My first husband = Palestinian. My current husband = Jewish.

The agree on little.

My first husband is a deadbeat. He treats our son like crap.

My new husband is a dream. He treats our son (step) like he should be treated.

My first husband is a cheater.

My new husband is not.

HOWEVER - they both agree on?

Israel is out of control.

This was planned for five years.

The U.S. media has not properly represented the Palestinian plight. They turn them into animals.

Israel is a theocracy.

Cooler heads need to prevail and this Rapture business is STOOOPID.

Both are Semitic.

This shit NEEDS to stop.

I am so tired of arguing the Palestinian point on this board. I wish more people would read more without emotion and learn more about the propaganda - from both sides. Israel is well-represented, but the Palestinians are not. Why is killing in the name of a government OK, but killing to defend oneself considered terrorism?

Please explain this to me.

neither one of us could agree on.

Because your views are so fixed.

Mine aren't, given my multi-cultural history.

Ok, well I'm not multi-cultural. My father has italian and german heritage and my mother has greek and german heritage, also I haven't had any relationships with anyone who isn't also Caucasian, this makes me closed minded somehow?

I don't understand your reasoning. Just yesterday someone else on this board suggested I read a book by Ilan Pappé. This I intend to do. Just because I have opinions as strong as you doesn't make me 'fixed' or close minded and I'd ask you not to suggest I am.

Is the USA a theocracy?

and it took years for us to be able to discuss this issue. It took lots of calm discussion. In fact, his entire family would now agree with everything you said that your ex and present hubbies agree on.

I wonder what the Israeli population is thinking? Are they like us and feeling bullied and afraid of their leaders or are they more supportive? Do you know? I often wonder, it seems we don't hear much about that or maybe I have stayed out of those threads and not seen the answer.

...gets very little airplay. Someone posted a poll a week or so ago which indicated that 80% of the Israeli population would rather seek negotiations on Shalit's release than military action.

  Like us, they are held as a hostage of sorts by their leaders.

PB

It is a very touchy subject and I hesitate to ever say much because of that. I appreciate this very much.

I personally can't side with any of them! I used to blame a lot of the problms on Sharon, but HE sure isn't calling the shots anymore!

I often wonder if you really talked to the common people in all the different countries in the ME, and asked them WHY they were constantly fighting, what would most of them say? Are they fighting because they were raised with hating another group of people and you just hate them, or do they really know what they're fighting for and expect to win some day?

There's an old story about the Hattfield's and the McCoy's that was something like that, and after several generations, the kids really didn't know whay they fought each other, they just DID!

for a variety of reasons. One, they are a democracy. Two, they have been a great ally of the US. Three, alone among ME countries I could live there without fear of being jailed or worse for who I am. But lately it has been harder and harder to defend Israel. They should build the wall outside of Palestinian land, not let Palestinians into Israel, and simply isolate them. It is the only real solution I see that allows Israel to remain a democracy and safe. This current madness will lead to no good.

I think it stinks.

What news sources do you prefer - for less biased news?

INN News and Mosaic. To notch.

Strapping a bomb to yourself and blowing civilians, intentionally, helps their cause how??

Ok - so Israel is the big mean government on the block, do people think attacking and killing is hurting or helping the plight of the palestinians?

The weaker here should try to take a moral high ground and see that bad PR they are getting is caused directly by their actions in such matters.

The rhetoric from arabs about killing off the jews, driving them out, etc and so ain't helping the cause at all either.

Condemn actions - killing civilians when it happens, on either side, is wrong and should be called out. One side seems to do that with certain intentions, while the other side has enough fire power to wipe out the entire other side's population but has not.

who moved in with the help of Europe and the U.S., and for many other reasons.

Does anyone know the per cent of Semites in Israel vs Caucasian?

the more I become aware of this part of your post:

"Israel is well-represented, but the Palestinians are not."

I get really frustrated trying to find the truth in all this -- trying to find reasonable, unbiased sources -- realizing that for so long I have not been told the truth by our media, our government. Not that I'm naive enough to believe they ever do about many things -- but the discrepancies are far and wide in the I/P issue.

www.haaretz.com

It's a liberal Israeli paper with a very left-wing editorial view on the I/P conflict. They have some fantastic columnists.

because we aren't able to explain reality to those who govern by their emotions. The US is completely and totally "in bed" with Israel and therefore the other side is not represented. We can not and are not able to see both sides because we are never given the other side. We are given only one point of view and are expected to accept it.

This is why the neocons are still winning. Their vision is to take Israel and win. They have no empathy for others. They have nothing but their own goals at heart. And since the theory behind Rapture is that Israel must be in charge before it can happen, the RRR Xtians are hellbent on that happening.

There is no fantasy of compromise on either side. There is little anyone can do to stop fueling these emotions of death and destruction. Each side hates the other, each side has only their own best interests at heart. They are for all out war, with no "uneasy" truce to hold them back.

Some of the fundie groups claim the Islamic "god" is the devil. I tend to roll my eyes and close my mind when I hear things like that. The thing is, too many people believe this shit and won't allow common sense to open their minds.

It's wrong from all angles. And it's not going to get much better because none of them are thinking with their heads.

day and night i never hear anything good said abt jews, and mostly from people who have probably never even met a jew but just think it's a fancy word for rich yankee

the fundies think the jews are going to hell, just like the rest of us

i would say the majority of americans hate and fear jews simply by virtue of the fact that they have a reputation for being intelligent

assessments.

Or call it unbigoted and bigoted.

What you write is the stance of unthinking people who believe what some unthinking person before them has said without applying logic or making an attempt to analyze.

Start with believing that you love all God's children then talk yourself out of it, religion by religion, culture by culture. It doesn't make sense. You'll be able to answer your own question. Especially if you separate leaders of the people vs the people who in some cases never asked to be led by those who are leading.

Our problems are more with leaders.

Everyone has a right to basics, an opportunity to rise above basics, opportunites to express the creative soul, a future for children - a future that keeps on improving.

Some people believe that killing is OK. That's the first problem. Hackneyed beliefs about wealth or intelligence are less important.

This site seems like a good start. The History of Israel:
Part 1: The return of the Jews to the promised land
Part 2: The birth of Israel
Part 3: Israel builds a nation
Part 4: Israel in war and peace
Part 5: Israel and the PLO
Part 6: The Intifada
Part 7: The road to Oslo FROM BBC NEWS; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/78601.stm :popcorn:

You asked -
"Why is killing in the name of a government OK, but killing to defend oneself considered terrorism?"

That fits us here, for sure.

The right wing dominates this country. The right wing dominates Israel. The right wing of Israel dominates Palestinian.

We mere citizens have only our cries and words in parallel to the Palestinian cries, words, and the stones that they've picked up to throw at tanks. And then it escalated.

We both Palestinians and U.S. citizens crave normalcy and ownership of basics and pride.

Instead, we both have dominators threatening us with nuclear arsenal.

The comparasion to the Native Americans 100 years ago is similar to the situation now in some ways. The New Americans wanted to build lives and family except for the fact someone already lived there. They competed for food and territory and eventually the Native Americans were decimated and lived their lives on Reservations for "Their Kind". The isolation and lack of movement in the Palestinian territories shows the Israeli planners have cut off cities and the model for American reservations is the map.

there are tons of muslim nations they could live in, as well as the usa

i may be biased because the only palestinian-american family i know has been here for a couple generations and is very successful and has no interest in the middle east or living in the past but it seems to me that if i were a palestinian i'd get the heck out of dodge

what's wrong w. somebody that instead of trying to move away and make something of himself, he'd rather strap a bomb on his body and blow up some people in a pizza parlor? that kind of thing is just not sympathetic inducing, i'm afraid, and i don't consider it self defense, i consider it lazy, it's pretty easy to die to get attention, a lot harder to make something of yourself and to live

your comparison to native americans is one i often think of, being part cherokee, do you notice any cherokee strapping bombs on ourselves and blowing up people to get our land back, no, you know what, they don't have time for crap like that, they're working on building a future

I am also Cherokee and maybe someone in your family will explain to you the "Trail of Tears".

that proves my point, doesn't it?

despite horrible horrible hardship and, to be honest, an attempt made to kill the people by moving them such a distance, instead of "dwelling," the cherokee people simply move on and look to the future

no cherokee person ever, to my knowledge, has strapped explosives to herself and blown up a pizza parlor to draw attention to the removal of the cherokee people or to get back any of the stolen lands

we just don't think like that, do we?

one of my friends (a seneca) once said, well, the cherokee are considered the "brains" of the native nations, maybe so, but i don't think it is just that, NO native americans run around committing acts of terror on any scale, oh the FBI may squawk abt AIM but in reality it does not happen, native americans just have an attitude of looking at the future instead of wishful thinking abt the past

would you not agree?

What the hell are you talking about? "Dwelling" happened to be a place where someone had a house and raised their family. As far as War, the Cherokee Nation fought back when an atrocity was committed (like killing a village), however their weapons were no match for our weapons as the USA.

It is natural for people to want to be in the place they were born.
How can you just dismiss this with their moving away.

You assume that there wasn't any equivalent fight to keep the land back then?

Christians took the Indian children, moved them across the country, would not allow them their own language, dressed them in the clothes of England and Northern Europe, and stuffed the Bible into them.

At least the Israelis haven't done that.

I defend anyone who wishes to stay on their land.

Isn't wanting to be on your land what it's all about. People of the Jewish faith wanted to be on what they preceived to be their promised land. What's the difference?

I think it's absurd to ask Palestinians to give it up.

I'd guess about 90% of the people on this board would totally be on your side. So I don't really understand your frustration as pertains to DU.

As for your question--I'm trying to be as completely objective as I can here. The wanton destruction of innocent life by the Israeli government is clearly not ok nor effective in effecting what the Israelis want. And shooting missiles and rockets and kidnapping people and suicide bombing, no matter the perceived provocation, is equally not ok. IMO, our press is perhaps too slanted toward the Israeli point of view, and the European press is too slanted toward the Palestinian point of view. Equally to blame, as far as I am concerned, are the surrounding Arab countries, who clearly don't give a shit about the Palestinians (they've certainly had ample opportunity to help provide food, medicine, and refuge, which they haven't done) and instead use the issue as a way to galvanize their own populations into ignoring the despotic regimes in which they live.

Basically, it's a real FUBAR situation.

it is a difficult one to discuss and understand that is for sure, but i don't think pot stirring is a motive

Personally, I'm not anti-Israel; the Palestinians have screwed themselves over plenty of times and their suicide bomb tactics are reprehensible. But ultimately, I tend to feel that , on balance, Israel bears more responsibility for the overall situation. The core cause of the dispute for the majority of Israelis and Palestinians (if not for the radicals on either side) is the occupation, which is immoral on its own terms. There is absolutely NO justification for Israeli settlement in the Occupied Territories. None. Not terrorism, not economics, nothing. And Israel has made the situation often much worse through it's well-known tactic of disproportionate responses and collective punishment. They could have created a self-governing Palestinian entity after the '67 war and kept Israeli settlers out of the WB and the Gaza, for example. And their strategy of rejecting talks because "there is no partner" has become a self-fulfilling prophecy; by consistently rejecting dialogue with moderate elements because they were "compromised" or were "too weak," Israel has failed to cultivate a moderate leadership and has allowed the radicals to point to the ineffectiveness of the moderates. Israel has consistenly rejected Palestinian leadership as being unacceptable, and each time they get stuck with someone worse.

i believe they are using the same decision-making mathematics that we used to deter nuclear war during the cold war years (game theory), which mandates that if you assume that your opponent is equally good at making decisions and predicting behavior, then you can only gain the advantage and retain your ability to be unpredictable by making some decisions at random, random decisions will not always appear to make sense because they don't and can't make "common" sense

yeah, this was the theory poked fun of in "doctor strangelove" but nonethelesss i don't quite see how israel can survive if it doesn't seem to over-react from time to time or to react unpredictably from time to time, they can't just sit there and let themselves get bowled over by the constant kidnappers and suiciders

there are literally dozens of muslim nations, there is only one jewish nation, in the one spot in a miserable desert that doesn't happen to have any oil -- and they are not to have even that? i just don't see how this small nation can do else other than over-react from time to time, if they don't, they don't have much of a life expectancy as a nation

and that it seems to be having some success. To me there is a clear pattern and reason for the attacks they have made. Within their framework its quite rational.

That does not mean I necessarily agree with their viewpoint.

that someone unhappy with the way things are going may try to step up the process. Rogue elements always exist - but they are not always as well armed as they are in the ME.

I truly feel that Israel over-reacted. I also feel that the media is biased towards Israel. On The Situation Room, as obvious as Blitzer has been on this issue, they have presented guests representing both sides quite well. They reported from Allesio, Nahariya, and had Netanyahu and Zogby.

We cannot help the ME until we clean house at home first.

How you doin'? You have always been our port in the storm!

:hi:

People are trully warped if they cannot answer your last question correctly...

I spent a summer traveling around Israel...from the Gaza strip up to the Golan Heights into the West Bank and up to the Lebanese border. Not much of a feat as the country is so small you could do this road trip in a day. Israel is the size of New Jersey and is surrounded on all sides by countries that either were vowed or still pledge for Israel's destruction. Everyone whose grown up in that country has grown with the ultimate Armegeddon not just looming out in some scripture, but lobbing rockets or blowing up supermarkets. Add to this the ever-present Holocoust "spirit" that still has a profound influence on Israeli society...where every almost every family is a direct decedent from a Holocoust victim or survivor. This lends to a survivalist mindset...even in the most liberal Israeli...that is based on being outnumbered and threatened.

Israel...while definitely leaning to the right, is definitely not a theocracy. Many of the ultra-orthodox refuse to become citizens or serve in the military. The religious parties make up a seat here or there in the Knessett and it's the Parlimentary system where that one seat can mean a majority for one of the larger parties that gives them a stronger voice in the system...but in some ways, isn't that what many in this country wish we could have had...a say, a vote of confidence in the boooosh regime? I see far more religious influence in government policies and actions in the boosh regime than I do with the Kadima government in Israel.

I agree that our corporate media has demonized Arabs. This goes more to the differences in religion, language and culture...one that our media has never understood and portrays in a negative light to appeal to the American audience. I've seen, firsthand, Palestinians treated as second class citizens within Israel (it wasn't hard to see it when there was more freedom of travel), but I've also seen them treated that way by other Arab countries. Jordan wasn't interested in setting up a Palestinian state during the 20 years they controlled the West Bank...neither did Egypt. Billions of petro-dollars that were supposed to go toward business and infrastructure in the region vanished into Arafat's bank accounts and the Palestinian authority became his private army. Yes, the Palestinians have been their own worst enemies, but their "friends" haven't been of much help either...especially when they assist in militarizing a situation that is already a tinderbox.

While I angst about heavy-handed responses...or a response for the sake of a response that the Israeli government has done (such as the beach incident that started this latest incident), it's a different thing when we're hearing of rockets being fired into populated areas and having an armed and beligerant army sitting on my border. Sadly, the boooosh regime squandered our ability to play a semi-honest broker in this region and emboldened the regimes of Iraq and Syria who provide a lot of the weapons that have flooded that region.

It's difficult for me to post on this topic here as I see some strongly long-established positions that aren't open to discussion. It's my way or the highway...and much of it based on a long pre-determined mindset and not on any personal experience...the same knee-jerk reactionism many of us here detest about the right wing.

I can't explain such a complex issue as the Israeli-Palestinian situation, nor will I try...all I attempt to do is have as clear a view of the situation and discuss it as openly as possible.

Peace...

The film not only shows the discrepancies in the way that the media portrays Israel (more positively) and the Palestinians (as you mentioned like animals), but demonstrates very clearly how brutal the occupation is.

I was absolutely stunned to see Palestinians and Israelis as genuine friends who try to work together because the "average" Palestinian and Israeli want a peaceful co existence that seems to be constantly thwarted by the actions of extremists on both sides.

One of the Israeli gentlemen had a 12 yr. old daughter who was killed in a suicide bombing and he was much more gracious than I think I ever could be under those circumstances. He was devastated by the death of his daughter, but he mentioned that he understood that the actions of the Israeli government cause the desperation that leads to the bombings. The first female suicide bomber is also shown in the film. She decided to become a suicide bomber when her older brother was killed by the IDF because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I truly had no idea that people are delayed for so many hours at checkpoints that women are giving birth in cars or on the side of the road because they will not let them cross through the checkpoints. Ambulances often are detained and people die waiting to get through.

If you have a chance to watch it, it's a very good film.

I like that.