I'm fairly sure that the current Israeli government wasn't elected with 100% of the vote. Or even a 100% turnout.

What was your earlier point regarding collective punishment again?

You seriously think that even Netanyahu would drop nukes on Gaza or the West Bank? That's in the same league as Blair's claims regarding Iraq's long range missile capability.

Hamas aren't the ones claiming to have half a trillion dollars of stealth weaponry accurate enough to fly up your urethrae without touching the sides. Do you even KNOW who the attacking side is here? Have you even looked at Cod'ead's maps?

Seriously, I just don't get this Israeli-fetishism you guys are taken by. How much more Palestinian land, how many more lives can the Israelis take - in your opinion - before you would at the very least consider the possibility that Israel has no intention of honoring a lasting peace - much less a Palestinian state?

Or is it simply impossible for you to admit such - even if the Israelis took every last acre and exterminated every last Palestinian?

I didn't vote for Cameron. This doesn't mean I don't recognise him as the legitimate leader of the country. And if David Cameron decided to roll the tanks into Wales, kick the locals off their land and into squalid ghettos and then massacred 400 civilians to every 1 life lost on this side of the border I certainly wouldn't expect A RIGHT to safety from any Welshman just because I didn't vote for him. If you would you're a bigger fool than I thought.



Hamas has Israel under siege? I thought it was the other way around.

I didnt think cost was really that much of a moral bellweather for war. Would it be better if Israel were doing the same damage with household products? Does it make it worse that a child died because of an expensive weapon than cheap weapons? Is there only one attacking side? Is Hamas' launching rockets at a school a defensive measure? Is Hamas' preaching vengeance and the rockets they were launching which gave Israel an excuse for this purely defensive? If so it was a pretty idiotic effort. Yes, i found it strange that it conflated Israel with being Jewish. I found it strange that it highlighted were Jewish people were living, like the inference was Jews werent allowed to be in certain places or that Jews settling in these places was an inherently bad thing. I also think you could create a similar map showing the growth of Islam in certain parts of Britain, and i expect I wouldnt like the type of people who would choose to do that or the purposes they would use it for. Not that i am accusing codhead of anti-antisemitism.

I'm not sure what you think i have said which fetishises Israel, would you like to provide us with some examples? Meh, arbitrary boundries invoked to divide us are of little interest to me. Probably quite a lot. I have no reason to believe Israel is some blood hungry nation fighting for the sake of it, im sure that Israeli's would rather not be involved in a violent, long lasting, expensive war, im pretty sure they would rather it wasnt happening. Until there is some evidence, ill stick with a more sensible and less fantastical expectation, that Israel would rather have peace, and if there was an acceptable plan on the table they would take it.

Or something a bit less dramatic, and something based a little more in reality.

Last year Haaretz reported that Israel has nuclear weapons permanently targeted at Gaza and Lebanon (you can bet Iran, Egypt and Syria too). They were unsure about the West Bank (no doubt because of all the settlements).

Would Netanyahu authorize a strike? Only if the IDF suddenly becomes incapable of achieving the very same ends.

So you are suggesting that Isreal intends to wipe out all those countries in your post, killing every person living there? , it has stated that as a fundamental part of its existence?

And the really scary thing is that you're 100% serious. Deary me. Do you believe in Original Sin as well?


Maybe you could quote the definition of collective punishment that stipulates siege as a condition?

Punishing an entire population for the transgressions of a subset of that population is collective punishment. Lobbing rockets into heavily populated civilian areas qualifies just as much as the larger scale atrocities perpetrated by the IDF.

Netanyahu would authorise the use of nukes in Gaza but not in the West Bank because of the settlements?

Do you have [iany[/i idea of the range of effect of even 'tactical' nukes?

It isn't. But it certainly is true to say Israel possesses the cost-derived technical ability to hit with the kind of precision Hamas cannot.



It's an inherently **illegal** thing if you believe in democracy realised within the United Nations. And no-one is preventing Jews (or anyone else for that matter) from living outside the 1967 boundaries - just living under Jewish rule.



I was wondering when the old anyone-who-disagrees-with-Israel's-right-to-do-what-it-likes-against-anyone-it-chooses card would be played.



Then perhaps you could push yourself to discussing the boundaries that DO. Which - if not the all-but-universally agreed up 1967 boundaries Hamas has repeatedly offered to accept (with recognition of Israel's right to exist) - do you think Israel ought to honour?



80% of Palestinian land? 90%? Bear in mind not all is habitable.



Who said anything about "fighting for the sake of it"? Given the massive expansion of Israeli settlements into occupied land it's patently obvious Israel isn't fighting purely because it gets a kick out of slaughtering Palestinians, although given the wealth of pretty shocking quotes made by senior Israeli officials - right up to Ben Gurion - about Palestinains, describing them as "dogs" and even going so far as to deny their existence completely, it's pretty clear that at least some get a kick out of it. As for the expense - for years Israel was bankrolled by the US so money was no issue. Over the last few years war has become big business and Israel is making quite a tidy profit out of the arms business it has developed over the bodies in Gaza and the West Bank.



Only a fool or someone trying to convince himself more than anyone else can argue it is completely "fantastical" to believe Israel is engaged in the conquest of the Palestinians. One wonders how strong your "belief" in Israel's peaceful nature will be in, say, twenty years when the Palestinians are either dead, living in exile or scratching out a meagre existence on scrub desert bantustans. Will you jump ship with the rest of public opinion - or will you still be denying what everyone else will regard as somewhere between Apartheid and a full blown Palestinian Holocaust? I wonder ...

Belief seems to be your business so I'm afraid I can't help you.



There you go again fixing the scales in order to perfectly balance unequal weight. Only in Koshland (the irony!) can the suffering of the very few equal the suffering of the many. No one in his right mind would dream of suggesting the Native Americans were EQUALLY as bad as the settlers because they occasionally attacked civilian outposts before they were all but exterminated as a race. Ditto the South Americans facing the conquistadors.



I'm sure Israel understands the range and effects of nuclear weapons. After all, it built them and I very much doubt they sit targetless in their silos or wherever they are.

In any case - you're fighting an uphill battle convincing anyone of Netanyahu's committment to nuclear safety whilst he's currently calling for strikes upon Iran's entire nuclear development program (the fallout from which will likely irradiate two continents to some lesser or greater degree).

Only in a world where the word "target" and "fire at" are equivalent.

[url=http://www.alternet.org/world/killing-people-mowing-lawn-how-israeli-hardliners-and-official-washington-dehumanize-peopleIsrael is simply "mowing the lawn"[/url

When you have an Israeli defence minister using the terminology of bringing '[ia bigger shoah[/i' against the Palestinian people, then all rationale appears to have gone out the window.

Yes, Israel does have more money.

How can the a democracy ban living under Jewish rule? And how is it inherently illegal under UN law for a Jew to live in a certain place?

Yes, what i was infering was the thing i said it specifically wasnt. If you want to hide behind the 'i cant say anything bad about Israel without being accused of being an antisemite' card, you can. But if you use it in relation to an argument which specfies nobody is being accused of antisemitism then you are going to look like a complete moron who lacks basic comprehension skills. Maybe you protest too much.
I honestly, honestly don’t care. They are lines on a map.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

You are on to a losing battle if you want to compare some of the nonsensical rhetoric coming out of both sides.
So you are now arguing that Israel makes money out of spending all that cash on the iron dome, and rockets, and reservists, and airstrikes. As you have already admitted, Israel could easily take over all Palestinian lands quite easily. So the reason they are prolonging this dispute is now, apparently, to make money. That’s a pretty insidious accusation, what next are you going to accuse black people of liking fried chicken? For someone so sensitive about being labelled an antisemite you seem to fall on some pretty stereotypical arguments.

There we go, we have the trifecta. The accusations of political conspiracy, being money hungry, and now the invocation of the holocaust. Why don’t you bang on about the jewish owned press and how Jews infiltrate high levels of government next and we can have ourselves a real klan meeting? Yeehaw.

I regularly read a whole host of bull on here but you are taking it to a whole new level.

I cannot be bothered going through all of your post as anyone who spends as much time as you making the posts so neat and tidy is a complete pedant.

The two issues above i will comment on though.

The issue of where the Israelis can live is very simple but obviously not for you. Mugwump pointed out that if the Isrealis want to live ousid eof the 1967 boundaries then they can BUT it should not be as part of the state of Isreal. It is the state of Isreal expanding out of the 1967 boundaries which is the ILLEGAL bit.

As for extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence my 8 year old daughter looked at the maps and guessed that the amount of land which had changed from Green to white was 75%. Amazing that an 8 year old can interperate evidence better than you.

You are so so sad and as for trying to pin the anti semite card that is just the last refuge of someone who has lost the arguement.

Your stupidity and pedantry makes me think you are just a WUM rather than someone it is possible to have any rational discussion with. You are not worth replying to on anything else.

Is there a reason you struggle to differentiate Israeli with Jew? Do you think all Jews are Israeli or all Israelis Jews? Is it just Israelis and Jews you struggle with? Do you think all black people are African? All Muslims Arab?

Can you tell me why, when I asked how can a democracy ban living under Jewish rule (Ill help you out here, cos you seem like you need help, maybe it was all that fighting you did when you were young, The answer is they can’t) and how can it be inherently illegal under the UN for a Jew to live in a certain place did you answer with a misplaced rant about the state of Israel? Did you think that Israel and Judaism were interchangeable? Do you have a learning difficulty with basic comprehension or is English not your first language? Are you just an idiot?

And as you have involved your 8 year old daughter, it might be an idea to explain to her that Jews and Israelis aren’t the same thing, not all Jews are Israeli and not all Israelis are Jews, its sad enough your genes have been dumped back in the gene pool, you don’t actively have to teach her to be an idiot as well, she already, clearly, hasnt been given a head start, dont make it worse.

At best you are being disingenuous and / or clouding the issue.
Scattered liberally across the West bank are Israeli settlements, whether they are occupied by Jews is not the point, the point is that they are Israeli settlements/invaders.
Why do I say these settlements are Israeli?... Because they are occupied by Israelis from Israel, living in houses built with Israeli government money, protected by the Israeli Army, in many cases have a ginormous wall around them built by the Israeli state ... and the occupants are not subject to the same "border" checks (by the Israeli Army) that Palestinians are subjected to when they wish to visit Jerusalem (why are they not subject to the same checks? ... because they have Israeli ID).
Most of the UN voted for them not to be there, the dissenting vetoes were from the US, a couple of islands wanting to ingratiate themselves with the US ... and the other was, er, Israel.

They are Israelis invading Palestine.

And you and Hamas believe shooting rockets into Israel will prevent this?

What you are doing here clouding the issue, though i accept that is because previous people have been disingenuous as the converstation moved on. The post was in response to a specific post which showed Jewish settlements and equated them with Israel.
But we werent talking about the settlements in the west bank, specifically this
Which as you can see moves from Jewish to Israeli as if they were the same thing. Thats the point I was making, this map is useless because it treats two different things as if they were the same. As you are doing here (though as i say, that is only obvious if you trace the conversation back) it was a response to specific claims

Its a fair old assumption to argue there was no other reason any other nation voted the way they did. It isnt an argument backed by evidence but assisted by bias to think everyone else voted on conscience whilst they voted politically.
No they are Israelis invading what was Egypt.

He is another simplified explanation of the changing 'borders' of Israel Palestine:

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/sep/14/map-israel-palestinian-territoriesChanging map of Israel and the Palestinian territories[/url

And in reference to your observation regarding the "Jewish land" and "Israel Land", this terminology is entirely correct as the first 2 maps refer to pre-1948 borders when the areas under the proposed UN partition were referred to as "Jewish State" and "Arab State".



The second 2 maps provided by Cod'ead refer to the land and borders after the creation of the state of Israel. In actual fact, the key error in the maps is act of referring to 'Palestine' which technically has never existed as a State or Country, it has only existed as a Provinces within the borders of Jordan and Egypt and before that a protectorate under the British Mandate Trans-Jordan and Palestine (the Golan heights are technically Syrian land)

With relation to the interchange of Jewish and Israeli. The State of Israel was established and recognised by the UN to provide a 'home' for 'the Jewish people'. It was never established as a 'Jewish State' and there has never been a restriction on non Jews living in Israel (hold fire on the post 1948 and 1967 refugees). That said, in order to emigrate to Israel and become an Israeli one must be a practising Jew and (or?) of Jewish decent (principally the offspring of a Jewish mother). More recently, Israel has been seeking to be recognised as the "Jewish State of Israel" and frequently refers to itself as such. One of a number of provisions that the Israeli government wishes to introduce is a requirement for all Israeli passport holders and citizens to swear allegiance to "The Jewish State of Israel". Clearly, and arguably understandably, the "1948 Arabs" have issue with swearing allegiance to a Jewish State (there are a number of significant other issues regarding citizenship for 1948 Arabs including requirement to conduct National Service etc but there are too many to discuss here).

Hope that helps

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... orrow.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... orrow.html

No, at least not directly.
What I am saying is that, if I were a Palestinian in Gaza, where Israel has largely destroyed the local economy, killed thousands, and is limiting imports of basic essentials such as medical supplies and food, and I can see my fellows in the West Bank being more and more displaced by Israel as "settlements" push further and further Eastwards, I'd be tempted to hit back.
What does Israel expect? That Gazans will shrug and go along with whatever they say?

Lest we forget the 400 palestinian children shot dead by IDF snipers . All shot through the head. www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_ ... 3f1CdDU5Ck www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/ju ... lestinians www.duncanmcfarlane.org/Israel-P ... errorists/ LOve the storty aboyt the Israeli officer who shoots a 12 year old girl twice. When she is lying on the floor he then approaches her and fires the rest of his clip into her body on the ground. Some of his soldiers are so appalled they report him to their superiors. He is acquitted of murder, sentenced to 45 days and stripped of his command in the unit because he has lost the confidence of his men. Palestinian lives are very cheap. Still that is what happens when the untermensch become the master race and find their own untermensch

Lest we forget the 400 palestinian children shot dead by IDF snipers . All shot through the head. www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_ ... 3f1CdDU5Ck www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/ju ... lestinians www.duncanmcfarlane.org/Israel-P ... errorists/ LOve the storty aboyt the Israeli officer who shoots a 12 year old girl twice. When she is lying on the floor he then approaches her and fires the rest of his clip into her body on the ground. Some of his soldiers are so appalled they report him to their superiors. He is acquitted of murder, sentenced to 45 days and stripped of his command in the unit because he has lost the confidence of his men. Palestinian lives are very cheap. Still that is what happens when the untermensch become the master race and find their own untermensch