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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (12482)	12/2/2001 10:36:49 PM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

The Palestinians have never published a textbook that has Israel on the map -- in any border. Yes, it's the education of young children that keep the flames fanned. btw Tony B seems to be on the ropes politically at the moment. Heard rumors that he even suggested resigning as pm and give the job to Gordon Brown. It's been officially denied by government sources so it must have some truth in it. The right wing Telegraph is smelling some blood and makes these comments on The Isreal/Palistine problem. btw This country has bent over backwards meeting the demands of the IRA, some of them plain ridiculous. If it brings peace, wonderful, if not... a massive crackdown is then warranted. portal.telegraph.co.uk Arafat's choice (Filed: 03/12/2001) THE atrocities in Jerusalem and Haifa over the weekend were outstanding in the careful calculation of the suffering they would inflict and of the evil they would do. They confront Yasser Arafat with a last chance to prove that he is a valid interlocutor for peace. The bombings, which killed at least 25 people and wounded about 200, came shortly after Washington's re-engagement in the region with the appointment of Anthony Zinni and William Burns as special envoys. Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for the attacks, is obviously trying to sabotage this initiative before it has had a chance to take wing. Its goal is not to seek a modus vivendi with Israel, but to drive it into the sea. If it succeeds, Mr Arafat will be swept away as well. The Palestinian leader has played with fire for far too long. Acting without principle, he has now constrained the extremists, now given them rein, depending on where he judged the political advantage to lie. The result, particularly since the outbreak of the second intifada, has been the strengthening of their presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and a string of suicide bombings. To break the radicals' growing hold over the Palestinians requires an end to Mr Arafat's deeply ambivalent attitude towards terrorism. First, those responsible must be caught, tried and given long sentences that must then be served; the old policy of arrests and premature releases will not do. Second, the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation should stop giving airtime to those anti-Semites who accuse the Jews of planning the Holocaust and call on Muslims to "burn" America and the West. Mr Arafat can either be the president-in-waiting of a Palestinian state or a terrorist leader. If the latter, he does not deserve a seat at the negotiating table, but rather to be punished militarily by the Israelis and deprived of aid by foreign donors such as the European Union. He has allowed the Islamisization of the intifada to reach such a pitch that it will require courage to reverse the trend. He has often spoken of a "peace of the brave". Now is his chance to prove that he means what he says, before he is finally pushed aside by the fanatics. The West should support Israel's right to protect its citizens and make clear to Mr Arafat that failure to break the extremists will lead to withdrawal of support for a Palestinian state under his leadership. It should also tell countries such as Iran, Syria and Iraq that they cannot continue to sponsor the likes of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbollah with impunity. One of the lessons to be drawn from the bombings of September 11 is that the war on terrorism should be indivisible. It is one yet to be learnt by our own Foreign Office. Yesterday, Ben Bradshaw, a junior minister, sought to excuse Mr Arafat of responsibility for the weekend bombings and to persuade the Israelis to take a leaf out of the British Government's book in its dealing with Northern Ireland. First, he said that the Palestinian leader could not be expected to prevent every single suicide attack. Then he told the interviewer that, after the Omagh bombing of 1998, in which 31 people died, the Labour administration had "redoubled" its efforts to make peace, rather than "fire rockets into the houses of suspects". What an insult to a nation that had just suffered yet another terrible wound. Mr Bradshaw needs to be reminded that the "peace" achieved in Northern Ireland is greatly weakened by the fact that no one has yet been convicted for Omagh: wounds cannot heal if those who inflict them escape unpunished. In dealing with its far more acute terrorist threat, Israel has nothing to learn from smug Labour ministers who think they have found the key to peace.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (12482)	12/3/2001 12:52:52 PM
From: Thomas M.	Respond to of 281500

Israel has had a jaundiced view of the UN since Nasser told them "go away" in May 1967, and they went. That's quite a whopper, Nadine. Firstly, while Egypt ordered away UN troops on the border in 1967, Israel ordered away the UN troops on that same border 11 years before that. Secondly, Israel's "jaundiced view" of the UN and any other body of international law predates even the 1956 actions. Yitzhak Shamir (later voted as leader of Israel by the populace) orchestrated the assassination of U.N. mediator Count Folke Bernadotte (who dared to respect the rights of the indigneous people in dividing up Palestine), and then-current Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was at the very least an accessory. lysator.liu.se Tom