Why do some people say that Israeli is occupying Palestine? I don’t really understand the history behind that whole situation. I mean, there are people here who somehow believe that the United States is occupying Mexico by claiming Arizona as a state, so I don’t know if the pro-Palestine people have any backing to their argument.
It is hard to find unbiased info. Look at famous quotes of Zionists here on “transfer” (ethnic cleansing). I’m not pro-Palestinian state, but I am anti-Israeli-Holocaust.
Yeah, it’s hard for me to decide what my opinion is because I keep hearing crazy things from both sides. My personal opinion is that we just mind our own business and let them do what they want, but that will never happen. Would you support the two-state solution if you had to decide?
I’ve seen people here vehemently deny that (any?) massacres like Deir Yassein happened. There’s plenty of modern day video of Israeli troops brutalizing children. I guess video is the best proof. I’m sure that we could verify publications with quotes like those in what I linked, so I think it is hard to just dismiss them as “crazy things”.
In terms of minding “our” own business, I can’t see how US involvement would do anything other than make problems worse. States aren’t solutions to anything and I won’t advocate them, but yeah it would be better if they decided on borders and kept to themselves I guess.
One more note: suicide bombings have significantly decreased to almost nothing over the past 3-5 years. Just in the past month or so, I read something about Hamas saying they no longer advocate them because it just fuels Israel’s propaganda machine. Most people somehow don’t question the legitimacy of the Israeli state at all.
I’ll stand corrected on this by someone who knows more, but I read a book years ago (Righteous Victims perhaps?) that demontsrated that in the early days of the Zionist movement (late 1800s into the early 1900s), Jews and Palestinians were coexisting rather peacefully. It was not until World War I and Western powers got the force of politics behind the movement that things started going haywire in the Middle East. When the UK announced throught he Balfour Declaration that resettlement was now national policy, hostility erupted and set us on course for what we have today. Interesting story to say the least.
Like E.R. said, the unbiased information is making it very difficult for anyone to make an informed decision. For example, some news agency recently released some photos of the flotilla in which they cropped a knife out of one of the activists hand. It’s stuff like this that makes you question most of the information.
I will say, and again this is second hand information that could be innaccurate, that if it is true that in the Hamas charter they are dedicated to the destruction of Israel, then that makes it very difficult for me to ever really support their side.
Israel, though imperfect, is better than the alternatives. (The realistic alternatives, not someone’s vision of an anarchist society) Considering the position it’s in, it’s doing a bang-up job of not doing what, say, the US or pretty much any other country would do, i.e. kill all the towelheads.