rickyp wrote:ray

At issue is that killing innocent Israelis is the dominant position in Gaza.

And yet its innocent Gazans who make up most of the butchers bill.
Maybe the second is a cause of the first?

I know that is a fashionable sentiment, but it is inaccurate

The Arabs started this in 1920

Hamas has now accepted a cease fire agreement that is virtually identical to the one that was offered prior to these poor children being killed. Perhaps they are starting to understand that they will get nowhere with firing rockets at civilians and trying to terrorize the Israeli population

Can we stop having the same conversation over and over again?

In Gaza, several thousand Palestinians cheered and waved green Hamas banners as the movement's deputy leader, Ismail Haniyeh, making his first public appearance since the war, proclaimed victory over Israel in the latest fighting.

Haniyeh boasted that the group's armed wing had fired rockets deeper inside Israel than ever. "The victory this time is greater than ever before," he said. A song played in the background, whose lyrics intoned, "hit, hit, Tel Aviv."

Ray Jay wrote:It's not whataboutery. I'm not saying that the U.S. and Brits acted more or equally immorally during WWII. I'm saying that you are using a false metric when you judge the morality of a conflict based on the number of civilians who die. Many more civilians died in Japan and Germany than in the U.S. and Britain during WWII. That doesn't mean the U.S. and Britain acted immorally.

BTW, you don't have all your facts right, which is unlike you. There was 1 boy murdered in the revenge attack, not 3. Israel completely and vigorously condemned this attack. Second, not all of the deaths were innocent civilians. A young man in Jenin threw a grenade at Israeli soldiers and was killed as a result. (These details won't change anyone's view, but let's get our facts straight.)

Ray Jay wrote:Ricky, stop with the games. I've been very clear on this. The Arabs started this in 1920 when they called for killing as many Jews as possible.

danivon wrote:

Ray Jay wrote:Ricky, stop with the games. I've been very clear on this. The Arabs started this in 1920 when they called for killing as many Jews as possible.

I'm surprised you don't go back to Tel Hai

However, can you cite who called for this 'killing of as many Jews as possible' in 1920?

In the meantime, local Arab expectations had been raised to a pitch by the declaration of the Syrian Congress on 7 March of the independence of Greater Syria in the Kingdom of Syria, with Faisal as its king,[7] that included the British-controlled territory within its claimed domain. On 7 and 8 March, demonstrations took place in all cities of Palestine, shops were closed and many Jews were attacked. Attackers carried slogans such as "Death to Jews" or "Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs!"[8]

By 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, 4 April 1920, 60,–70,000 Arabs had congregated in the city square for the Nebi Musa festival, and groups had been attacking Jews in the Old City's alleys for over an hour. Inflammatory anti-Zionist rhetoric was delivered by Amin al-Husayni from the balcony of the Arab Club. Another inciter was Musa al-Husayni, his uncle, the mayor, who spoke from the municipal building's balcony.

And do you think that the context of the time (the Arab fight for Independence in WWI, rewarded with Sykes-Picot and the Balfour Declaration, and extreme Zionism promoting settlement on Biblical grounds) contributed?

Or are you just going to keep telling us about how awful "The Arabs" are.

danivon wrote:"Arab goverments" are not "The Arabs".

As long as Ricky keeps telling me that Israel is the root of the problem, that if Israel were nicer that all of this would go away, I will remind him that the root of the problem is Arab intransigenc

Ray Jay wrote:

danivon wrote:"Arab goverments" are not "The Arabs".

That is correct.

In this post you are suggesting that I've confused Arab governments with Arab people. But I haven't. I was correct to use Arabs in the context of calls to kill Jews in the 1920's because they weren't governments. Otherwise I've talked about Arab governments.

When you respond on the Wikipedia post I look forward to your apology.

The Facebook page, entitled "The people of Israel demand revenge" includes photographs of soldiers, children, adults and even babies holding posters with the writings "kill all Arabs," "Bibi [Benjamin Netanyahu], wake up" and "hating Arabs is not racism."

The Arabs started this in 1920 when they called for killing as many Jews as possible. They haven't stopped saying or trying. The Arab regimes throughout the middle east are a disaster, especially if you are Christian or not of the sect that is in power.

Ray Jay wrote:

By 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, 4 April 1920, 60,–70,000 Arabs had congregated in the city square for the Nebi Musa festival, and groups had been attacking Jews in the Old City's alleys for over an hour. Inflammatory anti-Zionist rhetoric was delivered by Amin al-Husayni from the balcony of the Arab Club. Another inciter was Musa al-Husayni, his uncle, the mayor, who spoke from the municipal building's balcony.

The editor of the newspaper Suriya al-Janubia (Southern Syria), Aref al-Aref, another Arab Club member, delivered his speech on horseback at the Jaffa Gate.[12] The nature of his speech is disputed. According to Benny Morris, he said "If we don't use force against the Zionists and against the Jews, we will never be rid of them",[8] while Bernard Wasserstein wrote "he seems to have co-operated with the police, and there is no evidence that he actively instigated violence".[12] In fact, Wasserstein adds, "Zionist intelligence reports of this period are unanimous in stressing that he spoke repeatedly against violence".

In its wake, sheikhs of 82 villages round the city and Jaffa, claiming to represent 70% of the population, issued a document protesting the violence against the Jews.[3]

Danivon:

And do you think that the context of the time (the Arab fight for Independence in WWI, rewarded with Sykes-Picot and the Balfour Declaration, and extreme Zionism promoting settlement on Biblical grounds) contributed?

Yes

Baruch Kimmerling, PhD, Professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University, and Joel S. Migdal, PhD, Professor of International Studies, University of Washington, in their 2003 book The Palestinian People, wrote the following:

"In the 1880s, the Jews could not have been percieved as very different from the Templars, a marginal group of evangelical Germans who settled in Palestine at about the same time...Most of the country's rural Arab population was simply unaware of either group's existence...Nevertheless, Jewish land buying, mostly of state-owned or notable-owned tracts [of land], did affect the local peasants and resulted in numerous land disputes...

Even if the scope of Jewish land purchases was limited, they did shape future Jewish-Arab relations. The Jews were establishing an economy based largely on the exclusion of Arabs from land they farmed and from the Jewish labor market. Slowly, the most fertile lands in the northern valleys and in the coastal plain passed to Jewish hands, with jobs and higher wages going to the Jewish newcommers. The logical conclusion of this process was the separate development of the Arab and Jewish economies and, eventually, the creation of two separate nationalist movements."

From the Zionist point of view the Arabs would naturally object to Zionism, but that was a problem for the British to solve, and not for the Jews. As the terms of the mandate required, the British should keep the Arabs from becoming a political or even a military threat to Zionist goals. Therefore, for the Zionists British policy was more important than Arab policy.[63]

Arab opposition was of course known to the Zionists. Ben-Gurion said in 1918: "We as a nation want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs". Resistance was to be expected. Jabotinsky said in 1921: "I don't know of a single example in history where a country was colonised with the courteous consent of the population".[64]

According to Flapan, one of the basic concepts of mainstream Zionism with regard to the Arab Palestinians was economic, social and cultural segregation as a means to create a Jewish national life. Especially the struggle for "100 per cent of Jewish labour" in the Jewish sector of the economy occupied the energies of the labour movement for most of the Mandatory years and contributed more than any other factor to the territorial, economic and social separation between Jews and Arabs.'[65] According to C. D. Smith the Zionists did not intend to create a joint society with the Arabs, no matter how difficult this might be.[66]

Although the establishment of a Jewish majority or a Jewish state in Palestine was fundamentally at odds with the aspirations of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine, Zionists did not doubt their right to establish a Jewish majority in Palestine. Zionists justified this by referring to the 'unique' historical bond of the Jewish nation with Palestine, while the Arabs of Palestine were part of the Arab nation and therefore had no special bond with Palestine. Many Zionists claimed a 'preemptive right' to Palestine, the Jews had a right as a Nation, the Arabs only as individuals.

Various factors increased Arab fears after World War I. Among these were the creation of Palestine in 1918 and the Balfour Declaration. The British also granted Zionist requests that Hebrew become a language with an equal status to Arab in official proclamations, that Jewish government employees earn more than Arab and that the Zionists were permitted to fly their flag, whereas Arabs were not. Many Jews in Palestine acted as if the achievement of a Jewish state was imminent. Furthermore in 1919 some Jewish papers called for forced emigration of Palestinian Arabs.[80]

For a while the Muslim–Christian Association, founded in November 1918 and made up of leading notables, became the leading Palestinian nationalist forum. Younger Palestinian Arabs saw the inclusion of Palestine in a pan-Arab state as the best means to foil Zionist goals. Among them was the future mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini. They wanted to join Palestine with Syria, ruled by Faisal. They were suspicious of Faisal though, because of his apparent collaboration with Weizmann, and identified more with the Syrian National Congress. After the British had left Syria for the French, in July 1920 Faisal's rule in Syria collapsed and pan-Arab hopes in Palestine were dashed.[81]

Or are you just going to keep telling us about how awful "The Arabs" are.

As long as Ricky keeps telling me that Israel is the root of the problem, that if Israel were nicer that all of this would go away, I will remind him that the root of the problem is Arab intransigence.

Frankly, the Arab governments are awful. Look at Syria, Egypt, Iraq, ISIS, Libya, Saudi Arabia.

Can we stop having the same conversation over and over again?

Or are you just going to keep telling us about how awful "The Arabs" are.

As long as Ricky keeps telling me that Israel is the root of the problem, that if Israel were nicer that all of this would go away, I will remind him that the root of the problem is Arab intransigence.
Frankly, the Arab governments are awful. Look at Syria, Egypt, Iraq, ISIS, Libya, Saudi Arabia.

Just because Ricky is wrong, does not excuse your generalisations.