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Last edited by Troll_King; 12-01-2001 at 05:52 AM.
The jews say its their land. The islams say it's theirs.
The've agreed to fight and kill eachother until they reach
an amicable agreement, muuch like the current negotiations
between christians and islams in afghanistan.
rick barclay
No. Wait. Don't hang up!
This is America calling!
Behold the beautiful war. Behold the destruction of mankind and earth, let it suffer and fade, for it shall once again reign. It is cursed, forever to be cursed - for it is life.
Basically, during the days of the Ottoman Empire, Palestine was an arab nation. Britain took it circa WW1(although there was much rebelling against Britain). After WW2, Britain, with backing from the US and other nations, gave this land to the Jews to form a nation.
So, the Palestinians want to get land back, and they want civil rights (the situation in Israel is much like apartheid South Africa, Palestinians have very much reduced civil rights). The Jews won't give them the land (as they've now held it for 50 years) and they won't give them civil rights because of the terrorist tactics used against them.
By this point, both sides have legitimate claim to the land, both have legitimate grievances against the other, and both are bloody to the point there IS no "good" side in this struggle. It's a lose-lose situation, which everybody has been hurt by, but there's too much bad blood to make any rapid progress towards lasting peace.
So, they're pretty much fighting because they've each suffered too much to stop, even though their fighting is ultimately self-defeating.
Actually, they've given them a considerably huge amount of land - in doing this they negotiated with the head of the terrorist groups, not something the US is likely to do anytime soon. Encouraged that terrorism works, the Palestinians have quickly escalated their killing of Israeli civilians. Sending mortars randomly into downtown Jerusalem, blowing themselves up in front of school buses, the usual.The Jews won't give them the land (as they've now held it for 50 years) and they won't give them civil rights because of the terrorist tactics used against them.
As to who owns the land, first Israel owned it, then Palestinians, then Israel, then misc, until Britain, wanting an ally in the oil rich middle east, gave it back to Israel. They had it first and have it last. Seems as reasonable a claim as any to me. They don't practice terrorism, and they are usually the only ones who show up to the peace talks. I'd give it to them hands down.
Civil rights are hardly restricted in Israel. No more so than they would be in any free country under constant attack from terrorists. Everyone has to be more cautious.
Allegro precompiled Installer for Dev-C++, MSVC, and Borland: http://galileo.spaceports.com/~springs/
Palestinians owned the land first, to be specific. The Israelis conquered it a couple hundred years BC, and lost it in the early AD years. And this land they're returning isn't officially even Israeli land -- it's the land they conquered in 1967, which the international community does not recognize as soverign Israeli soil, but rather as occupied lands.
Terrorism IS down, the area is not peaceful, but it's more peaceful than it's been for decades. Peace negotiations have been more fruitful than would be expected.
The Israelis are hardly innocent. They have very often killed unarmed protesters. Police torture of Palestinians only recently became illegal, and still occurs. Several Palestinians each year are tortured to death. Palestinians may be arrested for indefinate periods of time without being charges with a crime.
Most of the terrorism and human rights violations are in the occupied territories -- if you want a mostly unbiased report on human rights in the occupied territories, you can read the US. Department of State's 1999 summary (the most recent one posted on the wqeb so far).
http://www.state.gov/www/global/huma...t/occterr.html
And do keep in mind that it is a few radical groups (PIJ and HAMAS) responsible for terrorist attacks. They're not necessarily representative of the whole body of Palestinians, in the same way that the radical members of the religious right are not representative of the whole of the US population.
I'm not saying Israel is awful. I'm not saying the Palestinians are awful. But by this time, it's hard to try to take ANY sides in the matter because some members of both sides have done some pretty awful things.
The V. said:
If one goes by the information in the Bible, the ancient Insraelites conquered their "Promised Land" from the non-Jewish, non-Muslim Canaanites, including the Philistines. Depending on one's view, the Canaanites might be considered to be ancient Arabs; however, the Arabs, assuming one could identify a people called the "Arabs" at this time in history, of this time would probably have lived farther south--in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. A common belief is that the ancient Canaanites and ancient Israelites mingled together after the Israelites became the dominant power of the region of Canaan/Israel/Palestine.Palestinians owned the land first, to be specific. The Israelis conquered it a couple hundred years BC, and lost it in the early AD years.
In Israel/Palestine, in the early years A.D., Eastern Christianity and Judaism were the popular religions. After the Byzantine Empire had lost its province of Palestine to Islamic Arab invadors, Islam became the popular religion. Even at this time of the conquering of Palestine by Arabs, many of the Jews had already been dispersed throughout the Old World because of previous occupations of Israel (by Rome, Macedonia and the Hellenic states, Persia, Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia). Going forward in time, Britain took Palestine from the defeated Ottoman [Turkish] Empire after World War I; after World War II, it was decided that Palestine would be the perfect place to send all those uprooted and often unwanted Jews. So, the State of Israel was created as the Jewish homeland. Soon afterwards, Egypt-Syria and other, nearby Islamic-Arab states declared war against Israel. The Israelis were often victorious and extended the boundaries of their state. Now, the Islamic-Arab Palestinians who had lived in the region before the new Israelis arrived were displaced themselves. Various radical factions among the Palestinians have used terrorism to try to regain their homeland.
The best solution, to me, would be to create one dual-national state for both the Jewish Israelis and the Islamic Palestinians. Power would be shared. Terrorism, economic bullying, and religious intolerance would be stopped; citizens from either nation would be given equal rights and protections as guaranteed by a U.S.-esque constitution. Of course, the Israelis and Palestinians could never forgive themselves if they were to do this; so, maybe, some sort of international occupation by U.N. troops would be necessary until both sides could get used to the new order--and lose their hatred for eachother.
>>so, maybe, some sort of international occupation by U.N. troops would be necessary until both sides could get used to the new order--and lose their hatred for eachother.
I dont think that camping troops there would help at all. The hatred between these people has gone back so far that it can not be solved in the space of one generation.
