Also, Mr Adel seems to imply that the U.S. is doing the killing. AFAIK, the U.S. hasn’t killed a single person in Jerusalem, ever.
No, but the Israelis have with US money, arms, and political support. To many that’s the same thing.
Olentzero, common decency would be to recognize that there is something a wee bit wrong with a Jew having to surround himself with 1000 guards to visit the holiest place in his religion while a Muslim can go to Mecca any old time with the absolute assurance that nothing will ever happen to him.
That you can’t recognize the difference is enough for me.
Ok, for the people who don’t know much about Palestinians…
My great grandfather was a Zionist settler in Israel just before the turn of the century… he joined a settlement on land legitimately purchased from the British which immediately fell subject to Palestinian raids. The locals didn’t want no Jewish settlers. Didn’t like th share.
Before anyone was displaced, before the British began handing out promises like Happy Meals [tm], before any Jewish State was officially recognized [thus displacing Palestinians], violence was brought upon Jewish settlers. Thus, my great grandfather took his turn like most of the others standing guard at the edge of the settlements. That was the Hashomeh. Their organization, being armed [and organized] would later evolve into the Hagannah, which pulled a few ultraviolent stunts of its own.
The tensions at play here obviously go back to well before 1948 [when Israel approved the UN Partition plan which was rejected by 6 Arab nations who instead invaded].
Like I said in another post, the Middle East is one gigantic glass house so neither side can really throw stones. I also said that I believe Palestinian, Arab and terrorist are terms that are egregiously lumped together.
However, the Palestinian agenda is being represented most visibly by a war of terror on Israel while Israel has received nothing but international recrimination for attempting to deal with the problem effectively.
It was an Israeli leader who initiated the peace process, and time and again, we have seen that the Palestinian political leadership does not speak for, and cannot control those more radical elements. At least in Israel, the government is the entity with its finger on the trigger and it can be approached by standard political/diplomatic channels.
In a media which has long favored the Palestinians, and for a long time has chided Israel for its position, people are finally seeing that the Oslo Accords were a joke, because Arafat could/can/won’t do anything for true, lasting peace, because he cannot reign in the fundamentalist suicide bomber-types that happen to share his goal of a Palestinian state. Even if Israel could be brought to compromise [as they were willing to in 1948] many elements on the Palestinian side would never acquiesce.
I thought it would be ironic and funny if Ariel Sharon, in a conversation with Bush had suggested that our nation try to remain calm, and let the peace process run its course. Do you think that would satisfy many Americans?
- Jon
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010914/aponline180932_000.htm
Bin-Laden Poster Seen at Gaza Rally
The Associated Press
Friday, Sept. 14, 2001; 6:09 p.m. EDT
JERUSALEM –– About 1,500 Palestinians, many supporters of the Islamic militant group Hamas, marched in a Gaza Strip refugee camp on Friday, burning Israeli flags and carrying a large poster of Osama bin Laden,
After the rally, plainclothes Palestinian policemen questioned several journalists, including staffers of foreign news agencies, and confiscated videotape and film as well as camera equipment. … and an AP photographer was warned by officials not to publish pictures of the bin-Laden poster.
Earlier this week, Palestinian police stopped camera teams and photographers from covering a rally in the West Bank town of Nablus in which several thousand Palestinians celebrated the attacks in the United States. Palestinian officials said the demonstration did not represent widespread Palestinian opinion.
(emphasis added)
Like I said, visiting a site that is holy to Jews and Muslims isn’t the blackest mark against Sharon’s name. (Not that I think such an action is wrong.) Sharon didn’t surround himself with guards because he felt unsafe just for being Jewish. He felt unsafe because he’s aware the Palestinians regard him as a war criminal. And rightfully so, IMO.
So far we’ve got you saying the occupation began in 1948, which is the same thing as saying Israel shouldn’t be there.
Now you’re about to say that their current prime minister is a war criminal, which is, shall we say, some interesting semantics.
Prove it.
Olentzero, you accuse others of taking the “Israel-Good, Palestine-Bad” side right off the bat, but do you fail to see that all you’ve done is adopt the opposite position? You call the Israeli leader a war criminal, but, exactly which Palestinian discos, buses, or pizza shops were blown up? Look at the Israeli targets, look at the targets of Palestinian terror. Don’t you see the difference at once?
If not, just look at the peace process, initiated by Israel. Every time they get close to achieving something, another person who Arafat and the Palestinian authorities cannot control kills some more innocent people. Do you see Israeli soldiers going into Palestinian towns in order to derail peace, or do you see Israeli soldiers occupying in light of a recent terrorist incursion?
If you’ve read my previous post, [and most of the other posts here] and you think there is one side in this conflict which is absolutely just, which is absolutely above recrimination, then you are willfully ignoring most of the facts, and all of the truth. Did you read the articles that were furnished in this thread?
You say you do not defend what the Palestinian terrorists have done, but if that is the case, how can you condemn Israel for the way they’ve dealt with the problem while completely dismissing the radical Palestinian strategy that Israel has had to contend with?
In other words, how do you feel the US should deal with this current problem? Should we sit back and allow the peace process to get started without taking action, should we offer the terrorists candy to not blow up any more of our thousands? What?
- Jon
Abundibot wrote:
Did you read the articles that were furnished in this thread?
Abundibot, I appreciate what you have so far contributed to this thread. That said, I’m curious if you’ve read the article that I furnished above and, if so, what you think of it.
Like the article says, violence begets violence, which is why I called the entire region a big glass house. I do not hold Israel above reproach, but I recognize its right to exist. There are radicals on the scene who do not recognize Israel’s right to exist, and this I object to.
I was in Israel in December/January, and at that time, according to polls, [and this was before Sharon was elected], 65% of Israeli citizens wanted to see a stronger response to terrorism.* The article suggests that Israel’s government is acting independently of its people. This is not so. The article says itself that he enjoys popular support.
-
- This statistic was quoted to us by one of Netanyahu’s senior political advisors. It was accurate in December '00.
What you’re seeing in Sharon’s popularity and his broad coalition government is the response of the Israeli people to a campaign of terror after years and years of attempts at a peace process where the Palestinian government was unable to control or even suspend terrorist violence.
However, a point I made also is that Israel’s targets do not include discos, pizza shops, public buses, or anything of the like. I support Israel’s hard line against terror, but I think it leads in some dangerous directions. However, I do not think anyone is qualified to apportion blame and expect to be doing so without introducing at least a little bit of bias.
What frightens me is that our current administration here is going to lead us down the exact same path with a hard-line offensive against the culprits despite the fact that these old styles clearly have not yet provided any true solution.
- Jon
I don’t know if this has been reported in the US. Last week the UN withdrew from Afghanistan which, in turn, meant that the World Food Programme also had to cease operations in the country. This article from Christian Aid, describes the views of a recently returned British charity worker.
Sample extracts:
!I have just returned from Afghanistan, and cannot avoid a growing feeling
of dread at what may be about to befall the people I have left there."
“For, although it has gone largely unreported, Afghanistan is in the grip
of a three-year drought and on the verge of mass starvation. According
to the UN-run World Food Programme, by the end of the year 5.5 million
people will be entirely dependent on food aid to survive the winter
– that’s a quarter of the Afghan population.”
“The real Afghanistan is one where 85 per cent of the population are subsistence
farmers. Most Afghans don’t have newspapers, television sets or radios.
They will not have heard of the World Trade Centre or the Pentagon, and most will have no idea that a group of zealots has attacked these
icons of western civilisation. There isn’t even a postal service.”
“But all these sources of income have dried up. Pakistan and Iran are throwing
thousands of Afghans out each month, the Taliban have banned opium production
**and there is no food or credit to be had after three years of drought. **”
Just the kind of people you want to bomb into oblivion ?
Lebanon, 1982.
Rashidiyeh, a Palestinian refugee camp south of Tyre. Two days after the invasion, already in rubble. Nine thousand refugees either fled or were herded onto a nearby beach by Israeli forces to watch the destruction of what remained. All teenage and adult male members were then blindfolded and taken to internment camps. A UN officer witness to the event said “It was like shooting sparrows with cannon.”
–Noam Chomsky, The Fateful Triangle, p 217.
David Shipler, a journalist for the New York Times, asked an Israeli officer why they had bulldozed Rashidiyeh and other refugee camps in southern Lebanon. “They’re all terrorists”, was the reply. (From the NYT of 3 July 1982.)
Tom Segev, of Ha’aretz, toured Lebanon shortly after the invasion and saw:
Lebanese government casualty figures were based on actual counts in hospitals, clinics, and civil defense centers, but did ‘not include people buried in mass graves in areas where Lebanese authorities were not informed’. (Lebanese police spokesman quoted in NYT, 3 Jul 1982.)
In June, a children’s hospital in the Sabra refugee camp was hit, and the nearby Gaza hospital was also hit.(Boston Globe, 5 Jul 1982)
An OR assistant lost both his hands in the attack but remarked ‘there is nothing unusual’ in his story. William Branigan, a reporter for the Washington Post, reported:
(Washington Post, 27 Jun 1982) Both hospitals were hit again on 24 June, as well as the Islamic Home for Invalids where “the corridors were streaked with blood”.
(Washington Post, 27 Jun 1982)
By August, the Home had been repeatedly shelled, only 15 out of an original 200 staff remained, and “several retarded children died of starvation for lack of someone to feed them properly.” (Christian Science Monitor, 13 Aug 1982) By 4 August eight out of the nine Homes of Orphans had been destroyed. The Beirut mental hospital released “800 patients varying in condition from senile dementia to violent schizophrenia… into the streets of Beirut” after being hit. (Financial Times, 9 Jul 1982)
Chris Giannou, a Canadian surgeon in Lebanon at the time of the invasion, reported
(The Fateful Triangle, pp 229-230) The story was confirmed by a Norwegian doctor and social worker.
Thursday, 16 September 1982. Truckloads of Christian Lebanese Phalanges and Haddad troops, armed by Israelis, entered the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, which had earlier been “sealed off” by the Israeli Defense Forces, preventing anyone from either entering or exiting. Both camps were under direct observation from nearby command posts (NYT, 26 Sep 1982)
(The Fateful Triangle, pp364 - 365)
The man responsible for the coordination and prosecution of the invasion of Lebanon? Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. Who, incidentally, paid a visit to the United States in June 1982 to inform Caspar Weinberger of Israel’s intention to act in Lebanon. Oddly enough, US military supplies to Israel had experienced an upsurge in the first three months of 1982 - almost 50 percent greater than in the preceding year.
The appellation ‘war criminal’ which seems to cause you such upset is not a recent invention. Chomsky quotes the writer Amos Elon in Fateful Triangle:
Sharon did not pull the trigger, but his complicity is indubitable. You can’t run an invasion of another country and either not approve of, or not even be aware of, the large-scale acts of the armies you command.
Bravo, London_Calling. Thank you for providing a clearer picture of what the United States intends to go to war with.
Tip o’ th’ pint, sir!
quote:
Will you all get over the dancing Palestinians, PLEASE.
They are wicked people, but there are only a handful of them (that we have seen, at least)
Yes. That we have seen. Because Palestinian milita have THREATENED THE LIVES of several cameramen who have MORE footage of the celebrators all over the region. The news footage was being squelched at gun point.
Of course, as they attempted to deny these stories of news blockage, even as respected members of the international press continue to cite examples, their attempts to squelch the stories backfired on them. Now not only are people mad at the dancing Palestinians, but also at the successful stoppage of additional footage, AND the subsequent attempts to claim that stoppage never happened!
PS - I know Arafat gave blood. But… would you really want to be the poor bastard who had Arafat’s blood added to your body? Ewwwww!
This thread seemed like as good a place as any to post this link to an an alternet.org op-ed by Michael Moore:
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11507
BTW, filmyak: how do you expect anyone to take you seriously with “jokes” like that last one about Arafat’s blood. Are you a debating, or calling names in the kindergarten schoolyard?
When did we start talking about Afghanistan in this Palestinian thread?
We have Palestinians wanting land in Israel; we have Israel who has made several attempts at peace by offering land. We have a Palestinian movement who did not accept that.
Sorry. You were at the peace table and didn’t use it to your advantage several times (starting in the late 40’s? wow). Instead you choose the language of war to express your wants and desires. So be it.
I think we should give Israel leave to do whatever they want, politics be damned. How is that for a laizze faire solution? Hands off the Middle East… the most powerful hand we’ve had was on Israel itself. TURN THEM LOOSE.
Olentzero, it’s a pleasure.
I have no personal agenda in this issue - just interested in facts and evidence. In pursuant of which I listened with interest to an interview yesterday with one of the sharpest, most astute political mind of the post-war period, Henry Kissinger, in which he concurred that the US and Israel are almost exclusively responsible for creating the middle-East monsters, particularly Bin Ladin.
Let me repeat that:In Kissingers view, the US and Israel created Bin Ladin
How did the US and Israel do that ? – In his last post above, ** Olentzero** identifies some of the reasons Bin Ladin himself identifies as the rationale behind his Jihad against all things American. Extract from this interview:
*"When it comes to Muslims, there is testimony from Westerners and Christians who testified to **the death of hundreds of thousands of our children in Iraq. And there is Qana, Sabra and Shattila, Dir Yasin and Bosnia. **
The crusaders continued their slaughter of our mothers, sisters and children. America every time makes a decision to support them and prevent weapons from reaching the Muslims, and allow Serbian butchers to slaughter Muslims.
You do not have a religion that prevents you from carrying out these actions and therefore you do not have the right to object to like treatment. Every action solicits a reaction. It is a punishment that fits the crime. At the same time, our primary target are military and those in its employment."*
In addition:
This is my message to the American people to look for a serious government that looks out for their interest and does not attack others, their lands or their honor.
Kissinger concluded the interview by stating that, in his opinion, US Foreign Policy has for far too long been conducted for short-term gain with little or no thought given to the consequences of it’s actions. In other words, the tragedy of Tuesday was, to some Islamic minds, an ‘eye for an eye’.
Shitty world, ain’t it.
Neither side is perfect. But if the suicide bombers stopped their maiming and killing, I believe Israel will stop its retaliation. How many countries who successfully WON a war are pressured by other nations to give BACK its land to satisfy its critics?
The Palestine Heirarchy approves of terrorism as a way of life and killing innocent children and persons in general is okay with them.
The people of our country overwhelmingly desire that we strike back at the culprits of the New York disaster…not pussyfoot around and negotiate for years.
Most Palestinians just like most Israelis, I’m certain, would like to live in peace. But those that teach their kids to HATE will keep terrorism alive.
Let’s see:
Israel 150 killed, Palestinians 638 killed. I guess Palestinian blood is cheap.
It sure is; that’s why the leaders never accept any peace proposals, and when they do, the terrorists go ahead and act anyway.