The World We Live In.

[Deags]

The world we live in.

[VaKo]

The thing you, and many other people like to skip over is that Islam is not a unified block of religion, ethnicity, nationality, politics and culture. There are Shia, Sunni, Sufi, Ahmaddiya and Wahhabi, to name the major branches of the faith, and they have political power blocks based in counties like Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabi, each with there own motivations, and each with differing levels of secular society. So to say Islam is responsible for genocide against its own is akin to saying that the church of the Latter Day Saints or the Methodists share responsibility for the Rwandan genocide. Or that because America and Britian are largely Christian countries, the attack on Afganistan and Iraq was a religious war. The situation is a lot more complicated than some trite youtube video attempts to show, mainly because the intended audience is too stupid to actually understand what is going on.

As for Israel, the situation is actually more similar to the the South African Apartheid, and has no parallels with the Nazi movement that arose in the later part of the European Civil War (which did kill millions of people, many of which were civilians, many of which had ties to various Christian sects). The Israeli/Palestine conflict will only end in one of 2 ways, the complete extermination of the Palestinian population (something that will happen if the Palestinians continue to embrace violence) or with a unified, 1 state solution in which Palestinians are equal to Israelis (this will require a Ghandi/MLK figure to arise within Gaza).

[metatron]

People will be people, just sit back and let them sort it out themselves or kill each other in the process.

[deleted]

The thing you, and many other people like to skip over is that Islam is not a unified block of religion, ethnicity, nationality, politics and culture... SNIP ...The Israeli/Palestine conflict will only end in one of 2 ways, the complete extermination of the Palestinian population (something that will happen if the Palestinians continue to embrace violence) or with a unified, 1 state solution in which Palestinians are equal to Israelis (this will require a Ghandi/MLK figure to arise within Gaza).

Finally, someone who has a proper view on the current situation. I am used to people saying "Its the Muslims fault" or "Its the Jews Fault" etc etc etc.

[Zimmer]

How about this, its both of their faults, as well as the US and Great Britain (mostly the US) that gave Israel the land, but the one thing that could fix this without one side killing the other, is if they learn what every five year old must learn, to share.

[VaKo]

Even so, someone needs to step up and be the bigger man in this situation.

[Rkiver]

The world we live in.

Oh dear.....if you believe that to be an accurate representation then you are sadly misinformed.

All sides need to learn to to accept differences and move beyond them and share.

Or just glass the entire area. Fighting over religion is idiotic in the extreme.

[lohphat]

something that will happen if the Palestinians continue to embrace violence...

Come now. Palestine has done some heinous stuff, but Israel has been just as despicable, if not more so.

I say the only solution is to inoculate all Israelis and Palestinians with high doses of psilocybin, so that maybe they could see how silly their earthly religious motivations are.

[VaKo]

Its not a religious war, there are Palestinian Christians and Israeli Muslims involved as well as Jews and Arab Muslims. To view it as a religious was is vastly over simplifying the situation. This is a case of apartheid, with Israelis treating Palestinians as less than 2nd class citizens, denying them basic civil rights and pushing them out of land they have lived on for generations. It has just been hijacked by religious fundamentalists, on both sides of the argument. This is largely the work of Iran, which always used to be a regional super power and now is trying to regain this crown, because while it cannot attack Israel directly, it can support Hezbulla and Hamas to attack it indirectly. (Oddly a nuclear Iran would probally stabilize the Middle East). Iran and Saudi Arabia are also in a cold war situation, as America backs the Saudis which threatens Iran, although this war was largely fought in Iraq post-Saddam.

As for the violence, on one side you have suicide bombings, kidnappings, terrorist attacks and the firing of unguided munitions at civilian targets, on the other you have targeted bombings/missile attacks, large scale imprisonment, collective punishment, destruction of property and seizing of assets/deportation. Hamas are making money out of the Gaza blockade, and continue there futile attacks on Israel because it gives them power and for them doing something is better than doing nothing. This gives the right wing of the Israeli government all the ammunition it wants to be as heavy handed as it likes, and the support of the American government. What the situation really needs is for an Palestinian Ghandi figure to rise up and to embrace non-violence, which would make it far harder for the Americans to back Israel's approach and would force negotiations.

[Zimmer]

Oddly enough this started because of the US and USSR Cold War and has continued into other cold wars, though maybe not label so, they still are. Plus the US would still back Israeli because they are the only democracy in the area (though Egypt is a republic, still not the US's favorite government ;) ) they will just need another excuse.

[psydT0ne]

Hack the planet.

[VaKo]

Oddly enough this started because of the US and USSR Cold War and has continued into other cold wars, though maybe not label so, they still are. Plus the US would still back Israeli because they are the only democracy in the area (though Egypt is a republic, still not the US's favorite government ;) ) they will just need another excuse.

Nah, this all started in the late 1800's with a man called Theodor Herzl and a desire to found a homeland for the Jews (roundly hated in much of Europe), after Jewish migrants started to settle in waves in Palestine and began to displace the local population the British tried to stop the Jews from settling as it was causing the Arabs to revolt (Ironically in one case they stormed a boat and shot dead 3 Jewish migrants attempting to run a blockade). But after the end of the 2nd world war the British were not powerful enough to fully control Palestine and in light of the Holocaust they handed it over to the UN, who partitioned the area into a Jewish and an Arab section. After a series of wars with its Arab neighbours Israel expanded and began to take a far more hard-line approach with Palestinians.

[IceGuru]

Oh dear.....if you believe that to be an accurate representation then you are sadly misinformed.

All sides need to learn to to accept differences and move beyond them and share.

Or just glass the entire area. Fighting over religion is idiotic in the extreme.

Agnostic ftw

[Infiltrator]

In other word the world we live in today is screwed and there is no way of fixing it unless something or someone can do something to resolve this whole mess.

[lohphat]

I wish there were more good reasoning like that here in the States, VaKo.

[VaKo]

This is just basic geopolitics that everyone with even a passing interest in the conflict should know. The subject is inordinately more complex than this discussion allows for.

[cabster21]

This is just basic geopolitics that everyone with even a passing interest in the conflict should know. The subject is inordinately more complex than this discussion allows for.

Or more simple...

Being good, giving money, helping, blah blah blah. It doesn't make money and give you control. Most things will come down to it.

Do you sit by and watch it? Well, yeah you can, and you can have a very good life. I've gone through points thinking these things, I end up thinking, sod it, I'm just going to make myself happy. Maybe someone stronger can do things in a better way.

It's a very interesting subject on such a forum, the very nature of what we're interested in comes alive here. But there comes a point when you have to accept, there maybe is nothing you can do.

[VaKo]

http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/kabd_eng.html?

Worth a read.

[cabster21]

War is very interesting in general. I mean the true reasons behind it.

[h3%5kr3w]

I personally stay out of the politics and pretty much everything of war, because the folks that do know their facts (like VaKo in this case) cant do anything and the people who could make an impact only slander which ever side that they don't like and then it's all down hill from there.

As far as oppression, mindless killings, and civil conflict in general I feel that this should have been calmed down by now however the certain interest groups that can benefit from these atrocities are the ones who keep it going.

These people should read on the native American Indians and what they went through due to the French settlers. There are some sad reasons why they only own a very small percentage of land in the U.S. Most of their land was taken from them at the cost of thousands of Indians lives.. Basically what it came down to, was that the Indians wanted to trade land for what it was worth and the French settlers asked for miniscule amounts for the land, and when the Indians didn't think it was ok, they just took it..

"Land of the Free, Home of the Brave" indeed...

Edited June 11, 2010 by h3%5kr3w

[cabster21]

It's difficult to give an opinion on war. Most of us here will have granparents who went through WWI and WWII, many of will know people mangled from recent conflicts. This is what makes it had to say it doesn't mean anything. If your brother lost one of his legs, try not getting behind the war effort. You want it to mean something. At the same time, you can't help but feel it's all stupid. Then again, if I was worth a few billion pounds, I would be far more important than anyone on here and my opinion would mean something.