Lebanon is falling!

[Kolar]

What about the archaeological findings that link the Jewish people to Israel? What about tradition? Every nation have tradition and history, and the Jewish history is linked far more than any other nations to the area where Israel is.

There's actually very little in the historical record about the Israelites. The Bible is not a historical book.

This is why you have crazies all over claiming the Twelve Tribes were of different races or something else, because we have no physical proof of the Exodus or their journey.

[Da1andonly]

isrAel

that goes out for the lot of you

[Storage]

Christians hardly count 35% of the population there and the issue what it happening there is because after France gave independence to Lebanon they managed to gather enough power in their hands leaving the Arabs to fall out of the system. Lebanon's system has all the political positions allocated to certain group of people eg. president from christians, prime minister from Shi'ites. The system sounds like its glued to place and no one is happy with it. Once majority of the people become detached from the political system and start feeling left out it will eventually come up violently.

The only reason radical islam is getting stronger and stronger foothold in all middle eastern countries is because it is the only oppostion force existing to fight the dictators. It is the only way they can have their word out now. There used to be another strong opposion force known as arab socialism (or pan arab thought), but it pretty much died with Nasser and after Islamists managed to hijack the Iranian revolution all socialistic tradition was pretty much gone from middle east. Europe and USA have through the history given support to dictators that were anti-socialists(Shah in Iran back in the day, all the monarchs in Saudi-Arabia and UAE) to prevent Soviet Union from getting stronger foothold there so basically we are the ones to blame radical islams rise to only opposition force and eventually to rule in certain countries. Nasser in Egypt was an ally of Soviet Union back then so obviously his pan arabic thought was something west could have not supported at all. In Lebanon Hezbollah is the voice of the people, no matter how fucked up it sounds to us.

In other parts of the world, in similar situations it is often socialists, or straight-out communists(like Maoists in Nepal now) who become the strong opposition force to eventually drive the country into more demoratic rule. In middle east, the only way for poor and discriminated people to get their voice out now is radical islam. Western world has never shown the poor people in middle east a choice that they could support, instead they've been supporting minority goverments and dictators. Or then like in Iraq now, they go out to "liberate" it and make it "demoratic". Democracy can never be forced upon people. They don't have the history of strong civil society which is the basis of our democracy. Russia here is a prime example of an attempt at democracy which is sliding back in to dictatorship only because the people don't get it.

Once a country declines into civil war more often intervening will just make it even worser, especially if its done purely on their intrests, exactly what both Syria and Israel did during the Lebanese civil war. Even in stable society without history of democracy it takes long to adapt to it eg South Korea took 30 years after war to change it from dictatorship into a fully democratic society we know it now. Now in my eyes the worst thing someone could do to Lebanon it conquer it once again and put a puppet goverment to place. Its not good that its falling into a full civil war again, but they have to deal their shit by themselves to really solve all the issues. It it becomes a genocide then all by means go and stop it, but for now they really need to deal it by themselves, alot like Jugoslavia did in early 90s. West only intervened once it stated to remind a genocide in Bosnia and again in Kosovo. Thats how this situation should be dealt now aswell. If one part of the country wants to become independent, west should support it. Its the easiest way to solve all the problems. It solved most of them in Balkan why wouldn't it work here?

Most of the problems around exist purely because of completely made up borders(Darfur, Iraq, Israel). One nation, one country applies everywhere and always. Nationalistic thought is the root of all evil, not religion.

PS. I don't think I'm a socialist if I talk about arab socialism as a potential alternative to radical islam or dictatorships because so far its been the only real choice for it, but its long dead and buried. Eventually socialism will destroy the society as a whole, like in Russia, but its much better direction than any other form of dictatorship.

[FarScape]

I guess we should give the US back to the Indians then.. their history has more ties with that area than the Americans living there now.

Or maybe we should give Europe back to the Romans, their history has a strong tie with the whole of Europe, and archaeological findings from them too!

The Bible is a piece of shit, wrote purely to control the people. You have no valid claim for Isreal besides some story about Mozes. It exists now, so be it.. but history or a stupid book doesn't give you a claim to a piece of land.

Nice, now you explain how everything in the world works. Jews have roots with Israel, we got by international law the land (not by force) and we got war upon us. In many places countries changed borders because of wars and agreement. Want a recent example? Turkey-Syria.

There's actually very little in the historical record about the Israelites. The Bible is not a historical book.

This is why you have crazies all over claiming the Twelve Tribes were of different races or something else, because we have no physical proof of the Exodus or their journey.

The bible is not historical book? what are you guys talking about? There are enough evidence that show that there was Jewish people here long ago, surely before any Arab or Palestinians came to our world. If its not by Jerusalem and the west wall, then it by coins that recently founded and some structures in City of David.
Yes, the bible was wrote to make laws where people didn't have law system (I don't think they had police officers on horses 3000 years ago ^-^ ). Jewish and Christian and even the Muslims do believe in the bible (as I said, I see it only as historical book and not some god will or whatever) so you can't say "oh it was written on some stupid book". That stupid book has more influence on human kind than any other thing in the world.
Israel as it today is not historical, we built it from nothing. Before Jewish were here it was all sand and dust, and probably it would've been like that if we wouldn't come back to our land (want to read some history? Jews twice got exiled from Israel and Judah, just wikipedia everything).



Storage, nice post.
But you also need to remember that Redical Islam is not a democratic way of living. So they might put some pressure on dictators in the arab world, but still its not a good replacement, its not like if they would take down those dictators, we will see pure democracy.

USA and other countries bother with others when it damage the harmony. If a country have internal problems, its not USA job to be the world daddy.
But when a country is working to harm other countries (like Iraq with saddam for example) it put imbalance in areas and into the world.

You can say that Iran sending weapons for militants to fight in Lebanon or in Israel or might be even to Shiies in Iraq, its something that imbalance the world, make threat to others. Nuclear weapons for example...
All the Arab countries are not democracies, but take Libya for example: They got money from USA (and maybe other European countries) so now Muhamar Kadafi throw away his plans for nuclear weapons and just enjoy his life as dictator.
So its not an issue about democracy or not, its just about peace and balance.
(and yes, a lot of self interest, no doubt, but that balance is everyone interest after all).

[Cops]

quite frankly the only difference between southern politicians and northerners is, southern ones are more open about corruption and therefore get caught faster. north or south, i think all politicians ruin this country.

You might find this guy interesting, if you want to learn about Southern politics, real Southern politics. (FYI: I'm related to him)

Here's what I think is wrong with American politics, and I'll just quote a guy:

"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.' The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

-h.l. mencken, 1920

pretty interesting guy, worth the wiki read.

[Zerzera]

ITT: Farscape loses a debate about his own country.