Palestinian Right of Return

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by non sequitur

I don't buy that. Is anyone still bitching about the millions that Stalin killed, or that Mao killed? Sure, we feel bad that so many Jews were killed during the holocaust, but sixty years after the fact our main concern is that the geography they occupy is surrounded by the largest concentration of oil fields on the planet. To claim otherwise is disingenuous.

This certainly bears upon the calculus.

[MikeWaters]

I don't know any Tibetans. I know one Palestinian (auto mechanic). I know many Jews.

You tend to sympathize with people you know well, and demonize those you don't know.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I guess it's their land when Palestianians decide it is.

Says who?

[Tex]

Originally Posted by non sequitur

I don't buy that. Is anyone still bitching about the millions that Stalin killed, or that Mao killed? Sure, we feel bad that so many Jews were killed during the holocaust, but sixty years after the fact our main concern is that the geography they occupy is surrounded by the largest concentration of oil fields on the planet. To claim otherwise is disingenuous.

Oil is one part of it, sure, because oil is power, and unrestricted power is a concern to us. But it's equally "disingenuous" to ignore the other geopolitical forces at play there.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

In reality, none of us really understand the voices within these cultures. You lived next to these cultures but do you really claim to understand them.

I understand enough to know it's not the moderate voices that are getting the most airplay in most Arab nations.

[non sequitur]

Originally Posted by Tex

Oil is one part of it, sure, because oil is power, and unrestricted power is a concern to us. But it's equally "disingenuous" to ignore the other geopolitical forces at play there.

Yeah, there are a lot of geopolitical forces at play, but let's not pretend that those forces have anything to do with who has virtue on their side. Israel is an ally in a strategic part of the world. That's the only reason we give a damn.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

I understand enough to know it's not the moderate voices that are getting the most airplay in most Arab nations.

In the Arab country in which you lived, Saudi Arabia, as I understand it, most westerners live in Western Compounds and really don't integrate that much with locals. Correct?

And Saudi Arabia is a Bedouin country with an artificially imposed hierarchy, controlled by Wahhabi Islamic sect. Correct?

Are you familiar philosophically how that sect interrelates with other aspects of Islam?

Are you informed enough to know what aspects of media provide most Arabs in Saudi Arabia with political content? Is that the same for all Arab countries?

It appears true to me that we hear the most radical voices, but is that what the man on the proverbial street actually hears? If so, who controls what he actually hears?

I imagine it's a form of cultural indoctrination, starting with the home, the mosque, the "school", the workplace and whatever other social environs the average citizen frequents.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by non sequitur

Yeah, there are a lot of geopolitical forces at play, but let's not pretend that those forces have anything to do with who has virtue on their side. Israel is an ally in a strategic part of the world. That's the only reason we give a damn.

You don't think that Fundamentalist Christian groups (who strongly believe in the Zionist movement and how it relates to the End Time) and the strong Jewish lobby has just as much to do with it as anything else?

[Tex]

Originally Posted by non sequitur

Yeah, there are a lot of geopolitical forces at play, but let's not pretend that those forces have anything to do with who has virtue on their side. Israel is an ally in a strategic part of the world. That's the only reason we give a damn.

If you don't want to grant Israel any "virtue" that is your choice. But you're wrong to call it the "only reason."

[MikeWaters]

Hitchens on the issue:

The theft of land continues to this moment in the specific as well as the general sense: a farmer whose great-grandfather worked the same olive grove can be evicted without notice to make room for a settlement or a road or a wall, and told that such a flagrant confiscation is justifiable because he is not a Jew. This is a scandal, and its roots are inscribed in Israeli law, and I have never seen it justified. The only actual justification offered is that god awarded the land to one tribe a good many years ago, and of course this appalling racist and messianic delusion - employed by Israel’s Prime Minister without apology - only makes a terrible situation even worse.

I might add that this program of colonization was well under way before there were any suicide bombers, and was ruthlessly continued during the unarmed intifadah of the 1980s, as it was during every single day of the Oslo negotiations. You are quite mistaken about international law, which explicitly forbids interference with the demography and ownership of territories occupied in wartime. Meanwhile, leading Israeli conservatives speak openly about a “transfer” or mass deportation of the remaining Arab population, and boast that this is no more than what they began doing in 1947/1948.

Let me add a word for your Republican readers. I would be opposed to this maltreatment of the Palestinians if it took place on a remote island with no geopolitical implications. It is a matter of principle. However, the exorbitance of Sharon and his cronies is now such that it has attracted the criticism of the last four heads of the Shin Beth. What strikes me in this is the sheer wanton selfishness of the thing: for the sake of a doomed racist colonization the Israeli zealots are prepared to destroy the entire possibility of regime-change in the region (an enterprise that leaves them cold in any case because it doesn’t involve the fulfillment of insane biblical prophecies).

Mr Bush, to his credit, has become the first President to use the term “Palestinian state”. And he has criticized the building of the wall that both locks in and extends the occupation. Every one of the potential Democratic nominees takes an opportunistic pro-Israeli view that consists of irresponsible pandering. One of my reasons for favoring the re-election of the President is that only given a second term is he likely to speak up properly. He shouldn’t wait, of course. He should say immediately: “General Sharon, tear down this wall!” Dream on, you may say. I’m not an optimist here, as you will see from my earlier reply about Armageddon without the Messiah. But I know from experience that none of Bush’s liberal and Democratic rivals will even come close to this, and so I am a “lesser evil” person on this rather crucial point.

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