I asked a question a few days ago, "What would you do if a foreign army came to your town/village and destroyed your home, occupied your land murdered your family and friends?" and you had no army to defend you and the world turned a blind eye?

I deal with facts not hypotheticals...offers have been made and rejected. I certainly wouldn't strap explosives onto children and send them out to kill themselves

The violence never stopped. Yet, with his presidency winding down in 2000 and desperate for an accomplishment that might balance a record besmirched by scandal, President Clinton boldly sought a final time to forge a comprehensive settlement. He brought Arafat and yet another new Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, to Camp David. Under intense U.S. pressure, Israel offered the creation of a Palestinian state over 90 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza, with its capital to be in East Jerusalem. In a move comprehensible only if one accepts that Arafat was incorrigibly devoted to Israel's extermination — in which case, it was entirely comprehensible — Arafat rejected this stunning offer, with poison-pill insistence that millions of Palestinians be accorded a right of return to Israel.

The breakdown of negotiations resulted, like night followed day with Arafat, in a new round of terror: the Second Intifada, which continues to this day. This program has been pursued mostly by suicide bombings — often including explosives strapped to children encouraged by the culture of shahada, or martyrdom, which thrived under Arafat's corrupt and dysfunctional leadership. In the main, attacks have willfully targeted civilians in buses, restaurants, shopping centers, synagogues, hotels and other public centers. Since 2000, approximately 900 Israelis, three quarters of whom were civilians, have been murdered. To extrapolate to American proportions, for a country the size of Israel this is the rough equivalent of over 40,000 dead — or, as the Hudson Institute's Anne Bayefsky has calculated, about 14 9/11s.

It's the same old drivel

"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

You are only addressing the same old Zionist line. I am thankful that you have kept the plight of the Palestinian people on this thread alive though..

International law and Israeli settlements

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_law_and_Israeli_settlements

And there is where I have to leave the stage, for the time being..

Just discount it...don't prove it...sounds legit...and Wikipedia is NOT an acceptable academic source since anybody can make it say whatever...meanwhile there have been repeated attempts to satisfy this problem and EVERY time it's either rejected outright or derailed via terrorist actions.

The Palestinians have actually had numerous opportunities to create an independent state, but have repeatedly rejected the offers:

In 1937, the Peel Commission proposed the partition of Palestine and the creation of an Arab state.

In 1939, the British White Paper proposed the creation of a unitary Arab state.

In 1947, the UN would have created an even larger Arab state as part of its partition plan.

The 1979 Egypt-Israel peace negotiations offered the Palestinians autonomy, which would almost certainly have led to full independence.

The Oslo agreements of the 1990s laid out a path for Palestinian independence, but the process was derailed by terrorism.

In 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to create a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 97 percent of the West Bank.

In 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to withdraw from almost the entire West Bank and partition Jerusalem on a demographic basis.

In addition 1948 to 1967, Israel did not control the West Bank. The Palestinians could have demanded an independent state from the Jordanians.

On the contrary whilst Jordan was in control Arafat said there was no longer a claim as it was no longer part of Palestine. Once it was back in Israeli hands it miraculously became disputed land again! This is one of many reasons Jews and Israelis are cynical.

The Palestinians have spurned each of these opportunities. A variety of reasons have been given for why the Palestinians have in Abba Eban’s words, “never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Historian Benny Morris has suggested that the Palestinians have religious, historical, and practical reasons for opposing an agreement with Israel. He says that “Arafat and his generation cannot give up the vision of the greater land of Israel for the Arabs. [This is true because] this is a holy land, Dar al-Islam [the world of Islam]. It was once in the hands of the Muslims, and it is inconceivable [to them] that infidels like us [the Israelis] would receive it.”

The Palestinians also believe that time is on their side. “They feel that demographics will defeat the Jews in one hundred or two hundred years, just like the Crusaders.” The Palestinians, Morris says, also hope the Arabs will acquire nuclear weapons in the future that will allow them to defeat Israel.

In 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to withdraw from 97 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of the Gaza Strip. In addition, he agreed to dismantle 63 isolated settlements. In exchange for the 3 percent annexation of the West Bank, Israel said it would give up territory in the Negev that would increase the size of the Gaza territory by roughly a third.

Barak also made previously unthinkable concessions on Jerusalem, agreeing that Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem would become the capital of the new state. The Palestinians would maintain control over their holy places and have “religious sovereignty” over the Temple Mount.

According to U.S. peace negotiator Dennis Ross, Israel offered to create a Palestinian state that was contiguous, and not a series of cantons. Even in the case of the Gaza Strip, which must be physically separate from the West Bank unless Israel were to be cut into non-contiguous pieces, a solution was devised whereby an overland highway would connect the two parts of the Palestinian state without any Israeli checkpoints or interference. The proposal also addressed the Palestinian refugee issue, guaranteeing them the right of return to the Palestinian state and reparations from a $30 billion fund that would be collected from international donors to compensate them.

“In his last conversation with President Clinton, Arafat told the President that he was “a great man.” Clinton responded, “The hell I am. I’m a colossal failure, and you made me one.”

Arafat was asked to agree to Israeli sovereignty over the parts of the Western Wall religiously significant to Jews (i.e., not the entire Temple Mount), and three early warning stations in the Jordan Valley, which Israel would withdraw from after six years. Most important, however, Arafat was expected to agree that the conflict with Israel was over at the end of the negotiations. This was the true deal breaker. Arafat was not willing to end the conflict. “For him to end the conflict is to end himself,” said Ross.

The prevailing view of the Camp David/White House negotiations—that Israel offered generous concessions, and that Yasser Arafat rejected them to pursue the war that began in September 2000—was acknowledged for more than a year. To counter the perception that Arafat was the obstacle to peace, the Palestinians and their supporters then began to suggest a variety of excuses for why Arafat failed to say “yes” to a proposal that would have established a Palestinian state. The truth is that if the Palestinians were dissatisfied with any part of the Israeli proposal, all they had to do was offer a counterproposal. They never did.

Ok Ok

I get it, you don't put any responsibility on the terrorist state of Israel, so that can be your thing, I'll just refer to you as an apologist for the barbarity of the oppressor..

Take care though, and have a good day

As-salamu alaykum

So you'll call me names instead of refute anything I've said with any facts...

Nice debate skills...

Gee are you still wittering on, debating with an apologist for Zionist war crimes just isn't my thing, all you have done is cut and paste from a few articles, and left out all the good stuff about atrocities carried out by Israhell... No point in going over the same ground, your obviously blind to the truth..

just the facts...cut and paste or hand-typed...it's all the same.

let me know when you find some that actually stand up...you haven't presented any yet

Oh right, so the massacre's are all made up to slander your Zionists friends? International courts finding that the settlements are illegal are all nonsense..

Your 1948 massacre happened in response to Israel being attacked by multiple countries from every possible angle which started in 1947.

The war was fought along the entire, long border of the country: against Lebanon and Syria in the north; Iraq and Transjordan - renamed Jordan during the war - in the east; Egypt, assisted by contingents from the Sudan - in the south; and Palestinians and volunteers from Arab countries in the interior of the country.

It was the bloodiest of Israel's wars. It cost 6,373 killed in action (from pre-state days until 20 July 1949) almost 1% of the yishuv (the Jewish community) - although that figure includes quite a number of new immigrants and some foreign volunteers.

In the First Phase (29 November 1947 - 1 April 1948), it was the Palestinian Arabs who took the offensive, with the help of volunteers from neighboring countries; the yishuv had little success in limiting the war - it suffered severe casualties and disruption of passage along most of the major highways.

In the Second Phase (1 April - 15 May) the Haganah took the initiative, and in six weeks was able to turn the tables - capturing, inter alia, the Arab sections of Tiberias, Haifa and later also Safed and Acre, temporarily opening the road to Jerusalem and gaining control of much of the territory alotted to the Jewish State under the UN Resolution.

The Third Phase (15 May - 19 July), considered the critical one, opened with the simultaneous, coordinated assault on the fledgling state by five regular Arab armies from neighboring countries, with an overwhelming superiority of heavy equipment - armor, artillery and airforce.
On 31 May the Haganah was renamed the "Israel Defence Forces". The IDF suffered initial setbacks, including the loss of the Etzion Bloc in Judea, the area of Mishmar Hayarden in the north and Yad Mordehai in the south, but after three weeks was able to halt the offensive, to stabilize the front and even initiate some local offensive operations.

The Fourth Phase (19 July 1948 - 20 July, 1949) was characterized by Israeli initiatives: Operation Yoav, in October, cleared the road to the Negev, culminating in the capture of Be'er Sheva; Operation Hiram, at the end of October, resulted in the capture of the Upper Galilee; Operation Horev in December 1948 and Operation Uvda in March 1949, completed the capture of the Negev, which had been alotted to the Jewish State by the United Nations.

Simultaneously, the Arab countries signed Armistice Agreements: first came Egypt - 24 February 1949; followed by Lebanon - 23 March; Jordan - 3 April; and Syria - 20 July. Only Iraq did not sign an armistice agreement with Israel. It preferred to withdraw its troops and hand over its sector to the Arab Legion of Jordan.

In the end Israel not only ejected the invading Arab forces - it also captured and held some 5,000 km2 over and above the areas allocated to it by the United Nations.

Next?

Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little cover-up and decoration. But as time goes by, what is true is revealed, and what is fake fades away.

Ismail Haniyeh

“Sophie Kruger had worked in a house herself, up in Middle Swan. But now she pretended she was quality. There were none so self-righteous as those who rewrote their past.”
― Sandra Dallas, The Last Midwife

If you ever get a chance and are really interested in Palestine and the illegal occupation, this is a thought provoking movie...


https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/movies/5-broken-cameras-shows-life-in-one-palestinian-village.html

Take up arms against them, that's what I would do!

Don't be 'practical' in politics. To be practical in that sense means that you have schooled yourself to think along the lines, and in the grooves that those who rob you would desire you to think.

James Connolly

The day Palestinian militants attacked Zurich Airport.

Fifty years ago, an airplane about to take off from Zurich for Tel Aviv was attacked by four armed Palestinian militants. The dramatic events shocked the public and had a major impact on Swiss foreign policy.

February 18, 1969: Zurich woke under a blanket of snow. That afternoon a white VW Beetle parked near the runway at Zurich’s Kloten Airport. Inside the vehicle were three men and a woman.

At 5.30pm, a Boeing plane belonging to the Israeli company El Al taxied into position as it prepared to take off for Tel Aviv. Suddenly, two people jumped out of the VW car and fired an automatic weapon at the cockpit. The pilot, Yeram Perez, was shot in the stomach and died from his injuries five weeks later in a Zurich hospital. Six passengers were injured.

Mordechai Rachamim, an armed Israeli security officer, ran out of the plane and climbed over the fence separating the runway from the attackers. He shot and killed one of the militants, Abdel Mohsen Hassan. Minutes later, the emergency services and police arrived; the Israeli security officer and attackers were all arrested.

The next morning, Willy Spühler, head of the Swiss Federal Political Department (former Federal Department of Foreign Affairs), informed his colleagues in the Federal Council external link(executive body). In a press release, the government noted: “The particular gravity of the attack lies in the fact that our neutral country has been transformed into a theatre of armed conflict.”

“This terrorist act on Swiss soil was a shock," said Sacha Zala, director of Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland (Dodis). “Up to then, Switzerland felt protected from conflict situations due to its policy of neutrality. But the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on its soil was traumatic. The public discovered that Switzerland no longer resembles the image of a peaceful island built up after the Second World War.”

The attack also forced the government to deal with a complex diplomatic crisis.

Ten days after the airport shooting, the Swiss authorities sent diplomatic letters of protest to the embassies of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Israel. The tone, particularly those addressed to the Arab countries, was harsh. All three were accused of tolerating the activities of terrorist organizations on their soil. “The move, unusual in diplomatic relations, was undoubtedly dictated by domestic political motives,” said Zala. But the reply from Arab diplomats was just as tough.

The investigation into the Kloten attack and the subsequent trial at Winterthur District Court led to major tensions with the Arab world.

In December 1969, the three Palestinian attackers were handed 12-year prison sentences, accused of murder and “illegal acts carried out for a foreign state”. The Israeli, Mordechai Rachamim. was acquitted. The announcement sparked demonstrations outside Swiss diplomatic missions in various Arab countries. Accused of siding with Israel, the Swiss authorities feared reprisals.

The next few months seemed to prove them right. On February 21, 1970, a Swissair plane heading for Tel Aviv exploded mid-air and crashed near Würenlingen in northern Switzerland. All 47 people on board were killed. But it turned out that this was not a deliberate terror act against Switzerland; the explosive device was originally meant for an Israeli El Al plane.

In September 1970, another Swissair aircraft was hijacked and diverted to Zerqa in Jordan along with two other planes belonging to other airlines. The hijackers eventually managed to negotiate the release of the three Kloten attackers. On October 1, 1970, Amena Dahbor, Ibrahim Tawfik Yousef and Mohamed Abu el Heiga left Switzerland on board a British military plane for Cairo, Egypt.

Who was from Edinburgh, in Scotland mate

Yes indeed, I visited both his birthplace and where he was executed..

Jews and Muslims 'dialoguing' has nothing to do with Palestine. The problem is settler colonialism, apartheid and occupation, not religion.

Remi Kanazi