If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Take a look around and enjoy reading the discussions. If you'd like to join in, it's really easy to register and then you'll be able to post. If you'd like to learn what this place is all about, head here.
Comments
No! You want to invade Israel now?
He can't even suggest? Charming how you pronounce the Iraeis are saints. Maybe people will start listening to you when you go and live in the Palestinian refugee camps.
Maybe people would start listening to you, when you've been in the near of a suicide attack, shooting, stonethrowing or something like that :rolleyes:
IRA bomb in Docklands, London; I was V. near that.
Get that history book out an look at the times when Israel did not have US aid. You seem to think what you describe above is something new. It isn't.
Did Israel get US aid before '67?
Who cares? What matters is now. Now the US funds Israel and until that finishes there is a clear conflict of interest. Its like Bernie Ecclestone funding New Labour.
I care. And I got the answer to my question.
Why is it a conflict of interests, when the two countries are battling against the same thing?
Amzes me, that they're in the shit state they're in, when everyone is pumping money into them.
(in the form of Israeli missiles, bombs and bullets yes)
No in the form of aid, which lands into private pockets.
Perhaps a better comparison would be the blacks in apartheid South Africa?
Alladdin has the right of it.
And by way of dispelling some previous posted assumptions the real aid situation to both Israel and the Palestinian Territories is outlined here:
http://www.aaiusa.org/foreign_aid.htm#Aid%20to%20the%20Palestinians
Its not so freely flowing to the Palestinians as has been asserted and whats more, one could easily ask the same question of why the Israeli economy is so eroded given the substantially greater levels of international aid which it receives. Perhaps our Likhud friends should be following Sharon's money trail before pointing fingers at their neighbours.
But then neither were they carrying out "suicide" bombing attacks. Were they?
The ANC got it right, eventually, and realised that more power comes from passive demonstrations. Once the Palestinians understand that world opinion will turn - all the while they kill indescriminently they will find support harder to come by.
I support the cause, I just can never support their actions and to be honest I can understand why Israel reacts like it does.
Just as you liken Palestine to Warsaw, I would liken Israel to Stalingrad - surrounded by enemies...
As for being surrounded by enemies, well that is another of the long running excuses (along with the age old guilt tactic contained in the "eternal victim" syndrome we all are fed heaps of by the Israeli leadership and the press. Fact is that at the state level there is little or no viable threat to Israel from its neighbours. Especially when one considers the powerhouse backing Israel.
You call Palestinian attacks indisciminate and yet do not extend the same judgement to Israel who's indiscriminate attacks on Palestinians occur with much greater frequency and much greater devastation to life and property throughout Gaza and the West Bank. Id like to see how pacifist youd be in the shoes of a Palestinian who has seen his family and friends slaughtered, starved, and denied any means of retaining human dignity in the virtual prison environment that has been imposed upon them.
So long as people in the West choose to condemn Palestinians for fighting back against an illegal occupation and allow Israel to dictate negotiation conditions to their own lopsided advantage I suspect we'll never see an end to the conflict.
This is why I do not believe the Bush admin's roadmap will lead anywhere. Already Sharon has dismissed portions of it and this US administration has shown how ready it is to cater to Sharon's demands and pre-conditions. To think it can be an impartial intermediary is laughable.
I refer you to two other commentaries which I happen to agree with in all this...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,907876,00.html
http://www.geocities.com/jwjip/ellen1.htm
Q: Why are they not a viable threat?
A: Because of Israel's vigilance, defence spending etc.
I don't dispute that Israeli defence tactics are as indiscriminate.
I refer you back to my ANC comparison...
Remember also the attacks on Israel on the state's inception. Hardly an auspicious start, was it?
So you've completely missed my point. What the West sees is one act of aggression answered by another, the Palestinians fail to sieze the high moral ground and thus lose support. Their tactics are seen, rightly or wrongly, as terrorist in their very nature and this doesn't sit well in the Western Media. As this is what the media report, this is the view that the western populations get.
Believe me, the day that a thousand Palestinians sit down in the road peacefully, and are still shot at will be there day that their power base rises dramatically. All the while they respond by bombing restaurants/buses/wedding receptions etc they will never get the support that their cause deserves.
As has the Palestinian Authority...
Perhaps I missed something, but isn't the "roadmap" also an EU/Russian initiative?
I feel that the Palestinians already have a lot of support, practically every foreign govt sees their need for an independant state whilst condemning the violence of both sides.
The fact is that whilst both sides are condemned there is still little actual action by the international community to put pressure on the Israelis to make a start. Obviously the Palestinians must play there part and I feel they are making moves in the right direction, the new authority has commited to tackling terrorism in the name of peace but how can this have any legitimacy when the Israelis will not co-operate on even the most basic concessions to the Plaestinians?
That is a start.