Attack on Hamas step toward peace

You really mean that there is nothing equivalent to this on the Israelic site?

Actually I don't think you are. For Israeli parties to vote against their own protective barrier for fears it would halt expansion is to wish to continue the status quo so that they can expand.

For Israeli parties to vote to deny the Palestinians a state west of the Jordan forever is to lay a claim to the continued settling of the land.

Your demand is absurd, to request the illustration of "same tactics" is silly.

Israel uses very different tactics and that's why they successfully expand while the Palestinians only succeed in getting their asses kicked.

If the Palestinians were wise, they'd change tactics and stop playing into Israel's hands. They give Israel the pretext to do what Israel does to them.

Israel is hardly an innocent party just because their methods are more subtle.

I disagree. We live in a democracy. We are responsible for our government's acts.

Our government is the only nation that has the power to end that conflict.

As a democratic nation we are all responsible for the actions of our government.

Whoever lives in a democratic country shares responsibility for their government's acts and policy.

C'mon, Craven. I know you can out debate me 3 ways to Sunday, but you said "I can cite the ruling Israeli party doing the same about the Palestinian territories."

The same being "to pursue the goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel."

So show me your power.

It is the same to me McG. Both are laying claim to the other side's land.

That one does it in more subtle ways is indicative of greater danger and more likelihood that they will suceed in their theft.

If you do not see this as an equal problem in the territorial conflict I am prepared to live with that. I doubt I can convince you.

Read this article and give me your thoughts on it. It outlines the peace process between Israel on Palestine.

I retract the phrase "A2K members" from this statement. You are right that arguing a point does not give one responsibility for actions taken in the region.

My point is that I don't see this as a conflict between Sharon and Hamas.

Look at history. Each violent military action by the Israeli government strengthens Hamas (at the expense of Palestinians moderates). Likewise each suicide bombing strengths Sharon (at the expense of Israeli moderates).

Sharon and Hamas are on the same side. They are both working to continue the violence. This is the side that has been winning the conflict for the past decades.

The other side consists of the people in the region - both Israeli and Palestinian - who are working for a just peace and an end to violence. An example is the Geneva Accords a a good example of this. These people reject violence and brutality as immoral and counterproductive no matter what. Your immoral acts are never justified -- even by the immoral acts of others.

Opposing the violence of both sides is the only reasonable solution.

I've read that document before, what is it that you want comment on?

I guess you could start by pointing out where Israel is trying to do a land grab from Palestine.

lol, McG.

Do you deny that Israel is consistently growing? Do you deny that they are several times larger than the land initially allocated to them?

I have no idea, but if you say it is, I have faith enough in your knowledge to suspect that it is.

How is it growing though? Are settlements (which should be held accountable to the recognized Palestinian Authority if they are in Palestinian territory) what you mean? Do they actually count as Israel growing though?

This link explains Israeli settlements and international law. Is this what you are referring to?

See here for an easy flash map history. Israel has grown mainly through military conquest and subsequent continued hostilities that serve as a pretext to continue to hold conquered land.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,5860,720353,00.html

To Israel's credit, they have actually returned more land than they have kept, though the US threatened to let Russia bomb them to kingdom come if they did not.



Most growth is straight military conquest. Then they hold the land saying that the conflict was not resolved.

Thus it is to the interest of their expantion to maintain the conflict.

After holding the land they simply "annex" it. The common term for this is "making facts on the ground" which is a euphemism for "possession is 9/10 of the law".

By having people living on the ground they slowly annex the conquests that were held under the guise of future resolution.

Right now, Israel is occupying more disputed land than the land initially allocated to them.



Settlements are a big part of it. The settlement activity is strategic. I agree that they should be accountable to the PA but it doesn't work that way.

Many of the organizations that strategically settle Palestinian roadways and waterways are funded by the Israeli government and the Israeli military prevents the PA from objecting.

What the settlers do is strategically lay claim to prime locations, then the Israeli government deploys the military to protect them and to lay claim to all the best roads and water that lead to the settlement (under the reasoning that they need to secure the whole road to protect the settlers from attacks).

So the Israeli military secures the roads and makes the Palestinians use different roads with Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints.

Israel will often simply annex the settlements once they have been rooted, this is the euphemism "creating facts on the ground".

Basically it means, it's not out territory but if we occupy it long enough it will be.

Israel also formally annexes territory such as Jerusalem. The US does not recognize this yet, and has promised to recognize Jerusalem and move an embassy there only if the Israelis comply with out demands of them.

Because Israel continues to grow, they are in no hurry to comply with our demands and many of the settlements will be permanent (e.g. Israel includes them on their side of the fence. Israel used the fence to expand by several miles along the border).



Israelis hope so, and the longer they can maintain the occupation the better their chances of keeping the territory.

No actually that's very disingenuous.

Settling other peoples' land is historically recognized as an act of war.

What that link is doing is comparing it to ethnic cleansing (transfer).

So basically it's saying that as long as there's no ethnic cleansing it is legal. Which is false.

It would be like Mexico saying they are free to annex American land as long as it's not occupied. E.g. wherever there are no houses they can build houses and annex as Mexico.

Israel tries to stay in the shady area that is simple migration, but the difference is that once the migration is in place, they usually actually annex it as sovereign territory and not just individual land ownership.

I agree that Israel is out of line in expanding into Palestinian lands and I believe that one of the keys on the now infamous "roadmap" was the halt of those settlements and a handover to the PA. also, did not the Oslo Peace Accord deal with this situation and didn't Arafat backout of those accords?

Do you agree that organizations like Hamas will never let peace happen between Israel and Palestine? Let's pretend that Israel backs completely out of the occupied lands and declare the 1967 borders it's official size. then grants Palestine it's countryhood and the governments start having wonderful diplomatic arrangements and discussions. Do you think Hamas or any other of the fundamental Islamic terror organizations are going to halt their attacks?

Both sides did not uphold their ends and both blamed the other side for not doing so first.

I really have no opinion on who messed up first because both shirked their obligations saying that the others did as well.

And here we get to another way Israel stalls the resolution.

Israel insists on sequentialism. In other words, do this then then and after 10 years of calm we'll do this.

Most outside of Israel (including the US very frequently) prefer what's called "parallelism".

In other words both sides should simply do their responsibility at the same time and stop saying the other side should go first.

With sequentialism we allow any zealot with a bomb or any Israeli assasination to undo the progress and we favor parallelism.

Thing is, Israel has a powerful rhetorical argument against parallelism: "we will not negotiate with terror".

So they insist of periods of calm to even think about negotiating.

And when they get a period of calm what they do is assasinate a terrorist under the guise of retaliating to a previous attack and the calm ends.

The calm puts pressure on Israel, the attacks against Israel remove US pressure on Israel to do their duties.

So Israel uses intentionally provocative methods to ensure no calm and the Palestinian terrorists idiotically play into their hands.

This latest assasination is an example, the uprising has been slowing in momentum so they needed something to really piss off Palestinians and keep the negotiations at bay.



I think they can be made to have no say in the matter. Thing is, for this to take place we would need Israel to make some sane moves as they have all the control that there is to be had over the process.



Hamas would shrink in size. Without the squalor and occupation they'd have a hard time recruiting idiots to blow themselves up.

I believe that if Israel gives the Palestinians a viable state and not an effigy of one, many will have more to lose and will love their lives more.

Secondly, Israel can easy thwart the most delibating attacks by simply sealing the border to all Palestinians.

The excuses for not doing so revolve around two things:

1) Palestinian workers in Israel. Suddely Israel is very concerned with Palestinian wellfare. So are most liberals.

I say seal the border till things calm down (e.g. first 10 years of the Palestinian state).

Palestinians have a right to self-determination but not to jobs in Israel, so while it would delibate one of the poorest economies on earth this is the result of their extremists and Israel is under no obligation to consider their jobs.

2) Israeli extremists reject things like a barrier because they do not wish for the current borders to be final.

This is what I'd do if I were Israel.

1) Initially no negotiations. A unilateral withdrawal.

2) Seal the border in absolute fashion.

3) Dismantle ALL settlements and occupation.

4) Negotiate the border disputes with the other nations.

5) Give the US the green light to green light a Palestinian nation that is demiltarized for 5 years (e.g. hamas doesn't get to become a legitimate army).

6) Ask the US and EU to make sorely needed Palestinian AID available as a carrot for Palestinian progress.

Now a few points need working on, e.g. dismantling all settlements would get an Israeli PM killed by their own zealots. So a "reasonable exchange" would need to be made. That's the exact wording many Arabs have already agreed to along with "fair and equitable exchange".

The goal would be to have a final reconciliation with all Arab states, like the Arabs proposed with full normalization of trade and diplomacy within 5 years.

The key is to end the occupation immediately and stop blocking the Palestinian state. Let tricky things like border, Jerusalem and "right of return" be negotiated with the absense of occupation and use a hermetical temporary border to negotiate in the absense of attacks (there'd still be a few mortar attacks but they almost never kill anyone).

I agree with you on many of these points, but I remain in the unfavorable position of believing that there are too many hard-core Muslims that would sabotage such plans as well as too many fundamentalist Jews that don't believe they should be blocked from inhabiting ALL of the holy land.

I am glad we are having this parlay as I am learning from it.

Oh, I agree with you on that. Frankly I can work out peace in theory only from the positions of control (US or Israel).

I have no idea what a sane Palestinian leader should do for example (except resign, like the last one).

bm

What she said.