By the way, the Old South Africa was much better than the New South Africa…sorry…

But you are just dealing in emotions. You have not answered one single intellectual challenge. Please don’t do that.

You just cannot bear that G-d gave us a country without allowing us to remain the peaceful people we were through two un-armed millenia. Well, we have tried to be nice about it but you can’t have a country and be nice about it. Not even we can do that.

Please try to remember that there is plenty of Arab and Islamic sovereignty in the world, in very large swathes of geography, all across North Africa, extending to the Far East.

It is perfectly all right for us to want to have a patch of oil-free sand the size of New Jersey. In peace. No one has injured the full functioning of the Jerusalem mosque either. There are services there every week.

This apartheid word cracked Middle up because of the utter falseness of it.

Oh, and Jimmy Carter just MUST be wearing blue-tinted contacts. At his age everybody needs glasses. He is so handsome and earnest looking.

Still, if what you want is peace, we’re on the same side. My version of peace is simple: a Jewish state next to a Palestinian state. The terms of the agreement along the lines of what Barak proposed at Taba on the basis of Clinton’s recommendations. The Palestinian state agrees to stay demilitarized and signs off on “end of conflict.”

I’m a little busy right now and shall get back to you later on the above.

Right now, I would simply take issue quickly with CK’s remark: “But whenever you’re ready to dispense with the irrational hatred and really dumb rhetoric, let us know… we’ll be here waiting.”

1) What “irrational hatred”? I do not “hate” anybody. If you mean “hatred of what people do to each other”, then yes you are right. But is that hatred irrational? That’s another issue.

2) “really dumb rhetoric”: Don’t you know that, anthropologically speaking, there never is “dumb rhetoric”. You must listen to people and try to understand where they are coming from. I thought that I had explained why I support the Palestinian struggle.

And ‘middle’, why do I have the feeling that you are not laughing that hard when all is said and done? As they say, thou doth protest too much. I think that, like me, you have not had a night of peaceful sleep for a long time. I’ll really try to get back to you on your comment above. I don’t know why but – you may laugh – I have that strong feeling that we may not be that different you and I.

I have to go! See you later, I hope.

What does FUrgaia say to that? I know what Marx would say. Opressor class! he would say. And he wouldn’t mean the Israeli customers. The departed customers.

How about this: the situation for the Palestinians has become worse, not better, every time they’ve persisted with the very war on Israel that you support. It is not just a function of the immorality of targeting civilians instead of fighting soldiers, and it is not just the unjustness of fighting a war over what you believe you lost because of yet another war that you launched earlier. Rather, it is simply the stupid impracticality of it all. The Palestinians could already have had their state, with its capital in east Jerusalem and sovereignty over their section of the Temple Mount. This is a fact. Instead, they launched a war – completely unjustified, I might add – that has forced the Israelis to take the very steps about which you scream in your “apartheid” attacks. That includes the security barrier which would never have come into place without the constant suicide bombings. And that barrier, though it may be temprorary, leaves 7.5% of the West Bank to its west – including all of Jerusalem – instead of the 2.5% the Israelis would have kept according to the Clinton plan which Barak accepted in 2000. And so it goes…compromise or keep walking backwards.

Glad to be of service. I’m sure you’ll take what I wrote to heart.

But whenever you’re ready to dispense with the irrational hatred and really dumb rhetoric, let us know… we’ll be here waiting.

In his essay Time and Being, following a very hard and intense critique of Zionism, Gilad Atzmon writes:

“The above explains why political Jews (both Zionists and anti-Zionists) will never be able to grasp what the Palestinian cause and the discourse of liberation are all about.”

I read through your answers to xisnotx in the hope of finding something that would make me question Atzmon’s terrible conclusion above. I did not.

And so what’s the point of debating? Events will follow their course. You will do what you have to do and we will do what we have to do.

At a 1969 press conference in London, Golda Meir uttered a terrible prophecy. “When peace comes,” she said, “we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.”

I shall rephrase this for you this way and while you may never understand the Palestinians, hopefully you may come to understand why we who are not Palestinians feel the way we do and why we have (at least I have) endorsed their fight: “Whether peace comes or not, I don’t think that we will ever forgive Israel for having forced us to be a party to the atrocities that it has perpetrated and is still perpetrating in the Occupied Territories.”

“Israel’s plan of attack is to close off the Gaza Strip before withdrawing to concentrate on expansionist policies in the West Bank. Ariel Sharon hopes this will annihilate the Palestinians politically, condemning them to work for poverty wages in industrial estates along the security wall.”

———-

Okay, finally read the second Roger Cohen article. Guess what, his premise is entirely wrong. Claiming that Israel doesn’t feel an existential threat coming from the Palestinians is flat out wrong. It is true they don’t feel threatened militarily, even if they do feel threatened by terror. However, the reason Sharon ended up converting to acceptance of building a security barrier and leaving Gaza was entirely due to this reason. The feeling is that demographically, the bunny-like Palestinians are reproducing at a rate that creates a time-bomb for Israel if they don’t extricate themselves from the territories.

The reason Israel has not been talking to the Palestinians is precisely because of the reason he glosses over early in his article: there is nobody to talk to. Hamas is the leader of the Palestinians and they do not accept Israel or Oslo. Abbas is too weak to do anything and if there were doubts about that, the agreement in Mecca has put those doubts to rest.

————–

I actually am quite sorry for having clicked on your blackandjews link. You consider this a reasonable source? The home page mentions than no Muslims were involved in 9/11 but Bush and the US government are implicated, while the page to which you linked has the author calling the ADL the Jew Klux Klan. Enough said. Just to remind you, the reason you quoted this conspiracy-minded loony website was to attempt to besmirch a black victim of apartheid who said there is no apartheid in Israel.

—————

I then went back to look at your B’Tselem -Bimkom link to which you refer above. It is from 2005 and as you should know, since then the Supreme Court has stepped in numerous times regarding the security barrier and has moved it when they felt it violated the rights of Palestinians and kept it in place or modified it slightly in areas where they felt the balance of security versus harm to Palestinians was a fair one. Clearly, an apartheid system wouldn’t have its judiciary rule in such a way.

———–

Ultimately, despite all of your links and selective quotations, all you can show is an attempt to make a linkage even when it completely breaks down. Nobody says the Palestinians have it easy, they don’t. However, they are victims of their own leadership and the war they launched in 2000 and have continued to fight since. While this causes situations which are grave and even human rights violations, this is still not even close to the systematic and systemic racism of apartheid and remains, as I’ve pointed out in this discussion over and over, a function of the security situation in which Israel finds itself.

I’m glad, by the way, that you acknowledged that within Israel there is no apartheid because as you know, this was the premise of this post.

1,219,912 sq km

Israel’s size:

20,770 sq km

Now, when SA created bantustans, I believe there was a very different approach to how space was perceived. There certainly wasn’t the need to separate a hostile side from the other side because it was simple to push people far away. Israel doesn’t do that because it cannot – it’s simply too small. South Africa had no defensive needs to speak of and did not have to endure a century of war against its neighbors. Israel has had to deal with that all of its years. South Africa’s creation was not the result of a life and death struggle between two nations, Israel’s has been between itself and several other nations comprised of the Arab nation. When SA restricted travel, it did so out of racism and malice; a desire to cut off part of its population. When Israel restricts travel, while most of the time it seems unnecessary, the fact is that it is directly linked to security and those times when that restriction safeguards Israeli civilians. When SA restricted travel, it did so without the attendant fear that a bomber or attack might be living just a few miles away and certainly no farther than a few tens of miles away. For Israel this is the daily reality. SA did not seek to separate itself entirely from the blacks but rather saw them as separate but useful. Israel seeks to separate itself entirely from the Palestinians.

Carter has defended his choice of words, saying it’s meant to convey the forced separation and domination of Palestinians rather than Israeli racism. He has insisted that using “apartheid” to describe Israeli West Bank policies “should give no aid or comfort to any of those who have attempted to equate racism with Zionism.”

Nice try, Jimmy. Trying to take race out of the word “apartheid” is as far- fetched as trying to take Jew out of the word “Zionism.” It doesn’t work.

And in the same article he forgives Carter easily for lies, obfuscations and omissions that have come up in his book and public talks and talks about Carter’s supposed bravery, but the fact is that Carter wrote an entire book and essentially referred to apartheid only in the title and a couple of places inside of it. He then used his high profile to go on TV and indicate that behind-the-scenes manipulation prevents Americans from seeing the true face of the situation in this conflict, even as he himself was asked to do dozens of talk shows and even though as I’ve shown you in a previous conversation, there is far more coverage of Palestinians than of Israelis in the US media.

I don’t have access to TimesSelect and cannot read the other Cohen article.
—————–

That woman Tania Blythe actually uses the term original sin when referring to Israel’s creation. Forgive me if I peg her as a loony far-Lefty but that’s what she is. Anyway, she complains about lack of access to a hospital and compares this to the SA apartheid regime. Just for you, I looked up the following data (easier to read at the link):

EDUCATION

On June 6, 1967, there were 987 educational institutions (6,148 classes) in the areas, and not a single university or institution of higher learning, apart from a number of small teacher training colleges on the West Bank. Today, there are over 1,730 educational institutions (15,575 classes). Under the auspices of the Civil Adminstration, five universities and several other institutions of higher learning have been established. A partial list includes:

Year
Institution opened Type of studies

Islamic University 1971 Religious studies,
of Hebron sciences, and humanities.

Bir Zeit University 1972 Humanities, economics,
sciences, and engineering.

Bethlehem University 1973 Sciences, the humanities,
business adminstration,
nursing, etc.

An Najah University 1977 Humanities, sciences.
(Nablus)

Al-Ahzar University 1978 Religious studies,
(Gaza) humanities, education,
economics, etc.

Beit Hanina 1978 Religious studies, Arabic
Religious College language.

Hebron Polytechnic 1978 Civil engineering,
Institute construction, electrical
mechanics.

Shari’a Institute 1978 Religious studies
(Kalkilya)

Al-Bireh Nursing 1979 Nursing, public health,
College laboratory technicians.

Abu Dis College of 1981 Sciences, mathematics,
Science applied technology.

Years of schooling – Gaza (percent)

0 1-6 7-8 9-12 13+
M F M F M F M F M F

1970 34.2 65.3 24.6 10.3 9.1 5.6 31.5 18.4 0.6 0.4
1991 11.4 28 21.4 17.8 7 7.9 48.2 41.1 12 5.2

Years of schooling – Judea-Samaria (percent)

1970 27.8 65.1 34.8 18.9 14.7 6.7 21.3 8.8 1.4 0.5
1991 11.4 30.8 21.9 22.6 14.3 11.5 40.5 28.5 11.9 6.6

In addition, there are today 26 government-sponsored vocational training centers, which did not exist before June 1967, graduating approximately 4,500 trainees a year.

II. HEALTH AND SANITATION

1970 1990

Judea/Samaria

General clinics 105 168

Mother and Child
Health Centers 25 141

Village Health Rooms 0 49

High Risk
Pregnancy Clinics 0 7

Specialized Clinics NA (1975 – 7) 13

Mobile Clinics 0 2

Gaza Strip

Community Clinics 3 28

Each of the Community Clinics in the Gaza Strip offers mother and child health services, family care units, and pharmacies. Several of the centers offer 24-hour a day delivery units and emergency services, and minor x-ray units.

Major renovations and/or additions have been made to almost every hospital in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza since 1967. Thus, for example, Rafidiah Hospital in Nablus received a radiology center in 1987 and an out-patient department in 1988. Wattani Hospital in Nablus received an intensive care unit in 1987. Ramallah Hospital received a diagnostic radiology center in 1987 and a neo-natal and premature intensive care unit 1986. Beit Jala Hospital received a radiology center in 1987. Hebron Hospital received an outpatient and laboratory wing in 1988. The Bethlehem Mental Hospital received a chronic care department for male patients in 1986. The dialysis department at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City was completely renovated in 1989. Khan Yunis Hospital’s surgical suite was refurbished in 1987. The Opthalmic Hospital in Gaza City was renovated and re-equipped in 1989.

Infant mortality in Gaza has declined from approximately 85 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1968 to 26.1 in 1990. In Judea and Samaria, infant mortality has declined from approximately 35 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1968, to 18.1 in 1991. Following is a table showing comparisons with other countries in the region for 1991. The numbers are deaths per 1,000 live births.

Libya 62
Egypt 82
Turkey 54
Iraq 66
Syria 37
Tunisia 38
Jordan 38
Lebanon 50
Saudi Arabia 69

Together with the decline in infant mortality, great progress has been made in controlling and eliminating major childhood diseases, due mainly to immunization programs instituted since 1967.

Rates (per 100,000 residents) 1970 1990 Judea/Samaria Diphtheria 0.3 0 Pertussis 8.0 0 Tetanus 53.3 0.1 Polio 4.7 0 Measles 164.0 19.0 Gaza Strip Diphtheria 0 0 Pertussis 30.1 0 Tetanus 13.6 1.0 Polio 14.3 0 Measles 605.3 18.8

Twelve nursing schools, two of which offer BA degree programs have been opened since 1971. The numbers of both doctors and nurses have more than doubled since 1967.

Voluntary health insurance plans unavailable before 1967 were first offered in Judea and Samaria in 1973, and in Gaza in 1976. In 1978, a new comprehensive plan was introduced; it was automatically applied to Civil Administration workers and to areas’ residents working in Israel and was offered to all other areas’ residents on a voluntary basis.

Israel has greatly improved and expanded sewage treatment facilities in the areas. Before 1967, there were no sewage treatment plants in Judea and Samaria. Since 1967, modern installations have been built in Jenin (1971), Tulkarem (1972), Ramallah (1979), and Kalkilya (1986). The first stage of the Hebron sewage treatment plant was completed in 1991. In Gaza, sewage was managed through local septic tanks. Since 1967, treatment facilities have been improved and/or constructed in Gaza City, Khan Yunis, Jabalya, Rafiah, and the Shati refugee camp. Routine testing of sewage for various enteric bacteria was begun in 1981.

Judea and Samaria were recognized as malaria-free areas in 1971.

Proportion of households with:

Running water Toilet Bathroom
in dwelling and toilet

1974 1992 1974 1992 1974 1992

Gaza 13.9% 93.0% 79.0% 99.5% 18.3% 42.2%

Judea/
Samaria 23.5% 79.4% 78.8% 98.4% 23.7% 28.2%

III. STANDARD OF LIVING

The standard of living of the majority of areas’ inhabitants has improved since 1967.

Proportion of all households with:

Judea and Samaria Gaza Strip

1974 1992 1974 1992

24-hour 45.8% 75.3% 34.5% 97.6%
electricity

1967 1992 1967 1992

Solar boiler 28% 57.1% 41% 81.3%
Electric boiler 2.5% 9.7% 0.3% 12.6%
Refrigerator 5% 81.2% 3% 91%
Washing machine 5% 55.3% 3% 91%
Radio 58% 81.7% 50% 94.8%
Private Car 2% 15.9% 3% 16.8%
Cooking range 5% 93.7% 3% 94.8%

1981 1992 1981 1992

Color TV set 3.4% 34.3% 0.7% 32.5%
Telephone 5.6% 7.8% 8.0% 10.3%

Israel has invested considerable amounts over the years in improving telecommunications services and facilities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. In June 1967, there were only four manually-operated telephone exchanges and 1,000 lines in the entire Gaza Strip. During the 1970s and 1980s, the Civil Administration oversaw the construction and installation of modern, automated exchanges, and the distribution of thousands of new lines throughout the Strip. A 7,000-line automatic exchange was opened in Gaza City in 1979. Lines were added to Jabalya in 1975, and Beit Lahiya in 1976. Exchanges in Deir al-Balah and Khan Yunis were expanded in 1975. In 1980, the Deir al-Balah and Khan Yunis exchanges were expanded again, as were the exchanges in Jabalya and Beit Lahiya. Today, there are six modern exchanges and over 16,000 lines. The Judea and Samaria towns of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jericho now enjoy direct international dialing services. The Civil Administration has replaced manual switchboards with automatic ones in Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Bethlehem, Jericho, Kalkilya, Tulkarem, and Jenin. Many previously isolated villages have been connected to the telecommunications system.

.

How’s that for apartheid? We’re talking about territories from 1967 to 1994 when the PA took over and began receiving vast sums of money from the international community even beyond what they had already been receiving from UNWRA and charitable organizations. Care to guess how much of that PA money went to develop health and education facilities for the Palestinians? Right, it didn’t but Suha makes $20 million a year.

(to be cont.)

so who were you gonna refute — B’tselem and BIMKOM: btselem.org/en...
The report shows that not only were security-related reasons of secondary importance in certain locations, in cases when they conflicted with settlement expansion, the planners opted for expansion, even at the expense of compromised security.

well? can you prove why that’s not true?

you say:
“The barrier, the checkpoints, the miserable absence of freedom of movement, etc. will be resolved very soon after the Palestinians accept compromise and peace.

now, who should I believe, you or today’s New York Times, which says Israel’s the stumbling block, quoting an Israeli professor:

select.nytimes...
“This amounts to a vigorous case for immobility. Behind it, of course, lies a strategic calculation. In Israel, policy is often war by other means. Put bluntly, the calculation is that there is no existential threat to Israel from the Palestinians. And so Israel can lay down the terms of its coexistence with, or domination of, its neighbors.

`Since 2000, there has been no real interest on the Israeli side in settling with anyone,` said Fred Lazin, a professor of politics at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. `Iran and perhaps Syria are seen as serious threats, but not the Palestinians.`

“You should stop standing in their way.”
it’s those that deny reality that are standing in their way.

It doesn’t matter. Basically I took every one of your examples and showed its bias or how it is security related.

At the end of the day, a non-Jewish Arab Knesset member refutes everything you’ve pointed out so effectively that you’ve stopped talking about Israel and are focusing on the territory still in its hands and kind of touching on the territory no longer in its hands because you have no choice. The Palestinians have leaders, have a government, have the ability to negotiate for peace with many of the outlines for compromise already in place. And you know what? The barrier, the checkpoints, the miserable absence of freedom of movement, etc. will be resolved very soon after the Palestinians accept compromise and peace. It’s that simple.

You should stop standing in their way.