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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
And so did the jews when they were displaced from Israel 2000 years ago. I don't ever hear anyone bemoaning their fate though.[/quote]

At some point there has to be a statute of limitations.[/quote]

Why? There isn't for murder.

Should it be 10 years? 20 years? 50 years? 500 years? 5000 years?

The point is that life is not black and white, but people sure love to act like it is.  The truth is always, always, in the middle.[/quote]

The truth is not always in the middle. For example, the Holocaust happened. If you get one person saying that the Holocaust happened, and another person saying that the Holocaust didn't happen, is the truth that the Holocaust kinda sorta happened?

I don't know what the statute of limitations should be, but it should be shorter than what the Romans (who no longer exist) and Jews (to whom a lot has happened since) did in the area around Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

For what it's worth, I also don't have much patience with arguments based on a battle that happened in 1389.[/quote]

Of course the truth is not in the middle when you are talking about macro events like the holocaust, but when you're talking about whether the average German was evil, for example, it is most definitely in the middle.  I'll tell you why a statute of limitations doesn't make any sense.  Don't you think that the history of a people should be taken in to account when judging how some subset of those people act in the future?  Isn't that what the US is all about - the revolution is and always will be at the core of who we are. Not to take history in to account, in my opinion, is short-sighted. Context, and history, matter. People make broad generalizations about Israel on the basis of certain events - like admittedly horrendous actions including the continued expansion of settlements in the west bank - but forget that Israel did not set out to conquer the West Bank, or the Golan or East Jerusalem, but ended up doing so because it was attacked. What would you say if Israel withdrew entirely from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, put up a wall, and said to the rest of the Middle, please just leave me alone?  Would that do it?[/quote]

Yes, of course one must take history into account. But not ancient history. What the Romans and Jews did 2,000 years ago is ancient history. What King Solomon did in Jerusalem 3,000 years ago is ancient history. Real actual living people take priority. [/quote]

Of course real actual living people take priority, but motivation can't be viewed in a vacuum.  Based on your premise, does what the european settlers did to the native americans matter anymore since it was multiple hundreds of years ago? Where do you draw the line?  The point is that all context matters.  In any event, at least in the case of the Jews, it's not like what happened 2000 years ago is the only injustice.

Anyway, answer my last question.  What if the Israelis did what everyone seems to want them to do - and frankly I as a Jew living in the diaspora desperately want them to do - and give up all of the west bank and east jerusalem.  Do you think that would pacify the world?  To me, that's the 64 million dollar question. I wish I knew the answer.[/quote]

I personally think yes. Worth a try anyway. But they have to be genuinely committed to trying and so far they haven't been. Too much distrust of Hamas, not that I blame them.

As an outsider looking on, it's pretty easy to see what needs to be done. Israel needs to give up land, allow Palestinians to work in Jerusalem, and recognize Palestine's right to exist. Palestine needs to STOP allying with countries and terrorist organizations openly hostile to Israel. What needs to happen first is more of a chicken and egg question. Of course when you're talking about blood feuds, I realize it's not so abstract and cut and dried. However, you'd think there'd come a point where all or most of the participants just become sick to death of the fighting and killing. What reasonable person wants to live in a protracted state of fear and violence??[/quote]

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