Palestine & israel? What do you think about that situation?

[J. J. Phillips]

You were on the verge of being reasonable for several posts, then you left for a few days and came back with BS like don't got time to read, so here's a bunch of strawmen and garbage diatribes. It's disappointing this thread turned out like this. I was hoping for something far more enlightened.

Your critique would be more convincing if there were a post somewhere in the thread stating, for example, some relevant action the U.N. could take if it weren't for U.S. influence. I mean, you could really call me out for saying "don't got time to read" by quoting such a post, but you can't because it's not there.

Any fair minded person reading this thread will see I responded "reasonably" to people who made reasonable posts. I responded dismissively to people who repeat nonsense while being utterly incapable of comprehending information contrary to what they already believe (e.g., redzeronazi).

A useful discussion about this issue would involve making a sequence of clear, unambiguous true-or-false style statements and having people who disagree indicate which they think are true and which they think are false. That's the first step to determining the nature of a disagreement. I tried to do this. Most of the participants on the thread ignored these statements and ignored clarifying questions I tried to ask. They continued to simply assert that there was some country called Palestine (there wasn't) that was "illegally invaded" by Jews (rather than there being waves of immigration) and that there was some kind of unspecified "agreement" that Israel made and is not holding to. I challenge anyone to simply count the number of clear statements I've made and clear questions I've asked that have been completely ignored. The people expecting me to respond to them when they're not responding to me are the ones being unreasonable.

In the end things will probably work out for everyone. The Jew haters will get their dead Jews and I'll get to exterminate the Nazi human species.

[bryant.coleman]

First, this is why I'm comfortable calling you guys Nazis, and I'm surprised anyone reasonable is willing to stand with you. In the Holocaust six million Jews were killed, not a few hundred.

In the WW2, 80 million people lost their lives, including 6 million Jews. Around 40 million Slavs lost their lives, and they represent the largest group of victims. If you are talking about the percentage, then almost 80% of the Western European Roma were killed in the holocaust by the Nazis.

While, I deeply sympathize with the Jews who were killed during the WW2, the difference between you and me is that I believe that there were other groups who were victimized in the WW2 as well (Slavs, Roma.etc). The holocaust was a Nazi mission to exterminate Slavs, Roma, Jews.etc. You can't whitewash history and say that only Jews were targeted in the holocaust.

[BitMos]

You were on the verge of being reasonable for several posts, then you left for a few days and came back with BS like don't got time to read, so here's a bunch of strawmen and garbage diatribes. It's disappointing this thread turned out like this. I was hoping for something far more enlightened.

the one reasonable is the one holding the gun in the ass of the others... the rest is hypocrisy.

Briant 4 prez .

[J. J. Phillips]

First, this is why I'm comfortable calling you guys Nazis, and I'm surprised anyone reasonable is willing to stand with you. In the Holocaust six million Jews were killed, not a few hundred.

In the WW2, 80 million people lost their lives, including 6 million Jews. Around 40 million Slavs lost their lives, and they represent the largest group of victims. If you are talking about the percentage, then almost 80% of the Western European Roma were killed in the holocaust by the Nazis.

While, I deeply sympathize with the Jews who were killed during the WW2, the difference between you and me is that I believe that there were other groups who were victimized in the WW2 as well (Slavs, Roma.etc). The holocaust was a Nazi mission to exterminate Slavs, Roma, Jews.etc. You can't whitewash history and say that only Jews were targeted in the holocaust.

First: I said that 6 million Jews were killed in the holocaust as a direct response to the following quote from you:

We were talking about the right of Palestinians to live on the lands where they were born (and their ancestors were born), and not about gassing a few hundred Jews.

Everyone can decide for themselves why you wrote "gassing a few hundred Jews" if you agree that 6 million Jews were killed in the holocaust as your latest post suggests. What "few hundred Jews" were you referring to? The most charitable explanation I can find is that you meant to type "few million Jews" but accidentally wrote "few hundred Jews".

Second: I agree that other minority groups were targeted by the Nazis. I don't believe I've written anything to suggest otherwise, but you're welcome to quote me if you think I have. It's obvious why Jews have been the focus in this thread, given the topic.

But I'm glad BitMos and you brought up these other victims. The Roma, for example, are still treated terribly in Europe from what I read. It's too bad this problem is ignored.

In a thread where so many people have trouble with simple factual statements, I'm hesitant to bring in counterfactuals/hypotheticals. Still, I will. I wonder what would've happened if many of the Romani had immigrated to, say, Kashmir in the early part of the 20th century. (They do have northern Indian ties historically, so it isn't so far-fetched.) Suppose that at the end of British rule in the late 1940s the Romani declared an independent state in part of Kashmir. Clearly there would be lots of armed conflict in that region, just as there is today. However, I imagine we'd hear much more about the Kashmir conflict and most of what we'd hear would be cartoonish misinformation about evil Gypsies lying, cheating and oppressing poor indigenous Muslim children who just want peace and crayons. The reason would be racism.

[Daniel91]

It seems to me that this problem has been going on for too long, since 1948. That was a real political will from the Israeli and Palestinian sides, this problem could be solved long ago. Unfortunately, extremists on both sides fits this situation for political gain, popularity and to gain election. Nobody cares for ordinary people who suffer most in this situation.

[bryant.coleman]

In a thread where so many people have trouble with simple factual statements, I'm hesitant to bring in counterfactuals/hypotheticals. Still, I will. I wonder what would've happened if many of the Romani had immigrated to, say, Kashmir in the early part of the 20th century. (They do have northern Indian ties historically, so it isn't so far-fetched.) Suppose that at the end of British rule in the late 1940s the Romani declared an independent state in part of Kashmir. Clearly there would be lots of armed conflict in that region, just as there is today. However, I imagine we'd hear much more about the Kashmir conflict and most of what we'd hear would be cartoonish misinformation about evil Gypsies lying, cheating and oppressing poor indigenous Muslim children who just want peace and crayons. The reason would be racism.

Oh..... Now you are saying that 80% of the Western European Romani wouldn't have been butchered in the holocaust, had they migrated to India. What if I say the same about Jews?

Had the Jews migrated to either Uganda or Madagascar, the holocaust could have been avoided (I am not a supporter of this idea... this is just to counter Phillips' arguments).

[J. J. Phillips]

In a thread where so many people have trouble with simple factual statements, I'm hesitant to bring in counterfactuals/hypotheticals. Still, I will. I wonder what would've happened if many of the Romani had immigrated to, say, Kashmir in the early part of the 20th century. (They do have northern Indian ties historically, so it isn't so far-fetched.) Suppose that at the end of British rule in the late 1940s the Romani declared an independent state in part of Kashmir. Clearly there would be lots of armed conflict in that region, just as there is today. However, I imagine we'd hear much more about the Kashmir conflict and most of what we'd hear would be cartoonish misinformation about evil Gypsies lying, cheating and oppressing poor indigenous Muslim children who just want peace and crayons. The reason would be racism.

Oh..... Now you are saying that 80% of the Western European Romani wouldn't have been butchered in the holocaust, had they migrated to India. What if I say the same about Jews?

Had the Jews migrated to either Uganda or Madagascar, the holocaust could have been avoided (I am not a supporter of this idea... this is just to counter Phillips' arguments).

Bwaahaaahaaa. Oh, that's funny. Since this is such a bizarre interpretation of what I said, I'll assume you're just trolling. I mean, come on. It's obvious that I was describing "what if the Romani had started moving to build a homeland like the Jews did," to make a hypothetical point. If I were saying the Romani could've avoided the Holocaust by doing so, it would imply I thought the Jews avoided it by moving to (what is now) Israel. To be clear: I don't think that. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. I think if the people opposing me in this thread have their way, six million more Jews will be killed in Israel. I think that's a bad thing.

In case anyone actually doesn't understand what I said or its context, I'm happy to clarify. Earlier I said something like this:

(JHKA) If there were very little Jew hatred in the world, the Arab-Israeli conflict would be about as important as the conflict in Kashmir.

As with most of my statements and questions, this was ignored.

My hypothetical is to acknowledge: (1) It's not just the Jews that are hated, as one can see by looking at the Romani. (2) The conflict in Kashmir would be seen as far more important if Westerners were racist against one of the sides.

It's an imperfect comparison. The important thing with the Jews is that they are hated by Muslims (going all the way back to conflicts with Mohammed) and by the West (hmm, to some degree this traces all the way back to the roots of Christianity [Christ-killers!]...interesting). That's what makes both the West and the Islamic world side against Israel, and draws so much attention to the conflict. I'm not sure of any history between Islam and the Romani. I'm sure someone could google it for me. I think there's bad blood between Islam and Hinduism (death to all polytheists!), but that at least doesn't date back to Mohammed. Well, the death to polytheists does, but not Hinduism specifically. The West isn't really antagonistic towards Indians. The most racist image of India in the West is Apu from The Simpsons. I'll bet Jews would love it if that were the most racist image of Jews.

The part that makes the comparison good is that India was under British rule until the late 1940s, just like the Palestinian Mandate. In both cases the land was divided into -- very roughly speaking -- a Muslim part (Pakistan) and a non-Muslim part (India). [By the way, is Pakistan "occupied territory"?] In both cases there's a conflict about who has part of the land, and the conflicts have both been violent. So why aren't we seeing constant threads and propaganda about Kashmir? No Jews. My point was, well, maybe if instead of fighting Indians the Pakistanis were fighting the Roma, there would be a lot more propaganda. You know, about how the Pakistanis got "gypped" -- that kind of thing.

People may also wonder why we're talking about the Roma at all. Well, I was responding to Bryant Coleman bringing up the Roma (and others) who died in the Holocaust. (Well, he generalized to those who died in WW2.) He did this because he mistakenly believed I was implying only Jews died in the Holocaust. (You can tell it's a mistaken belief because he hasn't supported it by quoting anything I've written. While most of the victims of the Holocaust were Jewish, there were about five million non-Jewish victims. In addition, obviously millions more died fighting in WW2.) He did this after I brought up the fact that six million Jews died in the Holocaust. I brought that up as a response to this quote from him:

We were talking about the right of Palestinians to live on the lands where they were born (and their ancestors were born), and not about gassing a few hundred Jews.

I interpreted this comment to mean that Bryant Coleman is a Holocaust denier. A common form of Holocaust denial is saying that the number of Jews who were killed (six million) is exaggerated. Since then, he indicated he agreed six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. It's good that he's not a Holocaust denier. We have more than enough of them on this thread already.

But it leaves me to wonder: what in the holy fuck did the phrase above mean? Does Bryant Coleman think only a few hundred Jews live in Israel? Surely not. Then...what? As I mentioned before, the only charitable interpretation I can think of is that it was just a typo. He meant to write "million" but wrote "hundred". It's a strange typo. Not quite "there" vs. "their." But, honestly, I can't make any sense of it. I can't help but wonder if he might be a Holocaust denier, but backed away from it because it makes him sound crazy and dumb.

Oh, by the way, to those of you who are Holocaust deniers: most of the world thinks you're crazy and dumb. Given the crowd on this thread, that might need to be said explicitly. Like earlier when I mentioned the classic question with a presumption: "When did you stop beating your wife?" It later became clear to me that that might be confusing to the Muslims on this thread. I should've made it explicitly clear that the rest of the world things beating your wife is a bad thing. Sorry I wasn't clear about that before.

[BitMos]

Given the crowd on this thread, that might need to be said explicitly. Like earlier when I mentioned the classic question with a presumption: "When did you stop beating your wife?" It later became clear to me that that might be confusing to the Muslims on this thread. I should've made it explicitly clear that the rest of the world things beating your wife is a bad thing. Sorry I wasn't clear about that before.

5. They are on (true) guidance from their Lord, and they are the successful.

6. Verily, those who disbelieve, it is the same to them whether you (O Muhammad Peace be upon him ) warn them or do not warn them, they will not believe.

7. Allah has set a seal on their hearts and on their hearings, (i.e. they are closed from accepting Allah's Guidance), and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be a great torment.

8. And of mankind, there are some (hypocrites) who say: "We believe in Allah and the Last Day" while in fact they believe not.

9. They (think to) deceive Allah and those who believe, while they only deceive themselves, and perceive (it) not!

10. In their hearts is a disease (of doubt and hypocrisy) and Allah has increased their disease. A painful torment is theirs because they used to tell lies.

11. And when it is said to them: "Make not mischief on the earth," they say: "We are only peacemakers."

12. Verily! They are the ones who make mischief, but they perceive not.

don't get fooled, they aren't, those that do what you describe. How could you beat the one you love there and then? haha.

[BitMos]

A very important point about the support for Palestinians... the americans stole the land of the Natives...

to put in back in the context (or conquest) the (fake) Muslims don't accept to return the stolen land to it's owner.

[Beliathon]

There is always the choice between anger and curiosity, vengeance and forgiveness, selfishness and compassion.

Life in twenty first century is going to be getting pretty awkward for the religious fanatic, because we are building god as machine.

Religion: "Let's maim and kill each other to prove which god is greater."
Science: "Let's build a real (machine) god and ask him some good questions. If we're lucky we may get an orders of magnitude more accurate description of the universe and its laws."

[BitMos]

kill them all, if they are natural born citizen of the united states America, for they did to me, and others, there is no forgiving, but the wipe out of a people.

edit: only the Natives, easy to recognize, they are warriors, and between real it's easy to see.

[jaysabi]

You were on the verge of being reasonable for several posts, then you left for a few days and came back with BS like don't got time to read, so here's a bunch of strawmen and garbage diatribes. It's disappointing this thread turned out like this. I was hoping for something far more enlightened.

I mean, you could really call me out for saying "don't got time to read" by quoting such a post, but you can't because it's not there.

I'm behind on this thread, so I'll just assume the past few pages is a lot of "Gee I wish the U.S. didn't have a veto so the U.N. could kill the Jews."

I was paraphrasing of course, but there's what you requested: You indicating you were dismissing everything without reading it.

Any fair minded person reading this thread will see I responded "reasonably" to people who made reasonable posts. I responded dismissively to people who repeat nonsense while being utterly incapable of comprehending information contrary to what they already believe (e.g., redzeronazi).

I consider myself fair-minded, but I do not agree with this representation. You have responded reasonably to some posts, and have been very dismissive of others. Reasonable people make their points with the aim of convincing the other side, not convincing themselves how right they are. As you indicate, some people here are not capable of changing their worldview, but take a look at your attitude here and realize you are just as guilty of that as the people you rail against and become a dick to for failing to change their views. When you get frustrated at people holding other viewpoints, you are prone to hyperbole and a violent mentality, but you seem to think that because you view the world as 'Jew hating' that it is justified. Fair minded people disagree with violence.

Here are the most recent examples of you exemplifying this behavior and building strawmen so you can claim victory, not further this discussion:

To clarify about my missing post: I wrote a massive wall of text replying to everything in great detail and demolishing all arguments against the legitimacy and in favor of the right of return. The post mention the KKK was meant to be a clarification of a small part of that post. I probably clicked "edit" instead of "quote" and edited by massive post to almost nothing.

Since presenting claims without evidence is popular in this thread, I'll just expect you to accept that I won the argument completely in that lost post. You're welcome.

Holy shit. I argued so well in this thread that I became a "Full Member" and get to have an avatar. In honor of the thread I thought I'd remember a very special day in Palestinian history: September 11, 2001. What a happy day for them.

Somehow I totally fucked up my last post. This is all that's left. Fuck it. I'm not typing it again. Short version: You're all fucking lying Jew hating Nazis.

And why are the "Palestinian people oppressed"? Because they're fucking terrorists! Every chance they have ever been given to help make peace they have used to make war. It's like saying the KKK is oppressed, which they actually kind of are, but I am 100% in favor of the "oppression" of violent racists. I'm funny that way. (The KKK was also formed as resistance to occupation, by the way.)

Just to clarify in case any of you are KKK supporters. While I hate the KKK, I in no way mean to suggest they're as bad as the Palestinians.

If Israel is destroyed, I will devote the rest of my life to the extermination of the human species. Any species that goes down this road again less than 100 years after the holocaust needs to be fucking wiped out.

You don't come across as fair-minded. This collection of posts is just garbage, but the difference between them and someone else posting similar crap on the opposite side is you claim to know better about having a useful discussion:

A useful discussion about this issue would involve making a sequence of clear, unambiguous true-or-false style statements and having people who disagree indicate which they think are true and which they think are false. That's the first step to determining the nature of a disagreement. I tried to do this. Most of the participants on the thread ignored these statements and ignored clarifying questions I tried to ask. They continued to simply assert that there was some country called Palestine (there wasn't) that was "illegally invaded" by Jews (rather than there being waves of immigration) and that there was some kind of unspecified "agreement" that Israel made and is not holding to. I challenge anyone to simply count the number of clear statements I've made and clear questions I've asked that have been completely ignored. The people expecting me to respond to them when they're not responding to me are the ones being unreasonable.

In the end things will probably work out for everyone. The Jew haters will get their dead Jews and I'll get to exterminate the Nazi human species.

So are you contributing to a useful discussion here, or are all those posts I quoted from you not constructive? You have very good points when you're following the advice I bolded above, so let's get back to that and cut out all that shit you keep posting.

[bensam12345]

I think both should stop fighting and learn to live together, fighting only results in the loss of lives of so many people. The fight is literally going on for 1000's of years this should come to an end and people should be able to live peacefully, when i see the news i feel very sad to see a dead Palestinian baby or a dead Israeli kid, it is really sad and very bad, whatever is happening, people, grow up and stop fighting, you won't get anything out of it but just lose lives and have sorrow.

[bryant.coleman]

I think both should stop fighting and learn to live together, fighting only results in the loss of lives of so many people. The fight is literally going on for 1000's of years this should come to an end and people should be able to live peacefully, when i see the news i feel very sad to see a dead Palestinian baby or a dead Israeli kid, it is really sad and very bad, whatever is happening, people, grow up and stop fighting, you won't get anything out of it but just lose lives and have sorrow.

The fighting has been going on for thousands of years? At least in Israel / Palestine, that is not the case. Jewish immigrants started to move to Palestine only in the 20th century (esp. after the WW2). The conflict started after that. Before the WW2, more than 90% of the Jews were residing in Europe. Hitler killed more than half of them, and the remaining migrated to other regions, including Israel.

[bensam12345]

I think both should stop fighting and learn to live together, fighting only results in the loss of lives of so many people. The fight is literally going on for 1000's of years this should come to an end and people should be able to live peacefully, when i see the news i feel very sad to see a dead Palestinian baby or a dead Israeli kid, it is really sad and very bad, whatever is happening, people, grow up and stop fighting, you won't get anything out of it but just lose lives and have sorrow.

The fighting has been going on for thousands of years? At least in Israel / Palestine, that is not the case. Jewish immigrants started to move to Palestine only in the 20th century (esp. after the WW2). The conflict started after that. Before the WW2, more than 90% of the Jews were residing in Europe. Hitler killed more than half of them, and the remaining migrated to other regions, including Israel.

Yes the fight is going on for 1000's of years, that period Palistine was called Philistine, and this is not something which just sprout out a century ago, but as the times have changed, people should stop fighting each other, I could not get much graphical charts for the historical time line of war between Israel and Palistine as most were just theoratical but was just able to find couple

[J. J. Phillips]

You were on the verge of being reasonable for several posts, then you left for a few days and came back with BS like don't got time to read, so here's a bunch of strawmen and garbage diatribes. It's disappointing this thread turned out like this. I was hoping for something far more enlightened.

I mean, you could really call me out for saying "don't got time to read" by quoting such a post, but you can't because it's not there.

I'm behind on this thread, so I'll just assume the past few pages is a lot of "Gee I wish the U.S. didn't have a veto so the U.N. could kill the Jews."

I was paraphrasing of course, but there's what you requested: You indicating you were dismissing everything without reading it.

You modified my quote. Here is the original:

You were on the verge of being reasonable for several posts, then you left for a few days and came back with BS like don't got time to read, so here's a bunch of strawmen and garbage diatribes. It's disappointing this thread turned out like this. I was hoping for something far more enlightened.

Your critique would be more convincing if there were a post somewhere in the thread stating, for example, some relevant action the U.N. could take if it weren't for U.S. influence. I mean, you could really call me out for saying "don't got time to read" by quoting such a post, but you can't because it's not there.

To me it's quite clear that when I wrote "quoting such a post" I was referring to a hypothetical post by someone else giving some "relevant action the U.N. could take if it weren't for U.S. influence." Instead you took away the first sentence to make it look like I was asking for you to quote a post in which I was dismissing without reading. If you did this on purpose, that's some A+ dishonesty. If you really didn't understand what I was asking for, then we are -- quite literally -- writing in different languages.

A useful discussion about this issue would involve making a sequence of clear, unambiguous true-or-false style statements and having people who disagree indicate which they think are true and which they think are false. That's the first step to determining the nature of a disagreement. I tried to do this. Most of the participants on the thread ignored these statements and ignored clarifying questions I tried to ask. They continued to simply assert that there was some country called Palestine (there wasn't) that was "illegally invaded" by Jews (rather than there being waves of immigration) and that there was some kind of unspecified "agreement" that Israel made and is not holding to. I challenge anyone to simply count the number of clear statements I've made and clear questions I've asked that have been completely ignored. The people expecting me to respond to them when they're not responding to me are the ones being unreasonable.

In the end things will probably work out for everyone. The Jew haters will get their dead Jews and I'll get to exterminate the Nazi human species.

So are you contributing to a useful discussion here, or are all those posts I quoted from you not constructive? You have very good points when you're following the advice I bolded above, so let's get back to that and cut out all that shit you keep posting.

I already did my part by putting a number of labelled clear true-or-false style statements and either indicating whether I believed them to be true-or-false, often with explanations as to why. If other people were interested in having a useful discussion, they would take some of these statements and say whether they believe them to be true or false and give some explanation. Their explanations could involve new true-or-false statements to consider and discuss. The fact that no one is doing this supports my belief that this thread is not really about discussing the conflict. The thread is about demonizing Jews.

There are apparently a lot of people on bitcointalk who think it's very important to keep Jew hatred threads high on the Politics and Society forum, from this one to the "Jews did 9/11" one. Something is rotten here.

[jaysabi]

You were on the verge of being reasonable for several posts, then you left for a few days and came back with BS like don't got time to read, so here's a bunch of strawmen and garbage diatribes. It's disappointing this thread turned out like this. I was hoping for something far more enlightened.

I mean, you could really call me out for saying "don't got time to read" by quoting such a post, but you can't because it's not there.

I'm behind on this thread, so I'll just assume the past few pages is a lot of "Gee I wish the U.S. didn't have a veto so the U.N. could kill the Jews."

I was paraphrasing of course, but there's what you requested: You indicating you were dismissing everything without reading it.

You modified my quote. Here is the original:

You were on the verge of being reasonable for several posts, then you left for a few days and came back with BS like don't got time to read, so here's a bunch of strawmen and garbage diatribes. It's disappointing this thread turned out like this. I was hoping for something far more enlightened.

Your critique would be more convincing if there were a post somewhere in the thread stating, for example, some relevant action the U.N. could take if it weren't for U.S. influence. I mean, you could really call me out for saying "don't got time to read" by quoting such a post, but you can't because it's not there.

To me it's quite clear that when I wrote "quoting such a post" I was referring to a hypothetical post by someone else giving some "relevant action the U.N. could take if it weren't for U.S. influence." Instead you took away the first sentence to make it look like I was asking for you to quote a post in which I was dismissing without reading. If you did this on purpose, that's some A+ dishonesty. If you really didn't understand what I was asking for, then we are -- quite literally -- writing in different languages.

Yes, I thought you were speaking of two different topics, and I didn't understand how the first sentence applied to the second, so I edited out the part about the UN because I hadn't said anything about the UN. For that matter, I still don't understand your point there or how it is a response to what I said, but in the interest of getting back to something more meaningful, am willing just to chalk it up as my loss.

A useful discussion about this issue would involve making a sequence of clear, unambiguous true-or-false style statements and having people who disagree indicate which they think are true and which they think are false. That's the first step to determining the nature of a disagreement. I tried to do this. Most of the participants on the thread ignored these statements and ignored clarifying questions I tried to ask. They continued to simply assert that there was some country called Palestine (there wasn't) that was "illegally invaded" by Jews (rather than there being waves of immigration) and that there was some kind of unspecified "agreement" that Israel made and is not holding to. I challenge anyone to simply count the number of clear statements I've made and clear questions I've asked that have been completely ignored. The people expecting me to respond to them when they're not responding to me are the ones being unreasonable.

In the end things will probably work out for everyone. The Jew haters will get their dead Jews and I'll get to exterminate the Nazi human species.

So are you contributing to a useful discussion here, or are all those posts I quoted from you not constructive? You have very good points when you're following the advice I bolded above, so let's get back to that and cut out all that shit you keep posting.

I already did my part by putting a number of labelled clear true-or-false style statements and either indicating whether I believed them to be true-or-false, often with explanations as to why. If other people were interested in having a useful discussion, they would take some of these statements and say whether they believe them to be true or false and give some explanation. Their explanations could involve new true-or-false statements to consider and discuss. The fact that no one is doing this supports my belief that this thread is not really about discussing the conflict. The thread is about demonizing Jews.

There are apparently a lot of people on bitcointalk who think it's very important to keep Jew hatred threads high on the Politics and Society forum, from this one to the "Jews did 9/11" one. Something is rotten here.

Yes, I am disappointed in the lack of response to those instances. At the same time, look what does get responded to: intentionally inflammatory posts which make it easy to ignore the quality ones. The same way you get caught up on the idiot who posts garbage like "International Zionism Did 911–23 facts." If someone is clearly an idiot, don't even engage them, their ideas certainly aren't worth validating as something that needs to be defended against.

Hopefully getting back to something useful, I would like to ask a few questions to get your views on them:

1) Do the Palestinians have any legitimate claim to an independent state or should the state of Palestine never exist?

2) Do Jews have the ultimate right (as in it can pre-empt all other claims) to Jerusalem? (I understand the city to be claimed by Palestinians and Israelis as a capital.) That is, does either group have a sole claim to the city, or should/can it exist as a capital of two independent nations?

3) Do you believe the expansion of Jewish settlements into what the Palestinians claim is Palestinian lands is justified? (Or do you believe Palestinians have no legitimate land claims, so the question is moot?)

4) And finally, if there should be a two-state solution, what border should Israel occupy now? Was the 1947 plan that was devised by the UN inherently flawed or biased against Israel, or was it only the Arab wars against Israel that made the original plan unworkable?

I'm just looking for brief responses initially and we can get into more color and the justification of the answers after that (if we hold different views on something). Mostly I'm asking because I'm trying to figure out what I think, but I don't know the things I don't know.

[BitMos]

I think both should stop fighting and learn to live together, fighting only results in the loss of lives of so many people. The fight is literally going on for 1000's of years this should come to an end and people should be able to live peacefully, when i see the news i feel very sad to see a dead Palestinian baby or a dead Israeli kid, it is really sad and very bad, whatever is happening, people, grow up and stop fighting, you won't get anything out of it but just lose lives and have sorrow.

The fighting has been going on for thousands of years? At least in Israel / Palestine, that is not the case. Jewish immigrants started to move to Palestine only in the 20th century (esp. after the WW2). The conflict started after that. Before the WW2, more than 90% of the Jews were residing in Europe. Hitler killed more than half of them, and the remaining migrated to other regions, including Israel.

Yes the fight is going on for 1000's of years, that period Palistine was called Philistine, and this is not something which just sprout out a century ago, but as the times have changed, people should stop fighting each other, I could not get much graphical charts for the historical time line of war between Israel and Palistine as most were just theoratical but was just able to find couple

all of this because Titus had to restore Law and Order to the gateway to the wheat, and cotton, and whine and many others miracles of the Nile... and you know it was fortold, what 70 years earlier... but the greed of the occupiers of the temple was stronger... they paid, more than they ever imagined...

picture it yourself... the first night, when everything is setup, particularly the catapults, and he said something like this:

1/2 ration whine and bread before the show

they asked : what show?

he said : let's put fireballs on the catapults, it will be fun, and of course a full ration of whine and bread,

they all laugh, knowing that it would be fun.

[RodeoX]

I like Palestine. Everyone I met there was kind and helpful. If you want to see for yourself stay on the Palestine side when visiting Jerusalem. The National hotel has good prices and is a nice location for walking the city.

https://nationalhotel-jerusalem.com/

[J. J. Phillips]

Hopefully getting back to something useful, I would like to ask a few questions to get your views on them:

1) Do the Palestinians have any legitimate claim to an independent state or should the state of Palestine never exist?

2) Do Jews have the ultimate right (as in it can pre-empt all other claims) to Jerusalem? (I understand the city to be claimed by Palestinians and Israelis as a capital.) That is, does either group have a sole claim to the city, or should/can it exist as a capital of two independent nations?

3) Do you believe the expansion of Jewish settlements into what the Palestinians claim is Palestinian lands is justified? (Or do you believe Palestinians have no legitimate land claims, so the question is moot?)

4) And finally, if there should be a two-state solution, what border should Israel occupy now? Was the 1947 plan that was devised by the UN inherently flawed or biased against Israel, or was it only the Arab wars against Israel that made the original plan unworkable?

I'm just looking for brief responses initially and we can get into more color and the justification of the answers after that (if we hold different views on something). Mostly I'm asking because I'm trying to figure out what I think, but I don't know the things I don't know.

I'll try to be brief, but it's a challenge.

1a. Do the Palestinians have any legitimate claim to an independent state?

I'll answer this "no," but for somewhat technical reasons. "Legitimate" seems too related to law or legal authority, and I don't believe there's any legal authority through which the Palestinians have a "legitimate claim" to an independent state. Someone else could answer it "yes" by pointing to U.N. general assembly resolutions, but I don't accept the U.N. as any kind of legal authority. It's reasonable for Palestinians to want to have an independent state, and maybe that's more in the spirit of what you're asking. I'm skeptical that this is the primary desire of Palestinians.

1b. Should the state of Palestine never exist?

If a state can be established that isn't regularly attacking Israel, I don't have an objection. I have serious doubts about whether such a state can live in peace with Israel. I don't think much would change if it were recognized as a state. There would still be regular attacks, responses, and recriminations.

2. Do Jews have the ultimate right (as in it can pre-empt all other claims) to Jerusalem? (I understand the city to be claimed by Palestinians and Israelis as a capital.) That is, does either group have a sole claim to the city, or should/can it exist as a capital of two independent nations?

I don't think Jews have an ultimate right to Jerusalem. I can't think of any situation where I would say an ethnic or religious group has a "right" to some land. As a practical matter, Israel will not give it up. (It's as unrealistic as Turkey giving up Istanbul.) However, the deal offered in 2000 shows some Israelis are willing to give up some parts of Jerusalem to be a capital of Palestine. I'm skeptical that this would work in practice, but I have no objection to it being tried.

3) Do you believe the expansion of Jewish settlements into what the Palestinians claim is Palestinian lands is justified? (Or do you believe Palestinians have no legitimate land claims, so the question is moot?)

While I don't believe the Palestinians have "legitimate" land claims, I can still try to answer the first question. The expansion of Jewish settlements into new parts of the West Bank makes the effective land area for a future Palestinian state smaller. I think this is a reasonable price the Palestinians should pay for decades of committing, encouraging and rewarding terrorism. Imagine there were a magical force field that determined the border, and that every time there were a Palestinian terrorist attack on Israel that force field expanded outward by one meter. I would consider that a good thing. I would feel differently if Palestinians discouraged terrorism and punished terrorists.

4. And finally, if there should be a two-state solution, what border should Israel occupy now? Was the 1947 plan that was devised by the UN inherently flawed or biased against Israel, or was it only the Arab wars against Israel that made the original plan unworkable?

The peace deal offered in 2000 gives a realistic idea: something close to the 1967 borders but with land swaps to account for Jerusalem and the "facts on the ground." I don't know if the 1947 partition plan was workable in 1947, but I seriously don't think it is today. There has been too much population growth and movement since then, in addition to other issues.