Hello SkyCore, welcome to the forum. The cold beer is in the fridge, the couch is comfy, make yourself at home.
I see your having trouble with the quote code, you need to put quotation marks around the persons name, like this:
Code: Select all[quote="User Name"]Text of user comment.[/quote] Danholo wrote:Thanks to Israeli occupation, the Palestinian birth rate shot up, institutions for higher learning were built, and their economy improved considerably, only to crash after the Intifada. Palestinian literacy is among the highest in the Arab world and whatnot. You can always try to say what you think you see, but it's not the truth... I really don't understand how you honestly believe that Palestinians in Gaza cannot improve their lives, as Israel was hindering their every move, as if they were helpless babies who are absolved from any responsibility. They surely can build anything they want in Gaza but all of their resources have been directed towards the resistance. If they wanted to live, as an independent people, they'd stop crying for all that aid from the world and actually use that money for something to improve their lives, not destroy it. If Israel honestly was doing what you describe, there would be no Israel, because Israelis could never live with a reality you are trying to contoct in your head.
Oh come now Danholo, the conflict is a bit more complex than that. A little bit of column A and a little bit of column B – not all from column A as what you’re putting forwards. The reality of the conflict is a little bit between the story you provide and what sploop gives.
As much as we can not absolve the Palestinians from some of the responsibility of their predicament, we can nether deny the Israeli impact upon them ether (or rather the impact of Colonial Zionism, since many Israeli’s have gone to great lengths to help Palestinians). As much as the Palestinian desire to resist can be their own worst enemy, you can not sweep under the proverbial carpet the fact that Colonial Zionist elements covet the land their homes are built upon – and the impact that has in almost every Israeli political sphere.
The reality is that some Israeli’s are willing to live with the reality Sploop is concocting, while others are not – and it is that dichotomy of balance between those who wish to be ethical and moral towards humanity while remaining loyal to Zionism, grinds against those who see violence against Arabs as ethical and moral towards the Jewish people and Zionism.
Danholo wrote: The Jews had every right to immigrate to Palestine, create settlements, livelihood and homes.
Who grants this right?
I think that anyone has the right to immigrate and join any community around the globe. Thus in its basic essence, I see no problem with Jews immigrating to Palestine. But the error was the movement of Zionism coerced Jews to immigrate to Palestine with no intention of integrating into the already existing community – but immigrating with the express purpose of creating a separate racial, religious, and political body to become a separate state – which is what has happened. This would obviously lead towards conflict with the already existing host population.
Danholo wrote:They had the blessing and right to do this by the very owner of the land itself.
And whom was this? The Ottoman Turks, the British, or the Arab land owners themselves?
Or Abraham?
Danholo wrote:They worked with the Arabs and their mere existence drew Arabs in prospect of new jobs etc.
Again this is a very generalised overview of the early life of Jewish immigration. In a good number of circumstances this analysis pans out to be true; in other cases it is incorrect. After the initial waves of Zionist immigration and the founding of the Kibbutzs, which did employ Arab farm workers for a while, but phased out Arab workers in preference for Jewish farm hands who saw working the earth of Palestine as a form of religious cleansing while also helping to provide jobs to immigrant Zionists as a means towards populating a Jewish Palestine.
Danholo wrote:Only after Israel's existence was threatened did the Jews start the purge, and that is history,
This is inaccurate, certainly there was an attempt to clear various areas under Zionist control during/after the war of independence of its non-Jewish inhabitants – while culminated in some places with the destruction of vacated Arab villages (the ruins of which Benny Morris can still point out in interviews today). But was there an aim by the Zionist leadership to purge all of the Jewish controlled territory of its Arab inhabitants – this is debatable because of the Arab towns and inhabitants that were left unharmed and annexed into the new state of Israel.
As to action of this nature taking place only after Israel’s existence was threatened, again this is questionable as Arab and Zionist militias were active years before the Arab army of Liberation marched against Israel in 1948. In fact Jewish and Arab espionage was thriving under the very nose of the British before and during the Second World War. In one incident, the SOE training school “Narkover†situated on Mount Carmel overlooking Haifa – setup to train SOE agents for operations in Crete against the German and Italian occupation forces. Was raided by Jewish youth’s intent on stripping the armoury of weapons in order to outfit Haganah (reference; Crete, by Antony Beevor, page 252).
Danholo wrote: yet Arabs still live in this country comprising about 20%, are wealthy and probably more educated then in the rest of the Arab world, and only a few advocate their "transfer".
Yet those who advocate “transfer†are right wing members of the government, with right wing elements predicted to gain a greater share of seats at the next election.
But certainly, Arabs in Israel do seem to prosper in comparison to other Islamic states – but that is not to say there is no bigotry directed towards them ether.
I’ll not comment on the rest of your text as that just seems to be a mud slinging match with Sploop… and I was only interested in the history aspect of the discussion.
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