For starters, I read the stuff in the snopes link.

What Womble said -- It may be rumor, it may be truth. If it is truth and considered a mere rumor, the person or people it is directed at are going to be in danger at some point. Some people do not live the same way most of the compassionate world *tries* to live within the "golden rule" code of living.

It doesn't surprise me about what Womble shared regarding that nurse. My hubby has a similar story when he went to another country, because his employer sent him with 2 other guys to work on machinery in that country (where the population was generally very poor beyond the touring parts of the island--literally living in tin shacks with pot-holed dirt roads and farm critters walking everywhere,including across the dirt roads).

Anywho, the USA American trio went to a food place to eat. One of the visiting trio spoke fluent Spanish of that country (because he was originally born in SPAIN, thus spoke fluent Spanish!), but he spoke English with his coworkers and at the factory where they were sent. While they were waiting to be served at this particular food place, another table of Spanish guys were saying some rather cruel things about the "gringos" (non-Spanish speaking / looking USA Americans) who just sat down. These native guys were also making nasty looks at the visiting (USA) trio. I also think (IIRC) one of those guys just happened to be at the same factory branch place where the machinery was being fixed was at.. doesn't matter if it was or not. The point was *what* was being said against the USA American visitors, and how it got resolved.

Well, the conversation from the *natives* against the visiting "gringos" went on for maybe 15 minutes, when my hubby's coworker who heard the whole conversation had heard enough, got up, walked over and in fluent PERFECT Spanish, told those guys he heard *every* word (repeated some of the worse stuff back to them) and said something that freaked them out so bad, that the guys doing the insulting walked out and never bothered my hubby's trio team ever again. My hubby didn't exactly find out what his coworker said, but it was enough that shut the other guys up and left them work without being harassed ever again.

So, I can totally believe that such conversations DO happen in other countries with other languages, just as Womble said. I also personally know (have nurse acquaintance friends) and actually worked with several nurses who speak multiple languages, who have overheard conversations from various patients within their ear reach that have said various things --some nice, some quite nasty-- and never confronted those people, because it is against their job code to confront someone on working hours. Instead, they simply walked away and told their own coworkers/staff what was said. In that light, the staff was alerted to be very observant of anything even remotely connected to the conversation(s) that was overheard.

[Pharaoh Hamenthotep]

....But it's so specific.. and yet so very vague Who's reporting it? Who were the people involved? How did the situation occur? What happened next?

It's one of those stories that always happens to a friend of a friend two towns over from wherever the person telling the story happens to be.

And add to that the fact that it's a facebook chain post.. "Pass this story on and get good luck the rest of the day" kind of post..

[Womble]

aretood- Hebrew is not close enough to Arabic for the two languages to be cross-understood the way Russian and Bulgarian can be.

Very specific about the warning.. but no details to identify anyone involved.. Sounds like a scare story. Like all those with a character who performs a good deed for someone who then turns out to be a terrorist who then warns the do-gooder about their plan so the do-gooder can get away in time.. This sounds like the same kind of thing.. Although obviously with the main "this is so you can get away in time" part twisted into a death threat.

If you can't find any specific details about it, then it probably didn't happen.

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/warning.asp

You reckon a hospital nurse would publish identifiable personal details of her patients on Facebook? Really now.

She works in the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba. They treat a lot of Palestinians.
But hey, you want something not from Facebook? Have a taste of Palestinians' children's TV. (Especially charming how the host half-heartedly corrects "Jews" to "Zionists", but it just keeps getting uncorrected).

[Pharaoh Hamenthotep]

People believe things because they want them to be true. Or because they fear they might be true.

This story is playing on your fears.

Do you have a source? Any way to prove this actually happened? Or is it proof of what you want to believe about your enemy, and nothing I can say will convince you otherwise..

[aretood2]

aretood- Hebrew is not close enough to Arabic for the two languages to be cross-understood the way Russian and Bulgarian can be.

I see.

People believe things because they want them to be true. Or because they fear they might be true.

This story is playing on your fears.

Do you have a source? Any way to prove this actually happened? Or is it proof of what you want to believe about your enemy, and nothing I can say will convince you otherwise..

While I don't trust facebook "stories" and I am not one to rely on anecdotal "evidence" I do believe that this is a case of a myth holding some truth to it. Surveys and polls and Palestinian voting records all point towards making this particular one more believable. Internet myths can only thrive if there is cause to believe it. For example, a rumor of Canadians wanting to kill random Americans popped up, it wouldn't go anywhere beyond satirical circles. I am not saying that there are actual every day people constantly speaking about killing Jews but I doubt that the opposite is true, that Palestine will be a peaceful neighbor to Israel and keep extremists at bay.

I don't agree with everything Israel does, then again I think your country has some pretty lousy modern things too. To Latin America you're all imperialist pigs unwilling to give back the Malvinas Islands (Falkland Islands) to their rightful owners of whom you stole it from.

The Falkland islands Malvinas Islands are a perfect example of what people would accuse Israel of trying to do. If you are serious about ending such actions, then leave the Malvinas Islands and stop YOUR imperialism and YOUR racist oppression of Argentinian natives. Now it's a fait accompli. So it's too late for anything. Maybe you're speaking to your own national experience? But even so, I don't see you kicking out the British from those islands to right any wrong.

[Pharaoh Hamenthotep]

The Falkland islands Malvinas Islands are a perfect example of what people would accuse Israel of trying to do. If you are serious about ending such actions, then leave the Malvinas Islands and stop YOUR imperialism and YOUR racist oppression of Argentinian natives. Now it's a fait accompli. So it's too late for anything. Maybe you're speaking to your own national experience? But even so, I don't see you kicking out the British from those islands to right any wrong.

Did you just... Seriously? You have no idea about the history of the islands.

....Argentina wasn't even a country when Britain colonised the Falklands. Before that it was originally settled by the French.. Then the British and the Spanish..