Connections

 

I get the impression that any nation or group so equipped, and with no equal opposition, will eventually succumb to its own collective hubris that it is right about everything, and then try to push the rest of the world into conforming to it's way of thinking. So, this looks to be the case here in the US - given recent history, I have little doubt of that. What seems to be in error is the way in which best to change things for stability around the globe. The way I see it, one can only lead by example, offer assistance when popular support needs it, and encourage governments that protect individual and group rights against a tyranny of the majority, by requiring a broad consensus of support for passage of laws. In cases where there is no singular religion, or no singular philosophy that is accepted by all members of that nation-state, it seems only wise to separate government from religion, and allow citizens the freedom to choose their religious affiliation based on their own beliefs, rather than codifying a particular religion's teachings into law. I am convinced there are certain common-sense rights all humans share, and this common morality is enough to provide a guide for structuring wise governments.

One great concern I have at present is the manner and structure in which the government of Iraq has been set up. Just reading the Iraqi constitution's preamble gives me reason to pause and ponder the effects of allowing one group to dominate over another. Knowing a bit of American history, our nation would not have existed nor survived if one particular religious state had held sway over the rest. (imagine endless civil war)..and there appears to be this fundamental flaw in the Iraqi constitution.

I am reminded that here, the separation of Church and State, or Religion and Government, was intended to protect equally if not more so the various religions from state or other religious intervention, as it was intended to protect the whole nation-state from domination by one or more religions.

George Bush's attempt to use his "simple majority rule" to dominate all other voices is one good example of why a broader consensus is needed to govern, be it here, there, or anywhere!

And so, to build a lasting peace requires that respect for common rights be established, and to ensure that the minority is never trampled upon by a majority, there needs to be very broad consensus established before governing can move forward.

In terms of the extremist actions taken in the Middle East against Israeli citizens, yes, there are those few committed extremists who train from an early age young people to be martyrs, just as there are religious extremists here who do the same for other purposes. But underlying the process are conditions that can lead people down this path. If there is discrimination, as is the case in the treatment of Palestinians, be it by Israelis, Israel, the US Government, or neighboring Arab states, anyone so treated can be swayed into supporting extreme measures against those who are discriminating; Extremists gain popularity when there are economic problems, massive unemployment, clear discrimination, unchecked propaganda (a biased media), and a culture of violence that has been propagated for a long time. Brainwashing requires a willing populace, and it takes a lot of hard times to convince someone to become radicalized. And it's a small percentage, but enough to cause real harm.

So, to diffuse the matter, I think will require excellent measures to ensure equality, major economic improvements for the Palestinians, and a level of basic respect for the religious choices those Palestinians make. A sharing of religious sites, if they find common grounding in several faiths. The will of the individual, guided by whatever belief or divine spirit may be guiding them, should allow those individuals to choose their path, as others are allowed to do the same in kind.

But first must come the realization that drying up the root causes of terrorism means eliminating the arguments for the support of terrorists. Respect for others, economic improvements, fair play, and basic needs being met comes first. Any that persist after honest changes have occurred are simply the radicalized elements who have "drunk the cool-aid", and need to be dealt with more though police arrests and honest trials by impartial jurors, than by military interventions, as the latter is extreme, and often creates more terrorists than it eliminates.

So, I am hopeful that with a new president, we can begin to work collectively to diffuse the problems that create terrorists, and reduce the tragic events of open-market bombings, reprisal attacks, kidnappings, and the like.

It's a circle

Well, if by saying it's a circle, do you mean that it's a circle of violence that never ends? I would hope, given that peace was achieved here after the revolutionary war and after the civil war, it's possible even in an area with religious divisions and holy sites that define who's who. We were pretty close not too long ago to seeing peace in the Middle East (oh, those were the days!)...

Yes a circle of violence. If you look back through the history of "Palestine" you can understand a lot about this situation and the violence that has been happing for a long time, way before Israel was founded. THe civil war and revolutionary wars were very very very different because they were 2 professional armies fighting (mostly) and fighting for a few things, not for the eliminate of a entire nation. If the majority of the south wanted everyone in the Union dead, there would have been violence for a long time after the war.

 

There can be no peace when one side, the weaker side wants every one of their enemies dead. Their may be short periods of peace, but overall they will never last as long as both group so people exist.

The history of Palestine is very interesting. In fact their was never a movement to form a Palestinian state until Israel was formed...In fact that area was not heavily populated until a mass immigration in the late 1800's to mid 1900's of Jews.

 

One side came their peacefuly and legally and turned bad farm land into good farm land, and doing so attracted a lot of immigrant "palestinians" to the area. Which later attacked Jewish settlements in "Palestine". The fact is Israel now days is doing some bad things but overall are in the right because they came their peacefully and legally and have been attacked ever since.

 

Looking back on the history of that area, I saw one side came peacefully and legally and worked hard to get the farm land fertile and one side came for an ethnic cleansing...It all boils down to one side trying to exterminate the Jewish Immigrants, the only difference now is the jews have government that took up arms and can defend themselves. They didn't start this.

Oh really:rolleyes:, you are a student law just like me, so let's debate like law students.

 

Why you interesting in China domestic affairs like the zionists, let every country deal with that alone, but did you saw China attacked any country under any false arguments like USA, of course not and I will give you and mrcool a gift to show you how USA hold number one in Guinness Book of World Records as the Country with the Most Foreign Interventions.

 

As will as the zionists controlling USA which mean that they who made all these disasters.

 

About Africa. Israel is number one importer of African diamonds, which

finances African civil wars

 

Good for you being a law student. That means from now on your argument must be intelligent and be based upon credible, unbiased and untampered evidence. deal?

 

Thus, if you say every country should deal with it's own domestic affairs separately, you shouldn't be concerned about what is happening in Israel, because by international law there is only one country there, Israel. Palestine isn't a country legally, rather classified as a nation, like kurdistan etc. So then Israel should be left to deal with it's internal problems alone, according to that line of argument. I agree with you, the US has a poor system of international "diplomacy".

 

And as a law student you are arguing like apolitician, avoiding the major argument i posed, which was about the lack of responsibility by the vatican to their ability to curb the aids epidemic, not civil wars

 

You will find if you do some research that african diamonds do not always fund civil wars. african conflict diamonds do however, and it is illegal to buy such diamonds with full awareness of its origin (watch the movie blood diamond)

Good for you being a law student. That means from now on your argument must be intelligent and be based upon credible, unbiased and untampered evidence. deal?

 

Thus, if you say every country should deal with it's own domestic affairs separately, you shouldn't be concerned about what is happening in Israel, because by international law there is only one country there, Israel. Palestine isn't a country legally, rather classified as a nation, like kurdistan etc. So then Israel should be left to deal with it's internal problems alone, according to that line of argument. I agree with you, the US has a poor system of international "diplomacy".

 

And as a law student you are arguing like apolitician, avoiding the major argument i posed, which was about the lack of responsibility by the vatican to their ability to curb the aids epidemic, not civil wars

 

You will find if you do some research that african diamonds do not always fund civil wars. african conflict diamonds do however, and it is illegal to buy such diamonds with full awareness of its origin (watch the movie blood diamond)

 

 

If you consider Israel as a country, can you tell me where it's border.

If you consider Israel as a country, can you tell me how it created.

If you consider Israel as a country, can you tell me where is the Israeli constitution.

Because all of these things and many other things making me concerning about what happening in Palestine.

 

And about the Vatican, there are nothing Vatican can do because Vatican have no power to stop these things.

:)

If you consider Israel as a country, can you tell me where it's border.

If you consider Israel as a country, can you tell me how it created.

If you consider Israel as a country, can you tell me where is the Israeli constitution.

Because all of these things and many other things making me concerning about what happening in Palestine.

 

And about the Vatican, there are nothing Vatican can do because Vatican have no power to stop these things.

 

To be a nation, a country does not have to have a constitution....it was created By the UN......It's borders, it depends on who you ask but in every definition and term its a nation...even more so then you're nation, because they were set up by many foreign nations, unlike yours and mine set up by its own people.

Why not just declare it "the holy lands", put it all under UN Charter, and make clear agreements on sharing the holy sites?? (I know - pie in the sky dreaming..)

Neither side looks saintly, or has a perfect definition of what's what, because neither is a nation with clear natural boundaries. Really, it all seems a little nuts - from what I hear, the majority of Palestinians, and the majority of Israelis want peace and harmony, but the loudest voices coming from the more extreme minority opinions hold trump. Wish that would change...

I still like Greg's idea - we should have allowed for the construction of a new Jewish state in Arizona back in 1900, and then Palestine could have been kept as a special UN protectorate and UNESCO world heritage site..:)

I'm not suggesting this as an insult, though it may be taken as such. A friend of mine a few years ago said that the US should just point a couple of nukes at the Holy Sites and warn all sides that the next attack on the other would result in the destruction of all of them...A bad idea for sure, but also one hell of an equilizer when you think about it.

 

Again, please don't take offense, I'm just mentioning it as a point of fact.

IIEEE

 

OOOO, well, that's an interesting idea, albeit a wee bit extreme! Sounds a little like the first shot for WWI fired in Serjiavo, Yugoslavia though... All it takes is one kook to set things off, and some people kinda go the Dr. Strangelove route.. (like a certain President we've suffered under for 7.26 years..) Some like the idea of Apocalypse - call it what you will, but that's part of the problem, I think.

I think rather more effective is to remove the excuses for violence, and then allow an impartial court to try suspects (maybe the Hague?) to get the process out of the political arena. Hmm... maybe a certain President and his loyalists could be put through a similar process?? :D

We almost had peace there - Old Billy Clinton, Yassir Arafat, and Sharon had hammered out an agreement at Camp David, but Arafat wouldn't go along in the end - probably because he was a revolutionary, who really just couldn't deal with peace - he only felt comfortable when he was under siege..

But the ideas were acceptable to both sides - share the temple mount, and other issues resolved.. Somehow it all worked before the state of Israel had been created - what did they do back then??

As I say, I'm not defending the concept...but it's sort of like a parent saying 'If you can't play nice with the toys, I'll take them away'. Trouble is, when you take the toys away, the kids tend to trash the rest of the house looking for something to play with,lol.

 

Unfortunately, when there are legislated peace treaties, our own human nature gets in the way, as in the case of Arafat...everything was going smoothly, but he couldn't be the dictator he wanted to be under those terms, so he had to mess it up.

 

Damn human nature...if we didn't have free will, none of this would happen...but we do, and so the search for some kind of evolution continues.

Why not just declare it "the holy lands", put it all under UN Charter, and make clear agreements on sharing the holy sites?? (I know - pie in the sky dreaming..)

Neither side looks saintly, or has a perfect definition of what's what, because neither is a nation with clear natural boundaries. Really, it all seems a little nuts - from what I hear, the majority of Palestinians, and the majority of Israelis want peace and harmony, but the loudest voices coming from the more extreme minority opinions hold trump. Wish that would change...

I still like Greg's idea - we should have allowed for the construction of a new Jewish state in Arizona back in 1900, and then Palestine could have been kept as a special UN protectorate and UNESCO world heritage site..:)

 

No one wants to share, this region was minor and not very populated or coveted before the jews migrated there. It's clear its not about the holy sites for the muslim side.

 

There was never a nation movement for a Palestinian state before Israel, nor much interest in that region until the jews showed up. One side wants the land, the other wants to kill people. At least that's how it started, now im sure both sides just want to wipe each other of the map.

No one wants to share, this region was minor and not very populated or coveted before the jews migrated there. It's clear its not about the holy sites for the muslim side.

 

There was never a nation movement for a Palestinian state before Israel, nor much interest in that region until the jews showed up. One side wants the land, the other wants to kill people. At least that's how it started, now im sure both sides just want to wipe each other of the map.

 

 

 

Why it should be a nation movement for Palestinian State, the Palestinians were already liveing on their land and fight against the English occupying forces.

 

How you say that's no much interest in that region until the Jews showed up?

 

I think you know that there were arab palestinians people live on this region, or should they be by Billions to prove that there are people live there.