IF tommorow the Palestinian people peacably protested in the street+did so for month

[Ned]

Gsmoove, That last bit about the gunmen in the crowd is how Ghandi was assassinated. I assume that you suggest that any successful peace leader, like Ghandi or MLK would meet a similar fate.

Blessed are the peacemakers...

Jesus Christ too was killed for his beliefs.

[gsmoove23]

Ned, assassination is only one vulnerability I was reffering to. Character assassination is another. I was also suggesting that the best way to combat a peace movement is to plant individuals with weapons or rabble rousers within demonstrations or the movement. I have heard countless examples of supposedly peaceful demonstrations in WB and Gaza where civilians were killed and IDF sources claim there was a gunmen in the crowd. While I believe the IDF must have been telling the truth in some, if not most, of these occasions I have to wonder about all of them.

Blessed are the peacemakers...

My point being... they are also quite rare.

[Az]

what about the Palestinians in Israel proper? Or the Jews in Palestine? If the country gets split in two, there would be minorities in both nations. Also, the status of Jerusalem would be heavily contested. It's very much the same between India and Pakistan, with their minorities and the status of Kashmer.

Non violence by Arafat may have helped in creating a free Palestine, but it wouldn't end the violence. Like in India, fighting between the various minorities against the majority would still take place. Also, there would most likely still be violence and tension in Jerusalem, since both sides still claim it. Furthermore, certain Muslims groups have sworn to conquer all of Israel.

Non violence by Arafat, and for a while by the people, may certainly have helped the Palestinian cause. However, the non violence it would be silence before the storm, and within a few years violence would resume, an independent Palestinian state or not.

so what do you propose?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus


No, it wasn't that. The Muslims didn't fear a democratic state with a Hindu mayority, they feared an Apartheid state with a Hindu mayority. They simply didn't believe an independent India would be a free and fair democracy, with the same rights for Muslims and Hindus alike. And a constitutions guaranteeing the rights of everyone would be nice and well, but in a fledling democracy in a third world culture, the possibility of a coup is ever present. The Muslims feared they would trade in a British oppressor for a Hindu oppressor.

Then regardless of our idealistic thinking concerning a single "Palestinian" federation, neither Muslim or Jew will trust to be in a single government with the other - for the same reason. (Either now or in 1948.)

[Felch]

Viking and Odin, if the Israelis wanted to severely cush the Palestinians militarily, they could.

Frankly, I wish they would, just to end the fighting. A massive violent backlash would end this once and for all.

[Sirotnikov]

gsmoove, I find myself agreeing with you too damn often.

Are you sure you're on the right side?


I've met some comments on the Civ III Civilization forums. Are you hunting down Israel threads?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
If Arafat had wanted peace with most of the '67 borders he could have had it two years ago. He choice not to though. What does that say about Arafat's goals?

It says that his brain is better than yours and that he has enough integrety not to accept to be nothing but a handful of fragmented Bantustands cut up by Israeli roads and still having the Israelis sucking all of the West Bank's water.

I can't believe that anyone still believes the big lie of the "genrous offer."

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Correction, he could have had it in '67.

Now, what does this say about Arafat's goals.

Do you know what happened within days of Israel's conquest of the West Bank? They demolished ten thousand homes. Isreal wasn't even waiting for peaces talks before they began clearing out Palestinians and moving in settlers. Israel moved in to stay, and civil disobedience wasn't going to make a difference.

In fact, until the Intafada began, all it did was serve to get you knocked around by the Israelis and cerfews imposed. There was civil disobedience in the territories. There were strikes, protests, boycotts. All it served was to bring down the wrathful arm of the Israeli state. That's why they turned to violence in the occupied territories.

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Do you know what happened within days of Israel's conquest of the West Bank? They demolished ten thousand homes. Isreal wasn't even waiting for peaces talks before they began clearing out Palestinians and moving in settlers. Israel moved in to stay, and civil disobedience wasn't going to make a difference.

In fact, until the Intafada began, all it did was serve to get you knocked around by the Israelis and cerfews imposed. There was civil disobedience in the territories. There were strikes, protests, boycotts. All it served was to bring down the wrathful arm of the Israeli state. That's why they turned to violence in the occupied territories.

Che, If Arafat had been like Ghandi, there would have been no Six Day War. He could have set up a state in the WB and Gaza and lived peacefully ever after with Israel.

But such was not his objective in '67, was it? Nor were his methods non violent.

[chequita guevara]

You do know that Arafat had nothing to do with the Six Day War, don't you? The combatants were Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. It was not until after the war that the PLO became a terrorist/combat organization. Another three hundred thousand plus refugees were made when the Israelis took over Gaza and the West Bank. Furthermore, the treatment of the newly conquered Palestinians is what really pushed them over the edge.

The Six Day War was an aggressive war on Israel's part. Syrian shelling (it's not as if Israel didn't provoke Syria either) and Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran were excuses, not reasons. Israel's goal was not self-preservation but expansion, Eretz Yisrael, Greater Israel.

If the Arafat acted like Ghandi, Israel would still have complete control of the occupied territories and there would be no PA. Israel is only giving up the territories because it grows sick of eternal war.

You should also remember that is during the periods when the PLO honored a ceasefire with Israel that Israel launched the bloodiest war in its history, the invasion of Lebanon, which killed upwards of twenty thousand people in Sidon and Tyre alone. The war was soley to evict the PLO from Lebanon, even though (or rather because) the PLO had honored an 18 month truce.

[gsmoove23]

Originally posted by Ned
Che, If Arafat had been like Ghandi, there would have been no Six Day War. He could have set up a state in the WB and Gaza and lived peacefully ever after with Israel.

But such was not his objective in '67, was it? Nor were his methods non violent.

C'mon Ned, if Arafat had been like Ghandi he would have never gained power. Do you think if Ben Gurion was like Ghandi Israel would be where it is today? Plus, in India there was not such a single-minded attempt to divorce a people from their land. Try to convince somebody to turn the other cheek when their lands are in the process of being stolen. It won't work.

Whatever the case is today in 67 a large number of Israelis, certainly much of the Israeli leadership, saw the war as a chance to bring Israel to its historical boundaries, and as Che said they immediately began to act on this. 300,000 palestinians were expelled from the territories in 67, half of those were made refugees for the second time. All of Jerusalem was annexed soon after. Activists of all sorts were jailed, assassinated or expelled, it was illegal to have a palestinian flag up until Oslo. There was no time to form a real peace movement, which isn't to say that peaceful protest wasn't made. It just wasn't successful.

[gsmoove23]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
gsmoove, I find myself agreeing with you too damn often.

Are you sure you're on the right side?

I've met some comments on the Civ III Civilization forums. Are you hunting down Israel threads?

Sorry Siro, I'll try to be more disagreeable. I've been following the lead of compassionate conservatives and New Labour . Seriously, I see no point in viewing Israelis as the enemy, they've got valid concerns and I try to form my opinions with everyones concerns in mind though I'm sure I tend to lean toward the underdogs.

I do hunt Mid-East threads I suppose, its just where my curiosity leads at the moment. After all, I was in NYC last year.

[Viking Berserk]

If the country gets split in two, there would be minorities in both nations.

LOL??? Give the Palestinians all of it! It's their land!

[Ned]

Che, I can find you some quotes, but the UN commander's final report in '67 noted increased terrorist attacks from Gaza and the WB, IIRC, by the PLO. Arafat was responsible for these attacks.

[chequita guevara]

It's irrelevent. The PLO had nothing to do with the Six-Day War. Israel was after much bigger fish. The Sinai, Golan, and West Bank were long-standing goals of Israeli military policy. ***-for-tat attacks from the PLO (and Israel was just as guilty of launching raids across the border, raids which often killed many more non-combatants than the Palestinians ever did).