Frank, You've been through this road before, and should know better by now. I enjoy reading all your posts, so don't do anything to endanger your membership, PLEASE! c.i.
good idea - for all of us!
The idea was a multinational force so that the Palestinian militants couldn't characterize it as being part of "Zionism". That's why Palestinians suggested a wide umbrella.
Israel was rejecting all outside intervention, they were rejecting UN involvement as well but not limited to military intervention.
If it were up to Israel the UN wouldn't have an opinion. It takes some kind of nerve to think the whole damn world is biased.
Anywho, the bottom line is that the Palestinains have long welcomed military intervention and that Israel has long rejected it.
The Palestinian Authority. Is it an authority in name only or can it make agreements and enforce them. Who is in control Arafat, Abbas, the myriad of terror organizations or no one? Under those conditions can agreements be made that can be expected to be enforced?
au, You have identified the problems associated on the Palestinian side without saying what problems exist on the Israeli side. Can you?
C.I.
What has one thing to do with another. There can be no meaningful negotiations by either side unless there is someone to negotiate with in good faith. Sure there are problems on both sides but there can never be meaningful dialog without good faith. For that to happen each side must have the strength to enforce agreements. Can the PA as conditions exist? Hardly, internal strife is the order of the day.
au, But that's exactly why I asked you to outline the problems associated with the Israeli side of this conflict. Without understand why there is a problem, no solution is possible. Saying "we don't have a problem, and all the problems are caused by the other side" is the problem.
C.I.
I asked a question and you immediately countered with not an answer but a question as if that negates what I asked. My answer to you is that whatever problems exist and there are many not the least being the settlements. However, Israel has a government with whom meaningful negotiations can be conducted while the PA has not. That and only that was the point I was making.
The settlements is one, but also the deteriation of life for the Palestinian people. Their loss of jobs, freedoms, and destruction of businesses, schools, and hospitals. All I am saying is that anybody in similar circumstances would probably resort to suicide bombings, because they have nothing left to live for. That Israel is willing and able to negotiate is probably true, but all the loss of a meaningful life for the Palestinians must be corrected first. When hope is gone, what other options would you provide? I'm not blaming it all on the Israeli's, but they have more 'control' over the situation - at least in terms of military power. The Palestinians must also do their part in eliminating terrorism against the Israelis to see if their life will really improve. No easy answers, I'm sure.
C.I.
Without clouding it with all sorts of justifications was the question a valid one?
au's quote: "What has one thing to do with another." It has everything to do with it. Without realizing why the other side is reacting the way they are, no solution is possible. Questions are always valid. Not asking keeps one in the dark.
C.I.
What other side the terrorist organizations, Arafat, Abbas? Each is pulling in a different direction.
That seems to be one major problem for the Palestinians. I'm not sure how they're going to overcome that problem, because Arafat was elected by the Palestinian people. They are doing themselves great harm, but I doubt they can see that looking out.
C.I.
I just posted an article on.
http://able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11190&start=30
If you have the time give it a read.
Let the bloodshed begin. Looks like the hard liners on both sides got what they wanted. Tom DeLay must be ecstatic.
Israel Threatens Full Scale War
Quote:Israel vows 'all-out war' on Hamas
Monday, September 1, 2003 Posted: 4:11 PM EDT (2011 GMT)
A car burns Monday in Gaza City after a missile strike.
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israel on Monday declared an "all-out war" against Hamas and said it is freezing diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority unless the Palestinian leadership takes "tangible steps to deal with infrastructures of terror."
Following an Israeli Cabinet meeting, a statement cited Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz as saying the August 19 bus bombing in Jerusalem had "broken the track that was supposed to give the diplomatic process a chance."
Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed 21 people.
The Israeli statement came as Israeli military helicopters fired missiles at members of Hamas on Monday in Gaza City.
Israeli security sources said an Israeli helicopter fired on "a car loaded with arms ... killing two Hamas military activists." They were identified as Khader Housari, 40, and Munther Kanitha, 32.
Palestinian sources said one Hamas member was killed and conceded that doctors said a second Hamas member was "clinically dead."
Twenty-five people were wounded in the attack, according to Dr. Mauia Abu Hasanin, director of the Shifa Hospital emergency room.
In addition to Monday's strike, Israeli helicopter attacks during the past two weeks have killed 10 Hamas activists and wounded more than 50 Palestinians as part of an Israeli strategy to target suspected terrorists.
Monday's statement from Israel said it has adopted the following positions:
"An all-out war against Hamas and other terrorist elements, including continuous strikes at the organization's leaders";
"Pressure on [focuses] of terror" in the West Bank; and
A freezing of "the diplomatic process with the [Palestinian Authority] ... unless [Israel] sees that the PA is taking tangible steps to deal with the infrastructures of terror."
Since the Jerusalem bus bombing, the statement said, Israel had carried out "five targeted eliminations" of Hamas members and stepped up operational activities in the West Bank.
"The security establishment is preparing for the possibility of a security escalation and renewed wave of terror against Israel," the statement said.
There has been no immediate reaction to the declaration by the Palestinian Authority or the the militants groups.
Palestinians have previously said that the Israeli strikes keep them from bearing down on militants staging attacks on Israeli targets.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has been under pressure to convince militants to end their attacks after a June summit with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush to move forward the U.S.-backed "road map" to peace.
On June 29, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- the militant offshoot of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement -- announced a temporary cease-fire on Israeli targets, which was followed by seven weeks of relative calm in the region.
All three groups are considered terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department.
Following the Jerusalem bus bombing and Israel's targeted killings of two Hamas militants, all three Palestinian groups announced an end to their self-imposed cease-fire.
CNN Correspondent Matthew Chance and CNN Producer Waffa Munayyer contributed to this report.
There will never be peace over there.
That's the same conclusion I've arrived at too! They're going to keep killing each other until hell freezes over, because both sides are right and wrong, and they'll never agree where that line is.
Israel Has Always Faced Arab Genocide
by Louis Rene Beres
Sep 02, '03 / 5 Elul 5763
To fully understand current conflicts in the Middle East, history must be recalled. Acknowledged by the United Nations and the civilized community of nations, Israel became a recognized and sovereign state on May 14, 1948. Immediately, the five armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan (which was renamed Jordan one year later, in 1949), Lebanon and Iraq invaded the fledgling country. Their combined intention, celebrated enthusiastically all over the Arab world, was expressed plainly and publicly by Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."
Hence, scarcely a few years after the Holocaust and resultant identification of Crimes Against Humanity, the intent of these Arab states toward the tiny new State of Israel was openly genocidal.
On May 15, 1967, Israel's nineteenth Independence Day, Egyptian troops began moving openly into the Sinai, massing aggressively near the Israeli border. By May 18, Syrian troops, too, were preparing for battle along the Golan Heights, almost 3000 feet above the Galilee, from which they had been shelling Israel's farms and villages for several years.
Egypt's Gamal Abd el-Nasser ordered the U.N. Emergency Force (UNEF), stationed in the Sinai since 1956, to withdraw. After the withdrawal of UNEF, the Voice of the Arabs proclaimed, on May 18, 1967: "As of today there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more. We shall not complain any more to the U.N. about Israel. The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence."
Two days later, a jubilant echo came from Hafez Assad, then the Syrian Defense Minister: "Our forces are now entirely ready... to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland.... The time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation."
President Abd ur-Rahman Aref of Iraq joined the chorus of genocidal threats: "The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map."
Today, in early autumn 2003, this goal remains fixed and unchanged. Significantly, the goal remains nothing less than another Jewish genocide. Arab terrorism, as a complementary strategy of attrition, is consciously directed at the very same goal.
With particular reference to the Palestinians, the Charter of Hamas - the Islamic Resistance Movement - exclaims proudly: "There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad... In order to face the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we have no escape from raising the banner of Jihad.... We must imprint on the minds of generations of Muslims that the Palestinian problem is a religious one, to be dealt with on this premise.... ‘I swear by He who holds in His Hands the Soul of Muhammad: I indeed wish to go to war for the sake of Allah! I promise to assault and kill, assault and kill, assault and kill.’”
Arab/Islamic plans for genocidal extermination of Israel have never been kept secret, perhaps because these plans don't really disturb the rest of the world. With rampant anti-Semitism again in fashion, especially in civilized Europe, few seem to recall that, prior to 1967 - when all Arabs were already screaming for Israel's "annihilation" and "liquidation" - there were no "Palestinian territories" under Israeli control. Exactly what was the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Arab world in general, seeking to "liberate" between 1948 and 1967, when Gaza was held illegally by Egypt and Judea/Samaria (West Bank) by Jordan?
There is no viable "Road Map" peace process with Arab states or a "Palestinian Authority" today, nor has there ever been such a process. The formal treaties extant between Israel and Egypt and Israel and Jordan are little more than a temporary expedient by the Arab parties to buy time for critical rearmament and doctrinal refinement.
Even before Israel's declaration of statehood in 1948, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, on November 28, 1941, met in Berlin with Adolph Hitler (even today a great hero in the Arab world). The subject of Haj Amin's meeting with Hitler was "...the final solution of the Jewish Question." Further, this meeting, which followed Haj Amin's active organization of Muslim SS troops in Bosnia, included the Mufti's promise to aid Nazi Germany in the War. Haj Amin did everything possible to ensure Hitler's success with the Final Solution. He even urged the foreign ministers of the Lesser Axis Powers (Italy, Romania, Bulgaria) not to permit Jews to leave for Palestine.
It was essential, Haj Amin asserted, that Jews be sent to countries "...where they would find themselves under active control, for example, in Poland, in order to protect oneself from their menace and avoid consequent damage." The Haj, who was in regular contact with both Himmler and Eichmann, knew exactly what "active control" in Poland meant during the summer of 1943.
Now the Arab world seeks "active control" in Israel itself. Preparing for genocidal war against Israel with developing weapons of mass destruction, the Arab states - together with the Palestinians - argue repeatedly that the post-Holocaust concentration of Jews in "the Zionist entity" is proof of Allah's plan to make Jewish annihilation more practicable. Hence, the state created by the Jews to prevent another Holocaust is described by Israel's genocidal enemies as the literal means to create another Holocaust. Moreover, unless all people of good will begin to recognize and understand this inversion of Israel's purpose, Israel could indeed become the Arab/Islamic world's Final Solution to the Jewish Question. This bitter irony is so overwhelming and terrible that it is almost unutterable, but it cannot be disregarded.
Let us all listen to the following: For all believing Muslims, according to both Hamas and the Palestinian National Authority, "...peace with Israel was and still remains nothing less than a poison threatening the life-blood of Islam.... The Prophet is said to have predicted a final war to annihilate the Jews. Muhammad had stated: ‘The hour (i.e., salvation) will not come until you fight against the Jews; and the stone would say, “O Muslim! There is a Jew behind me; come and kill him.”’”
Well, the stick figure is
officially moot, while before, he was just
effectively moot.
Abbas resigns.
I think our battleground scenario is coming to pass. Now, looking for Bush to back out, and leave those two dogs to fight for that bone.