Bus bombing in northern Israel

[Az]

notice the . Although I do think that on a long term, we should distance ourselves from them in terms of workforce. It makes us interdependant, and this is not good for Israel , and neither for the palestinians, because there is no way they could create any economy of their own , without segregating from us , in terms of work force. their entire market is based on us. Have some euro corporation build textile factories there, and case closed.

And the effort isn't there yet . with the end of hostilities , Israel, America and the EU have all pledged assistance. But as long as the violence continues there's no point.

[Jaakko]

I'm just extremely skeptic on the present course of action actually ending the violence.

[KrazyHorse]

Dal, you guys had 30 years to build up democratic institutions in the occupied territories. You preferred not to do so, then pulled out and declared it the year zero. You missed your chance to do the right thing, and now you guys are paying the price.

The US didn't sit around in Afghanistan for 30 years building Christian settlements, did they? (Well, we've yet to see, I suppose, but that's not exactly high on the list of possibilities). They started at least trying to build up Afghanistan from the moment they got there. Israel did thirty years of **** waving before they figured out that there had to be an end to the occupation at some point...

[Sirotnikov]

But what if it were done by a new organisation that vows to only target combatants?

Then if it would actually do that, it would be the only real guerilla freedom fighting group in the middle east today.

I'd be more affected by those regrets if it lead to restraint on IDF's part.

It does lead to restraint, as the IDF decided to better consider it's moves from now on.

Plus, now Israel decided to allow people who have no connection to terror to work in Israel (source: russian TV).

[Ecthy]

paiktis, almost every American has German roots... Even before the Irish, Germans were the biggest group of immigrants in the US... English only make for a small part, which is why America should be turned into a German nation NOW!!!

[Sirotnikov]

you guys had 30 years to build up democratic institutions in the occupied territories

The brittish had years to build up democratic institutions in Hong Kong, but they didn't. Instead they gave it back to china.

We are in effect giving those territories back to the arab nations, minus some areas we'd like to keep for our safety (read tops of judea mountains and so on).

But we can give it back if we know that the moment we give it back, the area will become a warzone and we'll have to invade it once again.

And btw - we did try and build some democratic things. But the community is very tribal. Heck, we rule over the Arab Israeli villages for 50 years now, and they are still very corrupt and tribal.

Afghanistan won't work like a charm too. It'll come out a second Aftica with countless wars.

[Sirotnikov]

Israel did thirty years of **** waving before they figured out that there had to be an end to the occupation at some point...

Not true.

We've built up their city structures both physically and politically.

Their municipal politics are strong. What we didn't do is build a palestinian central rule. Instead we had an Israeli army one.

One Arafat came to power, he replaced everyone with his brutes.

Tell me, is it normal in a democracy for elections to be randomly declared and not defined by law?

[Az]

Frogger: I know. But we probably wouldn't pull it off back then. we didn't have the economy , yet. The world was different then. the cold war was at it's peak , and we had neither the will nor the power to do the right thing.
In my opinion, the conquest of the west bank did us much more bad , than good.

on a side note, the governing of the west bank was more democratic during the Israeli military rule than that of arafat's.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Frogger
Dal, you guys had 30 years to build up democratic institutions in the occupied territories. You preferred not to do so, then pulled out and declared it the year zero. You missed your chance to do the right thing, and now you guys are paying the price....

hi ,

first of all , we did , ......

second , when , just when are you guys going to learn a bit about the place by coming here , .....

examples , well when we went in gaza , a long time ago , the welcomed us , gave flowers , the whole nine yards , why , well , the egyptians had done zip , sh@t , nada , nothing , ziltch , ....

we gave them water , lines , wells , pipes , ....after a while some of the man started to break it down , why , well in the arab world it tends to be the woman who gets the water , before the woman where gone several hours a day , now not , ....
we build them again , gave them electricity , phonelines , huh btw most dont pay for them , shools , rights , money to build mosk's , roads , in short everything , .....

but most people here have not been around the block that long , most people here tend to forget history and facts , ........


and btw , how come that for so long there where so many people on our side in Lebanon , .....most of them locals , ....

have a nice day

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
paiktis, almost every American has German roots... Even before the Irish, Germans were the biggest group of immigrants in the US... English only make for a small part, which is why America should be turned into a German nation NOW!!!

Ecthelion, we conquered a continent, defeated every challenger to world supremacy, and spread our culture to every corner of the globe.

We're more German than you.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Frogger
The US didn't sit around in Afghanistan for 30 years building Christian settlements, did they? (Well, we've yet to see, I suppose, but that's not exactly high on the list of possibilities).

He knows too much. He must be eliminated.

[The Mad Monk]

I have contacted Zenephret.

She knows what to do.

[DinoDoc]

Excellent.

[Rogan Josh]

I think both sides of the Israeli conflict are despicable.

First of all there is Irael istelf. I think the thing that pisses me off most is their implicit racism. 'Jews' are encouraged to come to Israel and become citizens, setting up these settlements in the disputed territories etc. But what is a Jew? Is it a catagorisation of belief or of race?

We can answer this by asking the following question: if a person of non-Jewish ethnic origin, who was born in a Christian background for example, was to convert to Judaism, would they then be given favourable status for moving to Israel, Israeli citixenship etc? I severely doubt it!

But does anyone know for sure? What if it was an arab from the west bank who suddenly declared themselves a Jew?

But if this preference is not based on religion, it must be based on race, which surely is racism. I find this very hard to reconcile with the support Israel gets from the US. The US seems very keen to outwardly oppose any form of racism in the world (and to them for it) but they continue to support Israel...

And let's be honest here, the large influx of Russian Jews since the collapse of the USSR have been economic refugees. No offense to Sirotnikov et al, but why should a Russian, with a Russian name, background and upbringing, have more right to settle in the land of Palestine/Israel than someone who's family was living there for generations, who only fled when the wars came? I just don't understand the reasoning...

However, I can't support the hatred coming from the Palestinians either. It seems like they just don't understand the West at all - there is no way they are ever going to make any sort of progress by targetting civilians. In fact, it guarantees that they will not make progress since the West cannot condone making agreements with such vicious murderers.

But if they were to recant and form some sort of organisation which condemned the targetting of civilians and only focused on Israeli military/political tagets, they would get so much support. Europe especially would be all over them. Israel wouldn't stand a chance. I simply don't understand how Hamas etc can be so stupid....

[Ecthy]

ah... we have reached the long anticipated "both sides of the conflict suck if you think about it" stage of the debate. only 2 or 3 phases before it will be closed down.