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With all due respect, Mr. Tony Correia-Afonso's�point of view, based on a selective use of history, absolutely cries out�for�an opposing opinion based on all the facts. � Mentioning�Yasser Arafat in the same context as�Jesus Christ, America's founding fathers and Nelson Mandela?��Citing the ratio of Palestinian lives lost to Israeli lives lost, and Iraqi lives lost to American lives lost without any context or perspective on action versus reaction, and what has and is actually happening?��Piously talking about being taught about the value of life?��Can such teachings be used in�an intellectual�vacuum?� What does true education about the value of life teach us about defending ourselves against those who want to kill us, in the case of the Israelis, and of shedding our own blood in order to save the lives of others, which is part of the American attempt to bring freedom and democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq? � Has Mr Correia-Afonso�criticized with equal vehemence the Palestinian goal of eliminating Israel and the taking of innocent Israeli lives by suicide bombers.� Did he criticize with equal vehemence the massive killings of Iranis, Kuwaitis, Kurds and Shia by Saddam Hussein and his sadistic sons?� Or is his anger only aimed very selectively at those who�have acted to oppose those killings. � Jesus Christ was a radical Jew whose principal philosophy was about loving your neighbor as yourself.� America's founding fathers fought openly against British forces, not British civilians, and invented the most ingenious form of government known to man.� Nelson Mandela fought against the most hideous policy of apartheid, the most abhorrent policy�in post-Nazi�history, a concept far more vile and degrading than the racism in any other colony.� He never supported or encouraged attacks on innocent civilians, and opposed violence even against those who imprisoned him. � There were two�partitions in 1947-48 engineered by the British with the approval of the UN.� One was the Indian sub-continent, the other in Palestine.� Whatever one thinks about these events the fact remains that the Indians and Pakistanis accepted their partition, and after the horrifying initial chaos, went on with their lives.� Kashmir was an issue separate from the primary partition, and continues to fester.� No�Indian or Pakistani demands�a "right of return" or compensation�or any such thing.� Neither India nor Pakistan has in their founding charters or constitutions the complete elimination�of the other, as the Palestinian Charter still does.� In spite of subsequent acknowledgments by some, but not all Arabs, of the right of Israel to exist in peace and security, the charter was never revised, and several Palestinians and most of the Arab�countries, except Egypt, Jordan and some of the smaller Gulf states, still do not recognize Israel. � In 1948, every Arab neighbor of the fledgling Israel, including the Egypt and Jordan that now accept Israel, militarily attacked it with the goal of "pushing the Jews into the sea".� The invasion failed as did�subsequent attempts, each with additional losses of territory, the most recent in 1967. � The militant Palestinian organizations, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Yasser Arafat's own Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade vow to this day that their goal is to eliminate Israel.� Let me repeat that.� They want to eliminate Israel.� In addition to attacking Israeli forces as true freedom fighters would, these groups routinely conduct attacks on innocent Israeli civilians, including suicide homicides whenever they can, all in an attempt to achieve their objectives by force and terror.� None of it has worked, simply because the Israelis have no choice but to fight back, and the overall security of Israel has been guaranteed by the USA, which is the root cause of the�hatred of America among a large segment of Muslim society. � In 2000, as part of a heroic attempt by President Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat was offered 95% of what he had demanded, with negotiations to follow on the remaining 5%, in return for formally recognizing Israel's right to exist in peace and security.� Arafat walked away from the agreement.� Why?� The stated reason was that the agreement left the issue of either "right of return" or the alternative of compensation to the subsequent negotiations, and he found that unacceptable.� Others say he was afraid that those Palestinians who still want to eliminate Israel would have assassinated him if he had accepted Israel's right to exist in peace and security.� Readers can make up their own minds in the context of what they see happening. � In the opinion of Charles Krauthammer in his syndicated column (Washington Post, Nov. 15, 2004),��Deploying every instrument of propaganda � television, radio, newspapers and, most importantly, schools and summer camps for children � [Arafat�s] Palestinian Authority fed his people a diet of such virulent anti-Semitism and denial of the Jewish connection with the land that no successor will even be in position to contemplate breaking Arafat�s rejectionist precedent ... Arafat�s legacy � the romanticization of violence, the rejection of Israel, the indoctrination of a new generation in intolerance and hatred � will require a long time to undo.� It will require years, perhaps even generations.� � I would say Krauthammer's conclusions fit all the facts in proper context far more closely than the facile notion that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Jesus Christ, America's founding fathers and Nelson Mandela were freedom fighters in every sense of the term. Yasser Arafat wanted freedom for his people alright, but at the expense of another entire nation, and that should be unacceptable to every right thinking human being. Tony Correia Afonso <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: ########################################################################## # If Goanet stops reaching you, contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # Want to check the archives? http://www.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ########################################################################## Someone on this forum criticised the Indian Government for declaring 3 days' mourning for Yasser Arafat, repeating the familiar Israeli/American line dubbing him a "terrorist". It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. By the same token one could state that declaring one to be a "terrorist" or a "national hero" entirely depends on which side of the fence you are on! Not so long ago, Nelson Mandela was declared to be a "terrorist" by none other than Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Today he is a Nobel Prize Winner and respected throughout the world as an elder statesman! By President Bush's definition, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and all the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution would be dubbed as "terrorists" or at least as "isurgents"by their British rulers (as are the Iraqis opposing American occupation of their country.) The Romans also had Christ crucified as a "terrorist", since he was judged to be a rebel in conflict with Roman law and Roman rule, then prevailing in Palestine by virtue of their conquest of the land by force of arms.Two thousand years later, large tracts of the same Palestine are illegally occupied by European Jews by force of arms, who have forced millions of Palestinian Arabs from their land into refugee camps, where they have been forced to live in sub-human conditions for over fifty years! The irony of it is that throughout the centuries when the Jews were persecuted and subject to pogroms by Christian Europe cultiminating in massacre of 8 million Jews by the Nazis in the Holocaust, they were given protection by Muslim Arabs such as the Caliphs of Baghdad. Today the same Jews are making the self-same Arabs pay for the crimes committed against them by Christian Europe! They say that even a worm turns when attacked. What reaction can you expect when you see Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships fire missiles into densely populated civilian urban areas killing innocent men, women and children? We live in a materialistic and commercial age where everything is judged by its market value and its exchange value, including human life. We were allways taught to belive that life is priceless and the value of every human life is the same. In today's world, however, the exchange rate for every Israeli life is 20 Palestinian lives and in Iraq it is approx. 15 Iraqi lives for every American life. Let us not put a label on people on the basis of our own pre-conceived notions or, what is worse, on notions conceived for us by vested interests. Let history be the judge of who is a hero and who is a terrorist. ---Tony Correia-Afonso.
