abaya

I am aware, certainly. And those arguments are not without credence, to be sure. But I did not say that Jews have absolutely no right to live in the area... indeed, they had been living there for eons.

But having some idea of the region's status in the mid-20th century, I still think it was a rather bad idea to suddenly introduce a brand-new nation and expect everyone to sing kumbaya and welcome them. All I am saying is that there *must* have been other solutions to the problem... because the backfire has made the whole thing almost pointless in the first place (in my view).

I also agree with you that there has been "no compromise on issues of tolerance." That's quite obvious. But tolerance has never won wars, has it?

Strategic partnerships can be useful, yes. I certainly agree with that. But mutually beneficial? How do you, as an American, benefit personally from the US giving more foreign aid and military assistance to Israel than to any other nation in the world? I just don't see why it was ever necessary in the first place. Why can't Israel be left to simply stand on its own, just as we leave hundreds of other struggling nations to stand on their own?

Thanks for the civil conversation on this topic, in any case.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Sticky

Just to clarify a bit. While the majority of jews have not lived there since the end of the second temple period there have been jews living there since. There has been a Jewish precense on the land since biblical times. That is not to say that there were not people aside from Jews living there.


Actually, let's not forget which party carried out the withdrawl from Gaza. It Sharon's Likud.
Sharon? Yes, Sharon. He was even able to garner the support of most fo the country on this issue. Getting a majority of Israelis to agree on an issues was something that was considered almost impossible.
He was then forced out of the Likud party and with him he took the more center and left Likud representatives and started Kadima. It is Kadima's intention to continue Shron's disengagement with the removal of the Israeli communities in the West Bank eventually handing it over to the Palestinians.

To get a much more candid view of Sharon read the following Times Online (not a news source that I would usually point to but one that I know others on this thread trust):
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...9593_1,00.html

Note the date on the interview, November 2002. This is before the US invasion of Iraq and before the Israeli withdrawl from Gaza.
In it you can see that Sharon is already turning around and coming much more to the center. He hints at a plan he has to bring peace to the region and about how it will require Israelis making tough concessions. He, egotistically and maybe correctly, believed that he is the only Israeli leader that will be able to carry out this plan and bring about peace.

I remember reading this article when it first came out. It upset me very much as I had no idea what he was planning and would certainly not rather see Israel make concessions that were painful especially if it came with nothing in return.

And in the end it turned out that he was almost comepletely correct. His plan was to begin with a withrawl from Gaza. He was able to use his military history, his hawkish right wing reputation to win over the center and part of the rigth center. How could these people not beleive that strong Israeli warriror. If it was a left wing PM proposing it (like in the past - Oslo, Clinton Barak) only the left would have gone along with it.
He did, at the same time alient the rest of the right wing of Israeli society causing a rift in his own party and eventually splitting off.

This is a long interview but woth the read.

Enough with this tangent though...


Isreal, as powerclown stated is comprised of people of different religions. According to the CIA World Factbook approximately 80% of Israel is Jewish (or 77% according to Wikipedia.
of that number it is estimated that approximately 80% are secular while 20% consider themselves observant (www.jewishagency.org).
While the percentages lean a little more to the secular side in the rest of the world for the jewish populations, I would say that 80% makes the state pretty secular.

Also, it was the social zionists of the late 1800's that started the pus for Jews to move to Israel. These jews were hardly religious. In fact, they probably could have been considered anti religious. As a result of this and the general secularization of the jewish population around the world over the last couple hundred years the jewish population of Isreal is not just made up of religious (those that people would expect to want to live there) but in fact made up of mostly secular jews.


(sorry that was a bit long.
Last night I left work (yes I spend some time on here at work) and I was tense for about two hours after from reading and responding to the politics threads. I can't continue like this. I may have to refrain from reading and posting but I would rather that the conversations occur in a respectable non-confrontational manner. I know it is hard to really get the way people are saying things just from reading, it is much better to have a voice conversation and even better, a face to face one. I feel, however, that there is alot of anger directed towards each other on these threads especially the ones involving discussion about Israel. I hope that we can do a few things
- Give people the benefit of the doubt when reading a post so taht we don't automatically assume that they are being rude. Tone is very hard to set in writing.
- Try to listen and take in what someone is trying to say before firing off a response.
- Even though we are ofent set in our views (i know I am) it is possible that someone who holds the opposite views does have a point about something. Be open, maybe they can change your mind on something.
- Accept that others do have opinions that are different

Some people are really good at this others are really bad.
As I said I thing this really comes out in the Politics baord and most notably on any thread that involves Israel.)

Sorry for the littel rant at the end, but I really had to get that off my chest. I really felt sick for a couple hours last night after spending time here. I would rather not feel that way and it would be great if others did not feel that way.

__________________
Sticky The Stickman

powerclown

Thats not good....
I appreciate your last post.
It gets crazy here at times.
Get well soon.

abaya

Oh, I know that feeling well. I used to utterly, completely avoid this place because it was so volatile and unhelpful to any kind of discourse. That's actually one reason my boyfriend (who is Lebanese and has so much to add to these conversations, if anyone would be willing to have a "conversation") doesn't post here very much anymore. He does not like the toxic feeling of this forum, and I understand that.

But, for now, I still want to engage with the issues (especially involving the Middle East), and the usual suspects no longer bother me much. I have an opinion, just as everyone else does, and we are all entitled to express that here. It would be a shame if Politics was left to 2 or 3 people to set all of the conversational agenda... granted, it's maybe 4-5 now, on a good day, but at least there is some diversity.

Sometimes, though, I would understand if the mods just shut the whole thing down. It's not like anything IRL (or even in people's minds) ever changes as a result of threads in Politics.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

roachboy

sticky:

this forum can be tough going sometimes---i find it is often really frustrating in that positions never change. there is no real debate. there is no standard of evidence that is agreed upon. there is much talking-past and snarkiness often accompanies the repetitions of this dynamic of talking-past.


personal aside: i find it is difficult to have debates about questions pertaining to israeli actions in the classes i teach--and in doing courses on post 1945 history, it often comes up---i have found that it is imperative to have a substantial shared textual basis for the debates simply in order to give the participants common data to refer to and common reference points for the debates themselves. i generally will outline the topics and sollicit materials from a range of political viewpoints and assign a cross-section of them beforehand. it usually makes for more informed and civil discussion--people get really testy about this and so it is required.

within this there is another problem: which history of israel do you let into the discussion--the one that claims continuity over 2000 years---the one that links it to various strands of zionism (which was multiple and within which debates unfolded concerning coexistance with the palestinian population that foreshadow much of what subsequently has unfolded--the problem being that the wrong type of zionism seems to have won, if peace between groups is the aim here)--or the one that picks up with 1948 and which is fundamentally altered after 1967. the choice of histories entails choices about what constitutes hstory, which debates are going to be framed in and which out, etc.

then there is the problem of racism from all sides in this conflict--racism as a mobilizing tool, racism as a structuring feature of policy, racism that is socially and politically sanctioned and so does not operate as something labelled racism--so you find folk from all sides repeating fundamentally racist understandings of each other without managing to stop and ask themselves how this slid into their views, what work it does, and whether and how this is a problem.

for a variety of personal reasons, i find myself particularly sensitive to and quick to anger about racism that i see as directed against muslims and/or arabs---but i also oppose any anti-semitism--and too often you find that people default into one or the other, as if one implies the other, to counter the one means that you adopt the other--when the problem is both, is racism itself.

these are not easy topics to discuss even in contexts where there are clear rules, a shared textual basis and 3-d people whose responses are as much physical as verbal.

in an abstract space like this, debates have no ground rules, there is no shared textual basis and no agreement about which register of argument is appropriate. there is no brake placed on developing and posting racist arguments (so long as they are not too obvious). and there are no indices at all of how others who post are reacting as human beingzs behind the sentences they write. so folk who would be motivated by concern or kindness for others in 3-d and would modulate what they say and how they say it depending on the types of responses they would see from others as human beings do not have that level of information and so can motor ahead with whatever they want to say without any feedback. all these are problems, and all seem to be part of the nature of the messageboard beast.
it can be really unfortunate, and it is easy to see how folk can be deeply offended by stuff that goes on here.

i assume that the folk who play in this forum are in the main kind generous folk in real life and that all would conduct themselves differently toward each other in 3-d than they would here--even folk who violently disagree about political questions on a routine basis in here. so i try to control from the rhetorical excesses of this forum with that. it is a bit arbitrary, but it's how i manage it.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Sticky

Thanks for the "let's step back for a couple of minutes"

roachboy, I agree with your last post.

Another couple of things that I find boards are not conducive to, that do not help the conversations and in cases like these ones exacerbate the polorization, are:
- The ability to have one flow of conversation. Becuase we are not infront of each other it is hard to maintain a single conversation. instead we feel the need to reply to alot of the diffeent comments that have been made cuasing multilpe conversations, and then multipl replies, and so on...
- How hard it is to sometimes go through a whole history to explain why you feel a comment is wrong. Becuase doing this necessitates writing something really long (takes a long time and people might not read it), which is often a lot of effort when you know you will likely not get anybody to re-think their stance, we never end up resolving things or getting aproper opinion out anyway. It is much easier to have a shot one-liner saying "hey, idiot, you are wrong"

__________________
Sticky The Stickman

Ustwo

I voted YES, but on more vague terms.

People have the right to act as they feel is in their best interest, even scum sucking terrorist assbags like Hizbolla. I am going from the perspective of a over all human right. Hizbolla also has the right to face up to the consequences of their actions and as such Israel has the right to destroy Hizbolla.

Its the libertarian side of me here. Do what you think is best, but don't complain about the result being unfair.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Nirvana

israel is more of a secular country than the United States is. having family that lives there (scattered throughout areas like Haifa and tel aviv), i know for a fact that more of israel is secular than it is religious. israel was founded as a country where it would be safe (a little ironic now) to be a jew. like almost every other country, israel has its own ethnic identity, which is jewish. one can be completely secular and still be consaidered a jew. it is not all about religion. one thing that often made me angry about this whole situation was that the palestinians and many of the ancestors of israels popualtion today were in the same boat. 900,000 jews were kicked out of the arab countries in the middle east. those jews were refugees in israel before the country could get up and running. several millions of people were probably uprooted during the partition of the ottoman empire by the enlgish, yet the palestinians are the only ones without a real state now. i wonder why.