[ATLian]

>There are millions of Palestinians living in Jordan today as
>refugees, they aren't killed or their houses are not
>demolished. All they want is to return to their homes

Coach,

true, the Palestinians don't get their houses destroyed in Jordan, but they (the Palestinians) aren't going around bombing Jordanians. If they did that, they'd be out of Jordan in a hurry. So it's unfair to use that analogy.



>As for land issue, the UN drawn borders has been
>violated grossly by the Israelis. They have taken over 70% of
>the land that was allocated to Palestinians by the UN. What
>they are today "giving back" is land that is not theirs
>(according to the UN) and has cost them a lot to protect.

You forget that after the UN drew the original borders, creating both a Palestine and an Israel, the Arab countries attacked Israel so as to erase/obliterate the country. So we can argue about who is violating who's borders forever.

Also, let's assume Uganda attacked Kenya for no reason. If we attacked them back, pushed their forces back to Kampala, and "conquered" land until Jinja, then I believe we have the right to keep it. Those are the consequences of such an attack. SO I think it was justified for Israel to keep the land they got from their various wars with the Arabs who initiated the wars with the sole intention of destroying all the Jews and annexing all the land of Israel.



>At the moment, there are many Palestinians who are calling for
>the total destruction of Israel, and you can;t blame them
>after seeing how they have been treated in the last 50 years
>or so.

First of all, if you look at mistreated Muslim's, you'll see that 99% of the mistreatment comes from Muslim governments. Most Muslims killed are killed by their despotic leaders like Saddam Hussein, or killed by rebels like the ones who've been causing grief in Algeria, or killed by Muslim-country-vs-Another-Muslim-country war like in the Iran - Iraq war. I once read a stat (can't recall it right now) which said something like of every 1000 Muslims killed in the Arab nations, only 1 dies as a result of action by Israel. That means 999 of every 1000 are killed as a result of a Muslim leader's orders or some other Muslim leader. So my question is this - isn't it hypocritical to have Muslims making all this noise against Israel for killing ONE Muslim, while saying nothing when Saddam and the Saudi police kill 999 Muslims?

Secondly, being more specific to the palestinian issue, the Muslim world is quick to condemn the treatment of the Palestinians by the Jews, while they over-look the crazy treatment that these same Palestinians endure in other Muslim countries. Of all countries in the gulf that had Palestinian refugees, only Jordan has granted them citizenship. The rest - Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria - efectively told the palestinians to f*ck off. So the Palestinians live in deplorable conditions in those countries and there they are treated as 2nd or 3rd class citizens.

During Saudi Arabia's oil boom, they needed thousands of workers to come do the menial jobs in Saudi. The natural people to use were Palestinians - fellow Arab Muslims who understood the language, culture, religion, and were even from the same climate etc. But the Saudis outright rejected the appeals by Palestinians to use Palestinians as those workers. Instead they went to Asian workers, especially South koreans, who are as far removed from the Islamic culture as anyone can be. That's like Kenya rejecting thousands of willing Tanzanian workers and "importing" Vietnameese to come work. Clearly it shows that the kenyans have some beef with the Tanzanians...

Finally, Kuwait expelled thousands upon thousands of Palestinians from Kuwait in some very inhuman ways.

I can name very many attrocities committed by the Arab nations against Palestinian refugees. Why don't you ever hear Muslims commenting on that? All they'll comment about is the Israeli treatment. These Arab countries are united in ranting and raving about Israel's attrocities, while they do nothing for Palestinians.

I believe that for the Arab leaders, the Palestinian issue is but a Photo Op, so their people can see they really care. I believe the Arab leaders will always want Palestinians to suffer under Israel, coz that's the ONE thing that unites all Arab countries, and it focuses their (these Arab countries) citizens attention from the rot that is going on in their countries. If the Palestinian issue was ever resolved, then suddenly you'd have a chap in Syria wondering where to focus all that Israeli-anger, and I strongly suspect it would end up being directed towards his government, which would culminate in results that are non-desirous to the leaders.




>The problem with the world today is that people tend to think
>that it is somehow acceptable for states to have the monopoly
>to terrorise populations while non-state terrorists are
>potrayed as the "enemy".

I'll agree with that "One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist." That is why we Africans widely consider Mandela to be our greatest freedom fighter, but Thatcher called him a terrorist.