Sept 11-

Sander said:
Indeed, but it WAS their land. You don't go about taking the entire USA away from the Americans and giving it to the Indians because they used to live there.
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That's one hell of a good idea, though. F****** Spanish conquistadores with their f****** diseases and horses and guns killing thousands and thousands of innocent native Americans. F****** European settlers. Great cultures were practically wiped from the surface of the earth.

Sander said:
Jews aren't something because of their genetics.
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I think they are. Inbreeding and seclusion have undoubtedly led to some specific Jewish genetical differences. I don't mean to discriminate, but I'm sure I've read about stuff like that. And there's nothing wrong with that.
 
Ofcourse, but that's the same as saying "Black people are black because of their genetics." Physical differences, however generalisation may be bad, exist, obviously. As they exist in any other people in the entire world, but thoughts, ideas and other things like that don't exist because of genetics.
 
Sander said:
Ofcourse, but that's the same as saying "Black people are black because of their genetics." Physical differences, however generalisation may be bad, exist, obviously. As they exist in any other people in the entire world, but thoughts, ideas and other things like that don't exist because of genetics.
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Point taken. And I agree that disliking Jews is completely irrational.
 
Hey! How did my name get pulled in with the Lebanese?

Well, Sander, I think that this argument about whether democracy is best for the middle east needs to be explored a bit empirically. If you compare countries in the middle east in terms of quality of life issues for their inhabitants, I think the non-democracies will come up pretty thin. Much of what success you find in the middle east is not due to regime type but oil an population.

And this is a pretty interesting correlation- if you compare the state looking at oil and population you will probably find that where the state has a small population and oil, you find prosperity- Saudi Arabia, OAE, Kuwait. When you find oil and large populations you find brutal dictatorships and often civil conflict- Libya, Algeria, Iraq, Iran. If you factor oil out of the picture, you will often find states that had historically strong leanings towards a foreign patron (USSR- Syria and Yemen) or the US (Iran -although it has oil, Pakistan, Egypt- which switched sides in the 1970s).

Israel has had prosperity and democracy. There was a picture going around of countries at night. If you look at the middle east its pretty dark, except in Israel. Much of that is because Israel gets a lot of money from abroad.

That said, I would have to disagree with other points. Jerusalem has been an important city for the Muslims for a long time. It's strategic significance is seen time and again during the period of the Crusades, for example.

I think that the argument that the US will continue to have terrorism problems as long as the Palestinian- Israeli problem lingers is valid. I would also agree that the US should not have its foreign policy in the middle east hijacked by the Israelis.

The Israelis don't have a great record on a number of issues, and their position in Palestine is often seen by much of the developing world as a vestige of colonialism. Some of the policies of Sharon leave a lot to be desired. Now they are thinking about 'removing' Arafat, support for settlements on the west bank, and the big wall they are building. Not exactly the road to peace. This is why you often see Israel being condemned by other countries at the UN.

As I see it the problem is Israel is a game in which the parties to the extreme of both the Palestinians and the Israelis are working against peace in pursuit of their own interest. As long as you have folks with significant political pulll who want to build settlements on the west bank (your Jewish religious extremists) or the extremists on the other side (Palestinian groups that argue that any presence other than Islam is an afront to their faith) then you will have trouble. At one point I was unsure if Arafat could control the Islamic militants, but with time I think he either won't or doesn't want to.

Frankly, considering the Israel's willingness to assassinate, I am amazed he's lasted this long.
 
Blade Runner said:
I think they are. Inbreeding and seclusion have undoubtedly led to some specific Jewish genetical differences. I don't mean to discriminate, but I'm sure I've read about stuff like that. And there's nothing wrong with that.
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I have heard about this true. A number of the smaller jewish sects have been showing signs of genetic illness.
 
Heh, none of you know very much Medival Islamic history do you? Saladin got pissy when a group of French Knights started killing people on the road to Mecca. Before that no one- no one cared. It was not Egypt, it was not Syria, it was the Levant, and no one cared.
There is "selected assasination" then there is "terrorisim". True, Isreal has destroyed to much of Palestine, but they do NOT level entire cities like the Syrains do, they do NOT kill masses of Civilians with bombs from afar on purpoe; they kill LEADERS who have been responsible for the KILLINGS of THOUSANDS.
If anything, the Isreali human rights record is better then the SYRIAN record against the CHRISTIAN area around Aleppo, Antioch and the Medditeranian Levant. The Isrealis do not indiscriminantly decimate cities. There is no Rape of Nanking for the Isrealis.
 
If anything, the Isreali human rights record is better then the SYRIAN record against the CHRISTIAN area around Aleppo, Antioch and the Medditeranian Levant. The Isrealis do not indiscriminantly decimate cities. There is no Rape of Nanking for the Isrealis.
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But we're not talking about that are we? We were talking about the right of the Israelis to kick the Palestinians out of their country. Stop avoiding what I said, and actually face it and answer my questions.
 
Do they have a right to kick all the Palestinians out? No. But I think that the Palestinians would not stop at Palestinian Independance. I think that it was silly for the Palestinians to not want to be a part of the origionally designed Palestine, and the vast majority of the blame lands with the Palestinians and thier anti-semitisim.
 
Right, so we agree that the Palestinians should be allowed to live there as well. What are we arguing about?
 
welsh said:
As I see it the problem is Israel is a game in which the parties to the extreme of both the Palestinians and the Israelis are working against peace in pursuit of their own interest. As long as you have folks with significant political pulll who want to build settlements on the west bank (your Jewish religious extremists) or the extremists on the other side (Palestinian groups that argue that any presence other than Islam is an afront to their faith) then you will have trouble. At one point I was unsure if Arafat could control the Islamic militants, but with time I think he either won't or doesn't want to.
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Welsh is pretty correct here. The biggest obstacle for peace here is the extremist groups on both sides. The Jewish relegious settelers wrongly beileve that the whole land belongs to them because that is what the bible say. They believe that if we wait long enough the palestinians would "go back" to their "homeland".
The palastinan extremist groups believe that the jews can be driven back to Europe.
Those two groups are against peace.

Making one country for Israelis and for Palestinians from the sea to the kingdom of jordan will probably won't work. The jews that built Israel want to stay in a jewish country, the palastinians want to live in a country of their own.

Making two countries out of the one existing country and it's conqured lands wouldn't be so hard if the settelers weren't there, and most of the people that live in Israel believe that they shouldn't be there and that the Palastinians should have a country of their own.

Another issue is the Arab Israelis. Arab Israelis are arabs that stayed in Israel when it was founded. They also have a slight problem as they belong in two places. A lot of them define themself as Palastinians, and feel close to the Palastinians living in the west bank and in the Gaza strip, but they are also a part of Israel. There are many arabs living in Israel who speak hebrew and are a part of the country.
 
To be honest, I think an interesting question goes to the prejudice felt by Muslims living in Israel. We know of the Palestinians who left with Israel became independent, and we know about the refugee camps. But what about the Muslims who stayed?

The point above, that Israel was a state built in large part on the idea of Zionism and in the aftermath of the Holocaust. But the question that rarely gets addressed is "how democratic is Israel" and I think in this we have to get past the institutions of democracy and look the the principle of a "tyranny of the majority." If the Israeli's actively persecute or treat Muslim citizens as second rate citizens then I think there raises a question about Israeli's legitimacy as a democracy.

I am not talking about the prejudicial feeling of Jews against Muslims. Given the history I would imagine great animosity. But whether the state is treating once class of citizens differently and how?

This is quite interesting for me as, generally, middle east politics is not a strength.

Oh, for a similar discussion and interesting model that I think can be applied to Israel- see Yousseff Cohen,
Radicals Reformers and Reactionaries: The Prisoner's Dilemma and the Collapse of Democracy in Latin America.

Different cases but I think the model- the middle group that wants peace being torn because of extremists at both ends- works here.
 
Interesting point, welsh, about tyranny of the majority. Unfortunately, that's what democracy is. Might makes right. It's like two wolves and a sheep sitting down to vote on what to have for dinner. You have to be willing to accept the bad with the good, and you need the courage to change the things you can.
 
Gwydion, you are totally wrong. The purpose of a good Representative Democracy is to respect the minority. That was the entire point of why it is called a Representative Democracy.
Isreal? Dan is Isreali though, right?
 
Good point Gwydion. In non-American countries where there are no electoral colleges, you see the ignorant masses chosing whomever will give them a temporary five year job in a Ministry. A job that will be eliminated when that party's term ends. It's how it happens in Panama and how we ended with worst president in our short history.
 
A democrasy can if, it wants to, please allmost all minority groups, muslims, christians, furries, elders, youngsters, republicans and democrats, the problem with such a system is that there might be very inneficent. Just ask the polish.
The question is will you have a efficent dictatorship of the majority or would you like a slowmoving democrasy where everyone gets to say their part. In the case of israel, i think that efficensy is is more important, from an israelian point of view, because the situation the country is in right now, and because it keeps the radicals out of office or positions of power.
 
Well, we have a Represntative Democracy for that very purpose. And it has always done us well in not getting certain extremeists elected.
 
ConstinpatedCraprunner said:
Well, we have a Represntative Democracy for that very purpose. And it has always done us well in not getting certain extremeists elected.
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You say "Representative Democracy" as if that just explains everything. The Romans had a Representative Democracy, do you think their system is anything like any currently in use? Both the EU and the USA have representative democracies, do you think the Anglo-American system is ANYTHING like the Rhineland (Germany and Benelux) model, not to mention the French or Italian model?

I wish Xotor was here so I could shout at him about the Rhineland model being infinitely better than the Anglo-American model. One thing is pretty much undisputeable, though, the Rhineland model works better for minorities than the Anglo-American one, which is why the latter is more effective in office than the first.
 
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