But you do don’t you!
Mods ok with this?
I have friends in Israel and Palestine. Israeli friends traumatised and angry. In Bethlehem Palestinian friends say they are under martial law, not allowed to leave their homes. Houses being raided. Haven’t heard from anyone in Gaza
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you won’t. they have no power, no water since Weds. they’re being bombed back to the stone age.
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And people claim this isn’t based on religion 
if I understand the situation correctly, religion is the reason why these societies have been fighting over these lands for thousands of years. Jerusalem has been the center of Judaism, Muslim and Christian faiths since the days of Abraham, Jesus and Mohammed. and these groups, they don’t really know how to “play well in the sandbox” so to speak.
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@Mascot at least you and I only lock horns on matters that are ultimately trivial.
Which city is the centre of all this? Jerusalem, Sheer coincidence that multiple religions claim it to be massively important to their faith.
Does it change your post slightly that Mecca is the traditional centre and seat of Islam. I don’t doubt some Muslims view Jerusalem in a similar way, but you cant have two centres. I wonder why they want to occupy for themselves, and exclusively, the seats of Judaism and Christianity? Hmmm. It surely cannot be they want to undermine both other faiths.
Between 587 B.C. and A.D. 70, Jews built — and then saw destroyed — two temples in Jerusalem that were the center of their religious and communal life. Nearly 2,000 years later, Jerusalem and the Temple remain central to traditional Jewish thought and prayer.
Around the world, Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Jewish rabbinical teachings hold that when the Messiah comes, the temple will be rebuilt. Today, one of the old retaining walls of the Temple — called the Western Wall — is a principal worship site for Jews.
For Christians, Jerusalem is also the place where Jesus preached, died and was resurrected. Many also see the city as central to an imminent Second Coming of Jesus. Jerusalem is now a major pilgrimage site for Christians from around the world.
For Muslims, Jerusalem is a site of key events in the life of Jesus and other important figures. It’s also the spot where, according to traditional interpretations of the Koran and other texts, the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. Mohammed was carried from Mecca to Jerusalem, and then from Jerusalem into the heavens, where he conversed with prophets before returning to earth. For more than 1,300 years, there have been Muslim shrines in Jerusalem.
What could possibly go wrong???
It’s just all so…selfish that these religious states cannot share these lands as a neutral area. These lands should not belong to any nation but should be considered something similar to a UNESCO site to be preserved and maintained. The region itself has been in dispute for so long now, that ownership is purely up to interpretation of what actually happened based on historical data and documents like the Balfour document I posted yesterday. However, I fail to understand how a few high-ranked British officials get to concede ownership of lands to which they have no current claim.
If the Vatican gets it’s own state, why can’t Jerusalem be a neutral region unto its own to be cherished and worshipped any any/all who visit?
edit or at least the section around those three religious sites.
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Jerusalem is one of the holiest sites in all 3 religions, but since the time Israel first lay claim to it, it has been conquered more often by armies for whom it had no religious significance at all than by people trying to wrestle control of the holy sites.
The holy sites definitely complicate how to resolve the modern day problem, which is why Jerusalem is considered a “final agreement” issue (leave discussion of it off the table until you’ve agreed everything else), but it has historically been so contested because by being at the point where Africa meets Asia meets Europe it’s just been in the path of conquering empires coming through.
The demographics of the region changed drastically in the period of British Mandatory Palestine. Under the Ottomans there was a trivially small Jewish population, but that had increased to about one third of the population by the time we were ready to leave. The Palestinians could see the writing on the wall for what that meant for the agreement they had struck previously, and so when the Brits left and told everyone they were splitting the territory, the Palestinians and larger Arab population rejected it. And from there sparked the Israeli war of independence or Nakba, depending on your side. There was definitely a religious driver for the Israeli immigration, but there were also other social reasons for it…they needed somewhere to go to avoid what they were facing and the Brits were largely (despite Palestinian resistance) letting them in. From there, with the Brits leaving like someone who had just farted in a lift, it became an issue of people not wanting to be displaced from what was (either long or had become) their home.
This has long been the Israeli argument - we were invited here then once the people who invited us left we were attacked, and everything we’ve done since has been self-defense. But that started changing sometime in the late 00s when the argument started turning to one of an ancient claim to the land. Obama staffers tell a story about them being torn apart by their Israeli counterparts for a speech he gave referencing the holocausts as a reason for the existence of Israel, an idea that is standard and was not expected to get any push back. But by that point many in the government had started distancing themselves from the relevance of the holocaust because they felt it downplayed the priority of their historical claim to the land. Where this turn came from or why Im not sure, but it seems to have been associated with a more militant towards Palestine and, maybe, a bit of wavering support from the international community.
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Great Idea and reading your initial part of your post it was what I was thinking too.
However, John Lennon wrote a great song called Imagine, just wished it could be a World vision, too many innocents have died over religion.
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I wake up this morning, feeling heavy. My uncle died 2 weeks ago and my grand auntie died 3 days ago. But yet what is this compared to the thousands of death that was and the many more that will come in the days of violence. The hopelessness of those living. And yet I am here discussing their fate here in the comfort of my safe haven. I apologize if I had in any way trivialized their sufferings. I really just do want all these to stop. I really do sympathise with the innocent of all sides but I can never say I fully understand what they are going through whether a Palestinian or an Israeli. I will still read the posts here but it’s just a personal choice that I will refrain from posting in this thread anymore. I know some of us are not religious but truly, I pray that God bless us all and give hope to the hopeless.
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Call to arms sitting from the comfort of his safe home in Qatar.
Despicable
Move from there and there’s no way Palestinians are getting that land back.
Ill just mention that while Haaratz is Israeli paper, many view it as auto-antisemitic. its the most radical left wing media there. (emphasis on radical) and the author - Gideon Levi is a wacko who also has articles in favor of Bibi
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The BBC Hardtalk interview with Ehud Barak (former Israeli PM) that I mentioned earlier in the thread. (Also available now on the I-Player.)
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Back from when Dr Who was well written. Appropriate I think:
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