Posted on 04/15/2002 10:52:54 PM PDT by Decentralize
And you are quite the naive one. The greatest mistake in dealing with terrorists is to assume that they live anywhere near the same moral plane we do. The very idea of anyone sacrificing their own children unnecesarily is morally repugnant to the Western mind, but the fact is that they do -- for money, for religious fanaticism, for the pure joy of hating others. By stooping to such moral depths, they believe they prove their superiority to us Westerners, who are all concerned about the sanctity of life and such, and too many of us Western suckers buy into that mythology. The Nazis convinced many Germans to breed as many children as possible, on the same rationale -- that it would lead to the triumph in war. They too produced children in the very expectation that they would be sacrificed in war, to assure the triumph of their cause. How ironic that the Jewish people, having survived one Holocaust, now have to stave off yet another potential Holocaust, and get blamed by so much of the world's opinion for being the aggressors, and for being themselves the ones wishing racial extermination on their tormentors. I remind all here that Israel has never initiated war on any of the Moslem states that surround her, although they have attacked her repeatedly since 1948. Of course, when emotions run high, I guess facts have little relevancy.
HEY JOE, LISTEN UP!
NO WHERE IN THE WORLD, DOES YOUR POINT, "RIGHT OF RETURN" HOLD ANY WATER!!! COUNTRIES THAT LOST LAND IN WARS, LOST IT!!! SHOULD WE GIVE CALIFORNIA AND TEXAS BACK TO MEXICO? DUH! JOE, PLEASE USE YOUR BRAIN!
That's pretty much a truism, isn't it? And it explains why wars go on and on over such territories as the losing side tries to change the result. It is good that you don't claim there's any justice in this or that the defeated deserved to lose. That would be too much.
Actually, though, if you think about it, the EU has created a de facto right of return. A Frenchman can live in Germany or in France and the same is true of a German. So such questions as Alsace-Lorraine no longer rankle. The price is that neither France nor Germany has the kind of sovereignty it once did, and it's doubtful this would work right now in the Middle East or our Southwest, or even in Northern Ireland or Eastern Europe at this point, but it does provide hope, if that's what one wants.
For better or worse their children are Americans and can't be forced to leave. You seem to be arguing that Palestinians whose grandparents might have come to the country seventy years ago are still "illegal," while Jews who arrived in Israel yesterday are "legal." That looks like a very specious argument as regards the Palestinians.
Indeed your arguments cut against what you wish to say, since it can be shown that Arabs were a majority in Israel or Palestine down to about the time of WWII. If you can delegitimize Palestinians for having come in from elsewhere, that is still more true of Israelis. From 1870 to 1940 the Arab population about doubled. The Jewish population increased by something like fifty times. Even if statistics can be disputed, this does point out something that you neglected to mention.
This is not a black and white question that can be settled with a verdict for one side or the other. Certainly rhetorical quibbling can't establish that the Palestinians should have no say in things.
5. The Us has a right to ask illegal Mexicans to leave. Why not Israel?When we bought the Mexican Cession and the Gadsden Purchase, we did not expel the Mexicans living there.
-Eric
X responded:
For better or worse their children are Americans and can't be forced to leave. You seem to be arguing that Palestinians whose grandparents might have come to the country seventy years ago are still "illegal," while Jews who arrived in Israel yesterday are "legal." That looks like a very specious argument as regards the Palestinians.
1. I point out that 2/3 those disposesed in 1947-48 were not dispossesed.Therefore the rightof return for these people is specious.
2. The moral claim of the Palestinains that they lived on teh land for 1000 years, only applies to the 1/3 of them whose ancestors actually did so.
Indeed your arguments cut against what you wish to say, since it can be shown that Arabs were a majority in Israel or Palestine down to about the time of WWII. If you can delegitimize Palestinians for having come in from elsewhere, that is still more true of Israelis.
The main claim of Palestinian activists and their frieds is that the Arabs have more of a right than the Jews. If their only link to the land was an immigrant of dubuious legality who rented land, I question the validity of the link.
From 1870 to 1940 the Arab population about doubled. The Jewish population increased by something like fifty times. Even if statistics can be disputed, this does point out something that you neglected to mention.
Everyone knows that 90% of the Jews is Israel are immigrants or one or two generations removed. Most people do not understand taht het same applies to 67% of Palestinians. When people make moral claims the facts matter and most people are ignorant.
This is not a black and white question that can be settled with a verdict for one side or the other. Certainly rhetorical quibbling can't establish that the Palestinians should have no say in things.
Things would have been much easier if Jews had been allowed to migrate instead of the greater number of Arabs and if the Arabs had not instituted a policy of murdering those Arabs who sold land to Jews.
The Arabs chose violence and the Jews responded in kind. It has been a real mess for almost 80 years.
E Rocc responded
When we bought the Mexican Cession and the Gadsden Purchase, we did not expel the Mexicans living there.
1. I was talking about the land ceded from the War of Texas Independence and teh Mexican War. This was about 1/2 of Mexico. Some Mexicans left after the war and many now claim a right to this "stolen" land.
2. The US government did institute policies to insure white migration to all these lands and conversely set up policies to prevent Mexican immigration.
Why is it that certain members of the anti-Immigration right begrudge Israel the same right? Nations are built on race and Israel has a right to exist just as Italy or the Ukraine does.
Sick responded
How come the USA doesn't have that right? And, by the way, I thought the Jews weren't a race. Please clarify.
1. The US has that right. If you bothered to do some research, you would know that I am a nationalist. (Of course given your comments on Marx and Anti-Semetism the adage that the ignorant yell the loudest seems true.)
2. All Jews see themselves as B'nei Yisrael or the Children of Israel. We are all Israelites, regardless of our color or the amount of gentile blood we have. Even converts are considered Israelites. Ethiopian, European, Siberia, Chinese, Yemeni or Indian, Jews from all communities are considered part of the race.
This is a pre-modern racial construct, but why would we allpow the Germans to define race for us?
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