Terrorism and Islam

[aabukar]

what a thread?? actually I am not hear trying to spread a message or to debate on such topics and especially to debate with some close minded people (sorry for that )

on the other hand some posts show great examples of what an open minded person really is and i would like thank all of the people use logical reasoning in their posts.

I would like to thank ali and noor for their great explanation i could not do it any better

What i would like to do is excercise the habit "seek to understand to be understood" here so would please please anyone of you explain to me and give some logical reason and historical evidence that Israel is a country. and just why whenever Israel does something "internationally illegal" a country like USA would use the "VETO" right in UN to prevent the world from taking an action?

This is a question that have been trying to answer since i was in my fourth grade ... how come people with basic common sense believe in Israel and support it? am i missing something here ?

[gberardi]

Originally Posted by aabukar

what a thread?? actually I am not hear trying to spread a message or to debate on such topics and especially to debate with some close minded people (sorry for that )

What i would like to do is excercise the habit "seek to understand to be understood" here so would please please anyone of you explain to me and give some logical reason and historical evidence that Israel is a country.

I would suggest that this topic could be its own thread. While it is related to the issues of terrorism (as a number of extremists exist to rid the area of Israel), I think it could be better to discuss the validity of Israel in a different thread.

Wikipedia has some information about it, though: Israel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Keith]

Originally Posted by aabukar

What i would like to do is excercise the habit "seek to understand to be understood" here so would please please anyone of you explain to me and give some logical reason and historical evidence that Israel is a country.

Unfortunately, this is one of those situations where multiple different groups of people have valid claim to the same territory. The ancestors of the modern Israelis (Israelites/Jews) were driven from their homeland by the ancient Romans. They believe they have a valid claim to the land as it was their ancestors' homeland, and they're probably right.

In the meanwhile, Palestinians believe they have a valid claim to the land as they've been living there for over a millenia. They're probably right.

To make things more complicated, since Islam is an offshoot of Judaism, a lot religious sites are holy to members of both religions, and both have some valid historical claim to them.

Originally Posted by aabukar

and just why whenever Israel does something "internationally illegal" a country like USA would use the "VETO" right in UN to prevent the world from taking an action?

The US presumably takes an action like that because it considers the action to be in its best political interests. Personally, I consider that very shortsighted, but it's probably the reason.

Originally Posted by aabukar

This is a question that have been trying to answer since i was in my fourth grade ... how come people with basic common sense believe in Israel and support it? am i missing something here ?

If you can't see some justification for the existence of Israel then yes, you're missing something. That land is the historical homeland of the Jewish people.

This, of course, does not mean that the Palestinians don't also have a claim to it, and therein lies the problem. If the two religions didn't rub each other up the wrong way so much, they could probably just combine the two nations and be done with it...

[Brutha]

This is a question that have been trying to answer since i was in my fourth grade ... how come people with basic common sense believe in Israel and support it? am i missing something here ?

Cultural reasons.

For one their is some feeling of guilt in the western world for what happend to the jew in the second World War.

Than their is a commitment to the historical decision to build a Jewish state.

Their is a strong Jewish lobby in the US that has political influence.

A more modern reason is that suddenly the US finds it unfair that other forces don't fight with the US rules (with would be the US win's any war), but use more efficent ways to wage war known as terrorismn.
The war against terror rethoric polarizes the world into two sides, and since Israel doesn't use terrorismn anymore, Israel is on the side on the US.

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

I haven't read every post up until this point, so forgive me if I am repeating anything, but from one point of view, the entire conflict between Israel and Palestine is religious. What I mean is, going back to Abraham, the two sides have been in conflict. God promised Abraham a son that would make him the father of many nations. Abraham didn't trust God to provide his son through his wife and so had an affair with her servant, producing son Ishmael. Son Isaac was later born by Abraham's wife. Whether you believe Abraham ever existed or the story of God's promise and the two sons is irrelevant. These two cultures are fighting over a birthright. Judaism/Christianity vs. Islam is the outcome. The US being a 'Christian' nation, we are bound to support Israel. In my opinion (and I am not really studied enough on this to claim any certainty) we are at war with terrorism, but truly we are at war with Islam. Religious scholars would obviously give a much more coherent explanation. Just food for thought. I don't know if I explained this really well or if anyone will see what I am getting at, but this is essentially a religious conflict millenia old stemming from the traditions/stories (some would call them myths) of the two sons of Abraham.

[Stu]

Israel is a country because they took the land, called themselves a country and got other powerful countries to acknowledge this. If the US invaded and took over Canada and got everyone else to go along with it then Canada would no longer be a country, simple as that. There are rules preventing stuff like this but there is no real governing body to enforce the rules, everything is basically done on the honour system. Generally the rules are obeyed and if someone steps out of line then all the other countries get together and set things right. But when jewish immigrants started taking over Palestine, no one really bothered to step in and make things right. Some didnt want to speak up and some liked the idea of a jewish state, for religious or political reasons. But at the end of the day no one really went in there and stopped them. Palestines neighbors tried to stop it but they couldnt.

As for why Israel is supported, well there are many, many different reasons. But probably the biggest is because the US supports them, for political and religious reasons. And who is going to bother going toe to toe with the US for the Palestinians? There are only a few countries that could even do it, and they would have a ton to lose and basically nothing to gain.

[Brutha]

The holocaust argument emotionally is very strong.
Saying publicly that Israel shouldn't exist would kill most politicians in europe or the US, because that politician would be labeld as anti-semite.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Stu

Israel is a country because they took the land, called themselves a country and got other powerful countries to acknowledge this. If the US invaded and took over Canada and got everyone else to go along with it then Canada would no longer be a country, simple as that.

It's not that simple in the Israel/Palestine case. Canada is not the original homeland of the American race[1]. But Palestine is the ancient homeland of the Jewish(Israelite) people. Jerusalem in particular is the (geographical) spiritual centre of the Jewish people.

I'm not saying for a moment that the Palestinians don't have rights to the land too. This is not a binary situation. The Palestinian people also have a long history of living in that land.

I truly hope that one day Israel and Palestine figure out how to fuse into one peaceful nation. It would serve as example to the rest of the world.

[1] Which doesn't exist, of course - America is a cultural identity, not a racial one.

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by Keith

[1] Which doesn't exist, of course - America is a cultural identity, not a racial one.

No such thing as a racial identity, near as I can tell. Race is just a culture that's has roots back to pre-Herodotus.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Michael Chui

No such thing as a racial identity, near as I can tell. Race is just a culture that's has roots back to pre-Herodotus.

You make a good (though slightly oversimplified) point. It's really an aside though. Whether you call them a 'race' or a 'culture', those lands are the historic and spiritual home of the Jewish people.

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by Keith

You make a good (though slightly oversimplified) point. It's really an aside though. Whether you call them a 'race' or a 'culture', those lands are the historic and spiritual home of the Jewish people.

Well, I stayed out of this thread because I don't want to get into the argument since I disagree with it at a fundamental level. So, I want to disclaim that I'm only going to point out a couple things, and I won't do anymore than clarify what I mean. Not even going to defend what I'm going to say outside of this post. I'm completely on the fence in this discussion.

1) The Jewish people themselves establish that they won the land they "own" through conquest. It's a key part of their holy texts.

2) Declaring a spiritual center does not assign a right. If I believe that the White House is on top of a powerful reserve of dilithium according to the holy texts of my religion, I don't have the right to go digging down there to grab it. If it did, then that makes the Puritan versus Royalist war in early Colonial England a bit... unjust.

3) A long history does not assign rights. I can't quite back this statement up, other than to question the premise that just because someone decided to sit down in a place before someone else did doesn't inherently declare any kind of ownership.

4) That you can have a right to a piece of land is a concept that just annoys me. On what authority? (First person who says "God" dies. God will kill you. Preferably using something other than old age.) Land ownership is based entirely on this macho chest-thumping contest of wills. Whoever flinches first loses it, or gets a tiny piece. If you fail to maintain said will, whether by homeland security or a decent military for repelling invaders, then no land4u. If no one flinches, then well, you can already see what happens.

In short, I don't have a resolution to the conflict. I don't really expect there to be one unless something miraculous (like a flinch). Then again, I also haven't tried playing PeaceMaker, by Impact Games. I hear it's good. And the creators are really nice people. (ends plug)

[Stu]

Michael Chui is right. The idea of ownership or claim to the land gets thrown about a lot but what you have to understand is that there is no one regulating or enforcing any of these claims. Like Michael said, he could claim possession of the land under the white house but who is going to listen to him? Is anyone going to back up his claim?

Israel took possession / made a claim on land that really belonged to the Palestinian state, but they got some powerful states to back up their claim and in doing so they became a legitimate state. Similarly, if they had done everything they did and all the powerful states had denounced them and told them that was Palestines land and they had to get off or they would be removed forcibly, what is their claim worth?

Secondly, there are plenty of stateless peoples with a very legitimate historical claim to land that are being ignored for the most part. For example, Kashmiri people, Kurdish people, Sahrawi people. These are some of the more major ones but there are plenty of other examples, especially in many parts of the developing world where the people drawing the maps failed to take in to account the realities on the ground.

[XeutonMojukai]

I took a class and spent two weeks learning about this from a man with a doctorate on the issue, so I figure I might as well embarass him with how little I learned and how badly I'll try to spew it out again :P.

Seriously, the history of Israel/Palestine is this:

Once upon a time, Israel was the land of Judea.

The Romans took it, but let the Jews live there.

Then the Jews were exiled from their own lands for reasons of starting a subcult based around a certain Christened martyr.

So, eventually, as irony would have it, Christianity becomes the official religion of Rome, and a few hundred years after, Rome is wiped out.

So during and after this time, another certain subcult arises, started by a certain Prophet in the Mountains.

And again, this subcult raises quite a stir, and it's leaders begin to lead world leaders.

Their people occupy the land surrounding Mesopotamia.

For everyone but the Jews, all seems well.

Thus, eventually, Jews come back in response to the Zionist movement.

Here's a bit of trivia about the Zionist ideals:

The actual place of choice in the mind of the author was what many thought was the optional alternative: Argentina. He thought going to the Holy Land again was far too inflammatory a move, and was truly superficial anyway.

Yet again, fate is not without a sense of irony.

But thankfully, relations are quite peaceful. Farmers keep to their own tribes, and any friendships are friendly, and any fights brief.

Then, we got stuck with WWI.

Good old England (at that time the equivalent of us, so don't shift the blame) decided that it was their duty to say who got the land.

In true, sensitive European fashion, a bunch of arbitrary lines were drawn that separated family ties and intercultural alliances.

Then... THEN, the disputes over land started.

And since then, hell has been loose without needing to be broken free.

~ David

[Michael Chui]

Eh. My takeaway: You win a big war, you get a big head, you make a big mess.