Towards a resolution in Israel and Palestine

[Dan74]

One question for everyone.

I opined that the best thing those of us living in Western polities can do is make it clear to Israel that she will not be accepted as a peer among nations until her occupation and settlement policies end.

Whether you agree or disagree, what do you think the best thing that those of us not living in the region can do to actually improve the situation?

I think the best thing we can do will involve firstly listening to all sides of the conflict (and there's more than two sides to it) in order to understand the stumbling blocks. When I read threads on this topic I frankly see a lot of opinions and judgement and little understanding.

[Son of Buddha]

Anyway, I'm through with butting heads with people that want to turn this into yet another Islam/Muslim bashing thread.

Such judgemental comment is unbecoming of a global moderator.

Sherab Dorjes comment was his own personal opinion and has nothing to do with his global moderation.

He has the right to have his own personal views and express them on the forum, his moderation job is seperate from his personal posting.

[Sherab]

Do you think Judaism - or Jewish Fundamentalism - is also creating obstacles towards peace?

When reading your question, the Dome of the Rock (the Golden Mosque) came to mind. If the Jews insist on having the land where the Golden Mosque stands, then yes. There is a prophecy that requires a Jewish temple to be build before the time of the Messiah arrival. Some Jews think that the temple has to be on the land where the Golden Mosque stands. (If I remember correctly, this was supposed to be the site of the original tabernacle.) Others think that the actual site is 70 yards away from the site to the north. So the possibility of compromise still exists.

In brief, I think Jewish fundamentalism could create obstacles as well but I think that unlike Islam, there is more room for compromise. There is no talk of a command to kill all non-believers.

[M.G.]

Anyway, I'm through with butting heads with people that want to turn this into yet another Islam/Muslim bashing thread.

Such judgemental comment is unbecoming of a global moderator.

Sherab Dorjes comment was his own personal opinion and has nothing to do with his global moderation.

He has the right to have his own personal views and express them on the forum, his moderation job is seperate from his personal posting.

I'm inclined to agree with Son of Buddha here.

[Grigoris]

Do you think Judaism - or Jewish Fundamentalism - is also creating obstacles towards peace?

Zionism. Not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews. Actually, many ultra-Orthodox Jews do not support the state of Israel, because the Holy Temple has not been rebuilt yet and thus the correct foundation for a true Jewish state has not been established.

[M.G.]

Do you think Judaism - or Jewish Fundamentalism - is also creating obstacles towards peace?

Zionism. Not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews. Actually, many ultra-Orthodox Jews do not support the state of Israel, because the Holy Temple has not been rebuilt yet and thus the correct foundation for a true Jewish state has not been established.

There definitely are ultra-Orthodox Jews who are anti-Zionist, but they comprise a very small minority of both Orthodox Jewry and global Jewry.

I think Zionism must in some sense be understood as an expression of Judaism, possibly the dominant one, and certainly is broadly supported by a majority of Jews (and non-Jewish Western elites) at some level, even if a majority of global Jewry opposes Israel's occupation and settlement policies and dislikes hateful ultra-Orthodox religious fanatics.

[Son of Buddha]

Sherab
In brief, I think Jewish fundamentalism could create obstacles as well but I think that unlike Islam, there is more room for compromise. There is no talk of a command to kill all non-believers.

The koran doesnt teach to kill all non believers, the hadiths do teach such things.

Jewish fundamentalism does also allow for the killing of blasphemers/unbelievers in the Tanakha(bible)
Duet 13:6-18,lev 24:13.....ect

So extremism can go both ways.

[Sherab]

Anyway, I'm through with butting heads with people that want to turn this into yet another Islam/Muslim bashing thread.

Such judgemental comment is unbecoming of a global moderator.

Sherab Dorjes comment was his own personal opinion and has nothing to do with his global moderation.

He has the right to have his own personal views and express them on the forum, his moderation job is seperate from his personal posting.

I disagree.

[Grigoris]

Such judgemental comment is unbecoming of a global moderator.

Sherab, lets say that one day a couple of armed men break into your home, shoot a couple of your family members and (at gunpoint) say to you: "Right, from now on all of you will live in the kids bedroom and will be allowed to use the toilet and kitchen for one hour per day."

So you call the cops (who happen to be the ones that pointed out your house to the intruders, and gave them the keys to the front door).

They come around and say to you: "Listen, I reckon it is a good deal, I think you should seriously consider it."

So the next time you are in the kitchen you manage to steal a paring knife and stab one of the intruders in the arm. In retaliation they kill another couple of your family members. And reduce your families use of the kitchen and bathroom facilities to half an hour per day. So you call the cops again.

The cops say: "Not you again, why don't you just accept their proposal?!"

You respond: "Well, my parents always said a mans home is their castle, blah, blah, blah..."

Then some nosy git from your neighborhood, who happened to hear part of your statement, writes an article in the local newspaper:
"Sherab refuses intruders proposal for peaceful co-existence, based on his ethical objections".
Somebody else comments: "It is obvious to me that his ethical stance is the source of the conflict taking place in the intruders house."

And in the meantime the intruders kill another one of your family members.

TIME FOR A REALITY CHECK!

[Grigoris]

Sherab Dorjes comment was his own personal opinion and has nothing to do with his global moderation.

He has the right to have his own personal views and express them on the forum, his moderation job is seperate from his personal posting.

I disagree.

I get the feeling you disagree because I am not agreeing with you. If I was agreeing with you, I am sure you would be whistling a different tune.

Irregardless, this is what the Terms of Service have to say about the issue:

Dharma Wheel administrators and moderators are first and foremost members of Dharma Wheel and as such are entitled to express their views and opinions in threads the same as all registered users. Staff expressing their personal views and opinions in threads should not be mistaken for acts of administration/moderation. The staff will make it clear when they are performing an act of administration/moderation.

Like it, lump it, or leave.

[Sherab]

Sherab
In brief, I think Jewish fundamentalism could create obstacles as well but I think that unlike Islam, there is more room for compromise. There is no talk of a command to kill all non-believers.

The koran doesnt teach to kill all non believers, the hadiths do teach such things.

Jewish fundamentalism does also allow for the killing of blasphemers/unbelievers in the Tanakha(bible)
Duet 13:6-18,lev 24:13.....ect

So extremism can go both ways.

Muslims do not rely solely on the Qur'an, but on the Hadiths and the Shar'ia as well. The three cannot be divorce from each other. In fact, you need the Hadiths to provide the context for the interpretation of the verses in the Qur'an.

I believe the Jews have moved on from killing of blasphemers and substituted it with ex-communication. i don't think it is possible to have the same move to happening in Islam currently.

[Sönam]

Dear Greg,

Just a quicky ...

First of all: HELLO not all Palestinians are Muslims. Come as a shock to you?

Yeaaah ... there is more than 50 years I know much about Palestinian and story of this part of the world. I'm born 48 ... does it tell you something ?

Secondly: Are you familiar with the story of Moses? Obviously not.

LOL!!! ... my father was jewish, my family is a well known (since more than 500 years) family of cantors. Ask google with my name, you will learn about. Do you pretend to know more the story of Moses and so on ?

Thirdly: Are you aware of the fact that people were living in Palestine before the tribes of Israel even became Jewish (ie before Abraham)? Obviously not.

There has always been peoples on the planet before states become states ... and very few of them were living there. Maybe you reinvestigate a bit more before to be so clear-cut.

Fourthly: Have you read the Koran? If you had then you would know that Muslims trace their genealogy back to Abraham too. That means they were living in Palestine at the same time as the Israelis AND that they are actually related to them. That is why the term "anti-semitism" includes racist attitudes towards Palestinians (and Arabs in general). That's right: Arabs are semites too.

Of course I know all that. It is standard knowledge. Muslims can trace what they want, but they start as a religious group with Mohamet and the Koran ... that of course I've read. On the land of Israel some shepferd, philistins, coming from an area which is today Jordania (btw stollen by the present dynasty to the peoples of Palestine - Philistins). And Arabs are not anti-semits, they are anti-jews. But of course not all of them. For exemple, I've been living 10 years in Morrocco (so I know a bit muslims and so on) and Mohamed V, great father of the present king (nbr 6) is considered in Israel as a righteous person (just) ... but you certainly know also position of Morrocco in the Palestinian/Israelian conflict.

Fifthly: Muslims have an infinitely superior track record in their treatment of Jewish people than the Christians do.

It has nothing to do with Islam. The Palestinian issue is not a religious issue, it is an issue of illegal occupation.

So on and on ... Palestinian (but in fact more Arabian around) made, since 1948, a causus bellis with Israel (remember the Kippour war) with the necessity to through all jews to the sea. And so continue to react the Islamic Jihad, in Gaza, Libanon, and now in Syria and so on. Israel is the only protection (our protection, starting with Greece which is not far away) to the Jihhad in Europa.

Sönam

[Sönam]

Anyway, I'm through with butting heads with people that want to turn this into yet another Islam/Muslim bashing thread.

Such judgemental comment is unbecoming of a global moderator.

Sherab Dorjes comment was his own personal opinion and has nothing to do with his global moderation.

He has the right to have his own personal views and express them on the forum, his moderation job is seperate from his personal posting.

to be ponderated (it seems we already had that discussion with Greg somewhere else ...)

Sönam

[Sönam]

Do you think Judaism - or Jewish Fundamentalism - is also creating obstacles towards peace?

Zionism. Not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews. Actually, many ultra-Orthodox Jews do not support the state of Israel, because the Holy Temple has not been rebuilt yet and thus the correct foundation for a true Jewish state has not been established.

There definitely are ultra-Orthodox Jews who are anti-Zionist, but they comprise a very small minority of both Orthodox Jewry and global Jewry.

I think Zionism must in some sense be understood as an expression of Judaism, possibly the dominant one, and certainly is broadly supported by a majority of Jews (and non-Jewish Western elites) at some level, even if a majority of global Jewry opposes Israel's occupation and settlement policies and dislikes hateful ultra-Orthodox religious fanatics.

Definitely a very very small minority ... which, btw, do not care about Palestinian but the respect of the "voice of god" that said that jewish will come back in Israel when they will have expurged all sins (which is not the case).

And about Zionism, simply wikipedia :

After almost two millennia of existence of the Jewish diaspora without a national state, the Zionist movement was founded in the late 19th century by secular Jews, largely as a response by Ashkenazi Jews to rising antisemitism in Europe, exemplified by the Dreyfus affair in France and the anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire.[16] The political movement was formally established by the Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl in 1897 following the publication of his book Der Judenstaat.[17] At that time, the movement sought to encourage Jewish migration to the Ottoman Palestine.

Although initially one of several Jewish political movements offering alternative responses to assimilation and antisemitism, Zionism grew rapidly and became the dominant force in Jewish politics with the destruction of Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe where these alternative movements were rooted.

Sönam

[Sherab]

Sherab Dorjes comment was his own personal opinion and has nothing to do with his global moderation.

He has the right to have his own personal views and express them on the forum, his moderation job is seperate from his personal posting.

I disagree.

I get the feeling you disagree because I am not agreeing with you. If I was agreeing with you, I am sure you would be whistling a different tune.

Irregardless, this is what the Terms of Service have to say about the issue:

Dharma Wheel administrators and moderators are first and foremost members of Dharma Wheel and as such are entitled to express their views and opinions in threads the same as all registered users. Staff expressing their personal views and opinions in threads should not be mistaken for acts of administration/moderation. The staff will make it clear when they are performing an act of administration/moderation.

Like it, lump it, or leave.

My apologies then. Clearly you are acting within the TOS.

[Grigoris]

Yeaaah ... there is more than 50 years I know much about Palestinian and story of this part of the world. I'm born 48 ... does it tell you something ?

That it is high time that you moved on to a more constructive view?

LOL!!! ... my father was jewish, my family is a well known (since more than 500 years) family of cantors. Ask google with my name, you will learn about. Do you pretend to know more the story of Moses and so on ?

Good. So then you know that Moses lead an invasion on the people living in Palestine.

Of course I know all that. It is standard knowledge. Muslims can trace what they want, but they start as a religious group with Mohamet and the Koran ... that of course I've read. On the land of Israel some shepferd, philistins, coming from an area which is today Jordania (btw stollen by the present dynasty to the peoples of Palestine - Philistins).

So you agree that the Israeli state has no valid historical claim on the land.

But of course not all of them. For exemple, I've been living 10 years in Morrocco (so I know a bit muslims and so on) and Mohamed V, great father of the present king (nbr 6) is considered in Israel as a righteous person (just) ... but you certainly know also position of Morrocco in the Palestinian/Israelian conflict.

So then you agree that the Palestinian issue is not an issue with Islam, since an Islamic king can also be a supporter of Israel.

Israel is the only protection (our protection, starting with Greece which is not far away) to the Jihhad in Europa.

No, the only protection against Jihadists is to support liberal Islamic states. You see, Islam is not going to disapppear, actually it is increasing in popularity, so to avoid Islamic fundamentalism one must support Islamic liberalism.

See if Europe wanted to stem the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey (for example), then it would have been infinitely more intelligent to have allowed Turkey to become a member of the economic union back when Turkey had a Kemalist (secular) government, or at the beginning of Erdogans (Islamicist) "reign". Instead it chose to side with Israel (out of European feelings of guilt for their massacre of the Jewish people) and thus forced Turkey into a firmly anti-Israel position.

You don't make friends by treating people as enemies. It just doesn't work.

[Sherab]

I get the feeling you disagree because I am not agreeing with you. If I was agreeing with you, I am sure you would be whistling a different tune.

I have no problem with you or anyone disagreeing with me in general.

I have problem in this specific instance because since my arguments were based on the article whose link I have provided, I expected you to have the good sense to read the article to understand the arguments before responding to my post. Otherwise, how could you ever hope to provide a sensible response? On top of that, you seemed to get upset because my replies were not to your liking. I thought that was really unnecessary.

[Grigoris]

I get the feeling you disagree because I am not agreeing with you. If I was agreeing with you, I am sure you would be whistling a different tune.

I have no problem with you or anyone disagreeing with me in general.

I have problem in this specific instance because since my arguments were based on the article whose link I have provided, I expected you to have the good sense to read the article to understand the arguments before responding to my post. Otherwise, how could you ever hope to provide a sensible response? On top of that, you seemed to get upset because my replies were not to your liking. I thought that was really unnecessary.

You know what I am upset about? Attempts by various apologists (I am talking in general here) to cloud the central issue behind the conflict: The illegal occupation of the land.

And what really upsets me? That behind this smoke screen innocent people are dying. That's what REALLY bugs me.

It's not the illegal occupation of Muslim land by Jewish occupiers that is the problem*. If the Palestinians were Christians and the invaders were Muslims the problem would still be the same. If the Palestinians were Jewish and the invaders were Christians the problem would still be the same. If... ad nauseum...

In the meantime: In Syria... In Iraq... In the Ukraine... In Afghanistan... In Libya... In...

*This reasoning just feeds the European anti-semitic beast. And here I mean "Semite" in its full sense.

[Dan74]

Discussions of this issue tend to get out of hand, as many here probably know, so I'd like to ask people to please confine their posts to addressing substantive issues and refrain from any personal remarks, please. Any ad homs by anyone to anyone from now on will earn a warning.

It would be nice to surprise ourselves and actually make it constructive, wouldn't it?

[Sherab]

No, the only protection against Jihadists is to support liberal Islamic states. You see, Islam is not going to disapppear, actually it is increasing in popularity, so to avoid Islamic fundamentalism one must support Islamic liberalism.

There are those, such as Walid Shoebat (an ex-Palestinian Islamist/terrorist) who would argue that Islamic liberalism is an oxymoron.

See if Europe wanted to stem the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey (for example), then it would have been infinitely more intelligent to have allowed Turkey to become a member of the economic union back when Turkey had a Kemalist (secular) government, or at the beginning of Erdogans (Islamicist) "reign". Instead it chose to side with Israel (out of European feelings of guilt for their massacre of the Jewish people) and thus forced Turkey into a firmly anti-Israel position.

Again, there are those who would argue that to allow Turkey into the EU is to allow a Trojan horse in and would consider the argument politically naive. I think that a reason for the growing strength of the extreme right in Europe is a symptom of push-back by those whose perceive the threat of the growing an increasing aggressive Islamic population in their countries. For example, in the UK, there are Muslims enclaves where non-Muslims are not allowed in.

You don't make friends by treating people as enemies. It just doesn't work.

If you bothered to read the article that I mentioned, you will perhaps get to learn the meaning and implications of taqiyya.