(Re: skip)
OliverH: Whatever form the control is, Arafat either doesn’t have it, or if he does will never admit to having it. However even when the PA did have the power and infrastructure to crack down on militants they hardly did. When Israel pulled out of the West Bank in May 1994 with the hope that the PA would control the violence and work towards a solution they did not. From this page which details the relationship between the PLO/PA and Hamas during 1994-1996 (when the PA was in control of the West Bank/Gaza):
And from this page (the source might have bias but I can’t find anything factually amiss here):
Skip:
Your first link (the Wikipedia) is a “wiki”, which means that anyone can edit the information on display. Hardly a suitable source on issues that are under heavy debate.
Your second link is as you noted quite biased. In fact it is an excerpt of a column / editorial from “The National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel”. They describe themselves as “a network of Christian organisations and individuals in support of the state of Israel”. For me that translates into “pro-Israel christian right”. No sources are given to the claims above; and checking out the circumstances would be a dire task.
In conclusion: that is not where i’d get my info and neither should you.
Your first link (the Wikipedia) is a “wiki”, which means that anyone can edit the information on display. Hardly a suitable source on issues that are under heavy debate.
Correct. But the quotes I posted are all sourced from Arab language newspapers (An Nahar, Al Quds, Al Hayat) or press agencies with (UPI) with full date references and citations, WikiPedia is not the source of the information. And remember if “anyone can edit the information on display” then it cuts both ways and anyone can correct the items if in fact they are incorrect (which is the point of Wiki’s). This page lists all the revisions to the page in question.
As for the second link I agree they have bias, but as I mentioned nothing they said was factually amiss. The failure of the PA to do away with the offending articles in the convenant (something they were supposed to do in 1996 but only managed to do in 1998, under extreme US pressure, of course at the session where the vote took place Yasser Arafat told Clinton: “We affirm to you that our people support a just peace and will not return to a pre-peace era and we will not be easy with anyone who harms the security of either side.”, which is pretty much exactly the opposite of what happened) is a fact and well known, as is the killing of people suspected of cooperating with Israelis (as documented by Human Rights Watch) .
If you feel the facts are inccorrect (and I have yet to see anything to counter them), then please provide reasons. Discredit the facts, not the sources (which is a mistake many people make). As they say in football ‘play the ball, not the man’.
Skip:
Yep that is the way wiki’s are supposed to work. And sometimes they do; sometimes they don’t. I maintain that it is hardly a source with the same credibility as the NY times f. e.
So let’s have a look at those quotes, then, shall we?
No confrontation… Very much open to interpretation wouldnt you say? So here context is everything, and the context is not supplied.
First we better focus some attention on that these are quotes from three different parts of an original text, bundled together here. We have no clue about how much text have separated them originally.
“The PA and the [Hamas] opposition…” The “Hamas” part is in brackets and therefore a insertion made by the person making the cite. The full text would show if this was a correct addition or not; but the full text is not available.
“We regard Hamas and Islamic Jihad as national elements…” The periods at the end indicate that this may not be the full sentence, and it seems a very cryptic statement in it’s present form. The original text is yet again not available for comparison.
“The enemy, now and forever, is Israel”. Probably no uncommon opinion with some palestinians. Again: context. Those three sentences together would seem to imply that a coherent argument like: “PA & Hamas and Jihad are all friends in the fight against Israel” was made by the interviewee. It might be so. But it might also not be so at all.
Again: the most important part, the one stating that the quote really is about “Hamas’s attacks” is in brackets. So it is inserted by the quoter; an interpretation on his part. Once again we have two excerpts from different parts of the text, and no way to control if they really refer to the same issues, which is implied.
Now this is something quite different than the above. It is an excerpt from a news article in an Israeli newspaper. In an Israeli newspaper you are likely to find statements from the Israeli government and the Israeli military. The newspapers source is not available. The information supplied is dubious. The fact that the paper talks about “PLO death squads” heavily hints bias.
The other cite: That’s o.k. but in that case you as the person making the cite should make sure to point out what pertinent and credible factual information you think the cite supplies.
The problem with this cite is that it touches on a subject which is constantly debated by Israel and PLO: Who broke the latest agreement first? Two things are of paramount importance for a balanced view: an honest account of all violations to that agreement. And placing those violations on a timeline.
I would also recommend this educational excercise for you, Skip:
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Take a sequence of a few words from any of those three first quotes you supplied.
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Do a search on Google with that sequence inside quotation marks.
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Check out the links from the search results. Are they credible? Are they biased?
Following this procedure for any of those three cites will produce only heavily biased pro-Israel cites and the Wikipedia. Try it!
errata: “heavily biased pro-Israel sites”
Yep that is the way wiki’s are supposed to work. And sometimes they do; sometimes they don’t. I maintain that it is hardly a source with the same credibility as the NY times f. e.
Well, WikiPedia is one of the bigger and well known Wiki’s with a large number of users from all sides of the political spectrum. Have a look at their pages on Palestine, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Israel (and they even have a page on Israeli Terrorism) and see whether they’re biased as they seem to cover all sides.
Also you won’t find any comments like the ones posted due to the fact that the majority of the quotes are from Arab language dailies. By the time they get translated and make their way to western journalists it’s all old news. Arafat has long taken advantage of this for instance by being extremely amenable and understanding when speaking to western media, but reverting to rhetoric and diatribe when speaking with Arabic media (" While he writes in English of his vision of peace, Arafat sends a very different message in Arabic to his own people. He calls on them to become shaheeds (martyrs) in the struggle to liberate Jerusalem, and preaches the virtues of martyrdom to Palestinian children though his state-controlled media." - Nathan Sharansky, Wall Street Times, Feb 8 2002, “Arafat must finally understand that he cannot maintain good relations with the United States if he continues to wink and nod at terrorists while negotiating with Israel.” - Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), from a letter to President Clinton on March 26, 1997, and yes no doubt you’ll label the sources biased but it’s merely to demonstrate what Arafat does). As an example Arafat stressed a need for peace when the Passover bombings occured in Netanya, yet in an interview with Al-Jazeera he claimed to pray for “martyrdom like this” for himself (Washington Post 30/03/2002).
As further reading, this article documents the PLO and Hamas relationship in the 1994-1996 period and has lots of references to the New York Times and other more reputable sources (and yes I’m sure the source is biased as well, but facts are facts).
As for your interpretations of the comments, fine that’s your interpretation, but to me it’s pretty clear and the debate can’t move further than that, although I can reply to certain points:
Probably no uncommon opinion with some palestinians - Sure, but this comment came from the Justice Minister of the PA at a time when the PA was supposed to be cracking down on Hamas/Hezbollah, with the cooperation of Israel, not labelling them “now and forever” the enemy.
As for the PA hiring Hamas militants this is well documented. I agree the “death squads” approach is a bit hard line but the PA has put a number of terrorists on it’s payroll which has concerned the Israeli government in the past.
- Press release from the Office of the Prime Minister, March 5, 1998 (taken from this site, I’m sure another biased site)
Well, there’s “nothing factually amiss” and there’s the full truth. The two are quite distinct. Israel complied with just as many of their obligations under the Oslo agreement as the Palestinians, which is to say none. They dragged out their withdrawal, kept prisoners locked up they were supposed to release, and continued to terrorise the civilian population. Check out some of the testimonies by refuseniks on www.seruv.org:
Problem with this argument is that there’s several online Arab news outlets which publish in English
Unfortunately, your sources don’t demonstrate ‘What Arafat does’ at all, they merely raise claims. And given that you remain silent about the suggestions of massive ethnic cleansings in the territories raised by the likes of Netanyahu, you achieve little but supporting the view that you are merely searching for evidence supporting your opinion rather than actually researching the issue.
Indeed. It has concerned them much more than massive violations of the Geneva Conventions by their side, which they simply tried to explain away by declaring the Geneva Conventions ‘inapplicable’ -something the Geneva Convention strictly prevents a single government from doing. As long as the IDF engages in random killings and destruction as well as extrajudicial executions, talking about Palestinian death squads is quite hypocritical from them.
The release ignores a couple of provisions of the Oslo treaty, but that is not at all unusual. And given that the Israelis have a track record for not releasing anyone they don’t like, regardless of sentence, they should be a bit timid about talking about release dates.
Qasr is Castle, the Umm is
As for Mazen is a male name. I don’t know it has any particular meaning, as written it doesn’t match any roots that tell me it has a war meaning.
Your arguement is flawed in that Mahmoud Abbas doesn’t have the power to end the terrorism. It is also flawed in the fact that the terrorism isn’t necessarily ‘Palestinian terrorism’. There are many global terrorist networks based on other countries that are behind a good number of terrorist attacks against Israel. How can Mahmoud Abbas have any control over this?
Again - your arguement is further flawed because there are so many causes of terrorism out of the hands of the one man. Including Israel and it’s bulldozing of homes.
What you should have asked perhaps instead was will Mahmoud Abbas and Sharon succeed in ending palestinian terrorism. And will other nations help in reducing other forms of terrorism towards Israel leading to a real peace in the region?
I can tell you one thing for sure - just because there is a ‘Palestinian State’ in the works terrorism won’t suddenly stop. Organizations like Al Qaeda completely depend on the Israel issue to inflame people enough to join their organization. It’s in their interest to keep attacking Israel, so Israel will strike back, piss off more people, and lead to more recruits.
Problem with this argument is that there’s several online Arab news outlets which publish in English
Oh sure now there are, but I bet the number was a helluva lot less in 1996. And even then the rhetoric seems to be reserved for the print editions.
Unfortunately, your sources don’t demonstrate ‘What Arafat does’ at all, they merely raise claims.
It’s clear to me they’re referring to him placating the US/Israel via the western media but at the same time continuing the standard anti-Israel diatribe via the Palestinian state controlled media and other Arabic speaking media.
And given that you remain silent about the suggestions of massive ethnic cleansings in the territories raised by the likes of Netanyahu, you achieve little but supporting the view that you are merely searching for evidence supporting your opinion rather than actually researching the issue.
Let’s not change the subject. We’re discussing Arafat and his current/past role in the PA. I am no fan of Netanyahu and don’t see how he comes into this discussion.
- Indeed. It has concerned them much more than massive violations of the Geneva Conventions by their side, which they simply tried to explain away by declaring the Geneva Conventions ‘inapplicable’ -something the Geneva Convention strictly prevents a single government from doing.*
Again this is off topic. Perhaps you want to open another thread on it?
As long as the IDF engages in random killings and destruction as well as extrajudicial executions, talking about Palestinian death squads is quite hypocritical from them.
But one of the big differences here is the Israeli government is reacting to the murder of other Palestinians (not Israelis). Anyway this is still off topic.
The release ignores a couple of provisions of the Oslo treaty, but that is not at all unusual. And given that the Israelis have a track record for not releasing anyone they don’t like, regardless of sentence, they should be a bit timid about talking about release dates.
Israel is not going to release anyone who they feel is a legit threat. But seeing how the PA could not even contain the people who were released (as per the agreement) it seems like their fears were just.