----- Original Message ----- From: "Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 5:46 AM Subject: Re: Barghouti
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > << Captured Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti has told Israeli > > interrogators that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat personally approved > > weapons funding for attacks against Israelis, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's > > office said Thursday. >> > > > > Gee, I'm shocked. :::Yawn::: Shocked. > > > > Wonder how the Europeans and other apologists for the Palestinians will > > explain this one away. Where's the UN and all the other professional > > high-dudgeon artists? > > > > Tom Beck > > > > "I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I didn't realize I'd also > > see the last." - Jerry Pournelle > > Judging the conflict sofar, I'd say it is a situation where because of the lack > of a regular well established and well armed force backed up by the > international community, (which would make it possible to establish an armed > 'peace') Palestinians reverted to guerilla warfare a long time ago. But, they are in alliance with countries that have standing armies and have attacked Israel repeatedly. As Tom has pointed out, the identification of Palestinian Arabs as a group separate from, say, Jordanian Arabs is fairly artificial and a tool that has been used by other Arabs in their conflict with Israel. As an identifiable group of people, they have not been well treated. But, until the restart of the infatal, they have been treated better in the occupied territories than their brothers and sisters in other Arab states. >They seem to adhere to the motto that if you cannot win right away or at least force a > stand off by using a strike force, stick to demoralizing the enemy. After all > it did work for the Vietnamese and other guerillas as well.... Guerilla warfare and terrorism are not synonymous. Irregular forces can attack military targets, they need not try to create mayhem by attacking civilians going about normal daily life. BTW, offering reasons for these attacks is being an apologist for these actions...pretty well by definition. (No insult is intended, but since English is your second/third language, I'm guessing that there may be a loss of nuance when you read posts.) > > I wonder what Israelis expected during all these years of conflict. >From what I understand, many expected to be under siege for the foreseeable future. Remember, the Arabs have sworn to eliminate Israel from the beginning of Israel. It is a country of about 6 million people facing an alliance of over 100 million Arabs. They have been attacked a number of times. They came within the skin of their teeth of being eliminated in 1973. They got a partial peace with the Camp David accords in which they returned land captured from Egypt for a peace deal. It appears >Maybe they naively expected Palestinians to simply roll over and die? I think they hoped for a deal which addressed their security concerns, allowing them finally to have normalized relations with all of their neighbors. The real hope was that the Palestinians would accept a peace based on resolution 242. IIRC, Israel has agreed to this as a basis for peace back in the '60s. From Arafat's speeches in Arabic, the content of official media outlets, the curriculum in the schools, the Palestinians still expect _all_ of Israel to be included in the Palestinian state. IMHO, there has been a plethora (an over abundance) of evidence that the Palestinians will not accept a two state solution as anything more than a stepping stone to a one state solution. What evidence do you have that Israel would not accept a two state solution? > The whole conflict actually reminds me of this metaphor: If you drive a wild > cat into a corner, in order to escape and regain it's freedom it'll bite and > scratch you any way it can. How in the world did Israel drive the Palestinians into a corner? The Palestinians were part of an alliance that tried to destroy Israel at least 4 times. There was an offer on the table for a two state solution Palestinian state that hung up on the "right of return." If Israel granted the right of return, it would be possible for the Arabs to take over Israel by demographics alone. Since the Palestinian authority continued to claim throughout the peace negotiation, through Arafat's and others speeches in Arabic, their official media and school curriculum, that all of Israel was theirs, it is reasonable to assume that they would use the "right of return" to take over Israel if they could. As Gautam had said, if the Palestinians had used non-violent protest, agree that Israel needs to be secure, but still demand a viable state, they would easily have had that state by now. Indeed, if I were magically put in control of the Palestinian actions, I'd point out that the Europeans started the whole problem when they pushed the Jews into a corner and offered Palestine as an out. I'd wrangle both the EU and the US for a massive subsidy, and offer to rent a very modest amount of land (say with a 99 year lease) to Israel for them to put defense on Palestinian soil. I'd also agree to forgo my right to have my allies put thousands of tanks and millions of soldiers on my border with Israel to "defend" my lands. >And call me 'apologist for the Palestinians' or > not. I can actually sympathies with that point of view. By definition, your writing is the writing of an apologist. I'm guessing that since English is not your first language (third language?), that the nuances of this word have not been clearly communicated. It is not a personal attack to state that the position of the European government is apologetic with regards to actions by Palestinians. I think it is a fact; you may not. At the very least, thought, it is a debatable point, not a personal insult. Dan M.
