[Sandwich]

Well, this is nice and lively!

Anyways, a quick update and then on to the responses: the death toll has risen to 20.

Originally posted by Stryke 9
The Israeli soldiers have killed MANY more times the number of civilians Palestinians have. They've killed very few "terrorists"
...
If Israeli sodiers are somehow targeting "terrorist" Palestinian freedom fighters and just happen to have such terrible aim that they've killed practically every civilian they've come across, perhaps they shouldn't have guns.

As a knowlegdeable, first-hand source on this point, let me point out that Israeli Army regulations for this current conflict are to shoot to kill at anyone who has the means and will. In other words, rocks don't count, but boulders on the rooftop above you do. So do Molotov cocktails, and of course sidearms. Earlier on in the intifada, there were tons of riots by the Palestinians, and among the rioters would be armed people who began shooting at soldiers. They were hiding behind their women and children, using them as human shields. They knew that Israel would be as "moral" as possible, and would hesitate to shoot back through women and children who were simply participating in a riot. But somewhere along the line Israel had enough, and shot controlled shots - to kill - at armed people in the violent riots, whether the risk of collateral damage be great or not.

That is where the majority of deaths of truly innocent bystanders came in. All those other "civillian" deaths you hear about are the targeted shooting and killing of armed civvies in the act of attacking soldiers.

Originally posted by LtNarol
For the Palistinians (sp), they have been kicked off their homes and sent elsewhere.  They want their homes back, and they wont get it through diplomacy as Israel will not give up any of its holdings...

Actually, although I hated the Barak government, he did do at least one thing that I appreciate: he proved to the world - those parts of it who were willing to open their eyes and see, that is - that the PA was not interested in the land, as it claims. He offered something like 95% of the territory beyonf the Green Line, but Arafat refused. Arafat will never get such a deal again.

Originally posted by an0n
The simple fact is that Israel and Palestine are at war. Normally a very straight forward affair of killing each other becomes complicated by the laughable state of the Palestinian armed forces. The Palestinians resort to suicide bombings because they lack most other offensive capabilities and as such the conflict is classed as terrorism as opposed to a war. Regardless of fire-power, beliefs, political realtions and ideology, when two countries fight, it's a war.

Israel and Palestine? What's Palestine? Have they reached statehood without me hearing about it??

No, Israel and the PA are not at war - if they were, I would not be here to write all this, I'd be fighting. The conflict is called an intifada. Also, if Israel was at war, we would have finished with it a long time ago.

Originally posted by an0n
I'm really becoming concerned at how everyone differentiates between military and civillian targets. If you crush the military then the civillians get called up to fight and die anyway so what's so wrong about firing on civillians? The point of war is to utterly crush the enemy, not take their land and have decades of protests and political *****ing by the conquered people.

Firing on civvies is a no-no because those civvies are not armed towards the purpose of defending their country. Soldiers are.

Originally posted by Mr. Vega
The Israelis want the Palestinians all dead or forced off the West Bank area.

The Palestinians want more Israelis dead and all their land back.

Please, don't generalize without at least making it clear that you are generalizing. It's misleading and wrong, for both sides.

[Setekh]

Originally posted by sandwich
Well, this is nice and lively!

Anyways, a quick update and then on to the responses: the death toll has risen to 20.

I just heard on the news.

[icespeed]

this whole thing is actually kinda dodgy- both sides claim they are in the right, but both sides have committed wrongs, and both sides still seem willing to 'defend' their rights....
but what are their rights? land? why exactly do they need more land? they seem to be doing well enough on what they have...
or are their rights just the right to be right?
(sorry if ive accidentally offended someone or said something totally stupid...)

[Pera]

Originally posted by icespeed
this whole thing is actually kinda dodgy- both sides claim they are in the right, but both sides have committed wrongs, and both sides still seem willing to 'defend' their rights....
but what are their rights? land? why exactly do they need more land? they seem to be doing well enough on what they have...
or are their rights just the right to be right?
(sorry if ive accidentally offended someone or said something totally stupid...)

As hard as it can be to understand for someone as non-religious as me, they are fighting because of their religion. The area they are fighting over, is sacred to the palestinians(and probably the Israeli too, not sure about this?), and some of them are fanatic. If you think about it, religion is the single biggest killer in human history.

And Sandwich: sure, all of your points are good, but remember that in this forum, we can only hear the opinions of Israeli people, not palestinian, and I'm not willing to think of the palestinians as the cause of all this trouble no matter what you say.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Originally posted by NegspectahDek


thats why you shouldnt rely on just the news for the news.  It tends to be one sided

1.and Ivan, I was giving examples.  You can twist what I say to make me look ignorant, but whatever.
2. How specifically do you know that there werent 100 million africans on the continent.  i dont recall any census being taken.  and how do you know that number applied to just africa?  what about the slaves in the US? or the caribbean.  In Haiti, the average lifespan of a slave was 3 years from the day they stepped of the boat.  Either way, I said the ESTIMATES go that high.  Never said it was firm

3. Some people will do or say anything to downplay that part of history

1. sent a PM

2. because during that period there were only about half a billion people on the entire world, and most of them lived an Asia (China, India). Even if there lived so many africans in Africa, a 100 million shipped to the new world? By that number there shouldn't have been a living soul in Africa left.

3. I'm not downplaying that part of history. I just don't like it when people overplay that part of history.

Okay, back to the normal discussion before we start to kill each other

[Styxx]

This discussion is another one that will go on forever. No more point arguing over this, better close it before it turns into a flame war...

[LtNarol]

i think we've been rather civilized so far.  As for holyness, Jerusalem (sp) is a holy city in 3 major religions.  I forgot why, but i can remember that much.  The leaders down there tend to be a bit stuborn or paranoid, a good example was a dispute over a place in Jerusalem (sp).  One side has a mosque there, the other wants to put a temple there, for the simple reason that the temple once stood there and the mosque (i think) was supposed to be built at the one place and no where else.  They refuse to let archeologists in to determine exact location of the foundation stone of the original temple (where the new one must be built).  There is a very good chance that there is room for both, but they just wont let the archeologists in.

[wEvil]

All you have to do is look as far as the nodewars story.

We're only EMULATING "national" level govornments, albeit on a planetary scale and even then they manage to do stupid things.

The best way to think about govornments and nation-states is the way you think about particularly evil little 6 year olds.  

Unfortunately, the turds float to the top and assume all the control which is where it goes wrong.  In machines this big the individual has absolutely no control over policy, all you can do is refuse to be part of the collective, IE, renounce your citizenship.

Drastic, but true.  Im starting to feel the pros of such a move outway the cons.

[phreak]

I hate to say this, but I have a feeling that the Palestineans will get their hands on some russian/chinese nuke and detonate it.  It's defintely going in that direction.  

{sarcasm}
On second thought.. maybe turning the Mid-East into a glass parking lot isn't such a bad idea.  At least they'll shut up.
{/sarcasm}

good idea pera..

[Pera]

Originally posted by PhReAk
I hate to say this, but I have a feeling that the Palestineans will get their hands on some russian/chinese nuke and detonate it.  It's defintely going in that direction.  

On second thought.. maybe turning the Mid-East into a glass parking lot isn't such a bad idea.  At least they'll shut up.

Because someone is going to get pissed by this message, I should probably add a sarcasm warning right here.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Originally posted by PhReAk
I hate to say this, but I have a feeling that the Palestineans will get their hands on some russian/chinese nuke and detonate it.  It's defintely going in that direction.  

yeah so? If they make one of those stary nukes go boom inside Israel, you honestly don't believe there will be one Palestinian left alive inside Palestine proper.

Making one of those things go boom is a certain death warrant.

[Styxx]

The bad thing is, it's not like they care all that much about being alive anyway...

[CP5670]

Yeah, their religion dictates that death isn't all that bad, so it doesn't mean anything to them. I think they will die out anyway sometime over the next twenty years if they continue with these little suicide strikes that are insignificant in themselves, but serve to annoy the nation when repeated over a period of time.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Originally posted by Styxx
The bad thing is, it's not like they care all that much about being alive anyway...

*scratches head*

didn't thhink of that... renders my point moot.

[Zeronet]

Originally posted by LtNarol
i think we've been rather civilized so far.  As for holyness, Jerusalem (sp) is a holy city in 3 major religions.  I forgot why, but i can remember that much.  The leaders down there tend to be a bit stuborn or paranoid, a good example was a dispute over a place in Jerusalem (sp).  One side has a mosque there, the other wants to put a temple there, for the simple reason that the temple once stood there and the mosque (i think) was supposed to be built at the one place and no where else.  They refuse to let archeologists in to determine exact location of the foundation stone of the original temple (where the new one must be built).  There is a very good chance that there is room for both, but they just wont let the archeologists in.

The Muslims built a mosque over the Holy Temple, Jesus was indeed correct when he stated that in the future hardly a single stone would be left standing. Only one wall of the temple still stands.