Wow, that statement is SO wrong.
Ways to not provoke Israel:
All of those options will get you what you want with no provocation involved what so ever.
Plan B is to wait until they renounce violence and decide to accept us as their friends and neighbors. It may not be fair to ask that from them, but it will be the only thing that works. Peace doesn’t wash away hatred; you have to wash away your hatred before you can have peace.
I respect your approach, but it’s too idealistic for the world we live in. The fact of the matter is that while most people are decent human beings, many are simply evil and will always be evil, and more likely or not, these people will be calling the shots. If I do what you say and accept their blows, then these people - the ones hitting me - will see their power grow, while those who would seek common ground will see theirs wane. They will hit us again, and again, and again, and they will never stop because hitting is all they ever want to do. The basic goodness of man and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts.
We Jews have learned a lot from history, mainly because much of history has been enacted upon our flesh. And we have learned that there’s no glory, no benefit, no holiness in being a victim. If someone hits you and you don’t stop him, he will never, ever stop until you are no more - and then what good are you? The dead have no value to anyone. The only way to stop being a victim is to refuse to be a victim, even if that means that someone else is a victim in your stead. And if you think that’s the most cynical thing you’ve ever heard in your life, maybe it is. Doesn’t make it any less true.
And God help us all if we ever get to Plan C.
A question, from a rosy eyed, dreaming idealist. You’ve met cynics, yes? Have you ever met one who didn’t think of himself as a hard-headed realist?
So, until they have a perfect society, where nobody has any hostility to Israeli’s, the battle continues? As long as you are prepared to let the actions of any one individual negate all trust in the other side, and lash out disproportionately each time, then your predicament isn’t going to end until you are all dead.
Try not to bring the rest of the world along with you.
People in power not being anti-Israel does not equal “a perfect society”.
Do Egypt or Jordan have perfect societies? No. Do we have peace with them? Yes.
So you’ve been at this for over 60 years and its probably not news to you that this isn’t working and at the current rate is never going to work short of genocide.
Because your plan B is so much better right? A guy’s getting mugged-Stand there and take it! A woman is being raped-suck it up! A soldier is being shot at-don’t you DARE shoot back!
I don’t agree. The situation has come a long way from the “three Nos” following the 6-Day war. Certainly there are still terrible problems, but there has also been considerable progress.
That’s fine. People can look at my description of the facts and your description of the facts and decide which description they like best.
Perhaps the meek will inherit the earth, but not in this world. Reference was made to Hitler. That’s a good example. The world, especially the then pm of Britain (Adenauer), acceded to his every demand. By the time Hitler invaded Poland, it was almost too late. Or should the world just have let him take over Poland and pray that their country wouldn’t be next?
Hamas, Hesbollah, Iran, and Syria, along with the Palestinians, threaten the existence of Israel. Egypt and many other Arab countries realize the danger: that if Israel today, perhaps my country tomorrow. That is why Egypt has agreed to the blockade. Privately, some other Arab countries are also rooting for Israel, but will never publicly acknowledge that. The Palestinians just don’t want a Jewish state, but other countries, especially Iran, have greater aims.
WWI started “over some damn fool thing in the Balkans,” but WWII evolved into a world war because leaders of the world were weak and caved into Hitler’s demands. In fact, they were so weak that they did not stop him when he violated the terms of the peace treaty and started to build an armed force. That was the time to take him to task, but nobody dared.
After Kruschev met President Kennedy, he thought Kennedy weak. He had the Berlin wall made. Nobody stopped him. He then was caught shipping nuclear power to Cuba, and Kennedy finally stood up.
Weakness does not stop people from stepping on you. Only the show of strength does, and no matter how long it takes, it is better than the alternative.
Groups like Islamic Jihad are firing rockets out of Gaza, although it’s just once in a blue moon. Hamas are actually trying to stop any rockets being fired. I don’t believe heavy weapons were found on the Turkish ship, it would have made massive international headlines if it had. You’d need to provide a link to a credible source for that one. And the Washington Post are hilarious. Turkey need to pay a price for the Turkish civilians that Israel killed.
Unfortunately, there’s only the facts and your claims about them.
The fact is that you claimed that statements about not negotiating with Arafat were really statements about blocking any eventual Palestinian state. You had to cherrypick from your own cite in order to make this claim, and you were wrong.
The fact is that you implied that by refusing to negotiate with one specific faction, and then not only accepting negotiations with other factions but going on to engage in negotiations with them, that Israel was really trying to prevent peace with any eventual Palestinian state. You were wrong.
I can understand why, when caught in a mistake, it’s useful to claim that there are merely differing “descriptions” of the facts. Like claims that Israel supports Hamas in order to avoid negotiations for peace, as proven by the fact that Israel opposes Hamas and has spent more than a decade negotiating for peace. It’s just not very convincing.
Just like Red offered a transcript that was obviously a forgery in several key respects, a differing “description” of the Guardian’s transcript won’t change facts there, either. You’re entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts. And at the point where you abandon the facts and instead cleave to claims of differing “descriptions”, it’s pretty clear that the facts no longer support your narrative.
After all, if there was any Israeli official who really said what you claimed, you’d have cited them. The fact that you haven’t, and can’t, shows what the foundations of your claims are. And when that’s pointed out, the claim becomes one of differing descriptions.
And that’s the point, after all.
Uh. Pretty sure it was Chambermaid. Remember the boomerang, famous symbol of appeasement?
I’m not cherrypicking anything. Weinglass’s claims that there was “no intention” to freeze the peace process after his interview pointing out that freezing the process was the entire intention is about as credible as Helewn Thomas’s claims that she doesn’t mean the things she said that created the current controversy. Israel at the time were refusing to negotiate with Fatah because they said they wanted to negotiate with actual elected Palestinians, and members of the Palestinian parliament even though all the non-Fatah Palestinian parliamentary members were telling them stop using us as an excuse not to negotiate with Fatah. Then when the Palestinians elected a bunch of people they didn’t like they started negotiating with Fatah, or at east started talks about possible negotiations. But basically they’ve never had any intention of serious negotiations, like I already pointed out to you in previous threads they’ve never made a firm offer to the Palestinians, even at Camp David, and that’s according to Clinton officials who were part of the negotiations. If you want a cite for that go dig up the previous threads I posted it in. Even now Netanyahu refuses to endorse an actual Palestinian state, if he did his coalition would fall apart overnight. Anyway, that’s my version of the facts.
You must have me confused with someone else because I don’t think I ever said that (Finn’s allegation that I don’t think Israel has the right to defend itself to the contrary). I think there may be some daylight between bending over, spreading your ass-cheeks and buttering up on the one hand and what Israel is doing on the other hand.
Pretty sure he was talking to me, that “Plan B” stuff is the giveaway. A hard headed realist. We are blessed that we have so very, very many.
Turns out this is not from the Maru, its from a boat called the Francop that the IDF intercepted back in November 2009. Why do people feel the need to just make shit up to justify what was obviously a bad mistake?
Its audio and there is no confirmation that the audio came from any of the boats from the flotilla. Wasn’t there recently a case where some ship picked up communication that was being transmitted from aboard their own ship?
I know, you’ve been mistaken on that point and, IIRC, when shown that the facts didn’t support you the “well, I’ll just describe the facts differently then” meme was deployed. The offer at CD was not only “firm” but Clinton has maintained that Arafat’s refusal was idiocy and the Saudi position was that it wasn’t just a shame to reject CD, it was a crime. So on one side we have Clinton, Ross and Bandar, all agreeing on what the substance of the deal was and that it was not only “solid”, but a deal that would have ended the violence and given us two viable states about a decade ago.
You are simply wrong on the facts.
Of course you are. To start with, in order to make your claim and you’ve distorted the excerpts you did cite, such as how negotiations were ‘indefinitely’ off the table until the nature of the PNA changed, which you represented as it being a plan to block any “eventual” Palestinian state. As already quoted from your cite, you also avoided followup comments about how it was only Arafat that they weren’t dealing with and that they were open to negotiations with the PNA once it no longer had the same character.
Contrary to your claims, those were the exact substance of the original interview.
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](http://www1.jmcc.org/Documentsandmaps.aspx?id=698)
The facts show that you are casting a cessation of the peace process and its preservation in a frozen state until the PNA was different as a ploy to do away with any potential Palestinian state.
No. They were refusing to negotiate with Fatah because Arafat took the offer at Camp David and responded by starting a war.
That’s really your argument? It was people who they just “didn’t like”. Like Suzy won’t go with me to the sock hop because she doesn’t like that I was dungarees instead of corduroy? Again, you are not entitled to your own facts, and if your narrative cannot stand on the facts, it, perforce, falls.
The actual reason was because Hamas explicitly repudiated all previous peace agreements, said they would never recognize Israel, supports terrorism targeted at civilians and are racists who support genocide.
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](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/world/middleeast/15mideast.html)
Yet again, you are entitled to your own opinions, you are not entitled to your own facts.
A lot of mischief could be contained in that single innocent word “demilitarized”. Do they mean “free of military materiel such as chamomile and coriander”? Does it mean “free and independent so long as we can kick your ass forever?”