- #71
russ_watters
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To some extent, the Israelis are faced with the same choice as the militants: fight or not fight. Since not fighting means not protecting their civilians from terrorism, the decision is a fairly easy one. The decision on where to fight is made by the militants, so its the militants who are responsible for the civilian deaths in the camps. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but that's the way it works. The same applied in Iraq to Saddam garrisoning troops in civilian areas: and he's going to answer for that.jcsd said:Remeber it is the Israreli army that are doing the most to endanger the lievs of Palestian civlains not Palestian miltants.
You makes your choices and accepts your consequences. If the terrorists are ok with being terrorists (and clearly they are), then they are going to have to accept the consequences. One of those consequences is the possibility of a war crimes tribunal.One of the main problem is that the Palestians have little option on how they can fight the Israelis
That is, of course, absurd - obviously, the one and only reason the Israelis are fighting is because they want the constant terrorists attacks to end: peace is their only goal. Contrast that with the goals of the terrorists: 1. establish a Palestinian state. 2. Kill all the Jews. Clearly, #2 is the overriding goal, as they had #1 given to them and chose #2 instead. Decades of failure at both is starting to change some attitudes though...and with the exception of Labor in the nineties no Isreali government has ever been willing to consider peace.
Its a bit like the IRA and Sinn Fein - it is perfectly legitimate to not ever deal directly with terrorists, and it is also perfectly legitimate to deal with the political wing only when the political wing shows they can speak for/have authority over the terrorists. The Palestinians are choosing to play that game, not the Israelis: if Hamas ever became civilized, they themselves would be invited to the neotiating table. Its a catch-22 and the terrorists are, by their on choices, on the short end of it.Again you prove my point IT IS IGNORANCE, Israel refused to allow Hamas to be involvedint he peace process in anyway during those talks, howvere the PA for their part negoiated a semi-ceasefire with Hamas (in which they agreed not to attack civilian targets in Israel) which Israel refused to recognize officially (though itdid scale back operatins aginst Hamas). However Hamas ended the ceasefire after a Hamas student leader was shot in the back whilst in the custody of the Israeli border police.
Why should Israel believe that the PA has either the desire or the ability o do that? When have they ever demonstrated it in the past?Isreal though has tried to destroy the PA rather than allow it to be in a psotion where it can meet Israeli demands. If you can't see the hypocrisy in that...
Sharon is a hard-liner, its true - but he's justified in being demanding to people that are killing his civilians on a virtually daily basis. His lack of trust to people who have never shown that they are worthy of trust is quite understandable.But the point is that Sharon, from the very beginning has always tried to undermine the PA, they were certaintly the authority in palestine, but mainly due to the efforts of Israel that is not hte case anymore (you have to rember that Sharon has always been against negoitaing with Palestians and even to get him into the roadmap which he paid only lip service to from the start took major diplomatic pressure from the US who at the time he accused of 'appeasing terror')
Well, that's the rub, isn't it? Who'se fault is it? Is it the people who are blowing up busses full of civilians who are more at fault, or the people who are defending themselves against this terrorism who are at fault? Remember, if the Arabs hadn't chosen this path, we wouldn't be on it.The Palestians do not trust Israel either, so there must be some sort of bilateral movemnt rather than putting the expectaions on the Palestians who after all are more sinnined agianst than sinners.
Until the Arabs recognize that killing civilians for the sake of killing civilians is wrong, there won't be an end to this conflict.
That's self-contradictory.The PA has many problems, but it certainly was not a front for terroirst (though it certainl does have mebers involved in miltant organistaions),
I'll drop the Hebron issue - I must admit you know more of the history than I do. But I still think (as kat showed), you're only reading half the history. People of different races, ethnicities, religions live side-by-side in cities all over the US and the civilized world. Why not in the middle-east? Why does the presence of a Jew (or a Christian, for that matter) near an arab require the arab to kill the Jew?
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