1967 - Israel's Wasted Victory

[Steve Blair]

And many of the founders of the modern state of Israel bombed schools and other assorted non-military targets to make their point in the days before 1947. Hagana even approached the SS in 1937 regarding the movement of Jews from Europe to Palestine in order to achieve numerical superiority and thus a territorial claim to the region.

But that's neither here nor there. Let's see some substance other than rhetoric about good and evil. There's enough of both in the Middle East (on BOTH sides) to go around. Otherwise this thread may have reached its useful life.

[AdmiralAdama]

Not sure what you mean by latest reply.

Unsourced claims that pre-Israel Jewish organizations engaged in "terrorism" against schools says nothing about today's battle between a democracy and an array of Jihadist terror organizations.

Just as America's treatment of the Indians does not preclude it from wearing the "White Hat" in a battle against Nazis, neither does Israel's pre-Independence struggles with the local Arabs mean that it is not part and parcel of Western democracies, on the front line of the Jihad.

To try to assert moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas/Fatah is like asserting moral equivalence between Czechoslovakia and the forces arrayed against it leading up to WWII. One need not demand that a fellow democracy actsalways with a other-worldly purity to see the quite different morality of its opponents, Jihadists and dictatorships that openly assert their desire for politicide. America's alliance with Israel is similar in this case to her Alliance with Taiwan & South Korea -- it is in our interest to defend besieged democracies. That is what America has always stood for, in between bouts of isolationism.

[Jedburgh]

I'm with Steve on this one. I get sick and tired of the ignorant partisanship on this issue - either Israel is the golden child, always in the right - or the Palestinians are the woefully oppressed innocents. In reality, both sides have bloody hands, and both continue to contribute enormously to the continual cycle of violence. (Can't either side get better leadership?)

However, I feel that Israel, as a sovereign state, the regional superpower, and the occupier with the overwhelming capability to do whatever they want in the territories, bears a greater responsibility to take the actions necessary to acheive a solution to the conflict.

...Arafat was offered 95% of the West Bank and Gaza and said NO without any counteroffer and started an "intifada" centered around suicide bombings of civilians....

A common myth in surprisingly large circles is that the Palestinians were offered the farm at Camp David and then the ungrateful bastards threw it in Barak’s face. Not so.

First off, by the time the summit was held, several negative processes had become permanent features of the post-Oslo environment:

- The steady confiscation of Palestinian land in the West Bank and Gaza
- The accelerated expansion of existing settlements and the construction of new ones
- The division of the West Bank and Gaza into cantons separated from each other by Israeli controlled territory
- The paving of 250 miles of bypass roads on confiscated land that were designed to bisect, truncate and encircle Palestinian areas
- The institutionalization of the closure policy and the construction of dozens of checkpoints throughout the territories designed to control and restrict movement between Palestinian areas

At the summit itself, Barak moved immediately to final status issues, rather than implement a third redeployment of IDF troops as was mandated under previous agreements. So, the PA was forced into a position of discussing final status arrangements when it controlled little more than 17% of the West Bank and almost 80% of Gaza in isolated, encircled enclaves. This put the Palestinians into a position where the third phase of withdrawal was made contingent upon major Palestinian concessions on final status issues. Certainly not a congenial starting point upon which to begin negotiations at the summit.

Yes, Barak did go a bit further than any other Israeli leader in breaking the taboo on talking about East Jerusalem and the Haram Al-Sharif. However, his vision of a final settlement – neither generous nor a real “compromise” – did not not change significantly from what had gone before. Key elements that resulted in rejection by the Palestinians were:

- Annexation of 3 large settlement blocks which would split the West Bank into four cantons with the passages between them under complete Israeli control, and an encircled and divided East Jerusalem completely cut off from other Palestinian areas. Under this scenario, the Palestinians were cut off from the outside world – their only borders were with Israel. End of "occupation", but continuance of Israeli control over their lives.
- Continued Israeli control over the Palestinian economy through the imposition of an import and indirect taxation regime, which would make it impossible for a Palestinian state to implement external trade or fiscal policies different than Israel’s.
- Continued Israeli control over all groundwater resources in the West Bank and Gaza.

So, in sum, the Israeli offer precluded contiguous territory, defined and functional borders, and political and economic sovereignty. I would say those conditions completely nullified the idea of feasible political targets for the Palestinians, in the sense of providing for an eventual independent and sovereign Palestinian state. At that point, the second Intifada became a tragic inevitability. Sharon’s entry into the Haram Al-Sharif lit the tinderbox, much like the entry of the forces of Antiochus II into the sacred precincts of the Temple in Jerusalem triggered the Maccabean Revolt.

[AdmiralAdama]

Not sure where you're getting your information. Dennis Ross was the US envoy to the region -- he makes clear that the Palestinians were offered contiguous territory. Instead of a counter offer of this very generous concept, Arafat said no, left, and started the "suicide bomb" intifida.

You can read more of Dennis Ross reporting of the offer, and the map, here

http://www.mideastweb.org/lastmaps.htm

Here's the summary

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideast...es/000555.html

DENNIS ROSS: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED AT CAMP DAVID AND BEYOND

A summary by Dennis Ross of what was offered and what took place at the Camp David and Taba negotiations:

1. Yasser Arafat presented no ideas at Camp David.

2. The Taba talks would have happened in late September if not for the outbreak of violence. Arafat knew the US was ready to make a proposal and thus promised to control the violence, but didn't. (I think he was hoping that he could leverage the violence into political gain.)

3. All of Gaza and a net of 97% of the West Bank were offered at Taba.

4. The West Bank area offered was contiguous, not "cantons".

5. The Jordan valley would be under Israeli patrol for only 6 years.

6. The Palestinians were offered a capital in eastern Jerusalem.

7. There would be a "Right of Return" to the nascent Palestinian state.

8. A $30 Billion fund to compensate refugees would be set up.

9. Taba was rushed due to Clinton's, not Barak's, end of term.

10. Members of the PA delegation thought Taba was the best they could hope to get and encouraged Arafat to accept it.

11. Arafat accepted everything he was given at Taba, but rejected everything he was supposed to give.

12. Arafat scuttled the Camp David offer. Arafat scuttled the Taba offer. Arafat scuttled the Mitchell plan. Arafat scuttled the Tenet plan. Arafat scuttled the Zinni plan.

Today, we see the Palestinians throwing each other off roofs as the Hamas terror group fights the Fatah terror group in Gaza after a full Israeli withdrawal. The West is lucky Arafat said No and we didn't see a terror mini-state appear between Israel and Jordan.

And of course I'm not saying that Israel is the "Golden Child" -- merely that it is on the front lines facing the exact same forces -- Jihadist terrorists and Iranian proxy groups -- that America faces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The geopolitical dynamics, along with Israel's standing as a Western democracy, mean that it is in American interests to support Israel in its struggle to survive in a very difficult region. It's perplexing that this point is controversial -- nobody really suggests "balancing" our support for South Korea with support for North Korea, or suggested "balancing" our support for Taiwan with support for China. Only in regards to Israel is America expected to be "even handed" vis a vis a democracy and forces of totalitarianism and terror.

[Culpeper]

bin Laden claims America has blood on her hands as well but that doesn't make it so. Not like the blood on his hands. But when it comes to choosing sides where Israel and the likes of Hamas and Fatah are concerned than I'm going to pick Israel. Both terrorist organizations have no interest in statehood with Israel in existence. No different than choosing sides on the this war in Iraq. Maybe the President isn't the sharpest knife in the draw. Maybe he accidentally brought the fight in the same region that so many before brought the same fight for the same reason over and over again because certain factions of Islam keep trying to kill in the name of religion. The last prophet of Islam was Mohamed. There will be no more prophets. What makes bin Laden so smart? He teaches his soldiers to hate and kill the enemy. They don't debate about it with their soldiers. I would hope that we, as a different culture, do debate about it. That is what makes us better than them. But at some point, some where, in some places, the debate ends. And when it does I prefer to see the dogma of the likes of bin Laden killed with extreme prejudice like so many before over the centuries beset with the same distorted ideas of the world have met their faith before. We can study Islam until we are blue in the face but the only thing the average American needs to know about Islam at the moment is what they learned on September 11, 2001. Everything they need to know about how difficult it is for a free society to fight back they learned on September 12, 2001. I would like to think the next time some maniac like bin Laden openly declares war on the USA that we don't ignore it or even put up barriers to prevent fighting back. After all, that is why we are here today. The fallacy of a free society up against the tyranny of evil men. And what side are these evil men on? They seem to grasp that need for success while we try to figure out if we can break our rules for success. I think Navy SEAL, Marcus Luttrell, can tell us a thing or two about the difficulties in making these types of decisions.

[AdmiralAdama]

It is important to remember that the "Palestinians" danced in the streets when the World Trade Center fell. These types of display make it a little easier for me to figure out where I stand in the conflict.
pics
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/webl...tember_11&only
video here
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/302316...9_11_from_cnn/

[Culpeper]

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that a whole lot of Muslims have met an untimely death since September 11, 2001? There is so many that nobody can agree on just how many. I'm not just including war. They have been hammered just as hard from senseless tragic accidents to natural disasters. I would guess that America is at the lower end for the cause of these deaths. As for revenge, I think certain Islamics have suffered enough. But some with the right amount of authority seem to want to continue the fight. In some places it is just part of the daily grind. It is a jihad war of choice and yet it is all America's fault. That sentence just doesn't make any sense. Until some jihad kid blows up a train or a bus in Europe. And as usual it is complete contempt for the victims and total support for the torturer. Like our own judicial system. It is forget about the victim and release the poor murderer because he could have been the champion of the world. In other words, it is try to empathize with the poor jihadist because it is part of his culture and since the jihadists has hateful things to say about America than it must be America's fault. They can even put "American" people in quotations and we will give them a bye on that in any discussion. After all, they are jihadists and it is part of their culture to insult us. And that is all right.

[Sarajevo071]

It is important to remember that the "Palestinians" danced in the streets when the World Trade Center fell. These types of display make it a little easier for me to figure out where I stand in the conflict.
pics
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/webl...tember_11&only
video here
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/302316...9_11_from_cnn/

The Five Dancing Israelis Arrested On 9-11
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fiveisraelis.html

Cheering Movers and Art Student Spies: Was Israel Tracking the Hijackers Before the 9/11 Attacks?
http://www.democracynow.org/article..../02/08/1610254

Some Serbs celebrated BIN LADEN's attack on NEW YORK 9/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX17oIPKubA

To help you to "figure" things better...

[AdmiralAdama]

Too silly to comment -- the "five dancing Israelis" are about as real as the "4 thousand Jews who were warned of the 9/11 attack beforehand" conspiracy theory.

[Steve Blair]

Not sure what you mean by latest reply.

Unsourced claims that pre-Israel Jewish organizations engaged in "terrorism" against schools says nothing about today's battle between a democracy and an array of Jihadist terror organizations.

My point is quite simple: there is history in this region and neither side is perfect. Selectively quoting other websites and drawing very tenuous links to other locations does not change that fact. You can paint your own worldview in black and white, but that doesn't make it so.

I'm with Tom on this. We will have to agree to disagree.