SubscribePostroad: Simple question: has Hamas as yet deleted in its written mandate of runing that they aim to destroy the state of Israel? yes or no?Yes, since 2006.
The website [of ISM] also says "As enshrined in international law and UN resolutions, we recognise the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggle. However, we believe that nonviolence can be a powerful weapon in fighting oppression and we are committed to the principles of nonviolent resistance." This has led some to question the organisation's commitment to non-violence. For example an article in the UK's Telegraph newspaper asserts that ISM is "the 'peace' group that embraces violence".[7] ISM disputes the accusations (see ISM links below).Emphasis mine.
It emphasises the following principles (not necessarily in order of importance):Seems like a pretty good group of Israelis to me and hopefully their ideas are put into practice. Not sure if there is an equivalent Palestinian party, but I would guess not.
* Peace between Israel and the Palestinians based on a two-state solution as laid out in the Geneva Accord.
* Dismantling most of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
* Human rights issues:
* Struggle for the protection of human rights in the Israeli-occupied territories.
* Rights of minorities in Israel (such as Israeli Arabs and foreign workers), fight against discrimination, and support for affirmative action.
* Women's rights and feminism.
* LGBT rights.
* Struggle for social justice:
* Making Israel a social democratic welfare state.
* Protecting workers' rights and fighting against their exploitation (especially, though not exclusively, in the case of foreign workers and immigrants).
* Separation of religion and state, and religious freedom.
* Liberal secular education.
* Israel's security.
* Environmentalism.
In a Reuters interview in January 2007, Mashal said: "As a Palestinian today I speak of a Palestinian and Arab demand for a state on 1967 borders. It is true that in reality there will be an entity or state called Israel on the rest of Palestinian land. This is a reality, but I won't deal with it in terms of recognising or admitting it." In the same interview, he declined to accept the Western demand for Hamas to recognise Israel, renounce violence against it and honour previous peace agreements.[24]that, absent some strong evidence to the contrary, the leader of Hamas does not accept Israel's right to exist as of early 2007.
Israel, which has millions to wage war, refuses to give the remianing inhabitants the money to move somewhere safer than half a mile from Gaza. Those with money to leave have already left. Hamas's rockets have killed 13 in Sderot; why has Israel not established a DMZ, rather than spending the money on rocket warning systems and temporary evacuations?
Hamas has dropped its call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto for the Palestinian parliamentary election in a fortnight, a move that brings the group closer to the mainstream Palestinian position of building a state within the boundaries of the occupied territories.If you have seen an article that refers to a change in their Charter, please share it with me.
The Islamist faction, responsible for a long campaign of suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis, still calls for the maintenance of the armed struggle against occupation. But it steps back from Hamas's 1988 charter demanding Israel's eradication and the establishment of a Palestinian state in its place.
The manifesto makes no mention of the destruction of the Jewish state and instead takes a more ambiguous position by saying that Hamas had decided to compete in the elections because it would contribute to "the establishment of an independent state whose capital is Jerusalem".
I wonder, if the rockets had completely stopped and everything was hunky-dory, would Israel suddenly abandon all those illegal land grabs they call settlements in the West Bank?
The speculation among Israeli commentators is that an international demand for a ceasefire is pretty much the only exit strategy Israel has up its sleeve, even suggesting that Israel may intentionally exacerbate a humanitarian crisis in order to force the international community to act (that was the expert analysis on Israeli channel 10 TV last night). [emphasis added]In other words: Kadima Party leader and de facto PM Tzipi Livni (Olmert already plans to step down) knows she can't win the upcoming election if she tries for peace. So her fellow Israelis expect that she'll make sure more Palestinians die, so the West forces on her a cease-fire she can pretend to accept only reluctantly.
While Barak made more concessions in the deal than any prior Israeli leader, he did not offer to give 96 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinians, as has been suggested by the Israelis -- and reported as such in the U.S. andIsrael wants its control of the water, amongst other things, to continue. As ever it's the Palestinians who are robbed of their rights by what (the) Israel(i Government) wants.
international press. With Clinton's full knowledge, he offered what can only be described as a dysfunctional state to Arafat. In the waning years of a tarnished presidency, Clinton was so eager to push Camp David that he forgot the ABCs of political science.
The Palestinian state, according to diplomats and academics familiar with the details, would have consisted of five cantons, four of which would be located in the West Bank and one in the Gaza strip.
The two million Palestinians living in 200 scattered areas around the West Bank would have been consolidated into three cantons. The Israeli army would have control of the eastern border of the state, the Jordan Valley, for an indefinite period of time. A fourth canton would have been created around East Jerusalem. Much of the water infrastructure would have remained under Israeli control. Most importantly, the al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest shrine in Islam, would have remained under Israeli control.
Had there been, in hindsight, a generous Israeli offer? Ask a member of the American team, and an honest answer might be that there was a moving target of ideas, fluctuating impressions of the deal the US could sell to the two sides, a work in progress that reacted (and therefore was vulnerable) to the pressures and persuasion of both. Ask Barak, and he might volunteer that there was no Israeli offer and, besides, Arafat rejected it. Ask Arafat, and the response you might hear is that there was no offer; besides, it was unacceptable; that said, it had better remain on the table.
I deeply despise the idea of an explicitly racial state, and can only support a secular one-state solution that enfranchises all present residents with no racial/ethnic/religious basis for 'right of return'.
You support the idea of Israel, I call for its downfall.
Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day.
Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions - Islam, Christianity and Judaism - to coexist in peace and quiet with each other. Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam.
Article 3: The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal right to their homeland and to self-determination after the completion of the liberation of their country in accordance with their wishes and entirely of their own accord and will.
[...]
Article 5: The Palestinians are those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father- whether in Palestine or outside it- is also a Palestinian.
Israel offers preferential immigration to people who have no ancestral ties to Israel, but who belong to a particular religion or ethnicity. Or who have converted to that faith. That is, to any Jew, not to the descendants of Israelis.
Arguing that other, secular, states' policies are similar is pure disingenuous sophistry, Joe. And you know it. And people reading it here know it. Why are you so invested in this that you're trying to put over a tall tail that's so obviously a tall tail?
Are you making your argument based on illegal settlements torn down or removed by the Israeli government?
Joe, it sounds like you want the '67 borders deal
Israel will never turn armed might into strategic security. If need be, it could win a war against all its enemies combined. But if it wants peace it must face the decision it has avoided for 40 years: withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories. Military victories and land grabs are futile. Security will come only with political resolution.Philip Stephens comments in the FT.
As it happens, these are not my sentiments, though I certainly share them. They were among some valedictory reflections offered by Ehud Olmert, Israel’s outgoing prime minister, when he announced his resignation last September.
if you look at who was wrong, things get pretty clear at the point that Israel first grabbed more land than the UN allowed,
and then created a "right of return" that applies to any Jew, but no Muslim or Christian.
Joe, I'm referring to Israel's decision to hold more land than the UN allowed; they were only entitled to the land that the UN permitted them. You can't say the Jews accepted the UN resolution when they did not.
Of course Israel was not wrong to accept Jewish refugees. They were wrong not to let people return to the land they had lived in for thousands of years.
If you want to start a thread criticizings Europeans who persecuted Jews, I'll happily support you. Or pointing out the countries, including the US, who did not accept Jewish refugees in the '30s and early '40s.
But now it's decades later, and we're talking about Israelis persecuting Palestinians.
Sadly, Life does not have photos of the ethnic cleansing of Deir Yassin ...
I generally read the 'Right of Return' issue as concerning the Geneva conventions. Specifically, Israel has set up a policy allowing Jews to come and live in Israel, while denying the Palestinians the right of return guaranteed by the fourth Geneva convention. As such, the Gazan settlement is a long-term, large scale breakage of an international treaty. Just like the collective punishment stuff that both sides are guilty of.
Egypt and Jordan didn't permanently seize and build settlements on the Palestinian land,
nor did they deprive the Palestinians from the right to return to / live on that land.
In '48, Israel had a right to defend the borders that the UN chose. It did not have a right to seize additional land
As for the claim to the land, re-read my post about genetics.
selectively helping people based on ethnicity is wrong.
How can you say "any normal person would acknowledge that Jews had a far longer history there than the Palestinians" when Palestinians have been there for just as long? That is what the article you linked to suggests.
part, or perhaps the majorityof the Moslem Arabs living in the area today are descended from these converts. The key point they make is that their
findings are in good agreement with historical evidence.
As forOf course you help those closest to you first,that's said by all people who discriminate against others.
Anyone who understands Tikkun Olam would say you are as wrong as you can possibly be.
impossible to independently confirmthem. But let's assume that they're accurate.
Ad hominem much?
Oh, I'm sorry, you have an upper limit for the acceptable number of murdered children?
Joe, if two armies were on a field fighting, and one side killed 13 and the other killed a thousand, I would call it a massacre.
on a field fighting; it's deliberately drawing attacks into civilian areas. In any event you're confusing the firefighters with the fire. Of course fewer Israelis are dying than Palestinians: Hamas is randomly firing rockets into cities, but Israel is deliberately aiming at Hamas's fighters and their infrastructure. The difference is that the former is an act of terror aimed at civilians and is a war crime, while the latter is a licit act of war in defense of a civilian population.
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posted by MarshallPoe at 11:19 AM on January 6 [1 favorite has favorites]