The Israeli Palestinian conflict

[Bun-Bun]

Ahem, may I remind you that Jerusalem was ruled by others until the british left Israel? May I remind you that even though Israel controls jerusalem it's just on paper, there are 3 districts in Jerusalem, the Jewish district along with the ruins of a wall from Bait Hamikdash the Christian district with the church, forgot what the name is smile.gif  and the Muslim district along with Har Ha'Bait and the center stone, the holiest place for the jews (the place where Avraham almost sacrficed his son), now Jews and christians can go to each of their districts with no problem, problem is with the Muslim district where Jews cannot enter, for a city controlled by jews that can't even see the holiest place for the jewish religioun I don't think this control of Jerusalem is much.

First, I think you may have missed the point, which I no doubt was unclear on. In the specified role-reversal situation, my point was that a surrounding Jewish populace would have an equivalent motivation for aggression as the surrounding Arab populace as exists today. I'm not trying to justify any such motivation, merely pointing out its presence.

Secondly, I think you underestimate the psychological and physical significance of control of access to a city, even if one does not have soldiers on every street corner. Do you really think that the Israeli army could be prevented from going into the Muslim section of Jerusalem, despite the repercussions? I don't think so, and that's certainly an element in the mental equation.

Even though there's religious zealotry in Israel (Hasids), they're a minority as small as the amount of Kurds in Israel (which is very small), they're not very liked among other jews as well

We may be talking apples and oranges, Zealots and zealots. My point was meant to address Mr. Spectre's unstated but obvious contention that in the role-reversed scenario, the surrounding Jewish states launching of a war of aggression would be unthinkable. I counter by proposing a chain of events leading to a radical minority gaining the leadership in such states. Religious zealotry provides an obvious path for such events, but historical parallels also exist for nationalistic or ideological movements taking hold and leading nations along aggressive courses. I see nothing in the Jewish culture (if one can even oversimplify such a thing in such a nebulous thought-experiment) that would prevent such an eventuality, therefore my statement.

In addition, I feel you may understate the degree of radicalism in Israel by hewing to a narrow definition. From what I see, there is a minority in Israel that possesses expansionist sentiments. My evidence for this is the program of settlements on former Jordanian territory in the West Bank, both within Israeli law and outside it. There seems to be considerable support for this sentiment within the Israeli government. My characterization of such efforts would include the label of zealotry - no doubt you would not go so far. Regardless, this expansionist minority has a disproportionate effect on the perception of Israeli territorial ambitions regionally and worldwide.

Yep, it was a despised group by all the jews, nonetheless they never hurt civilians intentionally (always warned a good amount of time before exploding a civilian building, some times the british simply didn't listen) but don't get me wrong, I think that group made a bad name for all the jews (and a lot simply ignore/don't know it was a very small and very hated group...).

And yet it did exist. I contend that its existence is in direct contradiction to Mr. Spectre's thesis, that there would be something inherent in his supposed large Jewish populace that would prevent support of terrorists.

So the fact that Palestine never existed and havn't been officially created is nothing to justify that Israel does not recognize Palestine (Israel do recognize Palestinians though and may I remind that Palestine and a lot of other neighbouring countries do not recognize Israel) not to mention Israel agrees to let the Palestinians declare their independence.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here. My point was to contest Mr. Spectre's contention that his presumed Jewish megastate could not possibly refuse to recognize its neighbors by pointing out that the current Israeli state is rather behind in that regard.

I'm not entirely in agreement with your last statement on Israel agreeing on Palestinian independence. Such agreement seems rather tenuous, depending on so many conditions that a de-facto protectorate seems to be the aim.

I 'd argue your other points in this paragraph, but I just can't make sense of them, and I think I'd be putting words in your mouth to try to discuss them. Perhaps you could explain further?

but I do believe that the entire thing of reversing the roles is pointless, you don't know what will happen if it was the opposite.

On that we are on complete agreement. That was why I replied to Mr. Spectre, to point out underlying inconsistencies in a rather loosely-specified scenario accompanied by some sweeping assertions.

I'm sad to admit that there are racists in Israel that DO say Death to Arabs (and even has the IQ to buy a color spray and right it on walls...) but they are usually very young (1x-2x), not very popular (among everyone who can think which is a feature known to be not one of the best qualities of teenagers...) and they did not learn this from school, they learnt it from the TV where they spent a big portion of their life listening to the media reporting yet ANOTHER terrorist attack on civilians and some lack the understanding to see why people that dare break into civilians' houses and butcher babies, kids, women and men as if they were all a nasty cockroach running around your legs.

I hope you're right, and I hope that racist attitude isn't represented in lesser forms in other segments of the population. I do worry, though. I remember some of the problems bigotry has caused and is causing in the US, and I do worry.