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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (120547)	11/27/2003 2:36:58 AM
From: Larry Loeb	Respond to of 281500

When you argue history, you can create a winning argument depending on what facts you consider and when you start your fact set. One could easily mention things that tend to be conveniently forgotten today, or misunderstood due to the use of language. For instance: The UN plan was initially for two states. The Arabs rejected the plan and started the 1948 war - which they lost. The refugee camps were established by the Arabs after the war to house those displaced from the new country of Israel. They weren't created by the Israelis. While Jews were persecuted and kicked out of Arab countries throughout the Mid-East, those that emigrated to Israel were settled as part of the population - not put into refugee camps. Israel is not seeking their "Right-of-Return." There is no such thing as "Occupied Palestine." There never was a country called Palestine. The name was created by the Romans as part of their plan to obliterate Israel from history. The "Occupied Territories" previously were parts of Jordan, Egypt, and Syria (some Lebanese contest a small part of Israel as well). Jordan and Egypt have ceded Gaza and the West Bank as part of their treaties with Israel. Since there was no country of Palestine, there were no "Palestinians." In fact that name doesn't seem to appear until the 1960s. There were Arab people that lived in Israel, but the only distinguishing factor between those Arabs and those of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, etc. were their tribal affiliations. Those countries were created by the powers out of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Palestine was the name given to the British protectorate. All that history aside, something must be done to resolve the real issues that deal with the facts on the ground. History is somewhat relevant for most people in how the settlement ends up. I believe that the Palestinians are not being served by their current leaders. They had an offer that could have been negotiated before September 2000. Instead they gave in to the passions of their extremists and created a terrible situation - forcing Israel on the defensive. Both sides are going to have to stand down in order for a peace to be negotiated. While I don't particularly like the two plans that were negotiated by the two independent groups, they do give some hope that such an agreement may be achievable in the foreseeable future. Just my opinion.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (120547)	11/30/2003 3:52:43 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The ability to negotiate, perhaps, and not stake everything to a ruinous maximalism? Is that not what the Zionists did? As long as the Zionist objective was a Jewish State, there was nothing to negotiate, as that state by its fundamental nature would have excluded the existing non-Jewish population. To the best of my knowledge, that goal was never considered negotiable, and that "maximalism" made negotiation meaningless. The Palestinians didn't have the best of choices, but they had both a colonial government and Zionist neighbors who could be argued with as well as fought and stood ready to negotiate a compromise solution. They tried to discuss the matter with the British Colonial Secretary, a certain Winston Churchill, in 1921. They asked him to reduce Jewish immigration. His response: “This is not in my power, and it is not my wish”. A few months later the first of the anti-immigration riots broke out. Who knows what might have happened if the British really had stood ready to negotiate a compromise, or if the Zionists had been prepared to negotiate the goal of a Jewish State? Maybe nothing, but the attempt wasn’t made, so we can’t really say.