Who doesn't want a Palestinian state? Palestinian leaders, that's who
 

Pal leaders are actively protesting the first steps in the creation of a state, basically saying that there'll be extra violence if it isn't on their terms. From today's NY Times:

---
The Palestinian Authority reacted with concern today to reports that the Bush administration might call for creating an interim Palestinian state while leaving uncertain its final borders and the timetable for determining them.

Officials in Washington have said that President Bush intends to announce a proposal for Palestinian statehood in an effort to give hope to the Palestinian people and encourage them to lay down arms.

While the precise details of a Bush proposal are now yet known, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians' chief negotiator, warned that such a step might only increase Palestinian frustration if it was not accompanied by a specific timeline for working out the final details for a state in the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip, the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.

"If we deviate from this to go to the psychology of thinking that the Palestinian problems and the frustration is because they want to change the name from a Palestinian Authority to a Palestinian state, I'm afraid that this will backfire," Mr. Erekat said.

He said that if Palestinians found, the day after such a state was declared, that Israeli forces still controlled checkpoints between Palestinian cities, "I'm afraid that you're gong to have a bigger explosion than you're having now."
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tw, Bush still the evil one preventing peace?

Jag, Palestinians still have no other tools than terror?

What a bunch of BS. These so-called "leaders" are a bunch of ignorant wing nuts. They are ripping holes in the diplomatic process.

Opposing opinions welcomed.

UT, no disrespect meant, but:

--1) You only put in part of the story.
--2) You didn't provide a link to the story (free registration might be required to view).

I found Muhammad Dahlan's comments interesting. Also those of Yasir Abed Rabbo:

"'As far as we are concerned the issue is not the declaration of a state,' he was quoted as saying. 'Our top priority is bringing about an end to the occupation.'"

Well OK, but I can only think of two ways to bring an end to the occupation. One is to create a Palestinian state. The other is favored by 51% of Palestinians in a survey taken a few weeks ago: destroy Israel.

The Arabic nations have already put in their two cents on relocating them to some other part of Arabia... they won't agree to that. They would prefer plan B.

Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.

Breaking News: Israel agrees to the creation of a Palestinian State ... on the condition that Israel be allowed to occupy it.

I wonder if all this fighting between the Israelis and Palestinians is:

a) Turning people towards Christianity
b) Turning people into atheists

It's a political conflict ... not a religious one.

c) None of the above.

Maybe that's your opinion...

I thought opinions were what you were looking for.

All my posts reflect my opinions.

The manner in which it was written read as fact to me. My apologies if I misunderstood your post.

In my opinion it is a fact. ;)

That's not to say that others shouldn't have different opinions.

We can't all be right all the time.

One of the reasons that I think the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis is a political one and not a religious one is that there are Muslim, Christian and Jewish Palestinians. And there most certainly are Muslim, Christian and Jewish Israelis.

Another, is that the dispute is over self determination and occupation of territory not religious beliefs. It is not a war to win hearts and minds but to control territory.

So, if you describe a conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, it is a political conflict by definition.

I could be wrong, of course, but that's my opinion.

I don't disagree that it is a political conflict; however, I see strong religious ties involved:

--Zionism
--Sharon's visit to the Temple on the Mount
--The fight over Jerusalem

I can understand Palestinian reluctance to sign up to the creation of just any old political entity just as long as it has the name "Palestinian State". They would cheapen the concept if they ended up with just the same thing as the "Palestinian Authority" with just a different name. The Israeli negotiation tactic so far has in mine and others opinions been one of delaying "final questions" in order to attempt to reap the benifits of peace without paying the price. The Oslo accords perhaps were flawed as the Palestinians were willing to defer too many issues to which they were dearly attached in order to reach any agreement with Israel in order to end the diplomatic isolation thay had placed themselves following their stupid backing of the wrong horse in The Gulf War. The Palestinian should hang on until they get a state with some teeth, one in which a Palestinian is equal under the law to an Israeli, one in which cars on Palestianian roads don't have to stop at lights for twenty minutes while a single Israeli car passes on a crossing Israeli settler only road.

The following is an excerpt from an article..apologies if this is long if it doesn't interest you scroll rapidly down, but the article is good and as I can't link into the New Scientist archive and I wish to share it, it affected me especially because New Scientist is not a magazine known for strong political stances.

"This is how we live"

New Scientist vol 174 issue 2342 - 11 May 2002, page 40


I STARTED down the road and I did everything right. "Don't go to the left, don't go to the right," the Israeli soldiers had said, and it's best to do what they say. They watched me go and the Palestinian policemen at the other end of the road watched me come. Everyone had a gun except me and all the guns seemed to be pointing at me. I had a half-kilometre of road all to myself and it was very quiet.

This is no-man's-land at the entrance to the Gaza Strip. It is one border you don't have to queue at. The soldiers were surprised that I wanted to go in. I could see their point. Their air force had bombed the place an hour before. "Have a blast," one of them had said. Not literally, I hoped.

I took a taxi the 10 kilometres into Gaza City and the first thing I noticed were the children. They were everywhere. It looked like one enormous playground. Of course, Gaza is no playground. Look beyond the children and you see chaos. Many shops looked like they'd been shut for months. Some buildings looked like they'd been bombed. There was graffiti on every wall. The sun was shining and the children were playing but it didn't feel right. I wasn't seeing the full picture.

I got part of the picture from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, whose white Land-Rovers I had already seen in the streets and whose compound in the city is like a town in itself. It has a department for everything: education, health, food, social services, environment. It runs many of the schools, finds shelter for the homeless and provides food to 144,000 families, many of whom would starve without it. Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority is the official government here but it's pretty clear who's running the show for the poor.

I met several UNRWA officials, all of them Palestinian. This is what they said. Of Gaza's 1.2 million residents, 80 per cent are refugees or descendants of refugees who fled from around Beersheba and Jaffa when Israel was created in 1948. Half these people live in eight refugee camps, where the population density is among the highest in the world. The population of Gaza is growing at a rate of 4.6 per cent a year. Half the people are under 18 and there are so many children that the schools can accommodate them only in shifts.

I wondered why everyone stayed. "Because they are not allowed to leave," says Aqil Abu Shammala, chief of UNRWA's field relief and social services programme and himself a third-generation refugee. Since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000, the Israeli authorities have sealed the borders of the Palestinian Territories to try to contain the militants and to put pressure on the people to end the uprising. Exports from Gaza and the West Bank are banned, and imports strictly controlled. As a result, the proportion of people in Gaza living on under $2 a day has increased from a quarter to a half. Some 40 per cent of the workforce is unemployed.

Abu Shammala is a big man and he tells me these things straight and without emotion. He wears a suit and tie and he seems imperturbable. Then he tells me he has not seen his family for five days because the Israeli army has set up a security barrier that cuts the Gaza Strip in two, and they will not let anyone pass. He and tens of thousands of other Palestinians are cut off from their homes. Others are cut off from their work. He says it happens often. When he tells me this he is shaking his head and you can see the anger rising. "If you keep people in these conditions," he says, "how can you expect them to keep the peace?"

There is little peace in Gaza. The next day, Israeli F16 bombers flew over the city at precisely the time they had attacked it the day before. This time they didn't bomb, but the psychological effect was conspicuous: everyone braced themselves as if they would.

I found a lift out of the city going south along the coast to the Israeli army's security barrier. About 200 metres from the checkpoint a Palestinian policeman was standing in the road. He said if you go any further the Israelis will shoot you; they will not know whether you are armed and they will not wait to find out.

Many people had gathered here and they were agitated. Some had been waiting days for the army to open the road. A few had decided they could wait no longer and were heading down a cliff to the beach to get around the checkpoint. I went with them. I start to walk and I am not yet level with the checkpoint when the gunner in a tank at the checkpoint starts shooting. He is firing a heavy machine gun at the people on the beach below him and I think, I hope, they are safe in the lee of the cliff. The gun is very loud, and though I cannot see the tank I can hear it and I can see the puff of diesel smoke as it manoeuvres. Now the bullets are close to me and the people ahead of me drop into the sand. I am looking at a man beside me with a baby in his arms, and I am listening to the bullets slapping into the sea. Incredibly, nobody is running. Some people are even trying to carry on.

None of the war films I have seen comes close to conjuring up what this feels like. A man with a red scarf looks at me and grins and asks me if I'm scared. "No," I lie. How can anyone not be? A man and a woman on a donkey-drawn cart are coming the other way and they pass close to me. They are very scared, they are close to tears, and I realise they must have been opposite the checkpoint when the shooting started. The man with the red scarf sees me staring at them and says: "This is how we live."

The next morning I went to see a man whose name I had heard often, a man respected by many here. Eyad El Sarraj is founder and chairman of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) and he has been studying the psychology of the people for years. He is in his early 50s. He is tall, speaks quietly and is always eloquent. He hates violence.

El Sarraj calls Gaza an open prison. "You feel exposed and vulnerable. There is no way to escape. You are trapped. Over the years, the Palestinians have developed the psychology of victims, and this has been reinforced over the past 18 months," he says. "There is a sense of helplessness, a sense of persecution. There is trauma, and so much anger." If El Sarraj gets angry he is good at hiding it.

The planes, the bombing and the threat of it are not things you get used to, he says. They affect the children most. A recent study by the GCMHP in Khan Younis and Rafah refugee camps in southern Gaza found that of 121 mothers and 121 children, more than a fifth had witnessed members of their own family killed or injured, and more than half the children had started to develop acute symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Of the 1400 Palestinians killed since the start of the intifada, at least 160 were under 16. Many children have nightmares about Jews coming to their house.

And yet, says El Sarraj, none of them has ever met a Jew. He knows how they feel. "I grew up in Gaza hating all Jews, believing they were blood-suckers, that they had robbed me of my land, my rights and my freedom and that they killed my fellow men. That was before I met my first Jew. Palestinian children today are growing up the same way I did. All they know about Jews are bad things." This, he believes, is why many Palestinians demonise the entire Israeli population as one. Few Palestinians feel disgust when an activist blows himself or herself up in West Jerusalem; the activist is celebrated as a shahid or martyr because all Israelis are considered as guilty as soldiers of the injustice wrought on them.

I set off in a taxi to the southern part of the Gaza Strip, scene of some of the worst fighting of the intifada. After 20 kilometres we come to a set of traffic lights, a checkpoint and a queue of cars waiting to cross one of the specially guarded roads that link the 18 Israeli settlements in Gaza to Israel "proper". I can see gun barrels sticking through the windows of the checkpoint but I cannot see the soldiers. "Why are we waiting?" I ask the taxi driver. He says that if a settler's car is within half a kilometre of the crossing, the soldiers switch the lights to red and Palestinians have to wait. And if we choose not to? "What do you think?" he says. Then he repeats the words of the man on the beach: "This is how we live."

?
UT whats your point? I'm lost
Rather understandable, if i said i'd give you the money i owed you at...oh some time in the future when i felt like it i'm sure you'd be pissed off.

They are trying to remove arafat, they refuse to negioate, they refuse to create a state or even set a timeline for the creation of one. The economist had a very good roundup of this. I doubt this 'interum state' will be as generous as the oslo accords, and oh, wern't they generous, breaking up the west bank ito 3 cantons surrounded by Isrelai military checkpoints to move between them. So cut the FUD will you.

I think you were saying at one point that there is a legitimacy to the terrorism if that's all they have. My point is that there remain plenty of tools other than terrorism if what they want is a state. Simple diplomacy could get it done.

The problem is that the leaders, and now 51% of the people, are not interested in a state.

Which means that, if you give them a state tomorrow, it doesn't solve anything whatsoever.

BUllshit dipolmacy is an option. Lets look at this aparant proposal for a state that is in reality, nothing more than an attempt at smoke and missors to attempt to further legitimise an occupation.

The offer is a vague, undefined idea of a state sometime in the undefined future. By accepting this, with no garantees on time, soverignty in the emantime or any other concessions they are meant to accpet this right? From a political perspective this this is designed to remove any legitimacy from active resistance (oh but we promised them a state and they still do it.......) while actaully delivering nothing.

Consider too the fact that Isreal now refuses to negoiate with arafat, that makes it kinda hard too. While arafat is no fantastic leader, he's the only one they've got (who hasen't been killed yet)

You must have missed my Clinton thread.

-- Bill Clinton, recently.

Arafat isn't interested in diplomacy. The "you could have a state" offering, who knows why Bush is pushing this plan, but it's another concept that's put on the table, in any case. After diplomacy has comletely failed with this guy, the rest of the world pushes every diplomatic option they can think of, and none of it ever sticks.

Diplomacy isn't "we didn't like your idea so we're resorting to continuing our death culture's terrorism." Diplomacy is "we didn't like your idea so we're going to advance another one until we find a common ground." They certainly do have the option of diplomacy; and they have much much more influence than they are due, in my opinion, especially right now since the rest of the Arab world apparently wants Bush to pursue this project before persuing Iraq. That's real diplomatic power, and they are sqandering it because they would rather continue to develop a culture of death-worship in the name of deep religious intolerance. In the end, they are going to wind up much worse off. But now I've gone to babbling speculation, and I'll stop now.

I would be against the notion of a state whose sorvernity is be violated by a conquering and occupying army, by the same thinking the Vichy French were right to collaborate with the Germans? They don't want a name, they want a place to live that is their home, not the territory of another government. Its that simple. Give them that, give them dignity, and then see how popular the bombers are.

Unfortunately, this is all theory. The 51% of Palestinians that support Israel's destruction... well, that number might dwindle a bit, but it's not going away. And that subset of the Palestinian population is going to be represented in the Palestinian cabinet. It's not unreasonable to believe that, at least once in the future, that representation will be enough to warrant a Palestinian attack on Israel. That is certainly something that Israel wants to avoid.

I personally think that the creation of a Palestinian state is unavoidable and, in all honesty, a good idea when the proper conditions are met. But I can certainly understand Israel's reluctance at the idea. There's too much mistrust in the mideast.

And when a german pollie critises Isreal he gets branded anti-semitic and kicked out of the party, when you've been persecuted like that feelings linger, and you can expect the same in any future palastine.

Where the heck did you get that from?


I'm sure there will be some, it takes time to heal wounds that deep.

There are two issues here, the first is that arafat is on the way out, and doesn't want to be remembered as the person that sold out so a second-rate deal. The second is that no decent offer has been put on the table(or on paper). Full stop. If you can find evidence to the contorary ill be rather suprised indeed.

The Arabic countries all weighed in when various US guys have done their tours, Cheney and Powell. There was a lot of "How can you do Iraq when there's this bigger problem right over here?" I don't think they actually care that much about Hussein; after all, he's Persian.

As far as Arafat rejecting a second-rate deal,

HAW

Arafat can't accept any deal. As the two-bit leader of a tiny little country, he's a non-entity; as the two-bit leader of the violent front representing the hopes and dreams of 600 million Arabs, he has enormous power. That's why he carefully arranges his headgear draped over his right shoulder into the shape of the entire region, including Israel; the symbolic message to his homies is that he wants it all.

Plus, at this point, if Arafat were to accept the deal that was offered, he'd be the goat to that 51% -- and possibly be strung up by them.

One other thing I haven't noticed:

If Israel conceded to a Palestinian state now, they'd be giving control of an airport to the PLO, who would likely fill up the nearest airliner with fuel and explosives and crash it into Israel somewhere, possibly the Likud.

It wouldn't take long and maybe even longer than it would take to scramble fighters to defend themselves.

I wouldn't give them the chance right away. I'd wait until the PLO stopped the terror tactics, bargained in good faith and use the "Palestinian State" as a reward at the end, not as a carrot to get things started. After all, you don't give kids dessert first to get them to eat their peas, do you? No. You give it to them after the peas are gone. And not to the dog under the table either.

My two cents.

Brian

The arab/muslim world is becoming disfunctional, thats been known for years, there are many, many reasons why what was once the 'cradle of civilization' has fallen so far.


wtf.....

I supose that depends if you're fill up his plate twice as fast as he can eat it or not. The currant mess is the result of bad faith on the part of Isreal, if an acceptable offer had been put on the table in the first place, this degeneration would never have happened. I mean christ its like wacking a wasps nest with a stick for 10 minutes then wonder why the keep stinging you afterwards.

I do think he *could* accept a deal, the arabic world is not exactly united and i'm sure given the chance the vast majority of Palastinians just want to live without having thier doors blown off regulary by the IDF and their sons/husnbands kidnapped for interrogation.

What offer would have been "acceptable"?

None, because what wasn't understood when Clinton was working the tables was that he was not negotiating with the true source of power.

The true sources of power were and are in Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia: Arafat's sponsors. They were the ones to talk with. Arafat, it would appear, is the middleman. Arafat does not have the power to negotiate.

Okay, jag. Here's my thoughts in total...



The establishment of a Palestinian state would force Israel to attack a sovereign nation, which would be roundly condemned in the UN and might even draw all the other Arab states into a major shooting war. Not a good thing.
Right now, Israeli forays into the disputed territories are "forays" and not "invasions". Why throw gasoline onto the fire by ratcheting up what Israel is going to do regardless?

Statehood would also allow the Palestinians to raise an army and air force to defend it's new "borders" even if temporary. This would make the job of rooting out terrorist bomb factories and training grounds more difficult. Following that thougt, Palestine would also be able to make treaties (new "Axis" powers in the middle east?) and import weapons to equip it's new army and air forces. Bad news for Israel and peace in general in the middle east.
Again, throwing fuel on the fire. Bad.

On the other hand it WOULD give Israel something to declare war on...

I personally see giving the Palestinians a state now as rewarding the terror tactics they have been using for years.
You don't reward bad behaviour in a child be giving it what it wants, you reward only good behaviour. I've not raised any children but I remember my own childhood and I didn't get what I wanted by screaming and begging and whining. I got it by being good as defined by my parents.

As I recall, Palestinian statehood was offered long ago. And rejected. The possibility has been raised more than once since the 1967 war and summarily rejected each time, at least once by Arafat himself. The stated goal of the power in Palestine territory is and has always been the eradication of Israel and Jews in general.

The only reason the US is in this at all is really traceable to oil interests. We need oil too much to make enemies of the Arabs and we're afraid of another embargo. My temptation is to let the Israelis take on all the Arabs and trade with them after the dust settles for the oil that they would then own. But sometimes I dream too much.

These opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of anyone else.

Brian

If you think Arafat doesnt support palestinian terrorism then you are missing something. A palestinian state will never exist untill Isreal is destroyed. Even if the creaton of a palestinian was to happen, the fighting would not cease....This battle between them is over control of the holy lands. And untill it rests in palstinian hands, its never gonna stop.

Every day another bombing in Isreal....
It's time for a car bomb derby.....

That is as perverted as a news broadcast from Radio Moscow in the 1960s. Only right wing extremist Isrealis promote that thought. The Arab world is quite fractured with many power brokers and no central powers. One of the most powerful of Arab leaders is Mubarak of Egypt - more powerful than Syria or Iran. One need only review his long interviews with Charlie Rose during his last American visit to see how independent Arafat and everyone else in the Arab world is.

To even suggest that Iran is on that list is to endorse the mentality of a mental midget American leader. Iran is not even an Arab nation.

To say that Arafat is a middleman is to say that Mexico must get permission from the US for its foreign policy. However extremist right wing Israelis view the world entirely in terms of "us vs them". Israeli extremists are that unstable. To those extremists, there is no difference between Saudis, Iranians, Iraqis, Egyptians, Palistanis, Moroccan, Libyians, or Palestinians.

Arafat gets major support from the west. If Arafat is a middleman, then he must also get permission from the EU and the US before making any deals. The long list of governmental organizations attacked, confiscated, and destroyed by Israel (so that Arafat could not stop suicide bombers) were originally provided mostly from the US or European Union.

Previously posted were details on a backroom negotiation between Palestinian and Israeli leaders in Taba Egypt. Were these negotiations in vain? Yes, only because the dichead was about to take power and would confiscate everything anyway. Sharon's obvious intentions were to create an intafada and keep that violence ongoing (which is why his helicopters always attack Palestinian police stations and why Israel attacked the Palestinian police who worked directly with Israeli intelligence and Interpol on stopping suicide bombers). Those negotiations in Taba Egypt demonstrated that Arafat's people and Israeli negotiators could indeed negotiate when extremist leaders such as Sharon) were not involved:
a previous tw post


The person most responsible for the starting and encouraging violence in the Middle East. There is only one one who should be on trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity. The only reason for suicide bombers is the same person whose agenda has always been the destruction of UN 242, 338, and the Oslo accords. The enemy of mankind is Ariel Sharon. He is why people die in the streets of Jerusalem.

There were no waves of violence when the Oslo Accords were being created and developed. This violence was created by Ariel Sharon - the man who does everything he can to keep it ongoing. Every dead Israeli and Palestinian is now directly traceable to the man whose only interest is to expand Israelis borders at the expense of world peace. Those deaths are collateral damage for his greater objectives. Sharon's programs for Middle East conquest can continue as long as he continues the violence - drives everyone into extremist political camps. Only the dichead, and people who think like him, would lump all Arabs together as the same people.

If Arafat was only a middle man, then the Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian armies would have been massing on Israel's borders during the war crimes of Jenin. To declare Arafat as a middle man is to endorse the concepts of Prime Minister dichead - the man who brings shame on all Israelis.

Sharon created Intafada 2. Everything he does is to steal the occupied territories so that peace will never happen. Sharon does not want peace. Todays announcement of permanent occupation and the 40% increase in new West Bank settlements is just another part of that process. Sharon wants an Imperial Israel - which is why he even risked the world to nuclear war for personal glory. There are no central powered in the Arab world - except in the minds of extremist, anti-humaity Israeli Jews.

Or Americans... Have ever tried to talk to Hasidic Jews? Well, most of them won't talk to you or even stomp on you if you were on fire. Racists are the same no matter who they are, they hate everyone else.

Am i the only one that remembers Hamas agreeing to a ceasefire? Or for that matter the fundamentals of the theory of the subculture of poverty? Bloody hell people baisc sociology defeats that statement.

Well if your parents had beaten the shit out of you for years and then expected you to behave......You're ignoring half the issue.

How about a viable state? One without thousands of armoured Jewish settleents all the way though it? One not seperated into sections by IDF blockades? One inclusing part of jerusulem mabye?

Aiaia, read above, the offers have been little more than cruel jokes. DO some research into these offers.

The original UN partition in 1947 was no joke: Palestine, Israel, and Jerusalem as an international city. The Israelis accepted, the Palestinians rejected it.

1947 plan may seem fair in todays terms but in terms of 1947 it was not. 55% of the land given to 30% of it's inhabitants, many of whom were recent immigrants.

The following link although from a clearly biased site, does present a good overview of why the 1947 RECOMMENDATIONS were rejected.

http://www.iap.org/partition.htm

The source obviously ignores the context of the time:

- The land the Brits historically owned and was considered Palestine included a MUCH larger chunk of what is now Jordan than what is now Israel. In 1923 they restricted Jewish immigration to west of the Jordan river, allotting 75% of that area specifically to Palestinian Arabs. (Why don't the Palestinians have a beef with Jordan? Duh.)

- The Jewish people suddenly had a rather compelling reason to start moving there in bigger numbers; unfortunately, their numbers had sorta, um, dwindled in the decade previous.

- The raw amount of land was not really all that important at the time. The land changed hands repeatedly at the whims of the politics of the time. In 1947 most of the land was worthless. In 1948 the surrounding nations decided it suddenly had massive value since a ton of people they hated lived on it. Today it has much more value since it was developed by a major free economy.

Here's a copy of UN General Resolution 181, along with a UN partition map. Although Israel got the larger of the two parts, one site claims that 75% of Israel's land was desert. I wonder if the UN was thinking ahead of the possibility of mass migrations in giving the Israelis more land.

More on 1948

http://www.cactus48.com/partition.htm


www.cactus48.com as a whole is quite interesting

as is this site

http://www.stanford.edu/~bgiddens/index.htm

Indeed. Jaguar asks the right question. The answer puts Sharon, Intafada 2, and Arafat in proper perspective:
Ariel Sharon understands this. Therefore Sharon must encourage anything that can justify more sieges and incursions. It is why Sharon accelerated the confiscation of Arab lands. He acclerates the establishment of new West Bank and Gaza settlements - to make a peaceful settlement impossible. He loves how those suicide bombers and Israel's extremist responses make it easier for him to destroy Oslo and settle the occupied territories. Everything Sharon does, including the murder of Palestinian teenagers, including direct lying into George Jr's face, all has only one objective: to confiscate, to steal the occupied territories and inhabit it with Likud settlers.

Today another right wing extremist Israeli actually slipped and told what they really want. He said, "The West Bank belongs to the Jews". Wait. Did he mean Israelis? No. Israel is one of the worlds most racist nations. Even non-Jewish Israelis have few rights. Non-Israelis have the right to have any land confiscated. That is morality according to Religious Right Extremists Jews.

It must really irritate you to learn that there are Arabs freely elected to the government of Israel.

I wonder, how many Jews in elected positions in any Arabic country? Oh that's right, the very concept that you say is the RRE concern with controlling people, is the central philosophy in every single country surrounding Israel.

I wonder, would the Palestinian people have <i>more</i> rights if they had a state -- or <i>fewer</i>? Is that relevant at all?

Or is your question anything more than a diversion tactic?

I mean christ, another day, another bomber, now they plan to move the IDF permanatly into the West Bank, does anyone here honestly think this is actually going to solve it? Ludiks utterly stupid policies are so backward its not funny, thier myopic beligerant chest-punding bullshit is only killing their own people, fact. History and sociological theory prove it. If someone randomly rounded up my dad and my older brothers for doing absolutely nothign and incacerated them for weeks while applying interrogation techniques i'd start throwing stones too, if they killed members of my family and destroyed my house calously while looking for terrorists i'd be damn temped to take up arms, hell, i know i would and anyone who can honestly tell me they'd take it all clamly i'd be inclined to beleive should take a long hard look at themsleves and their quality of living.

That's some very impressive bluster.

And tell me, when you take up these arms, would you kill....

http://cellar.org/2002/gal.jpg

...a little five year old, taking the bus with her grandma?

Her name was Gal Aizenman. Two days ago.

and i assume FOX told you the bomber was specifically targeting her. Nice emotional plea, try factual arguement.

It's all about moral equivalency, dood. It's the whole point.

The settlers who were killed yesterday included three children. Targetted? You bet: with rifles, shot at close range.

Would THEY be your target? Would you run into the house, see three children in one room, run to that room, target their faces and pull the trigger?

Well, now you have to. Because you're trying to understand the Palestinian reaction by empathizing with them. If you don't go all the way, you haven't understood it at all, have you?

So this is important: what kind of injustice, inflicted on you, would make you pull the trigger on those kids?

You're misinterpreting.
a: What if it had been your kid who had been killed by the IDF? Any plea to metion can be twisted both ways, forget it.

I agree, the attacks were/are barbaric, they are atroctious, they are a symptom of a very sick society, there is no question about that but the question is WHY and the answer is simple. You push people had enough and this is what happens, rationality goes out the door, extremism rules and this is what has happened as the result of half a centuary of UltraZionist persecution. UNtil the popel there are given a reasonable, safe furutre with human dignity and safty nothing will change, more on both sides will continue to die.

As a bit of an aside I found this interview with a Israeli participant in the Jenin incident.

Seems that half Jenin was demolished by a drunk Israeli football fan in a D-9 bulldozer who wanted to make a stadium in the middle of the camp!?!

You keep on failing to answer the question.

I'll be optimistic about you and guess that it's because you can't answer the question without conceding the point. Of course there's a massive difference between killing children by point-blank rifle and by accident in military incursions.

Now because you seem to be concerned with the historical inevitability of it all, can you point to another case where this particular brand of terrorism was used by an occupied people? By anyone whose rights would be denied?

No. There's a subtext to the kid throwing the rock at the tank that I didn't understand before, and that is that the kid won't be there unless he knows for sure that he's not gonna get a mortar through the chest for his efforts.

The cultural disconnect, I think, is that the Palestinians see mercy and/or lack of ruthlessness as a weakness.

Do you?

Hmmm... maybe we should ask the dead kids? There is a difference between intentionally shooting kids and kids being killed "accidentally"when you only meant to bulldoze their home and kill their parents, but its not massive. State sanctioned or not violence is the problem not the solution.

David Grossman writes this insightful piece:

Lets put her in perspective. These children are the victims of Ariel Sharon. Anyone else who were also involved were just the little people. To Ariel Sharon, these children are collateral damage.

Emotion, properly directed, always points to the dichead as the reason for all those deaths. She is unimportant. Annexing the occupied territories is important. Collateral damage. Victims of a campaign to subvert the Oslo Accords. Ariel Sharon has no problem massacreing 5,000 women and children. Do you think he has any guilt about this girl's death?

Nic, whaddya think Grossman would say about tw?

It's disturbing that the polemics of the middle east viloence are reflected here in the Cellar.

Personally, I sympathize with both the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Both are represented by elected leaders who are evil men. The coincidence of them being in power at the same time is a plague upon their nations and the region.

I fear that many more innocents will die at their hands before the people choose for themselves a better representation.

Unfortunately, they have found in each other a justification for their own power, which they have successfully presented to their constituencies.

Israeli racism continues to murder innocent people. Shoppers in Jenin today were stocking up on bread and other foodstuffs in the market not knowing that a curfew was still in effect. Israeli soldiers decided to breakup the shoppings. A few bullets in the air? A warning on a bullhorn? Of course not. Two well directed TANK SHELLs at the shoppers. Oh, but they are only scum shit Palestinians. The dichead will see to it that this and so many other crimes against humanity are not enforced against the IDF. Firing tank shells at shoppers is acceptable? Of course when the objective is to drive them from the land. As for those emotional pictures, where is the one where IDF fires tank shells to disperse shoppers? Where are those pictures of war crimes by IDF in the previous invasion of Jenin? Where is the picture of Sharon laughing when told of another Palestinian death? That's OK. Sharon, like Hilter, was democratically elected. That makes him acceptable.

Place that little girl's picture next to one of a tank firing shells at shoppers. Where are the pictures of three Palestinian children killed only because they were shoppoing? Both murders directly traceable to one person - top management - the mass murder Sharon. Everyone else is irrelevant. Sharon does everything he can to continue the violence since that empowers his position. Sharon murdered that little girl.

Each is blaming the other for all the violence.

Both are responsible for all the violence.

I agree with tw that this latest tank fire is unforgiveable.

Two Palastinians wake up earlly and hit the street. After wiping the sleep from their eyes, one turns to the other and says...
"Hey Akhmed, what should we do today?"
"Hmmm, I dont know...."
"I know....Lets go throw rocks at the Isrealies!"
"By allah, thats the best idea I've heard all day!"

Of course this satire might not be considered funny, I know that this is a serious situation, and I'm angered by the continuous suicide bombings, and then the Isrealies having to retailiate by killing more palastinians.....But enough is enough....

Flamebait anyone?

I fail to see the logic, why should one side have free reign while the other is regarded as monsters. Both sides have done some pretty horrible things to each other. I think the way to go is get both Arafat and Sharon REAL liquored up, I know Arafat's muslim so this might be a problem but there's always ruffies. Once they are all wasted and happy, take pictures of them hugging and laughing and then when they sober up tell them if they don't knock this off, we're going to send the pictures to their most extreme supporters... Blackmail may be the answer here...

sorry, tw, where's the source for that?
 

Hello.

I was just wondering, tw, where is your source for tank firing into shoppers? I don't doubt that it happened, but I'd like to read the source for that. Silly habit of mine, I know, but... could you dig up a link for me?

Thanks in advance.

Seer (was Lazarus Squared back when cellar was a waffle board, and he ran "Time Enough For Love BBS" another waffle board.) Snively

tw -

If you could also dig up a link for your source that shows how Sharon forced Palestinian extremists to kill some children, that'd be great too.

In other words, though I don't doubt that Sharon is a dichead (sic), I'd like to see proof that he is <b>directly responsible</b> for the latest suicide attacks, both on the settlements and on the buses.

its so much easier to rant on without posting links or any corroborating evidence. ah, but i digress.

Here's a little inflammatory reading for tw. And yes, before you ask, the author's jewish, so of course it's full of lies and deceit. but you never know, there might be something that catches your eye.

or maybe not.

The Real Nazis

The Intafada II and all resulting deaths are directly traceable to Sharon who wanted this instability. Sharon's program has been glaringly obvious starting with his intentional, well publicized, and well staffed desecration of Temple Mount. Every act he has performed has been to annex the occupied territories. Every act in response to any violence has been only to enflame the violence. But then I have posted this in detail in how many posts?

Hamas sends in a suicide bomber. Who does Sharon blame? Palestinian policemen. He attacks police stations with American Cobra helicopters. Why? Easier for suicide bombers to continue. He attacks the Palestinian census bureau. Why? More Palestinian infastructure that could be used to stop suicide bombers. He encouraged attacks on Arab civilians including some that were elected to the Knesset. When anyone else takes responsibility for a bombing, who does Sharon blame? Arafat. Why? Best way to create instability and even incite civilian racism.

Sharon provides no facts connecting Arafat to the bombing. For all his hype and bluster, the one detail missing have always been facts. The American ambassador to Israel for Carter and Reagan noted on a PBS radio interview that Arafat had little ability to stop the bombers and even less so today. This man (name forgotten) is considered one of this countries best experts on the Middle East.

Bombers are in direct response to Sharon's intentional confiscation of land, murder of civilians, and daily attacks on the Palestine people. Simply view above for the latest quote from The Economist. Sharon has made bombing necessary just as King George in 1770s made the American revolution necessary. The facts have been provided previously in spades. Intafada 2 was created by Ariel Sharon - as clearly posted previously.

Was Hilter responsible for the deaths of so many Europeans in WWII - or were Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin equally guilty. Same applied to Sharon - a man, ironically with objectives similar to Hitler's. No matter who pulls the trigger, these are the policies, objectives, and desires of Ariel Sharon. He wants the West Bank. No one can name a single death he really morns since deaths to this man are only collateral damage in a military campaign. His objectives are not even disputable. He advocates and covets the occupied territories knowing full well he does so in direct violation of international law. Even crimes against humanity by his army, now so routine, are never punished. To Sharon, if he is Arab, then he deserves to die. We know from history that this is how Sharon thinks.

All deaths in Intafada 2 are directly traceable to the man who started the violence. There was virtually no violence until Sharon rekindled Intafada 2. Only the naive would say that Sharon did not know his campfire would burn down the woods. All deaths have one man in common - Sharon who intentionally incited Intafada II to destroy Oslo and to reconquer the occupied territories.

One would have to be a mental midget to not see why children are being killed. Sharon has obtained the violence he advocated. Children's deaths are irrelevant to the critical mission of confiscating occupied territories.

If Sharon wanted peace, then he would ban all West Bank and Gaza settlements. Instead he accelerates their numbers. That program alone intentionally means more suicide bombings.

Scred, I'm not so sure about that guy you linked to. His last few sentences are extremely questionable. He says things like this:

"No, what makes you Nazi-like is the worship of power, particularly the power to murder, especially when you don't have it. You don't have to commit genocide to be a Nazi; you just have to want to commit genocide." That sounds like Tank Shells in the Marketplace to me. What about this: "They're the ones who see and hear about the things going on in the Middle East every day, but continue to hide behind silly libels against America and phrases like "Israeli oppression.""

So, to him, there is no such thing as Israeli Oppression. He even puts Occupied Territories in scare-quotes, as if they aren't occupied.

Personally, from all I've read, it sounds to be that there are some MAJOR people in power in Israel that don't believe that Palestinians have the right to live there at all. Statements like "The West Bank belongs to the Jews" and such make me believe that it's not just the Palestinians who are aiming to completely distroy the other... it's just that Israel has American weapons and money backing them.

--------------------

Something else I've noticed: Right Wingers don't need facts. If they say something enough, it must be true. I'm sure there are some Left Wingers who are the same way, it's just that the host of that CNN show (hell, even PBS's New Hour, a show I like!) doesn't let it slip on by.

Ever notice that? I'll come back with a good example next time I hear one.. shouldn't be too long. :-)

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Seer (former Philly boy)