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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (22043)	3/23/2002 4:33:45 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Len.... you didn't answer the question. I asked you where, in the Arab world, a Jew is authorized to lease or buy property from an Arab? Instead, you try to deflect from the question by citing PRE-1948 population numbers of Jews in Arab countries, without discussing if they were actually property owners. Furthermore, you completely ignore the fact that some 1 million "oriental" Jews, who lived in these Arab countries, were forcibly expelled and their belongings confiscated in the years SINCE 1948. You deliberately choose to ignore that fact, providing us all a remarkable display of your intellectual dishonesty through trying to make the facts fit your opinion, rather than the other way around. A 20% voting block in such a nation of diverse opinions IS NOT NEGLIGIBLE. It requires that Israeli politicians cater to the needs of their Arab constituents. 20% can make or break an election, Len. One only has to look at the presidential election in Florida to find out how a small percentage CANNOT be ignored. And how many Palestinians would be willing to swear an oath of loyalty to Israel in exchange for a "right of return"? Will the Palestinians permit Jews to remain, as Palestinian citizens, on the West Bank?? And from where do they derive this right of return to begin with? They were Jordanian citizens and their government chose to deliberately attack Israel in 1967. Thus, Jordan bears the responsibility for their being displaced. And when Jordan abdicated its responsibilities in 1989, ceasing any claim to the West Bank, they essentially abandoned their subjects to Israeli occupation. As for whether Israel is democratic or not... the very fact that they are internally divided as to how to resolve the Palestinian problem, is proof positive of how democratic they are. In Arab countries, their citizens have little official say regarding the policies of the state. And even if your bogus claim was correct, at least Israel strives to create the image of democracy. Name for me one Arab country that has taken comparable steps toward liberalizing their political system. Hawk

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (22043)	3/24/2002 4:55:33 AM
From: SirRealist	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

So the Arab vote/power is an illusion and an effective tool/symbol of how seemingly democratic Israel is to the viewing world. It is an old story.... If you're going to compare MLK to the Jews, then let's consider that the 'sons of slaves' have been transplanted to a land of their own and despite the unfairness that caused more than half a century ago, they've had to fight against superior forces, initially winning partly on wits, before building up a nation that is technologically advanced and militarily strong. They have consented to share the land with its former owners, despite the fact that those former owners would like to see them exterminated. And the *ONLY* reason the land is not shared right now is because the former owners promote their victimhood and their love of genocide for the Jews instead of actually inventing, creating, and building something besides the New Naziism. The Israelis do not always get it right but the PLO always gets it wrong. They are willing to spend the centuries crying about how they have been wronged, because they refuse to advance any concept of civilization, and for those willing to blindly follow the paths of the PLO, their place on history's pitypot is their choice. Great leaders lead. Weak leaders sit amid their own fumes and are condemned to be remembered as failures. The PLO is a perfect portrait of pathetic; it is too bad that the better hearts and minds among the Palestinians have not yet risen above to demonstrate something greater than the collective stupidity of its failed leadership. Maybe someday they will. Because failure is an old story too, and a very uninteresting one.