From Ted Belman
As I understand your opposition to the settlements, you are against all the settlements (perhaps only some of them) because you believe that every settlement built, makes the chances of peace more remote. In Pres Reagan’s words, the settlements are “an obstacle to peace”. Correct me if I am wrong.
Certainly you are entitled to such a view. Is a corallary to this view, that if no settlements were built then we would have peace now? Probably you don’t go that far, but at least you believe that the settlements are an obstacle to peace.
I am sure that you also believe that there are other obstacles to peace such as the tenents of Islam or more specifically the opposition to the existance of Israel as a Jewish state as expressed in the Charters of both Fatah and Hamas.
You are also aware that the people driving the international BDS movement share the goals of these charters.
Whether you split hairs or not, by calling for a boycott, you are aligning yourself with this movement and its pernicious goals. You are thus participating in the demonization and deligitimation of Israel even though you just want to prevent settlement construction.
You zealously defend the right of free speech as intrinsic to a democracy arguing that when Israel limits free speech she is destroying her democracy and as you argued, no state can survive long term that isn’t a democracy. I take no quarrel with this in the abstract but all states limit free speech to varying degrees and no one argues they are not democracies. Democracies have many laws to protect themselves from destruction. Obviously the defense of the country takes precident over the right of free speech. For some reason you believe that you have the right to attack your country in the name of free speech and that your country doesn’t have the right to defend itself. On this, we disagree.
You probably accept Obama’s proposal for negotiations based on ’67 lines with mutually agreed swaps because such swaps would allow Israel to keep some of the settlement blocs. In so doing you ignore the probability that the PA would not agree to any specific swaps thus leaving Israel with the ’67 lines and with no resolution.. You also ignore our legal right to “secure and recognized borders” otherwise known as defensible borders and you ignore that the PA doesn’t want to get a state if it is not a “phase” on the path to destroying Israel.
Netanyahu has recently said that there is nothing wrong with building settlements because some would be on our side of the agreed border and some would be on the other side of the border. In other words new settlement construction is not an obstacle to peace.
I would go one further and say that if anything promotes peace, it is the settlement construction, because it is the only thing that puts time on our side and puts pressure on the Arabs to make peace now for fear of losing even more.
Finally there is nothing to suggest to me that an end of conflict agreement will ever be acheived by making concessions or at all. The conflict will go on forever. Thus Israel must not relinquish any land it now controls. She must stop pursuing peace. Let the Arabs pursue peace for a change.
Caroline Glick is right when she says either the Arabs will control Judea and Samaria which will lead to our destruction or we will control it. She advocates annexation of all of it. Based on history, which you have argued teaches us how intrinsic democracy is to a states survival, the Arabs have proven themselves implaccably against the existence of Israel. Should this not teach us to accept this reality and move on?
Victor very well said
To the one person that seem oblivious to facts.
Having lived in Albuquerque, NM, when working for Uncle Sam as a Senior Staffer, Military Avionics, I mingled with Native Americans. I am Jewish, a Levite, but our family posts a remote Native American genetic link.
South American that is. I was received by the Tribes as one of them. We met and stayed with them several times.
They are just as indigenous to their Land as we are to ours in Eretz Israel. They much as we have been for thousands of years, were pillaged, murdered, sent into the “reservations”. That later to this day operating under direct control of the US Ministry of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The so called “pal-arabs” are not a people but a fabrication akin to the PILTDOWN MAN also fabricated by the Brutish. They were sent here to steal land and murder. They are in no way comparable to the Native Americans.
That the Romans, Bizantine Empire, Turks, Crusaders or Brutish, the “un” or anyone else assigned our heritage to others will not be accepted.
You do not really believe that the fellow with the birth certificate will be allowed to “force” against our rights, do you?
There might be some TEMPORARY gyrations but the eventual status of our Lands will be as THE LAND OF ISRAEL.
And further, Cathy81. Tell us all about this fictional “DNA testing”. Where was it done? When?
Who did it? Where can the results be seen? Name the bozo who told you this fairy tale.
CATHY81……..WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. When Europeans came to America there were ONLY Native Americans living here. Not so in Israel.
This was their land, and went through many ownerships and govenments, but there was ALWAYS a significan Jewish presence in the Holy
Land. So take your “home-made” theories and stuff them where the sun don’t shine.
@ keelie:
@ KEELIE, your #4 does not make sense. the natives of America should be compared to the israeli people, since they are the historical owners of the land right? so Palestinians, are the people who supposedly came after and took that land and lived in it for centuries just like the europeans who migrated to the US and canada. so imagine if the indians woke up one day and asked to take back all their historical lands and kicked out everyone back to europe. THATS a more accurate comparison. BESIDES TO ALL YOU ZIONISTS, a DNA testing done on a large populaton of palestinian, actually showed that many of them are jews by ethniticity and converts to islam or christianity. unlike many israelis today living in israel who are jews by conversion but think for some unknown reason, that they have more of a right to the land of israel than a palestinian. THAT IS LAUGHABLE.
Clinton,
I am glad you understand what I am urging all of us to do. Words do have consequences, never more so that when we are engaged in combatting those who wish to demonize and elegitimize the embattled Jewish state. Sometimes the pen is mightier than the sword.
Victor, I thought about what u said and I never thought about it that way, u are right I apologize, I love Israel and the Jewish people very much, I stand corrected and I know u werent just pointing it out to me, and I appreciate u Victor pointing it out thanks^_^
My only peeve is that yet again that word, “settlements” is used, which in the English language is considered a pejorative term implying an alien presence in another people’s land. That, of course, is totally false as the Jews are the native and indigenous people of Eretz Yisrael.
I have pleaded over and over again that Israelis and pro-Israelis must use the most positive words in the lexicon when describing, in the English language, Jewish communities – whether they are in Judea and Smaria or anywhere else in the Land of Israel.
We must call them villages or towns, not settlements. It’s very simple to do, but it seems very difficult, especially for far too many Israelis, to comprehend. Ironically, the same people who habitually and without thinking use the term “settlements” to characterize Jewish communities, automatically describe Arab communities as “villages” when, in many instances, the Arabs can trace their ancestry back only to the massive and illegal entry into British Mandatory Palestine in the early years of the 20th century. Many Jewish villages, on the other hand, are built close to or on the very sites of Jewish towns or villages from biblical times.
So please, please everyone of you who love and support Israel, stop characterizing Jewish communities as “settlements.” Everytime you do so, you delegitimize the Jewish people in their biblical and ancestral land and give aid and comfort to Israel’s enemies.
Agreed the palestians are going to gripe, so I say Israel keep building the settlements, none of the land belongs to the arabs and that is all that palestians are arabs, the land belongs to the Jewish people.
@Bert –
The question if far to logic for the JINO’s to handle it.
It was told to ancient Israel that they should “possess” the land. Perhaps that same edict is relavent today? Stop building? No, No!! Build baby build should be the M O of the day.
First rule for pro-Israel people, don’t waste your time writing letters to your leftist friends about Israel. Logic does not apply here. The Palestinians have it bad so, by definition, Israel is the bad guy. That’s it. It is irrelevant that the Palestinians and Arab world created this mess for themselves.
Anything that upsets the Palestinians is bad. That’s why settlements are bad.
Back to the real world. Screw the leftists. Just keep building more settlements. The Palestinians don’t want peace, so they might as well pay the price.
In May 1967 there were NO so-called settlements and NO so-called occupation. And that led to peace. Right? How come leftists do not address this question?
Caroline Glick is right when she says either the Arabs will control Judea and Samaria which will lead to our destruction or we will control it. She advocates annexation of all of it. Based on history, which you have argued teaches us how intrinsic democracy is to a states survival, the Arabs have proven themselves implaccably against the existence of Israel. Should this not teach us to accept this reality and move on?
1. When you consider the minute size of Israel, the argument against settlements is laughable.
2. When you consider the fact that the “settlers” are farmers trying to upgrade the land into being arable (no pun intended), the argument against settlements is laughable.
3. When you consider that right now most of the land in the West Bank is desolate, having been left that way for centuries, the argument against settlements is laughable.
4. When you consider that a huge number of anti-Israel folks are living in places taken from their native peoples, such as the US and Canada, the argument against settlements is laughable.
Most settlements that have ever been established in this world, have been established for the purpose of upgrading the land and hence the condition of the people living in it.
To your leftist friend: “Live with it, and mind your own business.”
agreed blandoatmeal
The Arabs have been fighting to prevent Israeli Jewish settlement since before 1947. They’ve been fighting, and losing. Too bad for them — They chose wrongly, and they need to learn to live with it.