This is one of the pointless diversions I try to avoid, it gets into legalistic mumbo-jumbo. Who said exactly what, exactly where, and how might a lawyer interpret it? Before the UN, Abbas said, and I quote: "We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Isr…
This is one of the pointless diversions I try to avoid, it gets into legalistic mumbo-jumbo. Who said exactly what, exactly where, and how might a lawyer interpret it? Before the UN, Abbas said, and I quote: "We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Israel." It will do. No doubt one can split hairs on the issue forever, but I'm not interested.
> And there is no legal boundary between Israel and what Jordan called the west bank. There is the green line which is an armistice line, in other words, where everyone was when the War of Independence ended.
To this day, when you see a map of Palestine they show the same border between the West Bank and Israel. The same line has been internationally recognized for over 50 years. Israel has claim to 80% of the old Mandate, why not let the Palestinians have 20%? Too generous?
> You want to blame Israel for that? Go ahead, we're used to that.
I want to divert from the question of blame entirely. There is so much blame to go around that a full accounting of blame would occupy God himself for a long time. People do not suffer as political entities, they suffer as individual people.
>You call us invaders? We've been called worse. And no, nobody was given title to Arab privately owned land.
Sheri, you are defending your position with class and style, why resort to an outright lie? I shows you are against the wall. You know as well as I do that every inch of the fertile plains was held via legal title. Hills of Judea and the Negev, not so much.
> And Jews bought land from Arabs and either it became privately owned Jewish land or, if bought with funds raised by Jewish communities around the world, it was added to public land.
You're trying to have it both ways. Indeed, before '48 the Jews bought land from it's previous legal owners. Can't buy what doesn't exist! And note that whereas some fanatics and folks who could foresee that eventually the Jews would stop purchasing and start stealing (which is what happened), other Arabs -- some would say they were naive -- thought that the Jewish immigrants were a very good thing -- until the purchasing stopped and the stealing started.
>Glad you accept that idea. That is the great bulk of the land. Don't believe those little green maps that show so-called Jewish take-over of private land. The maps lie.
No, they don't. What you are attempting is that once a Jew has purchased a property, it is Legal Title but prior to that purchase -- or in case of land that was not sold to Jews -- it belongs to nobody, yes? What's mine is mine, what's yours is nobody's so I can just take it, yes?
Ah! But there are Samaritans! They've kept their identity these 2000 years too and they've never lived anywhere else than Palestine -- they own the whole place. And they are demonstrably, racially more Hebrew than the blond 'Jews' invading from Poland.
> I don't know about Celts. The Native Peoples of North America are comprised of various tribes who had specific areas they controlled.
Rather like the tribes of Israel that each had a specific slice of the Promised Land, yes? And that officially split into two nations and that even by the best reconing were independant and owners of the whole teritory for ony a decade or two. It's almost funny -- if a 2000 year old racial title were to be exersized, then the Ashkenazim would get part of the West Bank (Judea), the Samaritans would get the rest of Samaria (most of the West Bank and more) and the 'Palestinians' would get the fertile plains, which were under Canaanite or Philistine control for almost the entire time. Your 'title' is a joke.
> Not the entire countries. I won't tell them what they should or can do. The Amazigh are fighting for their rights in Morocco. They want to regain sovereignty over their land that was eaten up by the Arab Conquest. Have you even heard about that?
Nope. But I can guess it's more of the same. I'd say if the land changed hands 1300 years ago, then that's the way it is. 1300 year old tribal title is a very bad idea.
> Would you support their fight? I do. And if the Amazigh diaspora around the world came back to the land to fight alongside those who never left, would you call them invaders?
Yes. Mind, if they really wanted to reestablish a tribal/racial nation and they purchased what they wanted ... sure, why not? More power to 'em.
> Solomon's time is still Biblical times. As was the time of the Babylonian Conquest, at which time the Philistines are believed to have ceased to exist. And the Greeks used the name Palestine before the Romans did. You just don't hear about that.
Sure. No dispute. The Philistines just merged into the next polity. It is comical to suppose that these things can possibly be 'undone' or 'fixed' or than any of these tribes still have title to anything that lets them dispossess current legal residents based on 2000 year old history. Nuts, Bibi has more claim to Poland than he does to Palestine. Silly isn't it?
> We Jews are a People, not a religion. We are not a blood-determined ethnic group because we accept (but do not seek) converts.
Yes. But your title to Palestine is based on religion or on nothing. By you definition the Jews are a social club, like the Free Masons -- not a religion, not a blood-line, so ... what? Yeah, a *religious* Jew can say that the Holy Land is not negotiable, but appart from God's promises, what's your claim to Palestine? I've got you! Me, I think that if the Jews want to own Palestine, that's just fine -- the world agrees that they have a (now) legal claim to most of it, but that they should stop expropriating more of it than they are entitled to. Want more? That's fine, just purchase it.
> And the Palestinians are made up not just of Arabs but also Bosnian Muslims, Kurds, and more
Of course. Let's forget about blood-lines. It's a political category based mostly of historical residence, with some religion thrown in.
> I never once referred to God in anything I wrote. Our archaeology shows that the Jews are indigenous to this land.
Ah, but who are the Jews? Back to blood-lines? What does indigenous even mean in a territory that's had literally dozens of ethic, racial, tribal, religious, political waves of settlement? Sounds to me like the Samaritans own everything.
>We did not ask for more land. When the war ended in 1948, we got to busy building a country. We would not started any war and certainly not for land. We would still not be in Judea-Samaria and not even in the Old City of Jerusalem had our neighbours not tried to exterminate us. Remember -- for them ALL of Israel is occupied territory.
Nasty savages, aren't they? Still, they are people and their land should not be stolen. There is always an excuse isn't there? As you know, Hitler wept with grief when the Poles *forced him* to invade. He hated it, but they made him do it, yes? Besides, the Germans owned Poland anyway, the name Poland was invented. The subhuman Poles were better off dead in any case.
>The Palestinians do not fight us over land -- they fight us because they don't believe we have any right to be here at all unless it is under Islam. Dar al Islam -- heard of that? This is a religious war. Any land that was once under Islamic rule must remain under Islamic rule.
Yes. Once dar al Islam, always dar al Islam. To this day many Arabs refer to Israelis as crusaders -- it's not so much the religion as it is an invasion of infidels. Crusaders. They must have a token victory to reestablish their dignity. So back out of the West Bank, return to the Green Line, pay off anyone who can prove that they were disposessed, let them celebrate their victory -- expect it to become a holiday -- and then start negotiating the purchase of more land as you want it. Shit, buy half of Jordan if you want it. Arabs have little connection to any specific plot of land, what's sold for good money is sold.
Well debated Sheri, you have been a worthy opponent.
Oh, one more point. My agenda in all this? A legal Israel is an Israel that holds the moral high ground -- I mean really holds it, not just pretends to hold it -- and thus, if attacked, there's no need to hold back. A rocket for a rocket, no hand wringing. Even now Bibi can't kill Gazans as freely as he'd like, because the moral water is muddy. I say clarify the water. I like automatic counter-battery. Rocket is launched, computer calculates launch position, artilery shell is returned automatically. Launch from hospital, shell back to hospital. Launch from mosque, shell back to mosque -- their choice! But given full human dignity I suspect that fewer Palestinians will be interested in jihad, much better to get on with a normal life where a normal life is possible.
I need to go back and reread all of this but thanks for the interesting viewpoint, it adds a lot more to the discussion than the article above.
If we start “giving back” land where does it stop?
Who decides where it stops?
The UN? They created the current situation.
Poland currently partly sits on germany taken away in 1945, it was shoved west a couple hundred km, they lost the eastern part. Should Germany be making demands? Should the poles be agitating for return of the east?
What about the Tatars of the Crimea, should they get to return or are they in turn SOL as they were there due to the Mongol empire.
I live in southern AB canada and at all sorts of official events there are official land acknowledgements to the previous native occupants.
After the first recitation what is the point?
We aren’t going away or giving it back, several million people here compared to maybe 10s of thousands back in the day (the prairie is a harsh place to live).
I just don’t know where any of this ends, as long as both sides want all or nothing.
Thanks for the moderate reply Pat, we need more of the same.
"If we start “giving back” land where does it stop?"
The Green Line. It's the only candidate for an internationally recognized starting point. Mind, nobody has to move right away, the occupied lands with the Line are 'officially' Palestinian again, but then the haggling starts -- Israel will no doubt want to purchase additional land so lots of people within the Line won't be moving.
"Poland currently partly sits on germany taken away in 1945"
Sure. And dozens of similar. I myself still think the Germans should give Holstein back to Denmark. Here's the difference. When Bismark grabbed Holstein, nobody was thrown out of their houses and made refugees. All that happened is that a different flag was hoisted over the town hall, the official language changed ... and so on. Happy Danes became happy Germans. Nobody was expelled. I once heard a joke to the effect that there was a time when Alsatians kept both a German and a French flag in the closet ... just in case. I don't care about flags, I care about legal title to private property.
You could think of Canada's acknowledgements as the exact opposite problem -- we now fawn over the Indians and treat them like hereditary aristocrats. We profess that all the land is really theirs -- but we aren't really going away. Imagine Israel treating the Palestinians the same way.
> And the PA does NOT recognize Israel.
This is one of the pointless diversions I try to avoid, it gets into legalistic mumbo-jumbo. Who said exactly what, exactly where, and how might a lawyer interpret it? Before the UN, Abbas said, and I quote: "We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Israel." It will do. No doubt one can split hairs on the issue forever, but I'm not interested.
> And there is no legal boundary between Israel and what Jordan called the west bank. There is the green line which is an armistice line, in other words, where everyone was when the War of Independence ended.
To this day, when you see a map of Palestine they show the same border between the West Bank and Israel. The same line has been internationally recognized for over 50 years. Israel has claim to 80% of the old Mandate, why not let the Palestinians have 20%? Too generous?
> You want to blame Israel for that? Go ahead, we're used to that.
I want to divert from the question of blame entirely. There is so much blame to go around that a full accounting of blame would occupy God himself for a long time. People do not suffer as political entities, they suffer as individual people.
>You call us invaders? We've been called worse. And no, nobody was given title to Arab privately owned land.
Sheri, you are defending your position with class and style, why resort to an outright lie? I shows you are against the wall. You know as well as I do that every inch of the fertile plains was held via legal title. Hills of Judea and the Negev, not so much.
> And Jews bought land from Arabs and either it became privately owned Jewish land or, if bought with funds raised by Jewish communities around the world, it was added to public land.
You're trying to have it both ways. Indeed, before '48 the Jews bought land from it's previous legal owners. Can't buy what doesn't exist! And note that whereas some fanatics and folks who could foresee that eventually the Jews would stop purchasing and start stealing (which is what happened), other Arabs -- some would say they were naive -- thought that the Jewish immigrants were a very good thing -- until the purchasing stopped and the stealing started.
>Glad you accept that idea. That is the great bulk of the land. Don't believe those little green maps that show so-called Jewish take-over of private land. The maps lie.
No, they don't. What you are attempting is that once a Jew has purchased a property, it is Legal Title but prior to that purchase -- or in case of land that was not sold to Jews -- it belongs to nobody, yes? What's mine is mine, what's yours is nobody's so I can just take it, yes?
>There are no more Edomites.
Ah! But there are Samaritans! They've kept their identity these 2000 years too and they've never lived anywhere else than Palestine -- they own the whole place. And they are demonstrably, racially more Hebrew than the blond 'Jews' invading from Poland.
> I don't know about Celts. The Native Peoples of North America are comprised of various tribes who had specific areas they controlled.
Rather like the tribes of Israel that each had a specific slice of the Promised Land, yes? And that officially split into two nations and that even by the best reconing were independant and owners of the whole teritory for ony a decade or two. It's almost funny -- if a 2000 year old racial title were to be exersized, then the Ashkenazim would get part of the West Bank (Judea), the Samaritans would get the rest of Samaria (most of the West Bank and more) and the 'Palestinians' would get the fertile plains, which were under Canaanite or Philistine control for almost the entire time. Your 'title' is a joke.
> Not the entire countries. I won't tell them what they should or can do. The Amazigh are fighting for their rights in Morocco. They want to regain sovereignty over their land that was eaten up by the Arab Conquest. Have you even heard about that?
Nope. But I can guess it's more of the same. I'd say if the land changed hands 1300 years ago, then that's the way it is. 1300 year old tribal title is a very bad idea.
> Would you support their fight? I do. And if the Amazigh diaspora around the world came back to the land to fight alongside those who never left, would you call them invaders?
Yes. Mind, if they really wanted to reestablish a tribal/racial nation and they purchased what they wanted ... sure, why not? More power to 'em.
> Solomon's time is still Biblical times. As was the time of the Babylonian Conquest, at which time the Philistines are believed to have ceased to exist. And the Greeks used the name Palestine before the Romans did. You just don't hear about that.
Sure. No dispute. The Philistines just merged into the next polity. It is comical to suppose that these things can possibly be 'undone' or 'fixed' or than any of these tribes still have title to anything that lets them dispossess current legal residents based on 2000 year old history. Nuts, Bibi has more claim to Poland than he does to Palestine. Silly isn't it?
> We Jews are a People, not a religion. We are not a blood-determined ethnic group because we accept (but do not seek) converts.
Yes. But your title to Palestine is based on religion or on nothing. By you definition the Jews are a social club, like the Free Masons -- not a religion, not a blood-line, so ... what? Yeah, a *religious* Jew can say that the Holy Land is not negotiable, but appart from God's promises, what's your claim to Palestine? I've got you! Me, I think that if the Jews want to own Palestine, that's just fine -- the world agrees that they have a (now) legal claim to most of it, but that they should stop expropriating more of it than they are entitled to. Want more? That's fine, just purchase it.
> And the Palestinians are made up not just of Arabs but also Bosnian Muslims, Kurds, and more
Of course. Let's forget about blood-lines. It's a political category based mostly of historical residence, with some religion thrown in.
> I never once referred to God in anything I wrote. Our archaeology shows that the Jews are indigenous to this land.
Ah, but who are the Jews? Back to blood-lines? What does indigenous even mean in a territory that's had literally dozens of ethic, racial, tribal, religious, political waves of settlement? Sounds to me like the Samaritans own everything.
>We did not ask for more land. When the war ended in 1948, we got to busy building a country. We would not started any war and certainly not for land. We would still not be in Judea-Samaria and not even in the Old City of Jerusalem had our neighbours not tried to exterminate us. Remember -- for them ALL of Israel is occupied territory.
Nasty savages, aren't they? Still, they are people and their land should not be stolen. There is always an excuse isn't there? As you know, Hitler wept with grief when the Poles *forced him* to invade. He hated it, but they made him do it, yes? Besides, the Germans owned Poland anyway, the name Poland was invented. The subhuman Poles were better off dead in any case.
>The Palestinians do not fight us over land -- they fight us because they don't believe we have any right to be here at all unless it is under Islam. Dar al Islam -- heard of that? This is a religious war. Any land that was once under Islamic rule must remain under Islamic rule.
Yes. Once dar al Islam, always dar al Islam. To this day many Arabs refer to Israelis as crusaders -- it's not so much the religion as it is an invasion of infidels. Crusaders. They must have a token victory to reestablish their dignity. So back out of the West Bank, return to the Green Line, pay off anyone who can prove that they were disposessed, let them celebrate their victory -- expect it to become a holiday -- and then start negotiating the purchase of more land as you want it. Shit, buy half of Jordan if you want it. Arabs have little connection to any specific plot of land, what's sold for good money is sold.
Well debated Sheri, you have been a worthy opponent.
Oh, one more point. My agenda in all this? A legal Israel is an Israel that holds the moral high ground -- I mean really holds it, not just pretends to hold it -- and thus, if attacked, there's no need to hold back. A rocket for a rocket, no hand wringing. Even now Bibi can't kill Gazans as freely as he'd like, because the moral water is muddy. I say clarify the water. I like automatic counter-battery. Rocket is launched, computer calculates launch position, artilery shell is returned automatically. Launch from hospital, shell back to hospital. Launch from mosque, shell back to mosque -- their choice! But given full human dignity I suspect that fewer Palestinians will be interested in jihad, much better to get on with a normal life where a normal life is possible.
I need to go back and reread all of this but thanks for the interesting viewpoint, it adds a lot more to the discussion than the article above.
If we start “giving back” land where does it stop?
Who decides where it stops?
The UN? They created the current situation.
Poland currently partly sits on germany taken away in 1945, it was shoved west a couple hundred km, they lost the eastern part. Should Germany be making demands? Should the poles be agitating for return of the east?
What about the Tatars of the Crimea, should they get to return or are they in turn SOL as they were there due to the Mongol empire.
I live in southern AB canada and at all sorts of official events there are official land acknowledgements to the previous native occupants.
After the first recitation what is the point?
We aren’t going away or giving it back, several million people here compared to maybe 10s of thousands back in the day (the prairie is a harsh place to live).
I just don’t know where any of this ends, as long as both sides want all or nothing.
Thanks again.
Thanks for the moderate reply Pat, we need more of the same.
"If we start “giving back” land where does it stop?"
The Green Line. It's the only candidate for an internationally recognized starting point. Mind, nobody has to move right away, the occupied lands with the Line are 'officially' Palestinian again, but then the haggling starts -- Israel will no doubt want to purchase additional land so lots of people within the Line won't be moving.
"Poland currently partly sits on germany taken away in 1945"
Sure. And dozens of similar. I myself still think the Germans should give Holstein back to Denmark. Here's the difference. When Bismark grabbed Holstein, nobody was thrown out of their houses and made refugees. All that happened is that a different flag was hoisted over the town hall, the official language changed ... and so on. Happy Danes became happy Germans. Nobody was expelled. I once heard a joke to the effect that there was a time when Alsatians kept both a German and a French flag in the closet ... just in case. I don't care about flags, I care about legal title to private property.
You could think of Canada's acknowledgements as the exact opposite problem -- we now fawn over the Indians and treat them like hereditary aristocrats. We profess that all the land is really theirs -- but we aren't really going away. Imagine Israel treating the Palestinians the same way.