President Bush, about to take another one on the chin

[rambling man]

The world, predictably, will erupt when Bush declines to send a delegate to the world conference on racism. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson will raise hell. Democrats will point at the President and say look at the right wing racist.....And, like with Kyoto, the Democratic Party will hide behind Bush

A leading House Democrat has pleaded for Bush to boycott the UN Conference on Racism. Why? Because the Arab states have placed Zionism on the agenda of racist topics. Bush will refuse to send someone, Bush will get dumped on, but the Democrats who rely on the Jewish vote will stay comfortably behind the scenes instead of shouting "Yes, our party rejects this blatantly anti-Semitic conference as well."

If he is smart, he will insist that the Democrat who asked him to decline the invitation speak with him when he makes the announcement. Get as many Democrats as possible to stand with him and support Israel...A bipartisan effort against anti-Semitism

Why are the Arabs so antagonistic to Israel? Sounds like a suburb in the bad old days one black family in a sea of white faces and they cannot abide even that small of a presence....

Finally, you always hear Bush, Powell, Blair, whoever, urging restraint to Israel everytime a coward blows up a club or a pizza parlor. So hypocritical. When the Libyans took shots at our diplomats in Europe, then bombed a nightclub killing a serviceman, the US came within a hairs breadth of launching a full-scale Normandy type invasion of Libya, but settled for an air attack that was aimed at killing Qaddafi himself.....If Mexicans started a string of terrorist assaults in the US from bases in Mexico, the US Army would be in Mexico quicker than you could say refried beans

The Palestinians are a cowardly, scruffy lot that were ejected from several Arab countries because they are constant pains in the ass. Israel goes after their terrorist officials, they go after defenseless civilians. Even Osama Bin Laden only attacks US government and military installations and not civilians.

They are not interested in co-existence or peace. It is time to tell Israel to release the fucking hounds and in so doing finally secure peace. The right of Israel to exist and have security within its borders is not racism.

 

[sexy-girl]

i disagree with you on alot of levels sorry


Ariel Sharon should be going to the hague for war crimes for when he was defense ministy in war with libia he allowed a terrorist group into a israeli held libyan city ... the terrorist group had some of there members killed by libyan forces just a few days ago and were enraged ... so when they were allowed into the city which Ariel Sharon permitted they butchered libyan women and children in the night


my point is Ariel Sharon is not a "good guy" and neither is israel not by a LONG way ... terroism is a huge problem for israel and it must be terrible living there at the moment but the answer isnt to bomb the crap out of palestine people ... they should work WITH palestine forces to stop the terrorism this way they would have the support of world opinion and the peace treaty would of gone ahead quicker ... and the terroists wouldnt of been so fanatical .. if england was like israel we would of started bombing Ireland because of the IRA ... this never beats terrorism


from the american news programmes ive seen it seems you get a sligthly one sided point of view thats bias towards israel ... perhaps because you have a high jewish population in america ... over here we seem to get more balanced reporting ... im not saying palestine are the good guys either ... neither sides are good

 

[Weird Harold]

a israeli held libyan city ...

Libya or Lebanon?

Libya is at the opposite end of the Mediteranean and I'v enever heard on any Isreali occupations in coutries that they don't share borders with.

 

[sexy-girl]

lol sorry i got mixed up your right ... im remembering facts from a documentry i saw last year trying to remember to hard i got confused about something stupid

 

[rambling man]

The Israeli people have been attacked over and over by these Palestinian nuts, yet you say they have no right to fight back?

If it were Americans in a Cincinnati pizza parlor, or a Memphis bus station, or a bomb went off at a school bus stop, you would say that we have no right to retaliate? (oops, forgot you are a Brit)

Britain's situation is different, too. If the people and some of the governments of Europe were constantly allied against Britain's right to exist, it might cause a little more paranoia. If France, Germany, Holland, Spain, and Poland were all intensely hostile to Britain and there were no English Channel, then you get a sense of how Israel feels......

besides, when Hitler's Europe was raised against Britain, Bomber Command initiated terror raids against German cities, targeting the civilian population and leaving industrial targets to the US 8th Army Air Force...not that our hands were clean...we did the same to Japan....Were these war crimes? Should Air Marshal Harris been put on trial for this action when Britain was at war against a hostile continent? No, neither should Sharon. (I do not like the whole idea of war crimes, but that is another thread)

Israel is on a sliver of land about what, the size of Maryland? There is no oil there, no major rivers except on the border with Jordan. Why do they hate Israel so much, ever since the beginning? Has to be anti-Semitism.

I don't remember that incident with Libya, though...are you sure it was not Lebanon or Syria????

Dont apologize for speaking your mind....you and I are always cool, k?

 

[sexy-girl]

i do learn alot from debating/discussing with people on here even if i disagree with them ... i know theres alot of facts that i dont understand and that im missing



and yeah i did mean Lebanon sorry i think i had Libya on the mind when you talked of US bombing them


the incident was very different then when civilians are killed as a result of attacking military targets (thats terrible but not a war crime) ... the town was CONTROLLED by israel there was no hostile forces there ... but israel permitted the terrorist group to enter the city knowing full well what would happen ... it wasnt solders that were killed but women and children this was ALL Ariel Sharon's fault he was the only one that was resposible as he was in charge of the attack on lebanon and he gave the go ahead to let the terrorists into the city


i think also you have to bare in mind that israel are being attacked by terrorists its not the same as a war ... if they would seek to work with the palestinian government in stopping the terrorists it would work so much better ... every attack they are doing just makes more terrorists and makes them more fanatical ... if they tried to work it out peacefully there would be so much pressure on the Palestinian government to help they would have too


im not judging the right of israel or palestine to exist there both there now and they have to find someway to deal with it ... destroying one or the other isnt an option that anyone could seriously consider i dont think

 

[TWB]

To man the world is twofold, in accordance with his twofold attitude. He perceives what exists round about him - simply things, and beings as things; and what happens round about him - simply events, and actions as events; things consisting of qualifies, events of moments; things entered in the graph of place, events in that of time; things and events bounded by other things and events, measured by them, comparable with them: he perceives an ordered and detached world. It is to some extent a reliable world, having density and duration. Its organization can be surveyed and brought out again and again; gone over with closed eyes, and verified with open eyes. It is always there, next to your skin, if you look on it that way, cowering in your soul, if you prefer it so. It is your object, remains it as long as you wish, and remains a total stranger, within you and without. You perceive it, take it to yourself as the "truth," and it lets itself be taken; but it does not give itself to you. Only concerning it may you make yourself "understood" with others; it is ready, though attached to everyone in a different way, to be an object common to you all. But you cannot meet others in it. You cannot hold on to life without it, its reliability sustains you; but should you die in it, your grave would be in nothingness.

Or on the other hand, man meets what exists and becomes as what is over against him, always simply a single being and each thing simply as being. What exists is opened to him in happenings, and what happens affects him as what is. Nothing is present for him except this one being, but it implicates the whole world. Measure and comparison have disappeared; it lies with yourself how much of the immeasurable becomes reality for you. These meetings are not organized to make the world, but each is a sign of the world-order. They are not linked up with one another, but each assures you of your solidarity with the world. The world which appears to you in this way is unreliable, for it takes on a continually new appearance; you cannot hold it to its word. It has no density, for everything in it penetrates everything else; no duration, for it comes even when it is not summoned, and vanishes even when it is tightly held. It cannot be surveyed, and if you wish to make it capable of survey you lose it. It comes, and comes to bring you out; if it does not reach you, meet you, then it vanishes; but it comes back in another form. It is not outside you, it stirs in the depth of you; if you say "Soul of my soul" you have not said too much. But guard against wishing to remove it into your soul - for then you annihilate it. It is your present; only while you have it do you have the present. You can make it into an object for yourself, to experience and to use; you must continually do this - and as you do it you have no more present. Between you and it there is mutual giving: you say Thou to it and give yourself to it, it says Thou to you and gives itself to you. You cannot make yourself understood with others concerning it, you are alone with it. But it teaches you to meet others, and to hold your ground when you meet them. Through the graciousness of its comings and the solemn sadness of its goings it leads you away to the Thou in which the parallel lines of relations meet. It does not help to sustain you in life, it only helps you to glimpse eternity.

-Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970), pp. 31-33.


Unfortunately, I think both palestinians and israelis are becoming what they despise most in each other.

 

[rambling man]

The problem is that the Palestinian government is riddled with terrorists....where did they come from? A terrorist organization. The PLO became the Palestinian Authority

I think Arafat personally may want peace, but he has lost control over the hot heads in his party.

And Israel offered the P.A. everything they wanted except Old Jerusalem. The P.A. responded by walking out, their officials began kidnapping soldiers and killing civilians

Now Israel attacks military and government targets while the P.A. attacks civilians. If another government is attacking your people, blowing up restaurants and school bus stops in your cities, it is war. It is not a classical army versus army war because the P.A. would rather bomb civilians and then run and hide...

Britain continued creating firestorms in German cities (and we did in Japan) long after it had destroyed the Luftwaffe, leaving the civilians totally defenseless. The RAF created a firestorm in Hamburg that raised temps in the city center to 1,500 to 3,000 degrees (as we did to Tokyo) They also decimated Cologne in the same manner...the fact is that these were not war crimes but unfortunate developments of war......tit for tat escalation of destruction that the Germans could not match...

Israel has been restraining itself inthis manner. They should do what their Arab neighbors did when Palestinian bombs started exploding in their cities, expel the whole lot of them

 

[miles]

The terrorism can be stopped immediately. If Arafat told the Palestinians to stop the attacks, they would come to a screeching halt. But that's not going to happen. Without the constant discord between them and the Israelis, Arafat is a rebel without a cause. Israel's demographics are slowly changing, and as they become more of a religious state they will become less tolerant of their enemies. Now it's a one-sided holy war. In another generation it will be two-sided, and it won't be pretty.

As far as Jesse and the Rev. Al go, they can go fuck a rolling doughnut. Both are a couple of phony publicity whores masquerading as leaders. Jesse is nothing but a corporate shakedown artist. Sharpton is just a joke.

 

[Mensa]

A closer scenario

rambling man, your analogy of Mexican raids upon the U.S. resulting in American troops in Mexico is not reallly accurate.

One closer to the real situation would be American Native Indians attacking American targets because they want their land returned.

 

[miles]

rambling man

I really don't care how many of Germany's cities we leveled. I'm sorry innocent civilians lost their lives. But their country did start the war, and we had to finish it Long after the Germans knew the war was lost they were launching rocket attacks against G.B. that were intended to kill civilians. They damn near destroyed London in the Battle of Britian earlier in the war. It's a fact that civilians die in war. Especially if you lose.

 

[rambling man]

What makes Palestinians have any more right to that land? Palestine is not a nation, it was the name of a Roman province..named so because they wanted to eliminate Jewish claim to it...it was derived from the old word for Philistines, whose culture has long since disapppeared...Since the Roman era, it has been Arab, Latin, Turk, then British, then Israel...there was never a nation-state of Palestine

On the other hand the nation occupying that area is almost the oldest nation (meaning a group of people sharing religion, culture, language, etc) in history. They have a very long standing claim on the land that the Roman Empire took from them...if you want to go down the Indian road

More easily is this, Israel is a nation-state, recognized by most nations in the world, a member of the United Nations...they were granted independence by the UN, the Arab states tried to destroy it several times and failed.....they have earned their right to exist with the blood of people defending their land and country

They have a right, every right, to defend their territory and people against attack.....If they had not launched these limited attacks, the people of Israel would retaliate in their own way, just as we would against terrorists attacking US targets

 

[sexy-girl]

the trouble with terrorism is that you cant attack terrorists you can attack the nation they come from but that isnt actually the terrorists they remain hidden and the more you attack the nation they come from the more the terrorists numbers will grow

this is the point we seem to disagree with ... i dont think it works to attack a nation from where the terrorists come from

also i guess you are supporting and backing israel where i believe neither party is in the right especially with how they are both dealing with it

i also 100% do not trust Ariel Sharon that is why i brought up the issue of what happened when they attacked and occupied parts of Lebanon

 

[Mensa]

A conundrum

You state that Israel has a right to exist and defend itself from terrorist attacks. Agreed. But you claim that the Palestinians have no legitimatwe claim to nation-state status. What are they then and what would you do with them . Diaspora? Reservations? Concentration camps? What?

 

[Weird Harold]

More easily is this, Israel is a nation-state, recognized by most nations in the world, a member of the United Nations...they were granted independence by the UN, the Arab states tried to destroy it several times and failed.....they have earned their right to exist with the blood of people defending their land and country

I think you are conveniently forgetting that the UN resolution that created modern Isreal also created an independent Palestinian State. What Isreal (and the world) refers to as "the occupied territories" is that land granted to the Palestinians by the same UN Mandate that created Isreal's official borders.

 

[KillerMuffin]

This is more than just territorial, it's a religious debate.

Israel believes that Israel belongs to the jews and only the jews. "Zionism, the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, advocated, from its inception, tangible as well as spiritual aims. Jews of all persuasions, left and right, religious and secular, joined to form the Zionist movement and worked together toward these goals. Disagreements led to rifts, but ultimately, the common goal of a Jewish state in its ancient homeland was attained." (us-israel.org

It belonged to someone else before God gave it to the Jews after 40 years of following Moses around Saudi Arabia. It was the Promised Land. There has always been a Zionist movement since the jews finally lost Israel in its completeness to the Romans. They were just not that stubborn about it until after the Holocaust. After that, a large group returned to Zionism and returned to Israel and took it over. You may find this of interest:

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/zoparis.html

It's the Zionist Organization Statement on Palestine
Paris Peace Conference
(February 3, 1919)

This is a must read for anyone considering a judgement on Zionism.

Muff's opinin:

No matter what the Jews have stated in there little peace with the palestinians, they do not want any part of Israel to be governed by anyone who isn't Jewish. Zionism dictates that the jews must have all of Israel because it was given to them by God. They will not stop doing whatever they think they need to do to get all of Israel and soveriegnty over all people in Israel until Israel is theirs. That means that the Palestinians can live there, but they won't be a part of the government. As more jews immigrate to Israel, more palestinians will be shoved back.

There will be no peaceful settlement in Israel unless the palestinians give up their soveriegnty to Israel or Israel is stopped. There will be a nasty war and the US will be pulled in on Israel's side because we have signed treaties with them and we're stupid that way. Allies of the US will be fucked as well, because we'll be putting pressure on them and the UN and NATO to help us fight with Israel. That would be, of course, worst case scenario.

I have no sympathy for Israel. The jews ran there screaming of genocide and holocaust, but here they are committing genocide on the palestinians. They don't want palestinians in Israel, they only want Jews. The palestinians won't leave so they push and they push until the palestinians fight back. Then they cry Terrorists! and kill more palestinians. I think neither Israel nor Palestine should have international help in this one. Both have done greivous wrong to each other. Both of them should fight it out with the might or muscle of industrialized nations weighing in on it. If they want to kill each other off, let them. If they want to fight over ground, let them. Israel is a breeding ground for another world war, if we let it.

 

[miles]

Muffy

I have no sympathy for Israel. The jews ran there screaming of genocide and holocaust, but here they are committing genocide on the palestinians.


I'll give you a chance to retract that.

 

[Harbinger]

I notice that people tend to throw around terms like "the Jews", or "the Palestinians". It's like saying, "Black Americans think" thus and so, or "white people" do this or that. It's probably better to try to use terms like The Government of Israel, or the Palestinian Authority, or Sharon, or Arafat. Nobody likes to be told who they are according to what group they belong to, it's demeaning. I stopped believing in "groups" of people as real entities. I believe in individuals. In fact, there are a lot of individual people over there that have individual ideas about what is going on, and many of them want peace. It is easier to focus on those that want to keep the flames of hatred burning hot, sadly, because there is always ready fuel for those fires, and they are so hard to extinguish.

I have a number of friends that are Jewish, or Islamic, and have lived/do live/ have family in/ Israel or Palestine, and many of them have lost homes and loved ones to this stupid conflict. Some of them want to carry this bloody battle flag for yet another generation, but others are willing to try to find routes to peace. Ultimately, the two "sides" are those who want this tragedy to end, and those that want it to continue. Pick a side.