Fight the power.

We are both liberal Jews, aren't we, micro?

it's interesting, life is. what a trip

God bless the optimists.. measured response. A gradual, glacial progress. I'm not gonna find fault with the actions of others

I am a Jew and I guess I'm a "liberal". I don't feel like one label applies to me though and I might say anarchist before liberal, but I'm all for civil rights/universal human rights.

What do you mean by gradual, glacial process? It seems to me that about 2000 things have been going the wrong way in Israel. Oslo II was in 1995. Border wall started in 2000. Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, but in hindsight I think that was more of a hardening of Israel's position than a move for peace.

I meant progress is achieved very, very, veryyy slowly by humanity in general

and that thereby, it's easy to become pessimistic.. so god bless those that forge ahead optimistically

Sign a bunch of treaties with them then break the treaties forcing them onto smaller and smaller specks of the worst land you can find. They still sometimes act up though so now we use dogs and fire hoses when they keep resisting just because our pipeline threatens their water.

I was thinking about Oslo, watching that documentary on Netanyahu.

The nuts and bolts of it? Not the photo op, the Arafat / Rabin handshake that was termed 'iconic' or some such fluff. How was it gonna be implemented? Reading a bit on wiki, I dunno.

It's like Europe these days.. gotta suffer the deaths of 22 people at a concert, then recognize the perp as your partner in a peace process.

Israel is a sliver of land

gtfo

It was a joke. The Native Americans have never stopped protesting and resisting. Violently sure but there has always been resistance.

Well, they got started on it. The WB was divided into A,B,C zones where Israel's military had places, places where Palestinians lived but Israel had security control and places which were mostly under Palestinian control.

Things broke down on both sides, but imo the growth of the population in the settlements and the building of restricted roads and walls were intentional and seemingly successful tactics by Israel to undo any progress and cement the position as much more difficult. This may be cynical/conspiratorial, but I think there are significant elements in Israel, the US and the Palestinian leadership that want the status quo of low level conflict. And there are suckers on all sides who fall for their propaganda.

With Gamblor gone there's not really anyone to respond to this, but the documentary hypernormalization makes a charge that this:

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/18/wo...pagewanted=all

The 1992 expulsion of 400 hamas members into southern Lebanon and into a Hezbollah controlled area was the foundation of the connection between Shia/Sunni/Iran/Syria/Hezbollah and the Palestinians. A while back I've posted about this a bit puzzled about why it seems that Palestinian militants are more connected to Iran than than with Sunni groups/nations.

Because the Sunni Arab nations are never going to attack Israel and I don't think that they give a damn about the Palestinians either. OK, maybe a minor damn. Iran, otoh, vows the destruction of Israel. So 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.'

I think the 1978 peace deal with Egypt and then Jordan's relinquishing its claim to the WB in 1988 are probably a big part of that. Also, I think there'sa fair amount of left-right politics being ignored.

Please expand on the politics part.

Well, that's a difficult subject that merits quite a long treatment that I don't think I'm ready for as it's something I'm still mulling over. But, for one thing I think the cold war is generally quite underrated as a cause of conflict and determinant of policy in the region. But, more generally, the ME was pretty much colonial territory up until at least the end of WW2 and in the banana republic sense you could argue that the Gulf region is still colonial territory to some degree. It seems natural for Palestinians who were never decolonized and are dominated still by a foreign power and the Iranians who had a revolution where they nationalized their resources and ejected colonial powers to identify with each other more than countries like Saudi Arabia which is still a banana republic propped up by foreign powers.

The populations of kingdoms like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Jordan are definitely sympathetic to the Palestinians, but the kings are in a bind. They need internal support and cannot openly side with Israel, but they also really cannot support popular revolutionary movements.

The Arab nations could've accepted Palestinian refugees from early on but didn't, haven't and won't bec it would take pressure off of Israel. The Palestinians themselves don't count for much except for that. And I've been reading that there's growing communication and cooperation between Israel and the Gulf States and I think that says a lot.

The Palestinians have few tools left: Resistance, Boycott and Iran. Ofc, I've left out the get serious and negotiate bec that's just not going to happen.

The last thing the right wing autocratic governments of the ME want is a couple million revolutionary poor people and the Palestinians don't want to leave their homes. After 1949 about 700000 did resettle mostly in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, but many have wanted to return ever since and they have never been fully welcomed.

Why didn't Israel accept those refugees though?

Jews accept Jews in Israel, but we're a small population and there's an identification of a Jewish nation. Asking Arabs to automatically accept any Arab or Muslim is like asking white people to auto-accept any refugee just because they're white.

As far as negotiate, what's to negotiate? They Palestinians have no power and nothing serious to offer. Israel knows this and is gradually making an independent Palestine in the WB impossible. Maybe this can be reversed or maybe a one state solution could eventually work, but moving hundreds of thousands of people into settlements isn't exactly a sign of being serious about negotiations.

I'm grunching the last 2 years of this thread but can't we just split up Montana and give 1/2 to each the Israelis and Palestinians?

All kicking off again.

Free Gamblor ffs.

Plz don't

Gamblor is freed he just refused to poast in the unchained israel thread

Gamblor truly was a hilarious human being. Toying with him was an undiminishable source of pleasure

Hilarious!

Don't worry SenorKeeed, number 2 on the all the time hilarity spot is firmly in your court!

Nice to see some people get it

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/musli...-need-to-talk/