Granted Yeshuv leaders had grand ideas before statehood. It would be more impressive if you had some public quotes of the Israeli government after the founding of the nation in 1948 that it was a stated policy to gain all the territory of Palestine, as in the PLO Charter, or the Hamas Covenant. If you do I'd be glad to read them. Don't bother with Begin after 1977. Don't bother with Gandi and tranfer.
Why not bother with Begin after 77?
The truth is, Israel's aspirations (even if not their plans) have been to enlarge the state, when presented with the opportunity to do so, they took it.
I am under the opinion that the US supports Israeli retention of Ariel at least, which I am pretty sure was settled after 1967. If all is illegal, then how could there be any support.
Realpolitik. The truth is the settlement blocks are too large to move, even the Palestinians largely accept this (and did in negotiation in 2000). The dispute in 2000 was how much land Israel would swap for the settlement blocks, the Palestinians wanted a 1:1 swap, Israel offered much less.
Like it or not, religion, even for "secular" Arab or Jew, is still some part of the picture. Biblical promises to Israel may be overridden, including by Chief Rabbis who cite Pikuah Nefesh, but to say for example that Hebron, burial place of Abraham, is off-limits to Jews, is pretty difficult to swallow. That is why I think most Israelis have some strong feelings about the West Bank (a lot less about Gaza).
Oh, I agree with you. Israelis, by and large,
want to keep the West Bank. They might agree that they
need to evacuate it, but there's little enthusiasm for the that. The enthusiasm is on the part of the settlers who want to keep the land, far more passionately than the moderates want to leave it.
So although the majority might favour leaving the West Bank, they do so reluctantly, whereas there is nothing reluctant about the right's desire to hold on to the territories.
I don't know if he is in a relevant line of work or he just happens to have the "complete book of zionist crimes" handy, but he usually has his facts straight - the selection and completeness of facts is something to argue about, as well as conclusions.
No big book of Zionist crimes, I'm afraid.
The selection of facts is down to the fact that I am arguing on a BB, not trying to present a balanced view. Arguing against people who's basic premise is "Jews = right, Arabs = evil child eating monsters" requires presenting facts to the contrary, not a balanced case.
Note I'm not accusing you or Hacksaw of presenting such a case, it tends to be those with less intimate knowledge of the subject who have such a black and white view.
After 1948, the only attempt to capture land was in the Suez crisis where Israel did the dirty fighting for France and Britain (we learned not to repeat that mistake again).
Israel didn't really need much persuasion, though.
There was certainly a desire by the Israeli government and military to occupy the Sinai, they were happy to join with Britain and France to that end.
1967 war was far from an expansion attempt.
No, but it wasn't the Israel = good, Egypt = bad that it's often made out to be, either.
The truth is both sides were "up for it" in 1967, and both felt they could gain from the war.
I was surprised to read this comming from a newspaper like Haaretz ,I was just reacting to the sentence disregarding the context I didn't had.
The quote from Shragai does contain the context, it's not part of a much larger passage that changes the context.
It was from a written Q&A session in Haaretz, where readers send in questions by email and a guest specialist of the week answers them.
The full question and answer was:
Q How many settlers do you think would persist in their colonialist endeavor if the Israel government simply refused to subsidize and protect them?
A We are not talking of colonialism. The morality of "settlement" after 1967, is equivalent to the morality of settling the land after 1948. Morally, historically and religiously, the right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, takes precedence over the right of other peoples here. The internal dispute within Israel is over what is possible within the framework of the security and international reality that the country faces.
I'm not sure if Shragai supports the pullout, his tone in reports I've read recently is deliberately neutral on the subject, but reading between the lines I think he is against it.
The point isn't support for the pullout or not, it's that he feels Israel has a right to the territories, and I suspect that is a pretty common opinion in Israel.
I was there in 1983. Were you? Did you walk the post? Did you help clean the mess from some "Palestine who Blew himself up" after being paid?
In 1983? That was Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, the Lebanese branch, and nothing to do with the Palestinians.
The first Palestinian suicide bombing, as far as I know, was in 1993, and was in response to Baruch Goldstein's massacre of Arabs at prayer.
Lets see, the last time I heard there have been NO Israelis blowing themselves up for AL?who
Off hand I can't think of any Palestinians who have, either. Al Qadea are otably absent from the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, they have attempted to set up a presence in Gaza but haven't got very far.
Curious as to something.
Instead of the army forcing these people out of the territories.
Why not make them the offer of paying them to leave just as they are doing now.
But give them the option to stay. But with the understanding that if they stay. They are on their own and do so at their own peril.
Because there is no way the Israeli government could sit by whilst Palestinians and Israeli settlers fight it out, with Israelis getting shot. Public pressure in Israel would not allow it.
At the current birth rate it s estimated the Israeli Palestinians will outnumber Jewish Israelis within the next 20-30 years.
What does Israel do when the Palestinians reach the kind of numbers where they can demand the right to one man one vote?
According to some sources, Jews are already a minority in territory ruled by Israel. Arabs aren't quite a majority either, because there are other minorities present as well.
But to give it would mean the end of a solely Jewish State.
What do they do?
The only answer I can see is to do as it says in Genesis and "Be Fruitful and multiply" and outbreed them and/or call out to the world for all Jews to come home.
They've been doing that for a long time, the problem is the Palestinians breed faster.
The richer a population group is, the less children they have. Poorer groups have very large families. The Palestinians are very poor by Israeli standards (about a tenth the per capita income), Israeli Arabs are fairly poor by Israeli Jewish standards.
And the other part of this dilema is that the highest Jewish birthrates in israel are amongst the ultra orthodox Jews, who by and large don't do much army service, and mostly don't work in the private sector either, but live on large amounts of state aid.
Looks like a no win situation to me.
so what do they do?
They do what Sharon has just begun to do. Pull out of Gaza, then the West Bank. That cuts the number of Arabs in Israeli territory down to just the Israeli Arabs, who already have citizenship (and the vote, and other rights as Israeli citizens), who make up about 20% of the Israeli population.
That will ensure a Jewish majority for a very long time to come.
well... this may be putting too fine a point on it but.. I think if your country is invaded and then you have to occupy their land during the war to win it... then you are entitled to something.
You do know Israel was not invaded in 1967, don't you?
