| Israel must return to the so-called Green Line -- the border before the 1967 Six Day War.[snip] The more Israel expands or retains settlements, the more it gets stuck in a quagmire where the enemy is everywhere. |
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| Isn't that exactly where they were in 1967? Isn't that exactly what precipitated the Six Day War? Why should they give back land if no one will make any promise of peace? I certainly wouldn't. "Let us move our borders closer to you, please. |
| Labor legislator and former party leader Amram Mitzna, who as an IDF general openly broke with then-defense minister Sharon over the conduct of the Lebanon war in the early 1980s, on Tuesday picked up the theme of the Syria strike as diversion. "This government is simply irresponsible, endangering its own citizens with - there is no other way to describe this - adventures. What was the point of attacking Syria? Who can even explain the goal? Was the goal to calm down the Israeli public? To divert the public's attention from our day-to-day problems here and the government's inability to deal with terrorism?" |
| Israel has the right to defend herself. How long would Americans sit by and watch homicidal terrorists continuously attack American civilians without a military response? |
| Syria is a well-known supporter of terrorists I have no trouble sleeping at night because of what Israel did. |
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| Originally posted by DebraBaker Israel has the right to defend herself. How long would Americans sit by and watch homicidal terrorists continuously attack American civilians without a military response? Syria is a well-known supporter of terrorists I have no trouble sleeping at night because of what Israel did. Debra Baker |
| JERUSALEM - Israel dispatched troop reinforcements to the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites) on Wednesday and weighed a call-up of reserves, citing new warnings about planned attacks by Palestinian militants. |
| Originally posted by DebraBaker Meddling outsiders (like Syria and Iran) need to butt out. |
| Originally posted by 3boys4us The most important point here is that people are being killed everyday - not just when the corporate media sensationlizes the suicide bombings. Or to put for you mildly - a Palestinain is killed everyday (but perhaps they don't count to us Americans). Here is an excellent link about how much Israel costs the US: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/usaid.html I have hard time with that but I assume that most conservatives feel it's okay to keep supporting what has become a quagmire for both Israelis and the US. |
| Originally posted by captain optimism In a lot of ways, the Palestinian terrorists bolster repressive policies of the Israeli government--well, you could say the same thing about how terror has bolstered the current US gov't. If one side would stop, the other side couldn't keep going. You know? Support for Sharon's policies grows whenever there is a suicide bombing or other act of terror, support for Arafat on the Palestinian side was dwindling until Israel began this absurd campaign against him. |
| I find the word "sensationalize" upsetting here because you make it sound like you are only horrified by the deaths on one side, which to me is one of the biggest problems with talking about the whole question. |
| But, I guess I know you better from our long history here |
| I think a better way to express it would be to call Palestinian deaths under-reported. Though to me, it seems easier, in the US press, to learn about the motivations of individual suicide bombers than about the daily lives of most Palestinians. (Or for that matter, what public opinion is in Israel.) So perhaps it is better to say that it is Palestinian lives that are under-reported. |
| During this six-week period of "relative quiet," however, some 17 Palestinians were killed and at least 59 injured by Israeli occupation soldiers and settlers, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. The dead included Mahmoud Kabaha, a four-year-old boy, who was sitting in the back seat of a jeep with his family at a checkpoint when an Israeli soldier shot him dead-- in a spray of bullets that the army simply called an "accidental burst of gunfire" (Associated Press, 7/25/03). Virtually none of the major U.S. news reports on the August 12 bombings alluded to the Palestinian death toll in this period, leaving out a key piece of the story: For Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the violence had never ceased; while the Israeli attacks had decreased, there had never been anything like an Israeli cease-fire. |
| During his entire term, Sharon, with the backing of the U.S. administration, has been preoccupied with attempts to evade the implementation of his declared policy. Instead of tending to the root of the problem of Israeli existence - Palestinian terror - by ending the Israeli occupation, creating effective channels for rapprochement with the Palestinian leadership, or at least completing the construction of the separation fence, Sharon is now turning to extreme and irresponsible steps. |
| When (and I hope there is a when and not an if) this happens I believe people could be given a chance to travel down a path toward peaceful co-existance. |
| But now, most of the 400,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank want to stay in the luxurious communities that hefty government subsidies have provided. Politically, it would now be almost impossible for any Israeli government to suggest that they move back to Israel - or to leave them where they are under a Palestinian ruler. But if they stay where they are, and under Israeli sovereignty, then the land left for the Palestinians can never provide the basis for a viable Palestinian state. As with the "Bantustans" created by the old apartheid regime in South Africa, the Palestinian-ruled area would be resource-starved and totally under the control of the stronger power. No recipe there for long-term stability - for white South Africans, or for Israelis. |
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