Nonsense. The Sunni-Shia tension does not pre-date Islam. lol And it is not a sectarian war, there is little bits of sectarian violence every now and then but it's not worth calling a "sectarian war". Please, keep talking about something you know nothing about
Most of Middle East problems have external origin not internal. ME people should know except than themselves nobody is really care about their security. For some superpowers ,crisis in the ME is an good opportunity to reach their illegitimate interests. We have lived here beside each other since thousands years ago without any foreign power help and founded the brightest civilizations when the others lived in jungles. So we can back to that era if we rely on ourselves.
Middle East tensions come from European Colonial powers splitting up the Muslim world into Nations that should not even exist. Further exacerbated by Israel displacing Palestinian muslims who flooded Christian Lebanon and caused a civil war. Now the Lebanese Christians are a minority in their homelands because of Israel. Let's not even forget that America always meddles in Israel's affairs. We treat Israel like a retarded child who can't do anything on their own. Well, to be honest... They are undefeated against their Muslim neighbors and I doubt they will ever lose a conventional war against Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt or whomever else will enter the fray. It's time for America to get out of the Middle East and just let them hash it out once and for all.
Well said sir. Just reading these posts bring a very apparent problem to the forefront: Even the most heated and ingrained believers cannot come to a consensus to what "is wrong" over there. Why can't one neighbor just live next door to another, I cannot understand. Someone needs to take the higher road. Everyone claims that as their home, so why not live in harmony? Forgive the sins of the fathers? Too much proverbial spilled milk? Give 'em North Dakota! Would you miss it? But who is "'em"? A good friend (he's jewish for what it's worth) at work told me that his grandfather told him two things "1. Study hard, it will open your mind and 2. Kill every Palestinian you see." Very sad actually. We westerners cannot and will not be able to understand it, so leave them be. But not with weapons that can annihilate the planet in the crossfire.
I think a first issue might be to get the people over there to actually want peace. Well, I suppose they all like the idea of peace in theory, but they mean the sort of peace you'd get after you've cleared out the "other" people. Same deal with most of the posters in this thread sadly. That seems a little hopeless, but I think things are slowly improving actually, they occasionally do polls in the middle east and even in Palestine and Israel the percentage of people what would accept a peace where the other side actually gets to exist in a meaningful way has been increasing and is around the 50% mark. Once it gets far enough over than, at least at the national level, we might actually see some agreements. Some neighbors do, despite the waves of misinformation out there that every side has. But then the neighbors a couple two doors down decide to launch a missile or steal some olives. There are hundreds of years of bad blood, and unlike in the west where individuals tend to be peaceful and you need a government to order them into shooting people, rather the governments seem completely unable to stop individuals from perpetuating the cycle of violence. Hurm. I was going to say that's just false, but considering the popularity of genocide elsewhere in the past and the "amongst" weasel word it might at least hold some truth. However by modern standards they treated people of different faiths varying degrees of horrible. Actually it was looking like they'd lose to Egypt as USSR delivered tanks started rolling in during the Yom Kipper war. That's actually the where and why of our relationship with Israel being so tight as we intervened as we did with 'nam. Except that went much much better. Origionally the US didn't have a good relationship with Israel, as they started off leaning toward the commies.
Thanks, and welcome to the forum. It's actually a hard place to be reasonable, as flamebait is so much more likely to be replied to, but I hope you enjoy it here all the same.
Quite intriguing: from all over the world, the descendents and beneficiaries of Empire – the heroes of a Manifest Destiny, the bearers of a White Man's Burden, the once champions of a global proletarian union, along with the builders and expanders of a growing Dar Al-Islam – are all united in their opposition to a "greedy" little Israel – in their rejection of the claim of the few to the little – this, no doubt, in the name of justice among the nations, and this, of course, in defense of the "aboriginal" Palestinians. An original people indeed, as in "an original invention", as in new and unusual and not fated at all: there would never have been a "Palestinian nation" in the first place, if not for the Jewish claims that united belligerent Arab clans of no national awareness or territorial commitment. Even the name "Palestine" is, in a way, owed to the Jews: it was in the aftermath of their failed revolt against the Roman Empire that the latter gave the above mentioned title to the province formerly known as Judea - hundreds of years before the arrival of the Arab conquerors - an appellation that remained strictly geographical, with no ethnic connotation, until the totalitarian historical revisionism of the 20th century. So you see, the "theft" you demand be made undone, is in fact the reversal of the evil legacy of Empire: the true indigenous people is at last returning home. The Arabs, for that matter, are welcome to do the same.
Actually that's about right. After the horrers of WWII the world got together and decided to try and put an end to the ancient cycles of vengence and wars of conquest. If once controlling some territory in history or having a beef with someone's ancestors was sufficient cause for a just war you'd be back to a free-for-all. And that goes double in the case of Israel. Historically, it's probably shorter to lists societies whose ancestors weren't once part of an empire that conquered some of that territory. I can appreciate that it seems unfair to say that Israel has to give land back to the Palestinians because you drove them out of it after WWII and they ethnically cleansed the Jews out prior to WWII. But if the violence on an international scale was going to end a line had to be drawn, and the time was then.
Actually that's about right. After the horrers of WWII the world got together and decided to try and put an end to the ancient cycles of vengence and wars of conquest. If once controlling some territory in history or having a beef with someone's ancestors was sufficient cause for a just war you'd be back to a free-for-all. And that goes double in the case of Israel. Historically, it's probably shorter to lists societies whose ancestors weren't once part of an empire that conquered some of that territory. I can appreciate that it seems unfair to say that Israel has to give land back to the Palestinians because you drove them out of it after WWII and they ethnically cleansed the Jews out prior to WWII. But if the violence on an international scale was going to end a line had to be drawn, and the time was then.
It'd be a shorter list still - one item long - if one counted the nations that originated in that territory, gave it its names and geography, established in it a state and a religion and a culture, and have fought for it throughout the ages. The claim of the Jews is not an opportunistic abuse of some insignificant chapter of their history in which they happened to pass through the land they now see beneficial to inhabit; the connection to the Land of Israel and to Jerusalem is a cardinal motif in the Jewish identity, for which the Jew has suffered the burden of the perpetual stranger throughout his wanderings. Indeed the Jew has remained alien in every place outside of Judea; in Judea remained a stranger any people outside of the Jews. No other nation has considered that land as distinct and worthy of national sentiments; rather, it has always been a peripheral province of this or other empire, or the southern region of a Great Syria. As for the lessons of WWII let me remind you, that the war that was supposed to end all wars, the war that in its hideousness invoked a call for international regulation and global peace, was actually the First World War. Then too, "the world got together". Then too, it was agreed that the old ways of war as the "continuation of politics by other means" were no longer acceptable. Then too, people sought peace at all costs. And in the name of that peace, nations were called upon to acquiesce to the demands of the rising Fascists. And like today, the aggressors presented their imperial aspirations in the form of democratic justice and popular self-determination; Hitler used referendums and the "plight" of German minorities in neighboring countries to justify his territorial claims, which to me sound incredibly familiar. And in the Czechoslovakian crisis, it was Czechoslovakia, not Nazi Germany, that was rebuked by Western leaders and media as a warmonger for not giving up land. When the land was eventually given, resulting in in the Nazi takeover of the entire country, those same leaders were openly reluctant to aid their betrayed ally, unwilling to help "a strange people in a far away land". Indeed, there are important lessons to be made in light of the events of WWII. The adherence to an imagined world community in its noble search for "peace in our time" is not one of them.
The Palestinian nation was of course called Judah, just as the zionist one was called the Khazar Empire. Funny how nazis never deal with the issue but attack straw men - which is, I take it, why we have all this weird howsyourfather about 'Empire'. The reason the racist colony is an object to peace is that it is stealing land, threatening war and killing children, as you know, and like its great model, Hitler, it will have to be stopped if humanity is to get on with its life.
Now you are right we need to stop screwing around with that Palestine crap and focus on our one ally in the region.
I'm not sure what you expected someone to take away from that. But yes, I think most people are aware that at the moment most Israeli's aren't going to accept a peace deal that doesn't give them the west bank unless they don't feel they have a choice. I do think that it would be reasonable, and probably neccessary to avoid a war, to put some military restrictions on any new Palestinian state both in terms of what they roll up to the board, what they can own, and restrictions on other neighbors positioning their forces. I'm not sure how you mean that. The US didn't create Israel, at least not any more than the rest of the UN. America and Israel actually didn't get along very well at first, the Israeli's leaning towards the commies. It was much later that Israel and the US got tight as the Israeli's handed over a USSR Mig to make friends and later was under attack by USSR tanks coming from Egypt, so we intervened 'Nam style and have been tight since. I sometimes wonder how radically different the world would be now if Egypt had decided to join the first world way back when.
President Kennedy's Papa thought the same about Hitler. Stop screwing about with racist childkillers and start thinking, for goodness sake! What benefit do you get form these swaggering nazi bullyboys?
what? The palestinian nation was called Judah?!! You are so wrong dude. WHERE are you people learning history anymore!!
If you really want a true *peace* in the ME, America's, England's and UN's policy must change from "special rights for special people" to "Human Rights for ALL People". There is nothing wrong with the laws of the land, there is everything wrong with ENFORCING the laws of the UN, and when you do not equally enforce laws, you get the chaos you well deserve. And we do have that. All the world has to do is make certain that Israel obeys UN resolutions #194, #242, and #338. That will go a long long way to restoring PEACE.
Hello and welcome to the forum. Maybe you're new to this topic as you seem like maybe you're imagining those resolutions leading to a peaceful co-existance of Palestine and Israel. However the issue is that just wouldn't be the case. The chief issue is that of right of return. If you take the position that right of return also applies to descendents, than granting it would simply be the end of Israel. The Palestinian birthrate has been crazy, and if they were able to vote as Israelis they could just vote the country out of existance. Actually there are a large number of Palestinians with the righ to vote in Israel, so if birth rates continue as they are this might be an pending issue regardless. A second issue is the large number of individuals in neighboring countries and Palestinaians that, if unable to simply vote Israel out of existance, would be interested in doing so militarily. A fully miliarized west bank would, with modern weaponry, put almost all of Israel in range and unable to defend itself realistically if attacked by surprise, as in the Yom Kipper war. So while I would also like to see peace in the region, this in practice would require a slightly different resolution. One that removes or restricts the right of return, and that has demilitarization clauses for Palestine and the Golan heights.
Correct! I am very new here, and thanks for the welcome. But let me add..... If all of those UN resolutions were enforced - especially when they were written when it would be easier to implement, you would be going back to 1967 borders, which means the Palestinians would only be on Mandated Palestinian land. Israel would be smaller, as it should be, but it would still be autonomous and free of the Palestinian surge. Please understand that the suffering Israeli's would go through moving out of occupied land is their OWN FAULT. They violated UN law in invading Mandated Palestine in the 1st place and they refused to do the "right thing" and honor UN's demands to get OUT. So I do not feel sorry for them at all. I feel very sorry for the Palestinians who were born in Palestine, their HOME, and forced to live in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and elsewhere. They were made STATELESS people. This has to end. HUMAN RIGHTS must be for ALL HUMANS Palestine is their rightful homeland.
