Prospect of peace in middle east
 

What do you say? Since Hamas has taken the seat of Palestine government, prospect of peace toward Israel-Palestine seems so far away. Both sides just keep positional bargaining, means they wont lower they position thus making thing wont work out. I feel poor for palestinian people.

What do you think the prospect of this never-ending-conflict in the world? Do we need to wait nuclear blow off the entire continent so that they will talk constructively in this matter?

Israeli-Palestinian relations is not the only source of instability in the region (unless you just mean that general area when you say "Middle East"). Though, on a side note, I am impressed with how hard Mahmoud Abbas appears to be trying to keep Hamas in check.

I doubt there's going to be a resolution to this conflict until one side wipes out the other. I'm thinking along the lines of the Native American - American settler conflict. Genocide was largely the final result that ended that particular conflict.

There's plenty of instances in history where two differing sides met and only one side was able to walk away. So I don't think it's that far-fetched even in this modern age.

The question is more "will this conflict involve the rest of the world?" and all signs point to yes.

I really wouldn't shed a tear if we just let the middle east degrade into all out chaos. Israel inflicts heavy (and I do mean, heavy) damages on the rest of the Arab population, before being driven completely into the sea. Then the EU and the US, mop up the aftermath and FREE OIL LIKE WUT.

Unfortunately, You've got Israel/US/Allied Forces on one side, and Palestine/Iran/Syria/Russia/China/DPRK on the other and a bunch of other nations that could go either way including Pakistan and India. Pakistan would most likely side with Palestine and India would swing in favor of us because they hate Pakistan.

We could sort of just drop our support of Israel in the region, considering that there's no real logical reason why we support them. Hell, that's the main reason we're so hated by the Arabs. We could have much stronger allies in the region than Israel, but we chose to support Israel and I think it's largely due to our religious standings.

Israel is the most powerful nation in the middle east, and you suggest we could have stronger allies there?

No thanks. Most of those muslim nations hate us already, even not supporting Israel anymore would do no good.

No no no, Palestine would be forever alone in this conflict. Palestine in fact is just used as rhetoric by these arab nations to gain attention. Have they helped palestine any way in history? they never has and never will. It's almost impossible such alliances would happen. These countries have too much different interest and they wouldnt be most likely joining force soon.

Have you asked yourself before why muslim nations hate you already?

...
and I thought there has been growing sentiment of anti-semit in your country. US supports Israel mainly because it's truly the only democratic country in middle east.

I personally think a good portion of it is simply a matter of incompatability and thank goodness we're on opposite sides of the world from each other. From our point of view muslim nations appear oppressive and archaic but from their point of view I'm sure we look like a bunch of blasphemous whores. I think it should just be an "agree to disagree" sorta thing and both sides should just live and let live, we should both just respect each other's right to be the way they are.
Of course our policy in the middle east isn't helping things.

Or because some high ranking Americans are Christian Zionists hoping to bring about a second coming. Just throwing out an alternate opinion.

Personally, I believe this hate comes from historical reasons. I took middle east history for fun (since I needed an elective)... and I think I understand it perfectly. IF I were that country I'd probably wanna tear you guys apart... but then again it's in the PAST.... however, the past also shapes up the future. And oppresive leaders, shitty economy is all thanks to us - not the United States, but the super powers of that time (perhaps the US being a super power now is ...)

A) Israel is the most powerful nation in the Middle East entirely due to American aid. It would cease to be that way should the US decide to work with another partner, and indeed, many other nations have so much more potential than a tiny country with only 6 million people.

B) Yes, dropping Israel would. Israel is the Arab world's biggest gripe with the US, even more than Iraq. Dropping Israel would go extremely far to help US relations with Arab states.

Granted, dropping Israel in favor of another partner is never going to happen, but even a balanced and fair relationship would do wonders considering the current state of affairs.

Sorry for out of the topic... are you really come from Saudi Arabia? Just curious.

Today's news:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/...ast/index.html

Looks like it's on again.

The Arabs and Jews have been at war with each other since the Biblical days. I can't see peace EVER existing unless there is
1.) Fundamental shift in the practice of Islam. Such as if Islam is a religion of peace, act like it.
2.) Muslims wipe out all Jews/Christians or vice versa.

...
oh please. Why people always generalize the war between Israel-Palestine happened because of religion? It's totally a wrong viewpoint. The main reason palestinian hates Israel is because te jewish have applied the Nazi's method when interrogating palestinian and harrasing the human rights of these arab. I live in the moslem-populated country and believe me, people that do extreme practicing and anarchy are called nerds here by the moslem themselves. I dont think idea of changing the fundamentality of Islam would be possible and it's not the islam at the fault, it's the fault of some fucktard called exteremists.

Palestine itself couldn't be considered unitary since it's actually splitted between the secular (PLO) and fundamental geeks (Hamas). Israel hates Palestine mainly because Hamas use the self-bombing-method which is really useful to increase the victim over Israel side during intifada though the number of palestinian victim always outnumbers the jewish.

Well, looking back at the history of the conflict, it seems heavily based in religion. Granted, Islam didn't really come about until sometime in the late 7th century, but since then you've had the crusades and the reinstitution of Israel as a sovereign nation after the second world war. Also, tracing any sort of "original ownership" in that region is kind of difficult, because if memory serves in the last 2500 or so years foreign conquest has been a constant: Persians->Macedonians->Romans->Persians (again?)->Crusaders->Turks->20th century.

I'm not anti-semetic, I'm not really anti-anything except anti-stupid. Historically the Israelites were nomadic people, it's because of a religious belief that the Palestinians and the Israelis can't get along. The Israelis want that particular piece of land because it holds religious meaning to them, the Palestinians want it because it was once their homeland.

Right now things are fucked up because the Israelis do enjoy a great amount of wealth and power in the region due to American influence. However, their neighbors live in slums. I'd be pretty fucking angry if I were Palestinian, too. Again, the Israelis' prosperity does come at a huge price. Mandatory service in the military for all citizens, regardless of sex. Living on edge because you never know when the next bus ride will be your last.

It is a complicated issue, I will give you that.

I'm not really sure what the fuck you're saying or what your point is. Are you proposing that powerful members of the United States government want to bring about the Apocalypse? What?

As you stated before, Israel enjoy the hegemonic power in the area because of america uncoditional support, which I concur wholly. But it makes me wondering sometimes. Which is weaker actually? Israel or Palestine? The premise said, "Israel is strong because it's backed up by US" doesnt that mean it implicitly says, 'unless America doesnt support Israel, it is a weak state' (politically I guess).

Is that logical in any way?

Uhh, that's kind of what I'm saying, is that if we stop supporting Israel, it will be a weak state. It will, inevitably, be overrun by the surrounding nations that want to stake claim to their land.

Iran would be a much stronger ally, economically and militarily than Israel. We'd also probably become ALOT more friendly with Saudi Arabia, due to the fact that we buy their oil and are at least on speaking terms with them. If we've got those two on our side, Syria will undoubtedly follow.

Off-topic: Really, if we wanted to counteract the potential economic threat China poses in the coming decades, dumping Israel in favor of gaining Arab states' trust and cooperation would put us in the right direction. Because, right now, China is going to need a vast amount of oil to support their up and coming plans for industry expansion, if we can secure that oil source for our means, it would put China out of the game.

Could such condition be possible? I dont understand the entire system of US gov, but I heard that Jewish in parliementery is the one controlling US in term of decision making process. Feel free to correct me. I dont really study US' system comprehensively.

You know, actually the bargaining position of both US and China is confusing. We could say US is in higher level or vice verca. Even though China enjoy rapid economic development, currently it's threatened by internal conflict within itself which might causing the collapse of the state eventually. The communist government has done their best to legitimate their influence and government in the China and repressing anything that have to do with democracy.

But the question is: how long a negative peace could last? In many conflicts in the world, especially the ones controlled by an authoritarian government, revolution eventually come and destablize itself. In this viewpoint we could say china is weaker than US, but here we find some paradox. While it's true that china's internal conflict has been raising in numbers, thus we call it a weak state, it enjoys surpluses in context of economic-relationship between many countries, it even causes US deficit reaches 22 bn dollar. Those contradictives eventually make me thinking which one actually stronger than other?

I live there, im not actually Saudi.

Or the Israeli's agree to sit down with an elected government and talk about moving to the borders the rest of the world wants them at, 1967. It's doesn't need to be bloody, most Arab countries will be supportive and acknowledge Israel if it decides to pull back to the '67 borders and start acting kindly to its neighbors, instead of oppressing them.

Israel has 400 of its own nuclear weapons, nobody is pulling any stunts.

Iran is a easy US ally if the sides started to act conciliatory. Iran's people are generally friendly with the US, and if the sides started to cooperate and talk a bit, I'm sure you'd find Iran capable of being a major US ally, its just a matter of one side taking the initiative. Rhetoric changes according to circumstances, and it would in the case of the Ayatollahs if regional issues changed.

Saudi Arabia is already the US's biggest ally in the region outside Israel. There would be less friction without Israeli/Palestinian issues, but at the same time, it wouldn't be as great a leap as people expect. The governments and private sectors of the countries cooperate so much already that the extent of it would probably surprise you. It is the regions major military and economic power (militarily, outside Israel, but economically, not), and is on good terms with the US for hundreds of reasons.

Israel tried (see Oslo accords) but the Palestinians wouldn't have it.

From Wikipedia:

Also, the territories post '67 were seized by Israel AFTER Egypt, Jordan and Syria attempted to push Israel into the sea. In addition - Iraq, Sudan, Kuwait, and Algeris also mobilized its forces to attack Israel.

After defeating every attacking arab country on 4 fronts Israel seized the Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, Sinai Penninsula and the West Bank.

Israel fortified all 4 areas as they would serve as buffer as Israel would face continual assault from the arabs.

7 years later, Egypt and Syria commits a surprise attack on Israel known as the Yom Kipper war. The Egyptian/Syrian armies cross into the Golan Heights/Sinai Penninsula and were defeated within two weeks.

So no, I wouldn't expect Israel to give back those territories as they were acquired through self defense and for self defense. Besides, many of the people of that era have died of old age or have been incapacitated. (Note Ariel Sharron and Yassar Arafat). You have a newer generation of Arabs who weren't even born during those wars that are continuing to fight Israel.

And I dare say that Israel is pretty damn tolerent to its neighbors considering how often they instigate attacks. Israel didnt shell the west bank for the HELL of it, they are doing it to wipe out artillary positions from the Palestinians. If Israel was so reppresive, they would just simply wipe out every Arab within range of its borders. Something the Arabs tried to do back in 1967 and would do so today if they had the means of doing so.

Israel isn't innocent at all, man.

You've heard about what happened in the Gaaza beach just days ago, right?

They aren't tolerant at all. Invading one neighbor and starting another war don't qualify as tolerant at all. The very existence of the country was a broken pledge to the Arabs, and it shouldn't even be there in the first place. Arabs shouldn't be paying the price for the crimes against humanity of other nations during WW2, they weren't even involved in the war.

Yes, hence my comment that Israel didn't shell the Gaza beach for the hell of it. They didn't WANT to kill those 7 people on that beach. They are investigating the incident and posted an apology in CASE they were responsible.

Palestine AIMS for maximum civillian casulties. You can't say it's just a few "crazies" considering they ELECTED HAMAS to be in charge of things.

I'm not saying Israel is perfect. You can dig up their share of atrocities as well BUT I think its fair to say they have been the more civillized party in this war.

Wish I could find the story and the images but an event that stuck out in particular was a few years back two IDF soldiers took a wrong turn and was caught by Palestinians.

Both soldiers were beaten to death and there were pictures of Palestinians as young as 16 raising their bloodied hands and screaming how great 'God' is. They procede to multilate the corpses and then hang the bodies up for all to see.

That level of blind genocidal hatred is why there there can never be peace in the middle east without

1.) a fundamental change in how Islam is practiced. Christians have pillaged and killed in the name of God as well btw. Howevever it's 2006 and Islam is still doing it.

2.) One side wipes out the other. The Arabs either do another combined assault that pushes Israel to the sea or Israel invades and levels a radius around its current borders. They prohibit Arabs from even coming close to their borders and adopt a policy of substantial and instant retaliation for any attempts to attack Israel.

Oh maybe they wish to. Casualites always greater in Palestine side. I never heard anything about Israel addressing apology for once though, maybe it's in diplomatic level, but public never knows.

Please address the terrosist as Hamas or another Israel-proclaimed terrorist groups. PLO, Palestinian Civillians, and Hamas are seperate entities. If you know PLO you will be pissed of like the Palestinians did. Apart from their struggle in international level and diplomacy, they are bunch of shithole corruptors.

Source please if you could provide. I respect your argument, but in this case, we may heard some propaganda. And I agree, Israel is far from perfect. They are the worst violator of human right, the same might apply as well to palestinian extremist.

Rather than changing the fundamental practice which utterly as impossible as attempt to make Vatican agrees what's written in Da Vinci Code, I argue it would be much better to secularize the people like Turkey, AFAIK it's the best model for secularized islam-populated country, cmiw. Indonesia is bad example, while most of people are moderated islam, bunch of fucktard extremist do exist.

BBC news source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/969778.stm

Some video of the lynching:
http://inhonor.net/videos/uped/fl_video.php?f_num=53101

Pictures of the two lynched IDF soldiers. *GRAPHIC, not safe for work*
http://inhonor.net/ramlah/

They published an apology in an Israeli newspaper. The source is in the original CNN link.

I will be more careful in distinguishing the groups. However the Palestinian people freely ELECTED Hamas a terrorist organization by any one's standards.

I'd say Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, whoever is in charge of the Rebels in the Congo, Abu Sayaff - Israel isn't the worst.

That I wholeheartedly agree with. If all the Middle Eastern countries were like Turkey, that would be a productive start.
Out of curiosity, do you know how Turkey treats other religions? Could there be a open public Buddhist Temple or Christian church?

When did Israel invade a neighbor and started a war? I could dig up about half a dozen events at least where arab countries invaded and attacked Israel (GOVERNMENTS not random terrorist). I will look more into the origins but wouldn't you agree what's done is done? 3 generations has passed since the founding of Israel. No matter the hatred, is an event such as the Ramallah lynching neccessary? Israel is likely to be elimiminated from a global map as likely as America giving California back to Mexico. You just deal with the way things are TODAY like civiillized people.

Oh god... How come humans were that cruel? ;_;
I dont say Palestinians should forgive and forget what Israel did to them easily. But this brutality... I guess it can't be helped. Btw that was happened around 2000? make sense... it was during second Intifada I assume.

Oh ok, I dont watch CNN, thanks for pointing that out. But it would have been much better if both sides hold constructive talk so that civillians dont suffer from the war between elites.

I could understand why Palestinians elected Hamas. While the PLO has their own spot on Jordania, living separately from the daily life of sufferings in Gaza, Hamas' close to palestinians in the social level. They built public services for the people and eventually, palestinians felt the guerilla closer to them than PLO.

Quoted for the truth. I had my reference from Joe Sacco's Palestine. I own the book and I was surprised. The Nazi victim has turned into Nazi.

Nope sorry, I dont know much things about religion toleration in Turkey. Secularization in middle east might be possible... but the chance would be too small since religious leaders still influence the people heavily. In this case I agree that democracy should be spread in middle east, but not in some unilateral act.
Maybe Adamgian could give us descriptions how is the daily life of Saudi people? Is religion influenced them that much?

While the Six Day War in 1967 would meet that qualification, you won't accept it. In its place, I offer the invasion of the Sinai during the Suez Crisis in 1956, and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

We all know that humans are capable of great evil but it's events like Ramallah continue to surprise us for the worst. From my understanding, this brutality is due to decades of propagating blind hatred by the people in charge of Palestine. It goes from Arafat down to the Mosque leaders, down to the educational teachers.
-Arafat himself was a terrorist and preached death to Israel
-Mosque leaders preached death to Israel
-Teachers preached death to Israel to children.
-Textbooks preached death to Israel
-Gunmen attend every funeral shooting guns in the air preach death to Israel.

Just hope you understand that considering what they face daily, Isreal has to defend itself vigorously. All things considered, they are gentle to their Arab neighbors.

So for the sake of some utilities, they knowingly elect a government that is scorned by civillized nations and continue the war that keeps their country so impovished? Come know, no civillized country will accept a government that has a platform insisting their neighbors be driven to the sea and all other outcomes are impossible?

I would not take this analogy. The Jews never caused trouble in Germany and never insisted that all of the Germans be killed or anything. The jews do not hate the Palestinians with the same fervor as their Arab neighbors hate them.

No I would not accept that the Six-Day War was a hostile act from Israel. They might not be on the 2006 World Atlas had they not fought that war.

The Suez Crisis and the invasion of Lebanon are both debatable events on how much an aggressor Israel is. Especially the former as it was a multinational attack force that several nations wanted to keep open for economic interest. I think with Lebanon, Israel dispropiately responded to militant attacks but the arabs *DID* start by shelling Israel.

The point that I am trying to argue is that Israel is in no way can be held in the same regard as the Palestinians and Arab nations as a "partner of peace" when it comes to achieving peace in the region.

Israel was still the agressor in all three cases. Israel was an agressor in Suez, whether multinational or not, that does not absolve it from partial responsibility. With '67, it still attacked and started the war, no matter what comes up, the fact is Israel attacked first. 1982 was shameful, Israel invaded and then proceeded to massacre thousands at Shabra and Shatilla, and massacred thousands more than the Palestinians ever attacked.

Israel can be held in the same regard, it has slaughtered far more civilians than any of the Arab groups have, and has consistently violated the rights of Palestinians while occupying their territory at the same time.


===

Israel's responce to the beach massacres can't even be classified as a real apology. They've come out and started claiming that they weren't even responsible, and when discussing their actions, their purported apology was hogwash. It wasn't an apology at all, the Israeli government is just trying to find a way to start covering when they realize that they might have triggered another intifada.

If you want to blame Israel for something every other nation on earth has done at one point or another more brutally and for pettier reasons, fine.

So Lebanon was just "chilling" and Israel decided to come and invade them for the hell of it?

1.) The Fatah - Revolution Council attempted to assasinate Shlomo Argov, the ambassador to the UK.

2.) Repeated shelling of Israeli towns by the PLO from Lebanon.

3.) Palestinians begin massive arms buildup, tripling their artillery cannons and rocket launchers to ramp up the shelling of Israeli towns.

If you were a soverign nation being shelled by your neighbor what would you do? You would secure the area where the artillery/rockets were being fired from to remove their range wouldn't you? Maybe invasion was too heavy handed a response? Either case, Israeli responded to attacks upon it's civillian centers.

I'm not sure if it's pride or what but that is one of the most willfully ignorant statements I have ever read. Gee when over the course of three weeks:

*Egypt concentrates large armed forces in the Sinai penninsula. (For what I dunno, an INVASION?)
*Blockaded the Straights of Tiran and the ISRAELI port of Eliat. (For what I dunno, denying food and supplies to Israel for what.. an upcoming INVASION?)
*Egypt evicts UN Peacekeepers seperating Israel and Egypt. (For what I dunno, an INVASION?)
*Jordan suddenly joins the Egyptian/Syrian military alliance and places ITS TROOPS under Egyptian command. (For what I dunno, they really like Egypt or was it for a future INVASION?)
*Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait also follows suite by sending troops and armor. (I don't think it's for an INVASION, probably some big Arab BBQ or picnic)
*Israel is now surrounded by 465,000, over 2,880 tanks and 810 aircraft (A little bit extreme for such an exercise? Or was it an INVASION force?)

Israel attempts to resolve the situaiton politically by apporaching the Great powers who promised that Israel would have freedom of navigation. Britain and France fail to live up to their agreement that they would help Israel. The United States President states that they would come up with a plan to block the armada. 6 days go by with no action being taken and with nearly half a million troops on the Israeli border - on June 4th, the IDF is to eliminate the forces that threatens Israeli's existence.

Was this all a big understanding? Was there no Arab threat to Israel prior to this? Was there really just a giant picnic and BBQ being put together?

Lets look at history

1948 - War of Independence.
*ONE* day after the British Mandate over Palestine expires and Israel declares its independence, five neighboring Arab states (Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan) invade the newly formed state of Israel.

So in '67, THOSE SAME countries with additional forces, upgraded armamants and USSR backing are doing WHAT exactly on Israeli's border?

Please.. so what does Hamas do when it kills people other than IDF soldiers and generals? Write tearful apologies and send flowers to deceased innocents?

Or do they hand out candy in the streets and praise God about how "great" he is and promise additional bloodshed until every zionist man, woman and child is wiped out?

Since Israel currently holds more territory than the world community officially recognizes, can someone tell me how it would be morally grievous if the Arab powers seized control of the territory that doesn't belong to Israel (territory acquired after the 1967 war) and used it to establish a Palestinian state?

Isn't that kind of what's being discussed here?

Whether or not it would be "morally" (I tend not to think in terms of morality, especially when concerning governments and official bodies as they prove time and time again to be utterly corruptable) or politically acceptable/feasible to establish a Palestinian state.

Uh no. the possibility is close to zero. I would compare your statement with the future expansion of UNSC permanent members. Too vague and too good to be true.

Arab is not that solid and I dont see reason they will help palestine to establish a state.

For many reasons I have outlined, Israel is well within their rights to keep the land they bled for in the Six-Day war.

Also, define world community? World community being UN or the Arabs? Also if we are using "World community", both Israel and Palestine were allotted land. The arabs considered the land allocated by the "World community" as "morally grievous" and attempted to wipe Israel off the planet on at least two occasions (War of Independence, Six-Day War).

Secondly, would it be morally grievous for Mexico to attack the United States to reclaim California?

Lastly, the Palestinians could have had a state for a LONG time. They just simply refuse to allow themselves to. How can a nation be taken seriously when you elect HAMAS as your governing authority?

Alright i'll explain this simply to those of you who don't get exactly why there can't be peace at all :

The main gripe is not just about the state, you know if it's in terms of state/area the Israelis actually had most Palestinian ground they "occupied" already owned (by purches/rent/etc..) BEFORE any war happened and before even the official country of Israel was declared. I have many Palestenian friends whose fathers and grandfathers aren't afraid to admit that.

Now here's the issue, they [palestenians] can shut up about the Land, but Israel is mainly aiming for "Al Haikal Al Thaleth", i dunno how to translate that, it means the Third Temple, i think, which should be built EXACTLY where the Aqsa mosque is.

Now, the Aqsa mosque, being one of the 3 most important mosques to Muslims in general and Arabs in palestine in particular (yes that includes Christians) is indispensable, you can't just take down the Aqsa!

I won't go against the Jews or side with anyone on this dilemma, but don't you see that that means it's impossible to have an agreement because some party will have to make a compromise (is that the right word for it?) and that would mean either give up the Third Temple which is crucial to the Israel fulfilling it's Promised Land position, OR tear down Al Aqsa and have like 1.4 Billion muslims around the world go kaboom.

If that offended any muslims i remind you i am one, well was one, i guess.. And no, i won't go kaboom, i don't fancy seeing myself with a bomb strapped to my belly.

I've been following this news in the local newspaper and its been boggling my mind. I don't understand why they can hate each other so much. Yes, there is a lot of strife between the two countries but can't they see that by kidnapping someone, it'll just cause one side to be more pissed off and can't they see that by shooting missiles and artilery shells would cause people to be pissed off? Why can't they just share the land or just stop shooting.

Edit: Sorry, I just read the post above me. Can there be some kind of compromise? Like a joint place of worship? I, myself am not too familiar with either religion, so sorry if I offended anyone.