9/11 thread

Well any nation rationally has to expel hostiles in their midst and that was apparently the reason in that case. Plenty of nonhostile Arabs continued to live in Israel.And no, I did not define Zionism as requiring the expulsion of all others, you did.

So by defining Palestinians as "hostile" it becomes OK to forcibly expel them. I doubt that they were any more hostile than most people would be to an invading army.And you introduced the idea of Zionism supporting a state exclusively for Jews in Message 92 before I posted. And supported the idea of ethnic homogeneity in Message 98

Maybe you need to be more specific. WHAT "invading army" are you talking about? The Jews were THERE, the Arabs were doing the invading. If the Jews expelled some Arab residents for their hostility, that hostility was simply a siding WITH the invaders against their host and it is only reasonable to kick them out.I defended the desire for ethnic homogeneity as NOT RACISM. I did NOT say it required kicking anybody out of anywhere.

No, I'm talking about the Israeli army. Aside from the general hostility between the two communities - and the fact that the Jewish community had a substantial proportion of immigrants - the Israeli army went into territory that had been allocated to the Palestinians. That is an invasion by any standard.

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I defended the desire for ethnic homogeneity as NOT RACISM. Idid NOT say it required kicking anybody out of anywhere.

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Aside from the fact that it involves discriminiting on ethnic grounds which is a form of racism, in practical terms it is bound to require kicking someone out - or killing them - unless you START with a racially homogenous population in the first place. Which couldn't be done in Palestine.

When? I thought you were talking about kicking people out. I say of course they toss out hostile people. Then you're talking about their hostility to an invading army. I say the invading army was the Arabs and of course you kick out sympathizers with the invading army. Now you're talking about something else.As I understand the history of the region, going all the way back, the only territory that was "allocated to the Palestinians" was Jordan, and everybody ignores that.

When the Israeli armies wnet beyond the territories allocated to Israel they were the invaders. How can you deny that ?

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As I understand the history of the region, going all the way back, the only territory that was "allocated to the Palestinians" was Jordan,and everybody ignores that.

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Everybody "ignores" it because it isn't true. The UN partitioned Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs. And Israel seized land allocated to the Arabs in the 1948 war. How can you have missed the references to the Occupied Territories or to the illegality of the West Ban settlements ?e

Actually it was the communists who made the difference against the nazis.Of course some might argue that we should have listened to patton at the end of ww2 and combined our forces with the remnants of the nazis to throw back stalin.We actually surrendered the people of eastern europe to 40+ years of oppression.

um ok... I never said there wasn't anti-israeli sentiment.But the claim was made the the UN is anti-christian and anti-judaism.The UN is probably more anti-G7 than anything.

I agree Steve. I just don't agree that the UN is somehow anti-christian or anti-judiasm.Like you just said, the explanation is much simpler.

To be fair, it was all of the allies who defeated the Nazis. But, true, it took the Communists - and the americans - to defeat them.And, also true, we abandoned eastern europe to the bad guys. Given that we had the bomb, we should have stood up to teh communists and just said no. Of course, it wasn't certain that they'd do with them as they did, but we had a pretty good idea.

You may be right. But, then again, given the number of islamic nations, it might be fair to say that there's a fair bit of anti-judaism and anti-Christian sentiment.

Faith, I actually have to say that I agree with you on this. Just because we realize that the x-tians weren't very nice during the crusades doesn't mean we forget that the muslims weren't any better.Like someone else said, there often were no good guys and bad guys; just lots of "selfish guys"

I'm with you there. It's very "anti-PC" to say this, but most people (except those persecuted groups like jews and gypsies) were probably better off under Hitler than under Stalin. Stalin persecuted and murdered everyone.Of course that doesn't excuse the crimes of the Nazi's.... but one could make the argument they were the lesser of two evils.

Right, but I think it's more of a rich vs. poor thing than a religious thing.If everyone here was hindu there would be a lot of anti-hindu sentiment.

How can a nation, attacked at her brith by 5 armies, "seize" land not hers? By that reasoning france, russia and poland seized german lands during WWll. Russia seized japanese land. If that's the kind of reasoning that prevails, no wonder the arabs keep attacking israel. The worst that can happen is that they lose war #1, 2, 3, 4, or however many, and then get to "morally" reclaim what they lose. Not exactly any risk for their aggression, is there?But let's back up for clarification.1) Israel and most of Jordan is as much indigenous Jewish land as anything else. After all, Jews were there, on two nation states, for 2,000 years before the Arabs arrived. Moreover, palestinians got 3 states in the aftermath of the ottoman empire, Jordan, Syria and lebanon. What we're speaking of is a 4th. But they never wanted that 4th unless Israel was included, which is why they never asked for a sttae when egypt and jordan controlled those lands. They only decided they were "palestinians," and wanted that land, after Israel got it. And still they only wanted it, and continue to want it, if Israel is subsumed.2) The palestine mandate accorded, pre WWll, all of the land Israel had after the 1948 war, and much more too, to israel. It was only because the british reneged on their obligations to the League of Nations, to curry favour with arabs, that that land wasn't israel's to begin with.the west bank settlements are only illegal if one accepts UN prejudice against Israel. International law only says that a nation winning a war may not wholesale move populations into or out of conquered territory. Bet you didn't know that for all the talk of the settlements, they comprise less than 2% of the entire west bank. They are, in effect, merely suburbs of jerusalem. They are too small on too little land to breach international law. Moreover, israel annexed that land, so it is not occupied. One could argue it is disputed. But one can only make that argument if one will also say that france, Russia, germany and the Czech republic all occupy german land. But no one would, because overwhelming reason says that aggressors lose land when losing their wars. Only israel is subjected to an achingly irrational double standard. And that is about geopolitics and oil. It sure as heck isn't about morality. Quite the opposite in fact, it is about moral hypocrisy.