Why send kids when you've got Apaches?



SLM3

You haven't addressed the basic point.

which is...?



SLM3

That Isreal is NOT on the same level as Hamas, as stated by the poster I quoted.

I could however infer from your reply that you think that it is ok to strap bombs to children and send them at soldiers, into crowded markets, onto buses, etc. if you don't have Apache helicopters.

So are you advocating using children as soldiers?

You'll have to ask Jordan and Egypt this question since they were the ones to occupy the Palestinians up to 1967.

But I don't think many people are questioning whether the Palestinians deserve a state. The world thought they did in 1948, Israel offered the land back in 1967, Israel offered a country at Camp David and Taba. And before you go on about cantons etc., see a map of the Taba offer which Arafat immediately rejected only to accept 18 months later. (Arafat Approves Taba Plan too Late)

Israel is not denying the need for a Palestinian state. The disagreement is really just in how to get there. Israel does not want to vacate the area until the PA shows that they can handle security which they didn't do going way back to Oslo. No one wants to leave a leadership vacuum in an area ripe with militants.

Dude, Arafat has already received an offer that he found acceptable. He just fucked up so badly in not accepting it until it was off the table, 18 months later.

There absolutely will be 2 states.

It might have something to do with the fact that Palestinians teach anti-semitism in school textbooks .

Except for the fact that ssuicide bombings went UP after Oslo was signed and during the Peres/Netanyahu election campaign when Peres (the dove) was 20 points ahead of Netanyahu (the hawk). Hopes of more peaceful times seems to only encourage more suicide bombings for some reason.

You're right. Israel and the Jews made up that whole 72 virgins thing to make the Palestinians look bad.

And if semantics really bother you with regard to the term "anti-semite", do you go around correcting people when they refer to people of the USA as "Americans"? You know... Chileans are Americans too. It was a term coined by a German anti-semite. If the Arabs want it and everything that comes with it, they can have it.

Yes, they're not on the same level. Where we differ is where we put Israel. When Israel shoots a missle into a crowd to kill one man, it is a military action and is not condemned by America (not that anything is). When a block of houses is bulldozed because Israel tells us it believes one of the houses MIGHT have been used by a terrorist, that's simply another military action. When Palestinians are systematically humiliated every day at checkpoints, that is for the safety of Israeli's, who apparently are a lot more valuable as human beings. Curfews that allow Palestinians to be outside for only 2 hours a day are seen as routine military action.

Instead of writing off the Palestinian resistance as hate-fed terrorism based solely on the destruction of another people, why don't you stop and ask what might drive these people to such actions?

Do I advocate suicide bombings? No, I don't. Do I support the Palestinian's right to resist occupation(as guaranteed to them by the UN)? Yes, I do.

My point is, if the Palestinians had the same US weapons that Israel does, they wouldn't be using suicide bombers. On that note, they probably wouldn't be treated as filth like they are now.


SLM3

I think it's important to say that I don't support all of Israel's actions, even while I understand the frustration they come from.

Like you, I don't support sending a missle into a crowd to kill a person, even if that person deserves killing.

On the flip side, the Palestinians have been known to hide themselves and weapons in residential areas, schools, hospitals, etc. for just this reason.

I truly do support a two pronged approach which I think Israel is mistaken in not pursuing:

1) deal with those that can be reasoned with to hammer out a peace. Remove the economic reasons that people become terrorists.

2) For those that insist on destruction of one side or the other based on politics/religion/ideology then there can be no let up.

But honestly, I don't see the Palestinians supporting number 2 at all.

I think once they get their nation, it will always serve as a base for number 2 types to attack Isreal, while those number 1 types turn a blind eye because they dare not speak out against their "Brothers" who are fighting the "Jews".

Or the Americans and whom other else can define the borders of a Palestinian state as fairly as possible to both Israeli's and Palestinian's.

If one rocket or suicide bomber blows up in Israel, say bye bye to Palestinian statehood and your ass is gonna get kicked hard by the American's,... all the while saying, "and you thought you had it bad before."

If the Israeli's don't play by the rules, say bye bye to any and all support from the Americans including all weapons and monies made available,..,all the while the American's saying, "fuck you and fend for yourself."

Call me ignorant but I don't know why this hasn't already happened.

Maybe both sides have to lose everything and not just human life before it ends.