Posted on 12/17/2001 9:30:48 AM PST by ouroboros
To understand what’s going on in the Middle East, you have to understand Ariel Sharon, Israel’s prime minister.
Sharon does not now and never has wanted a peace with the Palestinians. He is the father of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and he will never consent to dismantling even one of them. In fact, he is committed to expanding them.
He said soon after taking office that he would never sign a permanent settlement with the Palestinians. He has refused to meet with the Palestinians. He himself started the intifada by invading Islam’s third-holiest site and arrogantly calling it Jewish property.
But Sharon had two problems. One, he was being pressured by the United States to make peace with the Palestinians. Two, Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority president, was winning sympathy in Europe for the Palestinian cause, which is simply an end to Israeli occupation.
So Sharon’s problem was thus: How do you wreck the peace process without being blamed for wrecking the peace process? The short-term solution was to set the absurd condition that seven days had to go by without a violent act before he would even consider talking.
There are 3 million Palestinians there, and Arafat’s authority is limited basically to the boundaries of a few cities. It is literally impossible for him to prevent one individual from taking a potshot at an Israeli. Especially is it impossible when Sharon himself is ordering the Israelis to commit acts of violence and other provocations.
No country in the world could systematically assassinate more than 27 political opponents without being branded a terrorist state. Of course, Israel gets a free ride in the United States. At the same time this is going on, Sharon is discrediting Arafat by blaming him for any and every act of violence, even those directly provoked by Israel.
When Israel assassinated the leader of a Palestinian group, the man’s followers promised vengeance. A few days later, they assassinated an Israeli cabinet member. They publicly took responsibility for it.
Sharon’s response was to attack Palestinian Authority police stations and to blame Arafat. But Sharon’s biggest stroke of luck was the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and President Bush’s declaration of war on terrorism. Now he had Bush where he wanted him, so the Israelis began to put tremendous pressure on the administration to include Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah on its list of terrorist organizations. And they succeeded, as the Israeli lobby so often does in Washington.
Still, Sharon needed one spectacular terrorist attack to justify his coup de grace to the peace process. And he knew how to get it. He ordered the assassination of a prominent and popular Hamas leader. Sharon knew that Hamas would retaliate, and it did, with three suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Haifa. Now he had what he wanted: an excuse to kill the peace process once and for all.
By branding the Palestinian Authority as an organization that harbors and sponsors terrorism, and by declaring two PLO organizations as terrorist organizations, the Israeli government has announced its intention to destroy all three. Then there will be nobody to negotiate with.
Bush is snookered. Sharon can say: “Look, I’m only following your example. The Palestinian Authority is my Taliban, and the PLO organizations are terrorists. You yourself said, Mr. President, that terrorists and people who support them must be destroyed.”
I’d like to be wrong once in a while about the Middle East, but, alas, I’m right. If you wish to look back, you will see that when Sharon became prime minister, I said the peace process is dead. Later, I said the United States’ one-sided support of Israel would bring Middle East terrorism to the United States. That was in August.
Now I suggest we all hunker down. Because of Sharon’s shrewdness and ruthlessness and our stupidity and naivete, the dogs of war have been let loose. Our newborn grandchildren will probably grow beards before the blood stops flowing.
As far as Sharon goes, Israel has a right to self-defense. Any idiot who cares to read all of the statements by Arafat and Assad and other arab leaders will see that these blackguards want nothing less than the total destruction of Israel. That is certain. Palestinians train their children to hate the Jews, that Jews are subhuman (does that ring a Nazi bell?); then they send their children out to die! What kind of people sacrifice their children like this? Answer: A corrupted evil people.
Pattern: Arab terrorists target women and children and are hailed as heroes; Israel then responds by targeting police stations and the terrorists themselves. Does anyone see a moral difference here? There is no "cycle of violence" - that is a lie by the liberal lying media. It is a cycle of terrorism and response.
Since when did nations that lose wars get their land back? Was Palestine ever a nation?
There are no mulligans in wars.
Israel making so-called "peace" with surrounding nations that wish it would cease to exist is plum-dumb. Reese's insisting on a peace with Palestinians demonstrates without a doubt that he is against Israel.
And that is sad.
Of course he is, loonytoon. He gets the prize for being "almost" a Spotlite hack, before the filthy rag had wiped it's last butt-end. Oh, sorry. I see it keeps on wiping them. You seem to have kept a large supply. But you seem to be using them for the wrong end, perhaps :).
Geez, Anthony. I thought you were more into Roman baths?
I would hope so, and I tend to wonder why observers wouldn't be welcomed if you are not the guilty party of something to hide.
No. You are right. After Israel won the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the resident Jordanians and Egyptians SUDDENLY became Palestinians. How convenient. It's funny that Israel has about 1% of the land mass of the middle east, yet these vast empty arab countries can't find the space to repatriate their own brethren. What a travesty. More evidence that destruction of Israel is the goal.
It's not, that's why there is such a desperate tone to their posts. It's an old propoganda technique to make it appear that everyone else shares your view. That way weak willed people who want to always fit in will take your side. An adult version of peer pressure.
It's too bad you've forgotten that Arafat had Americans murdered. Arafat should brought to the United States, tried, and executed for that.
What gets me irritated is that a person can't even attempt to point out a single fault of Israel's government without getting blacklisted as an anti-Semite. I say that there are faults in the actions of both the Palestinians and the Israelis. I refuse to only see the evils of one side without recognizing the evils of the other as well. Apparently it's not popular or politically correct to do that.
What evil would that be? Self defense? By your reasoning, the United States in World War II was EVIL because we took the war to Japan after they attacked Pearl Harbor.
I don't care who'd be against it, just like I don't care who's against our going after bin Laden.
They need Arafat, he lives at their sufferance. They need a stupid terrorist buffoon type to be perceived as the "leader" of the Palestinians. Why do you think he's still there?
Who cares. Bring him here and execute him.
And you're convinced those civilized Palestinians proved the guilt of the kids in the pizza parlor beyond a reasonable doubtl.
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