Good for Israel for defending itself

[Stan]

Every country has the right to defend itself.

Why doesn't the media cover the constant attacks that Hamas unleashes on Israel on an ongoing basis?

[UpnorthGo4]

What group of people in the history of the world were willing to give up any part of their ancestral homeland to another group of people who they knew would confiscate their property and turn them into second class citizens? I will save you the research time. It has never happened before and it will never happen until the end of the world. Every fu*king one of us would fight to the death before we would allow anyone to take one square inch of the United States. Why would we expect the Palestinian people to react any differently? The confiscation of land in Palestine by the United Nations to create the State of Israel was an immoral act that will never be accepted by the Palestinians and Arab countries in the Middle East. Our grandchildren's grandchildren will have to deal with these issues long after we are dead. Apartheid was wrong in South Africa, but apparently Western nations are not only going to tolerate it in Israel, they are going to do everything possible to defend it. And not only that, they are going to look the other way as Israel continues to confiscate Palestinian land in the West Bank for new Jewish settlements.

[diehard]

UpnorthGo4- So what do you propose we do about the 1947 Partition of Palestine today? Rebuild the gas chambers or just push the Jews into the sea like the Muslims constantly repeat? Why won't Jordan take the 'Palestinians?' About 80% of historic Palestine is in Jordan. Why no fuss about that? Are not the borders of Israel but a fraction of the Jews ancestral homeland? To answer Stan's question, not much is said of the constant attacks and terrorism committed against Israel because much of the world hates Jews. Why? I think largely jealosy of their competance and success. Same sort of class warfare that has become so popular in the US. It's a evil tactic where ever it is used and in the US it is used by low acheivers or on the behalf of low acheivers as well. Envy of those who do what the underacheivers are unwilling to do.

[bigtenchamps1899]

to say that the land in which the palestinians presently live is their ancestral homeland is like saying that minnesota is the scandanavian's ancestral homeland.

[Friend Of Tubby]

What group of people in the history of the world were willing to give up any part of their ancestral homeland to another group of people who they knew would confiscate their property and turn them into second class citizens? I will save you the research time. It has never happened before and it will never happen until the end of the world. Every fu*king one of us would fight to the death before we would allow anyone to take one square inch of the United States. Why would we expect the Palestinian people to react any differently? The confiscation of land in Palestine by the United Nations to create the State of Israel was an immoral act that will never be accepted by the Palestinians and Arab countries in the Middle East. Our grandchildren's grandchildren will have to deal with these issues long after we are dead. Apartheid was wrong in South Africa, but apparently Western nations are not only going to tolerate it in Israel, they are going to do everything possible to defend it. And not only that, they are going to look the other way as Israel continues to confiscate Palestinian land in the West Bank for new Jewish settlements.

Native Americans were forced to do that. All of the USA was their homeland one day. We are squatters on it now.

[jamiche]

What group of people in the history of the world were willing to give up any part of their ancestral homeland to another group of people who they knew would confiscate their property and turn them into second class citizens? I will save you the research time. It has never happened before and it will never happen until the end of the world. Every fu*king one of us would fight to the death before we would allow anyone to take one square inch of the United States. Why would we expect the Palestinian people to react any differently? The confiscation of land in Palestine by the United Nations to create the State of Israel was an immoral act that will never be accepted by the Palestinians and Arab countries in the Middle East. Our grandchildren's grandchildren will have to deal with these issues long after we are dead. Apartheid was wrong in South Africa, but apparently Western nations are not only going to tolerate it in Israel, they are going to do everything possible to defend it. And not only that, they are going to look the other way as Israel continues to confiscate Palestinian land in the West Bank for new Jewish settlements.

The problem is that, in rough geographic terms, most of ancient Palestine runs from Amman to the Mediterranean and it is the ancestral homeland to two peoples. A two state solution makes the most sense and has been offered to the Palestinians before and they blow it every time. A two state solution has probably been pushed back 20 years because Israel would be crazy to give up control of any territory after its experience with Gaza. Hamas, and before it, Fatah, and before it, the PLO, has done nothing for its people but foment hatred of Israel. The wealthy Arab/oil states have provided guns and not butter and the Palestinian governing entities have been notoriously corrupt.

I have always believed that a two state solutions is the best of a bad set of options. However, after seeing what Hamas has and hasn't done since Israel pulled out of Gaza, I don't blame Israel for its decision to go back in.

Hamas is a proxy for Iran and Iran wants to push the Jews into the sea. If Iran really cared about Gaza and the West Bank it would use its oil wealth to improve lives.

The Israelis have built an amazing country, not without its problems, not without cost and not without blemishes. The Palestinians who, at one time, were considered the best educated people in the ME could do the same and the world would provide billions to make that happen. Maybe it will happen someday.

[diehard]

The problem is that, in rough geographic terms, most of ancient Palestine runs from Amman to the Mediterranean and it is the ancestral homeland to two peoples. A two state solution makes the most sense and has been offered to the Palestinians before and they blow it every time. A two state solution has probably been pushed back 20 years because Israel would be crazy to give up control of any territory after its experience with Gaza. Hamas, and before it, Fatah, and before it, the PLO, has done nothing for its people but foment hatred of Israel. The wealthy Arab/oil states have provided guns and not butter and the Palestinian governing entities have been notoriously corrupt.

I have always believed that a two state solutions is the best of a bad set of options. However, after seeing what Hamas has and hasn't done since Israel pulled out of Gaza, I don't blame Israel for its decision to go back in.

Hamas is a proxy for Iran and Iran wants to push the Jews into the sea. If Iran really cared about Gaza and the West Bank it would use its oil wealth to improve lives.

The Israelis have built an amazing country, not without its problems, not without cost and not without blemishes. The Palestinians who, at one time, were considered the best educated people in the ME could do the same and the world would provide billions to make that happen. Maybe it will happen someday.


Jammer, your best post ever. You have hit the key point, what does it take to bring the Arab world into the civilized world. I wish I knew. I do know the world has to keep seeking a way to find a peaceful 2 state solution. Islamic hearts will have to change before Israel can trust them. I don't know how to stop the hate without the Clerics in the Mosques learning to love God and all people as God's children. Perhaps the Qur'an does not allow for that.

Iran is a huge problem that is quickly coming to a head. I am praying for President-Elect Obama. He has an incredibly rough road a head to navigate in every direction. He needs all of our support in the years ahead. I recommend www.change.gov to everyone. The transition team takes every message seriously, if it is a serious message. Please use it. Use it respectfully.

[jamiche]

Thanks for the kind words, diehard, but I'm not sure that there really is such a thing as "the civilized world". Very few things going on in the world that are civil. A lot of religion and not a lot of reality.

Just like many religious Muslims in their own countries, Orthodox Jews in Israel have historically pushed the country to the right. In this case, virtually the entire country of Israel is supportive of the actions taken. With the exception of a few outliers who have fantasies of an expanded Biblical Israel, most Israelis want to be left alone and have in the past traded land for "peace". It worked in Sinai because there is nobody there. It didn't work in Gaza because the population has been figuratively used as a missile against Israel. It won't work in the West bank for the same reason. While the Golan remains relatively uninhabited, it could easily become a staging ground for Hezbollah by way of either Lebanon or Syria. Consequently, that won't work either.

The reality on the ground is that the stalemate will continue.

[Gopher4Life]

FOT,

>>Native Americans were forced to do that. All of the USA was their homeland one day. We are squatters on it now.<<

1. Most Native Americans that I know would say that ALL humans are merely "squatters" on Mother Earth. Tribes traditionally embrace guardianship of territory rather than ownership.

2. With social injustices set aside for the moment, exploration and progress was occurring that brought us from a crude, harsh, backward, undeveloped land to the nation we have today. Native Americans are, frankly, damn fortunate that white man showed up and instigated and accelerated the progress.

3. Native Americans have been richly paid for their lands, and that over-the-top compensation promises to continue in perpetuity. If I'm not mistaken, the millions of benefactors include Americans who are as little as one-sixteenth Native American.

[Friend Of Tubby]

FOT,

>>Native Americans were forced to do that. All of the USA was their homeland one day. We are squatters on it now.<<

1. Most Native Americans that I know would say that ALL humans are merely "squatters" on Mother Earth. Tribes traditionally embrace guardianship of territory rather than ownership.

2. With social injustices set aside for the moment, exploration and progress was occurring that brought us from a crude, harsh, backward, undeveloped land to the nation we have today. Native Americans are, frankly, damn fortunate that white man showed up and instigated and accelerated the progress.

3. Native Americans have been richly paid for their lands, and that over-the-top compensation promises to continue in perpetuity. If I'm not mistaken, the millions of benefactors include Americans who are as little as one-sixteenth Native American.

Regardless of all that, the North American lands were "conquered" by Europeans (et al) and mostly taken away from Native Americans.

[Schnoodler]

FOT,

3. Native Americans have been richly paid for their lands, and that over-the-top compensation promises to continue in perpetuity. If I'm not mistaken, the millions of benefactors include Americans who are as little as one-sixteenth Native American.


Thats a view that isn't likely shared by most native Americans. If you use little six as your example that's a pretty small snippet of the entire picture.

To the original issue:

Israel is at war. Palestine is not entitled to anything they can't negotiate for or win. A negotiation is nothing more than a truce, once conditions of cease fire are broken (continued aggression by Hamas) they're at war again. They have no one to blame but themselves and those that pull their strings.

[Gopher4Life]

FOT,

Tribes conquered and took land from each other...and without payment. Our children and their children will continue paying for territory that wasn't legally "owned" by anyone, and they'll do it for generations to come. Absurd.

[Friend Of Tubby]

FOT,

Tribes conquered and took land from each other...and without payment. Our children and their children will continue paying for territory that wasn't legally "owned" by anyone, and they'll do it for generations to come. Absurd.

Not absurd at all. The North American continent was the land of Native Americans. Europeans took it over.

[From the Barn]

FOT,

Tribes conquered and took land from each other...and without payment. Our children and their children will continue paying for territory that wasn't legally "owned" by anyone, and they'll do it for generations to come. Absurd.

Way to work in the middle class white male is the real victim angle.

[Gopher4Life]

FOT,

Native Americans continue to come out way ahead in the deal. In fact, "absurdly" ahead in the deal. Shown the numbers, many of them agree. They benefit from what "Europeans" have established in America, yet the debt will never be paid up in full.

From the Barn,

>>Way to work in the middle class white male is the real victim angle.<<

Prolonged guilt trips and perpetual subsidies have nothing to do with male or female.

[Costa Rican Gopher]

Israel chose this life, not the other way around. They had several homelands proposed after WWII that would have provided a lifetime of peace and prosperity but instead chose the current site of Israel, ensuring they'd be at war for eternity. The Palestinian freedom fighters will never cease the fight for their land and their freedom and the Israelis knew this when selecting this homeland. The Israelis are a warring, militaristic people armed and financed by the US and they simply didn't care to pursue peace. There's no difference between the Israelis and Palestinians, other than who's reporting the news.

I find it hypocritical that so many of the same blind flag wavers who condemned Russia for over-retaliating against Georgia's agressions don't see this gross over-retaliation by the Israelis as the same thing. As Condi Rice drags her feet calling for a cease fire the Israelis march forward killing civilians with no remorse. Conversely, the same day Russia started rolling through Georgia killing soldiers Rice was DEMANDING an IMMEDIATE cease fire! Some lives just aren't worth as much as others I guess?

As for Iran's involvement....I agree Iran would be better served helping to achieve peace in the area, as would the US for that matter. Sadly, neither side appears to have that on the agenda. Furthermore, why the US took Saddam Hussein, a sworn enemy of Iran out of power and inserted Iranian supporters (Al-Maliki and Co) to run Iraq is puzzling too.

[Gopher4Life]

Damn Monson.

[GopherRock]

Just to give you an idea of the area that the two sides are fighting over, the entire Gaza Strip would fit inside the part of Wright County east of Highway 25 and north of Highway 55 (about a hundred and fifty square miles).

[jamiche]

Israel chose this life, not the other way around. They had several homelands proposed after WWII that would have provided a lifetime of peace and prosperity but instead chose the current site of Israel, ensuring they'd be at war for eternity. The Palestinian freedom fighters will never cease the fight for their land and their freedom and the Israelis knew this when selecting this homeland. The Israelis are a warring, militaristic people armed and financed by the US and they simply didn't care to pursue peace. There's no difference between the Israelis and Palestinians, other than who's reporting the news.

I find it hypocritical that so many of the same blind flag wavers who condemned Russia for over-retaliating against Georgia's agressions don't see this gross over-retaliation by the Israelis as the same thing. As Condi Rice drags her feet calling for a cease fire the Israelis march forward killing civilians with no remorse. Conversely, the same day Russia started rolling through Georgia killing soldiers Rice was DEMANDING an IMMEDIATE cease fire! Some lives just aren't worth as much as others I guess?

As for Iran's involvement....I agree Iran would be better served helping to achieve peace in the area, as would the US for that matter. Sadly, neither side appears to have that on the agenda. Furthermore, why the US took Saddam Hussein, a sworn enemy of Iran out of power and inserted Iranian supporters (Al-Maliki and Co) to run Iraq is puzzling too.

I used to live in Israel and your description of the Israeli psyche is dead wrong. Two weeks ago many of the soldiers were at work or studying at university and then they got called up. Not one of them wants to be in Gaza.

It's not a gross over retaliation because there are hundreds if not thousands of tunnels in Gaza that are used to transport increasingly sophisticated missiles and other weaponry. The range and accuracy of the missiles (mostly supplied by Iran) is steadily improving. Trying to destroy those tunnels means that you are going to have to deal with population centers and there will be some tragic consequences.

None of the parties is blameless in this conflict but your description of Israelis as a "warring, militaristic people" is wholly ignorant.

[Costa Rican Gopher]

Jammer,

Israel was designed by militaristic people to be in a constant state of war. Later, men like Menachem Begin who was nothing more than a common terrorist continued that tradition and still won the Nobel Peace Prize (Talk about good marketing!).

I've never lived in Israel so admittedly saying ALL the people are militaristic is too general. All the people I'VE ever met are militaristic. I've met and talked with maybe twenty Israelis in my travels and not a one of them has ever missed the opportunity to work his country and their "struggle" into the conversation and then try to convince me ad nauseum that I should support them. It's like when a Mormon knocks on my door....I might chat about the weather and sports for a few minutes but I know it's inevitable that they're going to try and convert me at some point.

The moment I tell the Israelis I've met that it's better we talk about something other than Israeli and it's politics, they then want to force me to talk about it (So they can convince me of course). I've had two separate Israeli tourists in the past 6 months scream and curse at me (I thought the one guy was going to take a poke at me) for telling them I just don't agree with them and they're not going to change my mind.

My friend and his wife wanted to buy a Washer + Dryer in Costa Rica and the guy everyone uses is an Israeli but my friends didn't know. They told him any brand was fine except GE. He wanted to know "Why?". They said they had political beliefs that stopped them from buying GE. He wanted to know "What political beliefs?" They told him they did not support GE producing weapons and generally being involved in war mongering. The guy then asked "Well what about protecting Israel?". My friends said "We have no interest in arming Israel or their neighbors.". The guy then went into Israeli mode and tried to force them to admit that Israel deserved US support and was under attack by the big bad Arabs etc. My friend said "Look, I just want to buy a washer and dryer. I don't want to talk about the politics of Israel or the Middle East". The guy REFUSED to sell them a washer & dryer.

Those are the types of Israelis I've had the displeasure of meeting. Just bad luck I imagine, but these types of encounters definitely play into what I know to be fact about Israel and it's history of being a militaristic country that is constantly looking for a fight.

[Costa Rican Gopher]

"Trying to destroy those tunnels means that you are going to have to deal with population centers and there will be some tragic consequences."

Sounds like something Bin-Laden would have said to rationalize the twin towers.

[jamiche]

Then I can assume your Bin Laden analogy holds when Hamas and Hizballah fire rockets into Israeli population centers.

How would you go about removing the tunnels so that Hamas can't fire rockets at you?

[jamiche]

Politics is the lifeblood of the country and no one (even you) is more critical of Israel than Israelis, at least in the rational sense. They talk political affairs, domestic and international, incessantly. Argue at high decibels constantly. Always with the understanding that survival is not an abstract concept.

There are lots of things about Costa Rican culture that I don't understand and I suspect that it is the same for you when you come in contact with Israelis.

[UpnorthGo4]

As always things are never as simple as they may initially appear. Below are excerpts from a Time Magazine article


Thursday, Jan. 08, 2009
Can Israel Survive Its Assault on Gaza?
By Tim McGirk / Jerusalem


How to Deal with Hamas

The most immediate challenge facing Israel is that posed by Hamas. Gaza's tragedy has for days been playing out on the world's TV sets. By Jan. 7, more than 700 Palestinians, many of them noncombatants, had been killed. But there's something tragic, too, in Israel's predicament: in any confrontation with its enemies, it is damned if it does and doomed if it doesn't. Across Israel's political spectrum there seems to be a consensus that Hamas' provocative rocket barrages could not go unanswered — though whether Israel's response has been proportional to the threat is, at the least, questionable.

Perhaps more threatening than the rockets themselves was the doubt they cast over Israel's vaunted power of deterrence, which is key to keeping its hostile neighbors at bay. That power was badly eroded in 2006, when Hizballah was able to withstand the Israeli onslaught, force a cease-fire and claim victory in the process. That surely emboldened Hamas, which intermittently sent rockets into southern Israel and finally prompted Israel to respond in force. As respected Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth, "A country that is afraid to deal with Hamas won't be able either to deter Iran or to safeguard its interests in dealing with Syria, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority."

But the cold reality is that eventually Israel may need to look not to "deal" with Hamas so much as do a deal with it. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he doesn't intend to topple Hamas; he knows Israel can't fill the vacuum of leadership that its elimination would produce in Gaza. Neither can Mahmoud Abbas, Israel's preferred Palestinian leader, who is fading into the background in the West Bank. So Israel has said it will be satisfied if Hamas stops shooting rockets and an international force polices the Egyptian border to keep the militants from re-arming themselves with weapons smuggled through tunnels.

Hamas says it will agree to a truce if Israel retreats from Gaza and loosens the economic choke hold that has strangled the 1.5 million Palestinians who live on the sliver of land along the Mediterranean. After weeks of global outrage over the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Gaza, any mediator — France, the European Union, Turkey and Egypt are all auditioning for the role — will insist that Israel end its 18-month blockade.

What then? Like Hizballah, Hamas will declare itself victorious: not only will it have survived a direct assault by a far superior military force, but it will also have freed Gazans from Israeli tyranny. As an added bonus, any economic revival of Gaza would put money into Hamas' coffers. But Israel would gain some breathing space and force Hamas to prove it can actually govern and maintain stability in Gaza rather than heap blame entirely on Israel.


Confronting the Danger Within

Even in a dangerous neighborhood, it is possible to imagine that, secure in its military power, Israel could continue for years in a state of neither all-out war nor true peace, always willing to fight bitter but limited conflicts of the kind it did in Lebanon and Gaza. But military might would be useless against the threat that looms within its borders. Israel's population of 7.1 million is today divided into 5.4 million Jews and 1.6 million Arabs. But if you include Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank, they may already have a slender majority; and given their higher birthrate, the gap will widen quickly.

This tectonic shift in demographics is what scared even hawkish Israelis like former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon into abandoning the biblical dreams of a Greater Israel stretching all the way from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. As Olmert recently warned, "If we are determined to preserve the Jewish and democratic character of the state of Israel, we must inevitably relinquish, with great pain, parts of our homeland." In other words, if Israelis cling to the West Bank and Gaza, as many religious Zionists insist, Jews will find themselves a shrinking minority in their own state. Not only would Israel cease to be a Jewish state, it would no longer be a democratic one either, unless Arabs are given a fair share of power. A few bold Arab intellectuals are saying Palestinians should abandon the idea of a two-state solution and just wait until they outnumber the Jews. That would take decades, and it may rest more on wishful thinking by Palestinians than a real calculation of political reality. But the population shift underscores a plain fact: for Israel, the status quo won't be good enough for much longer.

A Road Map for Survival

The path to a workable peace, one with a Palestinian state alongside Israel and both with internationally recognized borders, has long been well known. A succession of Israeli and Palestinian leaders have been reluctant to take it. Israelis have doubted that they had a partner who could deliver them peace; aside from being plagued by disunity, the Palestinians have been unwilling to modify their demands that Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to their ancient homes inside Israel, which Israel will never accept. With a general election looming in Israel — polls suggest that the hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to become the next Prime Minister — there is an opportunity to start talking again.

Israel's leaders need to recognize that if Hamas cannot be beaten militarily, then it must be engaged politically. That means accepting the idea of dealing with some kind of Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas. A coalition between Hamas and Abbas is essential for the future of a Palestinian state and for moderating Hamas' extremism. Hamas, which 18 months ago chased Abbas' men from Gaza, says it will pair up with Abbas if he, along with the international community, recognizes that the Islamic militants legitimately came to power in the January 2006 elections. Israelis rightly view such claims with skepticism, and yet all Palestinians and their Arab backers reject the current situation, where the meager land set aside for a future state is chopped into two, Gaza and the West Bank, ruled by rivals.

A new Administration in Washington has a chance to be both supportive of Israel and honest with it. Over the past three years, many Israelis have told me that President George W. Bush was too good a friend of theirs. He gave Israelis all they wanted but didn't rein them in when they needed it.

Israel eventually will have to pull back to the 1967 borders and dismantle many of the settlements on the Palestinian side, no matter how loudly its ultra-religious parties protest. Only then will the Palestinians and the other Arab states agree to a durable peace. It's as simple as that. But for 60 years, in the Holy Land, there has been a yawning gap between what was simple and what could be achieved.

[jamiche]

Until the Israelis gave up Gaza I would have agreed with you 100%. The problem is that if the Israelis give up control of the West Bank (which is a huge albatross for Israel) there will be missiles hitting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The Palestinians have no interest in a two state solution. It has been offered to them multiple times in the last 62 years and the reality is that, fomented by outside forces, they can't let go of the dream of pushing the Israelis into the sea. So the terribly painful stalemate continues.

The other reality is that all parties in the ME talk to each other all of the time. There aren't very many surprises. The three missiles that came in from Lebanon yesterday was Hizballah's way of saying "we're still here" and Israel, by downplaying it, said "we know it". Iran, by telling its young fighters to pray for the Palestinians instead of blowing themselves up, was saying we aren't getting involved right now. Hizballah and Hamas hate each other and Israel most likely told Iran before the Gaza war to stay away. Nothing is as it seems.

The ugly and tragic dance goes on.

[diehard]

A mistaken and often used phrase is a 'proportionate and measured response.' After all the hits we took from Al Queda in the nineties and only responded with measured and proportionate responses, we left the door open for the 9/11 attack. When someone is attacking you don't respond tit-for-tat. You annihilate them befor it goes on for years and years and years. Anything else is appeasement followed by surrender and defeat. The Palestinian people deserve to be freed of Hamas who continues to use innocent women and children (noncombatants) as human shields. I know it sounds harsh, but that is how you end war and achieve peace. This isn't war mongering, it is achieving peace with those who would have no peace.

[Costa Rican Gopher]

"When someone is attacking you don't respond tit-for-tat. You annihilate them befor it goes on for years and years and years. Anything else is appeasement followed by surrender and defeat."

That's a fair point of view so long as it's consistent. I presume you were ok with the Russians kicking Georgia's ass in retaliation for their aggressions?

"The Palestinian people deserve to be freed of Hamas who continues to use innocent women and children (noncombatants) as human shields."

The Palestinian people VOTED the Hamas party into power in Democratic elections. Like it or not Hamas is not some fringe group but rather represent the majority of Palestinians.

[jamiche]

Hamas was legitimately elected but it was less a reaction to Israel and more a reaction to the decades of Fatah/PLO/PLA corruption. Very little of the billions and billions of dollars of international aid to the Palestinians ever made it to the intended recipients. Hamas is also taking advantage of the Palestinians, just differently. They have used their time in power to either drive out or kill Fatah supporters and shoot missiles at Israel. There have been no attempts at nation building.

Blame Israel all you want but, outside of Sadat--and he was assassinated for it, they've never had anybody to work with on the other side. 6000 missiles in three years would piss anybody off.

[Ski U Mah Gopher]

Jamiche is right.

The Palestinians have no interest in a two-state solution. To them the occupied territories include Tel Aviv and Haifa.

[UpnorthGo4]

Quote: "Jamiche is right. The Palestinians have no interest in a two-state solution. To them the occupied territories include Tel Aviv and Haifa.
__________________

Agreed. What is Israel's permanent solution for the crisis? There are only three options: 1) Apartheid; 2) Genocide; or 3) Land for Peace. Which one should Israel choose?

[jamiche]

Genocide will not happen against the Palestinians unless it is by way of an Iranian nuclear weapon. Land for peace has been tried twice and doesn't work. There is semi apartheid today and it works in terms of Israel's security, but at a terrible cost to both sides and it cannot continue indefinitely. The only hope is a new generation of leadership in Israel, the territories, Gaza, Iran, the U.S., Syria, Egypt and Lebanon.

[diehard]

Wisdom from Jamiche. Hamas is hated by most Palestinians because of their actions. All bullets, no butter. Being elected for whatever reason (see Jamiche, he nailed it) is not carte blanche to be a rogue and criminal regime. Ron Paul constitutional view of foreign policy and national defense was valid when the constitution was written. Planes, trains, and automobiles have changed the validity of that view. Yes, and fortunately the constitution was written so it does not have to be changed or reinterpreted as a 'living document' to account for today's world. We can not withdraw within our borders and hope the oceans defend us. In additional we have legitimate national and economic interests that are global and must be protected from international criminals, thugs, murderers, terrorists,...,...,...,... Anyway that's my point. I think the world of Ron Paul on almost everything except his foreign policy and national defense views, especially when it comes to his desire for abandoning Israel.

I thought we had figured out that North Ossetia and South Ossetia were different territories in different countries. I also thought we figured out that Putin was not the placid thoughtful man we could count on as George Bush mistakenly said. This is pretty weird. Me agreeing with Jammer instead of CRG. CSR, you know this is Rockraven, right? Had trouble signing on the new board with my old moniker. Didn't pre-register.

UpnorthGo4, your options are far too limited. If you want to talk about genocide, start with a million abortions a year in the good old US of A. Safe and rare? Ask the unborn lives how safe they are. Oh, that's right, they can't speak for themselves. Blows away all the casualities of the Arab-Israeli conflicts, doesn't it. BTW, that was to add perspective, not to hijack the thread. Contrast, we need contrast. Nevermind.

[diehard]

As always things are never and honest and factual as they initially appear. Who can tell me who Rick McGirk is and what he used Time Magazine or Time Magazine used him to do in recent years. Careful, it may make you vomit.


As always things are never as simple as they may initially appear. Below are excerpts from a Time Magazine article


Thursday, Jan. 08, 2009
Can Israel Survive Its Assault on Gaza?
By Tim McGirk / Jerusalem


How to Deal with Hamas

The most immediate challenge facing Israel is that posed by Hamas. Gaza's tragedy has for days been playing out on the world's TV sets. By Jan. 7, more than 700 Palestinians, many of them noncombatants, had been killed. But there's something tragic, too, in Israel's predicament: in any confrontation with its enemies, it is damned if it does and doomed if it doesn't. Across Israel's political spectrum there seems to be a consensus that Hamas' provocative rocket barrages could not go unanswered — though whether Israel's response has been proportional to the threat is, at the least, questionable.

Perhaps more threatening than the rockets themselves was the doubt they cast over Israel's vaunted power of deterrence, which is key to keeping its hostile neighbors at bay. That power was badly eroded in 2006, when Hizballah was able to withstand the Israeli onslaught, force a cease-fire and claim victory in the process. That surely emboldened Hamas, which intermittently sent rockets into southern Israel and finally prompted Israel to respond in force. As respected Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth, "A country that is afraid to deal with Hamas won't be able either to deter Iran or to safeguard its interests in dealing with Syria, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority."

But the cold reality is that eventually Israel may need to look not to "deal" with Hamas so much as do a deal with it. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he doesn't intend to topple Hamas; he knows Israel can't fill the vacuum of leadership that its elimination would produce in Gaza. Neither can Mahmoud Abbas, Israel's preferred Palestinian leader, who is fading into the background in the West Bank. So Israel has said it will be satisfied if Hamas stops shooting rockets and an international force polices the Egyptian border to keep the militants from re-arming themselves with weapons smuggled through tunnels.

Hamas says it will agree to a truce if Israel retreats from Gaza and loosens the economic choke hold that has strangled the 1.5 million Palestinians who live on the sliver of land along the Mediterranean. After weeks of global outrage over the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Gaza, any mediator — France, the European Union, Turkey and Egypt are all auditioning for the role — will insist that Israel end its 18-month blockade.

What then? Like Hizballah, Hamas will declare itself victorious: not only will it have survived a direct assault by a far superior military force, but it will also have freed Gazans from Israeli tyranny. As an added bonus, any economic revival of Gaza would put money into Hamas' coffers. But Israel would gain some breathing space and force Hamas to prove it can actually govern and maintain stability in Gaza rather than heap blame entirely on Israel.


Confronting the Danger Within

Even in a dangerous neighborhood, it is possible to imagine that, secure in its military power, Israel could continue for years in a state of neither all-out war nor true peace, always willing to fight bitter but limited conflicts of the kind it did in Lebanon and Gaza. But military might would be useless against the threat that looms within its borders. Israel's population of 7.1 million is today divided into 5.4 million Jews and 1.6 million Arabs. But if you include Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank, they may already have a slender majority; and given their higher birthrate, the gap will widen quickly.

This tectonic shift in demographics is what scared even hawkish Israelis like former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon into abandoning the biblical dreams of a Greater Israel stretching all the way from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. As Olmert recently warned, "If we are determined to preserve the Jewish and democratic character of the state of Israel, we must inevitably relinquish, with great pain, parts of our homeland." In other words, if Israelis cling to the West Bank and Gaza, as many religious Zionists insist, Jews will find themselves a shrinking minority in their own state. Not only would Israel cease to be a Jewish state, it would no longer be a democratic one either, unless Arabs are given a fair share of power. A few bold Arab intellectuals are saying Palestinians should abandon the idea of a two-state solution and just wait until they outnumber the Jews. That would take decades, and it may rest more on wishful thinking by Palestinians than a real calculation of political reality. But the population shift underscores a plain fact: for Israel, the status quo won't be good enough for much longer.

A Road Map for Survival

The path to a workable peace, one with a Palestinian state alongside Israel and both with internationally recognized borders, has long been well known. A succession of Israeli and Palestinian leaders have been reluctant to take it. Israelis have doubted that they had a partner who could deliver them peace; aside from being plagued by disunity, the Palestinians have been unwilling to modify their demands that Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to their ancient homes inside Israel, which Israel will never accept. With a general election looming in Israel — polls suggest that the hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to become the next Prime Minister — there is an opportunity to start talking again.

Israel's leaders need to recognize that if Hamas cannot be beaten militarily, then it must be engaged politically. That means accepting the idea of dealing with some kind of Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas. A coalition between Hamas and Abbas is essential for the future of a Palestinian state and for moderating Hamas' extremism. Hamas, which 18 months ago chased Abbas' men from Gaza, says it will pair up with Abbas if he, along with the international community, recognizes that the Islamic militants legitimately came to power in the January 2006 elections. Israelis rightly view such claims with skepticism, and yet all Palestinians and their Arab backers reject the current situation, where the meager land set aside for a future state is chopped into two, Gaza and the West Bank, ruled by rivals.

A new Administration in Washington has a chance to be both supportive of Israel and honest with it. Over the past three years, many Israelis have told me that President George W. Bush was too good a friend of theirs. He gave Israelis all they wanted but didn't rein them in when they needed it.

Israel eventually will have to pull back to the 1967 borders and dismantle many of the settlements on the Palestinian side, no matter how loudly its ultra-religious parties protest. Only then will the Palestinians and the other Arab states agree to a durable peace. It's as simple as that. But for 60 years, in the Holy Land, there has been a yawning gap between what was simple and what could be achieved.

A cover story that is nothing more than Partisan Political Opinion. There is a lot of trash in the piece of junk mixed in with a few facts. When you can't hate America first, hate Israel next. For those who don't want to know the McGirk story, don't read any follow on posts regarding this sadly misleading opinion piece. (What is correct is that a solution isn't easy.)

[Costa Rican Gopher]

Obama as ordered by the CFR will reign in the Israelis during his first term and force them to play nice. It's going to be interesting to see what their plan is to make it happen.

[diehard]

It will be interesting. Everyone else has taken a shot at resolving the problems and no President has come close. Obama deserves a shot at it. He can not do any worse than the others, can he? I do not underestimate our new Secretary of State either. I do fully understand your reference to the CFR. I haven't read their policy statement, but I do plan to this weekend, right now the Gopher MBB game takes all precedence

[jamiche]

Obama as ordered by the CFR will reign in the Israelis during his first term and force them to play nice. It's going to be interesting to see what their plan is to make it happen.

I'm not sure that the CFR orders the president to do anything. In terms of "playing nice", Hizballah has stayed out of it, mostly, I think, because the Lebanese people don't want the inevitable response. Maybe the same thing will happen in Gaza with Hamas. If you notice there hasn't been anything beyond the pro forma condemnation of Israel around the world (including the Muslim world). Most people get it even if they don't want to acknowledge it. If Hamas stops firing rockets into Israel, life will get better in Gaza in the short and the long term.