It's a strange kind of ethnic cleansing that produces more arabs living in the white areas on the map now than in 1948!

 

Is that by percentage of the total population though?

 

The Arab Legion accepted the Corpus Seperatum, it was not until Irgun and the Brigades began to move into Arab areas that the Legion moved into Jerusalem.

As for the overall partition, it should be pointed out that the forebears of Likud, the ruling Israeli administration were all actively opposed to the plan...stating it was a renunciation of legitimate Jewish Territory.....whatever that actually is.

My personal opinon is that a strictly Jewish State was always flawed in conception....far better that a secular state was borne from the Mandate, not one so obviously divisive as it was always going to cause a civil war.

It seems to be six of one and half a dozen of the other......in any case the situation, then and still remains untenable. A solution will never been found until the Israelis, as the larger stronger party cede at least some compromises on their continued expansion into the West Bank and East Jerusalem....equally the PA (hamstrung by Hamas controlling Gaza to some extent) have to cede to recognising Israel etc......

The PA do not really have an influence in Gaza, that would now fall to Hamas......

As for the imbalance in reporting, this happens from both sides.....but whichever way we paint it, Gaza is effectively (and illegally) blockaded by Israel, and the West Bank is increasingly being settled and effectively annexed by Israel....which is the immediate cause or at least exacerbates the tensions in the region.

As this is really an image thread:

 

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTR34W8Z#a=9

 

Excellent thread with some really amazing pictures. There was one I wanted to post relating to the Japanese tsunami, but (rather gladly) I can't find it. It was of a women knelt beside the wreckage of a car, stroking the hair of her daughter who lay dead in the back seat. I'm usually pretty immune to pictures like this, but there was something about this picture that just tears me up. I think it's in the look on the mother's face.

 

It's also the way of the world, for better or worse.

Land belongs to those who conquer it. It really is as simple as that, morality aside. The owner of a piece of land has historically always been determined by who manages to overthrow/remove/kill the the other "side". Jews have infinitely more fire-power and international support in the region and, therefore, they are (slowly) winning the territory until their inevitable success will come soon enough. It's very easy to feel bad for the Palestinians (and I do, personally, not that it matters) but this is simply the way things are, always have been and will be for a very long time to come, until radical change comes along and the very concept of territories will disappear as we become a truly global population.

 

Shamelessly nicked from the random image thread but it's definitely thought provoking and desperately sad, I look at that and think "just why"...

 

^^ See what you mean - "just why" is he wearing those trousers when they clash so badly with his t-shirt?

 

Thread is for thought provoking images not glib comments...try GD for that.

 

John Unger and his 19-year-old rescue dog, Schoep, take one of their therapeutic evening swims in Lake Superior. After professional photographer Hannah Stonehouse Hudson took the photo of her friend, she posted it on Facebook and it went viral. (Courtesy to Pioneer Press: Hannah Stonehouse Hudson/StonehousePhoto.com)

Full story here

http://www.twincities.com/ci_21273909/this-man-picture-is-worth-thousand-words-so?source=pkg

 

what a beautiful story

 

The white area shows land stolen by Israel

 

Not sure if this one's been done yet (not had the time to go through the whole thread), surprised if it hasn't as it's one of the most stereotypically 'thought provoking pictures' out there.

The original Tiananmen square photo... usually you see the cropped version these days, but here it is:

 

although three images, this is the sequence that we have all seen now, but i had not seen it as a GIF, one after the other, hence why i posted.

 

^^ I've not seen that before. Story?

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2200283/Killed-instant-Moment-Syrian-rebel-checkpoint-takes-direct-hit-captured-powerful-photographs-cost-war.html

 

I hope this cartoon will fall under everyone's definition of a thought provoking image.

I thought it quite relevant with what's going on in the news at the moment.




*edit* Imgur seems to be creaking a little at the moment...if it's not loaded up for you it should soon.

 

The land may be claimed by Israel, but it hasn't stopped Palestinians living there.

What most people seem to (wrongly) assume from that diagram is that either a) the "missing" green land indicates that all Palestinians were killed and therefore it's an Israeli-only territory by population or b) all of the Palestinians have been forced into the ever-diminishing green areas.

Bear in mind the majority of Israeli and Palestinian people in these areas get on pretty well.