The PLO admits the truth

[Loren Pechtel]

I see no attempt to actually address the facts.

There are no relevant facts to address in your evasives and double standard.

I listed the effects of pulling out of the various countries they have occupied at various times.

 

[laughing dog]

There are no relevant facts to address in your evasives and double standard.

I listed the effects of pulling out of the various countries they have occupied at various times.

Which has nothing to do with the situation of the West Bank.

 

[Jayjay]

What borders? Israel has not defined any. But settlement expansion continues under the guise of evicting Palestinians and demolishing Palestinian homes, "illegal" outposts that Israeli government looks through its fingers, the military giving seized lands to civilian purposes, legitimizing previously illegal outposts, redefining municipal boundaries and building new "neighbourhoods" in existing settlements. Many of these incidents have been discussed on this forum.

I'm talking about the defacto borders.

And in case you aren't aware, the Palestinians routinely build things on land they don't own. It's deception for western ears--you see the buildings being torn down, you don't realize the people building them did it for that very reason. And it's not just the Palestinians, some of the buildings are built by EU money. There are places where buildings have been torn down repeatedly.

Palestinians are under no obligation to recognize Israeli ownership of land; Isarel is the occupier, so building hovels on seized land is act of legitimate civil disobedience. Palestinians building in Palestine is hardly controversial. But give me one example where Palestinians are building anything on Israeli side of the border, or where they have established illegal settlements therein? The fact is that there are exactly 0 illegal Palestinian settlers in Israel, and 600,000 illegal Jewish settlers in West Bank.

And it's not new "neighborhoods", but rather the normal filling in you see in any developed area.

No, it is not. For example this article from less than a month ago shows Israeli plans for building a new "neighbourhood" in Shiloh over two kilometers from the main settlement and on the edge of municipal boundary which itself was changed in 2013 to include that hill. This is not filling in, it's expansion. And if you are trying to claim that it's okay because it is still within the municipality, I want to remind you that you said you were talking about de facto border, not de jure.

2) You're assuming that doing nice to the Palestinians will help. History shows the exact opposite--good gestures from Israel are repaid with shit.

You think Palestinians should thank Israel for 50 years of occupation, just if Israel occasionally gives lip service to "peace" and does the Palestinians a favor of not bombing them to the ground all the time? Of course Israel is going to get some flak regardless, but if they don't give up border control and military occupation like they did in Gaza there is no reason to think that ending the settlements would cause any reduction in security.

You're looking at it from a standpoint of being nice. That's not how the world works.

If by "nice" you mean not committing war crimes, or more broadly having a system in place that rewards countries who engage in wars of conquest, then I am guilty as charged. World doesn't work like that, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't work like that. And regardless, niceness has nothing to do with the fact that Israel's security would not be decreased by ending the civilian occupation.

3) This is what you would expect anyway--the Arab culture has a strong tendency to respect strength, not nice behavior. Making concessions is seen as weakness and thus a sign to increase the pressure.

Oppressing and illegally seizing land is not the same as "strength". You make it sound like the Arabs deserve to be treated like second-class humans because it's in their culture to be submissive. White man's burden, eh?

No. I'm saying that you don't get an Arab to suddenly behave nice by acting weak.

Maybe not, but it would at least give them that option. If Palestinians have no hope of getting an equitable deal anyway, you shouldn't be surprised that they lash out.

And why is it too late for the Native Americans? It's the same scenario. If returning the West Bank is proper so is returning America.

There is no land that has been seized from native americans in well over a century, there is no land that they feel is their own, there is no political will or structures to establish a native American country that any lands could be returned to, there is no international recognition or demands to do so, and native Americans have full citizenship rights within USA already so there is no real need anyway.

What's the time frame got to do with it? And the lack of a political will to retake it doesn't change whether it's right or not.

Of course it does. If Palestinians were to give up on their own state, that would be the end of it. As for native Americans, it's really my last point that makes it morally justifiable not to give them the land back even if they wanted to: they've already got a pretty sweet deal as American citizens. Palestinians don't have the option to become Israeli citizens.

If Israel simply annexed West Bank, and gave all Arabs there full Israeli citizenship, that would be one way to end the occupation without returning the land, and it would be just as equitable a solution as giving Palestinians their own state. What's not fair is eternal occupation and slow theft of land.

That "solution" would lead to genocide. You're asking Israel to commit suicide.

No, I am not asking it. I am saying that this is what makes the Palestinian situation different from native Americans. if Israel wants the land, it has to take the people. If it doesn't want the people, it has to give up the land. It's as simple as that.

 

[Jayjay]

Abandoning the West Bank settlements eliminates the major grievance that the PLO has against the gov't of Israel. And it would show that Israel is serious about real peace to most of the world. That has to increase the chances of peace beyond 0%. Your refusal to acknowledge that reasoning reflects your deep-seating bias for the gov't of Israel.

It removes no grievance. The notion that it's the West Bank occupation that's the driving force is a deception for western ears. Look at what has happened over there:

1) Pullout from Lebanon--the terrorists, with the cooperation of the governments of Syria and Lebanon pretend that a piece of Syria is actually Lebanon. The result has been more rocket fire from Lebanon.

2) Pullout from Gaza--same thing, the result is more rocket fire.

May I remind you of one of the standard definitions of insanity: trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Why should the third time be any different than the first two?

The Sinai pullout never involved that much terrorism in the first place so it's not surprising we didn't see the same thing there.

Israel didn't pull out of Lebanon and Gaza out of the goodness of its heart or via a mutually agreed peace treaty; Israel was forced out by Hezbollah and Hamas respectively. Of course Israel may have hoped for a better outcome but it's not like the Arabs made any promises.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I listed the effects of pulling out of the various countries they have occupied at various times.

Which has nothing to do with the situation of the West Bank.

It's the same sequence. You are just evading facts you don't like.

 

[laughing dog]

It's the same sequence. You are just evading facts you don't like.

No, it is not the same situation as the West Bank: different countries, different peoples and a different situation (long-term entrenched and expanding settlements vs shorter run occupation). I would expect someone who believes they have such expert knowledge and information about the history and peoples of that region to exhibit a bit more nuance and a lot less ignorance in his responses.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm talking about the defacto borders.

And in case you aren't aware, the Palestinians routinely build things on land they don't own. It's deception for western ears--you see the buildings being torn down, you don't realize the people building them did it for that very reason. And it's not just the Palestinians, some of the buildings are built by EU money. There are places where buildings have been torn down repeatedly.

Palestinians are under no obligation to recognize Israeli ownership of land; Isarel is the occupier, so building hovels on seized land is act of legitimate civil disobedience. Palestinians building in Palestine is hardly controversial. But give me one example where Palestinians are building anything on Israeli side of the border, or where they have established illegal settlements therein? The fact is that there are exactly 0 illegal Palestinian settlers in Israel, and 600,000 illegal Jewish settlers in West Bank.

The point is they are claiming it's on Palestinian land--they're lying to the world press. Thus you are basing your argument on lies.

And it's not new "neighborhoods", but rather the normal filling in you see in any developed area.

No, it is not. For example this article from less than a month ago shows Israeli plans for building a new "neighbourhood" in Shiloh over two kilometers from the main settlement and on the edge of municipal boundary which itself was changed in 2013 to include that hill. This is not filling in, it's expansion. And if you are trying to claim that it's okay because it is still within the municipality, I want to remind you that you said you were talking about de facto border, not de jure.

The links supporting that are dead.

2) You're assuming that doing nice to the Palestinians will help. History shows the exact opposite--good gestures from Israel are repaid with shit.

You think Palestinians should thank Israel for 50 years of occupation, just if Israel occasionally gives lip service to "peace" and does the Palestinians a favor of not bombing them to the ground all the time? Of course Israel is going to get some flak regardless, but if they don't give up border control and military occupation like they did in Gaza there is no reason to think that ending the settlements would cause any reduction in security.

You're looking at it from a standpoint of being nice. That's not how the world works.

If by "nice" you mean not committing war crimes, or more broadly having a system in place that rewards countries who engage in wars of conquest, then I am guilty as charged. World doesn't work like that, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't work like that. And regardless, niceness has nothing to do with the fact that Israel's security would not be decreased by ending the civilian occupation.

The side committing war crimes is the Palestinians.

And what you are missing is that Israel isn't going to pull back unless they believe the result will be peace--and everything the Palestinians do says that it won't be peace.

3) This is what you would expect anyway--the Arab culture has a strong tendency to respect strength, not nice behavior. Making concessions is seen as weakness and thus a sign to increase the pressure.

Oppressing and illegally seizing land is not the same as "strength". You make it sound like the Arabs deserve to be treated like second-class humans because it's in their culture to be submissive. White man's burden, eh?

No. I'm saying that you don't get an Arab to suddenly behave nice by acting weak.

Maybe not, but it would at least give them that option. If Palestinians have no hope of getting an equitable deal anyway, you shouldn't be surprised that they lash out.

You may not see it as strength but that's how it will be seen over there. Exerting your will = strength, making concessions = weak.

And the Palestinians do have a way of improving their lot--something that has been done and works. Quit the violence. That's why the war blew up over there--the Palestinians were doing too well with peace, the terrorists couldn't accept that. They picked another fight to crash the Palestinian GNP.

And why is it too late for the Native Americans? It's the same scenario. If returning the West Bank is proper so is returning America.

There is no land that has been seized from native americans in well over a century, there is no land that they feel is their own, there is no political will or structures to establish a native American country that any lands could be returned to, there is no international recognition or demands to do so, and native Americans have full citizenship rights within USA already so there is no real need anyway.

What's the time frame got to do with it? And the lack of a political will to retake it doesn't change whether it's right or not.

Of course it does. If Palestinians were to give up on their own state, that would be the end of it. As for native Americans, it's really my last point that makes it morally justifiable not to give them the land back even if they wanted to: they've already got a pretty sweet deal as American citizens. Palestinians don't have the option to become Israeli citizens.

Whether somebody fights for it or not has nothing to do with whether it's right or not. Your argument totally fails.

If Israel simply annexed West Bank, and gave all Arabs there full Israeli citizenship, that would be one way to end the occupation without returning the land, and it would be just as equitable a solution as giving Palestinians their own state. What's not fair is eternal occupation and slow theft of land.

That "solution" would lead to genocide. You're asking Israel to commit suicide.

No, I am not asking it. I am saying that this is what makes the Palestinian situation different from native Americans. if Israel wants the land, it has to take the people. If it doesn't want the people, it has to give up the land. It's as simple as that.

How about putting some obligations on the Palestinians?

- - - Updated - - -

It removes no grievance. The notion that it's the West Bank occupation that's the driving force is a deception for western ears. Look at what has happened over there:

1) Pullout from Lebanon--the terrorists, with the cooperation of the governments of Syria and Lebanon pretend that a piece of Syria is actually Lebanon. The result has been more rocket fire from Lebanon.

2) Pullout from Gaza--same thing, the result is more rocket fire.

May I remind you of one of the standard definitions of insanity: trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Why should the third time be any different than the first two?

The Sinai pullout never involved that much terrorism in the first place so it's not surprising we didn't see the same thing there.

Israel didn't pull out of Lebanon and Gaza out of the goodness of its heart or via a mutually agreed peace treaty; Israel was forced out by Hezbollah and Hamas respectively. Of course Israel may have hoped for a better outcome but it's not like the Arabs made any promises.

1) Why they pulled out is irrelevant.

2) In both cases they pulled out because they decided it was more problem than benefit.

 

[Arctish]

Loren Pechtel admits the truth

Palestinians are under no obligation to recognize Israeli ownership of land; Isarel is the occupier, so building hovels on seized land is act of legitimate civil disobedience. Palestinians building in Palestine is hardly controversial. But give me one example where Palestinians are building anything on Israeli side of the border, or where they have established illegal settlements therein? The fact is that there are exactly 0 illegal Palestinian settlers in Israel, and 600,000 illegal Jewish settlers in West Bank.

The point is they are claiming it's on Palestinian land--they're lying to the world press. Thus you are basing your argument on lies.

Finally!

Loren has admitted that the West Bank is part of Israel. That's why building a settlement on land miles away from the nearest other settlement and far outside any existing wall is just "filling in".

Even better, Loren fully supports Abbas and the PLOs pursuit of a diplomatic solution:

And the Palestinians do have a way of improving their lot--something that has been done and works. Quit the violence.

Here's to the United State of Israel and Palestine!

 

[Jayjay]

It's the same sequence. You are just evading facts you don't like.

No, it is not the same situation as the West Bank: different countries, different peoples and a different situation (long-term entrenched and expanding settlements vs shorter run occupation). I would expect someone who believes they have such expert knowledge and information about the history and peoples of that region to exhibit a bit more nuance and a lot less ignorance in his responses.

In this case the difference isn't even that nuanced. There were no real settlements in Lebanon, though not from lack of trying. There were about 3000 settlers at most in Sinai before the pullout, and less than 7000 in Gaza. West Bank has over half a million Jewish settlers. Two orders of magnitude more.

 

[Jayjay]

Palestinians are under no obligation to recognize Israeli ownership of land; Isarel is the occupier, so building hovels on seized land is act of legitimate civil disobedience. Palestinians building in Palestine is hardly controversial. But give me one example where Palestinians are building anything on Israeli side of the border, or where they have established illegal settlements therein? The fact is that there are exactly 0 illegal Palestinian settlers in Israel, and 600,000 illegal Jewish settlers in West Bank.

The point is they are claiming it's on Palestinian land--they're lying to the world press. Thus you are basing your argument on lies.

No, as you can see I am not denying that the demolishings are "legal" by Israeli law. So what? The holocaust was legal by German law, it doesn't mean it was justifiable. The point is that Palestinian squatters are squatting on land of Palestinian side of 1967 border, which is fundamentally different from Israeli expansion there. The former is merely disregarding the occupier's laws, the latter is a militarily backed conquest of land, and a war crime.

And it's not new "neighborhoods", but rather the normal filling in you see in any developed area.

No, it is not. For example this article from less than a month ago shows Israeli plans for building a new "neighbourhood" in Shiloh over two kilometers from the main settlement and on the edge of municipal boundary which itself was changed in 2013 to include that hill. This is not filling in, it's expansion. And if you are trying to claim that it's okay because it is still within the municipality, I want to remind you that you said you were talking about de facto border, not de jure.

The links supporting that are dead.

That's strange, the link and all the websites that it links to work for me, I just checked. Maybe the domain is blocked in your location? But in any case, it's patently easy to find examples of settlement expansion and borders being changed as recently as last month.

2) You're assuming that doing nice to the Palestinians will help. History shows the exact opposite--good gestures from Israel are repaid with shit.

You think Palestinians should thank Israel for 50 years of occupation, just if Israel occasionally gives lip service to "peace" and does the Palestinians a favor of not bombing them to the ground all the time? Of course Israel is going to get some flak regardless, but if they don't give up border control and military occupation like they did in Gaza there is no reason to think that ending the settlements would cause any reduction in security.

You're looking at it from a standpoint of being nice. That's not how the world works.

If by "nice" you mean not committing war crimes, or more broadly having a system in place that rewards countries who engage in wars of conquest, then I am guilty as charged. World doesn't work like that, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't work like that. And regardless, niceness has nothing to do with the fact that Israel's security would not be decreased by ending the civilian occupation.

The side committing war crimes is the Palestinians.

And what you are missing is that Israel isn't going to pull back unless they believe the result will be peace--and everything the Palestinians do says that it won't be peace.

That's precisely the fallacy of "peace". Israel will not pull out because it wants to keep the land, and the cost of war is too low for it to think otherwise. If the Palestinians made the occupation more expensive ("price tagging" to borrow an Israeli settlers' terminology), it would pull out whether it thought there would be peace or not. Just as it did in Gaza and Lebanon. The "peace" is a red herring. It will happen when both sides think they will benefit, not sooner. And if Israel does not give Palestinians any kind of lifeline or hope for the future, they will radicalize and peace is going to be even farther away.

3) This is what you would expect anyway--the Arab culture has a strong tendency to respect strength, not nice behavior. Making concessions is seen as weakness and thus a sign to increase the pressure.

Oppressing and illegally seizing land is not the same as "strength". You make it sound like the Arabs deserve to be treated like second-class humans because it's in their culture to be submissive. White man's burden, eh?

No. I'm saying that you don't get an Arab to suddenly behave nice by acting weak.

Maybe not, but it would at least give them that option. If Palestinians have no hope of getting an equitable deal anyway, you shouldn't be surprised that they lash out.

You may not see it as strength but that's how it will be seen over there. Exerting your will = strength, making concessions = weak.

It hasn't worked that way so far. Israel has been "exerting its will" by expanding settlements and increasing the Jewish population of West Bank since 1967. By that reasoning, the Palestinians should be utterly awed by this show of strength, but instead they are more radicalized and anti-Israel as ever.

And the Palestinians do have a way of improving their lot--something that has been done and works. Quit the violence. That's why the war blew up over there--the Palestinians were doing too well with peace, the terrorists couldn't accept that. They picked another fight to crash the Palestinian GNP.

That's Hamas and Gaza. West Bank was affected for sure but apart from recent few knife attacks they've been relatively peaceful. It's not peace what West Bank needs, becuase if the Palestinians are peaceful Israel has no reason not to continue the land theft. Only way that will reverse if Palestinians ramp up the resistance in WB, and tone it down in Gaza. It's fallacious to think that Israel would be interested in any "peace" that does not involve ethnic cleansing of West Bank.

And why is it too late for the Native Americans? It's the same scenario. If returning the West Bank is proper so is returning America.

There is no land that has been seized from native americans in well over a century, there is no land that they feel is their own, there is no political will or structures to establish a native American country that any lands could be returned to, there is no international recognition or demands to do so, and native Americans have full citizenship rights within USA already so there is no real need anyway.

What's the time frame got to do with it? And the lack of a political will to retake it doesn't change whether it's right or not.

Of course it does. If Palestinians were to give up on their own state, that would be the end of it. As for native Americans, it's really my last point that makes it morally justifiable not to give them the land back even if they wanted to: they've already got a pretty sweet deal as American citizens. Palestinians don't have the option to become Israeli citizens.

Whether somebody fights for it or not has nothing to do with whether it's right or not. Your argument totally fails.

Eh, here we have to agree to disagree then. I think that if Palestinians themselves don't want to get their own country, then they don't really deserve it. If Palestians want to have their own state they need to make the settlers bleed, but the choice is theirs... nobody else should tell them whether to resist, or to submit, because they are the ones who have to live with the consequences.

If Israel simply annexed West Bank, and gave all Arabs there full Israeli citizenship, that would be one way to end the occupation without returning the land, and it would be just as equitable a solution as giving Palestinians their own state. What's not fair is eternal occupation and slow theft of land.

That "solution" would lead to genocide. You're asking Israel to commit suicide.

No, I am not asking it. I am saying that this is what makes the Palestinian situation different from native Americans. if Israel wants the land, it has to take the people. If it doesn't want the people, it has to give up the land. It's as simple as that.

How about putting some obligations on the Palestinians?

Sure, here is one: Palestinians are not justified in terrorist strikes in Israel proper, only in occupied territory.

- - - Updated - - -

It removes no grievance. The notion that it's the West Bank occupation that's the driving force is a deception for western ears. Look at what has happened over there:

1) Pullout from Lebanon--the terrorists, with the cooperation of the governments of Syria and Lebanon pretend that a piece of Syria is actually Lebanon. The result has been more rocket fire from Lebanon.

2) Pullout from Gaza--same thing, the result is more rocket fire.

May I remind you of one of the standard definitions of insanity: trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Why should the third time be any different than the first two?

The Sinai pullout never involved that much terrorism in the first place so it's not surprising we didn't see the same thing there.

Israel didn't pull out of Lebanon and Gaza out of the goodness of its heart or via a mutually agreed peace treaty; Israel was forced out by Hezbollah and Hamas respectively. Of course Israel may have hoped for a better outcome but it's not like the Arabs made any promises.

1) Why they pulled out is irrelevant.

2) In both cases they pulled out because they decided it was more problem than benefit.

Well, why they pulled out is relevant if they are complaining that there are rocket attacks against afterwards. When you pull out unilaterally without some sort of treaty, you can't expect your enemy to not take advantage of it, especially if they are fanatics liek Hamas or Hezbollah.