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What has otherwise gained them? Palestine is the black knight from Monty Python they keep attacking and they keep getting parts lopped off every time they do but they still coming and keep losing parts. Is that the otherwise you are referring to?
Why is Israel a first world state and Russia is not? What does Israel have the Russia does not? Sorry but it sounds like Europe wants Israel to pay for their sins like some sort of modern nation turned into a whipping boy.
Chechnya is a conquered people where resistance has been brutally and violently suppressed and where it continues to be suppressed. The Russians have managed to beat them down so and disappear a lot of the resistance but it does still continue . The excuse that Europe is paying attention to Palestine and ignoring Chechnya is every bit as thin as the argument that Israel should be held to a higher standard then Russia because it is a first world nation. It is a tiny nation surrounded by enemies that are much larger and aggressive.
The US may not be paying as much attention to Chechnya as it deserves but we are not using two standards. We don't support Chechnya terrorist just like we don't support the Palestinians ones.
Sorry none of that explains why Europeans are so passionate about Palestine but downgrade Chechnya to a mere "separatist movement". If Europeans were really outraged about powerful European nation (which Russia is and Israel is not) occupying and brutally suppressing resistance they would be much more upset about Chechnya then Palestine. If Chechnya was lobbing rockets into major Russian cities on a regular basis do you think the Russians would be as gentle as Israel has been?
The idea the Europeans can decide the Israelis should be pacifist because they were so badly mistreated in he past (by said Europeans no less) is the most misguided thing I have heard in some time. Being the victims of genocide makes you want to ensure you are never that weak again it does inspire you to learn to turn the other cheek just like being the target of terrorist attacks for decades does not make you more inclined to generosity towards the people attacking you. With nations like Iran vowing to destroy Israel and working to build nuclear weapons the idea that Israel should pacifist is a little mind boggling.
If they gave up the violence and kept every one of their demands i would have a problem with it. Doesn't mean that all of those demands would be met but it would give some moral credibility. They could actually build some support in the US if they were to use Gandhi tactics. Would it get them everything they want? no but it would give them more then they have now and most importantly it would give them a chance to move forward.
Yes, but that's not going to happen. It just isn't. And like I said above, it's hard to see how doing that would gain them substantially more than they can get otherwise.
What has otherwise gained them? Palestine is the black knight from Monty Python they keep attacking and they keep getting parts lopped off every time they do but they still coming and keep losing parts. Is that the otherwise you are referring to?
There are countries all over the world right now that are occupying territory they conquered from others. Russia and China both larger problems with occupied territory and the Muslim population that live there then Israel has but all of the focus is on Israel and Israel is the only that is expected to give in. Where is the outrage for what is happening in Chechnya? Why isn’t Europe up in arms over that? What about the people in Xinjiang why do they get no support? Why is a tiny country like Israel whose very existence is at risk held to such a higher standard then countries like Russia and China? Those are not rhetorical questions and I think the fact that there is no good answer raises the question of does the fact it is a Jewish state play a role.
Israel is a first world state, and Europeans tend to have rather higher standards for those. In addition to that, the massive gap in wealth and development between the Israelis and Palestinians makes it look rather similar to colonialism - something Europe was guilty of on a large scale in the not-so-distant past, which might well be precisely why people find it so abhorrent that Israel is still doing it, and reminding the European countries of their own guilt in the past.
Why is Israel a first world state and Russia is not? What does Israel have the Russia does not? Sorry but it sounds like Europe wants Israel to pay for their sins like some sort of modern nation turned into a whipping boy.
It doesn't really compare to cases of repressing or even violently suppressing separatism, like in Chechnya and Xinjiang - separatism is a phenomenon that exists in Europe as well, in a few cases with violence, and opinions are divided on how justified that is. Though while the Chechnya war was raging, there was actually a lot of attention for that in Europe - then after the worst died down, attention wandered elsewhere. Israel-Palestine is a conflict that has been in the news and gotten attention for so long that everybody has some kind of familiarity with it, some kind of opinion on it, and so it keeps getting attention even when there isn't anything big going on. That much is true in the US as well.
Chechnya is a conquered people where resistance has been brutally and violently suppressed and where it continues to be suppressed. The Russians have managed to beat them down so and disappear a lot of the resistance but it does still continue . The excuse that Europe is paying attention to Palestine and ignoring Chechnya is every bit as thin as the argument that Israel should be held to a higher standard then Russia because it is a first world nation. It is a tiny nation surrounded by enemies that are much larger and aggressive.
The US may not be paying as much attention to Chechnya as it deserves but we are not using two standards. We don't support Chechnya terrorist just like we don't support the Palestinians ones.
As for the Jewish factor, I've said it before, the fact that the victims (well, not really the victims themselves for the most part, but their compatriots) turned to oppressors in so short a time offends the pacifist ideology of many Europeans. So in that sense, there is a connection to the Holocaust. Only an imbecile would seriously compare the modest war crimes and oppression of Israel against the Palestinians with the Holocaust, but the fact that some people still do exactly that has a lot to do with that ideology and the idea that a people that has suffered so much should if anything be more pacifist than others, not less.
Sorry none of that explains why Europeans are so passionate about Palestine but downgrade Chechnya to a mere "separatist movement". If Europeans were really outraged about powerful European nation (which Russia is and Israel is not) occupying and brutally suppressing resistance they would be much more upset about Chechnya then Palestine. If Chechnya was lobbing rockets into major Russian cities on a regular basis do you think the Russians would be as gentle as Israel has been?
The idea the Europeans can decide the Israelis should be pacifist because they were so badly mistreated in he past (by said Europeans no less) is the most misguided thing I have heard in some time. Being the victims of genocide makes you want to ensure you are never that weak again it does inspire you to learn to turn the other cheek just like being the target of terrorist attacks for decades does not make you more inclined to generosity towards the people attacking you. With nations like Iran vowing to destroy Israel and working to build nuclear weapons the idea that Israel should pacifist is a little mind boggling.
Turkey threatens to expel 100,000 Armenians
- 17/03/2010 05:10:26 PM
808 Views
Why not let sleeping dogs lie?
- 17/03/2010 05:22:34 PM
332 Views
Erdogan is the Middle East's Chavez. *NM*
- 17/03/2010 06:38:00 PM
159 Views
I think Lieberman has the better claim there. *NM*
- 18/03/2010 03:39:29 AM
131 Views
Hardly. Lieberman makes sense
- 18/03/2010 05:34:43 PM
254 Views
I've read some articles saying otherwise.
- 18/03/2010 05:49:52 PM
306 Views
Torpedoing Biden's mission ? What a sad joke.
- 18/03/2010 06:22:37 PM
265 Views
Would you like to call it something else?
- 18/03/2010 06:26:34 PM
309 Views
Because Obama was looking for a way to get offended
- 18/03/2010 06:54:55 PM
452 Views
Your problem is that a "settlement freeze" doesn't impress anyone at all.
- 18/03/2010 07:16:55 PM
269 Views
Maybe we should just ask the Palestinians if we can keep Tel Aviv ?
- 18/03/2010 07:44:07 PM
242 Views
If you want anyone to be impressed, yes.
- 18/03/2010 09:03:11 PM
233 Views
How is it too much when there is a freeze ?
- 18/03/2010 09:22:03 PM
304 Views
You call this a freeze?
- 18/03/2010 09:43:52 PM
340 Views
Not your sourness silly. Obama's
- 18/03/2010 10:15:56 PM
276 Views
How long are supposed to stop building for?
- 18/03/2010 09:32:58 PM
255 Views
How about permanently? 
- 18/03/2010 09:50:46 PM
323 Views
- 18/03/2010 09:50:46 PM
323 Views
I don't think i agree that the condidtions for peace or that well known
- 19/03/2010 04:32:37 AM
222 Views
Major conditions
- 19/03/2010 09:59:37 AM
286 Views
Re: Major conditions
- 19/03/2010 01:26:54 PM
277 Views
Seriously, what conflict are you looking at?
- 19/03/2010 01:56:24 PM
397 Views
Re: Seriously, what conflict are you looking at?
- 19/03/2010 04:47:07 PM
278 Views
Ah, good point there... I was kinda thinking of the West.
- 19/03/2010 08:31:11 PM
293 Views
- 19/03/2010 08:31:11 PM
293 Views
well I wasn't talking about how anyone treated but who was making the decisions
- 19/03/2010 09:24:47 PM
342 Views
That really isn't a very useful observation at this point, though.
- 19/03/2010 09:32:30 PM
251 Views
Man, your analysis is weird
- 20/03/2010 11:24:40 AM
544 Views
I'm a bit confused what you're saying exactly...
- 20/03/2010 04:10:14 PM
288 Views
How so ?
- 20/03/2010 11:04:30 PM
235 Views
They don't exactly have much that they *can* give up.
- 19/03/2010 10:46:35 AM
299 Views
I don't want them to give up anything more then the violience
- 19/03/2010 01:55:51 PM
289 Views
That's simple enough: Israel is a first world state.
- 19/03/2010 02:13:17 PM
248 Views
That is a little thin
- 19/03/2010 03:27:10 PM
326 Views
It is pretty crude
- 17/03/2010 11:15:28 PM
347 Views
Why is recognizing a 100-year-old evil in his country's past "backing him into a corner"????
- 18/03/2010 11:41:05 AM
296 Views
The guy who has managed to face down one military coup from a sector that doesn't want it admitted?
- 18/03/2010 12:39:46 PM
376 Views
Why is it so hard for you people to see that the AKP are the "good guys" in Turkey?
- 18/03/2010 01:44:13 PM
265 Views
There are no "good guys" in Turkey, at least not in the government.
- 18/03/2010 01:57:44 PM
245 Views
Equating the two is ridiculous.
- 18/03/2010 02:13:37 PM
377 Views
My issues are not with a lack of democracy and I don't equate the AKP and the military
- 18/03/2010 02:35:00 PM
371 Views
So they respond to claims of genocide with threats of ethnic cleansing? Terrible. Just terrible.
- 18/03/2010 11:39:31 AM
282 Views
I agree. What they are doing now only makes things worse for them
- 18/03/2010 08:48:25 PM
221 Views