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Trump’s Peace Plan
For the first time, an actual proposed map has been published by a player in the Israeli-Arab negotiations. It is truly fair to both sides. And it includes this wonderful gem:
“People of every faith should be permitted to pray on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, in a manner that is fully respectful to their religion, taking into account the times of each religion’s prayers and holidays, as well as other religious factors.”
This punchline is why the Palestinians would never accept this deal. Jews are currently not allowed to pray on the Temple Mount.
It is a very solid proposal. Israel could add a “stick,” if not accepted, Israel will annex the West Bank. The Palestinians would still reject it. And so Israel should annex anyway and be done with it.
Published in General
Ok.
Manny, to Zafar the equation is always Israel=wrong, regardless of the question.
If you’re interested in learning more about Israel, particularly about Jewish-Christian relations, write to me privately and I’ll answer your questions with well sourced documentation and, for the questions I can’t answer, I’d be happy to point you to others who can also help. There are a few historical links in my comment #54 that provide some background. You’ve liked and commented on my other lengthy comment, #78. Lots of good links there, too, if you didn’t get to all of them.
Not so Caryn. When Israel is right (eg gay rights, women’s rights, universal health care, universal education) it’s definitely right.
Edit: but when it’s wrong then it’s wrong.
The view from Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarchate.
That view is the peace of dead Jews. You do not discuss this issue in good faith; that is why I avoid engaging with you.
Caryn, we don’t agree with each other’s assumptions but that doesn’t make either of us malign or dishonest. I agree with this, I think it’s a good idea:
You think it means dead Jews. I think it doesn’t – if I thought it did I wouldn’t agree with it. In fact I think that the lack of this is what keeps Jews and Arabs over there at greater risk.
Thats where we are. It’s possible for people to actually disagree with you without being dishonest or acting in bad faith.
I believe you believe what you say, Zafar. But, you don’t seem to believe or acknowledge that Jews need and have legitimate claims to their own state as protection against murderous, hostile Arab Muslims surrounding and among them. As if incorporating “Palestinians” into the Jewish state and giving them full rights, including the right to “democratically” vote in their own leaders (e.g., Abbas, Arafat, and whoever the current terrorist leadership is in Gaza) will finally mean peaceful coexistence and not extermination of Jews. This is utopian, wishful thinking.
Taking the land other people are living on to make a State and also violating those people’s legitimate rights to respect for their private property and civic and political rights where they are is a recipe for conflict.
Has it not proved to be so everywhere it’s happened?
Again with the ignored Palestinian Christians.
What is this about? Is it conscious or deliberate?
Instead of rehashing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict it would actually be really interesting if you focused on this Palestinian Christian invisibility instead.
Mole versus malignancy.
Is that really how you see these human beings? I’m surprised.
Not the people. The problems they represent. And, frankly, I’m tired of the discussion and feel it’s going nowhere so I’m down to quips.
Still a problematic way to see people.
Zafar, will you ever admit there’s a homicidal problem in Islam? That the ideology is especially problematic when it mixes with western ideals of human dignity and ordered liberty? I’m not talking about people. I take individuals as they come. I’m talking about ideas. And some ideas are malignant.
A zero sum worldview is malignant. It sets people against each other and promotes envy and/or entitlement. It is anti-creation. The victim mentality excuses any (murderous) behavior, apparently. “Palestinians” who will never be satisfied until they have their chunk of Israel are doomed to misery. I think the best thing Arab Muslims in the region could do for themselves is to stop seeing themselves as victims and get on with creating a better life for themselves and their families — elsewhere. #MoveOn.
From the same source, this is landownership in the Mandate in 1944 by religion/ethnicity of the owners or linked organisations:
Six percent (6%) of the land between the River and the Sea was owned by individual Jewish people or by institutions like the JNF.
This was bought from the owners (as you say absentee), but it was also mostly not very populated due to poor soil/marshland, and it didn’t really result in displacement.
The 1948 refugees came from the other 94% (less Gaza and the West Bank).
(The 6% level of Jewish land ownership in the Mandate was also why allocating 56% of the total land area to Israel [6% to 56% because??] was seen to be so unjust and was not accepted by the Arabs.)
There were no Arab representatives at the San Remo Conference:
As your link says Faisal did attend the Paris Peace Conference, as a guest of the British, and he obligingly said yes to everything in hopes that the Europeans would make him the King of something – which first the French and then the British very sportingly did. But he was elected by nobody, and he represented nobody and nothing but his own personal ambition. imho.
Why are you trying to change the subject?
I know you are very comfortable expressing opinions about Islam. What you don’t seem at all comfortable doing is actually listening to what your fellow Christians who are also Palestinian have to say for themselves about what happened to them during the Nakba, the Naksa, as refugees and under occupation – and how they feel about it.
What makes you so uncomfortable that you seem actually unable to acknowledge their existence and voices for more than a few moments before ignoring these again?
What do you want me say? What is your aim? There are Christians unhappy with Israel’s victory in its war of independence? Okay. So???
Is it a ploy to garner sympathy for Muslims hostile to Israel because I’m supposed to have some loyalty to Christians hostile to Israel? Is my sympathy a solution? What do you propose? And why are you avoiding my questions about the inherent murderous inclinations promoted by Islamism?
And, to be clear, I do have sympathy for (innocent) Christians and Muslims living under hardship. I have much less sympathy for the idea that the only way for them to receive justice is for Jews to lose (zero sum). I believe it is false compassion to deny people their own moral agency in difficult circumstances. Like I tell my kids, fix what you can, graciously accept what you can’t and move on. Don’t be a victim.
I’d like you to realise that Palestinians as a group [Muslim and Christian] suffered [largely in the same way] from what happened in 1948, and that they have a range of responses to this – which are not determined by their religious label.
I’d really like Christians in the West to stop silencing Palestinian Christians by presenting their own views on Israel as universal Christian ones while ignoring actual Palestinian Christian views.
You don’t have to agree with them, but don’t pretend they don’t exist, or that they don’t have their own experiences and opinions.
To start with: recognise that it is essentially a conflict between Palestinians and Israelis over land.
Falsely dressing it up as a religious conflict does not serve peace, it serves war.
Religious ideologies are used to justify many conflicts, including this one, but I can’t think of any long lasting conflicts which are just about ideology and not really driven by more mundane things (like control of land).
I didn’t want to acquiesce to you changing the subject and not answering my question.
But now that you have been courteous enough to address what I asked you in our conversation.
Sure.
But: there are too many peaceful Muslims today, and too many instances of any religion being used to justify evil or wrong doing, to call it definitive or unique.
I agree with you.
Absolutely – it’s the bigotry of lower expectations.
Hence holding Jewish migrants from Europe responsible for the Nakba despite the Holocaust.
Principles need to be consistent.
What do you tell them about victimising other people?
Or if they’ve victimised other people?
I actually agree with what you say, as far as it goes, but it’s incomplete because: for every victimised person or group there’s a person or group that victimises.
Failing to address that reduces your point’s moral weight when you are talking about other people and not yourself.
jmnsho.
Zafar, Palestinian Christians make up less than 3% of the population in Israel and Palestinian territories. It’s pretty easy to overlook them. I never see them in the news.
My one personal experience with them comes every year one Sunday during Lent. A particular representative comes by one Sunday and in the church basement lays out beautiful religious crafts and articles made from olive wood for sale. I try to buy something every year. Actually I found a website with their crafts.
Yes I have compassion for the innocent people of all three religions. And frankly a two state solution is a reasonable plan to move on from past hatreds. If only they would all take it.
Which Palestinians do you see in the news?
And furthermore:
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2020/with-burning-concern
Christians living under Israeli rule aren’t the greatest concern for our brother Christians. Sorry, they’re just not. It’s Christians living under Muslim persecution who are sorely neglected in the news and of which we are largely ignorant. I pray daily for the four seminarians captured by Islamists in Africa and for all those (Christian and non-Christian) living under tyranny and persecution. Even the Muslim Uighurs of China. Pick your battles.
Reasonable call Western Chauvinist, if also edging into whatabouttery.
Though in addition to prayers perhaps next time don’t support regime change wars which were/are responsible for empowering Islamists? Saddam didn’t persecute Iraqi Christians, and Assad doesn’t persecute Syrian Christians.
Just a thought.