BBC: Israeli Troops Fire on Reporters/Peace Demonstrators

Apparantly not true. They had the choice to accept an extremely favorable proposal yet decided to keep fighitng anyway. They can start making claims about we were here first, etc, etc, but then we all know how far back that could go, at which point I could claim that I came from Africa first too and therefore America should take over Africa. Once again, why do the Palestinians keep on fighting when a perfectly favorable proposal was at their fingertips.

 

Theoretically Speaking:

Say Mexico (Israel) was gonna give US (Palestine) 95% of what was theirs...except for LA (Jerusalem).

Decent proposal don't you think?

Say even if Mexico said they would't give you LA, but sure, they'll give you hollywood (East Jerusalem). How bout it?

 

In three days after Sharon entered Masjid ul Aqsa Israel had killed 30 people and wouned 500 without suffering any casualties even though not a single Israel had been shot. This was all due to Palestinians demonstrating against the outrageous slap in their face (and every single Muslim on the planet) by Sharon.

Tree are you on crack? Gush-Shalom is the KKK of Israel? Gush-Shalom is a peace organization that sponsers PEACE not violence. Especially since Gush-Shalom is an Israeli Jewish organization...that statement is ridiculous.




Camp David dialogues

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Camp David was the most important meeting between the Israelis and Palestinians since the 1993 Oslo accords. The crucial questions of refugees and Jerusalem, as well as settlements and land, were debated. But the meeting was always doomed to failure.
by AMNON KAPELIOUK *

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"In this same room, not long before the Camp David invitations were issued, I told Madeleine Albright in the clearest possible terms that such an important meeting was doomed to failure without proper preparation." Speaking in his Ramallah office the day after he got back from the 11-25 July summit, Yasser Arafat was adamant. He thought he had convinced the United States secretary of state of the need to take more time preparing the groundwork. But Albright allowed herself to be persuaded by the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, and advised Clinton to get the parties together quickly.

Barak managed to persuade the US that a meeting behind closed doors between himself and Arafat, with Clinton personally taking part, could make the Palestinian leader agree to a settlement that would meet with Israel's satisfaction and put an end to the century of conflict between Jews and Palestinians. But did he really think he would make a final, lasting peace, with the Palestinians declaring they would put an end to all their claims, after just a week or two of negotiations, when there was still so great a gap between the two sides?

There were conspiracy theory articles in the Israeli press (1): Barak would lay down conditions on Jerusalem, refugees, borders, Jewish settlements, etc. that the Palestinians could not agree to. If, however, Arafat succumbed to the joint Clinton-Barak pressure and accepted the unacceptable, it would be a brilliant victory for Barak. And if not, he would put the blame for the failure on the Palestinians. That would confirm the old, old saying of the Israeli right: "there's no-one to talk to on the Palestinian side".

To show the pressure he had been under, Arafat said that the two weeks of the summit had been harder than the two months of the siege of Beirut and Israeli bombing during the summer of 1982 (2). Still, he could scarcely have turned down Clinton's invitation. After all, he had increased US links with the Palestinian Authority since 1993 and in December 1998 he had even gone to Gaza to make a speech to the Palestinian National Council. And, during his eight years in office, he had invited Arafat 22 times to the White House, far more than any other Arab leader. Clinton was counting on this special relationship to help Barak get his view to prevail.

At the summit Arafat explained several times why he could not accept the proposals put forward. When Clinton insisted, Arafat asked him if he was hoping to take part in his funeral (3). Clinton and Barak had already worked together to soften up another Arab leader, the late President Hafez al-Assad of Syria. But in spite of a Clinton-Assad summit in Geneva in March, it was a complete failure. Just before Camp David President Mubarak of Egypt had warned Arafat about a repeat of this manoeuvre, designed to make the Arabs seem intransigent.


'Take what you're offered'

Like it or not, Arafat had to go to the summit. Yet he knew the results of the side talks in Stockholm between Shlomo Ben Ami, Israeli minister for internal security, and Ahmad Qurai (Abu Ala), head of the Palestinian Legislative Assembly. In spite of 20 sessions, there had been complete stalemate. The Palestinians had invoked international legality, i.e. the United Nations resolutions, as the starting point for any negotiations. They said that once the Israelis took the resolutions on board (particularly 242 calling for withdrawal from territory occupied in the June 1967 war, and 194 on the refugees' right of return), they would find the Palestinians flexible. To which the Israelis responded: "You need far more moderate positions before you can make any progress". Earlier on, the Israeli negotiator had said: "You don't have the power to get what you're asking for, so be realistic and take what you're offered". After this humiliating advice, Ben Ami declared the talks over and said it was time to get the leaders together to make the appropriate historic decisions. When Abu Ala commented that they had not yet made any progress whatever, Ben Ami replied that they were running out of time.

Clinton was, of course, the lead actor on the Camp David stage. He talked of thousands of dollars in aid to try and win over Arafat - while, Barak, who had instigated the gathering, systematically avoided any private conversation with Arafat throughout the summit. Meanwhile, four committees were at work - on refugees, Jerusalem, borders and settlements, and security. This last, which mainly addressed the question of control of the eastern border with Jordan, was the only one to make any headway.

Clinton boasted of his detailed knowledge of the streets of the Old City in Jerusalem. But none of his advisors whispered in his ear that opening a synagogue on the Haram al-Sharif - esplanade of the al-Aqsa mosque which is the third most sacred place in Islam - might be a provocation: as was the suggestion of a horizontal division between Muslims and Jews across the hill it stands on, with the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa above, and the foundations of the Jewish Temple directly beneath them.

The extraordinary proposal of allowing Jews to pray on the Haram al-Sharif - forbidden hitherto by the Grand Rabbis of Jerusalem (4) - came from US security advisor Sandy Berger. Yasser Abed Rabbo, Palestinian minister for culture and information, amazed and angry, warned him that the repercussions from the entire Arab and Muslim world would be "a thousand times worse than the riots that took place after Netanyahu opened the tunnel in the Old City in 1996" (Israeli excavations near the Muslim holy places provoked rioting that left 80 dead and hundreds injured). Berger turned pale and forbade him to mention what he had just proposed. And Arafat declared with some bitterness that he would "refuse to concede any part of the Haram al-Sharif even in exchange for Haifa or Jaffa" (5).

In calling for adherence to Security Council Resolution 242, the Palestinians were demanding sovereignty over all the Arab part of East Jerusalem occupied in 1967, leaving Israel the Jewish Quarter within the Old City and the Western (Wailing) Wall. However, the Israeli proposal was to give the Palestinians sovereignty only over outlying villages and areas, with some form of self-rule over the Muslim and Christian Quarters of the Old City along with other Palestinian sectors outside the walls of the Old City. Israel also proposed handing over 87% of the West Bank and annexing the remainder - taken up mainly by the Jewish settlements.


Getting nowhere fast

The least productive of the committees was the one on refugees - those living reminders of the disaster of 1948 known as the nakba and its raw scars. The Palestinians expect some real gestures from the Israelis - especially since their responsibility for the expulsion of the refugees in 1948-49 has now been proved (6). Despite this, there were just the same old speeches: Israel immediately disclaimed all responsibility and refused to make any sort of apology. "The most we can do", said an Israeli official, "is to express our sorrow for the sufferings of the refugees, the way we would for any accident or natural disaster." According to Israel, those responsible for this tragedy, which has affected a whole people, are "the Arab countries who told the Palestinians to leave their homes while they waited for the liberation of their country by the Arab armies". In the sitting room of Holly chalet, the committee heard the same old propaganda from the 1950s repeated all over again.

As far as Israel is concerned, UN Resolution 194, affirming the refugees' right of return, still means the destruction of the state of Israel. Even so, Israel put forward its "contribution" to the committee towards a solution of the problem: absorbing 5-10,000 refugees over 10 years, or else several thousand in one go.

What about the compensation also expected under Resolution 194? At one session of the committee, the following exchange of views took place:

Yasser Abed Rabbo, for the Palestinians: "We expect to be repaid for the property of the refugees, administered by the Israeli official responsible for abandoned Palestinian property. In 1949 a tripartite committee [British/French/Turkish] estimated the value of this property at £1,124,000,000 sterling [today's value is several hundred billion dollars.- A.K.]. The refugees must start to receive compensation by using those funds."

Elyakim Rubinstein, for the Israelis: "These funds no longer exist. We have used them up. It is up to the international community to create funds for this."

Return of the refugees' property was also categorically refused. What is more, only a part of the international funds would go to the Palestinian refugees. The other part, according to Israel, should go to compensating "Jewish refugees who fled the Arab countries" after 1948. This met with stupefaction and bitterness on the part of the Palestinian team: "Not only did these new immigrants move into the houses whose owners had been thrown out or had fled the massacres, but they want to indemnify them at our expense."

Abed Rabbo: "Why did you not ask Egypt for reparations during the peace talks?"

Rubinstein: "We decided to keep this subject for the talks on the Palestinian refugees."

Abed Rabbo: "I protest. This problem has nothing to do with us. Bring it up with the Moroccan authorities, the Yemenis and so on."

It would be a difficult task, for the Jews who emigrated from the Arab countries did so with strong encouragement and massive aid from Israel. Shlomo Hillel, a former Labour minister and president of the Knesset who himself comes from Iraq, has declared several times that he was by no means a refugee, but a Zionist immigrant (7). A year ago the World Sephardi Federation distributed, in collaboration with the office of the Israeli prime minister, tens of thousands of forms to register the property of Jews left in Arab countries. It was said in the clearest possible terms that the aim of this exercise was not to indemnify the immigrants, but to give the government a card for the talks with the Palestinians.


Who is responsible for the failure?

After the summit ended, a propaganda campaign began with a triple aim: to put the responsibility for the failure on Arafat; prepare international opinion for a new meeting between the three leaders, "this time a decisive one"; and give a false picture of the Palestinian position to put Arafat in difficulty. For instance, Barak said, quite contrary to the facts, that the Palestinians had agreed to associate the question of the "Jewish refugees" to the funds destined to indemnify the Palestinian refugees.

Clinton took part in this campaign. He criticised Arafat at length in a long interview on Israeli television (8) despite solemn promises on the eve of the summit not to put the responsibility for an eventual failure on him. He also threatened Arafat with reprisals if he unilaterally declared an independent Palestinian state, saying if that happened, he would reconsider the whole of their relations, and go even further. And he talked of moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

With the approach of a new "last chance" summit, Israel and the US are clamouring even harder for Arafat to show greater flexibility. Among their arguments is the risk Barak is running on account of the disintegration of his coalition.

These arguments are rejected both by Arafat's office, and by the refugees in the camps and the people of the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinians are pointing out that it was they who made the historic concessions in Oslo by agreeing to build their state on just a fifth of their fatherland. They are also pointing out the great flexibility shown by the Palestinian Authority, even though they are insisting that international legality be respected. They are still saying that the United Nations resolutions must be accepted, and then all the unresolved issues could be debated in a realistic way.

Last, without denying that Barak has internal problems, they are saying that peace could have been concluded if Barak had had the courage on his election in May last year, while the Israeli right was in shock over its electoral defeat.

The Palestinians have run out of patience. The flagrant violations and systematic delays in implementing the Oslo accords over seven years have exasperated them. Their officials now say that any new agreement will have to be accompanied by iron-clad assurances and guarantees on the part of the international authorities. Any violations should be taken before them, or even the Security Council.




here

 

okay...

I'll add in the last 50 years.

 

Not even close.

Every civilians death was grieved over during Desert Storm. Our military knew that civilian deaths would kill popular support for the war.

We don't cheer the deaths of innocents, unlike some others.

 

Sorry, but no. That's not our fault, that's Saddam's fault and all of those who keep him in power.

If you believe that Saddam is trying to build weapons of mass destruction, which most believe that he is, then what's your alternative? We can 1) embargo 2) invade. Which is better? Saddam and his buddies want a PR win at the expense of Iraqi children. That's THEIR decision.

What would you have the rest of the world do with countries that threaten world peace? Ignore them? Attack them? What's your option?

 

The only real way to stop the suicide bombings...and it is an ADHORENT way is to tell the Palastinians any family that has a suicide bomber will be killed.

That is the only way it would make them stop, the old Mafia, kill the family tactic, and since it would NEVER happen, there is no way to stop the suicide bombings outside of erecting a HUGE Berlin style wall.

I mean, how do you stop a people who don't care if they die? The leaders certainly care about it or they would be the ones doing the bombing.

Arafat must go, but I think Sharon must go too.

DaDakota

PS...I want to reiterate that I DON'T condone the killing of families, I was just trying to show that there is no real solution to making the suicide bombings stop.

 

Jeff,

I wasn't arguing against all of ROckets03 points, just the little one were he seems to be able to accept, or at least 'understand' suicide bombers.

That is what I find unaaceptable. There are no excuses. Intentionally murdering innocents is no longer acceptable in this world. The unintentional deaths of innocents is only acceptable under dire circumstances, and I believe that will also become absolutely unacceptable over time.

We cannot allow things to be 'reasoned away'. 'Well, the Palestinians have no alternative' won't cut it with me, just like 'its war, those Palestinians should not have let their children go outside' won't cut it with me either.

 

The only way to stop suicide bombers is for the Palestinian leadership and people to rally against it; to brand the bombers pariahs instead of martyrs.

Those kids feel they have no hope, no future. Give them a country and freedom and we'll see what happens to the bombers.

Arafat and Sharon must both GO AWAY. Their people suffer because of them. And again, the Israelis NEVER EVER should have elected Sharon.

 

Interesting Cohen,

So you think that it would take the air out of the radicals sails if the people had their own country.

I would hope you are right, but why then do the Israelis deal with the Palistinian leaders who clearly don't want peace? Why not just appeal directly to the people and let them know what is being offered?

DaDakota

 

Cohen,

The representative of Hamas made it quite clear that the bombings will NOT stop if the Palestinians are given their own country and freedom. They will settle for nothing less then the total destruction of Israel.

This is rediculous. When you are getting something that you don't have that is not making concessions. The Israelis are negotiating from a position of strength. Since (most of us) have agreed that neither side is right, the next step should be to look at who has the position of power. If nothing else can guide us, maybe might should make right. They know that if it comes down to a war between the two sides, the Palestinians will lose. They also know who has the more powerful ally if they want to drag other countries into it. I would suggest that the Palestinians take whatever they are offered because pretty soon they will be offered nothing. At that point they are SOL.

 

the hundreds of thousands of palestinians who legally own lands that israel now occupies would beg to differ..

the palestinians should not just take whatever scraps of land are thrown at them.. they have a right to the land that they have lived in, and should not be forced out no matter what..

 

Yea, I'm really no good at analogys. But you at least understood what I was saying.

 

Cohen, first I agree with you that the Palestinians will be more moderate once they have their own country. This is a necessary first step to eliminate the suicide bombers-- assuming Israel does not do genocide on the Palestinians, expell them all to other countries as many want to do or does not do something extreme like kill all the family members of the bombers etc..

Then, the community must make it clear that this is abslolutely not approved of. Those Hamas or whoever that still want to attack Israel must be condemned by all Arabs-- I'm sure they will be condemned by virtually all of the rest of the world. This would be quite a change from the status quo where Israel is condemned by the whole world except for the US and perhaps a client state or two of ours.

YOu also said about the suicide bombers and similar acts: We cannot allow things to be 'reasoned away'. 'Well, the Palestinians have no alternative' won't cut it with me, just like 'its war,

I can go with this language if you would agree that the Israelis must stop their brutal occupation. We cannot allow this to be reasoned away. Well the Israelis have no alternative won't cut it either or claims that they need the land for defense or that they must keep it till the last suicide bomber was a year ago or whatever.

We must accept that the Israelis either intentionally kill innocent Palestinians or continually pursue actions that have been shown again and again to result in innocent deaths. We must accept that the individual acts such as suicide bombers and the official acts of the Israelis that lead to innocent death repeatedly are basically the moral equivalents or if not the difference is splitting hairs. Both sides must be stopped.

Are you still opposed to UN peace keepers?

 

A Good Article by a Rabbi and a Harvard Professor

Published on Tuesday, April 2, 2002 in the Philadelphia Inquirer
Violence and Excuses in the Mideast
by Rabbi Michael Lerner and Cornel West

Many are calling for the Bush administration to intervene in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. And such intervention could help. Yet the Bush administration is making no effort to conceal that its heart lies elsewhere: in creating a coalition in the Islamic world that will support forthcoming U.S. attempts to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Though little evidence links Saddam to Osama bin Ladin or al-Qaeda, the White House has used the cover of outrage at terror to legitimate a new war in Iraq that will complete what the last Bush administration left unresolved.
All the more reason to ask the United States to move beyond its narrow concerns with overthrowing Saddam and instead show the Israeli people that they have no alternative but to end the occupation. The real pro-Israel forces are those willing to push Israel to change its policies.

Bush and the Saudis would like to set up negotiations, restoring the image of calm while the United States pursues its Iraq adventure, meanwhile allowing Bush to weigh in on the side of peace and rational discourse. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will appear to be making a major concession to his Labor party allies by sitting in negotiations. Meanwhile, he will block any concessions that weaken Israel's hold over a substantial part of the West Bank. And Bush can then have his war.

This strategy faces some severe limitations. Yasir Arafat is not going to be able to quiet outrage among millions of Palestinians at the latest round of carnage. No matter what he agrees to, it's unlikely he can stop acts of revenge against Israelis. And many Palestinians will see the next round of talk as just another smoke screen to prolong the occupation.

Israel has become increasingly polarized, between a large group (now close to 46 percent) who favor ethnic cleansing of Palestinians (the polite word being used is transfer) and a growing minority (now close to 25 percent) who sympathize with the Israeli Defense Force Reservists refusing to serve in the West Bank and Gaza. The peace forces have been betrayed by a Labor Party that remains part of Sharon's government, so Israelis who seek to restore the moral coherence and spiritual health of the Jewish people are increasingly turning to civil disobedience and direct action.

Many Americans have been intimidated into silence by the forces of Jewish-establishment political correctness. They fear they will be labeled either anti-Semitic Christians or self-hating Jews should they say aloud what they feel privately: that Israel is behaving immorally and at times even savagely.

Yet unless Jews and morally principled Christians speak these truths, it will be anti-Semites and other haters who will eventually challenge Jewish p.c. and in a very destructive way. Future generations of Jews may unfairly suffer for the silence of this generation.

We identify with those in the Jewish world who will not allow Israel to become a modern-day Pharoah to the Palestinian people. Americans of many faiths are determined to stand with them and with Jewish liberals and progressives who continue to tell the story of liberation and continue to believe in the possibility of peace and justice. Tens of thousands of Jews raised these issues at their seders this year - turning the dinner table into mini teach-ins on Israel's current behavior. Two fundamental truths underlie our vision: that Palestinian and Israeli lives are equally precious and that the violence of both sides must stop.

Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine. Cornel West is a professor at Harvard University and author of "Race Matters."

 

Of course they disagree, that is their problem. Just like the historical claims, both nations have reasonable contemporary claims on the land. The Palestinians were living there prior to the war in 1967. The Israelis took the land as spoils of a war that was not started by them. Here's the rub. The Israelis have one claim that the Palestinians cannot match, and that is possesion, or squatter's rights. Unless the Palestinians can evict the Israelis (the subject of my previous post) they will only get what they are given. As such I stand by my original statement.

 

How about Cambodia?