[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by JMvS

Yeah I've visited one of those jolly places (of which they didn't have a monopoly, say a few millions Poles, Russians and Gypsies). So since what is inflicted on Palestinians is only remotely similar to it, it is acceptable?

It's not a question of acceptable or not. You asked "what if a Muslim country did this to the Jews" and I pointed to an example of where something similar happened to the Jews, albeit not at the hands of a Muslim country, and a bit more extreme. The point I made is that the Jews didn't stand around asking Germany to give them all sorts of things, they moved from their original homes to a place of new opportunity. Very unlike the Palestinians...

Originally Posted by JMvS

Correction: the UN condoned for the Jews to take land from the Arabs.

Clarification: it doesn't matter.

Originally Posted by JMvS

As pointed earlier the 6 day war was about 20 years later, what happened in 1948 is that the surrounding Arab countries attacked what they felt as an aggressor, Israel won and as a result occupied all of what would have been the Palestinian State. Now, do you seriously think "occupying a territory against a UN resolution, thus disrupting state-forming" has nothing to do with the current situation and was done in full respect of the UN decisions?

Oh, I don't know... the UN wasn't exactly coming to Israel's rescue, and Israel was acting out of its own self-interest. It's tragic, but then so is war and conflict. Israel's actions were understandable, although I wouldn't say they were justified.

Originally Posted by JMvS

And a key difference with the American example, is that these events are way more recent, on a more constrained territory, and that the "reservations" do not concern minute populations on the brink of extinction, but millions of peoples versus a few millions.

What relativism! I'm sure the Native Americans would be quite insulted!

My point still stands - you can't ask Israel to get up and leave, because at this point too many people are living there and too much is entrenched there. The kindergarten fairness solution would be to have Israel give back everything, but then that's not fair to the Israelis and the people who rely on Israel for things. The "ideal" solution would be for both groups of people to mesh and share, but now there's too much resentment and mistrust.

Originally Posted by JMvS

Actually they are 100% judaizing the country, since those multilingual road signs are being removed.

I think you misread the article. The road signs will still be tri-lingual. However, according to the article (which is two weeks away from being one year old) the signs identify places by totally different names - so Jerusalem is identified as Jerusalem in English (and with the equivalent in Hebrew), but "al-Quds" in Arabic, which I presume is what the Muslim faith identifies the area as (and that is not an equivalent to "Jerusalem"). In attempting to unify their populations, it makes total sense that they would want to have all locations called the same thing. Can you imagine what it would be like if our cities were called different things among different ethnic groups? Chaos.

Granted, it's understandable that the Arabic populations would feel slighted by that. It's not just a city name, after all, it has a religious/cultural importance. Still, in terms of unification you need to have a standardized name. I somehow get the feeling that they wouldn't feel any better if the city were named something totally different, that had no significance in Jewish or Muslim faith, either.

I'm also not claiming that Israel is in love with its Arabic population, and that they don't discriminate against them. But realistically speaking, they're not forcefully moving them out as you seem to be implying that they're trying to do.