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
United Earth
As someone who kind of sucks at understanding the subtleties of status, rebellion, and unconventionality in the modern art community, I feel more favorable than hostile to the girl's irreverence.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
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It's not the irreverence that's the real problem here; it's the theft.
The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
That's actually a thornier general topic than you might expect - there's been a great deal of dispute over whether museums exhibiting certain items is itself theft, and whether certain items should be exhibited at all (which tends to lead to acts of vandalism). Colonial institutions like the British Museum (which was, and to some extent still is, an exhibition of 'look at what we looted from the savages') tend to get hit particularly hard and often by that.
What's precedent ever done for us?
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True, but I figure that Auschwitz is not like the British Museum, in this case.
The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Probably, but I'm not familiar enough with the dynamics of its ownership, management, and priorities to know whether there's something there that someone might reasonably be mad about. Genocide and its remembrance is a kind of emotive subject, after all.
What's precedent ever done for us?
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The religiously-motivated terrorists are back at it again. If only we could, Iunno, launch Al-Aqsa into space or something...
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Turning the West Bank settlements into space colonies seems rather more relevant to this one. Especially in light of the incident that seems to have escalated the violence - apparently, a settler (or, at least, a non-uniformed Israeli man in a Palestinian neighbourhood) shot and killed a Palestinian teenager. The Temple Mount is an important flashpoint as usual, but it's also worth remembering the ever-worsening territorial dispute in the background.
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You mean rioters killed when they threw stones and Molotov cocktails at people, because when Jews put up magnometers somewhere, it's a problem (unlike when Muslism do it)? Not to mention that that guy explicitly mentioned something to the effect of "my life has no worth when Al Aqsa is being befouled" in the Facebook post he wrote before he went on to stab random people.
edited 22nd Jul '17 2:56:24 AM by desdendelle
The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Random people in an illegal settlement. That bit is important. Al-Aqsa is a particular flashpoint bacause Israeli lockdowns of the site exist in the context of an ongoing colonisation of the West Bank - Palestinians fear that their vital holy site will be taken away from them, destroyed, and built over because that is currently what is happening to their homes. As for the kid who got shot, Muhammad Mahmoud Sharaf, there's no indicator that he was engaging in any sort of violence - I'm not even sure that he was part of the protests.
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As to Al Aqsa, need I remind you that Jews aren't allowed to pray there, while Muslims are allowed to do whatever as long as they don't hide guns there and shoot policemen? Why are you surprised that Israel takes action to prevent people from hiding guns there? It's like justifying the Manchester terrorist attack because Daesh believes "the West" is colonising Islamic lands. The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
it's important because the expansion of Israeli settlements is a direct threat to the lives and livelihoods of West Bank Palestinians - it's an ongoing act of ethnic cleansing using water shortages, economic warfare, and brute military force to dislodge the native population while using civilian families as footsoldiers and human shields. Someone setting up a lemonade stand is probably not bulldozing your house, cutting off your water, taking the natural resources you need to make a living, and then surrounding themselves with armed guards to ensure that you and your children starve/dehydrate to death peacefully. Killing children is appalling, but Israel, as the occupying power, has created a situation where families are directly pitted against each other for survival.
It's also important to look at Al-Aqsa in the context of that. Palestinians aren't just being offered a generous deal on access to the Temple Mount - they're being offered a generous deal in exchange for the Israeli government taking their homes and sentencing them to either starve or flee. It's easy, in that context, to see why people might not think that's enough, and why removing even that concession might be met with such outrage.
What's precedent ever done for us?
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Look, no matter how you spin it, "occupation" is not a justification for killing random civilians — no matter where they live. Your argument also justifies ISIS attacks in the West because the West is colonising Iraq or Syria or whatever.
Not to mention — Palestinians can access Al Aqsa as long as they don't kill Israeli civilians; frankly, I don't see why people should be allowed passage through a state if they have a worrying tendency to take knives or cars and try to murder its citizens.
Beware the Crazy Man.
A great reason for the success of Daesh IS indeed because they promised to break the Sykes Picot line....and even after their defeat, that sentiment will have to be addressed lest it happen again. For the record.
Also for the record, those civillians are neither random nor innocent, being settlers, in the eyes of the natives being forced out. That is true for every settler versus native issue in all history, not just with Israel.
Final Fantasy, Foreign Policy, and Bollywood. Helluva combo, that...
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I'm not talking about "what the Palestinians feel". I'm talking about "what is moral or immoral to do", and as far as I'm concerned killing people because they're living somewhere is immoral.
The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
And what's the morality of illegally building settlements on someone else's land and driving out the people who's land it is?
"You can reply to this Message!"
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Occupation and colonisation is the killing of random civilians using other random civilians as a weapon. You do know what forcing people out of their homes in a desert does, right? Settler families are illegally occupying territory that the Palestinian natives kind of need to live. It's the reason that the Geneva Conventions come down so hard on colonisation - if an occupying power brings civilians into a war-zone to assist with its occupation, it is making them part of its war effort and waiving their civilian status. It was a response to this exact same thing happening in World War II - the German Lebensraum colonisation of Eastern Europe meant that once the occupied countries were liberated, there were a whole bunch of German civilians sitting on top of the choicest territory and unwilling to budge. Needless to say, it resulted in some downright eye-watering atrocities.
In other words, Israeli settlers, by international law, are not civilians - they're irregular auxiliaries brought in to guard the forward bases of the occupying power. That means that if babies get killed by enemy counterattacks, it may count as a war crime (depending on how much protection unarmed military personnel are afforded), but it's also the Israeli troops' own damned fault for bringing babies into a combat zone.
The other problem, of course, is that the Temple Mount, being right on the edge of the 1967 borders, is disputed ground - the state that Palestinians are denied access through is, by their reckoning, their own. It's an additional layer of humiliation and reminder of the occupation.
edited 22nd Jul '17 5:12:56 AM by Iaculus
What's precedent ever done for us?
No matter how much you try to spin it, a bunch of houses is not equivalent to murder.
edited 22nd Jul '17 5:16:30 AM by Cag
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Again, murder is for civilians. By international law, if people from a foreign power are building a base inside your borders without your invitation, that is an invasion, and you are entitled to repel it by force. If they're bringing in unarmed personnel and children, then they are simply especially stupid and callous invaders.
Beware the Crazy Man.
If it's the only liveable area for miles, yeah it is.
Final Fantasy, Foreign Policy, and Bollywood. Helluva combo, that...
Ah yes, good old 70 year old "auxiliary". Spin it as much as you like. You are still justifying murder.
Is this the ridiculous "genocide" argument again?
edited 22nd Jul '17 5:28:13 AM by Cag
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Where is it written that "repelling an invasion" means killing unarmed civilians? Dude, you're justifying murder and terrorism. Don't be surprised when some incited Muslim comes to wherever you live in England and murders the people you know — you're enabling that Muslim right now by justifying Islamic terrorism.
edited 22nd Jul '17 5:27:12 AM by desdendelle
The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground
A procrastination in of itself
Yeah Israeli settlers aren't civilians, they may in fact all be war criminals or hostages being used as human shields (in the case of children).
Does that justify the killing of actual Israeli civilians, not at all, but it does help make people think that it should justified.
Also the comparison with the West has one issue, namely that Israel is colalnising Palestinian lands, the west isn't actually carrying out colonisation, Israel is.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
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Look, if colonisation is evil, then you should get the fuck out of your home and go back to wherever your ancestors colonised England from. All lines you draw in history to say "this isn't colonisation any more" are arbitrary.
The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground
A procrastination in of itself
No because I don't colonise, my ansestors did, you find me Israelis born in the West Bank (who do exist) and they have a legit claim to the right to stay there, but people born elsewhere that forced their way in at gunpoint, yes they should leave.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
I don't think being a Jew (and, likelier than not, the descendant of Holocaust survivors) entitles you to stealing from museums, whether they're Holocaust memorial museums or other museums; not for the sake of art, and not for other sakes.
The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground