No Negotiation

Negotiating with palestinians is like negotiating with cancer.  It can’t be done.  The Palestinians have, from the beginning of its existence, vowed the distruction of Israel and they will never change their minds. 

The Camp David negotiations in 2000 exposed the notion of negotiating with palestinians for the useless act that it is.  Each time Barak agreed to an Arafat demand, Arafat changed his position - BECAUSE THEY DON’T WANT PEACE.  THEY WILL NEVER ACCEPT ANY PEACE ACCORD WITH ISRAEL OTHER THAN TO SELF DESTRUCT.

The only solution is for Israel to build a Chinese wall around its sovereign “contiguous” land, with Israelis on one side and Palestinians on the other, and let the Palestinians rot.

Wow,
Quite a surprise, Lefty, considering your pretty well reasoned responses on other issues. In Israel, thankfully, there is, and always has been, a pretty big debate about these issues, I have heard many Israelis argue forcefully that what was offered Arafat was not something he could have accepted and survived. There have been many Israelis working with Palestinians un-officially to promote peace, and many have put their lives and careers on the line, including the refusals of hundreds of IDF forces to serve in the occupied territories or take part in home demolition or firing live rounds into crowds of rock throwing demonstrators. There is a sizable peace movement. There is also, among the settlers in the west bank and Gaza, an element that calls for the assassination of Sharon if he carries out the evacuations. Menachem Begin was among those that carried out terror attacks on the British in the days before the creation of the state of Israel. Good thing the British didn’t take the view of him that you take of the Palestinians. If we accept your view of them as a cancer, what course does that leave? More killing on both sides. Even Sharon has finally rejected that option.

‘ The only solution is for Israel to build a Chinese wall around its sovereign “contiguous” land, with Israelis on one side and Palestinians on the other, and let the Palestinians rot. ‘

Yeah… but that’s not what they’re doing, is it Lefty?

They’ve built their ‘Chinese wall’ in Palestine grabbing more Palestinian land while doing so and fragmenting the bits still, temporarily, left to the Palestinians.

The plans for the Gaza now call for the Israelis to build a wall in the sea, financed by us Americans of course, and to throttle entry and exit to the Gaza by sea, air or land. To make Gaza one large Concentration Camp.

The idea that one’s foreign policy can be based upon a fundamental injustice with no consequences was the greatest contribution of neocons Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith et al. to the present regime’s lunatic foreign policy.

Well, as the 3000 dead Americans at the WTC and the Pentagon and the 1728 dead and 12,896 maimed and wounded Americans in Iraq testify, you can’t, Lefty.

Ken,

I didn’t say that Palestinians were cancer, only - as they have proven time and again - that there is no negotiating with them.  The harsh metaphor was in response to what I thought were some pretty stupid comments by Neve Gordon. 

Under the circumstances, Sheron’s refusal to negotiate further is predictable and not totally unreasonable.  I’m not Israeli and, based on their past behavior, I don’t trust the Palestinians’ motives either.

The ball is in the Palestinians’ court to demonstrate good faith which, so far, they have never been willing to do.  It should have to be something more than a single gesture.

As for the Israeli/Palestinian’s “working for peace,” they are an insignificant minority on both sides.  Until enough Palestinians WANT peace (which they demonstrably do not), that can take control of themselves and their suicide bombers, etc., Israel would be foolish to negotiate with the the Palestinians’ right hand while the left hand is murdering Israeli citizens.  The notion that the violence is equal on both sides is utter nonsense.  Israel is defending itself from violence arising out of an official policy that Israel doesn’t not have a right to exist.

In the mean time, to answer your question, the Chinese Wall option is the best answer for peace.  JMHO.

JFL,

I have no idea what you’re talking about. 

There is no such thing as Palestinian land.

The American Jewish Neo-Cons psychopaths don’t make Israeli defense policy. 

The attack on the world trade center was an attack by Bin Ladin on Bush and Saud and had nothing to do with America or Israel.

The dead and maimed US soldiers in Iraq were sacrificed in the service of the personal enrichment of the Bush family - so that Bush could engage in war profiteering - the long standing Bush family business - more particularly, handing out no-bid contracts in exchange for kickbacks.

As for cutting off Gaza’s access to air and sea, your comment is the first I’ve heard of it.  But my first thought is, if it were true, do you think Israel would employ such an outrageous and drastic tactic unless there was some reasonable justification for it?  I don’t.

As for lunatics, the first prize winners are those who think that Israel has a right to exist, but has no right to defend itself against terrorists and suicide bombers bent on Israel’s distruction.  THAT is lunacy.

Just for the record, none of you has any idea what you are talking about. Isreal forcefully took over the Palestinian land and kicked innocent people out of their houses in order to illegally occuply THEIR territory and now they refuse to withdrawl. So why do you support Isreal? Because you are either ignorant or evil! You tell me which!

You all make me sick.

Mr. Brown:

Your post reveals the danger of knowing a little, but not enough, and then using that slim knowledge as the basis for argument.

First, as you well know, there is no country known as Palestine.  The Arabs living in the disputed territories did not, EVER, have sovereignty over that land.  The Arabs were offered that land repeatedly, by the Brits, by the UN and by Israel, following the wars AGAINST it, which Israel won.  According to international law, a country is legally entitled to keep territory that it gains as the result of a defensive war.  Think about almost any other country on the planet—territory is always gained through wars or international negotiations, countries are artificial constructs, they didn’t exist ab initio.

Further, when Egypt and Jordan were responsible for the lands now known as the disputed territories, neither Arab country would permit those non-Heshemite Arabs (i.e. the Arab Palestinians) to control the land.  The Egyptians kept them in the Gaza Strip under military control and never allowed them to be citizens.  The Jordanians initially gave them citizenship but then, tired of the terrorism, SLAUGHTERED 10,000, driving them from Jordan in the month known as Black September. 

Compare the treatment of the Palestinian Arabs by the Israelis.  When Israel acquired the territories, and therefore responsibility for those Arabs, in 1967, it provided them with never-before-experienced social, educational, medical and quality of life advantages.  For example, because of the innoculation programs begun by the Israelis, polio, measles,whooping cough and tetanus were eradicated.  Prior to Israeli responsibility there were no universities, by the early 90’s there were 7.  The infant mortality rate dropped from 60/1000, to 15/1000, life expectancy rose from 48 to 72 years of age, the economy in the territories grew so quickly that it was the fourth fastest growing economy IN THE WORLD!  The list goes on and on. Everything changed once the intifadas began. All the advances slowed, many fell to prior, dismal times.

If you feel for the Arab Palestinians, and why shouldn’t you, hold those responsible for their dire circumstances—the Arab Palestinian leadership.  By supporting those criminals, and vilifying the Israelis, you condemn the non-leadership Arabs to lives of undending misery.

Jonweekly,

You are either a liar or you are a brainwashed, delusional, moron. YOU have no idea what you are talking about. None!

Hi Lefty,

“There is no such thing as Palestinian land.”
I realize that the israeli position is that the land they presently occupy was “without a people” before they stole it from the Palestinians. This is more of a comment on the sad, racist tales the Israelis have to tell themselves to avoid confronting the obvious, that they displaced millions of Palestinians and took their land. Same thing we Europeans did to the people living here in America before becoming “Americans.”

“The American Jewish Neo-Cons psychopaths don’t make Israeli defense policy.”
Maybe not, but the Likud, in America and Israel, sure seems to be making American “defense” policy in Iraq.

“The attack on the world trade center was an attack by Bin Ladin on Bush and Saud and had nothing to do with America or Israel.”
The attack on the WTC and Pentagon in particular was inspired by Osama bin Laden’s memories of the destruction of Beirut. Al Qaeda’s war against America is in response to the US/Israeli war against the Palestinians as well as the US basing in Saudi Arabia itself. Mao said something like “The people are the sea in which the revolutionaries swim”, and bin Laden is swimming quite bouyantly in the sea of despair generated in the Arab world by the US/Israeli occupation of Palestine.

“The dead and maimed US soldiers in Iraq were sacrificed in the service of the personal enrichment of the Bush family - so that Bush could engage in war profiteering - the long standing Bush family business - more particularly, handing out no-bid contracts in exchange for kickbacks.”
Check out http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0825-03.htm for an account of Douglas Feith’s letter asking the Israelis to come up with a quote for a pipeline from the Kirkuk area in Iraq to Haifa in Israel “as a ‘bonus’ the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq”

“As for cutting off Gaza’s access to air and sea, your comment is the first I’ve heard of it.  But my first thought is, if it were true, do you think Israel would employ such an outrageous and drastic tactic unless there was some reasonable justification for it?  I don’t.”
The act is justified by the identity of its author? If the Israelis are doing it then it’s the right thing to do by definition?

“As for lunatics, the first prize winners are those who think that Israel has a right to exist, but has no right to defend itself against terrorists and suicide bombers bent on Israel’s distruction.  THAT is lunacy.”
The present regime in Israel is bent on taking all the land in Palestine. There is nothing defensive about it.

There are at least 1393 Israelis refuseniks including 27 Israeli airmen, more than a dozen members of Sayeret Matkal, and Noam Bahat, Hagay Mattar, Adam Mouar, Shimi Tzamrit and Mittan Kminar who are serving prison terms for refusing to serve in Israel’s illegal, immoral war against the Palestinians.

That’s like 60,000 people here.

It is no more anti-Israeli, certainly not anti-Semitic, to be anti-Likud than it is anti-American for an American like myself who loves his country to be vehemently opposed to “our” present viciously war-mongering and anti-democratic American regime. In fact patriotism demands that we all repudiate the regimes that are making war criminals of us all.

Think what the Israeli refuseniks are standing up against in their country.

Hi Lori Lowenthal Marcus,

“First, as you well know, there is no country known as Palestine.  The Arabs living in the disputed territories did not, EVER, have sovereignty over that land.  The Arabs were offered that land repeatedly, by the Brits, by the UN and by Israel, following the wars AGAINST it, which Israel won.  According to international law, a country is legally entitled to keep territory that it gains as the result of a defensive war.  Think about almost any other country on the planet—territory is always gained through wars or international negotiations, countries are artificial constructs, they didn’t exist ab initio.”

The fact that the Palestinians were victimized by the Brits before the Israelis is hardly an excuse for the Israeli actions. International law requires Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian land. It is true that other countries have crushed other peoples and stolen their land but that is no justification for doing it again, in broad daylight.

“Further, when Egypt and Jordan were responsible for the lands now known as the disputed territories, neither Arab country would permit those non-Heshemite Arabs (i.e. the Arab Palestinians) to control the land.  The Egyptians kept them in the Gaza Strip under military control and never allowed them to be citizens.  The Jordanians initially gave them citizenship but then, tired of the terrorism, SLAUGHTERED 10,000, driving them from Jordan in the month known as Black September.”

The despicable behavior of others does not justify my despicable behavior, or the Israelis.

“Compare the treatment of the Palestinian Arabs by the Israelis.  When Israel acquired the territories, and therefore responsibility for those Arabs, in 1967, it provided them with never-before-experienced social, educational, medical and quality of life advantages.  For example, because of the innoculation programs begun by the Israelis, polio, measles,whooping cough and tetanus were eradicated.  Prior to Israeli responsibility there were no universities, by the early 90’s there were 7.  The infant mortality rate dropped from 60/1000, to 15/1000, life expectancy rose from 48 to 72 years of age, the economy in the territories grew so quickly that it was the fourth fastest growing economy IN THE WORLD!  The list goes on and on. Everything changed once the intifadas began. All the advances slowed, many fell to prior, dismal times.”

This sounds like the “Song of the South”. The story of the good white people who took care of the poor, ignorant darkies. They were better off when they were slaves!

“If you feel for the Arab Palestinians, and why shouldn’t you, hold those responsible for their dire circumstances—the Arab Palestinian leadership.  By supporting those criminals, and vilifying the Israelis, you condemn the non-leadership Arabs to lives of undending misery.”

Israel resumed today, or yesterday, their policy of assassination of Palestinians leaders. If there are no Palestinian leaders it is because they were murdered by the Israelis.

A foreign policy founded upon injustice cannot stand. If it weren’t for the fantastic sums delivered to the Israelis by the corrupt American political class, enabling the Israelis to pursue policies far more draconian than they could ever “hope” to on their own at no cost to themselves, at a profit to themselves actually, a two-state solution would long since have been found in Israel and Palestine.

JFLee:

Yikes, not only don’t you know the history of the Middle East, understand international law,and can’t understand - or worse, don’t care—that the Arab Palestinian leadership is victimizing the people with whom you claim to identify, but you have the nerve to analogize the treatment by Israel of the Arab Palestinians with the shameful institution of African American slavery—what an insult to anyone whose family members actually were slaves. Apparently you also don’t know early American history. Come to think of it, you don’t know the facts regarding current events either.

Brandishing slogans may make you feel better, but it doesn’t help the people about whom you claim to care.  Learn the facts and become an effective advocate.  You aren’t one now.

Lefty - would you say the same ("Negotiating with palestinians is like negotiating with cancer.  It can’t be done.") about the Iraqi insugents (either foreign or domestic)?

I suppose i would. Some people just cannot be reasoned with.  .  .

Bi-Curious,

First, I didn’t know there were any domestic Iraqi insurgents.  (Damn corporate media hiding the truth again). 

Second, my understanding is that the insurgency in Iraq is headed and supported by Iranian fundimentalists, the same Iranian fundimentalists who support the Palestinian terrorism in Israel.  As for how many if any “insurgents” are Iraqi nationals, I don’t know.

Third, I’m not certain whether Iranian fundimentalists can be negotiated with, but I am certain Bush is too much of a ham handed idiot to accomplish it.

Lefty,

I’m not going to debate with you as I know you will you listen. But read up on how Israel came to build on Palestinian land, what was offered in the many treaties (they all offered Isreal MUCH more and better land when in reality ALL of it should have been returned to it’s rightful owners) and why we support Israel blindly (because jews are a HUGE voting block and the Palestinians aren’t).

You are a sheep, sad to say.

Suicide bombers simply have no other option. We supplied Israel with guns, tanks, etc. and what to the Palestinians have? Maybe some old pea shooting pistols. The bombers are obviously sick as hell, and I don’t agree with their method...but I do understand that desperate people do desperate things.

Do some research and then get back to me.

JFL,

Honestly, I don’t have the time or patience to address all of your numerous premises - which I assert are false.  In my opinion, you are badly misinformed.  Obviously, I dispute not only your premises but also your conclusions.

Jonweekly,

What are you talking about?  “Read up on how Israel came to Build on Palestinian land?” And where would I go to read up on something that never occured, the American Fascist Quarterly?  The Right-Wing Conservative Psychopath Tattler?  The Neo-Nazi Herald?

At camp David, each time Barak tried to accept the terms proffered by Arafat, Arafat changed his position and asserted additional conditions.  Eventually Barak offered Arafat EVERYTHING Arafat had demanded from the beginning of negotiations at Camp David.  When Arafat realized that he was painted into a corner from which he could no longer justify terrorism, he again changed his position and added yet another condition that he knew couldn’t be accepted - the right of all Palestinians (who outnumber all Israelis many times over), to return to Israel.  That was the end of the negotiation. 

Again, there can be no negotiations with the Palestinians because they don’t want peace, they want Israel.  And that is not negotiable.

And what’s up with: “Suicide bombers simply have no other option?” Really?  I guess that applies equally to Mohammed Atta!  HE SIMPLY HAD NO CHOICE.  You’re an idiot.

As for who in the world do the poor Palestinians have . . . let’s see . . . how about . . . Iran who finances and supports the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Fathi Shqaqi), Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists.  You know, the same group of Islamic fundimentalists who are financing and supporting the insurgency in Iraq. 

One of us needs to do a little more research, and I think it’s you.

Having just returned from spending three months in Israel and Palestine, I am not surprized to read this about Sharon and his determination to take such a dangerous unilateral approach. After all, he was a defender of settlements in the first place.
Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to expose and oppose his policies towards the Palestinians because not only are they counter-productive leading to more violence rather than peace; but more importantly, it will continue to erode the moral fabric of Israeli society and bring it closer to an apartheid regime.

Why, someone who doesn’t even know where he was for the past three months.  There is no such place as Palestine and wishing doesn’t make it so.  Plus, another deluded poster who tries to make the Israelis look like people who treated Africans like property.

Listen geniuses, do you even know who were the ones who originated the slave trade?  The ones who ripped babies from their mothers and wives from their husbands so that they could make money by selling these gentle souls to other barbarians?  Right. Arabs.  And do you know that the monsters murdering Black Muslims in Darfur are Arab Muslims—those Arabs are murdering the Black Africans solely because they are Black.

It must make you feel warm and fuzzy to toss around terms that make you sound like a caring soul and cast the Israelis as the racists,but you’re looking in the wrong direction.  Try the mirror next time you want to call someone a racist.  And do you have any idea what apartheid is?  It is governmental policy of separation based on race.  Do you realize Jews get murdered simply for breathing in many Arab countries...and that’s legal?!  YOu have no idea what you are talking about.  And don’t respond that many Israelis agree with you. The legacy of Jewish self-blame is still strong.

Thank-you, LL Marcus for being a voice of reason, and knowledge in this discussion. 

We would all agree that what is happening in Israel is sad, and for the most part unnecessary.

To enable all the people of the region to live without fear, and to have hope for their futures we must look at the historical facts, and strive to do what is right...not for us, but for everyone.  To be lead blindly by emotions, wishes, and the temptation of financial gain, will not achieve this.

Israelis and Palestinians...sibling rivalry to the extreme.

“Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to expose and oppose his policies towards the Palestinians because not only are they counter-productive leading to more violence rather than peace; but more importantly, it will continue to erode the moral fabric of Israeli society and bring it closer to an apartheid regime.” Posted by REv Max B Surjadinata on June 24, 2005 at 1:09 PM

Max, that is a wholly assinine analogy, unless you are saying that the aparthied blacks in South Africa were terrorists and suicide bombers, in which case it would be an assinine lie.

The contributions of ‘lefty’ (so-called) and Lori Lowenthal Marcus (what a pedigree!) are classic programmatic products of the cyborg army that constitutes the global israeli propaganda machine of provincial gauleiters, all doing their little thing to keep the home fires of misinformation burning.
YOu would think that they would actually address the specifics of Neve Gordon’s contribution. But no - that is outside the capacity of a cyborg, switched on to drown out the perfidy which is Sharon’s persona and the whole stinking regime that he represents.
All power to Neve Gordon for his persistent courage in this respect, and to his compatriots in dissent.

Isreal is a store front for British Intelligence and CIA.  It is a belligerent bully looking for a fight and Sharón is the personification of that.  No one can talk about this ass-whip country because it gets shouted down with the ‘Anti-Semitic’label there by killing the topic.  For the record, Semitic is ANY PERSON OF MIDDLE EAST EXTRACTION, not specifically Jews.

I TOTALLY OBJECT TO THE PRESSENCE OF ZIONISTS IN IRAQ!!!!!!!!!, AND THERE ARE TONS OF THEM!!

Any, and I do mean ANY right wing faction is too expensive to indulge in in this volitle world.

Well, it looks like the serious discourse on this thread has fizzled and the “sub-100 monkey-boy brigade” has arrived.

To LLM,

I suggest you get information on the Israel/Palestine conflict from other than the Israeli Foreign Ministry or the YESHA newsletter! First of all Israel first recognized the existance of Arab Palestine diplomatically with the Oslo back-channel and the official negotiations it led to in 1993!  Despite Sharon’s abhorant policies, Israel is still considered to recognize such an entity.  Second, Israel, not the Palestinians, is responsible for the ultimate breakdown of the peace talks which lead to the second intifada.  Arafat simply could not accept a deal which accorded the Palestinians NO sovereign rights in any part of Jerusalem, NO more than 18% of the West Bank in which FULL Palestinian sovereignty obtained in several discontiguous bantustans ringed by the IDF and its security checkpoints, NO control of the water sources for the majority of the West Bank, NO deal on the refugees whatsoever, and where there was continued expansion of settlements throughout the talks while more and more land is expropriated and houses destroyed!  Despite the unabated continuation of the brutal occupation Arafat continued to bargain in good faith and even attemped to warn Clinton before the fateful Sharon visit to the Haram al Sheriff so he could prevail upon Barak to stop Sharon.  BY this point the Israelis already decided the peace process was no longer worth pursuing and opted for destructive provocation. Further, though the intifada did deepen the poverty and economic decline of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, the problem has much deeper roots.  By the time of the Oslo negotiations the neo-liberal economic policies of the government to promote Israel’s increasingly global oriented strategy had already subject many Arabs and Jews to grinding poverty.  The core of the policy was Foreign Direct Investment in creating growth, streamlining the economy through privatizing state enterprises while hiving off jobs, cutting taxes on the rich, and cutting services, wages, and redistributing wealth upwards. FDI came to play a great role in the Israeli economy from almost nothing in 1985, to about 5% of gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) in 1993 to 21% of GFCF in 2003.  Meanwhile the rate of poverty in Israel is over 25% and unemployment over 10% for men and 13% for women. In the occupied territories it is over 70% mostly due to the occupaation and closures.  One of the reason that the Sephardim did not go along with the Peace deal was that it involved and was associated with globalization policies that meant taking decent paying industrial jobs out of their communities and towns that have been there for over five decades and moving them to Export Processing Zones in Jordan.  This has led to greater poverty than at any time in Israel’s history despite its 4.5% average annual GDP growth rates over the past 10 years.  Finally, Israel’s goal is to unilaterally impose a settlement on the Palestinians which, far from a viable independent state, will be a disjointed labor reserve OR the long desired Jordan Option by default whereby the Palestinians increasingly orient their society and economy toward Jordan until Federation becomes a mere coup de grace.  This is unacceptable to most Palestinians.  It is also a blueprint for further violence and political instability in the region.

“First of all Israel first recognized the existance of Arab Palestine diplomatically with the Oslo back-channel and the official negotiations it led to in 1993!”

No Steve!  First of all, neither Palestinian, nor any other “Arab” nations recognize Israel’s right to exist, after almost 60 years. 

“Second, Israel, not the Palestinians, is responsible for the ultimate breakdown of the peace talks which lead to the second intifada.”

Wrong again, Steve!  Second, the Palestinians cannot accept the fact that there are Jews living among them, and have proven, by their 1,000’s of murderous deeds over many decades, that they are bent on the destruction of Israel, by any means necessary, including suicide bombing and murdering of innocent civilians.  The breakdown of peace negotiations is 100% the fault of the Palestinians.  Why should Israel continue to negotiate sham peace agreements with the Palestinian’s right hand while the left hand is murdering and suicide bombing innocent civilians?

“Arafat simply could not accept a deal which accorded the Palestinians NO sovereign rights in any part of Jerusalem, NO more than 18% of the West Bank in which FULL Palestinian sovereignty obtained in several discontiguous bantustans ringed by the IDF and its security checkpoints, NO control of the water sources for the majority of the West Bank, NO deal on the refugees whatsoever, and where there was continued expansion of settlements throughout the talks while more and more land is expropriated and houses destroyed!”

Wrong! Again, Steve!  Arafat had no intention of reaching any kind of peace settlement with Israel.  He did not negotiate in good faith.  Barak continually gave him EXACTLY what he asked for and Arafat continually changed his position and added additional conditions.  The final staw was when Barak finally agreed to everything Arafat had demanded and, once again, Arafat added a condition he knew would never be accepted - the right of return of all Palestinians (which exceed the entire population of Israel many times over), to Israel.  The reason is that Arafat didn’t want peace, he wanted Israel.

“Finally, Israel’s goal is to unilaterally impose a settlement on the Palestinians which, far from a viable independent state, will be a disjointed labor reserve OR the long desired Jordan Option by default whereby the Palestinians increasingly orient their society and economy toward Jordan until Federation becomes a mere coup de grace.  This is unacceptable to most Palestinians.  It is also a blueprint for further violence and political instability in the region.”

Partially right, Steve.  Israel shouldn’t give a damn about Palestinian sovereignty.  The Palestinians have squandered any concern Israel, or any other reasonable nation, could possibly have for it’s well being a prosperity as a result of it’s murderous terrorist deeds over the last 4 decades, which continue, unabated.

Israel should build a physical barrier between itself and the Palestinians and let them fend for themselves.  Let the Iranian fundimentalists who finance the terrorist organizations: Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Hamas, finance and nurture, the new Palestinian state.

For Israel to lift a finger to a people who despise them, and who have murdered thousands of its citizens, would be the hight of stupidity.

Steve:

Ah, yes, the “globalization” mantra, I’m familiar with that one.  Take a look at any map of the Middle East, dear, and you’ll be, as you should be, embarrassed to use that term with respect to Israel and it’s desires toward the 20 Arab Muslim countries surrounding it. No, it isn’t what appears to be your favorite - and only - economic index that is the basis of Israel’s economy.  Foreign Direct Investment?  What about the BILLIONS of dollars sunk into the Arab Palestinian economy by the rest of the globe over the past few years?  Does that form of globalization bother you?  Does that type of foreign direct investment give you pause?  How about the fact that the Arab Palestinian leadership STOLE all that money from the Arab Palestinian people, leaving them in filth and squalor, does that make you feel better?  Take some classes and do some independent research and you’ll perhaps begin to understand the true economics of the Middle East.

I love that you think the 70% unemployment rate of the Arab Palestinians is “mostly due to the [Israeli] occupaation (sic)and closures.” Actually, the per capita GNP of the Arab Palestinians expanded tenfold between 1968 (know your history? know what happened in ‘67?) and 1991 - at which time it was higher than Jordan’s, Egypt’s, Turkey’s and Tunisia’s.  By 1999, Arab Palestinian per-capita income was nearly double Syria’s, more than four times Yemen’s, and 10% higher than Jordan’s.  The blame for the current piteous unemployment rate of the Arab Palestinians belongs solely to the murderous Arab Palestinian leadership.  Don’t start sparring economic indicators with me.

And again with the puerile comparison of the Arab Palestinian lot to that of the Black African population during the Apartheid regime.  Do you understand what those bantustans were? Obviously not.

Stop being so sloppy in your research and your sloganeering with respect to this issue and try to do something that will help the populations in need. That is, if you actually care about them rather than just enjoy sounding as if you do.

LLM,

The recent World Bank figures, which are important because of WB involvement in PA investments, show a drastic decrease in GDP growth and consumption in the Occupied Territories due to the Apartheid Wall and the brutality of the Occupation.  Yes, the international donors have been sending billions in aid to the PA over the past 12 years or so and yes there was some corruption.  The majority of the money was invested in infrastructural programs like PIEFZA, the industrial export processing zone construction project to give the PA a competitive advantage through plant clustering.  The WB has also given aid to these efforts to build, lease, and manage facilities for mostly foreign firms to come in and build factories for garment assembly, beverages and food processing, consumer electronics, and textiles.  A mid 1990s UNCTAD survey of the West Bank economy finds that over 90% of industrial production takes place in enterprises of less than 10 employees-typical of a poor third world economy.  The PIEFZA effort has provided investment opportunity for mostly foreign investors-many of them Israeli in the textiles and electronics field-and will eventually transfer economic preponderance from the Palestinian middle class to foreign capital who wll put the locals out of business.  GDP growth will greatly increase from globalizing the west bank economy while enriching Israelis and even nieghboring Arab state investors as the overall income losses to Palestinians not employed by the new capital intensive plants will generate out migration and poverty.  The apartheid wall has itself destroyed much agriculture through expropriation and disruption of trade.  The goal, I believe of the Israeli/US/WTO axis is to resolve the conflict through draining the Palestinian nation through economic streamlining while securing nieghboring Arab complicity through investment interests. This is not nation-building or creating a viable independant state but a bantustan or labor reserve whereby the PA manages its “affairs” based on their own corrupt interests.  My political favorite in the territories is Mustufa Barghouthi and his democratic initiative. It has the only real chance of long term success and social justice!

Lefty,

We simply disagree on the history of Camp David 2000.  Israeli colonialism is more intransigent than Palestinian nationalism. The two parties did recognize each other in an historic move in 1993!  This is beyond dispute. As for murder both sides are guilty though Israel is the tougher of the two with a modern state and military.  Over the past five years from 9/28/2000, over 5000 people have been killed-almost 900/month. Easily 80% have been Palestinians many of whom are young children. The occupation has demolished thousands of homes most without any provocation and none with any due process. It is simply a land grab. One of every two Palestinian males has experienced incarceration.  Israel is a colonialist power serviing US interests. There is no benefit to the Jews as Jews. It doesn’t serve as compensation for the Holocaust and in fact places Jews in more danger qua Jews.  Most Jews chose to go West from European DP camps after WWII but were FORCED to go to Palestine.  This is the core injustice. We need to deZionize the issue, create a binational democratic state in the Levant, and let people immigrate to their first place of choice whenever feasible!

Steve et al.

This is my last posting on this thread. Please educate yourselves about the legal, historical, economic and factual bases for the misery of the Arab Palestinians.  How can you “drain[] the Palestinian nation” when there is no such nation, and there never was a “Palestinian” economy? Was that the fault of Israel also, prior to 1967?  Prior to 1948? There was no such economy then, either.  Apparently you also don’t like the World Bank, nor the rest of the planet that has tried, for the past decade and more, to give the PA billions of dollars to create and support a population kept in misery by its Arab leadership (and Arab brethren in every Arab nation). “Some corruption?” How about Arafat’s $6 billion?  How about that parasite Suha Arafat who lived in obscene luxury in one of the most exclusive hotels in the world while “her people” rotted in camps? Did you do anything to help pry that money out of her or him?

SO - without your dreaded “globalization,” you’d leave these poor souls to the monsters bent on keeping them subjugated and the rest of the Arab extremists interested only in holding them out as a reason for hatred, but refusing to lift a finger (or a penny or a dinar or anything else) to actually assist them. Did you see Qurei’s sumptuous vacation home? Let’s compare that to those he pretends to represent.

Given your view of the world we’d all be isolationists - if that’s the case then you really are selfish, in addition to being shallow.

Grow up folks.  One final time - if you want to help the people you claim to care about, then do some honest research and become an effective advocate for them—or is that another form of the dreaded monster globalization?  That’s right, just stay home and emit empty angry spittle.

LLM,

I am disappointed that you bolt from the thread. We are having so much fun.  FYI I am a Jew and not anti-semitic.  I feel that Israel is ironically stirring up anti-semitism that has long been dormant.  On the issue of the Palestinians, who are a nation with an economy,culture and history, they do suffer at the hands of their own quite a bit but that doesn’t make them any different from the Jews or any other people, including us Americans.  In Israel, which I pointed out enjoys unprecedented GDP growth rates despite the political situation and which has an economy the size of all the Arab frontline states combined, the national distribution of wealth is the WORST of any industrial capitalist western oriented country in the world!  An often cited figure for the US is that the top 1% of the population controls 47% of the marketable wealth and over one-quarter of the income.  For Israel these figures are much more concentrated with about 51% of the wealth going to the top 1%. I don’t know about income but the ratio of the richest to the poorest is a gap of well over the US’s 500 to one. Over two-fifths of the total market Capitaliszation of the TA Stock Exchange is controlled by just five super-conglomerates with heavy foreign participation.  The Israeli GDP has never been higher is history! All this comes at a time when there is more Jewish poverty in Israel than ever before.  One quarter of all Israeli Jewish families are below the poverty line and there are more private charity organizations per capita working with Jews in Israel TODAY than 60 years ago when Jewish refugees were streaming into the country in dire need of humanitarian assistance!  How do you like your globalization now Ms. LLM?!  Its the same all over the world. Why should the Jewish Bourgeousie care more for its poor than any other national Bourgeousie?!  The real issue is capitalism and its global ravages not ethnicity.  As my good friend Jeff Peres, a South African Jew once said to me as a young grad student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, “Politics is never a question of race, but of social class!” This still seems to be true.

Please visit www.peacenow.org in order to learn the viewpoints of people who are both Zionist (believers in the right of Jews to have a Jewish homeland in Israel) and believers in the rights of Palestinians to live in freedom in their own state.  Peace Now (Shalom Achshav) represents a large portion of the Israeli population--we should listen to them.

I would submit to American Jews who believe that it is impossible to negotiate with Palestinians that they review the many proposals that have been ignored by Israel’s current administration (the Geneva Accord, the Nusseibeh-Ayalon agreement).  But what this brings out is that, if the American left is insensitive and one-sided about the Israel-Palestine issue (and blames Israel or calls it an Aparteid State), it will lose the support of an important percentage of its Jewish members.  Let’s hang together, friends, and not let oversimplifications cloud our view of a complex conflict.

It seems to me that the Palestinians would be better off if they had 1) a contiguous share of land and 2) a sea port.  Why wouldn’t Israel be able/willing to trade the West Bank in exchange for land contiguous to the Gaza strip.

Like most consumers of American media, I always took Israeli settlements in the West Bank for inkblots (ever expanding?) within contiguous Palestinian territory.

Viewing the ABC, FRONTLINE (www.pbs.org/wgbh/page/frontline/shows/israel/map) Oslo II map, I figured out that the negotiated Palestinian homeland is to be the hodgepodge of inkblots (ever diminishing?) within a contiguous Israeli realm – which civilian domain encompasses 40% of West Bank land (today). 

Not surprisingly, 75% of West Bank water is incorporated into said 40% (as I wrote this, I heard a C-Span call-in complain that settlers control 50% of Gaza water!?).  Even future, sovereign Palestinian nation-etts are to be crisscrossed by the hundreds of miles of Jew-only bypass roads (BYPASS MAP—www.passia.org/palestine_facts/MAPS/wbgs_campdavid.html) and, even more incongruously, to be dotted with Israeli settlements and towns! 

The Frontline map identifies 52 settlements created since Sharon took power—out of the existing 98!  Does Israeli civilian control really need to reach 50%—with the Israeli military controling West Bank borders and Israeli civilian intrusion dispersed throughout Palestinian so-called sovereignty—before all logic forces us to acknowledge the fact of “Greater Israel” ?

2004’s Gaza disengagement process bulldozed 28,000 people out of their homes (COUNTERPUNCH – para. 15—www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein04292005.html)—while the IDF chief has announced the hope of excluding all Palestinian workers from Israel by 2008 (para. 21) – sounding more like a Marshall Plan in reverse.

Israel would like Palestinians out of the West Bank too – but Palestinians have not taken the hint – nor have their billion-plus Islamic friends.  Which is a necessary and sufficient explanation for America – suckered, by behind-the-curve media and path-of-least-resistance politicians, into doing too much for an Israel that does too much to vulnerable Islamic people – trading skyscrapers for settlements.

Forget any clash of Western and Islamic civilizations.  Israel’s West Bank occupation is simply the Islamic world’s version of South African apartheid and Bosnian ethnic cleansing all rolled into one –perpetually vexing its people into undoing the unendurable – much as the “peculiar institution” of slavery once pecked away at the American conscience. 

America’s talking heads and following leaders are way overdue getting the word to their people that a Palestinian nation cannot exist half slave and half free either. 
****** ******* ******
200,000 people may be causing a world war all by themselves.  40% of both American and Israeli Jews agree most settlements have to be removed from the West Bank – it should not be hard to get 80% of all other Americans and a majority of American Jews behind removing all so-called settlers if and when our media fully portrays the off-the-scale, in-your-face nature of the so-called occupation.

I don’t know what century Islamic terrorists are inhabiting: they drain tens, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars from the Saudis and who-knows-who-else to build hate schools systems, and blow up buildings full of people (didn’t Menacham Begin start that in the mideast?); didn’t they ever hear of television, or Madison Ave?  They have a great story to tell—why don’t they switch one-tenth of their present effort to attempting to educate the one uncomprehending, isolated-by-oceans part of our universe, which happens to be the only part which supports Israel’s aggression?—an high-tech, unstoppable info outflanking worthy of twenty-first century political warfare.

Denis Drew
Chicago
denis.drew@netzero.com

I am not a media expert but I have always opposed Israeli colonialism while believing that the US media at least since 1982 has been pretty critical of Israel (and rightly so!) The problem is US imperialism as well.  The US has never needed or wanted true Palestinian independance as it would lead to a counterwieght to US/Zionist/Egyptian/Jordanian pro-western imperialist rule with a kind of Arab nationalism or social democratic developmentalism which US imperialism doesn’t want.  Remember, Palestinian nationalism was the first modern Arab nationalism (not Egyptian which was based on the fundamentalist Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood) despite the fact that it was hijacked by the Nazi sympathizing Mufti of Jerusalem.  This was preferable at first to the British because the binationalist democratic oriented independance (Istiqulal) movement of the Nashashibi notables would have gained great popular adherence and gained Ghandi style legitimacy while the Mufti’s hateful polarization legitimated further British repression and Zionist armed struggle to gain the most possible quanitity of Arab land.  We have always supported unviable political and religious extremists in the Middle East as a counter-wieght to genuine democratic movements and to provide a pretext for invasion and neo-colonial rule.  Such is the legacy which continues on in US foreign policy in the region today!

Dennis Drew said:

“Forget any clash of Western and Islamic civilizations.  Israel’s West Bank occupation is simply the Islamic world’s version of South African apartheid and Bosnian ethnic cleansing all rolled into one –perpetually vexing its people into undoing the unendurable – much as the “peculiar institution” of slavery once pecked away at the American conscience.”

Hey Dennis, when you had your brain washed, did you have it waxed too? 

Neither the blacks in South Africa nor the muslims in Bosnia were terrorist and suicide bombers with a policy of exterminating the opposition.  The Palestinians do.  Israel’s defense of itself and its citizens has been EXTREMELY tempered and measured and much more would be justified. 

Can you imagine what the US would do to Mexico, Canada or Cuba if any of those nations launched 1,000’s of terrorist attacks and suicide bombers on innocent American civilians, and had an express policy that the US did not have the right to exist?

Get your head out of your . . . er, the sand, Dennis.

Lefty,
You sound like someone who only read the Nazi Germany side of the war of the French resistance.  Did you forget why Palestinians are at war with Israel?

I don’t say the end justifies the means.  I did say above that the Islamic freedom movement is crazy to use violence when they have hundreds of millions (Usama alone reputedly $250 million) and they don’t utilize Madison Avenue to get their message across—and what a message!

I guess you forgot the part about the state Israel being carved out of via terror and heavy duty ethnic cleansing—circa, 1949 or thereabouts—as in Menachem Begin blowing up a hotel and killing 98 British soldiers right in the middle of WWII—nobody safe from Israeli terror.

Now that America has traded skyscrapers for settlements: no more time for one-sided delusions—time to pull the plug on the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.

Denis,

You sound like a typical conservative.  You just make it up as you go along.  You are a pathological liar.

The reason the so called Palestinians are at war is because they are fundimentalist, religionist, terrorists, like G.W. Bush.  The only ethnic cleansing going on in the middle east is in arab/muslim countries who don’t tolerate ANY diversity.  The Bin Ladin attack on the world trade center was retaliation against the Bush and Saud families by another fundimentalist religionist psychopath, and had absolutely nothing to do with Israel or the so called Palestinians.

I have some advice for you Denis. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out loud and remove all doubt.” - Abraham Lincoln

Most of your arguments spin words that have been said, using arguments that simply go in circles.
The bloodshed over land ownership rights is one of the most ridiculous timeless arguments between men. And the end result of grasping on to either side in the debate is to only further support bloodshed.

It seems that there is no Yin in the Arab world.

And I fear that once again the U.S. is largely an accomplish to the continual bloodshed.

I have a hard time believing that the “God” of any party involved is really happy to see it all.  Would “God” take the side of anyone killing fellow human beings out of revenge or over land? 

Lefty, it isn’t even worth trying to point out the holes in your blandishments because of where you are coming from - which appears to be a very reactionary, racist place - not one open to any form of debate - you would rather call people names, like an angry little boy.

PE,

You’re just lazy.  If you have something to say, say it.  You say I’m a racist.  Based on what?

I’ve said, about 3 or 4 times, that Israel would be stupid to negotiate with the Palestinians’ right hand while innocent Israeli civilians are being murdered by the Palestinians’ left hand.  Where’s the racism in that? 

Rather, the arguments I hear from Palestinian supporters (such as yourself) are so outrageous, so intellectually indefensible that I can only surmize that they arise out of racist hatred of the Jews.

As for name calling, you called me an angry little boy.  Aside from the fact that you don’t know what my gender is, that wasn’t intended to be pejorative? 

Back to the topic at hand.  The Palestinians have demonstrated on 1,000 occasions that they don’t want negotiations, they want Israel.  Palestinians still dispute Israel’s right to exist.  For their terrorist, racist hatred, they deserve much worse than they have.  Israel should refuse to negotiate with them until they demonstrate good faith, which will take SOME time.

Bravo, Martin !
For a good overall view by a nonleftist
American Jew, see Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal’s
The Zionist Connection and What Price Israel ?
Israel, though 40% are atheists, is governed
by the Orthodox Rabbinate and Reform & Conservative Judaism are legally not permitted.
Those settler-occupiers that the racist Lefty
is defending are as much fundamentalist
fanatics as anyone in Iran.
It was only the creation of the illegitmate
state of Israel that allowed Islam to revive,
before 1960s it was dying out as a political
force.
What about Israel’s obliteration of the Palestinian Arabs right to exist ?
Funny how the Zionist racists on this
board and elsewhere overlook this salient
fact.
Recently a major Zionsit group called
for support for Bolton because he helped
reverse the UN Zionism is Racism resolution.
But Zionism is racism by its very exclusionary
nature.
Since the US did rip off 1/3rd of Mexico they
would be justified in undertaking terrorist
actions against the US, but they don’t have
to since they are retaking that area via
illegal & legal immigration.

Hear ! Hear !
Thanks Martin and Bonnie.
LEETLE BOY “lefty” just got
his stinky tush publicly
spanked.
I’ve never seen this troll get
ONE thing right in the many trollings
he has performed.

Racists like Lori actually go Hitler
one further and deny the existence
of the Palestinian people.
At least Hitler never denied that
Jews exist.
Since the Palestinians are not nomadic
and owned 90% of the businesses in what
is now Israel before 1948 and almost
as much of the land, how can you say they
never had an economy ?
The Zionist movement from its 1880
beginnings had a policy of not hiring
Arab labor nor integrating their economy
with the Arab sector. The Kibbutzim are
the most racist institution in a racist
state.
You misinformed liberals should realize
that it was the Israeli Lobby over here
that was the main factor in promoting
both Bushes’ Wars.
But then as Joshua Frank pointed out
in Left Out, you people are the ones
who reelected Bush.
Sorry racist, reactionary scum that
you libtards are.
No wonder we have no real left here !

Michael Hardesty aka Martin,

You are an idiot of the highest order.  You are also a liar and a troll. 

Israel should refuse any further negotiations with the terrorist Palestinians until, by their deeds they prove that they want peace. Once again, to negotiate piece with the right hand of the Palestinians while the left hand is attacking innocent Israeli citizens by and through Iranian funded and supported terrorist groups (Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas) would be utter foolishness.

Contrary to your false allegations, it is the Palestinians who refuse to negotiate in good faith.  They don’t want peace with Israel, they want Israel.  They have demonstrated their position 1,000’s of times by and through their terrorist acts. 

You can lie to yourself, Michael. You can lie to your fellow right-wing, nut-bag, wacko christian fundementalist, psychopaths.  But, you can’t lie to anyone who can think.

Now go back to your pimp, Tom Delay, and tell him that you have failed, again.

I surrender ! I surrender !
My total apologies for the
disinformation that I have been
spreading on this board.
I am a paid troll but will
be the biggest rat jumping the
AIPAC ship now that jail is looking
us in the face.

I toally repudiate the racist
remarks by “Lefty” above in trying
to defend the indefensible.
There is no bigger supporter of
racist, fascist Israel than Tom
DeLay, who addressed the Knesset
in 2002.
Notice that the imposter is unable
to REBUT ONE SINGLE FACT THAT MARTIN
BRINGS FORTH.All he can do is call
names, make personal attacks without
basis in fact and whine like a little
boy.
Read Chomsky’s The Fateful Triangle
for a full history of Israeli intransigence
and Palestinian attempts to negotiate
in good faith.
Read Avi Schlaim’s two books on the
subject (he’s an Israeli scholar).

Michael Hardesty is really gay male prostitute James Guckert aka Jeff Gannon, and Tom Delay is his Bugaron.

Uh-oh, do we have a liberal losing
an argument ?
Imposter Lefty, name ONE fact that you
think that I’ve gotten wrong. ONE.
Embarrassing to be in the same bed
with Tom DeLay, eh ? He uses exactly
the same nonarguments backed up by the
same nonreasoning you childishly
display here.
See Edward Said’s interviews in The
Progressive on that Clinton farce
of 2000 “peace negotiations.”
Cockburn’s pieces in The Nation
and Counterpunch.
Better call your sorry little guy
ass “Righty.”
Your in bed with the Christ cult
fundies on this one.

Until the Palestinians have demonstrated their good faith by dissolving their terrorist organizations, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas, denounced their support by the terrorist state Iran, and managed to exist for one entire year without a single terrorist attack on Israel, Israel should refuse to negotiate further.

Further, Israel should never, NEVER give control of any part of Jeruselem back to the Palestinians.  When the Palestinians were in control of Jerusalem, no Christians or Jews were permitted to be there.  Now that Israel is in control, all who come are permitted access.

The Palestinians have proven that they cannot be trusted to be good custodians of an area (Jerusalem) many consider to be a holy site.  Israel is right never to negotiate control of such an important site with the terrorist Palestinians.

Under Israeli control, Jerusalem has and will continue to be open to all who wish to be there in peace. The same can never be said about any Arab controlled territory.

Read Avi Schlaim’s The Iron Wall
and Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle for
the actually history of Israeli
rejectionism and Palestinian attempts
to negotiate in good faith.
Israel has ethnically cleansed East
Jerusalem of more than 50% of its
Arab inhabitants since 1967.
Arab homes are routinely seized by
Jewish thugs while the police stand by.

Christians were always permitted
in East Jerusalem under Jordan’s
rule from 1948-67 and nonIsraeli
Jews were permitted as well.
They were in a state of war with
Israel but there was no blanket
ban on Jews in the old City.
You are simply making it up.
The “terrorism” is in RESPONSE
to the Occupation which is why
even a Nazi like Sharon is ending
it at least in Gaza.
Until Israel dismantles its state
terrorism and its Berlin Wall, the
Arabs would be insane to abandon
their legitimate opposition to the
illegal and immoral Occupation.

Israel should no sooner negotiate with Palestinians than the U.S. should negotiate with al Quida.  Negotiating with terrorists is an exercise in futility.  Niether the law nor common sense requires the doing of a useless act.  And negotiating with the Palestinians has proven, time and again to be a useless act.

Look starting dealing with all the
specifics I brought up or shut up.
You sound like Bush & the neoconmen.

That no negotiations with terrorists bullpuckey was the LBJ-Nixon line in Vietnam, the French line
in Algeria, the British line in Kenya, the Dutch line in Indonesia, the South African line vis a vis the ANC and it NEVER works.
What kinda of a rightwing stupid ass are you,
“lefty” ?

Michael Hardesty aka Mikey, Martin, Jack, etc. etc., grow up you psychopathic freak.

Still unable to debate, eh ?
All you have ever done on the ITT Board
is level personal attacks on the many
people who disagree with you.
To quote the great Socialist statesman,
President Gamal Abdul Nasser of Eygpt,
“May you choke on your anger !”

Michael Hardesty, aka Martin, Mikey, Peter, Jack Barnes, etc., is a conservative troll who posts under numerous names (including others’ screen names), and has conversations with himself in order to disrupt liberal dialogue. IGNOR HIM.

Israel cannot continue to be the great democracy that it is by negotiating with terrorist Palestinians bent on Israels destruction.

The Palestinians must first demonstrate, through their deeds, that they truly want peace.  When they do that, they will also have their liberty.

In the mean time, Israel would be foolish to negotiate with the right hand of the Palestinians while the left hand is suicide bombing them, by and through the financial support of the terrorist state, Iran who finances the Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Hamas.

Again, you are repeating empty generalities
of the kind that every reactionary regime
resorts to when unable to make a real case.
Israel is not a democracy to its 25% Arab
citizens who are grossly discrimnated in every
aspect of life in private and public sectors.
Israel is a totalitarian dictatorship in the
Occupied Territories of the West Bank, Gaza,
East Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights
and southern Lebanon.
ISRAEL’S OCCUPATION AND POLICIES ARE THE REASON
THAT ITS VICTIMS ARE FORCED TO RESORT TO TERRORISM.
As Noam Chomsky, our leading leftist, has
pointed out, the US and Israel are the two
leading terrorist states in the world.
By lefty nonlogic, Israel should bomb itself
and so should the USA.
The Palestinians do not have to take some test
to prove to their oppressors that they are fit
for freedom ! Imagine saying that to a black
in the deep south circa 1960 or a black under
apartheid in 1985 !
My wife who is Jewish does agree that MOST Jews
are nasty RACISTS of the nth degree.
Lefty is a soul brother of Tom DeLay.
Theythink exactly alike on this issue.
We negotiate with terrorists all the time
and so does Israel and that is how it should
be. Even Nazi Sharon acknowledges this fact.
Lefty sounds like Meir Kahane or Irv Rubin
and those two pieces of garbage were properly
dispatched. Good riddance.

hey, lefty, when are you going to start dealing with his arguments ? no one gives a flying fvck if
he or you posts under different names, not that you have ever proven that he has ! you simply repeat your name calling like the child that you are. why not try to think to think of some real arguments ? or are you incapable of that cognitive
effort ?

“Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.”—John F. Kennedy

“We plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. . . . We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.”—Yasser Arafat quotes

“Perhaps Mahmood Abbas will be a little more reasonable.  Perhaps not.  When Israel is sure that he will be, and that the rest of his people will follow his lead, then, Israel should consider negotiations.  Not a moment sooner.”—Lefty

Random assertions do not an argument make.
Since you are unable to come to grips with
the actual history of Israeli intransigence
and Palestinian appeasement, why should anyone
respect your assertions which are not based
on historical reality ?
JFK wrote my friend Alfred M. Lilienthal that
the US should not act as a partisan of Israel.
See The Zionist Connection by Lilienthal.
Why should we trust an unsourced Arafat
alleged quote ? Bet you that it is as phony
as much of the holocaust literature.

“We plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. . . . We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.”—Yasser Arafat

“Since we cannot defeat Israel in war; we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.”—Yasser Arafat

Unsourced quotations do not an argument make.
You could pull all sorts of Israeli quotes
going back to Ben Gurion about Israel controlling
the whole region from the Tigris to the Euprates.
By your logic, there would never be any negotiations, only perpetual war. Interesting
that you have to go back to the 60s to get the
desired quotes, as if history stood still.
You are pathetic.

The only solution is the peacefull dismanteling of the state of Israel. http://www.nkusa.org/

Han, you are correct. The PLO and most
of the left have been pushing this two
state solution for over 30 years but US-
Israeli rejectionism has thwarted it.
One secular state for Arab and Jew alike
would be the best policy now.

“We plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. . . . We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.”—Yasser Arafat

“Since we cannot defeat Israel in war; we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.”—Yasser Arafat

The better solution is the repatriation of the Palestinians to Jordan, their proper homeland.

Lefty:

Why do you bother with these pathetic whiners?  They don’t know the law, the history, the facts or the economics of the Middle East.  Instead they emit drivel to make themselves feel as if they are doing something to promote “peace” and “justice.” Folks - go out and do something productive and stop masturbating online.

Pathetic.

Lori,
You and lefty are the epitome of pathetic losers.
As soon as people started to challenge your deeply racist and totally fictional account of
the history of the Palestine Conflict, you
hightailed your sad littel tush off the board,
pronto ! Stay off. You have zero to contribute.
lefty, Jordan was NEVER the Palestinian homeland,
it was Bedouin territory, a different people.
Again, posting unsourced, probably bogus 60s
quotes does not an argument make.

What this whole argument comes down to is that some of you think Arabs are subhuman animals who can’t be talked to and some of you think that Jews are robots bent on taking over the world.  That is truly shameful coming from a message board made up of intelligent, well-meaning people.  The vast majority of the world would prefer to live in peace but even you guys are suckered into the game of the small percentage of the population that just can’t help blowing shit up for personal gain.  Take a step back and be reasonable.

One horse, one rabbit.
You will not find anything as extreme against
Jews as you find posted here against Arabs.
and by so-called liberals too !

Lefty,

I don’t know why I’m even bothering to engage you in a discussion but a few corrections:

1) Hizbollah is not a Palestinian Organization - they’re Lebanese and have little to nothing to do with the Palestine Question

2) The PLO has in fact recognized the right for Israel to exist..they have for years. It’s a ruse by the pro-Israel faction to make the palestinians seem like irrational beasts

3) Jordan is NOT the natural homeland of the Palestinians..never was.  They granted a large number of Palestinian refugees citizenship after they were displaced by the Israelis after the war in 47, but it is NOT a Palestinian homeland...I really don’t know where you people get this info.

4) If you can’t see how a marginalized people, kept under apartheid conditions, forced to keep papers on them at all times designating their race (really, does the Israeli gov’t not see the irony in this?), living in overcrowded slums (by force), suffering something like 40% unemployment - and those that do have jobs pay HUGE taxes to the gov’t that is marginalizing them, and then to top it all off they go and build a big ass fcking wall to keep them out...well if you can’t see how that would foster a sense of despair in a 19 year old kid (hell, I was a 19 year old kid full of despair and I grew up in a suburban dream)..then your head really is up your ass.

Great Went, thanks for your good points.
Frankly, I’m getting weary of having to
rebut this little turd while he keeps
reiterating the same stupid Likud-Kahanisms
over & over.
You mind taking over my light work for me ?

Martin,

sure...no problem. I’m just waiting to see what kind of daringly witty insult he has for me...maybe “liberal pansy” or “retarded psychopath”?

should be fun.

I await with bated breath ;)

TGW,

1.  The above quotes from Yasser Arafat, founder of the PLO, were from 1996.  They speak for themselves and you have failed to reconcile those quotes with your position.  More directly, they establish that your contention - that the PLO recognized the right of Israel to exist is false.  Further, the Palestinians’ have, from the beginning of their existence, demonstrated by their deeds that they do not recognize that Israel has a right to exist.

2.  More recently: “O brother believers, the criminals, the terrorists - are the Jews, who have butchered our children, orphaned them, widowed our women and desecrated our holy places and sacred sites. They are the terrorists. They are the ones who must be butchered and killed, as Allah the Almighty said: ‘Fight them: Allah will torture them at your hands, and will humiliate them and will help you to overcome them, and will relieve the minds of the believers… Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them - and those who stand by them - they are all in one trench, against the Arabs and the Muslims because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine. They created it to be the outpost of their civilization and the vanguard of their army, and to be the sword of the West and the crusaders, hanging over the necks of the monotheists, the Muslims in these lands. They wanted the Jews to be their spearhead...” - Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Member of the Palestinian Authority, 13 October 2000.

3.  Hezbollah, like the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, are all funded by Iran and all have the singular goal of gaining Israel for the Palestinians.

4.  Jordan is the natural homeland of the Palestinians because that’s where they come from.  The majority of Jordanians are “ethnic” Palestinians.

5.  If the Palestinians don’t want to be treated like terrorists, then it is a simple matter for them to stop acting like terrorists.  Now that Arafat is dead, I suspect that there will be a long slow transition in the mindset of the Palestinian people.  Eventually, they will, through an extended period of peaceful co-existence, gain the trust of the Israelis who, I have no doubt, would love the Palestinians to have there own, economically viable country.  But, not if it is only going to be a launching pad for continued terrorist attacks.

6.  The ball has always been in the Palestinians’ court.  The longer they play the role of terrorists, the longer they will live in unpleasant conditions.  Until, they want peace - which they heretofore have proven they do not - the safety of Israeli citizens will correctly take priority over Palestinian welfare.

“Lefty”:

1. “ In 1974 the goal of liberating all of Palestine was dropped in favour of creating a Palestinian state comprising of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip...Finally in 1988 the PLO endorsed Resolution 242 and accepted the existence of the state of Israel” p. 360 “A History of the Modern Middle East” William L Cleveland - Professor of History at Simon Fraser University (British Columbia, Canada)

you do know what Resolution 242 is, don’t you? 

2. Hizbollah is not a Palestinian organization, it’s a Lebanese organization. In fact one of its earliest concerns was ridding Southern Lebanon of PLO influence in the early 70s…

3. Jordan is not the natural homeland of the Palestinians, Palestine is.  And before you go yammering on about there never being a Palestinian state, need I remind you that prior to Israel the region was called the Mandate of Palestine, so named because that was the region where Palestinians lived.  Transjordan was an invented state out of a sparsely populated desert region to provide a buffer for Britain’s interests in Iraq (and by extension India)

4. What’s with your obsession with Iran? If any country was funding the Palestinian cause it was Iraq.

5. You’re the kind of guy that would kick a dog until it bit you, then continue to kick the dog until it learned to stop biting you. Your reasoning is flawed...just like Begin’s and Sharon’s.

TGW,

Great rebuttal again ! This “lefty” is a total
moron. He spouts the Joan Peters School of disinformation and is too lame to come up with
anything less than 40 year old quotes even
assuming those are reliable. It is precisely
this kind of idiot in both the US Jewish
community and the Christian Zionist nutcases
that has been responsible for our disastrous
policy in the Middle East.
And it’s very bipartisan.
This idiot is allegedly a liberal but his
views are identical to Tom DeLay’s here.

The further point to make is that the
establishment of the state of Israel on
May 15, 1948 was wholly illegal and immoral.
Illegal because the very small, western dominated
UN of 33 nations at that time had no authority
to create a Jewish State in a land that was 67%
nonJewish and whose native Arabs owned 80% of
the nonstate lands.
Israel was only admitted to UN membership on the
condition that she take back all one million
Arabs whom fled or were forced out during the
1947-48 civil war in Palestine. The Arab States
only invaded to stop the expulsion of the Arabs
of Palestine which had started in Novmeber, 1947.
Israel, along with the USA, is the greatest terror
state in the world today. Israeli state terrorism
has killed many more people than Arab terrorism.
The only reason the majority of Jordan are Palestinian IS BECAUSE THEY WERE EXPELLED FROM
PALESTINE, I.E., ISRAEL. It is not the natural
home of the Palestinians but of the more nomadic
Bedouins. Racists like lefty regard all Arabs
as interchangeable. No outside agitators have
to arouse the Arabs under Occupation, the illegal
and immoral 38 year old Occupation does it all
by itself. Racist Jews like lefty can immigrate
to Israel/Palestine tomorrow while Arabs whose
families have lived there hundreds or maybe
2,000 years cannot. The Law of Return is as racist
as the Nuremberg laws in Germany under Hitler.
The racist Land Laws in Israel proper keep 99%
of all Arabs from owning or leasing land.
Israel is a criminal, racist state and ought to be
treated like the international outlaw that she
is. Organizations like AIPAC and the ADL should
be forced to register as agents of the state
of Israel.

TGW,

Like typical conservative that you are, your statements are either false or based on false premises, you fail to respond to the quotes I posted from PLO leaders, which discredit your arguments e.g. the putative book you cite as authority pre-dates the quotes of Arafat and Halabiya, who vow the distruction of Israel and the murder of all of the Jews there.  You then resort to childish name calling because you are frustrated at your inability to win the argument.

It is clear to any reasonable observer that the Palestinians do not now, and never have wanted peace with Israel.  They want Israel which they will never have.  By their actions and the words of their leaders, they want only to kill Jews and take property that does not belong to them.

Until they learn to respect the sovereignty of Israel, they should not reasonably expect to recieve any respect from Israel, and should expect Israel to defend itself with reasonable force under the circumstances.

Nice Try “Lefty”...I am in no way a conservative and nothing I’ve said would lead one to believe that...I’m a socialist (in fact i usually have a hard time in elections deciding between the NDP and the Marxist-Leninists)...if anything you are the Con Troll (and one that has co-opted the name of somebody that used to post some pretty insightful stuff on this site)

and the book I quoted (which is a pretty standard University Text) was published in 2004, well after your rabble rousing quotes.

As for your quotes I suspect they are of the “electrify the base” type that the republicans are so good at in the states...or perhaps simply blustery rhetoric.  Listen, it’s quite simple; if the Palestinian Leadership didn’t accept the reality or legitmacy of an Israeli state, then they wouldn’t have involved themselves in Oslo (or Bush’s plan or any of the other peace negotiations.  Use your head! You can’t negotiate with a country if you deny it’s right to exist!

and there was no “childish namecalling” in my previous post, I was trying to give a mundane example for your line of reasoning...one that was pretty apt if I say so myself.

Forty year old quotes prove nothing.
The funny thing is that the Israelis
dispossessed the whole Palestinian people
and then insist on the victims recognizing
the victimizers RIGHT (!) to exist !
Absurd. It has to be a two-way street.
Since 1974 the PLO has bent over backwards
to recognize Israel and negotiate for their
own Palestinian state in the 23% of Palestine
that was left to them.
I think they need to abandon their illusions
and fight the bastards for a full secular
democratic state since 25% of Israel, not
counting the Occupied Territories, are Arab.
As for taking others’ property, the State of
Israel are the champs in that regard. They
stole all the property of the original Arab
inhabitants of Palestine based on some screwball
myth that “god” promised them it over 2,000 years
ago.
“lefty” has yet to come up with one reasonable
idea, only forged quotations from forty years
ago !
Kind of a pathetic guy !
The hilarious part is when he accuses OTHERS’
of calling names !
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black....

TGW,

First, as far as I know, the only person who ever co-opted my screen name is Michael Hardesty, the insect currently buzzing this thread as Martin, aka Jack Barnes, Mikey, etc., etc., etc., who has conversations with himself, pretending to be more than one person.  This insect actually employs the same disruptive tactics on other liberal forums. Based on your tactics, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that TGW is just another Herdesty handle. 

If you find the arguments I have made on this forum insightful, then you are also insightful for recognizing it.  As far as I am concerned, the fact that you don’t find my arguments here equally insightful, is a reflection of your lack of insight, not mine.

Your statement, that “you can’t negotiate with a country if you deny its right to exist” is classic conservative, nonsensical, dribble.  Of course you can. Just because Arafat didn’t want Israel to exist, or doesn’t think it should exist, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Use YOUR head, TGW.  Further, since Israel apparently has something that Arafat wanted, what did Arafat loose in trying to con Israel into giving it to him.

In any event, the Palestinians’ 45 year, Iranian financed, terrorist jihad against Israel, including 1,000’s of attacks against innocent Israeli civilians, establishes the Palestinian position on Israel notwithstanding any position they claim to have.  It’s not complicated, TWG, Arafat was as big a liar as Bush.  Just because Bush calls himself a compassionate conservative doesn’t make him one, and it doesn’t create a creature that is irreconcilably in conflict with itself - compassionate conservative.

Finally, since you refuse to address any of my points, I don’t see the point of continuing the argument with you.

I will leave any others who may stumble across this with the reminder (which you heretofore refuse to address, because you can’t), that Israel correctly refuses to negotiate with a people who have proven, through words and deeds over almost 1/2 a century, that they do not respect Israel’s right to exist and that the Jews of Israel should all be killed:

“We plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. . . . We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.” —Yasser Arafat

“Since we cannot defeat Israel in war; we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.” —Yasser Arafat

“O brother believers, the criminals, the terrorists - are the Jews, who have butchered our children, orphaned them, widowed our women and desecrated our holy places and sacred sites. They are the terrorists. They are the ones who must be butchered and killed, as Allah the Almighty said: ‘Fight them: Allah will torture them at your hands, and will humiliate them and will help you to overcome them, and will relieve the minds of the believers… Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them - and those who stand by them - they are all in one trench, against the Arabs and the Muslims because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine. They created it to be the outpost of their civilization and the vanguard of their army, and to be the sword of the West and the crusaders, hanging over the necks of the monotheists, the Muslims in these lands. They wanted the Jews to be their spearhead...” - Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Member of the Palestinian Authority.

First, you have no arguments, only dubious
40 year old quotes that could easily be
explained by the dreadful circumstances