Israel/Palestine: Developments we need to see more of
No Sweat Apparel is a company I have plugged before and which I purchase clothes from. I have shoes, flip flops, shirts and pants from them. Their products are all fair trade and/or union made. Most of their stuff is good quality (though occasionally shoes wear out fast) and their flip flops are really cool, designed by Indonesian children with some of the proceeds going to fund the education of that child. All in all, a good company with cool products that are fair to workers.
They are starting a new project that ideally will help peace between Palestine and Israel. This appeals to me because during my one trip to Israel I had the chance to talk to many people and it made me realize that one major key to peace is economic prosperity. While my wife and I were there (between the assassination of Rabin but before violence broke out...and on the same trip we got engaged on Santorini in Greece and where we almost got caught in the big Turkish earthquake...) everyone, Arab and Israeli, was tensely optimistic. Everyone we talked to WANTED peace. Why? "Because it's good for business." This is the key. If people feel they have stake in peace, they will work for peace. I have written about this before and discussed companies and organizations that work to further economic cooperation and prosperity in Israel/Palestine. I also have written about another important facet of peace in the Middle East: environmental projects that can help the prosperity of all concerned.
Now No Sweat Apperal has a new project that fits the Fair Trade, Union centric, peace in the Middle East kind of projects that appeal to me. So, here I introduce a You Tube intro to their new project:
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Economics | Fair Trade | Israel | No Sweat Apperal | Palestine | Peace | union
By all means
Submitted by mole333 on 26 March 2008 - 6:36am.
I have no easy solutions to the Israel/Palestine conflict, but I do know that both need to be economically viable and both need to exist as functioning nations before peace is possible. Of course how to get there is a whole different story, but I think the projects I mention are small steps in the right direction.
"Palestine"/Israel Peace
Submitted by Gothanonymous Reader (not verified) on 26 March 2008 - 11:14am.
If you think that the key to peace between Israel and the "Palestinians" is economics, you haven't a clue! As an example, when Israel walked away from Gaza, it left millions of dollars worth of infrastructure, including nursery facilities that could have been used immediately to earn money for the Gazans. They trashed the facilities. 85% of Palestinians cheered the murder of the yeshiva students last week. Their quarrel with Israel is cultural and religious. They will not lose the vision of an Israel that is nothing more than a memory. Some issues have no answers. There will be no chance of peace until 1) the leaders of Jihad are all dead, and 2) Gaza, once more, becomes part of Egypt.
Finally, there is not now, nor has there ever been an independent "Palestine," nor is there now, nor has there ever have been a "Palestinian" people. This is a fiction concocted by Arafat, and perpetrated by the media, anti-semitic, anti-American governments, and you fools who call yourselves "Progressives."
Okay, this is just wrong
Submitted by mole333 on 26 March 2008 - 3:40pm.
I am not going to argue the first part of your comment. I think I disagree, but I also know where you are coming from on it. There is considerable room for debate as to what solutions are viable.
But the end of your statement is dead wrong. You are wrong legally and scientifically.
The modern state of Palestine was created at precisely the same time and in the same manner as the modern state of Israel. The legal justification for one is the same as the legal justification of the other. Deny the right of an independent Palestine and you deny the right of an independent Israel. Those are the realities. The fact that an independent Palestine was never allowed to exist because of the invasions by the Arab nations does not change the fact that such a nation was created as part of the 2 state solution enacted by the UN. Israel has no modern existence EXCEPT in the context of this 2 state agreement that created a modern Palestine as well.
As to a Palestinian people, well genetic studies suggest otherwise. Modern Jews are fairly closely related genetically. In fact they are unusually closely related for a dispersed population. The only explanation for this is a common descent. The way you place where that common descent occurred is to compare Jewish genes with other people's. There is one population that stands out as closely related to Jews genetically: the Palestinians. Palestinians are more closely related to Jews genetically than either is to Arabs. This defines both as gentically distinguishable from other Middle Eastern populations and closely related. This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows the archaeology because it is pretty clear that both Palestinian and what became Jewish (really Israeli or Hebrew) genetic groups developed out of the indiginous (probably) Canaanite population. The archaeology suggests that and the genetics suggests that.
There are some to try to tell me that Jews came from Europe and not the Middle East. The genetics shows they are wrong. And there are those who try to tell me no distinct Palestinian population ever existed. The genetics shows them wrong. But this is also something of a moot point. Croats and Serbs are not really distinct people. But they certainly have BECOME distinct people and it would be politically pointless to try and reconstruct Yugoslavia based on a denial of the distinctness of Croat and Serb cultures. Similarly, there are two populations in the region that have been given legal nation state status by the UN: Israelis and Palestinians. This is a modern fact and denial of it serves no reasonable purpose.
Thanks
Thank you for this information. I have been saying the same thing about Israel and Palestine. I may repost this info with my own experience.
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