Are We Really Looking for Peace??

Your commentary makes a lot of sense.

But will anyone listen? We can only hope so.

"but if the Palestinian had these weapons they could fight soldier to soldier instead of resorting to suicide bombings."

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OK, suppose the world allows the Palestinians to arm themselves with conventional weapons. Then the Palestinians and the Israelis fight "soldier to soldier".

Then, suppose the the Israelis soundly defeat the Palestinian soldiers (remember, they have defeated much more formidable and well-organized forces).

Then what?

Is it over? You would concede that Israel won the war and the Palestinians face defeat like the Japanese and Germans of the mid-1940s?

If not, then this is the exact reason why Israel wouldn't support your plan (of arming the Palestinians as soldiers, to avoid suicide bombings -- which, by the way, would be extremely unlikely). There is no upside for them.

That is why they should go ahead and have the Palestinian State now, so they don’t have to have all out war. Notice that both the Germans and Japanese have their own country.
The Germans and Japanese were not under occupation for thirty five years.
We are talking about millions of Palestinians not just a handful of radicals.
By setting the Borders to the 1967 lines in the manner of the above article you save the problem of mass evacuation of the settlements and you have a natural ending of occupation by having the settlers who want to leave, go when and if they choose to instead of having to leave instantly. As far as the Palestinian having conventional weapons to match the Israelis. How do you expect the Palestinian to stop land confiscation and home demolition without any defense at all, including equal rights?

Israel offered a permanent peace 3 years ago. Palestinians rejected it and began their terrorist intifada. AFTER they began it, months after, Israelis voted in ariel sharon, as a response to it. After palestinans were successfully hitting israel with terrorist attacks every 1-3 DAYS, israel responded by going into many additional palestinian towns that were hotbeds for terrorists in an effort to clamp down on them. They would rather hamas lunatics try to attack israeli soldiers outside of israel than successfully break in and blow up every innocent jewish person they can get at. That is what's happening right now. There is no "ethnic cleansing." Almost 20% of israeli citizens are muslims/arabs, and they are not being harmed. Israel is not fighting a "race." Israel is not fighting with their own arab citizens. Israel is fighting with their neighbors, the palestinians, who are not israeli citizens, and who refuse to call off their idiotic, self-destructive intifada. Israel is more heavily armed than these nuts, so naturally when they fight, more palestinians die than israeli soliders do. If Israeli soliders wanted to, they could kill 5000 or 10,000 a day. They don't want to. They are hunting terrorists and people who refuse to be civil and peaceful. If Israel cared nothing about hurting their neighbors then every time a palestinian from town X attacked israel, israel could just lob giant bombs into town X, not lose a single israeli soldier, and kill thousand of palestinians at a time. After a few rounds of that, terrorism against israel would probably stop. But at an enormouse rate of innocent deaths. Israel does not want that. Proof of this is that instead of just lobbing bombs and killing thousands at a time, Israel has always tried to clamp down on terrorist hotbed towns, control them, and hunt terrorists and arrest people who are involved with attacks.

The day terrorists from towns X and Y attack israel and israel responds with giant bombs killing 3,000 from town X and 6,500 from town Y is the day you should declare that israel is responding with full war and no longer cares about hurting innocents. Until then, you should shut your mouths and try to figure out what it's like to try to kill terrorists who mix in with innocent people and have voluntary and involuntary "human shields" trying to protect them.

The solution to this is as follows. First, palestinians must call off their insane terrorist intifada. Hamas and islamic jihad nutcases must be gotten rid of. And Palestinians have had the same nutcase leader for 35 years, Yasser Arafat, and it's ridiculous to think that peace can come with a lunatic like him at the healm. Israel democratically elects new leaders every few years. All Israeli citizens of every religion vote. There are muslims and arabs, democratically elected, who are a part of the Israeli government right now. Israel leaders change every few years, and over the last 10 or 20 years Israeli leaders have tried every approach possible in dealing with the Palestinians. But when your dictator, err, leader, is Yasser Arafat for 35 years in a row, you aren't going to do very well. He needs to be replaced. Palestinians need a SANE, CIVIL, RESPONSIBLE leadership who, if given power, will lead Palestine into becoming a respectable state, and not just another terrorist home like Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, etc.

Think about it. If Israel right now handed over total land control of the West bank and gaza to Palestinians, and scumbags like Hamas, Islamic JIhad, Arafat, etc. were the main groups in charge and with all the power, what kind of state would Palestine be in 2 or 4 or 10 years? A terrorist state who would probably seek to destroy Israel the moment they had the power to do so. And don't go talking about Ariel Sharon, because Israel is a democracy, he was just voted in a mere 3 years ago, and he will probably be voted out in a year or two when a tough guy like him isn't needed anymore to run the place. BUT, THINK ABOUT THIS, if we can find a group of civil, moderate, non-extremist Palestinians to act as leaders, and give them control of the land, and let them lead Palestine into becoming a state, they can make sure it is run RESPONSIBLY and doesn't turn into a terrorist state and eventually make full war on Israel.

No matter which "side" you are on (the side that wants peace for both sides, or the side that wants to wipe Israel out), think about it. If you genuinely want peace for everyone involved, what would be better, if terrorists and lunatics like arafat and hamas run Palestine and gain power as it becomes a state (eventually leading to probable full war with Israel), or if CIVIL, SANE, RESPONSIBLE leaders run Palestine and gain power as it becomes a state, leading to a responsible neighbor who won't attack Israel and therefore war won't result and hoards of people won't die on both sides.

I'm for the latter.

Israel already offered to remove the settlements, several times, in fact. That's quite possible. But as long as war is being made on Israel, it makes no sense to do so.

Israel many times has offered to end the occupation in return for peace. Palestinians, mostly due to their terrorist leaders and popular terrorist groups, have always rejected the peace and chosen to attack. So, now, Israel attacks the attackers, specifically trying to get at members of the organizations that refuse to stop attacking Israel.

Palestinians controlled over 90% of their own land for most of the 1990's. Yet they still refused to stop attacking Israel, and still refuse to call off their terrorist intifada attacks. So, Israel had to go back in.

Israel's occupation should end the moment responsible, sane, non-extremist leaders for Palestinians emerge to take control and lead to a permanent, peaceful future. Israel's occupation should not end as long as the likes of Arafat and Hamas represent the Palestinian people. That would not help either side.

Egypt was willing to make real peace with Israel. Israel accepted, and it worked, and it has lasted.

Jordan was willing to make real peace with Israel. Israel accepted, and it worked, and it has lasted.

Of course, both Jordan and Egypt are still anti-semitic countries. Hell, it's barely even legal to BE a Jew in half the arab states. But that's another story. We're talking about political relations.

Palestinians have had the same nutcase leader since the 1960's. He's a loser. Arafat needs to go. Can we dig up some Palestinian moderates who aren't religious extremists and genuinely want peace for both sides, PLEASE?

Until that happens, no good will result...

In the above article I was for both sides having A State. I believe in the right of Israel to exist, we are talking about some 5,000,000 people here. But there are millions of Palestinians who deserve freedom also.
If Israel is so perfect in what they do, what do you say to the following article:
CLICK HERE > http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=58792&group=webcast

The difficulty with which the people of goodwill are confronted in the effort to bring about world harmony is due to the fact that the condition of unity of objective, of method and of interrelation have yet to be brought about without any infringement of the free will of the individual, group or nation. The occult law of spiritual freedom has to be recognized and protected. No such recognition or safeguarding hinders the activities of the forces of evil. The will-to-power and an organized, evil minority have taken control. Freedom of conscience and of action have been removed, and the enforced submission of the majority to the will of a ruthless minority has brought about a spurious but temporarily most effective unity. This has been lacking in the case of the United Nations, fighting for the Forces of Light and on behalf of human freedom.

Freedom can itself prove a limitation when it delays right action, when it centers attention upon the petty differences and the personality inclinations of people and nations and when it serves to prevent that unity of action which can win the struggle for human emancipation. Nevertheless, the people of goodwill all around the world stand poised, and victory will be theirs when there is complete unity of purpose, concentrated attention upon right human relations, and a spread of idealistic aspiration to all who are fighting this battle for freedom. For this unity of purpose all the enlightened people of the world must work. It is not yet adequately present.

We must build peace through culture.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=288908&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Road map for legitimizing terror, By Israel Harel

If political gains are, by definition, the main fruit of victory in the battlefield, the road map proves the Palestinians - not Israel - have the upper hand in the war of terror that they initiated.

The attack in Tel Aviv - in the early morning hours after Holocaust Memorial Day and after Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was sworn in as the Palestinian Authority's first prime minister - is further proof that Israel does not have enough strength to put an end to that war.

Is it any wonder, then, that the United States is saying to itself: If Israel does not have the determination to put an end to the terror that is persistently striking it, its best friend must take the initiative to stop the bloodbath that Israel has been unable to halt - due to inhibitions that are characteristic of Jews, who are afraid to take the necessary steps, even when they would lead to the prevention of the continuous murder of Israeli citizens.

In order for the road map to have a chance, it must be pro-Palestinian because the initiative, even after 13 months of killing Jews, continues to be in the hands of the Palestinians.

The road map's main danger is not the harsh demands it makes on Israel but its very publication. The Arabs conclude, and rightly so, that America is declaring via the map that the terror against the Jews, unlike terror against the citizens of any other country, pays and is therefore permissible. The road map is also a personal victory for Yasser Arafat, the man who until recently seemed to have fallen, never to rise again.

It can be said that Arafat lost the battle but won the war. What's more, despite the fact that, in principle, his crimes against humanity, particularly in the past two and a half years, are no different from the crimes of Saddam Hussein and all the other war criminals who have butchered civilians, Arafat enjoys immunity like no other leader of mass terror. Perhaps it is because his victims are Jews.

The bulk of his immunity is granted by the Israeli government, which is obligated to act on behalf of the victims who were murdered by his criminal activities. This is because the government, due to characteristic Jewish victims' complexes ("political reasons"), does not dare charge Arafat with war crimes. If this is the nature of the victims' government, how can we complain against the rehabilitation provided by European governments whose representatives do not desist from making pilgrimages to visit him.

It is unfortunate that the Israel Defense Forces, unlike the American army in Iraq, did not manage to grant its government the unequivocal victory that would have enabled it to dictate political and security conditions to the Palestinians. Such a victory would also have restrained the international pressure and prevented the need, certainly from the American's point of view, for the road map.

This would also have created a political-psychological atmosphere that would have made it possible to try Arafat for war crimes, along with the band of terrorists who acted on his behalf, just as the Americans are about to try the war criminals in Iraq and just as the Allied forces, led by the Americans, tried the German war criminals 57 years ago.

We would also be able to drive home the awareness that the blood of Jewish terror victims is just as red as that of Saddam's victims and, believe it or not, as the blood of the Americans who were murdered in the terror attacks. Just imagine what America would do to Saddam, to bin Laden and their minions when they are caught.

Only after 19 months of rampant terror, following the attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya on Seder night (March 27, 2002), did Israel understand that it was the defensive doctrine that everyone praised, thanks to the reduced military casualty figures, that had practically given the terrorists free reign to organize and carry out the mass-fatality attacks.

Even during Operation Defensive Shield, despite its relative success, the job was not finished and the terrorists remained undaunted. The IDF, like the American army in the 1991 Gulf War, halted the war on the verge of victory, while most of the terror infrastructures, particularly the headquarters and the directive and political leaderships, continued to operate.

Abu Mazen, who is now being told to finish the IDF's job, will smoke out the terrorists with the same vigor, the same efficacy and the same results as his predecessor to the commitment "to dismantle the terrorists infrastructures" - Arafat.

The United States gave us enough leeway to win this war. President George W. Bush even tried to neutralize Arafat, the patriarch of Arab terror. When we did not meet the performance test due to our inhibitions and our failings, and the people continued to bleed, the Americans had to come up with a plan that they, in their mistaken naivete, felt would bring an end to the bloodshed.

And when Israel is ordered to start with "gestures" toward the Palestinians, and later to bear the brunt of the price of implementing the plan, there is no doubt as to who has won the battle. It is no wonder, then, that Arafat's calendar is so full of meetings with foreign ministers. He has been perceived, and rightly so, as the one who has again come out as the political victor in another round of the never-ending terrorist war the Arabs are waging, and will continue to wage, against the existence of the Jewish Zionist state.

The Palestinians need a reason to stop fighting...
If Israel is sincere about wanting peace why has the Population of the settlement gone from around 100,000 in the early 1990s to over 300,000 today (should not the population of the settlements be going down so that Palestine can have a reasonable State instead of one carved up like Swiss Cheese). If the Palestinian are going to finally get their freedom after over 35 years of occupation and oppression is 22% of what is now Israel, Gaza and West Bank to much to ask for some 4,000,000 people. As for Israel they can have a right to exist, they can have 78% of the area in question, Mayby the Refugees will not have Right of return to their homes and land that used to be inside Israel. The Refugees could somehow be helped to settle in the Palestinian State Instead.
The Question: Is Israel confiscating Palestinian land?
Is Israel demolishing Palestinian Peoples homes leaving countless People homeless? Do we expect the Palestinians to just do nothing while this is going on. They have no military to fight with....

here is an article about a plan that supports a palestinian state.

Haaretz: By HERB KEINON AND TOVAH LAZAROFF


MK Benny Elon's plan calls for a five step process that includes, as first steps, dismantling the PA and terminating terror, Rotenberg said.

"The Palestinian Authority has no future and the position of the Palestinian Authority is preventing the end of the conflict," Rotenberg said.

In the third phase the Palestinian state will be built in Jordan in conjunction with the Hashemite kingdom and with assistance from Israel, the US and the international community.

Jordan will continue to exist but will also be the representatives of the Palestinian people. In the fourth stage, Israel, the US and the international community will rebuild Jordan economically opening the way for the refugees to move there in the plan's fifth stage. In its final phase, peace will return, normalizing the region.

The settlments are a historic mistake of the Israeli goverments.

The terror is a historic mistake of the Palestinian people.

Settlemnts can and will be dismentlled. (as part of a peace agreement)

Live lost to terror can not come back.

You want peace ? (sure you do) then work on sputting an end to terror. Removing the settlmenst and withdrawal of the IDF will follow.

--"The terror is a historic mistake of the Palestinian people."

Terror is also a historic mistake of the Israeli people. Much of what Israelis do is terrorism in every sense of the word. In fact, despite the media's emphasis on Palestinian terror, Israeli terror is much worse in scale and it goes on daily -- daily killings, abductions, house demolitions, etc. Recently the media went into hysterics over the killing of three Israelis. When three Palestinians are killed (as is typical in one day in the Occupied Territories), the media hardly raises a peep.

How an Arab homicide high explosive works:

The force of the blast is determined by the quantity of the explosive. An average bomb — the kind strapped around a suicide terrorist's waist, covered by a shirt — would likely detonate at a rate of about 28,000 feet per second — or about 22 times faster than a 9 mm bullet leaving the muzzle of a handgun. That means the surrounding air pressure — normally 15 pounds per square inch — would spike to 2,200 pounds per square inch. Such heat and pressure will melt iron. A person sitting nearby would feel, momentarily, a shock wave slamming into his or her body with an 'overpressure' of 300,000 pounds. Such a blast would crush the chest, rupture liver, spleen, heart and lungs, melt eyes, pull organs away from surrounding tissue, separate hands from arms and feet from legs. Bodies would fly through the air or be impaled on the jagged edges of crumpled metal and broken glass.

The media outlets describing the work of the suicide bombers invariably fall far short of describing the actual result. The children killed are often far more fortunate than those described as "wounded." The wounded are left to suffer in hideous agony, their bodies and organs riddled with the nails and screws and other sharp pieces of steel wrapped around the Semtex explosive.

Yes. Palestinian bombs are horrific, as opposed to Israeli bombs which are filled with milk and honey.

Israel killed 13 Palestinians the other day including a two year old, a woman, two teenagers, and an elderly man.

The bombing that killed three Israelis is still being talked about in the media while practically no attention is paid to the 13 Palestinians killed or the other *daily* killing of Palestinians by Israelis on Palestinian territory.

One must not forget why Israel went in to Gaza and conducted a military operation where 13 people were killed. First of all, the IDF went in there to capture a leading terrorist who supplied the bombs to the suicide bombers in Tel Aviv which killed 3 people. Instead of surrendering, the terrorist hid in his house and opened fire from inside his house. The troops had to return fire, and since the terrorist was surrounded by his family, (which is a war crime unto itself, because combatants cannot place themselves among civilian populations) several civilians were killed, but accidentaly. Among the 13 killed, 6 were known Hamas terrorists. Now the main difference is that Israel always does its best to avoid civilian casualties (just like in the Jenin Refugee camp where 23 soldiers were killed to avoid killing innocents) while the palestinian terrorists deliberately target civilians who are not involved in anything, except going into a bar for a drink at Mike's Place in Tel Aviv, where 3 people were murdered in cold blood.

We forget why there is the terrorism in the first place.
Because Israel confiscates Palestinian land.
A picture is worth a thousand words. West Bank and Gaza is only 22% of what is now Israel, West Bank, and Gaza. Look at how Israel has carved up this small area. What kind of State do the Palestinian People have to look forward to. The bombs that the Israels use are just as damaging as the ones the suicide bomber uses.
To see why the problem is there in the first place:
CLICK HERE > http://mondediplo.com/maps/IMG/artoff3260.jpg

The claim that occupation causes terrorism is baseless. For one thing, this claim is completely wrong in that the 2 British terrorist bombers who blew themselves up in the Tel Aviv Bar were not under the occupation. They lived in an upper middle class neighborhood in London, educated and had large families. What made them commit terror is the poisonous message that Islamic fundamentalism conveys, from pakistan to egypt to PA to London. Remember, the 9-11 hijackers were raised in well respected families, they were not under any occupation and many were educated and well off. Yet the hateful doctrine of Islamic fundamentalism caught up with them.

Immoral? Yes. Mistake? No. It's how they won their country from the British and how they keep it away from its rightful inhabitants.

>The claim that occupation causes terrorism is baseless. For one thing, this claim is completely wrong in that the 2 British terrorist bombers who blew themselves up in the Tel Aviv Bar were not under the occupation. They lived in an upper middle class neighborhood in London, educated and had large families. What made them commit terror is the poisonous message that Islamic fundamentalism conveys, from pakistan to egypt to PA to London. Remember, the 9-11 hijackers were raised in well respected families, they were not under any occupation and many were educated and well off. Yet the hateful doctrine of Islamic fundamentalism caught up with them.<

this entire paragraph represents a total inability to acknowledge reality. it's outright blatant.

for arguments sake, let's turn it on it's head.

'the claim that terrorism and security concerns causes occupation is baseless. israel has no security concerns, and welcomes militant islamists into it's borders. in fact, the main cause of the occupation of palestine by the IDF is the "poisonous message" of judaism. remember, all of israel had no religious and historical claims to the land, and were not under any security threat. yet the "hateful" doctrine of judaism caught up with them."

this is just complete nonsense.

If Israel is prepared to "dismantle" its illegal settlements, why is it today building additional settlements, hmmm?

Because, like in any place in the world there os politics in Israel as well.

Sharon has right wing coalition partners who want more settlments and claim that the Palestinian do not want peace.

As long as terror continue (against Innocent Israeli civilinas) this terror gives the right wingers in israel a justification to continue settlments.

So... If you are aginst settlments stop supoporting terror.

So is there a difference between Palestinian "terror" and Israeli "terror"?

Zionists may be Jews, but all Jews are not Zionists any many Jews are against Zionism.
We do not have to be anti-Israel or anti-Palestinian or anti Semitic to know that a fair and just solution needs to be reached.
The Arab population needs to be reassured that the U.S. is sincere when they say freedom for all. That was one of the reasons they claim for going to war in Iraq. If the Iraqi people needed freedom from Saddam, Should not the Palestinian People deserve freedom from the Israeli Military and Occupation. If you take the time to read the Above article you will find that what is proposed in it gives both the Palestinian and the Israeli a Country. Israel has a country and they do not have to give refugees a right of return to their former land and homes in Israel, The Palestinian can have their country on West Bank and Gaza (back to the 1967 borders) this is only 22% of what is today Israel, West Bank and Gaza.. Both sides have to compromise if there is going to be a lasting peace.
In any case the demolition of peoples homes leaving them homeless and in complete poverty is criminal anyway you look at it for a short article on homeless because of home demolitions:
CLICK HERE > http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/05/1609535.php

I won't dignify your dispicable comments with a response, other than to say that I am not half as sick as you are.

However, you have proven my point. If you can't argue a point validly, you resort to name calling and character assassination. We see it all the time, and it is only a reflection of you, not me.

Hitler used polite language, too. Newsflash, angie, just because you don't "resort to namecalling" doesn't make your anti-Israel garbage any more valid.

And vice versa.

Israel's occupation is based on territorial expansion. If it were for defense, how do you explain Israel's occupation prior to 1994 -- the year of the first Palestinian suicide attack (which incidentally came after an Israeli killed around 48 Palestinians in cold blood).

The Palestinian's goal is the destruction of Israel. If they were only interested in a State in the West Bank and Gaza, how do you explain the fact that the PLO was founded in 1964 -- at a time when Israel did not occupy one inch of the West Bank or Gaza (which incidentally came after Palestinians rejected an independent state in 1948 in favor of 55 years of exile, suffering and war).

All of Palestine belonged to Palestinians before 1948. Zionists massacred Palestinians in 40 villages in order to terrify and frighten out all the Palestinians. If this had happened to you, you'd fight back to.

In any case, what does "the destruction of Israel" mean to Zionists.

Is one man one vote (including Palestinians) "the destruction of Israel"? Is equality for all (including Palestinians) "the destruction of Israel"? Is allowing Palestinian refugees (expelled by Israelis) the right to return to their land (which is mandated by the UN anyway) -- as Jews who never set foot there currently enjoy under Israeli law -- is that "the destruction of Israel"?

It's funny, because when you look more closely at what pro-ethnic cleansing Israelis call "the destruction of Israel," you find universal principles of justice -- equality for all, real democracy, a nation for all its people rather than one that gives preferential treatment to those of a certain ethnicity.

The first tenent of the roadmap is the cessation of terror by the Palestinians, which is to be followed by the retreat of the Israeli military. From that map and from the various news sources to which I have access, the impression I get is that the roadmap is intended to fail. The Isreali military, in both the name of protecting settlers and punishing terrorists, controls the vast majority of what would be Palestine, and has authority over the majority of Palestinians. The direct result of this is that the Palestinian Authority is only such, for the most part, in name. This agency responsible for the immediate cessation of terror has indeed no real concrete abilty and authority to do so, and I absolutely cannot believe that the United States and Israel are ignorant of that fact. It is in the interest of the apparent Anglo-Israeli goal of maintaning and even increasing the military power of Isreal to impede any formation of a viable Palestinian Authority because, in so doing, the Palestians are revoked any ability to organize a conventional military force, and will invariably resort to guerilla and terror tactics to fight what they see as a war to defend their nation (whether or not you agree with that sentiment is inconsequential to how they see it). As long as the Palestinians continue using terror and guerilla tactics, the Israelis can continue to play the victims (which certainly the majority of those civillians suffering from the terror are). With the pretext of collective victimization, the military occupation of Palestine can continue and grow, and can be followed with increased "settlement activity." The Israeli military will continue to disallow any chance for the Palestinian Authority to gain the legitimacy and power needed to have any chance to control terror, and thus terror will continue to occur, and the military can continue its present actions. I support neither the anti-Israeli position, nor the anti-Palestinian, I simply felt the need to say it as I saw it. As long as certain very powerful people stand to gain more wealth and more power from the continuation of violence, these people will find ways to allow the continuation of violence, such as the drafting of peace plans, such as this roadmap, which are destined to fail, and to fail for reasons that can then be used as grounds for further violence.

--"The first tenent of the roadmap is the cessation of terror by the Palestinians, which is to be followed by the retreat of the Israeli military."

Actually, the roadmap has provisions which call on both parties to make concessions *simultaneously*, but pro-Israelis have disengenuously tried to trump the debate by claiming Palestinians need to do something first without Israel having to do a thing.

BTW, the main terrorists in this conflict are the Israelis who kill innocent Palestinian civilians by the dozens every week and sometimes daily -- even though the media focuses on Israeli victims and not Palestinian victims.

Listen to this debate between a member of AIPAC and electronicintifada's Ali Abunimah:
Audio of debate.

The Problem will never end if we keep talking about all the bad thing that both sides have done.
Israel: We have to confiscate Palestinian land and demolish Palestinian homes because there are suicide bombers???
Palestine: We have to defend ourselves because Israel is slowly confiscating all our land and demolishing our homes, We have no military to defend ourselves and our land. If we do nothing, we will soon have nothing at all???
This is why the U.S. proposed Road Map will likely not work because no one wants to take the first step. in what was proposed in the above article the first step should have been that U.N. Peace Keeping forces are put into place so that the second step is that the Israeli Military can be removed, instead of mass dismantling of settlements whatever is inside the 1967 line is automatically Palestine, the people who do not want to live in Palestine can move out at their choosing. The Past is the Past and the fact that there are some 5,000,000 Jewish People in the region is not going to change, at different times in History people have migrated all over the world. There is no valid reason why the Palestinian People should not be allowed to have their State for the millions of Palestinian People on the West Bank and Gaza.

I agree with you completely.

It will be interesting to see what Sharon is up to in the days ahead, won't it? With all the yelling and screaming by this real butcher of the Middle East about having Arafat removed, no one has demanded that he, too, be removed. Guess the war crimes of this thug are okay? The double standard again, hmm?

Arafat opposes having a peace deal and is responsible for lots of deaths via his terrorism under the PLO. Sharon may be responsible for deaths related to reaction to the interfada.

No country in its right mind designs its foreign policy baised on punishment. (although i believe on that front there is more guilt at the feet of arafat). We design foreign policy based on finding viable solution (often the best of two bad solutions) that doesn't waste resources (in particular lives) on ongoing struggles.

Basically Arafat cannot compromise (he will most probably die if he does anyway) and if we dont get rid of him he could be there for many more decades.. Sharon can and even if he couldn't he will eventualy be voted out. Therefore arafat is one one who has to go.

Arafat opposes having a peace deal and is responsible for lots of deaths via his terrorism under the PLO. Sharon may be responsible for deaths related to reaction to the interfada.

No country in its right mind designs its foreign policy baised on punishment. (although i believe on that front there is more guilt at the feet of arafat). We design foreign policy based on finding viable solution (often the best of two bad solutions) that doesn't waste resources (in particular lives) on ongoing struggles.

Basically Arafat cannot compromise (he will most probably die if he does anyway) and if we dont get rid of him he could be there for many more decades.. Sharon can and even if he couldn't he will eventualy be voted out. Therefore arafat is one one who has to go.

Why is the whole world INCLUDING this site obsessed with bashing Israel. Of all the problems in the world:
Affirmative action,
SARS,
global warming,
AIDS epidemic,
wars in Africa,
Russia-Chechnya and all the human rights abuses there,
Slavery of Blacks in Sudan,
Gender Aparteid in Saudi Arabia
Reforming Iranian Gov't
India-Pakistan conflict

WHY IS THE WHOLE WORLD AND THE UNITED NATIONS OBSESSED WITH ISRAEL?????????

The Afro-Asiatic language phyla:
1]Berber-The Berber people is a minority in its own land,currently occupied by Arabs[,Morocco,Tunisia,Algeria, Libya]
Algeria:75% Arabs 24% Berber 1% Europeans
Morocco:64.1% Arabs 35%Berber 0.9% others

2]Egyptian-Old Egyptian,Middle Egyptian,Late Egyptian,Hieratic,Demotic,Coptic.

If you want to learn about the Coptic Christians of Egypt you can check this website http://www.copts.net/descrimination.asp?offset=119
Copts.com, Home of the Persecuted Copts in Egypt

Egypt-94% Muslims 6% Native Egyptian Copts
Official name of Egypt:The ARAB Republic of Egypt

3]Cushitic-Northern Cushitic-Beja-Spoken in Sudan
Sudan's long conflict is fueled by racial, cultural, religious, and political differences between the country's northern and southern populations. The northern population is largely Arab Muslims. The southern population is overwhelmingly black Christians or adherents to local traditional religions. Major internal divisions within the north and the south have also aggravated the violence.
The conflict has contributed to the deaths of an estimated 2 million or more people and has left more than 4 million people uprooted. Most of the violence and population displacement have occurred in the southern half of the country, home to an estimated 5 million to 7 million people[The native Cushitic speaking population harassed by Arab colonizers]
http://www.refugees.org/world/articles/17years%20_rr01_4.htm

Sudan:39% Arabs 61% Blacks,Beja and others

4]Semitic-
1]Neo-Assyrian
Iraq[The Arab name of Assyria]-80%Arabs 15%Kurds 5%Assyrian and others
http://www.atour.com/

http://www.aina.org/bbs/index.cgi

2]Phoenician-Was spoken in Lebanon by a Canaanite people,a language closely related to Hebrew
Lebanon:93% Arabs 6% Armenians
3]Aramaic-The language is still spoken is Syria,once a land of the Aramaic people,in three villages,one of them still a Christian village ,Maalula.
Syria:90%Arabs 10%others
4]Hebrew-Spoken in Israel
Israel:82%Hebrew Jews 18%Arabs and others
Judea,Samaria and Gaza:8% Hebrew Jews 92%Arabs

You may wish to look at this map to see the Middle East before the Arab colonization and Ethnic cleansing of the native peoples:

http://www.bible-history.com/geography/maps/map_ancient_near_east.html

This book has been in the process of writing for over 10 years. Since I left Iraq in the summer of 1964 and my immigration from Kuwait in 1971, I have closely followed the events that have developed in the Islamic world. Being an Assyrian national, I found that life in Iraq was unbearably difficult due to my indigenous nationality. Nor were my experiences unique, but were instead shared by many other Assyrians from Iraq and other Islamic countries. The injustice of my personal experiences in Iraq, the sadness of having to leave my home country, and awareness that this was a common circumstance for many other Assyrians, left my mind pondering over the issue of the unrecognised plight of the Assyrian people.

Over the years while monitoring news and the general media on Islamic developments, I came to realise that the dire situation the Assyrians found themselves in was similar to many other indigenous peoples throughout the world under Islamic rule. This realisation led me to wonder as to why do such similarities occur in the experiences of indigenous people under Islamic rule.

http://www.atour.com/religion/docs/20010803a.html

http://www.atour.com/religion/docs/20010820a.html

http://www.atour.com/religion/docs/20010911a.html

Thank you for your comments, Scottie.

Solving the Palestinian, Israel problem will go a long way to having peace the the Arab region, therefore the rest of the World. That is why the Road Map is in the news right now. If you read the above article carefully you will see that Israel will have 78% of what is now Israel, West Bank and Gaza. Palestine can be on the other 22% many of the refugees living in West Bank and Gaza at one time had land and homes inside what is now Israel. The above article says they will not have right of return as long as the lines of the Borders are set back to 1967. We do not have to be anti Israeli or anti Palestinian to see that what is happening right now is horrific. What is wrong with looking at a possible solution. The Official Road Map does nothing to end the problem right now. Because we still have::::
Israel: We have to confiscate Palestinian land and demolish Palestinian homes because there are suicide bombers???
Palestine: We have to defend ourselves because Israel is slowly confiscating all our land and demolishing our homes, We have no military to defend ourselves and our land. If we do nothing, we will soon have nothing at all???
Back and forth fighting will not solve the problem.
After re reading the above article myself I believe I would change steps 1 and 2 around.
Please take time to read the article and comment on the downfall of the article....

"hi" obviously has been reading some sort of BS propaganda machine that smells heavily of zionistic or incredibly insecure jews who are ignorant of islam.

to even argue the nonsense you put up would be a waste of time. however, i would highly suggest you REREAD history and take in account other sources. nonmuslims under islamic law are PROTECTED and encouraged to practice their religion and culture fully. the islamic laws are not abiding to them. another thing, Muslims under the caliphate Umar and under Salahuddin permitted jews who were banned from palestine and jerusalem by the christian crusaders to return to their homes. the best of times for the jews were under islamic rule in granada where they were allowed to flourish..

i do not feel the need to get into this as credible facts are there..be wary of who's spoonfeeding you however.

solution: combine palestine and israel into ONE state where apartheid wouldn't exist. same equal rights in all issues. quit the holocaust cry line, that only works with the europeans who caused it. muslims and palestinians were in no way responsible for it. jews have been living with muslims and christians in the middle east for centuries so to resort to the usual 'anti semetic' lines would be a scam b/c that wasn't the case in the middle east.

ONE STATE. ONE RIGHT. ONE EQUALITY. ONE FREEDOM.

If any peace is achieved we need to look at the Present.
That is the reason for the Official Road Map being worked on right now by many.
People have migrated all over the Globe through out History. What we have NOW::::
Around 5,000,000 Israelis living in Israel 78% of what is now Israel, West Bank and Gaza, and Millions of Palestinians living in West Bank and Gaza.
The Jewish people will never live under the rule of the Palestinians, and the Palestinians will never live peacefully under the Israelis. The only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Crisis is for the occupation to end and the Palestinian People are allowed to have their own State. Then the Israeli superior Military can be used to guard the Israeli borders.
What we have NOW:::::
Israel: We have to confiscate Palestinian land and demolish Palestinian homes because there are suicide bombers???
Palestine: We have to defend ourselves because Israel is slowly confiscating all our land and demolishing our homes, We have no military to defend ourselves and our land. If we do nothing, we will soon have nothing at all???
This is why something definite needs to be done, so you do not have the back and forth excuses. The Palestinians we are talking about were born in this area, their parents and grand parents and great gand parents lived in this area. The Great Grand parents of the Israelis lived in Russia or Germany or other European locations.

The problem with people like you is that instead of supporting the indigenous population of the Middle East that hasn't yet submissed to Arab agression,colonalization,cultural genocide,Arabization and History erasion you blindly support the Ethnic cleansing of non Arabs from the Middle East.
If you care about justice at all then please read the following articles about my nation and start campaigning for the creation of an Assyrian independent state in our lands in North Iraq.

The Assyrian Holocaust http://www.atour.com/~tvradio/video/TheUntoldHolocaust.html


The Assyrian Tragedy, February 1934

http://www.atour.com/Annemasse.html

Iraq's Forgotten Christians

http://www.atour.com/news/international/20030404a.html

Assyrians - the Forgotten People

http://www.atour.com/government/docs/20000619a.html

Assyrian forum

http://www.aina.org/bbs/index.cgi

2 states for 2 people


Israel for the Jews

Jordan (80 percent of the Historic Palestine) for the Palestinians

2 people living in peace with open borders, so the Arabs can come and pray at any holy site they want!!!

"Non- muslims under islamic law are PROTECTED and encouraged to practice their religion and culture fully. the islamic laws are not abiding to them"

Read this and change your mind:

Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression

To the average observer, the Middle East appears to be a homogeneous, gigantic Arab-Muslim continent. Under this heavy blanket of uniformity, however, the remnants of colonized, extinguished nations, crushed and dispossessed by imperialism, survive in pain and anguish. These peoples — Kurds, Alawites, Copts, Jews, and others — have withstood jihad, genocides, persecutions, and continual sociopolitical repression. Yet their hearts still beat, inspired by the hope of freedom and survival.

It is their history that Mordechai Nisan tells, combining clear scholarship with a perspicacious sensibility. Who are these peoples? In his subtle analysis, Nisan demonstrates that they represent diverse ethnic groups, with unique historical experiences. The author constructs a fascinating mosaic of peoples, beliefs, and intertwined histories. This work expands upon a 1991 study, with much new material.

Nisan begins by specifying the characteristics these people share in their diversity. What inner forces of cohesion shaped their resistance to the Arab and Islamic onslaught on their lands and civilizations from East Persia to North Africa? The factors promoting survival are neither fixed nor stable. Throughout the political dynamism of historical events, each of these peoples has preserved a collective self-consciousness that spans millennia. "The crux of a minority struggle," writes Nisan, "often revolved around the ability to define identity from within as a matter of group self-articulation, and not be the victims of a superimposed identity from without." Crushed by cultural and religious Arab-Islamic imperialism, the group's identity and cohesion is a testimony to its indigenous uniqueness. But can this human and cultural diversity of the Middle East survive after millennia of hardship, unforeseen challenges, and resistance?

One discovers, for instance, beneath the uniformity of Arabism a substructure of living, resistant, minority peoples cultivating their pre-Arab and pre-Islamic native languages, cultures, and religions. Nisan organizes the groups into four main categories: (1) the Islamized peoples who resisted Arab/Muslim colonialism and kept their own culture and languages, like the Kurds (Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey), the Berbers (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco), and the Baluch (Pakistan); (2) the heterodox Muslim minorities who were Arabized but resisted Islamization by keeping their ancestral beliefs and customs under a Muslim veneer, like the Druzes (Levant) and the Alawites (Syria); (3) the Christian minorities: Armenians, Assyrians, Copts, Maronites, and Sudanese; and (4) the Jews, the only minority who succeeded in liberating a part of their historical land from Arab-Islamic imperialism.

Nisan describes the rich history of each group and the inevitable tensions that accompany cultural, linguistic, and religious resistance to Islamization. Their histories include the difficulties entailed in maintaining the history and culture of the group, the processes of survival they adopted, the modalities of adaptation, and the compromises employed to save a modicum of freedom without disappearing. This analytical survey carries us through several levels of understanding, from the policy of conquest and domination that included spoliation, slavery, deportation, and genocide to the various mechanisms of survival adopted by each crushed, humiliated, oppressed, or tolerated community. Not every group developed the same self-consciousness of its history, culture, and ethnic characteristics, but all resisted.

The political and social tensions highlighted by Nisan are most urgent and topical for the West. In our age of multiculturalism, which has seen the recent development in the West of large immigrant communities, what does integration mean? Can some groups integrate more easily than others? Can integration succeed when fundamental values clash? Nisan's sober and scholarly analysis of the conflict between territorial ethnicity and religious imperialism is of great relevance to the West.

In history, chance is a fugitive fairy that rarely passes twice. The light of freedom sparkled for the oppressed Christian minorities in the Middle East after World War I. It was quickly extinguished by France and Britain in their eagerness to appease Muslim hostility in their Arab colonial dominions. Sacrificed were the legitimate aspirations of the Armenians, Kurds, Assyrians, and Copts.

Their ancestral homelands were arbitrarily lumped into enormous Arab-Islamic entities, while concessions to Islamic demands violated their rights. Some, like the Armenians, Assyrians, and Jacobites, were simply abandoned to bloody reprisals, while the promises they had been given were broken. Only the Maronites and the Jews were given a chance; even for these, it was a delusion and a snare. British pro-Arab policy in the 1930s in Palestine, the gestation of the Shoah in Europe, and the closure of all routes of escape for the Jews at the Evian Conference in 1938 seemed to have delivered the last blow to the Zionist dream of national liberation. The Maronites had to wait a generation to experience the bitterness of world abandonment and the betrayal of their friends. Hence, among all the dhimmi peoples, only Israel survived the lethal Euro-Arab alliance against the indigenous Middle Eastern minorities.

This history of blood, hope, and massacres that Nisan recalls in a masterly way is not over. The martyrdom perpetrated on the Lebanese Christians by the Palestinians and their Muslim allies, generalized jihad, the slavery and butchery inflicted on the rebellious non-Muslim Sudanese populations, the oppression of the Copts and the Assyrians, the massacres of the Kurds, the negation of the Berber's cultural rights, the jihad Intifada against Israel — all are ignored or explained away by European governments and the media. Do these ancient and courageous peoples still have a chance to deliver themselves from the shackle of dhimmitude, and the manipulations of Eurabia? Now that a new Middle East is being projected, in spite of old Europe's lethal alliance with the most repressive regimes, maybe the good-luck fairy will pass a second time, to console and redress the cynical injustice inflicted on vulnerable and martyred peoples. Nisan's book is invaluable for a fuller understanding of Middle East history, past and present.

In the mid 19th century, the French Turcophile writer Abdolonyme Ubicini (translation from The Decline of Eastern Christianity) described the subjected dhimmis of the Ottoman Empire — Christians and Jews — awaiting liberation despite centuries of oppression:

The history of enslaved peoples is the same everywhere, or rather, they have no history. The years, the centuries pass without bringing any change to their situation. Generations come and go in silence. One might think they are afraid to awaken their masters, asleep alongside them. However, if you examine them closely you discover that this immobility is only superficial. A silent and constant agitation grips them. Life has entirely withdrawn into the heart. They resemble those rivers which have disappeared underground: if you put your ear to the earth, you can hear the muffled sound of their waters; then they emerge intact a few leagues away. Such is the state of the Christian populations of Turkey under Ottoman rule.

Will his observations prove relevant today for the Christian and other ethnic minorities of the Arab-Muslim dominions?


THE SUFFERING OF ASSYRIANS UNDER ISLAM


The history of the Christians of the Middle East is shrouded in obscurity as if a conspiratorial silence is determined to rivet the last nail in a coffin that the West has put to rest. Flourishing on this amnesia, we now see new histories taking over the achievements of their predecessors, strutting about with pretentious, gleaming vestments of civilizations looted through jihad usurpation.

In Tabari – the renowned 10th century Muslim scholars – we read that before the Islamic conquest, Iraq was inhabited by the two Peoples of the Book. In Islamic parlance it designates Jews and Christians. Jews have lived in Iraq-Assyria – which constituted a province of the Persian Empire – since their exile there by Nebuchadnezzar (586 BC). Christianity spread among the inhabitants through those ancient Jewish communities. They lived side by side in the same villages. Today there are hardly any Jews left from the numerous diaspora of antique lineage. As for Assyrian Christianity, it has declined considerably from the time of Arab-Islamic invasion, and particularly in the past half century.

It is this history of a long agony, interrupted temporarily by brilliant and peaceful periods, that Frederick P. Isaac, an Assyrian himself, has tried to recapture. His endeavour is not without difficulties as the frequent destruction of monasteries and churches – those reliquaries of libraries and history – of massacres, looting and exiles of Assyrian villagers have spread a silence of death over the centuries.

Isaac is an heir of this ancient Assyrian history, which he recounts in a simple and clear language. He also assesses his personal experience, which he decided to record at his son’s request. The Assyrian diaspora is now questioned by their second and third generation anxious to discover its roots abandoned by the hasty flight of the persecuted, and forgotten in the tribulation of exile.

Isaac’s book exposes the religious apartheid condition of Jews and Christians under shari’a, the traditional Islamic law. He deplores the collusion, after World War I, of the Western colonial Powers with Muslim authorities against the indigenous religious minorities. The latter were betrayed and abandoned by England and France, the Mandate powers. "Thus – he writes – Assyria was dismembered and its Christian people described as aliens, groups of different sects of unidentified nationalities.....The aim of the key power brokers was to deny the Assyrians statehood."(p.130). Though their country has been appropriated, he writes, the Assyrians are a nation in their own right.

In early 1922 the French and British colonial powers abolished the Assyrian Resettlement Project in their northern region of Mesopotamia. The rehabilitation program for the Assyrians was cancelled as well as its relief work and humanitarian assistance. The Christians were scattered without compensation, protection and shelter, they were robbed of their homes and treated mercilessly. England parcelled out Assyria and "sold it to the highest bidder of the four neighbouring Islamic countries." Isaac’s book is a vibrant call to remind the world of an ancient Christian people, sacrificed to the West’s policy of Islamic appeasement. "The international community has a moral obligation to relieve the Assyrians from this intolerable situation." The Mandate powers had dispossessed and fragmented a small nation, a crime that must be redressed.

Since the two World Wars, the desire of the Assyrians has always been to live free from Islamic rule, in their own homeland. But "the West dashed their expectation for independence from the Islamic domineering rulers." To comply with Muslim policy, Western nations never considered the Assyrians a separate people, says Isaac, rather they robbed them of their homeland and delivered them to their traditional enemies. This policy of duplicity still continues today by the silence of Western governments, the media, and intellectuals regarding the fact that indigenous minorities in the Islamic lands "are subjected to continuous oppression and humiliation. They live in total anxiety. The are in constant fear of losing their jobs, their properties and their lives."

In his conclusion, the author describes how Iraq "distorts the truth and falsifies textbooks of history and social studies about the Assyrians....as a part of its policy of the educational curricula that it teaches in schools." (p.176). This policy is general in all the lands Islamized by jihad. The same denial of Jewish and Christian history that preceded Islam is constantly enforced. It is epitomized by the Arab-Israeli conflict where Israel is called a colonial and usurper people in its own land, a dismissal of the whole Biblical and post-Biblical history on which Christianity rests. Europe’s collusion with the PLO and its replacement policy fits well the duplicity described by Isaac concerning the Christians – but in the case of Israel, this duplicity which is consonant with the Islamic refusal of the Bible, destroys Christianity itself.

read this


http://www.dhimmi.com/

non muslims are discriminated in every muslim country, they have few political rights nor can they own property.

Christian Copts in Egypt
Black Christians in Sudan
Zoroastrians and Jews in Iran
Kurds in Iraq
everyone but muslims in Saudi Arabia

did u know that Jews are not allowed to EVEN enter any Arab Country, except Egypt and Jordan, even if they are not Israeli citizens???

Frederick P. Isaac has a home page at:

http://www.theplanet.net.au/~fpi

there, you will find other articles written by him.

"to even argue the nonsense you put up would be a waste of time. however, i would highly suggest you REREAD history and take in account other sources. nonmuslims under islamic law are PROTECTED and encouraged to practice their religion and culture fully. the islamic laws are not abiding to them."

That's fucking hilarious. I know some Brits on death row for allegedly selling alcohol. If they had converted to Islam like they were told to, they wouldn't be in this mess now.

Tell me, which history books told you that? BTW, you misspelled REREAD. It should be spelled REWRITE.

Now do us all a favor, go to an Islamic country and practice a non-Muslim religion openly. Try Judaism. They tell us Jews are protected as "people of the book" so you should have no problem.

Their is no muzlim country in the world where there exists true freedom of religion.

A telling story is that of the Nigerian rape victim. Under islamic law, she needed three witnesses to prove her claim against her attacker. She could not, so under the law she was not raped. Later, when she, an unmarried girl, gave birth she was charged with adultery and sentenced to death.

The Archbishop of her city offered his life in place of hers.

That is the difference between Chrisitanity and islam.

Israel does not differentiate between Palestinian Muslims and Palestinian Christians.
Collective punishment is applied to every Palestinian without an exception.

Wow, I think your going to have a lot of dificulty backing up anything that you said in that post.