The Economist - Israel's security barrier. A safety measure or a land grab?

Yep, that about sums it up. Of course, there is a flip side.

The problem in the Israeli-Palenstinian situtation is that NEITHER side actually engages in realpolitik. They don't ask and answer the question, "Now what I am gonna do?"

Instead, they both say, "Well I am gonna keep on doin' what I've always done!!!"

And you get the feeling, that politicians on both sides are actually pretty gleeful about this particular set of choices.

So, more bus bombings, more house flattenings, more checkpoints, on and on and on and on.

However, I will say this. The Palestinians -- all the history of oppression aside -- have to face up to the facts. And the facts are they have "lost." If they keep on "fighting" it's going to be more of the same, or worse.

They lost in '48; the '67 and '73 wars were the last real shot they had at possibliy winning. They lost there, too. Their Arab brother don't want them -- everywhere they've gone, they've been kicked out. In fact, a real cynic might say their Arab brothers LOVE the situation the Palestinians are in, because it keeps the attention of their own disaffected people away from them. Nothing like tossing a few shekls to Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah to keep the pot boiling.

So, somebody, or some folks, have got to say, "Enough. Let's cut the best deal we can now and get out of this morass." And get the vast majority of people behind them.

Until that happens, and it's a long shot, it's only going to be more dismembered bus riders, and Israeli tanks and bulldozers.

 

Re: Taking "Holocaust denial" to new heights. Or should that be "to new depths"

A people that cry "next year in Jerusalem" for 1900 years will probably get there eventually.

If anything, Europe provided the political and strategic ideas to realize that goal instead of just praying daily for:

"Blessed art Thou, Eternal God for all You gave to our ancestors. Have compassion, O Eternal God upon us, upon Israel, upon Jerusalem, upon Your Temple, upon Your altar. Rebuild Jerusalem, Your Holy city, speedily in our days. Bring us there, and cheer us with her rebuilding."
"

The idea of a Jewish state in Europe is silly. More so considering that a majority of Israelis came from Africa and the Middle East.

My point wasn't that there was no persecution against Jews in Europe, but that Zionism isn't really about just "escaping persecution."

 

Interesting theory given Israeli election patterns. It's pretty obvious Sharon's ascendancy was more "Well, that didn't work" than "I am gonna keep on doin' what I've always done"

 

No, the reality is that the only nation in the Mideast with weapons of mass destruction (i.e., nuclear, chemical, biological) is Israel. And they are allied with the most powerful nation in the world.

To say that "the Arabs" are a vastly more powerful enemy is a lie. And any argument that giving Palestinians the full West Bank would lead to Israel's destruction is a red herring.

 

The next time someone says Israel is engaging in genocide against the Palestinians, it might be a good idea to remember that they have WMD, and have somehow decided to continue giving the Palestinians retail rather than wholesale service.

 

I know I'm not Jewish but from what I can tell, "Next year in Jerusalem" is the Jewish equivalent to "Have a nice day". You say it all the time but how often do you really mean it in a meaningful way?

I know the idea of a Jewish state in Europe was and still is unrealistic. There's no way the Europeans would ever have the moral testicles to do something like that. I think Mr. Loney can add this to his list of morals of the story: "If you're going to be forced to clean up your mess after committing centuries of oppression leading to an orgy of outright slaughter, make sure you can slough off the consequences of your 'cleaning' onto someone else so they wreck their own house and not yours."

The only reasons Israeli Jews weren't overwhelmingly European since 1948 were that 6 million of them had already been killed and many of the survivors could not escape communist countries. I may be mistaken but I believe that this is changing since the fall of communism has opened up Jewish emigration from eastern Europe.

Finally, Zionism was also not in the mainstream of Jewish culture until the advent of fascism in Europe. It was a fringe movement of a small band of visionary fanatics. Most Jews around the world didn't even speak proper Hebrew until the 20th century.

For better or worse, it was the Europeans both ancient and modern and not Muslims who caused Israel to become necessary. If you insist on placing blame, point your finger there.

 

What is Israel going to do? Set off nukes in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan and turn their own country into a remake of The Omega Man or The Day After?

OK, maybe they can nuke northeastern Iran, but nuking oil producing countries necessary to American prosperity like Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, or even the garden paradise of Islam that is the UAE just might get their American aid cut by 10% or even 15%!

 

Don't be obtuse. Israel could simply have gassed or bio-bombed Jenin, for example. Or Gaza. Or any inconvenient village near a good settlement site.

It wasn't as if the Arabs didn't indulge in a few anti-Semitic riots and slaughters of their own - I think an internet search along the lines of Hebron 1929 will reveal a bit more. Both sides have been very good about helping remember the other side's atrocities, so I won't pretend that there weren't massacres on both sides. But once the aggrieved Arabs chose the fortunes of war over negotiation, they pretty much lost the right to bitch and complain, as far as I'm concerned.

 

Not quite, but you're a lot closer than Mr. Reilly was. Indeed, fundamentalist Jews had no use for Zionism until relatively recently. "Next year in Jerusalem" was/is a critical piece of self definition for Jews, especially for religious ones. The idea of interpreting it as a political suggestion was produced largely by secular Jews who were more interested in politics and civil rights than in religious doctrine. Of course, the benefits of living in Isreal as an ultra-orthodox have changed a lot of minds, so that it is entirely possible that only remaining hard core zionists are also fundamentalists.

I don't know the hard numbers, but this doesn't sound right to me. And I know that it's not right if you are talking about political and economic influence. Ever since 1948, the Ashkenazim have always had more money and power than the Sephardim. In any case, a Jewish state in Europe was always silly because even in the aftermath of WWII, none of the European powers were going to try to impose a newly created state that close to home. Prior to WWII, the obvious place would have been Poland (where 3/4 of the world's Jews lived at one point), but the Polish government wouldn't have accepted it either.

Except that Sharon's government is just another flavor of "what I've always done". Israeli voters are just like voters everywhere else, if they don't like what's happened on your watch they won't vote for you, regardless of whether you are actually responsible for what happened.

I think a critical piece of "what I've always done" is that among the Likud-ish end of the Israeli political spectrum there seems to be the belief that it's still 1965 or so. That few Palestinians live under their control; that Israeli Arabs are content with their opression; that Israel's neighbors have not only the desire but the will and the resources to be a real military threat. None of these things are true anymore, but if you believe they are, then Sharon's positions look pretty attractive.

When thinking about this topic, it is critical to remember that terrorism is more or less the war of the weak against the strong. People who believe that their grievances can be settled peacefully or by traditional military methods tend not to blow themselves up. They've got something to lose and something to gain. As far as I can see, most Palestinians have nothing to gain or much to lose unless Isreal is eventually pressured into allowing the creation of a viable Palestinian state, and the 'Palestinian Proof Fence' is only going to make a viable Palestinian state even less likely than it is now.

 

So anything short of that is OK?

Either you are indulging in a deliberate confusion between the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world or you are taking a day trip in a fantasy world. Not only were the Palestinians not meaningfully involved in the choices of 1948 or 1967, but their median age is somewhere in the low 20s, so a lot of them don't even get to choose what their having for dinner. Or are you arguing that all Palestinians are responsible for the behavior of their leaders, allies and resident fanatics?

 

This is essentially what I said, which is

"Europe provided the political and strategic ideas to realize that goal instead of just praying daily for..."

The goal is the same, just different ways of expressing the same desire. Saying they were "more interested in politics and civil rights" misses the point somewhat.

 

I was being facetious, not obtuse. Obtuse would be suggesting that the Israelis could get away scot free with gassing even Palestinians. At the least, they could kiss goodbye to the USA economic aid that props them up. What will they do once their economy goes down the toilet? Make a grab for Arabian or Mesopotamian oil fields? I admit that an Israeli-USA War presents some fascinating possible scenarios but I hope I never see it.

Of course, you ignore Jewish terrorism and human rights abuses. You can try Googling "Menachem Begin" for starters. You might also try the Amnesty International website and look under "Israel". If your memory is better than mine, please remind me of the name of the Muslim who killed Yitzhak Rabin. All this, of course, is exactly the living in the past that is the chief enabler of terrorists on both sides whether they wear ski masks, berets or suits and ties. Didn't a wise man once say "Remove the beam from your own eye." or mention throwing stones?

Unfortunately, as so often happens in this forum, the forest has been lost for the trees. My initial and continuing point here is that the situation is not entirely black or white as you and DoyleG seem to wish to paint it. History is rarely as simple as a Hollywood movie. As you and I have now shown, both tribes have blood on their hands. At this point, anything further is immature bickering over the relative blackness of the pot, the kettle and the Spinal Tap album cover.

Yes, we should learn from history but in this case the events leading to the bungled creation of Jewish state in Muslim lands out of nothing by the British, the Jewish Irgun terrorists, and the stupid, failed Arab invasions should by now be nothing but the stories of old men, best left in past where they cannot hurt anyone today. Unless the people in the area can get beyond the childish "Mama, he hit me!" "But Mama, he hit me first!" "Did not!" "Did too!" nonsense and stop painting themselves as only pure angels and "the other" as pure demons, nothing can be done. If people like you and DoyleG who have some distance from the events in Israel cannot even do this, what makes you think the unfortunates who suffer directly from the violence will have a prayer of accomplishing so superhuman a task as forgetting the obsolete ways and forgiving each other?

 

And another thing - saying this was Muslim territory is about as meaningful as saying Ireland is Christian territory. Turks and Arabs probably have even less in common than Catholics and Protestants. So national aspirations of an Arab state were dormant for several centuries before Balfour. There was no tradition being violated, unless it was the tradition of Turkish dominance of the region.

NER, I'm afraid that referencing Palestinian national aspirations before 1967 is a serious anachronism. Before it was an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it was an Arab-Israeli conflict.

I realize it's unhelpful to dismiss the issue as "Jordan is the Palestinian state." Jordan doesn't seem to want the West Bank back, and transferring the Muslim population over the river would be criminal. Nevertheless, that's the proximate historical basis for the West Bank difficulty. Jordan and their weak-ass friends got worked over in 1948, 1967, and 1973. The response of the West Bank has been to carry out a guerrilla civil war. It's not a black and white issue, but it is black and gray. Given the "Palestinian" insistence on the right of return and Jerusalem, Golda Meir's dismissal has more than a little basis in reality. "Palestine" is a flag of convenience. Building a fence and granting "independence" to the remainder will prove that.

 

Uh, what about the Crusaders?

 

Of course, it may be bungled, but it's done. And it ain't ever goin' away.

Frankly, I don't think either party needs to "forget" the obsolete ways or "forgive" each other.

THAT is indeed superhuman. What they do need to do, both of them, is to realize

(1) that the tit-for-tat approach gets neither group anything at all. Except more dead people, or more squalor, or more humiliation. And

(2) that they'd better cut a deal with each other, because nobody else is gonna do it for them.

 

I beg to differ. Now if we were discussing the Sunni/Shi'ite fracas in Iraq, you'd have a sliver of a point. Turkish and Arab Muslims, however, still have more in common with each other, in their own minds at least, than with Jews, or Christians or Hindus.

Also, try creating a Jewish state in Ireland and see how well that goes over, Leopold Bloom notwithstanding.

Again with the living in the past thing. If world Jewry had wanted so badly to live in the Holy Land, they had ample opportunity to do so in the 800 years between the Crusades and the Holocaust. Until the 20th century, however, most of them would have had to put actual effort into caring any less about "Next year in Jerusalem". Which is understandable in many respects. "Palestine", however, was no less an historically valid idea than "Israel" in the early 20th century.

For what it is worth, by the way, I'm not sure a "Palestinian State" is really any better an idea than the "Jewish State". The optimum solution is for everyone to grow up and learn to just get along without persecuting or commiting genocide against anyone or blowing them up in buses. Creating artificial ethnically-based states anywhere in the world has proven the geopolitical equivalent of breaking up your incredibly successful band to pursue solo careers - almost always a horribly bad idea that fails spectacularly. I'm more for integration than separation. I hope that prevents any future misunderstandings.

 

Actually, it's very meaningful to Jews. Prior to the establishment of Israel, it expressed a wish for the coming of the Messiah, after whose arrival all Jews would return to the Holy Land. Jews in Europe said it with genuine hope. It was a wish for freedom from oppression. You see, the Jews never stopped thinking of Israel as their homeland after they were scattered by the Romans. Perhaps, if life had been better for them in Europe and elsewhere, the phrase would have become a meaningless ritual. But it didn't work out that way.

That misses the point entirely. The Jews have never wanted a state in Europe, or anywhere other than Palestine. The Jews never stopped thinking of Israel/Judea as their homeland, the place from which they came and to which they would ultimately return. Nowhere else would do.

Zionism was not in the mainstream, not because Jews didn't want to return to Zion, but because it had become part of the orthodox belief system that only God could bring His people back to the Holy Land. Most Jews were still waiting for divine intervention to get back there, although they thought of the land as belonging to them. Zionists came up with the groundbreaking idea that maybe what God wanted was not as important as what the Jewish people needed. They were mostly atheists and agnostics who viewed Israel as the historical homeland of the Jewish people - as opposed to the Promised Land conferred upon the Chosen People by God.

Most Jews didn't speak Hebrew for the same reason. It was believed - and I'm sure some orthodox still believe it - that it would be improper to use Hebrew for anything but worship, until the coming of the Messiah and rebuilding of the temple. All of this passivity was justified by the belief that the Roman dispersion was God's punishment for the Jews, like the Babylonian exile, and that it was up to Him to end it.

Let's also not forget that throughout the period between Roman rule and the Zionist movement, tens of thousands of Jews did live in Palestine. Many of them were European emigrants who had fled persecution. The tradition of Jews returning to their ancient homeland to escape contemporary persecution is centuries old. The Zionist movement just took it one very big step further.

 

Maybe it is more accurate to say that it is extremely meaningful to some Jews while to others it is not that important.

I guess then that we can add yet another moral to Mr. Loney's list: Allah helps those who help themselves.

I'm sorry if this offends you but the belief that Yahweh will somehow magically transport all Jews to Israel is just as dumb, as a practical belief, as the belief that blowing up people on buses will create a Palestinian State. The Jews had at least 800 years when they could realistically have become by far the majority population in "Eretz Israel". They didn't take their chance because, among other reasons, it just wasn't important enough to most of them for them to actually act upon.

Ergo, the Jews have no special historical claim to the land outside their their own "chosen people" belief system.

I'm afraid it is you who have missed my point. I have not been seriously arguing for a European Jewish State. Of course it is not a practical possibility, although it would have come the closest to a just atonement for European anti-semitism and the Holocaust. I'm just pointing out to DoyleG that his wish to blame Muslims 100% for the problems in Israel is dangerously simpleminded and that many others share the blame, primarily the Europeans for causing the whole thing in the first place.

Please note that by this I do not render Muslims entirely blameless either. Many Muslims have succumbed to the worst tribalism and have have committed foul deeds. Many within Islam now need to "go soak their heads", starting with that idiot over in Malaysia who probably wouldn't know a Jew if one walked up to him, gave him a deserved kick in the testicles, and started dancing the horah.

 

It's not a "fundamentalist approach" but one that appreciates culture and history. Demosthenes was explaining that Jews always viewed their homeland as Israel. Nobody was even talking about "Palestinians" here. It's strange that you believe that Jews should have forgotten their history, religion, and nationality the minute the Romans kicked them out. Weird.

 

There was a lot of movement in the region. That is a fact.

Of course, Arabic arrived by telepathy.

 

For Jews who aren't religious, and don't feel a strong sense of Jewish identity, and who are enjoying freedom from persecution, it may not be important. But it is absolutely central to Jewish faith and to Jewish identity. I imagine you would find few people who feel passionate at all about being Jewish, who don't feel that Israel is and always has been their homeland.

You really think that during the Inquisition and the pogroms, Jews were thinking, "I wish we could return to our homeland, but eh, I guess it's just not that important?" Come on.

Historical claim to the land is a sticky issue. Historically, a lot of different groups have lived on and ruled that land. I'm not saying that the Jews are the only ones with ahistorical claim to the land. I'm just trying to explain that Jews, both religious and secular, believe that it's their homeland. They look at it no differently than an Irish American views Ireland as the mother land, his nation of origin - even if he has no personal connections there.

Right. But if the Romans hadn't driven them out, the Jews wouldn't have settled in Europe, so they wouldn't have been mistreated there, and they wouldn't need an Israel to go back to. There's a lot of people you can "blame."

 

Look, if this is "fundamentalist," then there is no non-fundamentalist Judaism, because the belief that Israel is the Jewish homeland is central to Judaism. Not only that, but it is a belief held by atheist and agnostic Jews. Did you know that the majority of Jews in Israel are secular Jews? They don't believe in the "chosen people" or the "promised land." Yet they still think of Israel as their homeland. You can argue with them if you want, but you can hardly call them Bible-thumping fundamentalists.

Really? Who here is saying that?

Fine, but let's just say the Jews came up with the Idea first. The Jews claimed the area as their homeland at least decade and a half before the Palestinians even claimed that they were "Palestinian." Their timing has been really poor.

 

So if I accept this argument, will the Polish government restore my relative's land that was stolen during WW II ?

The problem with your argument is the "random" time which you choose to start your clock - 1948. We will not agree that this is time 0 - but more importantly, the combatants will never agree with this as time 0 either (any more than the Polish government will give back lands taken in 1940).

In fact, most Israelis do not beleive that a Palestinian state with 1948 borders will be sufficient to result in peace and prosperity. Most beleive that the Palestinian's end game is the destruction of Israel with no Jews living in the area. That is why we are seeing the tit-for-tat killings now. When Barak's 90 % West Bank agreement was nixed and the latest infitada begun, the majority of Israelis adopted the nihilist view that the Palestinians would never give land for peace, because unlike Egypt and Jordan - THEY DON"T WANT PEACE. They want the Jews gone, period, end of story.