Israeli spokesman: 'We have to protect our people'

[JohnLocke]

Israeli spokesman: "We have to protect our people"
Saturday, April 17, 2004
CNN
----
<From an interview with Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Gideon Meier>
(...)
MEIER:We are not talking about retaliation. We are not in the business of retaliation. We are in the business of protecting the Israeli people from the vicious terror which comes from Hamas and Islamic Jihad. We are here to protect our people. We are here in the business of protecting the Israeli people and to make peace with our Palestinian neighbors. In order to make peace, in order to talk peace with our neighbors we must first and foremost secure our people from this terrorism, ... not something which started yesterday. It has nothing to do with the terrorist attack today. It is a continuous wave of terrorism ... even at the peak of the negotiation, during the Oslo process, we were witnessing this kind of terror which came out of Hamas. Therefore, since the Palestinian Authority is not standing by its obligation according to the road map to dismantle the infrastructure of terror, we have no choice.
(...)
WHITFIELD: Now what? Yassin has been assassinated. Rantisi. Is it a matter of going down the line in Hamas to determine who would pick up the leadership now that Rantisi is out of picture?
MEIER: We have two choices. Either the Palestinian Authority will right away start to implement the road map for peace in the Middle East, and part of it is obviously to dismantle the infrastructure of terror. And if they will do it, we can go back to the negotiating table and start to talk about and go to the business of peace-making. If terrorism will continue and if the next leader of Hamas will continue to send suicide bombers to Israel and to send bombs, the homicide bombers to Israel, he will have the same fate as Rantisi and Yassin before.
WHITFIELD: ... Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat ... as well as another analyst we had on the air earlier said that the Bush administration in its relationship with Ariel Sharon essentially set the stage for something like this to happen, to give Israel the green light to carry out assassinations. Is that the directive that your government is feeling confident about?
MEIER: Absolutely not. It's about time that Saeb Erakat instead of bombarding us with so many words, will take action and will start to fight terrorism. With words, you cannot stop terrorism. ... We are sovereign country. ... We don't need to get any green light from anyone.
----
Read the rest here.

[dfong63]

1. by that logic, the palestinians would be completely justified

... if they were to assassinate Sharon, Bush, or anyone in their respective cabinets. "We have to protect our people."

[Daniela]

2. Idiocy

Anyone who still thinks that Israel is "defending itself" is every bit as deluded as people who think that Bush was defending America from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The only good aspect of any of this is that the replacement of any pretension to rationality, justice or morality by naked military power is quickly becoming obvious to everyone but the most benighted idiots and apologists.

Sharon's Israel and Bush's America are now the scourge of the civilized world, the absolute enemies of progress and humanity, and the sooner the world does something about this, the better.

[Darranar]

3. How, exactly...

does Israel expect the powerless PA to stop anything, when the IDF has failed to in the past few years?

[gayboy]

4. EXACTLY

So the answer is....unilaterally withdraw from gaza and most of the west bank....and hermetically seal the borders....no passage....(except for the queer palestinians fleeing persecution:9 {my personal bias })

[Noon_Blue_Apples]

5. terrorists will find their way in

like a queer into a boyscout troop

sorry brother, can't play both sides of the fence

With a name like gayboy you need more props by post than you assume the name affords you.

got you back though (:wink:) welcome

Bill

[dfong63]

6. what do you mean, "most of the west bank"?

Israel should return all of the land they've stolen.

[Muddleoftheroad]

8. It's not stolen

There is no clear permanent border and no peace treaty. You need those things to settle the border.

[Violet_Crumble]

9. Yes, it is stolen...

The fact that there's not yet a peace treaty or final borders doesn't have anything to do with whether or not that territory has been stolen by Israel. If you have a problem with using the word stolen, how about we settle for the term that's acceptable to most everyone bar the Israeli right-wing, and that term's occupied...


Violet...

[Classical_Liberal]

7. They aren't going to leave even most of the west bank

Haven't you been following the news. Bush gave half of it to Sharon yesterday.