Gaza 'will not be liveable by 2020' - UN report

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

The Gaza Strip will not be "a liveable place" by 2020 unless action is taken to improve basic services in the territory, according to a UN report.

Basic infrastructure in water, health, education and sanitation "is struggling to keep pace with a growing population", according to the report.

It estimates Gaza's population will rise from 1.6m to 2.1m by 2020.

Israel tightened a blockade on Gaza after the Islamist movement Hamas came to power in the territory in 2007.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19391809

[penndragon69]

1. Who needs death camps?

The Israeli fascist government found that it's much cheaper
to simply lock them into a tiny area and then chock the life out
of them slowly by NOT providing adequate food, water
education and medical care.

Then if they all die off......it must have been their own incompetence
at self government.

What a CRIME !

[wordpix]

2. it's not all the Israelis' fault - how about birth control?

Both sides could use it, in fact.

[cpwm17]

3. That will teach the Palestinians for being born to the wrong religion!

It's the world's largest open air prison camp.

[wordpix]

5. of course Palestinians' overpopulation is the Jews' fault

sigh

Not saying orthodox Jews don't do the same, I'll place equal blame there. But Palestinians should get control and so should orthodox Jews who don't practice birth control, as should all humans planet-wide.

I'm an equal opportunity birth control and zero population growth advocate.

[cpwm17]

11. Please pay attention to what I wrote

Don't play that card.

It isn't the Palestinian's fault that they are in a prison camp. Plus it isn't their fault that they are restricted to a small area. The Palestinians are the ones that are having all those babies.

[leftynyc]

12. What unmitigated crap

death camps? Seriously? Let me ask you something - how awful must the Israeli's be at genocide if after all these years the Palestinian population just keeps increasing? Hyperbolic bullshit.

[sulphurdunn]

17. They're not as good

as they were under Joshua. They didn't mess around clearing ground for the chosen people in those day. They killed everyone, even the livestock. Now that's how to do genocide!

[JudyM]

82. +1 nt

[Archae]

4. So why not have some Arab country take them in?

Oh that's right. None of them trust the Palestinians, ever since Jordan and Lebanon tried giving them homelands.

[closeupready]

6. Um, because we're talking about Palestinians, not Jordanians.

Or Lebanese. Or Saudis.

One can be ethnically German but not a German citizen.

Further, if we have the right to boss around "some Arab country" somewhere, do we have the right to boss around Israel?

So then why not demand that Israel take them in? Better yet, demand that the two sides settle their differences?

[JDPriestly]

7. The US is made up of people we "took in."

The oil-rich states can afford to welcome the Palestinians. Jordan tried it. Lebanon tried it.

Israel is only a small portion of what Greater Palestine was before 1948. Most of the land went to Jordan, etc. There is plenty of room for Palestinians.

And speaking of Germans. Do you know how many Germans emigrated to the US? How many Irish facing famine came here?

We are a nation of people who left home for a better life. Israel has many refugees from religious persecution. If Palestinians are unhappy with Gaza, first, why don't they focus on making it better rather than on trying to move to a place that belongs to someone else, or as a second alternative, why don't they go to a country that wants them.

Iran has been supporting the Palestinians. I'm surprised that those Palestinians who are unhappy with conditions in Gaza don't go to Iran. Iran has lots of oil and would surely welcome them with open arms.

[Archae]

13. Exactly.

But...

There still are too many of the "Pilgrims to Arafat," (label on Arafat fans in a Herblock cartoon,) and to them, Israel can do nothing right, and the Palestinians can do no wrong.

Maybe if the Palestinians stopped shooting rockets from the Gaza strip?

Or maybe Hamas should actually accept that Israel exists?

And don't forget all the money Arafat and his cronies stole, and Palestinian "leaders" are still stealing?

[Psephos]

40. These are reasonable points. n/t

[closeupready]

14. I don't get your point.

That Israel should feel free to push Palestinians around?

Yes, as others say, this supposedly "liberal" board can be weird sometimes, and on this topic, those who are otherwise liberal are suddenly quite NOT liberal.

Do please explain what your point is. I hope I've misinterpreted you. Thanks in advance.

[JDPriestly]

38. My point is that Palestinians need to accept that they never had a country

and that they have to live with the reality.

Borders change. Famines happen. People have to deal with those realities. It has happened everywhere throughout history. Palestinians need to sincerely seek to live peacefully with Israel.

After the Second Intifada, it is quite understandable that Israelis do not trust Palestinians.

[ZombieHorde]

47. Technically speaking, no one has ever had a country.

Countries are not real things. They are imaginary social constructs invented for the convenience of some.

[azurnoir]

15. There are 2.7 million Palestinians in Jordan and 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon

most in Jordan have been given citizenship to the degree that I have seen Jordan is Palestine as a recurring meme those in Lebanon sadly have not been given citizenship, however Lebanon is not the most stable of countries either

however the point was that just because you may be ethnically descended from people originating in a country does not automatically make one a citizen of that country which is true not matter how it may be spun or obfuscated

[JDPriestly]

27. True. If all Americans who are descended from immigrants had to return to the countries of their

ancestors' birth, Europe, Asia and South and Central America would probably refuse their entry.

True, Israelis argue that they should be in Israel because their ancestors were there, but I seriously doubt that the Russians who introduced the resolution to divide what had been the British protectorate of Palestine or the Americans who supported the resolution or the British who relinquished their authority in the area for the partition were really concerned about where the ancestors of the Jewish people had lived thousands of years ago. They gave lip service to that idea, but the real problem facing them, the problem they were desperate to solve, was the million plus Jews who were homeless and located in Europe where they faced irrational hatred and could no longer live.

The US and other countries gave homes to enormous numbers of refugees from all over Europe including Jewish people after WWII. Homes were sought for millions of people. Israel was where many Jews wanted to go.

Peace treaties change maps and move people.

Most Americans do not know that Austria was an empire before WWI. After that war, as a part of the peace treaty, it was chopped up, parts of it were handed to its neighbors leaving Austria a relatively tiny country today. The map of Europe and perhaps the world was drastically changed after both WWI and WWII.

That's what happens after wars.

The solution that was chosen after the Holocaust -- the partition of Palestine -- can no more be changed now than the decision that was made in Europe that Alsace-Lorraine, which had long been the object of argument and war between France and Germany, became a part of France. To try to do so would result in yet another war and upheaval in the world.

We should do everything to avoid war including trying to live with the geographical decisions made by those who negotiate peace.

The best solution for both Palestine and Israel is to first learn to live in peace with each other in the current boundaries and then, once trust is established move to a common security arrangement and gradually if possible become either two co-existing states or one nation that permits absolute freedom of religion.

I think that it will take a long time for Jews to feel safe enough to be willing to abandon the idea of a refuge in a Jewish state. The Holocaust and the centuries of persecution which have not ended yet, cause Jewish people to distrust the idea of giving up Israel. I am not Jewish, but having visited concentration camps and having read about European history and lived in Europe, I think the Jewish people are right to distrust the idea of leaving Israel.

[cpwm17]

16. You are essentially advocating ethnic cleansing

Many of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were brutally expelled from what is now Israel. That is a big reason it is so crowded in the first place. They have no interest in going through a relocation process again to a foreign country that isn't theirs. You are blaming the victim.

Israel/Palestine is essentially one country already - an apartheid state. The Palestinians were there first.

[Igel]

24. Tense matters.

You can't be advocating to get something to happen that's already happened.

The "ethnic cleansing" was both ways. Mostly in 1947-48 Arabs were "cleansed," incompletely (rather an important point). At the end, 245k or so were in Gaza, but Gaza already had a decent population before the ethnic cleansing. It wasn't all that horribly crowded. Otherwise you'd expect its population not to have increased six-fold in 60 years.

Much less, than, say, the part of Russia that was Poland, or the part of Poland that was Russia. Probably more like the part of Italy that became Slovenia. Yup, all that ethnic cleansing in 1946-48. No problem with that ethnic cleansing.

Those ethnically cleansed in 1947 are, at a minimum, 65. Most of them are dead. There were a few transferees after the 1968 war. The rest are refugees like I'm a refugee of the early 1800s Irish Potato famine or my old college roommate was a refugee from tsarist persecution in Russia in the late 1800s. One can't accuse Britain of ethnically cleansing, and it would be absurd to accuse Ireland of doing it. Similarly, the USSR didn't ethnically cleanse my roommate, nor did Putin's government.

Lots of victims in this. Some victimized repeatedly. Let's not redefine victims as non-victims, nor fair to realize that some victims are also victimizers and even self-victimizers. A victim is not necessarily innocent.

[JDPriestly]

34. Thank you, Igel.

[JDPriestly]

33. And most of the Israelis went to Israel because they were expelled from Europe.

There was this thing called the Holocaust. The Jews were removed from their homes, placed in concentration camps, and many, many of them, in fact, millions of them were killed.

Now THAT was ethnic cleansing.

And it followed centuries of persecution, centuries of it.

So, the world decided that they should have a place to go where they could feel safe.

At the time, the land to which they emigrated was a British Protectorate. Prior to its belonging in the British Protectorate Israel belonged to Turkey and the Ottoman Empire.

The idea of a Palestinian state is a recent invention.

[closeupready]

44. Oh, okay - so SOME forms of ethnic cleansing are valid.

Your posts on this topic are rotten and disgusting.

And I'm very disappointed about that, because on almost every other issue, I agree with you.

[JDPriestly]

61. Palestinians would have more of my sympathy if they showed a willingness to respect and

embrace the partition determined as part of the establishment of peace following WWII.

I think that the Palestinians have wasted half a century fighting over the partition. It is my opinion that they could have easily lessened their problems and established good relationships with Israelis, perhaps even achieved a two-state solution that might one day permit a one-state solution with equal rights, had they accepted the reality of the partition and worked with all their neighbors including the Israelis to bring prosperity to their region.

The Palestinians are a talented, brilliant people, but they have wasted themselves on fighting over the trivial issue of who owns what. They have lost at every turn. It's time for them to decide to live in peace amongst themselves and with all their neighbors including Israel.

Make war not peace.

Prior to the Second Intifada, I hoped so that we would have a real peace in the Middle East.

Title to the holy shrines in Jerusalem, the dispute over who can call Jerusalem their capitol are just childish. Sorry. But they are. Religious superstition.

Jerusalem is something to cooperate about, not something to fight over. It desecrates the holy places in the city in my opinion.

We live quite well in the US without having such important holy shrines.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

66. What % of Israel's population is Arab vs what % of Gaza's is Jewish?

Sometimes segregation is self-inflicted.

[closeupready]

69. That has absolutely nothing to do with civil rights.

Repeat: Nothing!

Wow, you know, did DU get hijacked by the reich wing, or what's going on exactly? What happened to DU.

Oh how I miss blondeatlast and leftylawyer and sapphocrat. Oh, and Boobookitty and bobolink.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

70. "did DU get hijacked by the reich wing"

I'm a Nazi for citing a contrast that casts Israel in a favorable light?

That has absolutely nothing to do with civil rights.

So Hamas is able to practice Civil Rights-friendly ethnic cleansing and call for Civil Rights-friendly extermination. How intriguing.

[closeupready]

71. done with you.

Plonk.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

72. No, wait, please don't go away! Tell me more about pro-Israel Nazis.

[fascisthunter]

86. sick

[sulphurdunn]

18. You can't trust the Palestinians.

They've been learning too long from the Israelis.

[snooper2]

20. Oh here we go, how about Israel find it's fresh water somewhere else

Or, how about they take the billions in aid we give them and buy some towers

[Ash_F]

28. The logistics of finding a home for 4 million people is easier said than done

Even the USA, with all it's land, cities and resources had trouble moving and finding permanent residence for the 400,000 people displaced by Katrina. It took years and they never did it right in the end. And that is just one tenth of the number of people we are talking about in the Palestinian territories. And this is a much smaller and less economically able region than the United States. I don't think trust has anything to do with it.

I hope to see a free, democratic Israel one day. Give them equal rights and let them vote in the Knesset. If basic liberty is not too much to ask.

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. I can't believe I'm seeing what amounts to advocacy of ethnic cleansing on this board.

Why should the Gaza Palestinians have to go anywhere? It's their fucking land.

And these responses about birth control are disengenuous, at best. The problem isn't the rising population; the problem is the Israeli stranglehold on Gaza.

DU is a strange place sometimes.

[mbperrin]

9. Yes, it is very strange.

"Let's build this place up!"
"Yeah!"
"Grab a shovel and start digging the foundation!"
"Who's got a shovel?"
"Okay, dig with your hands!"
"Got it!"
"Now pour the concrete!"
"Who's got concrete?"

Even Jesus didn't make something from nothing - he started with a few fish and loaves and made them more. He turned water into wine. But he didn't turn nothing into something.

Of course, the Talibornagain needs Israel for the Rapture and end of the world. (They never do tell the Jews that only 144,000 of them will make it to heaven, do they? No, because they loves them some Israel. At least, until the end.)

[hoboken123]

21. The rising population certainly doesn't help.

It's remarkable considering the decades of 'ethnic cleansing'...

[progressoid]

22. Rising population IS a problem

It's a global problem. It's just not the only problem.

[Ash_F]

29. Welcome to DU today.

I have been reading it for over 11 years. It gets worse every year.

[former9thward]

78. Since you dislike it so much why continue?

[Ash_F]

79. Wasn't really directed at you but since you chimed in...

I decided to start posting to counter the torrent of total RW craziness flooding the site. I saw a poster disgusted by it and wanted them to realize that they were not alone in that disgust. Hope you can help me with that. There are still good people here, despite my criticisms.

A brief history of DU
Born out of the controversy of the first Bush election, DU was a home for fiery opposition to RW talking points spouted by the media 24/7 in those days. In a world where it took big money to buy airtime, DU was a place for the people. That fire has been waning though. Conservatives started to get used to the internet(later than Liberals of course) and began appearing on blogs as well as DU to parrot their fox news nonsense. I think the Kerry loss was the real turning point. It was a punch in the gut to the left wingers here. Really took the zest out of them; mods too. Never really fully recovered from that, even when Obama won. Maybe another Obama win will give them more resolve. But now we are starting to get OT so whatevs~ I'll drop it.

[azurnoir]

30. it isn't not so much ethnic cleansing as it is ethnic condensing

especially in the West Bank where Palestinians are being expelled from Area C (60% of the West Bank under total Israeli control) into Area's A (under complete Palestinian control 18% of the West Bank) and Area B (under Palestinian civil control and Israeli military control 22% of the West Bank)



in Gaza it is merely blocking them in they do have a border crossing with Egypt that has been loosened up since Mubarak fell but Israel still maintains complete air and sea blockades

[polly7]

81. +1000. nt.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

10. Unfortunately, I think that's the plan. nt

[sulphurdunn]

19. It was their land

before the Ashkenazim arrived. Ironically, odds are the Palestinians are closer blood relations to Abraham than European Jews. Go figure.

[JDPriestly]

35. But the Palestinians were not persecuted for being Jewish. The Jews were -- for centuries.

The Holocaust was the last straw. The winners of WWII decided that Israel would be a safe place for the Jews.

The more I read the anti-Israel propaganda on DU, the more I agree with the idea that Israel is the only safe place for Jewish people. It's really sickening to read some of the hate that shows its ugly face on DU when the issue of Israel is discussed.

[Hugabear]

42. Criticizing Israel is considered "hate"?

Criticizing Israel and its policies does not make one anti-Semitic.

[sulphurdunn]

49. I didn't know that one of the winners of WWII

was the state of Israel. I am at a loss to comprehend how centuries of persecution, primarily in Europe, entitled European Jews to occupy Palestine against the wishes of the native inhabitants. Finally, I think that New York, Tampa and Los Angeles are far safer places for Jews than Israel. I would even posit for your consideration than America is a far better and safer home for Jews than Israel ever was or ever will be so long as the native population is treated in a manner than would never be tolerated in modern America by the majority of Jews or Gentiles.

[JDPriestly]

59. The modern state of Israel is the creation of the winners of WWII and is a vital part of the

resolution of the conflicts that lead to WWII.

Judging from the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish posts I sometimes read on DU, I really do not think that all of the millions of Jews who now live in Israel should feel safe here.

The anti-Jewish sentiment fueled by centuries of pogroms and inquisitions seems to still live in family and long-forgotten religious and cultural traditions that influence many Americans and Europeans.

[sulphurdunn]

65. Hitler used the Jews

and as a pretext to create the Third Reich. The Allies went to war to thwart Nazi imperial ambitions, not to save the Jews, although they should have. Unfortunately, the Holocaust played into the hands of the Zionist movement, which exploited the horror and sympathy of the World to further its long held agenda of creating a Jewish state in Palestine. Nearly as many Jews live peacefully and prosperously in America as live in fear in Israel. The Zionists got it wrong. America, not Israel is the promised land for both Jews and Gentiles. The Zionist state of Israel should either be abandoned or the Israelis should come to terms with the Palestinians. Sixty-five years of the mess created by the Zionists is enough.

Are you one of those people who believe that any criticism of Israel makes one an anti-Semite? I hope not.

[JDPriestly]

73. I lived in Austria in a town that had been home to many Jews before the war.

It brought home to me what they lost when they were evicted from their homes, placed in concentration camps and given new homes in Israel.

I don't think anyone would have left the beautiful, comfortable, spacious homes that many of them enjoyed before WWII to go to Israel if they believed they could be safe anywhere else.

They were terrified and rightfully so. And no. If I were Jewish I would not trust the current trend of religious tolerance that we are enjoying in the US.

Throughout the history of Europe, there were intermittent periods in which Jews were safe from persecution. Then suddenly something would occur. An insane pope or madman in charge of a city or state. And the Jews would be scapegoats.

If it had just happened during the Holocaust, it might be different, but the fact is that persecution of Jewish people is a recurring event throughout history. I suppose it began with the sacking of the temple around A.D. 70.

We are experiencing a respite. Hopefully it will last, but when you see what has happened in the Middle East, you have to wonder.

Someone gave me a copy of the Koran. I couldn't bear to read it because of the intolerance toward Jewish people expressed in it.

I felt that same despair when I was a child and saw a picture of African-American students being escorted into a school Little Rock by the National Guard. I just react emotionally to such injustice and irrational hatred.

[wordpix]

83. what you say is true, JD, thanks for your posts

[sulphurdunn]

85. And now that the Jews

have their own country they persecute the Palestinians. How does having been persecuted throughout history justify stealing someones home? I can understand the motives behind the Zionist drive to create a Jewish state in Palestine. It was an opportunity born of tragedy, aligned with power and influence. Fair enough. What I really can't stomach is all the phony moralizing and tortured rationalizations based upon alleged Jewish exceptionalism owing to the Holocaust. History is replete with examples of genocide. The first written record of it is found in the Old Testament during a previous conquest of Palestine. Sorry. No sale.

[fascisthunter]

87. it's sick.... it's pure bigotry

and there is no excuse for it.

[sulphurdunn]

89. What is?

[fascisthunter]

90. the reasoning that Israel somehow has the right to take land from Palestinians.

I was agreeing with you.... and stating the obvious, that bigotry is at the heart of the matter.

[sulphurdunn]

91. Your brevity confused me.

Thanks.

[oberliner]

52. No it wasn't

And most Israelis are not Ashkenazim.

[sulphurdunn]

56. Of course it was.

The Hebrews stole it from the Canaanites, the Romans conquered it and expelled the Jews form it. The Arabs conquered it. The European powers conquered it from them and gave it back to the Jews. Being involved with the illegal creation of the State of Israel was the greatest foreign policy blunder ever committed by the United States and for which the entire Middle East has been in turmoil since. Half of Israeli Jews are Ashkenazim. They are the power elite and they own most of the country.

[Freddie Stubbs]

67. They forfeited that when they supported those who tried to destroy Israel

[sulphurdunn]

74. That's like saying an indigenous people

forfeit any right to their own land by opposing those who come to take it from them.

[Freddie Stubbs]

80. There was plenty of room for everyone in 1948, but the Palestinians and their Arab allies refused

They invaded Israel. The Israelis fought back, taking territory which were used by their enemies to invade. If the Arab countries who invaded Israel to supposedly help the Palestinians really cared about them, they would simply allow them to move to their countries.

[sulphurdunn]

84. Your argument

is predicated on the assertion that the state of Israel had a right to be there in 1948 against the express wishes of the Palestinians. The Chinese used the same rationale for annexing Tibet. The results have been a massive diaspora for both peoples. By far the greatest number of expat Palestinians live in Arab countries.

I believe the world would be a less dangerous place today if the Holocaust survivors that went to Palestine had come to the United States instead.

[Freddie Stubbs]

92. There was a partition plan created by the UN for both the Jews and the Arabs to have

their own states. The Jews accepted that plan. The Arabs rejected it, wanting all of Palestine. Stupid move on their part.

[sulphurdunn]

93. What right did the UN

have to partition Palestine? Of course the Jews accepted the plan. They had everything to gain. The Palestinians rejected it because they had everything to lose. If the UN created a plan to partition the US between those of us living here and foreigners making some ancient claim to it, what would you do? Creating new countries for the sake of political and economic expedience in the Middle East always was an extreme form of colonialism. Israel was only the last manifestation of it. Was it prudent? Was it just?

[Freddie Stubbs]

94. Foreigners? There were 800,000 Jews living there in 1948

[sulphurdunn]

95. In 1941 there were 400 thousand

By 1950 the Jewish population was 1.2 million The 1941 Arab population of 1.1 million remained virtually unchanged and Arabs became a minority. However, even with the huge increase of Jewish immigrants, these figures are misleading because they represent all of what was called Palestine in 1948. By 1950, most of the Arabs were concentrated in the smaller fraction of land in the West Bank and Gaza. Within the borders of the much larger Israel proper, the Jewish population was and remains 87%. Furthermore, Jewish settlement encroachment into the West Bank, Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and even Sinai until 1979 has substantially increased the Jewish population in those areas. It was the Israelis who thought they could create separate states by dispossessing the majority of Palestinians. You argument is the equivalent of saying that a minority population has the right to create a majority state for itself and disposes the previous majority by importing its brethren because they live there. Even worse it implies a right to slowly annex what is left.

[CreekDog]

23. We ally with Israel in large part due to our common interest in human rights

recent history should give us pause, I'm sorry to say.

President Carter was right when he spoke of the looming moral issues with continued occupation of the disputed territories as well as the rights of Palestinians.

I completely oppose terrorism, but it's presence is not justification for the settlements and other actions taken by Israel.

The best thing for Israel would be to make the Palestinian territories integrated with Israel and wealthy like Israel. It would be the best case for peace and democracy in the Middle East.

But it's not going to happen.

[nanabugg]

31. Two words

Rachel Corrie.

[JDPriestly]

37. But Israel cannot do that until the Palestinians agree to also end the violence.

Before the Second Intifada there was a period in which Palestinians and Israelis got along well enough that people dreamed of peace there. Palestinians worked in Israel and there was increasing cultural and commercial contact. That ended when the Palestinians started bombing people in buses and on the streets of Israel.

It could begin again. But I doubt that Israel will take the initiative.

It is a sad situation. The Palestinians need to enforce non-violence in the relationship between their area and that of the Israelis. Maybe then the parties can move toward trade, more cultural exchange, etc.

After the Second Intifada, I doubt that Israelis will want to take that initiative. They were hurt too badly. And now it's the Palestinians crying about their plight. They should have thought about it before they accepted and sympathized with the suicide, car and bus bombers on their side.

Israel is better organized than the Palestinians. The Palestinians need to be realistic about it. They will never be well organized until they have strong internal security.

[closeupready]

48. Very odd - your chosen icon is the US Constitution's Preamble; yet,

you'd let a foreign state sponsored by the US crush civil rights with impunity.

[JDPriestly]

60. When the Palestinians decide to respect the human, civil and national rights of Israelis,

then their rights will also be respected. That is my belief.

But when you have a neighbor and you refuse to accept that your neighbor owns his property free and clear of any claim from you, you should not be surprised when that neighbor decides to ignore your claim of ownership to your own property.

Good fences make good neighbors. Respecting the fences of your neighbor, respecting your neighbor's right to enjoy his property in peace and tranquility is the way to get along with your neighbor.

Again, people in glass houses should not throw stones.

Israel and Palestine are states established by United Nations mandate. They should respect each other's rights to exist. Palestine is the country that has historically been most unwilling to do that with regard to Israel.

[Joey Liberal]

25. We have been too one sided in favor of Israel

We need to treat both sides as equals. Both sides need to make concessions. Only then will there be peace in that land.

[Did I Just Type This]

26. Poland's ghetto in WW2

Funny how the jews show the ghetto in Poland as an excuse to make a ghetto out of the WB.

[wordpix]

32. it's not the same thing---Jews could not leave the ghetto or they'd be shot

Palestinians can leave. They can go to other Arab states, and they can come into Israel to work. Not the same as living under the Gestapo and Hitler at all.

[sulphurdunn]

50. Why should they leave?

It's their land.

[wordpix]

77. I didn't say they should leave - I said they CAN leave

whereas the Jews in Hitler's ghettos could not.

Got it now?

[valerief]

36. The US will not be liveable if Mittfalca wins. nt

[Odin2005]

39. That's the whole point. Israel is engaging in Ethnic Cleasing..

[McGee from Muskogee]

41. What do you care? We're going to Mars!

Your objectivist friend Robbie said it's so easy!

[hack89]

45. Palestinian population explosion = Ethnic Cleansing? OK. nt

[wordpix]

46. +10000 It's so ethnically cleansed of Palestinians that their numbers are exploding

does not compute

[sulphurdunn]

53. The Israelis know

that they are losing the population battle as surely as white conservatives know it in America. In America we use vote rigging and voter suppression to equal the odds. In Israel that the idea is to make life so miserable that the undesirables "vote with their feet." Genocide is the extermination of a people. Ethnic cleansing is the forced removal of an undesirable ethnic group using oppression and terror. The latter applies to Israel.

[hack89]

55. So that explains the mass exodus of Palestinians .... oh wait. nt

[sulphurdunn]

57. About half the world's Palestinians

now live outside of Palestine. The Palestinian diaspora began in 1948, accelerated after the 1967 war and slowed as other Arab countries became increasingly unwilling to continue aiding and abetting the ethnic cleansing and annexation policy of the Israeli government.

[hack89]

58. So two wars started by the Arabs, the last nearly 50 years ago, were the major cause

but because the Arabs have abandoned their Palestinian brethren the exodus has slowed significantly? Is that your proof of Israeli ethnic cleansing? OK.

[sulphurdunn]

63. It sure is.

Public opinion won't allow Israel to drive the Palestinians out. So they bottle them up in Gaza and make life miserable for them, and they slowly annex the West Bank by building settlements inhabited by rabid religious fanatics. The end game is to remove the Palestinians. There is no other logical reason for such a policy. The notion that it's necessary to steal Palestinian land to protect Jews is laughable.

[hack89]

64. Don't you think continuous rocket attacks from Gaza contribute to the problem? nt

[sulphurdunn]

68. Endless acts of violence

between Israelis and Palestinians is the problem. Find a way to stop it and the problem will solve itself.

[oberliner]

51. In Gaza?

How is that possible?

[sulphurdunn]

75. It's more like ethnic degredation

and attempted cultural extermination. It shouldn't come as any surprise to an American. We've been doing it to indigenous people and former slaves for generations. It hasn't worked very well for us. It won't work for the Israelis.

[oberliner]

76. But how can Israel do that in Gaza?

That's the part I don't understand.

[JNelson6563]

43. Isn't that the goal?

[oberliner]

54. Hamas? Israel?

I doubt it.

[fascisthunter]

88. and the pro-Israel bigots now can say, "See... those filthy Palestinians should leave."

sick