Last night’s CBC National featured another heart-wrenching piece by Adrienne Arsenault, reporting on the desperate measures of a besieged Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip to protect their children from the anticipated onslaught of remorseless Israeli tanks.
As she described the “booby-trapped sand berm” behind her…
mp3 audio 300 kb
ogg audio 99kb
(This won’t be current for long, but click here to view the entire broadcast. It begins with a report on BC forest fires).
update – The facts that Arsenault omits.
no, the palestinians were itching for a fight on this one.
sadly the israelis fell for it in the same old way.
they need some new material over there to get out of the rut.
She sounds almost proud of these terrorists. I wonder how long till she picks up a gun and joins them?
starts at 14:30 or so
Adrienne’s expression is easily identifiable as that of a self-loving morally narcissistic moonbat set upon mischief.
Palestinians really LOVE their children – especially when the tykes are dressed in martyr’s robes with those cute fake bombs strapped on (and not always fakem, either).
CBC == al-Reuters Canada
Arsenine is no better than the regulars for al-Reuters who film the guys in action.
I was flipping back and forth between CBC and CTV news last night, and it was interesting to note that CTV led with the North Korean missle story, while CBC led with forest fire, then went to a story about a heavy rain storm in Ottawa, then to the war memorial pissing story, then to a new case of mad cow disease, and then, and then, after the commercial break (the lead in to commercial was about some strange geographical formations at the bottom of a BC lake) they finally got around to the missle test.
Who is in charge of prioritizing news stories at the mother corp anyway???
Karl, you should know better than to question the grand old Mother Corp!
They know what we want to hear about and especially how Canadians think. (re: social issues)
Don’t they?
I saw that piece last night, and it was framed as a “starving-in-Africa” humanitarian disaster for the “innocent” Pals, with Mommy Arse-And-All in there with them feeling their pain.
Has CBC mentioned this?
Children are used as “human shields” by the terrorists of Gaza/West Bank. Meanwhile, the Hamas leaders, burrow deeper into their rat-holes. …-
Hamas Leaders Cower
Hamas leaders cower and hide.
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Hiding in friends’ houses with their mobile phones switched off, Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya and his ministers are behaving more like an underground organisation than an elected government.
Imagine that. In a sane world, that’s exactly what they would be. … via LGF … more
Charles Krauthammer insists that we Remember What Happened Here.
What is so remarkable about the current wave of violence in Gaza is that the event at the origin of the “cycle” is not at all historical, but very contemporary. The event is not buried in the mists of history. It occurred less than one year ago. Before the eyes of the whole world, Israel left Gaza. Every Jew, every soldier, every military installation, every remnant of Israeli occupation was uprooted and taken away.
How do the Palestinians respond? What have they done with Gaza, the first Palestinian territory in history to be independent, something neither the Ottomans nor the British nor the Egyptians nor the Jordanians, all of whom ruled Palestinians before the Israelis, ever permitted? On the very day of Israel’s final pullout, the Palestinians began firing rockets out of Gaza into Israeli towns on the other side of the border. And remember: those are attacks not on settlers but on civilians in Israel proper, the pre-1967 Israel that the international community recognizes as legitimately part of sovereign Israel, a member state of the U.N. A thousand rockets have fallen since.
For what possible reason? Before the withdrawal, attacks across the border could have been rationalized with the usual Palestinian mantra of occupation, settlements and so on. But what can one say after the withdrawal? ???
Well, at the risk of being a ‘flame-thrower’, I’ll say that it isn’t as simple as you guys are defining the situation: Israel=The Good Guys and Palestine=The Bad Guys. That only happens in one of my favorite type of movie- the simple Die Hard type where it is, indeed, all very black and white.
Israel insists on Palestine recognizing it. Fine. Fatah did that long ago, but, like our very own Liberal Party, like the UN, like so much, Fatah became extremely, deeply corrupt. Hamas, which didn’t recognize Israel, had moved into the welfare gap left by the corrupt Fatah, which was primarily interested in enriching its elite – and was looking after many of the social services unmet by Fatah. So, the Palestinians voted for Hamas. Because of that.
Now – Israel has a role in this whole scenario. It isn’t a hapless helpless innocent. First, it should and this should have happened long ago, recognize a Palestinian state. It has never, ever, done that. The Oslo Accords did not recognize a Palestinian state. No. They were only about municipal style self-gov’t, dealing only with local issues of culture, education, health. Nothing about borders, resources, defense. All, all, of that was left within Israeli control. Some state.
So, Israel should recognize that Palestinians do exist; the land wasn’t empty back in 1946 but was filled with farmers who actually had legal title to their property and who fled. Israel should recognize that these Palestinians exist, they aren’t going to be absorbed by Jordan or Egypt who have openly refused to absorb them.
Acknowledge that they have a right to land and an economy. Stop the occuptation of the land allotted to them. Stop settling that land with those huge, irrigated, defended settlements. Give it back to them.
And then, deal with some monetary compensation for the ‘right of return’.
So, if Israel would only recognize the Palestinians have a right to a state, would cease the occupation, stop settling that Palestinian state – then, then, I think there would be a very strong chance for peace. It is an error, I consider, to merge the islamic fascist agenda of Al Qaeda with the Palestinian-Israel situation. The two have nothing to do with each other. Al Qaeda and the ME mov’t out of tribalism wasn’t a factor in 1946, but Israel-Palestine was.
How can a people, deprived of any economy, any land base, any self-gov’t, react to this occupation and deprivation, except by illogic, by emotion, by hatred? What do you expect? Love?
Israel’s agenda now,is to destroy the elected gov’t of the Palestinians – Hamas, by insisting that it is and can only be, terrorist and that it can’t make the change from terrorism to political governance. [Heck, Israel’s major presidents were originally part of their own terrorist mov’t, and were able to move out of that mode and into a political mode.]
Without a gov’t, without an economy, what’s left for the Palestinians? They are locked into hatred and revenge, which has become their sole reason for life. Do you seriously think this is genetic? No. No, it’s isn’t islamofascism; it isn’t a fight to return to tribalism. It’s about being occupied, deprived of an economy, of self-gov’t, of educational progress, of hope, for a whole generation. That does something to the psyche.
ET,
You’re a bleeding heart. Sounds like apologism to me. The Palestinians have blown every opportunity they’ve had to settle this. Their response time after time has been more terror. Their declared intention is the destruction of the Israel. Their every action confirms this.
But maybe you’re inadvertently onto something. Israel should recognize the Palistinian state. Then the next time a missile or suicide bomber is used against Israel they can take it as an implicit declaration of war. Israel can then declare war in return and drive the Palestinians into the sea. Problem solved.
Actually, jr, I don’t consider myself a ‘bleeding heart’ or apologist. I’m neutral, and looking at the situation, I hope, from both sides. Most people seem to take one or the other side. I hope I’m not.
But I wonder what you would do, if your lands and home had been taken from you, with no compensation and you had been told to get out, simply because Another People were now moving in. How would you feel about the loss of your farm, your income, your home? Without compensation?
Then, you are informed by the UN, that part of the territory would be your state, and part would be the state of The Other People. But, this doesn’t happen. Not only are you not compensated for your lost farm and house, but, you are not allowed to return to it. And, Israel moves in an occupies the total area that was supposed to be for Your State. Occupies it, and you are a secondary citizen, without rights, without land, in camps.
Then, their citizens start to move in and settle this land that was supposed to be for your state. Settle it, irrigate it – you are denied water for irrigation, you are told you may only use water for limited personal use, but not for farming. So, they build settlements on your new land, use the water to irrigate it, and, you are kept out. Not allowed in. Your peasant olive farms nearby are bulldozed for these settlements. No compensation.
If you have a peasant farm, you’ll find that the settlers will go out in the night and cut down your trees, destroy your harvest, shoot at you if you walk to those fields.
What can you do?
Why the occupation? Why not give the land back, not settle it, and permit a Palestinian state?? That’s what I don’t get. Why won’t Israel acknowledge Palestinians? Instead, they try all kinds of verbiage semantics to ‘prove’ there’s no such people as Palestinians. That’s like saying that it’s not raining during a thunderstorm. Words can’t deny reality.
They inform the Palestinians to ‘go home to Jordan or Egypt. But, their home is, for centuries, in Palestine. And, Jordan and Egypt refuse to take them.
So- what should you do?
Why, rather than occupy the lands, settle them with illegal settlements, why doesn’t Israel simply say – ‘ah to heck with it, we’ll take over the land completely. No occupation. All people living in Gaza and the West Bank are citizens of Israel.
You know that they will never, ever, do that. Because that would end the Jewish majority in Israel.
So- you can’t be a citizen of Israel because you are the wrong religion. You can’t be a citizen of Palestine because Israel refuses to recognize such a state. You can’t leave because Jordan, Egypt etc, don’t want you. You’ve lost everything, with no compensation for farms, houses, property. How would you feel?
Wouldn’t you be, just a tad, just a bit, angry? And then, the world gets all huffy because you explode in anger? What do they expect after a generation of such treatment? Love?
Again, if Israel would only recognize that Palestinians aren’t fictions, they are real people, and require their own state. A real state. End the occupation, end the settlements and give Palestine the West Bank and Gaze, and some compensation for their property. Then, sit back, and watch them build their own state. At the moment, they have nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except hate. What do you expect? How would you behave in such a situation?
ET
In order to recognise a “palestinian” (whatever that means) state, the Israelis will have to declare the borders of that state. You leftists think the state will consist of Pre-1967 Gaza and the West Bank, which I might add, were “occupied” by the Egyptians and Jordanians respectively. You might want to check out the conditions of THOSE occupations, before you slam Israel so hard.
The future was always the “palestinians'” to screw up. Note that under the terms of the 1967 ceasefire (the Arabs refused to sign a peace treaty at the time) the Pre-1967 borders were RECOGNISED by the UN to be INDEFENSIBLE, given the Arabs’ penchant for genocidal anti-Jewish warfare. (The fact the Arabs lost was not Israel’s fault).
Under the terms of the ceasefire, the Jews got to stay in Gaza, Sinai, and the West Bank, ostensibly until the Arab states could get around to making peace with Israel.
When that happened (after yet another Arab sneak attack on Israel, a colossal war crime of biblical proportions) in which Syrian officers ordered the murder of Israeli POW’s because “the Geneva Convention does not apply to Jews”, the Arab states of Egypt, and ultimately Jordan made that peace with Israel. Syria is still at war with Israel, by the way, so Israel is legally entitled to invade at any time, under International Law.
The holdover was Gaza (the Egyptians had seen what the Gazans had become, and wanted nothing to do with it) and the West Bank. Ironically if the Arabs had not invaded in 73, Gaza and the West Bank would probably be Egyptian / Jordanian respectively by now. So much for your “palestinian” state.
But, the 1967 borders have again been shown (by the ’73 war)to be indefensible, and in any case the UN itself has recognised the right of some Israelis to settle the West Bank. Not all settlements have to be torn down, you know.
Nowadays with the alost daily barrage of Qassams, even the Gaza strip and West Bank itself may have to be demilitarised, in order for “palestinians” to be a state. I’m not convinced the palestinians want a state nearly as much as they want to kill Jews.
Anyhow, Israel cannot simply declare a palestinian state in Pre-1967 Egypt and Jordan, since in any case, the palestinians would never accept whatever borders the Israelis declare anyway. The palestinians want it all.
Prior to the founding of modern Israel, Palestine was not an internationally recognized country. It had none of the cultural markers, such as a flag, an anthem, history, art, etc. However, prior to 1946, there were some Muslims, Jews and Christians living in this squalid waste land obviously. Since then, most of the so-called Palestinians came from surrounding Arab/Muslim countries.
This isn’t to say that they shouldn’t have their own country – but it shouldn’t be based on this idea that they were there first and so therefore deserve it.
Wasn’t the word Palestine coined by the British and derived from the word Philistine – an ancient culture that existed in the same general area?
Hey ET
Why not pressure Jordan and Egypt to take them in? I mean, how hard can it be?
As to why the Israelis need defensible borders (more than the palestinians need a state) witness the daily Holocaust denial and genocidal rhetoric coming outta places like Iran…
Palestinians are despised in every Arab country the live in. In Saudi Arabia & Kuwait they are the considered no better than thieves and in Jordan they are kept under heavy police watch because they are malcontentents who want to topple the Hashemite throne. The Syrians despise them.
Palestinians need to wake up and get with the program – they have no rights to any Israeli land and the intifada is a dead end street.
ET,
You are correct in much that you assert about injustice done. However, the whole “how would you feel…?” line of aergument is unhelpful. I could just as easily launch into a similar argument on the other side. There was much Palestinian persecution of Jews prior to the formation of the State of Israel by the UN. Often, the same people who sold Jewish settlers worthless swampland would try to drive them off it once they had turned it into a functioning farm. From the earliest days of the state of Israel it has been the official and stated intent of the variou Palestinian political and militant organizations to drive the Jews into the sea. They have never recognized Israel’s right to exist, and have waged a more or less constant war against them. How how would you feel if an group of people was always targeting your public transit, your bars and restaurants, your other public areas for attack? How would you feel if they assasinated your Olympic athletes? Hijacked your planes? And vowed to continue until you were utterly defeated? Would you willingly let them form a state? An economy? An Army? Would you not do everything you could to keep them back on their heels?
So you see, if one is going to go down this road, there is plenty of fodder for both sides. This is a classic “race to the bottom”, and neither side has much to be proud of.
Having said all of that however, if I had to choose the values of one society or the other, I would choose Israel with their lack of honour killings, suicide bombers, and people dancing in the streets when skyscrapers are destroyed any day of the week. No one but them can stop that bull**it for them. And no amount of injustice suffered can justify perpetuating it, and especially exaserbating it just at the point that cooler heads are beginning to prevail.
There is a similar wrong-headedness on the other side, especially among militant Jewish settlers. Both sides must find a way to marginalize their radical elements if they ever hope to resolve this thing.
no, bcf, I disagree with you. I’m, by the way, not a ‘leftist’.
Yes, I think that the Palestinian state should be the West Bank and Gaza and I don’t agree with your supposition that they might be Egyptian/Jordanian by now.
“The Arab’s penchant for genocidal anti-Jewish warfare’? Please explain.
I wonder how you would behave after a generation of occuption. It does something to the viewpoint, don’t you think?
How do you know that the Palestinians ‘want it all’? From what I read, Abbas and others, are quite clear on accepting Israel’s existence, and wanting the West Bank and Gaza. That’s what they say. Perhaps you choose not to believe them.
irwin daisy, prior to the founding of Canada, it didn’t have a flag or anthem. Just like Palestine didn’t. Neither did the USA. Neither did any country, come to think of it.
No, the ME is not a ‘squalid waste land’.
No, there weren’t ‘some’ Muslims, Jews and Christians’; there were several hundred thousand,about 700,000, small-scale farmers, primarily, most of them Palestinian. It was actually called British Palestine.
I fully agree with you; the legality of a nation shouldn’t be based on ‘we were there first’. After all, the Israelis were not first in the area, and their claims to the land because they were there 1,500 years ago, and ‘god gave it’ are not legal claims, but emotional and mythic. The ME, as I’m sure you know, is one of the most ancient in the world’s history, and was filled with migrant settlements. And after all, if we used that criteria of ‘we were there first’, then, we shouldn’t be here in Canada, as a nation and as citizens of Canada.
bcf – Jordan and Egypt refuse to ‘absorb’ the Palestinians. And after all, why should they?
Fred, your comment is so disgusting it doesn’t merit a reply.
Irwin Daisy,
I read somewhere that the word “Palestine” was coined by the Romans after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD as a way of showing contempt for the defeated Judeans (Jews).
Bear with me now as I will probably get some of this wrong. Working from memory is a dangerous thing.
Prior to the current situation, Palestine was under British and French control. For a long time before that (pre WW1) part of the Turkish Ottaman Empire. Some time before that, Saladin (an Egyptian I think). Before that European Crusaders (for well over a century if I am not mistaken). Before that, Arabs. Before that, Byzantium. Before that, the Romans. Before that,the Jews (under Judah Macabees). Before that, the Greeks. Before that, Persians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, North Kingdom Israelites, Judeans, Philitines, Israelites, and Cannanites.
Whose land is it again? If you look at the history of it, the Jews have been there longer than the Palestinians.
Palestinians voted for suffering by electing those who want to inflict it on others. A thousand rockets have been fired on Israel since they left the Palestinians to govern themselves.
So if it’s suffering Palestinians want, that’s what they should get, but much more than they bargained for. Eventually they’ll realize that their dreams of pushing the Jews into the sea is simply not going to happen. Masochists deserve no mercy.
ET, on this topic you are most certainly not “neutral”
There already is a “Palestinian” country.
Its name is Jordan.
Read up on how Trans-Jordan was carved off the Palestine mandate. (book title – Paris 1919)
I had a post less than two weeks ago that pointed this out.
Compare the sizes of Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
It’s an outrage to suggest that Israel be sliced down even further.
ET,
Perhaps I missed it. Can you tell me where the Palestinians have ever explicitly recognized Israel’s right to exist?
karl- you don’t ‘allot’ land on the basis of who has been there longer. In all of America and Africa, that would mean the indigeneous peoples. We may be doing that in Caledonia, but, that’s not a ‘just and fair’ action.
You have to acknowledge reality. The Palestinian people were there, in the land, for centuries, farming that land. You can’t just, one day, say ‘OK, get out, there’s Another People coming in’. You have to work from present day reality. Not some mythic tale of god giving you, or him, or whoever, the land. Not some equally mythic historic pre-literate memory of having ‘been there’. Not some early literate Herodatus style account of ‘being there’.
You have to work from present day reality. At the time, in 1948, the Palestinians were there, governed by the British mandate over Palestine. Several hundred thousand, with legal title to their farms and houses. If you, the UN, ‘decide’ to change this land base, then, you can’t pretend the land is empty, even if you wish it were. You have to, realistically and morally, acknowledge reality. People were, in the hundreds of thousands, living there, and had been living there, for centuries.
So, my point is that Israel should recognize this. It never has; it has tried to pretend ‘the land was vacant’. No, it wasn’t; read the early writings of Ben Gurion and others, about ‘how to get them out’. So, my point is that Israel should recognize that Palestinians exist; they lived there. Compensate them for the loss of their farms and homes. We all know that Israel doesn’t want them to come back, for that would mean a loss of the Jewish majority. That’s the reason why Israel won’t incorporate the West Bank and Gaza into Israel – the loss of the Jewish majority. Or, instilling apartheid.
So, acknowledge them, acknowledge a Palestinian state, as Fatah has acknowledged an Israel state. End the occupation. Remove the settlements. And, leave them to develop their economy. At the moment, the Palestinians have nothing. Nothing. No economy. No land, no governance, no ability to develop that land, no water rights, no ability to irrigate land. Nothing. Why are you surprised at the anger?
philanthropist- your remarks are too superficial and ignorant to merit comment. The Palestinians voted for Hamas because they rejected the corruption of Fatah.
Robert,
It is true that Jordan was the Arab country that was created out of the ruins of the Ottaman Empire by the British and the French. However, to be fair, this did not address the question of individual Arab farmers (Palestinians) on the west side of the Jordan who did not live in the West Bank or Gaza.
It seems to me that their rights as individuals need to be taken into account. But so to do Israeli security concerns. People think of Israel as paranoid. But as the old saying goes “Just because you’re paranoid it doesn’t mean that everyone’s not out to get you.”
ET,
Who said I am surprised at the anger? You are assuming things my friend.
Nor do I assume that land is alotted on the basis of who has been there the longest. But I can see why you might think I think that, given the fact that I said
“The Jewish people were there, in the land, for centuries, farming that land. You can’t just, one day, say ‘OK, get out, there’s another people coming in’.”
Oh, wait a minute, that was you that said that, not me, and you were talking about the Palestinians’ “we were here most recently first first” argument. My mistake. It is tempting to say that the Palestinians have to stop carping about the past, and work from the present day reality. But that would be unkind. 😉
Seriously though, I am not meaning to say you don’t make a lot of good points, because you do. Nor am I suggesting that Israel has got it all right, because quite clearly they do not. There are people on both sides of the questions who have spoken of driving the other group out, once and for all. And there have also been cooler heads on both sides. But to compare the best of one with the worst of another is unfair.
For the record, there have also been Jews in the region for centuries. And many of the small displaced farmers from 1900 or so until 1948 were displaced not because Jewish immigrants took their land by force, as the pro-Palestinian mythology implies. Often it was the case that their Palestinian and Turkish landlords sold the land out from under them. If I am not mistaken, no Palestinian land was taken by force by the Jews until they were attacked by the various Arab nations.
I might be wrong about this, because as I said, memory is a dangerous thing.
BTW, when did Fatah explicitly (that is, in writing) acknowledge Israel’s right to exist?
You realize that those people who come to SDA for an argument are going to be terribly disappointed that a debate has broken out 😉
I don’t know the answer to this problem, it’s not my field, it’s a terrible mess, and there are lots of considerations on both sides. (And, for the record, ET is not a lefty.)
But if it was an engineering problem, I’d move Israel to Saskatchewan. Problem solved 😉
ET,
Did a quick google and came up with this:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=qw1150803722286B253
I remember something about Hamas winning an election recently. It seems there is still some sand in the vaseline on the Palestinian side.
Great. A war torn state with terrible roads and an NDP government. Just shoot me now. 🙂
ET:
An interesting analysis of the situation…not your usual “black or white” assessment. Notice however, that the moment you try to explain things as being not black or white, you get labeled a leftist.
Cheers.
Oops, better change my plan. I didn’t know Saskatechwan is a war-torn state.
No, Israel would provide the war torn state. Saskatchewan the bad roads and NDP government.
The calculus is very simple:
Israelies love life and want to share it. That makes them good guys. The fact they have to defend themselves from psychotic killers in their homeland of 2,000 years doesn’t make them bad.
Palestinians say they crave death and promise to spread it around, and they do so every day. That makes them bad guys. The fact they were kicked out of their neighbouring homelands doesn’t confer victim status on them; it should make us wonder why they were expelled by their own people.
Gaza is a nation of Bernardos, male and female.
Oh — and of course, like everyone above, no way am I biased here, except in favour of life. I’m just looking at the “facts.” From the middle ground. Mr. Even Steven, that’s me.
karl- the palestinians explicity recognized Israel’s right to exist by signing the Oslo Accords in 1993 and Abbas has been making public speeches about this for the last few weeks. I assume you are aware of those speeches.
Israel, however, has never, ever, recognized a Palestinian state. I really don’t know what they expect.
And to whoever said that Jordan is the Palestinian state – no, it isn’t. Karl answered that, I think.
Yes, there were always Jews in the area, but, so what? There were also Christians. I think at the turn of the century, there were about 50,000 Jews in a population of about 500,000. My point is – what do you do with these, by now, 500,000 and more Palestinians who were there in 1948?
As for the displacement of the Palestinians, whether by force or not, the debate rages, with denials and affirmations on both sides. I won’t get into it. My point simply is – you can’t move into a territory, say it is yours, and insist that whoever is living there has no ‘right’ to be there and that you own the land, long ago, and it is yours now. Shades of Caledonia, isn’t it?
So, you must acknowledge reality. Reality is that Israel exists, by virtue of a UN declaration of 1948. Another reality is that it doesn’t want a non-Jewish majority; therefore, it doesn’t want the Palestinians as citizens. Then, or now. So- what do you do?
The Palestinians existed, about 5-700,000 of them. Some pretend they didn’t. Some insist that Jordan and or Egypt should absorb them. People aren’t bits of sludge to be sponged up; they had been living there for centuries; they had land and homes.
So, end the occupation. Israel, as I said, obviously won’t incorporate the West Bank and Gaza because it doesn’t want those people as citizens. End the occupation. Get the settlers and tanks out. Give them financial compensation. And then, watch them develop their own homeland and economy.
But, to continue to occupy them, to deny them any chance of an economy, to make them vilified and penniless, will only result in their hatred of you. What do you expect?
Thank you, vitruvius, for acknowledging that I am not a leftist. Eeeek! Me? A lefty??? The ultimate insult.
So what?
CBC radio had a top story about the evils of Israeli sonic booms…
Interesting discussion, but, it does not detract from the fact that the C.B.C. has once again taken sides in an international issue and shown themselves to be willing to support the deaths of many jewish people. I don’t really know how they can sleep at night when they support the killing of innocent people. They just do. They are very clever spinsters.
ET,
It has been a long time since 1993, and much has happened since then, so no, I confess that I did not remember the substance of the accord. But a quick google turned this up:
“The 11th round of talks opened in Oslo, Norway with Israel’s announcement of an agreement on Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho. Just a week later, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Israeli government agreed to recognize each other after 45 years of conflict. The full series of agreements become known as the Oslo Accord.”
So, it seems there was some recogniotion of Palestinian autonomy by Israel. I also remember some settlements being taken down. I also remember the intafata, which many say are a result of the Oslo accords.
My point is simply that things have broken down since 1993. Partly I suspect because regardless of what the PLO of Fatah says, Hamas does not agree. I also remember that in 93 Arafat was accused of signing peace accords with one hand while building suicide vests with the other.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you. Give them their state. But let it be known that another attack from them means that all bets are off.
Shades of Caledonia indeed. Whose side are you taking on that one?
Israel accepted the UN partition plan creating a tiny Jewish nation in the -homeland- of the Jews.
Their occupancy of their homeland never, ever expired. A fact that many overlook.
The reaction of the Arabs……oh yes, they invaded, “Drive the Jews into the sea”
When it comes to the point of…..
“It seems to me that their rights as individuals need to be taken into account.”
….it’s up to the Arab nations who invaded to do the compensating.
“Sorry old fellow, turns out we didn’t drive the Jews into the sea, here’s some money to start someplace new, as a matter of fact come settle down in our country, it’s the least we can do……”
The fact that no one cared about the “poor oppressed Palestinians” while Egypt and Jordan had control of Gaza and the West Bank speaks volumes.
It seems quite odd that Israel is punished for surviving annihilation. What an odd moral compass people bring to this topic.
(hmmm, Oslo accords 1993, I wonder what recent “Palestinian” text books says about the “existance” of Israel?)
BTW ET, I meant to accuse you of splitting hairs when you said “Israel, however, has never, ever, recognized a Palestinian state.” Thoughtless of me. Sorry bout that.
The fact is (since you are so big on the facts) that there has never been a Palestinian state to recognize. Nevertheless, Israel did recognize the Palestinian authority as a political entity. You seem unwilling to give them credit for this. I am sure you will agree that Israel has no right to create a Palestinian state. They at least went through the UN to get their state carved out of a former British protectorate, which was ceded to them by the Turks after WW1.
It is not as simple as you want it to be I’m afraid.
ET – “Give them financial compensation. And then, watch them develop their own homeland and economy.”
How many billions have the UN, EU and the US poured into “Palestine” over the last 30 years? I would think that even you would acknowledge that most money that goes into “Palestine” ends up in some corrupt officials coffers.
ET’s arguments are those of Chomsky, Said, Fisk, etc.
The Arabs of the British Mandate for Palestine have a state – it is Jordan. The Arabs west of the Jordan did not accept partition in 1947 and the Jews did. The Arabs of the British Mandate for Palestine could have had a second state when the UN offered partition of lands west of the Jordan river in 1947. They could be celebrating the 59th year of their statehood, like Israel.
Before 1967, the only people who called themselves Palestinians were Jews – witness the Palestinian Post (today’s Jerusalem Post), the Palestinian Philharmonic orchestra (today’s Israeli Philharmonic orchestra)
or watch the movie Exodus
http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/e/exodus-script-transcript-paul-newman.html
In the movie “Exodus,” the female lead character asks Paul Newman at dinner where he comes from.
Paul Newman answers, “I don’t come from anywhere. I’m a sabra. A native-born Palestinian.”
All through the movie (made in 1960), they refer to Jews from the land of Israel as “Palestinians.”
Some samples:
“Ben Ami is one of the Palestinians who run this camp.” (On Cyprus.)
“He’s the Palestinian commander, that’s who.” (Referring to a Jewish commander in the same camp.)
“I want to see the Palestinian camp commander.”
“This is the Palestinian commander, David Ben Ami.”
“Would you order him to place all his Palestinian…administrative personnel at my disposal while loading?”
“Report at once to your nearest Palestinian guard point.” (Referring to a Jewish guard point.)
“This chap Ben Canaan probably wasn’t lying when he said he fought with us. Thousands of Palestinians did.” (Jews from the Palestine Mandate fought for Britain in WWII. The Arabs did not.)
“Any girl that falls in love with a Palestinian boy has a long wait coming.” (referring to Jews)
Even Hollywood knew in 1960 that “Palestinians” were Jews. The Arabs in the movie were called “Arabs.”
They’d never admit it now, of course.
Israel is on the fore-front of the war on terrorism and islamofascism. There is no difference between Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, Muslim Brotherhood (Arafat was a member of Muslim brotherhood), Al Queda, Hisbollah etc.
It’s June 2009, ET got what he wanted, Isreal has given the palestinians, their own country.
…But the missiles are still falling….
……….Now what???………..
Boycott Israel, Canadian Chapter, now consists of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the United Church of Canada (UCC), and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Choose your side.
Meanwhile, the “dogs of war” are baying at the leash. Woe to Gaza. …-
Large IDF force prepared to capture deep swath of northern Gaza
Ha’aretz – 45 minutes ago
By Yuval Azoulay and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents. The Israel Defense Forces shelled the northern Gaza beach shortly after midnight Thursday, Palestinian witnesses said, wounding eight officers of the Palestinian coastal police, four seriously. … google news
Thank you ex-Liberal for the needed reminder on how “Palestinian” has been subverted.
Yes folks, as hard as it is to beleive, they already is an Arab country created from the Palestine mandate and they would have been a second if not for that….what was it? oh yes, invasion.
Israeli territory now represents 17.41% of a Israel/Jordan/Gaza/West Bank grouping.
When you match Israeli territory against all Arabs lands, that would drop to what .1%
Egypt at 1 million sq. km. plus, Saudi at 1/5 of the US.
More: From LGF, word of a “mysterious” explosion. Yes, very mysterious…-
And a car full of Al Jazeera reporters mysteriously explodes:
Conflicting reports gave different causes to an explosion that struck a car carrying reporters from the Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel on Wednesday night in Beit Lahiya.
According to witnesses, there were apparently some injuries, and ambulances were on the way to the scene.
The IDF had no immediate comment, except to point out that it was uncertain what caused the explosion
ET wrote:
“Fred, your comment is so disgusting it doesn’t merit a reply”. If that’s in response to the statement that the Jordanians watch them, that’s correct….(you may have heard of Black September when King Hussein evicted the Palis).
As to the other remark regarding the Palis being disliked/mistrusted in other Arab countries….Gee….I’m afraid that’s true too. Thing is, the Palestinians’ biggest, (only?) asset is being a proxy thorn in Israel’s side.
This might sound like a case of damning with faint praise, but I have found Adrienne Aresenault to be one of the better CBC reporters, in that she mostly describes events without editorializing.
Her tone of her last three or four reports, covering the events since the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier has annoyed me a bit; it seems to me she’s ignoring the broader story and looking at it just from the point of view of the Gazan Palestinians. But based on her past work I’d have to give her the benefit of the doubt on this one.
But hey, speaking of CBC, did anyone happen to see Newsworld’s treatment of uproar over the War Memorial defilement? It seemed pretty clear to me that there was an undertone of bemusement, like the outrage has been much ado about nothing, just an overreaction by right-wing types.
I am almost scared to wade into this one…but here goes…
Considering the ingrained hatred between these two groups and the savage,brutal history of the entire region,is it unfair to suggest they have no hope of real,lasting peace?Really,is there one square inch of inhabited land in this region that was not earned through bloodshed?Maybe,as we debate here with our western sensibilities,we DENY man’s history of war and conquest in the ME.They are at war now,the’re just taking baby steps and using women and children as fodder and accomplishing nothing…
I’ve been watching this tiny area of the planet damn near dominate world affairs since I was a little kid.Maybe it is time for an all-out war between the two,to the victor goes the spoils…That is thousands of years of history!That is how men fight wars!
I wouldn’t doubt that in the end,less lives would be lost than 50 more yrs of this unending BS.
Is my suggestion a tad harsh?….Damn right!
But,maybe in reality it will be the only long term solution to the present,never-ending hatred and carnage….
The English socialist rag is sniffing Swiss cheese, weeping crocodile tears, and eating all round the hole of the “siege of Gaza”.
Now it’s a “right to function”… LOL.
Where is Arafat? Paging Mr. Arafat. Where is Jimmah Carter? Where is Svend? Arafat and Jimmah and Svend are willing to serve as partners for peace. Kumbaya, my friends, kumbaya….
There is no siege because there is no resistance to the Israeli forces.
Hurrah for the Swiss, the inventors of the cuckoo clock. …-
Europe’s response to the siege of Gaza is shameful
Guardian Unlimited – 1 hour ago
The Palestinians have no partner for peace. They will only have one if Israel agrees to recognise Palestine’s right to function. Thank goodness for the Swiss. Alone in Europe, their government has dared to condemn what the Israelis are doing to Gaza. .. google news
karl – if, as you say, Israel has no right to create a Palestinian state, then Palestinians have no right to create an Israeli state. We aren’t talking about creation, we are talking about recognition. And Israel has only recognized Palestine as a muncipal entity but not a national entity. The Oslo Accords recognized only municipal self-government powers, referring to education, culture, health. Not borders, foreign relations, resources, defence.
And the UN also has acknowledged a Palestinian land base – which is now occupied and being settled, by Israel.
Arafat was indeed double-sided; signing the Oslo Accords with one hand and keeping the fight going with the other – and his Fatah was corrupt. But Sharon was no better, settling the occupied lands as quickly as he could, rather than recognizing the Accord and the land rights of the Palestinians.
Robert in Calgary, occupation of land is not divine right. With your perspective, all of America and Africa belongs to the indigeneous peoples.
As for ex-liberal, no, my views are not those of Chomsky, Said or Fisk. No, the Palestinian state is not Jordan. We’ve been through this before; I disagree, completely, with your conclusions. All of them, including your view that ‘the only people who called themselves Palestinians were Jews’. Are you seriously offering movies up as factual evidence????
And I think you are making a serious, a tragic, error in merging the fight against islamic fascism with the Israel-Palestinian situation. The two have nothing to do with each other. It’s a fallacious tactic of argumentation, implying that the fight by the Palestinians for land, is somehow an action of islamic fascism. It implies an heroic action on the part of the Israelis to ‘fight off’ the Islamic fascists. But the Palestinian-Israeli situation, which began even before WWII has nothing to do with Islamic fascism.
It is not merely historically false but it is unethical to make that claim, because it is giving an attribute of heroism to the Israeli fight and an attribute of ‘jihad terrorism’ to the Palestinian fight, that does not in reality exist. The Israeli-Palestinian fight is about land. Property and the resources, such as water. Islamic fascism is about a particular mode of governance, tribalism, which has become dysfunctional within a massive increase in population and has instead of modernizing, retrenched into a regressive ideology based on Original Purity. That dysfunction between a tribal mode and a requirement for modernization to suit an industrial economic and political mode, has absolutely nothing to do with the Palestinian-Israeli situation.
“This won’t be current for long, but click here to view the entire broadcast”
Incredible.
I’m facinated by the anchor that wonders if the North Korean I.C.B.M failure on July 4th, was “a coincidence”…