Israel in the Gaza Strip

[wayneL]

What do Muslims think?

I suspect that views are as diverse as us here. but I had a long chat with an Egyptian chap in Londinium today.

He was firmly of the opinion that it was Hamas' fault for kicking it off, but was absolutely distraught over the Palastinian civilian casualties and thought Israel was going too far... but took great pains to point out that he had no inherent animosity towards Israel and that Egypt had made peace a long time ago.

Just one bloke, but pretty balanced I thought.

 

[mayk]

What do Muslims think?

I suspect that views are as diverse as us here. but I had a long chat with an Egyptian chap in Londinium today.

He was firmly of the opinion that it was Hamas' fault for kicking it off, but was absolutely distraught over the Palastinian civilian casualties and thought Israel was going too far... but took great pains to point out that he had no inherent animosity towards Israel and that Egypt had made peace a long time ago.

Just one bloke, but pretty balanced I thought.

Does it even matter.

FWIW, arab-league (corrupt-undemocratic-dictators also known as kings and princes) leaders put forth a peace plan, which require pre-1967 borders for the two states.

 

[wayneL]

Does it even matter.

No, WGAF.

Back to my beer.

 

[mayk]

An interesting take. I don't know if he is a radical, conservative, realist or whatever. But has interesting views.

 

[wayneL]

An interesting take. I don't know if he is a radical, conservative, realist or whatever. But has interesting views.

Does it even matter?

 

[mayk]

No, WGAF.

Back to my beer.

Can you name any action taken by Arab leaders? This enforces my view of WGAF.

Iran on the other hand is tying really hard to get its Nuclear installations destroyed.

 

[wayneL]

Can you name any action taken by Arab leaders? This enforces my view of WGAF.

Yes. But it resulted in having their @sses handed to them on a plate, courtesy of US weaponry and support. Discretion is the better part of valour, even in the Muslim world.

It's how the Palestinians find themselves in the position they are in.

Read up a bit.

 

[Uncle Barry]

Since the Israeli offensive began on December 27, at least 825 people have been killed, including 235 children, 93 women and 12 paramedics, he said.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24897913-23109,00.html

It doesn't matter who is right or who is wrong.

israel is killing humans
and now want to increase their efforts at killing even more people.
And all the while the World sits back and does nothing to stop the jewish monster.

Mr Hitler would be very proud of the jewish attempt to wipe out another race of people !

 

[mayk]

Yes. But it resulted in having their @sses handed to them on a plate, courtesy of US weaponry and support. Discretion is the better part of valour, even in the Muslim world.

It's how the Palestinians find themselves in the position they are in.

Read up a bit.

Palestinians are pawns in the game among, Israel, Arabs and Iran. Many also consider them as a buffer between Israel and Arab countries. This is the key political strategy adopted by Arabs after the 1967 blunder. Better them than us.

On a human level any compassionate human being, regardless of faith, will sympathize with the civilian causalities. Violence begets violence. As someone mentioned earlier "Fighting for peace is like Farking for chastity".

The only powerful authority to do anything about this issue is UN, on which Arab nations have no control. That is why EU has more say than all the Muslim nations combined. This was my prime reason for WGAF, what Muslims think.

 

[wayneL]

Palestinians are pawns in the game among, Israel, Arabs and Iran. Many also consider them as a buffer between Israel and Arab countries. This is the key political strategy adopted by Arabs after the 1967 blunder. Better them than us.

On a human level any compassionate human being, regardless of faith, will sympathize with the civilian causalities. Violence begets violence. As someone mentioned earlier "Fighting for peace is like Farking for chastity".

The only powerful authority to do anything about this issue is UN, on which Arab nations have no control over. That is why EU has more say than all the Muslim nations combined. This was my prime reason for WGAF, what Muslims think.

So WGAF what you think?

 

[Sean K]

20% of israel is arab of various religions. all living very happily together.

Arabs living happily together?

Are they all Shiites, or Sunni?

All living happily together.

Happily.

Together.

OK.

 

[mayk]

So WGAF what you think?

Sad, but true :.

 

[MS+Tradesim]

it all depends on how you measure it. nice try though.

but hear this..... people baptised chritian have been responsible, directly or indirectly for more deaths on planet earth then any other group of people ever. their biggets victims.... other christians... before you continue to deny it... do your maths first and do a body count from year 1300 to now.

if you dont know history, just do the last 300 years. or even the last 100 years.

muslims dont even come close. they try... but dont come close.

I draw from the best research available from scholars who study the topic and pointed to two of those resources. You, on the other hand have offered nothing but assertion.

Oh, and the body count for the last 100 years belongs indisputably to secular governments.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

 

[Whiskers]

I expect a difficulty in the situation being discussed is finding a mediator who is genuinely objective. Any nominations? I'd think most people (certainly soon to be Secretary of State Hilary Clinton) will at least be perceived to hold bias by one or both sides.

I agree, the chances of getting a jointly acceptable facilitator to facilitate the Problem Solving method to get the best long term outcome for both party's is a bit remote.

I think for the most part the US, France and others have tried to be the mediator and continue to try the Compromise approach at least in the first instance.

Whiskers, I'm not sure that 'conflict resolution' as a tool is a "one size fits all" sort of instrument. I don't know the context of the conflict resolution training you've had, but I'd suggest a workplace model, e.g. wouldn't necessarily be the perfect for mediation between warring countries.

Yeah, you’re right there. A workplace model involves a hierarchy of responsibility and authority. Similarly a Family (Law) model would not be best because that involves a lot of regulatory guide lines and laws that largely determine the outcome even in mediation and especially in the final adjudication.

Since this is a conflict involving countries the law is rather secondary as the law can be rewritten by these party’s upon resolution of the problem. For me the aim of the international community aught to be focused on international acceptable behaviour at the personal (societal) level in the short term to facilitate an environment to generate some goodwill and trust.

What I’ve been proposing is The Problem Solving method, what I and my tutors believe is a process that has the potential to give the best possible outcome for both party’s. It’s essentially three main methods/processes that the facilitator judges best suited at any given time;

• A Planning Process which starts off with the Vision, (establishing practical vision/goals), Obstacles, Strategic Directions and Action Plans.
• A Workshop Method. It’s segments include Setting the Context, Brainstorming, maybe smaller group discussion for larger groups, a Discerning the Consensus and Reflective segments.
• A Focused Discussion Method, that involves four main segments, an Objective, Reflective, Interpretive and Decisional segment.

The role of the Facilitator is largely to propose the steps to work out the issues, confirm them and help put them into application. The participants put forward all the issues and suggestions. The facilitator basically addresses the personality issues such as shy quiet people and loud aggressive types to keep a balanced focused dialogue going and basically keep the process originally agreed upon on track including any adjustments for new issues that may come up.

'Mediation' is probably the most common approach to conflict resolution in our society, pretty much an offshoot of the foundation of our adversarial justice system and typically involves Compromise, Conciliation and or Adjudication, consequently it’s often difficult for people to get their heads fully around the Problem Solving Method.

The diagram sets out the basics of the different methods. Very briefly;

• Avoidance - is used by people who lack the willingness to face the issues and reduces their ability to affect outcomes,
• Accommodation - involves sacrificing your needs to appease the other party,
• Compromise - basically is splitting the difference, only partial solutions,
• Competition - is winner takes all. Useful if someone is trying to take unfair advantage but reduces chances of future cooperation.
• Problem Solving - requires good quality dialogue to generate creative ideas to meet the concerns and needs of both party’s, a true win- win solution.

The other essential aspect of the Problem Solving approach is dialogue. It simply cannot work if debate is allowed. Some comparrisons:

• In Dialogue finding common ground is the goal.
  In Debate winning is the goal.
• Dialogue calls for temporarily suspending one’s beliefs
  Debate calls for investing wholeheartedly in one’s beliefs.
• Dialogue searches for basic agreement.
  Debate searches for glaring differences.

So that’s the idealist theory, but as I mentioned earlier it may just be that with both Israel and Hamas claiming they are close to victory and neither accepting the UN ceasefire request, that the Competition mode may decide the issue.

I think Israel would entertain dialogue again if Hamas would just stop firing all those rockets indiscriminately into Israel. For me that behaviour wasn’t achieving anything positive for the palastines, just inflaming Israel more. I’d like to see if the Palastine people agree with Abass in considering a ceasefire and talks or endorse Hamas’s tactics and totally rule out a ceasefire and talks.

As I say, my starting point is aiming high for the best possible outcome and it may well be that a lesser quality process may have to surfice if they ever come to the discussion table again. What do you think it would take for both party’s to come to the discussion table again?

Or should we be entertaining the notion of a third and fourth party's, some independant representation of the average Palastine and Israeli people, what we call community input or consultitive councils, to get a true Problem Solving method?

 

[Whiskers]

Whiskers,

Seeing as you want to play the semantics game re conflict resolution, there is a difference between playing the man and playing the behaviour. I don't play the man, I play the behaviour, read the posts properly.

Yes,semantics (the study of meaning in communication) is essentially important in conflict resolution. The meaning of any communication is that of and or intended by the conveyor, not the perception of the reciever.

Palestine has never had that luxury from the Zionists...

Apart from this comment being expressed part in nationality and part in racial/religious connotations, which is inconsistant and displaying a hypocritical judgement... the following pretty much puts the 'judgemental' status of the history of Israel into context.

Apart from the point that the English and others dumped the Jews in that area.

What would you do is you were attacked from all sides after just being nearly exterminated.

I will tell you if I was a Jewish person after that I would not take S.H.I.T from any one that started up with me.

Had it not been for the NAZI movement it's quite plausable that we would not be having this arguement about who threw the first stone and who belongs where, let alone the level of conflict that is currently in the middle east. Ceretainly not the Jewish peoples fault that the Nazis essentially started this train of events.

Also, the other aspect of your complaint against Israel is their so called disproportionate reaction.

Not my words, but quite applicable from post 534.

Israel has had it with these explosions and casualties. It is defending itself appropriately, despite complaints that Israel's response is not proportional. If proportionality is key, may Israel shoot 5,422 missiles and mortars indiscriminately into Gaza's residential neighborhoods?
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/394573_murdockonline03.html

Of course, the other point is these two parties or at least Hamas has for all intention purposes declared war. What has proportional got to do with anything. The aim of war is to win as quickly as possibly.

...no matter how many terms & concepts learned by rote are regurgitated from some TAFE course.

Judgemental statements based on false presumptions is the quickest way to... let's say jovially, shoot yourself in the foot. :

Since you keep harking back to your perceived superior judgement about my judgement/expertise in this field, firstly it wasn't "some TAFE course"... it was provided by an international company that specialises in professional training in organisational behaviour management, and secondly it wasn't open to any applicant. One was selected to be involved in the training.

There is qualification, then there is experience. Your stance here exposes a dearth of the latter as a conflict resoluter.

Again, you don't know what you don't know, you only think you know what you are wrongly presuming about me. So let’s recap that I started talking about the process of conflict resolution. Extracts from my original post.

So in the final analysis I think Kennas earlier post about what people stand for, what they are trying to achieve, is more relevant.

So from a conflict resolution sense while Hamas and it's alias has the anialition of Israel as their objective the present situation will continue.


So one of two things has to happen for there to be any chance of peace in the region: Hamas and it's alias have to not only recind the anialition of Israel as their objective, but demonstrate it in a substantial way, then I expect Israel and it's alias will recommence peace talks.


Having said all that I'm not real keen on Israel, but from a conflict resolution perspective certain things are fundamental pre requesites and Hamas demonstrates no intention of resolution of the conflict... just emotionally immature 'Right Fighting'.

With all due respect wayneL to use a term that you once used frequently, you and chops beat up a straw man argument, ie over generalised, personalised and misconstrued the context of my post to create something that you could more easily debunk to try to destroy the messenger as well as the message.

I was clearly talking in the third person, of a concept of conflict resolution.

Now forgetting about the history, in the spirit of my initial post and strictly in terms of process, what do you think are the FIRST steps necessary to get the process of conflict resolution in the middle east going?

 

[lucas]

I am totally for conflict resolution talks. Dialogue - or all out war - IS the only answer; dialogue, not because it will necessarily produce anything concrete, but because it will put an end to the killing, allowing time (25 years +?) to be the ingredient that will eventually alter courses. War, because it flattens one side of the argument, rightly or wrongly.

In order for dialogue to begin, Israel must back off completely and Hamas must stop launching rockets. When and if that doesn't happen, on either side, forget it. Just watch the fireworks. You are not going to bring either side to the table.

Unfortunately, I have been in a three-corner pow-wow with mediators because of abusive neighbours, and although I was 100% innocent of any wrongdoing (even the mediator unofficially agreed) I had to concede something in order to reach the handshake finale. Need I mention that they returned to their abusive ways 2 weeks after the deal? I sold the house.

As I've said, I am for talks, but I don't think they will work any time soon. Those clever conflict resolution charts seem to be analyses of successful mediations, rather than ways to resolve immoveable positions.

I also agree with some chap in another forum who said doing business with Jews is hard - really hard - but once you shake on it, it's a done deal and you can expect payment and few if any problems. Shaking hands in business with parties from arabic lands is not so difficult, but you cannot expect payment, if ever; you will have enormous problems throughout the course of the contract, conditions will always be required to change, and you end up wishing you had never bothered.

It's a different way of looking at life.

 

[wayneL]

Whiskers,

We have no evidence of anything but a certificate course (AKA TAFE course or analogous to). As far as I'm concerned, you're sill a blow-hard. Anything less than diploma level and that bullet never went anywhere near my foot, but found it's mark.

Whatever; my main criticism is the astonishing one sidedness exposing the religious and racial bias you acuse me of.

BTW, Zionism is not exclusive to one particular religion or race, so you can't nail that old stand-by of the propagandist and attempted thought controller - racism - onto this little black duck. It just doesn't stick like it sticks to you by your very words and attitudes.

Your perception of the historical train of events is somewhat twisted and illogical. You really need to do some more reading on that subject before doing your own spin on that, LOL

I believe that's strike three,

Now, let's see if the ad nauseaum waffling has any merit. Instead of if this and if that accompanied by theory copied straight out of a textbook, tell us how you would get both sets of terrorists to the table.

Answers sans overt displays of rote memorization please.

 

[Julia]

In order for dialogue to begin, Israel must back off completely and Hamas must stop launching rockets. When and if that doesn't happen, on either side, forget it. Just watch the fireworks. You are not going to bring either side to the table.

Exactly. And this is the point all your theorising is missing, Whiskers.
Mediation is a useful process when both parties have an equal desire to seek a genuine solution. So far we have no evidence of this on either side.

Yes,semantics (the study of meaning in communication) is essentially important in conflict resolution. The meaning of any communication is that of and or intended by the conveyor, not the perception of the reciever.

Not sure I'd entirely agree with this but it's a subject for another thread.

Had it not been for the NAZI movement it's quite plausable that we would not be having this arguement about who threw the first stone and who belongs where, let alone the level of conflict that is currently in the middle east. Ceretainly not the Jewish peoples fault that the Nazis essentially started this train of events.

Sure as hell not the Palestinians' fault either.

Instead of if this and if that accompanied by theory copied straight out of a textbook, tell us how you would get both sets of terrorists to the table.

As already pointed out by Lucas. This, Whiskers, is how it has to begin.
How would you bring both parties to mediation?
Where would you find a facilitator who would be acceptable to both sides?

 

[IFocus]

For a totally unbiased opinion here is Piers Akerman Howard apologist
in The Sunday Times today

No one, let alone a parent raised in a Western culture, could imagine placing children directly in harm's way or encouraging impressionable infants to worship death, but that is what the thugs and murderers responsible for the slaughter in Gaza have been doing.

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24896611-5005374,00.html

 

[lucas]

I forgot to tell you, Piers was that neighbour o' mine.

Only kidding. Just.