I don't know if this was posted here before, but I would like to know how accurate this video is?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZY8m...eature=related
This is an 11 minutes long overview on Israel-Palestine conflict and peace negotiations.

turned it off after the blatantly racist Obama drawing, find something else

pay attention to my post before you reply, I was referring to the Israeli right wing, Everyone all ready knows Bi bi is for a two state solution including myself

Agreed

So how about you name a questionnaire item that is "encouraging" and that "balances" the fact that "almost half the Jews, 49 percent, want the state to treat Jewish citizens better than Arab ones"? Is there really an an item that is SO "encouraging" that it nullifies the picture painted by the above item?

Still scratching my head how you can possibly read the results of the survey and see it as painting a favourable view of Israeli attidues. Bottom line: the survey suggests rabid nationalism.

Well, I just gave you an opportunity to showcase your superior reading skills!

Agree with ukemaster's response. That was a pretty bizarre statement about the French and British. I would also add that the Israel-Palestine conflict CLEARY deserves attention on its own merit, and any counter-example you throw in is obviously aimed at distracting from the issue at hand, and is generally pretty irrelevant.

Will respond to the rest of your posts later.

Deir Yassin? How come you never condemn Rwanda. Housing discrimination? What about the Sikhs in India.

ya but at least the rwandan genocide actually happened. I am still confused what this big british human rights violation on france actually is that we are all supposed to be wildly condemning if we want to talk about israel....

Specifically, what part of "deliberately targets civilian infrastructure" are you lol'ing about? Are you saying that it's not true, that the Israeli militrary hasn't done it? It's pretty common knowledge that this is a tactic used in modern warfare and very illustrative examples are the U.S. invastion of Iraq and Israel against the Palestinians. Colossal amounts of collective punishment are dished out against civilian populations e.g. through attacks on power generators which severely disrupt hospitals and the treatment of sewerage and drinking water.

In 2006 during the summer, Israel actually shut off the water supply to thousands of refugees. That really is sadistic. They have a history of destroying water wells in the West Bank.

Or, does your lol'ing mean that just because you can find an example of the "other team" doing it, that makes it ok for Israel to do it?

You always seem to forget that Isreal, as the the powerful occupying force, has responsibilities, not rights (to steal land and water). Also, the use of force against an occupying/invading force is legitimate according to international law.

Yep, everything sure is rosy in the West Bank and the Gaza strip!

The settlements are illegal.

You want a court of competent jurisdiction? Is the International Court of Justice good enough for you? What about the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council? Or are they "haters" too?

When did I say my definition of right or wrong depended on the results of a large international poll? I just shared the results as I found them interesting. Have I not provided plenty of other examples, arguments, and sources in this thread? And dare I say it, my own opinions too!

And I'm sure the results of an international survey in which 24,000 people participated had nothing to do with the action and policies of the Israeli government, right? The only logical explanation is that the world population must be a "hater"!

Nice attempt to dismiss and discredit the findings of this poll though, just like you do for anything that provides evidence for or supports something you personally don't like.

Ehh,I guess you missed the announcement he is going to run with Lieberman as number 2 in a joined list, don't worry I'm sure your liberal value are gonna be well represented.

Speaking of Lieberman, remember then he called human rights NGOs a "terrioists supporters", then a week later declared that Israel should support PKK, I thought that was the nuts.

Expert reasoning here. Why do you suppose "millions of tons of humanitarian supplies" were needed if you are denying a siege ever happened?

Just got a report from a friend who visited Susya, south of Hebron.

Apparently the people there are living in tents (some provided by the UN) but those tents are about to be razed by the IDF so they can conduct military exercises. The village in is in Area C (complete Israeli control), so there's not much they can do. Some of the people living there have lived there since before Israel even existed. Their homes have been constantly attacked by the settlers in the area (the Hebron area has some of the absolute worst settler/Palestinian conflict).

Here is an op-ed piece criticizing what's taking place: http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...s-illegal.html

Wikipedia for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susya

As I've said repeatedly in this thread, we could have peace tomorrow if the settlements went away.

wtf?

Is border control = seige? Customs = humanitarian crisis?

Also, Egypt has had full control over the southern border of Gaza. Where is your hatred for their policies?

thats a legal assertion, not a fact: make an argument in support of it that i haven't already shot down in this very thread and that isn't made up of "but someone else said it so it must be true".

The ICJ did not consider the question of illegality - it assumed that the land was "Palestinian" for the purposes of determining whether the fence was legal. It did not ascertain ownership over the land.

If you consider the UN security council as a moral and legal adjudicator you are way too far gone for discussion. You are so ignorant about how international politics works. You really are. You have no idea what the ICJ said, and you have no idea what the SC is all about. You just repeat what others say. That's all you are capable of.

No knowledge and no thinking of your own.

Yeah he's crazy. Bibi was forced into this by his ego. He will sign any deal with the devil to save his own ass.

That's a big claim. If you're going to ethnically cleanse Jews and expel them from their homes, you better be 100% sure this will bring peace.

Are you referring to all settlements or just the illegal outposts?

Do you have any evidence that the settlements are the single obstacle to peace or are you just repeating what anti-Israel activists believe?

Why do you view the troublemakers in your article as representative of the entire settler population? Surely a black theif doesn't mean that all black people are thieves, right?

Or do you just agree with the idea of an ethnically pure "Palestine"?

This is why there is no peace: Because little girls are tools of provocation.

This girl is trying to provoke a reaction in order to capture her arrest on camera.

Among her few choice words:

"I'll smash your head!"

"I spit in your face. Go watch your mother instead of fighting little children. You're a traitor. You kill people to get money from dogs!"

Notice how the girl as well as the adult Arabs who are videotaping and encouraging her have absolutely no fear that the murderous, evil, torturing Zionist soldiers will hurt them. She even shoves a soldier at one point without any fear that he might retaliate.

If the IDF was as evil as they are portrayed by PokerIMO and everyone else here, then why are none of the Arabs there afraid that they will be mowed down with bullets? After all, these sorts of actions throughout the Middle East would have obviously be met with arrests, broken bones and gunfire.

Apparently, the Arabs who are under Israel's punishing "occupation" know the truth of how the IDF acts is quite different from how it is described by Bill Haywood and PokerIMO.

Where are her parents? and why are the adults encouraging this behaviour while they sit around and take pictures?

But settlements are the problem. lol.

Here's a very nice Quora answer on the history of the conflict:

http://www.quora.com/Israeli-Palesti...Palestine-area

I'm living in Isrl now in a fairly mixed Arab/Jewish area in the North. In Tel Aviv I've seen things that made me very proud (eg a man who goes to the park where tons of African refugees stay and helps them learn Hebrew/get food each night) and very sad (eg my haircutter and both other clients in there were all agreeing/confirming with each other that Obama is a Muslim -- guy next to me "Of course he is, his middle name is Muhammad!")

Stephen Hawking has joined the academic boycott of Israel.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3235337.html

The boycott is fairly big, but just as Israel has instituted only a close approximation of the apartheid seen in South Africa, the academic boycott is not as popular as the one against South Africa. Israel has long played it like that, going only so far as to keep a minimum number of people from outright disavowing them while being able to put maximum oppression on the people whose land they want for themselves. Of course that could quickly change if public opinion in the U.S. ever educates up to the rest of the world. Maybe a big name like Hawking joining the boycott will help educate Americans.

From Stephen Hawking's personal webpage:
Where does this i7-2620M processor come from? Well, here is a list of Intel Core i7 microprocessors


So the CPU in Hawking's computers is a built on Sandy Bridge Architecture. What is "Sandy Bridge Architecture"?

This is Sandy Bridge:
So let me get this straight: Hawking dictated the letter that expressed his boycott of Israeli academia on a microchip designed by an Israeli who studied computer engineering at Technion, an Israeli University.

Fantastic.

But there's more! The world's leading candidate for a cure for ALS, the disease that has ravaged his body and left him virtually paralyzed? It's a drug called NurOwn, which is developed by BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, based in Israel.

I hope he remains completely consistent and steadfast in his boycott. He must remain strong in his fight against oppression! Mr Hawking, don't give in to the evil Zionist technology! They are just trying to control you with cures for your lifelong disease! The Palestinians need your help because if you don't come and talk to a scientific conference... the Palestinians will have better lives... and... occupation... or something...!

And ignoring the fact that he has no problem endorsing Iran's repression and human rights violations, its pretty clear that his opinion is worth precisely dick all in this respect. I'm not too worried.

EDIT: You Israel-haters can have Stephen Hawking. Morgan Freeman seems to be very happy supporting Israeli academia. I'll take his silky smooth voice vs. Hawking's (Israeli) computer-generated nails-on-a-chalkboard anyday.

TBF the boycott Israel movement doesn't affirm that Israel hasn't made numerous contributions to human kind (Israel as a country and the people as individuals have more than their fair share of achievements), but, just like South Africa, it is about protesting the treatment of a segment of the population based on ethnicity-wrongly or rightly. One can boycott and dislike the government of a country without applying the same to people or companies from that company.

While your last sentence is fair, Hawking didn't refuse to do business with the government. he is boycotting an academic conference.

As the story comes out, it sounds like the result of bullying by other academics. It's a shame Hawking doesn't have any spine.

heh.

One could argue that academic institutions are a facet of government, in many countries they are either directly or indirectly funded by the government and in some places they are mouthpieces for government agenda.

Anyway, I must admit I did find this odd. Despite my qualms with the Israeli government and military/security services (not the people), I've never had much love for the boycott movement, mainly because it's useless and targets individuals and groups that have no say in whatever policy you might be protesting. I remember in the Saudi community when I was a kid they had a list of 'Israeli/Zionist' companies to boycott that included somewhat connected companies like IBM, but it also had places like Coca Cola or McDonalds on the list just because someone on the board might be Jewish, this is blood libel in political form-and whether or not the left wants to admit it, there is a lot of sheer anti-semitism in such movements.

We don't hate Israel we hate the sin.

When it comes to an academic conference I don't think the level of silky texture of the voices of the speakers is of high concern those in attendance. But I shouldn't be surprised at your emphasis on trivial jabs that are not germane to the issue being discussed since that is what you bring to these discussions over and over again.

Why admit something that just isn't true? Anti-antisemitism is antithetical to the core philosophy of the left, not to mention many leaders of the left are themselves Jewish. Jewish Americans vote heavily in favor of democrats and increasingly so in recent history. How is the left going to up and turn anti-semitic?

I suppose you could say that out of the huge number of people in the boycott some are citing the apartheid while secretly participating just because they hate Jews. But if that's what you're getting at you are indulging in pure speculation. You need something to back that up otherwise you are pulling it out of your ass.

The boycotts are not useless. When a famous scientist says that he he going to boycott an academic conference he is saying that the moral emergencies of the situation supersede any normal considerations. He is saying that we need to forgo even professional pursuits until a resolution is achieved. When someone famous for being smart and contributing at a high level says that, people listen. Eventually there will be so many voices that people on the fence will be compelled to pay attention and wonder if the issue is worthy of their consideration as well. When Americans do take a moral stand it will be a sad day for those in favor of this apartheid.

This is how the US Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel respond to your points.


"Boycott is a non-violent instrument and implicitly and explicitly represents a principled choice for the tactics of non-violence. ACBI is also a response to the call by over 50 institutions of Palestinian society—trades unions, professional organizations of academics, physicians, engineers, and journalists, NGOs and cultural and women’s groups—who seek a non-violent means to ending the occupation and gaining Palestinian sovereignty."


"Israeli universities are in fact governmental institutions. Many are directly involved in furnishing the ideological justification and technical means for the Occupation to continue. Several have benefited materially from the Occupation by building on confiscated Palestinian land in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Not a single Israeli academic institution has petitioned the Israeli government to protect Palestinian rights to education or to cease interference with and destruction of Palestinian schools and colleges."

http://www.usacbi.org/