American position on the PA

[Roland]

"If they re-elect Arafat then they obviously are satisfied with the status quo, or more worried about the other candidates."

Rather the latter.

"... but a functioning democracy and / or republic"

How can you have that under the current occupation regime ?

"One of the problems with the Palestinians is that you end up with the same incompetent leader with the same policies all the time."

I think you can make a deal with Arafat, while you can't make one with Sharon. Nothing to do with character, just relative power.

And Netanyahu would be even worse.

[CyberGnu]

The critical link here is the U.S. If the Pals can convince the U.S. that they are serious about peaceful coexistence then Israel will be isolated completely if it tries to drag it's feet.

I'm afraid that the US might have played their card... Who is going to believe them now? Do you think Saudi will be able to deal with a US that has given up the pretense of fairness?

And why on earth would the palestinians believe a US that has declared for the enemy?

[CyberGnu]

morb:

i don't think i even have to say anything here.

Quite likely. better to shut up and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt

[CyberGnu]

I was a tad bit worried that I was overstating your position of hatred for Israel. Thanks for bailing me out.

What is your view on the bombing of Hiroshima?

[GeneralTacticus]

Neither did Hitler. AFAIK, there is not a single public speach where Hitler calls for the extermination of the jews. Only a solution of the 'jewish question', which most people took to mean deportation to work camps.

The parallels to Sharon are quite clear, don't you think?

"In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance only the Jewish race that received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the State, and with it that of the whole nation, and that I would then among other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-threat.htm

This was a speach Hitler made to the Reichstag on the 30th of January, 1939.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Sikander


I was a tad bit worried that I was overstating your position of hatred for Israel. Thanks for bailing me out.

As it is, the guy killed a settler... And that is reprehensible how?

This was another good one. Both sig material, I'd say.

[CyberGnu]

Monk, fine with me. You might want to add the clarification that settler = invading soldier, unless you prefer it out of context.

[Roland]

Cybergnu, do you think Israel should be destroyed ? Or exist in the borders of the UN partition plan?

[GeneralTacticus]

Well, there we're back to that oxymoron again: innocent civilians of Israel ...

In what way does being Israeli make them guilty? Do you believe that they should have to leave the country that a lot of them have been born in solely because the Aplestinians don't like it? Are the Palestinian civilians therefore also 'guilty' for the suicide bombings, thereby meaning that Israel can kill them and be in the right?

Israel has occupied palestine for 50 years.

Only if you count it has having begun the occupation 1949, in which case you are denying the right of Israel to exist at all.

[morb]

Originally posted by CyberGnu


Hate and 'settlers not being people' have nothing to do with it.

US soliders were never prosecuted for shooting german soliders on the battlefied. I haven't heard anyone advocating it, either. But somehow you equate a palestinian killing someone occupying their land a hate-crime?

A settler is an occupying soldier, nothing else. An occupying soliders is by any definition a legal target. Are you going to argue with that?

first of all soldiers are people too and I would say are civillians when in training or not on active duty. second your idea that a US soldier is comparable to a terrorist is pretty sick. US soldiers were not driven by hate in WW2. nore did they target civillians. The nazis, however, were and did. and their hate didn't just extend to jews either. thirdly, it says in the article that his reason for doing this was mainly hate driven. oh and also the promise by allah of paradise and virgins.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Roland

"... but a functioning democracy and / or republic"

How can you have that under the current occupation regime ?

This is a question which actually begs another larger question. Under what sort of conditions could the Palestinians ever put together a government capable of not only negotiating a peace agreement but implementing one? As radicalized as the Palestinian electorate is I am not sure it is possible for many years, especially when one looks around at the other Arab states in the region which are all corrupt Monarchies or Dictatorships and which have only with the greatest trepidation managed in two instances to sign peace treaties for wars that ended decades ago. I have serious doubts about anyone's ability to make peace in this region, and my doubts are trebled with the Palestinians who have been raised under occupation and a staggeringly viscious diet of propoganda.

Originally posted by Roland
"One of the problems with the Palestinians is that you end up with the same incompetent leader with the same policies all the time."

I think you can make a deal with Arafat, while you can't make one with Sharon. Nothing to do with character, just relative power.

And Netanyahu would be even worse.

I certainly agree that Netenyahu is the pits. As for being able to make an agreement with Arafat, I agree completely that you can make an agreement with him. Unfortunately he won't keep that agreement. As for Sharon, even if he refuses to deal you know exactly where you stand, which is a vast improvement IMO. But I also think that Sharon is only in power as long as the Israeli public feels that it has no other choice. It's an interesting situation, in that both countries have the power to change the other's leader.

[CyberGnu]

General, the german word Vernichtung also means destruction, and was interpreted as deportation. As even a mediocre historian could tell you, few germans and basically no non-germans realized that the 'final solution' meant extermination.

Only in hindsight did we understand the hideous meaning of his words...

[GeneralTacticus]

US soliders were never prosecuted for shooting german soliders on the battlefied. I haven't heard anyone advocating it, either. But somehow you equate a palestinian killing someone occupying their land a hate-crime?

Technically speaking, if it was OK for American troops to kill German ones, then it is also OK for Israeli settlers to kill Palestinian militants. Remember that the Germans never even touched American soil; all of the fighting against them was in Europe, and it was all directed at eighter stopping the German advance or conquering Germany.

[CyberGnu]

Roland, I'm a realist. Israel is there to stay, there is no question about that.

And a deal is a deal. If the palestinians accept a peace plan that gives them a viable state, I think they will have to live with the deal and accept Israel.

Would the world be a better place if Israel was dissolved and the jews relocated to the US? Of course. But it is not going to happen...

[Roland]

"Under what sort of conditions could the Palestinians ever put together a government capable of not only negotiating a peace agreement but implementing one?"

Difficult but not impossible. If we develop the Barak proposal a bit to lift restrictions on sovereignty on a timetable if the terms are upheld as decided by an impartial side, it could work.

Somehow you have to break the circle of failed negotiations leading to vilanece leading to failed negotiations....

"...especially when one looks around at the other Arab states in the region which are all corrupt Monarchies or Dictatorships"

Lebanon.

"As for being able to make an agreement with Arafat, I agree completely that you can make an agreement with him. Unfortunately he won't keep that agreement."

Either side will only keep agreements if they see it being in their interest. Make it Arafat's interest and he'll keep it.