You are reasonably promoting complete falsehoods:
The difference between talking to someone in Riyadh and in Tel-Aviv has been that in Tel-Aviv it used to be that people could see THE OTHER POINT OF VIEW. That was healthy, for it allowed more rational decisions to be made, based on better information and better analysis. But this is what has been slowly changing
SFD, have you checked the papers coming out of Tel Aviv and Riyadh lately? Do you consider they have become equivalent in propaganda value? Do Palestinian papers have reporters in Tel Aviv, as Ha'aretz has Amira Hass in Ramallah? The only possible way you can come to such a conclusion is to measure the two cultures on scales that are orders of magnitude apart, and decry the Israelis for declining from some lofty height that you think they should be staying at, while expecting nothing of the Arabs. In fact, you do expect nothing of the Arabs,
I never claim the Arabs are without fault (indeed, how can they be without fault, when their civilisation has basically failed)
Yet in half your posts you blame Israel for the hatred against it -- it has sowed the fruits of hatred by stealing all its land, you keep saying, it's "vicious", "colonial", "evil", etc.
Don't you see the contradictions in your own argument? Does a "failed society" need just reasons to hate a successful one? Does it need defensible reasons to refuse to even negotiate a compromise, preferring to cling to its hatred, preferring war to peace? No, it does not -- for to prefer peace it would have to look its own failures in the eye, instead of always blaming the "other".
As for this "war of liberation" the Palestinians are supposed to be fighting: if by "liberation" you mean the end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, they could have had it two years ago (your reasons why Arafat must get 100% of the territories, 99.9% won't do, 35 years after the Six Day War, are entirely unpersuasive to non-Arabs. The Taba deal was for 97% net. So, who fights a war for 3%? Maybe borders aren't the real issue, hmm?)
However, if you mean by a "war of liberation" that the Palestinians are fighting to liberate themselves, that is manifestly not true, and can be shown by the way the PA has ruled 95% of the population of the territories since 1994. Liberty and rule of law do not enter into the picture. One man dictatorships that rule by the gun do not fight for "liberation", they fight for their own tyrrany. Arafat never liberated anyone.
As for your charge that I consider Israel without fault, that is not true at all. However, when someone dumps a load of anti-Israel canards on me, about how Israel STOLE its land, deserves all the hatred it engendered, is a vicious colonial oppressor, etc, it is not reasonable to expect my answer to dwell on Israel's missteps for the last 40 years. |
