K&R

but 'hopes' others will well when does it himself others will surely follow otherwise........

http://yovav-kalifon.tumblr.com/

In fact, if your passport shows that you even visited Israel, you can't fly to Syria.

And there are dozens of other such countries that do not allow Israelis (or those who visited Israel) to enter.

How do you feel about that?

of course if you do this when entering Israel you will be 'asked' why usually by Shin-bet but your right only IAF can fly directly from Syria to Israel but Syrian Muslims are welcome in Israel , right?

overall it's unfortunate that the political situation in the ME has caused these inconveniences

Simply being an Israeli citizen prohibits you from traveling to Syria.

Syria also does not allow its citizens (Muslim or otherwise) to travel to Israel.

These "inconveniences" have nothing to do with "the political situation" - the rules have been in place for decades.

by accusing the Syrians and perhaps its flown over your head but the political situation has existed for decades and if it's not political then what is it please be plain, if you can say it's not this then you must have some idea of what the reason is

There is a long list of countries that do not allow citizens of Israel to visit, not the other way around.

however you contend that Israel would welcome Syrian Muslims? why hasn't Israel welcomed refugees from Assad's reign of terror ?

I do believe they are technically in a state of war.

What Syrian refugees has Israel refused entry to?

I have not heard any stories of Syrian refugees attempting to flee to Israel. Can you provide any links?

Perhaps some folks here WOULD back what this person is doing if you hadn't thrown in the "nobody cares about Palestinians-they just 'hate the Jews'" insinuation.

Why did you refuse to let this be a positive thread?

Besides...you know perfectly well that "pro-Palestinian" people are motivated by genuine compassion about the Palestinians themselves. It's just that they know that forcing them to resettle in OTHER countries is an injustice...and forced resettlement is your whole agenda. You back it because you think that if Palestinians are absorbed into places like Syria, Jordan, Egypt, etc., that they would all give up on identifying AS Palestinians(or perhaps do what you REALLY want them to do and to "admit" that Palestinian identity never actually existed). The problem is, while Palestinians SHOULD be let out of the refugee camps, it goes without saying that letting them out and absorbing them into other countries will NEVER cause them to give up their identity. So it's not worth even trying to get them to settle for being "generic Arabs", because it's impossible that any of them ever would.

If most of them aren't to get physical RoR(and even you would admit that at least the elderly survivors of 1948 themselves should be allowed back, since their presence can't harm anything)they need acknowledgment that Palestine IS their homeland, and apologies and compensation for they or their ancestors being forced to leave. Doing that would not threaten Israel's survival or character in the slightest...it would give Israel a new identity as a country of humane values. This identity would not threaten the character of the country at all.

So, please, shira, will you please STOP with all of the "it's just a con job" threads? They serve no purpose.

no one that i know of, including generals and politicians talk about the Palestinians giving up their identity....the jews never did. So your once again arguing with yourself.

the Palestinians became refugees in the decade of 1940 along with a zillions of others, who have all since "resettled" and have made peace with their misfortune for the most part. The Palestinians are no different have no reason to be treated differently, no did those refugees give up their identities.

the problem is a version of racism, for those that believe that the Palestinians are somehow better/different then the germans, indians, pakistanis, romanians, and should live out their lives in some pipe dream that they will be returning to the lost home.

but no thanks....Israel a new identity as a country of humane values.
we'll stick with our values as we define them, we're not too impressed with much of the rest of the worlds values.

You, at least, think for yourself at times and I respect that.

Shira keeps bringing up the "why don't the OTHER Arab countries take them in?" thing because she thinks that getting the other Arab countries to do that(and I'll agree, those countries COULD treat Palestinians a hell of a lot better)would somehow mean that the expulsions of '48 no longer mattered and didn't need to be addressed in some way. Her whole agenda is not concern for those refugees but about deflection. Your country deserves better apologists than her. She's not worthy of the good parts of what Israel represents. Israel needs to steer clear of "friends" like her...they do your country no favors.

Oh, and when I proposed the compensation, plus apologies and acknowledgements thing as a way of dealing with the RoR issue(I think the surviving old folks of '48 should be able to come home, since there's such a small number, and the others who won't be able to physically do that do deserve an admission that they have a real connection to the place and that there was at least something of an injustice in their grandparents being forced to leave)as an alternative to the demand for full physical RoR. It was about finding a decent middle ground. Do you really object to my trying to do that?\

And the fact that injustices were done to other refugees(for the record, it's ALWAYS wrong to tell people that they can never return to their homelands...no matter who does it). The answer is to redress ALL the injustices everywhere. Decent human beings do not tell the dispossessed "You lost-deal with it". That's a childish response to anyone. OK?

...then let's start with those in Lebanon suffering under state-sanctioned apartheid, okay?

I'll start.

What are groups like Free Gaza, Viva Palestina, BDS, the Palestine Solidarity Movement, Jewish Voices for Peace, and CodePink doing for those Palestinians?



Or what have they done?

The posers practicing rightwing humanitarianism like Free Gaza, the ISM, PSC, Viva Palestina, Israel Apartheid folks, CodePink, Jewish Voices for Peace, and BDS would never do such a thing.

First, it would be a diversion that covers for Israel's crimes.

Second, it's not what they do. They ignore and explain away the oppression of gays, women, and christians throughout the mideast. So why would they care about Syria?

Third, they are allies with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, etc... in the fight vs. Israel. They don't want to piss off their friends and be considered Zionist collaborators against the Palestinian cause. Here they are partying it up with Hamas, for example:


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tX4p0XvX_9M/TBKDw9GffPI/AAAAAAAAABU/pGgKgJSyLVo/s1600/FGM+with+Haniyeh.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tX4p0XvX_9M/TBJx9gNGvYI/AAAAAAAAAA0/xTianz0D8tA/s1600/LaRudee+and+Haniyeh.jpg


Recall that just a few weeks ago, the posers from the above organizations coordinated the Global March 2 Jerusalem with Iran, Hamas, and wait for it......Syria! They even marched through Damascus without saying a word to upset Assad.

See, real humanitarians don't do that.

There's no point addressing the rest of your straw-man and red herring arguments. Besides, I don't think you really want to get into debating Palestinian refugee rights (for example, in Lebanon under state sanctioned genuine apartheid conditions).

hatred for Jews yes or no? and if no expand on it you seem to concentrate on a few extreme organizations reposting the same stuff again and again and again...................... as if that stuff sums it up and perhaps it does for you

...including me. None of them hate Jews.

Those "few" extreme organizations are pretty much unanimously supported on this board by the anti-Israel contingent. So long as they focus only on and bash Israel, they'll continue getting that support.

And that 'stuff' about the groups does sum it up. If you wanted to show otherwise, you would have done it already.

I consider myself a Zionist. I don't hate Jews and I don't hate Arabs or Muslims. I'm a liberal and I'd like to see an end to this terrible conflict that has caused so much destruction and unhappiness for so many innocent people. But about the Palestinian state thing; while I do support the concept of a Palestinian state as probably the only realistic long term solution to the conflict, I think it's important to recognize that a two state solution at this time would be a disaster for Israel and the whole world for that matter. Palestinians in both Gaza and the WB first need to establish a clear acceptance and desire to live alongside Israel and its Jews in peace. Any Palestinian state that is established before that happens will simply be used as a powerful new political weapon in the Palestinian quest to destroy Israel. It is silly to think that a political movement that was founded for that purpose and has without interruption spent enormous energy and resources toward reaching that goal - - that even imbues its children from the youngest age with the dream of destroying Israel - - would forget about it the moment they acquire statehood. That's before even considering their own numerous and recent statements to that effect - that a Palestinian state would be "acceptable" (with qualifications) but would really be just a next step in the phased destruction of Israel.

I realize that signing on to the "two state solution" is somewhat de riguer in this forum but shouldn't the discussion be firstly concerned with the underlying issue of Palestinian's oft stated goal and reason for existence? The truth is, if that wasn't always hanging in the air not only would no-one have any objections to a Palestinian state but wouldn't the Palestinians themselves have accepted one of the many offers they have received over the last 64 years to get one? I mean, certainly everyone here realizes that the reason they haven't accepted any of those offers is because it would require an unequivocal acceptance of Israel's existence, one that the US at least would expect them to honor.

I understand that some here may object to this view. So I ask you, show me one clear unambiguous statement by any Palestinian leader in the last 64 years that provides any other realistic explanation for why we are stuck here after 64 years in this never-ending war. Something like:

We've had our disagreements with the Jews of Israel but we now want to put that all behind us. We would like to accept Jews as equal in every way to all other people's and races in the world and would be happy to accept Israel as a home for the Jews here in our little part of the world where we can work together for the betterment of all our people in peace and harmony. Let us take the first step to replace this terrible and toxic enmity between our people with an new era of trust and responsibility by . .

You know, the kind of statements people make who are tired of war and conflict and want to put it past them. iEven something that hinted at such a change in outlook would be tremendous good news and a refreshing change for the better. Of course a simple Google search will show hundreds of thousands of Palestinian political and religious leadership statements over the years stating they will never end the state of the war until Israel has been destroyed, no matter how long it takes.

My point is that when we're involved in long and repetitive "threads" of discussion on complex topics it's necessary to sometimes step back and ask what in the hell are we doing here?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11348595#post1

I was reading your last comment posted there while you were posting this one. ;0

Added: And after reading the rest of your comments there I see you have explained your view on this well IMO. I did read those comments a while back but forgot. It takes a while for me to figure out where everyone's coming from. Thanks for your patience.

n/t.

You don't know what their cause is by now?

Isn't that the same cause that the Free Gaza Movement, ISM, PSC, BDS...advocate for?

If not, what is the Palestinian cause according to those groups?

concise explanation please

And you(since you SAID you agree with his posts), of course.

To actually sincerely support the creation of a Palestinian state, you must

1)Support the removal of ALL settlements(since the only reason to create those settlements was to prevent a Palestinian state from being formed);

2)Call for an end to the collective punishment of ALL Palestinians for the bad actions of extremist minority factions;

3)Call on the Israeli government to guarantee that, in exchange for its demands that such a state be demilitarized, The Israeli government will promise NEVER to invade a Palestinian state and will never seek to revoke Palestinian sovereignty once such a state has been created(this also means fighting to make sure that Israel would not retain the means to shut down the economy or restrict the water and food supplies of such a state).

Surely, you'd have to concede that these are reasonable and justified expectations.

The Geneva Accord calls for major settlements remaining with land swaps.

So anyone for Geneva is against 2 states, right?

Why can't you just admit that there's no justification for insisting on keeping the settlements in place? All they do is inflame the situation. No security assistance they could possibly provide outweighs the threat to security their very presence causes by keeping tensions high.

You would have to admit, if you're at all honest, that it's not reasonable to ever expect Palestinians to accept the permanence of the settlements. Or, if you do insist that they accept them, you can't at the same time defend the Israeli government when it destroys Bedouin villages in the Negev. There's no way you can legitimately argue that the settlements are ok but the villages aren't.

Jimmy Carter and Noam Chomsky back the Geneva Initiative which calls for land swaps.

Maybe you should consider that your views are unreasonable.

if they get their state and do what the gazans have done...or do what they were doing last week:

having radio broadcasts on a band that is reserved for the airlines....they interfered with airlines communications while landing/taking off at the international airport, the PA did nothing despite israeli requests...

so we "reinvaded" and destroyed the equipment.

any "invasion" by israel, if you look at the history, be it towards egypt, gaza, jordan, syria, lebanon were all instigated by others trying to kill us (yes i take bullets and bombs flying in my direction VERY personal), hence our only promise to any fledging Palestinian state is:

don't attack us, don't threaten us, by any means and by any proxy and we wont retaliate and invade.....that i believe we can promise

You are assuming that they'd just keep attacking even if they GOT a state...that's not an assumption that meshes with the goal of actually ending the war.

And you are jeopardizing the chances of getting them to accept a two-state solution by insisting, as your post above does, on making the sovereignty of a future Palestinian state provisional and subject to revocation.

Can you not see the damage that approach does?

And you are jeopardizing the chances of getting them to accept a two-state solution by insisting, as your post above does, on making the sovereignty of a future Palestinian state provisional and subject to revocation.

The reality is that the sovereignty of any state is provisional. Aside from civil wars if a state attacks another state (i.e. aggression), that state can lose it's sovereignty if its target has the ability to defend itself - just as Germany's Third Reich and Tojo's Japan did as a result of starting WWII. Sovereignty was granted later, provisionally and under occupation, to new national governments. But only when the West was completely satisfied that those governments showed clearly for many years in deed and action that they had both the will and ability to run themselves as true democracies and had absolutely no intentions of restarting the earlier conflict that they started.

If the UN had treated the Arab League and Palestinians in the wake of the '48 war in that same sensible way the Palestinians would have had their state for decades by now and would probably have been the first actual Arab democracy. It's hard to fathom why the UN was content to abandon Israel to the Arabs after the 1948 war and not intervene to eliminate the possibility of future wars over Palestine - - to say nothing of abandoning the Palestinian refugees to the dictates of Arab league demands and even setting up a UN agency to administer it for them. Well, maybe not so hard.

BTW in my comment above I clearly stated that I did see the two state option as the only realistic long term solution. I also said that it requires good faith and belief in that solution by both sides in the conflict. Especially in this case by the Arab side which has never even remotely accepted it except, even for Western audiences, with qualifying words. This while they assure their Arab listeners that it's only a step along the way to their real goal. It's like the parole board giving a murderer his freedom even though he continuously confides to the other inmates that after he's out he'll continue his killing spree. Don't you think that parole requires at least some indication that the convict has rehabilitated and won't jump back into a life of crime repeating his past capital offenses?

In case you find this analogy distasteful - - yes, attacking Israel in 1948 was a capital offense. As was 1967, 1973, 1982, 2000 (2nd Intifada), 2006 (2nd Lebanon), 2008 (Gaza).

yes their state is subject to, as you put it " revocation" if they don't keep their problems to themselves. Its not damaging to keep the facts on the table:

shoot at us, and you'll get invaded. Build a state, concentrate on your economic/social issues and all will be well. Why hide the truth, make a promise that is clearly not viable? (that we will never invade.....).

what you don't like, is that they actually have to be responsible for their actions of their citizens and their govt and if they "misbehave" there will be consequences, but thats how it works in the world of international politics, nothing wrong with understanding that aspect from the very beginning.

and BTW it was TV not radio

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=465047

i actually just wrote from memory, but if i have to look it up:
you've got haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-shuts-down-two-palestinian-tv-stations-in-ramallah-1.415631

frequencies that could disrupt communications with planes taking off and landing at Ben-Gurion International Airport.

or
http://www.i-m-s.dk/article/palestinian-tv-stations-struggle-broadcast-after-israeli-raid
someone is lying:

According to the official statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) the TV stations were broadcasting illegally as transmission frequencies interfered with aircraft communication signals at Ben Gurion airport located about 30 kilometres west of Ramallah.
-----------------

Undersecretary of the Palestinian Ministry of Telecommunication, Suleiman Zuheiri, rejects the IDF's claim of interference with aircraft signals, stating that these frequencies and TV frequencies are not in the same range.
____________
OR the technical option:
Who's telling the truth about Ramallah TV station raid? (updated)


UPDATE: I am told that there are two issues that are being mixed up in the IDF explanation - the radio frequency of broadcasts and general electronic emissions. While it is unusual for a TV station's electronics to interfere with civil aviation radio or radar, it is possible, just like electronics can interfere with any radio or TV broadcasts at home. (h/t JD)

so the question that is not addressed is this - why if there was any truth to the claims of interference did Israel chose not to communicate with the PA but rather to simply raid and confiscate the TV stations equipment (on a side note the station is from what I've read located in Area A, which is supposedly under complete PA control)
it could appear to simply be an exercise by Israel in 'see what we can do' a reminder of who really rules

personal choice........
maybe there was no interference, maybe there was
maybe the PA was told and decided to ignore it
maybe the PA wasn't told and israel invaded for the helluva it (too much down time in the "barracks&quot

maybe israel invaded as a screen for something else that went on at the sometime as a distraction (one noisy invasion vs a very quiet one on the other street.....)

this one has too many conflicting aspects for any truth to be known

And you know the antisemitism accusation is bogus. Stop using that word or the insinuation of that word to describe people whose only crime is disagreeing with you.

And there's no reason for you to still be attacking the Global March. Besides, why should they have attacked Assad when doing so would have had no positive result and could only have got them killed? Did the Global Marchers owe it to you to die before they GOT to Jerusalem?

...who are flying into Syria vs. those who were in the Global March who have yet - weeks later - to condemn Assad's butchery?

Yes, No, Maybe?

=================

Also, if the antisemitism accusation is bogus, then how do you explain this?



Remember those disgusting videos from PMW showing how much Hamas hates Jews and wants them killed before you answer.

What if the same folks in that picture were partying it up with the nastiest Kahanists imaginable and receiving medals of honor from their leader....would you give them the benefit of the doubt and criticize others for suggesting they hate Arabs?

They really did get all the blood off their hands.

Must of taken weeks to do that.

had an obligation to shoot off their mouths in Damascus and get themselves killed on the spot. Why SHOULD they have done that, when nothing they could possibly have said would have helped the Syrian democratic movement at all?
Even their deaths wouldn't have helped.

Please stop acting as if the March participants are evil just because they weren't willing to be suicidal.

...what stopped them before or has been stopping them ever since from advocating for Syrian human rights?

They can't do things outside of Syria to protest what's going on there?

Seriously now, what have any of the groups involved with the global march done WRT Syria? That would be the...

International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC)
Free Gaza Movement (FGM)
Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP)
Israel Apartheid Week (IAW)
Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions (BDS)
CodePink

They've done nothing, right?

But you can't assume that none of them are supporting the Syrian democracy movement.

It's not fair to simply state that they've done nothing. You have no way of knowing that.

The agenda here is still defllection, though...the "pro-Israel" groups have never been interested in human rights in Syria...they have talked about the issue mainly to get people to stop talking about the Occupation.

And you want to demonize everyone who shows any sympathy to Palestinians by pretending that they their interest in those people is just a smoke screen for antisemitism...when you know perfectly well that it is nothing of the sort. They support Palestinians because they honestly believe them to be oppressed by their situation. Why is it impossible for you to believe that anyone could sincerely believe that the Occupation is an injustice?

Democratizing Syria would be a great thing, but it wouldn't make much tangible difference to the lives of Palestinians who happen to be living in Syria. It wouldn't make them STOP asking for recognition that Palestine was their home. And it wouldn't mean that the Occupation was no longer a serious concern, as I suspect you'd like it to mean. Democratizing Syria, good as that would be, would NOT make Palestinians "get over it".

Personally, I'd like to see more concern about human rights for everybody BY everybody. But when those who were pro-Palestinian SHOWED that concern in Middle East terms by supporting the Arab Spring...you simply dismissed them and denied that the Spring was anything other than a Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy...as though Arabs are racially incapable of working for their own liberation without "the superior West" intervening to teach them the error of their backwards ways, and as though no one who wasn't a proponent of Western world dominance could really be interested in democracy at all.

You'd do far better to simply debate people on the merits of issues, rather than perpetually labelling everyone who disagrees with you as naive, evil, or possibly both.

..that they have done anything. You were given very good reasons above as to why they haven't done anything and will not do anything in the future either.

WRT Palestinians, Free Gaza, BDS, the ISM, etc.. are just as bad. Even worse. They claim to be pro-Palestinian but do absolutely nothing for women and gays in Gaza, for example. Or Palestinians suffering under apartheid conditions in Syria.

For "humanitarians" who say they seek a secular democratic Palestine with equal rights for everyone, they sure don't act as if that's what they want. If they did, they'd be advocating for the rights of those Palestinians in Gaza and Lebanon, now wouldn't they? Liberal civil liberties would apply to women and gays in Gaza. Palestinians wouldn't be living half lives under apartheid in Lebanon.

They don't care about Palestinians. In fact, they loathe them and only use them as political pawns.

And they hate Jews even more.

Some of them ARE Jewish(and none of them are Atzmon).

They just disagree with what the Israeli government does in the name of "security". Can you PLEASE accept that you can disagree with that government about what it does to Palestinians without being an antisemite(or that, at least, you shouldn't have to jump through any more hoops to criticize that government than you have to to criticize any OTHER government)?

There's no way that that that kind of shrill, overblown, ultraparanoid rhetoric actually helps Israel.

Israel is not SYNONYMOUS with "The Jews". It's just one country where some people who self-identify as Jewish happen to live. And it is not a helpless, powerless country.

About three-quarters of the population of Israel is Jewish.

In the country with the second largest Jewish population, the United States, they represent less than two percent of the population.

In no other country do Jews represent more than one half of one percent of the population.

More than eighty percent of the world's Jews live in either Israel or the United States.

Brazil is "one country where some people who self-identify as Jewish happen to live"; Israel is the only country in the world that has a Jewish majority.

There is absolutely no comparison.

and no more intrinsically bigoted, than opposing any OTHER government's policies. You'd have to agree with that, right?

The apologists for that government have for too long used accusations of "antisemitism" as a rhetorical human shield...as a completely unjustified method to demonize critics(even Jewish critics, with the disgusting corollary charge of "self-loathing), tosilence debate and to suppress inquiry. Those who use that tactic insult every Jewish person in the world when they do that...including the growing numbers of such people who reject the argument that Israel is synonymous with all of them.

Of course Israel is a country with a Jewish majority, and it was a homeland of those people 2000 years ago, and of course they should be able to live in peace and freedom as should everybody else...that still doesn't make it acceptable to equate Israel with "the Jews" or to ever equate dissent from what its government does with antisemitism. Anyone who does make those equations is a demagogue.

It's a shameful tactic and it has to stop.

Those who are going to support the Israeli government's policies should just make their case on the merits, like people who support anything else do.

....advocate just as much, and as loudly for Palestinians oppressed under Hamas or Lebanese rule?

Why don't they care for those Palestinians?