From: "Baardwijk, J. van DTO/SLWPD/RZO/BOZO" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > That parallel is flawed. Unlike the Nazis, the Arabs have not persecuted and > murdered millions of Jews, nor are they keeping vast numbers of Israelis in > concentration camps. Only two Arab/Muslim nations have come out to say that Israel can exist: Egypt and Jordan. All others have vowed to destroy Israel. All Arab/muslim nations in the mid east have oppressed whatever small jewish minority they have. Many murderously, although I don't recall that even the Iraqis have taken the step to eradicating all Jews. A lot of countries have simply gone the expulsion route. The Israelis, while not lily white in the matter, have granted Israeli Arabs civil rights (but not full citizenship) and have allowed Palestinian and Gaza Arabs to exist. Both sides have some blame to carry. That does not mean that the blame is equal. Israel and its people, of whatever religion or not they belong to, have a right to live peacefully within the nation of Israel. That is and must remain incontrovertible. Likewise the Palestinians have the right to live peacefully in their own state. Once both sides make that plain to themselves, the better off everyone will be. > Thanks to Israel, at least two key Arab leaders are not attending the > summit. Arafat is not attending because Israel might not let him back into > the West Bank. President Mubarak of Egypt decided to stay away to show > solidarity with Arafat. King Abdullah II of Jordan has not given a reason > for not attending. A far more likely reason for Mubarak and Abdullah not attending the summit, as reported here on Australian TV is that they would have come under immense pressure from all of the other nations present to break their ties with Israel to support the Palestinians. By not attending they can avoid that pressure and not lose face. And still be constructive conduits to Israel to get something worked out. BTW, I think Israel is very, very shortsighted in not letting Arafat go. They are turning him into an Arab hero again. But the whole Sharon policy towards Arafat seems lunatic to me, frankly. They tell him to control the terrorists and then, as soon as any terrorist attack happens they destroy Arafat's infrastructure (especially the Palestinian police) and humiliate him, thus reducing any control he may have had. Palestine is clearly, like Lebanon was after Israel's invasion, developig now into a piece of land run by a collection of terrorist/warlords. The more Arafat is humiliated, the less likely he can control anything. Arafat's replacement is, under present circumstances, far more likely to be a real hardline character, NOT a negotiator, because the Israelis have removed any incentive for a concensus leader to appear. > > You can't say that about any other part of the world, not Asia, not > > Africa, not Latin America, that at a regional summit there would not - > > could not - be a single democratically elected leader in attendance. > > Absence of democracy does not equate absence of a preference for peace. Tom's point was, I think, a very valid one. Don't forget, at present there is only one democratic country (as we term it) in all of North Africa and the Middle East: Israel. Israel's Arab population has more democratic rights than any other Arab population, anywhere. Egypt and Iran are the only other countries in the region that have much of a democratic movement. As Tom says, there is no comparable non-democratic region left anywhere else on Earth. While "Absence of democracy does not equate absence of a preference for peace" it does tend to strongly correlate with a disregard for peace on the part of the rulers. Tom > > Blaming Israel may assuage your anti-Semitic fantasies, but it does not > > contribute to peace. > Jeroen > As often said before, being critical of Israel does not equate > anti-Semitism. Who was it that said that once you start calling your > opponents anti-Semitic, you have lost the argument? > Jeroen, I accept that you are not anti-semitic. Tom was wrong to cast that aspersion. I can agree with some of your arguments. I also do not like much of what Israel has been doing since, well, 1983 actually. Israeli policy seems to have fundamentally changed when Menachim Begin was elected, and the Lebanese invasion, Shatila, and West Bank settlement has corrupted Israel since. But you (Jeroen) seem to go out of your way to support the most glaringly unsupportable cases. I fully agree that you can criticise Israeli policies without being also anti-semitic. After all, there is a pretty impressive fraction of the Israeli armed forces doing just that at the moment, and more strength to them. I do not think Sharon is likely to do more than drag this whole thing down even further. Neither do I think there is any justification for a suicide bomber or sniper to attack civilians inside Israel in the way in which they are doing. The end does not justify the means that have been used by the Palestinians so far. It is all just so stupid that this fighting between less than 10 million people in a tiny piece of land is causing so much grief and strife for the rest of the world. Although I first said it in jest, I am really becoming more and more convinced that it is time for strong international intervention, actually getting neutral (or at least neutrally-balanced) troops on ground in ALL of Israel and Palestine and using an international interim government for long enough for sanity to become normal. Of course, what's the odds you'd then have the West Bank settlers allying themselves with the hardest core Palestinians? Brett
