Worth a try? A new model for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from an unlikely source
32 replies, posted
Monkah's a retard. You could just as easily say that Israelis are simply too fanatic for peace to work, or that Americans are too violent to be allowed autonomy. If those generalizations sound stupid to you, so should his.
The fact remains that both sides have serious grievances with each other that must be addressed before any peace can move forward. The Israelis have to pay adequate reparations for property illegally destroyed or stolen, and for all the people they've pushed off their land. Settlements need to be removed and the people illegally living there need to be relocated. The Palestinians have to seek out and eliminate their militant groups to remove said threat to Israel.
[QUOTE=Milkdairy;50417885]Can you explain the mechanism through which the creation of Israel drove fundamentalism? I can understand the interventionism might fuel fundamentalism but Israel has existed long before the advent of Islamic fundamentalism. You're creating a false relationship of cause and effect there I would suppose. Sectarian conflict is not the driving force behind all (or even most) conflict in the middle east and your first point is not the chief cause of conflict either, so it's doubtful that the prevention of Israel becoming a state would have contributed much to the overall stability of the region. Islamic fundamentalism may be the cause of sectarian conflict but it was by no means spawned by those three reasons - sectarian conflict has occurred for ages.[/QUOTE]
Islamic fundamentalism long predates modern Israel but only really began gathering strength from the 60-70s onwards. Between the US and Irael it's christians and jews against muslims, the idea that Islam is under attack is a strong cause to rally around and this is what has allowed fundamentalism to gain such traction.
And fundamentalism is fanning the flames of sectarian conflict (making the border layout much worse).
[QUOTE=AlexConnor;50418504]Islamic fundamentalism long predates modern Israel but only really began gathering strength from the 60-70s onwards. Between the US and Irael it's christians and jews against muslims, the idea that Islam is under attack is a strong cause to rally around and this is what has allowed fundamentalism to gain such traction.
And fundamentalism is fanning the flames of sectarian conflict (making the border layout much worse).[/QUOTE]
And yet most casualties in Middle Eastern conflicts so far are in Muslim-on-Muslim wars. Again, the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqi invasions of Kuwait, the Iraqi and Syrian civil wars and the conflict in Yemen right now are primarily fought between Muslims.
I mean, even before ISIS got involved Assad, a distinctly secular leader, managed to kill more of his own people than Israel ever did in the entire previous century.
But beyond that, playing "what if" is really no way to prove everything wrong in the Middle East is Israel's fault. The Sunni-Shiite divide that is the cause of most Middle Eastern conflicts goes back way beyond the foundation of Israel. The state borders that arbitrarily divide the region were drawn up by England and France as they were dividing the spoils of the Ottoman Empire post WWI (and lets not even get into the effects of that particular chapter in history), and this is all before decades of the cold war when both the US and (as you forgot to mention) the USSR backed their own client states in the region pushing them into proxy wars.
There is no way you can know that if only Israel hadn't existed none of all those other things would have led to this region being the bloody mess it is.
Not that it matters. Like I said before Israel exists, as do the Palestinians. Whatever solution there is to this mess it's not going to be in wishing one or both sides never existed. It's in dealing with the fact both sides do exist, and have some issues to work out. People focusing on past grievances and wishful thinking instead of looking forward is exactly the reason this conflict never ends.
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