An awful lot of Israelis have moved to a war zone for moral / religious reasons -like mark regev born in the deolate wartorn wasteland of Melbourne where he attended mount scopus college

I don't think they want to be martyrs. They just want to live in their homes in peace.

Putting aside the rest of it for now, it is perhaps not irrelevant that a large proportion of Palestinians, and I think most of Gaza's population, have already been forced to flee their homes and set up in refugee camps scattered around the Middle east. Fleeing does not equal a significantly better life in most cases,and there is ALWAYS the belief in the possibility that things could get better where you are, and I think pretty much anyone in the world would choose to stay in their homes, with their families and in their countries, rather than complete uncertainty and misery - apart from the support networks and the comfort of home.

Bruno, thanks for clarifying, that's a much more nuanced stance than it first appeared you were proposing.

I can understand the desire to help people to move from an area where they are currently in great danger and hardship. However, instinctively it just feels really wrong.

I don't really have a better solution. My boyfriend believes that the only option is a one state solution, to make it all just one big Pal-Israel or whatever it would be called, and hope that demographics would gradually sort it out (current projections based on birth rate are that by about 2050 more than half of Israel might be made up of ethnically-Palestinian Israelis, in which case they would hopefully not be voting for more invasions of Gaza), though I'm not convinced that the story of places with multiple ethnic groups who have a history of violence against each other is often a happy one. Mostly he just tries not to think about it as it's too painful. This is obviously not always possible.

I'm convinced if Israeli Arabs becoming a majority came close to happening, Israel would either strip citizenship from Israeli Arabs or start bribing thousands of nominally Jewish people to come to Israel.

Sadly I think the only route to any change is if the US tells Israel to fuck off, which is going to take a lot of different factors coming together for it to happen. Not least the US getting over its ignorance and fear of Muslims.

ad hoc wrote:


Right, who wouldn't?



I lived in Columbus (Ohio) before, which has like the second largest population of Somalis anywhere outside of Somalia. I talked to a lot of them, tutored some of their kids. They came to Columbus because for whatever reasons that was where a support network happened to be. I had a Romanian friend in college who had been jailed by Ceausescu and walked with a slight limp, who came to Chicago because there was a support network. My sister-in-law is married to a Pole whose family got connected to other Poles in New Jersey. That's sort of my perspective on these things, relevant or not. If they'd just be switching one camp for another, maybe that's not much of a choice.

Balderdasha wrote:


Maps are drawn by the powerful. Instinctively half the map of Europe feels really wrong (not to mention the Middle East itself), or would have back when they were carving it up and forcing people into their respective corners of it.

The United States, also instinctively wrong, from the natives' point of view.



I think lots of people over here (not sure where you are) block it out, too, because it's always same shit different season (if you squint, at least). I'd like to know more about the demographic projections, though, and what Israel's calculus is on that.

We're talking about nigh on 6 million people. Do you really think there's a city or even a country somewhere, anywhere, which is ready to welcome 6 million people?

(6 million people who have been branded fanatical psychos by the western media)

Flynnie wrote:


Yeah, this seems like the ultimate pipe dream to me. Unless we start treating Israel like we do Iran, they can just tell us to fuck off, too.

ad hoc wrote:


I think this is an overstatement to be honest. There are too many Palestinian/Arab cab drivers over here for everyone to believe they're all psychos.

6 million is too many to evacuate, admittedly. There's no all or nothing solution.

There are already more Palestinians living scattered around the world than are still in Palestine.

According to wikipedia there are about 7 million elsewhere. So it's not unfeasible that the world could host another 6 million, it's just clear that they couldn't all go to one place. So the question becomes whether it is better to be scattered and have lost lands, community, possessions, culture, etc, but not have to live with the daily threat of being bombed.

My boyfriend's relatives are currently based in the UK, Italy, Canada, South America, the States, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and probably several other places that I've forgotten. His parents rarely get to see their siblings or nieces and nephews, though most of them have still got their lives at least.

Why doesn't everybody flee? It comes with a massive cost. His grandmother fled during one particularly bad period (the family later returned during a period of seeming peace) and had a miscarriage en route due to the stress and starvation.

Jesus fucking christ, the US government aren't even trying any more. Fuck them. Seriously fuck them to hell.

Obama -- what a cool cat, eh?

I'm linking this (from some "writer/editor") because I think it's what a lot of people think:



twitter feed

It's a pretty infuriating point of view. To look at a 10:1 casualty ratio (or whatever it is) and say, Yeah, but if the situation were reversed. Or perhaps it's, They should count their blessings it's not a bigger ratio. I'm not on Twitter so I can't respond to the guy.

AB2 wrote:


It really is depressing. Unfortunately, there is no alternative viewpoint at level of national (and likely most statewide) elections.

Surprisingly interesting take on the U.S.'s "Israelification" from a U.S. conservative here.

Okay, Obama. I know next to nothing about what he's effectively done about the Peace Process. My vague impression was he made some initial overtures and quickly retreated because there was other domestic shit to deal with. I'm also vaguely aware that Andrew "large grain of salt" Sullivan has praised his maneuvering, positioning, or whatever. I think Sullivan's view boils down to Obama playing the long game and being tacitly opposed to Bibi but needing to play it cool, apply behind the scenes pressure, etc etc.

The above quote is indeed depressing for its pitiful (and pitiless) lack of balance and perspective. However, any slightest hint of expressing "understanding" of why someone blew up a bus, by linking it to what Israel is doing to Gaza, with its inevitable suspicions of Moral Equivalency, is the most politically radioactive shit imaginable around Obama's way.

I don't know what you do when people have the reverse impression of reality, i.e. that Israel is in fact doing equivalent shit in Gaza (oops I blew up your house and your children being close enough to equivalent for my money). But I wondered if anybody had links on what Obama's record actually is with respect to getting Netanyahu to move. My understanding is that he wants him to move. When Bibi visited Washington a few years ago I vaguely recall Obama getting all kinds of shit for something or other (i.e. he wasn't sufficiently pro-Israel), but I might be misremembering.

Interesting that Hague in parliament yesterday announced that Britain would recognise the Syrian opposition leaders as the legitimate government of Syria rather than the Assad regime, yet seem unable to show anywhere near the same support for the equally under fire Palestinians in a similar position to Syria's rebels. Would it have made any difference if the Israelis bought their weapons from the Russians as well?

This is not borderline, it's just offensive.

You could start by not taking it out of context.

Seriously, TonTon, I've been viewing your posts for years, and the cumulative impression is lots of sententious pronouncements that you expect to...I don't know what.

If you can be bothered to explain why the phrase you've lifted out of context is offensive to you, feel free and we can discuss. If you think I'm either too stupid to understand why it is, or am unpersuadable, and just want to be on record that it offends you, then fuck off is my answer. As it only could be. As anyone else's would be.