I Don't Understand the Israel/Palestinian Problem

LOL. I use FM 94.3's 5 minute news highlights at the top of the hour, if I happen to be in the car at the time. Otherwise, I have a couple of friends who watch the news several times a week, and occasionally I overhear them talking about it.I didn't jump in because I'm knowledgeable. I jumped in, because you obviously have strong feelings, and only your strong feelings were being communicated (IMHO). Maybe it was only difficult for me to hear you because I'm so ignorant of the subject, but it was definitely easier to follow what Percy was saying, and I think, to borrow some terminology I hate, you were generating more heat than light. I just thought if the heat were turned down, it would be easier to see what you're saying.I'm not disinterested, but access to world news and time for world news doesn't come easy to me. This discussion seemed enlightening, and I was interested, so it seemed good to help you communicate (if I was even helping, which I hope). See above. That's clear. That's why I asked, to get an answer like this. This does not seem very different from what Percy is saying.In fact, this statement seems to be on Percy's topic, not yours (which is more focused on Sharon), and it addresses Percy's original question and comes very close to agreeing with how he sees it, except that you're adding a little information as to why. Neither your description of the events since June 25, nor Percy's, seem to indicate that Sharon assassinated individuals or arrested innocents in roundups since the cease fire except as direct retaliation to suicide bombings.Did I miss something? I know you said that his prisoner release wasn't as good a gesture as we might think, and that he was building walls that provoked Hamas and Jihad leaders, but it doesn't appear that he assassinated anyone or rounded up anyone during times of no violence. Yeah, I caught that after I posted.For some reason, I managed to hear quite a bit about Sharon's background one day on NPR back when he was still just a candidate. I'm aware it's terrible, and I was pretty surprised he was elected, but I know how it is to feel like there's not a lot of good choices for a national leader. Yeah, it's half way, like most of the West's strategies, as far as I can see. It seems like a nation ought to be either for winning any wars or they're in, or they ought to be against war. Quite often, it doesn't seem to me like western nations never make that choice.Perhaps it was evil for Bush to attack Iraq. I don't know. I do know that I think it is stupid (without addressing morals) to attack a country without a plan to win decisively as quickly as possible. Bush did that, and so even if he's immoral, I don't think he's stupid.Without knowing enough of what's going on, it looks to me like the Israeli-Palestinian plan is to keep fighting forever and never have peace. I don't think if I was Israel's leader, I could do that. I'd either have to focus on peace with everything in me and try to co-exist with the Palestinians, making as many concessions as I could, or I'd have to focus on making the land mine in whatever way I could, even if it meant assassinating a leader every day.I haven't seen anything from either of them that is all the way in either direction, and it sounds like both Percy and you are telling me that if it's peace they want, both sides are being stupid about it. If it's winning a war they want, neither side is getting close. It's only if they want to keep fighting forever that it looks like they're accomplishing their goals.Should I have seen something different wrong with their strategy?

Actually I misread the tone of percy's first post, which is what set me off. The second one made me realize what he was getting and and I believe we are of a similar mind that the Palestinian organizations--- supposedly for Palestinian best interests--- are doing things which aren't actually going to help and the Palestinian people shouldn't trust them so much.Where we differ is that I hold this feeling for the Isaelis and its supporters in the US as well, and question percy holding Palestinians to greater accountability.IMHO Everyone's getting used by two groups of extremists (Islamic and Zionist), and until moderates of both sides are in charge, peace will not be here for some time. Well maybe I didn't make things clear. The assassinations Sharon conducts during cessations of hostilities on the part of Palestinian groups did not happen during the cease fire this time (except after the bus bombing).However he did engage in more roundups. In addition, and perhaps more important, were the growth in settlements, the continuation of the wall which is designed to protect illegal settlements (ie it is grabbing land), and refusing to release prisoners. This last act was not just "as good a gesture as we might think" but what was expected of him according to negotiations.Its funny that we can use the word prisoner and so it sounds like something gracious on his part to release them. These are mainly innocent people rounded up for no reason. We're still talking about high 100's of children under 13 being held without access to lawyers, or their parents, and until recently no medicine and improper food. 399 people getting released doesn't even count as a joke.Anyway this was the ultimate slap in the face to extremists and it was obvious something bad was going to come of it.And I think this is where I can draw the picture more clearly. The strategy so far has been to punish all Palestinians until attacks by extremists end. This is a strategy for continuous warfare.It is definitely not halfway, it is what Sharon has always thrived on and ultimately it is the second focus you said you'd take if you were the leader of Israel.If one were actually looking for peace one could easily look to the past. Rabin and Barak were both close. The big hangup was not whether Palestinian extremists would stop attacking (which happened in both cases) but over Israeli extremists not being willing to secede portions of land.This is not to paint Arafat as some hero or something. He blew it with Barak. And this is not to say splinter groups of Hamas or Jihad might not have caused problems later. But the problems would have been different.The key in both situations is that moderates on both sides were moving together to gain a peace. Interestingly enough... just read the histories... Sharon shot down both Barak and Rabin (in the latter case quite literally) and extremists on both sides regained control of the process.Right now there is an organization which represents moderate Palestinian interests. That is the government chosen by the Palestinians. And yes that includes Arafat.However Sharon, well aware that moderate Palestinians want peace, continues to burden the moderate organizations and strengthen the extremists. The result is exactly what we see.His not releasing prisoners, and protecting settlements with wallbuilding angered moderates as well as extremists. If moderates were angered, then extremists much more so. It made the new leader of the moderate government look like a total punk to moderate Palestinians and a traitor to extremists.Very well calculated. Sharon just kept piling on insults and weakening the moderate government until the inevitable happened.Then when it happened Sharon had his excuse to murder a completely innocent person. Even you said it was in retaliation for the bus bombing. How does the murder of innocent people justify the murder of other innocent people? It doesn't. Not in any sane equation toward peace.Murdering a civilian, and now compounding it by killing four more people (even if not civilians) and announcing murders will continue until Abbas does as Israel wants, is clearly manufactured to undercut moderate Palestinians, and strengthen the extremists.If peace was desired Israel would be moving to strengthen moderate organizations and reaching out to moderate Palestinians in general to secure their help in lowering extremism. Killing innocent, moderate Palestinians (and again Sharon has killed twice as many innocents as Islamic extremists have) while telling them to go risk their lives fighting Islamic extremists or the killings will continue is surreal at best.Islamic extremist groups are expected to do insane things, that's why you don't predicate peace with moderates by the total inactivity of the fringe groups. You predicate it on peace with the moderate government.That is why I fault Israeli and US strategy more than Palestinian strategy. Sure Palestinian extremist group strategy is just as goofy as Israel's, but Palestinian government strategy is not. Unfortunately it needs to get a foothold before it can overcome the extremists.To make matters worse there is no one in Israel the moderate Palestinian government can reach out to for peace and strength. The Israeli government is being run by the extremists who have no desire to see a strong Palestinian anything.I realize there is probably some heat in this post (though not directed at you) but hopefully some light as well.------------------
holmes

Hi Holmes!I can't respond in as much detail, not because I don't believe I could master the detail, but because I believe mastering the detail does not lead to any insights. My short list of news items came from a search for "Israel killed" at the CNN site, by the way, and I stopped at the bottom of a page. It was only intended to show the random nature of events and the impossibility, to my mind, of assigning blame for the senseless violence.This news just in (at least for me, since I just got up), today Israeli forces killed two Hamas leaders and their body guards in a hellicopter missle attack. Israel stated that any member of Hamas is now a legitimate military target.If I have a bias it is that purposefully targetting civilians and purposefully targetting groups that purposefully target civilians are not the same thing. If I understand your position it is that Sharon knows that innocent Palestinian civilians will get killed in attacks on Hamas leaders, and that killing these leaders is almost a ruse for killing Palestinian civilians, and if true then he is as dastardly as Hamas, but I don't think the evidence exists for this position. After all, Hamas and Islamic Jihad freely admit they target civilians. The evidence that Sharon's true goal is the same is nowhere near so unequivocal. I think the most that can be said is that the Israeli military is in the main unconcerned about colateral casualties, but this is of longstanding and persisted whether Sharon was in government or not.But I think the same question can be raised about Israelis that I asked about Palestinians. It is in Israel's best interests to be at peace internally with the Palestinians and externally with her neighbors. One important strategy in achieving this goal is to remove as much as possible the hopelessness of the Palestinian situation. Israel's path to achieving this goal is difficult to discern, however, given the violence of some groups on the other side and given the extreme paranoia stemming from their PLO adversary's one time goal of pushing Israel into the sea. And I think those must remain the goals of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, since their activity level picks up both when Israel is too active militarily and, more importantly, when peace seems too likely.But I think Israel is going to have to learn to be more circumstpect in her reaction to terrorist attacks. The disgust the world feels for the terrorism of Hamas and Islamic Jihad will increase each time Israel responds in a measured way, and it should eventually increase to the point where even Palestinians feel it, and so clearly not reacting to terrorism in ways that increase the despair of the Palestinian people is in Israel's best interest. Why they don't seem to see this is as mysterious to me as the Palestinians tolerating Hamas and Islamic Jihad.--Percy

The problem is that Sharon's administration purposely targets civilians. I have already said that the guy they popped right after the bus bombing was a civilian as were his body guards. About a year ago (a little more or less) they also targeted a well known public figure who was totally just a civilian.At that time the US administration (and one of the first times mind you) publicly rebuked Sharon's actions.There is no question. He targets civilians.The next plank down then is to say that he doesn't always target civilians, while Islamic organizations do. But this is also not true. While it is true that Islamic groups target civilians more often than Sharon's government does, this is more of a logistical necessity, than a preference. One can only assume if they had the helicopters, tanks, and jets that Sharon has at his command they would equally target-assassinate Israeli military leaders.This is where I start losing any empathy for Sharon's strategy. While he does target civilians "less", he does so in a way that ends up killing many many many more civilians than those targeted "groups."The reason? Why not read texts from Sharon himself? He has stated that all Palestinians are terrorists and even where they are not ALL PALESTINIANS MUST BE PUNISHED for each act of terrorism. That is his stated strategy. In addition, his stated strategy--- even from years ago--- has been to kill twice as many Palestinians (innocent or not) while attacking terrorists, as Israelis were killed in a terrorist action. He says this is good and he should seem more crazy to them than the Palestinian terrorists, because it will be the only way to make them understand he means business.Well that almost sounds reasonable when you think that he only does this in response to an attack, so he is only revenging himself on innocent Palestinians. The problem is that he doesn't wait for attacks. Remember this is the guy that started the whole idea of "pre-emptive" strikes.So he goes in guns blazing on people that haven't commited crimes yet, killing innocent people in the process. And he considers this justified.When the horrified public he just attacked without provocation responds by revenging, he then goes into overkill revenge mode. This is incorrect. While Sharon was general he was well known for targeting purely civilian areas. It is equally well known, to anyone that knows that fact, that Israeli pilots often dumped their bombs rather than dropping them as ordered by Sharon.This is not to say they always disobey. Sometimes atrocities are commited by the army all on its own. Witness the use of human shields by Israeli soldiers during their raid into Jenin. Something we labelled shortly before as something only terrorists would do. I really scratched my head when Bush and co didn't tear Sharon's head off for having allowed that, or not punishing the soldiers afterward.But Sharon's use of the military to make being a Palestinian hell is less than incidental.There is a reason he has been kicked out of every position he has been in (until now). It was his absolute and unchanging policy of brutalizing Palestinian civilians, that even Israeli citizens and many in the Israeli military could not stomach. The only thing that has ever put this guy back in power is the rise of extremist factional power within the Israeli government. Again, if you look into it you will see it his rise to power has always been preceeded by Palestinian extremism stoked by Israeli radicals to scare the israeli populace. It's easy enough to find. Just look what started this last round of violence.Barak and Arafat were on the edge of some kind of resolution. Extremists on both sides, Sharon leading the Zionist cause, pulled it apart. He intentionally manufactured Palestinian rage (by kicking Palestinians out of a holy spot so that he could visit it) to further scare the Israeli public and push them to accept more extremist positions. Barak was eventually undercut and Sharon installed.The slaughter soon followed.You don't even have to look to Palestinians for confirmation of this. Barak has charged this as well as many moderate Israelis. Even Sharon's current top general has criticized some of his orders (suprisingly in public) as being counterproductive and targeting civilians at the expense of actually stopping terrorism.Sharon is a terrorist. He simply is one that has been voted into office because extremists have control right now.But let's say none of the above was known or is even true. Let's just say that everytime he goes after a military target he kills twice as many civilians as Israelis who have been killed. Maybe that suggests Sharon should use suicide bombers to make attacks, as suicide bombers have been more accurate and caused less collateral damage then Sharon's method.Think about that. The palestinian terrorist groups, using less precise hardware than the Israeli military, have caused less collateral damage than the Israeli military. Does this make any sense to you?------------------
holmes

Thank you, Holmes.

No problem, now maybe you can help me with something. Me and my girlfriend have both been confused and disturbed by the visual of your avatar.What exactly is that a picture of? Is it Biblical or something (like Jesus suffering)?And so as to keep this post on topic I'll add another interesting morsel about the Palestinian/Israeli situation for people to chew on...Deep in the throws of all of this conflict the head of the Palestinian government (a the time) Yaser Arafat was asked if he thought he had made any mistakes along the way. He says he regretted not signing the deal with Barak and so initializing a stronger peace process between the two nations.In the throws of the same conflict, and at a time when crucial Israeli/Palestinian dialogue was trying to be brokered by both the Palestinian and US governments, Sharon was asked nearly the same thing. His response was that he regretted not having ignored US restrictions on military activity and killing Yaser Arafat.Which one of these guys is more likely the terrorist with an agenda of war?------------------
holmes

Someone finally asked me! Yay!At my son's 13th birthday party, we went down to our village's tent, which is about 40x80 and has a straw floor. We use it for village meetings and other events.My wife and I had a pillow fight with about a dozen 12-14 year olds (which didn't turn out too bad, because they attacked each other, too), and then I wrestled about six or seven of them at once in the straw. In the process my ponytail was pulled free, and my hair became a real vision problem.Finally, in exhaustion, I sat down on a hay bale by the wall of the tent and a 10-year-old jumped on me. Too tired to push him away, I tried to roll him over me, but in the process, I slipped off the bale into the ditch that channels water around the tent. It had about six inches of water in it.This was found to be very humorous to everyone there, and a young lady who was present photographed me climbing out of the small ditch.That's the photo. Not being very knowledgeable about the whole thing, it has appeared to me over the years that Arafat was an extremist who got wiser as he got older. I heard on the news today (94.3 FM--I had to go to Lowe's this afternoon) that Israel fired a missile at a Hamas leader, killing one and injuring about 26, but the leader escaped uninjured.I have to admit it doesn't sound like Sharon has toned down enough in his old age.

We can start a new timeline of course.1) Israel assassinates a moderate political figure in response to a terrorist bombing, killing 4 civilians that had absolutely nothing to do with the bombing.2) Israel kills four Hamas military leaders while at a beach. Although they may or may not have been involved in the bombing, we will never know. What we do know is that they were not involved with any terrorist action at the time they were killed. Israel announces it will continue to kill Palestinian leaders (military or not) until there is total demilitarization.3) Palestinian terrorists launch the longest range qassam missiles to date. No damage or casualties. AS PER USUAL no real damage or casualties are inflicted with qassam missile attacks.4) Israel launches missiles into traffic to kill the man behind the qassam rocket attack, the kind of attacks which did not and rarely ever do anything. They miss killing an elderly man and injuring 20 other totally innocent civilians.Here's the latest link... http://reuters.com...Why do Israeli and US citizens have any confidence in Sharon's Zionist government? These incidents have done nothing but pushing the buttons of ordinary Palestinians, undercutting the moderate government (and yes that includes Arafat) while empowering the extremists.Just keep watching the news...Oh yeah, and to the idea that Sharon is simply targeting groups, answer me this, do you think he would launch missiles into a bustling residential Israeli neighborhood to get a few men he knows are on their way to a suicide bombing? No because that would be horrific. It would be as unthinkable as a President bombing certain New York, Chicago, or LA neighborhoods to stop gang violence.What's the difference between Palestinian, Israeli, and US citizens? Nothing, except ordinary Palestinians are treated as they are all in cahoots with the terrorists within their midst (by Israel and the US) or at least as insignificant chaff we can mow through to get the terrorists without fear of repercussion.------------------
holmes[This message has been edited by holmes, 08-26-2003]{Shortened display form of URL, to restore page width to normal - Adminnemooseus}[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 08-27-2003]

Your village's tent? Okay now I've been left in greater confusion, although not as disturbed. I had no idea there were actual village's left in the US, and certainly none that had a communal tent.What is the story with where you live and why is there a tent? I'm assuming this is like a large circus tent?I suddenly have this vision of where you live as some set of medieval mud and thatch dwellings... where do you plug in a computer? It sounds like you have gotten a pretty good inkling of the situation.------------------
holmes

LOL. We moved 35 families onto a 75-acre farm with one farmhouse between May 25 and July 20 of 1999. We mostly used buses and tents to make this happen, although we did bring two single-wide mobile homes with us. A friend and I drove to an army surplus store in Texas to get a kitchen tent (yes, quite MASH-style) and another moderately large tent as a "guest house."Yes, we actually had a family come visit during that time. It rained non-stop while they were here, and the first night a cat came in their tent and had kittens in one of their sleeping bags.The family left Hawaii and moved onto the land with us six months later. Go figure.In the last four years, we have built three cabins, four small houses, one large house, and we have two large houses with electric in, but not drywall or carpet. We've added one mobile home, and we are in the process of purchasing five double-wides, which will get most of us in houses. The rest are still in converted buses.We became a community in Florida as circumstances (single mom's, lost jobs, people moving to be close) led to the homes there almost all turning into two or three family homes. Seventeen families moved together to Tennessee when it became clear a bunch of us in Tennessee wanted to be a part of what they were doing.We moved in 1996 onto a piece of farmland. We expanded two houses (one became 17-bedroom and had 60 people in it, with a kitchen that fed over 100 people, some living in RV's, at every meal), built another one, and bought the two mobile homes that would be moved to the new land three years later. We did all this at the invitation of the property owners. After a couple years, though, it became clear they didn't like us, so we offered to buy their land. They tried to evict us instead. They messed up the process bad, though, so they lost in court, but we moved in that two month period I mentioned, anyway. Who wants to be where they're not wanted? One guy, who left right after that because he thought we were stupid, figured out we walked away from over 200,000 dollars of expenditures on that land.But we've hand fun building up this one. We got the tent for a song a couple years ago. We have awesome festivals a couple times a year, and we always invite the public to a day or two of them. We do horsemanship shows, singing, dancing, games, and food. We have a Celtic band, a dance troupe, and a folk group that writes its own music. Last year I got to be in a fire dance with flaming machetes along with several other men and some of our teenagers.We have a real, actual village, and it's a lot of fun. I plug my computer into the wall of our greatly overtaxed mobile home that has two families in it. We are building an addition on it that will make it 2800 sq. ft., but before it's done I'm trading houses with a single mom of six kids. I'm moving into the beat up cabin she lives in, hopefully to fix it up or to hang out until I or we can afford a mobile home or build something new.Just as a side note, I got a satellite internet receiver put on the side of this house, then figured out how to wirelessly network the computers in the houses and buses on the hill I'm on, so we have about six families sharing the connection, plus three or four of our young people.Our fall festival, which we call the Ingathering, is coming up the first weekend of October. You're welcome to come.

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Originally posted by holmes:you don't predicate peace with moderates by the total inactivity of the fringe groups. You predicate it on peace with the moderate government

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Having read more & more on this situation, I completely agree with you on this point. However, Israel's and America's Administrations DON'T:

The White House on Wednesday dismissed Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's call to reinstate a Middle East truce and said peace efforts should focus on dismantling militant networks. ​ "Actions to dismantle terrorist organizations and to dismantle terrorist networks are what is needed and what's most important," White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said. ​ ... ​ Israel has discounted Arafat's cease-fire call as "propaganda" and said it would continue targeting militants until the Palestinian Authority dismantles militant organizations.

Continuous warfare indeed .------------------

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All the boys think she's a spy

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, 08-27-2003

Who says the sixties are dead? Groovy, man! --Percy

Thanks for the invite, but by October I will be living in Europe somewhere.What you've got going is incredibly intriguing to me. How and why did you get into living this kind of lifestyle? Is it religious based, or as percipient has suggested culturally based?Is there a movement going along with it, or is everyone just kind of falling together to see what happens?Your name and avatar through me way off as to what kind of person you were and the kind of life you lived. Yes, you are much much more interesting than I initially imagined.------------------
holmes

Another qassam rocket was fired at Israel, penetrating even further than the last rocket, but as usual doing absolutely no damage and causing no injuries, much less fatalities.Dore Gold (a Sharon crony) hyped up how horrible this was, yet in every statement said "the Palestinians" rather than "Palestinian terrorists" or "terrorists" or "Hamas" or etc etc etc. The danger he says is with the Palestinians.This is exactly what I am talking about. The Palestinian public is getting blamed and as a consequence punished for every act, rather than just the terrorist groups. And even in pursuing just "those groups" Israel and the US allow things to be done to Palestinians that would be inconceivable to inflict on our own populations.Look for more atrocities around the corner (from both Palestinian extremist groups and the Israeli government).Oh yeah, one other thing to note. Watch the language of Israeli politicians if we ever get another cease-fire in place or at least a period of no violence. You will see them say (as they did with this last cease-fire) that it just means that Palestinians are preparing for more attacks, which makes roundups and assassinations necessary. In this last case it was roundups, in previous lulls over the last couple of years it was both roundups and (more usually) assassinations.What chance do Palestinians have when violence from extremist groups means they must be punished for those acts, and no violence means they must be attacked before more actions have been taken?Any amount of honest research and applied logic to this situation reveals who the real culprits are, and who the real victims are.Culprits: Extremist Islamic groups, Zionist groups (unfortunately running the Israeli government right now), and Xtian groups (unfortunately running the US government right now).Victims: Moderates of every persuasion in that region. One group especially hit hard are the Palestinians who need real resolution of outstanding issues of continued occupation by Israel, and encroachment by Zionist extremist groups.------------------
holmes

I think that the truthlover story is most worthy (I did give it a "Post of the Month" mention) of being spun-off into it's own topic. Please do not respond to it further, in the context of this topic.Adminnemooseus------------------
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