Israel makes a huge mistake.

[Az]

This is not an israeli corridor, but a palestinian one!

[HershOstropoler]

The palestinian corridor is treated extra below:

"1.3 Safe passage/corridor from Gaza to the West Bank
Both sides agreed that there is going to be a safe passage from the north of Gaza (Beit Hanun) to the Hebron district, and that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip must be territorially linked. The nature of the regime governing the territorial link and sovereignty over it was not agreed."

[Ned]

Re: Israel makes a huge mistake.

Originally posted by Oerdin
And there is no doubt that many innocent civilains will die because of it. Sharon is reportedly going to give in to Palestinian demands that imprisioned terrorists be set free. This means that many murders and hardered terrorists will once again be free to walk the streets and commit more acts of terror. As of today the PA has not moved one inch towards disarming the numerous Palestinian terror organizations. Under the road map for peace the PA's one and only obligation is to disarm terrorist organizations.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/...ers/index.html

Oerdin, your position assumes that terrorism will continue and the released prisoners will continue their terrorist acts. If, however, the cease-fire now in effect from the terror organizations continues, the release of the prisoners will have no effect on Israel (or the world).

Regardless of what the roadmap says about dismantling the terror organizations, I think the current cease-fire is an important "interim" step in that direction and should be encouraged by all possible means. So long as the cease-fire continues to hold, Israel should continue to release the prisoners. Hopefully, a permanent peace will be in place by the time the supply prisoners is exhausted.

[Az]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler
The palestinian corridor is treated extra below:

"1.3 Safe passage/corridor from Gaza to the West Bank
Both sides agreed that there is going to be a safe passage from the north of Gaza (Beit Hanun) to the Hebron district, and that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip must be territorially linked. The nature of the regime governing the territorial link and sovereignty over it was not agreed."

Both of those quotes speak of the same thing. the first time, as part of territorial claims, and the second, as a special feature.

Personally, I say it should be a 3-lane highway, that would be placed under the level of the earth around it, and existing Israeli highways would be bridges over it. Israel will be allowed to build new bridges over it whenever it pleases.

[HershOstropoler]

"Both of those quotes speak of the same thing."

No. I fail to see where you get the idea.

Anyway, there are no official records for Taba. A more pro-palestinian view is this:

These maps are provided by FMEP, and are not disputed by the sides. According to the maps, the Palestinian state would have been permanently divided into several sub areas in the West Bank , separated by areas of Israeli Control. Striped areas would have remained under Israeli control for 12 to 20 years. The calculation that the Palestinians were getting 97% of the land ignores the area of Jerusalem and the striped areas. In actuality, the area of the Palestinian state would be about 70% of some 2,200 square miles.

http://www.mideastweb.org/lastmaps.htm

That too is not my understanding, as the corridors would be subject to negotiation at a later stage. But I see it as highly unlikely they completely disappeared in the Taba round.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Eli
What i'm really afraid of is that Israel starts to ignore Pal violations again. The terrorist organizations MUST be dismantled, Israel always insisted on it, but now after a few weeks of relative quiet Sharon, just like Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu and Barak before him prefers to ignore possible long term danger in exchange for short term quiet.

I agree with Az's take - Abbas has been given the one thing that Arafat never got, and it is a major concession, not to mention the big *****ing point of the Pals.

If they (released prisoners) start ****ing around again, and/or if the PA doesn't act to dismantle the terrorist organizations, Sharon will have made a much stronger case to solve the problem by other means.

[Az]

Michael, sadly, IIRC, Hamas and IJ prisoners have already been released, previously.

What Arafat didn't have is either the will or the intention to let the RoR go. We'll just have to see whether Abu Mazen has any of these.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Azazel
Michael, sadly, IIRC, Hamas and IJ prisoners have already been released, previously.

I thought it was a few, as opposed to mass release? Not sure, though.

What Arafat didn't have is either the will or the intention to let the RoR go. We'll just have to see whether Abu Mazen has any of these.

That's going to be a tough one.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Kropotkin
And, yeah, the Taba proposal looks good to me, Pals should be fools if they didn't go for this, for now

I really, really don't like Taba based upon principle. It has been documented that in 2000 Arafat refused to sign a very reasonable peace deal which Clinto had put togeather because he felt the Israelis were weak and he could get more through violence. Taba justifies his position.

If the PA is now rewarded for commiting terrorism & violence then why shouldn't they expect to be further rewarded in the future after yet more terrorism and violence?

There is reams and reams of evidence that Arafat directs terror attacks, provides money (often foreign aid money) to terrorists, provides them with safe havens, and has been doing everything in his power to undermine a serious peace process. Yet, we still have bastards like Chirac proping Arafat up with state visits and misty eyed speeches about Arafat being... what was it? Oh yes. "A visionary of peace".

[Dinner]

Re: Re: Israel makes a huge mistake.

Originally posted by Ned
Oerdin, your position assumes that terrorism will continue and the released prisoners will continue their terrorist acts. If, however, the cease-fire now in effect from the terror organizations continues, the release of the prisoners will have no effect on Israel (or the world).

Ned: You are correct. I am assuming that since this has been tried repeatedly in the past and it has never worked that it will most likely not work now. The Pals love to declare cease fires when their terror organizations are getting beat up by the Israelis; then once the terror groups have rebuilt themselves they return to terrorism and act like nothing helped.

[Az]

That's going to be a tough one.

That and the fact that the palestinians have never fought IJ and Hamas, unless on some clan level, or something.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Kropotkin
It should however be noted that the larger bulk of the prisoners has not been arrested for terrorist-like activities but more of criminal activities. The Israeli government claims that no one "with blood on his hands" shall be released.

So I guess that Israeli soldier who "accidentally" shot up some kids the other day at a checkpoint won't be released, right!

Everyone over there has blood on their hands.

As for solving the Israeli-Palestinian issue - a few modest proposals:

(1) Level Jerusalem, then round up all of the artifacts important to any and all religions that give even a tangental damn about Jerusalem and dump these in the pacific. That's what you do when two 5-year olds fight over a toy - you take it away from both. No more Jerusalem, no more fighting about it. They had their cance to come to agreement with each other, have constantly failed to do so so now they should both lose.

(2) A contiguous Palestenian state OR alternately some beachfront property (taken from Israel) for Jordan if they agree to absorb the Palestinians. Even if this involves massive relocation for lots of people. Either the Palestinians should give up the west bank for equal land adjoining the gaza strip, or give up gaza for more land near the West Bank. Or give them an equal amount of land in some separate area of Israel all together. What people will have to give up their homes? Tough noogies.

(3) Either side, Palestinian or Israeli does what the **** their told to do or they get nothing. We tell Sharon to tear down settlements and he doesn't? No more weapons, no more aid, nothing. We tell the Palestinians to dismantle terrorist organizations and they don't? No more aid from the US or EU, and a blind eye is turned to whatever the Israelis want to do to dismantle the organizations on their own. This sort of treatment will enforce the absolute necessity of cooperating. Again, the continued dependency on the goodwill of the international community (the EU for palestine and the US for Israel) of each side must be made absolutely clear to them. When you are that dependent, you do what you are told when you are told.

Both the Israelis and Palestinians have been acting like overarmed bloody 5-year-olds since I can remember. Moreover, their complete inability to reach a reasonable accomodation on their own indicates the need to impose some fair solution on them.

[Az]

So I guess that Israeli soldier who "accidentally" shot up some kids the other day at a checkpoint won't be released, right!

You've got any proof for either him being a murderer or jewish murderers being released?

[HershOstropoler]

Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis are sufficiently depending on foreign aid to force them to accept a deal they can't live with.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Azazel

So I guess that Israeli soldier who "accidentally" shot up some kids the other day at a checkpoint won't be released, right!

You've got any proof for either him being a murderer or jewish murderers being released?

One needlessly dead kid? What did the kid do to provoke the soldier? Are you saying that a soldier or policeperson DOESN'T have a duty to prevent his weapon from discharging into innocent civilians? Not murder, but certainly some sort of negligent homicide is involved here.