Show me a single fact that I mentioned that is dishonest or not true.

You seem so emotionally invested in the Palestinian story that you fail to read or understand my points. When you are showed the other side of the story you have to attack the person showing it to you.

How does the fact that there are 400% more Palestinian casualties contradict anything that I stated? What about this figure makes it a “big picture?”

When one side invests millions to protect its population, and the other purposely places war materiel next to civilians, you will see casualty results that reflect these policies. How is that so difficult to comprehend?

“The Jews are not Israel.”

Whatever you want to call them, the Jews had a state in Palestine long before the Arabs invaded. And many of them persisted on their land after their state was destroyed, all through the centuries.

A biblical “God destroyed Jericho, and Sodom and Gomorrah.” So? Who cares? Even if these stories were true, what do they have to do with the current realities? How is this the “big picture” for you?

“The Jews went from possessing less than 1% of Palestine to 78%.”

I explained in detail how that happened, and there was nothing malicious about that process. It is, however, deceptive and malicious to pretend that land that wealthy Arab families purchased in 1858 after the Ottoman reforms, had been theirs since the Arab invasion. And it is deceptive and malicious not to mention that most of this 78% is state land. It is malicious because it wrongly creates animosity against Jews, and makes peace less likely.

Begin “murdered countless numbers.” Is that so? Roughly how many? Countless sounds like millions. It’s just another one of your nonsensical “big picture” misrepresentations.

“The Jews are doing what American and South Africans did to Blacks.”

Really? Have you visited some of the plantations where Palestinians are bred for their slave strength, or Jewish plantation owners give their slaves “lickings” for not working hard enough?

Gazans would have loved to return to work in Israel and replace the Thai workers that took their places.

You are so obsessed with your silly slogans, that they are the only picture for you; nothing else exists. Even when reality stares you in the face you are unable to comprehend it. Your bias has made you obtuse.

Are you incapable of honesty?

Again with the one sided story.
Again with small pictures.
ANSWER THE BIG PICTURE POINTS, PLEASE!

Fatalities are 400% more for Palestinians than Jews. This is according to the United Nations.

What the United States and South Africa did to the blacks is what you are doing to the Palestinians.

The Jews are NOT Israel. They are Judah, but exploited their ancestor’s name to steal land (read my article). When they returned (or invaded), the Jews should have named their restored nation Judea, like it was called before the diaspora! The Jews are only entitled to the old southern kingdom of Judea, assuming they are entitled. (Which I do, by the way, given the equal sickness of the Palestinians.)

How did your God destroy Jericho, and Sodom and Gomorrah, but needed men to kill all the Amalekites and so many other nations in your ancient scriptures?

Would a real god need men to kill for him? Wouldn’t a real god be too good to ask men to do such a thing? (Argue this, mad man!)

We put people in jail who listen to demons that tell them to kill, but you call them the voice of God?

How did the Jews go from possessing less than 1% of Palestine to owning 78% of it? Kindness? (After WWII, David Ben-Gurion sent Golda Meir to the U.S. to raise $1M for weapons from American Jewry… Instead she raised $15M, which the Jews put to use the very day Britain pulled out of Palestine. Then there’s another future Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, a terrorist who murdered countless numbers, including 90 people when he blew up the British Embassy… and etc, etc.)

Let’s talk present day now: The Jews have conquered the Palestinians. It’s time for mercy, or are you a Pharisee. Share fairly! The Palestinians will listen now and the quality will not be strained. If not, then shame on you, no longer the spiritual son of Israel, but Adolph.

I agree. Israel should follow UN 242 and 338. But the Palestinians would not sign on anything that does not include a full right of return. In other words, peace with Israel if there is no Israel.

The Palestinians were offered a full-fledged state multiple times since the 1930s, but they violently rejected all offers because of their obsession with “driving the Jews into the sea.”

I don’t believe there is a single person in Israel who wants to be an occupier. But what do you think would happen if they unilaterally withdraw, as they did from South Lebanon and Gaza. The Arab response in both cases was far from encouraging, and brought about more bloodshed.

Which brings me to your Gaza article. I would have believed your claims of dire conditions if it hadn’t been for the full supermarkets carrying absolutely everything; the luxury cars, mansions and villas of the Hamas elite; the recently completed 5-star luxury al-Mashtal hotel; the upscale mall that was completed three years ago in Gaza’s Kimmel neighborhood, the bustling souqs; the active tunnel trade; and more.

I don’t think another flotilla of broken wheelchairs and expired drugs would do much good for Gaza. However, I think Gazans would get a lot of mileage out of telling the Israelis, “Listen, all this talk about your being the offspring of pigs, and our murdering every last one of you—we were just joking. And we’ll prove it. If you send your workers back to Thailand, and let our unemployed laborers return to their old jobs, we may consider sending our missiles back to Iran, and maybe, just maybe, remove the call to destroy you from our charter.”

As the recent war revealed, despite the blockade, the Israelis are no good at stopping large Iranian missiles from entering the Strip, let alone everyday goods.

Bear in mind that if the Israelis drop any part of the blockade, then the blockade as a whole becomes illegal. From the abundance of goods and prevalence of construction in Gaza, I am getting the impression that the Israelis are pretending to go through the motions.

Regarding Gaza’s casualties, Colonel Richard Kemp, the commander of British forces in Afghanistan, testified at the UN that “during operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare. Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population…

“The IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy’s hands is to the military tactician normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.

“Despite all of this, of course innocent civilian lives were lost. War is chaos and full of mistakes… More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’s way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice its own civilians. Israel had no choice apart from defending its people to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets.”
(This testimony is available on youtube at: watch?v=JM0fTss0UX4)

As far as Gaza goes, Israel has turned it into the world’s prison – we don’t use the term ghetto any more – where the inmates are stripped of basic human needs and dignity. The treatment of people in the occupied West Bank, life is not much better.

Two countries with full national sovereignty on an equal basis with borders along the 1967 lines is what the world expects and considers fair. To solve the Right Of Return Issue, the precedent should be how Jewish property claims were handled in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. These property claims go back to 1938 and were resolved in the 1990s.

Until these issues are resolved, Palestinian resistance will have a basis which the world community will be sympathetic to.

Mark,
In the here-and-now there is a struggle over one of the last pieces of Palestine that is still not in Palestinian hands, outside the 1949 armistice lines.

The Palestinians effectively have the East Bank of Palestine, which the British had broken off to create Transjordan (later, Jordan) in contravention of the League of Nations Mandate. Today, the Palestinians are the majority in Jordan, they hold Jordanian citizenship, and even the Jordanian queen is Palestinian. Beyond that, other than their geographic origin, the Palestinians are identical to East Bankers in every respect.

In 2005, the Israelis withdrew from Gaza and the Palestinians took over. Gaza’s borders are clearly defined. With Gaza, Palestinian holdings rose to about 80% of historic Palestine.

The question now is how much of the West Bank they can take before the borders are finally settled. Arafat used to compare the Oslo Accords (in Arabic) to Muhammad’s (PBUH) Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, that is, it would enable the Palestinians to grow more powerful until they can take the rest of Palestine. But with the Israelis armed to their teeth and very cautious about security in the West Bank (especially after their experiences in South Lebanon and Gaza), this promise of 100% of Palestine may never materialize. So whatever the Palestinians manage to carve out of the West Bank right now may be it.

In this struggle, E-1 is critical because it conveniently connects the northern and southern West Bank, while on its East-West axis it connects Maale Adumim to the rest of metro-Jerusalem.

Since the announcement of Israeli construction in E-1 some 13 years ago, little has been done due to American pressure. In the meanwhile, the Palestinians managed to build from both the north and south, and constricted the Israeli East-West corridor to one kilometer at its narrowest.

For the Israelis it’s either now or never. If they don’t build now, their capital will be a border town, and Maale Adumim will be an isolated city susceptible to attacks. Their construction includes a road that will connect the northern and southern West Bank through tunnels.

This is the here-and-now. It’s a pure struggle for land. It has nothing to do with Palestinian moves in the UN, or peace talks, or racism, or occupation, or morality.

You make great points and it’s a pleasure debating you. Unfortunately, it will be a couple of days before I am able to turn to your Gaza article. After reading it, I will give you my thoughts on this page.

Time for mercy Taheri, no matter what the actual truth (of the one sided history you present) may be.

Exactly.

The legal, human and moral rights that people should have today has no bearing on where their ancestors of 2000 years ago, or even two centuries ago lived. Its not relevant when it comes what land American Indians lived on 400 years ago and its not relevant in the Middle East.

Taheri’s comments are warmed over boilerplate position papers that are no more complete and balanced than those released in a presidential political campaign.

I personally would welcome for him to respond point by point on the specifics of the human rights tragedy caused by the blockade of Gaza over the last 5 yearsa as summarized in: http://blogs.roanoke.com/dancasey/2012/11/the-human-rights-tragedy-in-gaza/

I would also welcome to hear Taheri’s view on the point of the essay which is that recent Israeli and US policies strengthen Hamas and hurt Fatah.

“and they are pretty good at that too, having just invented a bullet that can shoot down another bullet.”

Please tell us about this. Sources would be appreciated.