Wayne Stollings wrote:
Really? How much of the Sinai do they occupy after capturing it and crossing the Suez?
None of it.
Wayne Stollings wrote:
How much of Gaza do they occupy?
About three quarters of it.
Quote:
How do you conclude Israel was the aggressor when the Arab nations vowed their destruction and attacked them?
As for your rhetoric about vowing destruction, I'm not sure what you mean. If you are referencing a particular speech by a particular leader, please cite it. However claiming that this "the Arab nations" vowed somebodies destruction is just racist. A lead might do that, but a nation doesn't. A diverse group of nations from Turkey to Palestine certainly doesn't.
How do you conclude that Israel was attacked when the fighting was outside their original borders, and they annexed large areas of Palestine?
Do you agree that there is a difference between invading and being attacked?
And if you're annexing other peoples land, that is an invasion.
This is very very simple: If your army is outside your country's boundaries, and the civilians from the other country are fleeing their homes before you, you have invaded. If their army is in your country, and your civilians are fleeing, you have been invaded. And that's it.
Quote:
And the evidence for this claim is?
You will be aware of this law?
No Israeli Citizenship for Palestinian SpousesAnd some of these things?
Israel’s Discriminatory Land PoliciesI only learned about this just now:
"According to a 2001 report by Human Rights Watch, Israel's school systems for Arab and Jewish children are separate and have unequal conditions to the disadvantage of the Arab children who make up one quarter of all students. Israeli law does not prohibit Palestinian Arab parents from enrolling their children in Jewish schools, but in practice, very few Palestinian Arab parents do so.The report stated that "Government-run Arab schools are a world apart from government-run Jewish schools. In virtually every respect, Palestinian Arab children get an education inferior to that of Jewish children, and their relatively poor performance in school reflects this." -
WikiQuote:
Of course, there is the counter claim of the same thing in the Arab countries since there was a region to send them.
Palestinians and Israeli Arabs aren't from other Arab countries. They're already in their homeland.
Do you really think that they should be held accountable with their human rights, education, healthcare, economic chances and prosperity because of what has happened to another group in another country?
Quote:
Fine, but if Israel wanted a true ethnic cleansing, as the term implies, there would not be any of the undesired people left alive in Israel after the various flare ups because they would have been "killed in the fighting".
That simply doesn't follow. The policies for ethnic cleansing are around never selling an Arab land, denying residency to people who are married to Palestinians, and revoking residency from people who visit their families outside Israel or who fled violence. That has cleansed the majority of Israel, but not all of it.
Quote:
No, history claims Israel did not start the war. They were attacked by the Arab nations immediately after the state was formed.
This is beyond ridiculous. If you are attacked, the fighting takes place in your country. You only annex other countries if you invade. Do you accept that
Quote:
Yes, they have been fighting for their lives against a larger number of opponents since they were formed.
For their lives? Wouldn't not fighting and supporting the development of everyone in the region be better for their lives?
They have been fighting to annex more an more of Palestine, because they believe they have a god given right to their land. And they have been fighting to keep the Palestinians in poverty.
Quote:
They have no territory that can buffer them in an attack and their opposition had vowed to destroy them.
And yet Palestine is much more destroyed than Israel. Actions speak louder than words.
Quote:
Such a conflict is not something any nation would choose.
What if their goal was ethnic cleansing?
What if the standard of living in Palestine was much lower than in Israel, and by bombing roads and power plants under shadow of a war, they could not only keep them on their knees, but also shoot off their feet?
What if the sensation of superiority that that resulted in was popular with a large voting block in Israel?
Would it be possible for a nations to choose it then?
Why is it always Israel that breaks the cease-fires, do you think? Something to do with being shown to be militarily dominant being good for an Israeli government's re-election chances? Or something to do with not wanting conflict?
Quote:
You mean like allowing them to become independent and form their own government?
Applying a tarriff on all exports, or more recently simply not allowing them. Cutting off power and water to the agricultural industries. Holding perishable exports at the border until they have to be dumped. Putting road-blocks to limit movement of resources around Palestine. Bombing infrastructure to keep them dependent of Israeli power. Building the wall between people's houses and their land so that they have no source of income, and allowing settlers to take the soil for their land. Refusing to recognise the independent government (and pressuring their allies to do the same) so that the budget can be cut off by Israel (as it was when Hamas was elected). Even enforcing malnutrition by not allowing food aid into the country has a lasting effect on the economic capacity of those children brought up under the famine of the Israeli blockade.
Quote:
The problem being that government also vowed the destruction of Israel thus creating a problem for all of the above.
Surely the bigger problem is the real, actual, and not just vowed destruction of Palestine? Israel has power and communications and a good education system, roads, bridges, and movement of resources and goods. They also have access to health care, and most of all, can move around their country and engage in making a living and in living. They haven't been significantly destroyed, and I see no evidence that there is a risk of them being significantly destroyed if they don't hold millions of their fellow Semites in concentration camps, that you call "independent and forming their own government".
Quote:
Whose armies were first to cross the border?
Israel's in the majority of cases.
Quote:
That is the definition of who attacked whom, not which nation ended with the strongest position.
That's a murky criteria. It's not easy to tell who attacked whom first, especially prior to aerial or satellite surveillance. One persons guess is as good as another's. What we do know is that Israel invaded and annexed it's neighbours. That much is indisputable. I have read that in one area (I don't recall which) there was fighting inside the 1947 borders of Israel. I have not heard that that is the case everywhere where Israel invaded.
We also know that hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled their homes before the Israeli invasion, and that the Israelis have confiscated their land and houses, denying them residency in their homeland, and taking for themselves everything that they owned.
Quote:
It is the governments and people of the region surrounding Israel. Such a question implies lack of understanding of the history.
They aren't even stable themselves. Your claim that the are a cohesive whole that had the opportunity for peace is nutty. Your extension that therefore Israel has every right to starve and oppress the people of Palestine, and the Arabs of Israel who they are denying the return to their homeland to, wouldn't even follow if it was true.
But the subtext was: when do you claim this opportunity was offered, and to whom?