Settlement expansion in Palestine.

Here we go again...

The Israelis are starting to expand the settlements after a mere 10 month moratorium on it. Despite repeated US calls for it to stop. In the middle of so-called peace talks.

Sigh... discuss. I have nothing favourable to say about this. The settlements are one of my biggest Berserk Buttons, and seeing them expand makes my blood boil...

edited 27th Sep '10 3:36:11 PM by GameChainsaw

Israel is a sovereign country, we cannot in good faith or good standing order around a sovereign country like Washington DC can do to Texas.

We can influence, we can threaten, we can bribe, and we can outright condemn further settlement but that's about as far as anyone can do short of military invasion when it comes to Israel. (And knowing the players in the Middle East, Israel would win again against any of their nearby neighbors.)

But regardless, the peace talks won't amount to anything anyways. Why? That little known bastard organization known as Hamas.

Hamas are a bunch of bastards, thats true, but the point I'm trying to get across is that these settlements are blatant theft of land. Its unforgivable.

America should be using all its pressure to stop these settlements. Peace cannot be established without it.

Peace cannot be established either way until Hamas ceases to exist. Every rocket that is fired from Gaza is another year of bloodshed tacked onto the nigh-Forever War scenario going on now. (My last count according to this rubric puts peace as plausible about 4500 years from now.)

^ Then it would be well if you used all those means at your disposal, instead of putting the blame on Hamas and then walking away. Nobody is asking you to invade, you know?

And rockets or not rockets, the leaders of Israel will always find excuses to justify their madness. Who was responsible for Hamas existing in the first place?

^^ I beg to disagree. They are Knight Templars: that is not the same thing. I think you would have trouble establishing that their bastardry surpassed that of their enemies.

edited 27th Sep '10 3:54:34 PM by RawPower

Might as well say "Peace cannot be established either way until Israel ceases to exist.".

Anyhow, I read the title and was about to berate you for your poor choice of words with "explosion", until I realized that I had just assumed that. Weird! Silly brain.

You need to force the two to come to terms... and be quite forceful about it. Bribe, cajole, and bully both sides to an accord... you might make them hate you at first, but they'll probably appreciate it more when the rockets aren't flying and there isn't a massive wall between the two peoples. Forge a two state... and then a peacefully unified one state solution by forcing the two sides into a handshake and then slamming a nail through their fingers to seal the bond. The bleeding should stop... eventually. Don't put up with any crap, and make consequences for every step out of line. When hate stops paying off, they'll stop hating...

>>Why? That little known bastard organization known as Hamas.

So the myriad right-wing parties in Israel (say, the Likud) don't count?

>>Peace cannot be established either way until Hamas ceases to exist.

I think you mean Israel, as it seems to be the Zionists who spawned Hamas in the first place.

>>Forge a two state... and then a peacefully unified one state solution by forcing the two sides into a handshake and then slamming a nail through their fingers to seal the bond. The bleeding should stop... eventually.

That did not work too well with too many other countries (say, Iraq). Of course when the standard-of-living degrades so does the nationalism rise. But arguably the same might've happened if things became more democratized. The former Yugoslavia gives a better example, even if their economy was also degrading at the same time - it was the nationalisms rising that caused the breakup.

edited 27th Sep '10 4:12:19 PM by BalloonFleet

Both need to cease to exist... in a way. The Israelis must give up the idea that there needs to be a Jewish homeland... that a religion needs a homeland, and the Palestinians must give up any idea that every Jew can just be hurled back into the sea. They must be made to come to this realisation. The realisation that they need to share.

As always, Another Side, Another Story.

EDIT: But enough on the general situation. The point of the topic: What is your view on the settlements. Because if we can't even agree on that, there seems little point in discussing anything else in this thread.

edited 27th Sep '10 4:32:27 PM by GameChainsaw

So the myriad right-wing parties in Israel (say, the Likud) don't count?

Do Likud members fire rockets indiscriminately against civilians and hide behind civilians? Hamas is well-documented for doing this All. The Fucking. Time.

I think you mean Israel, as it seems to be the Zionists who spawned Hamas in the first place.

Hamas is a breakaway group unsatisfied with what the PLO were doing. They are a terrorist group like all the others in the world Zionist conspiracy or not. Terrorists do not deserve the respect of being called human let alone given a venue to air their grievances.

edited 27th Sep '10 4:40:24 PM by MajorTom

All arguments must be aired Tom. It is the violence that should be condemned. And treating people as less than human gives them all the more reason to be filled with hate.

Not that I like Hamas. They're cowards and weak leaders. A true leader would be like Ghandi, leading his oppressed people against an overwhelming foe to break the threat by passive resistance and constantly pointing out the other sides faults, not by spilling blood and simply giving the oppressors ammunition. Hamas are fools and cowards, and they dig their own grave...

But again, this veers off topic, and I only address it with reluctance. Can we return to addressing the settlements?

edited 27th Sep '10 4:43:10 PM by GameChainsaw

I'm not a fan, to say the least.

^^ Compared to Hamas the settlements are a non-issue.

Oh, no they aren't. Seizing peoples lands and diverting their water supplies to a ratio of 40:1 isn't a non-issue. How can there be peace while the Israelis let these... thieves... do what they do? How dare anyone call this a non-issue? Its denying what is going on in front of your eyes aside from anything. The settlements are enraging the Palestinians and threatening the peace process from even getting off the ground.

These settlers have no right to do what they do but right of the sword. And I have addressed Hamas.

edited 27th Sep '10 4:55:07 PM by GameChainsaw

I am pretty pro-Zionist, but I swear these settlers have a death wish.

What sort of moron builds their houses within the striking range of psychos with rocket launchers who have a hard-on for attacking civilians?

That area is effectively a neutral DMZ. Trying to build houses in it is suicidal.

Its the sheer... audacity of it that gets to me. Marching straight into another countries land and pinching it straight off the inhabitants without so much as an apology... horrible.

I keep saying whenever Bibi does stuff like this, "You know you're your own worst enemy right now, right?" But ultimately, this is what we in the US get for having let Israel's right wing completely control our policies in the area. The government over there right now is like a spoiled little kid who knows Mommy's never even gonna give him a time-out, much less *gasp* ground him.

Oh, no they aren't. Seizing peoples lands and diverting their water supplies to a ratio of 40:1 isn't a non-issue.

Yes it is. One civilian death by a Hamas rocket or suicide bomber undoes all the goodwill created by removing thousands of settlements.

Hamas fires rockets nearly every day. Sooner or later they're going to get lucky again and hit Israeli civilians. And then what? Removing all the settlements in Palestinian territory will fail to solve anything compared to an Israeli death.

Deal with Hamas first, the rest is trivial until that happens.

edited 27th Sep '10 6:22:42 PM by MajorTom

The King of Jordan warned the other night that if these peace negotiations fall apart, there will be war.

So yeah, get ready for another round of "Israel bombs the neighbors".

Meh, it's been due for another war in that region anyways.

Do Likud members fire rockets indiscriminately against civilians and hide behind civilians? Hamas is well-documented for doing this All. The Fucking. Time.

No, because they don't have to. They can use the wealth the US and Europe gave them, part of it due to world war II, and part of this due to the US' hard on for zionism, whether due to the Jewish

I think you mean Israel, as it seems to be the Zionists who spawned Hamas in the first place.

Hamas is a breakaway group unsatisfied with what the PLO were doing. They are a terrorist group like all the others in the world Zionist conspiracy or not. Terrorists do not deserve the respect of being called human let alone given a venue to air their grievances.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_political_violence#Selected_Irgun.2C_Haganah_and_Lehi_attacks

edited 28th Sep '10 4:29:25 PM by BalloonFleet

^Uhm, you do realize you just agreed with the guy you were disagreeing with?

What annoys me most is that the two-state solution is woefully inadequate. Even in the incredibly unlikely event of it all working out, the Palestinian state would immediately be diplomatically isolated, faced with crushing political instability and grinding poverty, and totally dependant on its 'bigger' and unfriendly neighbour for everything. Palestine would be Israel's Mexico. It would simply not work. Which is why I favour a one-state solution of reforming Israel as a pluralistic, secular, multi-ethnic state that can accommodate the Palestinian people as something other than second-class citizens. Unfortunately, that is also pretty unrealistic.

Not gonna happen with the trends in both countries. On the one hand, you have Shas getting stronger in Israel, on the other, you have Hamas gaining popularity in the territories.

Which is why I favour a one-state solution of reforming Israel as a pluralistic, secular, multi-ethnic state that can accommodate the Palestinian people as something other than second-class citizens.

This would be the worst possible deal for the Jews, since any democracy where they're a minority can, if they hate the Jews enough, elect a leader with a genocidal platform.

That's not even hypothetical. That's Weimar.