Middle east peace??
I read this story and while on the face of it I am rather reserved about getting excited it was rather refreshing to read something which on the face of it comes across as hopeful.
Peace?
Your thoughts?
Fellows
Peace?
Your thoughts?
Fellows
Comments
Originally posted by bunge
I now think it's more likely than ever that Sharon will kill Arafat.
Why would you say that? I might have said, "I now think it's more likely than ever that Hamas will kill Arafat".
But that would be thinking logically.
Originally posted by Scott
But that would be thinking logically.
Scott... come on.
be polite even if it kills you
fellows
Originally posted by tonton
If the peace process starts again, it will go something like this:
Sharon: We'll give you this land here, here and here, and we'll keep settlements here, here and here. You'll need to drop any further claim to that land.
Arafat: But those are just desert areas where there's no water and nothing can grow. And those settlements are all on land that by international law belongs to the Palestinian people.
Sharon: Okay, you can have this land here.
Arafat: But that's just desert, too! Can't we have this land, where there's ground water?
Sharon: We dug those wells and we will not give them to you. No.
Arafat: What about Jerusalem?
Sharon: You can have access to these sites in Jerusalem here and here, but you are not allowed to go here, here or here.
Arafat: What? Those are our holiest sites! They are crucial to the Muslim religion and cannot be forfeited because of religious considerations. Can we not visit them?
Sharon: Take it or leave it.
Arafat: I cannot accept this offer on behalf of the people of Palestine.
So naturally, Arafat gets blamed for pulling out of the peace talks despite Sharon's "concessions".
So the two reason you think Israel will use to sabotage any peace negotiations are: 1)offer only desert uninhabitable land and 2)keep muslims from their holy sites.
Lets start with point 2: Only one side was completly restricted access to the other's holy sites..guess which one? Oh, I know it's ok for Jews not to have access to the holiest site in their entire religion, but if Sharon were to try the same, what an evil bastard.
Point 1:considering that the entire area was documented as a desert waste land prior to the re-migration of the jews to the area, what's you bitch here? That the Palestinians get their land back in the condition it was when the left?
You are right on point 1. It probably will end up with something like that. But all negotiations have to have a starting point. You wouldn't expect the Palestinians to agree to concede on all their points at once, why would you expect Israel to do so?
Your second point shows your bias...maybe even better that you comment in another thread about whiney jews. Israel doesn't and hasn't barred Palestinians from accessing their holy site, other than for security measures and those are usually very, very short terms. On the other hand, trying to get onto Temple Mount as jew, is an exercise in futility. Not to mention the destruction of all jewish artifacts and historical records that are located there. Again, if the jews are such big baddies regarding the palestinians access to holy sites, why would they have taken the extrodinary step of allowing Palestinian control to remain over tehri Dome of the Rock after they took all of Jerusalem. Trying to smear Israel with this tactic, (one used against them, but not by them) just once more shows your true colors.
Originally posted by talksense101
Stop feeding Israel with arms and financial aid. It will force them to come to a compromise with the Palestines. Israel has no need for any amicable settlement with the Palestines as long as they have the upper hand. Neither Arafat nor Sharon wants peace.
Would you insist that the Arab world stop doing the same for the terrorist?
Originally posted by tonton
What? Where did you hear that lie? This is false. Prior to Sharon's instigative visit, Jews were indeed allowed to visit the Temple Mount. Sharon was barred from going to the Temple Mount because of Sabra and Shatila. Not because he was a Jew.
After the intifada broke out (as Sharon had hoped) the Muslims did indeed close access to the site to all non-Muslins.
But, it was reopened in 2003 to all visitors (link).
I (a white male) would be more than willing to put on a Yarmulka and visit the Temple mount without fear of more than verbal attack.
All you little link realy discusses is 1)the Palestinians did not reopen the mount to jews and others, but the Israeli police started escorting them there because the ban wasn't being lifted. 2)The made the waqf so happy "The Palestinian Authority mufti in Jerusalem, Ikrimah Sabri, warned a "bloodbath" would result from such an action." that sure sounds like a welcome for the jews to their holiest site. 3)It also discusses the ongoing 'renovation' of the temple mount, that is the purposeful effort by the palestinian athorities to destroy evidence of jewish connection to the mount. Massive excavation, destruction and removel of artifacts etc...show a lot of respect for their faith..but again, I do understand why you tried so hard to smear the jews with that one..fits your world few.
Originally posted by Tulkas
Trying to smear Israel with this tactic, (one used against them, but not by them)...
This part is extremely relevant and should be repeated over and over so people get it. The PA seems rife with doublestandards and duplicity, imo.
Originally posted by Fellowship
Scott... come on.
be polite even if it kills you
fellows
You kindly ask and what does he do? He goes and calls people 'fools'.
Originally posted by Randycat99
This part is extremely relevant and should be repeated over and over so people get it. The PA seems rife with doublestandards and duplicity, imo.
It goes even beyond that. The anti-Israel factions do their best to smear Israel, to the point of accusing them of actions that aren't taking place, or implying that they would obviously take vilianous actions, that not only do they not have a history of committing, but are in fact being committed against them. Of course, even then, it is only condemable if Israel were to do it.
It's my personal assessment that mankind simply cannot escape the "mob mentality" of the lowest denominator. It could be on the scale of a small community or a global media- it doesn't make a difference. I mean, we as a species cannot even get past not rubbernecking to a slow crawl at traffic accidents, so I imagine getting a logical mental grasp on things much more complex and pressing than that is just hopeless.
Man is so adept at being the top of the food chain in the animal world, it has similarly proceeded to preying on itself with enviable efficiency. It's not enough to simply acquire resources to sustain oneself/one's "tribe", but they must go many steps further to monopolize resources away from others so as to "eliminate" unnecessary genetic competition. It's not good enough that we are at the top of the foodchain as a species in the animal world, but any where you go, there is a local strive to be the top of the foodchain within our own species (sometimes at any cost). There's a small minority who can step aside of this primitive survival measure and think above the crowd, but their net impact is such that it is only barely adequate to keep a lid on the rest of society from spiraling into oblivion, let alone progressing it to any hypothetical "enlightened age" in the future.
(How's that for a downer philosophy?)
Originally posted by Tulkas
It goes even beyond that. The anti-Israel factions do their best to smear Israel, to the point of accusing them of actions that aren't taking place, or implying that they would obviously take vilianous actions, that not only do they not have a history of committing, but are in fact being committed against them. Of course, even then, it is only condemable if Israel were to do it.
Israel smears itself, just at the PA does. You can't build a wall keeping people from their land and then blow them up without smearing your own image.
Originally posted by Scott
Would you insist that the Arab world stop doing the same for the terrorist?
If the Arab world is helping people to smuggle arms, they are doing a poor job of it. Then again, why are you comparing pistols with precision guided missles?
Sharon and GWB are war mongers. Arafat is a power hungry nut case surrounded by fanatics. If these wankers are in charge of resolving the issue, there can't be an end to the conflict. The media keeps reporting the death of every single person in Israel to the whole world and totally ignores the chaos on the other side. Is it because the media is owned by semites? Or is it because the rest of the world is in total peace and harmony and only the middle east conflict is important?
Originally posted by Scott
It's funny how easily so many of you are manipulated by the chief terrorist. Arafat makes some statements about wanting peace and everyone?s ready to vilify Israel for its war mongering. He plays you people for the fools you are.
Agreed. Arafat was and always will be a terrorist. The faith that the Paletinian people have placed in this joke is the main reason why they still have nothing. The Palstinians have been badly led for so long and their support of terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad only insures that the dawn of a Palestinian state remains far off in the distance.
Originally posted by talksense101
If the Arab world is helping people to smuggle arms, they are doing a poor job of it. Then again, why are you comparing pistols with precision guided missles? ...
Money, guns, ammo, explosives, rockets ...
Regardless of wether they are doing a good job of it you can't pretend the solution is for the Jewish state to stop while the other sides keep right on going.
Originally posted by Scott
Money, guns, ammo, explosives, rockets ...
Regardless of wether they are doing a good job of it you can't pretend the solution is for the Jewish state to stop while the other sides keep right on going.
Trying to squash resistance only creates more resistance in the middle-term and long run. Resistance is caused by opression, stop the opression and resistance will vanish.
Actually weren't it for the PLO there would be no peace-process going on, as peace can only be negotiated between two factions fighting with each other. If the palestinians had not started or rather were they not forced into resistance, the palestinians would just have to live under occupation forever without anyone taking notice.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad are a relative new form of resistance, one coupled with the islamic religion, with matyrdom, etc.., while before these islamistic resistance-groups came up the PLO was a rather secular nationalistic resistance-movement.
Nightcrawler