Posted on 08/18/2005 6:04:21 AM PDT by Sabramerican
Rice: Israel's evacuation of the Gaza Strip is only a first step
By Haaretz Service
WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday said that while she feels for evacuated settlers Israel will be expected to make further concessions that would ultimately lead to an independent Palestinian state.
"Everyone empathizes with what the Israelis are facing," Rice said, but added "It cannot be Gaza only."
In an interview published by the New York Times, Rice said that the Palestinian Authority must move quickly to disarm Palestinian factions intent on breaking the current cease-fire with Israel.
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The Secretary of State offered sympathy for the settlers who are being evacuated from their homes in Gaza but also made it clear that she expected Israel and the Palestinians to take further steps in short order toward the creation of a Palestinian state.
Such steps would include loosening travel restrictions in the West Bank and withdrawing from more Palestinian cities.
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretzdaily.com ...
"As I see it Sharon's plan is to give up Gaza and the most Arab parts of the West Bank while keeping Jerusalem and the settlement blocks around it. If successful, his plan will make a Palestinian state impossible. Gaza will become part of Egypt and the Arab West Bank part of Jordan or Syria...or even Lebanon."
As those parts of Israel (Gaza, West Bank) were part of Egypt and Jordan when those countries attacked Israel, and were taken as part of the victory over the attacking arabs, giving them back should smart even more.
What makes a palestinian a palestinian? We know what it means to be an Israeli. Carve a nation out of "leavins," defend it against ALL your hostile neighbors, have one of the only representative governments in the hostile region, raise your children to be the nicely flowered prickly plant that is indigenous to the region, and believe you are precisely where you are supposed to be according to God's will.
I certainly hope there is more going on in the background that is good for Israel than is being released to the public.
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Actually - yes it will end - but not through any capitulation by Israel - Read the book of Revelation. It will end when Christ returns.
I think that is what will happen.
OT states in the last days before the Great Judgement, He will make Jerusalem a (Blood filled) Cup of Trembling and cause all nations to drink.
They have no future at all if they continue down this path and they know it too.
The Gaza will be the home of every anti-American, anti-Israel terrorist group in the world.
Sly Sharon, let them settle themselves in, let them all relocate to what they beleive is a safe haven for their evil operations.
Sharon will have them all in one place. Up against the sea.
Obviously, Arabs who lived in Palestine prior to '48 and their descendants.
The best plan for conquerors is to destroy the conquered.
The next best plan is to evict them from their former homeland.
Isreal was never strong enough to execute the first two. This is next best.
Sorry, what you think was Palestine was a part of Jordan called Trans-Jordan. Before that it was under British control after the Turks who were there were defeated during WW I. There was no Palestine.
Tell me when there ever was a nation named Palestine. Palestine is an area, not a nation.
God save us.
Now that's just brilliant. U.S. foreign policy in 2005 is supposed to be dictated by some passage from the Book of Genesis?
It's your choice.
You're confusing political divisions with a people's attachment to their land and culture.
The problem is that the Palestinians will >not< be expected to behave like a normal nation state; people will go on making excuses for them forever. I really think that anti-Semitism will be the (unspoken) factor here forever. Look at all the displacements that took place after WWII--the division of India and Pakistan, the forced marches of ethnic Germans, the "shifting" of the Polish-Ukranian border....Yet the only one that plagues us today is the simplest---600,000 Arabs who had to moved within the old Palestinian mandate. The mandate was divided 83% for the Arabs, 17% for the Israelis---even though the Arabs had been open allies of the Axis! Can you think of any other instance where Hitler's friends were rewarded?
In a politically correct world, no one seems to care that recycled Nazi propaganda is regular fare in Arab countries, and especially among the Palestinians! Mein Kamp and the Protocals of the Elders of Zion are best sellers on the West Bank. Yet no one says a word, and Israel is expected to make peace with people who are fed the most virulent propaganda against her. I'm afraid Palestinian statedhood will change none of this.
Not so fast. First, by that definition many Israelis are "palestinian". Second, the definition of "palestinian refugees" was set by the UN to include anyone who lived in the British mandate territory for two years or more. The vast majority of the "disposessed palestinians" were in fact Egyptians who migrated to the area to take advantage of good employment offered by Jews. To hear them tell it, of course, they've lived their since before Goliath died...
The best plan for conquerors is to destroy the conquered.
The next best plan is to evict them from their former homeland.
Isreal was never strong enough to execute the first two. This is next best.
That's wrong on so many levels. First, the Israelis are more than powerful enough to eradicate the Palestinians, if that's what they wanted to do. Relocating them would be a snap. They have defeated the entire Arab world at once before, and can do it again. The reason they don't is that it would violate Jewish ethics. Instead they show mercy, even when it makes themselves targets.
But in addition to that, the whole idea that the Israelis "invaded" and "disposessed" an indigenous population is simply false. The original UN border was drawn the way it was because the territory of Israel contained a vast Jewish majority, and the areas given to the Arabs had an Arab majority. The border describes the reality of the population, not an act of seizure. Your summary is consistent with Pali propaganda on every level, and just as wrong.
Then tell me, when was their a nation named Palestine?
Not at all! Rather, the passage in Genesis serves to explain the suffering that America is about to bring upon itself.
In fact, the border describes the land purchased parcel by parcel through the Jewish National Fund. Nearly all the Arabs who remained in Israel were squatters--and their loving Arab brethren refused to take them in.
The Arabs rejected the terms in '48 which is what they say their demands are today. Is this correct?
Yupper! The day after Israel was recognized by the UN, the Arabs invaded.
Yes, Israeli Arabs, which they should be called instead of the bogus term "Palestinians", were solidly behind, Egypt, Jordan and Syria in '67 and '73. They chose poorly.
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