Bob, I asked you a question because you made a statement of fact and you had no answer. Perhaps your desire to marginalize the holocaust has blinded you, eh pilgrim?
I'll be happy to discuss the forties. A two-state solution was proposed. One side rejected it and then declared war. That side was defeated.
Haha, If Bob comes and tells you that he proposes to divide the house of the "bigINTERNETTOUGHGUY" with "sahbekham_pactwinner" who claims that the house belongs to "sahbekham_pactwinner" ancestors. Would you accept it? YES OR NO would suffice.
I speak but you fail to comprehend. I gave you a full list of all the wrongs committed. In the link there were many incidents where entire populations were wiped off. Where God knows how many millions were killed. But you seem to think that I did not justify my statement that the killing of the Jews was not unique in its scope or effect. Secondly, as I said in my previous post, attacking my character with in the air comments of "anti-semitism" is no response to my posts nor the events. If I wanted to sink to your level (and by no means just you) and throw shit in a neandarthal fashion to make my point or to make false accusations, I can assure you that I would have been more than capable of "getting a rise" out of you or anyone else. I simply don't think resorting to such childish tactic is befitting of the gravity of the situation (and the human crisis), befitting of my character or anyone of the maturity level of one who should be allowed near a computer. Now, the issues at hand are: a) The debate as to whether Israel was justified in starting their offensive. b) Whether the lack of proportionality in exercise of arms by Israel is in breach of international law. c) Whether the choice of weapons by Israel (i.e. white phosphorus* in populated areas) is in breach of international law. d) Whether the treatment of the civilians caught in the cross fire and the dead is in breach of international humanitarian law. e) Whether the callous disregard for where the bombs are hitting is a breach of international law. Bombing a UN school and the most important UN compound storing much of the food and medicine for the people of Gaza, as well as UN convoys who had been given the go ahead or guaranteed by the Israelis that they won't be hit is only the ones that get any "airtime". God knows how many homes/shops etc. have been hit. Of course in each one of these legal issues, there would be moral issues as well. Now I ask each and every one of you to adopt John Rawl's "original position" behind the "veil of ignorance". Effectively stop thinking of yourselves as Jews, Muslims, man, woman, young, old etc. Just think of yourself as a human being hoping to live well. Now tell me what you think of the actions of Israel? Or where would you rather be living? Where would you want your children to be living. (If you want to find out more about the bastian of modern liberalism, here is a link to it: ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice Finally, I ask each and every one of you to have a look "God on Trial". It's a real eye opener for much of the claims made on this thread. The story is about (an apparently famous story) of a bunch of Jews who put God on Trial during WWII in a concentration camp. If you don't want to buy it, you can always download or even stream it on googlevideo! PS bigINTERNETTOUGHGUY, I am afraid your tactics of failing to respond ontopic have left me with little choice but to choose to ignore your posts as well (as a few others in International News section). *Do note that other than the links I provided on Israel's use of white phosphorus, in the most recent attack, the use of white phosphorus made putting out the fires with water impossible. And it seems the lack of sand to use ensured the fires raged on until much of the supplies in a few warehouses were gone.
If you knew the history, you wouldn't be asking the questions that you posed. 1. The UN 2. It was under British rule from 1920 - 1948. So by your logic, the Brits could decide. Interestingy it was only AFTER the Brits took over that the idea of a "palestinian identity" came into being.
Oh come on nicephoras, you really think the Holocaust of the Jews was unique? And you really think this link doesn't show other wrongs (some of which may be worse in numbers and some are certainly worse in their effect): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing
You failed to comprehend. Bob = UN/BRITISH (proposal made by a 3rd party), sahbekham_pactwinner=Israel, bigINTERNETTOUGHGUY= Palestine Again i ask you : Haha, If Bob comes and tells you that he proposes to divide the house of the "bigINTERNETTOUGHGUY" with "sahbekham_pactwinner" who claims that the house belongs to "sahbekham_pactwinner" ancestors. Would you accept it? YES OR NO would suffice.
If Bob lobs grenades from his hovel at the house of the "bigINTERNETTOUGHGUY" even though he knows that bigINTERNETTOUGHGUY has a tank, and Bob gets his hovel flattened even though he hid out in it thinking he could hide behind his family and "sahbekham_pactwinner" starts whining about it like a sniveling worm, do I listen with sympathy? NO
Sahbe (can I call you sahbe?), let me ask you a question, which I think is more akin to the current situation: If you have a car and Bob steals it, then I manage to get it back, someone else steals it, I again get my car back and now you steal it, whose car is it?
It was, yes. None of the wrongs shown here were "worse in numbers", actually. Second, most of the "wrongs" in that list are deportations, which are inapplicable here (really, the Sicilian Vespers? FFS). Once those are parsed, the list becomes much smaller. Third, one must then parse from the list all instances of religious massacres - conversion was sufficient to survive. This was uniquely untrue of the Holocaust. Finally, you have to eliminate situations where conquest ws involved - devastation, looting, pillaging and destruction is quite common, but the intent is conquest of the land and political power, not the annihilation of the populace. Populaces that submitted to the Mongols, for instance, tended to be treated without such horrific slaughter. The Holocaust is indeed unique because it was attempt to destroy an ethnic group regardless of religion, regardless of any notion of conquest and control, where deportation was not an option and where nothing could possibly have been done to prevent the atrocity. That's what makes this so unique. Some have argued that the Rwandan massacre qualifies, but it doesn't - that was effectively a Civil War between two competing tribes that had raged for centuries - not uncommon in history. There had been no historical tradition of animus between Germans and Jews. (In fact, Jews were most integrated in Germany.) Had Hitler rounded up all the Jews, taken their property and expelled them into France (not unlike, say, the Huguenot expulsion following the repeal of the Edict of Nantes), sure, this would not have been unknown in history. Even if Hitler had killed all the German Jews, it might not have been unique. But the notion that a fundamental part of the German army and administration was dedicated to the extermination of Jews in every single conquered territory with no mitigating circumstance and the lengths to which such dedication was taken is completely unparallelled in history. Yes, the Holocaust was unique. You are wrong.
The Diaspora began during the Romans' occupation of Palestine/Israel ... so the Jews must have lived there ca. 2000 years ago. I'm right? But let's stop this topic now, since it has been discussed in many other threads and gets boring in the meanwhile. Reality & future are more important than the past now! That's what everybody - except for the stubborn extremists - hopes for. I feel very sorry for the Palestinian children who get robbed of their childhood & innocence by poverty, violence/terror, wars & abuse through silly ideologies ("die for Palestine, Allah will reward you in heaven"). That's a sensible attitude. Unfortunately, not everybody thinks this way...
The above statements were largely part of a post I made which unfortunately did not submit where I sought to distinguish why the Holocaust is deemed unique. There are many other factors, most notably the development of international law and human rights. But you say unique? Well from the link something I referenced earlier is: During the mid-19th century, the Muslims of China revolted against the Qing Dynasty, most notably in the Dungan revolt (1862-1877) and the Panthay rebellion 1856-1873) in Yunnan. The Manchu government committed genocide to suppress these little known revolts.[63][64][65] killing a million people in the Panthay rebellion,[66][67] and several million in the Dungan revolt.[67] A "washing off the Muslims"(洗回 (xi Hui)) policy had been long advocated by officials in the Manchu government.[68] I think "washing off Muslims" in their millions who had done nothing but existed as a separate group isn't too far a stretch from the actions of the Germans. (Edit the number given seems to be one of 12 million dead overall). And feel free to look at the list again; you will see examples where one minority was targetted simply because of their ethnic differences with the other. I really hope you don't buy the line of there was no underlying reason, nor animosity, or anything else until Hitler came around! And then everyone decided to follow his lead (in Germany) and everyone else sought to turn a blind eye to it all around the world (that's not including all the places that had maltreated the Jews in the past). There is a general wisdom that the worst racist is one who doesn't express it. And I find it quite interesting that you distinguish Jews because they couldn't fight back! So in your opinion it would have been different if either there had been animosity between the Germans and the Jews or if the Jews had a country that the Germans decided to kill each and every one in a conflict between the two, started, maintained and dominated by one side. Anyway, this is my last post on the topic as I think none of this relates to the current issue and it doesn't make a lot of difference in my opinion. I personally don't think it makes it any less bad because I believe that other event just as bad have happened in the past. The analogy to my mind remains, any killing is wrong; killing of civilians worse; genocide/ethnic cleansing even worse. Some Jews evidently think they need to be considered as having suffered the worse fate, otherwise it's detracting from its importance. I think of the genocide against the Armenians, that against the Jews, against the Macedonians or Darfur as terrible events that shouldn't have happened. Each with their own "unique" features; none unique, none justifiable.
By that logic, we should just care about what is going on now, which is that Israel consists of the entire area from Jordan to the sea.
You mean the same UN that the anti-Israel group refers to when it suits their purposes, but not when it doesn't?
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/hamas-gaza-jewish-2277487-muslims-state "In Toronto, anti-Israel demonstrators yell "You are the brothers of pigs!," and a protester complains to his interviewer that "Hitler didn't do a good job." In Fort Lauderdale, Palestinian supporters sneer at Jews, "You need a big oven, that's what you need!" In Amsterdam, the crowd shouts, "Hamas, Hamas! Jews to the gas!" In Paris, the state-owned TV network France-2 broadcasts film of dozens of dead Palestinians killed in an Israeli air raid on New Year's Day. The channel subsequently admits that, in fact, the footage is not from Jan. 1, 2009, but from 2005, and, while the corpses are certainly Palestinian, they were killed when a truck loaded with Hamas explosives detonated prematurely while leaving the Jabaliya refugee camp in another of those unfortunate work-related accidents to which Gaza is sadly prone. Conceding that the Palestinians supposedly killed by Israel were, alas, killed by Hamas, France-2 says the footage was broadcast "accidentally." [Mod Edit - please post only brief excerpts, then let people follow the link to the story]
The biggest failure of all was letting all these third worlders into Europe in the first place. Now we're lumbered with the Islamist maniacs mentioned in the article. They talk about the "Israeli occupation of Palestine", what about the Islamic occupation of Europe? They don't belong in Europe and as their activites show, their interests conflict with ours in a major way. I don't see why school children in France like that little girl should live in fear of this sort of savagery. Any participating in the activites mentioned in the article should be given a police beating before being promptly deported IMO.
The seeming lust to have the State of Israel wiped from the face of the earth is obviously a failure. The Arab greed for land has led them to so many conflicts as to further reduce the size of any possible Palestinian state. Every time you fight, you give the Israeli's more and more land. When are you people going to stop torturing the Palestinians.
I asked you a question which is root to the problems that is happening right now!!!!!!! So i assume that your answer is No to that question. (Correct me if i am wrong -You won't agree to give up land that was illegally occupied by intruders (Israel)).
If the Israelis have that attitude, and won't give up land that belonged to Palestine in the 1900's to 1960's, i am afraid for ISRAEL because who knows in the coming years there could be hundred's of Ahmedinejad born and America won't be able to support due to economic crisis in the US. A prediction of the future by the pactwinner.