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

To: Don Hurst who wrote (22391)	3/28/2002 3:54:31 AM
From: SirRealist	Respond to of 281500

Don; I do not condone the actions of all Israelis, nor of all Americans. I've long advocated the return of most of the Gaza strip and hardly view the issues to be as clear cut as Israelis=good, Palestinians=bad. However, the Israelis do not threaten to exterminate all Arabs, all Palestinians, or to drive them into the sea, despite having the military force that could do so. When negotiations break down and civilians get targeted day in and day out by suicide attackers, nobody gains. I well understand that liberation movements can legitimize unconventional means, yet when it becomes the modus operandi of a leader to resort to such forceful means repeatedly, while mocking anything short of an Israeli surrender to their every whim, there has to be a counter to that imo. The Palestinians have become the pawns of every two-bit Arab leader that pursues the same end: the end of Israel. Even OBL uses it, knowing full well that preaching to the choir maintains his legend long after he's sufferred numerous defeats. I only propose to wreak havoc on the terrorist orgs to convince Arafat and other Arab leaders, that violence will yield losses, period. Peace can only occur via negotiation, and the viability of a Palestinian state can only occur when its peoples put forth the hard work and innovation necessary to build self-sufficiency. As I see it, the Arafat goal is simply to lay siege to Israel endlessly till they surrender and abandon their infrastructure to the Palestinians... weaponry, tech companies, a working economy, etc. Again, there is shared blame for certain impasses. But the push to gain everything via violent means - instead of innovation and negotiation - originates from one side. I claim no moral high ground in my proposed course of action besides knowing that the extermination of one group of people is always wrong, and must be repulsed. The Oslo accords provided 80% of the aims of the Palestinians, with Israel seeking only peaceful coexistence from the outcome. Arafat refused to build on that via negotiation, because, it seems, he wanted 100%, period. He does not accept the concepts of negotiation and compromise. And at this point, I doubt he ever will till it is made clear that the cost of non-negotiation is too great to bear. So please spare the attempts to make it appear like I'm on some Zionist crusade. I have simply become convinced, over many years, and especially in the past year, that the only thing Arafat understands or respects, is the application of superior force that does not back down when he starts whining about how unfair everyone else is.

To: Don Hurst who wrote (22391)	3/28/2002 7:06:53 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Don't want to have any of those 1.5 million "terrorists" confined to 78% of Gaza trying to kick out those 6000 "settlers" in 19 settlements. Hmm... so now you're blaming the Israelis for the explosive birth rate of the Palestinians? Life must not have been too bad if they were able to sustain 3% birth rates and increase their populations at such a rate in those nasty refugee camps. But the more interesting question is that, given they STILL have this fantastic birth rate, what will they be demanding 30 years from now (if not sooner)?? "Oh.. we can't manage to live on 100% of the Gaza strip so we want some of Israel now"... I wonder how much geographic space the 20% of the Israeli population, who are Arab/Palestinian, take up? Should the Jews be able to say, "Hey... It's getting too crowded here... We don't have enough room for all of those Arabs now.. We're going to expel them from the country"...??? When you make such statements Don, you might want to switch the parties around and see if the logic still works. If the Palestinians can "kick out" Jewish settlers, what prevents the same logic from being applied to the 1 million muslim citizens of Israel? The bottom line is that under the original plans for the British Mandate, under which there was a geographic allocation for a Palestinian partition, Jews were supposed to be permitted to settle in the West Bank and Gaza. In fact, they should have been able to settle in what is now Jordan, but the British gave that land to the Hashemite Arabs. Talk of kicking any ethnic or racial group out of ANY territory in the region is counter-productive and laden with potential retaliatory repercussions against their own population. The Israelis might turn all of their Arab citizens into refugees, and force them to live in the new Palestinian state. (I doubt they would do this, but events are beginning to transcend logic and constitutional civil rights). Hawk