Do you support Israel?

[robber baron]

this situation will NEVER change. I propose that they settle it over a high stakes poker match with Eli Elezra representing Israel, Freddie deeb representing Lebanon, Amir Vahedi rep. Iran and Ivey rep. the USA. Ultimate freezeout

[KaneKungFu123]

The funny thing is that if American soliders are kipnapped, Americans support war, but is Israeli soliders are kipnapped, Americans are anti-war.

Honestly, i really dont care what happens with them. i just feel bad for all the innocent victims, who will grow up to be terrorists.

[andyfox]

"The Jews claim to that land goes just as far back as the Arabs and Judaism predates Islam by a couple dozen centuries."

There were people there before the Jews. Nobody's proposing to give the land to them.

It's all ancient history, and shouldn't be germane to the present crisis, but when the Zionist movement to colonize Palestine began, the land was overwhelmingly Palestinian Arab. On the eve of the start of the Zionist Jewish influx in 1881, Palestine's population was 457,000: about 400,000 of them Muslims, 13,300-20,000 Jews, and 42,000 Christians (mostly Greek Orthodox). The overwhelming majority of the population was Arab.

[betgo]

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You realize that the arabs kinda were there first? After WW2 the western countries felt so bad for the jews that they wanted to give them a country.. Seeing as the jews had religious roots in the middle east it was decided that the jews would have Isreal. No one really cared about the people who lived there before, and the jews (helped by mostly americans) fought with modern weapons against arabs for a country that was not theirs to begin with.

That is why a lot of arabs (mostly represented by palestinians these days) do not acknowledge Isreal. The arabs had been there for 2000 years before the jews kicked them out.

This could be discussed till the end of the world really, but I have one final point:
These kidnappings are an act of desperation, the arabs CANNOT engage Isreal in open war, there is no way. Ask yourself this: What would you do if you felt someone had invaded your country, made it their own and thrown you out into poverty. You would fight wouldn't you? Do anything to destroy the enemy that did that? Well they can't fight with conventional means so they have to..improvise.

Religion sucks :/

Excuse my bad english, it's not my first language.

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First of all, I don't agree with what Israel is doing now in Lebanon at all. Bombing Beirut International Airport seems like a big overreaction and act of war.

I also think that there is a problem with going back to a country your ancestors were kicked ouot of 2000 years ago. This inevitably creates conflict. Sometimes, you just can't go back.

However, you seem to be giving an Arab point of view toward the history of Israel. The Jews were the inhabitants of Israel 2000 years ago. The Roman Empire had a policy of allowing people in the provinces to worship their own Gods as long as they also worshipped Roman Gods. This resulted in incidents which set off a rebellion leading to a lengthy war between Israel and the Roman Empire. The Romans decided to prevent further trouble by dividing the inhabitants of Israel evenly between all the provinces of the Roman Empire. Many of these Jews maintained there religion and culture despite the dispersal.

Every Passover feast part of the service was to say "next year in Jeruselam. In the nineteenth century, there was a Zionist movement of Jews to return to Palestine, which was then under Turkish rule. At the time Palestine was mostly Muslim, with Christians next, and Jews third in numbers. Jewish immigration to Palestine continued after World War I when it passed to British control.

During World War II, Jews in Palestine smuggled Jews fleeing the Nazis from Europe into Palestine. After the war, many Jewish survivors did not want to return to their home countries which were often under Communist control. Their property had often been seized and many of their relatives killed. So they came to Israel.

When the British agreed to leave Palestine, they partitioned it into Jewish and Arab sections. This partition was agreed to by the UN. Part of the reason for agreeing to the partition was guilt over what happened to the Jews at the hands of the Nazis. There was also a considerable Jewish population of Israel at the time. The Soviet Union and the US supported the partition primarily because they thought it was in their own interests.

The creation of Israel caused hostility towards Jews in Muslin countries. There was oppression of Jews and violence agaisnt them or threats and potential for violence. Most of the Jews in these countries emigrated to Israel.

Several neighboring countries declared war on Israel. The Israelis defeated the attackers. Thence this whole prolonged conflict began.

[jokerthief]

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"The Jews claim to that land goes just as far back as the Arabs and Judaism predates Islam by a couple dozen centuries."

There were people there before the Jews. Nobody's proposing to give the land to them.

It's all ancient history, and shouldn't be germane to the present crisis, but when the Zionist movement to colonize Palestine began, the land was overwhelmingly Palestinian Arab. On the eve of the start of the Zionist Jewish influx in 1881, Palestine's population was 457,000: about 400,000 of them Muslims, 13,300-20,000 Jews, and 42,000 Christians (mostly Greek Orthodox). The overwhelming majority of the population was Arab.

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Pre 1948 for all practical purposes is ancient history as well. The Palastinians have about as much claim to the land as the Germans do to Alsace Lorraine in France. You can't seriously expect the Jews to have another diaspora but you can expect the Palestinians to accept their state as it is and live peaceably next to Israel. If the Palestinians just let the violence rest for a year or two they would have their own state and have peace. Then they would also get all sorts of foreign aid and their youths could strap a backpack full of books on their backs instead of bombs and try to make something out of their country.

[Yuv]

Every single one of the Americans in this thread is living on Indian ground. They are called native americans for a reason. The discussion about historic rights is useless, IMO, and is usually the playground of extreme right-wingers in Israel, who refuse to give any inch of ground to the Arabs due to historic reasons or whatever. Most of the Israelis don't feel this way, hence the withrawl from Sinai and the Oslo agreements. This isn't the issue here.

We are here, the Palestinians are here, the Lebanese are here. We all need to find a way to live somehow.

[LadyWrestler]

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I know we have a politics forum but I wanted to post this here to get as many opinions as possible

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[jman220]

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I know we have a politics forum but I wanted to post this here to get as many opinions as possible

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[LadyWrestler]

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I know we have a politics forum but I wanted to post this here to get as many opinions as possible

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Oh. Thanks! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[andyfox]

"Pre 1948 for all practical purposes is ancient history as well."

I agree. The sooner all parties start thinking about today and tomorrow instead of endlessly rehashing the past, the better off all will be. I'm not optimistic it will ever happen.