Why we shouldn't take the Palestinian situation all that seriously

[Lee Cahalan]

Horrors i know. Hate myself for thinking this way sometimes. But try to look at it purely from the cold real estate angle;

Is the West Bank or Gaza a place where you would want to live? Even without the police state of Israel surrounding? Despite the usually nice weather I don't think so.


Please excuse the following inexact math and real estate value inaccuracies. Also i didn't provide links or references but believe me they exist. Close counts...


I once checked the population data on Gaza from 1948. It was about 40,000 people. Roughly the same amount of people as Beverly Hills and the surrounding area that lives there today. Next I calculated the median cost of a home there in 90210: $1,323,721.

Divide population by family of four = 10,000 homes roughly. Multiply by median home values of 1,323,721.00 =

13,237,210,000.00

Or a little over 13 Billion with a "B" dollars. that is needed to buy up all Beverly Hills residential property.


OK now what is the projected U.S. military and other aid to Israel for 2012? A little over 3 billion on one page i read. less somewhere else. More somewhere else. One had it listed as high as 6 Billion. Lets use that one. A whole ton of money either way. Close counts.

How about aid to Palestine and Gaza? Less. Far less. Only stats I found indicated about 600 million. Still not exactly chump change.

4 billion + .6 billion = 4.6 BILLION per year for all of Israel and the Occupied territories. So lets now divide the total real estate value of Beverly Hills by our foreign aid package to Palestine and Israel:

13 billion/4.6 = 2.826. Meaning that with less than 3 years of financial aid to Israel and Palestine we could send the original 40,000 Palestinian people of Gaza 1948 to live in their own home in Beverly Hills. Not sure how to break the news to Jed Clampett. There goes the neighborhood.

But you get the point: The West Bank and especially Gaza aren't particularly nice places to live. If I lived there the only thing I would be thinking of is to get OUT.


I was born in Oregon. Believe me it is a much nicer place to live than Gaza. However even Oregon isn't worth going to war for. If for some odd reason I was never allowed to go back there I wouldn't choose to blow myself up because I was pissed nor to make political points. In fact the whole Israeli/Palestinian conflict is based upon a huge, grossly irrational perspective. Neither side enjoys a land worth living in. Let alone defending. Ain't worth it. Not at the cost of war. For what?

So maybe we should just give the Palestinians San Diego County. That's right: Just give it to them. Or a comparable. I'll ask my realtor tomorrow.

[Magda Hassan]

I say we give them Israel. Or the world with out borders.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Is the OP satire?

Or stupidity?

[Lee Cahalan]

Is the OP satire?

Or stupidity?

Nah. Is called "common sense".

The point being that there is NOTHING left worth defending in West Bank or Gaza. Or Israel for that matter really But the Israelis have all the guns and the American military at their disposal and to do all their bidding. So I say give it to them. Maybe then they'll stop propping up bastards like the Bush family back here in the USA.

Its a small fry contest anyway. Every time you allow the Palestinians front page exposure on the NY Times?

Another 100,000 poor kids starve or are infected with AIDS on the continent of Africa. Another COMMON SENSE concept lost on the typically egotistical, misguided American liberal.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Fuck your Yanqui-centric "common sense".

[Lauren Johnson]

Here we go again. Another one scuttles out from his hiding place.

Just put the prick on moderation. The pattern is all too familiar.

[Lee Cahalan]

Fuck your Yanqui-centric "common sense".

Essentially what you're saying (or at least implying) is that the whole continent of Africa can go take a flying leap. Just so long as the Palestinian/Israeli conflict can exist in perpetuity. I mean isn't that the net result of your efforts?

You may not wish for this to happen but i assure that it will so long as people like yourself continue to take the flat earth approach to Israel. The time is now to step outside the box. To think differently.

This is a wedge issue but from a Liberal perspective. Not unlike abortion or gay marriage is to the rednecks and right wingers. The powers that be misdirect your energies in order to take your focus off of their real agenda. By fooling the liberals they can take the heat out of the battles. or look at it this way;

Had the peace movement endorsed the 9/11 truthers there is no way would would have stayed in Iraq or Afghanistan so long.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Fuck your Yanqui-centric "common sense".

Essentially what you're saying (or at least implying) is that the whole continent of Africa can go take a flying leap. Just so long as the Palestinian/Israeli conflict can exist in perpetuity. I mean isn't that the net result of your efforts?

No - you're saying 1.7 million Palestinian men, women and children should continue to live in a prison camp for daring to reject the quisling Palestinian Authority and vote for Hamas.

You may not wish for this to happen but i assure that it will so long as people like yourself continue to take the flat earth approach to Israel. The time is now to step outside the box. To think differently.

Don't presume to think for me.

As for your "thinking outside the box", I'm not impressed.

This is a wedge issue but from a Liberal perspective. Not unlike abortion or gay marriage is to the rednecks and right wingers. The powers that be misdirect your energies in order to take your focus off of their real agenda. By fooling the liberals they can take the heat out of the battles. or look at it this way;

Had the peace movement endorsed the 9/11 truthers there is no way would would have stayed in Iraq or Afghanistan so long.

There you go again, looking at everything from a Yanqui-centric perspective.

There's a whole wide world outside narrow American discourse. You should take a look some time.

[Charles Drago]

Is the OP satire?

Or stupidity?

Nah. Is called "common sense".

The point being that there is NOTHING left worth defending in West Bank or Gaza. Or Israel for that matter really But the Israelis have all the guns and the American military at their disposal and to do all their bidding. So I say give it to them. Maybe then they'll stop propping up bastards like the Bush family back here in the USA.

Its a small fry contest anyway. Every time you allow the Palestinians front page exposure on the NY Times?

Another 100,000 poor kids starve or are infected with AIDS on the continent of Africa. Another COMMON SENSE concept lost on the typically egotistical, misguided American liberal.

Are Palestinian kids genetically inferior to African kids?

Are you suggesting that Jan Klimkowski is an American liberal?

When you suggest that we look at matters of life and death from the "cold real estate angle," you are not thinking outside the box. You are thinking inside a very old, all too familiar box -- one that not too many years ago had its sides reconfigured into a crooked cross.

You, I'm afraid, are just another self-possessed little hater who has traded helmet and arm bands for eye shade and arm garters.

Write if you get work.

[Magda Hassan]

Clearly Lee is no Palestinian. But could be many other things.