israel/gaza? (in Off-topic)

hey guys, so I dont' know about you but i'm finding the stuff happening in the middle east gripping.

I was wondering if any of you have found any good blogs or sites that give unbiased opinions/pictures etc on the issues. I'm finding the general media to be very non committed and in most cases anti Israel so I was hoping to get some good research on the matter...

If you find something relating to the middle east, it is always biased. Well, if it is written in the English language at least.

I dont know about any sites but in my personal knowledge of the middle east (a place i spent 4 years of my life) this stuff with Israel and Gaza has been happening for quite sometime, way before the war in Iraq, these people were boiling under the surface for a long while. In addition the Israeli's, Iraqi's, and Gazaian's (???) have 2,000 year old reputation of being nationalistic and volatile people.
In opinion though Gaza should've known better than to shoot rockets in Israel. That's like shooting spitball's at the big kid with anger issue's.

i like apostrophe's. : )

Since I've got Jewish ancestry I side with the Israeli's on top of the fact that I am a Christian. Also the people Gaza provoked this, who would be dumb enough to think you could get away with lobbing rockets into Israel without something happening. You'd have to be stupid to not have seen this coming. Hamas started it Israel is only retaliating. I'm not saying I support the bloodshed, but something had to be done to stop the lobbing of rockets at Israel so people in Israel could some sense of safety.

"unbiased opinions" = oxymoron

I hope peace will resume war is such a waist of resources i get sick when-ever I think of what the world would be like if all of the money and effort went toward improving the world that would be gods will ya'll not "killing in the name of". as far as my opinon people will always kill other people trying to make the world a better place thats oxy-moronic

A world without one's enemies would be, most definitely, a better place!

No wars means no deaths.
No deaths leads to overpopulation.
Overpopulation leads to death.

:(

Just a thought.

/Me shhhh's Rawr. No one likes talking about that Rawr.

Rawr, all the people in the world can live in Texas with 1,500 sqr feet to each person. (Including babies); so I highly doubt we would have overpopulation problems without wars.

The current situation in Gaza was pretty self-provoked; Hamas has shot over 4000 rockets in the past 8 years into Israel. Civilian casualities, however regrettable, are a natural part of a war.

Marl I don't think you understand the problem with overpopulation. Overpopulation leads to lack of food and disease. It's not that we won't have enough space to live, but it's that we won't have enough resources. It's scary to think about, but it's a very solid point.

Furthermore, if we didn't have war we wouldn't be human. War is a derivative of anger, ang is an emotion only felt by humans. That's why humans are the only species that have wars.

If we focused the resorces on solving the problems additional people would cause everything would work out for the better. Necessity is the mother of invention

Boondocks...you should watch national geographic more often.
Them monkeys have wars too. Granted, theirs is on a much smaller scale, but they do gang up to go warmonging.

No easy answer there is. Human nature it is to fear those who are different...and
fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Beware the dark side you must.

war! what is it good for? absolutely nothing.

that's a bit presumptuous dudemus. The thing in Gaza really can't be generalized if you consider that Israel is utilizing "war" to defend themselves.

I find that the bbc coverage of such events is a little more subjective. This however a comparative thing as (someone else said this) most western media is heavily pro-Israel.

biting cold torn by the spray of bullets
holy lands fouled with the blood of man
fire from the heartlessness of ignorance
burns in the minds of millions
war has come again

--

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. ... Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

---

When you go to post your support for a particular group or people, please remember that we are all here together. The brother we call the opposition [MLK FTW!] is just that, our brother, part of us.
War and violence are only some of the story of the evolution of life.
We have the power to stand in the path of hatred, violence, and death and not falter. We can effect change in the nature of life. WE Can.

Supper - dudemus was quoting a song..

haha yup... I was informed that dudemus has a habit of that...no worries

:)

How about this solution:

first off, what is our basis for solving conflicts: a scientific world.

Does there exist a reason for the Jewish nation Israel to exist? Yes, because of the Holocaust.

Now, we come to the important part:

Does there exist a reason for this Israel to be located in a specific part of the world, i.e., Palestine? the current justification based upon Biblical heritage, etc., is merely myth, [hogwash, in scientific parlance]

Therefore, Israel MUST exist, but NOT in Palestine; maybe we can construct a NEW Israel in Texas, that'll bring in more jobs, more money into the economy, and bring peace to the mid-east and to the world :)

My USD 2 [please take note, this is more than $0.02]

I am agree.

I'm also apathetic. That's how it's always been there, and frankly it doesn't make a difference to me. Not that it doesn't matter that people are dying, but it's hard for me to make it affect me. Because, in a real way, it doesn't. I would have to go out of my way to worry about this stuff, and I don't feel that's useful.

I don't have a side to take in this. I have no bearing on the situation's outcome, anyway. It's stupid.

Wait, wait...

When I said "I am agree," I meant to nov's post. But I was playing a game of Axis and Allies and it was my turn and I got sidetracked mid-post.

1. The Zionist movement began before even World War One (before the turn of the century, actually), and the Balfour Declaration was made soon after. Israel doesn't "need to exist because of the Holocaust." It needs(?) to exist because the Jewish people hadn't had a geographical homeland since 70 A.D.

2. Regardless of your religious views/illogical notion that science and faith are in disagreement, the fact that the city of Jerusalem in particular and much of the surrounding area that make up today's Israel and Palestine are the geographical historic homeland where the Jewish people resided between Moses' time and 70 A.D. History is still history, even if a completely meritless religious text describes it, in the same way that my Uncle George making a statement doesn't automatically make it factually incorrect.

Oh my god who gives a .... where someone lived 2k years ago people move, fight get conquered, territories change and empires crumble. No offense the jews in israel have become the people they hated back when they were persecuted the killing of Hundreds of civiliians is not a reasonable reaction to a few missiles that are crap and barely ever kill anyone. Heck look at poor lebanon like that was necessary. If it wasn't for America's backing Israel would be nothing.

On another note the biggest problem was how they created the territories of israel and palestine, they should have been 2 clearly defined territories not this hatch work of land like it is currently.

Also can i say anger is an emotion experienced by most animals along with other emotions, we aren't as 'special' as we like to make out. What we have that most creatures don't is a perverse greed that prevents us from coexisting with the world we live in and leads to our ever increasing destruction of ourselves and everything around us.

Linguala i saw that special i think their wars are more territorial but they do kill each other with little to no cause

So wait; all the land in the world outside (and inside) of Texas isn't big enough to feed the population?

don't know bout your maths buddy but u fit just 6billion of the worlds pop (its more than this now) into texas and each person can occupy only 45cm of space not this 1500 square feet u talk of.

Yeah, I was wondering about that figure, too.

AA: Point taken about historical homelands being meaningless. However, if the same situation were to hypothetically occur to Muslims, I'm sure they would be a little upset if they only got half of Mecca back and weren't given Medina when their homeland was re-established. Would you say all cultural sensitivities like that should be ignored? Because it still drives their actions, whether or not we give it merit.

What happened in Lebanon, now that you mention it?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10490

This book was written by an Israeli professor. I have not read it yet myself, but I understand it's a well documented piece about the history of the Jewish people in Palestine. Prior to the colonial occupation Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived in what could easily be described as harmony for a long period. Whatever your feelings about the current situation, it's worth understanding how we got to this point.

some how I was expecting a bot check with that, forgetting israel is 6 letters.

Kyle one of my other points was they should have thought through this a lot better when they first established the two territories which at the time looked like a darn patch quilt job

oh and lebanon two israeli soldiers were taken prisoner, by i guess u could say terroist group in lebanon as far as i know things dragged on and i think they were both killed in the end but in response israel leveled half the country of lebanon air ports, hospitals, schools, Roads basically most infrastructure of southern lebanon? (think it was southern). This was as far as i know condemned by the whole Western world even the american government considered it a massive over reaction against civilians unassociated with the problem. This was 2 or so years back i think.

I also notice Israel is preventing foreign reporters into the war area, trying to hide something maybe like the true casualties of the war?

Either way Israel has a history of having a slight ego problem and having to brandish it around when ever they get a chance and usually results in massive over reactions. Like u said in history past they all lived together peacefully, all religions, the real actual teachings, condemned violence from what i know in the end its peoples arrogance and greed that creates violence things like religion and minor indescretions are just used by those people to justify their actions.

Texas is 28 times the size of Israel, and there are only about 10 million Jews who will need relocation to Texas. Easy enough, and think of the stimulus to the economy, especially in these recessionary times ....

If people get touchy about relocating Jews in Texas where space and resources are ample; maybe the Arabs of Palestine might seem slightly less villainous when they get touchy about the Jews who've taken their land and considerably limited resources.

i live in texas and i only have one thing to say about this...if they can open casinos like the native americans then we should all be fine. i can't wait for the non-stop fiddler on the roof and Matisyahu shows! they drink beer don't they? ; )

I normally stay out of topics like this but...

My opinion is it will never stop as long as we keep populating the earth with more people and space to live with enough resources become less and less.

Plus i dont blame Isreal at all this time they gave them Gaza 2 years ago when this happened before, now Hamas comes back wanting more. I would ignore there cease fire request then too. They have proven they will only honor it till they want something else

The persian empire was one of the greatest empires of history and they can get back to that if they all would just stop fighting with each other and rebuild there sand pit into a cities. They need to quite buying guns from other countries and buy some buldozers and other heavy construction equipment instead.

"My opinion is it will never stop as long as we keep populating the earth with more people and space to live with enough resources become less and less."

If we ever forcibly stopped people from reproducing, however, you'd see a war the likes this earth has never seen before. ;)

http://blog.camera.org/archives/2009/01/from_green_helmet_to_brown_jac.html

Sending refugees to Texas would end a claims dispute? Awesome.
We can give them the area between Lubbock, Abilene, and Fort Stockton for literally dirt cheap. Funny there is a town named Iraan 'round there.
Then maybe sinkholes like Odessa will see some progress.

QBOB im not talking about forcing anyone to do anything, just more common sense is needed before having one. like if you cant even afford to take care of yourself you have no business having a child.