... interesting you should bring that up ...
... attached e-mail between a close friend and I today ...
Hi Lee. I agree with you that Israel, given the suicide-bomber-murder attacks, had little choice but to respond as they have done in the West Bank (and I do not have a view or opinion that Israel committed crimes in Jenin or anywhere else). However, with public opinion turning against Israel in Europe, (and slowly moving more against them even in the U.S.), when a world wide publication with a solid and professional reputation such as "The Economist" raises the issue of war crimes, it is not a good development for anyone.
Unfortunately, Israel often makes its problems worse for itself. To determine whether my memory was correct or not in this case, I researched the course of events that led us to the situation we have there today.
(1) On September 28, 2000, just as Ariel Sharon was about to begin his Likud Party campaign to unseat Barak as Prime Minister, he surrounded himself with over 1,000 Israeli security police and marched on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in an extremely provocative, dangerous and most visible manner. Although it is impossible to be 100% sure about motive, I remember thinking at the time, and still believe today that Sharon was using this cynical tactic to destabilize the area and hurt the chances of the peace settlement that Arafat would so stupidly decline later in the year. Sharon was and is 100% against where the peace process stood, given that it would lead to the eventual abandonment of many or all of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Sharon knew what he was doing ... and he got what he wanted, the 2nd Palestinian "Intifadah" ... he knew the Palestinian people hated him ... he knew they were emotional ... and he knew that they were uneducated. So Sharon got what he wanted ... we are now further from peace there than we have been in years ... and that is exactly what the Likud Party and Sharon want.
(2) The biggest issue overall are the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. If this land is to become the Palestinian homeland, how can that ever happen with dozens and dozens of Jewish settlements spread through the West Bank. Find yourself a map of the West Bank and look for yourself ... Israeli settlements dot the entire area as if they were heavily and evenly peppered on the map.
(3) Sharon is no man of peace. For our President to say so (and I generally approve of GWB's time in office to date) is almost laughable. The biggest mistake he has made to date was staying disengaged with what has been happening in Israel, etc. Now he is in trouble.
(4) The U.S. and World economies could be easily destabilized right now. If Saudi Arabia gives the word, the Saudis, Iran, Libya, UAE, Qatar will give us an oil-shock like we have not seen in the past - not even in the 70s. And why ... the answer is two words ... Ariel Sharon.
Not that I have not read and thought about the issue a little - (VERY BIG GRIN).
With respect and affection.
Ken
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Lee wrote:
Hi Ken:
One way for the Palestinians to have avoided this catastrophe would have been to not send 23 people into Israel to blow up crowded buses and restaurants in the last 18 months.
Don't know about you, but when my family and I are sitting outside and hornets keep coming around our food and stinging us, I get the wasp spray and go after the nest. That is essentially what Israel did. I think the US did the same thing in Nicaragua a few years ago. Were there some innocent people hurt or killed? Undoubtedly. But as I said at the outset, there was a way to stop it from happening.
If you mess around long enough with things you shouldn't be messing with, eventually you get your butt kicked. I wish it had not been necessary for Israel to clean out the filthy terrorists holed up in Jenin, but under the circumstances, I do not criticize Israel for doing so.
Having said all that, I agree that it will be trouble for the US. However, to make avoiding trouble your life goal will not help your grandchildren live in freedom.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants" (Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William S. Smith in 1787. Taken from Jefferson, On Democracy 20, S. Padover ed., 1939)
Lee |
