Munich 70 years on

[Wildcat]

If Israel disarms, it will be wiped off the map by invading Arabs.

 

If Hezbollah and the other anti-Israeli groups disarm, there will be peace.

 

Your call.

 

I presume you don't recall the reason Hizbollah was set up?

 

It was defence against an Israeli invasion of another sovereign country, Lebanon, on the false pretext that the PLO were behind some attacks, when in reality they had been observing a ceasefire for the previous 12 months.

Ref

[plekhanov]

This thread is a great example of why there isn't any peace in the region. It's one long list of "it's all your fault" and "no it's all your fault" crap. Grow up for crying out loud. They're equally as bad as each other and none of them have any legitimate excuse for the way they act.

 

Saying everything would be fine if one of the side would just stop/end/remove *insert grievance here* is nonsense. Both side are equally responsible for the situation they are in and both sides have done everything possible to keep this idiocy going for generations yet. Nothing will change there until they stop acting like children and negotiate a compromise peace. Firing bullets and rockets back and forth at each other is not fighting against the oppressors or defending against terrorism. It's simply a continuation of the cycle of death their pride, honor and stupidity has forced on both of their peoples.

Textbook golden mean fallacy.

 

Both sides aren't 'equally responsible' for the situation in Israel/Palestine.

 

It’s not Palestinian’s fault that European Jews in the 19th century developed a ideology of ethnic nationalism Zionism which had the aim of creating an ethnically pure jewish state on land the Palestinians had been living on for generations.

 

It’s not the Palestinian’s fault that Britain encouraged Zionist immigration into Palestine the early 20th century.

 

It’s not the Palestinian’s fault that in sympathy for the suffering of the Jewish people at the hands of Europeans during WWII the world decided to give over half the Palestinians land to the Zionists.

 

It’s not the Palestinians fault that the ethnic nationalist (or in other words racist) state founded in their midst has since it’s foundation in 1948 ceaselessly sort to import members of it’s chosen ethnic group whilst refusing to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

 

It’s not Palestinians fault that since it’s foundation Israel has pursued a policy of military military expansionism invading and occupying the remaining Palestinian land. Imposing a vicious system of apartheid on the Palestinians there whilst simultaneously ethnically cleansing areas of occupied land of Palestinians to move in Zionist settlers. Nor is it Palestinians fault that Israel is still pursuing this policy in the West Bank even today.

 

At the moment the Israel has all the power, Abbas is a weak leader of a pitifully weak ‘National Authority’ there is simply nothing that he can concede to the Israelis as he has nothing to give up. As such it is only Israel that can make the moves needed for peace.

 

First off would be an end of the occupation and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. Then Israel needs to either allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes or to compensate them for being deprived of their property. So long as these glaring injustices remain is it any wonder Palestinians resist Israel?

[bananagirl]

They're equally as bad as each other and none of them have any legitimate excuse for the way they act........Both side are equally responsible for the situation they are in.....

 

This classically simplistic uninformed tripe is IMO, not at all helpful in bringing about an end to the violence. It's probably what the average liberal American thinks.

 

It only helps perpetuate the cycle by reinforcing apathy and absolving us of any responsibility. In order to be constructive, some understanding of the causes of the conflict is actually necessary.

 

Start at the Balfour declaration and read on.

[Wildcat]

This classically simplistic uninformed tripe is IMO, not at all helpful in bringing about an end to the violence. It's probably what the average liberal American thinks.

 

It only helps perpetuate the cycle by reinforcing apathy and absolving us of any responsibility. In order to be constructive, some understanding of the causes of the conflict is actually necessary.

 

Start at the Balfour declaration and read on.

 

And the McMahon-Hussein correspondence.

[bananagirl]

And the McMahon-Hussein correspondence.

 

 

Yes! Very Important!

 

Perhaps I should have encouraged him to start with Theodor Herzl? The most widely recognised founder of Zionism. How far back should one go? Interesting question!

[Harleyman]

Hore-Belisha a British Jew was instumental in getting Britain involved in the Palestine issue years before WW2. Why was Europe so indifferent to Palestinians losing their land and property when Israel was established? Was it because Arabs were regarded as inferior people (****) as a result of years and years of colonial rule and interference from Europe? Was it perhaps based on anti-arab feeling as a result of the Arabs being pro-nazi during world war2? Hitler after all promised them that they would be free from European domination after he won the war. Whether he meant what he said or not will never be known but the Arab world believed him anyway

 

What the British received in return fro being involved in all this was a lot of their soldiers being murdered by Jewish terrorists. Some of those soldiers may have been in the forces that liberated the concentration camps. The Jews used terror to get their way and they've been condemned to live with terror ever since.

[firecracker]

So Israelis ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in 1947/48 in self defence did they?

 

So the Israeli's invaded the Gaza Strip and Egypt in 1956 as part of a secret plot with France and the UK in 'self defence' did it?

 

So Israel invaded and and occupied the West Bank, Gaza strip, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights in 1967 in 'self defence' did it?

 

I suppose the ongoing policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories are also 'self defence' are they?

These so-called Palestinians were troublemakers thrown out of Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The Yasser Arafat you love was Egyptian. And Syria's President Assad (the father of the present day Assad) killed over 20,000 Palestinians when they started causing trouble in his country. It seems you've nothing to say about that. But then again, non-Western cultures get a free pass in your book (the old 'white guilt' again), whilst Western culture isn't fit to exist. And for that reason, Israel has the misfortune to have a Western culture.

[callippo]

in realiy they had been observing a ceasefire for the previous 12 months

 

total rot, and you know it - or else you haven't read the very link you've supplied, which shows clearly PLO attacks on Israel continued throughout the implementation of the shaky ceasefire.

 

the aim of creating an ethnically pure Jewish state

 

care to explain how come 20% of Israel's population are Arabs, that they enjoy equal rights under the law together with other Israelis, and why they enjoy greater political rights and general living standards than any other Arabs anywhere in the Middle East?

 

policy of military expansionism

 

I guess that must be why Israel withdrew from Sinai, shrinking Israel by half, in 1979. Oh and by the way, guess who the Bedouin Arabs preferred being governed by - the Israelis- even under military rule - or the mob from Cairo. Yeah you got it. Had there been a referendum and Sinai's indignenous Arab population had been consulted, they would have chosen the Israelis by a landslide, in the same way as the PA had to embarassingly ask the Israelis to stop processing a rush of citizenship applications from Arab East Jerusalemites when it looked during the Oslo years that a Palestinian state might become a reality. When push comes down to shove, the Arabs know that they're far better off even as a minority in Israel than they would be in any Arab state.

 

ethnic cleansing of the West Bank

 

since 1967, the Arab population of the West Bank has almost tripled in size. Every indicator of living standards - incomes, life expectancy, infant mortality, educational attainment, you name it, has increased by a mile since then. Care to offer any other examples in world history where 'ethnic cleansing' has been accompanied by a huge increase in both population and improvements in living standards?

 

Israel needs to allow refugees to return to their homes and compensate them

 

sounds great, but when a Palestinian academic took the trouble to actually ask the Palestinian diasoora, in a huge poll, whether they actually wanted to return to Israel, it turned out that only 10% did so. For his pains, he was attacked by a PA-organised mob.

Oh, and THIRTY BILLIONS DOLLARS in CASH was offered to Arafat at Camp David in 2000 to resettle refugees in the Palestinian state-to-be.

[Bobgok23]

So we have now reached the 70th anniversary of the signing of the Munich agreement - a heinous act which signed away a country - Czechoslovakia - in the vain hope that war would be averted. Chamberlain waved his worthless scrap of toilet paper as he descended to the tarmac of Heston airfield a few days later, believing he had secured peace in our time. Churchill told him otherwise on 5th October in the Commons, during his famous "We have sustained a great defeat" speech. Of course, Churchill was howled at for daring to tell the truth, but by then he was well used to it - having been ridiculed as an old Victorian warmonger ever since Hitler came to power on 30th January 1933.

 

As we know only too well, history does have a habit of repeating itself - as Aneurin Bevan remarked with his now famous phrase "Why gaze into the crystal when you can read the book?" And today, Israel has become the new Czechoslovakia, and not only politicians, but vast swathes of the population of the West have this stupid belief that if we somehow sign Israel away, all will be fine and dandy. We now know that signing Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland away in 1938 didn't leave things fine and dandy. It only emboldened Hitler and made him stronger at home. Six months later, the rest of Czecoslovakia was swallowed up, and 11 months later Poland was invaded. Almost 60 million lives were lost in a catastrophic war, and the Czechs wouldn't taste freedom again for over half a century. And we also ought to know that doing the same to Israel will only embolden the Islamists and prove beyond all doubt to our growing band of enemies that the West is a paper tiger paralysed with fear, racked with 'white guilt' and is petrified at the sight of its own shadow, thanks to 40 years of gulping down the toxic potion of debilitating political correctness and multicultural gunk. And we should hardly forget Solzhenitsyn's famous quote "Should one point out that from ancient times, a decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?" And the decline in courage here in the West has been precipitous, and has not been lost on the likes of Ahmadinejad and many others. This weakness was laid bare in a matter of weeks during the summer just past. Putin, Ahmadinejad, Chavez to name but a few, all queued up to test out the West and all came to the same dire conclusions - that we are on the slide.

 

And anyone with an I.Q greater than 50 ought to know that the fall of Israel to the likes of Hizbollah will put Israel's nuclear arsenal in the hands of terrorist outfits - crazies who welcome death upon themselves if it means wiping out millions of infidels. And wipe us out en masse they will if they get their hands on anything between 150 and 300 Israeli nukes. That is why sappy Westerners should think twice about condemning Israel if Hizbollah starts another missile offensive on Northern Israel. And if that happens, the Israelis should ignore the West and do what the likes of Augustus Caesar would have done, because being hated but alive is a damned sight better than being hated and dead. No matter what the Israelis do, they'll never be liked, because the antisemite count in the West is at its highest since Kristallnacht. Only this time, the Left have assumed the role of the black-shirted Hitlerite stormtrooper, with all the antisemitic baggage that comes with it.

 

What a fantastic post, glad I found it.

[Harleyman]

Israel isn't Czechoslovakia. I dont see the Israelis ever being swept away as scarifices to some misguided hope that stability and peace would come to that region.

I see the Israelis prepared to fight to the last and as a last resort nuke their enemies on their way out to boot.