A parsonal responce to" WTF is going on in Israel today???"...(pleaes read!)

[STING2]

Terrorism is the targeting of innocent civilians. Israel goes after the terrorist while the Suicide bombers target innocent civilians.

[U2Bama]

Originally posted by DrTeeth:
[sarcasm]U2Bama, if you're trying to be funny it could be wise to add a so that the rest of us know you haven't been smoking anything.[/sarcasm]

No, I was not attempting to be funny at all, thus, no need for smilies (which I do not use anyway).

The reason I addressed you in my questioning is this:

Originally posted by DrTeeth:
A proposal which talks about giving back a percentage of the territory is doomed anyway IMO. What would you do if someone stole 100 dollar from you and was willing to give back 70 or 90??

You seem to be operating on the premise that ISRAEL "stole" all of the land from Palestine, and therefore the only solution would be if they gave 100% of it back, thus effecting the total elimination of the state of Israel.

As I said, I feared that my line of questioning would make people mad; but I do not see how we can openly discuss this issue without stepping on someone's toes.

~U2Alabama



[This message has been edited by U2Bama (edited 04-09-2002).]

[DrTeeth]

It’s true that Barak offered more to the Palestines than every other Israeli prime-minister but so what??

According to Camp David, Israeli authorities would have been the only ones controlling Palestinian airspace, controlling the checkpoints at the borders and controlling the main roads. Furthermore, the Palestines wouldn’t have had any right to claim Eastern-Jerusalem as their capital. Even Menachem Klein (who was an advisor at Barak’s foreign ministry) thought it was a ridiculous proposal!

A proposal which talks about giving back a percentage of the territory is doomed anyway IMO. What would you do if someone stole 100 dollar from you and was willing to give back 70 or 90??

[Vorsprung]

Now, I don't want to legitimize terrorism. I just want to say there's a reason for it and people tend to forget that and just think "get the damn bastards" and they don't really care if there are civilian losses on the other side, because "if they didn't want civilian losses, they shouldn't have bombed us first". I thionk this is called vengeance rather more than justice.
The same problem I have with the actions in Afghanistan (I'm not against those actions), but when Bush and Blair say they're doing the best they can to not hurt the civilians......they're not! They are doing the best they can to minimize the casualties of their own forces first! Of course also in this war some bombs deviated from there original target and hit civilians. They knew this would happen and the chances of this only increase when you fly at very high altitudes (and they also know that). Yet the American bombers kept on flying at very high altitudes to minimize the risk they were shot down. Now this is not fair and against the Geneva Convention which states that a civilian's life is worth more than a soldier's life, no matter who that soldier is.....

Btw: when do I get to see proof that Bin Laden was behind the attacks on 9/11. No doubt it was a complete asshole who did that, but I still haven't seen any proof it was Bin Laden.

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Vorsprung durch Technik

[This message has been edited by Vorsprung (edited 04-10-2002).]

[DrTeeth]

Ah, I think I see where you're coming from U2Bama. I should have added that a proposal which talks about giving back less than 100% of the occupied tertitory (so not the whole of Israel) will be doomed in the eyes of the Palestine authorities. I think it's obvious that I personally have no influence over the peace-process so my opinion will never 'doom' anything that's going on overthere.

[U2Bama]

Originally posted by DrTeeth:
I should have added that a proposal which talks about giving back less than 100% of the occupied tertitory (so not the whole of Israel) will be doomed in the eyes of the Palestine authorities.

Thank you, DrTeeth. I understand your point now, and I, personally, think that giving back 100% of the occupied territory (or VERY close to it, and establishing Jerusalem as an "internatonaly city") is reasonable. Israel's government will no doubt disagree with me for sure, but I think that is a better chance for peace than anything that they or Hamas/Hezbollah desire, and thus, I am not sure that it would pacify Hamas/Hezbollah.

One stipulation that I think should be made on the state of Palestine is that it should be a secular democracy, not an "Islamic republic" or not even a Christian-Islamic republic like that in Lebanon. Such establishments of religious rule only lead to the justification of theocracy, which I believe is a mahor source of the problems in that part of the world.

~U2Alabama

[Lemonite]

Originally posted by Vorsprung:
Now this is not fair and against the Geneva Convention which states that a civilian's life is worth more than a soldier's life, no matter who that soldier is.....

I couldn't help but cynically laugh at this statement due to the fact that I had just read something on a website about a group of people called 'THE CONCERNED'.. I'll post the article below..

L.Unplugged

EIB:
I don't know if you watch TV enough to notice this trend of "concerned" pundits. Juan Williams epitomizes this group, which I call "The Concerned." They're worried about the so-called unfairness of the Mideast situation. Now, Juan is a great guy. He's one of the nicest guys on cable TV. He genuinely feels and genuinely cares. I like him. He was fair and nice when he interviewed me on Fox News Sunday. He's right about a lot of things, but on things
like this, he's off the reservation.
The problem Juan has is that he's saddled with the affliction that most of The Concerned have - this notion of fairness. Juan and the rest of The Concerned just don't think it's fair that Israel has a mightier military than the Palestinians, or of any other Middle Eastern country for that matter. You can hear this concern articulated when they ask, "Well, what's fair when one side has ammo, mortars and tanks and the other side has rocks?"

Well, let me ask all of "The Concerned" some questions: Is it fair that Israel only has five million citizens and is surrounded by hundreds of millions of enemies? Is it fair that Israel's land versus its enemies' land is the equivalent of a postage stamp on a football field? Is that fair? What about the five million people that are Israeli citizens? They're not all Jewish people. Many of them are Arabs.
Perhaps somebody could explain to me why Israeli Arabs have a life that the Palestinians under Arafat can only dream of. Israeli Arabs have state-of-the-art health care. Men and women have education and the right to vote. Have you heard of the Arab vote in Israeli prime minister elections? When the Israelis run for prime minister, they court the Arab vote.

All this business of fairness deliberately avoids talking about the happy, productive Arabs who live in Israel. Their per capita income is many times higher than the Palestinian-controlled areas. Outside of being falsely bolstered temporarily by oil money, Israel's Arabs are number one in every category. And they don't leave to go live under Arab dictatorships, do they? I wonder why that is?

Nobody ever talks about these people. We're just so concerned about how "unfair" it is that Israel gets all this aid - never mind all the aid Arafat gets from the Arab nations, aid he spends on bombs and mansions instead of hospitals, schools and jobs. This fairness cuts both ways. When you look at some of the equations, you'll find a lot of unfairness stacked up against Israel, but nobody complains about it. They just deal with it and do what's necessary.

[CannibalisticArtist]

Originally posted by Lemonite:
I couldn't help but cynically laugh at this statement due to the fact that I had just read something on a website about a group of people called 'THE CONCERNED'.. I'll post the article below..

L.Unplugged

EIB:
Is it fair that Israel only has five million citizens and is surrounded by hundreds of millions of enemies? .

it is fair because of that fact that Israel was inserted there and the fact that it has the military power to destroy it's "hundreds of millions of enemies".



[This message has been edited by CannibalisticArtist (edited 04-10-2002).]

[STING2]

Vorsprung,
When talking about altitude of US planes flying in Afghanistan, it should be mentioned that this has no effect on hitting targets that have been detected below. Most targets are detected by Unmanned drones and Satelites and sometimes A-10s that can get close and withstand hits from anti-aircraft guns up to 23 mm in caliber.
The altitude flown by the strike Aircraft was not unusually high due to fact that the Taliban had few if any Anti-aircraft missles. Plus, due to Jamming and other protection features, flying in range of several systems that the Taliban had did not put the pilots under undue risk. I saw several Strike aircraft fly by and around shouldered fire missles launched by the Taliban.
The point is that Altitude does not effect the missle or bombs chance of hitting the target. The target had already been identified through other forms of recon. Due to the tecnology, hitting the target is not effected by the altitude. Certainly detecting the target is, but this is not done by strike aircraft. Other recon perform this and data is anylyzed before strike aircraft are sent to destory the target. Targets were identified by several things, special forces troops on the ground, unmanned drones, Sattelites and A-10 aircraft being used in a recon role.
Accidents happened due to missle's going of course, but that had nothing to do with altitude but rather the electronics of the missle's guidence system.
So its clear that with every mission the USA performs, we do everything possible to prevent the loss of innocent civilians. High altitude strike aircraft were used in Afghanistan because it was simplest, and quickest way to bring a level of firepower on to the Taliban that would lead to their collapse.
It is not only the special recon done by US forces in addition to the technology of the weapon systems used that saved so many Afghan lives, but also the speed at which the operation was accomplished.
Israel is also concerned about Civilian lives and has been precise in its use of firepower. Again, if the IDF were terrorist, there would not be any Palestinians alive today. The IDF are going after the terrorist just like the US military is, and are not out to harm innocent civilians. Unlike Mr. Arafat and the Palestinians.

[Lemonite]

Latest News.. Israel says they are ready to pull out of a few regions.. 'Making steps toward some sort of cease fire or peace'.. Surprise Surprise.. Another SUicide ATtack.. Also, Here's a recent column article.. More excellent information on this issue..

The Danger in Lebanon

By Charles Krauthammer
Wednesday, April 10, 2002; Page A23


Watch Lebanon. If you want to know where the Israeli-Palestinian war is going, watch Lebanon. If the war goes -- literally -- ballistic, the fuse will have been lit by the Iran-backed Hezbollah guerrillas now firing rockets into Israel from Lebanon.

But did Israel not withdraw from Lebanon almost two years ago? Why is there still a problem with Lebanon?

Indeed, Israel had been in Lebanon for about 20 years. It was a classic defensive occupation. Israel laid claim to not an inch of Lebanese soil. It diverted not a drop of water. It had no interest in staying. It was in there for one reason: to protect Israel's northern frontier from various guerrillas -- first Yasser Arafat's PLO, then the Lebanese Shiite Party of God (Hezbollah) -- using south Lebanon to attack Israel.

Yet for two decades, Israel was hectored to comply with U.N. resolutions demanding Israel's withdrawal. In May 2000, it complied. To ensure that there could be no possible residual territorial dispute, Israel asked the United Nations to draw the line demarcating the true Israeli-Lebanese border -- the so-called Blue Line -- then pulled back behind it.

Israel's reward?

Hezbollah was not mollified. While its ostensible mission was the liberation of Lebanese territory, it did not disband. On the contrary. It occupied south Lebanon, imported huge new supplies of weapons from Iran and began sporadic cross-border attacks on Israel.

Hezbollah has killed Israeli soldiers situated in Israeli territory. It kidnapped three soldiers who have never been seen since. Just one month ago, infiltrators from the Hezbollah territory shot and killed seven Israelis on a road in northern Israel. And now, since the end of March, Hezbollah has embarked on a serious and deadly escalation, firing rockets into Israel.

Hezbollah is armed with 8,000 Katyusha rockets. Practically all of northern Israel lies under its guns. They are ready for firing. Hezbollah's spiritual leader, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, threatened Monday to hit Haifa with Katyusha rockets if Israel dared to respond to Hezbollah attacks.

Were that to happen, the northern front would explode. Israel has been sending urgent messages through the United Nations and the United States that it would not tolerate such aggression. It would be forced to counterattack -- on Lebanon, on Syrian army positions in Lebanon and possibly on Syria itself, Syria being Hezbollah's boss and patron.

Syria could not withstand such an Israeli attack conventionally. It might then launch its missiles equipped with chemical weapons into Israeli cities. And that could trigger Armageddon. Israel was established so that never again would the gassing of Jews be permitted.

Not only, therefore, is Lebanon the most dangerous piece of tinder in the region. It is the most instructive. The Arabs claim that their grievance is Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Give it back and you'll have land for peace. Like the Lebanon peace?

Western observers totally missed the irony of the Arab summit whose "Saudi peace plan" ostensibly offered Israel peace in return for full territorial withdrawal. The offer was made in Beirut, capital of a country from which Israel had done precisely that -- fully withdraw -- and received in return a more entrenched, emboldened, heavily armed enemy ready to trigger a general war.

It gets better. To justify carrying on the war after Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon, Hezbollah concocted a territorial claim on a few acres called the Shebaa Farms. Hezbollah says it is Lebanese territory, and therefore occupied -- a position contrary to the internationally sanctioned Blue Line drawn by the United Nations, hardly a partisan of Israel.

What is the Arab League position on all this? Few Western observers actually read the Saudi peace plan adopted by the Arab League. If they had, they would have seen that the plan demands not just the usual withdrawal from Palestinian and Syrian territory but also from "remaining occupied Lebanese territories."

But there are no remaining occupied Lebanese territories. Thus the Arab League, in precisely the same document -- no, the same breath -- in which it ostensibly offers land for peace, endorses a totally fabricated, post-withdrawal Lebanese land claim that even the United Nations rejects. Why? Because it serves as an excuse for continuing the war against Israel.

Just end the occupation of the West Bank, say the Arabs, and we will guarantee Israel peace. Do you want to see Israel's future if it caves in to that demand? Look at Lebanon, where Israel gave up a defensive occupation and is now looking squarely in the face of Armageddon.


© 2002 The Washington Post Company

[Rainbow]

Originally posted by Lemonite:
I'll post the article below..

EIB:

I absolutely agree with this article.

[Vorsprung]

Final statement (and I'll quote a dialoque with my little cousin):

"It's very simple" - cousin
"???" - me
"Just stop fighting" - cousin

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Vorsprung durch Technik

[DrTeeth]

So I'll ask again, what's the worst that could happen if the Palestines were "given" their own state?

[BEAL]

here is what sucks.

most of the arab world wants isreal gone, dusted off the face of the earth.

isreal didn't help this anger by occupying more land than what they were given. they've killed many innocent people too, just like the other side.

making palestine a "state" would solve just a little. the sucide bombings will not stop. You make them a state, and then it's more of a structured hatred towards isreal.

I don't like either side, and I'd sometimes wish they'd blow each other to bits.

since I don't REALLY want that to happen. Here is what I'd like to see.

Isreal pull back from occupied areas.
make a palestinian state.
make Jerusluam(sp) a international city.
Put up a damn wall or something between both countries.
have international peacekeepers.
get new leaders for both countries. they are both terrorists.

that's about it for now.....

[Vorsprung]

Originally posted by BEAL:
here is what sucks.

most of the arab world wants isreal gone, dusted off the face of the earth.

isreal didn't help this anger by occupying more land than what they were given. they've killed many innocent people too, just like the other side.

making palestine a "state" would solve just a little. the sucide bombings will not stop. You make them a state, and then it's more of a structured hatred towards isreal.

I don't like either side, and I'd sometimes wish they'd blow each other to bits.

since I don't REALLY want that to happen. Here is what I'd like to see.

Isreal pull back from occupied areas.
make a palestinian state.
make Jerusluam(sp) a international city.
Put up a damn wall or something between both countries.
have international peacekeepers.
get new leaders for both countries. they are both terrorists.

that's about it for now.....

I agree

------------------
Vorsprung durch Technik

[STING2]

Dr. Teeth,
The Palestinians were given a State in 1947 and they regected it and tried to kill all the Jews. They were defeated and lost much land because of their actions.
What many people here fail to understand is that when your a country as small as Israel, land equals security! I'm not talking about the Palestinians, but the threat of Arab invasion from multiple countries that dwarf Israel in size both in population and military.
The West Bank is an area of high ground that is excellant defensable terain which is why Israel is reluctent to give it back after having been attacked and almost virtually wipped from the face of the Earth in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973.
Only when Israel security needs are met in light of what has happened in the past will there be an Independent Palestinian State. It should be the objective of every Arab and Palestinian to make Israel as secure as possible by imprisoning Sucide bombers and investigating and disbanding groups that seek to do harm to Israel.
But the Arabs and Palestinians continue to bark up the wrong tree. Israel is not going to stand by and let terrorist bomb schools, buses, Cafe's, and Night Clubs. Rather than work on smuggling dozens of bombs and other weapons in the West Bank every week, Arafat should be smuggling in Camera's(small ones that are available) to track and record the "acts of IDF brutality and humiliation" that they say occur so often but have no evidence to proof it.
Palestinian deaths in the latest incursion seem to be terrorist and those that were accidently caught in the crossfire. Where is the evidence of Israely soldiers shooting unarmed innocent Palestinians in the head. When fighting occurs in a crowded downtown area, it is difficult to limit losses to just the terrorist, but the IDF is more than justified in going in. The target is not Palestinian civilians, but Palestinian terrorist.
Even if Palestine becomes a state, Israel will continue to move in if terror attacks continue. Land for peace they say, but since Israel withdrew from Lebanon, Hezbolah has continued to attack Israel and fire rockets at them. Israel may be going back into Lebanon soon.
Strange that those in Lebanon don't consider Syrian armored divisions to be occupying force. You would think people from Lebanon would by launching suicide attacks in Damascus. Thus its not about the occupation but the hatred and destruction of Israel.

[Lemonite]

Yo Diamond.. Give me a Nice big Hoo-Ah.. Let's all Jump on the Bandwagon!!

In my worst nightmares I never thought the Holocaust would occur again, "But in a way, it is happening again - in places that you'd consider strange, if you believe the conventional wisdom about how open-minded, tolerant and loving liberals are, and how evil conservatives are. In certain bastions of the left, anti-Semitism is expressed with joy - and far from being condemned or merely tolerated, it's applauded and encouraged. All of this is done in the name of supporting Palestinian terrorists. "

L.Unplugged

Anti-Semitism Goes PC
The latest campus cause: solidarity with Arab terrorists.

BY COLLIN LEVEY
Thursday, April 11, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT

Well, it's springtime on campus--that time of year where any excuse to sit outside will do. And lo, like clockwork this week, college students across the country got out their Frisbees and their politics.

The must-have opinion of the season is on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As Colin Powell traveled to the Middle East, students became fire-breathing little activists again. You get one guess which side the loudest ones are on.

The University of California at Berkeley, that bastion of sun-kissed young adults with a chip on their shoulder, was among the first to stomp the grass. Earlier this month, a sit-in for Palestinian statehood on the ramps of an interstate snarled traffic badly enough to need intervention by the California Highway Patrol.

On Tuesday at the University of Michigan, protestors paraded through the campus bound and gagged. One, out in his skivvies, explained via a signboard that "I am one of tens of Palestinians who were asked to strip naked by the Israeli Army, lie on their stomachs and then taken to an unknown location." (Yes, tens.)

All told, students as some 30 universities across the country--from the University of Nebraska to Georgetown to Rutgers--are expressing their solidarity with the group of people who usually send college-age kids out to self-detonate near as many Israelis as possible.

A game of tiddlywinks can spark a campus protest in many places, so the fact that students are out now is no big deal. But two aspects of the recent dispatches from higher education have set the issue apart. One is that much of the standard-issue sloganeering seems grossly out of tune. The other is that for one of the first times since political correctness first washed over campuses in the '80s, the other side is out in force too.
Most of the tactics on display are recycled from every other protest movement we've seen in modern times--from Vietnam right up through the antisweatshop brigade. Berkeley students this week even demanded that the school chancellor stop investing university resources in companies like General Electric that do business with Israel à la the 1986 apartheid divestment.

The problem is that most of these parallels just don't work anymore. At a time when Americans now willingly arrive at the airport hours before flights to comply with new security measures, the outrage of University of Michigan undergrads at similar measures in Israel doesn't really resonate. That's the campus where students today are confronted on the way to the library with campus activists running mock "Israeli checkpoints" and demanding to see their school ID.

The University of Michigan, one presumes by all available statistics, is teeming with some of the brightest young minds in the country. But someone might point out to the kids that this isn't exactly the kind of stuff that gets you sent to the Human Rights Tribunal.

Still, there are plenty of new acronyms on campus now supporting the Palestinian cause, and this too is part of the issue. At many institutions, anti-Semitism has long been one of the handful of dirty words like racism, sexism and homophobia--conjuring up discussions of hate speech and images of pogroms.
For the most part, Jewish students and their groups have played into this, holding the requisite sit-ins in college centers to commemorate the Holocaust--an act that demeans the atrocity by putting it on par with "Take Back the Night." Jewish groups like Hillel have tried to find common ground with groups like the Black Student Union by playing up the fact that they are victims too.

The coming clash on campus seems destined to be played out as a contest to determine who wins the prize as the biggest victim. The whole thing is tedious, not to mention confusing for college students and their nascent herd-like politics. Some Jewish students, so accustomed to being among the cheerful bands expressing outrage against oppression are so confused by the latest turn of events that they have in fact joined the Justice for Palestinians groups condemning Israel's "occupation" of Palestinian land. From Brown University comes the heart-melting story of a Jew and a Palestinian joining hands to . . . condemn Israel.

For their part, Palestinian groups have been keen to draw a moral equivalence between recent Israeli actions and the Holocaust. A West Coast student recently called the situation, "exactly like the ghettos that were created by Poland and Germany in the 1930s and '40s."

But beyond the usual angry sputtering and name-calling, there are some signs for concern. The Jewish student center at Berkeley recently had a window smashed and "F---ing Jews" scrawled on the garbage cans. Students coming out of synagogues got egged. And worse, near the Berkeley campus, two Orthodox Jewish men were attacked.
If it sounds an awful lot like what's been happening in Europe, that's because it is. In the ivory towers of American academia, as in Paris, Rome and Madrid, the workaday fascination with hating America and its foreign policy has been transferred to one of its allies. That's not good news for Israel. But for the moment Ariel Sharon has more important things to worry about.

Ms. Levey is an assistant features editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. Her column appears on alternate Thursdays.





[This message has been edited by Lemonite (edited 04-11-2002).]

[U2Bama]

Lemonite's cut-and-paste contribution is a bit offensive in tone and perhaps biased in nature, but it is true that the Arabic translation of Hitler's MEIN KAMPF has experienced significat sales increases, and is the number 6 bestseller in Palestinian book sales.

Also, the U.S. Department of Jusatice have been monitoring American redneck/neo-Nazi hate groups for possible weapons and intelligence links with anti-Zionist terror groups.

~U2Alabama

[DrTeeth]

Originally posted by U2Bama:
Also, the U.S. Department of Jusatice have been monitoring American redneck/neo-Nazi hate groups for possible weapons and intelligence links with anti-Zionist terror groups.

~U2Alabama

What were their conclusions? I'd watch it if I were Bush, next thing you know the IDF will target the US for harbouring terorrists!

[DrTeeth]

STING2,
Israel was the one attacking Egypt in 1956 requested by France and the UK because Egypt claimed the Suez-channel (canal?). Israel hadn't been attacked and certainly weren't in danger of being 'wiped from the face of the earth'. In 1967 it was Israel again who attacked Syria, Jordan and Egypt in which the conquered the West-bank, Golan-heights and the Gaza strip. Again Israel hadn't been attacked and certainly weren't in any danger of being 'wiped from the face of the earth’. Israel has only been attacked in 1948 and 1973 (as if that isn’t enough) and came out victorious without ever coming even close to losing.

Anyway, I can understand that land means safety in a war situation but I don’t think a country with such military might really needs a buffer zone. In case of an attack by their neighbours, Israel will be able to kick everybody’s ass with or without a small strip of land “protecting” them. The second thing I don’t understand is why the Jewish settlers keep on building houses in that supposed buffer zone. The word “Lebensraum” comes to mind…

The main advantage of given the Palestine’s their own state is that they finally have something to lose! They have nothing to lose now and everything to gain.

BTW I got some "proof" (a group of pictures of a man shot in the head by members of the IDF) in my mail a few weeks ago. I won’t be putting them up here though because they are to gruesome IMO. If you want them I’ll mail them to you.



[This message has been edited by DrTeeth (edited 04-12-2002).]