First please point out the ad hominem attack I am supposed to have made.
Secondly I respond to each of your points below in an effort to show you what is actually going on in the Middle East instead of you coming to the table with preconceived ideas - I note you hosted an openly anti-israel Palestinian lady are you going to host someone from Israel who is not left wing to give the other side of the picture?
"Advis3r you should restrain your temper and stop ad hominem attacks because they will be reported to the moderator." I believe the Moderator has no problem weeding out the trolls on this website.
Rich Armbach was making a sensible point which you did not answer. There is a distinction between "a national home for the Jewish people" from your post above and awarding land to the Jewish people. Above all it did not say anywhere in the Balfour Declaration that there should be a Jewish State in Palestine. It said a "Homeland for the Jewish People" if you note I provided a definition of "Homeland" which is a country what if not a country for the Jewish People did the Balfour Declaration herald. Are you denying that the Jewish people does not deserve a country of its own in which it can exercise a right of self determination is that how far Meretz UK has now gone? If so shame on you!
Coming to the points that Advis3r asked me to ponder:-
1. Your tone is offensive and it is not for you to decide whether the West Bank was either Jordan or Palestine; or by inference that it is now israel's as of right. What is a fact is the late king Hussein of Jordan relinquished any rights of Jordan to the West Bank some time after the Six day War. Excuse me I think you are the one being offensive. I am as entitled as the next person to have an opinion. I asked you as you are the one alleging that israel unlawful occupies Judea and Samaria on which sovereign state's land is that occupation? As you say it is not Jordan so at most Israel is occupying land which both it and the "Palestinians" claim as their own. I in common with many others happen to believe the Jewish People's claim has more validity it is after all the cradle both of our religion and culture from which we were forcibly removed and from which we were prevented for more than 2000 years from returning as a sovereign nation - is that a reasonable enough assessment?
2. You were not present at the negotiations in 2000 and 2008 and can not judge what was on offer and what was acceptable to either party. With all due respect each of the parties who was present has given extensive interviews on what went on. Both Bill Clinton and Mr Dennis Ross have stated what Israel offered and that Arafat turned it down - you may as well call them liars too!
3. The crime is annexation of land captured in war which the entire world represented at the UN condemns including the USA. You may recall that the first Gulf War resulted from the capture of Kuwait by Iraq in a war, after which a coalition including Arab states then waged war against Iraq to free Kuwait from occupation by Saddam Hussein's forces. Moreover, an occupying power, in this case Israel, is specifically prohibited from colonising occupied land and certainly may not build permanent settlements there. That is International Law. First I suggest you read some of the other learned opinions on whether the settlements are legal or not. For example Gush Etzion was a totally Jewish enclave before the War of Independence. Its inhabitants were either slain or ethnically cleansed from their lawful homes by the Jordanians. Therefore is their return to their homes in Gush Etzion in your opinion also illegal? In any event you still have not explained how this is blackmail which by definition is extortion - Israel is not extorting anyone - the land it proposes to annex has always been considered as belonging to it in any final status negotiations. However the closest one can come to that term in the Middle East is how the Palestinian Arabs regularly threaten the US and the world with terrorism if they don't get their way - is that not blackmail, or the Palestinian Arabs going to the UN to have a state declared in blatant breach of the Oslo Accords which do not preclude the building in settlements is nothing short of extortion to impose terms on Israel which they cannot negotiate face to face.
4. This is patently nonsense as any Arab refugees now living on the West Bank will certainly become Palestinian citizens after the State of palestine is established. Nonsense? I suggest you read this article in The Daily Star Lebanon:http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2011/Sep-15/148791-interview-refugees-will-not-be-citizens-of-new-state.ashx
Palestinian refugees will not become citizens of a new Palestinian state, according to Palestine’s ambassador to Lebanon.
From behind a desk topped by a miniature model of Palestine’s hoped-for blue United Nations chair, Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah spoke to The Daily Star Wednesday about Palestine’s upcoming bid for U.N. statehood.
The ambassador unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state, an issue that has been much discussed. “They are Palestinians, that’s their identity,” he says. “But … they are not automatically citizens.”
This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.” Satisfied?
5. The State of Israel is a state for the Jews but that is not the same as a Jewish State. Many Jews who are also citizens of Israel do not wish to have their lives controlled even further by the religious minority in Israel. Many secular Jews (a bigger group in Israel than the Orthodox Jews) wish to have separation of State and religion in Israel to allow e.g. freedom of marriage by non-Orthodox Rabbis, civil marriage, funeral services which are non-religious etc.
Jonathan Hoffman you are more guilty of ignoring facts than I.
I am not sure why you are referring to Jonathan Hoffman I suggest you read my profile. I never said a Jewish State I said the State of the Jewish People. However Mr Erekat, who regularly rails against the very idea of Israel being considered the state of the Jewish People, has no compunction to say that the supposedly democratic Palestinian Arab state would have an "Arab and Islamic identity."http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=425506. So my question still stands why do you think the Arabs will not countenance accepting Israel as the State of the Jewish People?
