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Comment Re:nothing ironic about it (Score 2) 609

The statement about Palestinians being the majority of University of Haifa's students is not true. About 20% of the students are Arabs, from what I know (but I didn't find any formal numbers). The vast majority of those are Israeli citizens. There is a large minority in Israel of Arabs (about 20%). they usually define themselves as Palestinians, but they are still Israeli citizens. There are almost no citizens of the Palestinian Authority in Israeli universities, if there are any at all.

This doesn't change the actual point, that the universities are not Israel, of course.

One more thing, is the point of going through Israel. The Palestinian Authority have no international airport, Israel will probably not allow one to be opened in any case, but there might be other reasons. As a result, visitors will go either through the Israeli Ben-Gurion airport, or through Jordan. BG is closer, but you will have to go through Israel. This might be what the GP is referring to. The reason Israel won't allow an international airport is that it currently holds all the checkpoints, including the Alenby bridge on the Jordan border. This control is considered important to hold certain weapons, mainly missiles but also mortars, away from the Palestinian Territories. Such weapons would allow Palestinians to target the BG airport and the suburbs of Tel-Aviv.

Comment Re:ever greater concessions (Score 1) 760

I'm not going to compare anything to Florida (or anything else, for that matter), but judging by area alone is quite foolish. Most of the area was the negev desert, (this was almost half of the mandate area). It was unpopulated then, it still is unpopulated now. If I was to split Canada to two parts, a strip of width 100km on the southern border, and the rest, the second part will dwarf the first by area. Which part would you prefer? In the proposed map the Palestinian state was supposed to contain most of the useful area, anything but the established Jewish settlements and the desert, more or less (and Jerusalem was supposed to have some special international status. Jerusalem had a small Jewish majority). One more important note, the Palestinian rejection was not a rejection of this map, it was a rejection of any partition plan, this is quite important. Remember the "Three 'No's" of Khartoum (sep. 1967), this was the Palestinian formal approach until 1988, any Jewish state in this area had no right to exist. As for the maps prior to 1948, I would not make any map, since it was meaningless. At most I would make a map of population distribution in two colours, leaving most of it uncoloured. Also regarding those immigrants, they were mainly first generation refugees, the UN decided to use this area to solve the problem of Jewish refugees (both from Europe and from Arabic states), mainly because it seemed feasible. You can oppose this, of course, but which solution would you prefer?

Comment Re:ever greater concessions (Score 1) 760

I don't have any geographic illustration, but I think trying to reduce the process to a list of maps is not feasible. If you, or anyone else, wants to learn about this subject wikipedia seems like a reasonable starting point. You can find maps there, but they would mean different things, so there is no point in putting them next to each other.

Comment Re:ever greater concessions (Score 3, Informative) 760

The map is correct? Each of the for maps use a different definition of Jewish/Palestinian land!

I don't even know what is the definition of the first map, probably attempt to use private ownership, or maybe the Jewish settlements are in white and everything else is considered Palestinian. The negev desert (bottom half) was largely unpopulated at the time (and very sparsely populated today).

The second map is of the UN decision, not of anything actually there. The Palestinians didn't accept this decision until 1988, and the result was the Israeli war of independence.

The Third actually depicts something somewhat meaningful, this are the borders by the end of mentioned war. However, the "Palestinian land" in this map wasn't Palestinian, it was either Jordanian or Egyptian (Gaza was under Egyptian control, the west bank Jordanian), the area didn't have any special status in those countries.

The fourth map is the result of the Oslo agreement, and it is basically the opposite of the first map. The agreement, since it was supposed to be only a step towards a permanent agreement, established the PA, and gave it control in most Palestinian populated areas. All further discussions between Israel and the PA assumes that these areas will remain under Palestinian control and almost all the occupied territories will be passed to them as well. If you accept the definitions of this map, it is a big step from the situation in 1967-1993, all white map.

Dreadful source, and in the maps as well (although each map, maybe except the first, can be said to be correct by some definition, comparing them is a lie).

Comment Re:Energy requirements? (Score 1) 348

The moon's gravity well is shallow enough to allow for a space elevator form currently available materials, plus having no atmosphere allows for a cable to reach very close to the surface. It is possible to get things out for quite cheap, given a huge initial investment. Of course, any lunar mining operation will need a huge initial investment.

Comment Re:We dont need to know everything (Score 1) 1018

You assume for some reason that "the enemies" know everything, I see no reason to believe this. You might have noticed id did not mention codes, I mentioned security arrangements (that is, letting people in, right?) and the way to activate, which I assume is more complicated (on the silo) then knowing some code. You should also remember that there are many who can be described as "enemies", which one knows this and which ones doesn't? Then, why do you think these things are kept secret? This is not a cover-up... Lastly, what is the benefit to the public from releasing this information, even if we accept that there is almost no damage?

Comment Re:Big disclosure: China fed up with N. Korea lead (Score 1) 1018

Why do you think they knew it? This information was leaked from the US, this is something PRC told to some US diplomat. I would assume they told the DPRK something on the lines of "we can't keep with you if you won't calm down". Not "we think your country should be joined to the south", especially since the south is twice as big (population) and the government will stay in Seoul in this case.

Comment Re:Legit? (Score 1) 1020

Being that the incidents were this August, it's on the other order (introducing skeletons to your closet while advocating glass house policy?). The accusations are, as far as I understand, about encounters that turned non-consensual in the middle (in one case, when the condom broke...).

Comment Re:Big disclosure: China fed up with N. Korea lead (Score 1) 1018

Why do you think it helps calm things down? I would guess it makes the situation worse. DPRK now knows it can't trust china to back it up, especially not after the death of Kim Jong-il, so they might try to set a balance of terror on their own, forcing them to first show how dangerous they are...

Comment Re:We dont need to know everything (Score 1) 1018

it doesnt matter what's the nature of a leak - transparency, is transparency.

That's stupid, what about publishing the security arrangement of some nuclear missile silo with a description of the way to launch the missile at a chosen target? transparency is transparency...

The system needs some privacy, for internal communication. Not for decisions, but for communication.

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