Palestinians do it again -- miss a peace opportunity

[pelsar]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/commentary/cst-edt-edits27.html

Let's remember what happened just last year. The Israelis, over the strident objections of the more right-wing elements of their society and the feverish resistance of settlers, uprooted Israeli communities in Gaza and left the strip. Opponents within Israel complained that it was opening the way for the creation of a terrorist state, that the Palestinians would engage in fantasies of how Hamas and other terrorists had sent the Israelis running. The optimists seized on the election of Mahmoud Abbas as president of the Palestinian Authority and hoped the Palestinians would get serious about the business of self-governing.


best chance they ever had.....

[leveymg]

1. An opportunity lost on both sides.

Pelsar -

Just a few short months ago, you advocated what might be called a "two Palestine solution". If I understood you correctly, that entailed a stick and carrot approach. Carrots for the Palestinians in the Gaza, in the hopes they would be coaxed to follow Abbas, and sticks against the West Bank Palestinians who are loyal to Hamas.

Please tell us, what happened to that hope of a divided Palestine? What's the next plan?

[pelsar]

2. wasnt me......

i dont divide up the palestenians between hamas or fatah...its not such a clear line..lots of politics/family ties, etc involved.

what i'm looking for is for gaza to succeed, give us israelis confidence in the palestenian society so that when they take over in Hebron, Nabulus etc we wont find kassams landing on our inlt airport.

If they cant handle gaza..how are they going to get a "handle on the far more complex westbank, where israeli cities will be within mortar and kassam range?

the plan?....wait....and keep on waiting until gaza eventually turns into a coherent society, let the "westbankers" see their brethren living a relativly decent life without the IDF all over the place, let israelis see that there can be peace between the two societies....then move on to the westbank (before the settlers turn it into a "hellhole"

[leveymg]

3. Seems to me that an IDF occupation of Gaza isn't the way to achieve that.

Unless Iraq is the model for success.

[pelsar]

4. no its not...

but let me make an amend to what i wrote.....its based 100% on the western cultural system....which i dont believe is the one used by the palestenians.....

[leveymg]

5. Blood vendettas have little to do with ethics, but history is full of them

Revenge is a dish best served cold, particularly in response to provocation.

Whoever is behind the kidnappings would be delighted by an overresponse.

It's easy to exact swift vengence, but smarter to use restrain and wait until you're sure.

[pelsar]

6. wait for what?...

israel has experience with wounded soldiers in the hands of the palestenians...they end up dead. (bled to death)

and experience with kidnapped soldiers...they end up dead or "wisked away and become "missing"

so perhaps you would like to explain what should israel be waiting for? and how is a rescue attempt a vendetta?...was entebbe a vendetta?

[leveymg]

13. That's a pretty loud "rescue attempt"

By carrying out a large-scale operation with a lot of troops and things being blown up, seems your guys are going against your own expressed tactical protocols. The following extract from a report last weekend seems to sum up the normal, preferred approach to quiet operations in Gaza: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3266672,00.html

IDF: Gaza operation remarkable

(VIDEO) Following week of bloodshed in Gaza Strip, during which innocent civilians were killed in IDF strikes, security forces satisfied with Saturday's operation in which commando forces captured two Hamas members

SNIP

In the West Bank the army conducts such detentions every night, but the preparation for an operation in the southern Strip is different.

"There is a huge different. The entry to Jenin, Tul Karm or Nablus is usually conducted using vehicles. Some of the operations are carried out in daylight, with a combination of many forces. In the current situation, the operation is extremely secret, accurate. There is no intention to reach a gun battle, but rather to carry out the task quietly and as quickly as possible," the officer explained.

Whatever's going on in Gaza now, it looking more and more like a reprisals operation than a rescue attempt from here. Well, what is it? One transitioning into the other?

[Spider Jerusalem]

26. Israel is unfortunately playing into the hands of the terrorists...

who have gotten what they probably wanted. The Israeli response is completely out-of-scale to the nature of the situation; it's the equivalent of using a triphammer to crush a walnut. A full-scale artillery barrage, aerial bombardment and the despatch of troops in force do not constitute a rescue attempt. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous at best and fatuous at worst. It's very obvious that Israel's actions here are meant to show the Palestinians that any such capture of Israelis will be met with the harshest possible response. The only problem is that instead of having the effect of dissuading the Palestinians from engaging in such tactics, it's far more likely to inflame and radicalise Palestinians more inclined to moderation, and to convince them that the path of negotiation will ultimately lead nowhere.

[Tom Joad]

9. Is that the cultural system that bombs families on beaches?

or creates Abu Grahibs? Or invents excuses to invade countries? Or killed 2 million in Vietnam? Or created systems of apartheid? Or bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima? or firebombed Dresden, Tokyo, London. Auschwitz? That kept colonies in India. Africa. the Americas. Caribbean. Slaughtering indigenous people who resisted?

That Western Cultural system?

Reporter: What do you think of western civilization?

Mahatma Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

[cali]

11. I'm always amused by

this sort of absolutist rejection of western civilization and cultural mores. It's got its good and its got its bad. Gandi's quip is cute, but really, it's just a quip. One can't sum up a couple of thousand years that easily.

[Tom Joad]

14. Jumping to conclusions. But those things are part of Western

Civilization. As is, resistance to colonialization.

[Spider Jerusalem]

27. Not to mention...

the cultural system that produced classical Greece and the Enlightenment, the ideas of democracy, republicanism and limited government, the concept of inalienable human rights and the abolition of slavery, and free and open intellectual enquiry as exemplified in the ideas of people like John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire, Henry David Thoreau, Newton, Leibniz, Descartes, Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, James Clerk Maxwell, Alan Turing, and so on...bit prone to throwing out the baby with the bathwater, aren't you?

[Tom Joad]

7. Israel divides the Palestinians up between Gaza and the "bantustans"

on the West Bank.

Nelson Mandela spent an extra decade or so on Robben Island rejecting a similar kind of "peace". It was offered that blacks could have "self-governing" bantustans. I'm sure that if Mandala would have have expressed satisfaction with such, he would have been freed much earlier. Let's remember too, the South Africa system has powerful allies, not only the United states, but Israel as well. and while the official line among U.S. Democrats was that they rejected in South African apartheid system, very few voices supported any kind of sanctions for the South African system. That changed.

What is being "offered" (let's be more honest, imposed) by the Israeli regime, is semi-autonomous bantustans. The West Bank would consist of several Palestinian population centers, cut off from one another by permanent Israeli settlements, that Israel is insisting will stay part of Israel forever, while a few settlements will be dismantled, the majority of settlements will remain, and probably grow in the future. Gaza will be cut off from all the rest of Palestine.

That's the peace??

As i write this, hundreds of thousands are completely cut-off from electricity, all outside access is cut off, including the border at Rafah. No journalists are allowed in by the Occupation forces. Bridges have been bombed. An army that can destroy the homes of tens of thousands of Palestinians in just one week in May 2004 seems poised to do it all over again, and then some.

We cannot be silent. Silence = Complicity. Never Again!

[cali]

12. Even if Israel withdraws

to the '67 borders, Gaza will be cut off from the west bank. What do you suggest to remedy this?

[lastknowngood]

8. Until the Palestinians are all dead or submissive slaves their

masters there will never be "peace". Peace of course being defined by Israel. Palestinians die every day at the hands of their masters and no one in the world cares. Indigenous peoples have always been exterminated by the invading powers with more sophisticated weapons. History does not change only the actors.

[Scorpio2000]

10. How do you define "peace"?

Old song. What have the Gazans done since the end of the occupation?

Fired missiles at their neighbor, as a "peace" overture.

[Tom Joad]

15. End of occupation?

[Scorpio2000]

16. Tried that

Ending the occupation of Gaza certainly didn't mean "peace".

The "palestinians" just blew what may be their last chance.

[Tom Joad]

17. I am beginning to be amused by your fantasy world.

For the rest of us, every human rights organization, the occupation of Gaza has merely taken on a new form.
What group/organization says that Gaza is no longer occupied?

[manic expression]

18. Get a grip

Israel never left Gaza alone, not once. They maintained control over trade, borders, shores, air and more. They reserved the right to bomb Gaza whenever they wanted (and they have). Nice "opportunity" that never existed. Please.

[Tom Joad]

19. Ain't it a strange world here, Manic?

Wait to you see the WorldNetDaily citations!

If the whole thing weren't so tragic these days, it would be easier to be amused.

[manic expression]

20. Very true

and unfortunately so.

[kalimera]

21. That's true

you guys talk about everything except the original post

[manic expression]

22. First,

welcome to DU! Second, I did respond to the original post in post #18, but related side conversations naturally develop (nothing wrong with that). Anyway, I hope you enjoy it here.

[kalimera]

23. Thanks

Thanks but by the looks of it, I don't think I'm going to enjoy it much.
I'm concerned about the direction of the Democratic Party. After reading some of this stuff it looks like I need a less radical place to discuss world events. I'm in absolute disagreement most of what I'm seeing.

[hoboken123]

28. As with other sites, it's a vocal few...

After reading some of this stuff it looks like I need a less radical place to discuss world events.

Any thread on this topic is just a launching point for unrelated platforms by a prolific few.

If, for example, you see a thread about a Hamas leader wanting to kidnap more soldiers, it will immediately degenerate into a long-winded talk about child abduction and genocide.

It's pretty hopeless.

[kalimera]

29. Changing Directions

My hopes is that this is not representative of the Democratic party in general.

[Swede]

30. Please stick around.

There are many on the left who have no idea what the Israelis face daily. They concentrate on one side of the story.

[pelsar]

24. read a map?

Egypt...big country...shares a border with Gaza...no israelis..........

[kalimera]

25. Party line

That small fact doesn't seem to fit into the talking points.

[manic expression]

31. Likewise

Israel still controls that border (you know, the line). Such a thing is possible regardless of your denial. Israel reserves the right to control what goes in and out, and that is wrong.

If you are seriously suggesting that since Israel the country isn't right on the border they can't control it you are just lost. As I said, get a grip.

On edit, here's something of interest:

"Israel's security cabinet has approved a deal with Egypt that will allow a key border crossing to the Gaza Strip to be re-opened."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4395974.stm

That means ISRAEL has control over the border, as they approved the deal. Please.

[kalimera]

32. Rafah is closed now, but it was open

If you look at a map you'll see that gaza borders, with the exception of the Egyptian border, are the same as Israel's border. Are you honestly suggesting that the israelis shouldn't control their borders?

Could you imagine if let's say Greece was told that it shouldn't control its border with Turkey? Lebanon and Syria? Saudi Arabia and Yemen?

[manic expression]

33. And

Rafah is on the border with Egypt (see for yourself in the map in the link below, it's not allowed for anyone to post images so don't make the mistake I did). And on edit, the article I posted shows that Israel has control over that border, which is wrong.

Gaza should control all of its borders, even its borders with Israel. Israel can control its borders with Gaza, but it should not be able to dictate Gaza's borders. Do you get the difference?

With your comparison, Greece can and should control its borders with Turkey, but it should not dictate and control all of Turkey's borders, as Israel is doing with Gaza.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4395974.stm

[haab]

34. Gaza pull out was NOT an opportunity for peace...

It was a unilateral pullout by Israel for strategic reasons.

In fact, immediately after the pullout Israel confiscated a lot of Arab land around Jerusalem to link the nearby settlements to Jerusalem.

When you give back a stolen item and immediately steal something else, you're still a theif....! And that's the bottom line.


If Hamas did not resist the Gaza occupation, what else would have spurred Israel to leave Gaza???