response 151 of 269:

May 5 17:14 UTC 2002

Leeron, going way back, you presented an outright lie about there being
a ten-year-old suicide bomber from Jenin. Can you produce a source for that
lie, other than your  fevered and unlimited hatred for all Palestinians?

And I am not sure why you put so much effort into defending Israel's
illegal settlements in the occupied territories. How did Colin Powell
describe the illegal settlements, again? Was it "Destructive to peace"?

response 153 of 269:

May 5 20:11 UTC 2002

Adapted from the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/05/international/middleeast/05DOCU.html?ex=1
021
607031&ei=1&en=264edbf58ca90851

Enlisting Data Seized in Raids, Israel Widens an Effort to Implicate Arafat
in Terrorism 

Israeli intelligence officials have briefed their counterparts in Washington
on evidence they say shows that Mr. Arafat's Palestinian Authority presides
over "an infrastructure of terror" that plans and executes suicide bombings
of civilians, and coordinates terrorist strikes with militant Islamic groups.

* A September 2001 Palestinian Authority document that Israeli analysts say
carries Mr. Arafat's approval of payments of $600 each to three men, one of
whom had led a Jan. 17 attack on a bat mitzvah party in Hadera that left 6
dead and 50 wounded. 

* An undated document in which one of Mr. Arafat's chief aides, Fuad Shubaki,
authorizes an investment of $80,000 to build a heavy arms workshop that
includes a lathe and milling and metal-processing equipment. Under the 1993
Oslo peace accord, Palestinians are not allowed to have heavy weapons,
although they are allowed an armed security force.

* A May 21, 2001, document bearing the stamp of the Palestinian Authority's
intelligence agency that identifies 232 men it believed had been singled out
by Israeli authorities. The document calls on local Palestinian officials to
"inform the brothers whose names are mentioned to take cautionary measures."

"The documents, coupled with intelligence information and interrogation
reports from Palestinians arrested in the past month, are smoking guns,"
said Gen. Meir Dagan, the head of Mr. Sharon's task force on the financing
of terrorism, in an interview in Tel Aviv last week. "They show conclusively
that Arafat's Palestinian Authority is a syndicate involved in criminal
activities, corruption, and terrorism." 

The seized material also suggests that senior Palestinian officials have had
sustained contacts with Iraq, Iran and other countries the Bush
administration regards as states hostile to American interests. For example,
one American terrorism expert who has discussed the documents extensively
with Israeli officials said he was told that a passport belonging to Mr.
Shubaki, the aide to Mr. Arafat who was arrested during the offensive,
contained multiple entry and exit stamps for Iraq and Libya. In a statement
issued in March, the Israeli government described Mr.  Shubaki as the
Palestinian Authority's official liaison with Iran. It has also accused him
of having helped negotiate the purchase of the Iranian weapons recently
seized on the ship Karine A.

The documents shown to The Times provide a fascinating look at the operations
and the concerns of the nascent Palestinian state created as a result of the
1993 Oslo accords. 

They reflect not only intense rivalry between the Palestinian Authority and militant Islamic groups - particularly Islamic Jihad and Hamas - but also a
significant degree of cooperation.

It notes that the commander of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades in Jenin recruited an
activist for a joint attack with Islamic Jihad in Israel. Israel says this
strike, for which both the Aksa Brigades and the Islamic Jihad claimed
responsibility, was a suicide attack last November in the Israeli city of
Afula in which 2 civilians were killed and 50 wounded. According to the
document, the operation was financed by money from the Islamic Jihad's chief,
Ramadan Shallah, who lives in Syria.

Israel blames Al Aksa for most of the attacks against Israeli civilians
carried out since November and says documents support its assertion that the
brigades are sponsored and financed by Mr. Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
Several documents provided by Israelis support this claim, though their
authenticity could not be independently confirmed.

[Israeli] officials said yesterday that copies had been shared with Jordan
and Egypt, neither of which has challenged their authenticity. 

Suicide bombings are praised in several documents. In one memo dated Feb. 6,
2002, the head of Palestinian intelligence in the Tulkarm district calls the
activities of the squad that carried out the attack in Hadera "qualitative
and successful." The official also notes that the squad members "maintain
ongoing coordination and contacts with us." 

Israeli officials say that many of the documents appealing for funds for Al
Aksa Brigades members were found at Mr.  Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah.
But others were seized at supposedly civilian institutions.

One Israeli official said he recently showed a senior American diplomat in
Tel Aviv a videotape that demonstrated techniques for making homemade bombs
to blow up buses. It was found at an Islamic elementary school in the West
Bank city of Nablus in a file marked "Palestinian cultural heritage," this
official said.

response 155 of 269:

May 6 03:20 UTC 2002

There he goes again.

response 157 of 269:

May 6 14:27 UTC 2002

And you've chosen to ignore that the Israeli government, at Camp David and
again at Taba, was willing to go one step further -- and dismantle those
settlements that would not fall into the 3 settlement blocks (on 5% of
the land) which would be annexed to Israel as part of a peace settlement.

Nevertheless, the question I posed was one of principal, and you simply
can't address it. Is there any reason in your mind why Jews should be
"transferred" out of those other settlements rather than continue to live
there -- just as Arabs will continue to live in Arab villages in Israel?

Nor is the practical problem the Israeli government's unwillingness to
let someone else rule these people (clearly it's not about the land since
it is willing to cede sovereignty to a PA state). It's about the safety
of any Jew who would live in a Palestinian Arab state. (If you worked for
an insurance company, would you issue them a policy?)

response 159 of 269:

May 6 15:26 UTC 2002

Bullshit. Can't you deal with this in an honest fashion?

(Would David argue that a black family was in harm's way if it moved into
a white neighborhood?)

Is there a reason Jews should be precluded from living in Hebron,
Judaism's 2nd holiest site, where Jews have been living for 3000+
years prior to the ethnic cleansing of 1929 and 1948? There's no
"land grab" -- they are living on land that has been owned by Jews
for hundreds of years and on land that was legally purchased.
(Should it be illegal for Jews to purchase land in Hebron?)

These Jews are imperiled not by a government that put them in harms way
(it did not) but -- just as in 1929 and 1948 -- by Arab fanaticism.

Why is it that you consider suggestions to "transfer" out the Arabs to be
racist but at the same time advocate such a "transfer", ethnic cleansing,
of Jews?

response 161 of 269:

May 6 18:57 UTC 2002

> Why is it that you consider suggestions to "transfer" out the Arabs to be
> racist but at the same time advocate such a "transfer", ethnic cleansing,
> of Jews?

I keep trying to point out it's not about race, it's about the reason and
purpose of those settlements.  It's been *admitted* time and time again by
Israelis that the settlements exist purely to give Israel a more
legitimate-sounding claim to the land they're located on.  It's about
expanding borders without overt military action.

response 163 of 269:

May 7 00:19 UTC 2002

"Judea" is merely the southern half of Palestine; by 1914 it had long
since ceased to have any geopolitical reality.  Back through history
before that, the whole area is overlaid with multiple groups of foreign
invaders who come in, divvy up the land, name it, and live there until
conquered by the next batch of foreign devils.  Abraham in the bible may
be an early example of just such an invader (the bible says nobody lived
there, but that was probably no more true back then than today).

I can find lots of land in S/E michigan today where "nobody" lives.
That doesn't mean someone won't get quite unhappy if somebody starts
camping out there, or worse yet, moves in with bulldozers and starts
erecting concrete yuppy housing.  Rane Curl can tell you lots about the
value of some of that "unoccupied" land.

The Israeli settlers in Palestine are *not* at all analogous to the
American Indians.  The settlers are moving in with superior technology,
a court system weighted heavily to their advantage, and with an army at
their backs, to land which they claim to be "unoccupied".  Their very
name, "settlers", makes their ressemblance to the *American* white
settlers of the 19th century, immediately obvious.  Leeron appears to be
arguing the settler's land claims are "legal"; but that's under a legal
system that does *not* treat palestinians and isralis equally, and to
which the term "self-determination" has little if any meaning.  One
might as well argue the 19th century occupation of Oklahoma was "legal".

response 165 of 269:

May 7 18:13 UTC 2002

Poor Scott:

> The Israeli govt. could NOT have so easily offered to dismantle settlments.
> They tried it once, and failed miserably. 

What are you talking about now?

The FACT of the matter is that the Israeli government agreed to dismantle
settlements -- as it had done before in the Sinai.

David:

Many blacks say they move into white neighborhoods to make a political
statement. Does this mean that no blacks should be allowed in white
neighborhoods -- even if those neighborhoods became white when the
whites illegally expelled all the blacks that used to live there?

Is it not racist to advocate the removal of these blacks?

Marcus:

> "Judea" is merely the southern half of Palestine; by 1914 it had long
> since ceased to have any geopolitical reality.

Did Palestine in 1914 have any "geopolitical reality"? Or was it a region
which was defined by Europeans based on the Jewish homeland?

> Back through history  before that, the whole area is overlaid with
> multiple groups of foreign invaders who come in, divvy up the land,
> name it, and live there until conquered by the next batch of foreign
> devils.

Except for one problem. When each of these conquerors (over the past
3000 years) came, the Jews were already there. And when they left, the
Jews were still there. Even the majority of the Arabs are much more
recent than the rule of Arab empires over the region (nearly 1000
years ago).

>  Abraham in the bible may be an early example of just such an invader

Perhaps, but it is also possible that the Hebrews originated from the
ancient Apiru who were already there in 2000 BCE.

> Their very name, "settlers"....

So by that token, anyone we name a "terrorist" is, by virtue of nomenclature?
(It's a great example of the inherent bias even in the American press. Along
with misleading terms such as "occupied" and "Arab East Jerusalem" -- as if
there was even an East Jerusalem or as if it was Arab prior to the ethnic
cleansing of the Jewish population in 1948. How can it be that the areas that
were recently "re-occupied" were previously still "occupied"?)

Your comparison to "unoccupied" land in Michigan demonstrates that you
still don't grasp the fundamentals. Prior to 1948, these lands (which
are still "unoccupied") were owned by Jews. Jews lived there. It is Jewish
land. It became "Arab land", just like eastern Jerusalem did, by war and
illegal military conquest.

Should Czechs today who "settle" in the Sudetenland be compared to 19th
century Oklahomans?

response 167 of 269:

May 7 19:25 UTC 2002

Bullshit.

If every time a black person from Detroit moved into part of vast stretches
of vacant land in Redford Township (where blacks used to live prior to their
expulsion by the whites of Livonia a few years earlier) they came under
attack by armed Livonia KKK members (while the Livonia police looked the
other way because many of its officers were members of the KKK), would
you be surprised that the black "settlers" put up fences and requested
protection from the Detroit police?

response 169 of 269:

May 7 20:59 UTC 2002

Re 165:  I can't find the link right now, but yes, the Israeli government did
once try to dismantle a settlement.  Eventually they had to send the police
in to force the settlers out, and a year or two later found them all back in
the settlement again.  

response 171 of 269:

May 9 00:33 UTC 2002

re 169:  Scottie, I won't insult your intelligence by asking if you
really believe what you wrote.

response 173 of 269:

May 9 07:24 UTC 2002

As more information about Jenin becomes available, I cannot help
revisiting a point David (gull) raised in #75:

> I said it's easier to bring down one 10-story building with a blast
> than it is to take down several blocks of houses.

Except that in Jenin, as we know from Arab sources quoted by CNN,
[ http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/04/22/jenin.fighter/index.html ]
there were 1000-2000 bombs spread throughout those blocks of houses.
David assured us they were small bombs, yet Time magazine reports:
[ http://www.time.com/time/2002/jenin/story.html ]

        Some of the bombs were huge -- as much as 250 lbs.

Time goes on to note that the armored bulldozers Israel used to clear
a path into the camp would require at least half-an-hour to destroy a
building, giving residents plenty of time to exit if they had not heeded
previous warnings from Israeli soldiers. Time writes:

        Undoubtedly, the D-9 [bulldozers] destroyed houses, but they
        certainly didn't bury as many people as Palestinian officials
        have alleged.

        A senior Palestinian military officer tells Time it was probably
        the gunmen's own booby traps that buried some civilians and
        fighters alive. There were bombs that were certainly big enough
        to wreck a cinder-block refugee house more devastatingly than a
        D-9 ever could.