Ever heard of "logic?" My argument is that repressive control of the occupied territories formed the basis for resentment. If you wish to dispute this, do so. But don't use an argument that I've previously indicted to support your claims. My claim: Palestinians are rebellions because they were mistreated. Your claim: Look at how bad they're acting now! See how awful they are. You're terrible at this. How is that relevant? I've posted elsewhere that Israel treats its own citizens very well. But that's like saying that because the US had comparatively great human rights in the 50's, that the Black Codes were perfectly ok. No logic, again. I think it wuld be amusing if you read some European editorials on the issue. Most of them we're living in a Zionist dream world. Yes, Europeans... not Arabs. Our supposed allies. Incidentally, whether you like Said or not, his analysis of Barak's offer is dead-on. Rever to my first response. Once again, you use indicted arguments to prove your point. Begging the question again. This will be my last response, as you've failed to bring up a single good argument or response. I'll agree that some of these issues can be ambiguous... but why don't you leave your cause to treeman next time, since he actually has an IQ above 70?
Wrong. The Palestinians started rebelling and attacking Jews before 1948. The Palestinians have vowed to destroy Israel since day 1. People like you have been duped by Palestinians lies. The are rebellious because they refuse to allow a Jewish state in their "holy" land. They are "mistreated" because they kill Jewish children. Your "logic" is based on the lies of people like Said. The rest of your post does not deserve a response.
Simply put: Israelis are just as much terrorists as the palestinians. The so called "retaliation" is nothing but bullsh*t and they just need reasons to kill more palestinians. obviously if the palestinian does something, they are also be called terrorists. I say stop the aid to Israel and let them have it one on one. This is why the Palestinians hate us.
I don't want to argue all this again, but I will say this: The last thing Arabs want is for us to do that. Without us to stop/influence them, Israel would nuke them all, and Palestine would be no more. Both sides know this.
Yes, simply put. btw, if we allow the Palestinians and Israelis to "have it one on one", then thousands of Palestinians will be dead and the PA will be defeated in one day. The truth is that it is the U.S. that has held back the Israelis from defending themselves properly, and therefore more violence has resulted.
You know probably the most annoying and infuriating thing about this whole situation is the lack of accountability on behalf of Arab nations for starting this entire conflict in the first place. They are the ones who have repeatedly attacked Israel and have tried to destroy it. They point out all of these UN resolutions that are shot down by the US when they are in fact the people who violated the very first UN resolution regarding the creation of Israel and a Palestinian state. Israel with US help stands alone against 1 billion Muslims, many of which if past attitudes and actions are any indication are bent on wiping Israel off the face of the Earth. They cry about being occupied and mistreated without any admission of culpability or even recognition as to WHY they're occupied in the first place. If Israel were really about taking Arab lands, there is no country in the region that could stop them from taking over or destroying just about every country in the Middle East. Israel is clearly about protecting itself and it's right to exist and they're not just going to pack up and leave Palestine to wait for the next attempted Arab invasion of their land. Get a clue already.
haven: I'm willing to bet that cmrockfan has an IQ above 70. His arguments are sound, and pretty much what I would have said. Frustrating, isn't it?
Haven's problem is that his argument is solely based on lies and disinformation. He then want to apply his blustery academic logic to justify propaganda. I thought part of getting an expensive education was studying facts.
The Problem is very much on both sides. Arafat has for years had to try to balance the worldly views on Palestine as well as the increasing fundamentalist muslim views in Palestine that is fueled by the economic, social and political depravity, especially in Occupied Territories like the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The violence is circular in that both sides constantly blame another action or death for current actions. Israel responds to an attack by Palestinians who responded to an attack by Israelis. When you have an Apartheid state such as Israel, this will cause violence. Housing developments have increased dramatically since Sharon took power, fueling added frustration for people who resort to suicide attacks (which I am adamantly against) to fight an oppressive occupier. And all this talk about if we leave them alone, Israel will wipe out Palestine and the middle east is quite funny, seeing how their economy would be in shambles and they would not have any of these weapons if not for US support in the first place. Treeman, you talk about hatred in the Arab world against the United States very much, yet do you not think the U.S's unwavering support of Israel is not compounding that hatred? I truly believe if you gave the Palestinians a true free state, they would have taken it, yet the offer that Barak had given was a joke. It was a few small patches that could not connect to each other without passing through Israeli "Checkpoints". Give them a free state and stop building settlements in the occupied territories by destroying peoples homes and peace might come about. And Arafat and others must try to stop the extremist groups within Palestine from attacking innocent civilians. I truly don't believe Sharon wants any sort of agreement though. He has always been a true hard-liner and in his arrogance has called Palestinians animals on many occasions and talked about wiping them out and that eventually they will all just leave. He is right that most have left and i'm sure Israel's policy won't change till every Palestinian is either dead or gone in a "diaspora" from Palestine. You would think that Israel and the Jewish people would be sympathetic to a group of people in the Holy Lands, that are being occupied, ravaged and a destruction of their culture. They must have papers at all times and are not allowed to work in most areas, cannot vote, and they simply seize their houses and lands if they see fit. It would be easier if they simply put some identification on their clothes, like a Yellow Star of David...oh I mean an Arabic Symbol. To better identify them for their own safety and for that of Israel, after all, Sharon does call them rats and animals, much like the Nazi's called the Jews. (Note the Sarcasm Please) I really find it difficult to comprehend how the Jews, who went through so much simply because of their race and religion would implement policies towards another in this same fashion. I often look at it like an alcoholic family. When the father is an alcoholic, the child sees this and hates it, but becomes one himself. A very sad situation indeed.
I'm not really in the know on this, although I am Jewish by birth (not really by practice), but I dont know if that has any bearing on the situation. Anyway, I was under the assumption they were offered their own state a long time ago. Just curious as to whether or not that is true. Additionally, even if Barak's "deal" was crappy, wouldnt it make more sense to take it, act peacefully for a few years, and then ask for more leeway. At least that way, if things still dont work out, you could always just resort to the idiotic Bar Mitzvah shootings and the like that they do anyway. Out of curiousity, if we can call the Barak deal at least some move to relinquish some power, what strives have the Palestinians made to meet the Israelis in the middle? I mean, what were the best offers on the table by either party during the last 10 years and what kept them from moving forward?
Mr. Khan, with all due respect, your solution is not workable. You would have the Israelis put themselves in a militarily disadvantaged position by giving up the high ground and any important "buffer" zone that separates civilians and terrorists. This is exactly what the extremists on the Arab side desire. Please correct me if I am wrong. The Israelis should not give the Palestinians anything until peace exists for at least two years in my opinion. When the Palestinians have proven that they want peace, then the talks should resume. For now, Arafat should be forced out, and the IDF should move back into the occupied territories until further notice. The Israeli children have a right to grow up without suicide bombers visiting their school and social events. The Palestinian children suffer because of the actions of their parents.
CMRockFan, From the Palestinians that I have spoken to, if they had their own state, in which they could actually have rights, then they would not be fighting for anything. The suicide bombers would stop. A strong percentage of Palestinians are willing to recognize Israel if they recieve an actual state of their own, not a puppet state to Israel. And violence begets violence as we have seen, the Israeli's are just as guilty of crimes against the Palestinians as the Palestinians are against Israeli's. To attack a Bat Mitzvah is a deplorable act and I think the perpetrators of this attack should be hunted down. But Palestinians are killed daily and thrown out of their houses, yet because it is a country committing these oppressive acts and not a "religious" group, is it not terrorism?? Thousands of palestinians' homes have been demolished in the few weeks of this year, and the thought of what happens to these people is of little concern. Imagine going home one day to see your entire subdivision destroyed, you family in jail, many are dead, you have no rights, because of your religion you cannot get a job, the water is cut off to be sent to a better part of town, you cannot travel most times in the day and must constantly have your "papers". Your ancestoral home has been demolished with all your possessions in it and you are living in a Refugee tent, while you watch your children starve and get sick because of living/hygenic conditions and feel the cold of winter with only a tent to keep you warm. Where your home was they are building settlements to bring more Jews to live there. These jews from Russia, America and all over the world recieve the right to vote, to travel freely, to get jobs and government subsidezed housing on your land. You are cold, sick, frustrated, and depressed to see your children and wife in the same fashion. You are approached by extremists that tell you "Martyr yourself for God and your family will be taken care of and you will recieve gifts in the afterlife, this life is but a spec of dust when compared to the eternity of heaven" This line of B.S. will work when a man has lost all hope.
The British had promised the Jewish Zionists that they could establish a "national home" in a portion of what remained of the area, which was known as the Palestine Mandate. But in 1921 the British separated 80 percent of the Mandate, east of the Jordan, and created the Arab kingdom of "Transjordan." It was created for the Arabian monarch King Abdullah, who had been defeated in tribal warfare in the Arabian Peninsula and lacked a seat of power. Abudllah's tribe was Hashemite, while the vast majority of Abdullah's subjects were Palestinian Arabs. What was left of the original Palestine Mandate - between the west bank of the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea - had been settled by Arabs and Jews. Jews, in fact, had lived in the area continuously for 3,700 years, even after the Romans destroyed their state in Judea in CE 70. In all the time since, they had made no attempt to create an independent Palestinian state west or east of the Jordan and none was ever established. In 1948, at the request of the Jews who were living in Palestine, the United Nations voted to partition the remaining quarter of the original Mandate to make a Jewish homeland possible. Under the partition plan, the Arabs were given the Jews' ancient home in Judea and Samaria - now known as the West Bank. The Jews were allotted three slivers of disconnected land along the Mediterranean and the Sinai desert. They were also given access to their holy city of Jerusalem, but as an island cut off from the slivers, surrounded by Arab land and under international control. Sixty percent of the land allotted to the Jews was the Negev desert. Out of these unpromising parts, the Jews created a new state, Israel, in 1948. At this time, the idea of a Palestinian nation, or a movement to create one did not even exist. At the moment of Israel's birth, Palestinian Arabs lived on roughly 90 percent of the original Palestine Mandate - in Transjordan and in the UN partition area, but also in the new state of Israel itself. There were 800,000 Arabs living in Israel alongside 1.2 million Jews. At the same time, Jews were legally barred from settling in the 35,000 square miles of Palestinian Transjordan, which eventually was renamed simply "Jordan." The Arab population in the slivers called Israel had actually more than tripled since the Zionists first began settling the region in significant numbers in the 1880s.The reason for this increase was that the Jewish settlers had brought industrial and agricultural development with them, which attracted Arab immigrants to what had previously been a sparsely settled and economically destitute area. If the Palestinian Arabs had been willing to accept this arrangement in which they received 90 percent of the land in the Palestine Mandate, and under which they benefited from the industry, enterprise and political democracy the Jews brought to the region, there would have been no Middle East conflict. But this was not to be. Instead, the Arab League - representing five neighboring Arab states - declared war on Israel on the day of its creation, and five Arab armies invaded the slivers with the aim of destroying the infant Jewish state. During the fighting, according to the UN mediator on the scene, an estimated 472,000 Arabs fled their homes to escape the dangers. They planned on returning after an Arab victory and the destruction of the Jewish state. But the Jews -- many of them recent Holocaust survivors -- refused to be defeated. Instead, the five Arab armies that had invaded their slivers were repelled. Yet there was no peace. Even though their armies were beaten, the Arab states were determined to carry on their campaign of destruction, and to remain formally at war with the Israeli state. After the defeat of the Arab armies , the Palestinians who lived in the Arab area of the UN partition did not attempt to create a state of their own. Instead, in 1950, Jordan annexed the entire West Bank. If the jews accepted separate slivers of land for their country, why can't palestinians?
JayZ: Honest question! It seems we have too few of those in these debates . I've wondered that myself, but I do think there's are two good answers. The Palestinian leadership believes that if they had taken Barak's deal, then that would have been it. No more negotiations, they're shunted off with a poor deal. The only way Israel caves to Palestinian demands is by international pressure. If a deal were reached, then that pressure would completely abate for decades, if not forever. At the time the deal was rejected, popular support worldwide was swinging towards Palestine. Europe was, and is still pretty much, completely behind their cause. It wasn't a *big* issue to them... but most Europeans thought Israel was very much in the wrong. Witness the conference on racism that censured Israel... 9/11, sadly, really hurt the Palestinian cause. I think it's ironic that it actually proved detrimental to one of the terrorists cause... The second reason is simple... Arafat thought that if he accepted Barak's deal, then he'd lose all credibility with his own people. Thta seems to have happened anyway, however, so perhaps that turned out to be a non-issue.
