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Politics : The Castle -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (2727)	2/12/2004 8:40:20 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7936

"Hence my original statement "Yes astonishing. It doesn't matter who controlled it first, its astonishing when someone is willing to give up such a large fraction of the land they control when they are not forced to do so." " I am astonished at how you attempt to gloss over history. The same mandate that the Zionists finessed from the UN in order to establish the state of Israel also directed that the Palestinians get their own state. Its not glossing over history at all. The mandate is irrelevant to this specific point. Whatever a mandate has said the reality is Israel has more control over all of the land than anyone else. They took it over. Justified or not its a matter of simple fact. Even if it was an evil act it did happen. Now that they control its surprising that they consider giving it up. I will however admit that astonishing was too strong of word. Surprising is better. And yes, you are right if one goes by the edict that might makes right I wasn't saying might makes right. More like might makes might. I didn't say that because Israel has more power everything it does is fine and dandy. I said because it has more power if it comes down to a matter of power then Israel gets what it wants. Despite that they are willing to give some of the control away to an enemy that they hate and that returns the hate. That is surprising. All of this has nothing to do with any right Israel may or may not have. Maybe not each time but over time. Then I would be correct when I said it wasn't true. and of course, you know that because we've argued this point before. Over time in the sense that their offers now are less then the original mandate or any offer Israel might have made at that time yes. But the last time the peace process was in play Israel offered more then they had for a long time. For many years before that they where essentially offering nothing. "The religious right is not small but it is a minority. Most of them are not fanatical, unless you define "religious right" so narrowly that they are indeed a small minority. And the % even within the religious right that would "get rid of gays and most minorities" if they had the power to do so would at most be in the low single digits." Is this from the top of your head, or do you have evidence of your claim? Every poll I've seen shows those most religious to be in double digits and they are diametrically opposed to gays among other things. Show me a poll that says a double digit percentage of Americans (not even limiting it to the religious right you can count non religious people as part of that percentage) would want to kill or kick out of the country "gays and most minorities". You look at examples of the extremists among the religious right and then consider them to be the religious right. Then you see a poll that tens of millions of Americans are in the religious right and take that to mean that a significant percentage of the American population are religious extremists who support persecution of minorities, death or exile for gays and violence to impose their ideas. That is almost as distorted picture of the world as the flat earth society, holocaust deniers or those who think the world is run by the Illuminati. Its also probably the most unreasonable and/or ignorant thing that I have ever seen you post on SI. Let's hope the Israelis are more open. If they get good reason to at least have rational hope for real peace they might be open to concessions. So far they haven't gotten a lot of that from the Palestinians. They have not endorsed it......only Sharon has......finally. Sharon has, as have some others in Likud and pretty much all of Labor, enough to be a majority of the legislature and of the people and enough to have the power to impose peace with the Palestinians on reluctant Israelis. If you where the PM of Israel would you trust Arafat to shut down Hammas? Why should they? They are ones who are oppressed and nationless. Talking with Israel gets them nowhere. And it will get them nowhere if they give Israel no reason to think that either talk or concessions will achieve real peace not just a short lived truce. This verbage is gobley gook. Why would anyone agree to peace when your opponent is as slippery as an eel. 1 - That works both ways in fact Arafat is probably even more slippery. 2 - I am not saying they should agree to peace without getting something in return, or with conditions as they are now. I'm saying they have to show willingness and ability to impose peace on their side to be able to really put peace on the table as a bargaining chip. Otherwise they don't have peace to offer in exchange for land and a state, they might as well offer the Brooklyn Bridge or ocean front property in Arizona. "Are you under the opinion that all of the following are true?" Ted's answers 1 - Yes 2 - Yes 3 - Unknown Tim's answers 1 - Unknown but leaning towards no 2 - Unknown but leaning towards no 3 - Unknown The answers that I think the Israelis would have to believe to solidly increase what they have offered the PLO/PA 1 - Yes 2 - Yes 3 - At very least "probably yes", perhaps "almost certainly yes". Tim