Another way to look at it, the Jews that left the Arab countries for the Palestine left an area of real estate 4 times the size of their current holdings. According to the UN the current worth of the land left behind would be worth $300 billion.
The dysfunctional relationship has obviously extended a lot farther back in time that the modern era. The dispute started in ancient history, only now its extended into the nuclear age. If religion didn't exist, how could you tell each other apart.
Please, Try to Make a Lovely Peaceful World
Which is why looking into the past for justification on either side is only going to backfire and cause only more disagreement. Whenever someone brings forth some past right to a place, someone else is certain to bring forth an even older one and so the whole thing goes in circles.The dysfunctional relationship has obviously extended a lot farther back in time that the modern era. The dispute started in ancient history, only now its extended into the nuclear age. If religion didn't exist, how could you tell each other apart.
Instead one has to take the here and now and work with it.
Of course you can never find a modus vivendi as long as emotions and religion are put in place of reason and pragmatism. Unfortunately emotions and religion bring more votes than reason. They allow to polarize and rally the masses.
Last edited by Skipjack on Sun Nov 06, 2011 11:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Aslan,
This may come as a shock to you but I'm an ardent Zionist. Let me tell you a little history that you may not know - The House of Saud once welcomed the movement of Jews to Palestine because it was obvious they were improving conditions there.
In the early days Jews bought the land - often at very high prices for land that was considered worthless. That continued until about '48.
The real troubles began post WW1 when the British got hold of the land. They installed the Mufti of Jerusalem in office. He started the wars against the Jews in the area (Hebron massacre) and later allied himself with Hitler (he raised two divisions of Muslim SS) in WW2.
The Nazis spread a lot of anti-Jew propaganda in the ME in an effort to defeat the Brits. It echoes there to this day.
The "theft" of land didn't begin until the Arabs started making wars against the Jews. Normally when you lose a war you lose territory. However, since the Arabs in general haven't made peace with the Jews the war goes on - so no loss is permanent to the Arabs.
Neither Egypt - which lost Gaza, nor Jordan which lost the West Bank/Judea-Samaria wants their lost territory back. So the Jews are stuck with it until the Arabs in those territories decide to make peace.
Recent polling shows that the Arabs "stuck" in Israel proper don't care to be ruled by either Hamas or Fatah. As bad as they have it under the Israelis they prefer to be ruled by Jews vs their "brothers".
The only Arab democracy in the ME was imposed on the Arabs by the US in the recent war. And the Americans are leaving. We shall see if Iraq remains democratic.
Here is what our General Patton had to say about the ME.
Here is something written by an oil geologist about the future of your country:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... tlook.html
It is not hopeful.
Do the Israelis have totally clean hands? Of course not. No government does. Are they cleaner than their neighbors? Generally.
Think of this and tell me if you are hopeful about peace: "Mein Kampf" is still a best seller in the ME.
This may come as a shock to you but I'm an ardent Zionist. Let me tell you a little history that you may not know - The House of Saud once welcomed the movement of Jews to Palestine because it was obvious they were improving conditions there.
In the early days Jews bought the land - often at very high prices for land that was considered worthless. That continued until about '48.
The real troubles began post WW1 when the British got hold of the land. They installed the Mufti of Jerusalem in office. He started the wars against the Jews in the area (Hebron massacre) and later allied himself with Hitler (he raised two divisions of Muslim SS) in WW2.
The Nazis spread a lot of anti-Jew propaganda in the ME in an effort to defeat the Brits. It echoes there to this day.
The "theft" of land didn't begin until the Arabs started making wars against the Jews. Normally when you lose a war you lose territory. However, since the Arabs in general haven't made peace with the Jews the war goes on - so no loss is permanent to the Arabs.
Neither Egypt - which lost Gaza, nor Jordan which lost the West Bank/Judea-Samaria wants their lost territory back. So the Jews are stuck with it until the Arabs in those territories decide to make peace.
Recent polling shows that the Arabs "stuck" in Israel proper don't care to be ruled by either Hamas or Fatah. As bad as they have it under the Israelis they prefer to be ruled by Jews vs their "brothers".
The only Arab democracy in the ME was imposed on the Arabs by the US in the recent war. And the Americans are leaving. We shall see if Iraq remains democratic.
Here is what our General Patton had to say about the ME.
The Persians are not Arab. The "Arabs" now ruling your country have taken it backwards. And because of mismanagement your oil is running out. Because of mismanagement the Egyptians will soon be starving."To me it seems certain that the fatalistic teachings of Muhammad and the utter degradation of women is the outstanding cause for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700, while we have kept on developing" -- General George S. Patton: The War as I Knew it
Here is something written by an oil geologist about the future of your country:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... tlook.html
It is not hopeful.
Do the Israelis have totally clean hands? Of course not. No government does. Are they cleaner than their neighbors? Generally.
Think of this and tell me if you are hopeful about peace: "Mein Kampf" is still a best seller in the ME.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
This is also in accordance with my information.This may come as a shock to you but I'm an ardent Zionist. Let me tell you a little history that you may not know - The House of Saud once welcomed the movement of Jews to Palestine because it was obvious they were improving conditions there.
In the early days Jews bought the land - often at very high prices for land that was considered worthless. That continued until about '48.
The jewish people have turned mostly "worthless" desert into a wonderful country.
Amen and Sela.Skipjack wrote:Which is why looking into the past for justification on either side is only going to backfire and cause only more disagreement. Whenever someone brings forth some past right to a place, someone else is certain to bring forth an even older one and so the whole thing goes in circles.The dysfunctional relationship has obviously extended a lot farther back in time that the modern era. The dispute started in ancient history, only now its extended into the nuclear age. If religion didn't exist, how could you tell each other apart.
Instead one has to take the here and now and work with it.
Of course you can never find a modus vivendi as long as emotions and religion are put in place of reason and pragmatism. Unfortunately emotions and religion bring more votes than reason. They allow to polarize and rally the masses.
Let me add that I can't read a bit of Arabic but if I listen to Arabic I can understand it a bit (my Hebrew is not too good either).
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
I just spent a wonderful session at Tuft's Fletcher School as a faculty mentor/advisor. The session was a mock few years out (2014) middle east crisis. I was mentoring the Saudi government team. The crisis was centered around a nuclear armed Iran (4 or so warheads), and an Arab spring that ended up with most goverments hard right muslim and leaning towards Iran in a pan-islamic sense. The Assad regime and The house of Saud had fallen, and the new goverments were fundamentalist leaning. Things were looking good for Iran, Israel isolated and worried, and the Middle East on a fundamentalist hard right bent. In the end, everyone turned on Iran, because they were not Arab, as well as turned on the western powers for the same reason. Yemen was being run by AQAP which was aligned with Hezbollah (and Iran as the sponsor), and they got steam rollered by the US after an AQ(AP) sponsered attack in the US. Iran was also steam rolled by all as a meddler in Arab affairs, including primarily the Saudi's (or as the called themselves, "The Arab Islamic Republic"). The scenario ended with the US at war with Yemen and Iran, as well as the Arab countries making non US aligned independant attacks against all things Iranian and AQAP. The event played out as a basic Pan-Arab verses Pan-Islamic issue based around Arabs not liking non Arabs. Is is interesting to note that previous Fletcher events like this in the past have actually come to pass in the real world, and played out almost exactly as the scenario looking at it had.
All in all, good fun and informative. It was fun watching a bunch of left wing Tuft's grad and under-grad students decide dress up Saudi Special Ops Troops as AQAP and attack Iranian Oil refining infrastructure, as well as make a fake AQAP video claiming AQAP Yemen responsibility. Who'd of thought they had it in them...
All in all, good fun and informative. It was fun watching a bunch of left wing Tuft's grad and under-grad students decide dress up Saudi Special Ops Troops as AQAP and attack Iranian Oil refining infrastructure, as well as make a fake AQAP video claiming AQAP Yemen responsibility. Who'd of thought they had it in them...
None of the prophets of God, have not learned humans improper behavior or speech. From the perspective of Islam, all followers of all divine prophets are holy. But sometimes people with a distortion of God's commands, justify their inhumanity. The Zionists have been hated among the people of the world because they are killing the Palestinians women and children and it is shown frequently in all medias.MSimon wrote:Do the Israelis have totally clean hands? Of course not. No government does. Are they cleaner than their neighbors? Generally.
Think of this and tell me if you are hopeful about peace: "Mein Kampf" is still a best seller in the ME.
If you were President of Israel, with all of your reasons; you were still killing children? I'm sure, you did not.
Our era, is the dialogue of civilizations era. The reasonable demands of the international community should be subservient. War is no solution. I think, in this case, Iran's case file is still cleaner than Israel.
However, I'm hoping for peace. I hate war.
Aslan,
What do you know of Hamas and Hezbollah? What do you know of Lebanon and Syria?
What do you know of bounties offered and paid to suicide bomber's families after the bomber attack israelis?
What do you know of AQ and its relations with Iran? What do you know of Iranian sourced weapons being used in Iraq and Afghanistan?
What do you know of Iranian sourced expertise (IRGC) operating in other countries to teach folks how to kill and cause trouble?
You can not in good conscience say that the Iranian Government is "clean". There is ample hard evidence in the media of the world documenting these things. What of the issues in your own country where demonstrators have been killed or arrested by the government, as reported by your own citizens?
No government is squeaky clean. They all do things that are wrong.
I have a thesis that trouble is proportional to the lack of quality information available to the populace. And that with less quality, the populace can be more easily manipulated into extreme acts.
What do you know of Hamas and Hezbollah? What do you know of Lebanon and Syria?
What do you know of bounties offered and paid to suicide bomber's families after the bomber attack israelis?
What do you know of AQ and its relations with Iran? What do you know of Iranian sourced weapons being used in Iraq and Afghanistan?
What do you know of Iranian sourced expertise (IRGC) operating in other countries to teach folks how to kill and cause trouble?
You can not in good conscience say that the Iranian Government is "clean". There is ample hard evidence in the media of the world documenting these things. What of the issues in your own country where demonstrators have been killed or arrested by the government, as reported by your own citizens?
No government is squeaky clean. They all do things that are wrong.
I have a thesis that trouble is proportional to the lack of quality information available to the populace. And that with less quality, the populace can be more easily manipulated into extreme acts.
I love religious nonsense, especially when coupled to politics.Aslan wrote:None of the prophets of God, have not learned humans improper behavior or speech. From the perspective of Islam, all followers of all divine prophets are holy. But sometimes people with a distortion of God's commands, justify their inhumanity.
Why don't you give us your opinion on the Baha'i prosecution and extermination in Iran Aslan? How many Baha'i women and children have been killed in the name of "god"?
I hope you are not applying your superior understanding of numbers to Polywell. Besides I'm more inclined to 23 and 93. According to my understanding.Aslan wrote:Iran did not start the war in Gaza and Lebanon. From the numbers 22 and 33 can be understood that Zionism began the war.MSimon wrote:This is disingenuous. Iran is making war by proxy. Gaza being a case in point. Syria/Lebanon another.
As to the UN Human Rights Council - a joke in a bigger joke. To cite them for anything but propaganda makes the joke on you.
The UN is 2/3rds a collection of dictatorships. And it shows.
http://www.nysun.com/opinion/reading-me ... ran/45088/
http://m.rockymountainnews.com/news/200 ... n-edition/Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler HARDCOVER BOOK PRINTED IRAN http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mein-Kampf-Adol ... 0787251696
====
BTW none of this will deter me from working with you on Polywell. I deal with people with all kinds of strange political delusions. Some of them I fight with bitterly over stuff and still call them friends. Its just politics.
But I would be wary of keeping that sort of thing up. I may ignore it but the Israeli government may not be so forgiving. They may actually believe you are serious.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
A Swiss judge has issued an arrest warrant for the former head of Iran's secret police for his role in the killing of a leading Iranian dissident 16 years ago.
Ali Fallahian is charged with masterminding the assassination of Kazem Rajavi, a renowned human rights advocate, near Geneva in April 1990.
According to a report in Lausanne-based newspaper Le Matin Dimanche, the international arrest warrant was issued by Swiss investigating magistrate Jacques Antenen on March 20.
http://www.iranterror.com/content/view/201/67/
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
The U.S. State Department is warning Americans around the world of the potential for terrorist attacks against U.S. interests following the disruption of an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States.
In a new worldwide travel alert issued late on October 11, the State Department said the alleged plot could be a sign that Iran has adopted what it described as a "more aggressive focus" on terrorist activity
http://www.rferl.org/content/us_travel_ ... 56931.html
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi has condemned the execution of an Iranian minor found guilty of murder, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports.
Ali-Reza Mola Soltani, who was 17 years old, was publicly hanged on September 21 in the city of Karaj, west of Tehran, for the murder of popular athlete Rouhollah Dadashi in July.
Dadashi, a powerlifter and bodybuilder who twice won competitions for the strongest man in Iran, was stabbed to death.
Speaking with Radio Farda the day of the execution, Ebadi said the hanging constitutes a violation of Iran's international commitments. She pointed out that Mola Soltani stabbed the victim in a street fight without knowing his identity and bore no specific grudge against him. He was therefore not guilty of premeditated murder, Ebadi said.
Ebadi deplored the fact that a number of passers-by assembled to watch the public hanging.
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4e8973fcc.html
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
The above is not to exonerate any other governments. It is just to show that Iran has no particular moral high ground.
I could make a similar list for any country on earth.
http://gawker.com/5837835/iran-hangs-th ... ng-gay-sex
This kind of behavior will win you no friends in the West. I know a fair number of gay haters (well maybe 3 or 4) and none of them would approve of this sort of thing.
The Palestinians do this sort of thing as well. There are pictures. It is bad PR.
I could make a similar list for any country on earth.
http://gawker.com/5837835/iran-hangs-th ... ng-gay-sex
This kind of behavior will win you no friends in the West. I know a fair number of gay haters (well maybe 3 or 4) and none of them would approve of this sort of thing.
The Palestinians do this sort of thing as well. There are pictures. It is bad PR.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
MSimon, agree on all the previous articles, but regarding the last one, I would advise you to not throw stones if you are sitting in a glass house...
The US has the death penalty and people are executed all the time. It is not public and you have not been hanging people for a few decades, but the victims families are present and some other people...
I am not to sure about the guilt of some of those executed either. Like the guy that supposedly burned his family in Texas. Several independent experts cleared him...
Edit: Since you made another post since then, I want to clarify that I am referring to the post about the minor being hung.
The US has the death penalty and people are executed all the time. It is not public and you have not been hanging people for a few decades, but the victims families are present and some other people...
I am not to sure about the guilt of some of those executed either. Like the guy that supposedly burned his family in Texas. Several independent experts cleared him...
Edit: Since you made another post since then, I want to clarify that I am referring to the post about the minor being hung.