Israel Palestine 101 ?

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Permalink Reply by Ron on January 19, 2009 at 12:09am

Wow, if I had known you had never heard of Palestine; I'd have handled this entirely differently. If not the Palestine and Israel conflict; what do you think this list is discussing? What have you been discussing with your posts.?

Here, I'll help you get up to speed. If you google "Palestine" you'll get more than 70,400,000 hits.
Results 1 - 10 of about 70,400,000 for Palestine

Once you learn what and where Palestine is, reach out and we can discuss Palestine. Tough to do if you don't know what we all have been talking about. But; thankfully, it explains a lot and you can fix it with some reading.

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Permalink Reply by Ron on January 19, 2009 at 5:34am

The Palestine I know predates the Roman occupation. You can play this game for years. Thank you for the perfect example of why honest peacekeeping talks don't take place regarding Palestine and Israel.

This is not a civics or history exercise for me. It's not a drama class either. The Palestine that this list has been discussing is the land that Israel just destroyed. It's where more than 4000 have been wounded; more than a 1000 killed in less than a month. It's the real estate Israel attacked when hundreds if not thousands of international tourists were in Palestine celebrating the birth of the founder of Christianity. The Palestine that has been in existance for 1000's of years, the Palestine that you said you can't cry for their dead and wounded children. That Palestine.

I am talking about the issues of today's Palestine and Israel. I was talking about the date of the Palestine map I downloaded. That Palestine. It's not going to be very helpful having conversation based on the League of Nations is it?

Your attitude that this is trivial, humorous; and some kind of source of entertainment to you speaks to your values. That you can only play with these people's suffering; on both sides shows we are indeed at cross purposes. The attitude you wrote earlier that you couldn't shed a tear for any Palestinian child shows your values for one human being to another. It demonstrates the attitude why Israel and it's neighbors has not been able to make peace for thousands of years. OK. You like war. I get it. So why are you on a peace list?

I wrote 1945; I attached a 1945 data map; address 1945, why mention 1940? Address any date relevant to resolving the current problem that led Israel to kill more than 1100 people and wound more than 4000 others in the last 3 weeks. if you have any ideas that can lead to peace or the discussion of peace, let's have them . Play with yourself if you are not capable of that.














You will only play games with this tragedy. That shows your soul. Ok.

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Permalink Reply by Ron on January 19, 2009 at 5:09pm

You are kidding right? Do you really believe that Palestine is a product of the League of Nations?
Do you really believe Israel didn't exist until sometime after 1945?

Please then tell me who this Moses was who wrote about the children of Israel? Or is the Torah a lie? I don't think so but apparently you deny it.

http://www.akhlah.com/heroes/torah_heroes/moses.php

Israel; what are you teaching your children? More importantly; what are you NOT teaching them? No Israel at the time of Moses? Israel didn't exist until sometime after 1945? This clearly demonstrates the problem with peace in the region.

Can any Rabbi or other Jewish scholar on the list tell me is the Torah truth or just great fiction? As a Christian, I was raised to believe Moses and the children of Israel were taken out of Egypt was a true story. Was I lied to?

Is the Book of book of Isaiah a lie?

Dror, why are calling all the Rabbis and scholars who teach the Torah liars; because clearly they believe Israel and Palestine existed before 1945.

http://www.arielm.org/outlines/o-isa.pdf

Why would the encyclopedia brittanica think Palestine existed during Roman times?

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/303091/Jesus-Christ/22298...

and.... who was this person named Jesus of Palestine this article mentions:

http://www.kchanson.com/PTJ/ptj.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=TbpD5Z-3FdoC&pg=PA5&lpg=PA...

I've written many times Israel and Palestine BOTH have the right to exist. I've written many times that the tactics of Hamasare pure evil.

You insult every child of Israel's suffering that happened before 1945 by denying Israel existed.

Enough.... until you get serious and honest there is no point in a discussion with you.

Amazing

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Permalink Reply by Ron on January 19, 2009 at 8:15pm

Didn't you read anything? I appreciate you acknowledging Palestine is not mentioned in the bible 'as far as you know' It shows just how little you do know about Israel; about Palestine, about the issues.

It shows you hate just because that is how you were raised. As I wrote; you are insulting the suffering of every child of Israel who lived before 1945. Israel, why not educate your own? He's insulting and embarrassing a great religion and you let him. This kind of lack of knowledge hurts Israel's credibility.

Let's start at the very beginning. Who wrote Genesis? You have read Genesis haven't you? Is there someone on the list who doesn't want him to embarrass Israel anymore who will help him here?

I don't know how to answer your question any simpler for you than I already have. You embarass yourself and Israel. Read from line 6 at the bottom of my last reply to you.

Go to google and search for children of Israel in Egypt. Now, you are on your own.

Corey, this is what I meant when we talked about what are the supporters of Israel being taught about Israel. :-)

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Permalink Reply by Jill Harrison on January 19, 2009 at 8:40pm

can a Jewish state allow for political & religious freedoms for all its residents?

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Permalink Reply by Jill Harrison on January 19, 2009 at 9:10pm

Dror - i ask this because i have heard Arabs who live in Israel who feel they are discriminated against, and feel they do not have same legal justice.

i do not live there, and do not know what it is like - sometimes movies give me impressions - there was a movie recently that showed young Arab woman trying to rent a flat & had the same difficulties that black people in this country have experienced in our not too distant past... this could be just a false impression on my part.

Permalink Reply by Corey Gil-Shuster on January 19, 2009 at 12:43am

There is obviously a pre-judgement here both on your part and your nephew's part. The problem with pre-judging is that you know the answer you want to hear but you are not looking at the situation in the way that all the parties look at it. If you look at it from a Palestinian perspective you will draw a set of conclusions that Israelis and Jews cannot accept. If you take the Israeli perspective, Palestinians cannot accept it. I wish Israelis and Palestinians could all stop taking a particular perspective and deal with the issues we have as equals, understanding that the other's perspective is just as valid to them as our perspecitve is to us.

To answer your question: as an Israeli citizen, I do not believe Israelis are more important than Palestinians. You can tell your nephew what I tell my 9 year old son: we are two groups who have been fighting for a long time. Both have done horrible things to each other, But we don't judge people based on the group they come from because that is bigotry. We judge individual's behaviour.

I won't debate the other points as this is pointless.

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Permalink Reply by Jill Harrison on January 19, 2009 at 1:25am

Corey,
do you think that developing the most 'objective' perspective from which to judge individual behaviour is a path to peace?

there's a program in my city that works with conflict resolution - it's a simple program, but very impressive to experience. The sessions i've seen have been with school kids in gang related activity. the program is widely used by both the police & school principals & has been quite successful. the process involves bringing all affected parties together to hear & understand how each person was affected. in my experience with this process - the 'healing shift' (which is palpable in the group & often emotional) which allows the group to set down their anger & come to an agreement on how to heal the offense, and to define a plan for preventing it from happening again does not occur because of any clarity of judgement of any of the behaviour - what allows a group to come to that healing space that puts an end to the conflict is that each person expresses what they did & what they were thinking & feeling as they were doing it.

there is a powerful shift in peoples behaviour when they feel understood & their concerns have been acknowledged. this is a very different thing from making an impermeable barrier between the 2 sides & enforcing a separation to prevent future violence. i believe that the Peace that comes from conflict can only come from each side looking deeply at how they have affected their feared enemy.

is this part of what they teach in your conflict resolution?

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Permalink Reply by Corey Gil-Shuster on January 19, 2009 at 1:58am

Actually I do think this is a smoother path to peace. I was involved with a few Jewish-Arab/Israeli-Palestinian dialogue groups and the same dynamics repeat themselves: the Palestinians come to tell the Jews what Israel has done wrong to them. The Jews say "but you have done wrong to me too.." and both try to compete for who the greater victim is. In the end, the Jews or Palestinians leave because their need for recognition of their own pain is not being met. So since both have such a strong need, I have seen this replicate itself over and over again. In rare cases where empathy is shown, it generally tends to be one-sided (Jews towards Palestinians) and the Jewish side gets frustrated with no reciprocation.

I say let's put those needs on hold until we find solutions and then we can show each other empathy. You are dealing with two groups who are so furious with each other, arguments for who is weak, who is a victim, fall on deaf ears. They can't hear it at this time.

And no, this is not what they teach us in school. This is from experience.

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Permalink Reply by Jill Harrison on January 19, 2009 at 4:43am

well, the process of conflict resolution i've observed (& i am no expert in it - simply very impressed with the efficacy that i've witnessed) has a fairly strict rule about how large a group can be accomodated within a single conference (i think 15 -20 people tops). so perhaps it is difficult to see how this type of model can scale to larger conferences.

i have heard much discussion from the experienced leaders about how to deal with anger in the group - and that can become very intense before the second side begins to show empathy.

i still believe that to "put those needs on hold until we find solutions & then show empathy after" is not the correct process. i agree with that sentiment in regards to brokering a ceasefire - but i don't think a ceasefire will settle the conflict until a deeper understanding is reached. the Peace that can be achieved seems to me to be a direct result of this deeper atonement on both sides.

i am curious about what sort of methods they teach in conflict resolution. i am very afraid for our world much of the time.

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Permalink Reply by Corey Gil-Shuster on January 19, 2009 at 5:01am

I do not learn conflict resolution. I learn conflict theory- theoretical perspectives on why we do the things we do in conflict. I would be a very lousy mediator as I tend to cause more conflict than solve :-).

I leave resolution to those who are good at it. and I am supportive of ANY approach which works.

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Permalink Reply by Ron on January 19, 2009 at 2:44am

Then what do you teach your son to do to stop what Israel and Palestine hasn't been able to stop to this point?
How can anyone not have judgements about this war? Anyone who can think is going to judge.

I understand Israel's position. Do you understand what this looks like to someone looking from the outside? There is a younger generation of Americans who ask why we support Israel. What do we tell them? It's an honest question. My nephew's question was an honest question. You are judging my nephew's and my intention asking the question.

If you son asked you why Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish's daughters were killed, what are you going to tell him? Dr. Abuelaish
called his Israeli friends days before when a tank showed up and IDF moved them off. What changed in 2 days? I was in the military. You know Israel intelligence knows who lives where. What happened to change the Dr's status in
a few days.

I didn't ask to debate Corey. I asked a question to get information.





From outside the combat zone, it looks like Israeli officials have a disregard for Palestinian life.






http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-gaza-doctorjan18,0,1925825.s...

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