Sorrrrry again!!! Tamerlane it should be of course.
My middle name is butterfingers-scatterbrain.
Funny, on page 2 you accused me of using “fear and hate of all things arab” in my posts. You may wish to reflect on your own impartiality.
And for the record, I don’t care much for Sharon and don’t agree with Israeli policy in many cases. I also understand why suicide bombers do what they do, and ya know what? I don’t agree with it at all. Opening fire on schools and intentionally singling out civilians are actions that cannot be justified.
As for the proof you wanted…
DISCLAIMER: The following post is not about Yasser Arafat being a terrorist or not, but about keeping a balanced debate. END DISCALAIMER
mojo, this here letter from Mr. Arafat doesn’t prove his personal involvement at all.
Pro primo he wiggled out of assuming personal responsibility.
Pro secundo this is a small part of a very complex diplomatic game where you, I, the journalists covering it and probably even the politicians and warlords executing it have at best a warped view towards what is ‘the truth’ and what is political chicanery and diplomatic maneuvers. The PA needed to concede something here. It is obvious to the world that someone affiliated to them, or even they themselves were caught with their pants down smuggling arms. They need the US support. The US needs to keep face in this embarrassing issue. They compromised. That leaves the question of Arafat’s personal guilt open. Please don’t tell me that you’re buying every single thing that anyone involved in such a complex politically loaded situation is saying officially as ‘the truth’.
Arafat’s personal guilt hence still remains an issue of contestation.
Independent of his guilt, I might add that it looks like a pretty clever move by Arafat, since he now looks responsible enough to assume responsibility for his administration’s actions, willing to act against them when required and avoids personal implication. I’m not saying clever because it’s good for Arafat, but clever in as much as that I surmise the goal here was largely to keep the door open for US support to end the hiatus. It also furnishes the US a negotiation chit against hardliners at home and in Israel that oppose negotiating with the PA as in: ‘come on guys, he admitted it was wrong! Let’s talk about the next step instead.’
Sparc
I don’t think your’e evil, just the terrorists, homicide bombers, and those who support them.
Poor choice of words on my part with “concrete”. You haven’t offered any plan to combat terrorism, only to “understand” it. Squishy thinking, with potentially dangerous consequences.
The voices in my mind tell me all sorts of things, it’s rather hard keeping track of it all. 
milroyj wrote, re terrorist bombings:
During the Second World War, one of the strategies of the allies (not the Nazis, the allies) was to fly at night over cities populated by the enemy and drop bombs on them.
These were not military targets. These were cities populated by innocent civilians. And the practice of bombing the enemy population centers went on for years, with the ultimate death toll in the hundreds of thousands.
Was this morally reprehensible, too?
It wasn’t the strategy of the Nazis? That’s interesting. Who was bombing the crap out of London for all those years? The French?
As for your death toll in the hundreds of thousands, Hitler & Co killed more than 6 million Jews, Romani, gays, and other “undesirables”. What the Allies did was put a stop to it, liberating Europe (even those dastardly French ) in the process. They also put an end to the murderous thugs who ran Japan at the time who brutalized as much of Asia as they could.
So who was morally reprehensible?
tracer,
Dresden, Hiroshima, etc … any time a civilian population was targeted with violence with the goal to create terror and thus accomplish goals by that means … was terrorism, even if the goal was just. And yes, terrorism is morally reprehensible even when performed by “good people” for “good causes”. Those were morally reprehensible acts. The fact that the enemy was much more reprehensible is besides the point. Those particular means were reprehensible.
So is war, really… so what is your point? Does it matter if it is or isn’t murder? Will you saying it is make it stop?
This is where the ‘we should understand them’ part comes in. Saying it is murder is nothing. It won’t stop it. And people say how eliminating Israel will result in bloodshed, the only way to stop terrorism either requires an understanding the Palestinians (and for Israel to begin treating them like human beings) or to massacre them. Which would you like?
And the irony and ironies… Arafat ONLY has power because Israel put him there (brought him from Tunesia and declared him leader of Palestine) :D.
Both sides. No side was innocent in World War II. We all committed our atrocities. One side’s atrocities outweighed the others. That is all.
I suppose these chips might have the right to use the slogan, “Dangerously Cheesy”.
Me, I’m going to get me some “Idi Amin Breakfast Bars”.
[/hijack]
Although, my impartiality could very well be compromised, in reviewing the past conflict in question, I still think that you were hinting to Arab stereotypes to help prove your point. When prompted for proof that the Egyptian company “al-Jawhara” was funneling money for terrorist organizations and not for medical services you stated that “The company will not say specifically what organizations the profits will be donated to”, which was not the smoking gun that I was expecting.
That is good, you don’t have to agree with it. If you did agree with suicide bombings I would have to question your sanity or your clarity of mind.
Not to you or any other sane person, but these people can clearly find justification in their acts. Finding out their reasons for justification will help in deprogramming the violent tendencies in the populace, the terrorists(long shot) and “wanna be” terrorist themselves. It can also help in bridging the gap of sufferings between Palestinians and Israelis, if both can understand the others pain and reason for their anger they can put a human face to the daily carnage that happens on either side (like Suicide Bombings, or the unrelenting oppression).
**
I would like to know how this pertains to “al-Jawhara”.
I wanted proof that the private Egyptian food manufacturer “al-Jawhara” was funneling money to terrorist groups (as you claimed).
I was afraid you were using the excuse that the company is Egpytian (and thus Arab) to dig fear in people that they are terrorists.
That is good, you don’t have to agree with it. If you did agree with suicide bombings I would have to question your sanity. However, we are not looking for self-justification of these acts we are looking for answers as to why/how someone would do them. People are blowing themselves up in hopes of taking a few others with them, doesn’t that surprize you? I doubt you have all the answers to this question (unless you had intamate knownleadge of terrorist camps), but if you do have such indepth knowledge in the p
As for the proof you wanted… **
[/QUOTE]
Well I can’t tell you how glad I am for having been wrong.
**
It was my thoery that peaceful means will come though understanding the others postion or point-of-view. If the average Palestinian just thought about an Israeli’s need to feel secure in their own neighbourhood maybe they wouldn’t be so accepting of terrorist tactic. The same can go for the average Israeli in understanding a Palestinian need to do everything from: break “curfew” to get a job to move freely. I fail to see how anytype of understanding is dangerous.
Please ignore that massive amount of junk below “I would like to know how this pertains to “al-Jawhara”.” it was junk conversation that should have been deleted. I’m too tired, to post correctly.
**
[/QUOTE]
In case I wasn’t clear… All this is junk. I push all my unwanted paragraphs and junk sentences to the bottom of my post then delete them before I really post them. I other words “spell check” and “review post” would be a life saver to me…
If I have time I shall try to make some comments here in a productive manner, but I would like to note that I have had the occasion to sample the said chips.
Like most Egyptian chips, they’re not tasty.
A petty observation, but I have to observe that Egypt
possesses some of the strangest potato chip flavors on
the planet.
I’m not sure if this is good or bad, but they are strange. Let us take kebab flavor. It’s not so much that there is such a thing as kebab flavor but rather that kebab flavor chips do not taste like
kebabs. Or rather they may taste like kebabs which have passed through some strange chemical distortion to the point which a kebab is no longer a kebab but some bizarre alien substance.
Other flavors are even more strange. There is cheese, but the relationship between the flavor and any known form of cheese (admitting that I am not a fan of the Egyptian cheeses or Egyptian food in general) on this planet. There are other horrors which await the unsuspecting consumer for too often it is impossible to discern the actual intended flavor - at least for the foreigner unacquainted with the strange symbology of the Egyptian potato chip industry whose hieroglyphic renditions, either as pictures or in arabic script are quite cryptic.
Still, awaiting you are such horrible flavors as ketchup (shown as a tomato, although the taste can not be said to truly resemble a tomato or ketchup.) And then there is vinegar and something
else. I was never able to discern what the supposed other flavor was, although I had the sensation that it was perhaps a fine rendering of mercury with a taste of aluminium siding and perhaps odd hydrocarbon residue as spice, but maybe that is just me. On the other hand, plain vinegar isn’t bad at all once you learn to overlook the bizarre chemical aftertaste and the sensation that one may have just ingested some serious cancer risk factor.
Collolunsbury, I don’t think strangely flavored potato chips is an Egyptian thing and propose that they got the idea from the good ol’ U.S. of A. We’ve got Ketchup falvored chips, in addition to steak & onion, dill pickle, and the worst one that I’ve had the misfortune of tasting, Coney Island flavored (I had figured from the graphic on the bag that they were to go with your Coney Island hot dog. I found out the hard way that they were supposed to taste like a Coney Island hot dog. With mustard. bleccch).
Although they’re probably off the market by now and I’ve never tried 'em, these would appear to be the winner.