Israel Pulls out of Gaza, Whats next?

CJhaughey

With the Israeli settlers in the Gaza strip being told to leave or face the consequences by next Tuesday, What is the next step? Ariel Sharon is not exactly known for his moderate behaviour so what is prompting this? My opinion is that Gaza is probably seen as a payoff for keeping large chunks of the West Bank , but the settlers seem to think that this is the beginning of the end for the state of Israel.
Will this signal the catastrophic end of Israel? I don't think so but it may very well start a new conflict with the Palestinians in the West Bank who may feel that they are being sold out by the PA.

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

rsynnott

ziggy67 wrote:

Why would the end of Israel be catastrophic?
The Israeli state is hardly a stabilising force in the middle east is it?

It is estimated that Israel has roughly 200 atomic weapons. Keeping it happy would be a good idea.

In any case the fall of Israel would be disasterous for those who live there.

Hobbes

Not sure how it is beginning of the end considering Israel did a huge land grab and is basically giving back a little of what it grabbed recently.

Ping Chow Chi

CJhaughey wrote:

I don't think so but it may very well start a new conflict with the Palestinians in the West Bank who may feel that they are being sold out by the PA.

The PA didn't bargin the pullout, so I dont see how anyone could think that they where selling out.

pokerireland

i'm glad, israel just came in and grabbed that land. Up Palestine!!!

supersheep

Might makes right, at least in the realm of international politics. Israel grabbed every single acre of land they are situated - funny thing is, the country would have been a lot smaller if the Arab nations hadn't tried to crush it.
I would like to see the West Bank and Gaza given to the Paestinians, but honestly I can't see it happening. Israel needs that land to trade for time if they are ever invaded again.
As for what is the next step: preventing a minor civil war. Unfortunately, when we wake up tomorrow, it is quite possible that some Israelis, both soldier and settler, will have died.
The real bad guys here: the b*stards who slipped in to cause trouble and prevent the evacuation. At least the radical settlers have a reason to fight - their homes. Those radicals just want to keep their grip on "their" land.

Flukey

We have to remember that the settlers shouldn't be there in the first place. Mr. Bush needs a good news story and something positive coming out of the Middle East. There is a long way to go, but trying to put right some of the problems there, like this one, is a start.

iregk

Well hopefully (not going to happen) whats next is the return of everything else that they took. One chap in work asked me this morning how much notice were they given to move out, my response, 40 bloody years notice!

A man on the news this morning refusing to move out of his house. Paybacks a bitch.

Sorry if i seem a tad insensitive or that. I'm not but to me this is great news. I'm very much pro palestine.

lisaloo

Well hopefully (not going to happen) whats next is the return of everything else that they took. One chap in work asked me this morning how much notice were they given to move out, my response, 40 bloody years notice!


if you read the history books you will see the Israel always belonged to the Jewish people. they have always been thrown out of their own country.
Palastine is surrounded by Arab countries and they dont seem to want to help these terrorists. what next for Israel, well i cant see peace any time soon.

murphaph

lisaloo wrote:

if you read the history books you will see the Israel always belonged to the Jewish people. they have always been thrown out of their own country. Palastine [sic] is surrounded by Arab countries and they dont seem to want to help these terrorists. what next for Israel, well i cant see peace any time soon.

How dare you sir! How dare you claim that a piece of land belongs to a religion or it's followers. No fcuking religion (can you all tell I hate cults, erm I mean organised religions?!) can lay claim to any part of this earth.

What people lived in a place 2000 years ago is completely irrelevant today. I'm a celt (maybe), so I want to lay claim to my ancient homeland in the central european plains. Hang that, I'm part viking too (maybe) so I want Sweden, yeah, Sweden's a nice spot, gimme gimme gimme.

iregk

If you actually read proper history books, ones that go further back that a hundred years and were not published by jewish organisations you will see that isreal did not always belong to the jewish people. The jewish religion started quite a bit away from Isreal to be exact.

But anyway I'm not going to get into all that crap. The jewish/isrealies took land that was not theirs, they had no right nor claims on that land and its only right that they give it back. As the Jewish mantra says and I quote: "We are fair and just. We believe in justice not injustice". Bit of a contradiction isn't it?

Flukey

Whenever you hear "Israelis" being interviewed they will often have very distinctive accents, usually from places that are far from Israel. They have no more right to be there than any of us here. As Murphaph said, where people's ancestors may have come from is not really relevant now. If you want to go right back, we all originated from somewhere in north Africa, but I don't think many of us want to go there.

I know where I belong and where I call home and where I am entitled to live. I'll stay here for now. If someone arrives tonight from some distant land at my door and tells me that some ancestor lived on the land where my home is now built, I don't think I'll move out, as I am sure none of you would if the same happened at your door.

Of course that is more or less what happened in Gaza and the West Bank and the people that did live there were all sent to live in refugee camps. Naturally they were not very happy about this, and out of this, like the pogroms that created other similiar organisations in other parts of the world including Ireland, the PLO was born.

The chickens are coming home to roost now. Hopefully the Palestinians can come home too and maybe many of the settlers will go back to their homes, that many left up to 60 years ago. Of course, unlike the pogroms elsewhere, these people are getting well paid to move. They'll have no problems getting somewhere else to live or paying their airfare back home. Of course, when they get there it won't give them the right to evict anyone that might be living in the place that they left all those years ago.

A Dub in Glasgo

I would view this withdrawal as a way for Israel to 'get rid' of a densely populated Palestinian area to ensure that the sectarian majority in Israel is Jewish.

lisaloo

]Whenever you hear "Israelis" being interviewed they will often have very distinctive accents, usually from places that are far from Israel. They have no more right to be there than any of us here. As Murphaph said, where people's ancestors may have come from is not really relevant now. If you want to go right back, we all originated from somewhere in north Africa, but I don't think many of us want to go there.

I know where I belong and where I call home and where I am entitled to live. I'll stay here for now. If someone arrives tonight from some distant land at my door and tells me that some ancestor lived on the land where my home is now built, I don't think I'll move out, as I am sure none of you would if the same happened at your door.


The chickens are coming home to roost now. Hopefully the Palestinians can come home too and maybe many of the settlers will go back to their homes, that many left up to 60 years ago. Of course, unlike the pogroms elsewhere, these people are getting well paid to move. They'll have no problems getting somewhere else to live or paying their airfare back home. Of course, when they get there it won't give them the right to evict anyone that might be living in the place that they left all those years ago


i do think this country was given to the Israelis in an agreement so no matter what any of you say this is Israels (Jewish peoples country) and we all know that no matter what we say its where the israelis are entitled to live. how can you say to send Israelis back to Europe or wherever they all came from, it just doesn't make sense. if you want to blame anyone for this whole mess blame the Americans and the English who told them to go to this sacred land as it belongs to them.

the Jewish people deserve this land after the brutal teatment in the death camps.
i think one day all you pro palastines will wake up and see that its the arabs that are ruining this world. Israel is a beautiful country and thank god its not ruled by the devilish arabs. do we not have enough arab countries?????? how many Jewish countries are there in the world???? NONE. only Israel so let it be.

murphaph

lisaloo wrote:

if you want to blame anyone for this whole mess blame the Americans and the English who told them to go to this sacred land as it belongs to them.

Did they tell Schlomo and his investment banker mates from nice suburbs of New York to up-sticks and move to the promised land? These twats that have emigrated to Israel in the past 20 years deserve fcuk all. They have as much right to the land there as I do!

Lemming

lisaloo wrote:

i do think this country was given to the Israelis in an agreement so no matter what any of you say this is Israels (Jewish peoples country) and we all know that no matter what we say its where the israelis are entitled to live. how can you say to send Israelis back to Europe or wherever they all came from, it just doesn't make sense. if you want to blame anyone for this whole mess blame the Americans and the English who told them to go to this sacred land as it belongs to them.

The state of Israel is not at issue here. The landgrab that resulted from teh 1967 war IS. The same landgrab that was condemned by the UN. The same land that they evicted the indiginous people (read Palestinian in this case) which did not come on foot of any "agreement".

the Jewish people deserve this land after the brutal teatment in the death camps.

Very, very flawed logic. Funnily enough, they received land after the events of WW2. See my above comment regarding the state of Israel. So you condone the annexation of other people's land by the Israelis after they were given land? At what point do we have to say "Enough! Stop using the past as your mantra and move forward?". This continued use fo teh holocaust as the excuse for every action (either moral or immoral) cheapens the memory of those who suffered during WW2. It is the worst of ammoralistic and hypocritical opportunism.

I'm also struck by the parallels of Israeli opinion towards the Palestinians and the opinions of Germans towards the jews circa 1925-1945. The victim has become the abuser by continually living in this "woe is me. I should be allowed do anythign I want because other people of my religion were once victims of some terrible crime" mindset. Do not get me wrong, I believe the Palestinians have a lot to answer for too and they are as much their own enemy as the Israelis are to themselves. But I just find this double-standard hypocrasy to be an afront to the very memory it claims to "revere".

i think one day all you pro palastines will wake up and see that its the arabs that are ruining this world. Israel is a beautiful country and thank god its not ruled by the devilish arabs. do we not have enough arab countries?????? how many Jewish countries are there in the world???? NONE. only Israel so let it be.

You, I believe, could be called an out and out racist. Religion does not a country make. People make a country. One arabic person is not the same as another. Much the same way that one Irish person is not the same as the next.

I could be pedantic and point out that you are also quite incorrect when you say there are no "jewish" countries in teh world. There is one already. Further, one could ask do we not have enough western countries in the world already? How about hindu countries? How about buddhist countries? etc etc and so on until the cows come home. Utterly pointless question.

Flukey

Lisaloo wrote:

i do think this country was given to the Israelis in an agreement

Agreement with who though? Certainly not with the people who lived there.

Lisaloo wrote:

the Jewish people deserve this land after the brutal teatment in the death camps.

So are you saying that if someone arrives at your door tonight that has been brutally treated, you would gladly pack up and move out of your house and let them have it? Many Jews were indeed badly treated, but that is no excuse for them to go in and evict people and take their land. We are not pro-Palestinians Lisaloo, we are pro what is right. If that someone does come to your door tonight and evicts you out of your house, you'd have our support too.

Lisaloo wrote:

how can you say to send Israelis back to Europe or wherever they all came from, it just doesn't make sense.

It makes a lot more sense than putting them into this land in the first instance and sending the residents off to refugee camps.

Lisaloo wrote:

if you want to blame anyone for this whole mess blame the Americans and the English who told them to go to this sacred land as it belongs to them.

You've certainly hit the nail on the head there with that one. This is where all this started, which has led to things like 9/11 and what we saw in London last month. You certainly can't blame the Arabs for all this. If the Arabs are ruining the world, it all emanates from the policies pursued by the west for years and which they continue to do.

The likes of Bush would have you believe that 9/11 was a declaration of war and what has followed is the revenge. The truth of the matter is that that war was declared decades ago by western policies in the Middle East and 9/11 was the revenge. That is not justifying it, for there is no justification for 9/11, but it is the reason it happened. When the west begins to address the problems they have caused in the Middle East, then things may change. This is a small start, but maybe more will happen.

To tackle terrorism you have to address the causes, not the perpatrators. When the west begins to do that, that will mark a beginning to the war on terror. What we currently have is a war for terror as, London and Madrid amongst others being proof, the current war is creating terrorism, not stopping it. So maybe in Gaza we have begun to see the opening shots in the war on terror.

supersheep

Fact is, Israel is a country now, and it isn't going to go away. The pre-1967 Israel is going to remain, which is fine by me. What I'd love to see is withdraw from the territories they occupied after 1967. While this is a nice step, it's nothing but a mask to allow them to consolidate their hold on the West Bank while not engaging with the Palestinians. Which is not good.
Thankfully, though, so far there have been fewer casualties than I expected.

Jesus Trash Can

Flukey wrote:

We have to remember that the settlers shouldn't be there in the first place. Mr. Bush needs a good news story and something positive coming out of the Middle East. There is a long way to go, but trying to put right some of the problems there, like this one, is a start.

I think this will prove to be a crude exercise in window dressing. The west bank will have to absorb thousands and thousands more American and European planters before Israel can get the majority demographic that will allow them to start shouting about "democracy".

supersheep

I can't ever see the Israelis getting enough settlers into the West Bank to out-vote the Palestinians. Quite honestly, they're having enough trouble maintaining a Jewish majority in Israel, without the five million-ish Palestinians. This move also seems like an attempt to consolidate the Jews inside what will eventually become Israel - Israel now, and those bits of the West Bank behind the Green Line - what a nice way of saying annexation.

hill16

The Israeli army and Police are gently moving the people out,If these people were Palestinian they would be bulldozed inside their homes. :mad:

shuushh

anyone else find the shouts of Nazi and Gestapo and the singing of old death camp hymns by the settlers a fairly disgusting abuse of past events ?

A Dub in Glasgo

Very much so

The world is a scary place with fanatics like these

The other thing thats ridiculous is that when the last Israeli has left,they are going to bulldose all those fine houses before the palestinians come.
What a shame.

Jekell

Does anyone know where I could find a good solid opinion on this from a pro Israel standpoint?
I'd just like to see what their arguments are.

Flukey

Their only argument is that they were promised this land thousands of years ago. We've dealt well with that one here.

Slainte70

Jekell wrote:

Does anyone know where I could find a good solid opinion on this from a pro Israel standpoint?
I'd just like to see what their arguments are.

The Occupation - If there would be peace by ending the occupation as quite a few posters on other threads suggested, then why did the Palestinians form the Palestinian LIBERATION Organization in 1964 if the only problem is the "occupation" (which started in 1967)? Why did the Palestinians reject a State in both 1948 and 2000?

The problem isn’t, and never was, the "occupation." The problem is Arab anti-Semitism. Many Israelis feel that the Palestinians won’t be happy until they’ve shoved the Israelis into the Mediterranean Sea..

Abu Masen – Now, finally the Palestinians have a leader who has his people’s interests at heart. I would like to think that every Palestinian mother is like myself, in the sense that she wants a roof over her head, food on the table and an education for her children and that she and her family are safe, healthy and basically good honest human beings…so hopefully with a leader like Abu Mazen this may be achieved as he genuinely seems to want to reach a realistic agreement with Sharon…

The Wall – Well, I can only speak for myself and my family….since this wall has been built, we can sleep safely at night knowing that some crazy terrorist is not going to try and murder us in our sleep… So yes, I look at this wall, (which many of you object to), as a life-saver. There was a time (2 years ago when bombings and threats were a daily routine )when I really dreaded dropping my kids off at school and kindergarten...blowing up a bunch of kids is a suicide bomber's dream.. just writing this down brings tears of rage to my eyes...


The Aftermath - Whoever rules the Gaza strip after the IDF leaves, it is put up or shut up time for the Palestinians. Whether it be the PA or Hamas or some other entity, the onus is on them to produce a Gaza strip that is peaceful and does not threaten Israel. Israel has taken a huge, I MEAN HUGE, step towards jump starting peace in the Middle East. My greatest admiration goes to Ariel Sharon who in spite of his personal feelings, let the Gaza strip go. If this leads to a lasting peace, you have just witnessed the greatest act toward peace since Ghandi`s non-violent revolution.

rsynnott

Slainte70 wrote:

The Occupation - If there would be peace by ending the occupation as quite a few posters on other threads suggested, then why did the Palestinians form the Palestinian LIBERATION Organization in 1964 if the only problem is the "occupation" (which started in 1967)? Why did the Palestinians reject a State in both 1948 and 2000?

The Palestinians. Moving as one. You know, all of them. Yes, that's what happened.

Slainte70

rsynnott wrote:

The Palestinians. Moving as one. You know, all of them. Yes, that's what happened.

Rsynnott, please excuse my ignorance but I honestly don't know what you're getting at in your post. May I please have the uncoded version?

rsynnott

Slainte70 wrote:

Rsynnott, please excuse my ignorance but I honestly don't know what you're getting at in your post. May I please have the uncoded version?

You seem to be trying to imply that "The Palestinians" founded the PLO in 1948. First, where'd you get this from? Official date of foundation seems to be 1960. Besides that, the Ottoman province of Palestine was split into Israel, Palestine and (Trans-)Jordan by the British. Obviously, not all of the original people living in Israel were too impressed, and certainly did form resistance organisations. This didn't, as far as I know, have much to do with (modern) Palestine until Israel occupied parts of it during the 6 day war.