Jews and Israel accepts that Arabs and Arab countries exist. Jews and Israel also accepted that a Palestinian state between Israel and Transjordan would exist.

Jews and Zionists have been hopig for that for a century. But for some reason the world has decided that Israel is the bad guy and the PLO ("Those who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will survive.") stands for a two-state solution.

Why, I do not know.

The old Zionist hope. Not the Arab dream though.

From what I can surmise, what with Jews having fled all Arab countries (except Morocco and Tunisia, perhaps), and demands that Israel be destroyed, the Arabs want a Jew-free world. Their rethoric has changed, and they speak of justice now rather than killing all the Jews, but they haven't abandoned their old leaders and Nazi allies like Nasser and "Arafat" are still their heroes.

None of this has anything to do with Islam though.

Well said Leauki...all of the posts. I won't rehash minor points.

The major point is this: Israel is a Geo-Political entity and fact. It existed long before the Romans and will exist long after Amadinejad and the current crop of Dictators, Kings, etc.

Judaism will also exist the same way. Despite the hatred and anger on both sides.

When will there be peace? When Arab mothers love their children more than they hate the Jews.

I also don't care about "the crown of Persia" except to note that Esther was his Queen, and that the Festival of Purim  celebrates the rescue of the Jewish people from Haman (who was, in essence an Amelakite). Hitler's first act was to ban the celebration of that holiday (another Amalek).

As Jews we are taught to remember three things: 1) Ma'amad Sinai (Receiving G-d's Law) 2) The Shabat and it's holiness and 3) That which Amalek did to you.

مايو بمباركة من الله والسلام عليكم

Yevarecha hashem v'yair panecha v'yiten lecha shalom

I do. Cyrus was the single greatest benefactor the Jewish people have had in this world. The Iranian kingdom was Israel's most benevolent and powerful ally for many centuries.

Today Iranians have forgotten the old alliance, I even read accusations that Zionists of all people were trying to diminish Cyrus' influence on the modern world.

The fact that early followers of Muhammed tell the story of how a Jew wanted to have that crown does show an understanding between Jews and Muslims in the past which it might be worth to reactivate.

Wasn't it Golda Meir who said that?

Currently many Arabs teach their children that suicide is preferable over letting a Jew live. And if a Jew can die, it is worth an Arab death. It is difficult to believe that the same people who advocate such an ideology, and there are many, are peaceful supporters of a two-state solution that need our support and financial help.

And it is difficult to believe that they are the extremist fringe when their organisations, Hamas and the PLO, are not only universally applauded in the Arab world but also revered in the west as our "partners for peace".

What Arabs need, specifically Palestinian Arabs, is an organisation to represent them that doesn't advocate the murder of Jews and doesn't have any ties to Hitler or the Nazis. That is, if there are enough people who want to be represented by people other than the likes of Yassir "Arafat" and the Hamas ilk.

A brave and powerful endeavor, maybe I can help by doing some looking myself, after all we did work together on the "liberal dictionary"

I have a few things waiting for publication.

Yeah. Let's do something liberal now!

If Cyrus was a benefactor, it was because  Esther  (alayhah hashalom) prevented him from being a butcher.

I believe the greatest benefactor is yet to come (Hamashiach ben David).

When you ask from among those from the past? I'll take the founders of Tzahal, and those who have served, are serving and will serve. They are the sword and shield. They are the main reason we live in relative "peace". I was honored to have served and to have fought for Israel and our people. There is no difference between Israel and the Jewish People. There never has been nor will there ever be.

Yes, she did. So have others. It is repeated endlessly. Just not by the right people.

Esther was the wife of Artaxerxes II. He ruled 150 years after Cyrus.

I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that Cyrus was directly influenced by her.

"Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whom he has taken by his right hand to subdue nations before him and strip the loins of kings, to force gateways before him that their gates be closed no more: I will go before you levelling the heights. I will shatter the bronze gateways, smash the iron bars. I will give you the hidden treasures, the secret hoards, that you may know that I am the Lord." (Isaiah 45:1-3)

Perhaps you are confusing two Biblical tales? I am, as I said, talking about the end of the first exile, not later events.

Thank you.

However, we must not forget ancient allies. Iran might suffer under tyranny now, but the Iranian people will come through. And they deserve Israel's friendship and loyalty.

Killing five million Israelis is the same as killing five million Jews. I never understood how it could be any different, given that most Israelis are Jews and that the Israelis who would die if the PLO had their way would certainly be Israeli Jews. (Not that the Bedouins and Druzim would fare much better...)

I think the most important thing now is for the world to recognise that a "war" starts when someone starts shooting, not when Israel shoots back.

All that matters is this:

The Israelis aren't planning an Exodus from Israel whether the Arabs/Muslims/rest of the world likes it or not.

The indigenous Arabs aren't going to overcome Israel with media warfare. They will shoot themselves in the foot as they always have.

When Israel's hand is forced by the endless Qassem rockets, there will be fewer indigenous Arabs.

That time is rapidly approaching. The rest of the world doesn't seem very worried about that.

Should Ahmadinejad do anything more (i.e. with Hamas), or should Israel find out the Iranian Theocrats are farther along with their nuclear plans than they profess the response will come with or without America's "Blessing". That time may be rapidly approaching also.

I understand that it is hard, if not impossible, for you to believe that. You believe, as i have noticed from your writings and also from discussing the issue with other Jewish friends, that Israel IS the Jews and vice versa. Muslims believe that is a political view not a religious one. Judaism is a religion and its followers live allover the world just like Islam or Christianity or any other belief system. But not all jews think that way ... many in Israel itself look at the issue as a political one not a religious one.

They certainly are NOT. and the problem was not them. they lived there for over 1300 yrs among Muslims with no major problems ... of course i am not saying there were never ANY religious flares here and there ... but that is normal for any Nation that includes many ethnic groups as the "Arab Nation" is. and it was not confined to Jews only ... it existed even among different Muslim groups themselves ... but there were not anything major that you could call a "conflict"

If you noticed i said the problem started almost 100 yrs ago (in fact about 110 yrs now). specifically after the British promise to establish a Jewish land in Palastine ... that is when the conflict started ... and yes the Arabs became alarmed when that was done and they started their effort to avoid it. what you call "the jews satrted fighting back" the arabs call the climax of the fulfillment of that promise and that is why they considerd it a "war" and that war was not against Isreal only it was against the Occupier , Britain who gave the occupied land to others, as will.

even if you assume that ALL jews there were Arabs, and those who you call middle eastern Jews ARE arabs, the idea to create a "country" for them is considered a further division of the Nation that was already divided .  

That is very true. and it confirms my point that Muslims have no conflict with the Jewish people.... but they have a major one with Israel.

A fundamental point that the Arabs fail to convey to the world, and I noticed that they are never good at that in any conflict, is that when some of them say that they want to "destroy Israel" they are talking about the "Political" entity not the people who live there. That reminds me of our position here in the USA when we always said, and finally did, we will destroy the "USSR" or the "Evil Empire" as Raegan called it... and none of us objected to that or even thought that the intent was to destroy or kill the people there. The Arab's failure in that point is a major part of their general failure to manage the conflict in a way that satisfies both sides.

That is the point that has to be made from both sides ... the Israelis are there whether the Arabs like it or not   and the palastenians are there whether the israelis like it or not. Both claim the same land .... and BOTH are RIGHT. and that is what is amazing aboout this conflict.

my own view is that neither of them will be satisfied with the "Two States" solution ...

I say it is the "One State" solution .. based on the Canadian model. ... both sides, correctly, believ that ALL Palastine is theirs .... that is why the settlements will never stop ... and the Palastenians will never stop thinking that northern israel is as dear to them as Gazza. So, give ALL of it to them both. ....  I think the people themselves will work it all together if the leaders on both sides are sane and supress their own egos.

neither are the Palastenians. and that is exactly my point.

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.

Incidentally, the idea that six million Jews do not reprent Jews because they live in Israel is ridiculous.

The same argument could be made to justify the Holocaust. (Assuming that the world would accept the argument that killing Jews for political reasons is justified. But the world only accepts that argument when Arabs do it.)

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.

Also watch "Palestinian" television and their portrayal of Jews and tell me again that they don't hate Jews and merely oppose Israeli policies.

You can say what you will about Hamas, but at least the guys are honest.

They can openly hate Jews because nobody believes that they do anyway.

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.