takeo's roadmap for peace (summary)

[takeo]

well, the roadmap specified nothing, only said it was a topic for discussion. And we are discussing it. And after discussing it, my answer is no, that is ridiculous, and even were it not ridiculous very very few Palestinians are genuine refugees entitled to anything.

discussing it means compromising.

note that Arafat caused their war. Note also that you are the typical marxist in this - assume economic progress based on other exmaples that may or may not be relevant.

They have no independent judiciary. their executive branch is corrupted to the core. the have no infrastructure, no education (other than terrorist education and brainwashed hatred), no civil society, no free press, no free markets, a ridiculously corrupted economic regime, and, to top it all off, no one within the PA, especially Arafat, has shown any inclination to treat any of these things as a priority. And don't blame this on Israel, they showed just as little inclination when they had control under Oslo.

as the studies of Said show it's absolutely clear that the palestinian economy didn't have a real chance to devellop during oslo, the palestinian economy lacked real external borders and roads controlled by the palestinians. But still during the 90's the economy improved considerably compared to the earlier decades. the pa HAS education, infrastructure etc. perhaps not enough but it existed untill israel literally swept it away with bulldozers and tanks... not exactly the brightest move...

Economic growth does not happen in a vacuum. It takes very particualr circumstances for it to be facilitated. The palestininas are about as far on the development chart as the Syrians or the Iranians, who, if you didn't know, have never really done such a good job at fostering ANY economic progress.

actually syrian and iranian living standards are MUCH higher than palestinian ones. of course it could be better but compared to most of their neighbours iran and syria did well.

And they did not really do 'a lot' better as you said. they did marginally better, but they were seriously hurt by a decrease in investment from the colonial power (especially the UK) and were sriously hampered by corruption and faulty economic policy. And they are still wallowing in their own poverty, unless they found enough oil to make this a little better for a little while.

that's simply not true, just look at the indications of the undp. Arab countries generally improved quite a lot since the 50's, but serious problems remain. Some countries are almost up to Western level such as Tunisia or lebanon (without oil)

It never ceases to amaze me that those who are so vociforous on the left about promoting socialist economic ideology have so slight a grasp on the actual realities of markets and economics. Just assume all will be good in the future and leave it at that? Seems a lot like the utopian ideologies that have cost millions of lives and been economic catastrophes in the past hundred years (marxism, naziism) and will continue to do so in the future (Islamism Wahhabiism et al).

nevertheless communist or socialist-oriented economies in the thirth world did generally better than capitalist liberal ones...

you do not seem to get it, so I will lay it out in small words. Closures started because Palestinians would not stop sending terrorists to slaughter Israeli civilians. The purpose of closures is not to intentionally harm civilians but to prevent terrorists from killing Israelis. The fact that civilians are harmed (again in the economic sense rather than in terms of real harm to their physical integrity, which should be a proper conception of terrorism for any reasonable person) is a byproduct, but it was not the intent.

but it's a serious byproduct, some palestinians are near to starving, and it doesn't proove to be a very efficient measure, on the contrary it has been used in the past as a punishment.

I don't know, but if the United States purposely targeted civilians (for death or seriousn bodily harm) for political purposes, then yes, the US did engage in terrorism. What relevance does this have to the current discussion, though?

yes it did (if you are interested in this subject i can provide you with quite some information and titles ) . The relevance is that your theory can be applied on your allies as well as your ennemies. i have a difficult time imagining you condemning the terrorist policy of the US!

worse for whom? For Israelis, I think, the potential that a palestinian state with full control over its borders and without any constraints as to their munitions, armaments or tactics would be far worse than the state of affairs today is very real, and that you cannot even recognize this only reinforces the impression I get from you that you really do not understand Israelis at all, and certainly do not understand their mentality in acting the way they do. But we understand your position very clearly, and reject it because it will not work and will only risk more harm to Israel. How many times must Israel stick its neck out so that the world community can try another 'peace' plan?

a palestinian state would offer israel numerous advantages, the most important one an end to the terror, and a peace-deal as signed with egypt or jordan, which prooved to be very succesfull.

yes I can prove that the PA was in systematic and complete violation of the Oslo agreement, but not now as I lack sources at the moment. But the fatc that Arafat had over 10,000 more 'police' than he was supposed to and the fact that he smuggled in terrorists in his car THE FIRST TIME he entered the Palestinian territory, are a couple of good examples. there are, undoubtedly, scores more, and if we include all the broken promises he made to Arab leaders as head of the PLO (like he will not try to subvert their regimes, he would not use their land as a launching pad for Palestinian terrorism against israelis) material violations would surely count in the hundreds.

do you have any links to sustain this claim?

didn't I make it very clear that I did not want to see this sort of stupid argument? I'm pretty sure I did.

it's a perfectly logical question, since sharon raise to power more israeli civilians died. i think it would be reasonable to think that there's some kind of connection... (after all the man promised to bring peace!)

Again, just because X+Y people died today while only X dies yesterday, it does not follow that the strategic choices of the political actor were bad ones. you fail to follow the most important rule for this sort of this: KEEP EVERYTHING ELSE CONSTANT. Unless you can account for other factors in your model or effectively keep them the same, you cannot just look at the conclusion today and the conclusion yesterday and say the startegy must have been a bad one.

the only thing changing was the israeli policy...

Lets complicate the model a little bit. Say that there is a ramp-up period for terrorism (a reaosnable assumption as it takes time and resources to train and deploy terorrists). now if the former leader followed the peace track and ignored a ramp-up to terrorism, does it not follow that, all else the same, terorirst attacks will be higher in the future than back then?

nope, the kind of terrorism used by hamas and co. doesn't need much ramping up. They have scores of candidates and material can be easily made or acquired. they can attack whenever they have the opportunity and want to.

Lets also look at the strtegic decisions of the other side, as, while there is almost certainly an interaction effect between Israeli and PA actions, the other side's actions can directly impact on the bottom line figure that is at issue (i.e. casualty figures). So, the PA strategy changed about the same time as they launched their little war, though almost surely before-hand based on the logistics involved in starting such an operation.

the pa strategy changed when the israeli started to target the pa (still under barak), it changed even more since Sharon excluded all negotiations.

this is BEFORE Sharon took office, so the proper comparrison must be what would have happened if Sharon had not been elected and the Palestininas continued with their strategy compared to what actually did happen under Sharon. And the numbers seem quite clear. before Defensive Shield Israeli casualty figures were FAR HIGHER than they have been AT ANY POINT SINCE, and there is no reason to believe that absent such a response these figures would have declined by themselves.

operation defensive shield only had very temporarily results, and the only reason why there were a few less attacks during the last months was the hudna. sharon was also responsible for ending this hudna, perhaps barak would have respected this cease-fire.

[takeo]

Seems to me that Sharon's strtegy, when looked at this way, is a relatively good one, unless some other strategy could have been employed to cause the PA to change their strategy away from terrorism and violence (this is just basic game theory type stuff and anyone interested in international politics, especially leftists with their generally deficient knowledge of economics and, dare I say it, basic math, should verse themselves in it). And from everything that I and that the Israelis have seen, the only way to get the PA to moderate their strategy is either to appease them or remove their capability for imposing such significant costs on the Israeli population base.

the pa has already been seriously damaged, so i suppose you mean hamas, jihad, etc.
israel will never succeed to remove the capacity of those organisations without palestinian cooperation. even those walls are useless, since quite some terrorists come from Gaza where walls have already been erected.

Now, appeasment, the preferred European strategy when dealing with this sort of thing, will only further entrench the PAs terror strategy the next time they want something, as it has been shown to be an effective strategy to achieve whatever desires they might have.

bS, the european strategy, as for example in northern ireland, is to deal with the main problems on which terrorism is based, in this case the occupation of palestine. as opposed to the tatcher- and sharon-strategy of eradication of the resistance, which fails miserably in any war where terrorists are worriers have the support of the population.

Defeating them, on the other hand, will surely take more time and be more costly in the immediate term and indeed in the sort-run, but as time goes on (as we have observed) an increasingly aggressive strategy is very efective at disrupting the palestinian terrorism apparatus.

years of Sharon-government haven't stopped terrorism, so clearly this theory stinks!!! (as well as the putin-strategy in chechnia, the soviet-strategy in afghanistan, the american strategy in vietnam or the bush-strategy in iraq... )

Although, diminishing attacks would not necessarily have been better - you end up with a Syria or Hizbullah like situation where the enemy continues to target you but they already have what they wanted.

even this would be a great improvement compared to the current situation. How many israeli citizens died near the border since israel gave up the occupation of southern lebanon?

Israeli police shooting of Israeli Arab protestors was indeed a disgrace, as the judiciary has pronounced in Israel, and it will not be repeated. However, your characterization of this war as a people's uprising is fundamnetally inaccurate - it was a war strtegically developed and purposely implemented by Israel's 'peace partner'. And those 'street rioters' had guns this time, not stones, and they were firing from within crowds at Israelis.

I think it was a popular uprising, one that the pa couldn't stop (and perhaps didn't want to stop). But it's clear it started as a spontaneous popular uprising (i'm not surprised either, i have visited the area only one year earlier)

civiaan deaths or paramilitary/terrorist deaths? What time period was this for? At what point had over two hundred ('hundreds' must mean at least 200) Palestinian civilians been killed in clashes with Israeli military forces. how many of these were killed by Plaestinian crossfire (like that poor Mohamed al-dura boy), or killed as collaborators?

during the first weeks of the intifadeh 100's of palestinians died, this is just a fact. perhaps some were killed in the crossfire but at some occasions israeli soldiers just shot on people throwing stones, which had been recorded by the camera's.

You may like to call these deaths a 'result of Israeli occupation' but the but for cause of them was the war, not the occupation. For had there been no war, even were the occupation to have continued, the people would not have died in this way.

that's bullocks, it's the same as saying if polish or Russians wouldn't have resisted the nazi-invaders there would have been less casualties

And I question your figures, you need to provide a timeline with them and some sort of verification so that I can indeed conclude that the al-asqa brigaes (a terrorist suicide squad, but no matter) was formed after this.

ok, fine i will (i already did so by the way in discussions with newsguy, i'll try to find those)

Also, when was this group formed? When did Hamas get the green light to attack Israeli civilians? When did the incitement of the PA glorifying suicide bombings and Jew killing begin? Did it ever stop? Do you not think this would have ANYTHING to do with Palestinian casualty figures?

it seems a very logival conclusion

I agree that attacking the PA rather than Hamas et al right from the beginning was a mistake, but Israel wanted to show the PA that it must change its strategy of confrontation, as the PA was the recognized authority for the Palestinian territories. But if we could do it all over again, I would suggest targeting the terrorists, 'political' leaders or not, right from the very beginning, including sending in ground forces to arrest and kill them.

by targetting the pa instead of the real terrorists israel sent the wrong message to the palestinians that in fact they declared war against the entire palestinian society. this in return led to an enormous increase in the popularity of terrorist groups.

THE CEASE FIRE OFFERS WERE ALL SHAMS. Everyone seems to know this but you. And once the wall that you and yours are so hostile about is completed, I would expect successful terrorist attacks to decrease substantially, just like in Gaza

still gaza-suicide bombers regularly rock Israel...

First, you are a big fan of symbolism and the like for the Plaestinians, but Jerusalem is THE symbol for the Jews. You must reconcile these positions.

yes, but for palestinians as well, that's why Jerusalem must be divided as it was before 1967. why do you think that not a single embassy resides in jerusalem? palestinians will never agree with an agreement wich gives the entire jerusalem to Israel, palestinians want eastern-jerusalem (or at least the palestinian quarters) as their capital. there can be found a compromise, but at least some parts of jerusalem will return to the palestinians, if you don't accept this it means a solution is absolutely impossible.

Second, the Israelis will return most of the wets bank, just not all of it. those areas which are inhabited by israelis should remain Israeli. Compensation can be worked out.

nope, the settlements must be disbanded as required by several unsc-resolutions, if not peace is impossible. perhaps some near israel's border can be integrated in return for parts of israel, that would be possible.

And fifth, a point that I have made many times already, the trade-off is not this or peace, because the Palestinians are not prepared to make genuine peace and cease all hostilities, so even were all of their demands met I am almost positive that incitement and violence would continue.

perhaps, the wounds don't heal so easily, but i'm sure terrorism would cease.

So they can fight legally all they want (note, of course, that their primary strategy of choice is to target NONCOMBATANTS, making your littl eproposition above more or less irrelevant) and Israel can legally fight back.

indeed, i'm sure soon enough the israeli voters will get tired of paying for the military operations in the occupied territories and suffering daily losses, a bit like the resistence American occupation troops are now facing. (which i support a full 100% by the way)

So who will give first? For Israel to give in measn its destruction. For the Palestinians to give in it means they will only get most of what they want, not all of it. See where I'm going with this?

no, for israel it would mean peace and secure borders as with egypt and jordan (not necessarily warm relations tough) for the palestinians it would mean to have an independant state according to the pre-1967 borders, giving up most of their original homeland.

How many Jewish homes in the West bank and Gaza were either expropriated from or built on Palestinian homes? I would suspect its pretty small, but you seem to imply it is every single one, so I will leave it to you to justify this assertion.

I don't know exactly, but it is listed on the gush shalom website. not so may houses but many gardens, yards and other propery has been expropriated, which is totally illegal for an occupying power to do. And why exactly, if israel is only interested in the occupied territories for security reasons as you claim???

[takeo]

Israel is looked on badly because of the success that the Arab propaganda machine has had, starting with their initiatives in the UN in the 50s and 60s. Also, Arab oil has made a big difference in gettin gpeople to tow the line. And since the whole 'globalization' thing became such a hot issue, they got support by demonstrating to a bunch of close minded simpletons that porotesting against the suffering of womena dn the exporting of jobs was exactly the same as protesting against the only country in the middle east where citizens are equal before and under the law and defending itself from suicide terrorism.

all citizens aren't equal in israel. palestinian israeli citizens can't marry someone who doesn't have the israeli nationality except if he or she is a jew, but jewish israeli citizens can. clear discrimination and racism. besides the israeli treatment of the palestinians is much more than just defense, and the images of palestinian houses destroyed, closed borders, tanks shooting at stone-throwing children, demolishion of houses etc. all made israel less than sympathic. Israel also refused to commit to several un-resolutions which made it effectively an outlaw.

did they recognize Israel's borders at the time? i don't know. Do you?

yes they did, by recognizing israel in 1948.

what, with the rampant stifling of dissent and the absence of any sort of independent media or judiciary? I completely agree. Until Arafat dies no election will ever be held where he doesn't get a despotic 80 or 90 percent of the vote.

how would you organise elections in such conditions? do you think israel would cooperate? (a necessary condition for elections to succeed since israel occupies a large part of israeli towns)

another lie. they were, aside from the violations against israelis, mostly against political dissenters and those who would dare expose PA corruption or question the direction of Arafat's intifadeh.

that's simply not true, most prisoners in pa-cells were membes of the military wing of hamas and jihad.

you are wrong about this. About as wrong as could be. Attacking Arafat is an attempt to bring forth people who are genuinely interested in peaceful coexistence. Arafat is a terrorist and a mass murderer of civilians. And he is an obsticle to peace.

attacking arafat means brining hamas to power, it's as simple as that.

am I now? I don't want the palestinians to compromise, or I don't want peace? Or maybe your lack of understanding of the real issues prevents you from perceiving things properly?

you are not interested in real peace because you refuse to negociate with the palestinian leadership.

there is, right now, no hope for peace, other than the wishful thinking pie-in-the-sky type of hope. Only with an upheaval within Palestinian society will there be ANY chance that peace may be possible in the future, but, of course, were Hamas et all to seize power the chances of peace would be roughly equivalent to the chances for peace under Arafat.

this imaginary upheaval will never happen, and hamas would be by far worse than Arafat. Hamas would use the entire palestinian infrastructure in its battle against israel, without anyone restraining them and without being bound by foreign friends, hamas would have even more potential and means than nowadays.

[Canajew]

Originally posted by takeo
yes, he is, as yousaid yourself, hamas' actions led to his election while his policy led to renewed popularity of hamas.

this does not mean they are allies. In case you didn't know, Netanyahu's 'goals' do not entirely consist of his political success, rather they comprise a set of objectives on the ground. I would suggest that these are quite different from the goals of Hamas (which, if you didn't know, include the destuction of Israel and the expulsion of her Jewish citizens) and that as a result it would be a lie to call them allies. Hamas and Arafat are allies, even though they disagree on things like timing, corruption, religion etc, but because they both share the same goal of destorying Israel, they are allies.

the right of return of people who have been ethnically cleansed iS a right and has nothing to do with a political agenda.

again, show me something like this. i have put forward many reasons why this is not true. this is also just a bald faced assertion and not really releant anyways because the Plaestinians were hardly 'ethincally clensed' and, in fact, the vast vast vast majority of those actually ethnically clensed are not entitled to return as of right, especially after this kind of terrorist campaign.

even if it were a political agenda, it still doesn't mean that those people don't have the right to return.

you're right. the fact that they do not have a right of retun has nothing to do with the political agenda. They don't have it for a host opf other reasons.

Ever the decades this became a highly symbolic question and palestinians aren't going to back down on this.

with respect, after the palestinians launched this unnecessary war whose primary doctrine is to target innocnet isralei civilians, i really don't care too much about their willfully manufactured and false symbols. They invented it, they can uninvent it.

But to respond the issues you raised further, only a few 100's of 1000's should be eligible to settle in israel since many will stay in their current sites and others can't proove a direct link that all of their ancestors lived in current Israel. a few 100's of 1000's means that israel's demographic balance won't be disturbed and that palestinians won't become a majority in israel. they won't disturb the economy either, on the contrary they will be a wellcome cheap labour force in Israel.

but Israel doesn't want them because their society has so embraced this cult of death. They must be a cost to backing the loosing side in war after war after war. They started this war and they lost. A right of retun is unacceptable to israel and always has been and there has never before been any legal support to suggest that such a right exists. Whether Israel's demographics are, for you, undisturbed enough, is irrelevant. Isarel does not have to take these people in (not even back, just in) and those who are the most active proponents of this use it as a code word for the destruction of israel. Unless they give up this ludecrous demand they will never see an agreement they will perceive as acceptable, and there will be no peace. As you so obviously desprately desire peace, you will no doubt make future best efforts to educate the palestinians and their supporters about both the legal invalididity of a 'right' of return, and the extremely dim potential there is for peace were this demand not given up.

but nevertheless bothare warcrimes, and israel as a modern western state can't be compared to a terrorist organisation as hamas.

what kind of drivel is this. Destroying homes used by terrorists to smuggle weapons is not illegal, neither is the destruction of homes used as firing positions or to hide weapons. Destroying homes of the families of suicide bombings is a negative economic measure taken to counteract the funds received by that family from Arab supporters BECAUSE their child blew up innocnets.

And your mporal equivalence is as misplaced here as it can be.

And wasn't it you I took to task about equivalence between murder and theft? Crimes against the person are always more morally aggregious than crimes against property. Stop these sorts of intellectual games please, it only further reinforces my suspicioin that you are not interested in a real dialogue, rather only to hone your rhetorical skills.

the fact remains that israel purposely targetted civilians, and still does so.

lies. Civilian infrastructure is only targeted with cause, while civilian persons are never PURPOSELY targeted. And I note here your round condemnation of Palestinian terrorism, which you have clearly recognized here is far more aggregious and consist of far more and far worse war crimes. Oh, but of course you noted no such thing, rather you tried to draw equivalency between dispatching murderers to butcher children in their beds with destroying a home used to smuggle weapons or searching an ambulance because bombs and bombers have been smuggled inside.

Also, please address the Palestinian war crime of hiding 'military' personnel in civilian clothing and civilian areas. And please relate this war crime to the subsequent deaths of innocents when the Israelis try to take these militants out, which it is fully entitled to do.

Or just avoid the question alltogether, don't learn anything, and come back with the same slogans, the same tired old arguments, the same diversionary tactics and rhetorical dishonesty. But don't expect much of a response. At some point I assume I will get tired of this sort of thing.

So the invasion of 1967 was legitimised because Egypt blocked an israeli harbour? Which law of war legitimises this?

2 things. First, the disengagement agreement between Egypt and Israel from the '56 Suez war specified that any blockade was to be interpreted by israel as an act of war. by signing this agreement Egypt was bound by this position, in effect creating an offense that would effectively nullify the disengagement agreement and allow Israel to rightfully attack to remedy this blockade.

Further, blockades are internationally recognized as acts of war, so even failing this inclusion in the disengagegement agreement was not strictly necessary, but at least it allows me to avoid demonstrating this too, as only one cause of war is necessary, i do not have to prove there were multiple ones (even though there clearly were).

Further, Egypt forced the UN to withdraw, and Nasser and Asad went on and on about how they were going to destory Israel and exterminate its population. There were plans drawn up for the extermination of Tel Aviv's population, and Egypt moved all its armaments to Israel's border. To say that this did not amount to an act and declaration of war is to wilfully blind one's self to reality.

Do you think that occasional shelling and the blockade legitimise a fullblown invasion?

yes. Do you think that a nation which is unwaveringly hostile towards its neighbour and continuously sends terrorists and artilery to target civilians and their population centres should be allowed to continue to do so ad infinum without any threat of penalty? Do you think that international law shopuld permit this kind of terrorism and prevent any sorts of defensive measures other than guarding one's borders? And this was not a 'full blown invasion'. Cairo was not seized, only the Sinai, a relatively tangential portion of Egypt. Similarly the Golan for the Syrians and the west bajnk for the Jordanians. A full blown invasion is something far greater and would have necessitated the occupation of Damascus, Cairo and Amman.

it's like Hitler using some cross-border shelling near the polish border as an excuse to start the invasion and occupation of poland...

you really think so? You want to rethink this, or would you like everyone to confirm their suspicions that you are an anti-semite? implying that the Israelis used this as a pretext so what? they would exterminate the local, population and enlarge their leibenstraum?

I was going to deal with this but I won't. It does not deserve a response. Don't be so stupid please.

Israel should have liberated those areas according to international conventions, but didn't offer so, not once!!!! so please don't blame the palestinians.

false. And who were they supposed to offer it to? the PLO, the unreformed international terrorist group? Again stupidity masquerading as intelligent thought.

Since 1993 the plo and the palestinian autority recognised Israel, it effectively made peace with israel.

what the hell is the matter with you? Is all you are going to do is repeat old slogans even though they have been shown to be invalid assertions, faulty argumnet s or just plain wrong. How many times do I have to tell you that just because the Plaestinians renounced violence in English and then proceeded to indctrinate their people in the worst anti-sdemitism, provide the worst of disinformation to put Israel in the worst possible light, and to turn a blind eye to the terrorism that was being planned and perpatrated not only right under his nose but also in his office is not sufficnet to conclude they wanted peace.

Recognizing Israel is not peace. Don't be stupid.

[

[Canajew]

Some terrorist activities continued which were used by israel as an excuse to continue the occupation, doing so they only reinforced the terrorist groups.

I can't keep responding to everything saying it is stupid, yet you keep making stupid assertion after stupid assertion. So rabin and Peres were plotting to subvert the peace process that they wanted so badly? Barak, by offering almost everything the palestinians were wanting, he secretly wanted them to reject it so that his political career could be over and so that the palestinians could launch a new war that they had planned to launch even before negotiations were concluded.

You have your causes and effects backwards.

if they are only an excuse, why doesn't israel dismantle them, to get rid of this palestinian excuse?

because of DETERRENCE. you do not buckle to terrorists. Doing so harms the long term interest of the population to security. Stop ignoring what you don't like.

in fact settlements are essential, since they prevent israel from withdrawing from the occupied territories. Which message do you think the constant building of illegal settlements gave to the palestinians who still believed in peace during oslo.

well gee. I'm pretty sure it sent the exact message that Arafat wanted to send through his micromanaged state controlled media, which both lied about the magnitudes of everything, but also wilfully misrepresented Israeli positions in order to make them appear devious.

the same message the suicide killers gave to the israeli still believing in peace... [/B]

what, don't ever give the Palestinians anything because they will just use it to stab you in the back - thank's I already got that one.

[Canajew]

Originally posted by takeo
israel will never be able to change the palestinian society, israel as a much-hated outsider will NEVEr accomplish so.

I would tend to agree with this. But it must be fixed ex ante, or any 'peace' agreement is doomed to failure.

Reform can only come from the moderate parts of the palestinian society, which israel alienated or downright persecuted during the last couple of years.

but of course the fact that Arafat and his security apparatus and his media appeased the extremists and persecuted the moderates, accusing them of being traitors, had nothing to do with it? Wilful blindness will not win you any arguments here.

Those moderates can only survive if israel is sincere about leaving the occupied territories and offers new peace-proposals.

but if they cannot or will not do anything to stop the extremists then it doesn't really matter if they are a trivial or non-trivial small part of the palestinian society which is run by extremist facist ideologues. That they exist is not enough, and unless they can do anything to help the israelis with their valid security concerns (which started the whole thing, and certainly started the re-occupation of March 2002) the encouragement of their expansion is hardly the most pressing goal.

ok, but the difference is that those groups don't target israel from Syrian soil,

but this is a lie, of course, and irrelevant. If they have logistic offices in Syria, then they are indeed 'targeting' from Syria, regardless of from where the actual bomber starts out. And whether or not they actually do nay targeting from that country is irrelevant, merely training them there is sufficient.

and it isn't even clear if those organisations are financed by Damascus.

only to those who will deny themselves reality, or those for whom reality is denied to them, like all those living under despotism and who derive their world-view from the state directed 'news' media..

But even if they were, syria has the right to do so since they are still officially at war with israel,

I've got you going in circles. If Syria is still at war with Israel, then why does it even matter that this group is a terrorirst organization (which it is) and Syria is harbouring them (which it is)? If they are still at war then Israel does not need any reason, by your logic, to strike what it perceives to be a threat eminating from this country with whom israel is at war. Cuts both ways.

But Israel does not even have to rely on the continued hostilities. these organizations target Israeli civilians. that you cannot or will not recognize this is part of the problem. As they target isareli civilians (a war crime) Israel is fully justified, both morally and legally, to take action to both punish those who enageg in such terrorism and deter that state from continuing to support terrorism. i would not be in favout of dropping bombs at random over Damascus (which would be similar to what the Syrians and terrorists do when they attack Israel - attack civilians first) but a response targted at the terrorist infrastructure is certainly justified.

a situation that will last untill israel returns the golan-heights.

AT LEAST until then, and almost certainly beyond, but for those like you who believe the terms Syrian and peacenik are synonamous, the realm of self delusion will allow you to see this as the sufficient condition for peace, when it is only really, at most, a necessary condition and even this is arguable. It is clearly not a sufficient condition for peace. the Syrians must do lots of things in exchange, and they have never been willing to do them.

But there was some kind of mutual understanding not to attack each other's territory, Israel violated this, which means syria now has the right to attack israel as well.

this 'understanding' was broken first by Syria - see professor Morgan's arguments. To harbour terrorist whom you KNOW will act to attack Israeli civilian targets is to be just as culpable as doing it yourself, especially where you actively support them in their aims and goals and operations.

Please look at all effects, not just the ones you like.

so, to return to your example, does this mean that you would have accepted a nicaraguan missile hitting us-territory?

what is it attacking? A missile against a military facility may well have resulted in an escalation, but it is quite different from a missle targeted at New York or Miami.

Also, there is a difference, I think, between regimes which purely desire to maintain power and subject the population to a democratic government genuinely interested in the well being and security of its people. So Iraq would not have been able to use this excuse because of an attack against the Kurds, for example, because Iraq and Hussein did not actually care about these civiulians, and any excuse clearly would have been just that - an excuse. But for Israel, a democracy clearly concerned with the protection of its citizens, such an attack is clearly justified.

Would you accept Cuba to shell Miami when another bomb explodes in havana and the responsability of one of the miami-based terror-groups has been clearly demonstrated? please answer this question straight.

my straight answer: were this bomb targeted against those who set off a bomb in Cuba, and were the American government to have refused to stop such acts and arrest the perpetrators and future perpatrators, then yes Cuba would be justified in attacking those who attack it. this does NOT mean they could just drop a bomb on a civilian population or engage in nay other acts of terrorism, but that a response designed to both stop the person who is carrying out these attacks and provide a deterrent for others who would also be likely to engage in such actions, would, in my opinion, be acceptable (though really stupid looking at the balance of power and the American administration).

Straight enough? Its as straight as I could get it, any more oversimplification and a conclusion would not really be meaningful. Who is being attacked and why they are being attacked are important considerations.

how do you know, what makes you so sure??? what's your proove?

I put up about a quarter of it about Arafat's early years, the evidence gets both more voluminous and more obvious for the rest, but as I work, it takes quite a bit of time to put them all in. But read Yassir Arafat: A political biography and there should be enough 'prooves' to suffice. If I get the time I will continue to put in examples of why i would trust Saddam hussein before I trusted Yassir Arafat. Why do you believe him, when everything he says is inconsistent with what he does, what he causes to be taught to his people, and what he says to his people in Arabic?

[Canajew]

you are doing exactly the same concerning arafat, and violating your own rules...

What I have already disclosed above is sufficient to label him a war criminal, and what is to come is enough to do it many many times over. And I never refer to him as a war criminal even though I think he is, while you will always refer to Sharon as a war criminal (which is a fairly dubious charge, especially were the magnitude of the offece and the actor's moral culpability looked at) while never referring to Arafat as such. it reeks of intellectual dishonesty.

i assume you refere to the children and grand-children of the refugees? according to international law children and grand-children of refugees have the right to return as well. (for example in bosnia)

thats not true. In Bosnia the relevant agreement may have been different, but as a general principle International law does not recognize children of refugees ot be refugees. I am also, of course referring to all those who would qualify under the UNRWA definition of terrorism, as having worked in Israel for two years, who would not qualify as real refugees belonging to that nationality. Being a transitroy labourer on a Jewish far for a couple of years hardly qualifies a person for a right of return. And you ignored my substantive argument, I assume because you have no legitimate way to deal with it.

prooves, prooves... i only hear israeli allegations not confirmed by any prooves...

There are tons and tons of proofs. You just need to look for them and be prepared to accept them when they are valid. That Arafat smuggled people in the trunk of his car is a fact. It is in the biography i noted above. that he misrepresented the Clinton plan as a plan of cantonization of plaestine (which is completely false) in his desription of it to his people and to arab leaders is a fact as attesed to by Clinton and a comparrison of Clinton's outline of the plan in Haaretz with Arafats speaches about it in Arabic. I don't waste my times with documenting everything with you because I know it doesn't really matter and that no proofs will ever be accepted by you if you don't like their implications.

And don't accuse me of the same thing, I incorporate lots of different facts which I don't like into my world-view.

that's abolute BS and i can proove it.

By 1930, all the land capable of being cultivated by the indigenous Palestinians with the resources available to them was already under cultivation (Frances Newton, Fifty Years in Palestine, Coldharbor, 1940, p. 253).

Again, this is a stupid argument. given that technology and techniques, as well as resourcefulness and access to foreign capital, which were available to the Jewish citizens of the Yishuv, much of the barren lands of palestine became cultifiable and productive. the Arabs were living in the middle ages - largely illiterate, feudal, depending on labour intensive agricultural techniqes and oblivious to the role of technological advancement to productivity, and the Jews who farmed the land were well educated, ideologically driven, and had resources and insights available to them that the Arabs lacked.

Your statement above proves nothing at all except that the palestinians could not cultivate the land that the Jews were cultivating, and that thus the claim of 'dispossession' is a misnomer. Again a demonstration of how the left's lack of understanding of economics and development blind them to reality and prevent them from properly assessing arguments.

Sir John hope Simpson undertook a comprehensive studying of Palestinian agricultural potential in 1930. He concluded that

"it has emerged quite definitely that there is at the present time and with the present methods of Arab cultivation no margin of land available for agricultural settlements by new immigrants"

again, irrelevant to the proposition which was made initially, that the israelis depended on swampland and barren wasteland and other non-cultivated lands to build the bulk of its farm infrastructure. Well, not really irrelevant, rather it actually ADDS support to the claim you wish to disprove.

"The village statistics for 1945 prepared by the Palestine administration and showing the position as at 1 April 1945 furnish interesting data regarding land's 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. [...] The following figures are of particular interest:
CATEGORY OF CROPS OWNERSHIP

Arabs Jews (in dunums)

Citrus 135,368 139,728
Bananas 1,843 1,079
Plantations 1,052,222 94,167
Taxcable cereals (categories 9-13) 5,653,346 869,109
Taxcable cereals (categories 14-15) 823,046 67,839


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 Jewisch State, and own the bulk of the land"

again, when you speak of ownership you ignore the fact that 'Arab lands' included the negev and other unfertile swampland and were not productively used. This figure would, I suspect, also include the west bank and gaza, whose figures would have to be removed.

Also, what role should racist exclusionary policies have in evaluating these figures? You are against racism, no? When Jews were forbidden to purchase land owned by Arabs, was this not a distortionary factor which you would have to compensate for when comming up with these numbers, or does de facto Arab aparthide pass the test?

Also, what about the fact that the Arabs backed the losing side in a world war that changed all the rules and resulted in no borders being sacred? The Grand Mufti was a big supporter of Hitler, and he certainly did not aid the allies as the plaestininan Jews had.

[Canajew]

Originally posted by takeo
ok, fine

so don't repeat. Precision with language is particularly imporant in this debate as the Plaestinians have adoipted as one of their PR tactics the manipulation of language to allow them to draw moral eqivalency between terrorism targeting innocnet civilians for death and Israel 'terorrism' of targeting those involved in terrorism or in road closures. just like you have repeatedly.

The british controll was never linked to the Jewish question originally and noone ever agreed before WWII to give all of the current israel to the Jews, the balfour-declaration was something very different, sharing the land between jews and palestinians.

Even absent this point, the larger narrative is unaffected. Isarel was entitled to self determination, and the UN agreed to it in a real 2/3 majority type of thing, perhaps the only time the UN has acted as a functional international institution. israeli responses to efforts to destroy it were justified and necessary, including the capture of the west bank, gaza, the sinai and the golan.

no BS, what israel did was expanding israeli law in palestinian territories, which is illegal.

Rights and responsibilities are two different things. And because the areas were occupied Israel could allow its citizens rights to be respected by the foreign territory (in this case, jordan)

And you call it illegal. Any support for this, I really don't want to waste my time looking for it if you haven't come up with anything to support this assertion. For others I would, but you have made exactly this kind of false assertion many times before, and, just like Arafat, you repeat falsehoods often enough and I will infer that it is normal policy to make such false assertions and stop taking these assertions at all seriously.

an israeli citizen in France will be subjected to French law. It is as illegal to move your own population in occupied territories, as literally stated by the 4th geneva-conventions and many different special unsc-resolutions....

you are wrong about the geneva conventions, about UNSC resolutions I don't know, but 242 and 336 are certainly not the ones you are talking about?

Anyways, I am not a big believer in settlements, but I do think they are (1) not really the issue at all, rather Israel's existence as an independent Jewish state is and (2) of questionable legality at best - they are not necessarily illegal, and the extraterritorial application of domestic laws is also not necessarily illegal.

see above...

but 'above' was only rhetoric and no actual arguemntative support for this assertion. So yield or respond. What makes them 'illegal' settlers and 'illegal' settlements?

Israel's neighbours jordan and egypt already acted in accordance with 242, except Syria (and lebanon) which can't because israel still occupies a part of syria.

So there is peace with Jordan and Egypt. Syria, AGAIN!!! having refused to recognize Israel's right to exist because Israel seized a buffer zone in a war that Syria and her buddies started because they did not want to recognize Israel and wanted to see it destroyed, is not now justified in rejecting israeli overtures because Israel holds this territory.

And Egypt and Jordan reached this 'acceptance' by disowning the Palestinians and the obligations that would have flowed from this, while Israel could not obviously so do with some other group. So really you are discussing a fiction.

if they were supported by the unsecurity council, yes.

good. So now at least everybody knows not to take you seriously. What a stupid assertion. So the UNSC says that under no circumstances am I to try to stop someone from trying to kill me and my family and therefore I should not do anything for self defence? Abjectly retarded.

why is it disfunctional, because it resists israel's violations?

no, because it is dysfunctional as a political decision making body, and Israel is the clearest example of its dysfunction. there are lots of reasons for its dysfunction, but as discussions are supposed to be give and take and you don't really give as much as you divert and obfuscate, I will not avail myself of this particular argument at this time. Were you to offer some "concessions" maybe I will rethink in the future.

but sometimes a wider problem can only be solved at local level. As long as the occupation continues, the cult of death will continue as well.

even then, it is most unliely to stop. Disagree? And if you do agree, why should Israel risk its neck again for a peace which is exceedingly unlikley?

and the palestinian suffering is great propaganda for al-quaida and other extremist groups worldwide, after travelling a bit in the muslim world i would say it's their main propaganda-tool.

well gee, if they can be used for propaganda then surely the best thing to do is give into their demands. that will end all propaganda value, right. Stupid.

BS, the situation during the mid 90's could have evoluated in full peace,

Lies. The PA controlled media never tried to sell Oslo, and was directed to be actively hostile against it. From the beginning the media was used to strengthen the extremist views held by Hamas et al as well as many if not most within the PA. Peace would not have been possible unless 'peace' meant giving the PLO exactly what it wanted, which would have resulted in Israel's destruction through the immigration of millions of hostile 'refugees' (the full right of return which has always been aserted by Arafat)

and hamas wasn't as strong as today, many palestinians still believed in peace with israel, as well among the higher levels.

and then the PA purposely lied to them about everything so that they would again perceive Israel to be unmitigatingly evil.

You are very blind not to see this, and i have been to palestine before the current intifadeh, many people believed in oslo but they felt cheated as israel didn't fullfill its obligations and settlements just kept growing in area that was supposed to be palestinian... (i saw this with my own eyes by the way, how settlements were expanding bEFORE the current intifadeh, a main source of palestinian hate against israel).

it was incitement which magnified this. i do not disagree that they were a provocation, but in contrast to Israeli attampts to MINIMIZE the public impact of Palestinian provocations, the PA wilfully misrepresented facts, events and proposals in order to inculcate the most hostility within its population as pssible. this is evident from the fact that, at the 'outbreak' of what you believe the sart of the intifadeh, the visit of Sharon to the temple mount, PATV began its incitement by stating that Israel was planning to destroy the mosques and that every Plaestinian must resist this, even though the PA security minister had given his assent to the visit. You may see the impact of this propaganda on the people, but you do not seem to see where it came from and the poisonous effect it has on everything.

actually i don't care so much, since both israel and the us made peace with arafat in 1993. By the way i challenge you to find one proove of arafat's involvement in a terror attack against civilians.

there are many disclosed above, and I will disclose many more in the future. (why don't you deal with the Araft initiated attempt to attack a tel aviv beach during the first intifadeh, where the captured deputy commander of the operation said that he was told to kill everyone, "women, children, elderly people".)

This will not change your position, though, and you might as well admit this up front? Why not? because those who document them are Jewish Zionist copnspirators, or just so that you can go on living with yourself.

that you will deny such a basic reality is to undermine any position you espouse to anyone on the other side of this ocnflict. Another reason why you 'peace' plan is nothing of the sort and completely incapable of bringing any real peace.

that's bs, the plo, fatah, and the pa, all leading palestinian institutions, have recognised israel on many occasions. [/B]

in words, not in deeds and not in actions. they never changed their textbooks to make them recognize Israel, and in fact they have moved them in the other direction, towards more hostility and more denial and ore dehumanization. You may believe their lies, but why should I? I know better.

[Canajew]

Originally posted by takeo
this are just stories to legitimise the israeli warcrimes against civilians during this war. and even if those were true it still doesn't legitimise the israeli crimes against civilians.

no, not stories, documented facts. if you didn't notice Israel has a free press and free inquiry while the Arab states and the palestinians surely do not. All else the same, this means that infdormation comming out of israel is more credible than stories comming out of the Arab world.

That you will not recognize them as facts is kind of disgusting, really, a sort of see no evil hear no evil state of affairs where anything which is not consistent with your world-view is a 'story' no matter how extensive the documentation, while those statements you like do not have to meet any sort of objective standrads of validity.

They are not stupid, they know only struggle will give them their independance and land, that's why they had two intifadehs. the people who fought colonialism also knew that only violence would give them freedom. Their only mistake is to target civilians.

they are stupid. Were they to have really renounced terrorism and been prepared to compromize on the right of retun they would have had a free state by now. They are stupid because failure after failure after failure is ignored and never does it occur to them that a change of tactics may be necessary. they are stupid because they so blindly follow arafat down his path of death and destruction notwithstanding his corruption and the lack of his efforts to build any meaningful institutions, follow the rule of law with an independent judiciary or anythingelse he was supposed to do.

If what they want is the destruction of israel, maybe they are not so stupid. but, if as you attest, they really want a two state solution, then they are truly stupid because they are not aware of the fact that terrorism and armed insurrection will not make Israel make peace with them, and will only make peace a more remote option. And they are stupid, of course, because they are badly educated.

the wall will protect colonies but as well include a large number of palestinian villages...

it is therefor less effective to protect ISRAELI territory.

nice job of at least trying to formulate a proper argument, but your conclusion does not follow from the premise. Try again, if you like, but try to make a sound argument this time - your conclusion does not really flow from your premise.

Why do you think so, because they have been threated civilised as well, they haven't been expropriated, occupied, had civilian rights, etc. unlike the palestinians on the other side of the green line which react the same way they had been threated by the israeli for decades...

no, I think its primarily because they have been properly educated in a free and democratic society, because they are better educated and have a higher standard of living (and the reason the plaestinians have such a low standrad today is because of the intifadeh and because of dysfunctional PA management of the economy in the interwar years) and, most importantly, because they have not been BRAINWASHED INTO KILLING MACHINES AND SUPPORTERS OF KILLING MACHINES. this is a big deal, if you haven't noticed. The palestinians were not nearly as uncivilized in the late 60s and 70s and even the 80s as compared to when Arafat got his propaganda hooks into them. Propaganda is THE main answer, not the occupation, not the provocations and not anything else. That children are tought to aspire to be suicide bombers is not something the Israelis are resonsible for.

no, they have special rights since their ancestors lived there.

well good. Keep repeating meaningless slogans and paradigms, keep ignoring any actual leagl or moral obligations, and keep ignoring the undamental relaities on the ground.

You did not address any of my points you only repeated a demonstrably false slogan over and over Arafat-style.

still the inhabitants of the golan-heights want to return the golan heights to syrian control.

do they? Maybe a referendum, then, when peace is really on the table. Syria will agree to allow those presently living there to vote on allegiance, and if they vote to stay in Israel Syria both makes peace AND gives up its claim.

By the way syrians and even the majority of palestinians are nice people too.

syriansd maybe, they are all brainwashed subjects of their governments, so under the programming they may very well be decent people. Palestinians, on the other hand, while some are undoubtedly very nice and educated and intelligent, most are stupid and reactionary and patently immoral. they are not nice people. People who support suicide bombings PURPOSELY TARGETING INNOCENTS are not nice people.

Syria on the other hand will never stop and recognise israel untill Israel ends the occupation of the golan heights. (nor will any other syrian government in the future)

and even then it won't stop, just like I've said over and over and over...

Bush said that Saddam's demise would stop terrorism, exactly the inverse happened.

wow. So if one person says he is doing something for a reason which does not materialize then EVERY person who makes the same assertion must also be telling a falsehood. Again, stupid. You need to look at the data in Israel (which is readily available) when assessing Israeli policy, and Israeli policy has worked quite well.

perhaps palestinians receive some donations from Syria and Iran, but you can bet on it that even without Syrian or iranian support palestinians will continue to fight, most of the weapons they have by the way are homemade and the most financial contributions come from Saoudi arabia. The problem will be solved in jerusalem, not in damascus, bagdad or teheran.

my point was that you have to solve it EVERYWHERE. Solving it in Jerusalem will not be enough.

and they will continue to fight until Israel is destroyed. So what is Israel to do except fight back or surrender. they must demonstrate that an alternative is possible.

As long as israel occupies a part of Syria Syria has the right to support anti-israeli groups. And israel invading syria will only broaden the conflict and create another palestine/ Iraq...

blah balh, menaingless slogans.

Syria should attack israeli military installations in the golan-heights.

and then Israel should dismantle both Syria's terrorist infrastructure and the Syrian military, both in Syria and in Lebanon.

i already explained above...

I do not believe that you did. Indulge me then (I have repeated the same arguments to you over and over without any sort of recognition of them so maybe I'm due)

the bombing of Dresden was a warcrime, as well as expelling civilian german population by the soviets. Nothing the nazi's did can legitimise those acts.

So then why is Palestinian terrorism legitimate in your eyes. you said it yourself that if Israel did not give them what they wanted you would allow them to again target innocnet Israelis.

today the golan heights are a part of syria according to the international community and the UN...

but not in reality, only in law, a law based on history which doesn't matter...

what i mean is that historical claims are not important, what is important is legality (unsc-resolutions, etc.) and the wish of the current people inhabiting those areas. Greece can claim back constantinople with strong historical claims, but that's nonsense in the current conditions... [/B]

ok, well since the right of return is not legal and neither is the requirement for a full withdrawal, then we can do away with the palestinian historical claim of a right of return.

[Canajew]

Originally posted by takeo
as the studies of Said show it's absolutely clear that the palestinian economy didn't have a real chance to devellop during oslo, the palestinian economy lacked real external borders and roads controlled by the palestinians. But still during the 90's the economy improved considerably compared to the earlier decades. the pa HAS education, infrastructure etc. perhaps not enough but it existed untill israel literally swept it away with bulldozers and tanks... not exactly the brightest move...

I skipped ahead because I have to go but I MUST point out how patently ridiculous this is. Edward Said is a LINGUIST, and a leftist at that. He know nothing of economics and development and certainly is not involved in any sort of development law or development economics initiatives,a nd from what I am aware he has never in any other context addressed economic devdelopment issues, which of couse makes any assessment by him less than worthless.

Just because Edward Said said that the PA economy did not have a chance is not ANY evidence for the actual posibility that this is true. It had no chance because Arafat was a corrupt despot who not only did not even try to put in functional institutions but actively fought against them.

And during the 1990s, after Arafat took control, the state of the economiy got continuously worse, with a minor exception in the mid 90s, and of course collapsed completely after arafat launched his little war.

You will believe the dumbest of assertions made by people who have been demonstrated to put their vested position ahead of academic integrity and objective assessment. It makes me want to rethink engaging in any sort of continuing dialogue, as besides for your diversion and rhetoric, you seem genuinely disinterested in any sort of real meaningful intellectual exercise.

And since the Iranian revolution gross domestic production has decreased EVERY SINGLE YEAR. like the typical leftist, you assume that an econommy need not be managed effectively in order for it to produce progress. Another reason not to vote for the reactionary left.

[Canajew]

Originally posted by takeo
[B]annihilation isn't the same as extermination, annihilation of israel doesn't mean extermination of the people living there (not that i support annihilation, but i think it's important to make the distiction). But anyway, Syria has to change its position, but ONLY if israel returns the golan-heights.

your distinction is disingenuous, annihilation of the country means the killing and expulsion of her population.

Syria has to changhe its position in tandem with a return of the golan, with the ultimate return to be effected only when this reform of position is genuinely complete. And even then, returning such a strategic plateau to such an intransigent enemy will require much confidence building by the Syrians, and I think this is impossible while the Bathists rule.

give me please one example of legal occupation of territory since the establishment of the UN???

Israel's occupation of the west bank and gaza. Even kofi anan got a rebuke from the un's legal department the one time he called the occupation 'illegal'.

you should read the geneva-conventions, which obliges any occupying power to take care of the wellbeing of the occupied subjects. the pa only exists since 1993...

I have read them (well, large portions of them anyways). Israel invested heavily in the territories and in civilian infrastructure pre 1987 and while this slowed in the first intifadeh, when Arafat and his despotic cabal took over it was their responsibility to create a proper environemnt for investment and developoment and they completely and abjectly failed to do anything remotely approaching this, and no blame which you might ascribe to israel is sufficient to explain the abject failure of the PA to work towards proper development, start resettling people living in 'refugee' camps in the PA contolled areas in better accomodation or anything like that.

as i said the pa only assumed power in 1993... what about the 26 years before???

as I said, between 67 and 87 much investment was undertaken and indicators all increased. After Arafat, of course, numbers collapsed as he monopolized control of industry, oversaw a system involving wide-scale corruption and inefficiency, which embezzeled hundreds of millions of dollars targeted at exactly the kind of development you seem to be such an advocate for, and which created a hostile business environemnt by ignoring any sort of rule of law and running his little authority like a mafia.

so this means gaza and westbank are officially not a part of Israel according to the israeli constitution???

I do not believe so, no. they were not annexed to Israel and while they may be contolled by her, and this control may have been authorized by statute, this is quite different than saying they are officially part of Israel. And from what I am aware, Israel does not have a constitution, only a set of basic laws which have been elevated to constitutional status. And none of these, from what i am aware, have anything to do with territoriality.

yopur above analysis again shows that threating "enemy citizens" with respect made them act more civilised... but still, this doesn't make the israeli annexation of Golan and eastern jerusalem any less illegal. (illegal because the golan heights are a part of syria)

you have already mentioned many times that it is illegal because it is part of Syria, and I have already explained to you why this is not so. Unless you can actually ARGUE against it rather than just repeating your old and tired statements and catch phrases, then little response is necessary. jerusalem is a different issue and somewhat trickier, as ALL of Jerusalem really legally belongs to the United Nations, no? So the palestinians aren't really entitled to any of it either, then, which is of course a position which you would reject. And since the United Nations did not hold up its end of any agreements or plans to protect Israel from the Arabs and to protect Israel's citizens from terrorism, their claim looses some moral weight.

And you changed the subject in order to avoid points you didn't like, rather than accepting them and moving on.

that's right, but nowhere is stated that captured territories can be occupied for decades on a row... any longer as the war requires

but this war requires a longer occupation, as giving in now would only ensure that Arafat and his little gang of thugs would try to arm themselves to the teeth to finish this pesky zionist entity once and for all. So for security and to protect Israel in the next stage of this yet-to-be-finished war, the territories must be held until the PLO and the rest of the Palestinians are really interested in arriving at a mutually acceptable peace. And they must also first give up their right of return, because a peace that does not make this explicit is an agreement which will allow for the Arabs to ignore the cessation of hostilities portions and focus on finishing what they started with a right of return.

yes, but who says that he actually had those terrorists under his controll?

don't waste my time with this drivel. Arafat, known as the 'teflon terrorist' in the 1970s, has been widely shown to be complicit in terrorism, and I have provided numerous examples already. That you would ignore all evidence (while at the same time clutching at the least of evidence to label Sharon a 'war criminal') reeks of a double standard and purposely imposed falsehood. Arafat has always had a 'governing style' of allowing decentralized decision making in order to allow himself a petty excuse that he 'knew nothing' of what these groups did, notwithstanding the fact that when they did something he didn't like, he could almost always get them to fall in line, which shows that by choosing not to condemn and circumscribe and punish behaviour, he was condoning and encouraging it. But there are lots of proofs, you just have to be prepared to see them. See my list above for a start.

yes he did so, on many occasions.

no he has not. that you would buy the pack of lies he is selling is unsurprizing, but please don't make it seem like we all should buy them too. We know better and will not be fooled again.

Arafat didn't crush hamas because they're too powerfull in the palestinian society,

really? In 1995?

and he doesn't want a civil war. but his objectives and means are very different from those of hamas. by the way arafat recognised israel on many occasions.

bull. His objective is the same, the destruction of Israel. Both organizations seem to pay little attention to any real nation-building so to talk of different goals with respect of an Islamic vs a secular state from the river to the sea is not a real difference as they both primarily seek Israel's destruction. their methods are also the same, using propaganda and brainwashing to get its citizens to engage in acts of terrorism against civilians and to always portray israel as wicked and inherently evil. The only difference is that Arafat and Hamas sometimes do not agree on timing, with Arafat wanting to wait until concessions are made by the other side before terrorism is restrated, while Hamas wants to do away with any pretext of pretending to make peace or pretending to implement ceasefire after useless ceasefire and get on with destroying Israel, public relations be damned.

less, but the situation isn't comparable since neither jordan nor egypt recognised israel.

so terrorism against civilians was ok because they didn't recognize Israel. Your position is disgusting. And it was not meant to be 'comparable' it was meant to show why an occupation was necessary. And don't say it wasn't, it clearly was based on the number of attacks and the targets.

you can't deny that since the israeli withdrawel from lebanon the war on israel's northern border ALMOST ceased, not completely, but a great improvement compared to a few years ago.

I can completely deny it. the war may be in a state of relative clam, but Hizbullah has gotten stronger, has increased its arsenal, and poses more of a threat to Israels security now than it did before. The numbers game is not the be all and end all of analysis. Sometimes you must look at everything, including the risks in the future, which are far higher today with Hizbullah-land in southern lebanon than before.

[Canajew]

so wathever your rethorics, the fact remains that israeli withdrawel had positive consequences, just as israeli withdrawel from the occupied territories, even unilateral, will improve the situation.

This is incorrect. unilateral withdrawal from the west bank and gaza will result in the PA becomming both a terrorist haven and a massive importer of weapons the acquisition of which would be made in an attempt to destroy Israel. That you do not actually genuinely perceive the need of the Palestinians to make real genuine peace in exchange for Israeli concessions is a big part of the problem. Until you and others realize this, your preciuous palestinians will never have a state of their own.

on the contrary, Europeans don't like leaders who lie at them about non-existant WMD, such as Bush and Blair.

but they love leaders who lie to them about terorrism and about the commitments they make without any intention to implement them, like Yassir Arafat.

Blair's carreer is finished, Iraq will be his political graveyard. Americans seem to be more tolerant for lying politicians. (hardly surprising if they elect "the terminator" as governer of california)

and by the way, Chirac is from what I can see a far worse human being than anyone here that you mentiuoned, and particularly tony blair. tony did what he believed was right, Chirac does what he believes will get him the most tail and will piss off those he wants to antagonize the most. He is a corrupt philanderer and an open and vocal supporter for the most brutal regimes in the world.

[Canajew]

Originally posted by takeo
have you ever been to palestine? palestinians aren't the people you imagine them to be based on the television images.

No. But it doesn't matter. Its not the TV images as much as the polls, the published works, the vocal support of terrorism and the destuction of Israel, the corruption, the intellectual disonesty both among themselves and in discourse with outsiders, and, of course, the cult of death which manifests itself with streets named after suicide bombers who TARGETED CIVILIANS, soccer tournaments sponsored by the PA with names of suicide bombers as team names, images of suicide bombers plastered on walls and shops and in schools, and all the rest that make me conclude that the Palestinina culture is severaly broken. Some might be nice people, but as a collective, they are among the least civilized most barbarous and immoral people on earth.

Of course decades of oppression made them bitter and hard and very anti-israel, and the propaganda reflects that,

you have your cause and effect backwards again. because of the propaganda the hatred was magnified far more than it would have otherwise. The anti-Israel propaganda spewed out by the PA and its organs as soon as they took control in '93 and continuing to this day purposely misrepresented Israeli positions so that popular anger could be mobilized against Israel. The 'oppression' as you call it is mostly a result of anti violence measures that were only undertaken subsequent to manifestations of the palestininas' barbarity.

but on the other hand articles in the palestinian media questioning official corruption in the government,

then the author gets thrown in jail, of course.

and articles were Gush Shalom-members explain why they are committed to the palestinian side.

i.e. more propaganda.

so really not as fanatic and anti-semitic as you would think. However some radical groups broadcast much more radical views.

you ignore the rampant anti-semitism that permiates Palestinina media, text and broadcast, from the most populist newspaper to the 'highest' of academic journals. Address this please.

because the rethorics of the pa are really moderate,

their rhetoric in english is moderate but the palestinians know, of course to ignore this, but in Arabic Arafat calls for a million martyrs and makes nonesense inflamatory statements about how the Clinton plan proposed cantonization of the west bank. He is not a moderate. you want peace you deal with it.

while the general palestinian mood nowadays is that israel only understands one language, the language of violence.

exactly. because the palestinians are stupid. israel only understands non-violence and pleas for tolerance and understanding. Every time they get violent it sets back their cause in Israeli public opinion. Were the Europeans not so gutless in this regard, they would have realized that violence is not the answer, but as you guys love to excuse their actions, they think they are making some progress with their attrocities.

this is an unfortunate consequence of the israeli policy of the latest years.

bull. polls have continually shown that a majority of Palestinians want all of 'hisotric palestine' while of those that would accept a two state solution, many of these are in favour of using this state as a launching pad for the eventual destruction of Israel. Again, you can tell these lies to yourself and you can pawn them off on your supporters, but they will not work with people who know better.

you don't know much about the palestinian society it seems, it isn't as simple as you put it forwards.

from what i can see, you really don't have much of a clue either. Believe the lies and ignore the reality - great way to make an objective assessment. And you know nothing about Israeli mentality (and from what I can see, American mentality as well) and this is for you to deal with and is really inexcusable, considering Israel is a free society where anything and everything is publishable. Read stuff you don't think would fit your world view. Start with the book on Arafat, read Alan Dershowitz' book and maybe some hisotries not written by propagandists and then we can talk.

but without palestinian agreement you'll never reach peace, and that is the purpose, or isn't it?

no, the purpose is to protect Israel from external threats to her existential existence and to her civilian population. if peace can achieve this goal then great, but peace is not the ultimate objective if it does not provide for these things.

And it has been my position all along that even with nominal oral Palestinina support for a peace agreement, peace would still not be possible, so given this why bother with peace unless it will bring the objective.

And you didn't really respond to my proposals and I must again note your apologetics for the PURPOSEFUL targeting of innocents, which pervade all of your writings.

they had it untill israel destroyed most of it in 2001 and 2002... but they didn't yet have a real functioning state, which also means controlling the borders, an integrated territory, a real army, an own currency, etc.

more lies. Where was the independent judiciary? Where was the single unified security apparatus? Where was the business law, the environmental laws, the anti-corruption laws and all the other institutions of a functional state or national entity? They made zero progress towards any of these even beofre 2000 when they launched this war (and blaming Israel for responding is preposterous). Their schools still taught the most base anti-semetic propaganda, their media still was allowed to publish the most extreme of positions while moderate positions were discouraged by the PA and they still embezzeled hundreds and millions of dollars which were targeted for development. Don't blame Israel for the PAs failings from '93 to 2000. these failings were a large reason why this war was started, and a big reason why the palestinians have not been moderated by self-governance. To ignore this is to wilfully ignore a problem that is fundamental in arriving at a real eventual solution. unless you deal with this, no peaceful tranquil palestinian society will ever evolve, and therefore 'peace' is not an option.

when did israel offer to give back the entire occupied territories? i can't remember it...

didn't you JUST say that negotiations involve compromise? But only for the Jews, eh? Your thought process is nauseating and a testament to Plaestinina brainwashing.

You are basically replaying the old slogan that Israel must do everything and then the Palestinians will accept peace. It doesn't work that way. They want the land back, they'll get most of it. Barak offered a swap so that the land-area they would get would be the same as the entire area, but they ha already decided to launch their little war by then and we all know what happened.

it's not that one-sided, if israel had been serious during the oslo-process there would have been peace now and a palestinian state.

so Peres and rabin were not serious? get real. barak didn't offer the Plaestinians almost everything they wanted? More lies. Ask Clinton he published on what his Clinton proposals were, and Barak accepted them as a starting point for negotiations while Arafat refused as they did not include a full right of return, then turned around and LIED to the Arab world about the contents of that plan.

Really, get bent.

if israel had offered them a palestinian state back in the 70's it would also have spared them a lot of trouble. so hamas is only a part of the whole mess, not the only problem.

yeah right. then the PLO, which had still not been willing to recongize Israel could have used the west bank and gaza as a terrorist base instead of lebanon and tunis. What's wrong with you?!?

[Canajew]

yes indeed, since the PA would do so during a mutual agreement with israel. So if one side fails to observe this agreement the other is no longer obliged to observe it either. it works the other way around as well by the way.

again, didn't you JUST mention that international law was paramount, and even under the most extreme circumstances you would still not allow for violations of international law? yet here you are, not two seconds later, suggesting to me that crimes against humanity should be permitted if Israel does not give the palestininas everything they want.

the Plaestinians are not not not permitted to engage in attacks targeting civilians for death under ANY circumstances. The Israelis don't do it (and please don't come back with another lie) and there is no excuse for the palestinians to do it. How about this - every time there is an attempted suicide bombing Israel annexes a percentage of the west bank? So one violation flows directly from the more aggregious crime against humanity. Sounds fair, no?

And your position really does make me sick - Palestinians should be allowed to massacre any Jews they want anywhere in the world so long as their demands are not met in full? I am starting to see what Mediocrates was feeling, though I would recommend administrative detention as a first resort.

yes they will, if israel would right now offer a total withdrawel of all the occupied territories on the condition that palestinians stop terror right away, i'm sure terror will stop, completely.

I do not believe you and neither do any right thinking Israelis. Neither does Hamas whose goal it is to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamic state, nor will those who demand a full right of return. So really youn are lying here or have again wilfully blinded yourself to reality. Either way, I'm not buying.

But the problem is that israel doesn't want to withdraw!!!

go figure. I don't either, given circumstances. Withdrawal now will only make things worse.

yes they have, in 1948.

lies and misrepresentations. there was no ethnic clensing, organized or otherwise, absent a few particular circumstances which were dependent on security and defensive issues (while, of course, Israelis were fighting not to be exterminated) there was no foprcible deportation of any population. Most Palestinians ran because of Arab propaganda about rapes and the like, because they were told to, or because they were afraid even before they had seen any israeli forces. the rape accounts were were complete lies, of course, but you would, i assume, either believe the lies to be true or would pretend those lies were never uttered in the first place.

yes but you can hardly say that palestinians have been deported for their own safety... and by the way this deportations isn't forever just temporarily allowed.

I don't care. time and circumstance change things. the barabrity of the Arabs in general and the Plaestininas in particular has vitiated any rights that they may or may not have had. Deal with it and get back to me on a functional peace proposal, otherwise stop wasting my time.

And that you would wilfully ignore the fact that war crimes were the standard routine practice for the Arab armies and that genocide has always been a central goal of theirs and of the Plaestinians seriously undermines any credibility you might have had (not that you would have had much, your arguments are seriously defficient qua arguemnts).

what this means in plain english is that if Israel does not meet the obligations which are specified by Europe et al, then the Plaestinian AUthority should proptly release all terrorists from prison and do nothing to prevent them from continuing their attacks PURPOSELY targeting Israeli civilians.

yes, if israel wants help in its struggle against terrorism, it should comply to the demands of the international community.

what the f is the matter with you? No really? Some sort of mental disturbance? Abuse as a child? Exclusion from your preferred social group? Abandonment by a parent figure (maybe a Jewish one?) What could make someone so broken? I mean, you're not nearly as stupid as most other leftists, but you are still fundamentally broken. You believe that palestinians should be allowed to purposely target Jewish children but Israel should not target those who would target these children. You believe that international law is paramount and rail against 'collective punishment' yet you support the most collective form of punishment of all - targteing for death random civilians. You say you want peace but are completely unwilling to contemplate the most basic compromises which would be necessary in order to bring peace about. you are an intellecual fraud and while it has taken me more time to see it than others here, I have seen it.

no, that's different, i do not support those actions, but noone has to help israel fighting them if israel continues its current counterproductive policy.

yes you do support these actions, you support their continuation and you support those who perpatrate them. And if the PA doesn't 'help' Israel then it has outlived its usefulness as an Israeli creation (it was created, to FIGHT terrorism, if you recall back to Oslo) and should be completely destroyed and Arafat either killed or arrested and tried Eichmann-style. Crimes against humanity are not justified, and that you would ask the world community to wilfully turn its back on these crimes is as much proof as I could ever need that you are hypocritical in your mouthed support for the absolutism of international law, that you are a supporter of terrorism and terrorist tactics and that you are, like the Plaestinians, among the least civilized and most depraved people on earth. So mazel tov - good for you.

the pa could be a great help if they had sufficient means (the ones other arab leaders dispose of, which means a real state) and the will to fight terror. Both will be possible if Israel gives in to the demands of the international community.

they had the means in the early 90s and did nothing. they opened the gates to the terrorists and they do not have standing to now turn around and say "we don't have the power". that's like a person convicted of murdering his parents claiming leniency in sentencing because he is an orphan. It doesn't work that way.

what i mean is that palestinian migrant workers are not responsible for the suicide-attacks, so it 's no excuse to forbid palestinians working in israel.

I don't care what you mean. Preventing entry is a good way to stop terrorists from entering. Stop the terrorists and something can be worked out, but for you to suggest that Israel should just pretend this exercise in depravity and barbarism never happened is beyond retarded.

[danholo]

What's wrong with you?!?

He doesn't like countries that sponsor democracy, liberty and freedom of speech. He'd rather defend North Korea, like ANSWER, because they are "victims of American imperialism" (in other words: Rhetorical bull@#$%) and accuse Israel and America of all the mistakes they made but not the deliberate actions and neglect for humanity by Arab regimes or other POS countries.

What really bugs me is the intentional Soviet incitement of violence in 1967. Where did all those Soviet lies about Israel "concentrating forces in the Golan" come from? Was it intentional? A conspiracy theory? Nasser did nothing after he learned that, in fact, there were no forces amassing anywhere. I'm just exited because I'm reading this book: "Six Days of War" by Oren. It's a great peace of work. Maybe takeo should read it as well.