Introversion

Can we not just agree that it's all Hitler's fault?

If he'd not gone out and made martyrs out of a few million jews, we'd all be quite happily continuing the systematic predjudice and persecution of Jewish people that they have endured in Europe for centuries, but never to such a horrific degree of persecution that it excites our moralities to go and do something silly like give them an area of collonised land we nicked from some other people we like to persecute...

It was a smart use of brute force by Israel in six day war indeed. (I didn't read many historic books about this war, but Churchill's book seems nice to me as it also covers pre- and post-war periods). It's pre-war borders were even thinner then they are now. The chances were that surrounding arab countries could easily cut off southern part of Israel, while seizing support lines as well.

I believe a majority of the Arabian population suffering under the Israeli-an regime would prefer a peaceful solution to there problems, and there have been sincere attempts from there side

In 1950s majority of the Arabian population believed they could wipe off Israel from the planet, which they were trying to do. The only reason Israel still stands is because it's military was good enough. And now there is still no good reason for demilitarizing the state.

Imagine yourself as a country leader in 1948, when you are surrounded by hostile countries because you took their land. They want to take it back; what would you do ? The only peaceful solution meant extinction of Israel.

Laika_rus wrote:The only peaceful solution meant extinction of Israel.

Not true, when Yitzhak_Rabin was prime minister, he made some astounding progress at making peace with the surrounding countries. Of course, it's hard to continue after an assassination.

Edit: whoops, you said 1948. Not relevant

That was back then, no denying that, but since then there have been plenty of opportunities to break bread and make peace.
Sure enough, there have been and still are elements in the Arabian population that seek to uphold the current state of animosity with Israel, but I also feel there have been plenty of opportunities to quell these groups by creating better standards of living for all the people in the region and make peace arrangements that would be beneficial to both.

However, the image arises amongst some people, including myself, that Israel is content with were it's at and as long as it can keep the upper-hand in military force and is politically backed by America it sees little need to reach the hand to the people that are suffering under it's regime.
It's quick to tell people about it's RIGHT to defend itself, but that is just as cheesy as saying that the original families living in that area who were forced out, have the RIGHT to claim there land. It doesn't get anyone nowhere and I don't believe it's even beneficial for Israel in the long-run because when the balance of power shifts from west to east it will find itself in a very hot-spot and the longer it ignores the affairs of the people suffering from there presence the harder those people will retaliate when they have a chance.

Thus I believe peaceful co-existence is the only fruitful solution and Israel seems to blindly ignore this solution by using brute force against those who oppose them.

there have been and still are elements in the Arabian population that seek to uphold the current state of animosity with Israel

Yes, they are, still lots of them.

there have been plenty of opportunities to quell these groups by creating better standards of living for all the people in the region and make peace arrangements that would be beneficial to both.

Economy of Israel is not so prosperous to produce much surplus; now, it will rather care about it's own citizens rather than foreigners. Humanism and philantropy are good when you don't need to care about your piece of bread for tomorrow.

when the balance of power shifts from west to east it will find itself in a very hot-spot

It may happen, or not.

According to CIA World Factbook GDP of America is around $15.040 billion (for 2011), EU has similiar numbers. GDP of Egypt is around just $515 billion. The East you are talking about has to work hard for many years to get amounts of resources America has now, and keep in mind that with more advanced technology, society and economy America has a huge leverage in that race.

tl dr it is unlikely to happen in several next decades.

those people will retaliate when they have a chance

They are unlikely to get this chance as long as Israeli army exists.

they just need a good peace anthem

zjoere wrote:they just need a good peace anthem

That's not gonna work; I eat pigs.

(thanks for reminding me of this song!)

Four days until vacation! Five days in Utah, five in Arizona. Will be nice.

NeatNit wrote:

zjoere wrote:they just need a good peace anthem

That's not gonna work; I eat pigs.

(thanks for reminding me of this song!)

In that case you'll just have to find some palestinians who eat pigs as well. And hold secret pig eating meetings. Is it hard to get pig around there?

Not really, not hard to find non-kosher stores. (Also, cheeseburgers are the greatest invention mankind has ever made. Mmmm...)

I learned the basics of Java in my sophomore year in high school and in one instance of the class, the teacher gave us a problem to do for the day. It seemed simple enough: create a flight of stairs. We had import some applet thing that lets us use the draw.line(x1,x2,y1,y2), but basically, that's what we had to use for the program.

I wasn't the first one to finish, but the teacher recruited me to the UIL Java team he was making because instead of drawing a staircase with five individual lines like the other in the class did, I did a loop of sorts that incremented values in the draw.line command, which produced a staircase. It's my highest achievement as a programmer so far, and I hold that program in very high regard.

I remember getting so happy that the program worked, that my idea worked, and that it had gotten me on the Java team and I suppose that's when I decided to program as a job when I got older. Haven't coded since sophomore year.

NeatNit and I have geeked over FRC before. My robotics team split into groups, and I wasn't on the programming team. One look at the Java code that came with the chassis and servos, and I was sweating. I helped build the damn thing instead. I was also in charge of designing the team's website. One of the mentors did all the database work, and I was assigned to do all the designing. I don't consider that coding.

I tried teaching myself C++, but my ignorance to bloodshed gave me a lot of file problems and I was demoralized. I still want to go to school and major in computer science, concentrating in software engineering. I'm really scared I won't like it. I don't know if I will or not, I really don't. I don't know what I'd do instead. I like music, I can play guitar, and I can read music and all of that, but art school is just no.

Freshman year starts next month, and I have intro to CS.

This is what runs through my head whenever I hear/read "programming" or "coding".

So, my first year of graduate school will be a debt increase of about 212% over my undergrad...yay?!

NeatNit wrote:Not really, not hard to find non-kosher stores. (Also, cheeseburgers are the greatest invention mankind has ever made. Mmmm...)

Bacon is the greatest pig related invention mankind has made.

Feud wrote:So, my first year of graduate school will be a debt increase of about 212% over my undergrad...yay?!

Graduate school? Why did I think that you were going to law school?

xander

xander wrote:

Feud wrote:So, my first year of graduate school will be a debt increase of about 212% over my undergrad...yay?!

Graduate school? Why did I think that you were going to law school?

I am, it's both. I'll be working concurently on a JD and a MPP.