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Sharon Says He Will Remove Arafat

by scary
Ariel Sharon says the new Israeli Government that he has been asked to form will end "Palestinian terrorism" and remove its "leader", Yasser Arafat.
_38793947_sharonap150.jpg
Mr Sharon was formally invited on Sunday by Israeli President, Moshe Katsav, to begin putting together a government after winning last months election.

In another development, it has been confirmed that Mr Sharon held his first direct talks with senior Palestinians for nearly a year shortly after his election victory.

He met Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Korei, also known as Abu Ala, on Wednesday, officials on both sides have confirmed.

Mr Sharon offered an Israeli pullout from Palestinian areas where militants are being reined in by Palestinian sources, one unnamed Israeli official told the Associated Press news agency.

Israeli media said that Mr Sharon's chief of staff Dov Weisglass and the US ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, took part in Wednesday's talks at the Israeli prime minister's ranch in the southern Negev desert.

The meeting lasted less than two hours and correspondents say it shows Mr Sharon is trying hard to win over the Labour party, which favours dialogue with the Palestinians to end the continuing violence.

Mr Weisglass is expected to meet Palestinian interior minister Hani-al-Hassan on Monday, according Palestinian officials quoted by AFP news agency.

Bloodshed

Since first coming to power two years ago, Mr Sharon has resolutely refused to meet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

On Sunday, he again accused Mr Arafat of being behind attacks on Israeli targets and called for his removal as leader.

"The new government will face difficult tasks - the war against terrorism and against its leader, the head of the Palestinian Authority," Mr Sharon said.

In the latest attack, three Palestinians targeted an Israeli army post in the southern Gaza Strip.

Their car approached a checkpoint, swerved off the road and drove towards the post.

The car hit a concrete wall protecting the post and blew up. The militant group Islamic Jihad says it carried out the attack.

The Israeli army maintains a strong presence at scene of the attack, a junction where a road bridge reserved for Jewish settlers passes over the main Palestinian road.

The main north-south road through Gaza was immediately closed while the Israeli army conducted searches making travel from north to south impossible for Palestinians.

Coalition talks

Mr Sharon's Likud party won most seats in the elections on 28 February - but it is short of an overall majority.

The prime minister has said he would prefer a national unity government with the centre-left Labour party - but Labour leader Amram Mitzna has refused to take part unless Mr Sharon agrees to begin evacuating Jewish settlements and make fundamental changes to the state budget.

Mr Sharon's other option is a coalition with right-wing and religious parties.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2739143.stm
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by scary
Is Sharon planning the extermination/ethnic-cleansing of the Palestinians while the world is focuses on US attrocities in Iraq? Will the world sit by and let this happen?

No more blood and tears. Never again.
by Sharon killed Rabin
Editorial: Political vacuum
10 February 2003

Now that the Israeli elections are over, the road map to a Palestinian state by 2005 was supposed to reappear on the agenda. But the Palestinian Authority has been informed that the Middle East quartet has decided to postpone the introduction of its road map until a new Israeli government is formed and the situation in Iraq is resolved. The first endeavor has a time limit; the second anything but.

The government will take six weeks to be formed. The clock starts ticking after President Moshe Katsav formally invites Ariel Sharon to start working. Sharon now controls one-third of the Knesset after his landslide victory but will still find it hard work to build a governing coalition. He has said he would prefer a national unity government with the center-left Labor Party, although the task of bringing the divergent parties together is daunting. But dovish Labor leader Amram Mitzna has said his party will not serve under hawkish Sharon. One contentious point is the two parties’ substantially different views on Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories. Labor sees many of them as unnecessarily exacerbating the conflict.

Labor’s partnership remains dear to Sharon. One theory is that Sharon is seeking the political camouflage that Labor’s participation would give his rightist policies. Mitzna believes that Labor played that role for Sharon in his last coalition government and paid the price for its compromised identity in the votinThe other theory is that Sharon wants to confound the hawks by reaching a historic peace agreement with the Palestinians. According to that theory, Sharon wants to vault into the ranks of Israeli peacemakers like Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin and to erase the blots on his own record. Supporting evidence lies in Sharon’s recent rapprochement, his meeting with Ahmed Qorei, chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council, a day after the elections, to discuss the possibility of resuming a cease-fire between Palestinians and Israelis. The meeting was Sharon’s first with the senior Palestinian official in about a year. He also met Yasser Arafat’s deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, before the election. Apparently, direct talks with the Palestinians started long before the elections and are set to continue next week.

There is, of course, another possibility: that Sharon is trying to survive in office and retain the backing of the United States while advancing in a general direction rather than toward a specific goal. He is not really negotiating; he is not really moving. He opposed the Oslo peace agreement from the start of his tenure as premier and earlier. Branding it a threat to Israeli security, and as Palestinian violence has continued, he has taken back almost all of the autonomy that was granted to the Palestinian Authority under the accords.

The makeup of the next Israeli government could prove critical in determining the future. But to have to wait until after the Israeli government takes shape before the road map can take center stage is a political vacuum which is in no one’s interests except Sharon’s. The bigger question is how long will it take for the Iraqi issue to be resolved before movement in the Arab-Israeli conflict is made. The Iraqi file is only now opening.
by scary
Ignore my comments above, I was being stupid.
by uh
I guess palestinian "leadership" should have formed a state in 1948, or 1949, or 1950, or 1951, or 1952, or 1953, or 1954, or 1955, or 1956, or 1957, or 1958, or 1959, or 1960, or 1961, or 1962, or 1963, or 1964, or 1965, or 1966, instead of just waging war on Israel all that time when Israel was NOT preventing them from forming a state, EH?

And I guess palestinian "leadership" should not have spent 1967 to the early 1990's trying to destroy israel, EH?

And I guess from the 1990's on, when arafat FINALLY agreed that isarel has the right to exist and pretended that he doesn't want israel destroyed anymore, Palestinians should have stopped terrorist attacks against isarel and accepted one of the peace offers, instead of waging intifadas, and then attacks, and now another intifada, EH?

But sure, blame israel for every problem, single them out for everthing. That makes no sense at all, but don't let that stop you.
by still here
"Is Sharon planning the extermination/ethnic-cleansing of the Palestinians while the world is focuses on US attrocities in Iraq? Will the world sit by and let this happen? "

Atrocities? Ethnic Cleansing? Extermination? What are you? Some fucking overly dramatic moron? What kind of God creates such losers like you?



§X
by X
the question of whether or not the palestinians wasted opportunities to create a state is shadowed by the fact that the Israelis ethnically cleansed the Palestinians from what is now Israel. why shouldn't the palestinians fight for something that was stolen from them?
§X
by victim of Palestinian terror
what fucking moron came up with the idea that you have a right to exist?
by Israel
Lets see, palestinians are the native and the jews are not, it was called Palestine before 1948, just look at the maps, then the fucking jews show up and tell's everyone it is our biblical home, bull shit it is you cacausion mother fuckers with blond, red, brown, and black hair. Just can't stand these bitches that believe they are better then everyone else, and are god's only choosen people...
by victim of Palestinian terror
I'll say one thing. I'm sure glad you guys are posting in this fringe web site, chanting in the streets, and not actually making policy decisions.

And X, I'll recognize your right to exist as soon as you recognize Israel's.
by right
Your said -

``And X, I'll recognize your right to exist as soon as you recognize Israel's``

Zionists do NOT have a right to Exist
at the Expense of Another Nation.
by victim of Palestinian terror
If that is what you call international law, it should apply to all.

Then you would have to agree that the proposed state of Palestine does not have a right to exist at the expense of another nation, Israel, for example.

Apparently Arabs feel the same way. That would explain why Palestinians still live in those refugee camps.

Israel, however, is willing to overlook that and provide a lot of funding towards the creation of a Palestinian state -- something never done before -- on the one condition that Palestinians recognize their neighbors' right to exist!

Is that too much to ask?
by ugh
The ranting asshole above is unworthy of a response. He's an uneducated fucking idiot.
by Would YOU want Israelis for neighbors?
Of course they have the right to exist. The do not have the right to do it on stolen land.
by History Bytes

from President Woodrow Wilson's 1919 King-Crane Commission Report:

ZIONISM

E. We recommend, in the fifth place, serious modification of the extreme Zionist program for Palestine of unlimited immigration of Jews, looking finally to making Palestine distinctly a Jewish State.

(1) The Commissioners began their study of Zionism with minds predisposed in its favor, but the actual facts in Palestine, coupled with the force of the general principles proclaimed by the Allies and accepted by the Syrians have driven them to the recommendation here made.

(2) The commission was abundantly supplied with literature on the Zionist program by the Zionist Commission to Palestine; heard in conferences much concerning the Zionist colonies and their claims; and personally saw something of what had been accomplished. They found much to approve in the aspirations and plans of the Zionists, and had warm appreciation for the devotion of many of the colonists and for their success, by modern methods, in overcoming natural obstacles.

(3) The Commission recognized also that definite encouragement had been given to the Zionists by the Allies in Mr. Balfour's often quoted statement in its approval by other representatives of the Allies. If, however, the strict terms of the Balfour Statement are adhered to -favoring "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights existing in non-Jewish communities in Palestine"-it can hardly be doubted that the extreme Zionist Program must be greatly modified.

For "a national home for the Jewish people" is not equivalent to making Palestine into a Jewish State; nor can the erection of such a Jewish State be accomplished without the gravest trespass upon the "civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission's conference with Jewish representatives, that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase.

In his address of July 4, 1918, President Wilson laid down the following principle as one of the four great "ends for which the associated peoples of the world were fighting"; "The settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political relationship upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement for the sake of its own exterior influence or mastery." If that principle is to rule, and so the wishes of Palestine's population are to be decisive as to what is to be done with Palestine, then it is to be remembered that the non-Jewish population of Palestine-nearly nine tenths of the whole-are emphatically against the entire Zionist program. The tables show that there was no one thing upon which the population of Palestine were more agreed than upon this. To subject a people so minded to unlimited Jewish immigration, and to steady financial and social pressure to surrenderthe land, would be a gross violation of the principle just quoted, and of the people's rights, though it kept within the forms of law.

It is to be noted also that the feeling against the Zionist program is not confined to Palestine, but shared very generally by the people throughout Syria as our conferences clearly showed. More than 72 per cent-1,350 in all-of all the petitions in the whole of Syria were directed against the Zionist program. Only two requests-those for a united Syria and for independence-had a larger support This genera] feeling was only voiced by the "General Syrian Congress," in the seventh, eighth and tenth resolutions of the statement. (Already quoted in the report.)

The Peace Conference should not shut its eyes to the fact that the anti-Zionist feeling in Palestine and Syria is intense and not lightly to be flouted. No British officer, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms. The officers generally thought that a force of not less than 50,000 soldiers would be required even to initiate the program. That of itself is evidence of a strong sense of the injustice of the Zionist program, on the part of the non-Jewish populations of Palestine and Syria. Decisions, requiring armies to carry out, are sometimes necessary, but they are surely not gratuitously to be taken in the interests of a serious injustice. For the initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a "right" to Palestine, based on an occupation of 2,000 years ago, can hardly be seriously considered.

There is a further consideration that cannot justly be ignored, if the world is to look forward to Palestine becoming a definitely Jewish state, however gradually that may take place. That consideration grows out of the fact that Palestine is "the Holy Land" for Jews, Christians, and Moslems alike. Millions of Christians and Moslems all over the world are quite as much concerned as the Jews with conditions in Palestine especially with those conditions which touch upon religious feeling and rights. The relations in these matters in Palestine are most delicate and difficult. With the best possible intentions, it may be doubted whether the Jews could possibly seem to either Christians or Moslems proper guardians of the holy places, or custodians of the Holy Land as a whole.

The reason is this: The places which are most sacred to Christians-those having to do with Jesus-and which are also sacred to Moslems, are not only not sacred to Jews, but abhorrent to them. It is simply impossible, under those circumstances, for Moslems and Christians to feel satisfied to have these places in Jewish hands, or under the custody of Jews. There are still other places about which Moslems must have the same feeling. In fact, from this point of view, the Moslems, just because the sacred places of all three religions are sacred to them have made very naturally much more satisfactory custodians of the holy places than the Jews could be. It must be believed that the precise meaning, in this respect, of the complete Jewish occupation of Palestine has not been fully sensed by those who urge the extreme Zionist program. For it would intensify, with a certainty like fate, the anti-Jewish feeling both in Palestine and in all other portions of the world which look to Palestine as "the Holy Land."

In view of all these considerations, and with a deep sense of sympathy for the Jewish cause, the Commissioners feel bound to recommend that only a greatly reduced Zionist program be attempted by the Peace Conference, and even that, only very gradually initiated. This would have to mean that Jewish immigration should be definitely limited, and that the project for making Palestine distinctly a Jewish commonwealth should be given up.


The Faithful are Allowed to Carry the Cornerstone to the Area of the Hulda Gates of the Temple Mount
The Israeli Supreme Court Decides on the Faithful Movement Petition

[...] I want to bring a word from G–d to the enemies of Israel and to all the nations in the world. Do not even try to prevent this godly event and process. The purification of the Temple Mount from the foreigners and enemies of Israel and their desecration of the holy site of G–d and the rebuilding of the temple cannot be prevented. This is a major historical, prophetic, end-time event which the G–d of Israel and the Universe will soon bring to completion in our lifetime. G–d anointed Israel to rebuild this house and to serve Him in this great house not only for the people of Israel but for all the nations as the prophet Isaiah stated - “... for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah56:7)

Temple Mount Faithful

by History Bytes

According to the leading Israeli historian Martin van Creveld, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's plan is to forcibly "transfer" the two million Palestinians living in the occupied territories to neighbouring Jordan-a move opinion polls indicate has the support of 44 per cent of Israelis. No doubt this would spark a response from Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon (popular sentiment in those regions would irresistibly force the hands of the regimes), but that would merely provide an occasion for Israel to employ once more its overwhelming (American-built and American-funded) military might on them and crush their armies:

"Mr Sharon would have to wait for a suitable opportunity - such as an American offensive against Iraq... An uprising in Jordan, followed by the collapse of King Abdullah's regime, would also present such an opportunity-as would a spectacular act of terrorism inside Israel that killed hundreds.
PNAC

by Weird
Hmm. Is there any reason you don't seem to mind how Jews ALREADY WERE forcibly removed (or robbed and basically lead to leave) almost every arab country, but you focus all your attention on what Israel MIGHT do?

You demand israeli jews act perfectly, while you give a free pass to what arab leaders/countries have done. Very strange....

by X
To---A little history.. It seems you are the fucking idiot, you need to learn a little history, before you open you shit hole, know what the fuck your talking about. I'm guessing that you are an American who got educated in america which speaks for it's self, gung-ho mother fucking moron
by better days
Once Saddam is removed and a government friendly to its own people takes its place, it will assist the Israeli/Palestinian issue and will make it much more managable. Arafat will need to move along into retirement.
by JA

sf.indymedia has apparently censored the View Latest Comments listing of this article ( originally posted at http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/02/1572736.php ) If sf.indymedia has found the article slanderous or the information otherwise wrong, they should have posted their own comment saying so and/or specifying that they will not post slanderous, libelous or otherwise defamatory information. Please email sf.indymedia at imc-sf-editorial [at] indymedia.org and sf [at] indymedia.org if you are concerned about this apparent censorship.


RACIST ZIONIST QUOTES
by Joseph Anderson


"Zionism is nothing more than the belief that Jews as a people have the right to self-determination in their homeland, Israel." That's the PUBLIC RELATIONS DEFINITION of Zionism. Here are but a FEW racist Zionist quotes by Zionist founding pioneers:

All one has to do is to go read the statements of the Zionist pioneers about Palestine--they blatantly believed that they had a racially superior right to the land and their statements were definitely racist.


Here are but a FEW!!!:


Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the 'Beasts,"' New Statesman, June 25,1982:

"[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs."


David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff.
From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978:

"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population."


Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department.
From Israel: an Apartheid State by Uri Davis, p.5:

"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours... Everything we don't grab will go to them."


Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine, "Complete Diaries," June 12, 1895 entry.:

"Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."


Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, head of the Kever Yossev Yeshiva (school of Talmud) in Nablus stated:

"The blood of the Jewish people is loved by the Lord; it is therefore redder and their life is preferable."


Yitzhak Ginsburg, "Five General Religious Duties Which Lie Behind the Act of the Saintly, Late Rabbi Baruch Goldstein, May his Blood be Avenged":

"The killing by a Jew of a non-Jew, i.e. a Palestinian, is considered essentially a good deed, and Jews should therefore have no compunction about it."


In 1923, radical Zionist Ze'ev Jabotinsky-- spiritual father of not only of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin but of Brooklyn Rabbi Meir Kahane-- wrote:

the "sole way" for Jews to deal with Arabs in Palestine was through "total avoidance of all attempts to arrive at a settlement"-which Jabotinsky euphemistically termed the "iron wall" approach. Not coincidentally, a picture of Jabotinsky graces Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's desk. Source: The Village Voice, "Death Wish in the Holy Land," Dec. 12, 2001.


The influential Israeli Rabbi Ovadia Yosef exclaimed during a sermon preceding the 2001 Passover holiday, :

"May the Holy Name visit retribution on the
Arab heads, and cause their seed to be lost, and annihilate them." He added: "It is forbidden to have pity on them. We must give them missiles with relish, annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones." -- Source: Ha'aretz April 12, 2001.


Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969:

"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, ‘What is to be done with the Palestinian population?’ Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!'"


David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1978, p. 99:

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."


Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, 'Begin and the "Beasts"', New Statesman, 25 June 1982:

"We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return."


Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979. Rabin's description of the conquest of Lydda, after the completion of Plan Dalet:

"We shall reduce the Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters."


David Goldman wrote:

"We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours."


Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir's infamous quote:

"There is no such thing as a Palestinian."


Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998:

"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."


Israel Koenig, "The Koenig Memorandum":

"If I was an Arab leader I would never make [peace] with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country."


And finally:

Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney General of Israel, 1993-1996 (in Ha'aretz):

"The Intifada is the Palestinian's people's war of national liberation. We [Israel] enthusiastically chose to become a colonialist society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the Occupied Territories, engaging in theft and funding justification for all these activities.. we [Israel] established an apartheid regime."


Ehud Barak, on Israeli TV (date undetermined, but confirmed by former Israeli Knesset Member Marsha Friedman):

"If I were a Palestinian, I would be a terrorist."
(Speaking about Sharon's policies toward the Palestinians.)


Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel, commenting on the August-September 2001 Durbin Conference Against Racism (said about black South Africans and their criticism of Zionism):

"What can a people who have descended from trees teach us about civilization."


Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel (date undetermined, in an Israeli cabinet meeting):

Don't worry, we [Israel] control the United States.

(In response to concerns raised by another cabinet member about Sharon's ["the butcher of Beirut"] invasion and brutality in the West Bank.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also see:

Zionism Ignores Plight of Palestinian People
http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=10435

and

Zionist Claim to Israel: Modern-Day Apartheid
http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=3508
by Uber-Nerd
Why don't you answer "Weird"'s question in a straight forward manner?

I'm not even getting into this debate, but I believe that you lack the skills to answer that one honestly and without propaganda/rehtoric.
§X
by X
i wrote this a while ago
if its out of context i dont give a shit
man i cant live without swearing
need to change that shit
ANYWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Indeed the first Jewish settlers bought the land but due to the new system of land ownership imposed by the Ottoman Empire, the purchase of the land was rather unjust. Lands that were collectively owned by the "Palestinian" villages were held in trust, and under the name of a few Palestinian Notables. These Notables later unjustly sold the land to the Jewish settlers (land that was actually collectively owned by the villagers and not by them). Although the sale was unjust, it is conceded that it is the Notables who are at fault for this injustice and not the Jewish settlers. There was nothing illegal bout the purchase of "Palestinian" land by the Jewish settlers. The point is that the Palestinians who attacked the Jews were bitter about the injustice of the land sales and were afraid that the increasing number of Jews entering Palestine would lead to the establishment of a state (worse still a Jewish state) in Palestine. Obviously their fear of the latter was well founded but granted, instead of attacking the Jews they should have taken out their bitterness on the Notables... that was a mistake and injustice on their part. Another point is that it is unfair to say that the settlers were attacked simply because they were Jewish. The "Palestinians" would have felt threatened (rightly or wrongly) by any nation trying to establish a state in an area in which their homes were located (the same way that a New Yorker would have felt if zionists had attempted to establish a Israel in New York - even if they had legally bought the land in New York). Finally, the land that was legally bought was a small percentage of the land inhabited by the "Palestinians".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ever since the 1967 war and then later the 1973 war, Arab nations, particularly the Palestinians themselves (whether they like it or not) have come to realize that Israel will not disappear, that it is here to stay. Only extremist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad still believe in the total destruction of Israel. When a Palestinian terrorist (under the orders of a Hamas leader for example), representing a minority, blows himself up in Israel, killing 20 innocent people in the process, Israel responds by reoccupying Palestinian towns, imposing curfews, practicing extra-judicial killings and punishments etc... (in other words they practice collective punishment on those who were not responsible for the bombing itself). This in effect, turns already bitter Palestinians, especially Palestinian youth, into impressionable targets for Hamas and Islamic Jihad brainwashers. (If you have noticed, it is not the leaders of these organizations themselves who practice suicide bombings, for they are cowards and lack the convictions of their own words - therefore they prey on the Palestinian youth, turning them into "instruments of evil"... more suicide bombers). Consequently, Israeli military responses are not helping to stop the cycle of violence but are rather adding fuel to the fire so to speak.

So why is it that Israel, not the Palestinian "nation" should cease its offensive military or terrorist operations first in order to break the cycle of violence? Frankly, It is because Israel is a highly organized and successful state and actually has the capability to stop a military operation (i.e. if a general orders a cease-fire the troops will obey orders). It is unrealistic for the Israelis to believe that the (let's say pathetic) Palestinian state can control the actions of certain fringe elements. It unrealistic to think that Hamas will listen to even a full-hearted call to end Palestinian terrorism from Yasser Arafat or ANY Palestinian leader.

The fact is that Hamas and Islamic Jihad will not stop until either Israel is destroyed or until they are destroyed. My point is that Israel cannot destroy the fabric of Palestinian terrorist organizations through its military incursions into Palestinian territories as their actions will in effect CREATE more terrorists.

What Israel must do is accept responsibility for the displacement of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in Israel and acknowledge that it was a grave injustice. In return the Palestinians should acknowledge that their insistence on the Right of Return is selfish and would create yet another injustice (i.e. if Israelis who, just as the Palestinians were, born and brought up in the area were forced to move to accomodate returning Palestinians). Israel should also relinquish control of 100% of the W. Bank and Gaza, help create a Palestinian state with E. Jerusalem as its capital and encourage the US to provide huge economic aid packages to rebuild the Palestinian state. By creating a moderate Palestinian society, the roots of terrorism will eventually die off. Needless to say, this time period will call for ENORMOUS restraint on the part of Israel - but in the long run the price will be worth it. Perhaps a joint Palestinian-Israeli security team or anti-terrorist task force could then operate more efficiently within both states to root out the leaders of terrorist organizations.

Why I believe Israel should make such massive concessions is because it is the only side that has the capability to make these concessions. It is ridiculous to think that the Palestinians in their current pathetic state can call for even a cease-fire.


by A short History lesson
[Hidden Due To Anti-Semitism]
§X
by X
i do understand your position regarding the status of Jerusalem but however for the sake of having a fair peace agreement, I would rather have Jerusalem as an "international" city than be given in whole to either side. As for captured territories, technically all the land that Israel captured should belong to Israel but once again for the sake of peace and justice (in the long term) those should be handed back to the Palestinians. As for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, they can only be defeated through cooperation between the Israelis and Palestinian moderates (meaning the entire Palestinian society of the future). cooperation can only be achieved once the Palestinians stop believing that the Israelis are the bad guys. Israel's policies in the Palestinian territories (justified or not) do not seem to help the issue by turning even more palestinians against them.
by Ugh
Amazing how 2 posts up is blatant anti-semitism from a day or two ago, and the post hasn't been deleted yet.

The crazed anti-zionists tend to be jew-haters who know that it's not politically correct to admit that, but they can get away with hiding behind exaggerated lies about zionism

by gehrig
You're right, that's a blatantly antisemitic post. However,this is a busy board, and the editors can't be expected to spot everything. They make a conscious effort to remove posts which are overtly antisemitic, but this is a pretty high-bandwidth place and they can't be expected to see everything.

@%<
by Well
Well, the "new anti-semitism" is for anti-semites to lie obsessively about zionism, sway every aspect of the middle east problem against Jews, but then loudly claim "I'm NOT against Jews, just the zionists!"

But people who deny facts and fairness and turn everything against zionists like is done here reeks of Foul Stink.

Why do so many of you want to lie about zionism and paint it negatively? Jews got crapped on in much of the world for a very long time, and zionism was a response, to establish a safe place. It wasn't about attacking anyone, it was about defense, and safety, and a home in a land that didn't treat Jews like pets (or cockroaches).

Those of you who focus a huge amount of attention on attacking zionism are either misinformed, or more likely informed but hiding hidden agendas. Zionism is not racist, it favors Jews who are white, black and in-between. THere is no "ethnic cleansing" since the majority of Jewish semitic people and Muslim semitic people are of the same race. Also, Israeli citizens of all races and religions are still citizens, no one group is being rounded up and deported or attacked. Israel's main fight is with people who live outside of Israel and are not Israeli citizens.

Those of you who single zionism out as something bad are misguided, or with agenda. The #1 reason zionism was formed and exists was/is as a response to what Jews were put through in much of the world for the last 2000 years. It's about a safe haven.

Currently, almost 20% of Israel's citizens are not Jewish. Hundreds of thousands of Muslim Israelis work, vote and live pretty regular lives in Israel.

Palestinians kicked every Jew out of Palestinian land.

Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine and almost every arab country destroyed their Jewish communities and forced Jews to flee elsewhere. Israel took the refugees in.

Yet arab countries refused to take in Palestinian refugees.

You anti-zionist loons ignore all this, you ignore balanced reality, you single Israel out for not being a better democracy than it is, yet you intentionally ignore what most arab nations did to their jews. It's ok with you that almost every Jew suffered even if they had nothing to do with Israel or anything?

You spend a huge amount of time exaggerating or lying about zionism, acting like it's a bad thing, while intentionally ignoring really bad things that don't suit your agenda.

Many arab countries blamed any Jews living there for what Jews in Israel were allegedly doing wrong. Yet you don't care. It doesn't suit your agenda. You just want to rant about what Jews do wrong, only you pretend it's all about "zionism" and politics, and hide behind a "politically correct" lie. Why not just admit it, you want to single Jewish Israelis out for what they allegedly do "wrong," while you want to forgive or ignore what was actually done to Jews in that part of the world that plays a huge role on how Israel responds to stuff.

Try being balanced. Probably hard, I guess, when you are fueled by obsessive-compulsive, dishonest and unhealthy hatred of zionists/Israel, eh?

Zionism isn't "bad." It was about giving Jews a safe home. You may disagree with how the current Israeli government is handling things, but the lies about zionism and Israel and the dishonest and unfair singling-out of Jews and zionists needs to stop.
by ugh
What a garbage poster.

At what point will you assholes stop singling out and lying about zionism, while ignoring bad stuff that others do?

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by X
are u saying that zionists are "angels" and have not done anything wrong?
§X
by X
whether it was a desert wasteland or not is irrevelant.
PEOPLE. HUMAN BEINGS... had their homes there.

THen the zionists came and kicked them out - THEY STOLE THEIR LAND.

FACT.

by ------
Actually, the zionists bought almost all the land they lived on, then war quickly came against them, and they won additional land in that war.

But thanks for the idiotic, inaccurate summary.

§X
by X
the zionists only bought less than 10% of the land

FACT.

the zionists STOLE the land from the Palestinians

FACT.
§X
by X
and when u say terrorist apologists do you mean the people who are sympathetic to the Israelis?
by X
Here is a link to a British online new service ...http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,5860,720353,00.html Here you can see, who the land realy belongs to, this is not Anti simetics, it's the facts
by XintheBrain
Actually, they bought some, and the rest they were awarded control of by the actual owners, who may have been "absentee landlords" but that's not the fault of the Jews.

And then war occured, from arabs to wipe israel out, and then israel got more land.

How come you single israel out for "stealing" land from arabs, but you don't equally single out the arab countries who then robbed and discriminated against their jews? Arab countries took their anger about israel out on their own jews, even if those jews had nothing to do with israel or zionism.

In reality, there were hundreds of thousands of refugees on both sides, and both sides lost land, there was a "population exchange." Only israel accepted jewish refugees and helped resettle them, arabs REJECTED most arab refugees and kept them living in refugee camps while waging repeated wars and attacks against israel.

You single israel out for "stealing" yet INTENTIONALLY NEGLECT to mention that the "other side" did just as much stealing.

Bottom line, Israel didn't kick out arabs who stayed in israel. That's why almost 20% of israeli citizens today are muslim. The same cannot be said for arab countries who mostly kicked the crap out of any jew they could find. 0% of Jews who used to live in Jordan are still there, whether they wanted to be or not.

In Saudia arabia, the "capital of islam," you can't even BE jewish. yet in Israel, the "jewish state," almost 20% of citizens are muslim, and they vote, work, and have positions in the government.

Yet you single israel out, exaggerate what israel did "wrong," and give a free pass to israel's neighbors actions, actions that are DIRECTLY RELEVANT to actions the israeli govt is forced to take.

Now, go away.
by Mr
Ariel Sharon can be sued for crimes against humanity according to the supream court of Belgium, and the Israelis have the nerve to call Belguim a small insignificant country, those are big words comming from a small welfare county that can support itself, and has to beg for money from the USA, and Europe, so who is realy insignificant?
§X
by X
Britain and America may have to dilute their demands if they are to persuade the Security Council to consider a new resolution. Britain's Ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, talked of 'offering new language', an altogether less belligerent approach than the run-up to the meeting in November when resolution 1441 was adopted.
It seems likely that the US-UK strategy will rely on the threat in a paragraph at the end of 1441: 'The council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violation of its obligations.' All members of the council have already voted in favour of this.

Whatever the form of words eventually accepted, the US and UK are still certain to meet opposition from Europe and in turn the hawks in the US government will condemn those urging a veto of early action in Iraq. So it is a good moment to remember America's own record of vetoing resolutions critical of Israel.

To raise this at any time, but especially now, will inevitably be considered to be anti-American and anti-Israeli, possibly even anti-Semitic. But it is none of these things. There is long-term legal and political inconsistency between the treatment of Israel and other countries in the region, and the greatest weakness in America's case on Iraq is that it shows no signs of acknowledging its history of favouritism.

In the past 30 years, America has vetoed 34 resolutions that criticise Israel and seek to restrain its behaviour. These failed most recently in a demand for the restoration of land seized from the Palestinians and a cessation of construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Even in the relatively minor case from November 1990, when the UN wanted to send three Security Council members to Rishon Lezion, where an Israeli gunman had shot seven Palestinian workers, the US vetoed the wishes of the other 14 countries on the council.

Over three decades Arabs have come to understand that the cards are stacked against them. What is important, but rarely understood, in the United States is that each case against Israel seems just as compelling in Arab eyes as the need for Saddam's disarmament is to George Bush.

Now that America wants the permanent members of the Security Council to vote for a new resolution, or at least seek a definition of 'serious consequences' in 1441 as meaning military action, Europeans should remind the US of this appalling record of bias and seek to link the discussion about Iraq to the situation between Israel and the Palestinians.

In a way, the resolutions stifled by Washington in the past 30 years were unnecessary because so many of the issues raised are covered by a resolution which was supported by the US in November 1967 - the famous resolution 242, which underlines that Israel must return territory acquired in war.

This is still active, but 35 years on the Israelis remain in material breach of 242, a breach made all the more flagrant by continued building and settling in the occupied territories. Despite Israeli denials, the message is clear. Israel is not prepared to exchange conquered territory for peace and would appear to prefer to become embroiled in a dirty war with terrorist groups rather than give up a square inch to the Palestinians.

Israeli defiance of 242 and the subsequent resolutions passed with US help that reaffirm it have been a chronic destabiliser in the Middle East. The Israelis will not shift and the US has done almost nothing to make them. In fact, its financial and military support has achieved the opposite of compliance. If France or Russia had undermined Security Council resolutions against Iraq to this degree, we can only imagine the indignation and rage of men such as Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

So Americans want it both ways. That is not unusual for the world's dominant power, but to claim that a disarmament of Saddam should be undertaken primarily to secure peace in the region is to neglect the permanent threat to peace caused by Israel's intransigence. There are many good arguments for toppling Saddam, especially the treatment of his 23 million subjects, but to Arabs they will not carry much weight until the West squares up to Israel and insists on compliance of 242.

Those who make policy know this is right, but say it is also unrealistic. Israel has nuclear weapons and it is a fact of life that America is forced to intervene in the Middle East to prevent challenges to Israel's regional dominance. It would, of course, be far more dangerous for Israel to act overtly on its own behalf as the great military power that it now is.

If America is to be Israel's chaperone and agent, it cannot also be its policeman. The role must fall to others, as Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, perhaps came near to admitting on the BBC Iraq debate. He said that Israel-Palestine issue should be addressed with much more 'energy' after any war against Iraq. That energy is unlikely to come from America, partly because of the Jewish lobby, although its influence is sometimes exaggerated, but mostly because it is powerless to control the state to which it so uniquely obligated.

Although discussions in the Security Council over the next week will focus on Iraq, Israel should be brought into the picture. The European are in a position to insist on linkage - joint resolutions that address both Iraq and Israel and have equal force in the eyes of the world. That way regime change might be achieved in Iraq without the appalling consequences in the Arab world that are widely and rightly feared. Compliance in Israel is just as much a requirement as it is in Iraq.

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