I see tonight that Sharon is continuing his destruction of Palestine...

[p_p_man]

He makes it very difficult for Arafat to control the terrorists when he keeps killing off the Palestinian police force one by one and continues to bomb and shell the police stations...

 

[PHANTOM5875]

Do you really think Arafat can actually control those various factions in Palestine without killing them all outright? I know we yanks only get to skim the top of information coming out of that part of the world but do you really think Arafat could really stop the attacks? At first I thought he was just fucking with Israel and have come to the conclusion that he really doesn't have any reall control over the more radical factions there in Palestine.

I know Israel is not helping but they are just fucking TIRED of being attacked on almost a weekly basis now.

My heart goes out to those people and I really, really wish I knew the answer to that mess. I think the previous Israeli prime minister (Barak, I think) gave Palestine the best offer they will EVER get. Let's forget what's fair or equitable. They didn't take them up on it and that pretty much set the stage for where we are now.

Unless the UN is going to set up a DMZ (permanent most likely) and shell EITHER side religiously when one or the other gets out of line there won't be peace there until one side or the other assimilates the other.

And you know what? How come all the other "bleeding heart" arab neighbors don't cough up some land for the Palestinians? Just make sure the contested religious areas are taken over by the UN and declared a "free zone" for ALL worshipers to come and go as they see fit. Just one rule. You bring a weapon, you die on the spot. Otherwise, pray/party on dudes.

 

[SINthysist]

Arafat assuring peace

is tantamount to Sitting Bull saying he'd stay on the reservation.

We will only have peace when one side wins. If I were a betting man...

 

[PHANTOM5875]

is tantamount to Sitting Bull saying he'd stay on the reservation.

We will only have peace when one side wins. If I were a betting man...

And the real question is whether or not he IS their "Sitting Bull".

I kinda wonder if he is or not.............

 

[SINthysist]

No, he is not.

For some time Hamas and Hezbaloh have been calling all the shots and he has enjoyed being a jet-setting [to use an old term] diplomat. He's reduced himself to the role of Jesse Jackson. No, that's too good. Al Sharpton.

 

[registered "^^"]

Just saving the USA a few missles............

 

[SINthysist]

I don't think so. We give them aid and then they buy the missles.

 

[SINthysist]

Had to edit that. I left out some vowels and I did not want anyone to think I was a mole...

 

[p_p_man]

Arafat is a spent force and an old man...

Israel is a terrorist state, being run by Sharon the Beast of Beirut (remember the massacre of the thousands?), intent on destroying Palestine completely.

The only way it will end is if America withdraws all support from Israel. Forces Israel back within its legal borders; set up a bi-country interim Government to handle problems coimmon to both sides whilst the national Governments continue as they are for the moment.

There's more to my master plan, like coming down hard on terrorist attacks from either side. But the far more reaching effect is that the Islamic world would begin to see America in a different light.

With it's consequential effect on terrorism generally.

 

[miles]

shitman

Israel is a terrorist state, being run by Sharon the Beast of Beirut (remember the massacre of the thousands?), intent on destroying Palestine completely


Your stupidity knows no bounds, and goes hand in hand with your moronic bigotry.

Pathetic.

 

[SINthysist]

Uh,

Before Sharon, there was a government willing to give Arafat everyting he wanted and Bill CLinton his Legacy and Arafat pissed on all of that. So why shouldn't Arafat be pissed on now?

The funny thing is, when he started, he had more than he has now, but he decided on war, and attacked with a bunch of his buddies, who got thier asses kicked. Since then, he has only been,


PATHETIC.

 

[Guest]

Why is that Israel is wrong here?

Sharon should have done this sooner. Arafat is exactly what SIN said. A "diplomat", a figure head, a nothing in the whole equation.

Obviously his people don't listen to him at all.

 

[p_p_man]

Arafat has been finished for years...

but it's not Arafat that's being pissed on. It's Palestine and the Palestinian people.

Israel is very good at offering the olive branch with one hand for the sake of positive global propagnda, then commit acts intended to provoke with the other. And when the kids throw stones, Israel has its excuse to go in and bomb and shell and shoot. And then the suicide bombers retalliate and then... Until both countries are a hairsbreadth away from total war, as they are now. As the Arab world has a political as well as a religious reason to support the Palestians the whole of Bush's "war on terrorism" will be jeopardised.

As I've said before what come first?

The provocation or the fist in the mouth?

Sharon is a well documented murderer of thousands. He is now the Israeli Head of State.

I see no solution unless America does a U-turn on it's polocy, abandon Israel as an ally, and start all over again.

But with a more evenly balanced viewpoint and a more even handed manner.

 

[miles]

p_p_man

ROFMLAO

SO incredibly stupid.

 

[pabloback]

the palestinian people only tolerate arafat because they have no other spokesman , it is foolish to think that he has any kind of influence over hamas or hisbullah. israel needs a more moderate leader to initiate peace talks , there can be no peace until sharon is replaced. there will be no productive negotiating until the palestinians replace arafat with somebody that does have influence over hamas and hisbullah

 

[p_p_man]

pabloback...

We've got to stop agreeing with each like this!

 

[SINthysist]

p_p_

Are you forgetting that the Palestinians had land of thier own until they attacked Isreal?

 

[pabloback]

it is astounding how two people as politically diverse as myself and pp can agree on this , that means we are correct
sinthestist or ajax or cif or whatever your warped mind thinks you are called today
you have no knowledge of the history of the middle east , the palestinians are nomads , they had no land of their own and wandered between the region that is now israel , jordan and the lebanon , they are not well liked or trusted by the rest of the arab world
the only reason they have support among the arab nations is because of the hatred of israel and no other reason

 

[kitsuke]

There is one problem with your theory of Israel offering the peace branch with one hand and provoking with the other. It has been Israel's LONG-standing policy that any act of terrorism on it's citizens or land will have dire repercussions. Remember how after 9/11 everyone was saying that if there was not Hell to pay for this act then the terrorists would only be encouraged? Think of that on a DAILY basis for Israel. Israel has, in the past, let some of these things go. At the request of Clinton and others. What followed the unanswered attacks were, guess what? More attacks.

So if by ignoring attacks and responding to attacks you get more attacks, what do you do? You sure as hell respond. To do nothing would be to invite destruction upon yourself. You talk about Sharon wanting to exterminate Palestine? It is a well-documented, vociferously expressed, and vied for dream of most Palestinians to destroty Israel. Utterly. So why the hell should they feel any different about it? Not that they do. They are doing exactly what any of us would do in their situation: Trying to protect their own.

Israel is NOT outside it's legal borders. Israel had ceded the West Bank to Palestine on the understanding that it would help facilitate peace. Well the attacks continued, so why is anyone surprised that Israel is taking back what they offered for it? In truth also Israel never offered the West Bank to Palestine exclusive of itself, just that they would be welcome to settle the area. Look at it this way, if I give you $500 to paint my house, and you never paint my house, I am sure as hell going to come looking for my $500. Simple as that.

Israel is a hairs-breadth away from war... just like it has been for thirty-plus years. This is NOT news.

If the USA pulls support out of Israel completely then what will happen? Forst off with decline of power for Israel (eventual, they are damned tough, tech savvy, well trained little bastards ) the only true democracy in the mideast would collapse as millions of vengeance-bent extremists pouredin from all sides. And what would Israel's dying act be? Nukes. A lot of them. In fact the nukes, and Israel's non-shyness about their willingness to use them on invaders and their homelands, is the only thing that has kept many of these countries out of their so far. Even if by some miracle the nukes are not used what does that mean? It means that many terrorist states get their grubby hands on advanced ballistic nuclear technology. I don't like that particular nightmare. Also, the USA will lose one of it's three best staging areas in that region of the world, the otehr being Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Sharon is also doing exactly what he said he would. He told Arafat that if he could not contain the violence then Israel would find out who was responsible and start taking them out. Is it any surprise to us that Arafat's power structure is involved in the attacks against Israel? It is true that Arafat is only a figurehead now, but even a figurehead has some power. He has not lessened the violence from Palestine in the least... from his inception as it's leader. He is reaping what he has sown

And please, please, please don't give me anything about Israel starting the thing (they certainly did NOT), or wanting to continue it, or anything like that. Yes Israel has commited atrocities, as has Palestines. Do the Hatfields and the McCoys know why they are feuding anymore? Perhaps they do it just cuz their pappies did.

Whatever the reason, it is going to take a genuine effort on both parts to stop. I don't know if Israel will, and I *KNOW* that Palestine won't. Looks we are stuck with the situation for some time now. Much to my dismay.

 

[p_p_man]

SINthysist

I don't usually Cut and Paste preferring to put my own words onto the screen but the entire following article is too big to summarize correctly:

The following background was produced by the "Palestine-Israel Journal - quarterly produced and run by both Palestinians and Israelis"

There is a fair bit more about the land issue and if your interested the link is:

http://www.pij.org/xjournal.htm?jid=42

Land: The Core of the Conflict

Ziad Abu-Zayyad

Ziad Abu-Zayyad is member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and co-editor of the Palestine-Israel Journal.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Land was and still is the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict in Palestine. Even prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Zionist movement invested intensive efforts to obtain land from its Arab owners. The Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth le-Yisrael), for example, was
established with the sole aim and role of buying land from the Arabs. Yet, in spite of these efforts, only a small percentage of land passed into Jewish hands, mostly by Arabs who at the time lived in neighboring Arab countries, such as Lebanon and others.

When the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947, calling for the partition of Palestine, only 7 percent of the land was in Jewish hands; Palestinians owned the remaining 93 percent. In the wake of the Arab defeat in the 1948 war, the State of Israel was established on 78 percent of the total area of the land of Palestine, leaving the west
bank of the River Jordan together with the Gaza Strip to Jordan and Egypt, respectively.

Immediately after the end of the 1948 war, Israel's campaign for the acquisition of Palestinian land took new shape. Instead of buying the land from its Palestinian owners, the newly created Jewish state passed laws which would enable it to obtain land through "legal" means. Accordingly, the 1948 Land Law was passed, which stipulated that any land not in active
cultivation for three years, was considered "neglected" (matruk)
and, upon the authority of the Ministry of Agriculture, its ownership was passed on to another party. This procedure was made possible through a unique cooperation between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Israeli Military Administration. The Palestinians who had not fled or had not been expelled
during the 1948 war, but remained on their land within the Israeli state, were placed under administrative detention by the Israeli Military Administration.

They were denied freedom of movement and were thus kept from cultivating their lands. These lands would later be declared "neglected" by the Ministry of Agriculture and would pass into Jewish ownership.

In 1950, Israel passed the Law of Absentee Property, which enabled it to expropriate millions of dunums (four dunums equal one acre) of Palestinian land and to pass them to the control of the Minhal Mekarkaei Yisrael (The Israel Lands Authority). Part of these lands belonged to Palestinians who had fled the country and had become refugees, but part also belonged to those who had remained in what became the State of Israel, but were
moved by the Israeli authorities from their villages of origin and concentrated into other ones, where they would be under the tight control of the Israeli Military Administration. This earned them the status of "absentees"!

Subsequently, the Development Authority was founded in 1951. It had for role the exploitation of the lands of absentees, and was given the authority to transfer these lands to Keren Kayemeth or the State of Israel--- but never to non-Jews. Indeed, to this day, Keren Kayemeth, the Israel Lands Authority, Amidar, and other bodies dealing with land go by one rule:
no land can be transferred to non-Jews.