Car Bomb in Jerusalem - Tens of casualties

[DinoDoc]

And palestinian groups, but you igore those,

Who are they?

[GePap]

Originally posted by DinoDoc


Who are they?

Palestinians human rights groups, those organizers of the, I believe his name is Berenbaum, peace concert, which was called ofof because the Israeli army said it could not guarantee the safety of the Israeli composer. It's not hard to find them on the web, if you care to know about them at all.

[Natan]

Sorry for the length of time it's taken me to post this. I was having technical problems, which I think were related to post size, so I'm posting this in several chunks. Sorry for any inconvenience it may cause.

Originally posted by GePap
The northern no-fly zoen and Kuridsh region are not UN speonsored as much as US created, I personally don't think much of them.

Touche on their not being UN sponsored, but I think you’ll have to agree that they’ve done a lot more to promote human rights than the sanctions or any other UN action.

But the sactions regime does count and is valid.

Is the UN really allowed to interfere in a nation’s soveriegnty in such an intrusive way because it did something wrong more than a decade back? Is that really in accordance with the Charter?

Becuse in 1947 the UN partitioned the land- all the occupied territories today with the excetption of Jerusalem, both east and West (both were supposed to be under UN control), are parts of lands that were granted to the local Arabs, the Palesitnians.

As every pro-Arab poster on the board can tell you, that resolution was only passed by the General Assembly and as such was in no way binding. All the land was taken by force.

JOrdan was wrong in annexing the West bank, for which they got lots of heat from other Arabs states, and they have now renounced the west bank. Egypt never annexed the gaza strip. Since neither of these two peices of land are rightfully Israeli either, who does that leave? Well, the people who inhabit them, and as a 90+% majority in those lands, it should go to the Palestinians.

Not neccessarily. Should Western Sahara be independent, or Kashmir go to Pakistan? And besides, many parts of the West Bank are majority Jewish, and the Palestinians demand Jerusalem, a demand you apparently support.

Since this is a hypothetical bordering on the inane (yes, a releigous conservative sheikdom a Soviet ally), i wont touch it.

The point of the hypothetical is to show that we protected Kuwait because it was our ally, not because of the UN charter. We didn’t complain much when Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, nor did the UN.

What I will say is that it was UN approval which gave the US the ability to set up the sanctions regime and gather wideranging Arab (heck, even Syria) support for the attack.

Not neccessarily, we were able to set up a safe-zone in Northern Iraq without a UN resolution and we were able to bomb Iraq with, IIRC (correct me if I’m wrong) no UN resolution behind us throughout the 1990s. And Syria has always been an enemy of Iraq’s, it even supported Iran in the 80s. But sure, I’ll agree, the UN did serve as a useful propaganda tool on one occassion.

And neither is israel a secular state, nor its civil code secular by western standards, so i guess I will go by Middle eastern, in whic a little religious law is considered fine.

Your claim was that since Fatah is a secular organization, Islamism can play no role in Fatah’s claims or policies. I am arguing that it is not a really secular organization. That the name of its military wing is “the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade” already shows that. Do you stand by your statement or not?

But you refuse to recognize the reality that the Jewish nation was biult upon the expulsion of over half a million huamn beigns out of their homes: until israel comes to term with that reality, that its birth is based on someone else pain and loss, it won't face peace.

Poland has peace, but I don’t think it has acknowledged the expulsion of ethnic Germans. Ditto for the Czech Republic. Why should Israel be different?

From all i have heard him say, he sees Oslo a done deal,as in done for, no longer valid. This is going on statements he has made all durng Oslo and the intifadah.

He’s said quite the opposite.

You mena dismantling the illegal settlements he himself has started and gotten built when peace came with egypt.

If it makes you happy to call them “ilegal settlements” fine, but the point is, he evacuated them and participated in negotiations at Wye, so the claim that he has never sat at a peace table is false.

Wheres the rope?

Your call for international action against Israel based on your favorite interpretation of Resolution 242.

I don't see anyone being lynched. And I also fail to see many nations in gorups act outsied the bounds of pre=existing interantional frameworks like the UN, NATO, or WHO.

NATO should not be included. NATO is an alliance of a specific small set of nations which does not claim moral authority over the world. AFAIK, it does not place any human rights obligations on its members. So NATO really is the alternative to the UN, not another version of it. And NATO has been a lot more effective than the UN.

The Israeli definition is no no way the valid one, since the definition has yet to be determined!

So if the definition has yet to be determined, you can prove that a certain definition is “in no way a valid one?” That makes no sense to me.

242 has vagueness built in, so both sides would agree to use it as a starting point for negotiations. beyond the baselessness of just stating you are right, there is the fatc that neither side has actually gone to a mayor peace conference to hammer things out. My point is, that when that negotiation comes around, the Arab view, that Israel must withdraw all territories taken in 1967 will be the predominant one.

So you admit that Israel is in no way bound by resolution 242 to withdraw from all of the territories?

But it does not need to include Americans.

If it didn’t, then the main threat of attacking it, that of angering America, would be removed. But besides, the force could be watered down in a number of ways - Syria could demand that it only include Arab or Muslim countries, or limit its size and place of deployment, etc.

Sadat did not switch sides. he wanted to get his antion out of the Soveit sphere, where Nasser had gravitated, and to bring about peace.

Yes, he switched from the Soviet side to the American one.

But notice, all this happened after he launched war on israel. He knew that he had to bring the military balance more to his favor ot get israel to negotiate- and he was right.

He falsely expected that the USSR had improved the quality of the Egyptian army sufficiently that it could hold on to a strip of the Sinai as a starting point for negotiations. It was only after he lost the ‘73 war that he knew he had to switch sides. As he himself said, IIRC, “I made peace with Israel because it was the only way I could get my land back.”

Based on what? Syria agreed to UNSCR 242 in 1972. It does not have the power to retake the Golan and knows the Israeli demands and the US demands. Why then would they call for a complete IDF pullout wihtout the placing then of peacekeepers?

Because it hopes that Israel won’t have the stomach to attack it for refusing to have its soveriegnty limited, because Israel knows that people like you would complain that Israel was sinking the peace proccess which, as you’ve taught me, is not a logical policy.

So israel should go ask the syrains in a new round of negotiations, instead of stting on their arse.

Why is it Israel’s responsibility to iniate negotiations? It seems to me that if Syria wants to change the status quo, it should open the negotiations. However, I think you’ll agree that Bashar Assad probably doesn’t want to negotiate in the middle of the Intifada.

Why? the Us abides byu the ruilings of the WTO, which has far less enforcement capabilites than the UN. Why? Because following the ruels is in its own interests, which are calculated based on values.
The US, for the most part, wanst free tarde, thinks it is good for it, so it will abide by the rulings of a trade court, with absolutely no enforcement abilites, becuase it promotes its values.

Exactly. The WTO is effective because it is useful. The UN is not useful, or at least is not reliably useful, and is therefore ineffective. Also, the WTO has real, predictable, and fair enforcement mechanisms.

[Natan]

Thats because Israel redefined the Druze as not Arabs to seperate them from the Arab mainstream. The plan still descriminates against millions, and thus wrong.

Since when has Israel defined Druze as not Arabs? As I understand it, his plan did not even mention Israeli-Arabs. But he doesn’t need me to defend him, and I’m certainly not advocating his policies.

When 35% of the Israeli public, according to a poll, state that they agree with trasnfer (and not 'economic' but physical[poll was in the NYT a few weeks ago, don't remember the day]) . that shows me the ideas of kach are not irrelevant.

And twice that percentage of Palestinians agree with suicide bombings, and Hamas is a legal organization which is closely allied with certain Fatah elements and which Arafat praises. Yet you don’t seem to think it very relevant.

The settlements are an israeli policy- the goverment encourages them and subsideses them. Yasser isn't giving ten dollar bills to each Paletinians trying to get into Israel.

He’s merely made the moving millions of Palestinians to Israel his goal. He does encourage the “martyrs” though with economic incentives, as well as his personal letters of congradulations.

But no state claims the right to stop people from going to other parts of their land. The Israli closures are not only denying access into israel, but denying access out of ones home. They are not acts of immigration policy, but of occupation policy. The occupied territories aren't kansas. they are an area designated as under military occupation, and israel's closing, again, are more than simply immigration policy.

The internal closures only started after the present violence and were neccessary because the Palestinians made it their goal to kill Israelis within the West Bank. Every army does this in a war zone.

Point ebing, don't asume you have a monopoly on meanings.

Okay. So don’t lecture me about resolution 242 or liberal values.

Fine. So we simply disagree.

You seem to agree that multiple interpretations are legitimate, yes?

Fatah is the biggets part of the PLO, but not the only one. So, it what many diferent parties in the Palestinan side want. the Palestiians are no more monolithic than the Israelis.

Right, but I’m not bringing statements from PFLP leaders to make my point. Yasser Arafat’s, taken together with his actions, are enough. But furthermore, the Palestinian political groups retain a capability for independent action which Israeli ones don’t - no matter how angry Avigdor Lieberman becomes, he doesn’t have his own army, yet not just Ahmed Yassin and Sheikh Rantisi, but even Marwan Barghouthi and Mohammed Dahlan, have their own armies.

And palestinian groups, but you igore those, and most palestiians ignore the Israeli ones cause they are not in power.

Whereas Palestinian ones are in power, I suppose.

But if you don't solve the underlying politcal mess, more people like Rabbi Riskin will die.

The underlying problem is terrorism.

Why did that man blow himself up if he knew several people there? Was he intrisically evil? I would say no. He was making a radical politcal statement the only way he had been told he could, thought violence.

Right. I blame the Palestinian leadership for promoting the violence, but I think that Israel can show that this is not an effective political statement.

Again, the strategy of terror is an idea that can't be destroyed, and as long as there is a conflict between palestinians and israelis, and the power differential is so great as to proclude all out war, palestionans will carry out such atatcks. The long term, and only solution, is peace.

Terrorism has been defeated many times before and in many places. It can be done again. It takes force, determination, endurance, and good political and military strategy, but it is doable.

Has the palestinian authority followed everything they sigend? No. Has Israel? No.

Firstly, you haven’t shown me what parts of Oslo you say Israel has violated. But besides, that both sides are untrustworthy is not a good basis for saying that the solution is for them to sign the same piece of paper.

But tmes have changed and the situation detiriorated. Sharon's dropping of the one-week plicy is abowing to reality and a show that agreements are the way to peace, not the other way around.

Sharon’s dropping the one week of non-violence demand was a dangerous concession which encourages Palestinian terrorism.

No, we haven't invade canada,and thats our most siginficant treaty with them, but we break fuishing agreementa andlumber ones often.

We haven’t invaded Canada because we’d gain nothing by it. But our agreement to respect the soveriegnty of all states fell by the wayside as soon as we found that we could capture North Korea.

Nazi germany is an extreme case anyway (notice how its the only one that seems to be used in this line of, you can' trust arguments)

It’s the most famous example, but there are others.

Again, his territorail demands have remained the same. So any argument that Arafat is out to get all of Israel are wrong.

They haven’t remained the same.

The issue of Terrorism deals with how he plans to get his demands met, and as far as that goes, i would agree that he didn't do eneough when he could have.

So if he was lying when he said he’d stop terrorism, how do we know he won’t lie when he promises to stop terrorism next time?

The Declaraion of Human rights isn't part of the 1946 Charter, it is a resolution passed latter. as such, it is the difference between the Charter (constitution) and the declaration (a specific law). You don't have to sign the declaration of hman rights to be a memebr of the UN, but you do have to follow the charter.

Tell me, what nations have refused to sign the declaration of human rights?

No, I am saying that by themselves, they are not enough to derail a peace process any ore that each outragous thing out of someones mouth is.

Right, they have to be taken together with Arafat’s statements, with the still unchanged Fatah Constitution, with Fatah rhetoric, with the PLO phased plan, and with Arafat’s encouragement of Hamas.

As before, even figuring out which is most likely (which may always eb wrong, since all you can see are posibilities), you get no where until you act, and that action, in the end, really exists independently of all the thinkign done.

So what you’re saying is that action shouldn’t be based on reasoning? I think all of us know that a decent human being thinks before he acts.

At oslo 2, the west bak was divided into zones a,b,c. zone a were Nabuls, jenin, Bethlehem, Tulkarm, Qalqilya,and ramallah. Zone B, were most other small Palestinans hamlets and towns. Mus other lands were Zone C, including many lands around settleemtns and access roads. all zone a and bwere supposed to come into Palestinain control before Palestinian elections for council in 1996. In the 18 months after the elections, there were to be three phases of withdrawl, by which time all zone c lands would also be under paletinians control. All this was negotiated by rabin with arafat. Netanyahu did not carry out thephased withdrawls of zone C lands as ahd been agreed.

I can’t find the text of Oslo II anywhere, but I think you’re claim isn’t correct.
Zone C is every part of the West Bank not included in Zones A and B. So to say that Israel agreed to withdraw from it is incorrect, because as I’m sure you’ll agree, Israel never agreed to withdraw from all of the West Bank. As I understand it, Israel agreed to make two more withdrawls of a scope to be determined by negotiations. The two sides could not agree on the scope, and no one wanted Israel to end the proccess by unilaterally withdrawing from areas of its choosing.

The motive for isolating arafta, I believe, was to show politcal solidarity with Sharon, besides tha fact that the BUsh admin. is not friendly with Arafat (specially Cheney) so thery kept all the pressure on him, not Sharon too.

So why did you say that the goal was to punish him for failure to keep his treaties?

Becuase these gorups lacked popular support. where there giant rallies to mourn their deaths? Were there elections in which their political counterparts won many seats?

In the rubble of Hama. If you haven’t noticed, Assad killed off all the Muslim brotherhood supporters. The extreme violence of the conflict alone proves how polarizing it was for Syrian society.

A bunch of lonely revolutionaries can be ebat. A bunch of guy adored as liberators can't be beat by bombing and scarring the popualce into the arms of the 'liberators'. They have to be shown fr the tugs they are, and this will only happen politically.

I disagree. The Ikhwan was defeated in Syria, it is on the way out in Egypt. The Algerian FIS was going to win the elections in that country when they were cancelled, yet it does seem that the FIS is slowly on the way out.

All the more reason to be warry of Hitler, since he said aht he said when it meant little politically, and thus everyone should have seen it coming years in advance.

So shouldn’t we be worried by what Arafat says when not in the spotlight? Such as the letter which he signed, but whose veracity he now denies in public, praising the suicide bomber who blew up the Dolphinarium nightclub in Tel Aviv back in June?

And as for faisal and the Palestinians: how many more of the oslo negotiators agreed with him, and whens the last time he repeated this stance?

He said that in July. And it’s not the negotiators themselves who we should be concerned about, but the Fatah movement in general. PA schools host celeberations of suicide bombers, PA Sheikhs call for such bombings (and the use of child soldiers) in sermons on PA television, and Fatah refers to Israel as “the 1948 occupied territories,” the same phrase used by Hamas.

The Charter, or the declaration of Human rights?

Mea Culpa. The declaration of human rights. Although as I understand it, many countries have violated their charter obligations through non-compliance with UN resolutions, such as those on Iraq.

Well, there was 338.

Which made no effort whatsoever to clarify the situation, probably intentionally. It merely called for the implementation of 242, although in as much as it called for negotiations, it did specify that recognition had to come before withdrawl.

No, first, this is in the declaration of rights, not the 1946 charter. second, many people, besides the Soviet union, beleive that providing for economic rights is a basic or important part of overall human rights. It is a basic and acceptable politcal possiton. Again, to be oart of the UN one doesn't haver to have signed the deckaration, but you do need to stick with the charter.

But having signed the declaration, you are obligated to fulfill just like all other international agreements, no? I think the non-compliance of every signatory of the declaration is proof that national interests can trump treaties rather spectacularly.