Land for Peace has failed. Its time to give Peace or Land a try. [Archive]

hagg323

06-20-2002, 02:41 PM

I do believe that the solution and our messages must be balanced with full respect to these poor humans (hmm… it’s so hard, especially after tonight’s attack, damn it!) the same way that we demand respect to ourselves from them. A punishing system will not do it and will not deliver a long-lasting solution, which is what we should be looking for. Peace, Shpeace, a long-lasting solution should be our focus. Because we cannot afford looking at short-term solutions that only generate more frustrations even if not leading to more violence. This is what they think that they are doing: pushing us in the short-term to give up something, which we will never ever give up. They are wrong. Wrong in thinking, wrong in their tactics. Please let’s not follow this path too. We must look beyond the horizon of the present violence. The violence must be put off, forcefully and without any compromise, with a way more determinism than what our government has demonstrated up till now. There’s no other way. Terror has no logic to reason with and you cannot surrender to it. But they are people like you and me that you’re taking about, Stephen, and must be treated with the same ways that you want to be treated yourself, and your family, and your loved ones. We need to look at solutions that will lead to quiet (peace would be nice to have, not a must so soon) and economic prosperity to the region, one that will increase the standard of living and provide hope and unlimited opportunities to all newborns, Arabs and Jews alike. Suddenly, it seems like a long dream. It’s amazing how quickly the hope can return once the violence has ended. Talking about transfer from a standpoint of looking after everyone’s interests, is one thing, which I support because I simply cannot see any other logical solution and not because I choose it gladly. Talking about limiting other people and compressing them further inside this horrible pressure cooker simply won’t work. Not for the short term. Not for the long term. Not for me. Not for them. Not even for you.

takeo

06-20-2002, 02:41 PM

massive etnic cleansing of the occupied territories will change sporadic terrorism into a full war against a large colaition and worldwide embargo, land for peace (or better said implementation of the un-resolutions for peace) is the only way to go, it has not failed yet, because it has not been implemented yet.

NewsGuy

06-20-2002, 02:45 PM

Originally posted by hagg323
Talking about transfer from a standpoint of looking after everyone’s interests, is one thing, which I support because I simply cannot see any other logical solution and not because I choose it gladly.

Right, transfer of the Palestinians into an independent zone should absolutely not be seen as a punishment, but as a last-resort solution to save lives and allow the Palestinians to realize their national aspirations in a way in which they cannot carry on with their massacres of Israelis.

There is no need at all to "compress people into a pressure cooker." Jordan has vast expanses of vacant land, as does the Arabian desert, which is the Palestinians' historical homeland anyway. There, the Palestinians can live like kings, reunited with their brothers in freedom.

NewsGuy

06-20-2002, 02:56 PM

Originally posted by takeo
massive etnic cleansing of the occupied territories will change sporadic terrorism into a full war against a large colaition and worldwide embargo...

In case you haven't noticed from the daily massacres of Israelis, the Arabs have already launched a full-scale war of genocide against Israel.

The Palestinian war against Israel is supported by a coalition of Iran, Syria, Lebanon and alQaeda troops.

land for peace (or better said implementation of the un-resolutions for peace) is the only way to go, it has not failed yet, because it has not been implemented yet.

The UN resolutions have been implemented by Israel, but can never be completed due to the Palestinian war of terrorism against Israel.

We need to respect the Palestians' right to choose their own destiny and listen carefully to them. They have rejected all UN resolutions and have chosen to go to war instead. Therefore, we must proceed from this point of reality with new strategies to end the violence.

wallace2132

06-20-2002, 03:52 PM

visit http://www.geocities.com/munichseptember1972/default.html

alexbmn

06-20-2002, 04:11 PM

what really puts me into a foul mood that when Sharon finally decides to implement a new strategy that has a chance of being successfull immeditely there's discord and disapproval from others.Ben Eliezer is not happy and Mofaz(who proposed the same identical idea a couple of weeks ago is suddenly not happy as well.With such democratic atmosphere nothing will be done.

takeo

06-20-2002, 05:00 PM

"They have rejected all UN resolutions and have chosen to go to war instead. "

The Palestinian leadership, as well as all political groups except Hamas and Jihad have accepted all un-resolutions, even the ones recognising israel.

Israel has not accepted:

UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 (1974)

"the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return";

UN General Assembly Resolution 52/62 (1997):
"reaffirms that the Palestine Arab refugees are entitled to their property and to the income derived therefrom, in conformity with the principles of justice and equity."

UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (1948) of 12 December 1948:

"refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for the loss or damage to property..."

UNSC 242 specifies in paragraph 3 "...all member states in their acceptance of the charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the Charter," which established the principles upon which members are required to act in comformance of the purposes of the organisation, specified in Article 1. Among the principles of Article 2 is "members must fulfill their Charter obligations in good faith."
UNSC 242 calls for the "withdrawal of Israel's armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict."

And what about the numerous un-resolutions to condamn israeli settlements...

http://www.peacenow.org.il/English.asp?Redirect=4&CategoryID=45

"United Nations Security Council Resolution 242
22 November 1967

The Security Council,

Expressing, its continuing concern with the grave situation in the Middle East,

Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security,

Emphasizing further that all Member states in their acceptance of the Charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the Charter,

1. Affirms that the fulfillment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles:

(i) Withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict,
(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;

2. Affirms further the necessity

(a) For guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area;
(b) For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;

(c) For guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones;

3. Requests the Secretary-General to designate a Special Representative to proceed to the Middle East to establish and maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the provisions and principles in this resolution;

4. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on the progress of the efforts of the Special Representative as soon as possible."

Res 101 (Nov 24, 53): Expressed 'strongest censure' of Israel for the first time because of its raid on Qibya.
Res 106 (Mar 29, 55): Condemned Israel for Ghazzah raid.
Res 111 (Jan 19, 56): Condemned Israel for raid on Syria that killed 56 people.
Res 127 (Jan 22, 58): Recommended Israel to suspend its no-man's zone in Jerusalem.
Res 162 (Apr 11, 61): Urged Israel to comply with UN decisions.
Res 171 (Apr 9, 62): Determined 'flagrant violation' by Israel in its attack on Syria.
Res 228 (Nov 25, 66): Censured Israel for its attack on Samu in Jordan.
Res 237 (June 14, 67): Urged Israel to allow return of new 1967 Palestinian refugees.
Res 248 (Mar 24, 68): Condemned Israel for its massive attack on Karameh in Jordan.
Res 250 (Apr 27, 68): Called on Israel to refrain from holding military parade in Jerusalem.
Res 251 (May 2, 68): Deeply deplored Israel's military parade in Jerusalem and declared invalid Israel's acts to unify Jerusalem as its capital.
Res 256 (Aug 16, 68): Condemned Israeli raids on Jordan as 'flagrant violation'.
Res 259 (Sep 27, 68): Deplored Israel's refusal to accept UN mission to probe occupation.
Res 262 (Dec 31, 68): Condemned Israel's attack on Beirut airport destroying the entire fleet of Middle East Airlines.
Res 265 (Apr 1, 69): Condemned Israel for air attacks on Salt in Jordan.
Res 267 (July 3, 69): Censured Israel for administrative acts to change status of Jerusalem.
Res 270 (Aug. 26, 69): Condemned Israel for air attack on villages in southern Lebanon.
Res 271 (Sep 15, 69): Condemned Israel's failure to comply with UN resolutions on Jerusalem.
Res 279 (May 12, 70): Demanded withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon.
Res 280 (May 19, 70): Condemned Israeli attacks against Lebanon.
Res 285 (Sep 5, 70): Demanded immediate Israeli troop withdrawal from Lebanon.
Res 298 (Sep 25, 71): Deplored Israel's change of status of Jerusalem.
Res 313 (Aug 8, 72): Demanded Israel stop attacks against Lebanon.
Res 316 (June 26, 72): Condemned Israel for repeated attacks on Lebanon.
Res 317 (July 21, 72): Deplored Israel's refusal to release Arabs abducted from Lebanon.
Res 332 (Apr 21, 73): Condemned Israel's repeated attacks against Lebanon.
Res 337 (Aug 15, 73): Condemned Israel for violating Lebanon's sovereignty.
Res 347 (Apr 24, 74): Condemned Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
Res 425 (Mar 19, 78): Called on Israel to withdraw its forces unconditionally from Lebanon.
Res 427 (May 3, 78): Called on Israel to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon.
Res 444 (Jan 19, 79): Deplored Israel's lack of cooperation with UN peace forces.
Res 446 (Mar 22, 79): Determined Israeli settlements as a 'serious obstruction' to peace, and called on Israel to abide by the Geneva Conventions.
Res 450 (June 14, 79): Called on Israel to stop attacking Lebanon.
Res 452 (July 20, 79): Called on Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territories.
Res 465 (Mar 1, 80): Deplored Israel's settlements and asked all member States not to assist Israel's settlement programme.
Res 467 (Apr 24, 80): Condemned Israel's military intervention in Lebanon.
Res 468 (May 8, 80): Called on Israel to rescind illegal expulsion of two Palestinian Mayors and a Judge, and to facilitate their return.
Res 469 (May 20, 80): Strongly deplored Israel's failure to observe the Council's order not to deport Palestinians.
Res 471 (June 5, 80): Expressed deep concern at Israel's failure to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Res 476 (June 30, 80): Reiterated that Israel's claims to Jerusalem are 'null and void'.
Res 478 (Aug 20, 80): 'Censured in the strongest terms' Israel for its claim to Jerusalem in its 'basic law'.
Res 484 (Dec 19, 80): Declared it imperative Israel re-admit two Palestinian mayors.
Res 487 (June 19, 81): Strongly condemns Israel for its attack on Iraq's nuclear facility.
Res 497 (Dec 17, 81): Decided Israel's annexation of Syria's Golan Heights is 'null and void' and demanded that Israel rescind its decision forthwith.
Res 498 (Dec 18, 81): Called on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon.
Res 501 (Feb 25, 82): Called on Israel to stop attacks against Lebanon and withdraw its troops.
Res 508 (June 6, 82): Demanded Israel withdraw its forces forthwith and un-conditionally from Lebanon.
Res 515 (July 29, 82): Demanded Israel lift its seige of Beirut and allow in food.
Res 517 (Aug 4, 82): Censured Israel for failing to obey UN resolutions and demanded Isreal withdraw its forces from Lebanon.
Res 518 (Aug 12, 82): Demanded Israel cooperate fully with UN forces in Lebanon.
Res 520 (Sep 17, 82): Condemned Israel's attack into West Beirut.
Res 573 (Oct 4, 85): Condemned Israel vigorously for bombing Tunisia in attack on PLO Headquarters.
Res 587 (Sep 23, 86): Took note of previous calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and urged all parties to withdraw.
Res 592 (Dec 8, 86): Strongly deplored the killing of Palestinian students at Bir Zeit University by Israeli troops.
Res 605 (Dec 22, 87): Strongly deplored Israel's policies and practices denying human rights of Palestinians.
Res 607 (Jan 5, 88): Called on Israel not to deport Palestinians and strongly requested it to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Res 608 (Jan 14, 88): Deeply regreted that Israel had defied the UN and deported Palestinian civilians.
Res 636 (July 6, 89): Deeply regreted the Israeli deportation of Palestinians.
Res 641 (Aug 30, 89): Deplored Israel's continuous deportation of Palestinians.
Res 672 (Oct 12, 90): Condemned Israel for violence against Palestinians at Jerusalem's Haram Al-Sharif.
Res 673 (Oct 24, 90): Deplored Israel's refusal to cooperate with the UN.
Res 681 (Dec 20, 90): Deplored Israel's resumption of deportation of Palestinians.
Res 694 (May 24, 91): Deplored Israel's deportation of Palestinians and called on it to ensure their safe and immediate return.
Res 726 (Jan 1, 92): 'Strongly condemned' Israel's decision to resume deportation of Palestinians from 'Palestinian territories... including Jerusalem.'
Res 799 (Dec 19, 92): Deplored Israel's mass deportation of some 400 Palestinians and called for thir immediate return.

elke

06-20-2002, 05:23 PM

Next time, I'll just save this and copy/paste the response:

WHERE ARE THE RESOLUTIONS CONDEMNING THE ARAB VIOLENCE?

WHERE ARE THE RESOLUTIONS CONDEMNING SYRIAN OCCUPATION OF LEBANON?

AND WHILE WE ARE AT IT, WHERE IS THE ARAB ACCEPTANCE OF THESE SAME RESOLUTIONS, WHICH ALSO CALL ON THEM TO DO THINGS.

takeo

06-20-2002, 05:38 PM

Elke, there is no occupation of Libanon, as there is no uS-occupation of SA.
The PA and many Arab states accept all UN-resolutions, including the one recognising Israel and the ones condamning violence against civilians.

elke

06-20-2002, 05:40 PM

As promised:

WHERE ARE THE RESOLUTIONS CONDEMNING THE ARAB VIOLENCE?

WHERE ARE THE RESOLUTIONS CONDEMNING SYRIAN OCCUPATION OF LEBANON?

AND WHILE WE ARE AT IT, WHERE IS THE ARAB ACCEPTANCE OF THESE SAME RESOLUTIONS, WHICH ALSO CALL ON THEM TO DO THINGS.

Ask the Lebanese, not the government prostitutes, but the Joe on the street whether there is - or isn't - occupation by Syria.

takeo

06-20-2002, 07:26 PM

"WHERE ARE THE RESOLUTIONS CONDEMNING THE ARAB VIOLENCE? "

just one, there are many more: ( i posted a whole list in a discussion with newsguy once on this forum)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1916000/1916236.stm

Did you talk to joe on the street?
there doesn't seem to be much protest against syrian presence, not in the democratically elected parliament, in the government, or in the streets, but than again Syria isn't destroying houses, building syrian settlements, walls, curfews, imposing its will upon libanon, and their presence is officially legal, as they were invited by the government, much like us-troops in SA.

Even before Yasir Arafat's statement on 13 April 2002 condemning terrorism Arafat had repeatedly condemned suicide bombings both in Arabic and in English. Here are just two examples obtained from BBC monitoring.

1. On Palestinian TV, on 28 March 2002, at 20:08 GMT, Arafat stated in Arabic:

"On this occasion, I would like once again to reiterate our condemnation of yesterday's operation in Netanya, in which a number of innocent Israeli civilians were killed and wounded. This operation constitutes a deviation from our policy and a violation of our national and human values. I affirm our commitment to working toward an immediate cease-fire, as we informed General Zinni. We highly value his efforts. We informed him that we are ready for the immediate implementation of the Tenet's work plan without conditions, and without prejudicing any of its articles. Also, we have informed him of our readiness to implement the Mitchell Report recommendations in cooperation with the four-way US-Russian-European-UN committee headed by Gen. Zinni."

2. On December 16, 2001, in a speech on the occasion of Id al-Fitr in Ramallah (Gaza Palestine Satellite Channel Television, in Arabic, on 16 December 2001 at 16:00 GMT) Arafat stated in Arabic:

"Today, I emphasize once again the complete and immediate halt to all armed operations. Once again, I call for a complete halt to all operations, especially suicidal operations, which we have always condemned. We will punish all those who carry out and mastermind such operations. This also applies to the firing of mortar shells, which have no objective but to provide an excuse for the Israeli attacks on us, our people, our children, and our women. Any violation of this decision will be considered an attempt to harm the higher national interests of our people and of our Arab nation."

alexbmn

06-20-2002, 07:57 PM

Ella forget it ,its pointless .

L@mplighterM

06-20-2002, 08:25 PM

Originally posted by takeo
"WHERE ARE THE RESOLUTIONS CONDEMNING THE ARAB VIOLENCE? "

just one, there are many more: ( i posted a whole list in a discussion with newsguy once on this forum)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1916000/1916236.stm

Did you talk to joe on the street?
there doesn't seem to be much protest against syrian presence, not in the democratically elected parliament, in the government, or in the streets, but than again Syria isn't destroying houses, building syrian settlements, walls, curfews, imposing its will upon libanon, and their presence is officially legal, as they were invited by the government, much like us-troops in SA.

Even before Yasir Arafat's statement on 13 April 2002 condemning terrorism Arafat had repeatedly condemned suicide bombings both in Arabic and in English. Here are just two examples obtained from BBC monitoring.

1. On Palestinian TV, on 28 March 2002, at 20:08 GMT, Arafat stated in Arabic:

"On this occasion, I would like once again to reiterate our condemnation of yesterday's operation in Netanya, in which a number of innocent Israeli civilians were killed and wounded. This operation constitutes a deviation from our policy and a violation of our national and human values. I affirm our commitment to working toward an immediate cease-fire, as we informed General Zinni. We highly value his efforts. We informed him that we are ready for the immediate implementation of the Tenet's work plan without conditions, and without prejudicing any of its articles. Also, we have informed him of our readiness to implement the Mitchell Report recommendations in cooperation with the four-way US-Russian-European-UN committee headed by Gen. Zinni."

2. On December 16, 2001, in a speech on the occasion of Id al-Fitr in Ramallah (Gaza Palestine Satellite Channel Television, in Arabic, on 16 December 2001 at 16:00 GMT) Arafat stated in Arabic:

"Today, I emphasize once again the complete and immediate halt to all armed operations. Once again, I call for a complete halt to all operations, especially suicidal operations, which we have always condemned. We will punish all those who carry out and mastermind such operations. This also applies to the firing of mortar shells, which have no objective but to provide an excuse for the Israeli attacks on us, our people, our children, and our women. Any violation of this decision will be considered an attempt to harm the higher national interests of our people and of our Arab nation."

HOW ABOUT POSTING THE SPEECHES HE MADE SINCE THE BEGINING OF THE YEAR TO THE PRESENT. NOT SNIPETS !!!

christian

06-21-2002, 02:22 AM

Takeo,

I agree that Israel should accept land for peace. But disagreement on any negotiation, the consequence of negotiation will encourages more terrorist attack. In a way, the terrorist organization views as a way to gain a political means.

The agreement should be reach, after the israeli settlements withdrawl from the gaza and w. bank. In order words, Israel should confer with Arafat. Arafat should implements some actions.

Israel should use soft tactics as a war weapon, such as Economic development, education, law, secular views, etc

In singapore, the government uses soft and hard tactics, to complement each other. They use secular law, education, money, etc. Brute force is the last procedure, to support law, education, economy. Thus, extreme islamic law doesn't even acceptable to most muslim. Even the singapore muslim despise the middle east islamic law. They rather be governed by secularism.

In Hong Kong, the first 100 years, chinese people hates the british opium humilation. However, british develops a superior system in HK. In HK, people rather lives under the british, than the mainland china. In Hk, British develops trade, economy, education, law,etc. Gradually, the imperialistic empire influence the perspective of chinese people. Before, the british, HK is a rocky island without any resources, except the fisherman port.

The secular view, such as freedom of speech, many muslim enjoys living in HK. They rather live under the HK a foreign land, than living in harsh dictatorial islam. My point of view is secularism. Secularism is the only way to influence the ME.

The reason the Palestinian youth rebels, they don't have any hope to redirect their attention. There aren't jobs in Palestinian refugee's camp.

In my conclusion, israel should implements soft tactics as a war weapon against Islam. The hard tactics occupation only causes grievance and pain. Once the Islamic people understand that freedom in Israel. The attitude of ME will change drastically.

The hard occupation methods only causes more terrorist. It is time israel, should implements soft methods. If they do. If my judgement correct. At this moment of time, many palestinian rather lives in Israel than in Palestinian state. Many muslim in ME rather live in Canada, or Australia. They hates the harsh condition in their own country.

takeo

06-21-2002, 06:33 AM

"In Hk, British develops trade, economy, education, law,etc. Gradually, the imperialistic empire influence the perspective of chinese people. Before, the british, HK is a rocky island without any resources, except the fisherman port.
"

I agree with most what you said, if Israel would have annexed the occupied territories and provided for the palestinians the same living standard and rights as the israeli palestinians or the jewish israeli than most likely we wouldn't have the current problems of terrorism.

lomplighter, Arafat condamned terrorist attacks on civilians since the beginning, i don't know where to find all the speeches he made on internet that we could see in television, can you give me one speach of him in wich he clearly agreed to violence against civilians? (and please not the "martyrs-speech", which is only an israeli interpretation, but no approval of violence)

Mediocrates

06-21-2002, 06:36 AM

Actually no - Arafat talked about terrorism on the other side of the Green Line. The last two murderous assaults were on the inside of the Green Line. So you and he are in agreement. Jews inside the Green Line, Jews of any kind, are legitimate targets to you both. Bully for you.

takeo

06-21-2002, 06:58 AM

in one of the speeches i provided, he even condamned mortar attacks against settlements...
i don't know exactly what Arafat believes or thinks, but for me i condamn all attacks on unarmed civilians, even settlers within the green line. I think however that attacks against responsibles for the occupation is legitimate, military and politicians, both inside and outside the green line.
i think israel has the right to attack hamas, jihad or even PFLP members in self-defense, but not to destroy, seize, etc. property of palestinian civilians, and not to destroy the pa-facilities and of course not to occupy the westbank and Gaza, which is one of the main reasons for the palestinian resistance.

besides, i read that arafat is even prepared to make concessions about jerusalem and the refugees once the peace-talks start. the only obstacle for peace is now sharon and Likud who refuse to negociate about the refugees or a palestinian state, or even refuse to negociate all together even to stop the violence on both sides.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13741-2002Jun19.html

"Associated Press
Thursday, June 20, 2002; Page A18

GAZA CITY, June 19 -- More than 50 Palestinians took out a full-page newspaper ad today condemning suicide bombings, a move that sparked debate at a time when most Palestinians support the attacks as an effective way to strike at Israel.

The ad in al-Quds, a leading Palestinian daily, appeared a day after a suicide bomber killed 19 Israelis and himself on a Jerusalem bus and hours before a second bomber killed at least seven people at a bus stop this evening. In the ad, the Palestinians urged the militant groups behind deadly assaults on Israeli civilians to "stop sending our young people to carry out such attacks."

The signatories included Hanan Ashrawi, a leading Palestinian spokeswoman and legislator, and the Palestinians' senior official in Jerusalem, Sari Nusseibeh, along with other prominent figures regarded as moderates. The ad urged other Palestinians to join them.

Others who signed the statement were noted Gaza human rights activist Eyad Serraj, newspaper editor Hana Siniora, prominent economist Mohammed Ishtaya and Mamdouh Nofal, a security adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1657-2002Jun17.html

"By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 18, 2002; Page A15

The Palestinian Authority has presented the Bush administration with the written outline of a peace proposal with concessions over two of the most contentious Arab-Israeli issues, the status of Jerusalem and refugees, while insisting that Israel retreat to its pre-1967 borders for the formation of a Palestinian state.

The plan, given to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Friday by Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath, closely follows the lines of a Saudi Arabian initiative approved by 22 Arab governments in March, while incorporating elements of aborted Arab-Israeli negotiations conducted during the waning days of the Clinton administration.

Responding to the proposal, a senior State Department official said: "We're encouraged that they're looking at how to achieve two states living side by side."

The Palestinian plan comes as President Bush is putting the final touches on a new proposal of his own, expected to be presented in a speech today or Wednesday, in which he has said he will outline the "way forward" toward his goal of Palestinian statehood. Although Bush spent the weekend at his Crawford, Tex., ranch, Vice President Cheney chaired a meeting Saturday about the Middle East attended by Powell, CIA Director George J. Tenet, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who participated via video-conference call from California.

Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, the architect of the Arab initiative, told a group of visiting U.S. journalists yesterday that he hoped there would be an independent Palestine before the end of Bush's first term. Abdullah, whose foreign minister met with Bush and Powell late last week, spoke with Bush by telephone Sunday.

But an Israeli official, dismissing the Palestinian plan and any proposed timeline for statehood, said "nobody believes the lovely words" coming from the Palestinian Authority led by Yasser Arafat. "Nobody is talking about final status now," said the official, who voiced confidence that Bush's statement would concentrate on the need for Palestinian security and governmental reforms before any final status discussions.

In an interview published over the weekend in the San Jose Mercury News, Rice offered one of the administration's most dismissive assessments of Arafat and the Palestinian Authority to date, saying that the Palestinian administration "is corrupt and cavorts with terror . . . [and] is not the basis for a Palestinian state moving forward."

In response, Arafat said in Ramallah yesterday that "we are implementing only what our people want us to do, and we do not take orders from anyone."

An initially tepid White House statement yesterday about Israel's construction of a fence along the West Bank became more critical of Israel as the day went on. Asked whether the fence-building was "helpful," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that although "all parties have to be aware of the consequences of their actions," Israel "has a right to defend itself."

Later in the day, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that any attempt to establish a border "really has to be done through direct talks" rather than unilateral action. "We do remind the Israelis that offering hope to Palestinians, offering them a decent life, an end to the barriers, is an important part of achieving security and peace," Boucher said. First lady Laura Bush said in an interview on American Urban Radio Networks: "I don't think that a fence will be some long-lasting sign of peace."

Among the ideas Bush has been considering is the declaration of a provisional Palestinian state, with final border negotiations to begin only after there is real Palestinian reform. But U.S. allies in Europe and in Arab capitals have warned against allowing Israel to turn the need for reform into a precondition for political talks.

The two-page Palestinian document presented to Powell was approved by other senior Palestinians, as well as by the Saudi, Egyptian and Jordanian governments, a source close to the Palestinian Authority said. Its main elements include Israeli withdrawal to the June 4, 1967, armistice line, with an allowance for minor, reciprocal adjustments and security cooperation arrangements in which "international forces will play a central role." Israel has rejected such plans.

For the first time in a Palestinian proposal, there is no specific demand for a "right of return" for Palestinian refugees to what is now Israel; the proposal calls for "a just and agreed solution" to the problem. Although it reiterates that East Jerusalem would be the capital of a Palestinian state and West Jerusalem the Israeli capital, it says "the Palestinian side will transfer sovereignty over the Jewish Quarter and the Wailing Wall section of the Western Wall in East Jerusalem to Israel." Israel has ruled out any Palestinian sovereignty over Jerusalem.

The proposal acknowledges the need for "internal Palestinian restructuring, which have already [been] embarked on in the political, financial and security fields," with the latter following ideas suggested by Tenet. The proposal calls for a "fixed timeline" along with "guaranteed diplomatic involvement . . . to ensure that the process does not stall."

© 2002 The Washington Post Company"

christian

06-21-2002, 07:01 AM

Originally posted by Mediocrates
Actually no - Arafat talked about terrorism on the other side of the Green Line. The last two murderous assaults were on the inside of the Green Line. So you and he are in agreement. Jews inside the Green Line, Jews of any kind, are legitimate targets to you both. Bully for you.

Actually, the upper hand is on israel, providing with American support. If israel uses soft occupation, like the brits. Israel will never have terrorism. Moreover, the palestinian would love israel occupation. The problem lies with zionist ethnic cleansing movement. The zionist perspective is to repeats their forefathers in Joshua or Moses time. This is very unrealistic. Since, ethnic cleansing works in 4000 years ago. It doesn't work in this age of information, UN resolution, post- imperialistic era,etc

Dear zionist,
The only way to stop terrorism, is to apply soft tactics. If you recalls in the new testament of bible as a example. The christian is persecuted in the roman empire. More christian dies in the persecution of Rome. Gradually, Christian develops education, law, and trade. Eventually, the christian controls the roman empire. Because all the government offical is christian. Only christians is massively literated and educated at that time.

Nobody likes hard tactics, like ethnic cleansing, genocide, etc. Israel will never reach that far. Only education of the masses, trade and development will redirect the Palestinian attention.

If japanese will the WWII. The entire population of chinese will become japanese. Of course, this example is extreme. It is a good example, for Israeli's to converts Palestinian in a human way.

If israel develops Palestinian economy, trade and law. More Palestinian will love Israel. This is my personal experience with british. Because no amount of hatre, everyone has to be back on daily living, such as food, water and roof. Eventhough, some nationalist chinese despise british. There are more chinese in love with european british. The british basically gives HK chinese, food, roof, water, trade, economy, international creditials, etc.
Thus, no one really hates the brits. Everyone loves british occupation. Even the mainland chinese, loves to across the HK. There is so much freedom in HK. Every mainland chinese desire is to live here.

secrets
The HK chinese doesn't like returning to mainland china. They rather live in British occupation. No amount of nationalism can affect the reality of daily life, such as work, food, water, roof, and trade,etc

Mediocrates

06-21-2002, 07:18 AM

I guess we're starting to see a new trend. The left and the apologists for murders tried painting us with the 'racist' brush until it blew back in their faces so now we see the general and liberal application of the phrase 'ethnic cleansing' in the faint hope it will embarass and shame us. Well it won't and do you know why?

Because by your own words and beliefs and through whatever tortured process you call reasoning, a free and independent Palistine is as ethnically, culturally, religiously, linguistically pure as the most racist and 'cleansed' societies on earth. You would truly make the Serbians proud with your lebensraum.

Mediocrates

06-21-2002, 07:24 AM

takeo if you think that women and children living inside the Green Line are the same kind of legitimate target as irregular terrorists attacking them then perhaps you see birthrates in and of themselves as weapons. Should we sterilize Palistinians as a legitimate defense?

I didn't think so, either.

SteveMetch

06-21-2002, 08:07 AM

I lived in Hong Kong as a teenager and experienced first hand how people, who embrace a secular public view, can work together. Even if the majority of Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza would like nothing better than to be the Chinese of British Hong Kong there are still too many Islamics for the murders to stop. The Islamics must be killed and or deported first. No true peace is possible secular or otherwise until this happens. True peace in the Middle will have to be built on the grave of Islamism. The racist cultures of Japan and Germany of World War 2 had to be utterly destroyed before peace was possible. Islamism by its very nature will never submit to secular authority except through violence.

NewsGuy

06-21-2002, 08:17 AM

Originally posted by takeo

Res 101 (Nov 24, 53): Expressed 'strongest censure' of Israel for the first time because of its raid on Qibya.
Res 106 (Mar 29, 55): Condemned Israel for Ghazzah raid.
Res 111 (Jan 19, 56): Condemned Israel for raid on Syria that killed 56 people.
Res 127 (Jan 22, 58): Recommended Israel to suspend its no-man's zone in Jerusalem... [/B]

Takeo,

I admit I get a kick out of your low-level propaganda and disinformation tactics. Very amusing. Did this king of stuff actually ever work in places like the good old USSR or Cuba, etc?

I especially like your usual tactic of listing a huge list of completely irrelevant data, intended to create the impression that you are somehow pointing to proof that your opinions are correct.

How does the UN condemning Israel for attacking terrorist targets in Gaza amount to a violation of UN reolutions?

How does a "recommendation to Israel" amount to a violation of UN resolutions?

We already know that the vast majority of UN recommendations and condemnations are the product of Arab and French corruption of the UN process. That's really no news.

Basically, these and the rest of the ridiculous list you just provided, have nothing at all to do with my question to you.

Ther fact is that Israel has complied with the UN Charter, giving it the right to take military action to defend itself from the Arab war of terrorism, and Israel has always been in compliance with UN Resolution 242, etc., which guarantees Israel secure borders.

It is the Arabs who are guilty of violations of the UN charter and resolutions, and they are also guilty of crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and attempted genocide.

Batman

06-21-2002, 08:27 AM

Originally posted by takeo
The PA and many Arab states accept all UN-resolutions, including the one recognising Israel and the ones condamning violence against civilians.

Have you checked your facts?
If you look at the history of the Arab-Palestinian-Muslims you will see that they have never removed the clauses that call for Israel's destruction from the PA covenant, dating back to 1964 BEFORE any 'occupation' ever took place. The maps they have on their walls, their logo, and their school text books, all show that ALL of israel belongs to the Palestinian-Arab-Muslims.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization, was created by THE ARAB LEAGUE (the dictatorships of the Arab world) with Yasser Arafat as its leader in 1964 BEFORE ANY SO CALLED 'OCCUPATION' BY ISRAEL and since 1964 the PLO Charter has called for the destruction of Israel. The following is a summary of the PLO Covenant Articles STILL calling for Israel's destruction:

***The establishment of Israel is "null and void" (Article 19)
***The destruction of Israel is a desideratum (Article 21)
***Armed struggle is the only way to achieve Palestinian political goals (Article 9)
The Jewish People has no national identity nor connection to the Land of Israel (Article 20) ***Israel's existence is a threat to all the Peoples of the world and is comparable to the Nazi regime (Article 22).

Incidentally, Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Arabs have voting powers. The Arabs do not complain of any problem with any Arab government that gives them no voting rights. Why? Why are the Jews and Israel the only problem while the Arabs have more rights there than in any Arab country?

Additionally please see: http://www.jewsweek.com/editorial/298.htm
"Arafat admitted in 1998, when interviewed by Egyptian television, that he respected the Oslo Treaty in the same manner that Muhammad did the treaty of Hudaybiyah ..." as well as in 1995: http://www.dvjc.org/culture/dromi1.shtml

Additionally, if you care to, please see the Palestinian-Arab children training to kill videos which has been going on for the past 10 years and the crop of suicide murderers who are killing Israeli-Jews are those children you see in some of the videos who have grown up to go and blow themselves up and who have been brainwashed by the Palestinian-Arab state organized (US and EU funded) television programs and propaganda.
See at: http://www.mideasttruth.com

and read "Why Israel Is The Victim And The Arabs Are The Indefensible Aggressors In the Middle East " at:http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/horowitz011702.asp

When you put all these facts together, and you see that killing Jews has been the ongoing rule in the history of the world, and that the world can and was silent, it is not unimaginable for a Jew to understand this Arab-Palestinian situation as the NEW ANTI-SEMITISM, where by the European Nations can dupe themselves to hate Jewish Israel on account of the Palestinians-Arabs, thus escaping any feelings of guilt, past or present.

L@mplighterM

06-21-2002, 09:22 AM

Originally posted by takeo
in one of the speeches i provided, he even condamned mortar attacks against settlements...

Less than two weeks ago (June 08, 2002) Arafat gave a speech in which he threatened a massive explosion that would destabilize Western Civilization.

Part of speech:

In a speech broadcast today, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat threatened that if Israel does not retreat from PA-ruled areas that there will be a "disastrous explosion that will impact stability of the whole world."
Link:

http://www.jpost.com/NASApp/cs/Cont...d=1022691099038

This speech was made June 08, 2002 what excactly dont you understand ?

L@mplighterM

06-21-2002, 09:33 AM

Arafat Hits Bombings
In Papers
But won't say it on TV

By DEBORAH BLACHOR
Special to The News

JERUSALEM

alestinian leader Yasser Arafat condemned the latest suicide attack in the newspapers yesterday but canceled a television appearance to call for an end to the so-called martyr missions.

Complete story:

http://www.nydailynews.com/2002-06-21/News_and_Views/Beyond_the_City/a-155092.asp

takeo

06-21-2002, 12:50 PM

lomplighter, the link you provided is not correct.

So what exactly did arafat say that can proove he agrees with violence against civilians (since 1993)?

""disastrous explosion that will impact stability of the whole world." it is a warning, it doesn't mean that this is what he wants, on basis of most of his speeches i would say on the contrary.

Batman, this was the past, the same past when israel even refused to give any autonomy to the Palestinians. since the 90's the charter of the plo has changed, and palestinian officials have repeatedly recognised the existance of Israel within its 1967 borders.
http://www.nad-plo.org/permanent/sumpalpo.html

When referring to the Oslo-agreements, untill 2000 the main violaters were israel, who didn't stop one second to build new settlements, and delayed the proposed time-table.
I really don't care for the obvious propaganda-sites that you gave me, if you refere to neutral or established sites i will take it serious.

"When you put all these facts together, and you see that killing Jews has been the ongoing rule in the history of the world, and that the world can and was silent, it is not unimaginable for a Jew to understand this Arab-Palestinian situation as the NEW ANTI-SEMITISM, where by the European Nations can dupe themselves to hate Jewish Israel on account of the Palestinians-Arabs, thus escaping any feelings of guilt, past or present."

anti-semitism was a serious problem in the past in Europe, but not any longer, at least not in Western Europe. Here racism against Arabs is much more widespread than against jews. Most French and Europeans have absolutely nothing against Jews, but they don't like the policy of Israel of oppression of millions of palestinians. Besides, anti-semitism is not the only racism in the world, and the jews were not the only victims of WWII. the gypsies have suffered as much for example, but they never received their own state and have far less sympathy from the world than the jewish community. I really don't like the fact that some people abuse the genocide as a free ticket for avoiding any criticism.

newsguy, this type of propaganda you are referring to is used by people like you, for example arafat mentioning the word "martyr" or a french diplomat saying that israel "is a little ****ty country" is apparently more important than real facts and UN-resolutions.

"I especially like your usual tactic of listing a huge list of completely irrelevant data, intended to create the impression that you are somehow pointing to proof that your opinions are correct. "

this are not irrelevant data, because you stated that
"The UN resolutions have been implemented by Israel, but can never be completed due to the Palestinian war of terrorism against Israel. " (ok, some of the un-resolutions i listed have not been violated by israel but expressed dissatisfaction with israeli policy, but most have been violated)
this list and the quotes of other un-resolutions proove the contrary, most un-resolutions have not been implemented by israel.
than suddenly when it becomes clear that you can't proove your case in this way, you start delegitimising the UN:
"We already know that the vast majority of UN recommendations and condemnations are the product of Arab and French corruption of the UN process. That's really no news. "

"It is the Arabs who are guilty of violations of the UN charter and resolutions, and they are also guilty of crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and attempted genocide."

SOME Arabs are guilty of violating un-resolutions, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, but i don't know any case of attempted genocide (as if those suicide-murderers have the aim of killing all Jews...)
ISRAEL is responsible for violating the un-charter (i mentioned above WHY the un-charter is violated by israel) un-resolutions, crimes against humanity and etnic cleansing (some decades ago). Israel is not yet guilty of attempted genocide.

"I guess we're starting to see a new trend. The left and the apologists for murders tried painting us with the 'racist' brush until it blew back in their faces so now we see the general and liberal application of the phrase 'ethnic cleansing' in the faint hope it will embarass and shame us. Well it won't and do you know why?
Because by your own words and beliefs and through whatever tortured process you call reasoning, a free and independent Palistine is as ethnically, culturally, religiously, linguistically pure as the most racist and 'cleansed' societies on earth. You would truly make the Serbians proud with your lebensraum."

that's bS, first the palestinian people is composed of Muslims, (in all forms), Christians, and atheists, only a minority is integrist/fundamentalist.
second, the jewish settlers can't be etnicaly cleansed because the lands and houses where they are living are illegal, because aquired under foreign occupation and by illegal seizure of palestinian properties. Before 1967 not one of them lived in the occupied territories. the Palestinians however lived in those territories for 1000's of years, and certainly the last generations. there existance in palestine is legal according to international law and the UN (the israeli settlers are not).
You can't say that if france or the us decides to repatriate Bosnians or mexicans to their country of origin because they lived illegally in the country for some years, it would be etnic cleansing. However, repatriating all black americans to africa or germanophone french to Germany would be etnic cleansing, because those people have the right to live in the us and France.

"takeo if you think that women and children living inside the Green Line are the same kind of legitimate target as irregular terrorists attacking them then perhaps you see birthrates in and of themselves as weapons. Should we sterilize Palistinians as a legitimate defense?

I didn't think so, either."

I never said that women and children are legitimate targets, read my posts!

"I lived in Hong Kong as a teenager and experienced first hand how people, who embrace a secular public view, can work together. Even if the majority of Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza would like nothing better than to be the Chinese of British Hong Kong there are still too many Islamics for the murders to stop. The Islamics must be killed and or deported first. No true peace is possible secular or otherwise until this happens. True peace in the Middle will have to be built on the grave of Islamism. The racist cultures of Japan and Germany of World War 2 had to be utterly destroyed before peace was possible. Islamism by its very nature will never submit to secular authority except through violence."

The islamists are a small minority of the Palestinians, and Islam exists as well in Malaysia where chinese and malaysians live together in relative harmony. Why? because neither of the two etnic groups is discriminated. The problem with Germany and Japan was not racism but the regime in power, that were expansionist and racist (much like israel today), not the people.
But in Palestine the government is not Islamist and recognises the right of israel to exist.
The PA will certainly deal with islamists the same way that secular autorities in Syria, Jordan, morocco, Egypt, etc. dealth with Islamists, however any foreign interfearance will only be accepted if it is non-repressive and beneficial for the population, like the british autority in HK, fighting Islamists is the duty of the Palestinians themselves, which they can only start to implement once they have their own state.
By the way most palestinian groups are not fundamentalist (the PFLP, Al-aqsa, fatah...)

Mediocrates

06-21-2002, 12:57 PM

Got Deconstructivism?

takeo

06-21-2002, 03:47 PM

http://www.nandotimes.com/world/story/441362p-3531441c.html

"Israel's defense minister said Thursday he visited two failed suicide bombers in jail to try to understand their motives and felt both were driven by despair."

Mediocrates

06-21-2002, 03:55 PM

In a society that frames its very existence in terms of victimhood that is not hard to understand. Any mass murderer who is not a sociopath would probably feel despair. Depression is anger turned inward.

I am unmoved by this any more than the boy who kills his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he's an orphan.

What is important is that from a tactical perspective these people can not be released and turned back on the group which sent them. In fact it would be dangerous to release them at all. It also means that they are at the bottom of the food chain of terrorism are probably of little use to interrogators since their despair probably precluded them from taking an active role in the planning of their attacks. They are pawns.

BTW I read that some of the murderers have severe illnesses like cancer and AIDS. Was this the case here and if so might that contribute?

elke

06-21-2002, 04:03 PM

There is nothing really new in that article: various Israelis and Jews have expressed these same sentiments many times before. Suicide murders are STILL non-justifyable, and are STILL a crime, whatever the underlying causes are.

Charles Manson was also an abused child, who went from foster home to foster home, and was beaten, etc. That still does not justify his murdering all those people. He is still in jail, and will remain there for the rest of his miserable life.

I am all for reforming criminals. I am all for education, love, caring, and all that good stuff. However, just like you don't reward a sick child for a tantrum because s/he is sick, you can't reward people who are throwing a monumental tantrum, complete with many, many unjustified murders, by giving them what they want as a result. They need to learn, for their own good as well as for everyone else's, that if they want the niceties of civilization, they need to abide by the rules of that civilization.

takeo

06-21-2002, 04:23 PM

the problem is that desperate people lost their believe in the civilisation as they know it, and further punishment will only create more desperate people.
People use suicide-bombing because they don't see any other alternative.
untill 2000 suicide-bombers were Islamic fanatics, but the more violent israeli reactions (first killing people trowing stones, next destroying PA-buildings, next destroying Jenin, etc.) the more non-religious people committed suicide-bombing. Since the election of sharon the number of suicide-bombers "exploded".

We are not talking about "reforming criminals" but about avoiding new crimes! Why do you think Israeli Palestinians, or French Arabs, don't commit suicide-murders?

"In a society that frames its very existence in terms of victimhood that is not hard to understand. Any mass murderer who is not a sociopath would probably feel despair. Depression is anger turned inward. "

that's right, but one can say that also the jewish community frames its very existence in terms of victimhood.
The best option for avoiding more crimes is by taking the reason away why so many people feel despair...

the best solution for any problem is the "carrot and the stick", but the Sharon-solution is only stick and no carrot... it doesn't work, not with delinquent youth, and not with the Palestinians.

elke

06-21-2002, 04:45 PM

The Jewish community is not asking the world to solve their problems. We are going out and solving them ourselves.

I still don't understand what the proposition is: give up, give in, let them have whatever they want, just so that they weren't desperate? And then, next time it does not work out for them - say, their garbage is not removed in a timely fashion, or whatever - and all they have to do to summon a garbage man is to kill a few dozen people?

The idea of a sovereign Palestinian state occurred to me in the early '80s, when my High School Palestinian friend and I brainstormed together, - without getting nasty, I might add.
However, now for the first time in 18 years, I am doubting the realistic chances for that solution to work. The reason is not the individual suicide bombings, but rather the whole culture of these murderers. Since all their problems will NOT magically disappear the minute there is an official Palestinian state, they need to learn to WORK THEM OUT, instead of SHOOTING THEM UP.

takeo

06-21-2002, 05:20 PM

"The Jewish community is not asking the world to solve their problems. We are going out and solving them ourselves. "

The Palestinians are not asking the world either to solve their problems, they solve them themselves... (if it's the right way remains to be seen, for both israeli and palestinians...)

"I still don't understand what the proposition is: give up, give in, let them have whatever they want, just so that they weren't desperate? And then, next time it does not work out for them - say, their garbage is not removed in a timely fashion, or whatever - and all they have to do to summon a garbage man is to kill a few dozen people? "

the late removal of garbage will not make people desperate, except psycho's, but every normal people will be desperate faced with a situation as the palestinians, living in occupied territories for decades, banned from their homeland, fences everywhere, hostile israeli settlements where used to be olive gardens, etc.

"The idea of a sovereign Palestinian state occurred to me in the early '80s, when my High School Palestinian friend and I brainstormed together, - without getting nasty, I might add.
However, now for the first time in 18 years, I am doubting the realistic chances for that solution to work. The reason is not the individual suicide bombings, but rather the whole culture of these murderers. Since all their problems will NOT magically disappear the minute there is an official Palestinian state, they need to learn to WORK THEM OUT, instead of SHOOTING THEM UP."

not all the problems facing the palestinians will suddenly disappear, but in the end gradually the palestinian society will become normal. If even Libanon could become a relatively normal peacefull country in only a couple of years, why can't the Palestinians?
anyway, by maintaining the current situation the problems will only become worse FOR SURE, so really, there is no alternative.
Once the roots of violence taken away, the violence itself disappears too, and this is even more obvious in Palestine where people fight for a well-defined goal.

elke

06-21-2002, 06:03 PM

First of all, I don't think that the Palestinians have a very well-defined goal. Those polls we all love to trash show very disjointed, sometimes outright contradictory, opinions on the subject.

The Palestinians indeed are expecting the world to solve their problems. They want international monitors, Israeli jobs, European aid, Arab and Muslim support, and Iranian arms. Their abuse of the institutions such as UN and international Human Rights organizations knows no equal anywhere in the third world.

By most generous estimates, approximately 700,000 people left Israel in 1948. Among them, was my friend's grandfather. He had a vinyard in Galilee "for 30 years", she said. He left because he was afraid: he was not chased out by the big, bad Palmachniks. This is "from the horse's mouth", so to speak.

If there are 4,000,000 now, even assuming that all of the original refugees are still alive, 700,000 it is. The rest are generational descendants, who have no more right to be there than I do: after all, my ancestors were chased out of there too.

The average life expectancy in the Palestinian areas is around 72. In Cambodia it is 57, in Congo it's 47, and in Ethiopia it's 45. The average infant mortality in the Palestinian areas is 21 per 1000 live births, in Cambodia 73, in Congo - 66, and in Ethiopia - 106. But yet, the Palestinians are desperate and the others aren't? If they are, then indeed garbage pickup will draw them towards violence. That's not civilized behavior, and it cannot be condoned under any circumstances.

L@mplighterM

06-21-2002, 06:31 PM

If murderers (Palestinians) feel hopelessness it’s not due to Israel’s actions. I think that the defense minister was on a futile path because there’s no way to understand the motives of a sociopath or psychopath.

I’m sitting here wondering why I should bother with my personal campaign of attempting to counter Arab lies. Why criticize Blair’s wife and Ted Turner when an Israeli Government official takes a similar position? Is he the only one in the Government that’s listening to Palestinian sob stories and taking it in? This is a powerful piece of propaganda for Islam and most likely saved the Islamic PR machine millions.

With friends like that who needs enemies?

How many more Jewish lives is his story going to cost?

takeo

06-21-2002, 07:09 PM

I'm sure Al-quaida paid him some considerable $

what Israel needs is a purge to eliminate all moderates and traitors, as first step in the "final solution" for the "Palestinian problem"...

:rolleyes:

"First of all, I don't think that the Palestinians have a very well-defined goal. Those polls we all love to trash show very disjointed, sometimes outright contradictory, opinions on the subject. "

i think the goals are well-defined for the majority of the Palestinians, about the means to reach those goals there is more disagreement.

"The Palestinians indeed are expecting the world to solve their problems. They want international monitors, Israeli jobs, European aid, Arab and Muslim support, and Iranian arms. Their abuse of the institutions such as UN and international Human Rights organizations knows no equal anywhere in the third world."

on the contrary the world intervened, even when Arabs and Palestinians didn't want any foreign assistance as in the 40's and 50's. The international institutions did their work according to their charters and helped the victims of the conflict. Fortunately the world intervened, if not the conflict might have escalated to a chronic regional war or the Palestinians might have been totally etnic cleansed from the occupied territories. Let's also not forget that israel could never survive without US-aid and us-support... and that israel would not exist in the first place without the balfour-declaration.

"By most generous estimates, approximately 700,000 people left Israel in 1948. Among them, was my friend's grandfather. He had a vinyard in Galilee "for 30 years", she said. He left because he was afraid: he was not chased out by the big, bad Palmachniks. This is "from the horse's mouth", so to speak. "

OK, so he was also entitled to return to his country, refugees and people evicted both have the right to return to their land, if not there is etnic cleansing. Also new generations have the right to return, this is according the Geneva-conventions.
When the Jews were evicted from israel 2000 years ago, there wasn't unfortunately any international legislation or un.
And i'm very doubtfull that you can proove that most of your ancestors have their roots in Israel... as all the palestinian refugees can proove, most even still have the documents somewhere in their house.

"The average life expectancy in the Palestinian areas is around 72. In Cambodia it is 57, in Congo it's 47, and in Ethiopia it's 45. The average infant mortality in the Palestinian areas is 21 per 1000 live births, in Cambodia 73, in Congo - 66, and in Ethiopia - 106. But yet, the Palestinians are desperate and the others aren't? "

so according to this kind of logic, the Cubans are very happy because their average infant mortality is less than 20 and average life expectancy 77... they don't have any reason to complain...

I'm sure the cambodians are desperate, i went to the country several times and my girlfriend is cambodian, life is worth absolutely nothing, people get killed every day, the police only comes if you promise them hard cash in advance (murder going on or a robbery, doesn't matter),...
people steal from army bases with a risk of around 60% of being shot, they don't care... desperate societies will always be extremely violent. it is the most desperate country i visited.
I have other examples as well (Guatemala for example, extremely violent)

"If they are, then indeed garbage pickup will draw them towards violence. That's not civilized behavior, and it cannot be condoned under any circumstances."

yes, some circumstances draw people to violence, even "civilised" western people. (look what happened in WWII)

elke

06-21-2002, 07:33 PM

So, right and wrong are the matter of a bunch of words on a piece of paper, called "Geneva Conventions"? Geneva Conventions, as well as other laws, are nothing more than codified modes of behavioral principles. Many a time there have been laws on the books one can hardly consider "right".

From what I have seen, the Geneva Conventions would fit my personal definition of right, it's true. However, again, as any laws - and as we have discussed at least once before, - laws are notoriously vague and subject to interpretation. Obviously, they would be interpreted differently by opposing parties, that's why negotiations are in order for situations that are "grey".

Actually, I would love to see a cacophony of opinions on the Palestinian side. It would be refreshing, for a change. What I see, admittedly from the imperfect polls, is a remarkable similarity in the "means" department (large majority supporting the suicide murders), when the conflicting goals get a relatively homogenous amount of support. Provided the exact same group of people is asked all these questions (which is a given in a poll, usually), the same person should not be able to give the same support to two diametrically opposed concepts.

L@mplighterM

06-21-2002, 08:35 PM

As far as I?m concerned every time Arafat orders a Palestinian murdered for allegedly collaborating with Israel he?s violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

PART III
Article 6
1. Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.
2. In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime and not contrary to the provisions of the present Covenant and to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This penalty can only be carried out pursuant to a final judgement rendered by a competent court.

As far as I?m concerned passing information etc. regarding upcoming attacks or the location of bomb factories should not be punishable by death.

Further although the above is applicable and enforceable by the UN don?t hold your breath because they aren?t coming to get Arafat.

As far as I?m concerned the Geneva Convention has no bearing on current issues. Let the frog read it in its entirety. START FROM THE BEGINNING!

Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, 75 U.N.T.S. 31, entered into force Oct. 21, 1950.

CHAPTER I
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Article 1
The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances.
Article 2
In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peacetime, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.
The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.
Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.

Mediocrates

06-21-2002, 08:42 PM

Except that, takeo what we have and what we will have is the elevation of terrorism as a legitimate tool of foreign policy.

Water dispute? Air lane rights?, port disputes?, trade imbalances?, currency fluctuations?, unemployment?, unfair election?, the bank ran out of money?

Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom - a few dead Israelis and voila, the oppressed get some attention and the help they so desperately need. Why bother entering into any treaty when hands off bombing and passive aggressive "what can we do we're only some poor Palistinians!!" continues to work so well as a proxy for foreign policy? If I could get the UN to plow my streets I probably would.

elke

06-21-2002, 08:48 PM

Originally posted by Mediocrates
If I could get the UN to plow my streets I probably would.

Now, and what would you do with plowed streets? :)

elke

06-21-2002, 09:20 PM

Takeo, you are wrong about the land rights, for a couple of reasons.

1. My friend's grandfather had a vinyard "for 30 years", she said. Which means that he has had it since 1918, not from time immemorial. I don't know how he got it, she never told me - she may not have even known! But the fact remains that it was not "generation to generation" business you speak of.

I don't know; but from everything I read and hear, this seems to be a representative scenario - so - I have my doubts that many Palestinians have any legitimate paperwork to prove their ownership of land.

2. If they were "chased off" or "ran in fear", what makes you think that they would have been able to grab the land title? If they did, obviously they were not in nearly as much fear, nor chased nearly as hard, as my first landlord when he and his family escaped from an attacked kibbutz with nothing more than the clothes on their back. So, which is it?

3. Ah, and the most important one: most of the people who lived in the area did not own any land. Most of the area was owned by the absentee landlords and the colonizers - the Turks and later, the Brits. The arable land was worked by what were in effect, feudal serfs, who were NOT owners of the land.

Mediocrates

06-21-2002, 09:31 PM

Fortunately the world intervened, if not the conflict might have escalated to a chronic regional war or the Palestinians might have been totally etnic cleansed from the occupied territories.

Do you write romance novels? Dial back on the Tolstoy, dude.

so according to this kind of logic, the Cubans are very happy because their average infant mortality is less than 20 and average life expectancy 77... they don't have any reason to
complain.

Would you like a Merlot to wash down those words? By your very hand you typed that Cubans have it better than virtually all other Caribbean countries - by virtue of the Great Castro and his revolution. Any maybe that's even true but don't complain abou it later on.

Mediocrates

06-21-2002, 09:44 PM

Originally posted by elke

Now, and what would you do with plowed streets? :)

1) Roadkill in the spring and summer - deer and opossums mostly
2) It DOES snow here - this year about a foot and 2 years before that 2 feet. The problem is that it comes in one blast and even with 2 inches of snow they close everything because they don't have any equipment. And even if they did, the reflectors embedded in the pavement would get torn out.

Our winter weather problem is ice and flooding. Followed by lightening followed by microbursts, more flooding, hail, twisters, fire, humidity, hurricanes and flooding and back to ice again.

elke

06-21-2002, 09:46 PM

OK, sounds like just the right kind of a job for UN! :D Except that all they'll do is pass a resolution to condemn the roadkill for having the effrontery to die in the street, never mind the cars. ;)

takeo

06-22-2002, 04:06 AM

"So, right and wrong are the matter of a bunch of words on a piece of paper, called "Geneva Conventions"? Geneva Conventions, as well as other laws, are nothing more than codified modes of behavioral principles. Many a time there have been laws on the books one can hardly consider "right". "

The Western democracy is based upon the rule of law...

"From what I have seen, the Geneva Conventions would fit my personal definition of right, it's true. However, again, as any laws - and as we have discussed at least once before, - laws are notoriously vague and subject to interpretation. Obviously, they would be interpreted differently by opposing parties, that's why negotiations are in order for situations that are "grey". "

most laws, including the geneva-conventions leave not so much place for interpretation. An armed robber could never legitimise his act by interpreting any law for example...

"Actually, I would love to see a cacophony of opinions on the Palestinian side. It would be refreshing, for a change. What I see, admittedly from the imperfect polls, is a remarkable similarity in the "means" department (large majority supporting the suicide murders), when the conflicting goals get a relatively homogenous amount of support. Provided the exact same group of people is asked all these questions (which is a given in a poll, usually), the same person should not be able to give the same support to two diametrically opposed concepts."

I didn't see major contradiction in those polls, yes people supported suicide-bombing, but at the same time they would accept peace with israel, even if many are sceptical that there will ever be peace with israel. (because they have some experience the last 3 decades...)

"As far as I?m concerned every time Arafat orders a Palestinian murdered for allegedly collaborating with Israel he?s violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights "

OK, but in that case the car-bombs and "targetted elimination" carried out by israel is equally illegitimate to the quoted part of the geneva-conventions...
however the collaborators of israeli terror have had a trial before being executed... (one can wonder the the standard of those trials of course)

"PART III
Article 6
1. Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.
2. In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime and not contrary to the provisions of the present Covenant and to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This penalty can only be carried out pursuant to a final judgement rendered by a competent court. "

"As far as I?m concerned the Geneva Convention has no bearing on current issues. Let the frog read it in its entirety. START FROM THE BEGINNING! "

actually israel is not a signatory (one can wonder why... it is in the nice company of other countries like North Korea who haven't signed it either...) but palestine on the other hand is a region where the geneva-convention should be applied because palestine and before them Egypt and Jordan did sign the geneva-conventions.

"Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, 75 U.N.T.S. 31, entered into force Oct. 21, 1950.

CHAPTER I
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Article 1
The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances.
Article 2
In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peacetime, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.
The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.
Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof ."

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention declares that "the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its civilian population into the territory it occupies".

Systematic torture, in violation of articles 27, 31, 32, and 147;
Collective punishment, including home demolition, closures and restrictions on movement, in violation of articles 33 and 53;
Prolonged closures that lead, for example, to loss of income from employment, without providing alternative sources of income for the residents in violation of article 39;
Massive establishment of settlements and the transfer of Israeli settlers to occupied territory, in violation of articles 49 and 53;
Detention and imprisonment of residents of the occupied territory in detention centres located within Israel, in violation of article 76;
Administrative detention of thousands of Palestinians for prolonged periods, grossly exceeding the provisions of article 78, in violation of article 49;
Revocation of residency rights in occupied East Jerusalem, in violation of article 47;
Expropriation and exploitation of the natural resources, including water, in the occupied territory to meet the needs of the occupying power, in violation of article 55.

With regard to the Palestinian Authority and its limited self-rule, Israel as the occupying power remains bound by the provisions of the convention "for the duration of the occupation, to the extent that such power exercises the functions of government in such territory". also

"protected persons who are in occupied territory shall not be deprived, in any case or in any manner whatsoever, of the benefits of the present convention by any change introduced, as a result of the occupation of a territory, into the institutions or government of the said territory, nor by any agreement concluded between the authorities of the occupied territories and the occupying power, nor by any annexation by the latter of the whole or part of the occupied territory".

"Except that, takeo what we have and what we will have is the elevation of terrorism as a legitimate tool of foreign policy. "

isn't it already the case? and didn't israel do exactly the same?
What do you think the attacks on libanon and tunisia, and on plo-members in Europe were? What do you think car-bombing is?

"Water dispute? Air lane rights?, port disputes?, trade imbalances?, currency fluctuations?, unemployment?, unfair election?, the bank ran out of money? "

all this kind of problems can be solved in a peacefull way, occupation apparently not.

"Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom - a few dead Israelis and voila, the oppressed get some attention and the help they so desperately need. Why bother entering into any treaty when hands off bombing and passive aggressive "what can we do we're only some poor Palistinians!!" continues to work so well as a proxy for foreign policy? If I could get the UN to plow my streets I probably would."

if israel would have stopped the occupation decades ago and accepted UN-resolutions and international mediation we wouldn't be in this situation right now and probably there wouldn't be hamas, PFLP or even fatah.

takeo

06-22-2002, 04:29 AM

"1. My friend's grandfather had a vinyard "for 30 years", she said. Which means that he has had it since 1918, not from time immemorial. I don't know how he got it, she never told me - she may not have even known! But the fact remains that it was not "generation to generation" business you speak of. "

Doesn't really matter, it was their winyard and they got expropriated in an illegal way. Besides, they may not have had possetions for generations, but most likely they lived there as legal citizens for generations!

"2. If they were "chased off" or "ran in fear", what makes you think that they would have been able to grab the land title? If they did, obviously they were not in nearly as much fear, nor chased nearly as hard, as my first landlord when he and his family escaped from an attacked kibbutz with nothing more than the clothes on their back. So, which is it? "

Your landlord can claim his property back or ask for compensation, under both international and Israeli law, and he probably did.

"3. Ah, and the most important one: most of the people who lived in the area did not own any land. Most of the area was owned by the absentee landlords and the colonizers - the Turks and later, the Brits. The arable land was worked by what were in effect, feudal serfs, who were NOT owners of the land."

I would argue with that, the Arab system of property wasn't as in Russia dominated by the clergy or noblesse, but by individual families of peasants.

Subcommittee II of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question, established in September 1947 made a report in November 1947 which stated under item 63:

"The village statistics for 1945 prepared by the Palestine administration and showing the position as at 1 April 1945 furnish interesting data regarding land ownership in Palestine. The total Arab land ownership is given in dunums (4 dunums equals approximately 1 acre), as being 12,574,774, as against a total Jewish ownership of 1,491,699. [...] "

Item 64 of that same report stated:

"The above statistics of population and of land ownership prove conclusively that the Arabs constitute a majority of the population of the proposed Jewish State, and own the bulk of the land"
(Source: Doc. C74 UNSCOP Report to the UNGA, Documents on Palestine, vol. 1, pp. 165, PASSIA, December 1997).

Mediocrates

06-22-2002, 05:52 AM

Do all supranational laws subsume national laws irrespective? You seem to indicate that is the case in every case.

elke

06-22-2002, 06:08 AM

The rule of law the Western Democracies are based on, is an evolving proposition. The key here is the method of how new laws are passed, and how old ones are expunged from the books - not necessarily the laws themselves. There have been numerous laws, in all the Western Democracies, that did not pass the muster of time and changing mores - and even, arguably, morals (such as slavery and segregation laws in the US).

most laws, including the geneva-conventions leave not so much place for interpretation. An armed robber could never legitimise his act by interpreting any law for example...

That's because you are not a lawyer. :) Laws leave PLENTY of room for interpretation, if you know what you are looking for. In your example above, try to define "armed" and "robber", and see if everyone agrees with your interpretation. THEN try to apply those definitions to a real situation, and see what happens.

Actually, the latest polls suggest that 51% - over half - support a Palestinian state in the whole historical Palestine. By the same token, about 45% believe in the negotiations. Negotiate what? Do they really think that they will be able to negotiate the demise of Israel with the Israelis?

They were legal bedouins and such, who came over to the "historic Palestine", who knows from where, when the Jews came, - searching for a better life. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't give them an "inalienable" right to be there, certainly no more than the Jews who actually were the cause of their migration in the first place.

I would argue with that, the Arab system of property wasn't as in Russia dominated by the clergy or noblesse, but by individual families of peasants.

And you would argue wrong. Among other things, because in Russia this was true prior to 1861, but not after. In the Ottoman Empire this was true until its collapse in 1918.

christian

06-22-2002, 07:07 AM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by elke
[B]The rule of law the Western Democracies are based on, is an evolving proposition. The key here is the method of how new laws are passed, and how old ones are expunged from the books - not necessarily the laws themselves. There have been numerous laws, in all the Western Democracies, that did not pass the muster of time and changing mores - and even, arguably, morals (such as slavery and segregation laws in the US).

That's because you are not a lawyer. :) Laws leave PLENTY of room for interpretation, if you know what you are looking for. In your example above, try to define "armed" and "robber", and see if everyone agrees with your interpretation. THEN try to apply those definitions to a real situation, and see what happens.

So, by your definition of law, Geneva convention shouldn't apply in Kosvo either.

What you mean is geneva convention doesn't apply to Israel.

However, geneva conventions does apply to Yugoslavia, S. Africa, somolia, etc..

Actually, the latest polls suggest that 51% - over half - support a Palestinian state in the whole historical Palestine. By the same token, about 45% believe in the negotiations. Negotiate what? Do they really think that they will be able to negotiate the demise of Israel with the Israelis?

Is it so hard to understand? If Israel treats the Palestinian with secularism. Israel is without problems today.

In southeast asia, islam slaugther people called infidel. Just 30 years ago, malaysia is under going secularism. In one generation, the hatre of infidel is rapidly diminish. Although, there is some grudges with chinese and india. Now, the singapore islam despises the radical islamic law in middle east. However, there is always few extremism. This is not a majority.

Israel should develope Palestinian into another Turkey, inside of israel. The israelis people have all the resources to develop another turkey.

Let me remind you. In 1700's, turkey isn't so friendly with the west either. Yes. They call the european a infidel.

Look what secularism can do for you.

elke

06-22-2002, 07:27 AM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by christian
So, by your definition of law, Geneva convention shouldn't apply in Kosvo either.

What you mean is geneva convention doesn't apply to Israel.

However, geneva conventions does apply to Yugoslavia, S. Africa, somolia, etc..

Actually, no. As I understand it, the argument here is over the "occupied territories" vs. "disputed territories". Certain Geneva Conventions are only applicable to the "occupied", which Israel does not agree is the case with the West Bank and Gaza. This is the grey area we are speaking of.

Is it so hard to understand? If Israel treats the Palestinian with secularism. Israel is without problems today.

In southeast asia, islam slaugther people called infidel. Just 30 years ago, malaysia is under going secularism. In one generation, the hatre of infidel is rapidly diminish. Although, there is some grudges with chinese and india. Now, the singapore islam despises the radical islamic law in middle east. However, there is always few extremism. This is not a majority.

Israel should develope Palestinian into another Turkey, inside of israel. The israelis people have all the resources to develop another turkey.

Let me remind you. In 1700's, turkey isn't so friendly with the west either. Yes. They call the european a infidel.

Look what secularism can do for you.

As the wise Book says, "for everything there is a season". (I am not sure what you are referring to here: a bi-national state or developing the independent Palestinian state into "another Turkey". I'll assume the latter).

This is, no doubt, the ultimate long-term goal of at minimum, large majority of Israelis. However, it's patently impossible as of this moment. If you notice, it took 300+ years, plus a crushing military defeat for Turkey to come around to such views.

There is going to come a time when the Israelis and the Palestinians will be the best of friends, of a kind that no nebulous peace treaty would ever be able to create. This will take time, energy, and right decisions on the part of both parties. If you think that the Palestinians are "justified" in not trusting the Israelis because of the incursions, etc; how can you explain away the distrust the Israelis have for the Palestinians' tactics for the past 100 years? All is not lost, but we do need to be patient. There needs to be some sort of "cooling off", taking of responsibility for own problems, and truce. Secularism is not a panacea for all the problems, although it is indeed a good recipe.

christian

06-22-2002, 08:37 AM

Originally posted by elke

As the wise Book says, "for everything there is a season". (I am not sure what you are referring to here: a bi-national state or developing the independent Palestinian state into "another Turkey". I'll assume the latter).

This is, not doubt, the ultimate long-term goal of at minimum, large majority of Israelis. However, it's patently impossible as of this moment. If you notice, it took 300+ years, plus a crushing military defeat for Turkey to come around to such views.

There is going to come a time when the Israelis and the Palestinians will be the best of friends, of a kind that no nebulous peace treaty would ever be able to create. This will take time, energy, and right decisions on the part of both parties. If you think that the Palestinians are "justified" in not trusting the Israelis because of the incursions, etc; how can you explain away the distrust the Israelis have for the Palestinians' tactics for the past 100 years? All is not lost, but we do need to be patient. There needs to be some sort of "cooling off", taking of responsibility for own problems, and truce. Secularism is not a panacea for all the problems, although it is indeed a good recipe. [/B]

I disagree with you. Secularism is not a magic formula. However, in this case, it does applies to Palestinian situation.

There are few point. The jewish media never seek to understand.

1)Palestinian doesn't have a day time job in the refugee camps. Their jobs are in Israel. If a man can't bring bread and butter to home. The palestinian man will blame it on the israel occupation.

A person without a job, carries m-16, because there is no job. Resistance soldiering is a best job.

2) Settlements is viewed as an act of invasion.

If integration and education applies to all spectrum of israelis and palestinian. Settlement wouldn't be a problem. It will be viewed as economic activity. IN HK, there are many foreign live here. We don't view them as an act of invasion. We welcome them, because the foreigner is producing many economic activity.

3) Many zionist doesn't agree that palestinian have lived in Israel for centuries. Thus, Palestinian has the right to return.

Although, the right of return shouldn't be included in any negotiation, because of social structure. At least, Israel should act softly,to compensate their weakness, such as building jobs for palestinian, building university for gaza and w. bank, building traffics,etc

Many countless examples secularism is successful

1) HK is divided from China in the Opium war. Many chinese despise the british back then. There is terrorism acts in china. It is called "boxer" rebellion. It is designed to wipe out the foreigners. In order to ensure the empire control over HK, britain applies the wages law, education, trade. Eventually, every local chinese is busy with making money. The HK stock exchange is making money for local chinese. No body gives a damn about nationalism. Everyone pay taxes. YEs. There is some grudges aganist britains occupation. The benefits is far outweigth the grievance.

2) Roman empire successfully conquers all the land of europe. All the roman people is not from Italy. In fact, rome is a multicultural society. They integrates arabs, spain, gaul(france), germans, into their army. The government of rome applies law, education and trade. Thus, the empire is flourish over the continents.

3) Malaysia is a islamic state. Before secularism, malaysia is just like another islam fundamentalist. After secularism, the moderate islamic class grows. Eventually, it replaces the old guards and extremist. Many malaysian islam doesn't agree with taliban rules of islamic law. Eventhough, some party supports tailban type of laws. It never wins the majority of malaysian population. The benefits of secularism is a lot to lose.

4) Many palestinian likes to live in Israel, because the freedom of israel creates. If israel provides education, trade and economy to the neighbour. It will eventually influence the daily life of Palestinian. No amount of nationalism can change the reality of life such as food, water, house and trade.

Mediocrates

06-22-2002, 11:21 AM

A person without a job, carries m-16, because there is no job. Resistance soldiering is a best job.

That's patently absurd as a general statement.

And according the UN and PA the median income for a Palistinian working inside the disputed lands is marginally higher than for Palistinians working on the other side of the Green Line. At least through 2000 for which statistics are collected. And the aggregate figure is roughly half compared to Israelis. Compared though to their neighbors in next door Arab lands the Palistinians in disputed lands earns far more than Palistinians living in those Arab countries at least as far as someone living there is willing to call themselves Palistinian.

Mediocrates

06-22-2002, 11:24 AM

If integration and education applies to all spectrum of israelis and palestinian. Settlement
wouldn't be a problem. It will be viewed as economic activity. IN HK, there are many foreign
live here. We don't view them as an act of invasion. We welcome them, because the foreigner is producing many economic activity.

That might true if it applied but it doesn't -Israelis are not occupying anything. There are Jewish suburbanites living in Jewish suburbs. They are 'occupying' Israel.

elke

06-22-2002, 03:32 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by christian
[B]I disagree with you. Secularism is not a magic formula. However, in this case, it does applies to Palestinian situation.

Which part of my statement do you disagree with? You just paraphrased what I said. The only difference is that I don't think that it's possible right now - which is the only thing I can think of you could be disagreeing with, based on the statement above.

There are few point. The jewish media never seek to understand.

By "Jewish media", may I assume you mean "Western"? Or are the two concepts the same in your mind?

1)Palestinian doesn't have a day time job in the refugee camps. Their jobs are in Israel. If a man can't bring bread and butter to home. The palestinian man will blame it on the israel occupation .

Wait a minute: what should be blamed on the "occupation": the fact that most of the jobs they have are in Israel or that they lost these jobs due to their intransigence?

A person without a job, carries m-16, because there is no job. Resistance soldiering is a best job.

Only if it's paid for by the likes of Saddam Hussein and/or Mr. Arafat is "resistance soldiering the best job". Otherwise, I doubt it.

I pass a homeless man, obviously without a job, on my way to work every single day. I have never seen an M-16 anywhere near him. Riddle me that!

2) Settlements is viewed as an act of invasion.

Well, I wonder how the suicide murders should be viewed? As an act of love? :rolleyes:

If integration and education applies to all spectrum of israelis and palestinian. Settlement wouldn't be a problem. It will be viewed as economic activity. IN HK, there are many foreign live here. We don't view them as an act of invasion. We welcome them, because the foreigner is producing many economic activity.

Sure, in the future. At this point, unfortunately, there is a "Jihad" on, in case you haven't noticed. When your house is burning, you don't worry about your furniture: you run for your life first!

3) Many zionist doesn't agree that palestinian have lived in Israel for centuries. Thus, Palestinian has the right to return.

This sentence is a non-sequitur. I have not one clue what you are trying to say here.

Although, the right of return shouldn't be included in any negotiation, because of social structure. At least, Israel should act softly,to compensate their weakness, such as building jobs for palestinian, building university for gaza and w. bank, building traffics,etc

I am not sure what you are trying to say here, either. Please clarify.

Many countless examples secularism is successful

You don't have to convince me that secularism is a good thing, it's the other side you have to convince. Even if I don't think that it's a cure-all, I do think that it's essential.

1) HK is divided from China in the Opium war. Many chinese despise the british back then. There is terrorism acts in china. It is called "boxer" rebellion. It is designed to wipe out the foreigners. In order to ensure the empire control over HK, britain applies the wages law, education, trade. Eventually, every local chinese is busy with making money. The HK stock exchange is making money for local chinese. No body gives a damn about nationalism. Everyone pay taxes. YEs. There is some grudges aganist britains occupation. The benefits is far outweigth the grievance.

I don't know much about this subject, so I can't really intelligently duscuss it. However, I do know that different nations have different experiences, and their nationalistic aspirations are based in large part, on such collective background.

2) Roman empire successfully conquers all the land of europe. All the roman people is not from Italy. In fact, rome is a multicultural society. They integrates arabs, spain, gaul(france), germans, into their army. The government of rome applies law, education and trade. Thus, the empire is flourish over the continents.

Where did you get this information? The Romans actually fought a WAR to prevent the Italians from becoming Roman citizens! Rome was NOT a multicultural society, in the sense "multicultural" is understood today. Arabs were a bunch of nomadic tribes in Roman times, of no interest to them whatsoever - and Spain and Gaul were "Provinces" of Rome, as was Judea later.

There were some individual Romans who tried to do right by the indigenous populations in the Provinces, but mostly Rome was interested in the taxes and levies that could be collected there. There was really little actual rule of law in the Provinces, and mostly if you wanted to take a Roman to court, you had to make your way to Rome itself, and then do it with the man's peers.

3) Malaysia is a islamic state. Before secularism, malaysia is just like another islam fundamentalist. After secularism, the moderate islamic class grows. Eventually, it replaces the old guards and extremist. Many malaysian islam doesn't agree with taliban rules of islamic law. Eventhough, some party supports tailban type of laws. It never wins the majority of malaysian population. The benefits of secularism is a lot to lose.

I guess I don't really understand what you mean by "secularism". To me, this is the concept that promotes tolerance between people, because the individuals are not completely convinced that their religion is the One and Only True Path. This is an ATTITUDE, and as such, it has to GROW. It cannot be imposed from outside of the individual, let alone from outside of a given society. The outside world can influence the attitudes, by both "stick" and "carrot"; but it must be internalized by the persons involved, which takes a long time.

4) Many palestinian likes to live in Israel, because the freedom of israel creates. If israel provides education, trade and economy to the neighbour. It will eventually influence the daily life of Palestinian. No amount of nationalism can change the reality of life such as food, water, house and trade.

Yes, you are right about that. Eventually, as I said, the Israelis and the Palestinians have the potential of true friendship. This is indeed the goal to strive for. However, just like trying to jump to the moon was...premature a hundred years ago, when all we could manage was a Zeppelin, so it is now premature to expect the Israelis and the Palestinians to go from 0 to 60 in no time flat.

Mediocrates

06-22-2002, 04:10 PM

Settlements is viewed as an act of invasion.

So? I hear MTV and the rest of the West is viewed as cultural invasion that help cause 911. We should evacuate the premises?

Jews living in YESHA is viewed as an envious reminder of how bad and backwards their own chosen lot in life really is.

Vic

06-22-2002, 04:12 PM

Originally posted by elke
[QUOTE]Originally posted by christian
A person without a job, carries m-16, because there is no job. Resistance soldiering is a best job.

Only if it's paid for by the likes of Saddam Hussein and/or Mr. Arafat is "resistance soldiering the best job". Otherwise, I doubt it.

I pass a homeless man, obviously without a job, on my way to work every single day. I have never seen an M-16 anywhere near him. Riddle me that!Just like a certain Mr. A. wants everyone to believe:Q: How do you explain this [terror] phenomenon, that has no parallel in the world?

Arafat: "I will give you one example. When the first days, `Gaza and Jericho first', when [Yitzhak] Rabin was (pressed) to close Gaza. The first time he sent me NIS 15 million, and the second time NIS 10 million, and a third time NIS 12 million. I talked to him the first time `Why you are sending me this money?' He said `job creation, otherwise they'll be against you and against me.' Look, now are you following what is going with our laborers in Gaza? We are trying to give a part of salaries for this month but we haven't gotten our money (from Israel)." ;)
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=179034&contrassID=2&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=179034

elke

06-22-2002, 04:23 PM

Originally posted by Vic
Just like a certain Mr. A. wants everyone to believe: ;)
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=179034&contrassID=2&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=179034

Mr. A is full of "Mr. S". What is he doing: paying salaries in M-16s? "Oh, I am sorry, I am fresh out of cash; but here is a nice, shiny new rifle I can give you. Go ahead, shoot some food!" :D

Batman

06-22-2002, 06:58 PM

l
Batman, this was the past, the same past when israel even refused to give any autonomy to the Palestinians. since the 90's the charter of the plo has changed, and palestinian officials have repeatedly recognised the existance of Israel within its 1967 borders....
http://www.nad-plo.org/permanent/sumpalpo.html

I know you'd like to think that the web site you present above is not a propaganda tool. Just because it is structured to appear serious, wordy and well thought out does not make it any less a PROPAGANDA TOOL BY THE PLO. The facts are still the same:
"the original charter is still displayed by the Palestine legation to the UN and other Palestinian bodies. "

The Palestinian National Covenant
The Palestinian National Covenant is the founding charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), adopted at the PLO's founding congress in May 1964. The Covenant sets forth the organization's stated aims and goals. Almost all of the articles in the Covenant explicitly or implicitly deny Israel's right to exist and reject any peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

For example, these articles:

Article 19: The establishment of Israel is fundamentally null and void, whatever time has elapsed ...

Article 15: [We call for] the liquidation of the Zionist presence in Palestine

Article 22: The liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East ...
The Covenant also denies the existence of the Jewish people as a nation and any ties that it might have to the Land of Israel [Article 20: "Nor do Jews constitute a single nation"]. It declares in Article 9 that "armed struggle is the only [emphasis added] way to liberate Palestine".

The bottom line is that the Palestinian National Covenant calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. The Israelis, quite naturally, thought that the inflammatory language should be changed before they could consider the PLO to be a serious "partner for peace".

What did Yasser Arafat agree to do?
In a letter dated September 9, 1993 -- part of the Oslo Accords -- signed by Yasser Arafat as Chairman of the PLO, Arafat agreed that:

... the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators

... those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid

... the PLO undertakes to submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval the necessary changes in regard to the Palestinian Covenant.
But nothing was done to change the Covenant. The requirement was restated in another letter from Arafat to Rabin which accompanied the May 4, 1994 Agreement on the Gaza Strip and Jericho Area (the Cairo Agreement), but no action was taken by Arafat and the PLO.
Because the changes were not made, the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement (Oslo II) made the requirement even more specific:

ARTICLE XXXI (9) The PLO undertakes that, within two months of the date of the inauguration of the Council, the Palestinian National Council will convene and formally approve the necessary changes in regard to the Palestinian Covenant, as undertaken in the letters signed by the Chairman of the PLO and addressed to the Prime Minister of Israel, dated September 9, 1993 and May 4, 1994.
What actions were taken by the PLO to live up to its agreements?
The Oslo II agreement was signed on September 24, 1995 but the change was not made within the time period specified. On April 24, 1996 there was a vote by the PLO's Palestine National Council. The vote was widely reported in the media as having repealed the clauses of the PLO Charter which deny Israel's right to exist and call for its destruction through violence. The governments of the United States and of Israel welcomed the vote, stating that it marked the fulfillment of the Palestinian obligation on the Covenant.

But, again, that was not actually the case. The PNC action, which has not been officially fully disclosed, only stated an intention to make changes at a future date and did not specify, in detail, the changes that would be made. The matter was referred to a legal committee for study. No specific anti-Israel clauses in the Covenant were declared officially abrogated. Moreover, the process was incomplete because the PNC did not draft a new Covenant. After winning the election in May 1996, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu declared the failure to revise the Covenant to be a violation of the agreements by the Palestinians.

In the 1997 Hebron Agreement, it was specifically noted, again, that the PLO was commited to, "Complete the process of revising the Palestinian National Charter." Thereafter, Arafat and the PLO governing bodies insisted that they were in compliance based on the PNC vote in 1996, but legal analysts do not agree . In January 1998, Chairman Arafat sent letters to President Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair purporting to "put to rest" concerns about the PNC resolution and setting out a list of articles supposedly canceled or amended by the decision. But personal statements by Arafat have no legal effect; only a vote of 2/3 of the PNC can ammend the Covenant (Article 33) . On December 14, 1998, the Palestinian National Council, in accordance with the Wye Memorandum, which required compliance with the earlier agreements, convened in Gaza in the presence of US President Clinton and voted to reaffirm their decision to amend the Covenant. But, again, this was insubstantial window dressing. Their action didn't actually amend the Covenant and the Palestinian Authority remained in violation of the lengthening series of agreements.
Although the Palestinian National Council (PNC) has twice taken formal decisions to revise the Palestinian National Covenant (1996 and 1998) calling for Israel's destruction, the PNC Chairman, Salim Za'anoun, stated on February 3, 2001, in the official Palestinian Authority newspaper, that the Palestinian Covenant remained unchanged and was still in force [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, 3 February 2001, as translated by MEMRI].

Former CIA Director James Woolsey said:

Arafat has been like Lucy with the football, treating the rest of the world as Charlie Brown. He and the PNC keep telling everyone they've changed the charter, without actually changing it.
This saga of the Covenant revision is an example of the lack of good faith on the part of Arafat and the Palestinian Arabs in the course of the Oslo peace process. But, it probably does not make a difference whether the Covenant is actually revised or not. The hatred and violence directed against Israel by the Palestinian Arabs does not originate with the piece of paper called the Palestinian National Covenant.

christian

06-22-2002, 09:01 PM

Originally posted by Mediocrates

That might true if it applied but it doesn't -Israelis are not occupying anything. There are Jewish suburbanites living in Jewish suburbs. They are 'occupying' Israel.

The settlements of jewish migrants is not a good policy in this period of time. Israel should develop their neigbour into a secular turkey. Then settlements wouldn't cause any problems.

Hundred years ago, foreigner is consider as a invasion by White settlers. At this point of time, it is other way around. China invites white foreigner, helping to develop their WTO competition.

In HK, there is an island called discovery bay. It is a little england, with many white foreigners. No one is complaining in HK, because everyone is making their living in daily life.

Education, law and trade is the only way, securing the settlements of jewish community. There are no other possible way.

christian

06-22-2002, 09:13 PM

Originally posted by Mediocrates
A person without a job, carries m-16, because there is no job. Resistance soldiering is a best job.

That's patently absurd as a general statement.

And according the UN and PA the median income for a Palistinian working inside the disputed lands is marginally higher than for Palistinians working on the other side of the Green Line. At least through 2000 for which statistics are collected. And the aggregate figure is roughly half compared to Israelis. Compared though to their neighbors in next door Arab lands the Palistinians in disputed lands earns far more than Palistinians living in those Arab countries at least as far as someone living there is willing to call themselves Palistinian.

A average palestinian teenages can't even afford to post secondary education. After the turn of 18, the best possible job is physical labour. Which all of us despise.

Without a doubt, after the age 18, the best education of palestinian is the ji-had.

Sure. Their living standard is not at the point of famine. However, they will blame on israel, because their friends in Egypt can afford a comfortable house. A house is with the drinking supply and clean sewage system. Where markets can supply fresh meat and vegetables. On the few blocks,you can drink a beer. Where the kids can play arcade.

Come on. Do you see that in Palestinian refugee camp?

Of course, all the blame in Palestinian territory shouldn't place upon israel. However, israel indirectly responsible for this.

Let me ask you another way.
If israel invests heavy on Palestinian territory. Is there anything Israel lose? No. Britain invests heavy on HK, in return the britain is making money with HK people.

Batman

06-22-2002, 10:26 PM

A average palestinian teenages can't even afford to post secondary education. After the turn of 18, the best possible job is physical labour. Which all of us despise. Without a doubt, after the age 18, the best education of palestinian is the ji-had.

First of all, many people on this planet have jobs that require physical labour and they do very well with this, if they are motivated. If Arafat stops stealing his people's monies, there could be higher education for all who desire it.

Unfortunately, the education of Jihad for Palestinian-Arabs begins when they are born in their homes with their own parents and continues throughout their entire young lives through the continuous brainwashing by the Palestinian-Arab system.

This entire society seems to be oriented for solving problems in a highly destructive manner. Israel can do nothing about this. The Arab countries encourage this in every media and in their religious interpretations of the Koran. There are endless proofs of ongoing incitements against the Jews and Israel for over 54 years.

The problem is psychological. It starts in the home and the society is poisoned by Arafat and his terror regime, which serves the Arab League.

The Palestinian covenant calls for the destruction of Israel. The Palestinian-Arabs are kept in misery by their own leaders. Recently Arafat stole $5.1 million to support his wife and daughter who live in luxury in Europe...Israel can do nothing to help the Palestinian-Arabs- the Palestinian Arabs should just give up on Israel and demand justice from the Arab League that has kept them enslaved to their misery for 54 years instead of helping them. Let Arafat and the Arab League pay for all the suffering that has happened in the mideast.
It's their fault.

See the madness for yourself:
http://www.digitalfilmmaker.net/gaza/gaza8.shtml
www.islamexposed.com/Pictures/face-of-Islam.htm

[/URL] http://www.mideasttruth.com

takeo

06-22-2002, 11:25 PM

actually international supernational law are above national law if the country signed those laws, that's how serbia could deliver Milosevic to The Hague, which was not allowed by their own laws.

"The rule of law the Western Democracies are based on, is an evolving proposition. The key here is the method of how new laws are passed, and how old ones are expunged from the books - not necessarily the laws themselves. There have been numerous laws, in all the Western Democracies, that did not pass the muster of time and changing mores - and even, arguably, morals (such as slavery and segregation laws in the US). "

Yep, but in the meanwhile, those laws had to be respected, unless they were in violation with the constitution.

"That's because you are not a lawyer. Laws leave PLENTY of room for interpretation, if you know what you are looking for. In your example above, try to define "armed" and "robber", and see if everyone agrees with your interpretation. THEN try to apply those definitions to a real situation, and see what happens. "

I'm sure if i robbed a bank and killed six people in the meanwhile with a kalashnikov i will not be a free man because my lawyer could manage to doubt the real meaning of this or that law...

Of course if i downloaded music from internet, such "crimes" can be subject of legal interpretation.
of course it's your field, but still i think some crimes can't be "interpreted"

"Actually, the latest polls suggest that 51% - over half - support a Palestinian state in the whole historical Palestine. By the same token, about 45% believe in the negotiations. Negotiate what? Do they really think that they will be able to negotiate the demise of Israel with the Israelis? "

actually any poll i saw (and published on this forum) indicated that more than half, and in some polls over 80%, of the palestinians support a two-states solution with the 1967 borders.

"They were legal bedouins and such, who came over to the "historic Palestine", who knows from where, when the Jews came, - searching for a better life. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't give them an "inalienable" right to be there, certainly no more than the Jews who actually were the cause of their migration in the first place. "

How do you know they came to palestine from somewhere else only some years ago? if that is the case than they indeed haven't any more right that jewish colonists to live there, but most palestinians live there for many generations.

"And you would argue wrong. Among other things, because in Russia this was true prior to 1861, but not after. In the Ottoman Empire this was true until its collapse in 1918."

hey, that's MY field ;) . the Ottoman empire didn't have one single property-system, Romania and Bulgaria had the same system as Russia, the mediterranean parts had another system (neither did Russia by the way, Finland had a totally different situation than Russia propper or Central asia, and in Russia even if slavery was abolished in 1861, the noblesse were still the legal owner of many lands and villages, but the peasants were no longer considered as property (actually can you imagine this in the 19th century in Europe 80% of russians were slaves!); but in palestine the property was largely owned by individual families, we had some courses on the socio-economic structure of israel since the middle-ages.

takeo

06-22-2002, 11:39 PM

"Actually, no. As I understand it, the argument here is over the "occupied territories" vs. "disputed territories". Certain Geneva Conventions are only applicable to the "occupied", which Israel does not agree is the case with the West Bank and Gaza. This is the grey area we are speaking of. "

there is no doubt that those territories are occupied, because it completely fits the definition of "occupation" and several un-resolutions confirm this. It is not disputed, because the internationally recognised borders of israel are the 1967 ones, even in the us.

"In southeast asia, islam slaugther people called infidel. Just 30 years ago, malaysia is under going secularism. In one generation, the hatre of infidel is rapidly diminish. Although, there is some grudges with chinese and india. Now, the singapore islam despises the radical islamic law in middle east. However, there is always few extremism. This is not a majority. "

in malaysia it's no only secularism but wealth, and there is no oprresion of one etnic group, both Chinese and malaysians are protected by the law. the combination of those factors make malaysia a tolerant country

"This is, no doubt, the ultimate long-term goal of at minimum, large majority of Israelis. However, it's patently impossible as of this moment. If you notice, it took 300+ years, plus a crushing military defeat for Turkey to come around to such views. "

i don't agree, it was a reform started in the end of the 19th century and completed by Attaturk, who replaced islamism officially for nationalism.Some arab countries are totally secular as well, without crushing defeat, such as Tunisia.

"There is going to come a time when the Israelis and the Palestinians will be the best of friends, of a kind that no nebulous peace treaty would ever be able to create. This will take time, energy, and right decisions on the part of both parties. If you think that the Palestinians are "justified" in not trusting the Israelis because of the incursions, etc; how can you explain away the distrust the Israelis have for the Palestinians' tactics for the past 100 years? All is not lost, but we do need to be patient. There needs to be some sort of "cooling off", taking of responsibility for own problems, and truce. Secularism is not a panacea for all the problems, although it is indeed a good recipe."

i don't think we need to wait for another generation, as the independance war in Algeria and many other countries show, the war will only be over when the oppression and occupation equally finish, not any moment sooner, unless you do as the brittish in HK and make the palestinians equal israeli citizens, but i doubt israel would ever do so.

christian

06-22-2002, 11:44 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Batman
[B]

First of all, many people on this planet have jobs that require physical labour and they do very well with this, if they are motivated. If Arafat stops stealing his people's monies, there could be higher education for all who desire it.

Unfortunately, the education of Jihad for Palestinian-Arabs begins when they are born in their homes with their own parents and continues throughout their entire young lives through the continuous brainwashing by the Palestinian-Arab system.

That is a myth. True. In their homes, islamic palestinian is taught of hate.

In WWII, there are more 13 million chinese died in ethnic cleasing. My father generation hates japanese. In this generation, we suspects japanese militarilism, eventhough they never apologize. At least, we don't rage a war for revenge.

Currently, we are inviting all the foreigners, influence the economic structure of china.

This entire society seems to be oriented for solving problems in a highly destructive manner. Israel can do nothing about this. The Arab countries encourage this in every media and in their religious interpretations of the Koran. There are endless proofs of ongoing incitements against the Jews and Israel for over 54 years.

This is another strong belief of yours. 30 years ago, the southeast asian islamist is just as violent as the ME muslim. They practice islamic law. They put koran in one hand. Another hand, they carry a sword. Those who doesn't believe in islam, is slaugthered at the spot.

Believe me. I am not a great friend of muslim.

In one generation, the malaysian government reforms their schools, economy, and monetary system. In this generation, no one speaks of islamic law. Mr. Anwar, so called democractic fighter supported by US politician, is actually a islamic fundamentalist.

NOw, southeast asian islam is preferring moderate regime. Although, Indonesia is a different case.

The problem is psychological. It starts in the home and the society is poisoned by Arafat and his terror regime, which serves the Arab League.

The Palestinian covenant calls for the destruction of Israel. The Palestinian-Arabs are kept in misery by their own leaders. Recently Arafat stole $5.1 million to support his wife and daughter who live in luxury in Europe...Israel can do nothing to help the Palestinian-Arabs- the Palestinian Arabs should just give up on Israel and demand justice from the Arab League that has kept them enslaved to their misery for 54 years instead of helping them. Let Arafat and the Arab League pay for all the suffering that has happened in the mideast.
It's their fault.

I don't agree with this point of view. Arafat's wife is a international politically involved. In other words, she represents the state of Palestinian indirectly. No country in the world wants their state representative, living like a beggar. It is the dignity of the state.

Ok. May be there is corruption with Arafat. Perhaps, you are living in US. US itself is a first world country. Everything is developed. In place like HK, during the 70's, Hk is a very corrupted place. However, in the 80's, there are very few corruptions in HK. Before becoming first world standard, corruption will occurs in developing and underdeveloped country.

After the nation or territory developed, corruption vanished rapidly.

cerulean

06-22-2002, 11:58 PM

Originally posted by takeo

Some arab countries are totally secular as well, without crushing defeat, such as Tunisia.

Based on the US State Department report,
http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/irf/irf_rpt/1999/irf_tunisia99.html, Tunisia is a lot better than most (maybe all other) Arab countries. However, it's not really an option to be completely secular, given that Islamic religious education is compulsory in public schools. Nor can you easily change your religion from Islam (if you are born a Muslim). Nor is there freedom of the press. Nevertheless, I think Tunisia is a good role model for other Arab states and I hope Tunisia moves towards greater freedom rather than less (which is an unfortunate trend among Arab states).

takeo

06-23-2002, 12:01 AM

"This is an ATTITUDE, and as such, it has to GROW. It cannot be imposed from outside of the individual, let alone from outside of a given society. The outside world can influence the attitudes, by both "stick" and "carrot"; but it must be internalized by the persons involved, which takes a long time. "

OK, but it is prooven that only peace, independance and devellopment can provide this, as in tunisia or malaysia. Turkey has never been colonised by Western powers, and i think that's a major reason why islamism isn't deeprooted there.
I learned in university that fundamentalism started in the 19th century as a reaction to European colonialism, and fundamentalism in Afghanistan really started to become a real problem after the Russian invasion.
Iranians are one of the most relaxed people in their religious toughts, because they don't feel any foreign oppression, and see the west in positive terms, because they are no longer exploited by the West, but by their own clergy. the israeli occupation is one of the prime reasons for th rise in fundamentalism in Palestine.
(in Algeria fundamentalism was a reaction to the corrupted secular military regime and poverty, but it is always a reaction)

"Jews living in YESHA is viewed as an envious reminder of how bad and backwards their own chosen lot in life really is."

if those settlements would bring economic profits for the palestinians, and if the palestinians could have the same benefits as the colonists (the israeli state building similar houses for them, giving them the same daily amount of water, electricity) and if they were build in desert in stead of on expropriated palestinian property, than maybe the settlements could promote peace (as in HK), instead of hate. The Palestinians had nothing to choose, 35 years of israeli occupation made them what they are now, israel never invested a single $ in the wellbeing of the palestinians, all the money went to build exlusively Jewish settlements, often in the middle of palestinian towns, of course this provokes hate, i saw it with my own eyes how those extremist bastards live nextdoor the palestinians, unprovoked shooting at peasants, destroying their harvest, in much nicer houses than the palestinians. And those colonists are the worst scum, they believe that the territories belong to them and that palestinians are subhumans. I can understand from a human point of view why more than 90% of palestinians support violence against them, even if i don't agree.

christian

06-23-2002, 12:05 AM

Originally posted by takeo

i don't think we need to wait for another generation, as the independance war in Algeria and many other countries show, the war will only be over when the oppression and occupation equally finish, not any moment sooner, unless you do as the brittish in HK and make the palestinians equal israeli citizens, but i doubt israel would ever do so. [/B]

This is precisely my point. If israel treats palestinian with rights, wealth, education and trade. palestinian territory is just another turkey or HK.

After the vietnam war, communist vietnam takes over. Some vietnamese actually told me, they like S. vietnam. During the time of S. vietnam, there are tremendous of wealth and freedom. It is a country full of opportunity and stability.

If American never shot a missle, starting the vietnam war. S. vietnam will eventually integrates with N. vietnam like the W.Germany.

Yes. There are grudges against occupation. The benefits of wealth is outweigthed the grievance.

takeo

06-23-2002, 12:23 AM

batman, i hear this for the first time, but there are amendments that make the quoted parts nullified, even if, they are officially not yet abolished.

"... those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid "

it is also clear that the Palestinian leadership is committed to changing the chapters for good, but maybe they couldn't find a 2/3-majority, and is willing to recognise Israel.

"Recently Arafat stole $5.1 million to support his wife and daughter who live in luxury in Europe"

his wife lives in Palestine as well. there is certainly corruption, but you can't blame all the economic problems of the Palestinians on coruption, corruption is always an indication that something more serious is wrong with the country.
the pA was only some years, (and had no full autority or possibilities as any state-administration, they were bound for everything by israel, even just for water), while the israeli oppression is already 35 years, so israel certainly IS responsible for the bad economic situation in Palestine. By the way how do you want to promote democracy and human values if you live under foreign occupation for 35 years?
(ps: if the israeli reign in palestine was so great, could Palestinians ever vote for the occupation-administration? how much money did israel invest in develloping palestinian economy during 35 years...
(and please don't start to mention the arab league, palestinians weren't occupied by the Arab league but by israel)

cerulean

06-23-2002, 12:24 AM

Originally posted by takeo

his wife lives in Palestine as well.

Not any more. For several years most of her time has been spent in Paris, enjoying shopping in boutiques and other accoutrements of the high life.

takeo

06-23-2002, 12:38 AM

cerulean, i never said that Tunisia was a democracy, it is not!
But it is more or less secular (some things you mentioned are true for the us as well, which doesn't change the fact that the us is a secular nation; i think in some US-states "christian principles" inspire the laws, and doesn't the $-notes mention "in God we trust"(every time i use them i think about the boundless cynism of those words in this place...)
When i applied for a visum for the us they asked for my religion, nowhere i could find "non-religious" or "atheist"
the best thing about Tunisia is that it is a modernised country, where economic progress, education, etc. is benefitting the whole population, not just some rich bastards as in other Arab countries, it is a kind of liberal socialist autoritarian policy, but quite succesfull, most Tunisians support the regime.

"Not any more. For several years most of her time has been spent in Paris, enjoying shopping in boutiques and other accoutrements of the high life."

that's interesting to know... if i can i will find out where she stays... :) who knows i can post an exclusive interview on this forum!

Batman

06-23-2002, 12:39 AM

it is also clear that the Palestinian leadership is committed to changing the chapters for good, but maybe they couldn't find a 2/3-majority, and is willing to recognise Israel.

you must be kidding. this is the adult world, not magical thinking

cerulean

06-23-2002, 12:43 AM

Originally posted by takeo
When i applied for a visum for the us they asked for my religion, nowhere i could find "non-religious" or "atheist"

Do French citizens need a visa to enter the US? I thought a passport would be sufficient.

Originally posted by takeo
that's interesting to know... if i can i will find out where she stays... :) who knows i can post an exclusive interview on this forum! [/B]

Be sure to ask her if she still thinks that Israel is poisoning Palestinian wells. (I'm referring to the event where she was standing next to Hillary Clinton while making this outrageous claim and then Hillary C. kissed her after the speech.)

takeo

06-23-2002, 12:45 AM

it was some years ago, and we needed a visum, I don't know if it changed.

OK, but i hope she won't kiss me...

christian

06-23-2002, 12:57 AM

Dear jewish friend:

Is it so hard to understand?

During the time of Britain colony, everyone is very supportive of british occupation. British occupation brings education, secular view, transportation, monetary credentials, IMF investments, law, etc

Law- Law that is recognizable in the world standard

Monetary credentials- Some country like afghastan money is like a toilet paper. HK money is very much recognizable in the world.

Transportation- airports is the world class. T

Education- oxford professors is bringing their education system here. A degree in HK is recognizable in the world standard,especially common wealth country.

Rights- The white british doesn't have any special status, better than the ordinary local chinese.

investment- Hk stock exchange is very credential in Asia.

Labour- is one of the most skillful labour force in Asia.

So, if israel invests heavily on the Palestinian occupied territory.
If Israel does all the things above. There won't be any terrorism.

Instead of investing heavily on apache helicopters, why not invests in Palestinians.

cerulean

06-23-2002, 01:00 AM

christian,

The mentality of people in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and China (if you can generalize even by putting those countries together), is not the same as Palestinians.

Currently Israel is increasingly cutting back on its Arab work force, in part because of incidents where the Arab workers decide to kill their employers or managers as part of the same sort of terrorist attacks they perpetrate on random civilians. How can Israel invest in Palestinian areas when there is zero assurance of any sort of law and order, in fact there's assurance of random death and destruction?

takeo

06-23-2002, 05:38 AM

the problem is that Israel never invested in Palestine, even when there was no violence, and israel had a racist policy that was sure to create problems, it annexed the occupied territories to Israel, but not its population!
israel could create law and order by doing the same for the palestinians what they have been doing for the settlers, and make no distinction between the two. If israel did this from 1967, it would not be impossible that Palestinians would accept to live in Israel, or at least opose any violent solution. But it's never too late, israel can create Palestinian confidence by treating palestinians as Israeli citizens, it would, together with new negociations with palestinian political groups, seriously cut the support for terrorism.
Such proposals as the one of newsguy, but as well the policy of the consequent israeli governments and especially Sharon is rather the contrary.
there are plenty of examples in the world, discrimination leads to violence, as seen in the balcans, the Middle east and Turkey, while equal treatment of etnic groups, even in colonies or occupied territories, will enhance peace and devellopment. Why do you think the majority of french Guyana from all etnic groups wants to remain part of france, why do you think that the Islamic peoples in the soviet-union didn't resist as the afghans and have plenty of nostalgia for the soviet-time?

"During the time of S. vietnam, there are tremendous of wealth and freedom. It is a country full of opportunity and stability. "

I have to disagree strongly with this, you should read a book about vietnamese history or visit the country and talk to the people... it was among the 20 poorest nations in the world, and every year a new military regime took power.

elke

06-23-2002, 06:30 AM

That's baloney, Takeo. During the Oslo Process, there were many, many Israeli-Palestinian ventures, both in Israel and in the Autonomous Territories - as it should be - and not just between the Israeli and Palestinian Arabs either. There was an economic boom: huge increase in building, commerce, scientific and educational cooperation, and all the attributes of a peaceful, friendly environment. There were still attacks, but they were limited, partially because it seems that there was cooperation between Israel and PA on controlling the flakes.

In fact, one of the major things that makes me willing to overlook Sari Nuseibeh's idiotic shtick of giving guidance to the Iraqi scuds, is that the last I heard, his Al Quds University was still cooperating with its Jerusalem counterpart on research of some sort (I don't remember what exactly they were doing).

The Palestinian GDP per person rose dramatically in that time, unemployment dropped to manageable level, and the flow of goods and services was unprecedented. All that came to a halt with the Intifadah, and now they are complaining that their economic situation is bad.

Unfortunately, as someone here has stated before (I think, it was Mediocrates) - money is a coward, it runs from violence.

The definition of "occupied" vs. "disputed" territories is not nearly as clear as you would like to portray it. In fact, the "1967 borders" as a recognized line is a myth. "1967 borders" was a cease-fire line, not borders, and the "territories" were won not from the Palestinians, but from Jordan and Egypt. The final borders were to be settled between the Israelis and the Palestinians in negotiations. The rights to that land were given up to the Palestinians by Jordan and Egypt when the peace agreements were signed.

I don't know that a whole generation break is necessary. It may well be that a few years of breathing room would do the trick. It may even be possible, if someone with a worldview like Nuseibeh and an ability to control the idiots came to power in the PA, that tomorrow could see an adequate relationship between the two, to make the checkpoints and such unnecessary.

As far as the polls are concerned, here is the latest, where that 51% figure came from (this is the latest poll that asked this question, that I know of):
http://www.jmcc.org/publicpoll/results/2002/no45.htm

christian

06-23-2002, 07:29 AM

Originally posted by cerulean
christian,

The mentality of people in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and China (if you can generalize even by putting those countries together), is not the same as Palestinians.

Currently Israel is increasingly cutting back on its Arab work force, in part because of incidents where the Arab workers decide to kill their employers or managers as part of the same sort of terrorist attacks they perpetrate on random civilians. How can Israel invest in Palestinian areas when there is zero assurance of any sort of law and order, in fact there's assurance of random death and destruction?

I agree with TAkeo point of view. Israel never invest a $ in palestinian well being. If israel annexed with the population in 1967. The palestinian would like Israel occupation.

There are few reasons

1) islam is religous zeal, causing dictatorship.

2) Freedom of speech, Freedom of press, etc in israeli is enjoying it. While Palestinian would also like to have that freedom

3) Israel's monetary system is accepted in the world

4) israel has a strong law and order

5) israel is a democratic nation in the ME

If only israel applies this secularism in the area of Palestinian. There wouldn't be peace agreement. Since, no one is complaining.

In HK, during the british occupation, no one is complaining. Everyone enjoys freedom, trade and business activity.

elke

06-23-2002, 07:46 AM

Christian, Israel could not annex the West Bank and Gaza, because in such a case it is committing demographic suicide. The minute Israel annexes these areas, its denizens become Israeli citizens, with rights to vote, etc. That's the only fair way of annexing - anything else is an "Apartheid".

But if you do that, you are talking about a "bi-national state", not a Jewish state any longer. Three guesses how long it would stay democratic in such a case, and more: it will no longer be a safe haven for the Jews.

I am sorry, but NO. The Palestinians are going to have to settle for their own entity, which can have help and support from Israel, but they are going to have to fix their own situation themselves.

takeo

06-23-2002, 03:44 PM

"That's baloney, Takeo. During the Oslo Process, there were many, many Israeli-Palestinian ventures, both in Israel and in the Autonomous Territories - as it should be - and not just between the Israeli and Palestinian Arabs either. There was an economic boom: huge increase in building, commerce, scientific and educational cooperation, and all the attributes of a peaceful, friendly environment. There were still attacks, but they were limited, partially because it seems that there was cooperation between Israel and PA on controlling the flakes. "

perhaps so, but i think economic boom is a little overestimated, the investment in palestine was still much lower than investment in "mainland" Israel, and the israeli government was still primarily concentrating on the settlements, who got per capita perhaps a 100 times the money invested in the palestinians.
But indeed it was a positive first step, supported by the majority of palestinians according to the polling site provided in your post, that succeeded in limiting the violence.

"The Palestinian GDP per person rose dramatically in that time, unemployment dropped to manageable level, and the flow of goods and services was unprecedented. All that came to a halt with the Intifadah, and now they are complaining that their economic situation is bad. "

Still, you have to look at the rootcauses of the palestinian poverty, which lie in the period 1967-1993 when absolutely nothing was done for the Palestinians, considered wasteland by israel. The intifadeh wasn't started for economic reasons but, I think, because they wanted independance (had been delayed a couple of times), because of the new settlements, and couldn't agree on the terms israel was willing to negociate. that's why you see in 2000 a rise in people who wanted military actions.

"Unfortunately, as someone here has stated before (I think, it was Mediocrates) - money is a coward, it runs from violence."

yep, but not always, the money running to the settlements did run towards the violence, but of course not for economical but pure ideological reasons, because from an economical point of view the settlements are absolutely a waste of time and money.

"The definition of "occupied" vs. "disputed" territories is not nearly as clear as you would like to portray it. In fact, the "1967 borders" as a recognized line is a myth. "1967 borders" was a cease-fire line, not borders, and the "territories" were won not from the Palestinians, but from Jordan and Egypt. The final borders were to be settled between the Israelis and the Palestinians in negotiations. The rights to that land were given up to the Palestinians by Jordan and Egypt when the peace agreements were signed. "

Yep, the rights have been given up to the Palestinians, but there is no dispute over which lands concerned. When israel was recognised, it was along those "cease-fire" lines, and the map of israel before 1967 used in israel as well was exactly with this borders.

"I don't know that a whole generation break is necessary. It may well be that a few years of breathing room would do the trick. It may even be possible, if someone with a worldview like Nuseibeh and an ability to control the idiots came to power in the PA, that tomorrow could see an adequate relationship between the two, to make the checkpoints and such unnecessary. "

the problem is, and it is perceivable in the polls as well, the longer israeli occupation takes, the less moderates you will find at the other side... (and besides that, why postpone what you can do today as well, and save the lifes of many victims)
i think peace with the palestinians and with this leadership is possible, if israel is prepared to concede enough concessions. The relationship will become better naturally, as in 1993 as well. A final solution could encourage contacts and cooperation on both sides and resuming trade and investment.

"As far as the polls are concerned, here is the latest, where that 51% figure came from (this is the latest poll that asked this question, that I know of):
http://www.jmcc.org/publicpoll/results/2002/no45.htm"

OK, but it seems to contradict earlier polls, it makes clear that the current israeli actions of violence and occupation will certainly not stop the hate and violence, and will certainly not contribute to any solution for the situation.

"Christian, Israel could not annex the West Bank and Gaza, because in such a case it is committing demographic suicide. The minute Israel annexes these areas, its denizens become Israeli citizens, with rights to vote, etc. That's the only fair way of annexing - anything else is an "Apartheid". "

OK, if only the leaders of israel came to that conclusion some decades ago...
BUT if it is clear those can never become a part of Israel, why is israel continuing building new settlements?

"But if you do that, you are talking about a "bi-national state", not a Jewish state any longer. Three guesses how long it would stay democratic in such a case, and more: it will no longer be a safe haven for the Jews. "

Why can't a bi-national state be a safe haven for Jews? Why do you need a mono-etnic state to create a safe haven? Do you think the chinese or malaysians feel treatened in Malaysia? or the walloons or Flemish in belgium?

"I am sorry, but NO. The Palestinians are going to have to settle for their own entity, which can have help and support from Israel, but they are going to have to fix their own situation themselves."

They would love to... without israeli tanks and settlements...

you can't have it both ways... those territories are no part of israel, ok, well right, go away! or those territories are a part of israel, which means that the people living there should be israeli citizens.

Mediocrates

06-23-2002, 03:51 PM

How disingenuous. If the Palistinians wanted economic development they would seek it out from whomever would help them and not simply the Jews next door as some emblematic act of revenge driven politics. If the Arabs has a world view that put development at or near the top of the list then they would see that economic development for the Palistinians would be their greatest weapon against the Israelis. Build up Palistine until it's the equal of Israel and then begin to make real world demands which would have more clout than bombs. But of course the Arab world will never do that because they hate the Palistinians as much as anyone and can never be seen as the country that gave in to those rabble and put down the armed resistance against the Jews. The Saudis are spending 20 Billion US a year just to build Wahabbist schools around the world. They could amortize that amount over 5 years and build a strong independent economically self sufficient Palistine with that money. But of course they won't. It's not about success, it's about power and purity.

elke

06-23-2002, 04:13 PM

Why aren't French investing more in Algeria than they do in France? Stupid question, of course. I know the answer as well as you do; but yet somehow, you expect Israel to sacrifice for the sake of people who have been relentlessly trying to annihilate it.

So, according to your theory, the Palestinians did better before 1967? Are you so sure? They are TODAY better off than many of their Arab brethren, who don't live in the "occupation" - including Jordan, part of which they were between 1948 and 1967. "Root causes" my foot! The reason they are suffering today is because they started their idiotic "intifadah", instead of concentrating on economic development as normal people would.

I am not going to get into the Resolution 242 business. This has been discussed to death. The "Pre-1967 borders" do not exist as a legal term, except in the imaginations of Arab propaganda writers. What does exist is a "1948 cease-fire line", to be negotiated and converted into permanent borders at a future date.

I got a revelation for you regarding those Palestinian polls: their results change with the weather, Moon phases, PMS cycle, and other seemingly innocuous events. There is no discernable pattern to it, so nothing is really "perceivable" or "predictable" about the results.

Leaders of Israel have not at any time annexed West Bank or Gaza because to do so would be demographic suicide. I remember a discussion with the nice young man who taught me Hebrew precisely on that subject, in 1981 or so.

The Jewish nature of Israel may not be important to you, but it is important to me. Most importantly, it is important to the Israelis. A bi-national state would create a situation no different than that anywhere in the Diaspora. If push comes to shove, and we find that we have to skedaddle from somewhere, it would be up to the benevolence of the Arab majority. Given our history, it is not a wise move for the Jews, to trust ourselves to the good graces of others.

takeo

06-23-2002, 05:05 PM

"How disingenuous. If the Palistinians wanted economic development they would seek it out from whomever would help them and not simply the Jews next door as some emblematic act of revenge driven politics. If the Arabs has a world view that put development at or near the top of the list then they would see that economic development for the Palistinians would be their greatest weapon against the Israelis. Build up Palistine until it's the equal of Israel and then begin to make real world demands which would have more clout than bombs. But of course the Arab world will never do that because they hate the Palistinians as much as anyone and can never be seen as the country that gave in to those rabble and put down the armed resistance against the Jews. The Saudis are spending 20 Billion US a year just to build Wahabbist schools around the world. They could amortize that amount over 5 years and build a strong independent economically self sufficient Palistine with that money. But of course they won't. It's not about success, it's about power and purity."

The problem is that palestine is occupied by the Jews nextdoor and not by the Saoudi's...
i don't think arabs hate Palestinians, and arab countries want devellopment as much as any other country in the world.

"Why aren't French investing more in Algeria than they do in France? Stupid question, of course. I know the answer as well as you do; but yet somehow, you expect Israel to sacrifice for the sake of people who have been relentlessly trying to annihilate it. "

actually if the french invested more in algeria, and treated arabs the same way as colonisers, than perhaps Algeria would still be a part of France. And according to the israeli constitution the occupied territories are part of Israel...
not only for the sake of the palestinians but for their own sake as well

"So, according to your theory, the Palestinians did better before 1967? Are you so sure? They are TODAY better off than many of their Arab brethren, who don't live in the "occupation" - including Jordan, part of which they were between 1948 and 1967. "Root causes" my foot! The reason they are suffering today is because they started their idiotic "intifadah", instead of concentrating on economic development as normal people would. "

so according to you all was fine in the occupied territories between 1967 and 1987, my ***! People live miserable there, and they lived that way since the 70's, nothing changed, israel did absolutely nothing for the palestinians they occupied.
i went to other arab countries and there the living standard was slightly higher than in Palestine.

"I am not going to get into the Resolution 242 business. This has been discussed to death. The "Pre-1967 borders" do not exist as a legal term, except in the imaginations of Arab propaganda writers. What does exist is a "1948 cease-fire line", to be negotiated and converted into permanent borders at a future date. "

the 1948 cease-fire borders were the borders of israel between 1948 and 1967, during which it was recognised within its borders of that time.

"Leaders of Israel have not at any time annexed West Bank or Gaza because to do so would be demographic suicide. I remember a discussion with the nice young man who taught me Hebrew precisely on that subject, in 1981 or so. "

So why did they continue the occupation and build 100's of expensive settlements, if it wasn't a part of israel?

"The Jewish nature of Israel may not be important to you, but it is important to me. Most importantly, it is important to the Israelis. A bi-national state would create a situation no different than that anywhere in the Diaspora. If push comes to shove, and we find that we have to skedaddle from somewhere, it would be up to the benevolence of the Arab majority. Given our history, it is not a wise move for the Jews, to trust ourselves to the good graces of others"

the difference would be that the Jewish nation would be one of the two constituent nations of the country. if your idea of a perfect state in which you would feel safe is one that is etnically more or less pure, than i can only deplore that. It is a kind of nationalism that we could observe all too often in history, and more specifically in the balcans recently.

elke

06-23-2002, 05:24 PM

Where do you get your info? Israel does not have a Constitution, yet anyway. It would take a vote in the Knesset to pass a law to annex - or not - the West Bank and Gaza. There is no law on the books, as of now, regarding the status of these areas.

The Palestinians eked out an existence, a little better than when the Jordanians were their rulers. Israel was recognized as a state, with the disputed territories as such, by those who recognized it. The Arab states never recognized Israel, in any borders, untill 1979 Egypt and 1994 Jordan - with the same disputed borders. I think, Mauretania also recognizes Israel, but I am not sure since when.

You can call me anything you like, I am just saying how I feel. I don't see France or Germany becoming "bi-national" any time soon. It's not about "ethnically pure", it's about control of own destiny. I have no trouble - and actually enjoy - living and working in multi-cultural conditions. However, every other nation has a place where they aren't a minority, and where they go if they find themselves in trouble. I don't see why the Jews should be any different than anyone else.

Mediocrates

06-23-2002, 05:37 PM

The problem is that palestine is occupied by the Jews nextdoor and not by the Saoudi's...
i don't think arabs hate Palestinians, and arab countries want devellopment as much as any
other country in the world.

This is a content free statement and has no bearing on my question in fact it reinforces my own point.

takeo

06-23-2002, 05:43 PM

"Where do you get your info? Israel does not have a Constitution, yet anyway. It would take a vote in the Knesset to pass a law to annex - or not - the West Bank and Gaza. There is no law on the books, as of now, regarding the status of these areas. "

well, actually i have no info about this, but clearly the official map used by Israel INCLUDE the occupied territories...

"The Palestinians eked out an existence, a little better than when the Jordanians were their rulers. Israel was recognized as a state, with the disputed territories as such, by those who recognized it. The Arab states never recognized Israel, in any borders, untill 1979 Egypt and 1994 Jordan - with the same disputed borders. I think, Mauretania also recognizes Israel, but I am not sure since when. "

actually the ones who recognised israel recognised it in its pre-1967 borders, as well as all other countries in the world and the UN. that's why no single country has moved its embassy to Jerusalem.

"You can call me anything you like, I am just saying how I feel. I don't see France or Germany becoming "bi-national" any time soon. It's not about "ethnically pure", it's about control of own destiny. I have no trouble - and actually enjoy - living and working in multi-cultural conditions. However, every other nation has a place where they aren't a minority, and where they go if they find themselves in trouble. I don't see why the Jews should be any different than anyone else."

Well, many peoples don't have a land for their own, because in some situations that is impossible without great suffering, etnic cleansing or war. Malaysians don't have this, flemish or walloons don't have it, bosnians don't have it, Moldovans, afro-americans, etc.
gypsies have no land at all, not even a binational state. (well, most likely Romania in some decades...)

Mediocrates

06-23-2002, 05:45 PM

So why did they continue the occupation and build 100's of expensive settlements, if it
wasn't a part of israel?

Because it is part of Israel. That the UN has a different opinion on the matter doesn't change it. They can't annex what is already theirs.

Mediocrates

06-23-2002, 05:47 PM

Well, many peoples don't have a land for their own, because in some situations that is impossible without great suffering, etnic cleansing or war. Malaysians don't have this, flemish or walloons don't have it, bosnians don't have it, Moldovans, afro-americans, etc. gypsies have no land at all, not even a binational state. (well, most likely Romania in some decades...)

yes yes only your Palistinians are entitled to that.

elke

06-23-2002, 05:52 PM

Malaysians have Malaysia, Moldovans have Moldova, African Americans have Liberia, and Bosnians have Bosnia. The Gypsies are nomads, who roam from place to place. They do have a distinctive culture, but part of that culture has to do with the roaming, which is not conducive to having a country of one's own. So, what are you talking about? Do you even know?

I have never heard of a Holocaust performed against the Flemish or Walloons. If they feel that they can afford not having their own country, fine. We can't.

As far as recognizing the "pre-'67 borders", US has been in the process of moving its embassy to Jerusalem for at least 6 or 7 years. Authorization from Congress has come through, I believe, in 1996.

Mediocrates

06-23-2002, 06:29 PM

Do you think the chinese or malaysians feel treatened in Malaysia? or the walloons or Flemish in belgium?

Do you think the Irish felt threatened by the Brits? You know it took the Scots 700 years to get their own Parliament back and the Welsh are still waiting.... :p

christian

06-23-2002, 08:05 PM

Originally posted by elke
Christian, Israel could not annex the West Bank and Gaza, because in such a case it is committing demographic suicide. The minute Israel annexes these areas, its denizens become Israeli citizens, with rights to vote, etc. That's the only fair way of annexing - anything else is an "Apartheid".

But if you do that, you are talking about a "bi-national state", not a Jewish state any longer. Three guesses how long it would stay democratic in such a case, and more: it will no longer be a safe haven for the Jews. `

I am sorry, but NO. The Palestinians are going to have to settle for their own entity, which can have help and support from Israel, but they are going to have to fix their own situation themselves.

Elke,

Your forefather is unlike you.
People does things differently 2000 years ago. Judaism is a religion. It is no longer consider as a race. The chinese jews are like chinese. The russia jews are like russian. The american jews are like American.

In HK, during the imperialist time, chinese is accounts for 98 percent population. The british is very few, who controls the parliament and decision making.

The jews can also integrates with the palestinian. At the same time, to gurantee western living, they can controls the decision making.

In American, there are mixture of race. However, it is the white people, who controls the both white house and congress. Which means only white people controls the decision making. There are only very few blacks, deciding the policy of the nation.

Aparthied wouldn't work. If you look at S. africa. The international community place sanctions on them. In a way, israel is very fortunate, because the American jews controls the both congress and white house. There are no pressure against Israel apathied. However, aparthied only creates more terrorism.
In fact, you see this is happening inside israel.

Integration and investment are the best alternative. In the long run, investment is the best to eliminate terrorism.

christian

06-23-2002, 08:29 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by elke
Malaysians have Malaysia, Moldovans have Moldova, African Americans have Liberia, and Bosnians have Bosnia. The Gypsies are nomads, who roam from place to place. They do have a distinctive culture, but part of that culture has to do with the roaming, which is not conducive to having a country of one's own. So, what are you talking about? Do you even know?

These are the same parallel in the other part of the world.

1967- israel occupies Palestina
other parts of the world
18??'s-british occupies HK

2001-Palestinian hates Jews. Rebellion is incited.
Other parts of the world
18??'s-chinese hates british occupation. Rebellion is incited.

1967-israel builds nothing.
Other parts of the world
1950's - british build roads, constitution, education, investment, trade, etc

2000-Palestinian complains about Israel's occupation
Other parts of the world
18??- Chinese complains about British occupation in HK.
1970-No one is complaining about British occupation in HK. Everyone likes british occupation.

2000-judaism is the enemy of the ME
Other parts of the world
18??-christianty is the enemy of the china
1970's-Many likes to worship jesus in HK and china.

elke

06-23-2002, 08:38 PM

You are entitled to your opinion, Christian, but I strongly disagree with you, on all counts. Being Jewish is a nationality, not a race, but neither is it a religion alone.

I know it's difficult to understand, because there is really no other example of this kind of experience. If you really want to understand it though, you can do so by delving into what it actually means to be Jewish - the history, culture, and worldview, in much more depth than you have displayed knowledge of so far.

You can't bring up Hong Kong every time. It's an entirely different situation, with different worldviews on all sides. The British were never out to exterminate the Chinese. In fact, although I am aware that Japan had imperialistic designs on China, I don't think that total annihilation for the Chinese was ever in question.

You are looking at this conflict from the standpoint of "British colonialism", but the similarity of Israeli situation with that of Britain is only superficial, at best. In fact, as far as I am concerned, there is NO similarity here, at all.

takeo

06-23-2002, 08:40 PM

"yes yes only your Palistinians are entitled to that."

no, Palestinians should have exactly the same rights as israeli, a human rights fact that you seem to forget.

__________________

"Malaysians have Malaysia, Moldovans have Moldova, African Americans have Liberia, and Bosnians have Bosnia. The Gypsies are nomads, who roam from place to place. They do have a distinctive culture, but part of that culture has to do with the roaming, which is not conducive to having a country of one's own. So, what are you talking about? Do you even know? "

in malaysia 50% of the people are chinese, which is one of the two official languages. it is a bi-nation state, what you seem to hate so much. it is a peacefull prosperous country, as well as Belgium and most other bi-nation states, where both chinese and malaysians feel perfectly at home.
bosnians are a minority in Bosnia...

"I have never heard of a Holocaust performed against the Flemish or Walloons. If they feel that they can afford not having their own country, fine. We can't. "

So what, serbia has also experienced a genocide during WWII (around 1 million slaughtered by the germans and croats) does it give them the right to live in an etnic pure country? The gypsies have been slaughtered too...
Please don't tell me that without the presence of israel you would be slaughtered in the US... so many etnic groups don't have an own land, not because they choose to (i'm sure the gypsies, persecuted in the whole world, would love to have their own land, and most already gave up on their nomad existance).
i think the problem is that many Jewish people see themselves as "the choosen ones" or "the persecuted ones" that should give them special rights, for example as having an own land, and not sharing it with other people claiming this land.

"As far as recognizing the "pre-'67 borders", US has been in the process of moving its embassy to Jerusalem for at least 6 or 7 years. Authorization from Congress has come through, I believe, in 1996."

still, the us-embassy is in Tel Aviv, isn't it? as well as the embassies of ALL other countries.

"Because it is part of Israel. That the UN has a different opinion on the matter doesn't change it. They can't annex what is already theirs."

hey, elke just said that it is NO part of israel...
you can't have it both ways, if you reject a bi-nation state model than you will have to give up on those territories, or vice-versa. The alternative is apartheid, violence and terrorism.
the occupied territories are occupied by israel, true, but not a single country, and not even the israeli law apparently recognises this to be a part of israel...
those territories are a part of israel as kouweit was a part of iraq in 1990...military yes, but without any legal status.

let me both ask you a sincere question. Presume that the arabs didn't provoke any war in 1948, would you accept a little israel with a Palestinian majority? or wouldn't you accept this?

dunky

06-23-2002, 08:58 PM

Stop comparing The middle east to other binational states. They simply do not compare. The arab world is obsessed with killing Jews. They wanted to and still want to drive us into the mediteranian. WE cannot just give 4 million palestinians citizenship in israel. They would simply vote israel out of existense. As for Israel being ethnically pure, that is just bullship. Arabs make up 15% of the citizens. Jews do not demand an ethnically pure state, simply a jewish state that will protect Jews.
HOw dare you say that we shoulnt have a state of our own. My family lived in europe and lost evreything during the holocaust. So yes i get scared whenever a politician makes an antisemetic remark. I cant help that, i keep thinking of my grandmother. The only diffrence between her and me is that i have israel. If you want to condem me for that then go ahead, but if you were in my shoes, you would be thankfull for israel.

If the arabs hadnt attacked israel there would have been a jewsi h majority on a much smaller piece of land. I would still have been very happy

takeo

06-23-2002, 10:05 PM

actually i have family too who died because of the nazi's, however it doesn't give me the right to occupy the garden of my neighbours...

the arabs don't want to "kill every Jew", but they want that the Palestinians have their rights as well, which wasn't the case the last decades. the violent reaction and the israeli aggressive policy go together...
israel can exist, but nobody can be etnic cleansed to reach that goal, and in that case Palestinians need their own state as well, if you don't want a two-nation solution than we need two different states, as demanded by the international community and the palestinians.

"If the arabs hadnt attacked israel there would have been a jewsi h majority on a much smaller piece of land. I would still have been very happy"

and it would have been much better for the Palestinians as well, which means that probably they would have made peace with israel much sooner.

christian

06-23-2002, 11:11 PM

elke,

Ok. If i interprets your sentiments correctly. It will be like this.

Bi-national state for israel and palestinan.

Big NO

Palestinian independance from Israel

Big No

Terrorism

Big No.

Is this realistic? Without binational state? Without palestinian independance? Can you stop terrorism?

There are other disqusting way, to stop terrorism.

1)ethnic cleansing
2) genocide

Will you commit to these two point? Which your family members have suffered?

Get this through your head.
There aren't any alternative, except binational state and palestinian independance. Which many strongly disagree on both option.

christian

06-23-2002, 11:54 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by takeo

in malaysia 50% of the people are chinese, which is one of the two official languages. it is a bi-nation state, what you seem to hate so much. it is a peacefull prosperous country, as well as Belgium and most other bi-nation states, where both chinese and malaysians feel perfectly at home.
bosnians are a minority in Bosnia...

Actually,in malaysia, chinese only makes up 27% of the population. We are still consider as a minority.
:p

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/my.html

elke

06-24-2002, 03:27 AM

You are again putting words in my mouth, Christian.

Terrorism is indeed a big NO
Bi-National State is, as far as I am concerned also a "NO";
However, where in my posts have you seen a "NO" to the Palestinians living in their own entity beside Israel? Why do Palestinians have to have terrorism, if they have their own place? All I am saying on that score, is that if they want to have their own state, they need to give up their terroristic, barbaric ways to achieve it. They would get their state much sooner if they did that. Actually, there seems to be rather little disagreement on this score among the Israeli supporters. The real disagreement is on how to achieve such a two-state solution with minimal casualties.

The reason the US embassy is still in Tel Aviv is the pressure from US's Arab friends. It's actually the same situation with many other countries as well, whether officially or unofficially.

As far as Malaysia being a peaceful country... it sure doesn't look that way. The Chinese inhabitants of Malaysia can go to China, if push comes to shove though.

The Gypsies are similar to Jews, to a point. They also have been persecuted everywhere I know of. They do not, however, have a clue where they come from: there are theories that they are actually Ancient Egyptians, hence the name "Gypsies"; but nobody knows for sure, including them. Therefore, they are not a good comparison.

christian

06-24-2002, 04:10 AM

Originally posted by elke
You are again putting words in my mouth, Christian.

Terrorism is indeed a big NO
Bi-National State is, as far as I am concerned also a "NO";
However, where in my posts have you seen a "NO" to the Palestinians living in their own entity beside Israel? Why do Palestinians have to have terrorism, if they have their own place? All I am saying on that score, is that if they want to have their own state, they need to give up their terroristic, barbaric ways to achieve it. They would get their state much sooner if they did that. Actually, there seems to be rather little disagreement on this score among the Israeli supporters. The real disagreement is on how to achieve such a two-state solution with minimal casualties.

The reason the US embassy is still in Tel Aviv is the pressure from US's Arab friends. It's actually the same situation with many other countries as well, whether officially or unofficially.

As far as Malaysia being a peaceful country... it sure doesn't look that way. The Chinese inhabitants of Malaysia can go to China, if push comes to shove though.

The Gypsies are similar to Jews, to a point. They also have been persecuted everywhere I know of. They do not, however, have a clue where they come from: there are theories that they are actually Ancient Egyptians, hence the name "Gypsies"; but nobody knows for sure, including them. Therefore, they are not a good comparison.

Binational state is better than Oslo peace agreement.

1) Ensure the military security against arabs

2) integrates the masses of palestinina. Palestinian will become workers, businessman, engineers, etc

3) Jewish people can make settlement in Palestinian town. It will be considered as a economic activity.

3) There are no borders between Palestina and Israel

4) Israel can use the open resources in the w. bank and gaza.

5) win win situation for israel and Palestinina

6) No one will give a damn about Ji had. Everyone is busy, making money. (like malaysian islam)

7)Palestinian will enjoy the freedom of rights, speech, trade, etc

8) It will creates massive wave in the dictatorial arabs, because the secular influence in the ME. It is also a good soft strategic tactics. Since, islamic extremism is from harsh Imperialism and dictatorship.

9) It will creates three sector of ME. ( Extremist(afghastan), moderate(eqypt), western(turkey) ). Which Israel has one more friend against islamism. It is like the cold war. US sides with china, against Soviet.
10) There is no need for peace agreement. There is no pain of given up israeli territory.

Mediocrates

06-24-2002, 05:26 AM

takeo -
no, Palestinians should have exactly the same rights as israeli, a human rights fact that you seem to forget.

What you say and what you mean is more rights than that is, everyone except Jews is entitled to a homeland according to your statements.

the arabs don't want to "kill every Jew", but they want that the Palestinians have their rights as well, which wasn't the case the last decades. the violent reaction and the israeli aggressive policy go together...
israel can exist, but nobody can be etnic cleansed to reach that goal, and in that case Palestinians need their own state as well, if you don't want a two-nation solution than we need two different states, as demanded by the international community and the palestinians.

The Arabs want little if anything at all for the Palistinians else they would have done more than make noise and rhetoric. The Palistinians are merely an instrument in the Arab war by proxy against Israel. And if anyone is being ethnically cleansed since you seem to love that term so much - it's the Jews living in Hebron.
but nobody can be etnic cleansed except of course for all the Jews, eh?

You know there's still an opportunity for you to convert and pick up a rifle for your brethren...

SteveMetch

06-24-2002, 11:24 AM

Comments for or against this idea.

elke

06-24-2002, 03:28 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by christian
Binational state is better than Oslo peace agreement.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

1) Ensure the military security against arabs

How is that? I don't understand why you would think that?

2) integrates the masses of palestinina. Palestinian will become workers, businessman, engineers, etc

They can do that in their own state - better in fact. Integrating these masses is an expensive and long proposition. I don't see why Israel has to deal with this, it has its own problems.

3) Jewish people can make settlement in Palestinian town. It will be considered as a economic activity.

It's either economic activity or it isn't. I don' t see how it will "become" economic activity. This dispute has nothing to do with that.

3) There are no borders between Palestina and Israel

Why is this a good thing? It's hard enough to control a border, thank you.

4) Israel can use the open resources in the w. bank and gaza.

What resources?

5) win win situation for israel and Palestinina

Why? For the Palestinians - maybe, but for the Israelis?

6) No one will give a damn about Ji had. Everyone is busy, making money. (like malaysian islam)

Watching the news, it sure seems that Malaysians do indeed give a damn about Jihad. Besides, they can still do that in their own country.

7)Palestinian will enjoy the freedom of rights, speech, trade, etc

They can do that in their own state too, if only they want to.

8) It will creates massive wave in the dictatorial arabs, because the secular influence in the ME. It is also a good soft strategic tactics. Since, islamic extremism is from harsh Imperialism and dictatorship.

I don't understand this point

9) It will creates three sector of ME. ( Extremist(afghastan), moderate(eqypt), western(turkey) ). Which Israel has one more friend against islamism. It is like the cold war. US sides with china, against Soviet.

Nor this. What do you want? One country not only bi-national, but accept Egypt into it too? You've GOT to be kidding!

10) There is no need for peace agreement. There is no pain of given up israeli territory.

This is just plain silly. It's giving up ALL of it!

Come on, Christian, you can't POSSIBLY be this naive. How long do you think that proported "bi-national state" will remain bi-national? Why create yet another Diaspora, when we already have so many? How long do you think it will remain "Democratic"? Grow up! Democracy requires a certain mindset and a sense of responsibility. The Palestinians, so far, have demonstrated neither. Do you really think that they will suddenly have a revelation and everything will be OK? It takes time to develop attitudes.

takeo

06-24-2002, 08:39 PM

ok, you're right according to the CIA WFB. But still Chinese have an official status as equal to the malaysians, they are not oppressed by the Islamic majority and don't have to abide to islamic laws.
By the way, if 1.5 million Pals would come to israel, as proposed by arafat in camp david, than the palestinians would be around 25-30% of the israeli population.

"All I am saying on that score, is that if they want to have their own state, they need to give up their terroristic, barbaric ways to achieve it. They would get their state much sooner if they did that. Actually, there seems to be rather little disagreement on this score among the Israeli supporters. The real disagreement is on how to achieve such a two-state solution with minimal casualties. "

i don't agree, many israel-supporters really don't like the idea of a palestinian state, ever (official Likud-program). And before the first intifadeh started, before the terrorism erupted in the occupied territories, which israeli politician supported a palestinian state, terrorism or no terrorism? why did they build, and still build, all those settlements?

"The reason the US embassy is still in Tel Aviv is the pressure from US's Arab friends. It's actually the same situation with many other countries as well, whether officially or unofficially. "

i don't think so, tell me what Arab friends do India, Brazil, or other countries around the world have that could pressure those countries enough? It's more likely that they agree to the principles established in the un-charter and the un-resolutions.

"As far as Malaysia being a peaceful country... it sure doesn't look that way. The Chinese inhabitants of Malaysia can go to China, if push comes to shove though. "

indonesia oppressed its Chinese, yet China didn't intervene...
I never read any report of violence or discrimination against Chinese in Malaysia...

"The Gypsies are similar to Jews, to a point. They also have been persecuted everywhere I know of. They do not, however, have a clue where they come from: there are theories that they are actually Ancient Egyptians, hence the name "Gypsies"; but nobody knows for sure, including them. Therefore, they are not a good comparison."

it's almost for sure that they came from Kashmir, archeologists, linguistics and historians have discovered.
I think it would NOT be a good idea to give them their own country in Kashmir... but rather work to improove their rights as a minority in every individual country they inhabit...

"What you say and what you mean is more rights than that is, everyone except Jews is entitled to a homeland according to your statements. "

no, i didn't say so, see above.
if the israeli can have their own state, than the palestinians should have the same privilige.

"And if anyone is being ethnically cleansed since you seem to love that term so much - it's the Jews living in Hebron.
but nobody can be etnic cleansed except of course for all the Jews, eh? "

nobody, INCLUDING the Jews of course... nobody tout court...
but the colonists can not be etnic cleansed because those recent immigrants came there in violation of international laws, because under military occupation, much like the French who established themselves in French colonies in the 40's and 50's, whereas the palestinians were born there, were legal citizens and lived there in most cases for generations.

elke

06-24-2002, 08:58 PM

First of all, Likud is just one party. A big one, yes, but only one, out of how many? Whatever Bibi may say now, he will most likely change his tune if - and when - he is elected. Majority of the Israelis support it, still, so he won't have much of a choice. Settlements are a different issue.

India is friends with Russia and follows its lead. Other countries are in various positions with Russia and/or Arab states, need their oil, and generally don't want Mohamed Attas of the Muslim world to cause them problems.

I don't know anything about Malaysia, except what I have heard on the news here and there, so I am really not qualified to speak on that subject.

Kashmir? Really? No wonder they prefer to wander! I don't blame them! :D On the other hand, here is a solution for the Kashmir problem: give the whole hog to the Gypsies! ;)

takeo

06-24-2002, 09:25 PM

"First of all, Likud is just one party. A big one, yes, but only one, out of how many? Whatever Bibi may say now, he will most likely change his tune if - and when - he is elected. Majority of the Israelis support it, still, so he won't have much of a choice. Settlements are a different issue. "

the biggest one!
in palestine the extremists who will never recognise israel are not in the PA... while in israel the extremists who state that they will never recognise a palestinian state are in the government.
Bibi was never really in favor of the idea of palestinian autonomy, even if the majority of israeli were... he did not respect the oslo-agreements either, so i wouldn't bet one dollar for peace if he would be elected next time...
settlements are not a different issue but one of the main problems to solve the issue. Why do you build Jewish settlements everywhere in a region that you will accept to be an independant palestinian state in the near future? it rather indicates the contrary.

"India is friends with Russia and follows its lead. Other countries are in various positions with Russia and/or Arab states, need their oil, and generally don't want Mohamed Attas of the Muslim world to cause them problems. "

India doesn't always support Russia in its decision, it has an independant view on many issues. And by the way, it is very clear that Russia doesn't fear Muslim countries (Tchechnia) and they have their own oil yet its policy is certainly not pro-israel either. i think Arabs couldn't care less if countries as Guatemala, Cambodia or Cuba would move their embassy to Jerusalem and vice versa. Most of those countries endure much more pressure from the US than from Arab countries...

"Kashmir? Really? No wonder they prefer to wander! I don't blame them! On the other hand, here is a solution for the Kashmir problem: give the whole hog to the Gypsies! "

:D
join the fun... Indians, Pakistanese, Kashmiri, AND gypsies fighting over Kashmir...

Anyway i can assure you that the hate and racism against gypsies in Eastern Europe is huge and brutal compared to the level of anti-semitism in those countries.

gregg

06-24-2002, 10:02 PM

Arafat offered Hamas a seat on his new cabinet

gregg

06-24-2002, 10:03 PM

You forgot to mention China also controls some of Kashmir and is claming some of Indian kashmir :D

christian

06-24-2002, 10:11 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by elke
[QUOTE]Originally posted by christian
[B]Binational state is better than Oslo peace agreement.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

1) Ensure the military security against arabs

How is that? I don't understand why you would think that?

If binational model is installed. Military presence will be in palestinian territory.

2) integrates the masses of palestinina. Palestinian will become workers, businessman, engineers, etc

They can do that in their own state - better in fact. Integrating these masses is an expensive and long proposition. I don't see why Israel has to deal with this, it has its own problems.

If israel deal with this, it will solve many problems, such as terrorism.

3) Jewish people can make settlement in Palestinian town. It will be considered as a economic activity.

It's either economic activity or it isn't. I don' t see how it will "become" economic activity. This dispute has nothing to do with that.

It is. The jewish settlement is seen as an invasion. The same parallel with White settlers build houses in American

3) There are no borders between Palestina and Israel

Why is this a good thing? It's hard enough to control a border, thank you.

People can travel freely without any restriction, based on race, language and religion. A open border means economic activity .

4) Israel can use the open resources in the w. bank and gaza.

What resources?

generally small family businesses that produce cement, textiles, soap, olive-wood carvings, and mother-of-pearl souvenirs; the Israelis have established some small-scale, modern industries in the settlements and industrial centers

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/we.html

natural gas , arable land

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gz.html

5) win win situation for israel and Palestinina

Why? For the Palestinians - maybe, but for the Israelis?

It benefits the israelis as well. (look malaysia, HK)

6) No one will give a damn about Ji had. Everyone is busy, making money. (like malaysian islam)

Watching the news, it sure seems that Malaysians do indeed give a damn about Jihad. Besides, they can still do that in their own country.

The reason for jihad is chinese driven southeast asian economy. Which they blame everything on us. The law stipulates all the company in malay must hire certain ratio of malay muslim. Disregard the qualification, a malay muslim must be hired.

Yes. The law is unfair practice. There is some grudges against malay muslim. They are lazy. Nevertheless,when we share part of the wealth. The long term effect is beneficial.

7)Palestinian will enjoy the freedom of rights, speech, trade, etc

They can do that in their own state too, if only they want to.

8) It will creates massive wave in the dictatorial arabs, because the secular influence in the ME. It is also a good soft strategic tactics. Since, islamic extremism is from harsh Imperialism and dictatorship.

I don't understand this point

Secularism vs Islamicism
since the root cause of fundamentalist is poverty. Secularism is the best weapon.

9) It will creates three sector of ME. ( Extremist(afghastan), moderate(eqypt), western(turkey) ). Which Israel has one more friend against islamism. It is like the cold war. US sides with china, against Soviet.

Nor this. What do you want? One country not only bi-national, but accept Egypt into it too? You've GOT to be kidding!

I never said that. Moderate islam will sided with israel, fighting a new cold war.

10) There is no need for peace agreement. There is no pain of given up israeli territory.

This is just plain silly. It's giving up ALL of it!

Come on, Christian, you can't POSSIBLY be this naive. How long do you think that proported "bi-national state" will remain bi-national? Why create yet another Diaspora, when we already have so many? How long do you think it will remain "Democratic"? Grow up! Democracy requires a certain mindset and a sense of responsibility. The Palestinians, so far, have demonstrated neither. Do you really think that they will suddenly have a revelation and everything will be OK? It takes time to develop attitudes.

Perhaps, you never study the history book of southeast asia. We experience what you experience.

Germans blame jews for disproportionate wealth
Southeast asian blame chinese for disproportionate wealth.

http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/events/indonesia/special_report/newsid_57000/57207.stm

Malaysia anti- chinese f**cking ji- had riots.

1969 - Malays stage anti-Chinese riots in the context of increasing frustration over the economic success of the ethnic Chinese.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_1304000/1304598.stm

ps: I am not a great friend of Muslim either.

christian

06-24-2002, 10:16 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by takeo
[ns.

"As far as Malaysia being a peaceful country... it sure doesn't look that way. The Chinese inhabitants of Malaysia can go to China, if push comes to shove though. "

indonesia oppressed its Chinese, yet China didn't intervene...
I never read any report of violence or discrimination against Chinese in Malaysia...

I disagree. They have a ji-had against chinese.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_1304000/1304598.stm

1969 - Malays stage anti-Chinese riots in the context of increasing frustration over the economic success of the ethnic Chinese.

In fact, the creation of singapore is the ensure survival for chinese ethnics.

China won't intervene southeast asian politics, because it will be like teaming with southeast chinese of diaspora. Eventually, It will worsen the crisis.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/events/indonesia/special_report/newsid_349000/349875.stm

takeo

06-24-2002, 10:58 PM

ok, but that incident was 33 years ago...
in fact the Chinese in Malaysia are overrepresented in the economic, cultural, etc. elite of the country.

elke

06-25-2002, 03:35 AM

You are right, Christian, the history and culture of Southeast Asia is grossly undertaught in Western schools. In addition, because I learned my basic history in Russia in the '70s, the Chinese portion was severely limited. We had a unit in our 6th grade about Midieval China and Japan, but it was completely IMPOSSIBLE to find any books on these subjects in the library (my favorite way of learning history :) ).

I don't know, I personally found the Gypsies very mysterious and interesting...except when my dad had a bunch of money stolen by a couple of them ;)

I am sorry, Christian, I got nasty with you... :o

The idea of a bi-national state is really not an option, as far as I know, for by far most Israelis. I would certainly have many, many problems with it as well.

cerulean

06-25-2002, 03:52 AM

Christian, in high school I had a friend from Taiway (I've had several). I asked her what she learned about mainland China when she was in Taiwan. She had learned little about Mao, the Long March, and other events that I considered really interesting. I was amazed, but I guess that is an example of how the Taiwanese curriculum was controlled.

takeo

06-25-2002, 06:11 AM

Here the history of the far-east that was teached in schools is very limited too, but you can find a lot of books about this subject in the library.
i think the Soviet-chinese schism is still one of the greatest stupidities of the 20th century.

cerulean

06-25-2002, 06:12 AM

Originally posted by takeo
i think the Soviet-chinese schism is still one of the greatest stupidities of the 20th century.

On the other hand, if this had not been the case and both had joined forces against the Western world, I shudder to think of the consequences. Thus, I mostly consider this schism fortunate.

christian

06-25-2002, 07:51 AM

Originally posted by cerulean
Christian, in high school I had a friend from Taiway (I've had several). I asked her what she learned about mainland China when she was in Taiwan. She had learned little about Mao, the Long March, and other events that I considered really interesting. I was amazed, but I guess that is an example of how the Taiwanese curriculum was controlled.

Without a doubt, Taiwan is against communism. Nevertheless, the chinese in china study Mao. They also include capitalism and socialism in their courses.

The information in China is much open than foreign would think. Many kids go to underground internet, accessing BBC, CNN, MSNBC, French newspaper,and Japanese news.

They also access all kinds of knowledge in the internet. There is no such a thing called closed society in China.

takeo

06-25-2002, 11:25 AM

Still many internet-sites are restricted in China, but smart people know how to read them, using us-providers for example. But in fact the regime doesn't need any censorship to maintain its grip on society, today in the PR of China most people agree with the policy of the CPC.

"On the other hand, if this had not been the case and both had joined forces against the Western world, I shudder to think of the consequences. Thus, I mostly consider this schism fortunate."

it all depends from which point of view you are looking at it... :D
I think communism would have won the cold war.

cerulean

06-25-2002, 11:26 AM

Originally posted by takeo

it all depends from which point of view you are looking at it... :D
I think communism would have won the cold war.

It wasn't bad enough that Stalin and Mao killed tens of millions separately, but you wish they had done this in the Western world as well?

Mediocrates

06-25-2002, 11:29 AM

I think communism would have won the cold war.

I think you mean the standing around in the cold to buy toilet paper and shoes war.

takeo

06-25-2002, 11:33 AM

at the time of the schism Stalin was replaced by more moderate leaders in the Soviet-Union and in other communist countries (except Albania and North-korea), while not so much later Deng took over from Mao, Deng Xao Ping was a real genious and would have never led it happen, he would also have stopped the cultural revolution if he could.

actually in most ex-communist countries, people lived better 15 years ago than today.

cerulean

06-25-2002, 11:35 AM

Originally posted by takeo
at the time of the schism Stalin was replaced by more moderate leaders in the Soviet-Union and in other communist countries (except Albania and North-korea), while not so much later Deng took over from Mao, Deng Xao Ping was a real genious and would have never led it happen, he would also have stopped the cultural revolution if he could.

So maybe in your ideal world it would have just been hundreds of thousands or millions killed, not to mention multiple families torn apart, dissidents thrown in psychiatric hospitals, and various other tactics used by the "moderate" leaders in the Soviet Union and China.

Mediocrates

06-25-2002, 11:45 AM

Originally posted by takeo
at the time of the schism Stalin was replaced by more moderate leaders in the Soviet-Union and in other communist countries (except Albania and North-korea), while not so much later Deng took over from Mao, Deng Xao Ping was a real genious and would have never led it happen, he would also have stopped the cultural revolution if he could.

actually in most ex-communist countries, people lived better 15 years ago than today.

Most places not sunk in depravity and anarchy are living better now than 15 years ago.

takeo

06-25-2002, 12:14 PM

Really, give me some examples please?
even in eastern germany there is more unemployment now than 15 years ago, the former communist party is very popular (in czech republic as well, and those are currently the richest parts of central- and Eastern europe, who always resented being part of the former east)

http://www.undp.org/hdr2001/indicator/indic_21_1_1.html

look at the HDI ranking in 1985 and 1999 and compare...
the countries that remained communist and the countries that renounced communism ...

"So maybe in your ideal world it would have just been hundreds of thousands or millions killed, not to mention multiple families torn apart, dissidents thrown in psychiatric hospitals, and various other tactics used by the "moderate" leaders in the Soviet Union and China."

After the death of Stalin or Mao few people got executed for political reasons, with the exception of Tien An Men of course, most of them terrorists in the uygur autonomous region or during the azeri-armenian conflict in the 80's.
ps: i'm not saying that everything was perfect in the communist world, they really needed and still need democratisation, but living in a communist country was for many people much better than in a capitalist country, if you don't believe me than visit Eastern European countries such as Romania or Russia, and ask people how they perceived the change.
also ask the chinese living in the PRC or vietnamese how they perceive the regime in power... in Cuba it's not so clear because of the economic stagnation since the 90's and non-stop flow of propaganda, but still a small majority of people supported the regime. (and not because of fear, the ones denouncing the regime did it in the strongest possible words...Cuba isn't North Korea you know... )

Mediocrates

06-25-2002, 12:22 PM

Aggregate standards of living in Europe, N America including Mexico, Central America, Pacific Rim, PRC, Viet Nam, India. I don't doubt that the 'second spring' of Eastern Europe/Russia has turned wet and muddy but not all countries USED to be communist.

elke

06-25-2002, 03:29 PM

Communism, at least as practiced by Russia and China, is not a self-sufficient system. It would have collapsed sooner or later, regardless of who had a schism with whom.

Russia found it necessary several times to introduce NEP, and look at China today - where is their communist ideology now? The main thrust of Communism as an ideology is on economics, not form of government. The "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" can be construed as a type of Democracy, while what Russia actually had was an olygarchy; which by definition has little to do with the rule of the largest class, the "proletariat".

It's true, given their brutality and paranoia, had these leaders been able to unite, many more people would have died. However, ultimately, the whole house of cards would have collapsed for lack of economic support.

takeo

06-25-2002, 04:27 PM

actually the Soviet economy wasn't doing so bad after all, the command economy had some desadvantages, sure, but these could have been altered by introducing a certain amount of market-economy, as Lenin did during NEP and Deng did in the 80's. Communism doesn't mean self-sustaining, Marx has never excluded trade, only some off-springs of communism such as North-Korea believe in total autarchy.
China today is not completely socialist in economic sence, yet th" socialist marketeconomy" is not just propaganda, it really exists, the chinese economy is centrally organised, foreign companies don't own their companies but "lease" them, only companies agreeing to invest capital or technology are invited in the country, the economy is still regulated by central and regional planning, still a large part of the industry is owned by cooperatives or the state. But the chinese came to the conclusion that in some areas you need private/foreign initiative/investment in order to be competent, such as small shops, agriculture, restaurants, high-tech, telecom, while other sectors are owned by the state, but state-companies have to be self-suficient. However accumulation of wealth in china is less probable because of the high taxes, so that private as well as the state economy benefit to the whole of the society, unlike most thirth world countries such as india which failed to attain the same level of devellopment, or only for a small part of the population.

the party is supposed to be the representative of the proletariat, which is not completely the case, altough the party was strongly implanted in the population, the highest levels did not have enough accountability.

elke

06-25-2002, 04:57 PM

What I am saying is that the Soviet-style economic system, "a rose by any other name...etc.", is not self-sustaining in that form. The minute NEP-type reforms are introduced, it is no longer the "Communism" we all know and love :D

The whole concept behind the October Revolution was to re-distribute the wealth in a radical way: EVERYTHING was to be owned by the State (i.e. "proletariat" en masse). Therefore, as soon as the concept of private property is introduced, such as with NEP, - that system no longer fits the definition of Communism, as defined by Lenin and Stalin.

This has nothing to do with trade per se, it has to do with ownership of resources. Trade only increases production - and therefore, prosperity, - when it's the matter of widening the market for the goods produced. If you are getting paid the same salary whether you produce 10 widgets a day or 50, and have no danger of losing your job, why would you care about trade? That's what makes this particular system not self-sustaining.

takeo

06-25-2002, 05:11 PM

I don't really agree, it's not prooven that people in communist countries should be lasier than in capitalist countries, (because if you produce 10 widgets a day or 50, you will not earn more in both systems)
yet such problems can be solved easily, by introducing incentives, etc.
I don't agree either that communism means everything should be owned by the state, maybe the utopean communism that would be the final stage after socialism, (but in that stage the state should no longer exist).

anyway we are slightly deviating from the original subject, i have that each time with you... ;)

elke

06-25-2002, 05:34 PM

Originally posted by takeo

anyway we are slightly deviating from the original subject, i have that each time with you... ;)

That's my curse! I get that all the time! :(

NewsGuy

06-25-2002, 06:10 PM

Originally posted by takeo
actually the Soviet economy wasn't doing so bad after all...

Sure, if you call total collapse not doing so bad.

:D

takeo

06-25-2002, 07:13 PM

no problem elke, that's typical for women :p (a joke!)

the total collapse happened AFTER 1991, remember...

christian

06-25-2002, 09:01 PM

Originally posted by cerulean

So maybe in your ideal world it would have just been hundreds of thousands or millions killed, not to mention multiple families torn apart, dissidents thrown in psychiatric hospitals, and various other tactics used by the "moderate" leaders in the Soviet Union and China.

Actually, communism is a resistance against western neo imperialism.

Mao and stalin are not nice people. Mao is actually a dark history of china. However, their regime is unifying the country. Of course, in this case, russia is broken down into pieces.

In the long run process, the people rather have gradual socialism.
A capitalistic society can't be implemented in China or Russia. The transitional period of russia looks unstable. Russia today is one of the poorest country in the world. Their economy is without dynamics. The russian government is heavily rely on Western aids. The pride of the people is shattered. It is a big possibility neo-communist party will return.

Unlike russia,chinese socialism,is unifying the country. The GDP in China is 7.0 every consecutive year. The IMF projects the china's economy will equal to US by 2007.

christian

06-25-2002, 09:10 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by takeo

After the death of Stalin or Mao few people got executed for political reasons, with the exception of Tien An Men of course, most of them terrorists in the uygur autonomous region or during the azeri-armenian conflict in the 80's.
ps: i'm not saying that everything was perfect in the communist world, they really needed and still need democratisation, but living in a communist country was for many people much better than in a capitalist country, if you don't believe me than visit Eastern European countries such as Romania or Russia, and ask people how they perceived the change.
also ask the chinese living in the PRC or vietnamese how they perceive the regime in power... in Cuba it's not so clear because of the economic stagnation since the 90's and non-stop flow of propaganda, but still a small majority of people supported the regime. (and not because of fear, the ones denouncing the regime did it in the strongest possible words...Cuba isn't North Korea you know... )

I agree with you. After soviet union collapse, the standard of living in Russia is worsen. However, I like the chinese communism will be based on France model coalition party system. This way, no one can dictate the policy of the nation.
One man dictate the policy of the state is the darkest hour of our history.

This is the dilemma. If we have a coalition party. The policy will greatly comprised by parties interest like India. In other words, coalition party system must be strong like the france model, implementing the socialist policy of the state.

christian

06-25-2002, 09:23 PM

Originally posted by takeo

China today is not completely socialist in economic sence, yet th" socialist marketeconomy" is not just propaganda, it really exists, the chinese economy is centrally organised, foreign companies don't own their companies but "lease" them, only companies agreeing to invest capital or technology are invited in the country, the economy is still regulated by central and regional planning, still a large part of the industry is owned by cooperatives or the state. But the chinese came to the conclusion that in some areas you need private/foreign initiative/investment in order to be competent, such as small shops, agriculture, restaurants, high-tech, telecom, while other sectors are owned by the state, but state-companies have to be self-suficient. However accumulation of wealth in china is less probable because of the high taxes, so that private as well as the state economy benefit to the whole of the society, unlike most thirth world countries such as india which failed to attain the same level of devellopment, or only for a small part of the population.

the party is supposed to be the representative of the proletariat, which is not completely the case, altough the party was strongly implanted in the population, the highest levels did not have enough accountability.

WTO will greatly effect the state infrastucture. After five years, the policy of PRC will be invisible hand control. Gradually, private sectors will replace state enterprise. In the long run, state enterprise will greatly diminish.

The European especially the germans is investing billions of dollars in China. In fact, HK is the base of foreign headquarters.

In theory, if the trend continues without big interruption. China will become a secular country.

The corporate tax in china is 33%. It is still small amount, comparing to the european nations. Moreover, the foreign company has alternative tax system. Which is 15% tax rate.
Currently, the wto rules forces china, cancelling the 15% tax incentive.

cerulean

06-25-2002, 10:15 PM

Christian, I was just reading another article about the coming demographic disaster in China, as there are so many more males than females.

http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20020619/4204854s.htm

Given this circumstance, is it really possible that China is going to be as well off as you say? Where are all the necessary women going to come from?

christian

06-25-2002, 10:40 PM

Originally posted by cerulean
Christian, I was just reading another article about the coming demographic disaster in China, as there are so many more males than females.

http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20020619/4204854s.htm

Given this circumstance, is it really possible that China is going to be as well off as you say? Where are all the necessary women going to come from?

It is not as bad as the article says. In fact, it is not considered a problem. If a male makes enough money, supporting middle class income. There is no problem with marriage.

In the articles, it states the man who is making a income ($70 ). Which he can't even supports a normal middle class standard of living, such as roof, food, and daily family expenses.

These article is writing for 40 million people. Which they are not in the middle class standard.

If you are a parent. Will you consider these type of man as your son in law?

There are few requirement for you as well.

The problem is the woman in China and HK, getting choosy about their life long partnership. They wouldn't consider a man, who can't support a decent standard of living.

Here is some of the woman's point of view, before marriage.
It is called woman sense of security.

1) daily family expenses
2) food
3) house
4) middle class entertainment
5) career

Come to Shezhen, HK, and shanghai. There are many beautiful unmarried woman. Which is available. :D :p

cerulean

06-25-2002, 10:52 PM

Originally posted by christian
If you are a parent. Will you consider these type of man as your son in law?

Of course it's not up to me, but I hope my daughter (who is way too young yet) will continue to be practical, and that she will strive to be self-supporting.

The problem is the woman in China and HK, getting choosy about their life long partnership. They wouldn't consider a man, who can't support a decent standard of living.

This is reasonable. But if there are tens of millions of men in a country with no hope of a family life, this is very bad from a societal point of view, whether it is due to sex ratios, low income, or both. Sociologically, a large surplus male population tends to lead to war, or at least a high crime rate.

Come to Shezhen, HK, and shanghai. There are many beautiful unmarried woman. Which is available.

(Not that it matters, but I am female. I do agree that many Asian women are beautiful and accomplished.)

I agree China has made enormous strides in the past 50 years, despite the murderous despotism of its leaders.

christian

06-25-2002, 10:58 PM

Originally posted by takeo
Really, give me some examples please?
even in eastern germany there is more unemployment now than 15 years ago, the former communist party is very popular (in czech republic as well, and those are currently the richest parts of central- and Eastern europe, who always resented being part of the former east)

http://www.undp.org/hdr2001/indicator/indic_21_1_1.html

look at the HDI ranking in 1985 and 1999 and compare...
the countries that remained communist and the countries that renounced communism ...

"So maybe in your ideal world it would have just been hundreds of thousands or millions killed, not to mention multiple families torn apart, dissidents thrown in psychiatric hospitals, and various other tactics used by the "moderate" leaders in the Soviet Union and China."

After the death of Stalin or Mao few people got executed for political reasons, with the exception of Tien An Men of course, most of them terrorists in the uygur autonomous region or during the azeri-armenian conflict in the 80's.
ps: i'm not saying that everything was perfect in the communist world, they really needed and still need democratisation, but living in a communist country was for many people much better than in a capitalist country, if you don't believe me than visit Eastern European countries such as Romania or Russia, and ask people how they perceived the change.
also ask the chinese living in the PRC or vietnamese how they perceive the regime in power... in Cuba it's not so clear because of the economic stagnation since the 90's and non-stop flow of propaganda, but still a small majority of people supported the regime. (and not because of fear, the ones denouncing the regime did it in the strongest possible words...Cuba isn't North Korea you know... )

Although, many chinese have so much pain in Tiannmen. Many still views Tiannmen as a benefit. If the student movement succeed their purpose. We will be another russia, begging for money from western civilzation. Most of the chinese in China haven't received a post secondary university degree. Given to such, there are unlimited unrest. It is even worser than russian unstability.

Deng Xiaping is actually a long term viewer. The chinese economy in the late 1988, is starting up. Deng wouldn't let any interruption, delaying the massive economic reform. After 12 years,it is proven the PRC decision on tianmen is correct.

takeo

06-26-2002, 02:18 AM

hey cerulean, enchanté ;)

"Of course it's not up to me, but I hope my daughter (who is way too young yet) will continue to be practical, and that she will strive to be self-supporting. "

i noticed in China and in Asia in general the economic position of the man is very important for a marriage. emancipation has not yet reached Asia...

"This is reasonable. But if there are tens of millions of men in a country with no hope of a family life, this is very bad from a societal point of view, whether it is due to sex ratios, low income, or both. Sociologically, a large surplus male population tends to lead to war, or at least a high crime rate. "

that's right

"Come to Shezhen, HK, and shanghai. There are many beautiful unmarried woman. Which is available. "

i don't really like chinese women, but on the contrary southeast-asian women are irresistable... (vietnam, cambodia, thailand, laos, myanmar), many Chinese come to this region to search a wife.

"WTO will greatly effect the state infrastucture. After five years, the policy of PRC will be invisible hand control. Gradually, private sectors will replace state enterprise. In the long run, state enterprise will greatly diminish. "

i think indeed it will accelerate liberalisation, yet china became member of the WTO on its own conditions, which stipulated that china could still controll its economy and the investments, i'm not sure the privatisations will go ahead, because in the last CPC-congress there was decided to halt further privatisation, but restructure state-companies.

"In theory, if the trend continues without big interruption. China will become a secular country. "

it is already...

"The corporate tax in china is 33%. It is still small amount, comparing to the european nations. Moreover, the foreign company has alternative tax system. Which is 15% tax rate.
Currently, the wto rules forces china, cancelling the 15% tax incentive. "

I once read that in China tax is negociated for every company apart, according to which jobs they offer, how much investment or new technology they bring in the country.
The downside of this system is that it allows corruption.

"I agree with you. After soviet union collapse, the standard of living in Russia is worsen. However, I like the chinese communism will be based on France model coalition party system. This way, no one can dictate the policy of the nation.
One man dictate the policy of the state is the darkest hour of our history. "

What do you mean, french model coalition party system? in fact the French system is similar to the American, presidential, except that we have the choice between more than two parties and politics isn't as corrupted by money and business as in the US.

elke

06-26-2002, 03:48 AM

OK, I agree, China is not an immediate danger. It does seem much more interested in economics than in military conquest. The only worrisome part, to me anyway, is that they may sell nasty arms to nasty countries.

Christian, do you think that China is in a transitional period to become more democratic as far as its form of government is concerned? Just curious, no hidden agenda in this question... :)

Regarding the laziness quotient in Capitalist vs. Communist countries: it's true that an average worker in US won't make extra money from more production, in immediate terms; but s/he stands a very good chance of ending up on unemployment rolls if the production standards aren't met, either fired or "laid off" because the company closes or "downsizes". In addition, most companies have figured out that it pays to give incentives to exceptionally good workers. There are bonuses, awards, etc. to assure such incentives.

In contrast, in Russia so long as you showed up, even late, for work - you were not going to be fired. There were no layoffs, as I remember, and incentives were more often the result of Communist party membership than superior production.

christian

06-26-2002, 04:11 AM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by takeo
[B]hey cerulean, enchanté ;)

i noticed in China and in Asia in general the economic position of the man is very important for a marriage. emancipation has not yet reached Asia...

Of course, it is important. Most of us have confucious value. Which means marrying for life time. No one wants to stuck with a man, who is not capable for providing basic needs. However, there are some woman who is not that materialistic.

If you are a woman. It is scary to stuck with a man for rest of your life. Which he can't provide you the basic needs, such as clothing, child caring expenses, etc.

.

"This is reasonable. But if there are tens of millions of men in a country with no hope of a family life, this is very bad from a societal point of view, whether it is due to sex ratios, low income, or both. Sociologically, a large surplus male population tends to lead to war, or at least a high crime rate. "

that's right

"Come to Shezhen, HK, and shanghai. There are many beautiful unmarried woman. Which is available. "

i don't really like chinese women, but on the contrary southeast-asian women are irresistable... (vietnam, cambodia, thailand, laos, myanmar), many Chinese come to this region to search a wife.

Just as I thought. My friend in Paris told me the french guys like dark skin ladies and Korean. ;)

i think indeed it will accelerate liberalisation, yet china became member of the WTO on its own conditions, which stipulated that china could still controll its economy and the investments, i'm not sure the privatisations will go ahead, because in the last CPC-congress there was decided to halt further privatisation, but restructure state-companies.

I am not sure either, because recently privatization already causes unemployment and protests.
"In theory, if the trend continues without big interruption. China will become a secular country. "

it is already...

Well. The middle class is still not a driven force in political aspects. The law is not creditential. There are lots of reform to implements

I once read that in China tax is negociated for every company apart, according to which jobs they offer, how much investment or new technology they bring in the country.
The downside of this system is that it allows corruption.

In the case with all the developing country, corruption will occur. The corruption will diminish, if the masses reach the middle class level income. The transparency of politics is enacted.

What do you mean, french model coalition party system? in fact the French system is similar to the American, presidential, except that we have the choice between more than two parties and politics isn't as corrupted by money and business as in the US.

I mean coaliton government in europe. There are so many coalition government in europe, such as Holland,etc. That is the news reporting. I never check the authenticity of this report. :p

I always thought France is a coalition party government. Well. I am mistaken.

christian

06-26-2002, 04:17 AM

Originally posted by elke
OK, I agree, China is not an immediate danger. It does seem much more interested in economics than in military conquest. The only worrisome part, to me anyway, is that they may sell nasty arms to nasty countries.

Christian, do you think that China is in a transitional period to become more democratic as far as its form of government is concerned? Just curious, no hidden agenda in this question... :)

Yes and No. Democratic system as american bi party system is impossible. It will creates greater instability.

Singapore is the example of future china. I suspect the leaders on the top, will have a singapore system in china. Since, the top level officials are studying their political structure as in a microscope.

christian

06-26-2002, 04:21 AM

Takeo,

I read the history books another day. I am surprise at one picture. In one picture, the communist party carries a mao picture.

Does communist have enough vote in France?

I thought france is against communism in the cold war era.

takeo

06-26-2002, 02:04 PM

France was a member of nato but refused to participate in any nato-action and had good relations with communist countries.
the PCF used to be the biggest party in france, nowadays they only have around 10% of the votes, but the communist labour union is still the most powerfull.
the pcf is certainly not maoist.

"f you are a woman. It is scary to stuck with a man for rest of your life. Which he can't provide you the basic needs, such as clothing, child caring expenses, etc. "

i saw an interesting movy from Singapore, the wife choose her man because she tought he was rich, when it turned out to be a lie, she wanted divorse...

"Just as I thought. My friend in Paris told me the french guys like dark skin ladies and Korean. "

exactly :p

"Well. The middle class is still not a driven force in political aspects. The law is not creditential. There are lots of reform to implements"

but secular means, "non-religious" if i'm right...

"In the case with all the developing country, corruption will occur. The corruption will diminish, if the masses reach the middle class level income. The transparency of politics is enacted. "

i'm not so sure, because i heard korea and japan are very corrupted as well...

"I always thought France is a coalition party government. Well. I am mistaken. "
well, here you have a "left-block" with the socialists, ecologists and communists, and a right-wing block with all right-wing parties. there is also the the extremist front national, but they will never be included in any coalition.
in other european countries as holland, Belgium, spain, italy austria, scandinavia, etc. coalitions are more important.

takeo

06-26-2002, 02:12 PM

Singapore is not a democracy, i don't think the chinese leaders will abandon communism, but perhaps they will try to democratise the system.
yes, you're right china is not a treat to us-security (as the soviet-union was never a treat either for the us, only in the propaganda), but indirect they are a treat to us-domination in the world.

elke

06-26-2002, 03:35 PM

I don't agree. Soviet Union was a threat to the West. Even if they weren't expansionist for the sake of expansionism (which I am not so sure was the case), they were sufficiently paranoid to "push the button" out of their persecution complex.

I actually know how to put on a gas mask, how to create a decent one from materials readily available at home, and how to prepare house windows for a nuclear blast (yea, I know, stupid isn't it? ;) Like anyone would even care at that point). All courtesy of the "civil defense" classes that were mandatory when I was a kid. We also spent much time playing in the bomb shelters scattered all over my neighborhood. In contrast, my husband tells me that they had "tornado drills" in school "drop under the desk and cover your head with your hands!" :)

christian

06-26-2002, 10:45 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by takeo
[B]

"Just as I thought. My friend in Paris told me the french guys like dark skin ladies and Korean. "

exactly :p

I always think french woman is prettier. They have green blue eyes. They have blonde hair with shinny white skin. :D

One french guy told me he likes korean, because of their shinny white skin.

Is it true? French woman likes black and arabs.
Too bad, I can't have a blonde french wife. :D

christian

06-26-2002, 11:07 PM

Originally posted by takeo
France was a member of nato but refused to participate in any nato-action and had good relations with communist countries.
the PCF used to be the biggest party in france, nowadays they only have around 10% of the votes, but the communist labour union is still the most powerfull.
the pcf is certainly not maoist.

If my memory serve me correctly. France indirectly participate in the kosvo war, due to American and britain pressure. Thus, the nato army strike against Yugoslavia government.
It is britain and US, implementating action against Serbia.

Unless, European has their own independant army, such as Eurocorp. Or else, nato is just another instrument tool of US cowboy adventure.

Mediocrates

06-27-2002, 05:17 AM

implementating action against Serbia.

Is that bad?

takeo

06-27-2002, 12:14 PM

yes, it was bad and totally needless. Yougoslavia accepted foreign troops and autonomy for kosovo, the only thing they didn't accept was NATO-occupation and independance for kosovo under kla-leadership. Rambouillet was a joke and many innocent people died in Yougoslavia and kosovo because of the nato-actions, they also encouraged the kLA-terrorists to kill more serbian civilians, and the serbian para-military to commit crimes.
Funny (well, actually the better suited word is tragicomic...) if you compare the treatment of Israel and yougoslavia...

yes, france participated in this action, but many french didn't agree to this mistake, some french officials even spied for serbia.

well, actually if you like fairskinned, blonde tall women with blue eyes, you should go for scandinavian or Holland woman, French are more a mix of southern and northern European, and with a lot of influence from mediterranean or eastern european immigrants... (actually beautiful people too, israeli girls are one of the most beautiful i ever saw, especially the Russian jewish ones ;) ...) . The normal french lady has brownish hair and green eyes but that isn't too bad either;)

Elke, i agree in the soviet-union the fear for the us was cultivated, but wasn't that vice-versa? (maybe not to the same extend, but pretty heavy too as i said before people in oklahoma were afraid of my parents because they had russian names...)
but still i think the us was a bigger treath to the soviet-union than vice-versa, for example during the cuba-crisis the us treated with a nuclear war.
i wonder how it felt for you to migrate to the great ennemy during the cold war? must have been strange, no, from both sides?
for my parents too to a certain extend, yet France wasn't really anti-soviet in the 60's.

Mediocrates

06-27-2002, 12:46 PM

Are you medicated?

elke

06-27-2002, 06:32 PM

Takeo, the reason US was threatening nuclear war, was because Russians secretly put missiles in Cuba, only 80 miles away from the Florida Coast. Would you care to venture a guess as to why they did that? :)

Americans were very afraid of the Russians, but I don't think that it was at panic level, for most of them. My husband was born and grew up in the Midwest, in a lower-middle-class community; and I would say that his - and his family's - views are representative of those of an "average American". I did not encounter too much anti-Russian feeling here, obviously not from him ;) (he just hates Russian restaurant food, that's all :D ).

takeo

06-27-2002, 07:04 PM

"Takeo, the reason US was threatening nuclear war, was because Russians secretly put missiles in Cuba, only 80 miles away from the Florida Coast. Would you care to venture a guess as to why they did that? "

probably for the same reason the us put missiles near the Russian border in Turkey in the 50's...

"Americans were very afraid of the Russians, but I don't think that it was at panic level, for most of them. My husband was born and grew up in the Midwest, in a lower-middle-class community; and I would say that his - and his family's - views are representative of those of an "average American". I did not encounter too much anti-Russian feeling here, obviously not from him (he just hates Russian restaurant food, that's all )."

that's what we would call a hate-love-relation ;)

elke

06-27-2002, 08:02 PM

No, I don't terrorize him with Russian cooking, I just cook Jewish instead :) .

Right, you guessed it: fear! The Soviet Union was pathologically paranoid, while believing that Communist revolution in the rest of the world was inevitable.

christian

06-27-2002, 08:23 PM

takeo

06-28-2002, 04:14 AM

"No, I don't terrorize him with Russian cooking, I just cook Jewish instead . "

hey, Russian cuisine isn't too bad either!!! (but could terrorise your stomach)

"Right, you guessed it: fear! The Soviet Union was pathologically paranoid, while believing that Communist revolution in the rest of the world was inevitable"

yep, as the us had paranoid fear too of the Soviet-Union, if not they wouldn't have treatened with nuclear war in Cuba.

Mediocrates

06-28-2002, 04:24 AM

Well you DID create the buffer states in Eastern Europe specifically to be a shield against Western invasion. Always willing to fight to the last Pole.

Mediocrates

06-28-2002, 04:35 AM

Originally posted by takeo
probably for the same reason the us put missiles near the Russian border in Turkey in the 50's...

Both sides knew at the time that the Jupiter missiles stationed in Turkey were at best, a symbolic act since they were already being withdrawn from service and were, even in 1962, several years obsolete. Part of the impetus behind stationing missiles in Cuba was a kind of brinksmanship specifically to see if the US would blink because while the launch platforms became this big political deal the fact that the 3CP had also stationed nuclear capable bombers there as well never rose to the same level of hysteria. The missiles were largely, again, a symbolic act to some extent. Moreover the 3CP wanted to have some response to our unfettered survellience over the 3CP even after the U2 Gary Powers incident. From 1960 until the first KH platforms the US continued spy missions both from planes and from primitive orbital platforms. Don't forget that the SR-71 was developed (61-62) to counter Russian AA technology that shot down the U2 and it was several years after operational use that LBJ admitted that the SR-71's even existed. All through the early 1960's the CIA and the USAF continued unrestricted spy flights using whatever they had handy. It was also the time of the st use of spy submarines to gather quality intelligence. The Russians knew this was going on but they couldn't find our subs or do anything about it. So, in order to make a grand play for relevance the 3CP did what it could and rattled some cages by deploying mobile launch platforms to Cuba.

takeo

06-28-2002, 05:33 AM

maybe so, but at least the Soviets succeeded in removing the missiles at the Turkish-Soviet border and prevent any further aggression against Cuba.

elke

06-28-2002, 03:25 PM

What are you talking about? What further aggression? We were taught, specifically, that Communism is going to take over the world. We were not taught ANYTHING about the Cuban missile crisis, or the Bay of Pigs for that matter. The first I heard of any of it was in an American History class here. That right there tells me that something wasn't kosher there, on the Soviet side: otherwise, it would have been shouted from the rooftops!

takeo

06-28-2002, 05:15 PM

no matter what you were taught, the reality is that in pigs bay terrorists with us-aid tried to reverse the Cuban gouvernment. this is a well-known fact that has not been denied by the us-government as well. (maybe the soviets didn't like to talk much about the Cuba-crisis at all, because it could be perceived as a defeat)

elke

06-28-2002, 07:13 PM

More likely that they had something to hide. It's telling, however, that I learned about the Bay of Pigs (as well as of the Cuban Missile Crisis) in Wheaton, IL High School: as conservative as your Oklahomans, I would venture to say. :)

takeo

06-28-2002, 07:28 PM

yes, but WHAT did they tell about the bay of pigs?
that some Messiahs came to rescue the oppressed Cubans from the Anti-Christ? ;)

elke

06-28-2002, 07:42 PM

Originally posted by takeo
yes, but WHAT did they tell about the bay of pigs?
that some Messiahs came to rescue the oppressed Cubans from the Anti-Christ? ;)

VERY funny! And almost true (no, not really - just kidding) :D

christian

06-29-2002, 02:24 AM

The media is overstress the main point of cuban missle crisis.

The American would never allow a communist country in their back yard. So, the US can contain or control the policitical future of Latin American. US already controls Latin America future, since late 1800's. The building of panama canal is the example of US influence.

In other words, US doesn't want to leave their strategic presence in Latin America.

Ps: Venezula is an example of US influence.

takeo

06-29-2002, 05:52 AM

could be true in Oklahoma :D

yesp christian, that's right, but the media here emphasised this as well.

rhodescholar

06-30-2002, 12:23 PM

"France was a member of nato but refused to participate in any nato-action and had good relations with communist countries."

Except in the 1950s when the idiot DeGaulle had france leave nato, another brilliant strategy from the selfish leader of the most self-centered people on earth, who think the world realy rotates around paris. Guess he forgot - just like the french did - who saved them 7 years earlier.

takeo

06-30-2002, 02:06 PM

guess who thinks the cosmos is turning around the US?

The US, GB and the Soviet-Union saved the world TOGETHER of the nazi's.

rhodescholar

06-30-2002, 06:38 PM

Originally posted by takeo
guess who thinks the cosmos is turning around the US?

The US, GB and the Soviet-Union saved the world TOGETHER of the nazi's.

Huh? I am well aware that 9 out of 10 german soldiers were killed by the soviets.

So what does that have to do with the 6-week fighting machine known as the french?

Who run faster than any other army in history, except its usually in the opposite direction of their opponents.

takeo

07-01-2002, 02:20 AM

:D

so it means we have to be eternally gratefull to the Soviets?
France was defeated, but more French died fighting the nazi's than Americans!

rhodescholar

07-01-2002, 07:48 PM

"so it means we have to be eternally gratefull to the Soviets?
France was defeated, but more French died fighting the nazi's than Americans!"

Too funny. The french wouldnt know how to show/offer gratitude if it landed on them. And dotn forget, those french died being shot in the back by those nazis.

By the way, Takeo, hows life in the Biennevue?

takeo

07-02-2002, 05:10 AM

much better than living in some boring typical suburbia neighbourhood OR slumps like the bronx in the US, thank you...

Mediocrates

07-02-2002, 05:41 AM

Well you DO do 'old' so much better than we. You have so much more of it to start with. We have to make ours from scratch.

In New Orleans in the French Quarter there is a style where you tear the paper wall paper off the walls in ragged strips and spray water on the bare plaster. Then you let it grow mould. When it turns green grey brown you shellac it over and leave it like that. I forget the French term they use but it's something like 'genteel degradation' in English.

takeo

07-02-2002, 05:58 AM

'genteel degradation'

I love that kind of buildings...
typical for Italy, Spain and Latin America, and as well somehow for their civilisation...

cerulean

07-02-2002, 06:11 AM

Originally posted by Mediocrates
In New Orleans in the French Quarter there is a style where you tear the paper wall paper off the walls in ragged strips and spray water on the bare plaster. Then you let it grow mould. When it turns green grey brown you shellac it over and leave it like that. I forget the French term they use but it's something like 'genteel degradation' in English.

Yikes! I'll be thinking about that all day.
This reminds me of the infected walls in Leviticus.

Vic

07-03-2002, 08:00 AM

Originally posted by takeo

well, actually if you like fairskinned, blonde tall women with blue eyes, you should go for scandinavian or Holland woman, French are more a mix of southern and northern European, and with a lot of influence from mediterranean or eastern european immigrants... (actually beautiful people too, israeli girls are one of the most beautiful i ever saw, especially the Russian jewish ones ;) ...) . The normal french lady has brownish hair and green eyes but that isn't too bad either;)Wow! Being a French communist doesn't prevent one from appreciating female beauty. There is still some hope left in you :)[for my parents too to a certain extend, yet France wasn't really anti-soviet in the 60's. How did your parents manage to get a permission to leave the Soviet Union for the rotten capitalist West in the 60ies? Just curious: I've known people to recieve stiff sentences merely for trying the same thing.

takeo

07-03-2002, 08:58 AM

well, i have to admit that our party is one of the best in France from the esthetical point of view :) .

by the way, what's your opinion about German girls?

My parents came in France as educational staff at the Sorbonne university in Paris, where there was a department which had an exchange program with the Soviet-Union (Russia, Ukrain and Belarus), so they didn't have to escape. After the programm ended and they got married they got permission to stay in France.
How did you or elke manage to leave the soviet-union?

elke

07-03-2002, 03:37 PM

Originally posted by takeo
How did you or elke manage to leave the soviet-union?

We were sold for grain :)

In the late 1970's, Russia needed to buy grain, due to yet another drought, or mismanagement, or whatever; so US and Israel made a deal with them to let some Jews out for the privilege of buying American grain.

We were supposed to "reunite with our immediate family, in our historical homeland" - as stated in the permission to leave. However, due to the fact that USSR did not have diplomatic relations with Israel at the time, we had to go through Austria. At that point, many of us went elsewhere - US, Canada, Australia, Germany, etc.

Mediocrates

07-03-2002, 03:40 PM

kind of a new spin on casting bread upon the waters :)

minusthejihad

07-03-2002, 03:45 PM

Me too. Wave of 79. I love it. Best day of my life.

takeo

07-03-2002, 03:54 PM

that's really some life-story... exchanged for grain... :cool:

but why didn't your family choose for Israel?

how did the soviet-autorities knew you wanted to leave?
jihad and elke, how did you feel the first years in the us? I know many Russians who live in the US who had a very hard time adapting.

My family didn't really want to leave the soviet-union forever, they just wanted to have a new experience and travel, and travel outside the Comecon-countries was really not as obvious in the 60's, but they fell in love with France and eachother...

elke

07-03-2002, 04:11 PM

We were actually planning on going to Israel all along. Different things were to be bought, and packed differently, for going to Israel vs. elsewhere. We packed and re-packed at least 4 times: the house was full of boxes from eggs :D (these were considered optimal for the Israeli experience, for some reason).

My father is an electronic engineer, and his friend, who went to Israel shortly before, wrote and told him that jobs in that field were very hard to come by. At that point, literally 1 month or so before we left, he decided to go to the US.

The process was as follows:
1. You get an invitation from a close family member who lives in Israel. Preferably, this is a parent or child. In our case, since my mother's parents were both dead, and my father's mother was also dead, my mother's sister was the one to send the invitation.
2. You apply to OVIR (remember that, Minusthejihad :D ?), give them all the background info, documents, etc. etc., and WAIT...and WAIT...and WAIT. During this time, all sorts of things happen: for example, you get fired from your job, your neighbors somehow find out, by some sort of osmosis or something, you may be watched (followed), etc. etc.
3. You hopefully, receive permission to leave. You then sell whatever possible, receive a hand-written notebook from other emigrants, which you have to copy by hand (it tells you what to buy for sale en route, what you need for immediate use, etc.).
4. You apply for a visa to Israel. In order to do so, you have to make your way to the Dutch Embassy, which did business for the Israelis (no diplomatic relations, remember).
5. You receive your visa, "buy" your Soviet citizenship back (you pay money and your citizenship is revoked), and begin making arrangements for leaving - i.e. plane tickets, whatever.

This was the process in the late '70s (Yes, Minusthejihad, December 9, 1979, and you?).

Vic

07-03-2002, 05:20 PM

Originally posted by elke
This was the process in the late '70s (Yes, Minusthejihad, December 9, 1979, and you?). I remember December 79 as the time of the Afghanistan invasion. The same announcement of some 10 lines in all newspapers, my very young self checking the globe for the country, the grown-ups looking sick and scared...

elke

07-03-2002, 05:27 PM

Originally posted by Vic
I remember December 79 as the time of the Afghanistan invasion. Some 10 lines in a newspaper, my very young self checking the globe for the country, the grown-ups looking rather sick and scared...

We left literally days before the invasion. I am a few years older than you, so I also remember sometime (a few months?) before seeing a program on TV about Afghanistan - where I heard about that country for the very first time in my entire life! We heard about the invasion while in Italy, and thought (or at least, I thought), that it was not real - a mistake or something...

takeo

07-04-2002, 09:09 AM

"my very young self checking the globe for the country"

many young Americans probably repeated your gesture last year... :D

Elke, I asked today, my parents tought they got spied too before leaving and were toroughfully checked, altough it was around 10 years earlier. They didn't have to pay anything however, everything was payed for by the university.
How did the people around you react to your departure?

hey Elke, if i would have emigrated and passed trough Italy very well possible i would stay there... such a pretty country.

elke

07-04-2002, 09:20 AM

Well, remember: we only had approximately $400, plus some perfectly useless to everyone other than some Italians, gewgaws we bought for sale. Everything: food, rent, other expenses - was paid for by the JOINT. We weren't completely free to choose where we wanted to stay (not that many of us really wanted to stay in Italy anyway: the reason we didn't go to Israel was jobs , and Italy was not much better than Israel in that respect at the time)

You have to understand, Takeo, your parents are a very special case. For most of us, travel outside the country, let alone into "cap. countries" (capitalist, which included Yugoslavia for some reason) - was well-nigh impossible. You simply couldn't get permission to go, even as a tourist. My father in particular, due to possession of an extremely big mouth (inherited by his eldest daughter to a large degree :D), was no candidate for any travel "outside".

takeo

07-04-2002, 09:44 AM

so the principle reason for emigration was economic, right?
yep, i know for the "outside" travel was not as obvious, but many Russians went to prague, Estland or Eastern Germany to have a "touch of the West" i heard...
however my parents have friends who were in a choral and could travel to Spain, Belgium, and western Germany during the 70's and 80's. soviet-citizens could go freely to cuba i heard.
for many Russians the 90's did however not mean they could go and explore the wide world, on the contrary, they had to go trough some heavy bureaucracy even just to visit their cousins in the Ukrain, and could pretty much forget about visiting any non CIS-state, and most didn't even had the money to continue their yearly holiday near the Black Sea.

"My father in particular, due to possession of an extremely big mouth (inherited by his eldest daughter to a large degree ), was no candidate for any travel "outside"."

I guess this is an extremely usefull caracteristic in the US of A ;)

elke

07-04-2002, 09:50 AM

No, the reason for emigration was not economic. The reason for immigration to a particular country was.

We have had many friends in the music world, who did manage to go "outside"; but they were watched consistently and obviously, while there. There were others who couldn't go anywhere (one of our friends was a Russian Jewish artist Kaplan. His work was published in Europe and US, but he couldn't go anywhere, nor could he display his work in Russia. He bought our co-op when we left :D).

takeo

07-04-2002, 10:02 AM

i see: first objective: leaving the USSR
second: to where?

Kaplan, why couldn't he display his work and was prohibited to travel?

i think most Soviets woudn't leave (forever) even if they had the chance, but probably the brightest ones who would have high salaries in the west would leave (as well as the ambitious ones or the ones critical of the regime), that's the problem of communist countries around the world.
While in Cuba i spoke some Russians who immigrated there in the 70's, obviously their reason was not economic (I never figured out wy exactly), but some got great jobs in Cuba (industrial instructor, ingeneer, etc.) which permitted them to live as "God in Cuba", and i can assure you that isn't too bad after all... Those last ones mostly left after the economic downturn in the 90's, but many others stayed, and have become Cubans.

elke

07-04-2002, 10:17 AM

I will have to discuss this with my parents: after all, I was only 14 when we left, and many such discussions went right over my head at the time :)

My understanding was that he couldn't publish because his work had to do with Jewish life and made references to religious subjects. By the time we knew him, he was a very old man (in his 80s, I believe).

What you have to understand is the very arbitrariness that was the rule in Russia during the Communist times. Although the powers that be attempted to regulate almost every aspect of a Soviet citizen's existence, they concentrated on such things as your travel plans and your thoughts, rather than on the application of laws and regulations in consistent manner. It could well be up to the particular clerk, who may have had a bad day, when Mr. Kaplan wanted to go visit whatever country.

Mediocrates

07-04-2002, 10:43 AM

I get the sense Tak you are very critical of OTHER people leaving the 3CP while celebrating your family's good fortune.

takeo

07-04-2002, 03:31 PM

i'm not critical, if they look upon it as in improvement for themselves or their family than who am I to criticise them?
Without immigration the US wouldn't exist, but even France or Russia would look very different today.
I think arbitrariness is STILL very much a problem in Russia, even if it's no longer communist. Look at Putin, he is persecuting the oligargs that criticised him while other branches of the Russian maffia get new great opportunities. If we tried to enter Russia some years ago, they said I still needed an invitation in the embassy, as well as my friends, one week later an other employee said that we could pay for a visum without invitation, also if you're in in Russia or the Ukrain and you forgot to registrate you should pray that the cop or official will be in a good mood (or ready for "negociation" $$$...)

so elke you're 12 years older than I am... ;)
i guess mediocrates is the senior among us...

Mediocrates

07-04-2002, 03:43 PM

Not by much - 43; BTW today's heat index reached 150: 97 degF @ 85%RH - then it rained and got more humid. There is steam coming off the road now. Plus we had sun showers and lightening at the same time. If the humidty drops quickly tomorrow and it stays over 90 deg, we can expect hail and/or microburst twisters.

We return you to your regularly scheduled programming....

elke

07-04-2002, 08:29 PM

Yes, I am, - 36. My oldest son is going to be 14 in August :).

Actually, it's a scorcher here too - 99 degrees, I think. My whole family whines, except me: I am like you, Takeo, I like hot weather :) Maybe because I spent so much of my life in the cold?

takeo

07-05-2002, 03:40 AM

you're damn lucky, i don't know how much 99 F is exactly, but it's certainly more than here.... (14 degrees C and raining).
actually the Russian summers are better than the parisian ones! (but I'll never go to Russia again in winter...)

Mediocrates

07-05-2002, 03:53 AM

37DegC = 98.6DegF

takeo

07-05-2002, 03:57 AM

:eek: I consider emigrating...

Mediocrates

07-05-2002, 04:36 AM

In Las Vegas, NV there are instances where birds literally fall out of the sky. dead, from the heat. Of course the humidity is more like the Alegerian desert ~5%.

takeo

07-05-2002, 05:02 AM

it must be funny to drive a couple of hours from the wet and cold SF to Las Vegas...
here the difference with the south of France (hot and dry in summer) is great too, but it's still 8 hours with the car.

cerulean

07-05-2002, 05:08 AM

Takeo, if you are into "alternative" culture, I know just the place for you:
The Black Rock Desert in Nevada at the end of August, temps frequently over 40 degrees Celsius.
http://www.burningman.com/

elke

07-05-2002, 06:38 AM

Sorry, Takeo - I just haven't thought about the C vs. F :(

Yes, it was about 38 degrees yesterday. It's supposed to be cooler today.

14 and raining, yuk! :eek:

Mediocrates

07-05-2002, 06:53 AM

Originally posted by takeo
it must be funny to drive a couple of hours from the wet and cold SF to Las Vegas...
here the difference with the south of France (hot and dry in summer) is great too, but it's still 8 hours with the car.

SF to LV is more than a few hours. LA to LV is at least 6 hours so SF to LV must be at least 11+.

Rouen to LeGet is at least 9 hrs (with stops) when I drove it and that was at 150kph most of the way. Ah yes there's nothing like the feeling of going 100mph in the rain in the right lane and a van full of skiers blows past you like you're standing still. Is it possible to even get a speeding ticket in France?

elke

07-05-2002, 07:53 AM

SF to LV is more than a few hours. LA to LV is at least 6 hours so SF to LV must be at least 11+.

:D I can't tell you how difficult it is for the Europeans to fully internalize the distances involved in the US, especially its Western part. I went to Los Angeles on business last year, and was thinking about taking a day trip (sic!) to the Grand Canyon...until I realized that it would take me 11 hours or so to just drive down there :o .

cerulean

07-05-2002, 07:56 AM

I wonder if Takeo was thinking San Francisco to Reno, which is indeed about a 3-4 hour drive.

takeo

07-05-2002, 09:18 AM

yes, yikes, in general we only have around 15 days in a year over 25 degrees C... :( the only good news is that it is even worse in Great Brittain...

I might consider moving to Israel...

"SF to LV is more than a few hours. LA to LV is at least 6 hours so SF to LV must be at least 11+. "

ah, ok, i didn't really had a clue, only i saw on the map it was rather close, but than again close in the US doesn't mean the same as close in Europe...
I don't know Reno, except the former minister...
Black Rock desert, is it hotter than Death valley? I heard Tucson is the hottest city in the US.

"Rouen to LeGet is at least 9 hrs (with stops) when I drove it and that was at 150kph most of the way. Ah yes there's nothing like the feeling of going 100mph in the rain in the right lane and a van full of skiers blows past you like you're standing still. Is it possible to even get a speeding ticket in France?"

From Paris to Marseille is around 8 hours, but the road is very good. With the train (tgv) only 4 hours. Yes, it's possible, but people resist stronger laws, French like to drive fast and drink, which is not an ideal situation, yet in the US they drive like turtles, you can get a speedticket if you drive 100 km p h on the highway... really strange for a country where a car is so important, highways are great and trains really suck.
Elke, as a Russian you had one advantage in the US, you were already acostumbrated to large distances!!!

Isn't Florida the nicest climate in the US?

the hottest city (literally) i've been to is Bangkok, average minimum temperature 25 degrees C, average maximum 35 during all year round, the coldest temperature EVER registered was 19 degrees C during the night. (shops who sell jackets never did such a good business)
the coldest was Sverdlovsk in january!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (- 39 degrees C :eek: )

elke

07-05-2002, 12:20 PM

Well, my immediate family has successfully avoided Siberia, and our vacations mainly were spent in the Caucasus and Odessa, Ukraine (where half the Jewish population, plus some Russians, were some sort of relatives :)). It's just not real until you actually go somewhere - the maps are deceptive, you are right! That's what fooled me with the Grand Canyon! :)

Mediocrates

07-05-2002, 12:27 PM

Isn't Florida the nicest climate in the US?

If you're a water Buffalo, yeah, it's great.

minusthejihad

07-05-2002, 12:56 PM

Technically I thought I moved to the best climate in America when I moved to San Diego, "America's Finest City" and I can't complain, the weather never changes, but that in itself is boring too.

elke

07-05-2002, 01:15 PM

Originally posted by minusthejihad
Technically I thought I moved to the best climate in America when I moved to San Diego, "America's Finest City" and I can't complain, the weather never changes, but that in itself is boring too.

Oh, shoot, my heart is bleeding for you! :rolleyes: ;) Sunshine most of the year, no heavy coats, no heating bills, and no six-hour commutes due to stupid weather. Where's the fun?!!

minusthejihad

07-05-2002, 01:20 PM

Yes, but tons of stupid people, fake breats, noses, everything. Shallow women, meathead men, and no clue as to what goes on in the rest of the world. And I did pay for heat in the winter and because the houses here aren't insulated, our bill each month was over 300 dollars. Also, I get paid WAY less than in Michigan and there's less jobs and the rent is 1/3 more, so it has its draw backs. As far as cosmopolitan people, don't bet on it Elke. I think I may move to New York or Chicago so I can have a decent conversation with a native.

elke

07-05-2002, 01:38 PM

Yes, New York is the best, IMHO. Even with its share of the nuts, flakes, "meatheads", and the stinky weather. If nothing else, the City itself is fascinating: I have worked there for 7 years straight, but some of the views still take my breath away!

I like New Yorkers: they may not be the politest bunch, but many are well-educated, bright, and - yes - cosmopolitan :). It's a city rich in history and culture, along with pollution, crime, and garbage, unfortunately.

Oh, the rent is very, very high, cost of living is outrageous - but the bright side is that just about anywhere you go on vacation, nothing costs as much as you thought it would ;)

minusthejihad

07-05-2002, 01:52 PM

You gotta come down to Mexico, you can get practically anything for 3 bucks near the border! Yes I have family and friends in Brooklyn, and the last time I was there I got mugged in Williamsburg, but I kind of always thought I would get mugged there. I love that plce. How are people doing after Sept11? Pissed, scared, or both?

elke

07-05-2002, 02:01 PM

"Pissed" is probably the most generally accurate. The next day, the City was a ghosttown! You could hear your footsteps echo, as you walked along the streets normally subject to pedestrian traffic jams.

Everyone became unbearably polite and nice, strangers actually smiled and said hello to each other. But I knew New Yorkers were back to normal about 4 months ago, when I saw a person screaming at a taxi driver that he'll sue him! Oh, well. :( ;)

takeo

07-05-2002, 03:15 PM

did you loose anyone you knew?
a friend of mine died during the earthquake in Istanbul in 1999, which made the international news scaringly real...

New York is indeed a fantastic city full of interesting people, but the mentality is too cold and unpersonal (even compared to Paris, wich is quite an achievement!!!) and indeed inhumanly expensive!

Mexico is really not as cheap as i tought, certainly not the capital.
i heard that if you like hot weather the californian coast is not the best option? why do you have to be a waterbuffalo to like the floridan weather? if it's anything like Cuba than it's just perfect, hot and humid, but nothing extreme.

i've been to Odessa too once upon a time, but can't remember much... but seeing the pictures it really looks like a wonderfull city, those giant steps for example.

cerulean

07-05-2002, 03:33 PM

Takeo asked:
Black Rock desert, is it hotter than Death valley? I heard Tucson is the hottest city in the US.

From what I've read it gets really hot, over 42 degrees Celsius at times, but nowhere near as hot as Death Valley. I posted the link because of the somewhat bizarre desert festival they hold there which you might like if you like Amsterdam as well as you say :)

I don't know about Tucson being the hottest, but it wouldn't surprise me. I wonder if Austin or Houston (Texas) might not be more unbearable, though, because of the combination heat and humidity.

It's so interesting how some people are able to love hot weather.

elke

07-05-2002, 03:33 PM

Two of my professors, who taught continuing education classes I took at the college located just behind where the Building 7 stood, are gone. A girl I knew from my last job is also gone. She was there for a job interview that day, and I am possibly partially responsible for that: I gave her the info regarding some headhunters about a month or two before, and meant to call her to see how she was faring with her job hunt. Too late now.

Mediocrates

07-05-2002, 04:37 PM

2 people who at one time worked for me.

takeo

07-05-2002, 05:16 PM

that's really sad, i'm sure those people, as most of the victims, had no connection whatsoever with the US foreign policy...
what i don't understand is how people died who were not in the twin-buildings (except firemen), before the buildings collapsed the fire should have warned the surrounding buildings to be evacuated?

cerulean, possibly i love the heat because we lack it here...
possibly if i was living in Saoudi Arabia i would love rain and cloudy cold weather...
hot and wet weather has a very relaxing influence, as in a sauna...

ps: i don't really like Amsterdam... I'm really not a hippy-kind ;)

cerulean

07-05-2002, 05:31 PM

Originally posted by takeo
that's really sad, i'm sure those people, as most of the victims, had no connection whatsoever with the US foreign policy...

I haven't had any immediate friends die in New York, the Pentagon, or Israel, but I have had friends of friends die in all three places.

I'm sort of speechless about the second part of the quote, but I can't figure out what to say, so won't say anything.

what i don't understand is how people died who were not in the twin-buildings (except firemen), before the buildings collapsed the fire should have warned the surrounding buildings to be evacuated?

I'm not really sure either, but I know there were some mistakes about telling people it was safer to stay at some point. I guess because this was so unusual an event, no one had made complete plans.

hot and wet weather has a very relaxing influence, as in a sauna...
That is true. That's why I stay in a sauna for 10 minutes and then get back to work :). I don't mind that weather if I don't have anything to do.

ps: i don't really like Amsterdam... I'm really not a hippy-kind ;)

Good :) I'm in favor of preserving my last brain cells myself.

elke

07-05-2002, 05:34 PM

Oh, no! Sue was most definitely not a political person. She did, however, introduce me to Hanukkah Harry character :) , so maybe that was her "sin". She was an Italian American, "and proud of it" - as she used to say.

As far as I know, it was by far mostly the people who were in the Towers who died. Sue was on 104th floor of Building 2, at a job interview. Shortly after the Building 1 was hit, the Einsteins in Building Management decided that Building 2 was safe and cancelled the order to evacuate. Soon after, the second building was attacked, and then collapsed. The people on the upper floors didn't have a chance in the world to survive.

takeo

07-05-2002, 05:49 PM

"I'm sort of speechless about the second part of the quote, but I can't figure out what to say, so won't say anything. "

don't get me wrong, what i mean is that these people were not personally responsible for any possible crime committed in the name of the US. Anyhow Al quaida had no right whatsoever to attack the US, and even less so innocent people. ( i would have found it less a crime however if they only targetted the pentagon...)

I think most people, as myself and even the cnn-commentator, were speachless and too perplexed to react quickly when they saw the images or the fatcs happening.

"That is true. That's why I stay in a sauna for 10 minutes and then get back to work . I don't mind that weather if I don't have anything to do. "

yep, i don't like working either (maybe a bit hippy after all), so that corresponds... ;)

a couple of times i've used the most famous export-product of Amsterdam... , but too often is damaging I think.

Abraham

07-07-2002, 07:38 AM

Originally posted by NewsGuy

Well said.

The Palestinians need to either live as civilized neighbors, or leave and take their massacres and Jihad with them.

ANYONE WHO WISHES TO LIVE IN ISRAEL PEACEFULLY SHOULD BE PERMITTED TO DO SO. EVERYONE WHO THROWS ROCKS, OR IS PRO SUICIDE OR OTHER BOMBINGS, OR PRO ANY SORT OF VIOLENCE SHOULD BE EVICTED ALONG WITH THEIR FAMILY. LIFE IS TOO PRECIOUS AND NEEDS TO BE PROTECTED.

takeo

07-07-2002, 02:15 PM

"ALONG WITH THEIR FAMILY"

so punishing innocent people...

palestinian lifes are precious too you know...
trowing rocks at an occupation-force is not a crime.

NewsGuy

07-07-2002, 05:05 PM

Originally posted by takeo
so punishing innocent people...

palestinian lifes are precious too you know...
trowing rocks at an occupation-force is not a crime.

Not all of them are "innocent" as you claim. Many of them are direct accomplices to the massacrers and are getting paid handsomely for the murder of Jews.

We're not talking about throwing rocks, we're talking about trying to commit genocide and to ethnically cleanse the Jews out of Israel. Punishment of these individuals is justified under international law.

rhodescholar

07-07-2002, 06:16 PM

"throwing rocks at an occupation-force is not a crime."

1)You, like all pathetic euros, never seem to ask that fateful question of WHY the IDf is there. U see, it works like this, you shoot israeli civilians, or throw rocks at them, or kill them in other ways, AND THEN the army goes in. The army does not go in first, it goes in AFTER. Do you understand that?

2) Throwing rocks is assault with a deadly weapon in most countries, including france.

3)"much better than living in some boring typical suburbia neighbourhood OR slumps like the bronx in
the US, thank you...

LOL. And the last time you were in the Bronx was what decade?

AND you STILL havent explained why France segregates its muslims in the Biennevues outside Paris like they did to jews in ghettos in the Middle ages. STILL WAITING for an answer there.

4) Still waiting for an answer from you on WHERE in the 4th Geneva Convention ANYTHING is said about land ownership is mentioned. Though to be honest, i could wait 100 years b/c - because there is no such mention, and you never respond to pointed questions anyway.

5) In 1967, Egypt close the straits leading to Eilat, and Syria and Egypt had already begun launching mortars into israel DAYS before israel attacked Egypt. Egypt also compelled the UN forces to vacate the sinai so the Egyptian armies could attack. Lastly, the arabs had been committing MASSIVE waves of terrorism and attacks from 1965 - early 1967, sufficient enough then--as now--for a military response.

Just because you decide to ignore the facts has no bearing on either the relvency of those facts. Micheal Oren's book "6 Days of War" was vetted by significant numbers of ARAB battalian commanders, soldiers and diplomats who were involved in the 67 War. Too bad you are so committed to the anti-israel agenda, you might learn something for a change by readin the book.

6) Still waiting for an answer from you on:

-why if the pals nationalistic ambltions were so genuine, they never pressed Jordan from 1948 - 1967 for their own state
-why the pals dont suicide bomb kuwait for expelling 300,000 of them in 1991

7) And caught you in YET ANOTHER LIE: only Britain and Pakistan recognized Jordan's seizure of the WB in 1948, NO THE WHOLE WORLD AS YOU SAID/LIED.

Stick to the facts, as i am closely watching your posts.

takeo

07-08-2002, 02:02 PM

"Not all of them are "innocent" as you claim. Many of them are direct accomplices to the massacrers and are getting paid handsomely for the murder of Jews. "

well, being family of a suicide-murderer is not a crime on itself. only totalitarian undemocratic countries take revenge on the family of (political) criminals/terrorists/resistance fighters etc.

"We're not talking about throwing rocks, we're talking about trying to commit genocide and to ethnically cleanse the Jews out of Israel. Punishment of these individuals is justified under international law."

That's right, but NOT on their family.
trowing rocks to occupation soldiers is NO genocide as far as i know...

"1)You, like all pathetic euros, never seem to ask that fateful question of WHY the IDf is there. U see, it works like this, you shoot israeli civilians, or throw rocks at them, or kill them in other ways, AND THEN the army goes in. The army does not go in first, it goes in AFTER. Do you understand that? "

well, the army went in in 1967 and never left the WB and Gaza...

"2) Throwing rocks is assault with a deadly weapon in most countries, including france. "

no, people trowing rocks can not be shot in France, police can use teargaz or anything similar but no deadly weapons.

"LOL. And the last time you were in the Bronx was what decade? "

4 or 5 years ago...

"AND you STILL havent explained why France segregates its muslims in the Biennevues outside Paris like they did to jews in ghettos in the Middle ages. STILL WAITING for an answer there. "

Nobody is segregated, you have neighbourhoods with a predominantly Arab population (because those were the cheapest in the 60's and 70's when the Algerian emigration happened), but French, jewish, Asian, African, Albanian etc. people live there too.

"In 1967, Egypt close the straits leading to Eilat, and Syria and Egypt had already begun launching mortars into israel DAYS before israel attacked Egypt. Egypt also compelled the UN forces to vacate the sinai so the Egyptian armies could attack. Lastly, the arabs had been committing MASSIVE waves of terrorism and attacks from 1965 - early 1967, sufficient enough then--as now--for a military response. "

massive waves of terrorism?

the mortar attacks were on a small scale and as far as i know didn't kill anyone, and they were not even used by Israel as an excuse to invade Egypt.
in Time july 1th, 2002, Michael Elliott wrote:
"In 1837 canadian forces attacked a U.S. ship of that name, killed one of its passengers, set it on fire and then cast it adrift just above Niagara Falls. The british government said its forces had acted in self-defense; those on Caroline, london Claimed, were supporters of a rebellion against Brittish rule in Canada.
In an exchange of diplomaticnotes, U.S. secretary of State Daniel Webster argued that a nation could only justify such pre-emptive hostile action if there was a necessity "instant overwhelming, leaving no choice of means and no moment of deliberation."
Ever since, Webster's dictum has been regarded as a principle of international law, consistent with article 51 of the united nations charter. (...)
What happens if other nations follow the lead of the US and incorporate pre-emption into their strategic thinking? That way lies international anarchy."
the autor gave the example of India invading Pakistan, but i can give the example of France attacking the us because the us can be considered a potential treat with all its nuclear weapons (and it has attacked allies of France in the past), or Russia invading the Baltics because they want to join NATO, or China invading South-Korea or Japan... the possibilities are endless.
This should also be a warning for all the ones whop advocate unilateral aggression against Iraq.

did you read one of the links i provided, you could learn something too and find answers on all your questions.
by the way, you didn't answer my questions.

"-why if the pals nationalistic ambltions were so genuine, they never pressed Jordan from 1948 - 1967 for their own state
-why the pals dont suicide bomb kuwait for expelling 300,000 of them in 1991 "

because Jordan was not building Jordan settlements, gave citizenship to its subjects in the WB and was not really perceived as an occupation force. People could live under Jordanian occupation, but not under israeli one. It's their land and their choice, not yours.
Kouweit is not a part of palestine, they were guests in kouweit, and kouwiet had the right to expell them, even if it was a very hostile, indiscriminate and unhuman decision.

"7) And caught you in YET ANOTHER LIE: only Britain and Pakistan recognized Jordan's seizure of the WB in 1948, NO THE WHOLE WORLD AS YOU SAID/LIED. "

the world recognised israel within its current international borders (pre-1967), so the other parts of palestine were certainly NOT recognised as parts of israel. Do you have any sources to support your theory that only GB and pakistan supported jordan or egyptian grip on the WB/Gaza?

shiva

08-02-2002, 12:51 AM

Gee Christian, so glad you love your "occupation." You are so right :rolleyes: if only Israel would use a "soft hand" like the British has done in Ireland, all would be happy. An institutionalized mentality if ever I've heard one.

eyl

08-02-2002, 10:57 AM

Originally posted by takeo

"In 1967, Egypt close the straits leading to Eilat, and Syria and Egypt had already begun launching mortars into israel DAYS before israel attacked Egypt. Egypt also compelled the UN forces to vacate the sinai so the Egyptian armies could attack. Lastly, the arabs had been committing MASSIVE waves of terrorism and attacks from 1965 - early 1967, sufficient enough then--as now--for a military response. "

massive waves of terrorism?

the mortar attacks were on a small scale and as far as i know didn't kill anyone, and they were not even used by Israel as an excuse to invade Egypt.
in Time july 1th, 2002, Michael Elliott wrote:
"In 1837 canadian forces attacked a U.S. ship of that name, killed one of its passengers, set it on fire and then cast it adrift just above Niagara Falls. The british government said its forces had acted in self-defense; those on Caroline, london Claimed, were supporters of a rebellion against Brittish rule in Canada.
In an exchange of diplomaticnotes, U.S. secretary of State Daniel Webster argued that a nation could only justify such pre-emptive hostile action if there was a necessity "instant overwhelming, leaving no choice of means and no moment of deliberation."
Ever since, Webster's dictum has been regarded as a principle of international law, consistent with article 51 of the united nations charter. (...)
What happens if other nations follow the lead of the US and incorporate pre-emption into their strategic thinking? That way lies international anarchy."
the autor gave the example of India invading Pakistan, but i can give the example of France attacking the us because the us can be considered a potential treat with all its nuclear weapons (and it has attacked allies of France in the past), or Russia invading the Baltics because they want to join NATO, or China invading South-Korea or Japan... the possibilities are endless.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the situation in 1967. This wasn't a situation where Israel attacked Egypt and Syria because they might be a threat in the future; there were constant cross-border attacks from those countries, both by the fedayeen and cross-border shelling (especially on the Syrian border). Egypt had ordered the UN forces (which were there specifically as a buffer between the countries) out and begun massing forces on the border. Finally, Egypt's closing of the Tiran Straits was, according to every opinion I heard (including in some sources which were rather critical of Israel), a legitimate casus belli in and of itself, regardless of all the rest. I should also point out that Israel did not immediately respond with an attack; there were weeks of diplomatic attempts to resolve the situation. Unfortunately, despite their promises (At the time) to support the terms of the armistice treaties (especially regarding freedom of navigation on the Straits), none of the world powers, when push came to shove, were willing to do anything (to my knowledge, the US was the only nation to even make a concrete suggestion, but it was not carried through either). All this time, the situation was deteriorating; Arab troops were massing on the borders, and Israel could not (and still can't) maintain a condition of alert for an extended period of time.