Well,that no I that meant,homeland doesn't nessery mean sovereignty,but as usual you dodged my question.

Meant vision as prophecy, not a goal.

The West Bank would be exactly like the South African bantustans if the settlements split up the Palestinian land into small separate areas and the Israelis do not seem willing to give Palestinians full independence.

Reading comprehension, I can't stress it enough.

The U.S. goes to war for its own interests. Israel provides the excuses by instigating conflicts and prompting predictable retaliation. It's a mutually beneficial relationship. Israel gets to annex Palestinian land and the U.S. has an excuse to install its military around the strategically and monetarily precious resource.

Well the regime was given disincentives, the stick not the carrot. Yeah Reagan vetoed the sanctions but was over-ridden. The divestment campaign was the incentive (negative but still incentive) I was referencing. So you could say they were not given positive incentives.

I get the feeling you want to oppose without really engaging. So why don't you leave the discussion to the people with some guts. I would say balls or leave the discussion to the men but so many women are more willing to defend what they say than you are and I wouldn't want to offend them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/wo...tion.html?_r=0

Leader Celebrates Founding of Hamas With Defiant Speech

some don't have the luxury of just blowing that off as meaningless rhetoric

Israel was just handed what it needs for generations.

even though i often disagree with him, champstark - as usual - understands exactly the situation.

Yeah.

The worst part, IMO (and I've spoken on this before), is that the Palestinian education system is corrupt and just awful. They teach the kids that they are convincingly winning the conflict. There is no attempt at any sort of comparative history of the situation. The students I worked with in the West Bank could not locate their country on a world map (which ofc did not have Israel listed, it was just "Palestine")...in high school. It bothered me tremendously that there was no serious attempt to teach actual history which would provide just as much impetus for them to change things. I cannot speak to what Israeli kids are taught, as I have no firsthand knowledge, but I do know that if the Palestinian children are brought up in this kind of culture it will be very difficult to change perspectives like the one above and honestly that just makes me more sad than anything.

The Americans didn't always support Israeli colonisation of the occupied territories. You can tell this because there was a time when they did not veto UNSC resolutions. There is a strong possibility that they will be dragged back into line by world and public opinion at some point in the future. We can see with the Palestinian UN statehood vote that some EU leaders are getting fed up with being propagandists for Israel just because that's what American leaders want from them.

Why not ? We can see that Hamas are no match for the might of Israel every time the Israelis launch attacks on Gaza. In Operation Cast Lead there was not a single engagement between the sides. The basically civilian population of Gaza had no capacity to defend themselves. That explains why 1400 Gazans died and Hamas only managed to kill 8 or 9 Israelis in return

I don't think I will ever read the word colonization without thinking "Cwocwoc" again.

The Palestinians want a two state solution. They have just gone to the UN asking for recognition of the 67 borders. What perspective do they need to change ? Do they have to accept that they will never be free because Israel is in charge ?

As for the history I bet the Palestinian kids get taught something which is closer to the actual historical truth than the Israeli kids*. It saddens me that the Palestinian children live in such a poor state but that is being imposed on them by the Israelis who have strangled their economy.

*"Why should Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab, I would never make terms with Israel. That's natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but two thousand yeas ago, and what is to them? Our God is not theirs. There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we came here and stole their country. Why should they accept that?"

David Ben-Gurion, quoted in "The Jewish Paradox" by Nathan Goldman, former President of the wold Jewish Congress.

Try "apartheid" as well and Israel instead of my name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xscq2nIKLHM

Cwocwoc, I don't think that you can credibly claim that a return to the 67 borders will bring peace any longer. Up until today I've been a 'land for peace' advocate but no more. It can not have been made more clear that peace is not on offer. IDK what that fellow is thinking but- arm chair General again - I'm guessing that he expects Islamist regimes in Egypt and Syria (whose pampering of him suddenly became unwanted) and another war. Hamas is in charge, the Palestinians support them, and now formerly hopeful ppl like me, despite the repeated warnings, have to re-evaluate or be considered fools.

Do you really read the above quote by a Hamas leader and think it is perfectly acceptable? I just want to clarify here.

I think it is somewhat unfair to lump in the West Bank with Gaza here. Just my opinion.

One speech for internal comsumption does not change anything. Hamas were part of the unity government which asked for recognition of Palestine on the 67 borders and this same chap has already made it clear that he would accept peace on those terms and quietly drop further claims (which are not without historical legitimacy by the way) over time. The situation is that Israel and America can impose whatever peace they like on the basically civilian Palestinian population and they are imposing one which deprives the Palestinians of their basic human rights ; what we have now with the Israelis taking what they like is their idea of peace. All they require is a "partner for peace" who will sign away Palestinian rights and keep the Palestinian people in check. They thought they had one in Abbas who managed to stop any protests at all in the West Bank whilst the Israelis were destroying half their country in Operation Cast Lead. They probably changed their minds when Abbas went to the UN asking for a proper independent state.

It has no significance beyond being a rousing speech to lift the people and to encourage them not to give up on their rights and freedom. I suggest you read the Ben-Gurion quote. The Palestinian right to their own country is not without historical legitimacy but everyone accepts the current situation.

Divide and rule is an old colonial tactic. The Palestinians went to the UN as a unity government.

The Gaza/West Bank split has nothing to do with colonialism, and if you think it does, you clearly do not understand the situation and/or what colonialism means.

Abbas went to the UN. The same Abbas whose term expired in 2009 after being soundly defeated in elections. The same Abbas whose party is non-existent in Gaza because it is viewed as corrupt and a massive failure.

Israelis go through this revelation every decade or so. Sometimes i wonder if there's any point in arguing. Almost everyone who pays close attention to the conflict realizes this eventually. Clinton most notably.

The Israelis seem to be quite extreme in their views judging by all the surveys but the rest of the world does not agree with them if the recent UN voting is anything to go by.

I don't think that Howard is being very candid with us. He seemed to support the settlement building/unreasonable pro-Israeli posts even before he mentioned this speech. This is in support of you/Hadis after Hadis was honest about his opinions on the settlement building.

It looks like colonialism. Divide the political groups so they're fighting amongst themselves. Support the elites and get them to oppress their people. We did it in British India. There also seem to be a lot of Palestinians in the occupied territories working for Israelis for extremely little pay. We did that in colonial India as well.

The UN bid presented by Abbas was done on behalf of ALL the Palestinian people under the approval of the Unity government. I don't suppose the Americans would have allowed any Hamas leaders into America.

This post is so ridiculous it brought me out of lurking. If you care about peace you should -- at a bare minimum -- be denouncing this speech as much as you do Israeli settlements...