Posted on 10/23/2001 6:55:31 AM PDT by ipaq2000
Ben-Eliezer: US demand is baseless
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer characterized as "baseless" the US demand that IDF forces withdraw from Palestinian Authority areas.
He said Israel had no intention of remaining in PA-controlled areas.
"All Israel wants is to physically protect its citizens from further infiltrations by terrorists or car bombs," Ben-Eliezer said.
"The government of Israel is the one responsible for insuring the existence and security of the state and its residents.
"We very much appreciate the US, the strategic cooperation ... between us, and we very much respect it, and we certainly stand behind it in it's mission [in Afghanistan] Ben-Eliezer said.
"I think the things which came out of there [the US State Department statement], with all due respect - and we are not belittling it - have no place on the ground because we have no intention of remaining in the territories, conquering the cities, or [their] hilltops."
Israel is prepared to leave the PA areas the moment someone on the other side takes responsibility for negotiations over terms of the withdrawal, Ben-Eliezer said.
"Then there is nothing preventing us discussing the conditions for changing the guard," he said.
Manifest Destiny drove us to the Pacific Ocean. It is a powerful force. And the reason for our manifest destiny is nothing, .00000001 percent compared to the manifest destiny that drives Israel. Imagine the driving force behind their manifest destiny.
Israel wants one thing... to survive as a people in a land promised to them by God. I believe it is their actual destiny. God's words always have been and always will be prophetic.
The Islamics, on the other hand, created a ficticious group for propaganda purposes, the 'Palestineans'. The Koran does not mention Jerusalem one time. They kneel toward Mecca, even if it means turning their backs on Jerusalem. Further, the Islamics can't get along with Hindus or Christians. Nor do they get along with Russians. If they bordered any other religious group on earth, they would be at war with it, trying to make that religion submit.
Look at the situation over Ramadamn....
'Moderate' Islamics have shown us their true colors by their stand on the Ramadan. They consider us to be inferior. We, the infidels of America, are more evil than genocidal maniac terrorists. We must submit to the holy day of 'misguided' Islamic terrorists because even a 'misguided' Islamic is closer to God than a peace-loving infidel. Killing thousands of innocents is just a minor transgression. Whip them with a wet noodle and respect their spiritual superiority. They call us dogs because they think of us as sub-human.
Over the top? I think it was naive and quite restrained, given the collaboration of the US with Palestinian Nazis. Like demanding that Israel relies on terrorists for its security is not over the top?
Oh? We are losing people to terrorism at a frightening rate. I wonder if Israel ever lost 6,000 people to terrorists in a single day?
Why should Israel listen to us when our foreign policy failed so badly?
"Of the almost three million non-Jewish Palestinian Arabs who are today entitled, under the constitutional stipulations of the 1947 UN Partition Plan, to Israeli citizenship, less than 25 per cent (approximately 700,000 persons) are Israeli citizens. Under the Absentee Property Law (1950), the state of Israel has similarly denationalized 75 per cent of its non-Jewish Palestinian Arab inhabitants (over two million persons classified as 'absentees'). However, having classified them as 'absentees' in the eyes of the law, it has thereby not only defined them as aliens in their own homeland, but has cast them outside legal existence altogether."
Of course, being an Islamic, pro-Pal website, they don't mention how many of these people are actually refugees or immigrants from Jordan and other neighboring countries. So what we have here is the fact that 25% of the Palestinians do indeed have Israeli citizenship, but that Israel is not willing to let Arabs pour in from all over and get citizenship and vote Israel out of existence.
Well, I say Israel is protecting itself. It is the only Jewish state, the only Jewish homeland in the world. Muslims have a great deal of land, Jews have this little tract. I say, let the Jews have a homeland. If the rest of the world hadn't treated them so shabbily over the centuries, they wouldn't need it. But it did and they do. And that's that, as far as I'm concerned.
"The dispersal of the Palestinians in 1948 deprived them of the basic right to citizenship. Arab states do not grant foreigners full residency status, which includes either naturalization or permission to remain indefinitely. As for the progeny of foreigners, neither prolonged stay nor birth in the country is considered a valid basis for claiming residency or nationality. In the case of the Palestinians, most countries have special provisions prohibiting naturalization on political grounds and in accordance with Arab league resolutions. Furthermore, marriage to a female citizen of a country does not constitute grounds for naturalization or special residency rights either for the husband who is not a national or the resulting children. Very few Palestinians in Syria and Egypt managed to obtain citizenship, and those who did were mainly from families who had settled there before 1948. In Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, few families were granted nationality as acknowledgment of their long and special service to these countries. In Lebanon, about fifty thousand Palestinians, mainly Christians or those having family connections, acquired Lebanese nationality in the 1950s and 1960s."
In other words, Israel's refusal to grant citizenship to foreigners is right in line with and no worse than any other Arab state's attitude toward foreigners.
We can call it Bubiyan.
RAMALLAH A Palestinian security chief with close ties to Israel and the United States has emerged as a leading player in the struggle to succeed Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.
Palestinian sources said Col. Jibril Rajoub, head of the PA Preventive Security Apparatus, has been meeting U.S. and European diplomats over the last month and has presented himself as the favorite to succeed the 72-year-old Arafat. Rajoub, 55, told the diplomats that he is the only Palestinian figure who can restore stability to the region and resume peace talks with Israel, the sources said.
The claims by Rajoub has angered Arafat supporters as well as rivals within the PA. Critics assert that Rajoub has been criticial of Arafat's rule and can no longer claim to be a loyalist of the Palestinian leader.
Rajoub has a force of more than 2,500 agents in the West Bank. The agency is regarded as the best-trained and equipped in the West Bank and enjoys close ties with the intelligence communities in Israel, the United States and the European Union.
You must know that Nazis loved to use that phrase about Jews.
For something closer, try Oman, where the Brits are conducting opetration Swift SwordII jointly with Oman.
I've made my choice and its with Israel.
Well, that is an interesting take on patriotism. Or are you an Israeli citizen? I happen to be American, and my choice is with America -- America first!
Israel can thrive without US aid. They have per capita incomes apx 5 times greater than Jordan or Egypt or Syria or Lebanon. They have foreign reserves approaching $30B, among the top in the world. Their economy is greater than several EU nations. The Intel chip in your computer was probably designed in Israel. ICQ chat software was developed in Israel. They innovated water conservation and irrigation techniques that are now the standard in industrialized nations. Israel has more PhD's per capita than any other nation on earth. If Israel didn't have to allocate so much of her resources to defense she would probably be twice as prosperous as she is today.
The problem has always been with the Palestinian leadership. Since 1964 (3 years before occupation) they have been avowed enemies of Israel, vowing to destroy her and drive the Jews into the sea. And you expect them to make unilateral concessions to an enemy that yearns to destroy them? You want the USA to force one country to withdraw before the other side agrees to peace? What stupid nonsense.
There will be a Palestinian state, and Israel will withdraw, just as soon as Arafat is gone and the Paletinian people have a Constitutional democracy that guarantees freedom of speech, universal sufferage, freedom of the press, due process, freedom of religion. It is bad policy and bad precedent for the USA to negotiate with terrorists, and bad policy to assist in the creation of yet another brutal despotic Arab regime.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.