I don't know why you bring "Muslims" into this all the time. "Muslims" have nothing to do with it. It's a conflict between two peoples, one who want to live in peace and one who want to destroy the other. It has nothing to do with religion, so stop telling us what the "Muslim" point of view is.

The Quran supports the Jewish claim to the land of Israel. That's the "Muslim" point of view. Anything else is politics.

TA,

Do you think the Jews from Arab countries remember their homes fondly and would want to return?

Do you know of any minority group living in the Arab world who were not persecuted and in large numbers murdered in the last 100 years?

Well, Israel is six million Jewish people.

"Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you."

-- "Grand Mufti" of Jerusalem Mohammed Amin al-Husayni (on Radio Berlin in 1944)

"Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews. The answer I got was: 'The Jews are yours'."

-- "Grand Mufti" of Jerusalem Mohammed Amin al-Husayni (in his memoirs after the war)

"We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood"

-- President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser (March 8th 1965)

“All Egypt is now prepared to plunge into total war which will put an end to Israel”

-- Cairo Radio (May 17th 1967, I believe you know what "total war" is?)

“Those who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will survive.”

-- Ahmed Shukairy, PLO (June 1st 1967, he was talking about Jews)

Are you COMPLETELY sure that your brethren saw it the same way as you do?

And before you claim that those people were not influential or are extremists no Arab listens to, do remember that Yasser Arafat to his death revered al-Husayni (his uncle), that the PLO still exist, and that Nasser and his ilk are still considered heroes by the Arabs.

Well, if Reagan had announced that he wanted to kill all the Russians or if the Americans had worked with the Nazis to slaughter all slavic peoples (or asked Hitler for help in planing such a thing), or if Reagan had spoken about Russian soil being saturated in blood after a US victory, I think it could have been different.

You might notice that Reagan also didn't order freedom fighters to attack Russian kindergardens and I can tell you from my own experience (I grew up in West-Berlin) that although border checks at the wall were thorough, nobody in East-Germany ever had reason to believe that some Reagan-influenced westerner might blow himself up in an East-Berlin cinema.

On the contrary. The Arabs have very successfully convinced that their struggle is with the oppressive government of Israel, not the Jews. That was quite a propaganda effort considering the above quotes and the fact that the Arab world is now basically Jew-free as per Arab wishes (except Morocco who actually asked Moroccon Jews to come back).

Did you know that in 1967 Israel proposes giving back the occupied territories in exchange for peace? The Arabs refused. But somehow the Arabs have convinced the world that the same proposal is a "Saudi peace plan" and that the problem is that Israel refuses it.

The fact that Israel proposed it 40 years ago and has only received death treats and war for it and now therefore doesn't trust the Arabs any more doesn't seem to change that effect.

And the Zionists had no problems with Arabs living in "Palestine". Heck, Egyptians moved to "Palestine" when the economy was doing well due to Jewish immigrants.

What's amazing about it is the chutzpah of the Arabs who vehemently opposed the Zionists and then claim that it was the Zionists who opposed an Arab presence.

And what would happen in case of an Arab victory, assuming that all the "death to the Jews" threats were empty lies?

Would they replace the Israeli government with a democratic government elected by both Jews and Arabs? If that is the goal, why attack Israel? Such a government is already in place.

I _don't believe_ that Arabs and Muslims (not Islam) have a problem with the political entity Israel as such. Arabs do not have a problem with the political entity Sudan or the political entity Iraq (before 2003). The only problem Arabs have with the political entity Israel is that it is a Jewish political entity.

KFC wrote an excellent article about this very issue:

https://forums.joeuser.com/331796

Let me quote a few interesting parts:

"Why would a terrorist group of Islamists from Pakistan whose primary goal is to have Pakistan gain control of the third of Kashmir that belongs to India and therefore aimed to destabilize India's major city devote so much of its efforts -- 20 percent of its force of 10 gunmen whose stated goal was to kill 5,000 -- to killing a rabbi and any Jews with him?"

"To reinforce my point, imagine a Basque separatist terrorist organization attacking Madrid. Would the terrorists take time out to murder all those in the Madrid Chabad House? The idea is ludicrous. But no one seems to find it odd that that Pakistani Muslim terrorists who hate India and want it to give up control of Indian Kashmir would send two of its 10 terrorists to kill perhaps the only rabbi in Mumbai. As Newsweek reported during the siege, "Given that Orthodox Jews were being held at gunpoint by mujahideen (sic), it seemed unlikely there would be survivors." Newsweek, like just about everyone else, simply assumes Islamists will murder Jews whenever and wherever possible.  They are right."

"It is exquisitely fitting that the same week the murders in Mumbai were taking place, the United Nations General Assembly passed six more anti-Israel resolutions. As it has for decades, the U.N. has again sanctioned hatred for a good and decent country as small on the map of the world as the Chabad House is on the map of Mumbai."

TA, can you imagine "Muslim" terrorists attack a Sudanese cultural centre in, say, Germany because of what the Sudanese government does to the Massalith? Or did Muslims attack Arabs all over the world because of what Saddam did to the Kurds?

But strangely enough Jews are persecuted, tortured, and murdered by (self-proclaimed) Muslims, allegedly not out of hatred of Jews but because of what Israel does, despite the fact that Israel, in contrast to Sudan and Iraq, never murdered hundreds of thousands of people and never showed, as you yourself said, any disrespect for Islam.

What did the Massalith do to Sudan? Did they call for the slaughter of Arabs like "Palestinian" leader al-Husayni did of Jews? Did they threaten to destroy the country and saturate its soil in blood? Did Sudan defend itself against the Massalith by murdering 300,000 of them over a period four years?

But Israel is condemned for fighting terrorists, terrorists who surround themselves with children (and risk that those children are hit by Israel). And you really think this has nothing to do with hatred for Jews?

Arabs tell each other this romantic story of Jews living in Arab countries in peace before the founding of Israel.

Well, TA, this might come as a shock to you: those romantic tales are lies. The Jews do not remember it the same way. If you talk to Jews in Israel you will find that some really hate Arabs. And those that do are sometimes arrogant Russian immigrants, but most often they are children and grand children of Arab Jews who came to Israel with tales not even the PLO could make up.

And in contrast to Arab refugees from Israel, those Jews do not want to go back.

WHile this is a popular talking point, the reality of actions (and often words) belies this lie.  Simply put, the murdering bigots in the muslim world hate all non-muslims.  period.  But Jews seem to warrant an extra effort and hatred on their part.

Next article: http://citizenleauki.joeuser.com/article/331877/Israels_Muslim_Friends_II

If it is political, it must be between the two peoples.

The fact that so many religions declare Jerusalem their holy city has nothing to do with politics. The simple fact on the ground is that most people in Jerusalem, Jews and Arabs, don't want to be ruled by the PLO. (You will find that whenever it looks as if East-Jerusalem were to be given to the PLO, Arabs in East-Jerusalem apply for Israeli passports in increasing numbers. You will also find that most Israeli Arabs routinely vote for Zionist parties.)

Is there any solution for Jerusalem _you_ would accept that would leave the most holy site of Judaism as accsible to Jews as the most holy site of Islam is to Muslims?

There simply cannot be a solution acceptable to both sides. It's impossible.

It's the three million compromise. Israel just cannot accept it.

And don't tell me that Israel's enemies don't want to kill all the Jews. They keep saying that they want do exactly that, they worked with professionals (the Nazis) before Israel was even independent, and they routinely blow up Jewish schools and kindergardens (the so-called "resistance"; thank G-d I'm not a child any more). If you don't believe it I invite you to dress up as a Jew, wear a t-shirt with a Star of David and walk through any Arab city and see what happens. The result you'll see is the reason there won't be peace soon.

Israel forgave Germany after just three decades. I don't know what Arabs have Israel to forgive for. Shooting back when attacked? Occupying a territory and making it richer than the two neighbouring countries? Providing health care to Arab children? Delivering electricity to Gaza even though the people of Gaza shoot rockets at the plant workers?

"When a Palestinian woman gave birth to twins in an Israeli hospital she experienced what it is like to be the target of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip."

"Iman Shafii finally became pregnant. During an ultrasound examination, doctors discovered four small embryos. The first died in the fifth month of pregnancy and the second died a few weeks later. Shafii was admitted to the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, but the condition of the two remaining embryos became increasingly fragile. "You have to go to Israel," the doctor told her."

"Her only impression of Israel has been the one she gets on Palestinian television, which usually shows tanks and soldiers, and celebrates attacks, like the recent shooting inside a Talmud school in Jerusalem, as acts of heroism. But now a doctor wearing a yarmulke walks into the room, says "Shalom" and asks her in English how she is feeling."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,540689,00.html

Can you even imagine Arabs to do the same for Jews? Can you imagine a story from the, say, 1950s when Israel was still a developing country, about a Jewish woman giving birth in a Jordanian hospital under Israeli fire (if Israel were to shoot at hospitals like the Arabs do)?

And do you know what's so interesting about this? It's not that Israel provides health care services to her enemies, that's just part of the Jewish faith. It's interesting because of this:

"In Gaza's fields, Palestinian women were trained to plant explosives, fire light weaponry and sniper rifles, and launch mortar shells and Qassam rockets. Samer Ibrahim Subuh joined this force, where she became an expert in preparing fertilizer-based suicide bomb explosive belts."
"Her first student was her husband, who she taught how to mix chemicals and to turn them into bombs. A short time later, her husband discovered that Samar was pregnant, but this did not prevent her from continuing her plans for murder."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3160145,00.html

The simple fact is that this war wouldn't happen if not for Arab attempts to murder Jews.

I am convinced that any Israeli Jew who happens to find himself in a Gaza hospital would simply be tortured and murdered.

And that's the conflict.

It's not a conflict between Islam and Judaism, it's a conflict between murderers and doctors.

And if you can find a story of a Gaza hospital (devoid of terrorists shooting rockets from its windows) trying to save a Jewish life or two while under Israeli rocket fire and a story of a female Israeli Jew planning the murder of Arab children, supported by her government and the vast majority of Jews in Israel, we can start talking about reconciliation between two guilty parties.

But you cannot keep telling me that Islam does not condone terrorism and then insist that we have to treat the two parties, terrorists and Israelis, as morally equivalent.

Terrorism is either evil and un-Islamic, in which case Israel is the good guy and her enemies are the bad guy.

Or terrorism against Jews is allowed "resistance", in which case I would have to take back my claim that Islam is not a terror religion.

Terrorism is the strategy of attacking civilian targets purposefully.

And that's evil and forbidden by Islam (and other religions and laws).

There is nothing "relative" about it, unless you venture into territory like "but if Jews are the target it's OK" or "but all Israelis are soldiers and hence military targets".

Yes, I have a very strong bias against shooting rockets at schools, particularly at kindergartens. Perhaps it is "subjective" because I once attended a school that was shot at. But ultimately I am PROUD that no Arab country has to keep special rooms in its schools in case some Jew fires a rocket into the children.