Israel & Palestinian Situation - Significantly Driven by Extremists

[Vine Abider]

Well, @Marathoner, it's all one big mess, isn't it!?  I speak, of course, of Adam's race, of which we all, in the flesh, are descendant from.  Please forgive me, brother, if I spoke out of ignorance.

As I said in the OP, just recently I have gained an appetite to understand more about what's going on over there.  The last two nights I've been watching a couple videos of interviews between Israelis and Palestinians.  It's pretty enlightening, to say the least.  Before I always just automatically sided with about any Israeli action, because basically that is what I was taught.  After spending some hours of reading various things and listening to people speak in these videos, my bottom-line is I still support Israel, because I believe that's where the bible comes down on the matter.*

However, I'm starting to get better insight into the actual feelings on the ground, especially as I watch these interviews.  These were made with very real people, living for years in the midst of that situation.

And perhaps I misspoke (in ignorance once again) about Arabs being 90% responsible . . . probably better to say "Based upon my limited perception, I believe most of the misbehaving has come from Israel's enemies." (and leave the percentage off of it)

It would be quite arrogant to say I know exactly what's really going on there - I don't.  But I hope, from further study, to  gain better knowledge.  I do believe this: the middle east situation is a grand conundrum/Gordian Knot to say the least, and the man that can (apparently) solve it will have to really be something indeed - seemingly worthy of the lofty pedestal he will be put on!

* Geo-politically speaking I'm also getting a better understanding of how this mess came about via the actions of the Romans, Ottomans, British, French, Arab nations & the US.  However exceptionally messy it is, I believe it is still God's will that Israel became a nation 2,000 years after their dispersal.

May we all find the Prince of Peace in this!

[farouk]

On 5/1/2024 at 9:49 PM, NConly said:

Watching a news program a few days ago they said the ones claiming to be Palestinians are Ottoman Turks

@NConly What Syria and Palestine meant about a century to a century and a half ago does not necessarily correspond with what the terms denote now.

[Vine Abider]

3 hours ago, farouk said:

@NConly What Syria and Palestine meant about a century to a century and a half ago does not necessarily correspond with what the terms denote now.

Yes, it appears they were remnants from the Ottoman Empire . . . but then everyone in that area was.  The ancestral line of indigenous people in that area is quite muddied (which includes Jewish remnants too).

[other one]

On 4/29/2024 at 5:03 PM, other one said:

 

 

[farouk]

7 hours ago, Vine Abider said:

Yes, it appears they were remnants from the Ottoman Empire . . . but then everyone in that area was.  The ancestral line of indigenous people in that area is quite muddied (which includes Jewish remnants too).

Syria in those days was a much wider term; until the 1943 independence of Lebanon it included what is now Lebanon. The Syrian Republic dates from 1946.

[Tristen]

On 4/30/2024 at 11:17 PM, Eman_3 said:

Is it wise to appeal to the figurehead of a death cult?

 

Soon after Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, in June 1967, the Israeli military authorities consolidated complete power over all water resources and water-related infrastructure in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). 50 years on, Israel continues to control and restrict Palestinian access to water in the OPT to a level which neither meets their needs nor constitutes a fair distribution of shared water resources.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/11/the-occupation-of-water/

This policy was enacted in 1967 and is still practiced.

With regards to the West Bank:

In 1967, after the six day war (in which Israel was attacked by most of its neighbors), Israel gained control of the water supply and, unsurprisingly, favored distribution to its own civilians. Even so, for subsequent decades, the West Bank were also receiving ample water supplies for their needs from Israel (which Israel was not obligated to supply to its enemies – whose consistent stated goal is to annihilate Israel). However, since then, the needs of both Israel proper and the West Bank have increased beyond sustainability.

Currently, Israel gets most of its water through desalination. Furthermore, all of Israel’s attempts to negotiate water supplies into the West Bank have been stymied by “Palestinian” rejections. For example, in 2004, Israel proposed to build a desalination plant to increase freshwater supplies to the West Bank. The proposal was rejected by the Palestinian Authority. Negotiations over water have been on-and-off depending on the state of the conflict. It is therefore disingenuous, (and simplistic and/or uninformed) to paint this as simply Israel being the big bad meanies regarding this aspect of the conflict. Negotiations have been attempted, but it makes life difficult when you have to periodically dodge an intifada (i.e. when everyone stops talking to each other for years at a time).

 

Regarding Gaza:

If only there had been a government in Gaza since 2005, receiving billions of dollars annually in international aid; i.e. a government which could have used that money to secure its own electricity and water supplies.

Are you aware that in 2015, Hamas forbade their people from digging wells to get fresh water?

Gaza is essentially a mini-state, under the control of an elected terrorist organization. When a state goes to war with another state, there is no reasonable obligation on the attacked state to provide their attackers with resources.

 

I would therefore suggest that this example is a false equivalency - i.e. when compared against the consistent violent aggression against Israel; the constant threat to civilian lives; the thousands of rocket attacks, terrorist attacks (bombings, stabbings, shootings of Israeli Jews) and acts of war committed against Israel in the name of those explicitly seeking Israel’s extinction (not to mention the recent slaughter and kidnap of innocent Jews).

 

The current state of affairs is:

Israel gained control of the water supplies in Israel in 1967. Israel cannot sensibly give over control of the water supply (with the potential to compromise Israel’s access to water) to terrorist-inclined parties seeking Israel’s demise. Arabs in the West Bank consider accepting charitable solutions from Israel to be potentially compromising to their own claims over the water supply (a cynic might be inclined to assume the Arabs also gain political momentum from showing the sorrowful state of their people). Therefore, a solution needs to be negotiated – which is hard to do when no one is talking to each other.

Perhaps Israel could have been more charitable with regards to supplying more water to their enemies. It’s not an ideal situation. But it’s also not as black and white as your post implies.

 

[farouk]

30 minutes ago, Tristen said:

With regards to the West Bank:

In 1967, after the six day war (in which Israel was attacked by most of its neighbors), Israel gained control of the water supply and, unsurprisingly, favored distribution to its own civilians. Even so, for subsequent decades, the West Bank were also receiving ample water supplies for their needs from Israel (which Israel was not obligated to supply to its enemies – whose consistent stated goal is to annihilate Israel). However, since then, the needs of both Israel proper and the West Bank have increased beyond sustainability.

Currently, Israel gets most of its water through desalination. Furthermore, all of Israel’s attempts to negotiate water supplies into the West Bank have been stymied by “Palestinian” rejections. For example, in 2004, Israel proposed to build a desalination plant to increase freshwater supplies to the West Bank. The proposal was rejected by the Palestinian Authority. Negotiations over water have been on-and-off depending on the state of the conflict. It is therefore disingenuous, (and simplistic and/or uninformed) to paint this as simply Israel being the big bad meanies regarding this aspect of the conflict. Negotiations have been attempted, but it makes life difficult when you have to periodically dodge an intifada (i.e. when everyone stops talking to each other for years at a time).

 

Regarding Gaza:

If only there had been a government in Gaza since 2005, receiving billions of dollars annually in international aid; i.e. a government which could have used that money to secure its own electricity and water supplies.

Are you aware that in 2015, Hamas forbade their people from digging wells to get fresh water?

Gaza is essentially a mini-state, under the control of an elected terrorist organization. When a state goes to war with another state, there is no reasonable obligation on the attacked state to provide their attackers with resources.

 

I would therefore suggest that this example is a false equivalency - i.e. when compared against the consistent violent aggression against Israel; the constant threat to civilian lives; the thousands of rocket attacks, terrorist attacks (bombings, stabbings, shootings of Israeli Jews) and acts of war committed against Israel in the name of those explicitly seeking Israel’s extinction (not to mention the recent slaughter and kidnap of innocent Jews).

 

The current state of affairs is:

Israel gained control of the water supplies in Israel in 1967. Israel cannot sensibly give over control of the water supply (with the potential to compromise Israel’s access to water) to terrorist-inclined parties seeking Israel’s demise. Arabs in the West Bank consider accepting charitable solutions from Israel to be potentially compromising to their own claims over the water supply (a cynic might be inclined to assume the Arabs also gain political momentum from showing the sorrowful state of their people). Therefore, a solution needs to be negotiated – which is hard to do when no one is talking to each other.

Perhaps Israel could have been more charitable with regards to supplying more water to their enemies. It’s not an ideal situation. But it’s also not as black and white as your post implies.

 

Water issues in the Middle East go back a long way.

In 1955 there was the US-brokered Johnston Plan:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Valley_Unified_Water_Plan

[Tristen]

On 5/1/2024 at 5:02 AM, Vine Abider said:

But I think it would be remise not to mention that there were things Israeli extremists did, as it goes to the root of much of what Muslims bring up.  I think we need need to have our eyes wide open nonetheless

I think that is perfectly reasonable.

However, as someone with no 'skin in the game', who has followed the conflict for decades and studied the history of the region (including prior to my Christian conversion), I would struggle to come up with 10 instances of the Israel side acting in an egregious, unprovoked, atrocious manner. To be conservative, let's say I missed some - and the true number is closer to 20 or 30. There are, by contrast (and without exaggeration or hyperbole), literally thousands of documented occasions when the Arab side has committed atrocities against Israel. That is, if you list and count them, there have been more attacks against Israel than days past since Israel's declaration of independence over 70 years ago.

I understand (and respect) the inclination to want to hear both sides of the conflict. But I can only do so much when the facts tell an overwhelmingly one-sided story, and the mainstream adopts and promotes a false narrative to make the opposite seem true.

How many times can the supposedly 'victimized' side of a conflict choose violence over negotiations - before we can start to question their good faith in the negotiation process? Not-to-mention the regional Arab's oft-stated, unequivocal, unhidden, uncompromising goal to snuff out the existence of Israel.

 

[farouk]

On 5/2/2024 at 2:25 AM, Marathoner said:

The Lord and most Galileans spoke Syriac Aramaic; Arabic is also a Syriac language and shares much in common with Aramaic. The notion that "Palestinians" never existed is more than a little ludicrous and disingenuous; the ancient Hebrews were Palestinians. So were the Phoenicians and the people called the Philistines.

Palestine refers to a geographical region. However, this is distorted in the modern vernacular to refer specifically to ethnic Arab people currently confined to the Gaza strip. They're not the only ones confined to Gaza. Much of that region's present chaos is the result of Ottoman, Imperial German, British, and U.S. meddling. It's best understood with the events surrounding the first World War serving as the frame of reference. Crude oil is the source. 

Who is the "great Satan" in Iranian rhetoric? Not Israel. That distinction belongs to the United States. I cannot say that this enmity isn't entirely deserved. U.S. hands are drenched with blood. 

Stephen Kinzer's All the Shah's Men (John Wiley & Sons, 2003) details how the US wrenched control of Iran's oil from the Iranian government led by Mossadegh, overthrown by a CIA-assisted coup-d'état in 1953 - originally the coup plan was British. The events of 1979 when religious radicals overthrew the US-assisted Shah were a result of this.

 

[Vine Abider]

10 hours ago, Tristen said:

I think that is perfectly reasonable.

However, as someone with no 'skin in the game', who has followed the conflict for decades and studied the history of the region (including prior to my Christian conversion), I would struggle to come up with 10 instances of the Israel side acting in an egregious, unprovoked, atrocious manner. To be conservative, let's say I missed some - and the true number is closer to 20 or 30. There are, by contrast (and without exaggeration or hyperbole), literally thousands of documented occasions when the Arab side has committed atrocities against Israel. That is, if you list and count them, there have been more attacks against Israel than days past since Israel's declaration of independence over 70 years ago.

I understand (and respect) the inclination to want to hear both sides of the conflict. But I can only do so much when the facts tell an overwhelmingly one-sided story, and the mainstream adopts and promotes a false narrative to make the opposite seem true.

How many times can the supposedly 'victimized' side of a conflict choose violence over negotiations - before we can start to question their good faith in the negotiation process? Not-to-mention the regional Arab's oft-stated, unequivocal, unhidden, uncompromising goal to snuff out the existence of Israel.

 

Agreed!  I just didn't want to make it sound like Israel has never done anything sideways . . .