That is all well and good except that you ALSO want the right of return and want to take over Israel itself. Or do you think those borders are acceptable with no right of return? Let's just be honest, you want a Palestinian state and then you want a Palestinian majority in Israel too. You have explicitly said so many time already.
I hadn't bothered reading this thread before. Let me state something. I'm Jewish. Compared to most peers I know who are Jewish my religious training was far more extensive. I embrace my religion and upbringing. Regardless, I'm basically not religious. It just never clicked for me, despite various times when I practiced both my religion and efforts at a spiritual connection. Having said that, I'm a strong supporter of Israel. It is a nation that was created to support the people of my religion. The long history of Jews is one of oppression over centuries...way beyond the horrors of Nazism that preceded the creation of Israel. The fact that there is a conflict in the mideast is not the fault of Israel. It is a function of an Arabic/Islamic population that has for the most part demanded the destruction of Israel in its entirety during a long 60 year period. Israel in fact is a nation to be admired, similar in a sense to nations that were destroyed during WWII and are now economic powerhouses with developed populations, wealth at some level, freedoms, examples of human development. Examples include Japan, South Korea and Germany. They all rose from the ashes and immense poverty and destruction. Likewise Israel has a thriving interactive democracy and is a relatively prosperous nation. Its prosperity is not the result of rich natural resources. It is a function of human beings developing their skills to the betterment of society and creating products in great demand. There are Israelis that would still to this day agree to a two state solution. Arriving at that result though has been an incredibly difficult process. In fact its simply not there. From an Israeli perspective clearly security is number 1. Security is a simple phrase but one difficult to implement. On the North of Israel Hezbollah sits with thousands of rockets aimed at Israel. During the short war between Israel and Hezbollah in the mid 2000's it launched thousands of rockets and was pummeled by Israel. The devastation across Southern Lebanon was enormous and Hezbollah's weaponry was exhausted. At the end of that war, the UN was brought in and was supposed to protect against rearming Hezbollah. The UN did not do that, Hezbollah sits in Southern lebanon with advanced weaponry and is an arrow aimed at Israel's heart. There is no security there. Of interest, though, Hezbollah doesn't throw rockets into Israel as does Hamas from the East. Israel would devastate Hezbollah as it did before. This time it would effect a way to get soldiers armor, air power, etc into Southern Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah. On the east in Gaza, Hamas wants to destroy Israel as does Hezbollah. There is no way to create a two state existence with neighbors like that. Hamas is weak though. It is only weak because of an effective embargo. Because it is weak, Israel tolerates thousands of crappy ass rockets fired into Israel week after week year after year from Gaza. Periodically its tolerance gets pushed and it lashes back into Gaza with devastating force....enough to finally quell the radicals within Hamas' midst. No other nation in the world tolerates and faces what Israel faces. Frankly the world suffers in that Hezbollah was never crushed since its origins in the 1980's. Too bad for the world. It is a terrorist entity that threatens world populations. Effecting security is something that no other nation wants to engage in. The fact that the UN would not follow its mandate and prevent rearming of Hezbollah is simple proof. No nation or representative of the UN wishes to put its people/soldiers at risk to effect security. The Arab/Islamic world is simply exemplified by a culture that supports and glorifies death and extremism. The regimes are primarily oppressive. The established religions promote hatred. Its been a 60 year pattern. Nobody in the rest of the world wishes to invest the money and manpower to effect security. It would be mammoth. The US put a rotating force of up to at maximum 170,000 troops in Iraq to try and create some level of a democratic government and a peaceful nation within the Mideast. It cost about 4500 lives, over 30,000 injuries, about $1 trillion and currently Iraq is a nation rife with sectarian violence that mirrors the middle east. The only real difference between today and 9 years ago is that Saddam Hussein, an example of a brutish middle east dictator is dead. But little has changed in the mideast. Today Assad in Syria is slaughtering his own people to maintain power. He is today's version of Saddam Hussein. About 30 years ago Assad's father totally wiped out a Syrian city and population of about 30,000 people to maintain power. Little changes in the Islamic/Arab world. The oil rich states effectively farm out the management and technical expertise with regard to oil and gas development to mostly foreign experts. The oil states don't want their own people to develop skills. Alternatively within Iraq with many different oil companies developing the oil deposits there is included Statoil a Norwegian company. When Norway found offshore oil it developed it in a way that made its own citizens experts in the industry. There are Norwegians around the world today leading efforts on complex offshore oil development. It is a national skill. Arab nations have hindered their own citizens from developing this expertise for the most part. That is a function of miserable oppressive governments. In Israel today there are people who support a two state alternative. But again the implementation is the tough part. Years ago I met and interacted with one of them of tremendous fame. Ruth Dayan is today in her 90's. She was the wife of Moshe Dayan the soldier, a native born Israeli (Sabra) and grew up in Palestine among Jews and Arabs. For her entire life she has actively supported peaceful and two state results. My experience with her was truly astonishing. From an American perspective I would describe her as a Betsy Ross or Martha Washington type personna as a Mother of the nation only more so. She was there before and at Israels founding. She was there for the war that followed the declaration of the Israeli state. Decades later I worked with her on a project, introduced her to many people, both Jewish and non Jewish. The reaction she elicited was something to behold. She is an example of living history at its most momentous, a founding leader of a nation. She truly drew awe from people who met her. (she handled it so elegantly and in a totally disarming nature, btw). She is an example of an Israeli who believes in a two-state solution. But again effecting that result is the issue. Who among us is willing to put their bodies on the line to make such a result possible, let alone as a nation or a United Nations to put soldiers on the line and billions or trillions of dollars to make it a reality. Again on top of that an amazing volume of Arab/muslim fundamentalists would attack it with every conceivable fashion. On the Israeli side there of course are many many who strongly oppose it, but its not unanimous. On the religious side I'm sure there is a fanatical fundamentalist group that strongly opposes it. That population is a minority, but it has a strong voice in the Democratic state. From my perspective I'd pen up all the fundamentalist religious folks from all sides. I'd put them all in a pen and watch while they all killed one another. I wouldn't consider it a loss. I'd finish off any survivors. On the Israeli side I don't know the total population. It might be some hundred thousand --maybe a million. A deep minority. On the Islamic side...with about 1.5 billlion Muslims living in Islamic lands there might be 10's of millions. I have no way of knowing. Big group. I'd want them all dead. I'd help them get there. Get rid of all the fundamentalists and you probably have an easy two state solution. Its getting rid of the fundamentalists that is the tricky part. BTW: Canada is not the US and the US is not Canada. Following WWII the US essentially took up the role of military defender against the USSR and cop to the world. Unique role. Among other things the US has ensured that oil, the foundation of economic development flows to the world. It has not and has never used its power to suck up all that oil development. Of interest in Iraq today, oil development companies extracting oil come from the following nations: UAE, Iraq, China, Malaysia, France, Britain, Netherlands, Norway, Italy, the US, and others. That is a lot of development from a lot of expertise and investment from many different places. It is the complete opposite result one would see if some oppressive dictatorship had entered Iraq as did the US back in 2003.
Earl even when you post something normal your posts take ages to read . Do you ever consider condensing them ?
You may have noticed that despite starting this thread, I stopped posting in it a long time ago. Typical of this forum, whenever a thread dealing with polarizing subject matter is started, it isn't long before the usual suspects hunker down behind manure piles and begin lobbing turds at each other. It would make a good B movie . . . "The Battle of the Copy and Paste Zombies"
So Earl, tell me about how you feel about Obama's relationship with Israel. No time to meet with Netanyahu, but plenty of time for this. Not like there is a crisis in the middle east or anything. Obama still hasn't completely come around on figuring out what caused the attack on our Benghazi consulate. He is still blaming free speech.
Ah O-nation, master of reinterpretations of all things written. Maybe you purposefully missed large parts of what I wrote. My perspective. Its a waste for me to re post because you will take out only the parts you wish to reinterpret. Do you know exactly the status of Iranian nuclear development?? If so then you personally know more than both Israeli and US intelligence let alone the intelligence of all the other Western nations. Do you believe that the President of the US should do exactly what the Prime Minister of Israel wants him to do? If so, why didn't your man Bush go into Southern Lebanon in 2006 after the Hezbollah Israel war and utterly stop hezbollah from being rearmed? I'm sure Israel wanted that. I'm sure you and I would have supported that. Why didn't Bush do that? What was Bush doing then? kissing arab @ss? Being the leader of the free world is a somber serious job. At this point, leaders of Israel, anticipating some bombing at some time of hidden protected Iranian Nuke facilities anticipate some level of war, some level of Israeli deaths. They have articulated that very clearly. I suppose likewise US military intelligence have and are evaluating possible consequences should the US or Israel bomb hidden Iranian nuke facilities. Its all somber and serious. You on the other hand, throw around a lot of tough talk and don't take consequences into consideration. It reminds me of Saddam Hussein back around the Gulf War. Big talk and bombastically threatening the Saudi's the US and others with the "mother of all wars". We all know how that bombastic big mouth ended up. Caught like a scared rat in a trap in a small hole dug into the ground, skinny, looking like a bum, disoriented. Big talk. Its the arabic style. Why do you pursue it?
@Earlpearl: Did you read my post? It was no where near as long as yours, so I can't see why you wouldn't have. There was no tough talk, no comparative foreign policy debate, no recommended strikes against Iran, no speculation as to the current state of Iranian nuclear program, or any of the other straw men your very wordy post addressed. My post asked a simple question: "how do you feel about Obama's relationship with Israel" And made a simple statement: "Obama still hasn't completely come around on figuring out what caused the attack on our Benghazi consulate. He is still blaming free speech." Feel free to answer the question or not. Feel free to dispute the truth of the statement or not. Please don't write me a book. Not only do I not have the time to read it all, as a "Right Wing Extremist" I simply dislike reading or information of any sort. You know that. Small words. Allahu Akbar!
Still no answer Earlpearl? I'm guessing the axiom, "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all" could be applied to your answer to my question.
yes agree about this,.. israel don't even exist on the map,. they just came from a nowhere and take other place and country. they become popular coz they got US on their support, which mean UN can't do nothing without it...
You said that the Jews came out of nowhere . That means they descended from the sky , therefore they are aliens . People who hate aliens usually claim they have been anal probed . So you lead us a to believe that Jews(aliens by your definition) shoved a metal object in your anus .
lol I guess you a movie addict,.. get more book to read. Israel (jewish) can't stand on other country as immigrant, just wrong in their opinion, can't do this and that. so their ask their mommy (US) to support their back to get what they want... in case their alone. In no time (you know what happen). got it...
As a Jewish ( person I guess ) can you tell me at what point the word "Jew" became offensive in US ? When did this need to add "ish" appear ? Interestingly enough it seems it's offensive only in singular, but not in a plural form.