Mr. Weber, Due the statistics of this report…
From Sept. 29, 2000 to September 14, 2003: Israeli Dead: 797
Palestinian Dead: 2480
Due to the fact that the Palestinians suffered almost 3 times as many casualties; It seems oftly farfetched, absurd, and ludacris that the Palestinians are “wantonly”, “carelessly and, milicously” killing isrealies. I urge, you to not throw around absurd arguements, lacking proof as well as substance. Hence forth, Your lack of substance and depth leads people to believe that you are arogant. To answer your question; I do not believe the Palestinians are unjustly killing hundreds of irealies. Due to the reports of casualties and the amount of weapon funding from the US. I do believe that the Israelies are milicoulsly slaughtering thousands of Palestinians.
Obviously yes, or else why would I post what I posted above. Classifying the Palestinian actions as wanton is just wrong. Let me give you the dictionary definition of Wanton: Marked by unprovoked, gratuitous maliciousness; capricious and unjust. When making this argument are u saying that this selected minority of extreme palestinians are doing what they do out of pure MALICE? That they are sacrificing their lives because of MALICE? They have obviously been pushed to this point, by Israeli oppression and violence. The results of the actions that they commit is fraction of violence and abuse they are subject to.
Of course if you expect to hear about the terror they inflict upon the Palestinians, you should not rely on the American media, you will only hear amplified accounts of what Kurt Weber naively classifies as palestinians "wantonly killing people". Therefore I encourage everybody to ignore the biased influences posed by the society around them, on topics of this nature and get a genuine point of view.
There was an article in our local paper that reported unemployment in Israel at 11% for Israelis and 50% for Palestinians. And 2744 Palestinians killed vs 860 Israelis since the last Intifadah (spelling?).
Somebody said:
There is no place for hatred, fear, bigotry, or ignorance in our World.
If you believe hatred of evil and death and destruction is wrong, then there is no place for YOU in this world.
And the numbers killed are meaningless. Ask any Palestinian if he supports killing Israelis if it is the only means of eliminating the Israeli state (which is what they want, regardless of what they mean). They support it–therefore, they deserve to die as well. All Israel wants to do is to be left alone, so they are acting in self-defense.
This issue is clearly not a matter of who started it, but of who perpetuates it. Both sides are guilty of perpetuation of hostilities.
Palestinians blow up pizza joints and wedding sites and other clearly non-military targets. Their rhetoric is full of hate speech and racism.
Israelis demolish homes suspected of harboring militants without trial, they prevent Arafat from free movement without trial, they have in the past seized lands from innocents, they fire missles into neighborhoods full of children an dother non-combatants. Their rhetoric is full of hate speech and racism.
Neither the Palestinian nor the Israeli militants want to be left alone, they want the destruction of the opposing race at least the removal of that race from the Levant. Peace will only be acheived when the cycle stops. Both will have to drop their arms and admit that killing each other is not the answer.
the way in which people are attacking each other in this forum is really getting me down. can some attempt please be made to distinguish between the fundamentalists, both Arabs and Jews, who aggravate the problems and those, both Israeli and Palestinian, who simply wish for peace and the right to live safely in their own State. Making rash generalisations that condemn either all Palastinians or all Israelis only serves to fuel the hatred.
Kurt Weber. When you call a group of people from one ethnic origin evil and boorish, is that not racism? if you wish to talk about the violent actions of a few people (some shi’ite (spelling) muslims) that is different. be specific. define your terms. One of the things i truly admired about Ayn Rand is that she was very explicit.
Kurt Weber stated:
I was implicitly referring to hatred of people, not concepts like destruction. I will attempt to be less vague in the future. Thank you for pointing that out to me.
Not if it happens to be true of all individuals of that same origin. Show me a Palestinian who (honestly) opposes what the PLO and Hamas, et al are doing and I will gladly retract my statement.
Why is everyone entertaining Kurt Weber? There is nothing that anyone can say that would change his mind and by posting a reply, fuel is being added to his fire (hatred to whatever he hates).
Yes! Dragon_Heart! I thought it was just me. he is dancing in the forum, considered a serious taboo by the ancient Romans. Nietzsche said, (to reiterate) “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” As Albert Camus said in the introduction to his book The Rebel (I believe it was this book that cost him the friendship of one of the most eminent intellectuals of our times, Jean Paul Sartre), “On the day when crime dons the apparel of innocence-- through a curious transposition peculiar to our times-- it is innocence that is called upon to justify itself.” Europe knows how ideologies can kill, the USA evidently still has much to learn in this arena. As Isaac Asimov said, “Violence is the last resort of the incompetent.”
This reminds me of South Park. Remember when the town was split into pro-war and anti-war factions? The end result was that if some people in a population oppose war and some support it, the population itself cannot be blamed, but the interests of the population will be protected.
So, if we can come up with a pro-Israel group of Palestinians, the population as a whole cannot be comdemned, right?
That’s funny. Even if we assume 100% Sbarro bombings support among the Palestinians, it’s hard to hold the people themselves accountable even for their own viewpoint. As with any group, their world-view is shaped by media, religious and political leaders, and other cultural mechanisms (BTW, am I turning this whole board in to an anthro site?). That’s assuming both 100% support of bombings and a completely untenable viewpoint. Neither of which can be rationally argued.
Exactly. Right now, though, I’m inclined to believe that all Palestinians support the destruction of Israel. I hope I’m wrong, as the fewer people who wish to oppose peace-loving people the better, but until I’m shown otherwise I don’t think I am wrong.
I can show you a palestinian who opposes the action of the terorist organisations.
I am a Zionist. I am Jewish. I recently spent a gap year in Israel. No-one supports Israel more than I do and yet having a love for a country and its people does not mean one should view its actions through rose tinted glasses. Just as not all Israelis support their government, so the same is fpr Palestinians . I met, and indeed worked alongside, Palestinians from the territories who criticised their government and above all criticised the violent actions of the palestinian terrorist organisations.
On both sides there are people working towards reform and a non-violent resoulution to the Arab-Israeli problem. Not all Palestinians are terrorists just as not all Israelis and murdering settlers.
check seedsofpeace.org. only then try to tell me co-existance isn’t a possibility.
perhaps a step back is needed here to remind who the occupier is, who’s land has been occupied ! its a laugh really when the occupier with the guns and tanks are claimed to be “actin in defence” from the freedom-fighters who have nothin more left to do than blow themselves up !
palestinian mothers who are shown in bad light for feelin proud of the actions of their sons and daughters are condemned. a mother, regardless of race, culture, colour, nationality is a mother - same instincts in the animal world …for a mother to bless their children for such an act reflects upon the desperateness and hardship of these human lives …
might also be worthwhile to reflect upon how one would feel, if a stranger enters our house and claims it as his own, cuts our water supply, eats our olives, insults our being …bulldozes our homes to make way for his friends, family et al …this would weaken the strongest of the lot. better yet, think of our children who witness our sufferin …and watch while their friends, family, parents die… you can’t honestly expect them growin with love for the people who’ve terrorised them and the ones around !
if this ain’t enough, a few economic indicators could be presented to reflect upon the future destructions in the pipeline, a creation of the insecure “men of peace”
i’d bet if any of us would accept or comprehend this kinda treatment and allow the continuation to our next generation’s.
livin under the shadow of death ain’t a way to live at all - it’s a shame how people have become immune to human sufferin !
unfortunately, they stay inside the tunnels - not takin account of the big picture, knowin full well and acknowledgin the neon signs of “evil at work”. an abuse anywhere and to any human is an abuse to each one of us, even on unfamiliar territories. its not about protectin the rights of people in “our lands” alone. this IS our land - WE ARE THE CITIZENS OF THE LAND (and water) CALLED EARTH
Welcome to the forum Rose!
Welcome Stoney69!
I am glad that Rose stepped up, i personally felt no need to produce evidence for something that is self evident. There are Palestinians who oppose fighting, there are Israelis who oppose the war, there is no one sieve that all people will neatly fit into (thank heavens).
‘Israeli occupation’, ‘incursion’, Orwellian euphemisms for land theft. but when it comes time to express the actions of the Palestinians in our biased newspapers, it is always ‘terrorism’. The very language is used to keep the underdog down.
Rose. I welcome all opportunities for peace. I read once somewhere, that there was a place where Jews and Palestinians were cohabiting in peace, a kind of experimental commune. Maybe it is the organization you mentioned, i don’t know. In the final analysis the people that actually live there will have to sow those olive branch seeds. We can only help that to come about.
Stoney69. I think this is what is missing from the perspective here. A sense of the daily, personal, mundane existence of the people who actually live in the war prone Middle East. Poor people ravaged by war, their land taken away, no jobs to be had because they are Palestinian. Or the Jewish person who has had several relatives killed in an explosion. If you truly see and understand the daily existence of some of these people you can empathize with them no matter what their color, creed, religion, etc. Everything is much easier from a distance, some of us may give these things little thought. It’s just an abstract discussion, an ideological exercise where human lives are charted on some inane graph with arbitrary distinctions like Israeli, or Palestinian, where modern day communication and transportation has brought us together but hasn’t given us the tools to learn to live together peacefully. Where means of killing have become more and more efficient and the stakes of preserving the peace are at their zenith. Make no mistake about it, the World today is so interdependent that we can not afford to arbitrarily kill our neighbors. To do so is to kill ourselves. violence breeds violence.
Marshall McDaniel the place you are looking for is called neve shalom wahat al salam, meaning oasis of peace in Hebrew and Arabic and the web site is here: nswas.com/