Israel

[David]

I'm surprised the current Israeli/Palestinian issue is not being discussed. This is major *****!!!

It looks to me like Israel is finally saying enough.

I'd have to agree.

If you are a civilized country and these terrorist acts are being committed against you (and I don't mean in some obscure way like Saddam against US) you need to use overwhelming force to end it. I think after diplomacy has run it's course (40 years should be enough) it's time to end it. I'm talking about you kill one of us, we kill 10 of you. Kill 10, we kill 100. I'm talking about total victory NOW.

I think the slogan when I was in college was PEACE NOW. Well that didn't work. I'm not Jewish, but I'm tired of it!

[914GT]

I agree, time for them to clean up the Paleswine pen.

[legion]

No...you're supposed to let the terrorists attack and attack...because they are misunderstood.

And most important of all, you should tell the terrorists exactly what you are doing to thwart them.

[914GT]

Did you see the 'militants' (i.e. palestinean elected gov't) claim they fired a chemical-tipped warhead into Israel?

Gaza militants say fired chemical-tipped warhead

[914GT]

I guess they're too busy setting up Iran-supplied bombs.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/25/wirq225.xml

Notice the children in the background. They are able to learn new skills as well as act as human shields.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by legion
No...you're supposed to let the terrorists attack and attack...because they are misunderstood.

And most important of all, you should tell the terrorists exactly what you are doing to thwart them.

I totally agree...Civil rights and stuff.

[Tobra]

Some major shat is fixin' to go down over there. I wonder who will step in on the Palestinian side, besides the American press and Democratic party, I mean countries.

[RoninLB]

Beyond the immediate strategic action is big time ME politics imo.



Since the early 1990s the scope of Muslim wars due to the culture of not accepting others has faded into a center. The dysfunction rage at the center has intensified as the outliers have fallen away. The Balkans, Caucasus, Chechnya, etc have condensed into Iraq and its periphery.

The Arab thinker opinion leaders message of "who did this to us?" " It's the Jews and Americans fault." has been modified into "What did we do wrong?". The slap in the face of Saudi Arabia bombings, The hotel bombing in Jordan, etc has led to locals complaining "I can't go anywhere. Malls are strictly for families."

Unfiltered wireless and Sat dishes are informing their populations about the outside world. The divide between those who don't like the outside and those who do is reformation or revolution in the making.

There is a major election, wrong words, coming up in Iran where the power brokers are at odds on who will be installed into the designated mouth pieces. It'll be not only just the historical 80% of the population being against the gangsters in spirit but that the gangsters are fighting for who will be in power among themselves.. Iran needs a revolution.

The pressure on these gangsters is increasing. A functioning Iraq is the gangsters greatest fear. The US is the reform enabler. Israel is the designated area bouncer.

Anyway.. the only way to handle active gangsters in the short term is to make the price for their actions so high that it doesn't make sense to act. And Iran must be shown that the price for any action by them would be a severe price. I believe Israel is acting in accordance with reality.

[RoninLB]

Originally posted by Tobra


I wonder who will step in on the Palestinian side, besides the American press and Democratic party, I mean countries.

I think that the Terrorism Times and the Loopy Lefty Losers look stupid enough. Iran's $ will be needed but it won't prevent revolution.

[1967 R50/2]

No. Actually, I think Israel is doing EXACTLY WHAT HAMAS WANTS.

1. The Hamas Government is bankrupt and is on the brink of civil war with Fatah. So they need a distraction to keep peoples minds off how badly they have been doing.

2. Even other factions within Hamas are giving them trouble. Note the recent effort to recognize Israel. If you were one of the real hard core militants, that's bad news. Time to embarrass "the moderates".

3. So they goad Israel, knowing that Israel's knee jerk reaction will be to fall on them like a ton of bricks....which they have.

4. Mission accomplished. Suddenly all the Palestinians are backing Hamas again because of "big, bad Israel."

[Jeff Higgins]

I'm waiting for the lefties to chime in in chorus: "Israel are the real terrorists here". Then they can all go en masse and lay down if front of a bulldozer somewhere.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I can't say I disagree with Israel on this one. Is it heavy-handed? Yea, a little. Is it going to prove effective? Probably. Ultimately I think the Palestinians brought this one on themselves by electing Hamas. They should learn to deal with the consequences.

The Palestinians aren't "misunderstood". They made their attitudes quite clear in the recent elections that brought the fanatical nuts to power.

The saddest part is at its root, this is all over "my god can beat up your god" crap. This is what religion ultimately does - it destroys, it divides, it isolates and it promotes violence and bloodshed. It has evolved a bit from that alone, but at its core, it's still about religion and dogma.

[1967 R50/2]

Originally posted by Porsche-O-Phile
The saddest part is at its root, this is all over "my god can beat up your god" crap. This is what religion ultimately does - it destroys, it divides, it isolates and it promotes violence and bloodshed. It has evolved a bit from that alone, but at its core, it's still about religion and dogma.

Not really about religion at all. It's about power and land. You never hear anything from the Israeli side about dying for Yahweh and crap like that. Even the most radical of the Jewish settlers don't couch it in the kind of rhetoric that the Palestinians do. If it were about religion NYC would be a wreck. It has large populations of both Jews and Palestinians yet there has never been a single incident to my knowledge.

In fact, the "Islamic" side of things is a very recent development. The first Palestinians to oppose the state of Israel were actually Christians for the most part. Later, during the 60's Arafat's rhetoric was strictly secular. It wasn't until the late 80s that the Islamic nutzos started coming out of the woodwork.

Hamas got elected because Fatah was openly corrupt. And being corrupt in a time and place with 40% unemployment makes people very pissed off. The only other alternative was Hamas. So they got elected. Unfortunately, they too found out that it's very easy to shoot at Israelis, but very difficult to create jobs.

The Palestinians need to realize that it doesn't have to be about land. Creating wealth no longer requires a plot of land to farm. India has discovered that you can create wealth through a computer terminal. This is an example they should consider following.

[billyboy]

Some major shat is fixin' to go down over there. I wonder who will step in on the Palestinian side, besides the American press and Democratic party, I mean countries

France of course!

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy condemned on Thursday the arrest of over 60 Hamas members by Israeli forces early in the morning. He said that diplomacy was the only solution to the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians and that political figures should not be arrested.

Tell the executed lad's mother to hope for a diplomatic solution!

[David]

We were unable to defeat Japan in WW2 until Truman said enough and did what would be unthinkable today. I'm a lefty and I think it's time. I think the Iraq war is a huge mistake but this one isn't. I think it's time for Israel to open a big can of wupa$$.

Yes, it will be caos after they killed or arrested the Palestinian and Sirian leadership. But I imagine it was the same way in Germany and Japan. Yes, we (the US) will have to help Palestine get back on their feet.

[Nathans_Dad]

I just wonder if the Israelis are going to do us a big favor and sweep through Syria as well...

[livi]

What I was going to say - Jeff said in his third paragraph. Sure its about power, money and territory. But a religious "living by the book" agenda does not help. Rather the opposite. And in all fairness I am not fond of how the Jewish leaders have handled the matter neither.

[Dottore]

Originally posted by 1967 R50/2
Not really about religion at all. It's about power and land. You never hear anything from the Israeli side about dying for Yahweh and crap like that. Even the most radical of the Jewish settlers don't couch it in the kind of rhetoric that the Palestinians do. If it were about religion NYC would be a wreck. It has large populations of both Jews and Palestinians yet there has never been a single incident to my knowledge.

In fact, the "Islamic" side of things is a very recent development. The first Palestinians to oppose the state of Israel were actually Christians for the most part. Later, during the 60's Arafat's rhetoric was strictly secular. It wasn't until the late 80s that the Islamic nutzos started coming out of the woodwork.

Hamas got elected because Fatah was openly corrupt. And being corrupt in a time and place with 40% unemployment makes people very pissed off. The only other alternative was Hamas. So they got elected. Unfortunately, they too found out that it's very easy to shoot at Israelis, but very difficult to create jobs.

The Palestinians need to realize that it doesn't have to be about land. Creating wealth no longer requires a plot of land to farm. India has discovered that you can create wealth through a computer terminal. This is an example they should consider following.

You are quite right in your analyses in both your posts with which I agree 100%.

However the last paragraph quoted above is hopeless idealism. A nation of happy Palestinians forgetting about land issues and generating wealth through computer terminals??? Surely this is meant tounge-in-cheek. If not, you are talking about the twilight zone - or cloud cuckoo land.

[1967 R50/2]

Originally posted by Dottore
However the last paragraph quoted above is hopeless idealism. A nation of happy Palestinians forgetting about land issues and generating wealth through computer terminals??? Surely this is meant tounge-in-cheek. If not, you are talking about the twilight zone - or cloud cuckoo land.

Not entirely tongue in cheek.

When you have a job and an income, the voices of the radicals tend to fall on deaf ears.

Greater than 40% of Palestinians don't have a job.

If 40% of US males were unemployed, we'd have lots of radicals here too.

[Moneyguy1]

I am beginning to think we are (worldwise) about where we were in the late 1930s...on the very edge of a worldwide cataclysm. The difference is the sticks (not stakes) are bigger...where one bomb can provide the same destructive force as all of the ordinance dropped on Europe in WWII.

How will the sides align themselves?

Will there be actual winners, or will the entire world wind up in the losers column?

Will the US emerge as strong as it is now, or reduced to second class power status? In other words, how much internal and economic damage would we sustain?

It does not look good, the next decade....