Bloodbath in Gaza

[Ned]

That piece on "always a terrorist" is just a bit one-sided, in my view.

One has to remember that the only reason that the Pals do not have a state but instead have an oppressive Israeli occupation is Arafat. He walked out of Camp David, giving the effective finger to Bill Clinton who would have done practically anything to cement or grease a deal.

The Pals have to get rid of this "gentleman." He cannot be trusted and certainly he does not have the best interests of the Palestinian people at heart. He rather seems bent on promoting endless conflict - for what reason? We can only speculate. But certainly he does not see himself as a civilian leader - he is a war leader, bent on endless Jihad.

[CyberGnu]

He rather seems bent on promoting endless conflict - for what reason?

Well, it could be because he hasn't been offered a deal he can accept yet...

If Clinton has forced Israel to abide by the Oslo accord, there might have been grounds for a deal. But as it was, Israel offered less than what was already agreed upon in the Oslo... There is no way he could have accepted that and stayed as a leader of palestine.

But he certainly makes a nice scapegoat.

What was it someone said right after Sharon ordered the latest siege? "If Arafat dies, what will Sharon do then? Order his bulldozer to dig up his grave every time there is a suicide bombing?"

[CyberGnu]

So the conclusion is: One has to remember that the only reason that the Pals do not have a state but instead have an oppressive Israeli occupation is because Israel will not end said occupation.

Blaming Arafat doesn't help.

[Ned]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
So the conclusion is: One has to remember that the only reason that the Pals do not have a state but instead have an oppressive Israeli occupation is because Israel will not end said occupation.

Blaming Arafat doesn't help.

Welcome to the thread, CyberGnu.

You and I will never see eye to eye on Camp David. I simply place my trust in Bill Clinton, who, after all, is/ was my president

[CyberGnu]

Actually, I visited the thread about 8 pages ago, but then I didn;t have time to return... Spent about 10 hours in meetings these past two days, and been trying to do my job in the hours remaining...


So you actually feel the deal offered at Camp David was fair, even though it offered LESS than the Oslo accords?

[Ned]

The problem I see is that Arafat did not negotiate, but simply walked out.

[CyberGnu]

He did negotiate. The Israli negotiatior Ben Ami even admitted as much in an interview in Ma'ariv (april 6, 2001).

But when Israel started with the Oslo accords as the far extreme and wanted even MORE concessions from Arafat, a deal essentially became impossible.

[CyberGnu]

you might find this interesting:

http://mondediplo.com/2000/09/08campdavid

[Ned]

CyberGnu, I have it bookmarked and will read it in the morning.

[ZoboZeWarrior]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

fascism was started by an idiot Italian years after Zionism was born

I like to blame it on a French idiot (Barres) .

Barres ?? Raimond Barres ?

wtf ?

[axi]

It should call for a UN force to go into Palestine to replace the Israeli's for the purpose of arresting terrorists and preventing further acts of terror.

This would be ideal, but noo, Israel won't have that.

As for the mortar attack on the settlements, do not forget that they should not be there in the first place. The settlements are equivalent to open space, as far as Hamas is concerned. If armed Palestinians tried to move into Israel, what would the IDF do?

Chris62:

Axi, I can understand that being a Communist, you have a differing viewpoint, but fascism (<--Spelled corectly to avoid any more abuse!) and Zionism are not even remotely the same,

They may look different because the socio-ideological superstructure is different, but the economic basis is the same.

fascism was started by an idiot Italian years after Zionism was born, and the Zionist wanted a Jewish homeland in their ancestrial home, not an Empire based on former glories.

Zionism may have originated earlier, but it matured as a movement paralelly with fascism. The difference is that it wasn't created explicitly to stop the advance of communism, but to express a politically underrepresented minority. Which, once it got away from it's originating society and into the "Promise Land", formed a petty-bourgeois in character nationalist cluster which begun the exploitation of the land of Palestine and of the native populations. Their immediate goal was to achieve statehood. Their next goal was to expand their state. The limits of this expansion are unknown. I've heard that the Zionists claim all the land beween the Nile and the Euphrates as their "ancestral homeland"

Also, Israel is not a one party dictatorship, as the fascists were, it's a democracy.

It's the superstructure again. They may be really democratic internally, but in all matters of exterior politics and concerning their stance vs the Arabs, it's the Zionist position that counts and they all support their leader. Mussolini and Hitler did have popular support, much more support than any western party currently has. If threy didn't have popular support, first they wouldn't have gone that far, second we would be calling them militaristic dictatorships, such as Franco's regime was, albeit falsely being called fascist.

Calling a jew a Nazi or fascist is both hurtful AND inaccurate all at the same time.

I'm calling the Zionists fascists and Isreal, being dominated by them, a fascist state, but I'm not calling all Israelis and definitely not the Jews in general fascists. Be carefull with the terminology.

If they REALLY were similar, the Jews would level any city that dares to oppose them, and nothing world opinion says could change that.

They are much smarter than that. If they did that, they would be toast in a matter of years.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by axi
This would be ideal, but noo, Israel won't have that.

I actually gave a possible reason why Israel would be extremely reluctant to allow a UN force into her territory earlier.

[Ned]

CyberGnu, I had a chance to review the link. Except for the suggestion that the Sec. of State was duped by Barak and that Barak had no intention of making a deal, the facts stated are consistent with what Clinton stated. Arafat insisted on beginning negotiations on his view of the UN resolutions that followed the '48 and '67 wars, but particularly the latter. The latter resolutions would require, under Arab interpretation, that Israel give back to Jordan, Syria and Egypt all the land they occupied as a result of that war in exchange for peace. This would include East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights that Isreal has already annexed. It would also include all the Israeli settlements regardless of size and duration.

Arafat insisted that this demand was just because he had already given up to Israel at Oslo the rest of Palestine - the land occupied by Israel in '48, and presumably Israel itself. He said he sould not be asked to give up any more.

His position, IIRC and not from the article, was that once Israel made these basic concessions, he would be open to discussing land swaps so that Israel could maintain some of the settlements.

On the RoR, he insisted that he did not want even to discuss compensation for Jewish refugees from "other" Arab countries on the basis that this had nothing to do with Palestine. He appeared to be willing to compromise on the actual return of the refugees to Israel, so long as they were compensated for the value of lost property, which was established in the aftermath of '48 to be 1.2 billion pounds sterling, as sum now worth several hundred billion dollars.

Most interestingly, there is no hint, whatsoever, of "viability" as the reason Arafat walked out.

Just a couple of points here. It does not appear that a settlement can be reached with only the Palestinians on the Arab side. The issue of Jewish refugees and the Golan heights has to be part of the equation. On the refugee situation, the net dollar exchange for Israel might actually be zero, but there might be a large flow of money from the other Arab states to the Palestinians (Israel pays Palestinians, Arabs countries other than Palestine pay Israel.)

On the issue of the UN resolutions, there has always been a dispute on whether the UN called for a withdrawal from ALL occupied territory. That was the demand of the Arabs and the Soviets in '67. The SC did not agree to include the word ALL with the specific intent of leaving that issue unresolved.

There is a way out of this dilemma. Israel could simply agree to abide by the '67 resolutions with a reservation on the whether these mean ALL, and with a reservation on previously annexed lands. I think, though, that Israel should pay for the lands it annexed previously, or which it annexes as a result of the new peace treaty. Even the US paid Mexico for California after winning the Mexican War.

In order to grease the skids, the UN should help on the monetary issues with a special assessment to their membership.

[CyberGnu]

So, basically, you conceed?

Arafat did negotiate, within his practical limits.

(btw, there is no specific mention of 'viability' as a reason to walk out of the meeting, but it is implicitly covered under one of the commitees work on 'borders and settlements', which according to the article did not make any significant headway from what was suggested in stockholm.)

[Sirotnikov]

Arafat did negotiate, within his practical limits.

LOL

What a great title for: Give me what I want.

the exploitation of the land of Palestine and of the native populations. Their immediate goal was to achieve statehood. Their next goal was to expand their state. The limits of this expansion are unknown. I've heard that the Zionists claim all the land beween the Nile and the Euphrates as their "ancestral homeland"

Why don't you read some actual zionist literature instead of bullsh*tting?



In anycase, it doesn't surprise me a single bit that the Pro-Palestinians are arguing without inspecting the facts. I doubt CyberGnu knows what this thread is about, but he's happy to jump in.



As for the facts:

An Israeli force entered the Gaza strip and attacked an area central to Hamas activity - where most of them live, and where most of their ammunition is made.

As the IDF was leaving, around 3AM, armed Hamas gunmen opened fire on the troops from all the sorrounding buildings. The fire was fiercer than what was experienced in "Defensive Wall" in April.

IDF began returning fire, and called for backup.

A helicopter arrived for backup, began shooting at the gunmen and fired several missiles at the buildings from which the gunmen were firing.

One such missile caused a part of the building's wall to collapse and fall on a crowd beneath the building.



Who was hurt?

Gee, let's see - what people would be gathering in a crowd, at 3AM following an Israeli incursion, and would begin combat against IDF troops?

Would those be civilians or militants?

Would civilians try to get as near as possible to the fighting, and eventually get hurt?

Or is it logical, that if a person tried to get as near as possible to a fight, intended to participate in it?


Then why are so many civilians hurt?

Because Hamas militants ARE civilians, as soon as they put down the gun and take off the bomb-suit. They don't take their guns when they are delivered to the hospitals, where the press can get the impression they are civilians.

But teenagers were hurt!

Teenagers were hurt because teenagers participate in terror. If you haven't noticed, there were several 16, 17 and 18 year old suicide bombers.

how about the woman?

Beats me what a woman has to do in the middle of a prolonged gun battle. I would assume she was the wife of one of the militants, who was shooting from his home window, and was accidentally hit.