This gets back to who was there first, which is a pointless argument as your history date starts a lot earlier in history than mine. You want to take it back 200 years; I want to take it back to the time before Jesus Christ. We will not reach agreement on this point.

As for these Palestinians being annexed out of their historical lands, can you point to any news article that shows that these Palestinians have deeds and legal documents to back up their claims? As far as I see it, if they have no documentation that this "land" was theirs, then they have no right to it other than that which they can take militarily.

Militarily, the Middle East has not been very successful against Israel. Hell, the last time they all coordinated against Israel in 1967, the Six-Day War, Israel gained more land militarily than the week before. Seeing as how the status quo has not changed, my money would be on Israel if another Six-Day War ensued.

I don't see the international community fielding a military to stop Israel. As the winners say, "Put up or shut up." The international community has done neither and their screeds of "Israel is violating international law" is about as informative and pleasing as a 6 year old throwing a tantrum over wanting 3 cookies instead of 2 cookies.

Like it or not, those who are strong (by strong I mean who has the best-trained, best equipped, and largest military) dictates matters over scarce resources such as land. It doesn't make their cause "right" or "just" by any means, but it is what it is. Warfare has had a more lasting impact on history than any peace movement, conglomeration of weak countries screeding "Your violating international law," and any international law.

I learned before the 11th grade a law that cannot be enforced is nothing more than words on paper. Thusforth, I have not been surprised over the UN being ineffectual in enforcing international law against a country like Israel.

That was a reaction against years of increasing violence by Middle Easterners in Australia.

Something you see far too seldom in the West because they're letting their own people get raped.

I'm not even going to post a proper response to those last two posts. I'll simply say that in the modern age I don't believe that greater military might gives any legal or moral rights to land. It may practically allow Israel to occupy and annex land, but in reality if they do that then quite simply they should not be surprised our outraged when guerilla movements and terrorism is targeted towards them.

Shouldn't it be targetted towards the military and government in that case? And not elementary schools, restaurants, shopping malls, civilian homes etc etc?

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not claiming that the Palestinian suicide bombings, rocket attacks and terrorism are a good thing, they're truly awful, evil and only make a bad situation worse for everybody.

I'm just saying that it's hardly an outcome the Israelis can be surprised or outraged at.

The actions of a few thugs doesn't warrant a 5,000 strong riot, which involved the bashing of many people. The Lebanese community was always treated like shit in Sydney, people had to go to beaches and parks in groups, because they were scared they were going to get bashed by Australian elitists back in the 80's and early 90's. When you've been involved in enough attacks like the one my cousin was in, you'd be willing to flex some muscles as well. I've been the victim of the same type of discrimination, I've got a scar on the back of my head, because some Aussie guy decided that it'd be funny to hit that Lebanese kid with a cricket bat.

Australia has some serious issues when it comes to racism and discrimination, I've had friends commit suicide, been bashed and abused based on their background. My parents went through the same thing back in their day, but no one cares, we have a negative stereotype placed on us and it's easier for people to stay ignorant about us, instead of actually learning about the people. Indians, Vietnamese, Greeks and Macedonians went through a similar situation. It only depends on what's 'in' in Australia, 15 years ago it was Greeks, 10 years ago it was Vietnamese, 5 years ago it was Lebanese and now it's Indians. These things shouldn't be happening in a first world country. 

Your rape comment is also inappropriate. Australians have the highest rape count in the country, but that doesn't make for interesting news, instead they find the 5 rape cases out of 10,000 that involve a person of a different background, make that headline news and it gathers more hits. I find it extremely offensive when I open a newspaper and see two rape cases, one of them lists the description of the character as a Muslim, Middle Eastern man, with a wide brow,dark skin, born in Iran, from the suburb of Springsvale and so on. The other rapist is just described as a young troublemaker and that's it, then as soon as you do a bit of research, you find out it was a young Australian guy who has returned to school after raping a mentally handicapped girl. 

I classify myself as an Australian, but the original 'settlers' classify themselves as the only true Australians. It's hard to make friends, when everyone's spitting in your eye. I'm sorry for going so far off topic, but you shouldn't comment on things you don't know about.

I don't know who chose the word lynching for this story, but it's so offensively inacurate I can hardly explain the disgust I'm feeling.  As bad as that situation was, it was nothing compared to a true lynching.  Nothing at all in comparison.  Whoever would call that a lynching is a sick fuck with no understanding of American history whatsoever.

A lynching is a public execution carried out by a mob - these people didn't die.

In the historical context, lynchings were a celebrated occasion for opressors over opressees - for better or worse the Israelis have virtually all of the power over there.

Lynchings were completely overlooked by the government in power - Israel won't over look this.

This is so far from an actual lynching that it disgusts me to see it discribed as one.

It was without a doubt an attempted lynching. The word may carry a lot of weight, but it does have a defined meaning. It's an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, which is what these people were attempting to do.

Also lynching isn't exclusive to America, yes America did have an awful history of lynchings but many lynchings have occured in many other countries.

This doesn't sound like Australia you are describing. Maybe Greece or Italy (countries with tougher attitude towards against immigrants) but not a country like Australia.