Lee. I don't think so..

Doc has abused your friendship.And.He has abused anyone, an everyone,
who wishes to express his/her opinion..

Garden Forge....

Many thanks for your comments.

"They" haven't been killing each other for thousands of years at all.
Check out the Abbassid Calihpate, the Fatimids, the Umayyads, and the
Ottomans. You will see remarkably long periods of peace and prosperity.
I would guess that there have been many more long periods of peace and
prosperity in the Middle East than there has been for the US.

Before the Jewish tribe in parts of Palestine, came the Assyrians, and
before them the.... This is called history. Peoples and tribes come and
go. But the distant past does not creates rights for the present. The
international community and international law fully recognize the rights
of the Palestinians to live in Palestine.

Oceans

your argument contradicts itself Ocean. If past rights have no
relevance then the Palestinians have no rights because the Jews now own
the territory. As for the Ottoman Turks, take a look at what they did
in what is now Cerbia and that area it sure as hell wasn't a peaceful
occupation. Islam was spread at the point of the sword. Convert or
loose your head on the spot.

I'll explain, GardenForge.

When one analyzes a conflict over territory, you go back as far as the
last point in time when the legal status of a territory was settled.

In the case of Palestine, you can go back to the Ottoman Empire and the
1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which settled the status of Palestine and the
Palestinians. After that, any infringement on the rights of the
Palestinians is illegal.

The Zionist Movement, which seized Palestine from the Palestinians
between, say, 1939 and 1967, did not change this legal reality. The only
way now that the Israelis can assert sovereignty over any part of
Palestine is through the outcome of uncoerced negotiations with the
Palestinians; until this happens, the legal status of Israel remains
contested and unsettled.

The conquest of territory does not establish a legal right to it. This a
fundamental law that the US itself fully subscribes to. It is a law that
proctects the rights of everyone and every country. Without this law,
the world would become, simply put, lawless, in which the strong can
freely grab from the weak.

I sense you want to support Israel: note then that if this law is
ignored all that has to happen to Israel is for some new invader to take
over, and by your argument, I think, Israel loses any recourse.

I hope this explains my earlier observation.

Regards,

Oceans

GardenForge, regarding the Ottoman Empire...

IIRC, your statement was that 'they have been killing each other' for
thousands of years. The Ottoman Empire did not have any internal
'killing themselves' for a long, long time. The major exception was a
short-lived one, the Armenian massacres around 1915. It was the result
of an Armenian search for independence; they were viewed by the Ottoman
government as rebels. So, yes, this was 'killing themselves,' but on the
whole this was unusual. During WWI the Arab areas of the Ottoman Enpire
revolted against the Ottoman Goverment, and this led to the eventual
dissolution of the Empire. But this revolt only lasted a handful of
years (1916-1922). So even this doesn't support that the Ottoman Empire
saw a lot of 'killing themselves.'

You cite Serbia. I would suggest that this is an instance of the Ottoman
Empire fighting EXTERNAL opponents, not 'killing themselves'. And yes,
it left a mess, as do Empires, generally. For what it's worth, the
Balkans were a mess before the emergence of Islam, or the Ottoman
expansion into the Balkans. The place is tribally organized and while
the Ottoman Enmpire brought peace to those tribal groups that embraced
Islam, the normal practice of Islamic countries regarding their 'peoples
of the Book (Christians and Jews) were hard pressed in the non-Muslim
areas of the Balkans. And so when Tito came along some semblance of
peace was imposed upon these tribes, some of which are Muslim and some
of which are other things -- Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, pagan,
etc, but as the horrible years that followed showed, neither he nor the
Ottomans provided a strtural solution to the 'balkanized Balkans.'

I know, long answer. Sorry.

Regards,

Oceans

In that last sentence, that is 'structural.'

Oceans

Accurate and unbiased, as usual, Oceans.....

You are an asset to this community Sir.


Cheers


Hank

Gosh, many thanks, Hank.

Oceans

Ocean:

you can play word games and put any kind of spin on it you want but did
the fact that the Ottoman Turks viewed the Armenians as outsiders or
whatever make them any less dead. Long before Sampson picked up the
jawbone they were at war with one another over there and it isn't likely
to stop any time soon. I also notice you take the possession history
back only far enough to justify your argument of the Zionist takeover.
The Jews have just as might right to exist there as the palestinians and
if Islam was really a religion of peace they would be peacefully
co-existing now. Funny how they seem to only follow their "Book" when
it is to their advantage.