Right. Given the high quality of discussion on OTC about other issues, it would be nice to have some Troper input on this thorniest of Middle Eastern issues. Tropers wanting a brief overview of Israel should check out its Useful Notes page, or Israel
and Palestine's country profiles on the BBC.
At the outset, however, I want to make something very clear: This thread will be about sharing and discussing news. Discussions about whether the existence of Israel is justified would be off-topic, as would any extended argument or analysis about the countries' history.
So, let's start off:
At the moment, the two countries, prodded by the United States, are currently attempting to negotiate peace. A previous round of talks collapsed in 2010 after Israel refused to order a halt to settlement building on Palestinian land. US mediators will be present.
The aim of the talks is to end the conflict based on the "two state solution" - where independent Palestinian and Israeli states exist alongside each other. Both sides have expressed cynicism, although the US government has said it is "cautiously optimistic".
Key issues of the talks:
- Jerusalem: The city is holy to both Islam and Judaism. Both Palestine and Israel claim it as their capital. Israel has de facto control over most of it, a situation its Prime Minister has said will persist for "eternity". Some campaigners hope it can become an international city under UN or joint Israeli/Palestinian administration.
- Borders and settlements: The Palestinian Authority claims that the land conquered by Israel in the Six Day War of 1967 (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) is illegally occupied, and must be vacated by Israel in the event of a future Palestinian state. However, there are over 500,000 Israeli citizens living in settlements across the "Green line". Israel claims that a future Palestinian government would oppress or ethnically cleanse them, whilst many settlers claim that the land is rightfully theirs, as they have an ethno-religious link to it as part of the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people.
- Palestinian refugees: In 1948, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs left the territory of the new Israeli state. The reasons why are still debated - preferably elsewhere. The Palestinian negotiators wish for them and their descendants to have a right of return to Israel. The Israeli government considers only those who were actually forced away all those years ago to have a legitimate claim (if that). The US government considers them all refugees, to Republican fury.
So you can see why its never been fixed. The religious dimension in particular has a lot of people vexed - asking Muslims or Jews to abandon Jerusalem has been likened to asking Catholics to skip communion.
Still, there's hope. Somewhere. The latest developments in the region:
- Israel has released 26 imprisoned Palestinian prisoners convicted of attacks on Israeli civilians and agreed to release another 78 in the future.
- Israel has OK'ed development of 900 new homes east of the "Green Line" in a controversial move ahead of the talks.
- Hamas is to execute publicly two prisoners in Gaza
- The new Palestinian government will not reunite the feuding Gazan and Transjordanian (West Bank) elements of Hamas and Fatah.
edited 15th Aug '13 2:10:49 PM by Achaemenid
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
What Polandball banner?
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
A procrastination in of itself
Found a comic with it in.[1]
◊
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
... I don't get i— Oh. Ooooohhhh. Of course. <snicker>
edited 26th Jan '15 3:44:35 AM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
United Earth
...
I don't get it.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Thus speaks yoneld:
It's a Visual Pun: Jews are behind everything.
Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.
Indiana Solo
I had to think about that for a second ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
The law in the night
I always like to mess with some conspiracy theorists saying "Wow I had no idea my ancestors were that powerful, be right back I'm going to check if I still have any jewish secret super powers".
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1341#comic
(Avatar by Coffee)
@Iaculus: It's like how a Japanese delegation that visited the Hebrew University, Jerusalem brought The Protocols of the Elderly Sages of Zion as a gift. They thought it was totally real and the Jews were, well, behind anything a la that Polandball.
United Earth
"I know you mean well, dear guests, but, to the best of our knowledge, this book's contents are false," I told them, as politely as I could.
The Japanese looked perplexed for a second. Then their faces slowly lit up in realization, and they did a strange gesture where they impacted the bottom of their fists in their palms.
"A so-ka! We see, we see, we understand. This book is obviously false. Very very false. We apologize for bringing it to you. Please understand our goodwill; we were merely misguided, and foolish," they said, with a wide, wide grin and eyes that gleamed with complicity.
"Well, I'm glad that's settled," I said, not knowing what else to say. I tried again. "Just to be clear, I'm not saying 'let's all pretend it's false', I'm saying it's genuinely false. Really."
"Oh, absolutely, sir, perish the thought, perish the very thought. We believe you, wholeheartedly."
Was that a wink I just saw?
Somewhere, inside me, behind my polite smile, a little man went, curled up in a corner, tried not to cry, and then cried profusely.
edited 26th Jan '15 10:32:43 AM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
V
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Yes, I do seem to remember that Imperial Japan tried to attract Jews because of that book...
The law in the night
Everybody tried to attack the Jews because of that book.
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Attract, not attack. They read the Protocols and went 'holy shit, we gotta get in on that'.
Indiana Solo
Japan was trying REALLY hard to be like the "western" nations for awhile. Banning Samurai and things like that.
I'm baaaaaaack
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
Banning samurai was an important political move, given things like the Satsuma Rebellion and a low-level civil war, not just a cultural one. Similar to Israel's banning of the Palestinian flag for decades.
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
That's wrong, but in a very complex way that would derail the thread if I went into it. I can take it to PMs, if you're interested.
edited 26th Jan '15 1:24:57 PM by Iaculus
What's precedent ever done for us?
HGW XX/7
It is Holocaust Memorial Day in the United Kingdom - 70 years ago today, the 322nd Rifle Division of the Red Army liberated Auschwitz. Only 7500 prisoners remained - the rest had been worked to death in the chemical factory at Auschwitz III, exterminated on arrival, or marched across the Reich by their SS captors to Bergen-Belsen, a trip most did not survive. Among other things, the Soviet soldiers found eight and a half tonnes of human hair - which was to be used to stuff German mattresses, or turned into socks for German submarine crewmen.
On March 11 1946, the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess, was captured by the British Army Intelligence Corps hiding out at a farm in Northern Germany. He was one of only 15% of the 6500 people who worked at Auschwitz to be brought to trial, most of them by Poland. After confessing and writing his memoirs, he was hanged at the camp in April 1947. Because Auschwitz was a combined work/extermination camp, there was a relatively large number of survivors. Survivors of the pure extermination camps at Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Majdanek, and Kulmhof are far rarer.
After the war, many Jews returned to their former nations, only to find their neighbors unsympathetic at best and violent at worst. Often, their former homes had been ransacked for hidden gold, some local residents even took to digging through the mass graves at the camps in search of the mythical treasures of Jewry. Most made their way, eventually, to Israel - often because they had nowhere else to go. Even during the unfolding of the Holocaust, help for the Jews had been rare - with some notably exceptions, such as the family who sheltered Anne Frank, and the Danish resistance, who managed to evacuate Denmark's Jews to neutral Sweden. Those who saved their neighbours - or even strangers - are remembered as "Righteous Among the Nations" at the Israeli Yad Vashem memorial and museum.
As this is a British holiday, listen to this BBC recording of the survivors of Bergen-Belsen after their liberation by the British 2nd Army.
Holocaust Memorial Day is also intended to commemorate the genocides in Darfur, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Cambodia - reflections as they are that the world has failed its promise in 1945: Never again.
edited 27th Jan '15 6:50:27 AM by Achaemenid
Schild und Schwert der Partei
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
Arguably not, since most genocidal actions since WWII have been internal affairs, and in Cambodia's case, they did intervene to stop it, the Vietnamese, of all people.
Darfur, let's be honest, nobody was going to bother with that. However, Bosnia and Rwanda were real tragedies. The Dutch were more concerned with a few dozen of their soldiers than tens of thousands of Bosniac civilians in appealing to NATO to *not* save the people at Srebrenica. France, now, i'm surprised none of them got dragged before the ICC for their very shady conduct in Operation Turquoise.
Apparently a UN peace keeper in southern Lebanon has been killed by an Israeli shell.
V
I guess that must be related to the recent Hezbollah attacks on Israel.
Four Israeli soldiers were injured when an anti-tank missile hit an army vehicle in the disputed Shebaa Farms area, military officials said. The Israeli army responded by firing shells into southern Lebanon. The Israel Defence Forces said on Twitter that initial reports suggested that an anti-tank missile was fired at a military vehicle near Mt Dov.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted: "At this moment the IDF responds to events in the North. We will not allow terrorists to disrupt the lives of our citizens and threaten their security. We will respond forcefully those who try to challenge us."
Israel has ruled out the abduction of any troops. Residents in the Israeli border town of Metullah have been ordered to remain in their houses while operations continue in the surrounding area.
In a statement, Hezbollah said that its fighters had destroyed a number of Israeli vehicles and that there were "several casualties in the enemy ranks".
Following the attack, the Israeli Defence Forces said it had responded with "combined aerial and ground strikes at Hezbollah operational positions."
At least 50 shells fired from Israel hit farmland in southern Lebanon close to the frontier, according to the Associated Press news agency.
Later on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the UN, Andrea Tenenti, confirmed that a UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeeper had been killed in the region. He said that he was unable to specify the source of fire that killed the soldier. Mr Tenenti added: "UNIFIL Force Commander Major General Luciano Portolano is in close contact with all the parties, urging maximum restraint to prevent an escalation."
In a separate incident, a mortar bomb attack targeted Israeli military positions in the Golan Heights on Wednesday. The Israeli army did not report any casualties but said that it was evacuating civilians from the area.
Both incidents came just hours after Israel launched an air strike on Syrian army positions near the Golan Heights in retaliation for rockets that were fired into Israel on Monday.
Tension has been growing in the border region after an Israeli air strike killed an Iranian general and several Hezbollah fighters in Syria. Reports said Israel had information that members of the group were planning to carry out attacks inside Israel.
United Earth
He pulled it off. I can't believe he pulled it offª
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
HGW XX/7
I thought that was quite good. He might have mentioned the Jewish expellees from Arab countries though.
Schild und Schwert der Partei
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
I have to agree with Achae. Pretty good overall.
Who watches the watchmen?
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Yep, looks like Israel and Lebanon are getting into another shooting war. This appears to be a response to the hit Israel pulled on those senior Hezbollah officials in Syria. Given that we're close to the elections, it seems reasonable to assume that Netanyahu's going for his favourite tactic of getting the IDF to shoot stuff so the electorate will rally around the flag, but it could backfire badly - Hezbollah are very well-armed, and humiliated the IDF in the 2006 war.
What's precedent ever done for us?
I read that several Israeli soldiers were wounded when their vehicle was hit by an RPG near the Lebanese border so either Hezbollah has fixed their inability to penetrate the IDF's most modern armor or the IDF still has to use enough old equipment to present overcomable targets. I'm hesitantly optimistic if it does come to war.
I'm sure Mossad encourage the reputation at times. The same way I reckon MI 6 encourage the idea of them all being James Bond even though that itself will fuel "the British are behind X" feelings.
Anyone want to link to the Polandball banner?
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran