Serious Kippur is Serious

[kippurbird]

This may seem a bit random, but it's something I've been thinking about.

I don't think that a two state solution is going to work. For one reason it reminds me of when they pacified Germany by giving them a bit of France and a bit of Czechoslovakia after they were taken over. They shook their fingers and said we'll give you these countries but no more making war. This is sort of what the United States and the other countries are doing. We'll give you your own country but you'll have to stop trying to destroy Israel.

Which is highly unlikely.

The Palestinians cry constantly that they want their own state but they don't do anything to make the territories that they have livable and they don't do anything to make peace with the Israelis. They constantly attack Israel and then cry foul when Israel tries to protect themselves from getting attacked. If they'd stop attacking then I'm sure Israel would be more willing to negotiate.

Negotiating with them now is negotiating with terrorists. They haven't done anything to prove themselves safe and decent. Giving into them now would just show that their behaviour is acceptable.

So... yeah.

Comments

[veriun.livejournal.com]

The Palestinians cry constantly that they want their own state but they don't do anything to make the territories that they have livable and they don't do anything to make peace with the Israelis. They constantly attack Israel and then cry foul when Israel tries to protect themselves from getting attacked. If they'd stop attacking then I'm sure Israel would be more willing to negotiate.

Oh my god, yes. YES. For some reason, everyone overlooks that Israel is ATTACKED here. All they do is attack back and show that they wouldn't tolerate such actions, albeit often with quite extreme methods. The newspapers here blew it up to such big propotions that when people were doing a peaceful demonstration intended to show Israel some compassion and support, they were attacked by angry people who meant that Israel was evil and everyone who supported them deserved to die, etc.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Probably because Israel has the bigger guns.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

And that those guns are bankrolled by the US, while the insurgents are making do with scraps.

[huinesoron.livejournal.com]

Technically (I am a nitpick) Poland's the one we didn't give them -- we were allied with them. What we gave them was, in order, a bit of France, a bit of Czechslovakia, the rest of Cz, and Austria somewhere in there.

As to Israel... to be honest, the real real real problem there is Jerusalem. Both sets of people want to hold onto Temple Mount, and by extension the entire city. That's never going to get resolved. The other problem is that wherever there are angry people, there will be attacks of some sort. In Palestine, they voted a terrorist group (Hamas) into government. And, to be fair, it's partially solved the problem -- I may be wrong, but the violence these days seems to be in Hamas-occupied Gaza, rather than the Fatah-controlled West Bank (which is the bit touching on Jerusalem). Seems to me the easiest solution would be to name those as two separate states, and only negotiate with the West Bank... but I still doubt it'd get anywhere.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Okay. I fail at remembering my history. I'll fix it.

Maybe they should just declare Jerusalem it's own separate entity, like the Vatican.

And I believe you're right about the Hamas/Fatah problem. It is really Gaza that's the problems, I think.

I don't think it will ever go anywhere either. There's too much bad blood.

[mistyeyedreamer.livejournal.com]

It'd be nice if it was as easy as Jerusalem becoming a seperate entity, but something tells me it wouldn't be.

[(Anonymous)]

They tried that before, I think. It didn't work.

Palestine will never stop being violent. I think the Israelis have shown an ASTOUNDING level of tolerance and patience with them. Could you imagine people in Texas putting up with Mexico firing rockets at them every single day?

There isn't an easy solution to this problem except eliminating Palestine. But, admittedly, that's pretty brutal.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

I have the only rational solution.

Give Jerusalem to Iceland, kick everyone out, and populate it with a bunch of Icelanders. They're a rather laid back people :)

This solution is based on the time tested and proven basis of

"Until you both can play nice and learn to share, NOBODY gets anything"

That's the problem when you have three conflicting religions sharing the same history and significant events.

[gariegen.livejournal.com]

The territories ,that were added to Nazi Germany were in order: Austria(the anschluss), the Sudetenland (borderlands of the Czechoslovakian republic), Czechia and Moravia (but more in a sence of occupation),Menel (in Lithuania), Western Poland (after it was conquered), southern part of Denmark , Alsace and Lorraine (after France was conquered).

[huinesoron.livejournal.com]

I thought (and this is from memory) that Alsace-Lorraine was technically German, demilitarised and under French control between the wars, and that one of the first things the Nazis did was march troops into it and take control of the industry therein. I may be wrong, though.

[gariegen.livejournal.com]

You are thinking of the demilitarised Rhineland, german teritories west of the Rhine.The Nazis did march into it and thus spat on the Versiles treaty as early as 1936.

[huinesoron.livejournal.com]

Aha, so I am. Thanks.

Of course, the Treaty of Versailles was never a very fair document to begin with... but how on earth did we get from Palestine to the World Wars?

[lenka0602.livejournal.com]

That part of the world is just... messed up. Honestly, I dont believe this will ever be solved. There is just too much grief going around for that. And I agree with you that the two - state solution is not going to work. Oh, what great results could be observed when my country (Czechoslovakia at the time, it split into Czech rep and Slovakia in 1993)got chopped to pieces and fed to the Nazi Germany to somewhat pacify Hitler and while they were at it, gave some of it to Hungarians. Again. Yeah, not gonna work.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Nuke it from orbit? XD

Dividing states up never really works, especially for the people who live in them.

[sheherazahde.livejournal.com]

I have to respectfully disagree on this one. Israel doesn't just try to protect it's self. They have repeatedly kicked Palestinians out of their homes and stolen their property and massacred refugees (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre). Israelis are still actively taking land away from Palestinians with new settlements in places they agreed not to settle. And generally making the Palestinians' lives miserable (http://www.medea.be/index.html?page=2&lang=en&doc=284) with housing, travel, and work restrictions.

The History of the Palestine Problem (http://www.un.org/depts/dpa/ngo/history.html)

A one state solution will never work because Israel is a theocracy and only Jews have full citizenship rights (http://books.google.com/books?id=YeCiz5KoZh4C&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=rights+of+non-jews+in+Israel&source=bl&ots=_L2d3M2KHn&sig=cJ7ebKkfV6K3iTfLveRBvOOPn8o&hl=en&ei=_C8kSv_uG6XuMpvx0LkJ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9#PPA57,M1). How would you like to live in a country where you could not get married (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_marriage_in_Israel) or buy land because of your religion.

It's seemed like having a country where the Jews could protect themselves from oppression by other people would be a good idea. But theocracies are just trouble.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Hi! You're from dungeonwriter's LJ, aren't you?

Quick story for you: My mom lived in Israel for six months in 1969. During her visit there she helped her cousin who was a representative to the Arabs living in Israel. In this particular case he was helping Bedouins get settled in new villages that were built for them. See what they did was to get rid of Small Pox they would inoculate the villagers and then move them into modern housing a few miles away from their old housing which was burned to the ground to make sure nothing was left.

My mom would help teach the women how to use the stoves and other utilities because the old villages didn't have them. At one point someone offered to buy my mom because someone with her skills was valuable.

Also, she said that when Israel took over what became the State of Israel the government said that any non-Jew living there was welcome to stay and become a citizen. Those who did stay were given full citizen status and were a lot happier with Israel in control than before.

As for your statements, let me get back to you on it.

[sheherazahde.livejournal.com]

"Hi! You're from dungeonwriter's LJ, aren't you?

No actually. I friended you a while ago for the Eragon critiques. I think I found those from Metaquote.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

Sheh, major apologies. There was a major anti-Israeli troll on my blog who was pretty cruel to me and Kip was on high alert, because the woman had mental issues and was stalking me, I cleared it up immediately and said you're just a regular poster.

[sheherazahde.livejournal.com]

Ok.

I'm really not anti-Israel. I just think there are issues on both sides.

[sheherazahde.livejournal.com]

I'm really not anti-Israeli. I don't think I was saying anything much different from what faded_enmity or gjohnsonkoehn said, which is just that the situation is not as black and white as you presented it. I may have come across as more critical of Israel, but that is just because I was trying to balance against your position which presented the Palestinians as totally in the wrong.

Check out what Human Rights Watch has to say about those Bedouin Re-settlements (http://www.hrw.org/en/node/62284/section/2). Human Rights Watch isn't a crack-pot organization.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

Actually, you might want to check your own sources.

On the Shatila and Sabra massacres, "The Sabra and Shatila massacre (or Sabra and Chatila massacre; was a massacre of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians carried out between September 16 and 18, 1982 by the Lebanese Forces Christian militia group."

Are you saying that the Lebanese Forces Christian militia group is Israel?

I do not deny that some members of the IDF were complicit but your own source says "The careless reader or viewer could have got the impression that this was a massacre unique in the modern history of the Middle East, and that it was perpetrated directly by the Israelis. Neither was true"

I do agree that the job situation is something that is festering as a problem, but when the people believe, "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it," you can forgive them for being nervous.

My cousin was in the Mercaz Harav yeshiva and six friends got massacred by an Arab janitor. I can point to hundreds of different cases where Arab workers massacred their bosses. It's a two way street.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercaz_HaRav_massacre


On the marriage issue, any religion may get married. And I quote from the link you linked yourself

"Marriages in Israel are performed under the auspices of the religious authority of the religious community to which couples belong."

It doesn't say only Jews can marry in the state.


"The system is based on the Millet or confessional community system inherited from the times of the Ottoman Empire and not substantially modified during the British Mandate period nor since the establishment of the State of Israel. The system is also in use by several Muslim countries of the Middle East and beyond."

This proceeded the state of Israel. In fact, the state of Israel itself has been designated as Free,

http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2008&country=7416

It is one of the few (if not only) countries in the region designated as such. It has freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of the press, all shown on the above site.

I think you have been misinformed on the issue.

[sheherazahde.livejournal.com]

Re: the Shatila and Sabra massacres. That source did say that Israel was involved. Even though it was not Israeli forces who actually did the killing.

I totally understand why Israelis are concerned that other people are trying to kill them. They have a lot of experience with other people trying to kill tham. I'm just saying that the Palestinians have some legitimate grievances too.

"On the marriage issue, any religion may get married. And I quote from the link you linked yourself"

No actually. Anyone who is a member of a recognized religious community. That isn't the same thing as any religion. Although Muslims from recognized religious communities can get married people from different religions can not marry each other, and athiests can not get married in Israel. There are no civil marriages. Even Jews can only get married under Orthodox rules. Conservative and Reform marriages are not recognized.

I understand that "The system is also in use by several Muslim countries of the Middle East and beyond." But I would have to do more research to know if those modern Muslim countries allow civil marriage. Which Israel does not. I don't like theocracies under any religion, myself. So I disapprove of it as much in Muslim countries as in Israel.

http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2008&country=7416

Did you read that report? It doesn't even include the Occupied Territories, those get separate reports.

"Israel drew condemnation from human rights groups for destroying a major Gaza power plant and causing many civilian deaths in the course of the fighting. Israeli troops detained several Hamas lawmakers in June, adding to accusations that the true aim of the incursion was to topple the Hamas-led PA government."

"Israel was condemned for the disproportionate loss of civilian life on the Lebanese side, as well as its targeting of civilian infrastructure and the large-scale displacement of civilians from southern Lebanon. Israel insisted that Hezbollah’s deliberate use of civilians and residential areas to shield their belligerent activities made civilian casualties inevitable. A July 2007 report by Israel’s state comptroller described the government’s efforts to protect civilians during the conflict as “a grave failure.” In September 2007, Human Rights Watch condemned both Israel and Hezbollah for “indiscriminate” attacks on civilians."

"The Emergency Powers (Detention) Law of 1979 provides for indefinite administrative detention without trial. Most administrative detainees are Palestinian; there are approximately 8,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, though hundreds of prisoners were released in 2007. In May, the human rights groups B’Tselem and HaMoked Center reported that Palestinian prisoners are held in terrible conditions and are subject to abusive interrogation techniques, including instances of torture. The government disputed the accuracy of the report."

"While they have full political rights, the roughly one million Arab citizens of Israel (about 19 percent of the population) receive inferior education, housing, and social services relative to the Jewish population... The Orr Commission—established to investigate a brief outbreak of violence among the Israeli Arab community in the initial days of the Palestinian uprising in 2000—cited the “neglectful and discriminatory” government handling of the Arab population, which over the course of decades led to “poverty, unemployment, a shortage of land, serious problems in the education system and substantially defective infrastructure.”"

"Many Arab and mixed Arab-Jewish towns and villages were struck by Hezbollah rocket fire during the 2006 Lebanon conflict, and one-third of those killed by the rockets were Arab Israelis. A July 2007 report by the state comptroller heavily criticized the government for failure to adequately protect Arab-Israeli villages—most of which do not have bomb shelters—during the conflict. In December, a polling study by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel found that anti-Arab sentiments among Israeli Jews had doubled in 2007, and that racist incidents were up 26 percent."

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

"the Shatila and Sabra massacres. That source did say that Israel was involved. Even though it was not Israeli forces who actually did the killing."

Actually, your statement was that Israel massacred the people. Technically, that's defamation, according to the law books. You yourself used the word "massacred refugees," which was proven false. Some members were negligent in a tragedy and massacre, but that's like saying negligent homocide is murder 1. So I think you do owe Israel an apology on that.

"
No actually. Anyone who is a member of a recognized religious community. That isn't the same thing as any religion. Although Muslims from recognized religious communities can get married people from different religions can not marry each other, and athiests can not get married in Israel. There are no civil marriages. Even Jews can only get married under Orthodox rules. Conservative and Reform marriages are not recognized."

Which is Israel's right to do so. Unless you are saying Israel isn't a democracy, and people can't change the laws, and protest...are you saying that?

And this is coming up in the knesset and the laws are changing. Common law marriages are recognized and a short trip to Cyprus gives a couple civil marriage. This case is also being argued before the Supreme Court.

I disagree with those laws, myself, I think marriage should not be regulated by the state. But this is a minor issue and frankly, if you don't want to live in a theocracy, don't. Israel doesn't force anyone to live there, you know. I mean, just because you don't value theocracy doesn't mean other people in those countries agree. It's pushing your own values onto people with different cultures.

And we weren't discussing the territories. You called Israel a theocracy without freedom and I was showing that is an error. I would be happy to discuss the territories, but I'm just proving one point at a time.

And I'd just like you to note in the last paragraph, Hezbollah is killing off fellow Muslims, it's not Israel who is shooting the rockets at them. Israel isn't perfect, but I feel a lot safer there.

[faded-enmity.livejournal.com]

The difficulty, though, is that Israel is seen by them to be an illegal state. It'd be kind of like if the EU came into California (provided no federal government, of course) and said, "Okay, we're giving all of this to the [group] because they've been oppressed for centuries (etc). Californians can learn to get along with them." It's not that they want a state, it's that they want their state back.

So, I'm sure a lot of the Palestinians there think of Israel more as Palestine under Israeli occupation. That means whoever is still fighting is fighting as resistance (a la France, Warsaw, etc.), which to most people would totally be perfectly cool, except that, oh, they're supporting a nonWestern state and they want to bring down a Western state, therefore they're wrong no matter what they do.

Now, I support Israel. I like Israel. The place wasn't well-run before Israel, the region isn't well-run now and you can probably just go ahead and blame the English, French, and Germans for that (like Africa); but that doesn't mean we should ignore the situation from the other side because they do make a lot of sense -- honestly, we would be doing the same things if it happened to us. It's easy to say "stop being violent" when you're not the one being oppressed. The only exception is that we wouldn't have an organization like Hamas to make things worse (hence, Palestinians being oppressed, and violently -- they get faulted for whatever Hamas does, but in the end Hamas is at least fighting for them, as short-sighted individuals, of which most people are, would see it as).

There's really very little to be done, though. This conflict has gone on for so long that most things you think of probably already have been and failed or didn't even get off the ground for some reason or another.

Though, honestly, you shouldn't group the Palestinians into one group of unsafe, indecent people. It started a minority, and likely still is, which are being violent. And don't act like Israel is completely innocent, either -- it's not. No state is.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

You're right.

[kevias.livejournal.com]

Actually, there weren't 'Palestinians' as such until Israel got formed. It's the same way 'American' didn't mean much of anything until 1776 (or maybe 1865), or 'German' until the Prussians did some unifying. Or 'Italian' before Garibalid. Or... The point is that there isn't some ancient cosmic struggle between Jews/Israelis and Arabs/Muslims/Palestinians, but hardliners on both sides want there to be so that they justify their extreme acts. The current conflict has it's roots, but they're a lot weaker and shallower than the extremists would have us believe.

[faded-enmity.livejournal.com]

I think that could well be argued against. Italy has been Italy for a very long time, and they were Italian city states/republics in the north. Germans have also been around, and Germany has been Germany for a very long time. You were a citizen of a German state, and the demonym was in usage before Prussia even existed, and the land itself was called Germania by the Romans. Likewise, Palestine has been around for a very long time and makes up much of the region, including Syria and Lebanon. The local Palestinians immediately affected have always been Palestinian as a people, regardless of what we used to and what we now refer to them as. Besides that, they were a part of the Palestine region (as opposed to Transjordan) of the British Mandate of Palestine from WWI right up until the establishment of Israel, still making them Palestinians as far as we may as well be concerned. And my point as a whole places no importance in what you call each side because each side makes up a group of people that we all know of and the best word to call the displaced or resisting peoples within Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank would be Palestinians.

I understand your point, but I think it's irrelevant to what I actually said. The only thing I might change to better suit your correction would be "So, I'm sure a lot of the Palestinians there think of Israel more as their own country under Israeli occupation," and at this stage, they have a sense of identity, some or much of which may be enforced by media reference, as Palestinians and would more than likely call their new country Palestine if they were, hypothetically, given Israel back -- this makes it, yes, Palestine (prospective) under Israeli occupation.

I did address the fact that it's probably minorities on the Palestinian side causing problems. As far as Israel goes, I'm not going to say it's a minority of policy-makers (being a recognized state, you to their government officials as though they are Israel as a whole) because no one ever gives that benefit of a doubt to the United States or any other country. I also never said it was an ancient, cosmic struggle, having directly said it's a result of the end of the British Mandate and the formation of Israel. Now, that being the actual, direct cause is in question because that is actually a fairly shallow reason the conflict -- it probably goes more into a standard land/resource reasoning than principle. No one actually fights like this on mere principal.

Oh, and just a note: your analogy doesn't work very well, since its logic would have it be "there weren't Israelis as such until Israel got formed." You'd have been better off saying there weren't Native Americans until America was formed. And in that case, we just call them Indians.

[kevias.livejournal.com]

Actually, I would say that there weren't Israelis before Israel was formed. Who called themselves 'Israeli' in 1920? Jewish, Hebrew, Ashkenazim, Sephardim, many identified more strongly with their gentile neighbors and would say they were Russian, German, Persian or American. But Israeli?

Ditto for Native Americans. There were Cherokee, Iroquois, Sioux, Aztec, Incan, etc. but 'Native American'? Did such a concept exist in 1450? It was only after the Europeans showed up as an 'other' before such an identity got much traction in the minds of those putative Indians.

Cosmic struggles...are more a matter for extremists of all stripes. I did not mean to imply that you supported such a notion.

I guess my overall point is really at the heart of what makes up a 'people': shared history and culture, not bloodlines and race. And history prior to Israeli hadn't given Palestinians reason to think of themselves as being different from other Arabs. Consider 'Jordanians' or 'Iraqis' or 'Saudis' as other groups with recent origins.

[faded-enmity.livejournal.com]

I meant that the analogy doesn't work because you were applying it to the wrong group (i.e., the point of it didn't follow the structure of it), not that the logic of it is wrong. :)

As for your point, I mostly agree with you, but I'd wager that there are actually more than enough things in their (Palestinian) history and culture that aren't also Arabic on that wide scale due to the interference of Western powers, well, fairly constantly. Added to that would be the expected difference between peoples from Gaza and those from Kuwait -- you could likely equate it to the difference between New Englanders and Southern Californians. There are clear cultural differences, yet we're still Americans. I'm honestly fairly sure that they have/had their own identity that is older than 60 years, even if its current incarnation has been most heavily influenced by the state of Israel. At the very least, British culture must have seeped in, and prior to that elements of Ottoman Turk, who themselves would have had a wide range of internal peoples from which to draw influences.

[kevias.livejournal.com]

I do make poor analogies from time to time. Forgive me.

I'm terribly unfamiliar with life in Palestine under the British mandate, so I can't be much of a judge on how much Palestinian life would differ from Egyptian or Syrian life, pre-1947.

I guess I should've been more nuanced in my argument. People living in Palestine would consider themselves Palestinian, but before Israel they wouldn't have considered the label to mean as much as afterwards. There's a range of gray, and I guess we're drawing the line at different shades.

[gjohnsonkoehn.livejournal.com]

Negotiating with them now is negotiating with terrorists.

And?

Seriously. I know that since America discovered terrorism existed in 2001 there's been all this talk about not negotiating with terrorists and smoking them out and not cutting and running and various other idiotic bits of cowboy diplomacy, but if you actually want any kind of long-term solution, that's exactly what it's going to come down to. Look at Ireland; the British negotiated with Sinn Fein (to, among other things, disarm), and while it hasn't been an unqualified success it's been a hell of a lot better than bombs left on buses.

And what does not negotiating get anyone, anyway? It won't stop Palestinian terrorists from being terrorists; it won't stop Israeli settlers from grabbing more Palestinian land; it won't convince the average Palestinian to like Israel more; it won't do a damn thing to make Israel look any better in the region. If Israel actually wants peace (and quite honestly, there are some, the current PM in particular, who don't entirely seem to) then they're going to have to talk to anyone in the Palestinian territories willing to sit down with them.

Also, I regret to inform you that your simile is made of fail. Without a two-state solution, the Palestinians are the small countries being told that they'll be given to a conquering larger power in the interest of 'peace' and 'security'. Which, grotesque a comparison as it always is, would make Israel Nazi Germany.

[kevias.livejournal.com]

After World War II, the Allies solved the "German Question" by simply taking every German outside the borders of the newly shrunken borders of Germany and shoving them inside.

The hardliners on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian question seem to have much the same idea. Take the ethnicity in question and dump them over the border, be it the Jordan River or the Mediterranean, thus leaving a much-simpler One State Solution.

Also, prior to World War II, Hitler was not demanding anything that his democratic predecessors had asked for before him. Danzig was 95% German, but given to Poland. The Sudetenland was primarily German. Returning such territories to Germany (via plebiscite) was just and reasonable. Doing so in reaction to Hitler's crass demands was not.

[huinesoron.livejournal.com]

Just and reasonable, but forbidden by treaty. At least as I learnt it (and up the page we can see how badly it sunk in, but still) the Treaty of Versailles explicitly forbade Germany uniting with or annexing any other Germanic territories. That's why even the Anschluss with Austria, which was at least claimed to be mutual, was against the Treaty.

Of course, any treaty which contains something like the "War Guilt Clause" is going to be grossly unfair in the first place, but still...

[berseker.livejournal.com]

They constantly attack Israel and then cry foul when Israel tries to protect themselves from getting attacked. If they'd stop attacking then I'm sure Israel would be more willing to negotiate.


YES, THIS.

[scary-viking.livejournal.com]

And I'm sure the Palestinians wouldn't be quite as keen to constantly attack Israel if Israel would grant people who aren't Israeli de facto equal political rights. Yeah, technically they have a system that should satisfy that, blah blah blah, except that the implimentations of Israeli policy wind up effectively giving everyone else the short end and, in the worse cases, resulting in Israel stealing land from people.

They've tread on basic property rights enough that that alone makes it pretty hard to take them seriously.

All this talk about who to blame seems almost like some stupid front to take blame away from the Western nations which supported all this crap to begin with.

But for that matter, looking for who to blame and then punishing them is a stupid method of dealing with problems like this.

Our current just-keep-blowing-everyone-up method has been in use for decades and has achieved absolutely nothing. It is much the same as punishment-oriented anti-drug methods; in the US, we declare that drug users are criminals and send them to jail, where they just do more drugs. In some areas of Europe, they consider drug users victims and attempt to rehabilitate them.
Guess which region has greater drug problems?

While I would never suggest dropping military force and punishment as a weapon, it doesn't work as a primary weapon for everything. I would have hoped that the last century, and, in particular, the last decade, would have taught us that much.

[kevias.livejournal.com]

Why are the Western powers to blame "to begin with"? Before the Palestianian Arabs were taking potshots at Israelis and demanding their own country, Palestinian Jews were taking potshots at Brits and demanding their own country. The British drew some lines and got the hell out. Few countries want anything to do with rambunctious nationalists and troublemakers and the British did what most do: let it be someone else's problem. It's the same way Arab countries today give their Islamists free reign to go somewhere else and fight the Jihad so they don't do it at home.

What do you think the British should have done instead? Relocated the Jews? The Arabs? To where? What do you think the solution was?

[scary-viking.livejournal.com]

Who cares? A huge part of my post makes the point that the debate that you just slammed in my face isn't worth fighting.

You want the specific answer though, I'm not blaming just the British. That would be silly. The nationalistic Jewish population buildup was a result of Western policy over a pretty decent span of years.
Anyway, the entire point of that point was to point (gah) out that blaming EITHER the Palestinians or the Israelis is silly. They were both screwed over.