As I said in my last post Dan, talks will break down only if the talks are allowed to be hijacked by individuals or groups of people intent on bringing the talks down using something like a suicide bomb.As difficult as it maybe the talks must continue regardless of whoever is trying to ruin them. What happens now days is that there might be a peace initiative ongoing, then a bomb goes off and then the whole focus is turned on catching the perpertrators while all talks for peace are put on complete hold. In the process of trying to find the perpetrators something inadvetently happens resulting in an escalation of the crisis. What should happen is that the talks should continue regardless, its imperative that both the Israel’s and ARAFAT do all they can to negotiate fully, while Arafat should be allowed to reign in the suicide bombers as he did in 1999 with the help of the Mossaed. (Israeli Intelligence Agency).
Now you ask whether the people of Palestine/Israel could live side by side, absolutely. The Christians, the Jews and the Muslims all used to live together in harmony, together, united as one people. This was before the establishment of the Israeli state, under the Muslim rulers. Now this could happen again under the Israel’s what is imperative is that justice is dealt and both the Israelies and the Palestinians are delt with fairly and squarely. JUSTICE !
You talk of the suicide bombers, and the way you talk of it Dan is by making it sound as if it is so easy to just strap on a bomb. For anybody to commit suicide in such a manner is the true measure of how desperate the Palestinian people have become. I feel very very sorry for the Israeli’s caught up in all this political nonsense, if your asking me to condemn the killing of innocents, on a level playing field I would outright but these days its getting harder and harder to do so…Muslims are asked to condemn the killings of innocent people while everybody else stays quiet when the Israelies do the same thing. Suicide bombings are wrong but so are the use of machine guns in crowded refugee camps, so are the use of human shields in crowded refugee camps and so is the act of preventing medical aid from reaching innocent wounded civilians. Condemn those to Daniel.
im israeli, and i voted sharon.
im so gutted. i thought i was voting for sharon off’ve birds of a feather.
i do condemn those faz… but if you are asking the USA and Britain to condemn those then yes they should but they wont! (as we have already established!) which is why peace talks will fail etc… (sorry to sound so pesimistic (spelling anyone??))
this is all
Seeing as Jenin seems to still be a topical debate in the media, I thought I would post this. Believe it, don’t belive it - I don’t really care - I’m just providing you with some first hand information. Maybe it’s biased, maybe not but it’s important to at least hear the IDF’s side of the argument seeing as the media refuses to present it.
Major Rafi Lederman, a brigade chief of staff
I’ll tell you a few words about my unit, all of which is made up of
reservists who represent a cross-section of the Israeli public, in all of
its factions and complexities: We were called to reserve duty after the
terror attack in the Park Hotel in Netanya on Passover evening. We were
called to serve in the refugee camp in Jenin.
Why Jenin? Jenin is the base for the terrorist infrastructure. We know
this to be a fact, because most of the suicide bombers were educated in
Jenin, worked in Jenin, trained in Jenin or passed through Jenin in order to
receive a blessing before going out to execute a bombing. We arrested most
of the leadership of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
Our goal is to protect our homes. As a military force, we were united in
the goals of the operation, to bring safety to our families. We felt that
terror jailed us in our homes, and the time had come to neutralize the terrorist leaders.
The intelligence that the company commander in Jenin received is that
there aren’t that many civilians, but that most of them were terrorists. In the Jenin refugee camp alone, 3.5 tons of terrorist weaponry welcomed the IDF forces that entered. Many bombs exploded on our forces.
During my tour with journalists, I showed them bags of garbage with bombs, refrigerators that stood in the street and appeared innocent, but which were and buried mines there. All of the bombs were activated by electronic means or by cellular telephones. There were also sniper’s posts in the Jenin refugee camp.
In order to give you a general idea about the Jenin refugee camp, we’re
speaking of an area 500 by 600 meters. It’s a relatively small refugee
camp.
Nearly every point in the camp was booby-trapped. Only in the center of
the Jenin refugee camp were we able to pass through with bulldozers, and
relative to the camp as a whole this was a very small area. As minister
Sharansky said (in a diplomatic briefing organized by the Foreign
Ministry), we restrained ourselves, we didn’t use helicopters or missiles from the air, but rather with accurate weapons to avoid injuring civilians. The fighting itself was intensive but very slow; it took us nine days. The
type of warfare was an attack by the camp on all sides with slow progress in the direction of the center of the camp. Fighting by the terrorists was from within homes.
There were almost no innocent civilians. We called for the civilians to
leave their homes in order not to be hurt in the crossfire. Civilians who
left their homes were accompanied by the IDF until they were outside of
the camp, and were asked not to return in order to avoid getting hurt.
There were serious exchanges of fire. The terrorists fired on wounded IDF
soldiers in order to make it difficult to rescue them. We estimate that
about 200 terrorists fought against us, the absolute majority of them
concentrated in the center of the camp. The houses at the center of the
camp were booby trapped, and thus we used bulldozers to flatten them. There were homes whose foundations were damaged from the bombs that exploded, and to avoid the danger of collapse we were forced to flatten them as well.
Medical aid: We invited aid organizations to offer help on one condition,
that we would know where they were going in order to check their vehicles
when leaving the Jenin refugee camp. I was present during our search of
the aid organizations’ vehicles in which they tried to smuggle Palestinians
posing as wounded. The IDF moved medical equipment to the Jenin hospital as per the request of the hospital manager. At no time did the IDF fire at or enter the hospital.
Water: We filled a well at our expense, so that there would not be a lack
of water.
Electricity: The IDF brought the Palestinians two generators to help them
during blackouts, as well as to avoid them.
Blackouts: I know that this is the most interesting subject. We gave the
Palestinians 11 bodies. In homes in the refugee camp, we found 14 bodies
and another 13 bodies were discovered by the Palestinians. In total, 38 bodies were found. Among the dead, we found women’s bodies with weapons on them, and I know of one boy who was killed.
On the personal level, I am a reserve soldier, 38 years old, married with
children. I know that the damage looks terrible, to us as well. The pain
is great when you consider the damage to the civilian population, but I know that we did the maximum in order that as few innocent people as possible will be hurt.
Questions and answers: All of the questions were for the brigade’s chief
of staff.
Q: Did your soldiers bury Palestinian bodies? Did you move Palestinian
bodies outside of Jenin for temporary burial in Israel? A: There was no
burial of terrorist bodies or of Palestinian civilians in Jenin. All of
the bodies that were discovered were given to the hospital during the
fighting.
Afterwards we stopped this because of the High Court ruling. Some of the
corpses were booby trapped in order to hurt our soldiers; after we took
care of the bombs, the bodies were brought to the hospital or the Red Cross. No bodies were brought into Israel. As for Terje Larsen’s accusations regarding food, the IDF provided food and water to the Palestinian civilians.
Q: What is your reaction to the UN claims that the IDF did not allow them
to enter the Jenin refugee camp for six days?
A: As I mentioned previously, we allowed them to enter on condition that
they allow us to check their vehicles on the way out of Jenin. The
decision was theirs alone.
Q: Do you feel that the IDF completed its mission in Jenin? Or that you
were forced to finish it hastily because of international pressure?
A: I feel that we dealt a heavy blow to the terrorist infrastructure in
Jenin that will neutralize them for several months. To my dismay, we
didn’t complete all of the searches and thus didn’t capture all of the ammunition in the camp.
Q: Do you believe that the suicide bombers will return?
A: When we leave, we will not be able to control what happens in the Jenin
refugee camp. In the future, I assume that they will be able to restore
some of what was.
Q: You said that soldiers passed slowly from house to house, and that the
combat was very slow in order to avoid harming the civilian population.
Did you see families in the houses? How do you explain the UN’s claims that the place looks like it was hit by an earthquake?
A: The houses were abandoned by the civilians. Families were in some of
the homes, we called their owners to exit, and showed them the safest way to leave the refugee camp. The camp was completely booby trapped, and despite the house-to-house combat, the center of the camp was so completely booby trapped that we were forced to use bulldozers. At times there were bombs that exploded without damaging homes. But because their infrastructure was so weak, and in order that they not collapse and endanger us or the Palestinian population, we were forced to flatten them with bulldozers.
Q: The IDF brought refrigerators to store the bodies, and the Palestinians
claimed that the IDF used these refrigerators to move these bodies out of
Jenin. What is your reaction?
A: The IDF did indeed bring refrigerators to the refugee camp hoping to
place found bodies in there to preserve them. In the end, every body that
was found was brought to the hospital in Jenin. For this reason, the truck
with a refrigerator that entered the refugee camp empty, also exited
empty!
Hey al.
First, who is Pinky? And why would he have a problem?
Right. I have pored over your post, and it was certainly interesting. More interesting, though, is your assertion that “it’s important to at least hear the IDF’s side of the argument seeing as the media refuses to present it.” Really? I think the media has been quite neutral, and whenever they hold interviews the Israelis come out on top because their diplomats and spokespeople have often been educated in the USA or Europe whilst Palestinian representatives tend to make sense but are often hot-headed, speak bad English, and so scare our reserved nation half to death (I don’t know how they choose their spokespeople, but it’s not a very good way of doing it).
As for Lederman. He says that the suicide bombings must be stopped. He’s right. He says that extremist groups operate mainly from Jenin. He may be right. He asserts a moral equivalence between a sustained military campaign which has caused just over 2000 deaths (80% Palestinian), and a handful of suicide bombings which, frankly, old man Yasser or anyone else could not stop. He could possibly justify this belief.
But his disbelief at Palestinian resistance is naieve. Does he want them to submit, aquiesce, lay down and die at his command? If Israel’s campaign is military, surely Palestine has a right to fight back?
Also, it was very thoughtful of them to flatten with a bulldozer houses which may have had their foundations damaged in the turmoil. Who’d have thought they’d take the time during a military campaign to spare a thought for the poor civilians with unsteady houses? Especially since there were “almost no innocent civilians.”
Al, why are you peddling this detritus?
The signature is just a line from the greatest animated filme ever, namely Aladdin. The pinky in question is a certain flamingo with a distressing grin and even more distressing laugh.
Israeli spokesmen are ok but not as good as you suggest. In fact, a friend of mine was talking to me a few weeks ago about how rubbish one of the Israeli spokesmen was - he certainly took a while to answer questions on settlements. And the Palestinian spokesmen may be less fluent but they speak with more passion and their hot-headness which you refer to often works in their favour in my opinion. As for BBC coverage, it is not impartial in the slightest. I’ve heard so many reports of mistakes/lies they’ve reported. One time an Israeli soldier was leaning over a ‘Palestinian’ man on the floor and the Israeli had his gun out. If you saw it you immediately thought that the soldier was terrorising some poor Palestinian. In fact the guy on the floor was an English Jew on holiday in Israel who had been hit by Palestinian fire and the Israeli soldier was helping him. Another more recent example: the BBC reporter in Jenin got in there, in a Palestinian ambulance. Why do you think ambulances were being stopped from going in?? The IDF did not want them in there because the place was too dangerous and they would get blamed for their deaths. They had a right to search ambualnces then because they were being used to carry reporters in. And then the reporter has the cheek to criticise Israel for stopping and searching ambulances. If people like her wouldn’t use them dishonestly then they wouldn’t need to be stopped in the first place.
“old man Yasser or anyone else could not stop” - that is an assumption and not entirely true. Yasser Arafat funds terrorism and supports those who carry it out. Of course, even if he tried to prevent it, he wouldn’t be able to stop all of it but he has more power than the international community pretends he has. On top of this he could at least symbolically pretend to be against it by not promoting and funding it. He himself is a terrorist.
“and die at his command?” - I don’t think he wants any of them to die at his command. Yes, he wants them to stop using terror tactics. No he doesn’t want them to die and no he is not against the idea of a Palestinian state, very few Israelis are. Perhaps his stance is naive. We realise that terrorism cannot be stopped by killing terrorists but only by negotiating and eventually establishing a Palestinian state. But in the meantime, Israel, like any democracy must defend itself and try to reduce the number of deaths caused by terrorism to as small a number as possible.
You may disbelieve what has been said but when people have accused Israel of burying Palestinians in “mass graves” and have continually lied to us all about what is going on then I believe we should hear the other side of the argument. Interviews with palestinians whose houses have been destroyed make better radio and TV than interviews with soldiers who claim that it wasn’t as morbidly ‘exciting’ as has been claimed. The reputation of a country I hold dear rests upon whether the truth is presented to the rest of the world. I know people who have been calle dup to fight in in the IDF and I know that it is an honorable army. It’s humanitarian aid is unparalled throughout the world. What country is first to any earthquake zone? Look at the case of the Indian earthquake and find out. It’s Israel. It is not a racist country. It has a right to defend itself and a right to report the truth.
post-message disclaimer This does NOT mean that I believe that Israel is wihtout fault!! It could act in a better way to bring about peace rather than increase the bitterness. BUT the soft PMs have failed and unfortunately a tough one is now in.
Alex, your absolutely right in terms of earthquake rescue and disaster relief Israel is almost unsurpassed in a global context, pray tell why has Israel not provided some of their people to help recover innocent civilians buried under rubbel knocked over by some of THEIR ambitious bulldozer drivers. WHY !!! You say that the Israelies went into Palestine killed the militants and just withdrew as clean cut as that ?! Alex you know that is a load of rubbish !! I’m not talking just about the people killed but also the needless damage done to the Palestinain infrastructure. Your fool Sharon is trying to systematically break down the PA, what right does he have to do that, Arafat is DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED !!! Not only that Sharon keeps him under house arrest, most communication to the outside world is cut off and when a suicide bomb goes off in Israel he blames Arafat for this, care to explain the logic ?! And wow, whats this, what a surprise, the UN team who were originally going in to investigate claims of a massacre have now been stood down, why THE HELL AM I NOT SURPRISED ?!
Robert Mugabe was democratically elected too.
Ben, it is unfair to compare Arafat to Robert Mugabe. And, Mugabe was not democratically elected in the sense of a fair, free and open election. He terrorised people into voting for him. Arafat is genuinely the choice leader of the majority of the Palestinian people.
There are two common criticisms of his leadership. First he has not publicly condemned terrorism. Why should he? Nobody has asked Sharon to condemn the killing of innocent civilians in Palestine which has undoubtedly occurred, whether accidentally or not. After September 11, Arafat publicly donated blood to help victims…sure it was a publicity stunt, but the intention was to show solidarity with the US in the face of an act of awful terrorism even though the US is the benefactor of his nemesis in Israel. There is something of a concession in that. And then Sharon (in the pursuit of security for Israel of course) storms his compound and places him under house arrest. Clearly the process is dear to Sharon’s heart.
The second criticism of Arafat is that he has not stopped the abhorrent torrent of suicide bombers. Well, as Faz says, he is under house arrest…but even so, I would argue that he simply cannot brace a bunch of barmy bombers who are willing to sacrifice their own lives…how can you stop them? a microcosm: on the last day of school upper 6th formers everywhere will get up to some mess up hijinks…and there is nothing the school can do, try as it might. Upper 6ths are beyond the school’s authority and similarly suicide bombers are beyond control because they do not value their lives over their “cause.” And if Sharon etc truly thought Arafat could control the attacks, surely they would release him from house arrest, and give him a chance?
Sharon is currently an active aggressor. Arafat cannot at present be called an aggressor because he does not have liberty. To compare him to Mugabe is rash and unhelpful. I expect better of you Ben.
You’re right, I’m sorry, I must have missed the Palestinian General Election when it was on. I must have missed seeing all the citizens of the non-existent state known as Palestine going to cast their votes for their favourite candidate. I must have missed the opposition to Arafat giving electoral speeches. Incidentally who is the opposition to Arafat?
I must have blinked when Palestine became the centre of democracy because it seems that Arafat went from being the Palestinian dictator, to the Palestinian elected leader in a day.
You’re right, it is unfar to compare Arafat to Mugabe because at least Mugabe held an election! At least Mugabe had an opposition. Palestinian claims that Arafat was democratically elected are as phony as Arafat’s claims to be a democrat. You’re just jumping on the “Arafat was elected” band-wagon.
The point is this, just because someone is elected (and I’ve not seen any evidence to suggest Arafat was), it does not mean that automatically they are only doing good things. As alex said, Arafat is a terrorist and if you truly believe that Arafat has no control while on house-arrest you are being very naive. Do you think he sits in his house and watches TV all day?
Another point, how come the Israeli intelligence knows exactly who the terrorists are but Arafat and his cronies don’t? It all seems a little suspicious to me.
Ben I love your conviction.
Pray tell, when did I say that Arafat was democratically elected? I merely said that he is the choice leader of the majority of Palestinians and hence has more right to rule Palestine than Mugabe has to rule Zimbabwe.
You are plunging into absurdity with aplomb. You ought to have a look at some of the wisdom on the democracy thread; it is your site after all (and a damn good site it is too, keep it up). Don’t assume unthinkingly that democracy is the best way to do things in all countries. And if, as you seem to think, the Palestinians are a bunch of bloody terrorists, maybe they need a dictator to stand over them with a big hard stick…
And you’re right. It is suspicious that Israel knows exactly who the terrorists are and can pinpoint them exactly on their precision campaign. Maybe that’s why the civilian death toll has been so light, measuring in at several hundred now.
The best thing about your post is the way you denounce the fact that Arafat was not democratically elected and then say: “The point is this, just because someone is elected…it does not mean that automatically they are only doing good things.”
Your problem is a lack if detachment. If you weren’t Jewish, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be so incredibly anti-Palestinian. I’ll laugh if you now post a new message to tell me OBJECTIVELY, that anyone who appreciates facts would support Israel. Look at Bush…why is he pro-Israeli? Not because it will help him win the next election (heaven forbid), but because Arafat is an evil man and Sharon is a gorgeous turtle dove…
p.s. the site is pure genius. It needs more people though…why don’t you post a thread to start a discussion about how to publicise the site?
It seems to me Madame Butterfly that you want to have your cake and eat it.
In your post here you say:
which is effectively supporting democracy and claiming that Arafat has been chosen democratically by the Palestinian people, in a ‘majority knows best’ way and yet in another post you vehemently argue this:
Therefore you yourself have illustrated the weakness of your own argument. Not only that but I believe it to be wrong since Arafat has not been elected democratically anyway. But even if he had been, then you yourself have shown that the majority can easily choose a tyrant for their leader. ARAFAT IS A TERRORIST.
Finally, what is sadenning is that neither side is in the right, both sides have committed crimes. All that this huge discussion has shown is that the Jews (me and Ben) defend the Israelis whilst the Muslims defend the Palestinians (Butterfly and MusRep). The sad truth is that the ultimate human weakness is the failure to empahise and we are all guilty of that.
My last post was written before I read butterfly’s previous post. However it still holds to be true. He writes:
and it is true that he hasn’t said that Arafat was elected democratically. However the implication of the second half of the above quotation is that he has a democratic-style of majority support. Butterfly, you are suggesting that Araft is a democratically elected leader even though you admit that there was no democratic process. Therefore the contradiction in your views which I illustrated above still holds.
To say that Ben lacks detachment and that no-one else does is unfair. Like me, you should accept that you, me, Ben and MusRep all lack detachment. We are all rendered biased by our religions whether we deny it or not. You are pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli because of your religion in the same way that Ben and I are the opposite. It is is ridiculous to pretend that we aren’t, so please don’t reply to this by saying that you don’t lack detachment and aren’t anti-Israeli.
Al,
-
I don’t lack detachment
-
I’m not anti-Israeli
I’m joking Al, you’re right of course. Absolute impartiality is impossible. But your argument against Arafat (democracy can elect a tyrant) could apply equally to Sharon. Or Tony Blair, or George Bush for that matter.
Seriously though. The whole Butterfly thing is a piece of research for a post I was planning to make on identity and prejudice. I just wanted to see if people would react differently to a camp, socialist, pro-Palestinian butterfly than they would to some ninja called jawaad. But you meddling MTS kids have spoiled the plot!!
My (real) views on Israel. I think you may be right about Arafat having terrorist links, and you’re right, I am inclined to sympathise with his people’s situation, though I cannot condone terrorism in any form or for any cause. Blowing up a random nightclub or whatever is disgusting, and hardly a way to show that your people deserve support from the int. community. I am not sure that Sharon has reacted in the right way though. He should have sought UN advice first. More violence, whoever the perpetrators, solves nothing. Even if it destroys Jenin’s terror network, it will create enough animosity to cause another one to spring up somewhere else. It is as you say Al…a lack of empathy on both sides is the problem. But what can we do about it? If there is a neutral arbiter, the problem will rest with extreme factions. How can they be controlled?
You seem pretty clued up about the whole thing though. I know you’re not someone to call Arafat a terrorist with no justification, and I know he was involved with terrorist groups in the past…is this still the case, and if so to what extent? I still do not think it is useful to compare him to Mugabe though - Mugabe is a power freak who oppresses people till they vote for him. Arafat has his people’s interests at heart. His failure is passivity in the face of outward terrorism among his ranks. Do you think there is an equivalence between the two? And what do you think of the Sharon approach?
ps. Sorry about butterfly. He’s a nice guy really. A little too nice…
Ummm, the best way for you to carry out your experiment would be to “pull a pangloss” or reregister as someone else instead of just changing your original id. Then you could have had arguements with yourself. this is known as sock-puppetting. It is sad. (Except when used for scientific purposes)
Cheers Hiren. I realised that when Al started gunning poor old Butter using old jawaad posts. Oh well…
And as for sadness…It’s an artform. Don’t knock it.
Having just returned from an Israel solidarity rally, I feel quite keen to discuss Israel again.
A little point I would like to make first though. As I have said, British Jews and Muslims lack empathy and therefore TEND to just support their ‘side’ out in the Middle East. This is an unfortunate truth but a result of a sort of human failing. Indoctrination is perhaps responsible and yet there are so many people in both ‘camps’ who still challenge what they are taught. Maybe it’s just an innate feeling to support one’s own people?? What interested me though whilst we’re talking about democracy is that today at a perfectly legitimate Israel solidarity rally, there were many pro-Palestinians counter-protesting. For what reason exactly?? When British Muslims had a protest againt Israel, did any Jews turn up to try and counter-protest??? No.
Secondly, Jawaad if you want to know about Arafat then watch the news today and tomorrow since Sharon is presenting evidence to Bush of Arafat’s involvement in supporting, funding and encouraging terrorism to this day. His signature in Arabic has been written on letters that authorise terrorism. And about Sharon…I have said on many occassions that his tactics are too heavy-handed but the Israelis are in a desperate situation like the Palestinians. This is no justification in my mind but the only reason he could give I suppose.
Despreation breeds the majority of violence that we see out there. However I would still argue that Sharon’s violent means, although too violent, are directed at people who use violence themselves. Palestinain terrorists direct their violence indiscriminately. On top of this Sharon has said that he would support the founding of a Palestinian state once the terror ends. Many of the terrorists don’t just want their own state/rights etc…they want to destroy the Jewish homeland.
“When British Muslims had a protest againt Israel, did any Jews turn up to try and counter-protest??? No.”
But they had a right to.
“Sharon’s violent means, although too violent, are directed at people who use violence themselves”
And vice-versa, an endless cycle of violence. A cycle neither side want to break, for shame.
Alex. Were there any parts of the march where jews and palestineans were together? To show some sort of solidarity for peace