So what if the UN gave the entire east coast back to the Indians?

[Francine Frensky]

What if the UN decided that what early American settllers did to the Indians was unjust and cruel, and so decided to give them prime east coast land, asked all non-native americans to leave their property, and gave to the native americans all the east coast states from Virginia to Maine, by passing a resolution based on international consent. What if France, England, China, and Russia (etc.) got to make this decision for the US. You think some people would be mad?

It's kind of like the situation in Israel. ON CBS, Iran's president asks the question: why was the nation of Israel located in the middle east, why were so many jewish people moved out of europe to create this nation, why not have this new country be in europe? And it is something to think about. Present day Israel was created by the UN as a result of what Hitler did, and people trying to make amends for past injustices. But can amends ever be made?? When slave reparations are mentioned, that idea is mocked up and down. Is there a tenable solution for the troubles of this region? I'm just asking the question, and wondering if there will ever be a peaceful solution there in what seems a very awkward situation from the beginning.

[uppityperson]

1. I don't know either and it is a tough situation.

Compromises must be made by all, or else "might is right" will continue to try to prevail.

[enigma000]

2. Israel is slightly smaller than New Jersey

Its not exactly the biggest piece of real estate on the map.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&q=picture%20of%20middle%20east%20israel&sa=N&tab=wl

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. I'd be happy giving this country back to the indians.

Where do I apply for citizenship?

[leveymg]

5. They couldn't screw it up nearly as badly as a certain German family has

Bush back to Der Fatherland. Schnell.

[iamahaingttta]

4. Israel was created to cause tension.

Nobody wanted the Jews after WWII. The State Department did everything it could to get Nazi scientists into the US and everything it could to keep out the Jews, whom we had just liberated from the concentration camps. That should be clue #2.

Clue #1 is the Sykes-Picot treaty after WW1. It created countries out of thin air from the former Ottoman empire. It created them with false borders and the minority population in control of places like Iraq and Jordan. France and Britain did not want a pan-arab nation, and they set different groups off against each other. Wasn't too hard to do either.

Clue #3 is what's going on today. The West, and the US in particular does not want peace in the middle east. Don't be naive enough to believe that this has EVER been anyone's motivation. There's too much money to be made selling arms to people who want to kill each other, and if there WERE peace, then those nasty brown Muslim types might actually get together and create a vast empire that could be so much stronger than anything we righteous white people have been able to sustain. We can't have that now, can we?

:sarcasm:

Again... don't be naive. As long as WE are involved, there will never be peace in the middle east. By design. Maybe if we left them alone, they would solve their own problems, but we will never leave them alone as long as there is oil to be had.

That's my 2cents, and that's about all it's worth...

[aquart]

8. Not even 2 cents.

Those "Muslim types" have had lots of opportunities to create a vast empire. (And it's so cute to hear you espouse the worthless domino theory for the Middle East. Didn't the NYT just have an editorial making fun of it and Rumsfeld?) Historically, they're tribal and just prefer to kill each other. But embrace your dreams. I'm sure they'll all love each other in unity some day.

I especially like your completely racist belief that everything depends on the white Europeans' decisions. Yeah, those brown guys can't make a move for themselves.

[aquart]

6. Wow. Palestinian talking points.

Maybe you don't know about how the Arabs managed to be there in the first place. Maybe you don't know much history at all. But the biggest thing you don't know? Is that everyone is an immigrant from somewhere. Even people who have been in one place for thousands of years.

The OLD method of resettlement was simple: Ride in, kill the men, rape and enslave the women and children, take it all. The UN solution, which is CURRENTLY BEING DISCUSSED FOR IRAQ, is a little less brutal I think. But why is partition okay for Iraq and not Palestine?

WHY ARE YOU TAKING THE POSITION THAT JEWS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THEIR OWN HISTORIC HOMELAND? Seriously. All those excavations dig up Hebrew and Aramaic, not Arabic.

The Palestinians are ARABS. They have a homeland. It's called, wait for it, ARABIA. They speak ARABIC. The shrines Mecca and Medina are in ARABIA. If Palestinians are so hot for home, why don't they go?

[mike_c]

16. I remember when bigoted asshats in the south used to ask...

..."if the negroes don't like it here, why don't they go back to Africa?" You've just asked the equivalent question and proved the point about Israeli apartheid. If Palestinian arabs don't like living in open air prisons like Gaza, why don't they go back to Saudi Arabia? Except you've also displayed your own ignorance of middle eastern ethnic distributions and their relations to modern borders-- in particular, arabs did not originate in Saudi Arabia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab

The first Arabs known are those who came from Petra, the Nabataean capital (today, Petra is an archaeological site in Jordan, lying in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Wadi Araba).

Other Arabs are known as Arabised-Arabs, including those who came from some parts of Mesopotamia (Arabic term: بين نهرين Bayn Nahrain "between two rivers") Egyptians, Sudanese and other African Arabs.

more@link

And this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadi_Araba

The Arabah (Hebrew HaArava הערבה; Arabic Wadi Araba) is a section of the Great Rift Valley lying between the Dead Sea to the north and the Gulf of Aqaba to the south. It forms part of the border between Israel to the west and Jordan to the east.

So the origin of the arabs is in fact, well, right near the modern West Bank, and what was part of Trans-Jordan and the British Mandate. Still want to send all the arabs "back where they come from?"

[mike_c]

7. that's why Israel is pursuing the same ethnic cleansing...

...that permitted white european immigrants to establish a nation in North America. The only real "solution" to the problem of a preexisting population is to drive them out, segregate them, and kill them. The Palestinian refugees have something that terrifies Israel-- a moral claim that cannot be denied except with extreme and obvious injustice. The only solution is a multigenerational solution-- wipe them out, take their land, or negate their claims otherwise, all while still maintaining the grinding apartheid and oppression, and eventually the problem will go away. Eventually the world will remember the Palestinians as an unfortunate people who were simply unable to resist the march of change that was "inevitable" in their region at best, and at worst as a blighted group who brought their own destruction upon themselves. Those that are left will either be dispersed or confined to easily controlled enclaves utterly dependent upon Israeli support. That's what Israel is counting on.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

15. ...

"So, show me those mass graves. Show me the entire wiped out villages."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5601039

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/31/AR2006073101356_pf.html

[evox]

10. That's not going to happen - n/t

[sandnsea]

11. Natives reclaim their spiritual lands

One tribe just did it where I live and while they promised it wasn't to build a casino, lo and behold there's a casino in my town now.

In any event, Native Americans have their holy lands and Jews have their holy lands. They're both entitled to them.

You've got your thinking cap on backwards, or maybe not on at all.

[Geek_Girl]

12. I don't think its the same

Whens the last time you've seen a Native American strap a bomb on his back and blow himself up? The American-Indian war has been over a long time and the situation has been settled. Unjustly settled but settled.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. Iran would accept the general peace terms put forth by saudi arabia.

That is that the muslim nations in the region would agree to a comprehensive peace with Israel in exchange for Israel's return to the 1967 borders and a resolution of the palestinian refugee problem.
http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/league/peace02.htm

"Just after the lightning takeover of Baghdad by U.S. forces three years ago, an unusual two-page document spewed out of a fax machine at the Near East bureau of the State Department. It was a proposal from Iran for a broad dialogue with the United States, and the fax suggested everything was on the table -- including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups.

But top Bush administration officials, convinced the Iranian government was on the verge of collapse, belittled the initiative. Instead, they formally complained to the Swiss ambassador who had sent the fax with a cover letter certifying it as a genuine proposal supported by key power centers in Iran, former administration officials said."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/17/AR2006061700727.html

The real question here is who exactly is promoting chaos and conflict, and the answers are not at all clear.

[Igel]

14. Before they were removed from the Levantine,

the Jews considered to have a coherent identity as Jews. The ethnic identity was formed at least by 600 BC.

When the Indians were assimilated on the East Coast, they didn't consider themselves to have a coherent identity. The formation of that ethnic identity is was almost certainly no earlier than mid 1800s, if not well into the 20th century.

It's rather like setting up a homeland for the Celts along the Tiber. After all, they're all Europeans.

[Ms. Clio]

26. you don't know shit about Native American history n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

29. Indeed.

[rug]

17. Didn't the UN do that in 1947?

[Lefty48197]

18. I think the Jews have been in Israel for about 5000 years.

Maybe they're claiming squatters rights or something?

[mike_c]

19. interestingly, ethnic jews and arabs BOTH trace their lineage back...

...to the same region at more or less the same time, to the sons of Abraham (ca 1900 BC).

[MzShellG]

22. Really?

Did the European Ashkenazi Jews come Japheth and not Shem? What makes them Semites?

[mike_c]

25. is that a serious question...

...or a snarky one? My understanding is that Jews and arabs both trace their descent from Noah through Shem (but I'm simply repeating what I've read, of course-- your mileage may vary). The Ashkenazim are presumably descendents of middle eastern Jews transported to Europe (and around the Mediterranian basin) via Rome. This BEGS for genetic analyses, and naturally that has been attempted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews#Who_is_an_Ashkenazi_Jew.3F

A study of haplotypes of the Y chromosome, published in 2000, addressed the paternal origins of Ashkenazi Jews. Hammer et al<8> found that the Y chromosome of most Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews was of Middle Eastern origin, containing mutations that are also common among Palestinians and other Middle Eastern peoples, but uncommon in the general European population. This suggested that the male ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews could be traced primarily to the Middle East.

The first research on Ashkenazi maternal ancestry was less conclusive. A 2002 study by Goldstein et al<9> found that "the women's origins cannot be genetically determined", but that "his own speculation" was that "most Jewish communities were formed by unions between Jewish men and local women."

More recent research indicates that a significant portion of Ashkenazi maternal ancestry is also of Middle Eastern origin. A 2006 study by Behar et al<10>, based on haplotype analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), suggested that about 40% of the current Ashkenazi population is descended matrilineally from just four women. These four "founder lineages" were "likely from a Hebrew/Levantine mtDNA pool" originating in the Near East in the first and second centuries CE. According to the authors, "The observed global pattern of distribution renders very unlikely the possibility that the four aforementioned founder lineages entered the Ashkenazi mtDNA pool via gene flow from a European host population."

Both the extent and location of the maternal ancestral deme from which the Ashkenazi Jewry arose remain obscure. Here, using complete sequences of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), we show that close to one-half of Ashkenazi Jews, estimated at 8,000,000 people, can be traced back to only four women carrying distinct mtDNAs that are virtually absent in other populations, with the important exception of low frequencies among non-Ashkenazi Jews. We conclude that four founding mtDNAs, likely of Near Eastern ancestry, underwent major expansion(s) in Europe within the past millennium.

David Goldstein of Duke University has argued that sample populations in these studies were small and not randomly selected, and that the results may not be statistically significant.

[Freedom_Aflaim]

20. I would be angry. But so what ???

My anger would not justify suicide bombings and war on innocent men, women and children for 50 years. I certainly would not want my grandchildren strapping on bombs in 2056 over my anger today.

The Palestinians need to move on and get over it.

Their land is gone and thats it. 50 years of murderous terrorism hasn't changed that fact.

Another 50 years of killing innocent people won't change it.

Do you REALLY believe that because someones grandfather gave other person grandfather land, that it justifies killing people who weren't even born then?

*ALL* land has been stolen from someone else. Palestinians are not special.

[High Plains]

21. Israel right now is just a blip in Middle East History.

It's small and has existed for less than 60 years. If you look at the history of the Middle East, there is no reason to assume it's going to be around in another 60 years (except now Israel has nukes). Who knows? What is now the state of Israel could become a Greater Israel, incorporating Jews and Arabs alike into a democratic secular state. Or if could become a fascist garrison state. Or maybe it will fall and be incorporated into some sort of new Arab entity. That doesn't necessarily imply the Jews would be genocidally wiped out, but they might become a minority in a Moslem sea. They have survived that in the past.

The Crusaders took Jerusalem in the early 1100s. Saladin took it back in 1187, and it took eight centuries before it slipped out of Arab hands again.

[Pavulon]

23. A few jews fixed that right up

Teller and Ulam. That gives a little state the ability to use force to preserve its existence.

[High Plains]

24. As I noted. I guess one possibility I didn't address is...

...most of the Middle East, including Israel, turned into a smoking ruin.

[cali]

27. I consider all of these threads

utterly fatuous. Israel is there. It exists. Mistake it may have been, but the point now is to move forward.

[JVS]

28. IIRC Pennsylvania was bought fair and square

Or at least most of it, including the Eastern part