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Grex > Agora41 > #37: What can be done in the middle east? | |
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| 25 new of 604 responses total. |
aaron
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response 450 of 604:
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May 24 00:39 UTC 2002 |
It has a really good deal on a long-term lease?
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lk
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response 451 of 604:
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May 24 01:40 UTC 2002 |
Congratulations, Marcus, on once again quoting me out of context -- ironic
given that I had just pointed out that your previous response failed to
focus on what I did say, the important clause being "after WW II".
Once again, you failed to address a single question I asked.
Perhaps you wish to honestly address #442?
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mdw
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response 452 of 604:
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May 24 02:26 UTC 2002 |
Are you accusing me of being dishonest?
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bdh3
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response 453 of 604:
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May 24 04:28 UTC 2002 |
You guys are arguing irrelevent factoids. It doesn't even really
matter who's factoid is more factual than who's. I'm so very sure
it doesn't matter much to either group of folks at the sharp ends
of the sticks either at this point in time. This is 2002.
Clearly Israel asserting a claim to the west bank (lk claiming
jordan as well?) isn't helping. Clearly the PLA claiming the
'right to return' to Israel isn't helping. Clearly both sides
from time to time have done wrongs to the other side. Living in
the past or using past tactics means the future is DOA. Clearly
its time for a new way, the old way isn't working at all.
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bdh3
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response 454 of 604:
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May 24 04:33 UTC 2002 |
And lk, you are a bright fella. Don't bore us with old, come
up with something new. Don't tell us that its all the PLA
fault and that all they have to do is adhere to the Mitchell
PLan. We know that, we saw that on the news months ago. It
isn't working. What action can Israel do to cause the PLA to
want to start the process? Clearly killing more kids isn't the
solution as its been tried in the past and hasn't worked any
better then than now.
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lk
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response 455 of 604:
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May 24 05:39 UTC 2002 |
Once again, Marcus, you twisted what I said but did not respond to it.
Brian, I have not claimed Jordan, I recounted regional history -- that
Jordan is eastern (Transjodanian) Palestine, accounting for 80% of
historic Palestine. I'm sure you recall that when King Hussein felt
threatened by the PLO in 1970/1971, he "transferred" them to Lebanon.
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bdh3
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response 456 of 604:
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May 24 06:48 UTC 2002 |
And 'regional history' is irrelevent. They all know the history
and probably even better and in more specific detail than even you.
(They are there, living it, subject to it.)
Sure Hussein al-Jordan looked out for his own interests, so what.
Do you imply that Israel should take a page from his book and
'transfer' all the palastinians someplace else as well? I don't
think so, so what Hussein did 22 years ago isn't particularly
relevent other than perhaps to point out how much the palastinian
arabs actually have in common with the jews even though their
'diaspora' was somewhat shorter in duration (and not completely
ended). The question is what is relevent today, what is the
solution today, where is to be found the solution for the future
today. Fortunately the PLO is too sanguine (and perhaps too
stupid) to take a page from the book of Ghandi-ji or MLK and so
Israel has some time yet to be creative. But that time is
running out, the situation must be solved soon and rehashing
the past does nothing except perhaps fixing the positions of
either side squarely in the past. Sure it is intellectually
interesting for historians to try to figure out how and perhaps
why folk got to where they are now but it rarely provides a
map for where they go.
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lk
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response 457 of 604:
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May 24 14:14 UTC 2002 |
Brian, I hate to disappoint you but we're not going to resolve this
conflict here on Grex. The roadmap for how to resolve this has been
on the table since 1967: UN Security Council Resolution 242. Israel
accepted it in 1967. The first Arab state to do so was Egypt, a
decade later. For making peace with Israel, it was thrown out of the
Arab League. It would be a decade later before the PLO would (for
the first time) renounce terrorism and finally in 1993, in signing
the Oslo Accords, accept UNSCR 242. This enabled Jordan to move
forward and make peace with Israel (like the other Arabs, Jordan
found Israel waiting: ready, willing and able to make peace.)
Wht is disturbing to me (and many others, including consecutive American
administrations) is that after 7 years of peace negotiations, Arafat at
Camp David rejected the spirit of compromise and ordered violence and
terrorism. (Exactly in accordance with the PNC's "two phased" solution
passed in 1974 (76?): take what you can get peacefully and then resume
the war. A plan that, like the PLO Covenant (which calls for the
destruction of Israel) may explain why a top PLO/PA official last year
spoke of the Oslo process as a "Trojan Horse" designed to get Arab
fighters into the disputed territories (it's much easier to carry out
terrorist bombing operations from Jenin, a few miles away from Netanya,
than from Tunisia.
So why do I discuss history? Because it becomes clear during conversations
here that some M-Netters either have verry little knowledge of this history
or worse yet, cling and espouse popular myths. These myths skew the manner
in which they see the conflict and there understanding of it.
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mdw
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response 458 of 604:
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May 24 18:17 UTC 2002 |
Re #451 -- you said in #451 "Perhaps you wish to honestly address
#442?". You obviously either feel I dishonestly dealt with #442, or
that I will dishonestly deal with #442 -- either case makes me
dishonest. Twist your words how you will, calling me a liar is not
going to convince me of the truth of your arguments. All it's going to
do is raise what little Irish I have in me. Is that what you were
hoping to do? You know, this is fascinating. There's what Leeron
appears to be trying to do. Then there's what Leeron is actually
accomplishing. And there's what Leeron wants to accomplish, a thing we
can't measure, but only guess at. 3 things, not necessarily all the
same. Wow. Each of us, trapped in the web of our own individual
cultures, trading illusions, to what end? Somehow, I had hoped better
in this. How do you communicate truth when each thinks the other a
liar? Well, I've had my cosmic revelation for the day. Have you stopped
beating your aunt? Moo.
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lk
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response 459 of 604:
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May 24 22:39 UTC 2002 |
Marcus, I didn't say you were dishonest. That would be an unwarranted
generalization and a personal attack. I DID say that you had not
honestly dealt with a particular response -- which I believe is true.
You can "moo" all you want, but I think it's rather clear than you
are focusing on meta-discussion instead of the subject. Why is it that
you don't (can't?) address the points and questions I raise -- questions
which arise from your own statements?
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mdw
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response 460 of 604:
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May 24 22:49 UTC 2002 |
No point looking at trees in the wrong forest.
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lk
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response 461 of 604:
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May 25 06:17 UTC 2002 |
Then wny did YOU bring up those trees in the first place?
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mdw
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response 462 of 604:
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May 26 00:36 UTC 2002 |
I thought I was in a different forest.
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russ
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response 463 of 604:
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May 26 02:14 UTC 2002 |
Re #349: You never heard of the Brownshirts, did you? They were
*all about* cowing local opposition.
Re #375: It makes PERFECT sense to argue legitimate ownership vs.
theft, Marcus. Why should ethnic cleansing be allowed to stand?
We are still returning works of art stolen in the 1930's to their
legitimate owners. Shouldn't the authorities be REQUIRED to evict
the current occupants of land expropriated by force and return it
to the legitimate owners and/or their heirs?
(Note that if you are arguing that expropriated "settlement" land
must be returned to Arabs, you must also argue that expropriated
land from the 1930's and 1940's must be returned to Jews... unless
you deny the rights of Jews.)
And I must say once again that I agree with pthomas in #435.
Re #437: I don't agree with everything my own government does either.
Re #456: Brian, those people in the region may be "living" the history,
but they sure don't know it. The Al-Aqsa mosque still stands despite
multiple hoax claims that Jews tried to destroy it, yet further such
claims can still bring violent crowds to the streets. This is not a
population schooled and understanding of history, it is an ignorant
rabble being disinformed and shamelessly manipulated by cynics.
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mdw
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response 464 of 604:
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May 26 02:22 UTC 2002 |
Statue of limitations.
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lk
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response 465 of 604:
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May 26 15:39 UTC 2002 |
Oh, I see. So it's not "recent/living memory" as you previously argued.
That went out the window when you learned that these areas were Jewish
within recent/living memory. So now there's a statute of limitations.
What is the duration and origin of said limitation?
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mdw
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response 466 of 604:
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May 27 03:26 UTC 2002 |
Silly Leeron, statues do not live. They're sculpted by a human, and
usually represent a dead human on a horse. The purpose of a statue is
to provide a rest area for tired pigeons, where they can relieve
themselves without soiling pedestrians who might be passing by.
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russ
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response 467 of 604:
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May 27 04:08 UTC 2002 |
Re #464: Statutes of limitations are for prosecutions for
criminal acts, not restoration of stolen property to the
rightful owners. Try again.
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mdw
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response 468 of 604:
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May 27 05:14 UTC 2002 |
Actually, it applies to civil law as well, including property law. The
real problem here is that since it's a matter of "law" (and especially
english common law, although I suspect other legal systems have similar
mechanisms), it doesn't really apply in any strict sense to
international law. The reason why such a limitation is useful is still
worth keeping in mind; as time progresses it becomes harder to prove
something in law, and harder still to apply a just remedy; things get
very awkward when the original witnesses have all died, the defendent
has died, his descendents have intermarried with the plantiff's cousins,
etc. The "statute of limitations" is a property of statutory law
designed to eliminate these cases which would otherwise clog the courts
with no reasonable benefit to society. Unfortunately, in this case,
there is no court, no reasonable standard of proof, and nobody cares
about any benefits to society at large. So we're back to "trial by
combat".
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bdh3
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response 469 of 604:
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May 27 06:25 UTC 2002 |
And that ain't working too well. Time to try something different.
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lk
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response 470 of 604:
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May 27 08:33 UTC 2002 |
So if there's no "recent/living memory" standard, and if we apply a statute
of limitations and the cliche that "possession is 9/10ths of the law"....
Marcus can call me silly until he & the cows stop mooing, but he doesn't
seem to realize that he wants to term land that was owned by individual
Jews prior to 1948 but was then taken over by foreign Arab invaders as
"Arab land" -- only to then claim it was "stolen" by Jews in 1967.
He similarly wishes to define [Ottoman/British-Mandate] state-owned lands,
which were never owned by individual Arabs and which prior to 1948 had not
been under Arab rule in about 1000 years, as "Arab land" stolen by Israel.
So where in international law (not British common law) is there any such
statute of limitations? What do you propose is its extent? Will you
sculpt it such that 1968 is too recent but 1967 is not? That 1948 is
too distant, but 1949 is not?
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mdw
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response 471 of 604:
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May 28 01:07 UTC 2002 |
Wow, Leeron -- carrying both sides of the argument, are you? Has Mr.
Sock Puppet been good to you today?
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lk
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response 472 of 604:
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May 28 01:41 UTC 2002 |
Marcus, if you've lost interest in the conversation now that I have asked
you to take responsibility for what you've said (and evidently cannot),
why act as a twit rather than forget the item?
If the standard isn't "recent/living memory" as you previously argued but
a statute of limitations, please tell us its origin in (the applicable)
international law and its duration.
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mdw
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response 473 of 604:
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May 28 02:48 UTC 2002 |
Leeron, you have no clue as to what I really think, you never did, and
so far as I can see, you never will. At least from the evidence you
display, your perceptual reality is *way* different from mine; you take
as an obvious premise, that which I regard as unproven, if not
unprovable supposition; you have a black & white view of reality where I
see shades of grey; you admit, only after long claiming to be giving the
unbiased objective truth, a family history that does more to explain
your bias than all the words put together that you have uttered. You
accuse me of lying (excuse me, "being dishonest"). You accuse me of
being a twit. Just now, you *completely* misunderstood what I said
about international law and the statute of limitations. Apparently, you
think I said that there was some sort of international statute of
limitations, whereas, one of the points I made was that we apparently
haven't advanced to the point where it's even possible to have such an
animal. I might as well be speaking fortran to a cobol compiler for all
the sense I'm getting out of you. "Dishonest" actually has 2 sides to
its meaning: one is that of concealing the truth. The other side is
that of being "knavish", dishonorable, indecent, and unjust. Across a
communications gap where no shared truth exists, is anything but
"dishonesty" possible? If withdrawal from the field of honor is
regarded as an admission of defeat, how, exactly, does one win?
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lk
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response 474 of 604:
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May 28 06:58 UTC 2002 |
Marcus, how can I possibly understand you when every time I ask a question
you respond with meta-discussion such as the above yarn?
Don't fault me if you speak in riddles and refuse to clarify (e.g. I asked
why your "recent/living memory" only goes as far back as 1949 but not 1948;
your entire response (#464) was "statue of limitations" -- and I was supposed
to deduce that you were talking about something that hasn't yet evolved?)
Do you think that by misrepresenting (again!) what I said about making an
honest response as calling you dishonest (see #459) you are convincing me
of your honesty?
> you take as an obvious premise, that which I regard as unproven
Please tell me what this premise is. To the contrary, I think you have
advanced conslusions that were premises only to have them proven wrong (e.g.
that the Palestinian Arabs are descendents of the Canaanites) and of
twisting western logic (that lack of evidence of a massacre at Jenin doesn't
clear Israel of guilt, as if that is the default assumption rather than what
needs to be proven and as if Israel could prove something didn't happen).
> ...your bias...
In as much as I am a party to the conflict, I am "biased" (and I've never
hidden this). So what? Should we dismiss anything you might choose to say
about US involvement in Afghanistan or about Florida elections because you
are "biased"? Sure, you may want to check on what I say to ensure that
(unlike biased "eyewitnesses" who claimed to see something that didn't
happen) I'm not sacrificing my integrity for the cause. I encourage that.1G
But are my arguments biased? Apparently not, since both pthomas and russ
(amongst others) make the same arguments. So can we drop this red herring?
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