Jeff, the Palestinians have never ruled the area, while the Jews have. The last imperial power to rule the Middle East was the UK. After WW2, the British holdings were split up, and the vast majority of the land went to the Arabs. I could not disagree with you more. If Israel wanted to eliminate the Palestinians, they would be gone tomorrow. The truth is that Israel <i>does</i> want to share. There are many Palestinian Jews who are now citizens of Israel. There are Palestinian member of the Knesset who were fairly elected by those citizens. Thousands of Palestinians participate in the Israeli economy as they commute into Israel every morning. On the other side, Israelis who even get close to Palestinians controlled areas are immediately fired upon. Come on! This has nothing to do with oil. We had them both at the table, and Arafat walked away. Israel wants peace, but they desire a buffer zone to protect them from future Palestinian attacks. Given the history of the conflict, is that too much to ask? <b>Treeman</b>, how on Earth can you justify comparing Sharon to Arafat? Sharon is not a madman, or we would see much more extreme measures from the IDF. When the Palestinians send a suicide bomber into a Pizza Parlor, the IDF blows up empty building. It looks to me like the Israelis are showing great restraint.
In no way do I for instance think the NYC atrcocity was caused by our support of Israel. Nor do I think our blind support of Israel justifies the terror. Our response to this crisis needs to be multi-dimensional, part military, part diplomatic and part economic. The reason why I am focusing on our uncritical "over" support for Israel is because it is also the easiest diplomatic/economic initiatives to achieve in terms of it not costing us in terms of economics and human lives. It is a key step in convincing all Arabs that we do not hate them. It is perhaps the single most important step to "winning hearts and minds" of the Arabs that anyone other than the "bomb them into the stone age" crowd knows is ultimately necessary. I am not underestimating the difficulty of doing this. As a liberal I have always had many Jewish friends, who I agree with on other issues. To put it mildly, they are not going to want to hear this. However, this crisis has convinced me it is time for us outsiders to enter the fray as I really think that only we can break the "death grip". The partcipants can't do alone.
Which explains why some of those b*stard hijackers were getting lap dances in a South Florida titty bar the weekend before their mass murder. I don't care what the reason these sick fvcks and those who supported them had for this cowardly act of murdering unarmed men, women, and children. To do so gives a shred of legitimacy to their 'cause'. Anyone in this country who thinks that the US got what it deserved needs to STFU. As for Israel versus Palestine, I think the US should step aside and let Israel light those bastards up. There is no reason that Israel should be punished because it responds to terrorism as it does.
Just To Get The Financial Facts Correct Over the Last 37 Years Financial Aid from the US ISRAEL GOT THE MOST $26.5 Billion Dollars Saudi Arabia Got $371 Million Egypt Got $14 Billion That Also Doesn't Take into Consideration that the Population of Israel (Jews) is less than 10 of Egypts Population. Thats a very few number of people getting a lot of money for harboring an Apartheid state in which your rights are different based simply on your race. Don't Fool Yourselves.....without Israel, there is no Arab/Muslim-US conflict. No one is going to bomb the US because its strong or because its free. Its because of its unwavering financial and military support of Isreal that is allowing a small population to control a larger one and constantly push people out of their homes for immigrant jews. Muslims see this and it angers them all over the world. We need to stop confusing the issue.
No one is innocent here. But try to keep focusing on the fact that while Israel retaliates, Palestinians initiate actions by blowing up school buses, discos, schools...places where civilians and, in particular, children congregate. Perhaps the actual targeting of civilians doesn't deserve distinction for some of you, but it damn sure does to me. Civilians aren't collateral damage to those folks...they're intended targets. There is a gulf of difference. Last time I checked, Arabs control 99.6% of the Mid East. The notion that they're the victims of some horrible injustice because they can't control that small remaining percentage falls deaf.
Israel has: 1. Deprived Palestinians of the right to vote and taxed them. We rebelled over the same treatment. 2. Neglected to supply Palestinians with sufficient water while Israelis broke treaties to consume the most water in the Middle East. 3. Allowed Palestinians access to less than half the per capita energy use of Israeli citizens 4. Prohibited Palestinians from entering into the vast majority of jobs. To get most government jobs (huge % of the job market), you need military service in Israel. Palestinians are banned from service. Even Arab-Israeli citizens are. Yet Orthodox Jews decline to fight for religious reasons, and are given an exemption. This is wrong. 5. Education is completely underfunded in Palestine relative to Israeli children. 6. Development projects are non-existant for Palestinians compared to Israelis. To support a country that commits these actions is wrong. The Israeli government is racist, descrimnatory on the basis of religion, and fascist in denying the right to vote to nearly half the people in its jurisdiction. I don't care if they have been good allies. That's not worth the ethical price of collusion. I don't hate Israel. Israel is much better than many states: they do treat Israelis well, they're a democracy in some respects, and they've been loyal. But they treated Palestinians, even before the violence, worse than the US treated African-Americans following the Civil War but before the civil rights era. At least African-Americans technically had the right to vote and were citizens. how can we tolerate this?
....and Palestine has repeatedly decided that Israeli civilians were optimal targets for death. You don't reward terrorism.
And when we start killing Taliban Afghanis and Al Queda muslims, the Palestinians are going to explode. Arafat knows this and he is scared sh*tless. Treeman If you feel this is true why are you do you support that policy? What if we miscalculate and Pakistan and Iraq, which some want to invade also blows up. So we wind up with raging civil wars and chaos in Afhanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Palestine at least. Just to get Bin Laden in the next month or two. Would you acknowelge that past US miscalculations have led to the creation of Bin Laden, the taliban, the ayatholah khomeini, and don't forget our ex agent Anastacio Somoza, who is still being held incommunicado in a US jail. Maximal diplomatic and economic maueuvering, minimal violence is the safest way to go.
treeman: the name is Asher "But to just flat out say you don't want peace in an election"-actualy his election slogan was-"a peace that will keep us safe-sharon" sounds batter in hebrew. so he did not say that he will kill the process, he couldn't kill it because when he was elected it was already dead. F.D. Khan: "Its because of its unwavering financial and military support of Isreal that is allowing a small population to control a larger one and constantly push people out of their homes for immigrant jews. Muslims see this and it angers them all over the world. We need to stop confusing the issue" Israel pooulation is 6 millions 1 millions of them are not jews and are israeli arabs in the west-bank and gaza we dont know how many are there-the largest estimation I heard was 3 million and not all of those are muslims.... "1. Deprived Palestinians of the right to vote and taxed them. We rebelled over the same treatment " palastinians never had the right to vote there wasn't a naiton called palastin before Israel was created and they were jordanian citizens. "2. Neglected to supply Palestinians with sufficient water while Israelis broke treaties to consume the most water in the Middle East. " The most water in the middle East you must be kidding me-Israel is considering buying water from turkey or sweeting sea water if we were comsuming so much water how come we are those that need to buy water. "3. Allowed Palestinians access to less than half the per capita energy use of Israeli citizens " Does the us give mexico energy why should israel give it's power away,and btw do you think you will find a israeli worker that will be willing to go to ramalla to connect and repair stuff and risked being thrown away from a windoew after being beaten to death? 4. "Prohibited Palestinians from entering into the vast majority of jobs. To get most government jobs (huge % of the job market), you need military service in Israel. Palestinians are banned from service. Even Arab-Israeli citizens are. Yet Orthodox Jews decline to fight for religious reasons, and are given an exemption. This is wrong. " not all israeli arabs are banned from service drooz bedoins and more are not banned, others are banned because off security resones which i am sure you will understand. you ignore the fact that israeli-arabs recive social security and other funds from the state. 5." Education is completely underfunded in Palestine relative to Israeli children. "-Israel funds it's own eduacaitonal system the pa educates it's children in hamas and islamic jihad camps ot in pa schools with books filled with hatered to the jewish pepole and the state of israel. "6. Development projects are non-existant for Palestinians compared to Israelis."-Arafat was given money dirctly from the e.u. for projects only he knows where did that money go. the pa is a organisation filled with bribe from top to bottem. You want to palastinians to have a state of theyre own but still wants israel to take care of all the economical issues? I do belive that you do not hate Israel, and that you care for arab man women and child in the middle east, so i think you should focus your attention to states like syria-where assad Jr. is controling with his fellow allawe factions millons of citizens with terror (for exemple the masscer his father did to drooz when he killed 10000's of them), states like iraq and so many more In the reigon these nations are those responsibal for a lot more suffer than israel is and it's there intrest to keep the israeli-palastinian conflict alive because it takes the attension from theyre horrible acts. btw sorry about all of the spelling mistakes-I am a product of the overly budgetd israeli educational system, and was considered a good english student+ I hate to use spellers-so I realy hope you will understand what I wanted to say.
Wow Jeff, just a day ago I was reading one of your posts thinking that I could not remember the last time I disagreed with you. Sorry that realization only lasted a day. Although I have read a fair amount on this issue over the years, I had yet to see someone say that Israel desires the destruction of Palestine. Financial might had little to do with the battle success after the birth of Palestine. It was more closely tied to organization and coordination. The only Arab force that fought successfully against the early Israeli forces were British-trained. 'Cannot and will not share' is not accurate either. Droves of Jews relocated to the area starting in the late 19th century due to persecution in Europe and especially Russia. After WWII and news of the holocaust spread, many more came. The UN partitioned the land, and the Arabs immeditely attacked. Jews responded by defending themselves, and taking even more land than their partition. Etc. etc. The US aid helps by protecting the only democracy in the area, because 1 in 50 Americans (Jews) strongly support it, because they are an ally, because of the holocaust, etc. Last I heard, there wasn't much oil in Israel or Palestine. I think both side want peace. The Israelis want it with no terrorist attacks, and the Palestinians want it with no Israel.
Jeff, Interesting reading from 'Christian Action for Israel' (I never heard of them before). http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/un/breach.html Excerpt: As the British Mandate ended on 14 May 1948, seven Arab armies illegally attacked the nascent Jewish state. UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie termed this act "the first armed aggression which the world had seen since the end of the [Second World] War." The Arab League actually included rejection of resolution 181 as a formal justification for its invasion, the first blatant breach of the UN Charter. Arab League Secretary-General Azzam Pasha vowed: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades." And in the words of the foremost Palestinian leader at the time, Haj Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem: " I declare a holy war, my Muslim brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all! " SOURCES: UN Records; Israel Foreign Ministry; The Birth of Israel, by Jorge Garcia-Granados; Myths and Facts, by Bard and Himelfarb. NOTE: This failed to mention the massacre of 200 Palestinian villagers in April '48.
Zionists in the 30's and 40's that went on to become the Leaders of Isreal to this day were some of the original terrorists, with many of them such as Yitzhak Rabin on Interpol and wanted for terrorist crimes. Its Ironic how terrorism helped in the Establishment of the state of Israel, and now the Palestinians are reverting to those tactics to create their own state and/or discontinue US support for Israel.
I have seen a lot of posts about our unquestioning support of Israel. Why do you think that Israel has made the concessions that they have? The United States should be the best friend of the Palestinian people. Without us holding Israel in check, there probably would not be any Palestinians living within whatever Israel decided to claim as its borders.
Interesting fact: in the last year alone, approximately 150 Israeli's have been killed in combat, while over 600 Palestinians have been killed. You do the math.... Rock throwing Palestinians are frequently met with machine guns and hand grenades, mowing down dozens. Muslims are forced to wear distinctive clothing to show that they are Muslim and are frequently subjected to security checks whereas the Jews can proceed with no checkpoints. Muslims are NOT allowed into "occupied" territories, and sometimes are denied access to work simply because the checkpoints deny them to do so that day. Burger King once opened a shop in an occupied territory, and immediately closed it because it was met with much disapproval from the rest of the world. Basically, it is like 50 times worse than apartheid in South Africa. The Israeli's are acting like Nazi's over there, and it's time that the world frees the Palestinians from this blatant racism... The Palestinians' frustration continues to grow as they are forced out of their homes, and have to live in poverty. This has led to more frequent attacks in the occupied territories. All they really want is freedom and to be treated as equals. The WTC bombings had little or nothing to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict. It has just brought more attention to it, and the US must work with the UN to get it solved, indepedent of the pending WTC bombing investigation. They are two separate issues, and each should be handled accordingly.
Spend a day in the shoes of an impoverished Palestinian, subjected to constant oppression and racism and I don't think that you would repeat this statement. Pretend that you are a Palestinian who has been forced out of your home and into a crowded, dirty refugee camp in Jordan or Syria. Quite a hopeless situation. Granted the U.S. has helped Palestinians, but it has given Israel a whopping $26 billion as FD Khan has pointed out.
Where's the parallel? Terrorism of the Jews by Nazi Germany established the State of Israel. So how exactly does terrorism of Israelis by Palestinians get Palestinians more land. The U.N. offered a state of Palestine at the time Israel was being made. That proposal gave Palestine over half of Jerusalem. Palestine declined for whatever reasons, then before Israel was officially a country, several surrounding countries attacked, but Israel defeated them. As stated before, Barak offered 96% of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The other 4% were small scattered settlements. Arafat declined because he wanted 100%. Out with Barak, in with Sharon, and now Arafat really wants that 96% offer back.
How Gracious of Israel to Offer to Give Back the West Bank and Gaza strip seeing how they were taken during the 1967 War. What is being questioned is the logic that some other nation can come in and tell people to get out of their homes because this land is now Israel. This "diaspora" of Palestinians has caused resentment. And lets get the Facts straight, Israel has never defeated anyone, when they have US Funds, US Technology and US Weapons...then the US defeated the Arab Nations. The Point about terrorism was not to justify it by any means, Terrorism is wrong. Suicide by a Muslim means he goes straight to Hell, and I feel the bombers will. It is against Islam to kill innocent people in this manner. All I was trying to state was that Rabin, Begin and others committed acts of terrorism as noted by Interpol in the 1930's and 1940's to push support for a State of Israel. Then the Holocaust is what finally pushed the UN to create the State. I just think one wrong does not constitute the need for another wrong. It just sickens me thinking of what Jews had to go through in pre WWII Germany: wearing markings, thrown out of their homes, possessions taken from them, required to have papers, being thrown in refugee camps, and abused simply because of their religion. Oh wait...that is Palestine today........its a sad day when the Jews, who were the recipient of one of the worst crimes in history have learned nothing from it....
Generally, the side that wins a war receives something for winning the war. See Civil War, United States. Notice that United States no longer has legalized slavery. And considering Israel didn't start the war, getting the Gaza Strip and West Bank was merely a biproduct of Israel defending itself.
Well the side that won the war was the US, i'm sure Military Aid plus $26 billion in CASH can defeat another army of guys with outdated military equipment and a whole bunch of scrubs. My point is that Israel is only around because the US supports it. No other reason. If the US dropped its funding and its immense support, Israel would collapse. The amount comes out to approximately $15,000 of aid from the US to every Jewish individual within Israel. Thats a lot of money per capita. MUST BE NICE that my tax dollars are going there.....
