26 Mar 2002, 22:56
If the negotiations don't start until the violence stops, and the violence never stops, what are we supposed to do to stop it? Israel can't survive forever the way it is now.
The
violence will only stop when the Arabs are crushed in war. Brute force
seems to be the only way to show the Arabs who is boss. The Arab countries
just cannot be trusted - they've lied too many times in the past for Israel to
trust them.
26 Mar 2002, 15:21
Boy, this site sure looks to be ONE SIDED. And it sure has acceptable measures proposed to end the violence in the middle east (not). This site points the blame at everyone else.
That's interesting. I think I've mentioned
many times how Israel is at fault too.
Are you the only perfect being in this world??
Of course not. Are you?
As someone who is neutral in this conflict. This site assures me that in no way will Isreal ever stop the violence.
Tell me, who started the violence? Do you
remember September 28, 2000? Who began the intifada?
Since this site loves quotes, I will leave you with this:
"Did you want to kill him, Buck?
Well, I bet I did.
What did he do to you?
Him? He never done nothing to me.
Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?
Why, nothing-only it's on account of the feud.
What's a fued?
Why, where was you raised? Don't you know what a fued is?
Never heard of it before-tell me about it.
Well, says Buck, a fued is this way: A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him, then that other man's brother kills him, then the other brothers, on boths sides, goes for one another, then the cousins chip in-and by and by everybody's killed off, and there aint' no more feud. But its kind of slow and takes a long time.
Has this one been going on long, Buck?
Well, I should reckon! It started thiry years ago, or som'ers along there. There was trouble 'bout something, and then a lawsuit to settle it, and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot the man that won the suit-which he would naturally do, of course. Anybody would.
What was the trouble about, Buck? - Land?
I reckon, maybe-I don't know.
Well, who dont the shotting? Was it a Grangerford or a Shepherdson?
Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago.
Don't anybody know?
Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old people, but they don't know now what the row was about in the first place."
-Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Well, thank you for the beautiful
quote. The only problem is that this scenario doesn't take into
consideration a killer that is messed up enough to strap explosives to his body
and kill himself for the cause.
Hopefully the violence will not go on forever.....
I agree.
26 Mar 2002, 10:59
I am unclear what Right Wing Solution you are proposing to end the violence. Short of expelling all of the Arabs from Israel, how can you expect peace in the region without Israel making some concessions?
Of
course Israel has to make concessions. They made plenty of concessions at
the "peace" talks at Camp David in 2000.
Regardless of whether or not the Palestinians have a legitimate claim to any land in Israel for their own state, how could we ever even have the hope for peace in the region without giving it to them eventually?
Right
now, since there is no Palestinian state, Israel can go into West Bank and Gaza
towns and attempt to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure. If there is a
Palestinian state, that action would be an act of war. That's why Israel
can't allow a Palestinian state - because it will be a terrorist entity, as it
is now, but Israel will have no control over it. Israel intercepts a large
number of the weapons that are smuggled into the Palestinian towns now.
Imagine they couldn't intercept the weapons anymore. It would lead to the
destruction of Israel.
Let's say the Palestinians keep to their word and halt the terrorism for two months, are you saying that we should still not negotiate with them?
If
the Palestinian Authority shows that it can squash terrorism and build a modern
society, then yes, Israel should negotiate with them. Until the PA
demonstrates that it is not a terrorist entity (and that will take many years),
Israel should not even sit down in the same room with them. Read the
quotes - the PA wants to destroy Israel! Until they change their minds,
there will never be peace.
26 Mar 2002,
10:42
Why, over the last thousands of years, Jews have been persecuted & expulsed, in Europe, the Middle East & Africa ? Why anti-Semitism ?
That's
one thing Jew are continually asking themselves. I don't know if anybody
has an answer, other than the religious answer - G-d will help us, once we turn
to him.
26 Mar 2002,
7:04
this letter is less directly at the palestinians breaking their promises (because it's quite clear they break it more times than preety much anyone in history). But i can't say that i agree with your writing of things like "Evil Peres", 'evil left-wing'... fair enough big mistakes were made but don't forget several things: The madrid conferences in which Israelis talked with Palestinians for the first proper time (in which the palestinians were OBVIOUSLY acting on behalf of Arafat, since he wasn't personally allowed in), was done under the leadership of the 'right wing'. Shamir and the likud were very much invovled in these talks.... it's quite well known that the madrid conferences were the starting point for the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.... so you can't just pin the -full- blame on Rabin and Peres since they were only invovled in the continuation that the right-wingers began.
It
may very well be true that the Likud began the negotiations under Shamir, but
that was likely more because of American pressure, rather than them actually
wanting too. I also don't believe that Likud would ever support
arming of the Palestinians. I do agree that the FULL blame cannot be put
on Rabin or Peres.
Having said that even if you believe it's all their fault, Peres has been instrumental throughout Israeli history in helping the state thrive and grow. He was also instrumental in getting the Israeli army and intelligence in order in the early years... whatever your opinion (and whatever my opinion) of him now, whether you think he's gone coo-koo or whatever, i don't appriciate the fact that one of Israel's most important politicians (lets not forget that he was possably the most important player in getting israel out of it's economic disaster in the 80's which was partially a result of right-wing governments economic policies) is degraded like that by Pro-israelis. To some extent the same applies to Rabin.
I'm
sure Peres has done good things in the past, but his actions now are going to
destroy Israel. What kind of idiotic idea is it to arm your enemy that
wants your destruction?
I'm not too concerned with Beilin since he's done less for the state but I don't think you should be degrading some of this states greatest leaders, even if you believe they did, and still are, making a mistake... "Evil" is just no way to address these people regardless of what you think of them. It's not like you can claim you've (at some points
singlehandedly) been invovled in deciding the way forward in Entebbe, in the Mossad's structure, in the economy when inflation was going up by well over 100%, in the defense of israel in the 70's (when he was minister of Defense and he was directly invovled in blocking attemps by Rabin to open up routes in the west bank and gaza for a possable peace... note that Peres created military 'manouvers' which made Rabin's ideas impossible), not like you were invovled in convincing Israel's side of the stories to countless countries on countless occasions... it's easy to get angry at people who you don't agree with but you mustn't take away from things they've achieved and degrade them to "simple idiot's"... Peres' track record says he's anything but an idiot.
He
has done alot for the country in the past, but again, he's on the path to
destroying the country NOW.
I'm not saying I support him blindly, far from it, I too think he's wrong at the moment (but note that he told cheney not too meet with arafat as arafat doesn't deserve it) but thinking he's wrong and that he shouldn't be allowed to singlehandedly steer Israel towards what we both believe is a completely false peace doesn't justify calling someone Evil.
If
he's deluding people into thinking there can be peace, which we both agree
cannot be a real peace, then he is evil.
It's that kind of rhetoric (along with "traitor") that got Rabin assassinated by some freak who didn't help save israel even 1,000,000,000,000th as much as Rabin did in his earlier years.
I'm
not one normally to believe in conspiracy theories, but I'm not so sure that
Yigal Amir was the actual killer of Yitzchak Rabin.
Thanks
for your note. You have reminded me alot of what I have forgotten about
past Israeli politics. However, I still feel that anybody pushing for
peace these days, in today's state of affairs is dead wrong. There are
certain enemies you cannot appease - just like the Allies couldn't make peace
with Hitler, Israel shouldn't make peace with the Palestinians. At least
not yet.
