namkcuR said:
A_Wanderer, you make me ill. You sit there all smug, suggesting we drink to celebrate the death of another human. Do you realize how wrong that is? The death of another human is never a good thing, it is always an unfortunate, sad occurance. I'm not defending any of the deaths occured because of Arafat, I'm really not. But you oversimplify things to the point of absuridity. There was a hallmark tribute because a lot of people in different parts of the world respected Arafat, and some people like to honor the loss of a life that meant something to a large amount of people. If you hear nothing else, hear this: You do NOT celebrate the loss life, period. No details matter, not even who the deceased person is. You don't celebrate death. If the majority of people in the USA had your mentality of having a drink in the name of Arafat's death, I would have no choice but to think that civilization had started its decline.
If Al-Zarqawi died today, would you be all uppity and upset if someone was happy that he died? Cause you know damn well that people would be thinking "Hooray! We got a terrorist leader!" I saw nobody shedding tears when Saddam got caught, or when his sons were killed.
Would you not be pleased if Osama bin Laden showed up on CNN with a hole through his skull?
Please tell me what is the difference between Yasser Arafat and the Husseins or Bin Laden.
What sickens me is the fact that the CBC is covering this like a Prime Minister had died. Showing live coverage of the body leaving France, live coverage of the body arriving in Ramallah, the top story is how "touching" (their words, not mine) the funeral was.
Why the fuck are we sending major dignitaries to this guy's funeral?? The Foreign Affairs minister of Canada went, for christ's sakes! Doesn't that tacitly condone his actions? Doesn't that imply support for terrorism?!?
Israel has a right to exist. Anyone who thinks otherwise knows nothing about history. The Israelites were there since at LEAST 1500 BC. How long has the Palestinian state been around? And no you can't count the Roman "Palestine", because it was a Roman name applied to a Jewish state. So how long has Palestine been an actual Arab country? Since 1919. That's right, Palestine was an official nation for less than 30 years. It was created after World War I when the Allies carved up the old Ottoman Empire. There was a Jewish state (although not necessarily a nation, per se) there in the Levant until the Turks arrived and expelled all the Jews and killed them outright before the Crusades.
What does NOT have a historical right to exist, is Palestine. Half the damn country was part of Jordan and Egypt anyways for decades. The rest is Jewish. Always has been, probably always will be.
However, the only way that this conflict will possibly be resolved to a peaceful means will be to give the Palestinians a state. Give them Gaza. There's Palestine. It's essentially the same territory that made up ancient Philistia, which is where the name "Palestine" came from once the Romans came along.
That's what I say. Those who don't like it, they won't ever be happy until Israel is completely gone and the Jews are expelled once again, which will never happen. That means that there will never be peace in the Middle East in that case. And that's a damn shame.