Posted on 06/24/2002 12:48:28 PM PDT by RCW2001
Bush Middle East Speech Discussion Thread
Bush did NOT endorse all of Mitchell, he brought up an item from within Mitchell, and you better hope he doesn't bring more of Mitchell as that will require your muslim boyfriends STOPPING TERRORISM.Damn, now it's "boyfriends". Where's your next post going to go? Will it even be coherent? This is hilarious. >:)
Actually, the President made it very clear that terrorism has to stop, and I doubt that anyone on these boards disagrees with him there. But he specifically invoked Mitchell on your anschluss lobby. A subtle message, but a clear one.
-Eric
-Eric
IMHO, he has called it, but at the same time, I think it is becoming clear that a fair number of the Palestinian desire nothing but odds with Israel. To be very blunt, they seem to feel quite happy with a thug like Arafat.Personally, I think they've been attacking the wrong people, though it was good to see the attacks on Hamas from both Israel and the PA increase.Israel cannot be expected to negotiate or give in to the threat of terror. Were I in their place, I would keep doing what I am doing, since a sign of weakness would only encourage the thugs and hoodlums perpetrating the murder-suicide bombings.
As far as I can tell Israel's being asked to do precisely one thing: freeze settlement activity. I'd like to see how the Palestinian people react to a true freeze, and perhaps a rollback of particularly problematic settlements like Hebron. If it's positive, then roll them back further.
It's clear from this thread that many Israel-backers aren't the least bit willing to do even that. Clearly we'll need to keep an eye on both sides.
-Eric
I fail to understand how a Jewish family building a house down the road from a Palestinian village, raising their children and studying the Torah, is an "act of terror" of the same magnitude as blowing people up at bus stops and pizza parlors. I simply can't see how these two things are equally evil or that the settlement thing is "more evil" than mass murders.
Now, Israel has to decide what those territories are. Are they now part of Israel proper? Begin, Sharon, and Netanyahu says "it is not the occupied territories" but Samaria and Judea. It belongs to Israel. Israelis have the right to build homes and settlements on it.
According to UN resolution 242... these occupied territories should not have settlers and settlements transfered to them.
Politicians like Peres, Abba Eban, Moshe Dayan (at first), Rabin, etc. say these lands belong to the Palestinians. It is our intent to always turn them back over and make a Palestinian state...
This divide is crucial. If the territories are indeed occupied, promised to the Palestinian Arabs for their own state... then should Israel be building settlements in another country? How do you draw borders?
According to Oslo, the PA has been given authority and self-rule in the Gaza Strip... but Israel constantly builds new settlements. If the Palestinians get their state, what becomes of the settlements? Of the Israelis who have built their lives there? Right now, those settlements are armed camps.
The Religious Parties also build in the settlements. They have been careful to build on unoccupied lands, but in places like Hebron, those settlements live on top of Arab cities. How do you divide that up?
Every time a new settlement goes in, it proves to the Palestinians that Israel has no intention of ever giving them self rule.
So, this divide is huge is Israeli politics. According to the world and in American foreign policies... from Johnson on... Israel is an "occupying" force - illegally building settlements on land that does not belong to them.
Likud on the other hand said no sovereignity for Palestine. Self rule in their cities and municipalities, but those territories conquered in 1967 are Israel's.
This is how I understand the situation. Others can add there understanding.
Until the murder-suicide bombings (IMHO, it is a much more accurate term than just homocide bombings) stop, I wouldn't pull the settlements out. I don't give ground in the face of such barbaric attacks, otherwise I could encourage further attacks for new demands down the road.That will probably be the approach. Even though he endorsed the statement that the settlements are illegal, the President only asked them to freeze activity....which has been requested and ignored before.It's the Palestinians' choice, but they should choose wisely.
There's no doubt that the presence of the settlements aggravate tensions that the terrorists use to advance their agenda. There's also no doubt that it's by no means entirely the fault of the Palestinians.
I'd like to see both sides back away from this mess. If the Palis only back away and the Israelis hold firm (or worse, step things up) it can only lead to disaster. The reverse is also true.
-Eric
I guess my question is, why do the Arabs insist on a "Jew free" Palestine while at the same time they demand a "right of return" for 3 million Arabs to swamp and overwhelm Israel. There are 1.2 Arab citizens of Israel but the Palestinians want their state to be entirely Judenrein. If the two states are going to live together in mutual coexistence then there should be Jewish Palestinians the same way that there are Israeli Arabs.
Hebron is a holy city, the second holiest city to the Jews. Jews lived in Hebron for thousands of years. The only reason the "settlements" are so heavily fortified is because the Arabs and their supporters refuse to allow the possibility of Jews living among them. Until they welcome Jewish citizens the same way that the Israelis welcome Arab citizens, they haven't achieved the democratic spirit insisted on by the President.
People could then ask, well, why would Jews want to live in Palestine when they have Israel? The reason is that it is still the Holy Land even if we are in galus (diaspora). Thirty years ago if anyone suggested that someday American Jews would want to go and live in Russia people would think they were nuts. But governments change and I know some American Jews (very close family members) who now live in Moscow.
I fail to understand how a Jewish family building a house down the road from a Palestinian village, raising their children and studying the Torah, is an "act of terror" of the same magnitude as blowing people up at bus stops and pizza parlors. I simply can't see how these two things are equally evil or that the settlement thing is "more evil" than mass murders.It would not be. But the settlements are rarely that benign, and the entire settlement movement is based on the premise that the West Bank should be annexed to Israel. Typically, the settlements are armed camps. While many of the settlers are people who are there for cheap housing or because that's where Israel put them, a large number are zealots who hate the Arabs and believe they should be expelled from their homes.
In the past this has lead to tensions, and the IDF has sided with the settlers. If there was trouble between a settlement and a Palestinian village, the IDF would destroy houses in the village, regardless of who started the trouble.
Even today, the settlements get preferences which harm the Palestinian villages. They have "by-pass roads" which chop up the Palestinian territories, making travel and trade difficult or impossible. They have preferences on water, up to 85% of the water in some areas is reserved for the settlements. They fill swimming pools and water lush lawns while Palestinian groves and farms dry up and fail.
As I said, many of the settlers are as hateful as any Hamas activist. If an Arab community in Israel built a shrine to a suicide bomber, the outcry would be tremendous, for good reason. In the settlement of Kiryat Arba, a shrine was built at the grave of Baruch Goldstein, who shot and killed 29 Palestinians while they prayed in a mosque. This was too much even for the IDF, who dismantled it after getting a court order to do so. Zealots protested the dismantling and even threatened to desecrate the grave of Yitzak Rabin, the former PM who was killed by a zealot.
So in the eyes of the Palestinians, the settlers aren't the innocent family you described. Their viewpoint is largely justified, and international law is on their side. Indeed, the situation is a textbook example of why the Geneva Convention forbade the transfer of a Power's citizens into occupied territories.
-Eric
Because they are Arabs. They don't recognize the right of one Jew to be in Israel. They don't want Israelis in Palestine because it belongs to Arabs. They want the right of return so that they can systematically take over in population and politically and end the Jewish state. If the prime minister of Israel was Arab in nationality, policy and world view, would the Israelis stay?
I guess my question is, why do the Arabs insist on a "Jew free" Palestine while at the same time they demand a "right of return" for 3 million Arabs to swamp and overwhelm Israel. There are 1.2 Arab citizens of Israel but the Palestinians want their state to be entirely Judenrein. If the two states are going to live together in mutual coexistence then there should be Jewish Palestinians the same way that there are Israeli ArabsArafat has dropped the "Right of Return" from the PAs demands.
-Eric
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