Posted on 09/27/2001 9:04:30 AM PDT by Illbay
Sept. 26, 2001, 8:47PM
DAMASCUS, Syria -- A morgue assistant pulls out drawers holding the mutilated corpses of Palestinians killed in clashes with Israelis. Doctors pummel the chest of a dead Palestinian in a desperate attempt to revive him. The body of an infant, swathed in bloodied blankets, is held by a grieving parent.
These raw images -- aired almost daily on Arab television since the Palestinian-Israeli clashes erupted a year ago -- haven't lost the power to touch the hearts of Arab viewers.
Indeed, they have fed a buildup of Arab anger -- not only against Israel but also against the United States, its chief ally, already resented for imposing 11 years of sanctions and carrying out repeated airstrikes on Iraq.
That anger provides a potential base of support for the militants, who can use it to keep governments from cracking down on them. The outrage has also left many Arabs grappling with conflicting emotions over the Sept. 11 suicide attacks in the United States.
Some governments -- while decrying the deaths at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania -- have echoed murmurs in the streets that the United States brought violence on itself by angering Arabs. Others have made it clear they want to be sure U.S. retaliation doesn't target nations like Iraq or groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, who are heroes to some Arabs because of their anti-Israel stance.
"We feel outraged by what happened in the United States, but we want the world to feel the same about the daily Israeli killings of Palestinians, the demolishing of houses and the humiliation of the people," said Wafa Mohammed, a shop owner in Jordan.
"If the United States had sympathized with the Arabs, the destruction that took place in the United States wouldn't have happened," said Mohammed Tohami, 22, an Egyptian frame maker.
"There's a feeling among Arabs that the United States is totally responsible for what's happening in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," said Imad Shueibi, a Syrian political analyst.
The Palestinian-Israeli clashes began one year ago Friday. The spark, the Palestinians say -- or the pretext, according to Israel -- was a visit by then-opposition Israeli leader Ariel Sharon to the holiest and most disputed site in Jerusalem, which Jews call the Temple Mount and Palestinians Haram as-Sharif.
Since then, 642 Palestinians and 177 Israelis have been killed. Many of the Israeli casualties were civilians who died in Palestinian suicide attacks against discos, restaurants, markets and train stations or shootings with machine guns and mortars.
The resulting resentment cannot be ignored as President Bush -- who has threatened to punish Afghanistan's Islamic rulers harboring suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden -- assembles U.S. forces for a retaliatory strike. Bin Laden has portrayed himself as the champion of Muslims and Palestinians.
Adding to the pressure on the mostly secular Arab governments are fatwas, or religious edicts issued by Muslim clergymen warning the governments against joining the anti-terrorism coalition.
OK, I followed it till you said this. Who knows we have been wounded, which we have, and who wants us to retaliate on their enemies? Are you referring to Netanyahu? BTW, what is it with this one inch indentation to the right? Is this the way it will be from now on? I relly don't care, just curious.
For what reason? Consider the following article, written by an Israeli news analyst:
So here's my question: Why is it that good, solid, CONSERVATIVE FReepers, who absolutely SCREAM BLOODY MURDER if we hear of ONE DIME of taxpayers' money spent on pork-barrel projects for which our Big-Daddy Government has become renowned, yet bow and scrape and genuflect at the BILLIONS of dollars we send OUT of this nation EVERY SINGLE YEAR, in order to prop up this socialist pesthole called the state of Israel?Where is the Money Going?
by Zev Golan, Executive Director, IASPS JerusalemThe Israeli government is raising its deficit to 2.4 percent, and raising government spending to 54.4 percent of the GDP. It is funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to anything it can think of. The absurdities of increasing public expenditures can be found in our August 21 NBN (“Unprecedented Government Expenditures”). Now let’s take a look at where all this money is going.
Plan #1: Prime Minister Sharon himself will head a new “Ministerial Committee on Aiding Failing Industries.” NIS 200 million has immediately been allocated to government guarantees for grants to medium and small businesses that are failing.
Plan #2: Also, a search will be conducted for 5,000 people without education, who are unemployable, and they will be located, rounded up and given an education (cost: NIS 18 million).
Plan #3: NIS 850 thousand will go this year alone for the state to pay the salaries of factory workers who have no work, so they can take unpaid [sic] vacations rather than being let go.
Plan #4: The cabinet approved make-work programs for adults in the Antiquities Authority and National Parks Authority. Labor Minister Benizri wants to employ 4000 people in this but Finance wants to think about the number first.
Plan # 5: The Employment Service will pay private headhunting firms to find jobs for 2000 people.
Plan #6: An another note, NIS 350 million will be taken from the Ports Authority for defense needs. (At some future point port fees will be reduced.) Incidentally, this plan illustrates graphically the meaninglessness of; decreasing US non-military aid while concomitantly increasing military aid.
Plan #7: On yet another note, two bankrupt plywood firms are merging, the government will give them NIS 10 million of taxpayer money, the banks another 10 million (banks are state owned in Israel), and the Histadrut will give 10 million. The Histadrut is demanding, in turn, that duties be imposed on imported plywood. The Ministry of Trade agrees.
Plan [?] #8: Last but not least, the cabinet is getting two new ministers, raising the number of cabinet members to 28 and 12 deputy ministers, as the Central Party receives its payoff for supporting the coalition. One third of the 120 members of Knesset are no longer functioning in the Knesset but are now part of the executive branch.
All the above have been collected from one day’s newspaper, August 22, 2001.
Now let us take a quick look at what the above means:
Plans 1 and 7 above mean the government is rewarding inefficiency, ensuring employees of failing firms never find worthwhile work elsewhere, allowing company managers to increase their salaries while their firms collapse, and teaching yet another generation of Israelis that they do not have to be responsible for their productivity, wages, or future. Or rather, that the way to take responsibility for one’s employment, food, religion, housing and even entertainment is to turn to the state and demand them.
Number 2 means the government, which has failed to educate students and failed to retrain adults, will now once again educate the people it has already failed to educate….if it can find them first. Perhaps they should hire the headhunters referred to in plan 5, to hunt for these people. The inversion of setting employment headhunters to the task of finding unqualified people fits nicely with other aspects of Israeli economic policy.
Speaking of plan 5 above, this plan means the government admits what IASPS proved beyond any doubt in Policy Studies no. 36, on the State Employment Service: that people who found jobs in Israel did it through newspapers and private placement firms, not through the service, and that the service found jobs for almost no one who did come to it. Now the government has decided that the service is going to hire headhunters. So why does Israel need the service? Simple: it provides jobs for 960 people, who otherwise would have to be employed as per plan 4 above, in archaeological digs and parks.
Either way, they are all make-work programs. Some people sit in parks and others in Employment Service offices; no one contributes anything to the GDP, but everyone gets paid by the taxpayer.
We skipped plan 3 above. This is pretty clear, but just to be sure our readers understand there was no typo above: The cabinet decision does indeed mean that workers who have nothing to do because their factories are not producing anything, will go on paid unpaid vacations. In order to avoid calling them “fired” or “let go” or “unemployed,” the government has decided to call them “vacationers” and since the factories have failed and cannot pay for these vacations, the government will have taxpayers fund the vacations. Otherwise, as we have seen, these people too would have to be put to work digging up old bones or working in parks (as per plan 4), or in the Employment Service offices (plan 5). But there aren’t enough digs and parks, so the answer is – vacations.
Now, in addition to all the make-work programs, we have a make-vacation program.
Plan 6 shows that the government ministers making these decisions about spending taxpayer money have no idea what they are doing and have never read any research or dealt with reality. IASPS Policy Studies no. 41 proved – again beyond any doubt – that one of the major problems facing the Port Authority is that any time local ports turned a profit, or came close to it, the money was taken from the ports and spent elsewhere. With no real investment being made in the ports they have fallen to pieces. The real solution is to take the ports out of government hands and privatize them, allowing each port to compete with the others and reinvest their profits so as to be able to compete better. Privatization is of course out of the question, especially since the fewer companies that use the ports, and fewer boats that come, because of the poor service and infrastructure, only move the ports closer to plan 1 above, where they will get back the NIS 350 million as state grants to failing industries.
Plan 7 is another version of plan 1, in which the state forces taxpayers to pay for companies that have no economic reason for being there, other than to provide jobs for people who otherwise would be employed by the state in archaeological digs, parks, the Employment Service or taking vacations (plans 1,3, 4, and 5). In this case the taxpayer is likely to be forced to pay twice, first for funding the merged company (which by the way, has decided to keep both separate companies functioning; no room for efficiency here) and then by paying higher prices for all wood products in Israel as duties raise the price of imports. (See an upcoming IASPS Policy Studies on import duties.)
Plan 8, finally, is yet another example of make-work programs in action. The cabinet saved the Employment Service the worry of running after private headhunters to find work for several members of a self-destructed party with no public support, who obviously would be out of work after the next elections. Notice to the Employment Service as per plan 5 above: 2 down, 1998 to go. After all, had the cabinet not made these two people ministers and given them cars and chauffeurs and office staff, they might have had to go to work on the archeological digs, in the parks, or in the Employment Service or ports, or worse – to go on vacations.
In sum, we have an entire country designed from the start to produce as little as possible as inefficiently as possible, in which no one, from factory worker to Cabinet minister, takes responsibility for his decision or his life, and in which the government confiscates the property of the few who are left paying taxes in order to give others Potemkin factories, archeology, Employment Service bureaus, vacations, educations and cabinet posts.
Happy days are here again.
I admit: I just don't get it. I think we ought to be consistent. Who among us would smile beneficently if we learned that we were giving these BILLIONS to Hungary every year, so that Hungary could feed its aparatchiks?
When fighting cockroaches, we need all the help we can get.
Is this, then, uniformly true everywhere? I thought this was the hallmark of the Clinton Doctrine: "Identify cockroaches wherever they may be, go there and bomb them from great altitudes."
The point isn't whether or not Palestinian Arabs are "cockroaches" (and in any other context but this one, this would be termed a "racist post" on your part, but hey! we're into hating Arabs these days).
The point is that WE, the U.S., have NO, repeat NO! vested interest in our involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is a quagmire into which we never should have trod, and from which we STILL have great need to extricate ourselves.
Unfortunately Israel has a tough lobby in D.C., that doesn't give a d*mn about American interests so long as this socialist utopia that we call "Israel" is served.
The Oklahoma bombing, for one, was not committed by Muslims. I won't assume that it's the only terrorist crime committed by non-Muslims against Americans in the past 20 years.
Otherwise, Israel is a socialist quagmire, that depends on equal parts largesse from U.S. foreign aid and American Jewish benevolence.
I am going in a TOTALLY different direction, here. I am ready to allow Israel and the Palestinians to work this thing out all by their lonesomes, with NO U.S. aid or interference.
I am prepared to have foreign aid to Israel from the U.S. STOPPED. It is time that Israel goes it alone. Time to walk by itself.
Our intervention, no matter how it has been couched, has brought US nothing but trouble, and we are on the losing side no matter what.
Time to get out of the "nation-building" business.
Is that what you believe?
Not according to Tims lawyer.
Court TV Host: Is there anything else to be learned about the bombing and the possible involvement of others?
Tim Sullivan: I think he was 29 at the time... There was very likely a conspiracy somewhat larger than McVeigh and Nichols. Michael Fortier was prosecuted for withholding his knowledge of the crime, and many have long believed he was more involved than he or the government ever admitted. Also, some observers and journalists believe there were three or four others involved in the conspiracy. In his book "Others Unknown" lawyer Stephen Jones, who represented McVeigh at trial, explains his theory of a broad, global conspiracy going back to Saddam Hussein.
KimIsland asks: Well, who was involved or thought to be involved in the conspiracy?
Tim Sullivan: There were a few white supremacists who hung out at a compound in Oklahoma, as Dennis Mahon and Carl Strassmeier, who where suspected by some. Also, the ATF had an informer named Carol Howe, who testified that those two and others apparently knew about the plot. Stephen Jones implicates both Ramzi Yousef and Osama Bin Laden as possible suspects.
And once we abandon them to their own devices and they are attacked by the Arab states surrounding them should we stop them from taking back all the land they have lost in peace negoiations since 1967?
If they once again overrun all of their enemies lands should we once again stop them in their advance on Cairo? We have done more to tie Israels hands in the middle east than we have done to aid them.
Well, do we need to go and tell the Tamil Tigers to give back the land they have taken? Do we need to settle the disputes in Myanmar? Indonesia?
My point is (and I think this is simple enough to understand) unless it is directly pertinent to U.S. interests abroad, let's just STAY OUT OF IT.
Your terrorist compadres have destroyed the notion of moral equivalence with their animalistic attack on American citizens. If this action was perpetrated to dampen support for Israel in the U.S., then it was one of the most historic strategic blunders ever committed anywhere. Whether you like it or not...the American people have focused on an enemy. And the focus is not on Israel.
There seem to be several threads connecting the people who disapprove of our actions against the Moslems (Arabs). Illbay is a good example of the arguments used by those who would shy away from a conclusive response to those who committed – and those who approve – of this unique act of aggression.
The first arguments is that the Arabs “resent” the US. My response is OK, that’s their problem. The successful are often resented by the unsuccessful. Example:
I grew up as a poor immigrant. My father worked as a factory janitor and my mother worked as a housekeeper for a wealthy family. I could have resented their prosperity. Instead, I wanted to achieve what this wealthy family achieved. Today, after working like hell, I’m more than comfortable. If I had nurtured resentment, I would have devoted myself to pulling the wealthy down – to my own detriment. Instead, I nurtured achievement, and became successful.
The second argument is that the Arabs hate us because of our support of Israel. That may be partially true, but is not the issue. Bin Laden hates us because of our presence in Saudi Arabia - not our support of Israel. We are “polluting” holy ground. Remove Israel, and we would still be polluting holy ground. We are there because we – and the entire world – depend on the free flow of oil to sustain a modern civilization.
Initially, American and European companies discovered and developed the oil reserves of the Middle East. They were expropriated by the Arab governments in the 1950s. Because the Arabs did not have the technical expertise to operate the oil fields, they allowed the companies to continue to operate the fields, but took most of the profits. This converted in the poor, backwards Arab sheiks, princes and kings of the Gulf region into fabulously wealthy plutocrats with fleets of Rolls Royces, airplanes and palaces with gold fixtures. One way of characterizing this bunch is the most successful robbers of all time.
Some of this wealth was distributed to their subjects. However, most of it was used for opulence that would make the Gilded Age plutocrats blush – with damned little of the “little people.” However, the xenophobia and cultural attitudes have not changed from when the wealthiest of the kings was defined by the size of his camel herd. They have just been magnified by their vast wealth.
In order to retain their power, and keep those who envied their wealth at bay, these plutocrats funded a fanatical religious sect that exceeds anything known in the West. A sect that thrives on hatred of all things Western and preaches the killing of non-Moslems. . The payoff to the mullahs was a substitute for – and in some cases – an accompaniment to, a police state.
The chickens have now come home to roost. Words do have consequences. Preaching hatred and death gets results. We can’t deny this destiny without committing suicide. Nothing else will satisfy our enemies. And there are actually fools who think that our withdrawal from the middle East will satisfy those we identify us as the Great Satan. And if we throw Israel to the wolves in the bargain (our deluded “friends” say) – hey, let’s let the Arabs finish what Hitler started.
Love and peace.
I don't care what happens to them, nothing you can say could make me care.
But only for that reason, NOT for the convenience of Israel. Or India, for that matter.
You have no idea what you're talking about. If you're really interested in my opinion, then do a search. Find out what I really have to say, instead of applying your template.
This moderate-Arab "price" for their support should be heavy US pressure on Israel to withdraw to the 1967 lines, construction of a strong security fence, and the rapid construction of a Palestinian state in what is now Israeli-occupied Palestinian lands.
BAWAHAHHAHAH
I doubt Israel will agree. This Palestinian state will be an impoverished rat hole just like Syria. It will degenerate into an Afghanistan. My rule for Muslim nations is that they are always poor with high birthrates. Just look at the Jihadist breeding ground that Pakistan is. The only ones with any measure of comfortable living are some (not all) of the oil producers.
And what about the PLO pushing for millions of Palestinians moving inside Israel's borders? What happens with this one? Your ideas will never happen. Not while GWBush is president. He won't force Israel to accept an Afghanistan on its borders. Right up against Jerusalem and other Israeli cities.
You are good for laughs son!
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