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We will see in the next 3 weeks or so though
Pucker Up!
Blast Kills 18 In Israel
Displays what's wrong in this whole to situation in the first place.
Ill be staying out of them in the future...its impossible to get through to some people.
Just occured to me that I was discussing the whole conflict when drunk last night :eek2:
How about some enlightenment by an expert in Mid East Politics:
From the link below:
In truth, all these plans lead in the wrong direction, rendering resolution farther off than before. Real progress requires a different and more honest way of looking at the conflict as a whole. Let us begin by recalling certain basic points:
Although a neutral term like "Arab-Israeli conflict" makes it sound as if both sides were equally to blame for this decades-long war, and must therefore be brought to compromise by splitting the differences between them, this is, as Norman Podhoretz has rightly insisted, "a deceptive label." A more accurate term is the "Arab war against Israel."
Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza cannot be the core of the problem. The Arab war against Israel predated Israel's taking those territories in 1967; in fact, it was under way even before Israel formally came into existence as a state.
Rather, the root cause of the conflict remains today what it has always been: the Arab rejection of any sovereign Jewish presence between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
The conflict continues into its sixth decade because Arabs expect they can defeat and then destroy the state of Israel.
Israel cannot end this conflict unilaterally, by actions of its own. It can only take steps that will make it more rather than less likely that the Arabs will give up on those expectations.
At the heart of the problem, in other words, stands Arab rejection. However cunningly conceived, plans that attempt to outflank, leap over, or otherwise finesse this stubborn fact are doomed to failure. Instead of ignoring it, would-be peacemakers would do better to start by recognizing that the conflict will diminish only when the Arabs finally surrender their dream of obliterating the Jewish state, and then to concentrate on finding ways to get the Arabs to undergo what I call a "change of heart." How might that be achieved?
Does Israel Need A Plan by Daniel Pipes
The complete text of
The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict
Published by
Jews for Justice in the Middle East
As the periodic bloodshed continues in the Middle East, the search for an equitable solution must come to grips with the root cause of the conflict. The conventional wisdom is that, even if both sides are at fault, the Palestinians are irrational "terrorists" who have no point of view worth listening to. Our position, however, is that the Palestinians have a real grievance: their homeland for over a thousand years was taken, without their consent and mostly by force, during the creation of the state of Israel. And all subsequent crimes - on both sides - inevitably follow from this original injustice.
This paper outlines the history of Palestine to show how this process occurred and what a moral solution to the region's problems should consist of. If you care about the people of the Middle East, Jewish and Arab, you owe it to yourself to read this account of the other side of the historical record.
Introduction
The standard Zionist position is that they showed up in Palestine in the late 19th century to reclaim their ancestral homeland. Jews bought land and started building up the Jewish community there. They were met with increasingly violent opposition from the Palestinian Arabs, presumably stemming from the Arabs' inherent anti-Semitism. The Zionists were then forced to defend themselves and, in one form or another, this same situation continues up to today.
The problem with this explanation is that it is simply not true, as the documentary evidence in this booklet will show. What really happened was that the Zionist movement, from the beginning, looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the indigenous Arab population so that Israel could be a wholly Jewish state, or as much as was possible. Land bought by the Jewish National Fund was held in the name of the Jewish people and could never be sold or even leased back to Arabs (a situation which continues to the present).
The Arab community, as it became increasingly aware of the Zionists' intentions, strenuously opposed further Jewish immigration and land buying because it posed a real and imminent danger to the very existence of Arab society in Palestine. Because of this opposition, the entire Zionist project never could have been realized without the military backing of the British. The vast majority of the population of Palestine, by the way, had been Arabic since the seventh century A.D. (Over 1200 years)
In short, Zionism was based on a faulty, colonialist world view that the rights of the indigenous inhabitants didn't matter. The Arabs' opposition to Zionism wasn't based on anti-Semitism but rather on a totally reasonable fear of the dispossession of their people.
One further point: being Jewish ourselves, the position we present here is critical of Zionism but is in no way anti-Semitic. We do not believe that the Jews acted worse than any other group might have acted in their situation. The Zionists (who were a distinct minority of the Jewish people until after WWII) had an understandable desire to establish a place where Jews could be masters of their own fate, given the bleak history of Jewish oppression. Especially as the danger to European Jewry crystalized in the late 1930's and after, the actions of the Zionists were propelled by real desperation.
But so were the actions of the Arabs. The mythic "land without people for a people without land" was already home to 700,000 Palestinians in 1919. This is the root of the problem, as we shall see.
The origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict (full text)
Human right abuses:
Saddam- Yep Sharon- Yep
In breach of countless UN Resolutions
Saddam- Yep Sharon- Yep
Appropriation of/claim to foreign land that doesn't belong to them
Saddam- Yep, but gave up long time ago Sharon- Yep
Possession of undeclared, illegal WMDs
Saddam- er, no Sharon- Yep
A danger to its neighbours and to world peace
Saddam- not for a decade Sharon- Yep
In fact, following today's attack on another sovereign nation there are now much more obvious grounds for regime change in Tel Aviv than they ever were for Baghdad. Add that to the very serious considerations the Israeli government is giving to assassinating Arafat, and methinks there are grounds for immediate action.
Let me clarify that I am revolted by yesterday's suicide bomb attack and I do not condone it in any way- just as I don't condone the regular IDF attacks (such as the unreported one that claimed the lives of the suicide bomber's brother and cousin) that have killed 3 times as many Palestinians. But today's attack on Syria and the talk of Arafat's assassination makes Sharon's government an extremely volatile and dangerous regime, and one that needs taken care of very soon.
With the exception of WMDs, dont all those apply to Palestine as well? :eek: :eek:
INVASION
PS, what are the illegal/undeclared WMDs that Israel has?
It is a universally accepted fact however that Israel possesses at least 80 nuclear bombs, probably more in the region of 150-200. Remember that one of Israel's top scientists is rotting in jail for daring to blow the whistle.
It is also widely believed that Israel also possesses chemical and biological weapons- but then again, so do the US, Russia and possibly the UK and China too.
The Palestinian don't have such weapons though (and thank God for that!). They can't even fight a tank or take down a helicopter- something even the camel-riding, cave-inhabiting Afghans can.
Its not illegal to aquire nuclear weapons unless you sign up to something saying so, or have a worldwide org, of which you are a member, pass a resolution making it illegal...
I honestly dont know if Israel did sign any of the nuclear treaties...Just wondering why they were illegal weapons.
Just to point out one glaring inconsistency
Given all the other resolutions vetoed by Washington or otherwise ignored by Israel you know full well that any resolution against Israeli WMDs would be swiftly blocked.
The very fact that there are far more resolutions against Israel also raises questions of inconsistency in the underlying principle of your apparent argument in their favour. Apologies if im wrong on that score.
Going by your second paragraph, it would appear not.
The hypocrisy would merely be more glaring than it already is, but nothing would be done.
I brought up the UN resolutions because Aladdin said that Israels weapons were illegal...I wondered why that was so.
Im not making a point, im just asking for clarification.
"...For forty years clandestine [no relation] annexation of disputed land has taken place by the building of "settlements"; their purpose is to impede the handing back of captured and occupied territories in the event of Israel being obliged to comply with UN Resolutions 242 and 338. So far, no willingness to bring this about has been demonstrated by either the UN, the US or the EU; all of which have the means but lack the will to do so.
Unfortunately, as the article - "This obscene wall will end all hope of peace" - Adrian Hamilton* - suggests, the Palestinians are in a no-win situation. It is unrealistic to expect no reaction from them to the intrusive military occupation. They are impotent against the Israeli military and, when they hit at the civilian population, they provide the excuse for further repression by the IDF and a facile vindication of Israel's policy towards them."
* Can't link directly to the Indie as they require a subscription nowadays.
If however the refusal to ratify the various conventions signals a presumption on the part of the given nation state that it places itself above the rule of international law, then Israel is, by default, equally guilty of illegal development of NBC weaponry.
Applying the reasoning you have used to question the issue that is.
You dont believe that a campaign of non violence by the Palestinians will work, I do..There is nothing more to say as it is only opinion on both our parts.
This is not what I said
In the case of the CWC for example, it isnt the UN which oversees nor enforces the CWC, that falls to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague.
That is not to say that in my estimation all nations should not be held accountable for possession or production of WMDs.
Maybe its because its late, maybe im stupid but I dont see what you are trying to say here..
Something cannot be illegal unless there is some kind of rule, ruling or law forbidding you from doing it. You can play around with semantics all you want but you get my point.
Not having signed up to any or all of them does not bestow legality, it merely makes such states rogue nations.
So presumably that means that any nation who seeks to develop advanced weaponry is a rogue nation and therefore carrying out illegal activities?
Im a little confused as to where we got the right to impose such rules on all nations but oh well...