It was nice enjoying the news of no bombings in Israel until the bus bombing in Jeruselum, thus resulting in the all out strike against Hamas by Israel the next day.

Now, Hamas is declaring war on Israel again after the attack on a Hamas leader.

Question: IS the chance for peace in the middle east over?

For the time being, the peace process has been halted (once again... )

I believe that the process will make a comeback eventually. Arabs and Jews have to live together. They don't have any choice but to achieve that goal, even if many people hate each other on each side. Anyway, it would be folly to think that one of them would simply leave the land to the other.

Abbas is currently dealing with tremendous difficulty. He's threatening Arafat to resign from office, if he doesn't declare both the Hamas and Islamic Jihad outlaws. Arafat is concerned about civil war among the Palestinians, that's why he's reluctant to start a chase. Abbas is a courageous man, and it's my hope that he gets the support of EU and US and the understanding of Israel and the Palestinian people.

Now, the declaration made by the Hamas is a joke indeed. Hamas and Israel have been at war since the beginning!

The peace process will endure and survive.

It all depends on whether the Palestinian PM can control the terrorist factions, and if Sharon can control the loonies in Israel as well, everyone wants peace in the Middle East except for the extremists on either side.

CP

Yeah, because that Hamas leader ok'd the murder of innocent people, including children with that bus bombing.
There will never be lasting peace, unfortunately.

I think that the peace process will come back but not until Arafat is taken care of because he is basically the guy who runs Hamas.

Arafat needs to be taken out and Hamas needs to be hunted down member by member

GoAmerica, are you certain of your supposition? Arafat has certainly been a terrorist in the 70's (the PLO actually invented plane-jacking), but no more today.

The Hamas and Islamic Jihad have only been 'protected' until now because they are part of the Palestinian people as a whole. If I imagine yourself as the leader of Palestine, I can imagine how difficult it would be to have to fight some of my own people, even if they are murderers.

I think it is clearly the responsibility of any sovereign people to punish the murderers in their society. The forms of Palestinian leadership have so far not been willing to help enforce a rule a of law among their own people.

Palestine will not become or survive as a state unless they are able to drive terrorism from its borders.

Unless both sides are willing to take some of the blame, nationalist extremists will continuously force the peace process to be suspended. That means the PLO needs to control terrorists, or Israel will rightfully counter-attack. On the flip side, when Israel counter-attacks, they need to make sure innocents are not harmed in any way.

CP

Funny that you never see any Palestinian march against the sucide bombings!



Arafat has little influence these days, his role is the fact that he is trusted by the people and has a symbolic significance in terms of politics. Replacing Arafat will make things worse not better, since nobody could stop the Islamists (Hamas etc), Arafat for better or worse, represents the secular nationilist strand within the Palestinian people.



BTW, I don't know whether any of you know anything about the world of intelligence, but the Okhrana (the Russian secret police) successfully penetrated revolutionary terrorist organisations so well that they used terrorism for their own agenda. Shin Bao, the domestic Isreali secret police, has successfully penetrated Hamas, Islamic Jihad etc, does Sharon have his own agenda here? He is close to the hardline head of Shin Bao. What I'm getting at is that Sharon and the hard-line camp within Isreal may see terrorism as a means to destroy the peace process.

Thomas: That's probably because they're afraid of being shot by an Israeli soldier, they don't have that luxery unfortunately.

CP

Sharon *IS* one of the loonies on the Israeli side and many of the terrrorst factions on the Palestinian side don't listen to Arafat, so it'll be a long road to anything resembling peace in the Middle East.

Arafat is NO saint, that's why Israel refuses to work with him and that's why Palestine has a PM. Arafat is an instigator and hasn't cracked down on the extremists because he supports them and therefore makes the PM's job that much harder because Arafat undermines him.

No, Sharon is a coward, he is too afraid that he wouldn't get re-elected if he stood up to the extremists in his own country. On the other side, PM Abbas is just as cowardly for not standing up to terrorists in his country.

CP

What?! Sharon has been pushed in a corner to release prisoners (known terrorists) relinquish lands and make every consession for the "road map" and STILL his country gets bombed! Sharon is NO coward but rather has given up too much in the name of peace because the end result is still death. He's in a loose-loose situation.

Yes, however, he does nothing to stop Israeli extremists. He is doing a good job however, giving the PLO what they want.

CP

What Israeli extremists? The ones who retaliate against the murder of innocent children and citizens by killing terrorists? That's called a direct order and that's justified. What extremists are you referring to and give examples of what they've done lately?

BTW, he's doing what the UN and US are asking of him by making those consessions for the road map to peace.

Yes, however, he does nothing to stop Israeli extremists. He is doing a good job however, giving the PLO what they want.

CP

Okay..... You're repeating yourself. I can't debate that.

No, I noted that he has been pretty decent recently, but doesn't try to swade radical Israelis from hating Palestinians no matter what. And no, those aren't the Israelis I was talking about, I'm talking about the ones that hate all Palestinians, terrorists or otherwise, the ones who want to continue putting Palestinians on the street, no matter what.

CP

You don't see Israelis suicide bombing Palestinians. The Israelis have only been defending their country since they were invaded in 1948. The Palestinian leadership does not want a state side by side with Israel. Sharon obviously does want that. What is Sharon supposed to do? Force them to accept a state, let his country be attacked... What? The only effective defense against Hamas is force since they don't want to negotiate.

The reason for this is that Israel has a professional military. They respond to suicide bombings with tank and helicopter gunship attacks, rather than other suicide bombings

And they go after terrorists and do not target innocent children. The Israelis own up to their justified retaliations, unlike the Palestinians who hide behind the actions of their government backed terrorist.

Israel is defending themselves. Just like what we did in Afghanistan after 9/11.



Personally, i'd find out where Arafat is sleeping one night, parachute drop a commando team on his roof, capture him, and try his butt for being the terrorist that he is because he is the one that is fanning the flames and making Abbas look like a weakling

Actually, Israel's military has launched tank attacks on several Palistinian refugee camps in the past, which were completely unnecessary, killing innocent civilians; IMO bordering on state terrorism - not quite like Afghanistan.

UN press release concerning an Israeli attack on a refugee camp, killing a 4-year-old child

BBC report on an attack by Israeli forces on a Gaza refugee camp, killing 2 and injuring 50

Edited to add: very interesting stratergy, goamerica! I don't think it would stop attacks on either side though.

What a pantload.

The poor innocent suffering Palestinians you are supporting are HIDING THE TERRORISTS!

When the Palestinian people as a whole decide they love their lives more than they hate the Jews, Israel wouldn't have to do roll tanks into towns. Israel has no other choice to defend itself because the Palestinian people are harboring the terrorists. If the Israelis know where the terrorist are, you can bet you butt the Palestinians do.

If the Israelis didn't care about the loss of innocent life, the west bank and Gaza would never see a tank. All they would see is aircraft and missles. The Israeli army would never lose another life. From 5 miles away, they can take out anybody anyplace.

Instead, they put themselves in harms way to seek out and destroy the terrorists. Unfortunatly, some idiots feel the need to stand in front of houses of people hiding terrorists so bulldozers can mow them down.

ALL Palestinians need to become involved in the peace process if they truly want peace. Harboring terrorists is no different than being a terrorist.

For decades now, spurious scholarship has been used by pro-Israeli US citizens to spread myths concerning Israel’s relationship with our government and to water down its brutal treatment of Palestinians. These myths must be debunked in order to assure that a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians is achieved.

The United Nations has deemed Israel an “Occupying Power” which obligates the state of Israel to abide by pertinent human rights conventions and protocols of international law that deal with the occupation of foreign land and occupied persons.

The Israeli human rights group B’tselem has documented Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes where the inhabitants had nothing to do with terrorism, but were in the way of illegal settlement expansion, countless times. Destruction of civilian homes with no links of violence toward the occupying power is illegal according to Article 53 of the 4th Geneva Convention that states, “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or co-operative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.” The destruction of homes belonging to Palestinians without any connection to violence can never be “rendered absolutely necessary” and this destruction only fuels resentment and leads to despair.

Israel continues to build settlements illegally according to Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention, where it states, “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Israeli settlers control over 42% of the West Bank, not including the land Israel has seized to build its “security fence,” and of this percentage, only a miniscule portion has been used for housing units with the rest of it allocated by Israel to settler councils. Furthermore, no Palestinian may live or use this land, which impedes Palestinian movement and makes economic vitality almost impossible. Important water sources, such as springs and aquifers, and other natural resources most times go first to Israeli settlements and the amount Palestinians may use or have access to in many cases is up to the Israeli army.

With these violations, moderates are marginalized and fanatics are able to sweep the desperate masses under their wings. Hamas has so much support because it has an extensive and structured social service wing that provides education, food and shelter to families that have been victims of collective punishment. That is why you saw our administration send $17 million directly to Abbas to undermine support for Hamas. Abbas' latest numbers show him with a 4% approval rating. How can this new leader gain any favor with the Palestinian people after they know he was hand-picked by the US and Israel. Arafat is a crazy and corrupt leader, but he is the face of a sustained and structured resistance to Israeli occupation. That is what got him elected.

Israel continues to blow up Palestinian civil infrastructure impeding the Palestinian people from making any real grassroots reform within the PA. As we continue to impede and not allow Palestinians to dictate who rules them and how he is chosen, they will be dependent upon the PA and have a hard transfer to a free, democratic state by 2005.

DaytonRocker, I do not support the Palestinians, all I was saying was that I do not support the Isrealis either. I think that the Palestinian government is hiding terrorists, but I also think the way Isreal responds to terror attacks itself borders on terrorism. I do not agree with the way either side is handling the situation.

To better understand where everyone is coming from in this debate, what type of research have some of you done to better inform yourselves?

Has anyone actually been in both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories?

I'm just wondering. I want to know what books people have read and what web resources you may use as well.

I've been to Israel. I visited it in 1999 with my company (it was a business/leisure trip).

We stayed in Nethanya (by the coast) at the hotel and we visited different cities : Capharnaum, Afula, Tiberiades' lake, the dead Sea, Massada, Jerusalem, the Southern desert, Nazareth and Bethlehem.

Israel looks pretty much like Nevada, Utah or Arizona to the south (without cacti), close to Egypt and Saudi Arabia and more like Virginia to the North, close to Syria and Lebanon.

People were friendly, proud, and tired of fighting. The Palestinians we met reacted the same. The level of life between the two communities is comparable to the difference between the US and Mexico. It's quite startling and disturbing at the same time.

My best memory was when I missed our bus to Jerusalem. I had to take the local line bus instead... People were very genuine : farmers with turbans, old rabbi, and even young soldiers boarding the bus with loaded riffle guns! (very disturbing). Eventually, my trip ended in Jerusalem, Capital of the Three most important religions in our world.

I got lost in the bazaar (colorful and smelly) but people were really nice to me. Finally, I found my teammates at the Wailing Wall. I prayed there with the Jews (I'm a Catholic myself) and I added a new roll of paper between the stones of the Great Wall, along with the millions posted before.

Visiting the land were Jesus lived was a wonderful journey for me, both on the outside and the inside.

Ignore them both and let them fight until one of them kills the other.

It saves Bush time and sanity because these 2 will not stop fighting until they kill each other.

But what do you mean, "ignore?" The Israeli military has only been capable of its wars and occupations because of our massive military aid. Does "ignoring" them mean withdrawing all aid?

You make it sound like the outcome would be up in the air, but such a fight would be over in less than one day. If we ignore them, and what's happening escalates into open war, and Israel brings the full might of its military down upon the Palestinians, all of the Middle East will rise against them. It will be the beginning of WW3, and we will have no choice but to become involved. Years later, astute historians will say, "gee, we probably shouldn't have ignored them; we may have been able to help prevent this war."

But hey, if it saves our Dear Leader's time and sanity, let's do it! And gee, we could run bets on how many casualties there will be!

What we ought to do is simply give Israel an ultimatum: withdraw to pre 1967 borders immediately, or lose 100% of America's aid. No more helicopters. No more guns. No more missiles. No more tanks. No more money. In Jerusalem, adapt Tom Clancy's idea, which I've always liked - put it under the governance of a triumverate - three clerics, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim. And have it policed by the Swiss guard.

This article by a concerned isreali puts into focus the moral and political collapse within isreal.



http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.08.29/oped3.html

There is huge corruption and red tape in Isreal, something that American Zionists always ignore and the whole country is imploding under a Zionist Socialist milterism.

The Zionist enterprise, by building itself on the houses and lives of the native Arab peoples there back in the thirties was doomed in the long-term to faiure, this is the tragedy.

Personally, I believe Israel should retaliate to the next terroist attack with a nuclear strike. Palastein was never much to look at anyway and surrounding countries would most likely actually start cracking down on their terroists groups.
My father served over in that region in peacekeeping tour and told stories of how the people have bars where automatic weapons are leaned up against walls and even one outragous story of how they were using a Uzi for a game of spin the bottle. How a man crossed the West Bank with explosives strapped to himself, prepared to give his life in order to take a few of theirs (He was shot as he made his way onto shore) . People who are willing to go to such extremes will not back down over a few words of "friendship".
We were outraged and terrorfied after 9-11, imagine that ever day, with your enemy able to drive just over the border.

A nuclear strike???? No way. The fallout would definetly effect Israelis and not to mention the economic ripples that would shake the world. And instead of getting other countries to crack down, it would cause more terrorist cells to pop up and attack Israel.