Wrong again. The current situation has not always been. After the first wave of Jewish immigrants inhabited the area, the Jews and Arabs lived side by side quite peacefully. The Jews bought large quantities of the land they now inhabit from rich Arabs. This land was often purchased at outrageous prices. Much of the land was largely uninhabited. It was a wasteland of swamps and deserts. The Jews drained the swamps, built a medical and educational infrastructure, had a working media, and actually helped the plight of the resident Arabs.

The land was again largely owned by the Jews, and there was a Jewish majority there. The Arabs had already been given 4/5 of Palestine by the Brits, which they still have today.

Again not really true. Small groups like the Irgun were not Israeli sanctioned military units. After they committed some particularly gruesome acts they were disarmed by the Israelis. The war in 1948 was not started by the Israelis, it was started by the Arabs. They planned to kill all of the Jews. The Arab League called for it, and Husseini called for the Arabs to "Murder all the Jews". Israel never had a policy of moving out the resident Arabs. Arab leaders forced many of the residents to leave, and most left before they ever saw a single Israeli soldier.

Most of the so called refugees had not lived in the same place for more than a year or two. A lot of them ended up moving a few miles away. The UN actually redefined what a refugee is just for these people. In 1948 Israel defended their legal right to exist.

Sure we could quit supporting Israel and let the Arabs wipe them out. That would be a solution to the problem. Do you advocate this solution to the Jewish problem? Negotiating is all well and good, but you have to have a partner to negotiate with. The 'Palestinians' have repeatedly rejected a two state solution time and time again. Their solution is to kill all the Jews and take over Israel. It all started when the Brits gave Husseini power. He used terrorism to get what he wanted then, and his nephew is still trying to do it 80 years later.

Wasn't it the Six Day War? (Or am I forgetting a less famous one?) Not that there's much difference in the two, of course.

Hey WilMac1023....

Be a little more specific. What company is looking for WMD's? Are they in a race with the American army? Do you really mean an NGO and not a company?

Besides... If he is a friend of yours, I'm sure he thinks the same way as you.

Of course there are attacks on soldiers and Westerners over there. Almost 100,000 terrorists from other countries have entered Iraq. All in the name of jihad against the West. But Iraq is VERY, VERY far from lawlessness.

Don't believe me. There are soldiers on XOC who post from Iraq all the time. They will tell you it is not as bad as you and the other lefties are portraying things.

2001frontier..... Good post.

Don't waste too much time arguing about Israel with WilMac1023. I think you know what I mean.

Let's not forget that 20% of Israel's current population is Arabs and they live in totla equality and harmony with the Jews. They also have positions in the government.

Israel could kick the living shit out of all their neighboring countries. They already have. Jordan will never fight them again. Egypt is scared shit of them and Israel only has 6 million people. That's today's population.

Oh, I went away for the weekend. :rolleyes: Did the war go on THAT long..
my bad.

Now that was funny!

How'd you get a three day weekend anyway? Damn...I wish I had those.

That's like saying that Blacks were living in total equality and harmony with Whites in the 1950's.
If they're so happy why do they fight back?

Back to the main topic Arafat. Alot of Palestinians have voiced that they don't want him representing them, but they don't really have a system to vote in somebody better. It's like our system of having to choose between two zero's for president except they only have one person to choose from.

The way to fix the Israel/Palestinians situation is to try to get the two sides from fighting (duh, obviously, that's the definition of peace). But Naziesque tactics of rolling tanks through and killing anybody that opposes won't work.

First try to get Arafat out of the picture or shuffle him to the backgoround till he can be replaced.

Next quit giving Israel $3 Billion a year. We can't be a mediator if we take sides.

Finally tell everybody involved to lay down their arms and work towards peace. If they want to protest, do it peacefully; it works alot better than force and results in less deaths.

As an incentive we can spilt the $3 Billion we give to Israel between the two sides in a new version of the Marshall Plan. All money goes to public works and rebuilding cities, no more funding foreign militaries. We'll even give an additional half a billion to whichever side helps the other out the most. As americans we're already giving 4 cents a paycheck to this region, I'd like my money to go towards fixing Israel/Palestine, rather than destroying it.

After everybody starts to play nice with each other and calms down we can discuss writing up plans for two independant free states.

Nobody has to be run into the ocean.

Thats a cheery plan and all, but it is totally unrealistic. The reality is the militant arabs have no interest in peace at all. They have rejected two state offers since shortly after the end of WW1, even when the offers were totally slanted in their favor. The Israelis would have no problem living peacefully with the arabs.

I would like to ask everyone to take a look at this site. It shows very clearly were the Muslim terrorism came from. It illustrates nicely the problem with Arafat. If you check it out you will see how similar Arafat and UBL are. After reading the information tell me why Israel should negotiate with this guy, when none of us would claim negotiating with UBL would be fruitful.

http://www.tellthechildrenthetruth.com

The Arabs that live in Israel aren't fighting anyone. They are Israeli citizens. The Palestinians are the ones doing the fighting. Are you sure you know anything about what's going on over there?

We give the same amount of money to Egypt that we give Israel. We give money to the Palestinian Authority also. We can't give them the same amount of money we give the Israeli's because they have never proven their worthiness. Arafat's secret bank accounts and 900 million in a European bank doesn't help the Palestinian's situation either.

We need to close our (US) check book and go home.

He is still alive because if WE went over and killed him, the liberal politcal correct society would be up in arms, i mean trees. We should put every Democrat in California and see how they fair.

That's just stupid. The extremists in the Democratic party are ruining it. Guys like Lieberman, that I still disagree with on certain issues, are at least reasonable. Moby is a perfect example of this. He is reasonable, while someone like Xterrapin is not.

Yes I know it is stupid, but it would prove a point to all involved. I have nothing against the Dems personally, well OK, some of them, but I just cannot stand anything they stand for. They have destroyed this country. They have destroyed this society. They have destroyed this culture. All in the hope of making one group of people happy while pissing off every other group. Then next week doing the same thing for the group they pissed off.

See, the whole problem is extremists on BOTH ends. Wishy washy as it may be, there is a happy medium in between that seems to be impossible to reach because of the extremists.

You've got someone like Sharpton who needs to shut the hell up, and people like Rush Limbaugh who needs to shut the hell up. These guys cause more polarization than most people, and it simply continues the destruction.

You've got people like ELF on the left, and the idiots who think it's perfectly acceptable to murder an abortion doctor on the right. Conservatives will hook on ELF to show what's so bad about the left, and liberals will hook on the murderers to show what's so bad about the right.

Maybe if the two sides would just set aside all the bullshit and figure things out, the future would look a little better.

A team that gets fined because they don't "consider" enough minorities - that's bullshit. But so is the argument that welfare should be gotten rid of.

OK...I'm done rambling....

I'm not sure I agree that Al Sharpton is as polarizing as you claim. Most people just ignore his rantings. I do. But one thing about Al is he is very entertaining to watch. He's got a personality. He's a waste of flesh... but an entertaining waste of flesh.

Hillary Clinton is a much more polarizing figure.

Rush only pisses off liberals and they can always just change the channel. The truth is a large part of Rush's audience IS LIBERALS who listen to hear what he will say next. As a conservative I wish he would talk about more of the real issues that face our country today. Not just Republican issues. That's my complaint about Rush.

Rush is afraid of offending Republicans and someone needs to light a match under their ass. They are doing nothing to combat the liberal insanity that is destroying this country.

You're grouping militant arabs with peace loving arabs. By far the majority of the world just wants peace, why do you think Palastinians are any different? Have you been there? No, you just watch pictures on our fear and destruction oriented news of a bunch of Palastinians throwing rocks at Israeli tanks and assume that all Palastinians are like that. Most just want the suffering to end.

Grouping one set of people based on the actions of a few is the cause of most problems in and out of the US.

The people of Afghanistan aren't terrorists, their ex-leaders and a few fundamentalists are.

The people of Iraq aren't terrorists, their ex-leader, his buddies, and a few fundamentalists are.

Palastinians don't love war, a few extremeists who like to kill their "opressors" do.

Arabs don't hate america, a few brainwashed individuals do. Go to your local Mosque and ask the people comming out if they hate america. The majority of Muslims belive that anybody who commits Jihad or any other murder goes straight to hell.

Conservatives aren't morons, just a vocal minority are.

Liberals aren't whackos, just a vocal minority are.

Damn it! When are people going to quit putting labels on on each other just so we have a new group to hate?

You ASSume a lot here. I never grouped all arabs with militant arabs. That is why I said "militant arabs" to begin with. :rolleyes: You are missing an important distinction though. MOST Palestinians support groups like Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. Have you not seen the polls that have been done. They also support their rejectionist leader Arafat.

No way really? Maybe that is why we are killing the ex-leaders and fundamentalists.

Again no shit. That is why Saddam is no longer in power there.

When did I say they love war? You sure like putting words in people's mouths. I have been trying to illustrate the true historical reasons that the Palestinians are in the situation they are in now. This history is largely ignored.

I keep hearing this kind of thing. I hope it is true. Where were the Muslim clerics condemning the acts of 9-11? I saw maybe one or two of them. This Islam is a peaceful religion stuff is bullshit to me. Mohamed was a conqueror, not a peace loving guy.

If the shoe fits...

Wait...I thought polls were worthless? Or is it only when people are polled and it shows that Bush *at this point* is in some potential threat of losing his job?

Nice diversion. :rolleyes:

All I ever hear is how these extremists do not represent all Muslims. Well, as long as a see no Muslims protesting against the suicide attacks. As long as I see Muslims on the street cheering the deaths caused by these attacks. I will believe that they are representing the majority. Plain and simple.

Agreed....Where are the peace loving practicing Muslims? Their silence is deafening.

Yawn...good comeback, Sally.

Oh nice. I see you are already becoming a Sean clone. Instead of arguing the point you ignore them, or inject a bit of 'humor'.

I dare you to find even one post where I didn't first try to argue my side of the debate intelligently, or when my name calling wasn't retaliatory.

Were did I say anything about name calling Sean? I said he was ignoring posts and trying to inject humor.