Catholic View on Pull Out of Israeli Settlements?

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Shoshana:
The thing that bothered me the most about the expulsion of the settlers is that Israel decided to bulldoze houses, etc…and for what?..why not leave the empty house for those who could afford it? If anything is making a statement it is this action.

Just plain outrage!
Why is it just plain outrage?

IMO, bulldozing the area will give the folks moving in a chance to show the world they are capable of building instead of what they’ve done historically–which is live in poverty while their leaders have stolen all the foreign aide and put it in their own bankaccounts.
 
Based on the propaganda web site you linked to, I have no doubt you believe that.
[/quote]

What is your evidence that Palestinians don’t really count as a people with a right to a homeland?
 
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gnjsdad:
What is your evidence that Palestinians don’t really count as a people with a right to a homeland?
Now you’re using the age-old tactic of asserting something I’ve neither hinted at nor written. A typical, fallacious argument used by many when factual reality denies their argument.

If you truly want these folks to have a homeland, why don’t you petition Jordan or Egypt to take them back?
 
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thestickman:
If you truly want these folks to have a homeland, why don’t you petition Jordan or Egypt to take them back?
They’re not Egyptians and, as I’ve pointed out, they’re not Jordanians. They don’t consider themselves Jordanian and the Jordanians don’t consider them Jordanian.
 
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thestickman:
Now you’re using the age-old tactic of asserting something I’ve neither hinted at nor written. A typical, fallacious argument used by many when factual reality denies their argument.
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thestickman:
so-called palestinians
Not hinted at??..
 
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gnjsdad:
Not hinted at??..
Correct. You asserted, falsely and without evidence that I felt these people deserved no homeland. My statement regarding the reality these so-called palestinians is valid as history clearly shows, they were Jordanians.

On August 23,1959, the Prime Minister of Jordan stated, “We are the Government of Palestine, the army of Palestine and the refugees of Palestine.”

“Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine; there is one people and one land, with one history and one and the same fate.” - Prince Hassan, brother of King Hussein, addressing the Jordanian National Assembly, 2nd February 1970.

“The new Jordan, which emerged in 1949, was the creation of the Palestinians of the West Bank and their brothers in the East. While Israel was the negation of the Palestinian right of self-determination, unified Jordan was the expression of it.” - Sherif Al-Hamid Sharaf, Representative of Jordan at the UN Security Council, 11th June 1973.
  • “Palestinian Arabs hold seventy-five per cent of all government jobs in Jordan.” - The Sunday newspaper The Observer of 2nd March 1976
  • “Palestinian Arabs control over seventy per cent of Jordan’s economy.” - The Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram of 5th March 1976
  • “There should be a kind of linkage because Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people.” - Farouk Kadoumi, head of the PLO Political Department, quoted in Newsweek, 14th March 1977
So yep, you made a fallacious assertion.
 
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Thekla:
Israel is a Jewish state and a democracy - that’s a bit of a dichotomy. I mean, can you really put qualifiers on a democracy?

“Palestinian Christians and Muslims living within Israel’s boundaries have Israeli citizenship but not the Israeli nationality. The two terms are interchangeable in the United States but not in Israel. Citizenship (ezrahut), in Israel, may be held by Christians and Muslims as well as Jews, while nationality (le’um), which bestows significantly greater rights than citizenship, may be claimed by Jews, and Jews alone.”

Sure, it’s wildly better than a dictatorship, but whenever you give different rights to different groups, you are asking for trouble.
It appears that “Jewish” is now an ethnicity (rather than Hebrew). There is only one Jew who is not considered, de facto, an Israeli citizen and that is a Jew who converts to Christianity. You can be an atheist of Jewish extraction, that is fine, but if you are a Christian convert, well, sorry, no Israeli passport for you.
 
Israel is a not a real country but rather a non-self-sufficient pseudo-state. It is strange to see these settlers speaking with American accents (largely Brooklyn) telling Palestinians who where born in that land and are descendents of other who lived in that land, to get out, this is our land. And I got a kick out of the popular media coverage of the removal of settlers. They kept referring to the restraint of the Israeli soldiers. Come on, they were removing Jews, not Arabs. We have seen how Israeli soldiers treats non-Jews, such a Palestinian boys throwing rocks, they use automatic weapons against them.

I wonder how many more trillions of dollars this country will spend on supporting this desert pseudo-state. Funny, when a nativity display is put up in a town square we hear about ‘separation of church and state’ from this or that ACLU and civil libertarian group, despite the fact it was financed privately, yet public dollars to tune of billions can go to a self-designated religious state and all the ACLU and civil libertarian groups keep quiet.
 
I think the real question we should ask is, what should a just settlement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict look like?

I suggest it would be one that looked for justice on both sides. We have to consider a simple fact – both Jews and Arabs are humans, of equal worth. In addition to that, we have to consider that both Jews and Arabs have lived in the land all their lives – and to dispossess a man from the land in which he was born is a hard thing to do.

We must also consider the position of Israel. Israel as a nation would like to have three things, but can only have two.
  1. Israel would like to be a democracy – but that means enfranchising all the people who live in Israel.
  2. Israel would like to be a Jewish state – but that means it must be a Jewish -majority state. Enfranchise too many Muslims, and the character of the state changes.
  3. Israel would like to control all the land from the Jordan to the sea – but that means the people living there must be enfranchised (no more Jewish state), or kept in second-class status (no more democracy) or driven out (unthinkable.)
Now consider the position of the Palestinians. They also want three things (albeit their definition of Democracy is a bit different) and of course they want to be a Palestinian (that is, mostly Muslim) state. And many have said their solution is to drive the Jews into the sea (which they cannot do.)

The obvious answer is a two-state solution – a Jewish Israel living side-by-side with an independent Palestine. But to accomplish that requires that the Palestinians have a geographically viable territory, and Israel have guarentees of security. Neither side seems willing to go as far as the other side wants.

Ultimately, I think, it will devolve into a question of money – to compensate those displaced in the new arrangements. And we all know who will provide the money – the United States.
 
I have to disagree that Israelis want all the land from Jordan to the sea. Ehud Barak offered Arafat all of Gaza, half of Jerusalem, and 90% of the West Bank. What did the Israelis get in return? The second intifada.

Shortly thereafter, they elected the right-wing Ariel Sharon and Barak was beaten at the polls. When Israelis feel threatened, they go further right. And yet, this right-winger, has removed all of the Gaza settlements. I hope and pray that Mahmoud Abbas will prove to be a better leader than Arafat and make use of international aid to jump start the Palestinian economy rather than encourage violence.
 
I understand (from the Laura Ingram show) that it is going to cost Isreal over $2 billion to relocate the settlers, and that Isreal asked teh US for another $2.5 billion in aid.
 
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bapcathluth:
I have to disagree that Israelis want all the land from Jordan to the sea.
Israel controls all the land from the Jordan to the sea. Israel has encouraged Israelis to settle in both the West Bank and Gaza. Some leaders of extreme Israeli groups have said their strategy is to keep building settlements until the Palestinians have nowhere to go. And many in Israel today condem any removal of settlers.

So I think it is fair to say that the Israeli policy has been at times to control all the land from the Jordan to the sea, and they have taken actions to meet that goal.

That we are seeing a retreat from that goal is a good thing – let’s hope the Palestinians can match the Israelis in terms of actions.
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bapcathluth:
Ehud Barak offered Arafat all of Gaza, half of Jerusalem, and 90% of the West Bank. What did the Israelis get in return? The second intifada.
It’s more complicated than that, but essentially, the Palestinians want all of the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the formerly Jordanian portions of Jerusalem. Many Palestinians will go farther than that and demand all the land – just as many Jewish groups also demand all of the land.

I think the best we can do is be honest brokers - not favoring either side, and help them arrive at a two-state solution.
 
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thestickman:
Correct. You asserted, falsely and without evidence that I felt these people deserved no homeland. My statement regarding the reality these so-called palestinians is valid as history clearly shows, they were Jordanians.

On August 23,1959, the Prime Minister of Jordan stated, “We are the Government of Palestine, the army of Palestine and the refugees of Palestine.”

“Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine; there is one people and one land, with one history and one and the same fate.” - Prince Hassan, brother of King Hussein, addressing the Jordanian National Assembly, 2nd February 1970.

“The new Jordan, which emerged in 1949, was the creation of the Palestinians of the West Bank and their brothers in the East. While Israel was the negation of the Palestinian right of self-determination, unified Jordan was the expression of it.” - Sherif Al-Hamid Sharaf, Representative of Jordan at the UN Security Council, 11th June 1973.
  • “Palestinian Arabs hold seventy-five per cent of all government jobs in Jordan.” - The Sunday newspaper The Observer of 2nd March 1976
  • “Palestinian Arabs control over seventy per cent of Jordan’s economy.” - The Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram of 5th March 1976
  • “There should be a kind of linkage because Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people.” - Farouk Kadoumi, head of the PLO Political Department, quoted in Newsweek, 14th March 1977
So yep, you made a fallacious assertion.
Now it is my turn to :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: .

Can’t you find anything more recent than 1977? Your position would be defensible if you could come up with a quote from King Abdullah calling for a return of the West Bank to Jordan.

Further, you chide me for linking to a “propaganda” web site, then procede to repeatedly cite a pro-Israeli site. Any place where the West Bank is referred to as Judea and Samaria these days can hardly claim to be objective.

I look on the Israeli withdrawl from Gaza as a hopeful sign that the Israelis are finally beginning to see the demographic writing on the wall. Israel desperately needs to find a way to reach a lasting and amicable peace with its Arab neighbors, and if this means giving up the land it took in 1967, then that’s what it will have to do. In the long run, they (the Israelis) will lose if they don’t find some accomodation.
 
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gnjsdad:
Now it is my turn to :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
LOL!!! All you’re doing is laughing at yourself. You assertion has been proven false. Sad though that historically accurate naming of areas isn’t considered objective. Sorry you’ve been drinking from the revisionist history well.
 
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thestickman:
LOL!!! All you’re doing is laughing at yourself. You assertion has been proven false. Sad though that historically accurate naming of areas isn’t considered objective. Sorry you’ve been drinking from the revisionist history well.
You haven’t “proven” anything except that you don’t believe the Palestinians have any right to their own land. And no, historically, economically, and culturally, Egypt and Jordan do not count as Palestinian homelands. Egyptians and their leaders and Jordanians and their leaders will readily confirm that.

Beyond all that, I’m curious. Just what “revisionist history” well have I been drinking from?
 
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gnjsdad:
You haven’t “proven” anything except that you don’t believe the Palestinians have any right to their own land.
Deliberate error of fact (you might wanna look that one up, there’s another term for it) you’ve made. I not suggested anything of the kind.
And no, historically, economically, and culturally, Egypt and Jordan do not count as Palestinian homelands. Egyptians and their leaders and Jordanians and their leaders will readily confirm that.
Odd then you have no quotes from them to back up your assertion while I have posted quotes from Jordanian leaders that validate my claim.
Beyond all that, I’m curious. Just what “revisionist history” well have I been drinking from?
The one where you make historical inaccurate statements regarding the so-called palestinian people and their original homeland.

More proof you’re just wrong. Not the end of the world. Happens to all of us now and then:)
  • West Bank The West Bank is the largest and most populous area in dispute. It includes much of what is traditionally referred to as the “Holy Land”. Until the “6 Day War” in 1967, the West Bank was part of Jordan and was occupied primarily by Palestinian Arabs. Since 1967, the area has been under Israeli control. The West Bank includes East Jerusalem which includes the “Walled City” of biblical significance.
  • **Gaza Strip **The Gaza Strip is a coastal area located in southern Palestine. Under the terms of the U.N. Partition in 1948, this area was designated as Arabian territory and subsequent to the 1949 Armistice, it came under the control of Egypt. Subsequent to the “6 Day War” in 1967, the area has been under Israeli control.
  • **Golan Heights **The Golan Heights is a small area northeast of Israel which was Syrian territory prior to its seizure by Israel in the 1967 “Six Day War”. It has been under Israeli control since that time. Because of its geography, it has military value to Israel. It also is important as a source of water. Most of the 150,000 Arabian residents fled to Syria at the time of the Israeli occupation.
 
Of course Ben Gurion, himself (in “Palestine in the Present and Past,” published in New York prior to WWII in Yiddish) said the Palestinians were “descendants of the Ancient Hebrews.”

Given that some of them (such as Hannan Ashrawi) are native Aramaic-speakers, that may well be true for a good portion of their population.
 
Here’s some further info on “Palestine”…It was split into to two sections: Palestine (the jewish part) and Trans-Jordan (the arab part). They already had their nation, but it is part of current-day Jordan.

masada2000.org/historical.html

God Bless,

Robert
 
vern humphrey:
Israel controls all the land from the Jordan to the sea. Israel has encouraged Israelis to settle in both the West Bank and Gaza. Some leaders of extreme Israeli groups have said their strategy is to keep building settlements until the Palestinians have nowhere to go. And many in Israel today condem any removal of settlers.

So I think it is fair to say that the Israeli policy has been at times to control all the land from the Jordan to the sea, and they have taken actions to meet that goal.

That we are seeing a retreat from that goal is a good thing – let’s hope the Palestinians can match the Israelis in terms of actions.

It’s more complicated than that, but essentially, the Palestinians want all of the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the formerly Jordanian portions of Jerusalem. Many Palestinians will go farther than that and demand all the land – just as many Jewish groups also demand all of the land.

I think the best we can do is be honest brokers - not favoring either side, and help them arrive at a two-state solution.
I agree that we need to be honest brokers. I would say that although there is a group of Israelis who will not budge on wanting to control the West Bank–known to them as Samaria–and home to many important Biblical towns–that the majority of Israelis want peace and a two state solution. This is why Ehud Barak was elected. He gave away virtually everything, but the Palestinians chose the path of violence instead. The Israelis felt afraid and threatened and threw the appeaser out of office.

In 1996 after Rabin was killed, peacenik Shimon Peres was riding high in the polls. Then there were several horrible bus bombings and other suicide bombings of cafes and malls. The swing vote of the Israeli public became very frightened and elected right-winger Netanyahu.

I hope that Palestinians, this time, will take advantage of their opportunity for peace and that Israelis will continue on the road to clearing the settlements.
 
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