I don’t think you do understand fully the need to be diplomatic. Or at least you have radically different idea of what Diplomacy is.
Like it or not Arafat was the current leader of the Palistienian people and their desire to have their own country.
You may disagree on his methods and you may hold a grudge for every action he had in his life.
But since he is the leader you don’t call him a terrorist at his funeral. Not publicly. That would not be diplomatic.
Can you explain this? I know Israel has been willing to except larger than typical collateral damage, but have they really targeted citizens specifically?
No comment other than to say, as others have, that I see nothing factually wrong in the statements by Annan and Carter; that omissions of one’s bad points (and I agree Arafat had many) is perfectly normal in a eulogy for a head of state (or non-state in this case); nor do I see any particular diplomatic benefit to what would amount to officially pissing on Arafat’s grave. I mean, the people who are complaining about these statements actually would like to see peace in the region someday, right? How would taking a last poke at Arafat advance that objective, exactly?
Anyway, the United States sent a representative to the funeral, so apparently the Bush administration doesn’t have all that much of a moral problem with the ex-terrorist.
Talking about what a dirtbag he was, and peeing on his grave would serve no purpose. Still, since none of us have to make any speeches, we can have fun with it.
I’ve heard this before, what does it mean? They’re not arabs?
/serious question
They’re Persians.
Exactly. Arabs are the people of the Arabian peninsula.
Most of the other Islamic ethnic groups (Persians, Turks, Turkomens, Berbers, and so on) have mixed ancestry with Arab bits and pieces, but they are (for the purposes of political scientists and sociologists) separate groups.
If Kofi hadn’t demonstrated by his inaction in handling the terrorist slaughter occuring throughout the world, perhaps his comments about Yasser Arafat could be tolerated. But Kofi, the schmuck, is as antisemetic as they come and worthless as Secretary-General of the UN.
Therefore his eulogy regarding Arafat comes from Annan’s heart and is not just a politically correct comment.
There’s definitely a “stopped clock is right twice a day” quality to it, but a stopped clock is in fact right twice a day.
Well…Arabs were originally people from the Arabian peninsula. Now, Arabs are people of Arabic culture, speaking arabic, etc…, hence most of the middle east and north Africa are populated by Arabs.
But of course, as mentionned by you and another poster, Iranian aren’t Arabs. They’re Persians. And even have a tendancy to despise Arabs, and generally don’t like being mistaken for Arabs.
And they would have gotten it in exchange of what?
Like Israel generally feels very concerned about the UN and world opinion…
As for the prosperous region, maybe not keeping said water ressources at the first place could have helped?
Are you willing to pay more taxes for your country to fund this plant? Apart from that, how is this water transported to the West Bank? And couldn’t the Israelis build those desalinisation plants, instead?
Yes. And maybe there are gold deposits in my mother’s garden. I should dig up, just in case.
And Israel had the option not to insist on keeping control of the water ressources. Offering a fair deal or some silly thing like that, instead of “you can take control of Palestine, except for the main roads we need for our settlers, arable land we need for our settlers and water ressources we need for our settlers. Deal?”
I strongly doubt Barak ever had any intent to grant citizenship to the Palestinians. I don’t think anybody vaguely mainstream in Israel envisions such a solution. They have this thing about a Jewish state, you know…For some reason the concept of an Arab state with a Jewish minority isn’t very popular.
May I ask for evidences of his being antisemitic?
You’d think that if Kofi was as “antisemitic as they come”, he would have made more of a deal about Israel ignoring UN Security Council Resolutions.
As he didnt, may i be so bold as to suggest that you, MadSam, are the shmuck.
Sin