So I suppose we should ignore the fact that Palestinian terroris--sorry, "freedom fighters" are targeting such key military targets as dance clubs and bat mizvahs?
Nope. That was not my intention at all. But the actions of Palestinian terroris does not exuse the war crimes being comitted by Israel on a daily basis.
I believe the Israeli-Palenstinian question has only two legitimate perspectives: either both countries are engaging in equal acts of brutality, in which case we must pursue a cease-fire and peace talks - or Palestine is much, much worse.
I believe it is the former.
Considering that when Palestinian terrorists attack, they TARGET civilians, I'd say they're the more egregious combatants. And considering that Israel is the only Western democracy in that part of the world, I'd say it's clear that we should be their allies.
The ratio of Palestinian deaths to Israeli is something like 5 - 10x greater. And make no mistake, Isreael targets civillans, it's a matter of policy. They impose apartheid-like rules on Arabs - hardly a "democracy"
(It's also amazing that the "David and Goliath" analogy has been so twisted that the JEWISH state, a state surrounded by Arab nations that want to see it wiped off the face of the earth, is the "Goliath" harrasing the supposedly innocent Arafat.
Israel invaded and sized land in violation of international law and has proceeded to subjugate them at gunpoint.
If Israel wants to be treated better by its neighbors, it has to start thinking of Arabs as humans and not as "cancer" and "lice" as they are refferred to by Israeli leaders who see Jews as the chosen people and Arabs as some sort of sub-human speicies.
You wonder why the Arab nations are so hostile?
"Our fathers had reached the frontiers recognized in the partition plan; the Six-Day War generation has managed to reach Suez, Jordan, and the Golan Heights. This is not the end. After the present cease-fire lines, there will be new ones. They will extend beyond Jordan ... to Lebanon and ... to central Syria as well."
-- Moshe Dayan to Zionist youth at a meeting in the Golan Heights July, 1968
I can see how that mentality can also lead one to believe that the U.S. is causing the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children, but the mentality is still terribly wrong.)
Israel commits crimes.
Israel is called on it.
Israel refuses to comply with calls by every other nation on the face of the planet sans the U.S to cease it's illegal activities.
The U.S bankrolls their further actions.
In Iraq.........................
Saddam pisses off the U.S
Saddam refuses to do what Washington demands.
Sanctions are imposed on NON WEAPON RELATED ITEMS. You see, it's not the ban on items that are designed for killing that is the problem, but the fact the current sanctions are blocking the importation of anything that is considered "dual use". Anything that could possibly in any way be indirectly used to contribute to the manufacture of weapons. So, hospitals are forced to use gasoline in leiu of antiseptic, they are denied vaccines for common illnesses, the water supply is contaminated because they can't get chlorine, and a simply
staggering number of everyday items are banned.
500,000 people have died as a direct result of these sanctions. Most of them children. The sanctions TARGET CIVILLIANS. Everyone knows Saddam can get what
he needs, but the civillans don't have the same connections. But the U.S is afraid of losing face, they don't want to admit that they are
WRONG. That the sanctions are genocidal.
On 60 Minutes, Madeline Albright was asked if the deaths of 500,000 civillans, mostly children was an acceptable price to pay to oust Saddam.
She said
"YES"
In my mind, she is in the same league as Osama Bin Laden. She has the same total disregard for human life as he does and is willing to sacrifice anyone to achieve her goals. And she is not alone. Her attitude is shared by many in the U.S government.
3,000 deliberately targeted innocent people die in the U.S and it is worthy of launching a world-wide war.
500,000 deliberately targeted innocent people die in Iraq and it's an acceptable means of achiving foreign policy goals.
We curse the name of Osama Bin Laden when he does the very things that we dismiss as an everyday means of achiving our goals.
In fact, if you look at the death toll and consider Israel's tiny size and population, they've gone through their own 9/11 - and then some. Month by month, more innocent Israelis are killed by acts of terror.
That's too bad, but they have killed far more Palestineans through acts that are just as illegal and immoral as a suicide bombing is.
The U.S. has been right to meet our terrorists with overwhelming military force; I think that we shouldn't beg Israel to meet their killers at the negotiation table.
Israel is the invader, Israel is the occpying force using 3 billion dollars in U.S taxpayer funds to commmit crimes. They are so far from inncocent it sickens me. They cannot claim any moral high ground.
Both sides have their share of killers.
The Palestineans need to realize that Israel considers Jews to be the chosen people, to be better than Arabs - they have come out and said it on countless occasions - and that they have a manifest destiny that makes negotiating extremly difficult. And they have to understand that terrorism will get them nowhere.
The Israelis need to understand that the Palestineans
have absolutely nothing to lose thanks to them, and if they give them a reason to you know.......
want to live they might be more receptive. The fact Ehud Barak said if
he were a Palestinian that
he would have become a terrorist is a stunning admission of how bad the situation is.
There is no logical reason to attack civilians.
Because Israel wants to ethnicly cleanse territory, and terrorizing the current population is the best way to go about that. and the Palestinians see no other option.
"... we have no solution, that you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wants to can leave -- and we will see where this process leads? In five years we may have 200,000 less people -- and that is a matter of enorous importance."
-- Moshe Dayan encouraging the transfer of Gaza strip refugees to Jordan (from Noam Chomsky's Deterring Democracy, 1992, p.434, quoted in Nur Masalha's A Land Without A People, 1997 p.92).
"In strategic terms, the settlements (in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza) are of no importance." What makes them important, he added, was that "they constitute an obstacle, an unsurmountable obstacle to the establishment of an independent Arab State west of the river Jordan."
--Binyamin Begin, (son of the late Menahem Begin and a prominent voice in the Likud party writing in 1991, Quoted on page 159 of Findley's Deliberate Deceptions)
"We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country .... expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."
-- Theodore Herzl (from Rafael Patai, Ed. The Complete Diaries of Theodore Herzl, Vol I)
"... it is the duty of the [Israeli] leadership to explain to the public a number of truths. One truth is that there is no Zionism, no settlement, and no Jewish state without evacuating Arabs, and without expropriating lands and their fencing off."
-- Yesha'ayahu Ben-Porat, (Yedi'ot Aharonot 07/14/1972) responding to public controversy regarding the Israeli evictions of Palestinians in Rafah, Gaza, in 1972. (Cited in Nur Masalha's "A Land Without A People" 1997, p.98)
"We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel.... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours ... When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do will be to scurry around like drugged roaches in a bottle."
-- Israeli Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan (Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 4/13/83, NYTimes 4/14/83)
"In our country there is room only for the Jews. We shall say to the Arabs: Get out! If they don't agree, if they resist, we shall drive them out by force."
--Professor Ben-Zion Dinur Israel's First Minister of Education, 1954 from History of the Haganah
"I have learned that the state of Israel cannot be ruled in our generation without deceit and adventurism."
-- Moshe Sharett, Israel's first Foreign Minister and later a Prime Minister (p.51 Simha Flapan, "The Birth of Israel", 1987).
"Israeli forces occupied [the Golan Heights] during the 1967 war. With its occupation of the Golan Heights, Israel expelled over 120,000 inhabitants - mostly Syrians but also several thousand Palestinian refugees. At the same time, Israel destroyed two cities, 133 villages and 61 farms. After this devastation, only 6,396 inhabitants remained in the six villages left standing. On December 14, 1981, the Israeli Knesset unilaterally annexed the Golan Heights in clear contravention of international law. The UN Security Council subsequently declared the annexation illegal and, to date, not a single state has recognized it. Israel has so far built more than 40 settlements, housing over 15,000 settlers in the Golan Heights."
-- New Yorkers for a Just Middle East Peace (NYJMEP) from a letter dating 08/13/1998 sent to Perry Odak, Chief Executive Officer of Ben and Jerry's, protesting a reported agreement between the popular ice cream company and Eden Springs water company, based on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. ... Behind the terrorism [by the Arabs] is a movement, which though primitive is not devoid of idealism and self sacrifice."
-- David Ben Gurion. Quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.
Some democracy.
If you are a U.S taxpayer, this is what you are paying for. And this is why people hate you.
[This message has been edited by DoctorGonzo (edited 02-17-2002).]
