I don't think there's anything logical about firing rockets on people, you came up with that conclusion on your own. Period. You're trying to turn my words around and make me sound like I'm supporting Hamas in breaking the cease-fire. I never said I did, nor have I ever agreed with violence. CLEARLY the violence needs to stop before anything will be accomplished. I was under the impression that went without saying. It's not exactly 'life as usual' in either Israel or Gaza. Once this confict is resolved, hopefully without much more bloodshed, something is obviously going to have to change and I think that discontinuing with the building of settlements on annexed land is a good place to start. That doesn't make me a supporter of rockets.
Hey I understand that Israel is here to stay. I understand that the Jews have nowhere else to go now. The issue right now is making peace with each other, not calling out whether or not the other has a right to exist. Both nations have a right to be there and there is no way you're going to kick out 5 million Jews or 5 million Arabs into another country without committing genocide.
I don't think there's anything logical about firing rockets on people, you came up with that conclusion on your own. Period. You're trying to turn my words around and make me sound like I'm supporting Hamas in breaking the cease-fire. I never said I did, nor have I ever agreed with violence. CLEARLY the violence needs to stop before anything will be accomplished. I was under the impression that went without saying. It's not exactly 'life as usual' in either Israel or Gaza. Once this confict is resolved, hopefully without much more bloodshed, something is obviously going to have to change and I think that discontinuing with the building of settlements on annexed land is a good place to start. That doesn't make me a supporter of rockets.
Of course, we know that in the past Israel has stopped building settlements as a gesture of goodwill but that has never stopped Hamas from firing rockets at civilians.
Israel has also recently offered to stop building settlements if the Palestinians would agree to recognize Israel as a legitimate state. But they refuse and continue to fire rockets.
It doesn't seem that building settlements has any effect on the peace process, whatsoever.
So, the ONLY logicial place to start is to demand an end to the firing of rockets upon civilians, unequivocally.
As already has been noted in this thread, Palestinians enjoy a life expectancy as good as or better than many of their arab neighbors. Many of them are able to work within Israel and recieve Israeli health care. Under the 'Isreali Occupation' of the past ten years, the Palestinian population has grown over 30%.
You are confusing life expectancy and quality of life, which makes it difficult to derive anything meaningful from your point.
Its funny, but Tom Clancy actually came up with a fictional peace plan that was pretty logical at the time and it was based around the concept of Jeruselum as an open city ruled by a troika of relgious heads representing the Jews, The Muslims and the Catholics.
All law enforcement and peace keeping was handled by a peacekeeping force with enough fire power and pure intimindation to keep all sides in line (Swiss)
The settlements were removed and the land was parceled out fairly and America paid for prefabricated houses to be built for the settlers.
America was given a base in Israel to suppliment the IDF to deal with outside threats.
As an add on there would have to be an agreement that included the other nations in the middle east who would put pressure on Iran to stop arming terrorists.
As an add on there would have to be serious economic development aid provided to the West Bank and Gaza.
The naval blockade would in my mind have to stop to get aid through, but maybe you set up a co-mingled Palastine/Israel customs inspection team at each dock to ensure that weapons aren't smuggled in.
I think that there needs to be a bunch of things that need to happen for any peace plan to work
Mutal respect on both sides
A dedication to peace
Hamas would have to give up their charter aim of destroying the state of Israel
Israel would have to soften their stand on the settlements
Maybe Gaza and the East Bank need to have proper representation in Parliment.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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Israel has also recently offered to stop building settlements if the Palestinians would agree to recognize Israel as a legitimate state. But they refuse and continue to fire rockets.
I never heard anything about that. Can you provide a link or a source? I did hear of Israel approval of massive hotels in the West Bank as early as this past August though. Also in July:
Quote:
Flouting international opinion, an Israeli government-appointed commission of jurists said Monday thatIsrael’s presence in the West Bankwas not occupation and recommended that the state grant approval for scores of unauthorized Jewish settlement outposts there.
Of course, we know that in the past Israel has stopped building settlements as a gesture of goodwill but that has never stopped Hamas from firing rockets at civilians.
Israel has also recently offered to stop building settlements if the Palestinians would agree to recognize Israel as a legitimate state. But they refuse and continue to fire rockets.
It doesn't seem that building settlements has any effect on the peace process, whatsoever.
So, the ONLY logicial place to start is to demand an end to the firing of rockets upon civilians, unequivocally.
I love language and logic.
In the bolded sentence, you're saying that Israel offered to stop settlements as a condition of the Palestinians stopping their offensive bombing. The logical conclusion to this is that you are valuing the settlement building as a negative and undesirable action that Israel offers to stop in exchange for the Palestinians stopping their negative and undesirable action.
So you implicitly demonstrate to the reader that the settlements are a net negative contributor to the process. But if they are as you clearly imply, then they can't have zero effect on the peace process, which is what you claim later on.
The mess in the region is confusing, and there are horrible things happening to real humans. Therefore some rational thinking is in order rather than muddled messages. Muddled thinking is what rationalizes the missiles and bombing from both sides.
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You are confusing life expectancy and quality of life, which makes it difficult to derive anything meaningful from your point.
Sorry, I don't follow you.
The point was if Israel is attempting to ethnically cleanse the palestinians, as suggested in that propaganda video, they are doing a poor job of it....evidenced by longer life expectancy than neighboring arab states, allowing palestinians economic opportunity and world leading health care, and also huge population growth.
Its funny, but Tom Clancy actually came up with a fictional peace plan that was pretty logical at the time and it was based around the concept of Jeruselum as an open city ruled by a troika of relgious heads representing the Jews, The Muslims and the Catholics.
All law enforcement and peace keeping was handled by a peacekeeping force with enough fire power and pure intimindation to keep all sides in line (Swiss)
The settlements were removed and the land was parceled out fairly and America paid for prefabricated houses to be built for the settlers.
America was given a base in Israel to suppliment the IDF to deal with outside threats.
As an add on there would have to be an agreement that included the other nations in the middle east who would put pressure on Iran to stop arming terrorists.
As an add on there would have to be serious economic development aid provided to the West Bank and Gaza.
The naval blockade would in my mind have to stop to get aid through, but maybe you set up a co-mingled Palastine/Israel customs inspection team at each dock to ensure that weapons aren't smuggled in.
I think that there needs to be a bunch of things that need to happen for any peace plan to work
Mutal respect on both sides
A dedication to peace
Hamas would have to give up their charter aim of destroying the state of Israel
Israel would have to soften their stand on the settlements
Maybe Gaza and the East Bank need to have proper representation in Parliment.
I'm glad we can agree that the end point of this conflict is a 2 state solution, and that increased Israeli settlements are a barrier towards peace.
The point was if Israel is attempting to ethnically cleanse the palestinians, as suggested in that propaganda video, they are doing a poor job of it....evidenced by longer life expectancy than neighboring arab states, allowing palestinians economic opportunity and world leading health care, and also huge population growth.
1. Life expectancy is an average. At the risk of being morbid, if I wanted to reduce the life expectancy in Canada I'd have to kill a seriously large number of Canadians. If I randomly killed 0.1% of the current Canadians living, I'd have very little impact on the average life expectancy... but I think we can agree that the death of 40,000 Canadians or so would be a great human tragedy.
2. Generally speaking, countries with great health care do not have demonstrably increased years of increased life expectancy versus countries with average or below average health care. You can look at any life expectancy table and see that for yourself: a 2 or 3 year deviation in life expectancy is very difficult to reconcile with medical care.
3. Quality of life is the most meaningful metric. Not to be morbid (again), but in cancer trials the distinction between life expectancy and quality of life is best demonstrated: Cancer patients don't refuse chemotherapy because it doesn't extend their life (it does), but rather refuse it because it sends their QoL down the toilet. If an Israeli lives to be 80 years old but lives in constant fear of missile attack, his QoL is crap. Same thing goes for a similarly situated Palestinian. And please remember that many things can impact QoL: availability of food, availability of shelter, fear of displacement, fear for family members, etc... etc...
4. Population growth, by and large, is irrelevant to life expectancy. Edit: Interestingly, I can make a relatively strong case that it is inverse. Historically families have had multiple children due to poor life expectancy. Further, some European countries have had a slowing of population growth as their life expectancy has increased. In any case, population growth is a poor metric.
Last edited by Flames Fan, Ph.D.; 11-19-2012 at 12:51 PM.
Reason: additional thoughts on population growth.
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Mods should make a poll: Which side do you agree with.
I think that question can lend itself to be answered by religious / territorial / cultural preferences that don't really take into account the real world considerations facing Israelis and Palestinians.
I think a more telling poll question would be: If you were born today, would you rather be born in Israel or Palestine / Gaza / West Bank?
I'm glad we can agree that the end point of this conflict is a 2 state solution, and that increased Israeli settlements are a barrier towards peace.
To me its always been about a two state solution, however there are serious road blocks to that ever happening.
I agree that Israel settlements are an impedment
Just like I'm hoping that you would agree that the Hamas government in Gaza is also a intentional killer of any peace process over there.
Both sides are at fault.
Until there's moderation on both sides, until Hamas recognizes the right to life on both sides and a recognition of Israel's right to existance we aren't going to have peace and the radicals on both sides are going to win.
I will also state that the poor sob sitting in a apc in a Israeli army uniform is hoping that he doesn't have to go to war today. And some teenager in Gaza is staring at the sky hoping that he doesn't see a jet taking aim at the rocket launcher on his street.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
These videos are obvioulsy slanted, but they do serve a purpose in drawing attention to the fact that it's not just as simple as "Israelis invaded and stole the natives land".
A few facts that often get overlooked:
1) The arab migration to the region around 1850-1949 was also quite large. The UN invented rules to define Palestinian refugees than are different from all other rules regarding refugees. Anyone who had lived in what is now Israel for two years or any of their descendants is defined as a Palestinian refugee. This includes all migrant workers, new immigrants, etc...
2) Jews were actively denied property rights in the Ottoman empire for hundred of years. Of course, they owned less land the muslims in the region. On top of this throughout the 1700s and 1800s there were riots, progroms, etc.. that drove the Jewish population out of Jerusalem and what is now Israel.
3) Despite the above, if you look at the population history of Jerusalem, Jews made up a majority in Jerusalem since about 1835:
The population of Jerusalem did not consistently rise about 20k until the very late 1800s, despite having historical populations of up to 1 million. That area is now home to close to 2 million people. The land was, in fact, largely depopulated and abandoned until zionists returned to it.
In 1949, Jordan invaded East Jerusalem. Every Jew was removed from the area and the Jewish section of the old city was demolished. Israel regained control of the region in 1967.
Currently, most of the "settlements" are in the area around Jerusalem. I honestly, cannot see a single reason for why the area around Jerusalem should be considered a solely Palestinian area that Jews should be barred from settling in. Israel has a population of over 1.5 million Jews living within its borders. A Jewish population should be allowed to live in the West Bank, particularly in the area around Jerusalem.
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I never heard anything about that. Can you provide a link or a source? I did hear of Israel approval of massive hotels in the West Bank as early as this past August though. Also in July:
1. Life expectancy is an average. At the risk of being morbid, if I wanted to reduce the life expectancy in Canada I'd have to kill a seriously large number of Canadians. If I randomly killed 0.1% of the current Canadians living, I'd have very little impact on the average life expectancy... but I think we can agree that the death of 40,000 Canadians or so would be a great human tragedy.
2. Generally speaking, countries with great health care do not have demonstrably increased years of increased life expectancy versus countries with average or below average health care. You can look at any life expectancy table and see that for yourself: a 2 or 3 year deviation in life expectancy is very difficult to reconcile with medical care.
3. Quality of life is the most meaningful metric. Not to be morbid (again), but in cancer trials the distinction between life expectancy and quality of life is best demonstrated: Cancer patients don't refuse chemotherapy because it doesn't extend their life (it does), but rather refuse it because it sends their QoL down the toilet. If an Israeli lives to be 80 years old but lives in constant fear of missile attack, his QoL is crap. Same thing goes for a similarly situated Palestinian. And please remember that many things can impact QoL: availability of food, availability of shelter, fear of displacement, fear for family members, etc... etc...
4. Population growth, by and large, is irrelevant to life expectancy. Edit: Interestingly, I can make a relatively strong case that it is inverse. Historically families have had multiple children due to poor life expectancy. Further, some European countries have had a slowing of population growth as their life expectancy has increased. In any case, population growth is a poor metric.
I still fail to see how anything you posted contradicts my point.
