|
Grex > Agora41 > #37: What can be done in the middle east? | |
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 604 responses total. |
flem
|
|
response 125 of 604:
| 
Apr 8 19:08 UTC 2002 |
wow am I glad I didn't read all of that.
|
klg
|
|
response 126 of 604:
|
Apr 8 23:30 UTC 2002 |
re: "Then these very same Arab leaders turn and excuse their actions on the
basis of not being able to control the "Arab street".... "
lk, Do you think that any of the "Arab leaders" have anything to gain
by making peace with Israel, or does continuation of the present state
of affairs do more to keep them in power?
|
rcurl
|
|
response 127 of 604:
|
Apr 9 00:01 UTC 2002 |
That's true of the Israeli right-wing/military complex too.
|
lk
|
|
response 128 of 604:
|
Apr 9 04:17 UTC 2002 |
Only if you are into false equivalences. You do recall that Sharon was
democratically ELECTED just over a year ago. Can you name one legitimate
Arab government?
The sad thing is that in places like Egypt, Jordan and Saudia, this is a
good thing because the ruling parties are more "moderate" than the people
(though that they maintain popularity by exacerbating anti-Israel propaganda
is most unhelpful in the long term).
klg, I used to believe that peace could only come once Arab regimes became
democratic countries. Then I thought that peace and prosperity may lead to
the democratization of the Arab countries. Now I fear that one depends upon
the other and that we are hopelessly deadlocked.
|
lk
|
|
response 129 of 604:
|
Apr 9 04:29 UTC 2002 |
Regarding the standoff at the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, here is an
article from Monday's Washington Times.
Abstract:
1. One Priest who has left described a hostage situation.
"gunmen had shot their way in, and that the priests, monks and nuns
were essentially hostages."
2. One Priest still inside is quoted stating:
"We have absolutely no choice. They have guns, we do not... we tried to
get the Palestinian gunmen to leave by a back door, but they refused."
3. Amongst those in the Church is Jihad Jearah, Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigade leader
responsible for one of the Saturday Night Massacres in Jerusalem, the suicide
bombing outside a synagogue in which 5 children and 4 women were killed.
4. Arafat has ordered that no deal be negotiated -- he thinks that the standoff
provides good anti-Israel PRopanganda.
5. Al Aqsa Brigades have been terrorizing the Christian community in Bethlehem.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020408-8724550.htm
ARAFAT TELLS GUNMEN TO REFUSE DEAL
By Paul Martin
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat has ordered a group of
around 200 militant gunmen, Palestinian police and civilians holed up inside
Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity complex to refuse any deal for resolving
the standoff, the governor of Bethlehem said in a telephone interview from
inside the church last night.
"Our instructions from president Arafat were very clear," Bethlehem Gov.
Mohamed el-Madani said on a cellular phone reaching the end of its batteries.
"We cannot negotiate anything with the Israelis. We are staying until there is
a solution, which is that the Israelis withdraw their troops not just from
around the church but from all of Bethlehem and go back home."
The governor said his last instruction had come in a cell-phone conversation
Thursday from one of Mr. Arafat's closest aides at the chairman's besieged
Ramallah headquarters.
He added: "I've not spoken to them since then, but there's no need for any
further instructions, as we have our orders."
A Vatican negotiating mission has met with no success. Israeli jeeps yesterday
were driving around the huge church complex with megaphones, calling on the
gunmen to "surrender and you will be treated peacefully."
One of the few priests evacuated from the church told Israeli television
yesterday that gunmen had shot their way in, and that the priests, monks and
nuns were essentially hostages.
About 150 armed men, a number of them alleged by Israel to be on their "most
wanted" list of terrorists and bombers, blasted their way through a steel door
into the church, a clergyman inside the complex said using its only
still-working telephone.The church is on the site where Christians believe
Jesus was born.
The priest, who chose not to supply his name, declined to call the clergy
"hostages," but repeatedly said in fluent English: "We have absolutely no
choice. They have guns, we do not."
He added: "We tried to get the Palestinian gunmen to leave by a back door,
but they refused, saying they could be shot by the Israelis.
They have taken up security positions inside our living quarters, and they
are refusing to meet our repeated requests to leave at least some part of our
premises."
A senior Israeli military official, Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, told journalists
yesterday that his forces considered the priests inside the church to be
hostages, and added: "We are reserving the right to free these hostages when
the right time comes."
But he added: "Palestinian terrorists are using holy places to shoot at our
forces, because they know that we are not going to retaliate toward holy
places."
The priest interviewed from inside the church complex said that around half
the 150 armed men were from the militant Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, part of the
fighting forces of Fatah, the dominant Palestinian movement founded and
presided over by Mr. Arafat, while the rest were employees of the Palestinian
Authority's security services.
But Anton Salman, a lawyer who went into the complex together with the
governor two to three hours after the gunmen had entered, said yesterday via
cell phone that no churchmen were being held hostage, and that the convent
staff had been dishing out food equally to civilians, church staff and gunmen.
They were surviving on a diet of rice and spaghetti, and drawing water from
wells within the church compound, he said.
He maintained that Israel had refused to allow Red Cross food supplies to be
brought in to the complex.
One of the leaders of the Al Aqsa brigade, Jihad Jearah, 28, said on Saturday
by cell phone: "We are prepared to fight to the last man. Everyone here is
prepared to become a shaheed [martyr]."
Mr. Jearah, who was shot in the leg as he ran into the church complex, was
featured a week ago in a British television documentary showing how his group
prepared bombs and how it went about recruiting suicide bombers.
Fatah in Bethlehem has claimed credit for several suicide bombings this year,
including the killing by 18-year-old Mohamed Daraghmeh of five children and
four women in Jerusalem as they completed their Sabbath meal.
The Al Aqsa group has carved out a fearsome reputation in Bethlehem. Just
before Israeli soldiers entered the town, it killed two suspected
collaborators, dragging their bodies through Manger Square, and then killed
six more.
Local inhabitants say the group has conducted a long-running extortion racket
forcing Christian shopkeepers and manufacturers of holy items and souvenirs to
pay protection money. A 70-year-old cafe owner in Manger Square was recently
shot in the face by an Al Aqsa gang member.
The Al Aqsa fighters, who often drive luxury cars stolen from Israel proper,
used to sweep into the Christian hillside suburb of Bet Jala and fire into
the nearby outer Jerusalem suburb of Gilo.
After an Al Aqsa leader was arrested for the suspected rape of a Christian
girl last year, his fighters stormed the jail and freed him.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 130 of 604:
|
Apr 9 05:15 UTC 2002 |
Sharon and company were democratically elected, but that doesn't mean
that Israel is not now governed by a "right-wing/military complex" (supported
by American dollars).
I think the US should give a deadlikne for Israel to withdraw from the
reoccupied occupied lands or US support will halt.
|
richard
|
|
response 131 of 604:
|
Apr 9 05:44 UTC 2002 |
#129...how could Arafat possibly order that no deal be negotiated in the
church of the nativity standoff? Arafat is surrounded by tanks and all his
phone lines have been cut and cell phones arent working. There's no way
he could possibly have contacted those people.
.'
the idea that Arafat is still giving orders is pure Israeli propoganda...
|
mdw
|
|
response 132 of 604:
|
Apr 9 07:06 UTC 2002 |
Re #121 -- I've heard Arafat say publically just as ardently that he's
in favor of peace. You tell me I shouldn't believe Arafat. Ok, I'll
buy that he's no Gandhi. You then tell me I should believe Sharon's
words, and that those in favour of violence in Israel are a tiny
unimportant minority. Whoa there, now you've exceeded my credibility.
Your man of peace seems to be very busy rolling tanks over every bit of
Palestinian terrority, over the protests of virtually everyone in the
international community. Now, maybe, just maybe, your man of peace
really *is* interested in Peace, but if so, he's picked a singularly
inept and futile way of achieving it, and he's not showing any signs of
being Nobel peace prize material.
So far as I can tell, the Israel attitude towards Palestinians is
virtually the same as the 19th century American settler towards Indians.
I'll bet the settlers who were actually busy pushing massacring the
Indians and generally pushing the boundaries of things were a tiny
percentage of Americans at large. I'd also bet that the Indians were
saying all the same things about the settlers that the Palestinians are
saying about the Israelis today. There are differences. Until the very
end, the amount of "indian" territory in question was vast, and there
generally was some place else for the Indians to go (well, there were
probably already Indians there too, and they probably *did* get
destablized, but that only made them ripe pickings for the settlers in
turn when they got there.) Also, of course, the Indians did not have
the internet or oil fields. (Well, actually, there *was* oil there, but
people were still busy hunting the whale to near extinction.)
Re #128 -- unfortunately, peace & prosperity seem to be the last thing
on any Palestinian's mind. There's apparently a time bomb ticking away
here, in that the Palestinians are rapidly multiplying. I guess they
figure if they can out-reproduce the Israli's, they can out-vote them,
or if it's a question of war, then the side with more cannon fodder
wins. I haven't heard anything concerning the Palestinian position on
birth control, abortion and family planning, but I'd guess they're
opposed to the former, and would argue "the larger the better, at any
cost" to the latter.
|
i
|
|
response 133 of 604:
|
Apr 9 09:57 UTC 2002 |
My impression is that on both sides of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict
there are large "conservative" (fairly fundamentalist religeon, pro-
conflict, & generally opposed to any settlement that doesn't leave the
other side dead, deported, or de facto enslaved) blocks that are busy
breeding themselves toward majority status. It kinda makes me wish
that the whole place could be walled in and Mr. Malthus allowed to deal
with the problem.
|
russ
|
|
response 134 of 604:
|
Apr 9 12:31 UTC 2002 |
Re #127: But the Israeli left wing, which wins elections and forms
governments more often than not, isn't beholden. Israel would take
the alternative... IF IT COULD. The Muslim Arab states won't allow it.
|
drew
|
|
response 135 of 604:
|
Apr 9 15:06 UTC 2002 |
*Why* don't the Arab states like Israel?
|
lk
|
|
response 136 of 604:
|
Apr 9 15:23 UTC 2002 |
Richard, re#131:
> how could Arafat possibly order... surrounded by tanks...
There has been some traffic in and out of the compound, even if Arafat himself
is not allowed to leave. Soon he'll be meeting with some of his top advisors.
Marcus, re#132:
> I've heard Arafat say publically just as ardently that he's in favor of
> peace.
As ardently as he's said he isn't? Without a doubt Arafat has said, in
English, what we want to hear but that's not what he says in Arabic. The
incitement continued on a daily basis, in person and on the government run
press and TV. Even in his Dec. 2001 speech, while a few sentences calling for
a ceasefire were inserted, the gist of the text was the exact opposite,
calling for more "martyrs".
See http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011231&s=editorial123101
> those in favour of violence in Israel are a tiny unimportant minority.
> Whoa there....
Not exactly. After 12 suicide bombings in 15 days -- with a death toll per
capita equivalent of 3 WTC bombings, the majority of Israelis favor *short
term* military action to destroy the terrorist infrastructure that Arafat has
allowed to be built in the territories (Area A) over the last 8 years.
Similarly, the majority of Americans favor "violence" in Afghanistan -- but
only because it was forced upon us.
The majority of Israelis are committed to the peace process, to *long term*
peaceful coexistence. As revealed (again) in the recent Gallup poll of Muslim
and Arab countries, the opposite is not true.
> the Israel attitude towards Palestinians is virtually the same as the 19th
> century American settler towards Indians. I'll bet the settlers who were
> actually busy pushing massacring....
Except that the analogy fails on every level. First, Jewish settlements in
many of these areas pre-date the arrival of the Arabs. Consider the so-called
"Arab East Jerusalem". Prior to the 20th century, there was no such place,
there was no one living outside of the old city walls. Until 1948, Jews
flourished in eastern Jerusalem (the site of Hadassah Hospital, Neve Yaakov,
etc.) It became Arab only with the ethnic cleansing of the entire population
during the war. The same was true in the rest of the territories illegally
seized by the invading Arab armies. So now Jews who returned to their homes a
scant 19 years later are the equivalent of Americans who massacred Indians?
In the rest of the area that for 3000 years was known as JUDEA (and for a mere
19 years was, illegally, the West Bank of Trans-Jordan, the west part of
eastern Palestine), many of the settlements are in places where Jews lived
prior to 1948. NONE of them are on areas that were previously privately held
by Arabs. No one has been "pushed" off their land by settlers. This myth is
just an extension of the lie that Jews "stole" the land.
|
gull
|
|
response 137 of 604:
|
Apr 9 15:26 UTC 2002 |
Re #128:
> Can you name one legitimate Arab government?
Iran? Turkey?
Both have democratically elected governments, as I recall.
|
jmsaul
|
|
response 138 of 604:
|
Apr 9 15:29 UTC 2002 |
Re #132: Supposedly (I don't have the language skills to confirm this)
Arafat talks about "Peace" in Engligh and "Glorious Martyrdom"
in Arabic. The claim is that he gives different messages to the
West and the Arab world, and that he's scamming the West. I find
it hard to believe that nobody in the West has bothered to read
his Arabic-language statements, but then the STate Department let
Bush get away with that moronic "crusade" thing, so maybe we really
are that ignorant.
|
jmsaul
|
|
response 139 of 604:
|
Apr 9 15:35 UTC 2002 |
Leeron and gull slipped.
Re #137: Both of those governments stretch the American definition of
"legitimate." Iran's democratically elected government is
subject to veto by an unelected council of religious scholars,
backed up by armed religious forces who are outside the
government's authority. Turkey's government exists at the
sufferance of the military, which sees itself as the guardian of
the secular state, and will step in to overturn the will of the
people if that will deviates from what the military thinks is
correct. Jokes about the 2000 "election" here in the US aside,
you can see why their legitimacy might be in question.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 140 of 604:
|
Apr 9 15:44 UTC 2002 |
I would like to see some unbiased professional translations of what
Arafat is claimed to have said in Emglish and in Arabic that is in
any way constradictory. I have only seen such claims from aggressively
biased observers. Since so many people speak both, it would be bizarre
to contradict oneself in different languages. I have not seen any
American news media asserting that he did so: they only report that
biased sources said he did.
|
jmsaul
|
|
response 141 of 604:
|
Apr 9 17:53 UTC 2002 |
Supposedly, you can see some of Arafat's statements from the Arabic on the
English-language Al Jazeera website. I haven't looked yet, but there's no
reason for Al Jazeera to set hium up.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 142 of 604:
|
Apr 9 19:44 UTC 2002 |
Please provide a URL - there are so many Al Jazeera hits found by google I
couldn't find one quoting and translating Arafat in regard to the claimed
contradictory statements.
|
mdw
|
|
response 143 of 604:
|
Apr 9 20:07 UTC 2002 |
My best understanding of "Arab" culture is the very term "legitimate"
reflects our cultural bias. Saudi Arabia is, in essence, governed by a
family who got to power by being essentially (a) superior cattle
rustlers, and (b) making a good deal with the British at the right time.
60 years later, they were still telling visiters about that last great
raid, as well as showing off the bullet holes. This is their culture;
this is their equivalent to our election process. Do we really have the
right to impose our cultural values upon them?
|
rcurl
|
|
response 144 of 604:
|
Apr 9 20:10 UTC 2002 |
Nice example of American chauvinism, Marcus. They probably have a similar
story about "American" culture.
|
jmsaul
|
|
response 145 of 604:
|
Apr 9 20:21 UTC 2002 |
Re #142: If I had one, I would. What I told you is all I know on the topic.
I'd like to see them too.
Re #143: It's the culture of the ruling class, not necessarily of those
who aren't at the apex of the pyramid. The countries we're
talking about also have moderates and liberals who would like to
stop being ruled by autocrats who imprison, torture, and often
execute those whose opinions differ from the party line. They'd
like a voice in government. They'll agree that their culture is
not our culture, and that they don't want to turn their nations
into another United States, but they do feel that they're
entitled to participate in their own government, and they aren't
being allowed to now.
Unsurprisingly, the people in power use the exact same argument
you do to explain to the West why they should continue to rule
with an iron hand. It's also the argument the Taliban used to
tell the rest of the world why it was okay for them to beat
their women with metal cables for going outside without head to
toe covering. I doubt you endorse that, so maybe you should
read some moderate Islamic voices (e.g. Fatima Mernissi) so you
will realize that the leadership of these nations doesn't always
speak for their subjects, and that "we don't want to be America"
isn't the same as "it is a cultural imperative for us to be
ruled by despots, so stop saying we should have freedom."
|
mdw
|
|
response 146 of 604:
|
Apr 9 20:23 UTC 2002 |
How much do *you* know about the ruling Saudi family, Rane? I'm pretty
sure I can find some good footnote type references for those bullet
holes.
|
jmsaul
|
|
response 147 of 604:
|
Apr 9 20:26 UTC 2002 |
Incidentally, the moderates and liberals are pissed off at the US too -- for
preaching about how great "freedom" is, while propping up the despots who
squash it in the Moslem world because they sell us oil.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 148 of 604:
|
Apr 9 20:35 UTC 2002 |
Re #146: I said nothing about "the ruling Saudi family".
|
russ
|
|
response 149 of 604:
|
Apr 9 22:32 UTC 2002 |
Re #132: Arafat has said, "I would kill for my beliefs; why
wouldn't I lie for them?"
What do Arafat's *actions* say, Marcus? His recent actions include
releasing two militants from his jails, both of whom strapped on
explosives and blew up Israeli civilians within days. Are those the
actions of someone ready to control the radical elements on his side
and create the conditions for peace? Simple question; yes or no?
|