I couldn’t agree more with you that in principle this seems to be the fairest and most ideal solution. One state, one nation for both peoples. However, I’m very pessimistic this would ever come to fruition and I do doubt this will ever happen in our generation.
Israel, IMO, would view this as a threat to its identity as a Jewish state. With a total population of 8 million plus and only about 5 million Jews this isn’t going to happen.
It would take several generations for the attitudes on both sides to change. Given the hatred present from both sides now, I just can’t see things will turn for the better.
Going back to the OP, if Arafat is killed, I think it’s obvious things will spiral out of control with even more violence from both sides. After that the situation probaby will go back to ‘normal’. Which is to say, it will level back to the current level of violence.
Actually Blake posted that sentence, not me.
So maybe [ b]you** should read things all the way through, nice and calmly.
I haven’t reached my limit. But as a teacher I know there are some who will not listen to reasoned argument.
You posted it. :wally
It is stupid and offensive.
I call you on it.
You say I’m ‘picking on’ you?!
Grow up - take responsibility for your actions.
No, obviously I don’t.
But strangely you do think that’s my position (and that of the authors of the links I posted. So you believe the Middle East Times, the Palestine Monitor, The Los Angeles Times and CBC News, Canada all think that too? :eek:
Perhaps you should write to them. :rolleyes:
Alternatively you are guilty of a knee-jerk reaction and consider any criticism of Israel to be supporting terrorism.
What these news reports, with quotes from independent people, show is that Israel made the terrible decision to fire into civilian areas (including schools) to kill terrorists. That doesn’t mean they are out to inflict maximum civilian casualties. But it does mean they killed innocent civilians, on the orders of Sharon.
What is?
Actually you can hear me say two things:
don’t put words in my mouth
what are you talking about?
Who said ‘Sharon brainwashes his country’?
Do you know what a strawman is?
Sharon was elected on a narrow majority because he represents an ‘iron fist’ in dealing with the Palestinians. He does not have a successful record of negotiation, but instead a track record of violence. Sadly this appeals to part of the Israeli electorate.
Did you not know about this?
Do you still think that killing a leader solves such situations?!
What are you trying to say? Leaders are assassinated without there being any tension?
Do list your cites.
Of course your style is to put stupid arguments into the mouths of others and say that news reports are biased.
So for your education, some history of the Middle East conflict:
"But when 73-year-old Yitzhak Rabin, the first Israeli Prime Minister to puff the peace pipe with the Palestinians, was gunned down Nov. 4…
The shooter, as everyone knows by now, came from the far-right of Israel’s spectrum, the ultranationalists who see handing over an inch of the land primarily populated by Palestinians in the occupied and formerly occupied territories on the West Bank and in Gaza as literal treason."
“The peace initiative undertaken by Yitzhak Rabin was based on his correct understanding of three facts, and on Rabin’s unique ability to communicate those facts to the Israeli public. The first fact is that Israel cannot rule over millions of Palestinians who are unwilling to accept Israeli sovereignty. The second fact is that the world, and especially the United States, will not allow Israel to continue the occupation indefinitely, especially after the United States had invaded Iraq for its unlawful occupation of Kuwait. The third fact is that regardless of foreign policy, the settlement adventure is warping Israeli society, and transforming Zionism from a progressive movement of national rebirth into the standard bearer of reactionary religious zealotry.”
Exactly. A one state solution isn’t going to work for Israel as the larger proportion of the total population will shift toward the Palestinian. As such I don’t see Israel would even consider that option at all. IMO, being the entity in power, they’d rather keep the status quo (Israel plus ‘controlled’ occupied territories).
I suppose another thread can be opened for discussions as to whether a one-state solution is better or worse than a two-state one. The first would seem fairer, the latter would seem more realistic.
I didn’t know it was a pre-requisite to have English as your first language.
Ahhh… Is that how you do it, glee?? You cut-and-paste other peoples posts, then insert what you want between the lines.
Excellent, thanks for the lesson.:wally
Does anyone here honestly believe that Arafat had zero prior knowledge of the 50 ton arms shipment that originated on Kish Island in Iran and was later intercepted by Israel?
Quick Litmus test in return Zenster. Do you really believe that Israeli deputy PM and foreign affairs minister Shimon Peres had zero prior knowledge of the series of bomb attacks against British and American targets in Egypt in 1954 now known under the banner of the Lavon affair?
More of the same old same old Zenster, and you still haven’t answered my question. You seem to believe that corruption and terrorism on Arafat’s part is grounds for killng him without trial, while corruption and terrorism on the part of Peres can be ignored.
Whether or not Israel kills Arafat, there will be no peace as long as he is Palestinian leader. He has demonstrated time and again that he has no interest in peace. He will negotiate, but he sees negotiation as a means to gain a temporary advantage, not as a means to making peace with Israel.
No question, Sharon is not much different. But one observation over the years is that Israel has tried both hawks and doves. They’ve tried making war and they’ve tried making peace. At no point have the Palestinians ever had anyone but Arafat, a hawk, in charge, and at no point have they ever even temporarily stopped terrorism.
Israel has also called for peace with all of its neighbors and actually made peace with two. Other Arab nations have called for no peace, no negotations, not ever. And meanwhile they fund terrorist groups that think as they do. This puts Israel in an impossible situation where they have no choice but to fight until they either win or are defeated or both sides get sick of it.
The murder of Arafat seems pretty much a dead issue now, and thank god for it.
Arafat, though in fact elected at one point by the Palestinian polity, is irrelevant. He can’t or won’t control Hamas, which is far more Islamist in orientation than he is. He can’t or won’t control Palestinian Islamic Jihad. And even from his own, Fatah and the al-Aqsa Martyrs, there have been terrorist acts by “rogue cells” that apparently were not particularly obedient to Arafat.
Arafat must be made into an international pariah-- as one who not only condones terrorism while purporting to condemn it-- but who has stolen his people blind. I don’t know whether the figure is 3 billion or more or less, but I do know that the Palestinians are, per capita, the most highly subsidized polity in the world. This rather astonishing datum comes not from some Israeli right-wing journal but rather from Die Welt. (See, e.g., http://www.iact.ca/views.php?name=Muravchik
He is 74 years old and should be left to fall on his own. As he will if he is suitably marginalized. Bush has the idea. The UN, of course, never will.
And besides, the Saudi peace plan has two major problems for Israel.
They absolutely will not withdraw from all 1967 lands, nor should they in exchange for mere promises. They need secure borders. The 1967 borders were not secure.
The right of return. Israel maintains that the 1948 war resulted in an “exchange of populations”. Roughly equal numbers of Jews and Arabs were displaced by the war. Israel settled its refugees, they believe with some justification that the Arabs should have resettled their refugees. Israel is not calling for the right of Jews to return to the homes stolen from them by the Arabs, the Arabs should drop their claims as well, although financial compensation for ALL refugees, Jewish and Arab, should be discussed.
Well that’s the end of any chance for peace, then. Pretty much the entire problem (from The Israeli side) is that little doozy. Tell me, what threat do Jordan and Egypt pose these days?
Jordan and Egypt aren’t a problem. Neither is most of the 1967 lands.
The lands that Israel will want to keep are the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem.
In the first case, they have strategic reasons for preferring to keep the Golan Heights rather than make peace with Syria. Having the Golan Heights means Syria can never defeat them. That’s a heck of a lot better than Syrian promises.
In the second case, East Jerusalem Israel has a demographic case to keep it. East Jerusalem had a Jewish majority from at least 70 AD all the way up to 1948. It was the one place in all of Palestine that Jews could honestly say never left their possession as a community, a place they had never left.
It is possible that some kind of “international city” agreement could be negotiated, but Israel will never give back East Jerusalem to the Arabs, and considering what the Arabs did while it was in their possession, they shouldn’t. The Arabs evicted all Jews and desecrated Jewish holy sites, and banned Jews from visiting them.
Adaher, East Jerusalem, didn’t have a Jewish majority from 70 AD to 1948, reading a history book will tell you that Jews weren’t allowed in the area during the periods of Crusader and Byzantine rule and when the Arabs first conquered it the Byzantine patriach still placed a limit on the number of Jewish families allowed to live in the area. Jerusalem acquired a Jewish majority sometime in the 19th century, though the walled city remained 3/4 Arab until 1948.
I hope, when FairDink submits his proposals to “ALL fortune 50 companies”, he has a damn good team of sub-editors and proofreaders to try to work out what he’s on about, and rewrite them for him.
Let him hire “Ari Fleischer”. I’ve lost count now of the number of times he’s started a sentence with “No, what the President really meant was…”
Oh dear.
I have already pointed out your accusing me of saying something that Blake posted.
The first quote above is from jjimm, and the second from Boo Boo Foo.
So maybe you should read things all the way through, nice and calmly.
That is your real lesson (oh, and I accept your apology :wally )
Don’t forget to post your evidence that the plan to murder Arafat is a good long-term plan (and especially why you think it’s amusing :rolleyes: ).
Firstly (and calmly), Arafat isn’t helping the situation by ‘mass-producing’ a society with an attidude that places your ‘life’ as a potential weapon.
… together with …
… are not steps towards peace.
Secondly, placing Hamas members (and other known terrorists) into parliament and claiming, to other members, that the decission is final, is not a democracy, and is not a step towards peace.
Thirdly, presuming he dies of old age, such an administration may serve his intentions long after he is gone.
… And finaly, taking him to trial, while he is within his own borders, withought the express permision of his own government (himself), is against international law.
As for my humour, if it insults you, glee, then I recomend you just ignore it. I never sugested that “the situation is amusing”. Although it seems I’m not the only one who is able to ADD some humour to SOME aspects of it. Even if my humour is not in ‘The Far Side’ league. http://www.villagephotos.com/usergallery-viewimage.asp?id_=5107722
Ah, MC, it appears you are correct, although it’s hard to say when Jews became a majority. The Ottomans took the first census in 1840 and Jews were a majority then, so it’s hard to say when they acquired that majority.
But at least Jews had a claim to East Jerusalem going back to at least 1840.
