PowerSwitch

Nafeez Ahmed hits it on the head again.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... rgy-crisis

(I've copied this from the oil price discussion as here seems a better place.)

clv101 wrote:

vtsnowedin wrote:The retaliatory airstrikes are just the inevitable response from Israel. If they want their homes and families safe they should stop firing their rockets. Plenty of blame to go around.

Serious question vtsnowedin - why do the Palestinians keep firing their ineffective rockets when then seem to bring such deadly retaliations?

If I might suggest at least a partial answer, vt talks of 'their homes' but most Palestinians have been pushed out of their homes and driven into the tiny enclave of Gaza, the Israelis having occupied their homeland. UN Resolution 242 sought to at least partially redress that wrong but although the USA supported it in the Security Council they never supported it with practical action. That was my point in my previous post.

Lest we forget:

The changing map is due to wars fought and lost by the Palestinians. When you lose a war you lose the ground you fought over.

vtsnowedin wrote:The changing map is due to wars fought and lost by the Palestinians. When you lose a war you lose the ground you fought over.

So might is right? No need for any other justification, right?

Just come out and say it straight. At least you would be being honest then.

Might has nothing to do with 'right'. Sadly, in the real world the people who have the guns have the power.

vtsnowedin wrote:The changing map is due to wars fought and lost by the Palestinians.

Er, you say fought by the Palestinians. I think it generally takes at least two groups to fight a war and in this case it was the Israelis who started it by occupying Palestine and forcibly removing the indigenous population of Palestinians.

The 'might is right' view of international relations, that Steve alludes to, is something that used to be a feature of British rule beck in days of Empire but for the last few decades has become more associated with the USA. It is always a wrong view.

Biff, I think you find that the first war was the combined might of all the Arab armies, back by the Palestinians, invading a tiny Israeli state which had just been created after the horrors of the Holocaust and by some minor miracle the Jews survived as a nation.

A beautiful moment in world history.

The Jews were able to gain land which would make their new country defendable and yes some Palestinians had to flee/leave their ancestral lands/homes. That's sad but than they did all wish to see the new Israeli state and the Jews living there literally destroyed so I don't have a massive amount of sympathy for them.

There are much better causes, for example the terrible plight of Arab Christians living across the Middle East.

What the Israelis have done and are doing to the Palestinians is as bad as what was done to the Jews in the Jewish Ghettos during the second world war. It's just being played out over a longer time-scale, that's all. A form of slow motion genocide.

Since then, it has got a bit more complex. The rise of the extreme Jewish settlor right has been a long term moral and strategic disaster for Israel with their occupation of lands in predominately Palestinian lands.

Most Israeli's despise these fanatics almost as much as the Arabs but sadly the Palestinians in their refusal to recognise the right of Israel to exist as a nation don't encourage confidence that they genuinely mean peace and so the Israelis don't feel they have a partner they can do business with over these settlements.

Now, I suspect it is probably too late for a two state solution - the fault being on BOTH sides, primarily Israel settlement expansion over the preceding decades and the Arabs refusal to genuinely make peace with Israel.

They could start by all announcing that Israel has a right of exist as a nation. This may encourage the more moderate sensible elements within Israel (which is the great majority) to restart peace talks. It takes too sides to make peace Biff.

Lord Beria3 wrote:Biff, I think you find that the first war was the combined might of all the Arab armies, back by the Palestinians, invading a tiny Israeli state which had just been created after the horrors of the Holocaust and by some minor miracle the Jews survived as a nation.

A beautiful moment in world history.

The Jews were able to gain land which would make their new country defendable and yes some Palestinians had to flee/leave their ancestral lands/homes. That's sad but than they did all wish to see the new Israeli state and the Jews living there literally destroyed so I don't have a massive amount of sympathy for them.

There are much better causes, for example the terrible plight of Arab Christians living across the Middle East.

If a group of Muslims came and set up, by force, a self proclaimed caliphate in an English county, forcing the existing residents to flee for their lives from their land and property, would you consider that a beautiful moment in history? Would you consider it churlish of the rest of the UK to unit to force them out and to destroy their self proclaimed state?

With regards to the Arab Christians, this too is a desperate injustice. Do I really need to spell out that two wrongs don't make a right.

stevecook172001 wrote:What the Israelis have done and are doing to the Palestinians is as bad as what was done to the Jews in the Jewish Ghettos during the second world war. It's just being played out over a longer time-scale, that's all. A form of slow motion genocide.

I don't recall Jewish in ghettos preaching hatred of Germans, launching suicide bombs against ordinary German people relaxing in cafes or strolling through supermarkets or financing movements which preach hatred against the German race, who stockpile massive amount of rockets and other weapons and prepare violent attacks/uprisings against the German people.

Google "Arab jokes" on the internet, and see what comes up. Its disgusting and does incorporate a lot of jokes regarding Anne Frank.


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They didn't set it up by force!

The UN brokered a agreement between the two sides. There is no reason why the two communities couldn't live in peace after 1947.

We can rake over past history as much as we can but if both sides want peace here are a few things they both need to agree to:

Israel has a right to exist as a nation.
Israel needs to destroy the bulk of the settlements and agree to permanent borders with a Palestinian state
Palestinians need to accept that the 'right to return' just isn't realistic after over fifty years needs to get on with state building.
The Arab world has to accept Israel as a nation.
Jerusalem needs to become some kind of special UN/world city due to its special place in the billions of people's lives.

Funny how 'progressive' opinion changes. Until the 70's the Israeli were seen as a progressive cause and many in the Left supported Israeli. Now days the pendulum has changed way too much in the other direction to the point that it makes me uncomfortable.

vtsnowedin wrote:The changing map is due to wars fought and lost by the Palestinians. When you lose a war you lose the ground you fought over.

Israel is a criminal state. It has no right to exist. Its existence is a criminal act, and the criminal involved was/is the United States of America.

Your punishment for this crime was 9/11. You deserved it. And you will get more.

I hope I have made myself clear.

Lord Beria3 wrote:
Israel has a right to exist as a nation.

Why? Because the Third Reich committed genocide against European Jews and because Jews own and run the United States? Why is this a justification for the Palestinians having to accept that their country was stolen?

This conflict can not and will not end so long as Israel exists. It's that simple. And make no mistake: Israel will not exist forever, because the United States will not remain a global superpower forever. If (when) it had (has) to stand on its own two feet then, sooner or later, it would (will) be overwhelmed by the surrounding forces that are unanimous in wanting to see it removed from the map. It is only a question of when, not if.

The existence of Israel is a bigger crime against humanity than the genocide of the Jews during WWII. Its bigger because it is on-going. It is a continual crime with continual, world-wide consequences.