US Complicity in Israel's Misdeeds

[kalian]

http://antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=2197

The murder of Hamas' spiritual leader, Sheik Yassin, makes perfect sense as long as you understand Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's strategy.

That strategy is to make peace impossible.

For three years, Sharon has done everything to prevent peace. He himself provoked the new uprising, re-invaded the occupied territories, destroyed the Palestinian Authority, forced Yasser Arafat into house arrest and launched an unprecedented, brutal campaign of assassinations, curfews, fences, destruction of property and random killing of Palestinians. The Israelis have killed about 2,700 Palestinians in the past three years, in contrast to about 700 Israelis killed in the same period.

At the same time, Sharon has refused all offers to negotiate, and whenever the Palestinians arranged a cease-fire on their side, Sharon broke it with a provocative raid or assassination. No other rogue state or rogue leader would have been allowed to get away with such behavior, but Israel has the U.S. government in its pocket. That's the answer to the question posed by the French ambassador to Great Britain as to why the world allows "this (expletive deleted) little country to cause the world so much trouble."

...more...

Powerfull and hard hitting editorial.

[firefed]

1. The Best Palastinian is a Zionist

The Palastinians and the Zionists were made for each other. Each feeds off of the other's hate. Whenever the Israeli cause needs a political boost, some Palastinian blows himself up and takes a few innocent people with him. Whenever the Palastinian cause needs a boost, the Israelis use a helicopter to blow up some old Palastinian man in a wheel chair and take out a few innocent people in the process. These people are all lunatics and the Bush Administration is the lunatic running the asylum. The world needs to unite in the condemnation of these lanatics. These mongers of hate have danced upon the world stage for long enough. It's about time that we pull the plug on this tragedy of the Middle East. God isn't here - so it's time to stop calling this living hell the "Holy Land".
It's time to disarm the hate and expose this struggle for what it really is- the industry of pain and eternal warfare.

[Aussie_Hillbilly]

2. "The Bush Administration is the lunatic running the asylum"

LOL priceless!

Let's hope Neocon governments start toppling in November. Israel might become to Neoconservatism what North Korea is to Stalinism.

Then Israeli voters might (finally) start to wonder exactly who is benefiting from eternal war. Same goes for the Palestinians

[elsaamo]

3. I agree

Well, what would you like them to do? Perhaps they should vote for a moderate, maybe a Prime Minister named as the successor to Yitzhak (or however you spell his name in English) Rabin, the other Nobel Peace Prize winner. And maybe that guy should then go to peace talks with President Bill Clinton, you know, the good one, before the one we have now, and with Yasir Arafat who also won the Nobel Peace Prize. That seems like a good liberal thing to do, no? Make a meeting with one Nobel Peace Prize Winner, one successor to a Nobel Peace Price Winner, and a good American President. And, you'll never believe it, but they even came up with a good plan! Israel gives 95-97 % (I've seen different sources about this) of the West bank and gaza Strip, lets the Palistineans have a nation, and everything is good! The Good US President (Bill Clinton, in case you're getting confused, you know, the one under whom 20 million plus jobs were created, and we were all happy) fully endorsed it! The successor to the Nobel PEace Prize winner endorsed it! Well, everything is fantastic, right! Well, not so much. Because the famed negotiator, who won the Nobel Peace Prize perhaps for bringing a gun into the UN General Assembly and being proud of being a terrorist, or perhaps not, my history gets fuzzy with people who have been around for so many years playing so many roles to get the support of naive people, anyway, he rejected it, but I'm sure his counteroffe was very fair. Yeah, THAT counteroffer. Which, of course, didn't exactly exist in the typical pre-existentialist point of view, or even, for that matter, in the existentialist opinion. My point, you wonder? What do you want the liberals to do? I'm not a huge fan of Sharon,but I happen to think he might do something very interesting soon, so I withhold my judgement, but don't think that his presence is purely because of the Israelis, and not largely due to the Nobel PEace PRize winning terrorist, Yassir Arafat.

[Aussie_Hillbilly]

4. Oslo

Perhaps you are unaware of the constant colony building under Barak, despite his solemn assurances to halt their construction? People who do that have trouble creating trust. Yassir Arafat was just as bad by not doing enough to stop Hamas blowing up Israelis during the Oslo Accords.

Barak did offer to return most of the land seized in 1967, but none seized of that seized in 1948. Yassir Arafat accepted that, but then demanded of Barak that Israel implement UN Resolution 194, otherwise known as the "right of return".

"refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible"
http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/a06f2943c226015c85256c40005d359c/c758572b78d1cd0085256bcf0077e51a!OpenDocument

Yassir Arafat's demand was correct, fair, legal and all that, but bloody stupid and politically impossible for Barak to deliver in full. I was so pissed off. I bet Bill Clinton was too.

Ehud Barak lost the election, and Likudniks have ruled Israel ever since. Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon have followed a policy of oppression, colonization and terror. I'm sure I don't need to document this.

Yassir Arafat realized his mistake when the world lost interest in his people's plight, and has since offered (again and again) to accept the Oslo Accords agreement for a state in part of the West Bank and Gaza. The Likud Party wants that land as part of their demented vision of "Greater Israel", and is prepared to offer only waterless ghettos behind razor wire, watched over by snipers and divided by Jewish-only roads.

The Apartheid Wall may serve to keep suicide bombers out in the short term, but by increasing the rage and despair of the Palestinians it guarantees the conflict will internationalize and continue. Unable to get at Israelis in Israel, they will attack Israelis and Jews worldwide, like the way the Armenian Secret Army hunted Turks. This will continue forever, to the benefit of extremists on both sides.

The Left, if it ever returns to power, should repeat the Oslo offer. If that is not possible (because of the settlements built by the Right throughout the OT), a gradual transfer of Palestinians into Israeli society will be the only option left for avoiding eternal war. The Palestinian Diaspora are not going to curl up and die any more than the Jews did.

Peace is a lot more difficult now - the hatred built up by generations of oppression and massacres (by both sides, but mostly by Israel) will take a long time to defuse. Yassir Arafat has called many times for international peacekeepers, and I think that will be part of any eventual peace plan - just like the peace pact with Egypt.

Peace, or something sufficiently like it, is always possible. Both sides will have to compromise. The cyclical nature of conflict escalation has put the extremists on both sides in the drivers seat, but I hope that will come to an end before too much damage is done, to the Palestinians, to Israel, to world peace and stability and to Israel's allies. Israel/Palestine is too important to too many religions to be allowed to fester indefinitely. Well, that's my opinion anyway. Flame away.