The First Terrorists in Palestine: A Timeline

Great Debates
81

“One thing’s for sure… even the slightest bit of military build up on any of Israel’s borders would be met with terrifying Israeli military might, and no one in the Western World (assuming all of my hypothetical suggestions were implemented) would object to Israel pre-emptively defending herself with military operations.”

Don’t be so sure about it. The goodwill will be there, but not the cojones to implement it, I mean a Western/Worldwide approval of military action on the part of Israel in self-defense. This is evident from the reactions of the UN forces on our borders there, in Sinai (less) and in Lebanon (countless ex’s, like seeing Israeli soldiers kidnapped and doing nothing and unwilling to give the video tapes to Israel) and in Bosnia (re the Holland soldiers passive attitude on the Srebrenica massacre).
Since this is the main pt in your argumentation, it’s sad that the situation is such, right?
No agreements will override the 21 cent humanism, no matter how inhumane the actions (of the Pals) will be. Re the world reaction to the 1st Isr incursions after horrific atrocities done on us by them, like killing in cold blood a young woman and her baby in her house, or a direct shoot and kill an 8 mths babygirl in her cart.

82

BBF
A half-mile wide no-man’s land is not possible in many regions. The Old City of Jerusalem is not much more than a mile wide, and there are holy sites that all sides need access to. Gilo and Bethlehem are right next to each other. The same is true along most places on the border. There is a huge population density there. That said, I agree with you on the need for a fence. The government in Israel agrees. They are not building their fence on the Green Line, but I will stand by my argument that in the absence of a powerful negotiating presence in Palestine, there needs to be a unilateral move made. Like you have said about Jerusalem – most Israelis view it as something the Palestinians have brought upon themselves. I’m not sure if I agree 100%, but it will have to do. Occupying powers have to make all of the decisions, without counting on good-faith negotiations from the other side, which is usually radicalized.

There will be a fence. It will cage in the West Bank in the same way Gaza has been caged. Terror infiltration will decrease, as the border cannot be hermetically sealed in the current picture because of isolated settlements, which are now being withdrawn.

I think your idea of the world rebuilding Palestine is a noble one, but practically unrealizable. This is because the Palestinians have, and in all probability, will continue to be convenient suffering dogs for the Arab World. There have been ample opportunities for Arab governments and the World Bank to invest in Palestinian infrastructure. These have been shunted to organizations which support armed resistance and to the bank accounts of PA leaders. The Palestinian cause is too convenient for the Arab world for them to be satisfied with any kind of unilateral separation. They will, in my words, continue to be Anti-Zionist and not Pro-Palestinian.

In some sense, this will be like the Lebanese withdrawal. The Israelis withdrew, and the UN recognized the new border. This put the Shebaa Farms region in Israel. Hizbullah still claims it, and shells sporadically. It some respects, all parties have got what they wanted. Israeli soldiers aren’t dying in the Lebanese buffer; the UN has an accord it can point at and make noise when one side encroaches upon it; Hizbullah got Israel out of Southern Lebanon. In another respect, it is not a foundation for peace, rather it has established a rather noisy detente. This is what we can expect with a two-state solution settled by unilateral withdrawal. There will be some infiltration, some bombs in buses, some shelling, some rockets, but fewer. Palestinans will still get their houses destroyed, but there will be less of this. The Palestinians will continue to be miserable, as everyone in that region is miserable when compared to Israel. Israelis will have a modicum of peace and Palestinians will have a modicum of independence. They will be lucky if they are as independent and prosperous as Jordanians. Maybe in 50 years people will forget how much they hate each other and actually decide to try to live with each other.

83

Thanks edwino for that. Your assessment is probably far more realistic than I could ever aspire to myself.

It’s hard for someone like me, who lives all these thousands of miles away in such safety and peace, to even imagine how bizarre life must be in the Israel/Palestine region. So many aspects of the situation defy common sense, you know?

And also, that’s a very interesting insight you’ve made regarding the Palestinian cause, and how it’s so cynically hi-jacked by the Arab world for political and manipulative reasons. A very sad, but accurate insight, it seems to me.

So, we’ve got 50 years or more of this? Far out… what a shame… what a crying shame…

It confirms something I’ve long suspected however… there seems to be a flaw within all of human nature which is happy to sustain our innate capacity for hatred. Kinda disheartening when you think about it, isn’t it?

84

As edwino said, there’s no question in Israel that the Palestinians brought this on themselves, and as Kissinger said and someone mentiond it here, they “Never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”.
There’s no q, either, that the Arabs exploit the Palestinian issue, as a means to dislodge Israel from the region.
Let me bring another pt in the equation. Jordan is half-Palestinian. It was long a proposition from the practical right in Israel to make it the Palestinian state. I read just a day ago about the role the Hashemite house had in laundering the black Iraqi money after the sanctions were enforced on Iraq and they are about to open the case w serious and solid evidence in hand. It will have, allegedly, very serious repercussions for Jordan, so much so, that the thought is that the kingdom will fall. How long will the Palestinians suffer the ongoing misery? How long will take them to shake hands w their brothers in Jordan, if the above scandal holds water? Following this, an alternative is open.
I know it’s only a thought, only a possibility and it may be called farfetched, but history had many surprises, right?

85

Boo Boo Foo
Nitpick. Gilo is next to Beit Jalla, not Bethlehem. As 1stChristian points out, if anyone hates the Palestinians, it is the Hashemites. Do a Google search for Black September if you are curious. But that is, again, the past.

As many of us who have been there or live there can attest, day-to-day living in Israel is quite normal and quite European/Mediterranean, especially during times of quiet. I’ve been 7 or 8 times (if any of this is wrong, Noone Special or Alessan or whoever, please correct me). The only difference is hypervigilance in certain respects – unattended packages, while driving people try to avoid being caught between two buses, a lot of metal detectors and bag checks – but by all means understandable and not too different from what I get in the US. For much of the past 20 years, apart from times during the intifada and some other rough spots, traveling in the territories was common and not dangerous. At times, one didn’t even know what side of the Green Line you were on. People in Kfar Saba took their cars to mechanics in Qalqilya. One could make a Sunday outing to the suq in a West Bank town. It was safe for Christian tourists to visit the streets of Bethlehem and East Jerusalem around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The thing that gets you is how freakin small it is. There is a significant proportion of the middle of the country that is under 20 km wide. It is scary when you think about defending it.

Maybe I exaggerate the 50 year thing. After all, there has been times of relative quiet and friendliness between the two sides, so perhaps after separating for a few years, things will have calmed down to the point that Palestinian laborers will be free to work in Israel, tourism arrangements will be made, etc. But putting up a border irreversibly changes the dynamic and judging from Berlin and Cyprus, 50 years doesn’t seem overly pessimistic.

86

Also, let me just add that I don’t want to imply this is all on the Palestinian’s heads. The rest of the Arab governments have gladly missed opportunities for the Palestinians as well. And by no means do I think that the Israelis are blameless. The situation could have been settled long ago, given a charismatic and visionary leader. People have known for 20 years that settlements are not feasible in the long run, yet the government (even the most left-wing of them) continued with incentives for building there. There were 20 years – from 1967 to 1987 at the first intifada – when they could have proactively approached the Palestinian situation instead of ignoring it. Even though it is a natural response to attack, the reactionary swings in policy precipitated by each of the intifadas have done absolutely nothing in the long run. Security cannot increase without investment in Palestine. Palestine can’t exist without separation. This has been evident for at least a decade. It has taken two years to show the Sharon government that they can’t wait for the Palestinians to become a fair partner in a negotiation, a fact that was obvious about a week after the start of the second intifada. The actions are all clear and in the long run will be healthy. It is just that they are hugely unpopular in the short term for both sides, and neither side has been able to have the unity to bear through them.

87

I can attest that the above is a Very Good Description of daily life here - past and present.

Dani

88

Edwino, if you think the world will sit by and watch while the Israelis “cage” Palestinians for 50 years, you must be very pessimistic indeed. For the Zionists to continue their abuses, the United States will need to continue to support them for 50 years. Without American support, Israel would never have taken root. If it were withdrawn today, Israel would fail within a decade.

However, if you are a Zionist, which I will assume you are due to your cavalier and dismissive attitude toward Palestinian suffering, then you are actually an optimist. A blind one, perhaps, but an optimist all the same.

That’s fifty years more of paying, paying, and more paying for Israel. That’s fifty more years of US occupation of the Middle East to neutralize threats to Israel. That’s fifty more years of the United States earning more and more hatred and facing more and more threats from the rest of the world. Do you think we can handle it for that long? Do you think we want to? Maybe I should ask whether our children will want to, because they will most certainly pay for this eventually.

You stated that rebuilding Palestine would be difficult. That is only because the Zionists keep knocking down Palestinians’ homes and businesses, and disrupting their society. If the Zionist boot were removed from the collective Palestinian neck, Palestine would be vastly better off than it is. Maybe it wouldn’t be as rich as Western countries, but it would not be as desperately poor and miserable, as it is today.

As Americans, we need to ask ourselves whether we are willing to throw our lot in with Israel, a failed state that has made very few positive, and many negative contributions to the world. Are we willing to throw away all the progress we have made over the years in support of a country that institutionalizes racial supremacism and disregards the mores of the civilized world?

Those Americans who support Israel uber alles are traitors to their own country, and traitors to humanity.

Now will someone address the one-state solution? No one has even considered this on this board. If Americans of many different races and cultures can live together, why can’t Jews and Palestinians live together under one government as well?

89

Why doesn’t anyone talk about a one-state solution? I would suggest it’s because the existing tribalism which is at play is simply too entrenched for anyone to take the idea seriously. Both within Israel and Palestine, as well their neighbours and allies.

Unlike East and West Germany which re-unified quite peacefully (albeit at huge expense to West Germany), the cultures, and more importantly, the mutual mistrust, are simply too wide to broach I rather think. Certainly, that’s how it seems to me.

90

Nah. The IDF and IAF are more than able to smack around the neighboring armies, even without the 3 billion the US gives them. (And gives to Egypt, mind you.) There has not been a serious conventional military threat to Isreal since '73 (when, of course, we did help them, but it was either that, or risk watching the Arab League ‘push them into the sea’, as the saying goes.)

91

Israel existed for a long time without substantial American support beyond the diplomatic and normal trade relations. Heavy American aid didn’t begin until around 1968 or so.

92

Indeed Brutus and Adaher, yes, you both beat me to it. Both of you have raised very pertinent points which I understood to be the case. And both of those points reiterate my earlier observation that it seems to me that, nowadays, that most of these calls I hear the extremists make of “Death to Israel” essentially represents empty rhetoric. Very nasty rhetoric nontheless, but essentially empty all the same.

It has to be said that the Israeli Defence Forces are astonishingly professional and potent - especially compared to any perceived threats by neighbouring nation states. Yes, it’s true that the actions which are asked of the IDF within the occupied territories are profoundly controversial, but all things considered, I rather think it’s an organisation which acts with admirable restraint.

Certainly, I can’t give Israel enough plaudits for her restraint in 1991 when Saddam was sending all those Scuds her way. It must have hurt like a bitch not to have gotten involved during that one.

93

Why is it, then, that Jews are moving back into Germany if people cannot get over mutual distrust?

I see this tribalism explanation as an excuse for further mistreatment of the Palestinians, who deserve a say in their lives just as much as anyone. Jews lived peacefully in Palestine for years before the Zionists came and started smashing everyone else, including Jews who wouldn’t buy into Zionism.

94

As you admit, the only time Israel was seriously threatened, they couldn’t handle it themselves, and we had to mount the second largest airlift in US history to bail them out.

US support for Israel goes far beyond economic, and even military aid. We lean on the Russians and Chinese to keep them from selling weapons that might threaten Israel. We bully and intimidate Middle Eastern nations that might presume to build armed forces large enough to defend themselves from Israeli aggression. We are currently exhausting our resources by propping up hated regimes in the Middle East that will agree to thwart the national wishes of their people, who are deeply offended by the Zionist subjugation and mistreatment of the indigenous people of Palestine.

Finally, we threaten Israel’s enemies with war, and the entire world knows who is behind it. Unfortunately, when we’re in trouble, we Americans will not be able to plead that we were “only following orders.” The rest of the world is going to get really sick of us really soon if we do not wake up and distance ourselves from the Zionist state.

We pay for Israel in blood, sweat and tears. What do we get out of it?

95

**As you admit, the only time Israel was seriously threatened, they couldn’t handle it themselves, and we had to mount the second largest airlift in US history to bail them out.
**

Israel would still have won. They were in no danger of running out of supplies. The US airlift would only have been decisive in the case of a long war.

**US support for Israel goes far beyond economic, and even military aid. We lean on the Russians and Chinese to keep them from selling weapons that might threaten Israel. We bully and intimidate Middle Eastern nations that might presume to build armed forces large enough to defend themselves from Israeli aggression. We are currently exhausting our resources by propping up hated regimes in the Middle East that will agree to thwart the national wishes of their people, who are deeply offended by the Zionist subjugation and mistreatment of the indigenous people of Palestine.

**

Hard to be more wrong than that. The Arab states have a lot more hardware than Israel, always have had, they just aren’t all that good at using it. The regimes that we supposedly prop up are just as virulently anti-Israel as any others, with the exceptions of Jordan and Egypt.

96

Admirable restraint? As in running girls over with bulldozers because they protest a home-demolition? As in helicopter gunship assassinations that kill entire families along with the target?

The lies that sustained the image of the “poor, beleaguered Israel” are coming apart with every report from the Gaza and the West Bank. Perhaps that’s why young American and British activists were shot and murdered there.

No, there is no restraint in Gaza and the West Bank. There is simply a slow, simmering destruction and grinding down of a trapped and helpless people.

97

Reply to Anti-Zionost: Um, no. You pay for Israel with money. To the tune of $3 billion a year. And **we ** do the fighting for ya. What you are paying for with “blood, sweat and tears” is places like Afghanistan and Iraq. To the tune of - what? - $100 billion and counting? Plus the lives and limbs of many American soldiers?

See, if Israel, as a fairly stable, fairly reliable, fairly democratic and fairly consistently pro-American foothold in the ME did not exist, the WHOLE MidEast would look like Iraq and Afghanistan (and Iran and Syria).

So, you see, it all boils down to Real-Politik and economics.

Not to mention, that these $3 billion mostly get fed right back into the American economy as weapons contracts - it’s a way of shoring up the military hardware industry in the US without actually using straight kick-backs… (which would be opposed - or demanded - by other sectors)

So you’re almost getting something for nothing…

You got moral/ideological problems with Israel? Hey, vent away! (and I’ll try to respond :)). But claiming that US support for Israel is anything but politically (keeps other regimes here on their toes…) and financially advantageous to the US is, IMO, disingenuous.

Dani

98

OK, I see you have brought up the moral and ideological points while I was spell-checking…

Point by point:

The american protestor run over by a bulldozer had, previously, tripped and fallen into a ditch and the operator couldn’t see her. Tragedy, not murder. I’ll get you a cite about the bulldozer incident a little later, when I have some more time on my hands.

I’m glad you admit that the helicopter strikes actually have a target. Because the suicide bombings by the Palestinians sure don’t… :frowning: I haven’t heard you ranting about those, though. Double standards, anyone?

“Young American and British activists were shot and murdered there” :confused: Cite?
Dani

99

I reckon this is where people like yourselves let yourselves down actually. My understanding is that only one girl has been killed by a bulldozer. Sad? Inarguably. But there remains a fair bit of unknown as to just how culpable the driver truly was in the context of the girl being very keen to get in the way of dozer with limited visibility. Still, it was a sad thing no doubt. But the fact remains, the count is one girl - not girl(s) as in plural.

I’m happy to debate anyone about anything on this messageboard. If I learn something, that’s just dandy. So I put it to you Anti-Zionist - please? Tell me something I don’t know? Come on? Please…

You see, as it stands, all I’m hearing is someone who already has a political position and they just wanna scream it down my throat. But man, I’ve been seeing that for at least 3 decades of my life now. So I invite you - try and do an Aldebaran. Now THERE is somebody who really lives the cause of the devout Islamic scholar. Sure, he/she has got some weird old ideas about preconceived prejudices on the part of most people in the Western World, but every now and then, Aldebaran surprises me and lets me in on a little gem I didn’t know. And it’s cool, you know?

So come on Anti Zionist… I invite you… instead of just preaching… actually steer away from the earnest hyperbole and give us some real deal facts which would indicate your position is a tenable one. As it stands, I’m not learning much from you personally - but I have to at least thank you for starting a thread where I’ve learnt shit loads from all the other folks who have posted here.

100

OK, Anti-Zionist… here’s your cite on the Buldozer incident. Seems the Arab witnesses claim it was outright murder, but

From here

So this case is very far from the cut-and-dried accusations of “murder!” that you leveled.

Dani