Israel's Security Fence

[IsraelAdvocate]

This article, complete with maps, is the best refutation of Palestinian claims against the fence.

Read it, then pass it on.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/fence.html

[Mediocrates]

http://hnn.us/articles/3771.html

Why Sharon's Wall Is a Civilized Response to Terrorism
By Diana Muir

Ms. Muir is a historian, book reviewer and winner of the 2001-02 Massachusetts Book Award for Reflections in Bullough's Pond: Economy and Ecosystem in New England (University Press of New England).


In A.D. 122, the Roman Emperor Hadrian ordered construction of a wall that would run 73 miles across the width of England, from the River Tyne to Solway Firth. The idea was to keep barbarians from making trouble for the civilized people of Roman Britain.

In the Third Century BCE, the Chin Emperor ordered that a series of walls erected by sundry border states be linked into a Great Wall that ran from the Gulf of Chihli to the edge of Tibet, about 22 times the length of Hadrian's barrier. The wall succeeded in repelling many barbarians.

We no longer have barbarians. We have terrorists. It is hardly surprising that a nation whose citizens are being murdered should decide to construct a fence to stop the entry of terrorists, even though building such a fence requires demolishing homes, separating farmers from their fields, moving whole villages, and considerable hardship for the individuals affected.

India, therefore, is building a security fence, with all deliberate speed. Yes, India.

While the attention of the world focuses on the West Bank, India is surrounding Bangladesh with a fence about 2,500 miles long, similar in construction and purpose to that being built by Israel to try to protect itself from Palestinian terrorists.

India's seven northeastern provinces are wracked by violence as tribal insurgencies struggle for independence. The resentment that some members of these ethnic groups feel is exacerbated by the inundation of their homelands by waves of illegal Muslim immigrants. In recent years an estimated twenty million Muslims have illegally crossed the border from Bangladesh.

Several dozen militant groups exist in these seven provinces. Some are said to be little better than brigands, but others are substantial armed insurgencies seeking national independence for tribes that predate Hinduism. Their methods include bombing government officials and the murderous "cleansing" of villages of the "wrong" ethnicity.

The violence is facilitated by the ease with which these terrorists have been able to withdraw across the border to bases in Bangladesh.

The key fact about security fences is that they are highly effective in keeping barbarians out. The Great Wall of China gave excellent protection against raiders. That meant that generations of Chinese could lead secure and prosperous lives in the shadow of the wall. In England, meanwhile, life in the border counties was violent and impoverished.

Hadrian's Wall was abandoned when the Romans left England, but in the late Middle Ages the island of Britain was again divided into a civilized south and a barbarian north.

Well into the 1600s, Scottish border tribes raided northern England, looting and kidnapping. In 1745 Scottish Highlanders launched an invasion of England aimed at putting a Stuart on the throne. England defended itself from the risk of further invasion by pacifying the Highland tribes.

The process eventually brought prosperity to the Scottish Lowlands, which blossomed into an Enlightenment that lit the world -- but the price was horrific. England had purchased security by driving nine-tenths of the Highland Scots off their land, in the brutal "Highland clearances."

Starving and bludgeoning an unruly population until its people die or emigrate are one method of pacifying a region. I prefer walls.

Obviously, the best solution for the Mideast would be for the Palestinians to create a government that would abandon the goal of conquering Israel, and that would quash the armed terrorists in its midst. Israel could negotiate peace with such a government.

Failing that, building a fence is the most civilized way in which nations can defend themselves from the threat faced, throughout history, by civilized people who share a border with armed attackers who lack an effective government.

[Rick]

Fences,walls and concentration camps to control property and populations have proven their effectiveness again and again, but they also mark more than the boundaries between property and the protection from assailents...the also mark the failure of people to share power and wealth, and to live with mutual respect and trust. The failure of humans to overcome their egotistical nature, while trying to control others out of self-interest leads only down a path of repression. Walls do not only inhibit the enemy, they also inhibit the protected, because they symbolise the defensive reality of the beseiged.

[Mediocrates]

The Palestinians have for decades been 'penned' in 'camps' owned and operated by the UN and by their fellow Palestinians. For the most part, 'camps' constitute entire towns surrounded not by fences but by legal and social distinctions amongst their own people. What you would call 'bad neighborhoods'. In a startling turn of events, the Palestinian experience in nearly 6 decades has been one of spectacular failure. Not one single group on earth has made so little progress evolving and transitioning out of the post colonial post WW2 era than the Paletinians. During this same time, geopolitical forces in the world have uprooted millions. Millions of Russians, Germans, Jews, Iraqis, Algerians, Africans, Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladesh, Indonesians, Chinese and all have more or less found a stable point and a 'place' to be. The Palestinians are almost the sole exception. And that is because it's not about Palestinian 'refugees' which are now by the way on their way to the 5th Generation of 'refugees', but instead it's about making oneself a political tool for the extinction of someone else. It's not about where Palestinians live, but instead where Jews are suffered to live.

[Rick]

Actually the planet is full of populations other than the Palestinians that have failed to become viable societies capable of taking part in post WW2 international community, with any amount of influence in a world dominated by economic inflences largely dictated by the west and the sudden influx of technology that overtook the old paradigms of tradition and international borders. The entire continent of Africa is a post colonial failure with a few exceptions. The middle east and Persia certainly are far behind the abilities of Israel to become a viable society that is capable of keeping up with the western changes, but then of course quite a few Israelies came from the western cultures to begin with, and therefore are more adaptable to the changes that modern living brought. If it were not for oil money, Israel would have dominated the middle east, because Jewish culture is highly organized and has learned to overcome all manner of opression to survive. Perhaps the Palestinians are cursed with an ineptess at self government, but then so is much of the world. There are parralells between Pallestinian camps and American reservations, for example or American ghettos that show that people forced to live under certain conditions do not grow into viable individuals able to compete with those others around them who live in more stable environments.

[Mediocrates]

Nope thats a common canard but it's wrong. They are not Reds on the Rez, never were. If you want to draw analogies, which is always dangerous they are the Hatians in Brooklyn who living amongst all the other African Americans there are better educated yet marginalized, and hated and pushed aside by other African Americans for whatever reasons, I can't guess.

But their problems are largely of their own making or at least of their own leaders. Like all dictatorships the PA, Fatah, Hamas, etx. need enemies real or imagined to maintain themselves in power and truly, the worse off the Palestinians are, the more inept, brutal and violent their own 'leaders' are, the longer those leaders will be around, because that is how dictatorships work. It suits there purpose as it does the purposes of every failed, failing, broken or moribund Arabic and/or Islamic state to invent the JEWS as the root cause of evil and the reason they can't or won't or refuse to improve their own lot.

"It's not the fact that we throw away 50% of the population (women) and only 3 million Saudis out of 14 million Saudi citizens out of 23 million people who live there actually have jobs that we're in the crapper. No it's those damn Jews and all their oppression."

"It's not the fact that we've ignored the social demands of Malays that our country is poor, uneducated and stangnant. No it's the Jews who secretly run the world and keep us down. "

"It's not the fact that 90% of we Egyptians live w/in 10 miles of Nile like they did 5000 years ago, and 96% of all of us are still farmers why we are not only poor and backward but the most populous country in Africa. No it's those damn zionazi yid invaders."

No, all those other places you mentioned failed for any number of other reasons. Poverty is in African and it impinges on their development. So too does war, corruption and now, HIV. The Iranians did quite nicely jumpstarting their country ahead 1000 years in only 25 until the Shah was overthrown.

[Rick]

well certainly society is devided by class and educational background, and privelege is only extended to those that meet the criteria for acceptance by those in power. Certainly you can make an argument along racial lines to prove the inferiority of any group, and while doing so you can procede to put the emphasis on dehumanising said group, thereby rationalizing the justification for a far superior group to determine the outcome of any situation. Hitler did the same thing with the jews, militant arabs and moslems do the same thing now with Jews and Americans and anyone who does not adhere to their radical views...but then Bush provided the same rhetroric when he divided the world into those that follow the PNAC agenda and Bush foreign policy, and those who do not. Then he threatened the will and power of the United states upon all those that did not accept his standards. Really there is no difference between that position and the position of any other despot. Those people who declare other people as savages and subhuman, often perform the worst atrocities themselves. Surely these militant factions invent excuses for their crimes as they attempt to destabalise western society, but so then do the military and intelligence organizations of all the major players on the world stage. The bottom line as I see it is there there are those who are willing to force their will on others and those that are not, and it is those who are willing to impose their will that tend to rise to the top in any society. Certainly Hamas and the like represent that element of powermongers who will use any tactic to achieve their purpose. As to weither or not the problems of a minority are of their own making, I see that as only one part of the equaision. The individual is affected by all sorts of forces, parental, societal, personal experience...and the hand of fate, or perhaps the intervention of God.

[Rick]

quote:The Palestinians have for decades been 'penned' in 'camps' owned and operated by the UN and by their fellow Palestinians. ................................... does this mean that you infer that the circumstances of internment are a failure of the UN and the Palestinians?

[Mediocrates]

YES. UNWRA exists solely and uniquely for the Palestinians. Every other group on earth is lumped under UNCHR but the Pals get their own agency with its own funding and largely under their own control. It has run nonstop for decades, it has accomplished little and it has no end in sight. When Israel declared its independence, all of YESHA belonged to Jordan and Egypt. There were about 350,000 Egyptians and Jordanians living there. By 1967 there were 600,000 Egyptians and Palestinians living there. Mind you all up through this time even though all these people had Egyptian and Jordanian passports they were deemed 'refugees' by UNWRA. Now it is 2004 and even though several hundred thousand Palestinians have left YESHA there are several million still there. All 'refugees' going on 4 or 5 generations. Now here's there interesting part. 2/3rds of all Palestinians in the world live outside of YESHA mostly in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. They too are called 'refugees' by UNWRA. Even though they have never set foot in YESHA, even though no one in their families for at least 3 generations back have not set foot there either. Why? for two reasons:

one-
In a unique turn of events, UNWRA unwrapped a definition of 'refugee' which it never used before or since. Simply put, anyone who wanted to self designate themselves as a refugee merely had to claim that they had lived somewhere in the general vicinity of Israel during the 1946-48 perdiod. And anyone since then who is a descendant of one of those people can claim 'refugee' status. Even if they moved away to England for example. Even if their grandparents were born in another country and they've been there ever since.

two-
In another odd turn of events UNWRA decided that there is no closed end status for refugees. That is, one's childrens' childrens' childrens's childrens' children's children can be refugees too. By definition the UN maintains that Palestinians' legal status is under the control of the UN and they deem that status to be 'stateless' forever.


Are you an American Rick? Canadian? Were your grandparents born in the country you live? Mine weren't. So should I march down to UN and demand to given the legal status of refugee from all those countries those grandparents came from? Why not? They ran from poverty and pogroms.

So yes, their problems are largely of their own making. For decades not one single arab or muslim state has lifted a finger to help in any way the Palestinians of YESHA. Jordan and Egypt even revoked their citizenship. Jordan denies citizenship to their many of their own Palestinians, who have lived there for 3 generations. Arab countries all over the middle east routinely expel hundreds of thousands of Palestinians as Kuwait did in 1991. Clearly the intent of the Arab world is to wave the bloody shirt of 'refugee' in the worlds face as a cynical ploy. They would be more than happy to keep the Palestinians in their current status forever.

And now let's take a quick look at that status. Before jihadtifada YESHA Palestinians according to the UN had an average houshold income of about USD$2700/year. While this was far below the percapita GDP (not an directly analogous figure but close) of about USD$15,000/year for Israelis, it was above average for most of the Arab world. Certainly it was far more than Egypt or Syria or Jordan. This income was dependent on being cheap day labor in Israel. About 150,000 Palestinians a day worked in Israel. Now that figure is 15,000. Figure another 15,000+ illegally working there. So since Sept. 2000 aggregate houshold income has fallen. It has fallen because simply the Palestinians never developed much of anything in the way of an indigenous economy. Despite the fact that Arafat cronies control PA monopolies on cement, cell phones, cigarette and grocery distribution and gasoline. Despite the fact that the PA has taken several billions of dollars from the UN, the EU, the US and even Israel and yet it seems to have disappeared. The EU is attempting to audit the PA to track over 900 million dollars that evaporated.

Moreover according to those same UN surveys of Palestinian development (google them) 60% of Palestinians had cell phones, 30% had a car, 50% had a refigerator. Palestinians had the highest incidence of college degrees in the Arab world. Palestinians in YESHA pay no taxes to Israel yet they receive Israel services like water, power, sewer for free. They don't serve in the army either. For every Jewish suburb in YESHA there is at least one illegal Arab village typically perched on land belonging to the Israeli land trust. And the few Palestinians who sold land to Israelis have typically been killed, or marked for death.

There own doing? Yes.

[Rick]

I have heard such arguments before, and they are simular to arguments I have heard about other peoples in other places. Basically one group compares themselves to another group and points out all the shortcommings of the other group contrasted with their own. Certainly corruption, waste and mismanagement are a worldwide phenomenom. Certainly Israel has out performed it's neighbors in most respects, and that is a wonder in and of itself, concidering the resources available to begin with. However when concidering what is lacking in this particular conundrum (so called middle east conflict), I tend to think of Israel in a civil war, or perhaps as a victor in a war that never assimulated the conquered. Certainly the Nazis were as hardheaded as the militants Israel faces now, but the difference is that the nazis were denazified, disarmed and reorganized before they earned their right to self government. The situation is simular with other subjucated peoples in other places at other times. Armed resistance is usually crushed before it can spread. That is one reason the most ruthless and unethical nations rise to power in this world. Do you think Israel is capable of doing a better job than those who have failed so far?

[Mediocrates]

I think denazification is a good direction. DeArafatizination - the process through which All semblance of the PA, Hamas, Tanzim, Fatah, PFLP, Force-17, al Aqsa and the dozen other terrorist orgs is removed from power and put on trial and replaced by a real civil authority.

[scattergood]

There is a major difference between the Arabs living in the West Bank / Gaza Strip now and the Germans living in Germany after WWII. Namely the Germans gave up UNCONDITIONALLY and admitted that they were beaten. That was the only way their disarmament could have occurred.

On the other hand, the Arabs in the West Bank / Gaza Strip don't think they have been beaten and in fact think they won the '67 war. (See the Egyptiain Museums as a reference).

The point I am trying to make is that you can't make peace with a people who don't want peace. It's sad but true.

This is why I am in full support of the Fence, get the hell out of there and actually GIVE them a state. Then you essentially force them to act like a state with all the responsibilities, which I think we all believe they can't or won't do. Namely, they can't even police their own territory and ensure that their population lives in peace.

Israel won't pull out of Gaza, a walled off territory, until after the US elections because everybody predicts there will be chaos and anarchy if they do, which will be bad for Bush. Consider the implcations of this statement:

1) Israel is providing the glue of societal safety in Gaza.
2) Without Israel there is no implicit peaceful majority who are willing to live peacably or stand up for peace.
3) Arabs in Gaza are more factionalized than can possibly be imagined and would rather fight each other than live in peace.

To me it is rediculous that it is ISRAEL that is keeping ARAB society from falling apart. I say get out of Gaza, wall off from the WB and let the Arab society spasam and hopefully grow into something viable. If they can't, there is every reason to avoid their pain being inflicted on Israel.

ScatterGood

[Canajew]

Originally posted by Rick
Fences,walls and concentration camps to control property and populations have proven their effectiveness again and again, but they also mark more than the boundaries between property and the protection from assailents...the also mark the failure of people to share power and wealth, and to live with mutual respect and trust. The failure of humans to overcome their egotistical nature, while trying to control others out of self-interest leads only down a path of repression. Walls do not only inhibit the enemy, they also inhibit the protected, because they symbolise the defensive reality of the beseiged.


this is foolishness. Pure and simple. While an image of the whole world holding hands and singing in unity is a nice, feel good image, real life doesn't work that way, and no amount of post-adolescent idealism will be sufficient to get us there. In a reality where resources are scare (which is a universal) and populations are not universally enlightened, it is inevitable that there will be conflict among groups.

It is not about sharing power or wealth, becasue those with whom you wish to share are not interested in sharing. they are interested in taking. It is not egoism which drives the defenders but rather the opposite - that such protections are necessary in order to allow for their children to be raised in security and for their lives to be able to follow their undisturbed course. this is not ego at all, just the human drive for personal and collective well being. The ego in all this is the perspective that if I only try hard enough and empathize enough that I can affect the values which imbue those who wish to appropriate our resources.

Building a wall is an admission that egoism DOESN'T work, rather than evidence of egoism at work. Egoism is we don't need a wall because by ebign nice onough and showing the enemy who we really are will be sufficient to mollify them.

[Canajew]

Originally posted by Rick
well certainly society is devided by class and educational background, and privelege is only extended to those that meet the criteria for acceptance by those in power.


sort of. while this is true, note your reference to education. In western societies upward mobility is driven by personal aptitude, and so this type of class/privelege allocation is about as fair as you can get without impacting on future development and the prosperity of all. While certainly some get through due to family background, western society allows those without a strong famiuly history and without a strong resource base to achieve significant influencing roles in society, whether in government, commerce, the civil serivce or the academy.


Certainly you can make an argument along racial lines to prove the inferiority of any group, and while doing so you can procede to put the emphasis on dehumanising said group, thereby rationalizing the justification for a far superior group to determine the outcome of any situation.


I would suggest that your perspective on class issues has caused you to import a race-based perspective where none is warranted. It is not, and never has been, about the argument that Arabs or Palestinians are inferior as people or they inherently lack the abilities that others have. Just that they have a culture which, while well suited to bare survival in the desert, is not at all suited to the development of a strong vibrant modern economy, civil society or anyhting else.

It is not that the Palestinians are not capable of being samrt, well educated good people, rather than their society does not value these attributes as much as it values shaheed worship, violence and depravity. Civil society cannot emerge in such a society, and without civil society none of the fundamentals on which a modern vibrant economy can be built.


Hitler did the same thing with the jews, militant arabs and moslems do the same thing now with Jews and Americans and anyone who does not adhere to their radical views...but then Bush provided the same rhetroric when he divided the world into those that follow the PNAC agenda and Bush foreign policy, and those who do not.


what? Entirely different things. The view that some people are inherently inferior due to genetics or racial features is quite different (and quite obviously so) from the view that people who do not actively fight against terrorists and terrorism are, in effect, supporters of that terrorism. You seem to have bought a little too into the new left propaganda.


Then he threatened the will and power of the United states upon all those that did not accept his standards. Really there is no difference between that position and the position of any other despot.


drugs are all fine and good for recreation, but at some point a person must assess the impact of those drugs on their reasoning faculties. This is so far from despotism that I find it remarkable you couild make such a claim. Bush said that if another state wishes to either passively or actively assist a terror organization whose goal is the destruction of the United States that you will be treated as an enemy, and all the natural consequences that follow will follow.

What distinguishes your statement above from the statement that a threat to use power to force an enemy to submit is the act of a 'despot'. If the enemy is comming after you it is not despotism that you engage in but justified collective self defence. And it is the will of the American people after all, and Bush must win an election or have absolutely zero power, and even then in 2008 he will lose it all. Certainly not despotism, and this sort of verbal gerrymadering is exactly the kind of thing the left loves to do so much but only has the effect of dulling the precision of language. To make such a silly claim is to reduce the impact of labelling real despots as despots.


Those people who declare other people as savages and subhuman, often perform the worst atrocities themselves.


meaningless statement. True, but so what. The converse is more true - those people who ARE savages are those who are more likely to commit the attrocities of which you speak. Look at the Israeli-Arab conflict without the tinged propaganda glasses and this can be very easily seen. Arabs have been commiting attrocities against themselves and against others since the beginning, while the Jews have always been constrained by their own morality. So even if one were to use morality as a benchmark for whether a group is savage or sub-human, it would not follow that those who label them as such are worse than those who are so labelled.


Surely these militant factions invent excuses for their crimes as they attempt to destabalise western society, but so then do the military and intelligence organizations of all the major players on the world stage.


meaningless again. Everyone acts in their own perceived best interest. That does not mean that therefore everyone's decisions are equally moral or valid.


The bottom line as I see it is there there are those who are willing to force their will on others and those that are not, and it is those who are willing to impose their will that tend to rise to the top in any society.


Not sure I really agree with you. In a democracy it is not really about 'imposing' one's will as much as ocnstructing a consensus. As for authoritarian despotisms and the Arab world in general, I would agree with you.


Certainly Hamas and the like represent that element of powermongers who will use any tactic to achieve their purpose.


and what is their purpose, and what is justified from the other side in opposing this purpose?


As to weither or not the problems of a minority are of their own making, I see that as only one part of the equaision. The individual is affected by all sorts of forces, parental, societal, personal experience...and the hand of fate, or perhaps the intervention of God. [/B]

You are over-generalizing. with respect to the Palestinians, it is almost ALL the fault of their solciety and their leadership. Just because it was not the Africans' fault they were enslaved (though it kind of sort of was - African culture had a vibrant and robust slave trade pre-European exploitation of that market) or the Natives' fault they were displaced, it does not follow that it is not the APlestinians' fault that they have at all points been unprepared to compriomise and unprepared to develop a government structure that allows for efficient, functioning government institutions.

And with respect to this particular war, the PAlestinians were offered almost everything they wanted in 2000, but thye said no, embraced the cult-of-death, cult-of-child-suicide shaheed culture and have launched an indiscriminate war against Jewish civilians. How is this anything BUT their fault?

[Canajew]

Originally posted by Rick
I have heard such arguments before, and they are simular to arguments I have heard about other peoples in other places.


thus context is important for arguments that are not based on universally constant factors.


Basically one group compares themselves to another group and points out all the shortcommings of the other group contrasted with their own.


not really. Basically, one looks at two separate populations, whether one's own or otherwise, and assesses the realtive strenths and weaknesses of their social institutions. Assess transparecy in governemnt, corruption, emphasis placed on education, tolerance, diversity, family structure, rate of technological progress etc. and try to make some assessment of the features of each which contribute to the social instiutions' success or failure, and then try to genralize to remove culturally specific factors to arrive at universal truths (like corruption is bad, and education (real education, not brainwashing propaganda) is good). Different choice options will be optimal in different societies givne their differing fundamentals, but clearly a comparison between despotisms and democracies shows that democracy is a superior form of governance for the long run (though in the short run impovrished countries often do best through 'benevolent dictatorships', which in turn risk being not-so-benevolent)


Certainly corruption, waste and mismanagement are a worldwide phenomenom.


of course. No one here was saying the Arabs or Palestinians are uniquely corrupt. Just they don't seem to have any inclination to DO anything about it, and the rtest of the world seems prepared to ignore this and other failures in their collective charatcer and continue to support bad policy because of it.


Certainly Israel has out performed it's neighbors in most respects, and that is a wonder in and of itself, concidering the resources available to begin with.


but not really. Resources mean far more than natural resources. Israel's prime asset was its well educated population with its solid civil society base and its drive to protect itelf and build a strong, prosperous nation. Compare this to all the Arab basket cases, which may have had significant raw material reosources but lacked the institutional capital, the schools, the universities, the civil society, and which were governemnd by corrupted despots interested only in their own personal well being. From this perspective, it is little surprise things turned out as they did.


However when concidering what is lacking in this particular conundrum (so called middle east conflict), I tend to think of Israel in a civil war, or perhaps as a victor in a war that never assimulated the conquered.


well you are wrong. there are two separate nations fughting for land. In the past it was the "arab nation" but now that the Arabs involved have adopted the moniker "Palestinian" it is their fight against the Jews. they wish the land cleared of Jews and will not stop until they accomplish this. Given this, what is Israel to do other than fight back until the palestinians become aware that they have been defeated and cannot ever win.


Certainly the Nazis were as hardheaded as the militants Israel faces now, but the difference is that the nazis were denazified, disarmed and reorganized before they earned their right to self government.


and it was supposed to be exactly the same for the PAlestinians, except their European allies are prepared to ignore intrangencies over and over again and constantly lower the bar regarding Palestinian behaviour.


The situation is simular with other subjucated peoples in other places at other times. Armed resistance is usually crushed before it can spread. That is one reason the most ruthless and unethical nations rise to power in this world. Do you think Israel is capable of doing a better job than those who have failed so far?

not sure what you mean, but Israel is bound by its own ethical code which excludes the kind of violence you speak of. Soemthing to think about for all those who seek to compare Israel to the worst of oppressors. But the biggest probelm in all this is Europe. As long as Europe panders to the APlestinians and excuses their immorality and intransigence, there will never be a situation where the conflict can be resolved, as the Palestinians will continue to clutch the straw of "liberating all of historic Palestine" (i.e. killing and expelling six million Jews).

[Mira~]

Does anybody know whether there has ever been a single successful terrorist penetration into Israel from the Gaza Strip since they built the fence there?

[Mediocrates]

http://www.israelforum.com/board/showthread.php3?postid=84511#post84511

[Mediocrates]

Originally posted by Mira
Does anybody know whether there has ever been a single successful terrorist penetration into Israel from the Gaza Strip since they built the fence there?


You can check with the MFA but I believe the answer is no. And that fence is years and years older.

[Mediocrates]

"Boaz"
03/14/2004 08:23 AM

Subject: What about the ARABIC Fence of Hate?

What about the ARABIC Fence of Hate?

The twisted logic of the UN and its resolution boy Mr. Goofy Annan is beyond any human logic, comprehension, or common sense…

Looking at the conflict from the narrow perspective of land, the goofy denial of the UN is not only earning war after war, but also one can see this…

Resolution # 42 (the reestablishment of Israel) is dated 56 years ago, yet Mr. Goof is very hyperactive to implement resolution #242, which in reality was the consequences of not accepting resolution #42 by the gangsters states of Arabia.

Now resolution boy who visited and made a speech in the first racist organization on the face of the Earth that is called “The Arab League” to disguise its legitimacy, and legitimized their hatred achievements which is nothing more than fifty years of building a hate wall as thick as the entire region, and as wide as the entire world against not Israel alone but every Jew that exist.

The hate wall of Arabia is what we should put down in Hague…

But then how you can expect any humanistic intellectual from an economist who was hired to audit and bring the UN deficits back on track from the red lines?

Yet the red lines of the Arabic hatred still expanding beyond the region like never before, and how resolution boy’s reaction to that?

He takes HIS VICTIMS to HIS COURT in Hague…

Why Idiocy declares victory every time its lines line-up with the anti human race is beyond any comprehension.

But I certainly can understand, if I was part of Goofy Annan’s world of denial, don’t you?

On the other hand, Hitler’s clones are loved and cared for by the UN, and exactly according to their Hallal policy of Anti-Jewish ness…

The civilized and their followers (Israeli leaders included) are living in a state of denial beyond believe.

Boaz.

[Rick]

As to democracy being a superior form of government,only in the sense where there is direct participation in government by the people who also care about the opposition can democracy result in anything more than the whims of a majority voting for a leader. Democracy may vote a man into the office of govenor of California, but that in and of itself does not mean that society benifits. Politicians in america for example become the spokesmen for imagemakers and handlers who poll the population to determine what the candidate will say, and how his platform will be presented. There is much pretense and politicians often lose sight of the common problems of common people, just as in any fuedal state. Could a man like Lincoln rise to power within todays party system? Presidential candidates today tend to come from wealthy families and are elected not so much for proven leadership capabilities or an understanding of the world, but rather the success of campaign presentation. In the case of some democracies despots cause as much injustice as any other type of system. The democracy in south american countries of past decades is a good example of what can go wrong.

[JustSad]

To be brief, the fence is a great idea.
But Israel should build it on the green line and abondon the Westbank entirely.
In that way both Israeli and Palestine people will have peace.
Anything else smells like annexation.

[golani]

Originally posted by JustSad
To be brief, the fence is a great idea.
But Israel should build it on the green line and abondon the Westbank entirely.
In that way both Israeli and Palestine people will have peace.
Anything else smells like annexation.

1 .Violence by Arabs existed before 48

2. 75% of historical Palestine was given to Arabs by Britain

3.Many security fences exist throughout the world without provoking such trouble e.g Morocco annexed most of former spanish Sahara

4.I favor annexation of chunks of west bank because it gives some strategical depth to a so tiny territory (Israel surface is 2/3 of Belgium, 0.5 % of whole middle east)

5; From my heart and blunt reality, I know jews are entitled to whole historical Israel, Holyland was empy thru the centuries
If you do not believe me,look at the books from Karl Marx,Mark Twain and Chateaubriand when they traveled to Middle East:
Arabs arrived at the end of XIX century when Jews began to drain swamps and plant trees

6.Israel integrated 1million refugees from Arab countries in 1948
Why do Arabs refuse to integrate so called palestinian refugees?
Greece and Turkey did that in 1923 and I see no turkish liberation front for Crete or Hellenic liberation movement for Smyrne or Millet in Asia Minor,crib of hellenic civilization for thousands of years
7.To keep a jewish majority in Israel, Israel should deport Arabs to Jordan

8.PEACE WILL COME WHEN ARAB MOTHERS WILL LOVE THEIR KIDS AS MUCH AS ISRAELIS MOTHERS DO

[terence_z]

Sorry, but it seems that the fence is usefull where it has been built.
So anybody can explain me what the hell is going on with Jerusalem area? further attacks ? 100 more dead ?
I really don't understand this government. Only after catastrophes it remembers to speed the construction of the fence.
Only 50 % has been completed, all the Jerusalem area and south is totally open to suicide bombers !!!!!!!

[Namark]

The fence is a good idea, but will it cause any good feelings from anyone on the wrong side of it? Probarly not.. :\

[Roland]

Originally posted by Namark
The fence is a good idea, but will it cause any good feelings from anyone on the wrong side of it? Probarly not.. :\
Paint it pink! I can't stand the superstylish state-of-architecture hypermodern naked concrete buildings anymore anyway.

[terence_z]

feelings remain the same : maybe they will hate us a little more, 8 instead of 7.9 on Reichter scale !!! can you feel the difference ? but what I know is that WE feel much better ! ( from 8 to 2 ) Normal Life can restart in Israel.

[Namark]

Hmmm, well, maybe "normal" life will return, but then again, its not that hard to dig tunnels..

Though, it seems sort of far fetched that any wartorn population can ease back into normal life. I for one think that it will be a very long time before peace comes to the region.. Peace won't happen until everyone involved feels they have been appeased!

[Gilgamesh]

Originally posted by Roland
Paint it pink! I can't stand the superstylish state-of-architecture hypermodern naked concrete buildings anymore anyway.

This is a good idea, infact, it is already underway. However, the concreat bariare is very limited. Most of the fence is electronic. An electronic fence of sensors alreting nearby bordergaurds (part of the police) of any breaching attempt. The fence will be painted in earth colors, in some sections, and anti globalization graphity on the other side.

There is no wall or bariar that can't be crossed, by passed, dug under, exploded... ect... Yet, it isn't as easy to cross the fence as walking down the street. The five minutes stroll needed for an Arab from his home to a Jewish neighborhood.

Yet, it is not that easy to dig hundred meters in length and several meters in depth, without getting caught. It is slow expansive and hard to

[Gilgamesh]

Originally posted by Namark
The fence is a good idea, but will it cause any good feelings from anyone on the wrong side of it? Probarly not.. :\ Most Israelis think THEY are on the wrong side of the fence, and the fence is a testemony of an aparthide ragime. It we Jews, not Arabs, who are at risk of the the suicide terror attacks.

You see... Jews mistakenly walking into an Arab neighborhood is risking getting lynched, merely for being Jewish. It happened before, several times over.

Arabs, on the other hand, are free to walk anywere they want, in perfect safety within Israeli Jewish cities towns, and neighborhoods.

As for the "bad feelings" ... well... Arabs have 22 other Arabs states to go to, and soon they'll have france, Belgiam and the Netherlands to add to their empire.

[terence_z]

yes, this is the point. that is why we should make a hard separation: no more electricity delivery, no more Palestinians coming to work in Israel... we dont have anything to share with these people. If we could produce a big laser able to crack the earth and then we would become an iland, only the fishes would be our neighboors !!! :D

[Ahava]

Originally posted by Gilgamesh

As for the "bad feelings" ... well... Arabs have 22 other Arabs states to go to, and soon they'll have france, Belgiam and the Netherlands to add to their empire.
Hey! :eek:
Are you saying I should pack my bags and leave?

[terence_z]

Originally posted by Ahava
Hey! :eek:
Are you saying I should pack my bags and leave?

not yet.

[Mediocrates]

Come to America, we'd love to have you.

[terence_z]

Originally posted by Mediocrates
Come to America, we'd love to have you.
If you succeed to have a visa to America, let me know ... I am desesperatly trying to have one and leave this faquing country France , but no way ... borders are closed ...

[Ahava]

Try Israel.

Yeah, I've heard it's very hard to get permitted to America, get a green card and stuff.
Would it help if you have family in America? :)

[terence_z]

Originally posted by Ahava
Try Israel.

Yeah, I've heard it's very hard to get permitted to America, get a green card and stuff.
Would it help if you have family in America? :)

I dont want to go back to Israel for now... life is expensive and we dont have money.

[Gilgamesh]

Originally posted by Ahava
Hey! :eek:
Are you saying I should pack my bags and leave?

Are you kidding me? ( it was Ahava private joke). :D

The answer is yes, as if you didn't know that before.

[terence_z]

Originally posted by Gilgamesh
Are you kidding me? ( it was Ahava private joke). :D

The answer is yes, as if you didn't know that before.

I can read in the sky that a dark cloud of destruction is going to hit Europe

[Namark]

Originally posted by Gilgamesh

As for the "bad feelings" ... well... Arabs have 22 other Arabs states to go to, and soon they'll have france, Belgiam and the Netherlands to add to their empire.

Hey, the same thing can be said about both sides..

I seriously believe that this will be one of those conflicts that will keep on going until nobody alive can remember how it really started.. Everyone involved will have distorted history to suit their own agenda, and truthfully believe in their story, without a doubt.


It seems that amongst the younger people, this has allready started to happen.. you hate just because.. Almost everyone nowadays knows someone directly affected by either terrorists act, or retaliatory strikes.. or retaliatory acts to face the retaliatory strike.. on and on and on..

Though, looking at mankinds history, one never ceases to be amazed, does one?

Ok.. time for some dinner.. :}

[Namark]

Originally posted by Ahava
Try Israel.

Yeah, I've heard it's very hard to get permitted to America, get a green card and stuff.
Would it help if you have family in America? :)

Lived there for 10 years, not such a great place, highly over rated and pumped up by media.. Racism is oppulant, and the strife between social groups is getting to the bursting point..

Sure, you got the "dream", but for everyone that makes it, 25000 burned out people live in muck.. (OECD statistics.. :P)... 2% of the population control 97% of the wealth.. A system that needs to perpetuate the illusion that everything is honky dory, they call it capitalism I hear.. :P Give people the illusion of having choice, now thats smart..

And the natives still can't vote..

[Mediocrates]

WTF are you talking about? Everything you said is wrong.

[terence_z]

Originally posted by Namark
Lived there for 10 years, not such a great place, highly over rated and pumped up by media.. Racism is oppulant, and the strife between social groups is getting to the bursting point..

Sure, you got the "dream", but for everyone that makes it, 25000 burned out people live in muck.. (OECD statistics.. :P)... 2% of the population control 97% of the wealth.. A system that needs to perpetuate the illusion that everything is honky dory, they call it capitalism I hear.. :P Give people the illusion of having choice, now thats smart..

And the natives still can't vote..
No system is perfect.In life you always have to choose for the less bad, not for the best.
I hear a lot of stupidities here in France about USA: they are imperialist, no culture etc etc, because they have just forgotten who has delivered and protect them 3 times in the 20 century; people in France live in a real dream: they think they are the most educated, that all the world is watching them, the most beautiful culture ... the fact is that they are very stupid, ignorant and sometimes I wonder if they have a pine instead of the brain ... maybe there is a good social policy, the problem is that now there is no money for that because people dont want to work, but only receive.
Propaganda is very high; high tech almost does not exist.
So dont blame me if I dream about something else: I am just digusted by the place I currently live in.

[Namark]

This is totally off topic by now.. :P Edited it all out because of that..

Now, that wall... :}

[terence_z]

2morrow will be election for or against yhe disengagement from Gaza, at the Likud.If Sharon looses, he will eject the extrem-right from its government and go to new elections ... maybe coalition with the labor party...
My guess is that he will win by less than 1% ...

[Namark]

Originally posted by Mediocrates
WTF are you talking about? Everything you said is wrong.

As far as the US stuff goes, terribly sorry, but you can look it up with the OECD stats they put out.. A really good read is the yearly report on the worlds most prosperous countries, and see how USA really ranks on the list.. :\

In a way, the Natives are to USA what Palestinians are to the Israelis..

Native voting:


A party of choice: voting by American Indians

Posted: September 16, 2002 - 10:16am EST
by: Carey N. Vicenti / Columnist / Indian Country Today

Voting in the United States for Indian people is a paradox. No other right in the American legal system is more symbolic of a Native person’s "inclusion" into the political body of the United States of America. But that’s the source of the paradox: as members of Indian tribes, we owe our allegiance first to our tribes, our clans, our societies, our relatives, our friends and our ancestors. You can be certain that our ancestors would be wondering about our newly-claimed allegiance to America.

The drafters of the U.S. Constitution never contemplated including us in the newly formed Union. We were always intended to be "outside" in a political sense even though we were "inside" in a geographical sense. And even when the Nation reunified at the end of the Civil War, when the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution were adopted, the latter making "persons" born within the States into citizens, there was no intent to make Indians into citizens.

Our path to citizenship was opened in part by the bravery of young Indian men and women who filed off to war during the First World War. They were aided by a growing movement of non-Indian political activists, emerging anthropologists and wealthy "do-gooders" who felt that the right to vote was the only appropriate reward for service and heroism. But that was merely a revised form of assimilationist theory, whereby "inclusion" took the place of "assimilation" as an imperial term of art. The Congress of 1924 was convinced of the merits of the liberal argument and so they passed the Citizenship Act: we became citizens of the United States.

The "Indian Citizenship Act," as we came to call it, was not passed upon any sound legal basis. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution granted to Congress the power to annex the souls of Native peoples. Contrary to the popular American philosophy of "government by consent," the U.S. brought us in without any effort to gain our consent.

The 20th century history of Federal-Indian relations, however, has manufactured that consent. It has done so in legal, cultural and social ways. After 1934, for instance, as hundreds of Tribes were offered the option to reorganize as constitutional governments under the Indian Reorganization Act, many did so by adopting a boilerplate document that vowed to uphold U.S. laws and committed tribal actions to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior. Our children have been schooled in State or BIA schools and taught a history that purposefully omitted the true history of our loss of lands and independence. We’ve been made to believe that every affront to the United States is an insult to Native America, meriting even a military response.

And even though we had a right to vote, at least on federal paper, as we learned in the Bush v. Gore case, it was still up to the states to determine the particulars about elections. Indians were kept from the polls by one means or another. It wasn’t until the Indian veterans of World War II challenged state elections law that the right to vote took on any meaning. Thirty years after the vote was granted, Native peoples finally made actual political choices, in theory, at least.

Over the past several decades it has become almost customary for Native peoples to select membership in the Democratic Party. It has been as difficult to find an Indian Republican as it is to find an Indian vegetarian. When one appears, he or she makes pretenses at bravery or innovation while supporting nothing more than a xenophobic American conservatism. Tribal leaders endorse candidates in hopes of creating a block vote only to offend the pseudo-independent tribal voter. Most Indian voters do not vote at all. Ironically, the freedom of choice created by the right to vote has not been exercised wisely. What good is choice if one either does not vote or does not demand the highest standard in candidates or parties?

But back to the paradox: What party or candidate is actually on the side of Native peoples? The Democratic and Republican Parties are like a pair of twins who argue between themselves about their differences. The two-party system itself has no grounding in the U.S. Constitution either . Both of the major parties serve the interests of wealth, corporate expansion and a kind of globalism that eats up tribal peoples. Neither party has ever offered a principled political solution to our desires for independence and cultural integrity.

At heart, whether we like it or not, politically we are "Tribalists" and the clothing of American politics rarely, if ever, fits us well. The urges toward "self-determination" and "sovereignty" do not conform to Democratic or Republican visions of their America. So when our leaders do get consolation from the parties, it isn’t because the parties have evolved philosophically, it’s because in the opportunism to prevail over the errant twin party, they see Native votes as up for grabs -- it’s mere political greed. And all too often, the Natives who endorse the parties are engaged in the same sort of opportunism: we learn all too well sometimes.

This is not to say that the Green, the Libertarian, the Socialist or the Communist Parties are any different. Every party wants to reconfigure the United States as a Nation-State built by their standards, but none of them have transcended the limitations of Western political philosophies that recognize no political place for tribal thinking. They do not truly appreciate cultural diversity, linguistic survival, repatriation, sovereignty, self-determination, tribal religious freedom, and the many other interests that are the distinguishing characteristics of the "Tribalist" political agenda.

Maybe some of us are veterans, and maybe some of us are modern warriors of a different kind, but it appears that we must, as previous Native warriors have done, take the right to vote to a different level. Our "Tribalism" should be openly admitted as a political philosophy. Voting ought to be a universal ethic of tribal peoples. Block voting should be openly discussed in general meetings of the tribal membership. Indian scholars and politicians should be engaged in a dialog to define the tolerable limits to the concessions we may make to American party politics or perhaps to demand principled, articulated and tangible concessions of all of the parties of choice.

Judge Carey N. Vicenti, a member of the Jicarilla Apache Nation of northwest New Mexico, currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo. He sits as a judicial official for several American Indian nations and is a columnist for Indian Country Today.

[Gilgamesh]

Originally posted by terence_z
2morrow will be election for or against yhe disengagement from Gaza, at the Likud.If Sharon looses, he will eject the extrem-right from its government and go to new elections ... maybe coalition with the labor party...
My guess is that he will win by less than 1% ...

There is another theory, that Sharon will use the vote against him either as a leverage for more demands from the Americans, like setting a date for the American embassy to finaly move to Jerusalem, Israel's capital. Also, Sharon can use the vote as an excuse to finish off the disengagement plan. Setting it onto undefinated date.

[terence_z]

Originally posted by Gilgamesh
There is another theory, that Sharon will use the vote against him either as a leverage for more demands from the Americans, like setting a date for the American embassy to finaly move to Jerusalem, Israel's capital. Also, Sharon can use the vote as an excuse to finish off the disengagement plan. Setting it onto undefinated date.

we'll be more clever 2morrow morning with the results !!
what is interesting in the middle east is that nothing is sure from today to tomorrow. I hope Sharon will get rid of the extrem right that leads the country to tou-bou ....

[Gilgamesh]

Originally posted by terence_z
we'll be more clever 2morrow morning with the results !!
what is interesting in the middle east is that nothing is sure from today to tomorrow. I hope Sharon will get rid of the extrem right that leads the country to tou-bou ....

All is sure and certain in the ME. The expression among Israelis is "The Arabs are thesame Arabs, and the sea is the same sea".
Nothing changes. The Arabs are out to murder us on racial bases. Terrorism is a hate crime. That hasn't change, and terrorism is flourishing in the ME for centuries, (and not only against Jews. Far more Arabs have died in various action of terror). At least a century against Israelis. This will never vanish untill we will decide we wish to win, at all costs.

Such decision, hadn't been made yet. There is a strong self delusion of "things" can be worked out with Arabs. Much simmilar or Jews who believe, on the brink of extinction, that some deal can be made even with the Nazis.

Only the self delussions of some Israelis cracked over pressure and stress, change from time to time.